how thoroughly unsurprising that dave essel doesn't find any actual lies but merely analysis he disagrees with.
judging by your introduction, lr, i was expecting to read phrases such as
"in the ussr, black was white and white was black" or "stalin mastered control of the weather"

unfortunately, the stuff that so thoroughly outraged mr essel isn't really all that different from the pc claptrap that appears in american, canadian, and european history textbooks

Stalin’s personality was a sort of black&white perception of reality (accompanied by a categorisation of the people around him into ‘friend’/’foe’), a feeling that his milieu was hostile, cruelty and a need to dominate.

Marvelous… bet the kids taking history don’t take medicine.

If one turns to the descriptions of Sociopaths, Narcisistrs, and Borderline Personalities, one gets a description of Stalin in more detail.

The people around him are ‘relationships’. / Traits involving relationships

Unstable, chaotic intense relationships characterized by splitting (see below).

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

Splitting: the self and others are viewed as "all good" or "all bad." Someone with BPD said, "One day I would think my doctor was the best and I loved her, but if she challenged me in any way I hated her. There was no middle ground as in like. In my world, people were either the best or the worst. I couldn't understand the concept of middle ground."


Great difficulty trusting people and themselves.

Sensitivity to criticism or rejection.

Heavy need for affection and reassurance

Shifts in mood lasting only a few hours.

Anger that is inappropriate, intense or uncontrollable

compulsive spending, gambling, eating disorders, shoplifting, reckless driving, compulsive sexual behavior.

Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom. Someone with BPD said, "I remember describing the feeling of having a deep hole in my stomach. An emptiness that I didn't know how to fill. My therapist told me that was from almost a "lack of a life". The more things you get into your life, the more relationships you get involved in, all of that fills that hole. As a borderline, I had no life. There were times when I couldn't stay in the same room with other people. It almost felt like what I think a panic attack would feel like."

Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Distorted thoughts/perceptions, particularly in terms of relationships and interactions with others.

Hypersensitivity, meaning an unusual sensitivity to nonverbal communication. Gunderson notes that this can be confused with distortion if practitioners are not careful (somewhat similar to Herman's statement that, while survivors of intense long-term trauma may have unrealistic notions of the power realities of the situation they were in, their notions are likely to be closer to reality than the therapist might think).

Impulsive behaviors that often embarrass the borderline later.
Poor social adaptation: in a way, borderlines tend not to know or understand the rules regarding performance in job and academic settings.



Sums up a lot of the Russian leaders no? (including putin)

STALIN’S JEWISH VICTIMS
Joshua Rubenstein, Vladimir Pavlovich Naumov, Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
It is part of the Yale's Annals of Communism series and in association with the United States Holocaust Museum, this work details Stalin's anti-Semitic fury outside the better-known 'doctors' plot,' in the last years of the tyrant's life.

In the spring and summer of 1952, 15 Soviet Jews, including five prominent Yiddish writers and poets, were secretly tried and convicted. Multiple executions followed in the basement of the Lubyanka prison. The defendants were falsely charged with treason and espionage because of their involvement in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee that Stalin himself had created to rally support for the Soviet regime during World War II. The war over, he disbanded it as Jews fell victim to his paranoia.

For many years, a host of myths surrounded the case against the committee. Stalin's Secret Pogrom presents an abridged version of the long-suppressed transcript of the trial, revealing the Kremlin's evil machinations. (DKR)

ANONYMOUS:

Hmmmm, OK. So you mean that if America publishes a history book that says all Russians are cowards and incompetents, since this is just a matter of opinion it's perfectly fine for American kids to read, right?

How thoroughly unsurprising that you choose to rationalize Russian failure, blindness and self-destruction. Why do you hate Russians that much? What did they ever do to you?

By the late 1980’s, after a long and expensive struggle, the USSR has essentially achieved strategic parity with the US and NATO in nuclear and conventional arms. But since the capitulation of the USSR by Gorbachev, and the subsequent disintegration of both the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, the balance of power has shifted decidedly in favor of the US and NATO. Indeed many of the former Warsaw Pact countries (and even former Soviet Republics) had switched sides and were now in NATO’s orbit themselves, in direct violation of the many assurances that were given to Russia at the end of the Cold War, which assurances were given by the West to Russia precisely in exchange for Russia’s agreement to end the Cold War (to “tear down the wall” and so forth). Indeed the US is now moving as fast as it can, both through its NATO alliance and outside of it, to complete its encirclement and destruction of Russia. To this end the US and its allies are busy installing new and hitherto unheard of forms of armaments all around Russia. (The so called “anti-Iranian missile shield” in the former Warsaw Pact countries of Poland and Czechoslovakia is only the latest – and an most egregious – example of this general trend of belligerent and reckless Western actions directed against Russia and her most vital national security interests.)

The USSR had always consistently maintained a “no first strike” policy pertaining to nuclear weapons, through the 1980’s, and the USSR called on the West and NATO to reciprocate on many occasions (a pledge which the West, lead by the USA, steadfastly refused to make). When Russia had substantially equal numbers of conventional arms there was no reason for her to attack with nuclear arms preemptively, and no benefit to be had from such an attack.

The situation of course is radically different now, and there is no way that Russia can possibly match the combined massive military buildup of the US and its NATO allies. These aggressive and belligerent powers now encircle Russia from every side, and they daily are drawing an ever tighter noose around Russia’s neck. Russia cannot match these combined powers “plane for plane” or “bomb for bomb.” Therefore it is inevitable and essential that Russia’s “no first nuclear strike” policy needed to be abandoned, and Russia needed to change her strategy, to put the direct threat of massive nuclear retaliation front and center, in order to secure her basic security and sovereignty and to protect her vital national interests.

If the leaders in the West have been too drunk with their own successes to listen to what Russia has been saying more and more loudly in this regard, then they are indeed recklessly gambling with the futures of their own civilizations and peoples. Russia is not bluffing. Make no mistake about it: if Russia must be destroyed as a sovereign civilization, with its own sphere of influence and its own interests, then Russia is fully prepared to take all of her historical enemies down with her. Let the God be the judge of all.

As long as Russia retains the capacity to deliver an essentially catastrophic nuclear attack against the combined population centers of the NATO, EU and United States, simultaneously, those parties will be extremely reluctant to countenance any thoughts of attacking Russia, together or separately. Indeed this threat is now really the only thing that stands between Russia and her destruction at the hands of these belligerent powers.

Russia must make it her first national priority, above every other priority, to absolutely and positively insure the continued viability of her strategic nuclear weapons, in the present time and into the future. Russia must also revise her strategic doctrines to include the first use of massive nuclear retaliation early in the course of the future conflict. Russia has no choice in the matter. It is not about Russia taking the decision for first-use of nuclear weapons, in order to protect her territorial integrity and her vital interests; that decision has already been made and it is irrevocable. Rather, it is about the likelihood that the threat from the West will rise to the level that it will trigger such an inevitable response from Russia, and how such an outcome might still be averted, if it is possible. Russia can only avert such an outcome by remaining strong and immovable in the face of ever increasing Western provocations against her. There is no other way forward for Russia, and the only alternative to it is the destruction of Russia's enemies, which we must also accept might involve the destruction of Russia herself. Death is preferable to slavery, but the willingness to die for freedom sometimes makes the sacrifice of life unnecessary. This is the only hope we can have.

I am not sure that anything can be done to avert certain nuclear war at the present time. It does seem little late for that. Both of the parties are set on their courses and these courses can only bring a massive collision and ultimate destruction to both sides. My opinion is that this is the historical destiny of the world and it is unavoidable. We will get there by the high road or by the low road. But still a decent respect for the opinions of mankind, and the God, at least requires one to do what he can, and say what he can, to avert it. But that done and that said, then let it commence! By all means, bring it on!

Russia will never allow herself to be destroyed by the West, and the West will (apparently) settle for nothing less than Russia’s complete annihilation (at least as a sovereign and independent political force in the world, with her own vital interests and her own sphere of influence). This is a recipe for a future nuclear war, and it could not be more tailor-made to order for this purpose.

It’s ironic that the end of the Cold War has made a catastrophic nuclear war more likely rather than less likely; and indeed nuclear war appears to be all but unavoidable now. In my opinion history can only record that the coming global war was only the most tragic and dramatic aspect of Gorbachev’s capitulation to the West and the subsequent collapse of the USSR (which events in turn were ultimately rooted in the reactionary and unenlightened polices of the US Reagan Administration against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). History and human evolution cannot rise again to the peaks they once achieved until everything is first smashed down and ruined, unfortunately. But there appears no other way forward for us. As we at least have that power still in our hands, to save humanity from a fate worse than death. It would be immoral for us NOT to use this power and to simply capitulate without a fight to the satanic global cabal that now confronts us and which now threatens to consume the entire planet and all of humanity.

All that is left now is for history to take its course, and everything in the fullness of time! We are not afraid to die for our dearest values and beliefs!

Misha, what page out of the new Russian history book was that commentary on?

Old Uncle Joe Stalin was a hero of the Soviet Union and of the Russian people. The original Bolshevik revolution was really a Jewish conspiracy. It was revealed very matter-of-factly in many books and articles at the time of the Russian Revolution (which books and articles have since been suppressed in the "free" Western media), that some 85 percent of the Bolshevik leaders were Jewish in origin, and this was in Russia, a country that had at most a 2 percent Jewish population. Was this Jewish domination of the so-called "Russian" revolution a mere coincidence? Hardly.

Hitler, that great hater of the Jews may have been insane, and I quite agree that he was insane; but still the Fuhrer could not have been completely mad, because could still tie his own shoes, and he also apparently still remembered the Jewish origins of the Bolsheviks to his east, in Russia. During WWII the German Air Force distributed millions propaganda fliers over Russia and Ukraine that urged the people to rise up and revolt against their "Bolshevik Jewish Masters."

If the Bolshevik revolution represented the Jewish theft of the Russian state from the Russian people, then the rise of Joseph Stalin represented the theft of that state right back again by the Russians. This is in truth the one "unforgivable crime" for which Joseph Stalin can never be acquitted by the Jews. (If Stalin did anything worse than this, it was nothing worse than something a Bill Clinton might have done.)

The feud between Stalin and the Jews still persists to this day, even though Stalin, the man himself, is long dead. Stalin was apparantly such a significant and traumatic figure to the Jews that today they still feel the need to shadow box with the ghost of the long-dead dictator.

Amongst left-Jews this anti-Stalinism most often takes the form of Trotsky-revisionism. According to this legend Communism itself was not so bad, at least not in the form that the Jews Marx and Trotsky advocated; it was only when the big bad Stalin deposed Trotsky and took over the party that communism suddenly became "bad" and "totalitarian," just in an instant, just like that! Poof!

Amongst right-Jews anti-Stalinism more commonly takes the ritualistic form of simple hatred for all things communistic (which conveniently forgets entirely communism's Jewish origins -- Karl Marx was the first communist as well as the first Jewish communist.)

In this "right-form" Jewish anti-Stalinism sometimes takes the exaggerated form of an excessive advocacy of dog-eat-dog capitalism (Milton Friedman), Social Darwinism (Mike Savage) or outright libertarianism (Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand).

More rarely Jewish anti-Stalinism takes the rather childish, adolescent and simplistic form in which it is expressed here in this website, which appears as little more than an irrational and violent hatred for all things Russian and/or Slavic in origin (especially Christian, or of or having to do with the Eastern Orthodox Church.

According to an old Russian folk-tale, the mere sight of the dead Georgian's Mustache is to a Jew as garlic is to a vampire.

The irrational hatred of the Russian patriot Joseph Stalin comes only from Jewish quarters and from nowhere else, and from there it spreads everywhere else, through the Jewish-controlled organs of the mass media in the West. This is the real source of all of the the alleged "atrocities" that Stalin supposedly committed. These atrocities do not have their origin in any actual historical events that ever occurred in human experience. These Jewish-sewn anti-Stalin legends have grown by the decade since Stalin's death, and by now they must be growing annually, if not quarterly and monthly.

How many innocent people did old Uncle Joe supposedly kill for no reason? Remind me again please? Is it ten million by now? I suppose it must be up to at least 100 million by now, because it was already up to ten million the last time I checked, and that was over a year ago. Or is it a trillion by now? Oh, I keep forgetting!

All of this is slander which is directed against Stalin by modern Jewish conspirators, and not randomly and for no reason. They are determined to revise Russian and Soviet history by maligning the record of Joseph Stalin, the true and best patriot of Russia.

The Russian people know better, which is why Stalin is a perennial favorite in Russia. Here is something that literally makes the Jews go insane each time they think about it or hear about it: Fully half the Russian population would take Stalin back right now, in an instant, even above Vlad Putin, as the new Czar of Russia, if it was in any way possible.

A person needs to understand nothing more than what I have just written above to understand the otherwise irrational existence of a website such as this one, which comes from nowhere, and which is going nowhere, and which has the title "La Russophobe." Of coure it has no apparent raison d'etre other than a total dedication to the irrational and committed hatred of the Russian people, Russian culture and all things pertaining to Russia.

ANONYMOUS:
Is your surname Filippov by any chance? You write just like him.
I could not have seen "analysis I disagreed with" in this book. It should be perfectly clear to the intelligent reader that my complaint about the book is the absence of analysis and its replacement by the mendacious claptrap I analysed.
You can't make my analysis go away so easily. You see, I don't say things like "in the ussr, black was white and white was black". I'm not the one claiming that my country "mastered the production of the Zhiguli" when it fact it bought a licence from Fiat. And anyone who lies about such a piffling little thing is going to lie even worseabout things that actually matter. And that is not how historians behave, that is how propagandists do. This may be a difficult concept for you to grasp, given your upbringing, but there IS a difference.

MISHA:
Your comment is a whole article in itself and has little to do with the Filippov's book except that everything that happens today is history in the making and the talk here is of a history book.
I would like to draw your attention, however, to the similarities between your mode of argumentation and Filippov's, in particular with regard to the introduction as fact in support of your arguments of things that are far from proven:

e.g.
"Indeed the US is now moving as fast as it can [...] to complete its encirclement and destruction of Russia."
This is the official policy of the USA and you are aware of this? Got a letter from Congress, did you?

"aggressive and belligerent powers now encircle Russia from every side"
Who says they are aggressive and belligerent? Personally I think the problem is that they are way too supine when dealing with Prostitutin's Russia. It also makes me wonder if you know the meaning of words, another Filippov trait.

"it is inevitable and essential that Russia’s “no first nuclear strike” policy needed to be abandoned"
Now that's what can only be called aggressive and belligerent, the true voice of бедной, обиженной, миролюбивой России.

"As long as Russia retains the capacity to deliver an essentially catastrophic nuclear attack against the combined population centers of the NATO, EU and United States, simultaneously [...] this threat is now really the only thing that stands between Russia and her destruction at the hands of these belligerent powers"
There you go again with your peace-loving statements. I defy you to find a statement of such vicious aggressiveness outside mad and completely uninfluential fringe groups in the West.

"Death is preferable to slavery, but the willingness to die for freedom sometimes makes the sacrifice of life unnecessary."
I call that having your cake and eating it. This is an excellently brief illustration of Russia's main aim these days.

"I am not sure that anything can be done to avert certain nuclear war at the present time."
If it's certain, mate, by definition it can't be averted. Your article is riddled with flawed logic like this. Flawed logic is bad for one's thinking. No wonder poor Russia is busy getting nowhere as usual. Please go back to your day job advising the Kremlin and thus hasten the day Russia collapses entirely and the Russian people get yet another not very deserved chance of bringing in a decent government.

Misha: You miss the point entirely of this blog. Hate of the Russian people? Have you looked at the latest poll question? Last time I looked "Yes, the Russian people were worth risking one's life for" still led. As for if the Russian people prefer Stalin over the Vladiator as czar, the world really wouldn't care. if it was a free, democratic election. Only problem with such a scenario is that an informed, educated, and "free" people would NOT vote for a tyrant.

A world leader, any world leader, including your beloved Stalin has failed their responsibilty to their people when they use their power for their own purpose and gain. You call him Uncle Joe, well I ask you Misha, would you as a head of the household allow your children to starve, would you beat them while they starve? Or would you, as a good father-figure go out and bust your butt to bring food to the table and clothes for your little one's back. And don't try to tell me that is what 'Uncle Joe' was attempting to do. He, and so many others, who claim to love their country(Name your country of choice), do nothing but rape it.

I’m sensitive to your remarks and I do hear what you are saying. I reread my previous post and it’s probably a bit true that I went overboard here or there. Probably some of my remarks might even be construed as anti-Semitic. While that is certainly not true I could so how someone could form such an impression from my remarks. I want to make it clear that it is not my intention to say anything that is hurtful or harmful to any particular race, creed or religion (or whatever); because I basically do not believe in that nor do I support those who do that. I probably should not have posted some of those remarks, such as the one about Stalin’s mustache. In retrospect it was wrong and regret it. But the essential fact is that there was something of a conflict between Stalin and Soviet Jews. This does color the perception of Stalin by modern Jews. To state these facts is only to state the obvious, and carefully avoiding this subject for fear of offending someone is not a valid method of historical inquiry.

If there’s one irony to Stalin’s conflict with the Jews it would probably be that Stalin himself appears to be basically unaware of it, at least until much later in his life, when he was near to his own death. Which is to say that whatever Stalin may have been he most certainly not an Adolph Hitler. Hitler had a pathological Antisemitism and hatred for the Jews as one of the defining aspects of his life and his philosophy. There is no evidence of such a thing in Stalin. The Jews in Russia were never persecuted as an entire class, confined to concentration camps, etc. Indeed Soviet Jews were over-represented in the highest paid and most prestigious occupations in Soviet Russia throughout the history of the USSR, both during and after the time of Stalin (I’m speaking here of doctors, university professorships, film directors, and so forth.) In the early days of the USSR, the Jews, far from being a persecuted minority were dramatically overrepresented in the leadership ranks of the Bolshevik party. (Where Jews made up about 2 percent of the Soviet population, they represented in excess of 80 percent of the top leadership and party positions in the USSR.)

Whatever Stalin was he was not a rabid anti-Semite, and it would be wrong to rally to Stalin’s cause, on the basis of Antisemitism. Stalin would have had to deal with the Jews in the top leadership positions of the communist party constantly. Stalin was married to Jewish women. He was surrounded by Jews and interacted with them on a daily basis, and he never betrayed even the slightest hint of the sort of mad Antisemitism we see for example in Hitler.

In case there is still any misunderstanding, I feel the need to state emphatically that I did not intend to make hurtful or anti-Semitic remarks. However, upon a 2nd reading of the words which I acknowledge came from my own hand, I do see that I did that. There is noting more I can do except to say I am sorry for that. There is no one holding a gun over my head nor any possibility of my suffering recriminations for what I write here. The next day I felt a bit bad about what I wrote. I am sorry for writing it. But apart from my “over enthusiasm” there are still valid historical points to be made, and such points must not be suppressed by an overzealous sensitivity for the feelings of any group. But that said I vow to do better, in the rest of this post and any future posts. I hope my heartfelt apology for any offense which I have given will be accepted, as it is sincere and genuine.

On the surface discussions about Joseph Stalin’s struggles with the Trotskyites, the alleged “Doctor’s plot” to poison Stalin and other events might seem like revisiting ancient history, and such discussions might seem to serve little purpose. But such an historical understanding is invaluable, because so little has changed since Stalin’s time. The struggle that Stalin waged is in essence the same struggle still being waged in Russia today. Now like then the battle still rages for the control of Russia. The outcome will determine whether Russia will be ruled by Russians, with a Russian and Orthodox perspective, or whether Russia will be ruled by hostile foreign powers, and those with an essentially Semitic and alien world outlook.

To understand the events in modern Russia in this context is to grasp the one essential element necessary for understanding everything else. Such an understanding alone gives the reason for the shrill campaign of lies and smear directed against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his administration. Joseph Stalin was first the victim of the smear and now Putin is. Of course they are not yet claiming that Putin killed millions of innocent people or that he roasts young children alive and eat them, or any of the other lies they now spread about Stalin. But Putin is still alive and a member of our present generation, so we would all know it was a lie. But just give them enough time and they will be saying the same things about Putin.

Putin’s great sin is his idea of “sovereign democracy,” which holds that Russia ought to be democratic, but that Russian democracy must be a democracy by of and for the Russian people, without the interferences by foreign influences in Russia’s democratic institutions and processes.

As Russia has only recently emerged as the new kid on the block in the democratic world, Russia’s democratic institutions are still quite immature and undeveloped. They are still babies, and still in need of some protection and oversight by the only element inside Russia which presently has both the motive and the means to insure Russia’s successful transition to a sovereign democracy. (Mainly this “protective” task falls to Russia’s state security agencies, which have retained a remarkable degree of continuity even in the midst of all the other turmoil taking place in Russia for the past 15 years.)

Russia’s democracy might still be an infant child, but the enemies of Russia are anything but babes in the woods. Russia is facing is a well-organized and well-funded coordinated campaign by the Western foreign intelligence agencies to destroy the Russian state from inside, by penetrating and controlling the institutions of Russian democracy, while they are still too wobbly to stand on their own two feet.

Russia’s historical enemies certainly have not just “disappeared”, or finally “buried the hatchet”, simply because Russia fell on hard times for a short period. For them Russia’s misfortune represents nothing less than a once-in-a-lifetime chance to finally drive the nails into Russia’s coffin and to prevent her from ever rising up again.

The period of Russian turmoil during the immediate post-communist period was the period of unprecedented historical opportunity for Russia’s enemies and a chance for them to attempt to penetrate Russia and gain control over the Russian state, from within. They also realized that there was but one chance for success for this project, but if Russia succeeded in blocking their efforts, such an incredible opportunity would be unlikely come their way again any time soon, if ever.

This has lead to an almost frenzied level of action by the Western intelligence agencies (and the NGO’s that act as their front organizations in Russia) to engage in operations directed against Russia. One can almost feel the palpable sense of frustration and angst amongst Russia’s enemies at the timely arrival of President Putin firmly in power and his successful efforts to protect Russia from their threats, even literally “just in the nick of time” as it were. They groan aloud because they can’t believe their team missed the kick, and only just by inches. Instinctively they call for another chance to kick again, but they shall never have it.

Putin himself can trace his rise back to the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999. It was at that time that the drunken Russian President Boris Yeltsin first began to open his eyes to the truth of what the head of the Russian KGB/FSB, Vladimir Putin, had been telling him for some time: The intentions of the West towards Russia and the Slavs were anything but peaceful and benign. For 89 days the combined air forces of NATO, the world’s most powerful military machine, pummeled a small and relatively defenseless Slavic nation, simply because it had the audacity to challenge NATO and to boldly assert its own independence and sovereignty.

The criminal 89-day NATO bombing onslaught was directed against Yugoslavian factories, hospitals, trains, schools, fuel storage and radio and television stations. The effort was not directed against military targets, but instead it was directed against the very nation and its people as a whole. It was a vengeful attack, the object of which was to destroy the industrial and economic infrastructure of the whole society, and literally to “de-civilize” the country, as was also done to Iraq some years earlier.

So then what about the alleged “crimes” of Slobodan Milosevic, which supposedly justified this hateful brutality against Serbia by combined NATO powers? In fact the “mass graves” that NATO claimed existed in Kosovo were never found. Milosevic himself was imprisoned for 2 years during his trial for “war crimes” in The Hague. All during this time an increasingly frustrated NATO tried floating one lie after another in an effort to convict him, even as Milosevic only defended himself, without a lawyer. Eventually the man died in this NATO/Hague hall of torture, of natural causes, without having the opportunity to spend his last weeks and days with his wife and family, as he requested for humanitarian reasons, even though he was known to be in very ill health and on death’s door.

As the combined air forces of the NATO alliance pummeled Serbia, day and night 24/7 for 89 days, in perhaps the greatest example of the “disproportionate” overuse of military power in history, of course everyone in Russia felt an instant and intuitive identification with their historical allies, the Slavic and Orthodox Serbian people. Every Russian also intuitively understood that what the West was presently doing to Serbia, it would just as gleefully to do Russia tomorrow. The only thing stopping it was no matter of principle or ethics, but merely that Russia was larger, and still capable of defending herself against such savagery. But for how much longer?

It was at this point that even President Yeltsin had to awaken from his drunken stupor long enough to recognize the true nature of the West and the threat it posed to Russia. Yeltsin appointed the director of the FSB, Vladimir Putin as his Prime Minister. Shortly afterwards Yeltsin named Putin as his heir apparent and resigned, after he had secured an agreement from Putin that Yeltsin and his immediate family would be immune from prosecution after he left office. So the political career of the ex-spy Vladimir Putin was born, and as they say, the rest is history.

And what was the situation in Russia on the day President Putin was inaugurated as the second President of the Russian Federation? After emerging from 70 years of communism, Russia was essentially in a state of complete and utter chaos and turmoil. Every social and economic statistic in Russia from lifespan to GDP had fallen dramatically from its Soviet levels. The first president of the new Russian Federation, the alcoholic Boris Yeltsin, had essentially sold everything in Russia except the kitchen sink, and his administration was now surrounded and dominated by the handful of “oligarchs” who became fabulously wealthy under Yeltsin’s patronage. The entire state was dysfunctional and was incapable of performing even basic functions such as tax collection, the payment of wages to government employees, or even the most basic and essential social and public services; Russia had just defaulted on its debt; corruption was rampant at every level; Russian society was falling apart at the seams, and this was reflected in every available social indicator and statistic. Diseases that had long been cured in the USSR, such as tuberculosis, were making a comeback. Russian children were suffering from malnutrition. Russian life spans were declining and infant mortality was rising. Narcotics abuse skyrocketed. Criminal gangs began to appear for the purpose of abducting and selling Russian women and children as chattel for sexual abuse and slavery in Israel and the West. It is almost difficult to imagine how the situation in Russia could have been worse when Vladimir Putin was inaugurated as Russia’s 2nd president.

Whatever the flaws of Soviet Socialism were, it was a system that at least put food on the table, gave people a roof over their heads and jobs, and treated them when they were sick. But the “new Russia” was one where life had been turned on its head; where nothing was stable or normal and where nothing worked. Clearly the immediate post-communist period was one of major crisis for Russia. Far from transforming the lives of ordinary Russians for the better, the transition to capitalism was nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe for the vast majority of Russia’s citizens.

But not everyone was hurt by the transition. The exact number of the so-called “Russian oligarchs” is debatable, depending on how one wants to define the term. But the term is generally used to describe the small group of 13 billionaires that surrounded President Yeltsin and enjoyed complete access to the President as well as substantial influence over him. Of these 13 oligarchs, 12 of them were Jewish and only one was really Russian (though his origins have been the subject of some debate as well). A lot has been written about the oligarchs and this material is easily accessible, so it would be pointless for me to cover the same ground again in this short article.

I can only remark on the strangeness of the situation where fully half of the Russian economy and GDP was in the hands of a mere handful of Russian Jews, in a country that had at most a 2% Jewish population. Coincidence? Maybe.

Certainly history would take note if the handful of oligarchs who collectively controlled Russia’s economy were all Uzbeks, or all Tajaks or all Catholics, or all members of ANY other single social, ethnic, or religious group, which did not constitute more than 2 percent of the overall Russian population.

In the USSR all enterprise was socialized and state-owned. Every factory, mine, farm, oil well, pipeline and all other “means of production” was state property. But after the disintegration of the USSR, within a mere 2 or 3 years, fully half of the income-producing wealth of the nation found its way into the hands of a mere handful of Oligarchs, who were transformed instantly into multi-billionaires and catapulted overnight into the ranks of world’s richest people.

Even if one approves of the general decision by the Russian elite to transform Soviet society from Socialism to capitalism, one hardly needs to be a genius to understand that such a massive transfer of state wealth into the hands of such a tiny number of citizens, in such a short period of time, could only have come about from a privatization of Russia’s state assets that was massively flawed, corrupted and criminal in nature.

Russia is the country where Rip Van Winkle went to sleep one fine day, when every factory and mine and every other productive asset in Russia was socialist property, the collective achievement of the whole Soviet people organized under socialism over a period of decades. But the next day Mr. Van Winkle awoke to discover that all the best state economic assets had somehow migrated into the hands of a tiny group of Russian Jews, who acquired these assets for pennies on the dollar in corrupt deals, at the direct expense of the impoverished Russian people and nation. As they say, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that something was amiss.

Concern for the future of Russia or her people was hardly the hallmark of the oligarchs, who were far too busy smuggling their money out of Russia and into foreign banks as quickly as they could during the Yeltsin reign, before the inevitable backlash finally arrived. During this period major banks in New York and London were implicated in vast money laundering operations, and helping the Russian oligarchs to smuggle hundreds of billions of dollars out of Russia.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=296588
As the French author Balzac said, "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime." Of course this is not only true for the fortunes of Russia’s nuevo-rich oligarchs, but it is equally true of the massive private fortunes amassed in prior generations in the West, by such men as Rockefeller and the other “robber barons” and great captains of capitalist industry.

But even if we recognize that all great fortunes have their origin in great crimes, we must also recognized that a capitalist society must at some point acquiesce in the existing structure of ownership, if only for the sake of future stability and economic growth. As long as there is the threat of the continual seizure and redistribution of private wealth by the authorities, it is impossible for settled investment to take place, and instead the owners of private wealth will only look for avenues to move what part of their wealth they can to safer jurisdictions.

For this reason President Putin did not declare it to be his intention to disposes the newly rich Oligarchs of their empires and wealth, even in cases when there was substantial evidence that the wealth was gotten through questionable means, or via outright fraud and theft. At that time the maintenance of stable property relations was necessary in Russia in order to form a foundation for further investment and economic growth.

Any state can confiscate and redistribute the wealth of its citizens again and again, until the state becomes convinced that the distribution has finally become “just.” But beyond a certain point this re-confiscation and redistribution process becomes counterproductive, because the protection of private property (capital) is the foundation of a capitalist economy, and where property rights are not secure there can be no investment or growth. Therefore, the Putin state chose to acquiesce in the current structure of private ownership, as they found it, even though there was the understanding that most of the wealth of the oligarchs was ill-gotten.

Whether it was fair for Robert Mugabe to confiscate the white-owned farms and redistribute them to black African farmers in Zimbabwe is open to debate. Some say the whites originally stole the land from the Africans and Mug be was only returning the land to its rightful owners. But before whites were stealing land from the Africans, the Africans were no doubt stealing it from each other. So where does the redistribution stop, and when is the existing structure of property ownership finally accepted as legitimate, not so much because it is legitimate, but merely in order to form a foundation for stable growth in investment and trade?

So the oligarchs in Russia were allowed to keep their fortunes. But where President Putin drew a line in the sand was in the control of the Russian state itself. It was made abundantly clear to the oligarchs that they would no longer enjoy the sort of access and influence that they had under President Yeltsin. Furthermore they themselves were not to use their massive fortunes for the purpose of running for office, financing political parties or attempting to gain control over the organs of Russian mass media (radio, television, newspapers). Any such efforts on their part would be blocked and not only blocked but such actions would bring the full wrath of the Russian state against them, in the form of investigations by the authorities into the methods by which they acquired their fortunes.

If one of the oligarchs wanted to use his wealth to influence politics in the United States or Europe, or to buy up media assets there, then President Putin didn’t have any objections to that. But not in Russia!

This was President Putin’s Faustian bargain with the oligarchs: they would get to keep their ill-gotten wealth and their business empires so long as they did not attempt to use that wealth as a means to gain control over the Russian state. That was a line that was not to be crossed. This was made clear to all of them.

The primary concern of President Putin and Russia’s national security services was to stop the hemorrhaging of Russia’s society and economy and to stabilize and normalize the situation in Russia. To this end they were willing to accept the transition of Russia’s economy from socialism to capitalism. There was no one on President Putin’s team who was arguing for the restoration of socialist property relations in Russia.

It was understood that the privatization of Russian state assets had been massively bungled by the criminally inept Yeltsin Administration, to the great harm of ordinary Russians. But it was also felt that any effort to re-examine the privatizations, or to redistribute the state assets would be never-ending and it would cause more harm than good, in that it would undermine the protection and safeguards of private property in general. The immediate goal was stabilization, not redistribution.

Even more than merely acquiescing in capitalism in Russia as a “concept”, Putin was also her they were willing to accept existing property relations in Russia, such as they were, even though it was common knowledge that those property relations were based on the largest occurrences of fraud, theft and corruption in human history. Certainly Russia’s security services were well aware of the shaky basis of the oligarchs’ fortunes, and certainly the security services under Putin had the power to reverse those fortunes quite rapidly if they were but given the order to do so.

Putin chose not to act preemptively to destroy the oligarchs, but instead he drew a line that was not to be crossed by them. Putin and the security services were not willing to allow the Russian state to be hijacked by the same oligarchs who had already robbed Russia of so much of her wealth. This was the Faustian bargain that Putin made with the oligarchs: they would be allowed to keep their empires, and they would not be molested by the state; but if any one of them or any group of them attempted to use their wealth to gain control over the Russian state, they would be dealt with swiftly and decisively.

Unfortunately by the time President Putin was able to consolidate his power, the project to subvert the Russian state was not a new one, existing only in the minds of some of the oligarchs, and their cohorts in the West, but it was already well under way. Several of the oligarchs had already taken over Russian media assets and they were becoming actively involved in politics. Therefore the task for Putin was not just the mere “stabilization” of the situation as it was, but necessarily to some extent Putin was required to reverse some of the inroads that the Oligarchs had already made in gaining control over the Russian state.

Speaking of Stalin, due to an publishing error one of the charts in Dave's essay did not originally appear.

It's up now as he intended, and shows that a strong plurality of Russians surveyed think Stalin played a positive role in Russian history, while a shockingly large number were unable to formulate an opinion either way. Such barbarism wouldn't be tolerated by the civilized world if it came from, say Germany in regard to Hitler (Stalin was a far more severe mass murderer), yet it seems the world has much lower standards where Russia is concerned.

That's a pretty good indication of where things stand.

MISHA:
I have been pining to use this lovely word and am grateful to you for the opportunity.

Словоблудие...

That's my one-word response to your essay.

“… a strong plurality of Russians surveyed think Stalin played a positive role in Russian history, while a shockingly large number were unable to formulate an opinion either way. Such barbarism wouldn't be tolerated by the civilized world if it came from, say Germany in regard to Hitler (Stalin was a far more severe mass murderer), yet it seems the world has much lower standards where Russia is concerned.”

There you go again, comparing Stalin to Hitler, and Russia to Nazi Germany. Russia is not Germany and Stalin was not der Führer. Stalin was no maniac; he was a gentle and kindly father figure for the Russian people, and they affectionately referred to their leader as "Uncle Joe", the Great Father of all Soviet Republics.

Stalin was a good friend of the Americans and their president FDR, during the war, when they still thought Stalin could be useful to them; he only morphed into the “blood thirsty savage” they now claim he was when he was no longer useful to them, and the American ruling class became petrified that socialism might take root in the USA too, and they decided that it was time to make the Soviet Union their enemy once again. But for the Russian people Joseph Stalin didn't change depending on the current direction of the political winds; he always remained simply "Uncle Joe", the same much beloved and affable Russian leader as always.

Russia was the only allied country that eventually ended its post-war occupation of Germany. But Germany still remains under American occupation to this very day, some 60 years after the end of the war. The Americans have been dictating what Germans are allowed to think (or at least to say) ever since 1945.

But the West never won a war with Russia. Therefore the West doesn’t get “victor’s privileges” over Russia, sorry. It doesn’t fall to the West to “tolerate” or “not tolerate" Russia’s comprehension of her own history. Russia is under no obligation to embrace the foreign-derived, “politically correct” and false smears directed against the Russian patriot Joseph Stalin. Stalin was one of the most significant and influential historical figures in Russian history and any smear against Stalin is a smear against Russia herself. If you keep repeating the same lie over and over again, you may even start to believe it yourself; but that still will not make your lie come true.

The last time I checked Russia was still a free country and not under any foreign occupation, thanks to the blood spilled by millions of Russian patriots. If you want the right to dictate what Russians can think, say or publish, then you first have to pay your dues and beat Russia in a war. Russia has a few surprises waiting for you too, as many would-be conquerors before you have found out. By all means, bring it on comrade!

If you are bored with yourselves then go and bother China. Tell China what she must think and believe and what her history ought to be; but leave Russia alone! Russia has had enough of you! Russia can take care of herself, and she has suffered enough already at the hands of your fabulous “West.”

Many people are aware of Stalin’s military genius and his command of the sciences and other intellectual pursuits, but some people are surprised to learn that Stalin had a softer side too; he was a prolific author of love poems, a painter and a devoted family man. (Here and here.) Stalin loved all children. Of course “Uncle Joe” could be tough too, whenever his beloved Russia was threatened and the situation called for it. Stalin had to be tough on the outside, with Russia’s enemies, in order to make Russia a softer and better country for her people on the inside.

Dave: Во-первых, этот вебсайт издан на английском языке, не русском языке. Во-вторых, самодовольство не замена для подлинного критического анализа. Возможно вы только слишком интеллектуально ленивы или фанатичны, чтобы ответить должным образом.

Вы имеете некоторую проблему с моим исполнением mea culpa Мэльа Джибсона? Но мое извинение является искренним. Любой может сделать ошибку. Вы должны пробовать быть более сострадательным. Вы не говорили о вашей ненависти для русских? Вы конечно приезжаете сюда и читаете такие вещи. Так или иначе я являюсь еврейским также. Мы должны быть друзьями, mate.
Мир, -Миша.

Links: here and here

MISHA: It's probably true that Stalin shouldn't be compared to Hitler. After all, Stalin killed far more Russians than Hitler did, and bequeathed to Russia a regime which murdered more of its own citizens than any other in the history of humanity.

But wait. Maybe you think it was "only" #2, behind China, right? Only a real moron would make a point like that, especially since the USSR has ceased to exist.

You're a sick man, Misha. But perfectly healthy by Soviet standards. We pity you.

"uncle joe" was FDRs name for him.

MISHA:
You're a funny guy! Your logorrhea extends to giving me an extended ticking off in Russian, explaining that English should be used on the site. I used 4 Russian words in my entries, words that would either be known to or interesting for the sort of people who read here. Care to count how many you did? So who's discourteous? What we have here is another clear example of your complete inability to hold to a logical line, as I demonstrated by a critical look through your first outpouring. The only interest I find in what you write is that, in its its small way, it is paradigmatic of the whole Russia-West polemic:

You simply don't see... And you don't see because you have lost the ability to think.

The following quotes from your latest entry are further examples of that inability:

The last time I checked Russia was still a free country and not under any foreign occupation
A great Soviet dissident once said that everything fell into place in the incomprehensible USSR if one viewed the country as Russia occupied by the Communists, that then all the legal and political awfulnesses suddenly became logical. A brilliant remark and I'm sorry I have forgotten who said it. My point here is that you don't have to be occupied by a foreign power, you just have to be taken over, have your brain taken over.

Many people are aware of Stalin’s military genius and his command of the sciences and other intellectual pursuits
You're talking to serious and well-read people here, this ain't Komsomolka where any idiocy will pass.

But you did say one true thing -- I can only assume by mistake (they are easier to make when using too many words):

If you keep repeating the same lie over and over again, you may even start to believe it yourself.

Bye-bye, Misha.

Stalin was most affectionately called “Papa Joe” by Soviet Citizens, and sometimes “Uncle Joe,” which referred to his fatherly image and that fact that he was the Father of all the Soviet Republics, not just Russia.

FDR adapted the affectionate “Uncle Joe” from what was already popular usage in USSR, so that he (FDR) could signify the brotherly relations between the two close WWII allies.

As I said, the US (lead by FDR) and USSR (lead by Stalin) were closer than two peas in a pod when they had a common enemy in the German fascists. This is history you should already know.

It was only after the war ended that the US reverted to the more familiar pattern of considering the USSR an “enemy.” The US ruling class was petrified that socialism was beginning to take root in the USA as well, which of course represented a direct mortal threat to their wealth, status, position and privilege within the class relations of the USA.

Surely you are aware of the massive “witch hunt” that was conducted in the USA after the war, in the 1950’s by the US Congress? During this time certain members of the US ruling elite were petrified that there was a “communist behind every tree” in the US. They were convinced that “the commies” had penetrated the Pentagon, Hollywood, and you name it! It was a vicious campaign of pure hysteria and madness!

They urged suburban American families to build nuclear bomb shelters in their back yards. Many leading artists and intellectuals (mostly Jewish persons by the way), citizens of the United States, were allegedly “outed” for having communist sympathies, or “reading communist literature”, or "associating with a communist” (and all this is a country that claimed--and still claims--that it is the world’s model for “freedom and democracy”).

The Witch-hunt lead directly to the “blacklisting” of many of these individuals, and the loss of their ability to work or earn a living. Anyone who refused to respect the ever-growing blacklist was in danger themselves of also being put on the blacklist.

Stalin was referred to as “Uncle Joe,” “Papa Joe,” and less frequently as “Grandfather Joe,” (by the youngest children of the USSR). Here is an interesting article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080116.wstalin16/BNStory/International/home

As I said, the US (lead by FDR) and USSR (lead by Stalin) were closer than two peas in a pod when they had a common enemy in the German fascists. This is history you should already know.

http://www.lituanus.org/1989/89_1_03.htm

The Government of the German Reich and The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Desirous of strengthening the cause of peace between Germany and the U.S.S.R., and proceeding from the fundamental provisions of the Neutrality Agreement concluded in April, 1926 between Germany and the U.S.S.R., have reached the following Agreement:

Secret Additional Protocol.

On the occasion of the signature of the Non-Aggression Pact between the German Reich and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics the undersigned plenipotentiaries of each of the two parties discussed in strictly confidential conversations the question of the boundary of their respective spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. These conversations led to the following conclusions:

Article I. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party.

Article II. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish State, the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.

The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish State and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.

In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.

Article III. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinterest in these areas.

Article IV. This Protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret.

Moscow, August 23, 1939.

For the Government of the German Reich

v. Ribbentrop

Plenipotentiary of the Government of the U.S.S.R.

V. Molotov

=================

and in case you didntk now the americans dont actually have a ruling class, so you must be talking about the asuption of the wealthy.. of which they WANT socialism... duh... ford said i want to own nothing and control everything...

==========

Surely you are aware of the massive “witch hunt” that was conducted in the USA after the war, in the 1950’s by the US Congress? During this time certain members of the US ruling elite were petrified that there was a “communist behind every tree” in the US. They were convinced that “the commies” had penetrated the Pentagon, Hollywood, and you name it! It was a vicious campaign of pure hysteria and madness!

surely your aware of the decoding of the venona transcripts, the mitrokhen archives, and other sources that shows that it was not a witch hunt.

When FDR recognized Russia in 1933, he deliberately turned a blind eye to the CPUSA's massive program of espionage and subversion. Liberals denied that this took place and complained about a "witch hunt." Guess what? The "loony right" was correct. A new book (The Secret World of American Communism, based on newly opened Kremlin archives, confirms that CPUSA was a puppet of Moscow and the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were practically run by Soviet agents, Alger Hiss, Harry Hopkins and Harry Dexter White to name a few.



Alger Hiss who had been the number three man at State behind Dean Acheson and Dean Rusk, and who, most assuredly, at some point, would have eventually been Secretary of State.

Harry Dexter White, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who purposely withheld allocated funding for the Chinese Nationalists, during their Civil War, that destroyed their currency and, thus, their efforts against Mao's Communists.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had been conduits for even more damaging information than the atom bomb, for which they were executed

Lauchlin Currie, Special Assistant to F.D.R.

Samuel Dickstein, member of the House of Representatives from Brooklyn.

William and Martha Dodd, son and daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Germany

Lawrence Duggan, State Department Director of Latin American Affairs

Harold Ickes, Sr., father of Clinton's impeachment flack, who was Secretary of the Interior.

William Weisband, U.S. Army Signal Security Agency


Recent archive releases (like in the past year) put out a list of 12,000 people in the state who were confirmed by decoded transcripts to be spies.

==========

this is a partial list of those who were in the transcripts. most were active in some way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Abt
Solomon Adler
Rudy Baker
Joel Barr
Alice Barrows, U.S. government employee 1920-42, Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago 1944
Theodore Bayer, President, Russky Golos Publishing
Cedric Belfrage
Elizabeth Bentley
Joseph Milton Bernstein
Earl Browder
Paul Burns
Sylvia Callen
Virginius Frank Coe
Lona Cohen, sentenced to 20 years; subject of Hugh Whitemore's drama for stage and TV Pack of Lies
Morris Cohen, sentenced to 25 years; subject of Hugh Whitemore's drama for stage and TV Pack of Lies
Judith Coplon
Lauchlin Currie
Byron T. Darling
Eugene Dennis
Samuel Dickstein
Martha Dodd
William E. Dodd Jr.
Laurence Duggan
Eufrosina Dvoichenko-Markov
Nathan Einhorn
Jack Bradley Fahy, United States Department of the Interior
Linn Markley Farish, senior liaison officer with Tito's Yugoslav Partisan forces
Edward J. Fitzgerald
Charles Flato[
Isaac Folkoff
Jane Foster, Board of Economic Warfare; Office of Strategic Services; Netherlands Study Unit
Salmond David Franklin
Isabel Gallardo
Boleslaw K. Gerbert
Rebecca Getzoff
Harold Glasser
Bela Gold
Harry Gold, sentenced to 30 years for his role in the Rosenbergs ring
Sonia Steinman Gold
Jacob Golos, "main pillar" of NKVD spy network, particularly the Sound/Myrna group, he died in the arms of Elizabeth Bentley
George Gorchoff
Gerald Graze
David Greenglass, machinist at Los Alamos sentenced to 15 years for his role in Rosenberg ring; he was the brother of executed Ethel Rosenberg
Ruth Greenglass
Theodore Alvin Hall
Maurice Halperin
Kitty Harris, globe-trotting companion of communist party boss Earl Browder
Clarence Hiskey
Alger Hiss, Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs United States Department of State
Donald Hiss
Harry Hopkins
Louis Horwitz
Bella Joseph
Emma Harriet Josep
Gertrude Kahn
Joseph Katz
Helen Grace Scott Keenan
Mary Jane Keeney
Philip Keeney
Alexander Koral
Helen Koral
Samuel Krafsur
Charles Kramer
Christina Krotkova, typist and translator to Kravchenko, 1945
Sergej Nikolaevich Kurnakov
Stephen Laird
Oscar Lange
Richard Lauterbach, employee at Time magazine
Duncan C. Lee
Michael S. Leshing
Helen Lowry
William Mackey
Harry Samuel Magdoff
William Malisoff, owner and
manager of United Laboratories
Hede Massing
Robert Owen Menaker
Floyd Cleveland Miller
James Walter Miller
Robert Miller
Robert G. Minor
Leonard Emil Mins
Nichola Napoli, president of Artkino, distributor of Russian films
Franz Neumann
Eugénie Olkhine
Frank Oppenheimer
Julius Robert Oppenheimer
Nicholas V. Orloff
Edna Margaret Patterson
William Perl
Victor Perlo
Aleksandr N. Petroff, Curtiss-Wright Aircraft
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Posner, United States War Department
Lee Pressman
Mary Wolfe Price
Bernard Redmont
Peter Rhodes
Stephan Sandi Rich
Kenneth Richardson, World Wide Electronics
Samuel Jacob Rodman, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
Allan Rosenberg
Julius Rosenberg, United States Army Signal Corps Laboratories, executed for role in Rosenberg ring
Ethel Rosenberg, executed for role in Rosenberg ring based on testimony of her brother, David Greenglass
Amadeo Sabatini
Alfred Epaminodas Sarant
Marian Miloslavovich Schultz
Milton Schwartz
John Scott
Ricardo Setaro
Charles Bradford Sheppard, Hazeltine Electronics
Abraham George Silverman
Nathan Gregory Silvermaster
Helen Silvermaster
Morton Sobell
Jack Soble
Robert Soble
Johannes Steele
Isidor Feinstein Stone
Augustina Stridsberg
Anna Louise Strong
Helen Tenney
Mikhail Tkach, editor of the Ukrainian Daily News
William Ludwig Ullmann
Irving Charles Velson
Margietta Voge
William Weisband
Donald Wheeler
Maria Wicher
Harry Dexter White
Ruth Beverly Wilson
Ignacy Witczak
Ilya Elliott Wolston
Flora Don Wovschin
Jones Orin York
Daniel Abraham Zaret, Spanish War veteran
Mark Zborovski


The VENONA Project files, declassified in 1995, provided indisputable evidence that nearly all of those McCarthy accused were traitors to America....

For all those rushing to put pen to paper to denounce any of the above, you'd be best advised to first do your "homework". Read "Venona" (Yale University Press); "The Secret World Of American Communism" (Yale University Press); "The Haunted Wood" (Random House); "The Venona Secrets" (Regnery); "The Secret History Of the KGB" (Basic Books); "Whittaker Chambers: A Biography" (Modern Library); and "Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the life and legacy of America's most hated Senator" (Free Press). If at first you haven't read the above, then you are coming unarmed for a battle of wits.

In Kosovo, the civilized powers found 529 mass graves in 1999 only.