Even Amid His Family, Debate Persists Over Stalin
[from JRL] Los Angeles Times December 10, 2001 Even Amid His Family, Debate Persists Over Stalin Communism: Half a century after dictator's death, there is no consensus on legacy in lands he once ruled. By ROBYN DIXON, TIMES STAFF WRITER DUSHETI, Georgia -- Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili is a famous name across the former Soviet Union, the real name of one of the great tyrants of the 20th century--Stalin. Now there is another Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. He is 6 years old. You find him capering in a sunny garden in a small town in Stalin's native land of Georgia, burying his nose in an overblown yellow rose, strewing golden petals about. He is the great-great-grandson of the Soviet dictator, and the first heir to bear Stalin's full name. That Josef carries the name with its great burden of history is a delight to his Communist grandfather, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, who reveres Stalin as a demigod. But another of the Soviet leader's grandsons shunned Stalin's name. He is Alexander Burdonsky, 59, born Alexander Stalin. In his teen years he realized the truth about Stalin and changed his name to be free of the taint of cruelty and tyranny. With their conflicting views of history, of Stalin and of family, the grandsons Dzhugashvili and Burdonsky abhor each other. Their attitudes reflect a wider split in the former Soviet societies, most of which have still not come to terms with their bloody histories under communism. Nearly 50 years after Stalin's death in 1953, there is no consensus about his legacy in Georgia, Russia and elsewhere. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, only the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia made concerted efforts to untangle decades of Communist lies and set old ghosts to rest. Their commissions are still at work on research, historical reports and public awareness, but have struggled with a lack of cooperation from Russia, where many of the archives remain. Elsewhere, many other countries emerging from repressive rule have adopted formal processes to expose past crimes. South Africa and Latin American countries including Argentina and Chile instituted truth commissions. Some East European countries banned those too closely associated with the former regime from public office. The rationale for such efforts is that those who ignore the past or allow its message to be muddled are in danger of repeating it. But Russians simply turned their backs on the past without systematically examining it. There are many Communists who still laud Stalin, and some carry his picture at their rallies. Survey Shows Division of Opinion Polls indicate that the nation still is confused about his role. A third of those surveyed believe that he did more good than harm, a quarter believe the opposite and another quarter believe he did equal amounts of harm and good, according to a September poll of 1,500 Russians. Stalin's successor, Nikita S. Khrushchev, denounced him in 1956 for his brutality and abuse of power, exposing the mass arrests, deportations and executions of innocent people. In the glasnost era launched by Mikhail S. Gorbachev and after the fall of the Soviet Union, more information became available. Many Russians came to see Stalin as an evil, but powerful, leader. Today he still is given credit, particularly by the elderly, for winning World War II and industrializing the country. In Gori, Georgia, Stalin's birthplace, the atmosphere of denial is almost surreal. The Stalin museum, full of retouched Soviet photographs, makes no mention of his millions of victims. The museum's ardently pro-Stalin view of history appears to have changed little, despite the overall revisions of Soviet history about Stalin. Historians have always lied. They lied before Stalin, they lied under him, and they're lying now, said Burdonsky, a Moscow theater director. It's very difficult to find the truth. The truth is so elusive that even the number of those who died because of Stalin's policies is the subject of debate. According to the Memorial human rights group, Stalin's policies were responsible for the deaths of 9 million to 12 million people, including those who perished in the famines of 1932-33 and 1946-47. It says 25 million passed through the Gulag, Stalin's network of prison camps, or were exiled. Author and historian Robert Conquest estimates that 20 million died. Others have suggested higher figures. The uncertainty is exploited by Stalin's devotees. Yevgeny Dzhugashvili asserts that the accusations of mass killings in the purges of 1937 and other criticisms of Stalin were concocted on Khrushchev's orders. He has just written his own version of Soviet history aimed at rehabilitating Stalin. Sergei Sigachev, executive director of Memorial, said ex-Communist officials who came to power in most former Soviet states had no interest in exposing past crimes and identifying the guilty. It would have taken huge public
UK: Stalin Society Meeting - Moscow Trials, May 20th, London
Stalin Society Meeting === THE MOSCOW TRIALS. === Misinformationa concerning the Moscow Trials abounds in the bourgois media and in the papers of various Trotskyite outfits who sought then, as now, to undermine the achievments of the USSR and instill scpeticism in the minds of workers regarding the practice of socialism. In the 1930's, the Soviet Union stood as a glorious example of how the peoples of the world could rid themselves of unemployment, poverty, hunger - and the bourgeoisie did all it could to prevent this example being followed. This presentation will give ample evidence of the truth concerning the Trials, namely, that it was a revolutionary purge, under the leadership of the CPSU(B), against those who committed treasonable acts against the Soviet state, terror against leaders of the Soviet Union, wrecking and sabotage of Soviet industry, and collaborated with imperialist powers in order to bring about the restoration of capitalism in the USSR. Presented by Harpal Brar. SUNDAY, MAY 20th, 2p.m. CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON, WC1. === The Stalin Society, BM Box 2521, London, WC1N 3XX. ===
Stalin
From: New Worker Online [EMAIL PROTECTED] On the hundred and twenty first anniversary of Stalin's birth ANDY BROOKS takes a brief overview of his life and achievements THE TWENTIETH century was one of great upheavals, world wars and revolutions. It was the century of great revolutionary changes; popular movements inevitably linked with the leaders thrown up by their times -- Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim II Sung, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro. It was the century in which the ideas of Marx and Engels were put into practice, the century when torch of the Paris Commune lit the flames of revolution across the globe. The memory of all these leaders is subjected to denigration and abuse by the hired hands of the bourgeois media and academic world. The unholy alliance of bourgeois politicians, social democrats, Trotskyites and revisionists stoke fires of their own every day to produce a seemingly endless torrent of lies about the great revolutions that shook the world and the people who led them. The name of Joseph Stalin heads the list. colossal achievements Their hatred of Stalin should not surprise us. He led the world's first socialist state from 1924 until his death in 1953. During those decades the Soviet Union was the hope of working people across the world. The colossal achievements of the Soviet Union led by Stalin was living proof of the validity of the socialist system. The Soviets swept out the capitalists and land-owners and unleashed the immense potential of the workers and peasants to build a new life for themselves. While the economies of the imperialist world crashed the people of the Soviet Union saw their living standards rise twelvefold. While the imperialists prepared for another world war, against themselves and eventually against the USSR, the Soviet Union worked tirelessly for collective security and peace. While the imperialists mercilessly plundered Africa and Asia the Soviet Union helped the world communist cause and the national liberation movement. The oppressed nations or the Czarist empire were freed and lived as equals in a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which guaranteed everyone work, education, science and culture. The socialist system created new men and women who rebuilt the country after the destruction of the Civil War; who struggled to create the industries needed for the future; who sacrificed themselves by the millions to defend the Soviet Union and defeat fascism in the Second World War. early days Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili was born on 21 December 1879 in the town of Gori in the Czarist province of Georgia. He came from humble origins. His father was a peasant who later worked in a shoe factory in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. His mother came from a peasant family. Neither could read or write. But Joseph Vissarionovich was brilliant at primary school. He was recommended for admission into the leading school in Georgia which was run by the Georgian Orthodox church. The Tbilisi Seminary was a centre for Georgian nationalism and opposition to the Czar's regime. Here the young man turned to Marxism and revolution. "My parents were uneducated, but they did not treat me badly by any means. But it was a different matter at the Orthodox theological seminary which I was then attending. In protest at the outrageous regime and the Jesuitical methods prevalent at the seminary, I was ready to become, and actually did become, a revolutionary, a believer in Marxism as a really revolutionary teaching," he said later. In his second year at the seminary, when Stalin was just 15, he made contact with underground Marxist circles. Three years later, in 1897, he joined the first socialist organisation in Georgia. Stalin started by setting up Marxist study groups for students and workers. In 1899 he was expelled and became a full-time revolutionary worker. He called hirnself "Stalin" -- meaning "Steel" in Russian -- most Bolsheviks adopted movement names to work underground. The Caucasus was seething with discontent. The Georgians and other peoples of the region were doubly oppressed by the Russian colonial and largely feudal administration and the Russian and local exploiters who were plundering the new industries in the province. Tbilisi was an administrative and railway centre serving the oil-town of Baku, on the Caspian Sea. Stalin plunged into militant revolutionary activity. In 1901 he was elected to the first Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. He organised illegal strikes. He was sent to Siberia many times, escaping twice to return to the Caucasus. In 1905 Stalin first met Lenin at the Bolshevik Congress in Czarist Finland. In 1912 at the Prague Conference which led to the final break between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks within the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, Stalin was chosen to head the Bolsheviks' Russian Bureau. He published the first edition o
Re: Stalin.
James Paris. I appreciate your prompt and valuable answer. Thanks a lot. No comments from my side at this very moment. You are right... the last rows did not belong to my message at all. There were separated sentences copied due an oversight from another private discussion. Sorry. Let us proceed further... Comradely. Heikki __ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___
Re: Stalin!!!
Bill Howard wrote: and Boris Yeltsin turned it right way up again? Bill Bait that hook, cast that line. The short and simple answer (that both I and the comrade from the FSP) would give is: NO! Yeltsin killed it. IMO, better upside-down than dead. James Paris, MWG-IWC http://www.marxistworker.org/us/ Workers of the World, Unite! - Shut down the OAS/FTAA! June 4-6, 2000! http://www.marxistworker.org/stopftaa/
Re: Stalin!!!
Bill Howard wrote: and Boris Yeltsin turned it right way up again? Bill Bait that hook, cast that line. The short and simple answer (that both I and the comrade from the FSP) would give is: NO! Yeltsin killed it. IMO, better upside-down than dead. James Paris, MWG-IWC http://www.marxistworker.org/us/ Workers of the World, Unite! - Shut down the OAS/FTAA! June 4-6, 2000! http://www.marxistworker.org/stopftaa/ Listen, all comrades... By all comradely friendship, insn´t it better stop discussion on this topic. Just for practical reasons. According to my experience it never ends... In solidarity. Heikki __ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___
Re: Stalin!!!
This historical biography is missing important information. Lenin and Leon Trotsky led the Bolshevik Revolution and Stalin turned to Bolshevik Revolution on its head. Perhaps this is clarified elsewhere? Is there such a biographical portrait of Leon Trotsky? Jordana
Re: Stalin!!!
This historical biography is missing important information. Lenin and Leon Trotsky led the Bolshevik Revolution and Stalin turned to Bolshevik Revolution on its head. Perhaps this is clarified elsewhere? Is there such a biographical portrait of Leon Trotsky? Jordana Jordana: ask [EMAIL PROTECTED] Comradely. Heikki __ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___
Re: Stalin!!!
Hello, Thank you for the link to material regarding Stalin. In the US Stalin has been totally demonized. Stalin (and communism) cannot be discussed without immediate reference to his "crimes" of the Katyn Forest mass murders, the forced collectivization of agricultural lands and anti-Semitism. On Katyn Forest, the only material I found contradicting the abundance of anti-Stalin literature available here was the investigation report of the Soviet Commission. It was in the New York City Public Library. It is now said here that even Putin apologizes for Katyn? Why? Can you refer me to any literature available in English which aid toward clarifying what happened at Katyn? If there are no informative reports in English is there such information available in Russian? Clarifying information on the Soviet collectivization and Stalin's relations to anti-Semitism would also be of great interest to me. Thank you, Stanley Gluck
Fw: Stalin Video
-Èñõîäíîå ñîîáùåíèå-Îò: Melnikov Sergey [EMAIL PROTECTED]Êîìó: Evgeniy Sahonko [EMAIL PROTECTED]Äàòà: 16 ÿíâàðÿ 2000 ã. 21:21Òåìà: Stalin Video Stalin Video http://stalin.hotmail.ru New site with 6 videofragments in MPEG format with Joseph Stalin, greatest Soviet leader. Site include short movies: - Stalin went to the Kremlin - Stalin on the Lenin mausoleum tribune - Stalin make a speech - Stalin in Soviet Stavka, 1941, World War II - Stalin's speech in VI Comintern Congress (1 and 2) Please pay attention other our sites too: - Lenin mausoleum http://leninmausoleum.da.ru - Central Lenin museum http://www.stel.ru/museum - Stalin on Lenin http://www.neptune.spaceports.com/~stalin - Theory of Social Revolution http://venus.spaceports.com/~theory
