I will use as the starting illustration of the Extreme Irony
of trying to rescue stalinism, first the case of the american
effort to get to paris to help the liberation of that city,
over and against the liberation of warsaw, where zhukov sat
on the vistula and watched the Polish Home Army DIE in the
streets, and sewers, while the Wehrmacht and Wafffen SS units
cleared out the armed opposition to the arrival of Stalin's
new Henchmen. Of all the countries in Eastern Europe that would
go 'red' the only one not directly controlled by the stalinists
would be Yugoslavia, and that was because they were able to keep
the Red Army from 'liberating' them.
I will once again raise the question of Solzhenytsin, and whether
or not we can now just totally discount 'the gulag archipelago'
and with it all of the unpleasant things that were said about the
stalinist model. Or are we to Presume that the Reason we can discount
Solzhenytsin is because he Opposes Stalinism, and hence is a dupe
of the AntiCommunists.
I fear that Grover is merely trying to 'rescue stalinism' for reasons
that he is unwilling to share with us, rather than his alledged notion
of creating some 'independent' analysis of the problems. He might as well
take the RushLimbiotic Argument that there is no 'real capitalism' while
Government Interferance such as the EPA/OEO/OSHA/IRS exist, and hence
that all of his complaints about the 'capitalist konpsirkii' rest upon
the threat of some Phantom Evil, and simply renew it with the happy thought
that there was No Problem, since TrueMarxism has never been implements.
As long as the analysis boils down to, those who Oppose the Stalinists
can not speak, because they dislike Stalinism as a Red Fascism, then there
can never be anything but mere Party Dogma Acceptance, which he alleges
to oppose.
What I find most personally amusing is that those of us who were
ColdWarriors throughout the fourty years of operations have come,
over the seasons, to appreciate the humour of our opposite numbers.
As I told folks, I bought 'Special Tasks' by Sudoplatov out of
'professional curtesies' - and in part to see how far things have
evolved in getting anything out of the Lubyanka Archives. And I must
confess to the re-affirmation of my faith in the human experience and
Irony - as I would read chunks of his work aloud to my lady friend and
giggle, as I knew the Feelings Far Too Well.
I will though concede that as a True Holy Believer in Stalin, Grover has
been more than willing to take on all comers, and defend the true faith
to the bitter end, in such a loving manifestion of the whole notion of
'the true believer', which I do recommend to anyone who did not get a
chance to read it when it was first out.
ciao
drieux