Operation Barbarossa: The 75th Anniversary of the Nazi Invasion of the Soviet Union

[Александр]

John Newman jnn at synfin.org

> Hitler and Stalin
> were both mad men.
>
> i love this nasty maneuver when mixing TOGETHER (as if they were the same):
lie AND truth //
black AND white //
destroyer AND savior
...

a few words about the smear campaign against Stalin for the last 70 years.
(information not from your TV/papers/great propaganda bibliographic book):

*Let's Be Honest - Stalin Was Less of a Criminal Than Churchill, Truman,
and LBJ*

"It's time to recover the truth about Stalin and the USSR from a cesspool
of hostile propaganda"

We have long maintained that the truth about the USSR, in general, and
particularly the Stalin period, has long been the object of the most
cynical, mean-spirited, and comprehensive propaganda effort ever seen in
the annals of history.

For reasons of sheer class interest among the plutocrats of the West, the
business elites that still rule most of the so-called “capitalist
democracies,” the demonization of Stalin was a necessity, a campaign only
briefly interrupted by World War Two and quickly resumed literally a few
hours after its ending.

The Western elites —with the American ruling circles in the lead—correctly
saw an enemy in Stalin. They could not bribe him and they could not
intimidate him. Nor could they easily topple him, as they had done (and
still do) countless times with weaker, “inconvenient leaders.” What’s more,
Stalin was at the helm of a powerful nation and titular leader of an
ideology directly opposed to their indispensable economic system.
Occasional diplomacy aside, they hated him. He and his nation stood in the
way of their plans for global hegemony. So the the venom had to flow and
did—abundantly. And in that sordid enterprise the capitalist elites found
countless allies, not to mention the usual battalions of ignorant, useful
idiots.

As any propaganda student will attest, when vilifying a nation’s policies
and social values, it’s far easier (and effective) if the propagandist aims
the Big Lie machine at its leader. As we have seen in recent times with
Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Fidel Castro, Iran and North
Korea’s leaders, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and finally Putin—among many
others (the empire is never lacking in “dangerous enemies”)—the character
assassination of a leader is an old tactic to prepare the perennially
benighted home population for an attack on the targeted nation.

>From this perspective it’s not difficult to see that if the Ministry of
Truth could swiftly complete the total demonization of Vladimir Putin—a
figure in good standing merely 3 years ago—and not even an avowed
socialist, one can only imagine what outrageous fabrications they could
have concocted (and did) to cordon off the image of Stalin, an outspoken
communist, over several decades. This made eminent sense to the West’s
doctrinal gatekeepers. Given the identification of Stalin’s long rule with
the Soviet Union at its most embattled, the blackening of Stalin’s name
served an important purpose: it provided the Western propagandists an
invaluable shorthand—an “irrefutable symbol” of communism’s putative
evil—to block the very idea of genuine socialism as an option for humanity.

The preceding is obviously not to argue that Stalin was a flawless leader,
or a saint who just happened to have a powerful army, or that he didn’t
make some serious mistakes. He did. However, the most elementary fairness
demands that we ask, which world historical figure confronted with
enormously difficult choices emerges today (barring self-serving
ideological propaganda) unscathed from close and impartial examination?

Judging Stalin by the context in which he had to act, and even more
important, the purposes he served, he was arguably no worse, morally, than
most Western leaders, and by any rational measure, probably a damn sight
better.  For who are these distinguished gentlemen who have led the West
for over a century now?

Churchill, the most revered member in the club, was an unapologetic racist
and imperialist who in the 1920s endorsed the policy of RAF bombing and
gassing Iraqi villages (Mesopotamia) into submission, for for failure to
pay their assigned tribute. JFK, Lyndon Johnson, and Nixon pursued an
illegitimate, barbaric, genocidal war in Vietnam that remains one of the
horrors of modern imperialism. Truman dropped the bomb on the Japanese as a
way to keep the Soviets “in line,” making America so far the only nation to
have used nuclear weapons on a civilian population. And during the postwar,
the US tentacles, chiefly acting through the CIA and its clients, have
managed to murder and repress tens of millions of people around the
globe—in all latitudes and scores of nations, from the Philippines, to
Indonesia to Chile, to Nicaragua, to Iran, the Congo, Korea, the entire
Middle East, literally bathed in blood—always in pursuit of geostrategic
advantage, and the suppression of popular democracy in order to better
permit the continuation and maximization of corporate profit. So much for
the inherent perfidy of communism and angelic innocence of capitalism.

The record is by now so huge and consistent, the hypocrisy so staggering,
that we can state categorically there is not a single case in which America
has used its immense diplomatic and military power to back a genuine
democratic leader (such people are immediately branded “communists” and
dealt accordingly) or assisted people struggling for freedom from class
oppression. It’s a vile and hypocritical record that continues to this day,
thanks to the complete brainwash to which the American population has been
subjected as a measure of pre-emptive pacification. The whole thing is
amply documented so there’s no point in even trying to refute it.

In any case, recovering the truth about Stalin and the USSR from the
cesspool of hostile propaganda in which the enemies of socialism situated
it, assisted by the perennially misguided and often fanatical
anti-communist and especially anti-Stalinist leftists, is no task for the
weakhearted.

That’s why we salute our colleagues at Russia Insider, and its editor,
Charlie Bausman, in particular, for their decision to publish Grover Furr.
Letting this scholar speak to a larger audience is a badly needed blow for
truth —especially in the current context of reckless warmongering on
Russia’s and China’s doorstep. The Big Lie must be defeated if a lasting
peace is ever to be attained by humanity.

http://russia-insider.com/en/history/lets-be-honest-stalin-was-less-criminal-churchill-truman-and-lbj/ri8303
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