Against Grover Furr, Against Stalinism, John
John 1
year ago
A short
piece written against the Stalinist historian Grover Furr.
The main source for most of
the Stalinist falsification of history (for example with the unapologetically
Stalinist CPGB-ML) is the so-called ‘historian’ Grover Furr.
Dishonest. Any person who
writes works of history is a “historian.”
I only have one of his
books, the infamous ‘Khrushchev Lied’, and as a history student I feel
compelled to take apart this travesty of scholarship
As you’ll see, the
“travesty” is this dishonest and incompetent “criticism.”
and therefore hopefully do
my bit to counter Stalinist lies.
This is the logical fallacy
of name-calling. I am not a Stalinist. And if I were, that would not disprove
what I write.
For context, this book is meant to be a
systematic debunking of every claim made by Nikita Khrushchev during the
‘Secret Speech’ at which he denounced Stalin in 1956.
Firstly, I want to point
out the general flaws in Furr’s historical method, and then I will go into more
specific examples. The first and most egregious flaw in his method, is that he takes confessions made under torture to be accurate.
This is a lie. I do not do
this. Notice that ‘John’ does not quote any passage where I do it.
What’s more, ‘John’ does
not give any examples of “confessions made under torture” that I analyze, much
less that I “take … to be accurate.”
The absurdity of this should be immediately
apparent. He himself argues that the mere fact one has been tortured does not
establish innocence. This is of course true, but it is not justification
to take confessions made under torture seriously.
This is false. All evidence
must be “taken seriously.” That does not mean that it is true, or false, but
that it must be analyzed – studied – carefully, not dismissed.
In the case of torture, a good historian would
consider it neither an implication of guilt or innocence, and weigh up the
other evidence available to us to decide the truth of the matter. Furr, of
course, does not do this.
Lie. This is exactly what I
do.
This fact alone should be enough to discredit
him. The second great flaw in his method, is that he never considers the
evidence presented by other historians that runs counter to his narrative.
This is a lie. I study
other historians’ works carefully.
More serious historians
(i.e. historians who are actually professors of history, which Furr is not) of
course have over the decades compiled veritable mountains of archival
evidence which support the accepted historical narrative – that Stalin ran the
USSR as a personal dictator, that the charges during the Show Trials were
fabricated, that the Katyn Massacre happened, and so on.
This is a lie. There is
no such evidence! ‘John’ is lying here.
(omitting Katyn, which I do
not discuss in _Khrushchev Lied_, since Khrushchev never raised the subject.)
Furr does not even consider
this evidence. Therefore, we are forced to choose between the minute amount of
evidence compiled by a fringe, politically motivated amateur historian, and the
enormous amount of evidence compiled by hundreds of professional historians,
dozens of whom are famous and well respected within the scholarly community,
and who are not politically motivated anti-communists in most cases –
This is a lie. There is no
such evidence, either an ‘enormous amount,” or – in fact – any evidence at all!
In addition, the scholarly
community is indeed strongly anticommunist and anti-Stalin.
Stalinists often claim that
all opposing historians are ‘anti-communists’, which is nothing short of a
joke, and was only ever really true during the height of the Cold War. The
final major issue with Furr is that the evidence he compiles very often does
not actually even prove what he is trying to argue.
This is a lie. ‘John’ does
not give EVEN ONE example of this.
Sometimes it is almost
completely unrelated, or on other occasions is heavily open to interpretation,
and is not the ‘case closed’ he presents it to be in his populist
introductions: “every revelation of Stalin’s crimes… is provably false” or
“virtually everything we thought we knew about the Stalin years turns out to be
wrong”. Such is the style of this ‘serious academic’.
Now, I will give some
examples of the flaws in his method. This is not intended to be a complete
debunking of every claim Furr makes, but simply a representative sample. After
all, unfortunately it takes a lot more time refuting bullshit than it does
inventing it. So then, let us look at some examples of Furr using the laughable
tactic of assuming confessions given under torture to be true. When
discussing the shootings of the Old Bolsheviks Kamenev and Zinoviev, he states
“no evidence has ever emerged to suggest [their] confessions were…[not]
genuine”.
That is true.
And his evidence that they
were guilty? A letter written by Stalin, the transcript of their
interrogations, and their appeals to the courts for clemency. What
marvellous sources!
‘John’s’ criticism is
nonsense. When ALL the evidence we have – including the appeals for clemency,
published only in 1992 and never intended to be made public – point towards
guilt, there is NO basis to conclude they were innocent.
I suppose that if we consulted the letters of
Hitler, and Gestapo interrogations, we would also find ‘irrefutable proof’ of a
Judeo-Bolshevik plot to undermine Germany… So then, if we take his (dubious)
word that there is no direct proof they were innocent, and also that the only
sources suggesting their guilt are somewhat unreliable, we need to look at the
other evidence available to us. Taking Zinoviev, he had been a member of the
RSDLP since 1901, and had sided with Lenin in the 1903 Bolshevik/Menshevik
split. He had been a member of the Politiburo from its formation, although he
fell out with Lenin in October 1917. He was quickly rehabilitated and became
chair of the Petrograd Soviet and of the Third International. Does this
sound like a man who would lead a ‘terrorist bloc’ to overthrow the Soviet
Union? No, clearly not. So the balance of probability is firmly against Furr.
False and incompetent. A
recitation of someone’s past is not evidence that this person did not commit
some crime or other.
In addition, these
conspirators did not consider their conspiracy against the Stalin leadership to
be a crime.
Of course, no consideration
is taken of these facts. A similar example is Furr’s assertion that Trotsky was a Nazi collaborator,
We have plenty of evidence
that Trotsky was a Nazi collaborator. But it is not in Khrushchev Lied, the book that ‘John’ claims to be studying here.
his so-called ‘evidence’
being the memoirs of Sudoplatov (the NKVD leader responsible for Trotsky’s
assassination and later found guilty of crimes against humanity for testing
poisons on human beings), and a Gestapo document that does not, in fact, even
mention Trotsky or his allies – more on this later.
The next major issue with
Furr is his lack of consideration of opposing evidence.
This is a lie. There is NO
‘opposing evidence.’ There are claims that these men were innocent, but
no evidence that they were.
A classic example of this is when Furr gives
some anecdotes from various memoirs that say Stalin was receptive to
alternative opinions (these anecdotes are then of course extrapolated to prove
that he was always like this). The mass of evidence compiled by other
historians which runs directly counter to this narrative is never mentioned.
This is a lie. There IS no
such evidence, much less a “mass” of it. ‘John’ does not identify EVEN ONE
example of such evidence!
The most absurd instance of this is when Furr
claims quite categorically (it is in boldface in my copy of the book) that “there
is not one single example, during Stalin’s whole life, of his ‘removing’
someone from the collective leadership because that person disagreed with
Stalin[!]”
This is true – see below.
I would think that Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev,
Bukharin, Rykov etc would have something to say to that!
Not one of these men was
removed from the leadership because he disagreed with Stalin.
Pretty much every claim Furr makes is brought
down by the fact that he ignores the overwhelming weight of opposing
evidence
This is a lie. There is NO
opposing evidence. No wonder ‘John’ does not cite any!
, and so I do not have to
go into more detail here.
Finally, there are the
issues with Furr’s evidence not actually even proving his point, at all. As
mentioned earlier, an example of this is his assertion that Trotsky was a Nazi
collaborator. So, let me reproduce the text of his evidence (which is apparently
so weighty that no other evidence is needed). It is taken from a Nazi military
court, apparently: “at the beginning of 1938, during the Spanish Civil War, the
accused learned in his official capacity that a rebellion against the local red
government in the territory of Barcelona was being prepared with the
co-operation of the German secret service. This information, together with that
of Pöllnitz, was transmitted by him to the Soviet Russian embassy in Paris”.
For context, Pöllnitz was a Russian spy. Let us analyse this evidence. Firstly,
at no point in the text is it confirmed that the ‘information’ was true – it
merely states that this information was relayed by a spy. Considering I have
read books on the Spanish Civil War and have never heard mention of such a
plot, I am doubtful as to whether this ‘information’ was accurate.
This logical fallacy is
called the argument from ignorance.
It is a shame Furr does not
provide any further material.
I have done so. See my
article "Leon Trotsky and the Barcelona 'May Days' of 1937." Journal
of Labor and Society, 2019; 1-20.At https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/gf_trotsky_maydays_0519.pdf
However, more importantly, at no point in the
text is Trotsky, or his allies, implicated in any way. He does not even get a
mention. I believe Furr is probably implying here that the Nazis were behind
the clashes between the POUM/CNT and the Stalinist PCE in that year. Yet if so,
he betrays shocking historical illiteracy. Not only were the POUM and CNT
anti-fascist militias who fought against the Nazis, but neither of these groups
was under the control of Trotsky anyway!
‘John’ is ignorant again.
See the article of mine above. Trotskyists were the leading force in the POUM,
according to Erwin Wolf, Trotsky’s emissary in Spain.
Sometimes, Furr takes this
even further. For example, in ‘proving’ that Stalin did not order mass
repressions (something which we have overwhelming evidence for),
This is a lie. We do not
have “overwhelming evidence” that Stalin ordered ‘mass repressions.’
the best he can muster is
evidence proving Khrushchev to have been a hypocrite on this issue. I fail to
see how Khrushchev condoning mass repressions means that Stalin didn’t order
them – this is a logical fallacy par excellence.
In conclusion, Furr’s
historical method is so badly compromised that essentially everything he says
can be doubted. In this essay I have only picked out particular instances, yet every
single controversial claim Furr makes in this book can be easily picked apart
by even the dullest of readers.
This is a lie. ‘John’ has
not successfully criticized even one statement I have made.
I will finish by paraphrasing Bordiga – “if
the flamethrower in the archives isn’t halted, not even Stalin’s moustache is
going to be spared.”
‘John’ is
relying on the fact that his readers (a) are already biased against Stalin; (b)
have not studied Khrushchev Lied or
any of my other works; and (c) do not know how to evaluate evidence.
Grover Furr
February 16,
2021
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