Totalitarianist

1. Some persons consider the fact that Stalin feared covert fascist infiltration of the Communist Party as evidence of his paranoia, in spite of the Nazi "Fifth Columns" which were in nations throughout Europe, in addition to the US.

2. A well known threat perceived by Stalin, probably because of Yezhov, was the numerous attempts to crush the Communist regime; the overwhelming extent of Japanese and German sabotage and espionage made this quite clear.

3. Reilly, a British spy, was bribing bodyguards of Bolshevik leaders to arrest Lenin when he came to Moscow.

4. Reilly planned that Moisei Uritsky, the chairman of the Revolution's service of intelligence (CheKa), be arrested in Petrograd.

5. The plan went out of control when Kaplan, a Socialist fanatic, shot Lenin at close range two times on the day following the assassination of Uritsky.

6. One historian notes (Panaggio): "During the Yezhovshchina, many Old Bolsheviks had become high-ranking Soviet officials. They retained the quashing of the Lockhart conspiracy in their living memories. It therefore speaks of their extraordinary courage and complaisance that they and their younger proteges (such as Yezhov) invited any foreign solicitors and lawyers - especially British and American - to attend and audit the Show Trials of the 1930�s at all!"

7. According to the non-Marxist historian Lockhart, the Bolsheviks were "surprisingly tolerant". Panaggio notes: "The conspiracy of ambassadors, the attempt on Lenin�s life, other assassinations (as of Uritsky and later Kirov), the Zinoviev letter . . . (etc) poisoned the permissiveness and impartiality of the early Bolsheviks, forcing them to take the more extreme measures which have been a favourite subject of a great amount of anti-Soviet propaganda."

8. Scott was a non-Marxist and was critical of Bolshevism; when he reported, however, that which he experienced in Magnitogorsk, it becomes clear that Stalin had a lot of problems to deal with.

Scott, for example, described how easily a counter-revolutionary of the White Armies could, if he had the intelligence, "pass as a proletarian element and climb the ranks of the Party." Moreover, his work describes how most of the counter-revolutionaries forces were likely spies for the imperialist powers.

Here is what John Scott has to say about Magnitogorsk:

"Shevchenko . . . was running (in 1936) the coke plant with its two thousand workers. He was a gruff man, exceedingly energetic, hard-hitting, and often rude and vulgar. . . .

"With certain limitations . . . , Shevchenko was not a bad plant director. The workers respected him, and when he gave an order they jumped. . . .

"Shevchenko came from a little village in the Ukraine. In 1920, Denikin's White Army occupied the territory, and young Shevchenko, a youth of nineteen, was enlisted as a gendarme. Later Denikin was driven back into the Black Sea, and the Reds took over the country. In the interests of self-preservation Shevchenko lost his past, moved to another section of the country, and got a job in a mill. He was very energetic and active, and within a surprisingly short time had changed from the pogrom-inspiring gendarme into a promising trade-union functionary in a large factory. He was ultra-proletarian, worked well, and was not afraid to cut corners and push his way up at the expense of his fellows. Then he joined the party, and one thing led to another --- the Red Directors Institute, important trade-union work, and finally in 1931 he was sent to Magnitogorsk as assistant chief of construction work. . . .

"In 1935 . . . a worker arrived from some town in the Ukraine and began to tell stories about Shevchenko's activities there in 1920. Shevchenko gave the man money and a good job, but still the story leaked out. . . .

"One night he threw a party which was unprecedented in Magnitogorsk . . . Shevchenko and his pals were busy the rest of the night and most of the next consuming the remains. . . .

"One day . . . Shevchenko was removed from his post, along with a half-dozen of his leading personnel. . . . Shevchenko was tried fifteen months later and got ten years.

"Shevchenko was at least fifty per cent bandit --- a dishonest and unscrupulous careerist. His personal aims and ideals differed completely from those of the founders of Socialism. However, in all probability, Shevchenko was not a Japanese spy, as his indictment stated, did not have terrorist intentions against the leaders of the party and the government, and did not deliberately bring about the explosion (that killed four workers in 1935).

"The 'Shevchenko' band was composed of some twenty men, all of who received long sentences. Some, like Shevchenko, were crooks and careerists. Some were actual counter-revolutionaries who set out deliberately to do what they could to overthrow the Soviet power and were not particular with whom they cooperated. Others were just unfortunate in having worked under a chief who fell foul of the NKVD.

"Nicolai Mikhailovich Udkin, one of Shevchenko's colleagues, was the eldest son in a well-to-do Ukrainian family. He felt strongly that the Ukraine had been conquered, raped, and was now being exploited by a group of Bolsheviks . . . who were ruining the country. . . . He felt, furthermore, that the capitalist system worked much better than the Socialist system. . . .

"Here was a man who was at least a potential menace to the Soviet power, a man who might have been willing to cooperate with the Germans for the 'liberation of the Ukraine' in 1941. He also got ten years.'"

In short, Stalin's suspicion was reasonable -- his lack of suspicion was his downfall.

Evangelion

*Yawn*

Totalitarianist

Please do not spam.

Misso

Hail irony!

Corwin

Hmmmmmm.....

Does anybody else see an uncanny resemblance here?

Totalitarianist

Thank you for your responses.

Given the above messages by Evangelion and Misso, I predict that the subject of discussion shall once again be me: I predict that, once again, my readers will, instead of refuting what is said in my original post, insult me, etc.

It is obvious that some of my readers are reacting like this because they know that I am right.

To avoid helping Misso and Evangelion derail this thread, I will simply ignore messages, from now on, which are explicitly or implicitly about me.

Furthermore, I shall put Evangelion on ignore, in spite of the fact that I am fond of him.

Corwin

Um.... 'her' if I remember correctly.....

Evangelion

Um... "him", if I remember correctly... (And I would know!)

Meanwhile, the claim that Totalitarianist is "fond" of me (and I swear I've done nothing to encourage him) is simply nightmarish.

Totalitarianist

Thank you.

Corwin

Wups. My bad.

And I firmly agree with the second.... my advice is to shave your huge bushy handlebar moustache right now!