https://www.idcommunism.com/2025/01/the-crisis-of-soviet-history-of-stalin-period-and-what-we-should-do-about-it.htmlSpeech by Grover Furr
The history of the first workers’ state, the USSR, during its heroic period, when it was led by Joseph Stalin – that history is withheld from us. It is smothered by lies from dishonest and very influential sources.
How do we know this is so? What is the situation? Who are the liars? Why is this important? Finally, what should we do about it? The future of the world’s working class and the fight for an egalitarian world of what Marxist researcher Charles Andrews has called “No Rich, No Poor,” depends on what we do.
I began to discuss this question in an earlier article titled “Marxists Behaving Badly” which you can download from my Home Page. However, that was a very partial discussion of this enormous challenge to all of us. In my talk today I intend to confront this crisis more directly.
The Anti-Stalin Paradigm (ASP)
What I call the ASP is a special case of the anticommunist paradigm of history (ACP). In its basic formulation, the ACP frames the history of the last century upside down. The Western, imperialist countries are, supposedly, “democratic,” “free,” stand for “human rights.” The former socialist bloc countries, especially the Stalin-era Soviet Union, were “dictatorships,” “totalitarian,” “unfree,” “against human rights.” In reality, the opposite is the case.
According to the ASP Stalin was a bloodthirsty dictator who killed millions of Soviet citizens, engineered frameups against many communists, and committed innumerable “crimes.” This is all false. This paradigm is strictly enforced in the academic field of Soviet history and through it into the intellectual and semi-popular media, and then into the popular mass media. According to the ASP, it is considered illegitimate— outside the limits of respectable discussion – to disprove any crime of which Stalin has been accused.
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