Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia.moderato
Titolo: [MOD] Le origini sociali della dittatura e della democrazia

Visto che questo e' il mio primo messaggio su questo NG, un ciao a tutti 
e complimenti per l'ottimo livello dei vari post.
Vi chiedo subito un piccolo aiuto, in questi giorni sto finendo di 
leggere il libro di Barrington Moore jr _Le origini sociali della 
dittatura e della democrazia_ e devo dire, da non esperto, di averlo 
trovato molto interessante. Mi piacerebbe sapere cosa ne pensate e se 
potreste consigliarmi qualche altra lettura che utilizzi questo 
approccio storiografico (si puo' dire socio-antropologico?).
Un grazie a tutti in anticipo, sperando di postare in futuro qualche msg 
interessante per voi,
Ciao,
Klaupacius

 dittatura e della democrazia_
In generale direi che totalitarismo e democrazia rappresentano i due
elementi fondamentali del mondo moderno. Nel totalitarismo ricopre notevole
importanza la mobilitazione delle masse in societą poco sviluppate, dove in
genere divantano una sorta d'ariete (tesi sostenuta anche da Emil Lederer,
sociologo tedesco studioso di fascimo e comunismo) per distruggere
l'ordinamento esistente. Finita la rivolta le masse non ottengono alcun
beneficio e meno che mai una maggiore partecipazione alla vita politica del
paese.
Lenin, con il decreto sulla terra ottenne il sostegno dei contadini ma poco
dopo impose la requisizione frozata del grano, i soviet degli operai ebbero
dei poteri solo per un periodo di alcune settimane. Analogamente Mao e Ho
Chi Minh sconfissero rispettivamente il governo nazionalista e il governo
sostenuto dai francesi in Vietnam con una grande armata di contadini, ma le
Comuni Popolari e la riforma agraria vietnamita fecero dei contadini una
massa di gente soggetta ad un regime semischiavistico. In tutti i casi i
regimi totalitari hanno considerato il mondo della cultura come dei nemici
dello stato, e tutto ciņ che appariva come non inquadrabile nello stato,
ebrei, minoranze etniche, ecc veniva considerato come una minaccia alle
istituzioni.

 dopo impose la requisizione frozata del grano,  
ah il "contesto storico", questo concetto cosi' misterioso e
sconosciuto... a che servira' mai? <g>
Sergio
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 sconosciuto... a che servira' mai? <g>
Il "contesto storico" serve essenzialmente ad inquadrare i fatti in una
prospettiva il più possibile ampia, senza che per questo la sua
invocazione debba assurgere a pretesa giustificazionista.
Il carattere oppressivo, totalitario e sanguinario del regime comunista
era già completamente presente, definito e preparato nell'opera di Lenin.
Un'ottima lettura per approfondire questo aspetto è "Comunismo, una
storia", dello storico Richard Pipes, Ed. Rizzoli, dove viene messo in
luce il ruolo che Lenin ebbe nell'instaurazione del terrore sovietico:
l'organizzazione dei campi di concentramento, l'utilizzo di leggi e
tribunali come strumenti per sostenere e legittimare il terrore, la
paternità degli articoli 57 e 58 del codice penale, che Stalin
successivamente utilizzò per assassinare milioni di cittadini innocenti.
Ecc. ecc. ecc.
Nessun "contesto storico" può essere invocato per giustificare, neppure
parzialmente, crimini e criminali dei sistemi totalitari del 900.
saluti
sloamm


 era già completamente presente, definito e preparato nell'opera di Lenin.
Su ICS ho indicato diversi libri di Storia dell'URSS (dello storico G.
Boffa, del dissidente sovietico R. Medvedev, del famoso sovietologo
americano S. Cohen...) che mostrano che la tesi che riporti applicata a
Lenin e' una vera e propria sciocchezza.
Ad esempio :
- Rethinking the Soviet experience, politics & history since 1917, Stephen
F. Cohen, Oxford University Press
- Stalin sconosciuto, Roy Medvedev, Editori Riuniti
-Dialogo sullo stalinismo, Boffa e Martinet, Ed. Laterza
 Sergio
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 Rizzoli, 
Richard Pipes mi pare che sta con i neocon, ma se sbaglio 
correggetemi.
-- 
oggi no, domani sì

 correggetemi.
Era consigliere del presidente Reagan. Ciononostante, č un sovietologo di
fama internazionale (questo non significa, ovviamente, che non esistano
storici che la pensano in maniera opposta alla sua).
Saluti,
Arturo

 contesto storico di una vicenda e' una pratica giustificazionista?
Atticciati ha postato in riferimento al meccanismo di mobilitazione delle
masse quale premessa del totalitarimo comunista (parla infatti di Lenin,
Mao ed Ho Chi Minh), ed alla successiva ed inesorabile fase in cui le
masse stesse si ritrovano tradite ed ulteriormente schiacciate ed oppresse.
La tua frase palesemente ironica, "il contesto storico, misterioso e
sconosciuto, a cosa servirà mai?", riferita al giudizio negativo riportato
da Atticciati su Lenin odora di giustificazionismo lontano un miglio.
Ed infatti dopo confermi pienamente il tuo intento giustificazionista
quando arrivi addirittura a sostenere che la tesi di Pipes su Lenin è una
sciocchezza.
Pipes, non servirebbe dirlo, è uno dei maggiori esperti mondiali in storia
russa e sovietica, è professore di storia ad Harvard da quattro decenni ed
ha all'attivo una quantità industriale di libri, articoli e pubblicazioni
sull'argomento. 
La prima "sciocchezza" riportata da Pipes riguarda la descrizione della
carestia del Volga nel 1891-92, durante la quale Lenin fu l'unico tra gli
attivisti politici del luogo a fare fuoco e fiamme affinchè non venissero
distribuiti aiuti alimentari alla popolazione ed ai contadini che morivano
di fame, perchè secondo lui la carestia era un'ottima opportunità di
aprire la via al socialismo ditruggendo la vecchia economia contadina.
O ancora:  
«Il terrore ebbe inizio il giorno stesso in cui Lenin prese il potere». La
violenza totale e «spietata» (uno degli aggettivi preferiti da Lenin)
furono il modo scelto per «spianare la strada al nuovo ordine».
O ancora:
"L'obiezione principale al comunismo risiede proprio nella sua promozione
dell'uguaglianza, poiché la realizzazione di questa porta inevitabilmente
all'ineguaglianza: l' ineguaglianza dei diritti che sostituisce l'
ineguaglianza della ricchezza. La ragione è semplice. I proprietari non
rinunciano ai propri averi, né la gente rinuncia al diritto di acquisire
averi, dopo che esso è stato abolito, senza l' applicazione costante di
coercizione.
Lenin comprese appieno questo fatto quando descrisse la dittatura del
proletariato come «un potere senza limitazioni, senza leggi, senza regole,
che si basa direttamente sulla coercizione». Ciò che queste terribili
parole significano è che la distruzione di tutte le leggi e libertà negli
stati comunisti non è una reazione spiacevole e inevitabile alla
"controrivoluzione" capitalista o all' intervento straniero, come di
solito viene sostenuto, ma è inerente all'ideologia stessa del comunismo,
perché essa comporta, come riconobbe Lenin, una violenza alla natura umana
e ai suoi desideri. Ma la coercizione richiede qualcuno che la eserciti;
richiede, cioè, un apparato di violenza."
Riguardo ai campi di concentramento voluti da Lenin possiamo leggere
Andrzej Kaminsky ("I campi di concentramento dal 1896 a oggi", Bollati
Boringhieri): a pag 76 riporta "Gli inventori e gli artefici dei campi di
concentramento nella loro forma ancora oggi in uso di campi di terrore
politico e di campi di lavoro schiavo sono stati i capi del comunismo
sovietico Trotzky e Lenin".
L'autore riferisce numerosi ordini impartiti da Lenin e Trockji nel 1918,
in cui si fa esplicito riferimento ai campi di concentramento.
O ancora  Dimitri Volkogonov, nel libro "The unknown Lenin", descrive
Lenin addirittura piu' feroce di Stalin.
I termini "uccidere",  "terrorizzare",  "impiccare",  "sterminare" 
contenuti nei suoi ordini in maniera addirittura ossessiva evidenziano il
criminale disprezzo della vita umana e come la logica dell'annientamento
fu voluta e coscientemente perseguita, in base all'analisi dei nuovi
documenti scoperti negli archivi del Cremlino.
Sempre Volkogonov racconta come la Sezione punitiva del Commissariato del
Popolo su una duplice direttiva di Lenin aveva emanato già il 23.7.1918,ad
appena  nove mesi dalla Rivoluzione d'ottobre, le "Istruzioni provvisorie
sulla privazione della libertà" con la quale noi ora datiamo l'inizio
ufficiale dei gulag. Lenin giustificava le sue direttive sulla base di due
considerazioni: 
1) "Salvaguardare la Rivoluzione Sovietica dai nemici di classe isolando
questi in campi di concentramento" 
2) "Rinchiudere i sospetti (si badi bene: i sospetti, non i colpevoli) in
un campo di concentramento fuori della città". 
Ora, se tu vuoi continuare a sostenere che queste sono tutte sciocchezze,
non basta davvero che ti limiti ad indicare i titoli di tre libri.
E' necessario che tu ci dica cosa affermano tali libri riguardo quanto
disse e fece Lenin circa l'epurazione spietata, la soppressione fisica
degli avversari, la persecuzione dei dissidenti, le impiccagioni dei
kulaki, l'uso dei campi di concentramento verso i semplici sospetti ecc.
ecc. ecc.


 storici che la pensano in maniera opposta alla sua).
ciao Arturo,
proprio in "Rethinking the Soviet Experience" di Stephen F. Cohen, Oxford
University Press, c'e' il primo  capitolo avente il titolo "Sovietology as
a
vocation" in cui si descrive tutta la storia dello studio dell'URSS negli
USA dagli anni '30 ai giorni nostri.
Il capitolo e' molto interessante perche' fra l'altro vengono illustrate
le varie
correnti di pensiero che hanno animato questa categoria di studiosi che
definiamo "sovietologi" e anche di come, soprattutto dalla fine della
guerra , diversi di questi studiosi siano sono stati pesantemente
condizionati da vere
e proprie persecuzioni politiche (pagine molto interessanti e spesso
dimenticate - anche volutamente da certi ambienti che invece puntano il
loro
dito solo altrove - periodo che non riguarda solo il periodo della "caccia
alle
streghe" di McCarthy ) e da cliche' imposti politicamente ( da chi
finanziava ovviamente le varie universita' e Foundations) allo scopo di
appoggiare gli interessi nazionali USA (al riguardo basta leggersi CHI
cita Cohen tra i
finanziatori per capire certe ricostruzioni alla Pipes) e che servivano 
piu' che a analizzare realmente in maniera distaccata la societa'
sovietica 
a semplificare sbrigativamente la realta' sovietica alla luce della scuola
del pensiero "totalitarista" oltre ovviamente,
come scrive Cohen, ad appiccicare la label "buuuuu" su tutto cio' che
fosse sovietico.
Infatti in piu' punti del capitolo Cohen mostra, citando nomi e opere di
sovietologi, come siano stati condizionati. 
E scrive : "Anti-Communism - and specifically anti-Sovietism - formed the
political-ideological basis of
scholarly consensus in Soviet studies, whose literature was filled with
"ideological preconceptions" and "dominant beliefs of the cold war era".
A questi studiosi condizionati pesantemente dalla Guerra Fredda si
aggiunsero "some ex-Communists and refugees from Communism whose political
zeal often exceeded their self-proclaimed expertise" (Cohen,op.cit., p.
10).
Torniamo pero' al citato Richard Pipes.
Cohen scrive a pag.35, indicando esplicitamente lui e i suoi lavori come
esempio nelle
note del libro (la no.111)  :
 "many of the profession's cold-war features survived detente to be revived
by worsening American-Soviet relations in the late 1979s. Some
Sovietologists remain intensely Sovietophobic , attacking even academic
exchange programs because allegedly give the Soviet Union "influence both
over Western scholarship and over Western political attitudes".
Strategic and policy concerns continue to shape the field in basic ways,
including the flow of funds for research and teaching. And after the
"struggle against totalitarianism" returned officially to the White House
in
the early 1980s, once orthodox concepts that misled Sovietology for many
years, along with the hortatory counter-Communist tradition (nota di
sergio:
gli adepti del Counter-Communism sono coloro che affermano che poiche' la
classe intellettuale USA degli anni 30 era sotto influenza sovietica si
dedicano alla negazione di ogni aspetto storico contemporaneo relativo
all'URSS; nello stesso modo del resto in Italia c'e' chi dice da decenni
che
la cultura e' in mano ai comunisti (sic!)e vengono prodotti ora libri neri
come quelli di Caprara e Zaslavsky , tanto per citarne qualcuno ), enjoyed
a
resurgence - concepts based on the Soviet Government's "lack of a credible
claim to legitimacy", "internal war" against its own citizens ... "
eccetera
eccetera.
Poi aggiunge "some American and European Sovietologists seem to have
inherited from the cold war a strain of political intolerance toward their
own colleagues. They have accused prodetente Sovietologists of
"appeasament"
and revisionist scholars of, among other misdeeds, disarming America
ideologically. That kind of political intemperance is made worse by the new
wave of Soviet emigres and exiles since 1970 , who often bring Soviet Style
invective  and crude accusations to Western Sovietological discussions.
Not surprisingly, revisionist scholars still worry about appearing to be
"softheaded" or "soft on Communism" , if only because that might jeopardize
their access to policy circles."
Insomma Pipes avra' pure "all'attivo una quantità industriale di libri,
articoli e pubblicazioni sull'argomento", come qualcuno ha scritto, ma non
gode proprio di una fama di studioso obiettivo ed indipendente dalla linea
del governo USA :)
Ah, poi ho letto che qualcuno nel thread ha portato come esempio oltre a
Pipes anche un certo Volkogonov... ;)
Giusto un esempio su come viene recensita una sua opera citata da sloamm
da 
http://20th-century-history-books.com/0029334357.html
(CUT)
A major disappointment for anyone looking for an objective and analyzing
view of Lenins role in history. It seems the author is cunningly familiar
with the old saying "if you can't beat them, join them". Full of details,
it
surely is, and while many are certainly accurate, the facts are a mish-mash
mixed into a huge pot and drawn at random, put into the text and spiced up
with personal "views". Already on page 2 the tone is readily set, "It is
worth noting that both Lenin and his father lost their considerable mental
powers much earlier than might be thought normal."; pointing out Lenins
unfortunate disease and hinting insanity! If one can neglect and
bias-adjust
the book (not an easy task!), it contains several interesting facts! I
strongly suggest ANY other book on Lenin though, if a more scientifical
analysis is expected! ...
Visto che c'e' chi beve volentieri da quella fonte la storiella su "Lenin
addirittura piu' feroce di Stalin" riporto un interessante e assai
polemico articolo su Volkogonov che allego alla fine di questo post . 
Per far vedere come stravolge  un pochino la Storia nei suoi libri,
accenno sinteticamente a qualcuna delle perle che indica l'estensore
(questo per i piu' svogliati che non vogliono leggersi l'intero articolo
in inglese allegato :) )
1) scade nel ridicolo quando da giudizi sullo zar Nicola II,probabilmente
poiche il nuovo potere eltsiniano in accordo con la Chiesa Ortodossa aveva
deciso di canonizzarlo.
2) ripete la bufala ampiamente smentita del Lenin agente segreto tedesco,
sorvolando poi sul fatto che nel 1917-1918 hanno collaborato con i
tedeschi ( si pensi Mannerheim in Finlandia , Skoropadsky in Ucraina,
Krasnov sul Don, A.P. Rodzianko e Yudenich in Estonia...)
3) che la Chiesa Ortodossa ha sempre condannato le violenze ( ma i pogrom
antisemiti che si verificavano nella Santa Russia che fine hanno fatto?)
 
Verso la fine dell'articolo ci sono anche dei spezzoni di recensioni e
anche qualche parolina su qualche simpatica bugiuola del gia' menzionato
Pipes... 
 
ciao, Sergio.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The post-Stalinist school of falsification
Dmitry Volkogonov: from a Stalinist court historian to an anti-communist
one.
Copyright: Iskra Research; by F. Kreisel; December 6, 1995
One of the foremost Stalinist, anti-communist liar "historians" has died in
Moscow on December 5, 1995. General Dmitry Volkogonov climbed to the top of
the Soviet bureaucratic pyramid along three "ladders": he rose to the rank
of colonel-general in the military, as a historian he headed the Institute
of Military History, and as a good Party man he was the deputy director of
the Political Department of the Soviet Army, which was a sub-department of
the Central Committee. Volkogonov bailed out of the collapsing Party early
enough to take on the role of Yeltsin's chief military and historical
advisor. Since 1992 he was one of three people advising Yeltsin on issues
related to reclassifying the Soviet secret archives, and he toured the US
and other countries a number of times representing his "democratic" boss.
Volkogonov must be classified as a court historian, i.e. a bemedalled and
bejeweled courtier of the ruling elite who specializes in serving up the
historical myths required and requested by his masters. Every king, Pope,
tsar and President needs such a lackey, a specialist in prettifying and
glorifying his rulers, a crafty scholar who confuses and mystifies the
people, thus protecting and preserving his odious regime. General
Volkogonov
will be remembered as one of the top practitioners of what Trotsky so aptly
described as "Stalin's school of falsification". What makes Volkogonov's
career so interesting is the way it highlights the anti-Marxist and
anti-Communist nature of Stalinism.
Volkogonov was brought up in, and later headed a school of historiography
which was remarkably crude and unsophisticated. Unlike Western historians,
their Stalinist colleagues did not need to make their stories coherent or
even related to historical facts. Nevsky, Yaroslavsky, Gusev, Zhdanov,
Suslov and Volkogonov got to the top of the class by concealing facts,
silencing and murdering witnesses, pulping history books, inventing tales
out of whole cloth. The ruling elite needed massive doses of lies precisely
because it was itself a living lie. The Stalinist bureaucracy pretended to
be Communist, and was not; it pretended to be revolutionary and
progressive,
yet was one of the most reactionary forces in history; it pretended not
even
to exist, yet it was the most visible, overstuffed, corrupt and corrosive
malignancy within the Soviet system.
The reading public in the United States should have been all the more
surprised by the extraordinary treatment with which Volkogonov's latest
works were received. The American historical establishment went out of its
way to praise and promote these volumes. They were translated and published
in record time, they were reviewed in all the elite magazines, and the
reviews were for the most part flattering and uncritical. In view of the
deserved contempt with which Western historians had in the past treated
Soviet historical monographs, this attitude was astonishing. We shall deal
with the reviewers later but now we must turn to the books themselves.
It is beyond the scope of these essay to present a thorough analysis of
every lying myth woven by Volkogonov on the thousands of pages of his last
monographs: the "anti-biographies" of Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin. For one
thing, Volkogonov's books are extremely difficult to read from cover to
cover; they are, mildly speaking, uneducational and intellectually
stultifying. They do not present any coherent or continuous picture of the
developments. Just the reverse, their very form is such as to prevent any
consistent story line (that is especially true of the last subject: Lenin).
The author jumps from one period to another, tears facts out of their
historical and chronological context, constantly strikes moral poses,
thunders out denunciations, and piles up slanders on every page. I shall
therefore simply present some of the more outrageous falsehoods found in
his
three last major works. I am citing from the Russian language editions of
these books and am translating on the fly.
1988: Triumph and Tragedy -- Stalin
In the 1988 biography of Stalin (according to its author it was written
before 1985) Volkogonov still presents a traditional view of Lenin and the
October Revolution. According to Volkogonov, Lenin was a genius and the
October Revolution was his crowning achievement and a glorious milestone in
the history of mankind. Nevertheless, we simply do not see any historical
presentation or analysis of this epochal event. This book differs from
hundreds of others written in the Soviet Union from 1956 and 1985 in one
respect only: Volkogonov had received permission to quote from the secret
archives and the book cites hundreds of heretofore top secret documents.
These quotations in no way change the overall orthodox post-Stalin
Stalinist
world view of the author.
Book 1, part 1, p. 52: "Despite his mediocrity, Nicholas II had for a long
time and quite craftily zigzagged, searched for compromises, was ready to
make partial concessions to the bourgeoisie, all in order to save the
monarchy". This weird remark is one of the few describing the tsarist
regime
and the social, political and economic conditions prevailing in the Russian
empire. We simply do not know what caused the Revolution. In any case, this
description of Nicholas II as a crafty politician is way off the mark.
Book 1, part 1, p. 76: "It is well known that the organizational
preparation
of the uprising was assigned to the Military Revolutionary Center composed
of members of the CC (which consisted of five persons including Stalin),
and
also to the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet..."
This mythical Military-Revolutionary Center of the Bolshevik Party, which
supposedly assisted the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd
Soviet headed by Trotsky, is one of the earliest Stalinist lies. It was
created in the late 1920's to give Stalin that leading role in the October
uprising which the historical record had denied him. On the next few pages
Volkogonov will also tell it the right way, i.e. that Trotsky led the
uprising while Stalin was invisible. The goal of Volkogonov seems to be to
set both Stalin's lie and Trotsky's truth on an equal footing and present
it
as a moot point where both antagonists just try to aggrandize themselves.
Book 1, part 1: In describing the last years of Lenin's life Volkogonov
performs mental gymnastics to denigrate Trotsky and Trotsky's struggle
against Stalin. On the one hand, Lenin does want to remove Stalin, on the
other, Lenin does not want to block with Trotsky. Volkogonov is most crude
on page 183 where he accuses Trotsky of falsifying the meaning of Lenin's
Testament: "Trotsky constantly attempted to attract attention to the
"Testament", tearing out of it specific fragments and changing them beyond
recognition".
On page 256 Volkogonov practically accuses Trotsky of responsibility for
Stalin's murdering the members of Trotsky's own family: "The tragedy of
Trotsky's family, which finally led to the destruction of all of the
children as a result of the bloody maelstrom into which their father's
struggle against Stalin had pulled them, had given the exile an aura of a
martyr in the West's eyes". On the following pages Volkogonov accuses
Trotsky of betraying his country: "There came for Trotsky a decade of very
active struggle against Stalin, and sometimes, willing or not, against the
state which he had in the beginning actively helped to create and defend"
(ibid., p. 259), of historical falsifications: "He (Trotsky) continued to
publish his writings, often stooping to falsifications, exaggerations,
inventions aimed at a single goal: to hurt Stalin to the utmost..."
(ibid.),
and of anti-Russian chauvinism: "such slavophobic, really chauvinist
expressions..." (ibid., p. 260).
This book was published in 1988 when Gorbachev still pretended to be a
"democratic Communist" a la Bukharin. In accord with Gorbachev's political
requirement Volkogonov tries with all his might to present Bukharin in the
best light possible. That is especially true of Book 1, part II, chapter
"Dictatorship or a dictator?". Volkogonov's myth is that Bukharin's pro-NEP
program was the real alternative to Stalin's totalitarian deviation. There
isn't a single word about the rapid moral degeneration of Bukharin which
accompanied his political evolution from the left wing of the party to its
right wing. Although Trotsky has told us about it long ago, the Soviet
reader only learned of this in 1991 with the publication of Bukharin's
cynical aphorisms about Lenin's "Testament" and the anti-Trotsky struggle
in
the journal "Izvestiia TsK KPSS" #8. For history's sake we shall reprint
two
of these witticisms:
"If you want to be the Commissar of Military Affairs, slander Trotsky".
"Always fulfill the Testament (as opposed to a bequest) the other way
around".
But let us move on.
1990-1991: the Trotsky biography.
In early 1991 Volkogonov completed his biography of Trotsky. In his earlier
work about Stalin he had already begun to carry out the social requirement
of the Stalinist-restorationist regime: to deny that Trotsky presented a
socialist alternative to Stalinism. In this two-volume work Volkogonov is
under two kinds of pressure. On the one hand, the works of Trotsky, and in
particular the "Revolution Betrayed" had already appeared in the Soviet
Union. To preserve his own authority Volkogonov needed to present a half
way
accurate review of Trotsky's work and publications. On the other hand,
Volkogonov had already dispensed with Gorbachev and the old style
Union-Party hierarchy and threw in his fortune with Yeltsin's privatizers
and anti-Communists. The result of these contradictory pressures is an
unobjectionable, although patchy, retelling of Trotsky's life. There is
still no real historical living reality, but at least the crude lies are
missing.
It is interesting to look at Volkogonov's changed evaluation of Trotsky's
worldly, international mind set and viewpoint. In 1988 Volkogonov accuses
Trotsky of hatred of the Slavs, of anti-Russian chauvinism. In 1991
Volkogonov congratulates Trotsky on his immersion in European culture,
praises his knowledge of Western literature, art and psychology, and
flatters him as being the "most European among the revolutionaries" (see
Book 1, pp. 94-96). Frankly, I prefer an established Western biographer of
Trotsky, such as Isaac Deutcher, Albert Glotzer or Robert Wistrich who do
not change their opinions on the direct orders from above.
1993-1994: the Lenin biography.
By now, Volkogonov has come full circle in his political-historical
reorientation. In 1988 he was a "Marxist-Leninist": Lenin was God, Stalin
was a fallen angel, Trotsky was an anti-Communist renegade and an
anti-Soviet enemy of the people. In 1990-91 Volkogonov had seen the light
of
democracy and became a cosmopolitan democrat who cares about goodness,
morality and humanitarian ideals. But in this latest book Volkogonov has
seen another light. This time it is Mother Russia which is to be his
guiding
principle, Russian patriotism is to be the measure of all things. He has in
the meantime discovered that Lenin was an evil genius who masterminded the
abominable October putsch. Stalin was a true Leninist who continued in the
footsteps of his teacher. Trotsky was, is and shall always remain an
abomination, a Demon of the revolution, worse tyrant than Stalin, and so
on.
This book is the least readable of the three. All sense of a story line is
lost as Volkogonov dissembles, takes us on long excursions to different
places, persons and periods, ruminates on morality and religion. The
absurdities and internal contradictions of Volkogonov's presentation are
glaring. Taking advantage of the general condemnation of Marxism by both
the
Western and the ex-Stalinist "historians" he resorts to the method of the
Big Lie. Here are some examples.
Writing about the opening of WW I: "The Russian Emperor, Nicholas II,
undeservedly forgotten as a peacemaking Tsar, tried to stop the slaughter"
(vol. 1, p. 183). On the same page Volkogonov continues to mock reason and
history by praising Nicholas.
Volkogonov resurrects the hoary tale of German gold financing the
Bolsheviks
and Lenin being a German agent. Evidence -- the same insinuations
concerning
Ganetsky and Parvus which had been discarded decades ago by serious
historians. Despite his diligent and privileged search in the super-secret
KGB and Party archives he was unable to come up with any concrete facts,
and
on page 200 of Vol. 1 he confesses his failure: "I cannot state
categorically... it is a big mystery..." etc.
Flipping the pages at random we encounter another pearl: "...the Orthodox
religion is deeply humanistic in its spirit. It did not know Inquisition,
did not burn heretics on the stake, did not organize religious Crusades.
The
Orthodoxy had always condemned violence". (Vol. 2, p. 225). When we
recollect the bloody Jewish pogroms ceaselessly promoted by the Holy
Orthodox Church, the anathema pronounced against Leo Tolstoi for his blend
of pacifism and pastoral beliefs, and the Beylis trial of 1912Ñ13 which
accused the Jews of blood sacrifices, we must wonder: is Volkogonov trying
to be funny or does he think that we are total idiots?
It is interesting to trace the changes in Volkogonov's world view. In this
last book the "democratic humanism" of 1991's "Trotsky" gives way to the
old
fashioned Great Russian chauvinism and monarchism. He resurrects the old
Stalinist lies about Trotsky's hatred of the Russians, but now throws this
same accusation of russophobia at Lenin. He condemns Lenin for a
"despicable
attitude towards Russia and Russians" (Vol. 1, p. 31) and proclaims him an
"internationalist-cosmopolite" rather than a Russian (ibid., p. 52).
"Cosmopolite" was the Stalinist code word for Jews, and during certain
periods became a call for official pogroms. Volkogonov's careful tracking
of
Lenin's non-Russian (German, Swedish and Jewish) bloodlines (see chapter 1,
"The deep roots") rather recalls the theorizing of Alfred Rosenberg, one of
Hitler's racial specialists.
In general, Volkogonov's method in this book is unabashed ahistorical
amalgam: mixing up of circumstances and historical context. In condemning
the anti-democratism of Lenin he leaves out the circumstances of Civil War,
foreign intervention and blockade. One is left to wonder what we are to
think of the horribly anti-humanist actions of George Washington in
suppressing the pro-British loyalists of upstate New York during the War of
Independence, or of the orders given to General Sherman by Abraham Lincoln
to burn Georgia down during the famous march to the sea.
The national question.
Volkogonov repeatedly denounces the Bolsheviks and Lenin in particular for
betraying Russia in 1918 and signing the demeaning and injurious peace
treaty with Germany. Signing this treaty is for Volkogonov the proof
positive of Lenin's betrayal of Russian interests. "For him (Lenin) the
revolution, his power, the party were incomparably dearer than Russia. He
was, after all, ready without hesitations to give half of European Russia
to
the Germans just to hold on to his power!" (Vol. 1, p. 52). Yet some pages
later Volkogonov seems to second guess Kerensky and recommends to him to
hold on to power by means of ... a separate peace with Germany! (ibid. p.
285). Even more glaring are the historical facts which Volkogonov chooses
to
leave out: the cooperation in 1917-1918 of numerous tsarist generals with
their erstwhile German enemies against Soviet power, e.g. Mannerheim in
Finland, Skoropadsky in Ukraine, Krasnov on the Don, A.P. Rodzianko and
Yudenich in Estonia.
Examining the events of 1917-1918 in their historic context, a task which
Volkogonov avoids, we must consider that the upheaval of World War I
brought
about the collapse of four great empires: Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia
and the Ottoman empire. Of these four, only Russia was able to consolidate
itself against furious external and internal opposition and reconstituted
itself in an almost intact form. True, great swathes of western
territories:
Finland, the Baltics, Poland (including the western parts of Ukraine and
Belorussia) and Bessarabia were taken from Soviet hands (usually through
foreign intervention), yet on the whole, the internationalist class-based
national policy of the Bolsheviks must be judged supremely successful in
maintaining a unified state.
Here is what a thoughtful and a far more honest historian wrote: "But it
would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of Soviet nationalities
policy either in its historical setting or in its ultimate influence. It
was
at the outset the crucial factor in Lenin's astonishing achievement of the
reassembly of nearly all the former dominions of the Tsars after the
disintegration and dispersal of war, revolution and civil war" (E.H. Carr,
The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 1.).
Unlike the principled and ultimately successful policy of Lenin we might
examine the national policy of Volkogonov's boss. Yeltsin used Russian
nationalist slogans in 1990-91 in opposition to Gorbachev. Having promoted
Russian nationalism against Gorbachev's slogans of "Soviet patriotism" as
well as the economic benefits which come from a large unified state,
Yeltsin
helped to shatter the Soviet Union into separate pieces, so that he could
then grab the largest one, Russia. He then went on trying to rule the
Russian Federation, again basing himself on the idea of the Russian nation
and its primacy. This short sighted policy has led to the present bloody
debacle in Chechnia and to looming problems in every province of Russia,
whether the particular region is inhabited by native Russians, or by the
Tartars, the Ugri, the Chechens, etc. Local rivalries are growing in every
province as the local elites rapaciously grab for and loot all the
resources, and Russia itself is threatened with collapse as a unitary
state.
Volkogonov's "ideals".
Volkogonov's training in climbing up to the top of the Soviet hierarchy
from
its three sides (military, Party and scientific) has made him extremely
sensitive to the deeper social and historical requirements of this milieu.
It is therefore instructive to check which political regime he has been
recommending lately. On page 188 he writes: "In general, despite a
difficult
situation, Russia had far from exhausted its material and spiritual
resources to continue the war ... But the tsarist regime, having become, in
certain respects, a Duma regime, exhibited its inability to govern". In
other words, the beneficial absolutism of the Romanovs has been undermined
by the 1905 constitutional reforms. True, Volkogonov hesitates and
vacillates, his sensitive nose sniffing the prevailing winds. In the next
sentence he contradicts himself by criticizing Nicholas II for taking over
the post of supreme military commander. But on the next page he gathers
courage and proclaims: "Due to its ancient traditions Russia has gotten
used
to a single state ruler personified in the aura of a concrete individual".
We know that there are now strong monarchist currents within the Russian
(and Ukrainian, and Kazakh, etc.) ruling circles. The various power
cliques,
whether the fake Communists of Zyuganov, the fake democratic liberals
around
Yeltsin or the fake Liberal Democrats of Zhirinovsky (this fascist party is
actually named "Liberal Democratic") all tend towards the Leader principle.
They all make a fetish of state power, they all embrace the totem symbols
of
God and Monarch. Volkogonov is here carrying out the ideological
requirements of the ruling elite to establish an authoritarian, perhaps
even
hereditary, state power, all in the name of Russia, of course.
Volkogonov is not the only "historian" whitewashing the empire of the tsars
and promoting a return to an absolute hereditary rule. I have on my shelf a
Russian history textbook published in 1993 by the Plekhanov Institute under
the direction of professor Sh. M. Munchayev. This modest paperback is also
revising the history of the Russian empire to fit with the monarchist
views.
Accompanying such revisions of history there is a religious campaign to
canonize Nicholas II, and various political and military clubs and
organizations are agitating for a restoration of the monarchy.
If any proof were needed for the Marxist view of the primacy of matter over
ideas, the quick changes of philosophical and moral ideals of Volkogonov
and
of thousands of other "intellectuals" amply provide it. Here is
Volkogonov's
own explanation of his miraculous conversion: "I wrote my two-volume book
on
Stalin before 1985, when I could not know all these documents... And we
all,
myself included, deeply believed in the "great humanism" of the proletarian
leader" (Vol. 1, p. 144). The idea that the chief censor and propagandist
of
the Soviet military was a simple dupe defies credulity. Volkogonov, of
course, had for many years enjoyed the rare privilege of access to both the
archival documents and to the thousands of volumes of Western books of
sovietology. It should be noted that this "democrat" did not publish these
tons of documents so that everyone could read and evaluate them. He
controlled and monopolized the access to the records and took every
advantage of such restrictions.
Furthermore, despite his loading of the bibliographic sections of each
volume with pages of references to secret archives, very little of
significance (new to the Western reader) actually emerges. We knew about
the
Red terror during the Civil War. Thousands of books denounced the closing
of
the Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks in January 1918; rather fewer
publications denounced Yeltsin's shooting up of the Russian Parliament in
October of 1993. The Bolsheviks did not hide their Terror. Just the
reverse,
like the Jacobins of 1793 they proclaimed it publicly, since public
knowledge of the terror was one of the most effective instruments in
winning
the Civil war in both France and Russia.
Alas, the cause of Volkogonov's speedy conversion from an "atheistic
Marxist-Leninist" first to a humanistic democrat, then to a God-fearing
Russian nationalist lies not in the intellectual liberation of a historical
scientist. The reason for this ideological metamorphosis is much more
pedestrian, and is directly related to the ideological needs of the
rapacious and criminal Russian bourgeoisie. This is a social layer whose
past is a melange of abuse of office, theft of state assets and criminal
speculation with these stolen goods. Its future is equally uncertain since
all evidence shows that Russian industry is now headed for extinction. The
so called revival of Russian capitalism has much in common with some Voodoo
cult of raising the dead. (In defense of Voodoo, it must be said that they
try to raise the freshly dead while Russian capitalism collapsed some four
score years ago). Russian capitalism has played itself out historically in
1917 and it cannot be resurrected now. Hence, the ideologues of capitalism
must turn to myths, shamans, relics of saints and tsars, and other
supernatural miracles.
But what about the Western critics?
If there was one area in which Western historiography justifiably prided
itself during the past three score years it was in its contempt for the
lies
and falsifications published in Stalin's and post-Stalin Russia. It is all
the more puzzling that in the case of Volkogonov's collections of
contradictory fables and evasions the elite of Western historians have
collectively suspended their critical faculties and have indulged in an
orgy
of flattery and adulation.
We shall not bother the reader with a thorough analysis of the many reviews
of Volkogonov's books which have appeared in the most prestigious journals
over the past five years. They are too many to mention. They do have one
thing in common: the reviewers devote more attention to the author that to
his story.
To some extent such a shift of attention is justifiable. The collapse of
the
USSR saw an unprecedented phenomenon: the ruling elite of a mighty state
has
consciously and deliberately overthrown its system and has almost to a man
denounced the ideals and principles they were enforcing for decades with
great brutality and thoroughness. The role of Volkogonov, as this elite's
chief propagandist, was plain. He quickly had to craft some new historical
myths to dress up Yeltsin's all too naked and disgusting character. The
mental gymnastics of the post-Soviet intellectual elite are worth watching.
But this is one more reason for a reviewer to be on his guard, not to take
Volkogonov's rationalizations at their face value, to examine his evidence
under a microscope, to see who benefits from the new myths. Alas, most
reviews were not written with a scientific purpose in mind, but with a very
definite political angle. In fact, an analytical investigation of the tenor
of such mainstream reviews would be very revealing.
For example, David Remnick's review of "Stalin" in The New York Review of
Books for Nov. 5, 1992 is still quizzical of Volkogonov: "Volkogonov was
not
an inspiring choice. He had published dozens of books and monographs on
military ideology and none of them even hinted at independence, rigor, or
critical thought". Remnick remarks about the book that "Volkogonov found no
definitive answers to the remaining riddles of history". Yet he concludes
the first section of his review by stating that "the book is in no sense a
failure" since it served a definite cultural purpose inside the Soviet
Union
in debunking and demystifying Stalin and the Soviet hierarchy. Then Remnick
devotes the last three sections of this "review" to telling us about
Volkogonov -- the hero. This shift of emphasis from the historical subjects
of interest to the glorification and idealization of Volkogonov is
characteristic of almost every review.
While the Trotsky biography was published in 1991 in Russia, three years
before the biography of Lenin, it was on the Lenin biography that most
reviews concentrated. William Taubman set the tone of all these self
serving
pieces in the New York Times Book Review of Nov. 13, 1994: "Anti-Communists
East and West have long contended that Stalin's crimes derived directly
from
Lenin himself. Mr. Volkogonov has now come around to this devastating view
of his former idol". It was the anti-Leninism and anti-Communism of
Volkogonov, and not the substance of his "scientific research" that
attracted the growing flattery of all succeeding reports. Robert Conquest,
the dean of American sovietologists picks up on this hatred for Lenin and
develops it further: "The obsessions with sheer destructiveness (of Lenin)
struck me as even more dominant, even more humorless than those of Stalin"
(The New York Review of Books, June 8, 1995). We shall note this preference
of Stalin over Lenin and only remark that Mr. Conquest shares it with a
number of other political tendencies: in the 1930's Stalin's supporters
included the Fabian socialists Sydney and Beatrice Webb, the Russian
fascist
groups abroad, and this circle of friends of Stalin enlisted Hitler in
1939;
even President Roosevelt stood with Stalin against his victims in the
Moscow
Trials. Today the defenders of Stalin count among their number yesterday's
KGB agent and the present head of the Orthodox Church Patriarch Tikhon, the
leader of the "Russian Communist" party Gennady Zyuganov, certain trends in
the various "Communist" parties, and the various academics who yearn for
the
security and certainty of the Cold War.
It is interesting to hear the few discordant notes in this chorus of
cheerleaders. Roy Medvedev, writing in of January 30, 1995 makes a few
worthwhile points. Firstly, Volkogonov used his position as "one of three
people (along with Rudolf Pikhoia and N. Pokrovskii) who have headed the
Russian government's Committee for Archival Affairs since 1992" to
monopolize access to the archives. Secondly, while finding Volkogonov's
book
"useful", he states that "specialists probably would have preferred a
simple
publication of several volumes of previously unpublished Lenin documents".
Thirdly, he criticizes Volkogonov for an "avoidance of real analysis" of
Lenin's personality. Fourthly, Medvedev notes that Volkogonov "skipped over
large periods of Lenin's life", and that "Volkogonov writes almost nothing
about Leninism or its relation to Marxism and other socialist currents in
Europe and Russia". Fifthly, Medvedev notes that "there are no revelations
in the new documents, for even in the last ten volumes of the Soviet
Complete Collected Works of Lenin there are analogous documents". To
summarize, Medvedev, a man with rather longer, than Volkogonov's, pedigree
of opposition to Stalinism and of scientific historical research, makes
clear the worthlessness of Volkogonov's books for use in historical
investigation.
A review of another type was written by Theodore Draper. In the New York
Review of Books for April 4, 1996 Draper wrote at length about some salient
points in Volkogonov's "Trotsky" and concluded: "Volkogonov's book does not
add much that is new of revelatory... It does not supersede the work of
Deutscher ... but it adds enough to make it a minor contribution to the
sizable library that has accumulated around the life and times of Leon
Trotsky". However, all educational value of this review was undermined by
the "I don't give a damn about history" statement of Draper: "To most
people
Trotsky has become an increasingly dim memory, and his prophecies, whatever
they were, belong to a distant age". This is a shocking statement to make
for a historian. If we are to treat history as a science, which Marxists
do,
then Trotsky's analysis and his predictions (prophecies, if you like) must
be examined in the light of our experience and current events.
Was Trotsky right or wrong in his "theory of permanent revolution", which
forecast the socialist character of the coming Russian revolution? Was
Trotsky correct in his evaluation of the Thermidorean bureaucracy in the
USSR? Was Trotsky right or wrong in his analysis of the contradictory and
transient nature of the Soviet Union? Was Trotsky right or wrong in
advising
the policy of United Front in the struggle against Hitler's victory in
Germany? Was Trotsky right or wrong in his analysis of the events leading
up
to World War II? Was Trotsky right or wrong to defend Lenin's conception of
the revolutionary vanguard? Was Trotsky justified in defending the Marxian
analysis of the contradictions of capitalism? If history is a science, then
we must evaluate social theories in the light of experience. Draper takes
an
abstentionist position.
A rather more telling blow for historical truth was delivered by Daniel
Singer in "The Nation" for March 25, 1996. It is a good piece, and should
be
read for its own value. Comparing Deutscher and Volkogonov, Singer
concludes: "A tremendous gap separates an inspired writer from a pedestrian
scribbler, the historian with a vision from a trimmer to fashion, a
socialist thinker from a converted Stalinist hack".
We conclude this review of reviews with a look at the piece written for The
New York Times Book Review of March 24, 1996 by an American court
historian,
Richard Pipes. Pipes made his name and career as an analyst of the
strengths
and weaknesses of the Soviet nationalities policy. In his early book "The
Formation of the Soviet Union" he wrote: "The entire Bolshevik national
program was designed to win nationalist sympathies through generous offers
of national self-determination", and "In Lenin's opinion, it was necessary
only to adopt a friendly, conciliatory attitude toward the non-Russian
subjects". Pipes was at that time evaluating a strong and triumphant Soviet
Union following its victory over fascism, and telling the Pentagon where
the
strengths of the enemy lay.
Neither Pipes, nor any other Sovietologist, foresaw the collapse of the
Soviet Union and its betrayal by its own ruling elite. But after this
collapse, they feel that, on the one hand, a realistic assessment of
"Communist" strength from the military point of view is no longer needed,
and, on the other hand, all opposition to their anti-Communist lies and
falsifications had been removed. It is Pipes who resurrects Stalin's
slanders against Trotsky. Item 1: "Inordinately vain, arrogant, often rude,
he was constitutionally incapable of the kind of disciplined teamwork that
the Bolshevik Party required of its members". Item 2: "Lenin valued
Trotsky's brutality and contempt for mankind as well as his outstanding
literary and rhetorical gifts. But of his political and administrative
abilities he had a very low opinion". Item 3: "He (Trotsky) did not lift a
finger to help the victims of pogroms in the Ukraine in 1919-20". Item 4:
"After 1920 Lenin increasingly consulted Stalin rather than Trotsky". Item
5: "He (Stalin) was Lenin's true disciple and legitimate successor". Item
.. But there are too many lies in this short article to enumerate. Here we
see an anti-Communist hysteric rather than a writer, never mind, a
historian. Pipes even repeats the bloody slander used by Stalin in the
infamous Moscow Trials that "Trotsky and Lev Sedov, his son and closest
aide, frequently said and wrote that Stalin's regime had to be overthrown
and Stalin himself assassinated".
Volkogonov is dead but there are plenty of liars and slanderers on both
sides of the ocean. The fantastic nature of Pipes' falsifications reveals
the desperate state of the self confidence within the American ruling
class.
Volkogonov is dead, and this writer regrets the extinction of such a
reliable gauge as to the intentions of the Kremlin elite.
da 
http://www.mit.edu/people/fjk/essays/volkogonov-2.html


La prima cosa che balza agli occhi in questa tua risposta è che hai
evitato accuratamente di rispondere su Lenin e sulle sue responsabilità
nell'instaurazione del Terrore.
Ti limiti a riportare l'opinione personale di Cohen su Pipes, senza
provare minimamente a confutare ciò che Pipes scrive e riporta su Lenin. 
In seconda istanza utilizzi il sitarello privato, dichiaratamente
marxista, del signor Felix Kreisel, un oscuro ingegnere di computer che di
professione si occupa di backup di sistemi PC e MAC (sic!!) e che nel suo
tempo libero si diletta a riempire pagine Web di articoletti di stampo
veterocomunista, infarciti peraltro di ineleganti epiteti, scritti da lui
medesimo.
Leggere per credere:
http://www.mit.edu/people/fjk/fjk.html
E con queste brillanti citazioni tu magari ritieni perfino di essere
riuscito a  screditare l'intera opera di Pipes, oltre a quella di
Volkogonov ....
Ma tant'è, questo è un paese libero e ognuno ha il diritto di pensare
quello che vuole  :))
Ma torniamo ora all'argomento della discussione.
Per mancanza di tempo, nel mio post precedente non avevo inserito dal
libro di Pipes la citazione di alcuni documenti che comprovano la
responsabilità criminale di Lenin nell'instaurazione del Terrore.
Come contributo alla discussione li posto qui sotto.
//////////
"Quando si trovava di fronte a fallimenti tanto gravi, l'istinto di Lenin
era quello di ricorrere al plotone di esecuzione. Isaac Steinberg, un
aderente alla sinistra socialista rivoluzionaria che per un certo periodo
fu commissario di giustizia comunista, descrisse un incontro del Consiglio
dei Commissari del Popolo del febbraio 1918. Lenin presentò la bozza di un 
decreto, "la madrepatria socialista è in pericolo!", contenente un comma
che prevedeva l'esecuzione sul posto, cioè senza processo, di un'ampia
categoria di criminali sommariamente descritti come "agenti del nemico,
speculatori, scassinatori, vandali, agitatori controrivoluzionari e spie
tedesche". Steinberg obiettò che il decreto rappresentava "una crudele
minaccia (...) con ampi potenzialità terroristiche.
Continua Steinberg: "Lenin se la prese per la mia opposizione in nome
della giustizia rivoluzionaria. Quindi io, esasperato, esclamai: "Allora
perchè ci preoccupiamo di avere un Commissariato di Giustizia? Chiamiamolo
più onestamente Commissariato per lo sterminio sociale e facciamola
finita!" Il volto di lenin si illuminò e disse: "Bravo... è esattamente
ciò che dovrebbe essere... ma non possiamo dirlo in questo modo".
(Nota: Isaac Steinberg, In the Workshop of the Revolution, London 1955,
145)
///////////
Il brano seguente illustra le modalità con cui Lenin instillava ed
alimentava l'odio e predicava la violenza e l'assassinio indiscriminato:
"Nell'estate del 1918 Mosca avviò una campagna per estorcere ai villaggi
il grano che i contadini non volevano vendere al governo ad un prezzo
fisso irrealisticamente basso. Nei paesi furono creati i Comitati dei
poveri, una sorta di quinta colonna rurale, che avrebbe dovuto collaborare
con il governo, in cambio di una parte delle riserve alimentari, contro i
contadini più ricchi (i kulaki), sospettati di accumulare scorte di cibo.
Contemporaneamente Mosca inviò nelle campagne gruppi armati di teppisti di
città per raccogliere il "surplus". Il risultato furono battaglie
all'ultimo sangue tra i contadini, molti dei quali erano soldati in
congedo, ed i distaccamenti che dovevano razziare il cibo. Buona parte
delle campagne era oppressa da una guerra civile peggiore di quella
combattuta dall'Armata Rossa contro i "bianchi". Lenin, che considerava
"kulaki" tutti i contadini che si opponevano all'autorità sovietica,
scagliava fulmini e paventava pogrom su larga scala. Di seguito sono
riportati due esempi delle sue direttive, entrambi datati agosto 1918. Il
primo è tratto da un discorso tenuto di fronte ai lavoratori e il secondo
è un ordine segreto inviato agli ufficiali comunisti della provincia di
Penza:
"Il kulak detesta l'autorità sovietica in modo malsano ed è pronto a
soffocare, a massacrare centinaia di migliaia di lavoratori (...). O i
kulaki faranno a pezzi un numero infinito di lavoratori o i lavoratori
schiacceranno senza pietà l'insurrezione di questa minoranza di ladri
contro il potere degli operai(...). I kulaki sono i più bestiali, i più
malvagi, i più selvaggi tra gli sfruttatori(...). Questi vampiri si sono
arricchiti durante la guerra approfittando della miseria della gente(...).
Questi ragni si sono ingrassati a spese dei contadini impoveriti dalla
guerra e dei lavoratori affamati. Queste sanguisughe hanno bevuto il
sangue degli operai, diventando tanto più ricchi quanto più i lavoratori
morivano di fame nelle città e nelle fabbriche. Questi vampiri si sono
impossessati delle terre dei proprietari terrieri e continuano a farlo,
spesso schiavizzando i poveri contadini. Guerra spietata a questi kulaki!
A morte!"
(Nota: Vladimir Il'ic lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol 37,39-41)
O ancora, il criminale incitamento da parte di Lenin allo sterminio e
all'omicidio di massa:
"Compagni! L'insurrezione dei cinque distretti dei kulaki deve essere
spietatamente repressa. L'interesse dell'intera rivoluzione lo richiede
perchè ora l'ultima decisiva battaglia coi kulaki è in corso dappertutto.
Bisogna dare l'esempio.
1) Impiccate (impiccate senz'ombra di dubbio, cosicchè la gente possa
vedere) non meno di cento kulaki conosciuti, uomini ricchi, sanguisughe.
2) Rendere pubblici i loro nomi 
3) Sottraete loro tutto il grano
4) Prendete degli ostaggi, come vi ho spiegato nel telegramma di ieri.
fatelo in modo che la gente per continaia di verste [chilometri] possa
vedere, tremare, sapere, gridare: stanno strangolando e strangoleranno a
morte i vampiri kulaki. Telegrafate la conferma della ricevuta e
dell'esecuzione.
Vostro Lenin
Trovate delle persone veramente dure."
/////////
Aggiungo un brano di Robert Conquest (anche lui adeguatamente omaggiato
dal nostro Felix ingegnere informatico) che cita a sua volta Molotov:
"Il terrore seminato nelle aree rurali contro i contadini ebbe fondamento
nelle pretese dell'ideologia e del potere.L'ideologia voleva che la classe
ecomùnimoca dei piccoli proprietari terrieri venisse annientata; il potere
esigeva che i prodotti delle campagne finissero nelle mani dello Stato.
Più tardi Molotov commentò: "Dicono che Lenin avrebbe attuato la
collettivizzazione senza mietere tutte quelle vittime. Ma in che altro
modo si sarebbe potuta realizzare?". Probabilmente, aggiungeva Molotov,
Lenin l'avrebbe attuata prima: era più "rigido" di Stalin e spesso aveva
decretato "misure estreme rimproverando Stalin per la sua debolezza ed il
suo liberalismo"
R.Conquest, "Il secolo delle idee assassine", Mondadori, pag.113
/////////
Quindi torniamo a bomba: non interessa a nessuno qui approfondire le
personali opinioni di Cohen e men che meno dell'anonimo ingegner Felix su
Pipes, bensì sapere cosa Cohen (o altri autori che siano minimamente
autorevoli) possano dirci sulle direttive di Lenin sull'epurazione
spietata, sull'incitamento allo sterminio, sulla soppressione fisica degli
avversari, sulla persecuzione dei dissidenti, sulle impiccagioni dei
kulaki a centinaia, sull'uso dei campi di concentramento verso i semplici
sospetti, sull'autorizzazione all'uso dei gas venefici nella repressione
delle rivolte dei contadini.
Ossia tutte quelle caratteristiche dell'operato di Lenin che portarono
dritti dritti al grande Terrore.
saluti
sloamm


 nell'instaurazione del Terrore.
Evidentemente non a tutti garba l'idea che il ng, e questo ng in
particolare, non sia una semplice chat o un posto dove fare un gioco a
quiz televisivo dove chi arriva prima alla risposta e' piu' bravo di tutti
e vince un bel premio. 
L'idea di discutere la Storia in quel modo, ossia da chat, almeno a me non
mi appartiene. Poi altri possono pensarla diversamente. 
Tant'e' che qualcuno sia  su ICS e su ICSM ha provato a lanciare l'idea di
fare sfide in chat su argomenti storici. Ottenendo scarso successo e
qualche  risposta in cui gli veniva chiarito cosa vuol dire discutere di
Storia.
Non c'e' nessun "evitare accuratamente di rispondere" da parte mia a
quanto hai esposto in un altro punto del thread, come affermi in tono
sfida. 
Questo perche' almeno io sono impegnato in piu' thread sia altrove e sia
in IT.cultura.storia.moderato come sa chiunque che segue la vita del ng.
Quindi e' questione di priorita', educazione dell'interlocutore e
ovviamente tempo a disposizione. 
Tirare, parlo in generale, per la giacchetta un interlocutore per
sollecitarne ripetutamente una risposta beh almeno in questo ng lo trovo
infantile...
Rispondendo ad Arturo ho esposto cosa dice Cohen su Pipes e alcune
informazioni sulla sovietologia negli USA. 
Spero che oltre a sapere bene chi sia Pipes sei informato anche sul
curriculum vitae di Cohen.
Inoltre il materiale del "sitarello privato" che ho utilizzato non e'
inopportuno alla mia esposizione del discorso sui sovietologi, a maggior
ragione - e mi spiace per te - il signor Kreisel non parla a vanvera su
Volkogonov ma fa riferimenti diretti e precisi ai libri piu' noti di
Volkogonov evidenziandone delle perle che ne riduce - imho di parecchio -
il valore scientifico (cosa confermata anche dalle recensioni riportate
sempre in coda al mio post in reply al msg di Arturo o che puoi trovare da
te in internet)
Ovviamente ogniuno puo' tranquillamente decidere il valore di questi libri
e la validita' e serieta' come storico di questo signor Volkogonov. 
D'altra parte c'e' chi considera personaggi come Pisano' o Mattogno come
storici malgrado le sciocchezze che scrivono.
Sergio
P.s.: per la risposta al tuo primo post non ti preoccupare. Ci sara'. 


 P.s.: per la risposta al tuo primo post non ti preoccupare. Ci sara'. 
In questo caso, spero che parleremo unicamente di storia confrontando
fonti ed autori, senza scadere in polemiche, accuse e strepiti che non
servono a nessuno.
Saluti
sloamm


 fonte il barista di Ponte Milvio.
a me va benissimo purche' sappia citare da un libro indicando anche la
pagina e le fonti. Come ha fatto l'anonimo ingegner Felix che tanto hai
insultato (a proposito di chi insulta...)
Tu hai citato da un libro russo.
Devo dedurre che hai letto il testo di Lenin in russo? O forse hai
estrapolato quel brano da un altro libro? e se si da quale? sempre da Pipes?
E da che pagina? grazie per le informazioni.
sergio
