BS: Stalin

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 03:43 PM

Jim, I have given you a quote.
It is thirty or forty years since I read the book and I am not going to read it again because it is out of date.
Much new knowledge has emerged in the fifty years since it was written!

Yes you do - you have just stated that Britain was not culpable for the death toll - what is that if it is not an opinion?

It is an opinion but I never expressed it Jim.

Rag, have you noticed that I am the only person who ever responds to your posts?
I must stop encouraging you.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:15 PM

Yet another cop -out from the most deceitful, lying individual on this forum.


A most cowardly man.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:16 PM

I respond to them regularly. Raggytash talks a lot of sense and I am not just saying that because I know him. Lots of people I do not know talk a lot of sense too. Another distortion of the truth? Maybe I should take a leaf out of Raggytash's book and call a spade a spade...

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 04:18 PM

Oh, and if you had not noticed, there were 15 or so responses to Raggy's opening post before you even decided to stick your oar in.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 15 - 08:23 PM

"Jim, I have given you a quote."
No you haven't - Deutscher wrote in the region of 30 pages on Ukraine - you have given a quote from his wife - confirms it for me - you have not read the book.
Who says it is out-of-date - you haven't read it, nor have you read anything that has superceded it.
That on'e's sorted.
"Much new knowledge has emerged in the fifty years since it was written!"
No it hasn't - if so, what has?
You have given nothing and Conquest pointed out that the subject has been unresearched and neglected - s what exactly has been "found out"/
Can you really do no better than that?
You refuse to respond to the points on Ireland - you claim to have no knowledge yet you dragged us through two huge threads on the basis of your ignorance.
Think that one's sorted too - don't you?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 08:23 AM

Jim, I can not prove to you that I read Deutcsher 30 years ago.
Did you think I could quote passages from memory?
What is the point of me laboriously transposing chunks of text from an out of date book?
If you have something specific, I will type out any short piece you request.

"Much new knowledge has emerged in the fifty years since it was written!"
No it hasn't - if so, what has?

From the fly leaf of Conquest's later book,
"Now in this revised and updated edition, Robert Conquest uses fresh and dramatic material which has recently become available to give........"

From the preface,
"First, we now have enough information to establish almost everything past dispute."

"The brief period of Khrushchevite revelation had provided enough new evidence, in conjunction with the mass of earlier unofficial reports (still later than Deutcher) to give the history of the period in considerable and mutually confirmatory detail."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 08:27 AM

You refuse to respond to the points on Ireland - you claim to have no knowledge yet you dragged us through two huge threads on the basis of your ignorance.

Yes Jim.
All I kept saying was that I have no opinion but historians dispute culpability.
Your outrage and furious denial of that simple truth was what kept those threads going, not me.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 10:12 AM

"All I kept saying was that I have no opinion but historians dispute culpability."
You - in your admitted ignorance, referred to my analysis of the situation as "rubbish" - bloody arrogance from a self-confessed ignoramous.
Had you read the historians you claim support your case, you might have a point - as you haven't, and have only selected the bits that you think do (and made a magnificent balls of that with Kennealy) your behaviour just serves to clutter up decent discussions by those who may have some knowledge and who at least have interest enough to read up on these subjects.
Were you to learn from this, you might not have the reputation you have.
"Jim, I can not prove to you that I read Deutcsher 30 years ago."
You most certainly can't, and every indication points to the probability that you haven't
"Did you think I could quote passages from memory?"
What passages - if you have a copy, as you probably have, there's nothing to stop you thumbing through and selecting a bit that might serve, without actually bothering to read what he wrote about the Ukraine - you can't even be bothered to read that.
How the **** do you know it is out-of-date?
It remains one of the most carefully researched books on Stalin ever written and read in conjunction with the Trotsky biographies and the one on Lenin, it paints a brilliant picture of the Soviet Union from pre-revolutionary days to the death of Stalin.
Do you not realise of exactly how arrogant it is to dismiss books you have not read in the way you constantly do on the basis of carefully searched-out cut-'n-pastes - this goes for Ireland as well as here.
You haven't given us anything on Deutscher's position on The Ukraine, yet bizarrely, you appear to be claiming you have - the man covers the entire situation - not the cold-war name-calling that appears to be your stock-in-trade.
Can you show us which of your "real" or "qualified historians who sell their books in real bookshops" have described Deutscher's work as "out of date", or is this your conclusion based on a "lifetime's study of the subject" as was World War One?
You appear never to have got over the urge to win prizes, rather than try and understand these subjects, and until you do, you will simply continue to get in the way of those who are interested in learning and passing on what we think we know.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 12:18 PM

You - in your admitted ignorance, referred to my analysis of the situation as "rubbish" - bloody arrogance from a self-confessed ignoramous.

It would be if it was true, but it is not.

Had you read the historians you claim support your case, you might have a point - as you haven't, and have only selected the bits that you think do

You can hardly deny that historians dispute culpability.
Kennedy demonstrably does in both linked items, and he is just an example.
Kinealy STATED that his revisionist view is "dominant" among historians and has been for about eighty years.
Believe her if not me.

It remains one of the most carefully researched books on Stalin ever written

You are being silly Jim.
First published in 1949 and revised in 1967, and you do not think much new information about him has come out of Russia since then?!

Do you not realise of exactly how arrogant it is to dismiss books you have not read

I have read it. Can you prove you have?

You haven't given us anything on Deutscher's position on The Ukraine,

I gave you a quote, and will copy anything (short) you want, but I am not going to reread an old tome like that, and if I did what would it prove?

Can you show us which of your "real" or "qualified historians who sell their books in real bookshops" have described Deutscher's work as "out of date"
The most recent book I have read is Conquest's, and he does.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 12:32 PM

Deutscher p336.
"Amid the famine and misery of the early thirties the provisions for their protection were completely disregarded. 'Re-education' degenerated into slave labour, terribly wasteful of human life, a vast black spot on the picture of the second revolution."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 12:51 PM

Keith
You have my responses - none from you except yet another meaningless cut'-'n-paste, that proves you are capable of taking an unread book from the shelf and flicking through it until you find something vaguely interesting.
You obviously haven't the self respect to recognise what a image you paint of yourself
Carrying on a discussion in your presence is like trying to hold an adult conversation in the presence of a fractious, attention-seeking child   
Unless you have anything that vaguely hints that you are even interested in this subject beyond your pre-decided sloganising, I'm going to leave you to it and see if anybody can get anything honest, or even vaguely entertaining from you
What's the phrase you use for those who disagree with you- you really are a sad, sad, Muppet
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 02:41 PM

yet another meaningless cut'-'n-paste, that proves you are capable of taking an unread book from the shelf and flicking through it until you find something vaguely interesting.

You asked for another quote, and I provided one.
Transposed, not cut and paste.
What do I have to do Jim?
Neither of us can prove we have read that book from half a century ago, but at least I can prove I still have it.

You have failed to challenge anything I have said.
You have refused to condemn an inhuman monster just because he was a communist monster.
You angrily demanded us to believe you that nothing more is known about Stalin now than fifty years ago.

Malcolm Muggeridge visited Ukraine during the famine and wrote about what he saw in the Guardian (Manchester Guardian then).

He says this about Conquest's book that you dismissed as "something as incomplete as Conquest's cold war epic"

"One of those definitive works which crystallises a piece of history forever. It is not so much a book, as history itself."

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 31 Jul 15 - 05:02 PM

Jim,
I too have Deutsher's book on hand - perhaps you'd like to tell me exactly what your copy says about the famine.

I have given you quotes.
If you REALLY have the book, how about a quote from you now Jim?!
One that would show us all what you expected me to produce from it.

You do really have it to hand, right Jim?

You lied about me and the Irish discussions.
You denied Trevelyan';s statement and insisted it was a natural disaster LIE.

You used Kenneally as proof that no such intention existed and when she blew up in your face, you just went on with your claims. LIE.


You denied the existence of the 'No Irish Need Apply Signs' LIE.

referred to my analysis of the situation as "rubbish" LIE.

So Jim, is it true you have the book, or ever read it?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 01:55 AM

"Winning" was so important to you that you resorted to lying.
Well, you made a liar of yourself Jim, and still lost.

Stalin was a monster. Even Dave agrees with me on that.

You do not have Deutscher's book, and probably never read it.
Likewise Conquest's.

Stalin deliberately starved those millions of peasants, and their children, as an act of genocide.

Only a minority of historians think Britain can be blamed for Ireland's famine, and that is all I have ever said about it.

Liam Kennedy, Professor Emeritus of Economic & Social History, Queens University Belfast, said "In the case of the Great Famine no reputable historian believes that the British state intended the destruction of the Irish people, "
http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Articlesandlecturesbyourteachingstaff/TheGreatIrishFamineandth

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 09:01 AM

This is priceless!!

GUEST,Raggytash - PM
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:50 AM

A bit rich Akenaton. Someone posts a thread, doesn't give his opinion (that will be in Sundays Mail or Express) demands that someone else, in this case Jim, gives chapter and verse and you think that that is OK. Why not go back to the original poster and ask them for the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:11 AM

not sure we're actually getting anywhere - lets try a summation

1 we all agree Stalin was a no good fucker, but Jim thinks he had a historical context which explains why he was a no good fucker.

2 we all agree the 19th century famine in Ireland was 'a bad thing'.

3 Keith the famine wasn't really England's fault, and anyway in the words of great one who has passed on before - there was no alternative - we couldn't have done anything to help. And moreover there are some historians who agree with Keith, although none of them are on mudcat.

most people disagree with that last point.

what do you reckon - call it a day?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:28 AM

. And moreover there are some historians who agree with Keith,

That would be silly.
I am no historian.
I learned such history as I know from them. How else?
On Irish history I have neither knowledge nor interest anyway. Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:49 AM

"there was no alternative - we couldn't have done anything to help."
Read the threads Al - particularly the "God's punishment" and "solution to the Irish question" and the "laissez faire" bits and then come back and say it again.
" there are some historians who agree with Keith,"
Then they must have read his writings - he certainly hasn't read theirs
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 10:53 AM

. And moreover there are some historians who agree with Keith,

That would be silly........... Nuff said

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 11:09 AM

Jolly fun, but will any of you identify something I have said that can be shown to be wrong?
No.
All you can do is make silly comments.

Can anything Jim said be shown to be wrong?
Yes, and I have identified several.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Wolfgang
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 01:27 PM

Ewen MacColl's The Ballad of Stalin (in the DT) comes to my mind.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 02:00 PM

"Ewen MacColl's The Ballad of Stalin (in the DT) comes to my mind."
Only in the sense that MacColl's song reflected the attitude of the left, and many middle-of-the-roaders, who still admired the sacrifices The Soviet Union made in the fight against fascism.
The song was written in the Forties - the full truth about Stalin didn't emerge till 1956.
We were still singing hymns in school about how being foreign was to be "In error's chain", and being taught how the Empire was bringing civilisation to the savages, right into the mid-fifties.
Hindsight's a wonderful thing
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 05:52 PM

....The Soviet Union made in the fight against fascism.

Fascism, communism not much difference between them really.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:18 PM

"Fascism, communism not much difference between them really."
Superficial nonsense
Between 15 and 20 million people perished in Nazi death camps, under German capitalism.
During the Irish famine, under British industrial capitalism, one million people died and one million were forced to emigrate because the British Government decided that the Famine was God's punishment on the Irish for their sinful ways, locked warehouses containing enough food to feed four times the amount needed to feed the entire population, closed the workhouses, and adopted a policy of Laissez-faire (selling famine relief to the impoverished Irish at market prices)
In the worst year of the famine, 'Black '47, boats loaded with relief travelled to and fro between Britain and Ireland without being unloaded in order to push up market priced caused by delaying the supplies.
Fascism, capitalism, not much difference between them really.
As I said, superficial nonsense.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:28 PM

allright Keith and Jim. you do better. i was just trying to isolate the fundamental points you didn't agree with'

i didn't say there was no alternaive, Jim - i said that was the classic tory laissez faire line.

and Keith i don't think its a stupid remark to say that you need sort out what you disagree about - not just bitch endlessy. its frustrating listening to a conversation that just never seems to reach a denouement.

Keith believes the historians back up his viewpoint. what is silly about saying that is your earnest belief.

it very obviously a case of you think this, i think that.

keith you could be this.
jim could be that.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 15 - 08:52 PM

"Keith believes the historians back up his viewpoint. what is silly about saying that is your earnest belief."
Because he has never read a book on the Irish famine, he admits he is neither interested and has no knowledge of the subject
If he is speaking the truth -
"On Irish history I have neither knowledge nor interest anyway. Sorry." (see above)
- how can he possibly know whether historians back him or not?
I have carefully listed exactly why I believe what I believe -

"what exactly are you arguing here Keith?
Didn't Trevelyan make his statements (about both the Irish and the Scots?
Wasn't he the British appointed as advisor on the Famine?
Didn't the Government lock full warehouses and put armed guards on them?
Didn't the Russell's Tory Government dismantle all the relief measures put into place by Peel's administration
Didn't they adopt a laisse faire policy of selling famine relief to impoverished Irish peasants at market prices?
Wasn't the sugestion made by Trevelyan that the Famine was a possible solution to the Irish Question?
Weren't the Irish people given the alternatives, emigrate or starve?
Which of these statements do you actually dispute?
Which of them make my arguments bollocks"

I have received no response to on single statement from either Keith or his mate, Torytune
You work it out for yourself Al - it really isn't rocket science.
Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 04:31 AM

Keith believes the historians back up his viewpoint. what is silly about saying that is your earnest belief.

It is silly because it is the wrong way round.
My viewpoint is formed by reading the historians.
I agree with them on history(obviously), not the other way round.

Jim, I have no view on the famine and always acknowledged that I am not read on Irish history.
I merely point out that culpability is disputed by historians.
Do you deny that culpability is disputed by historians?
How can you? It is an easily demonstrated fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 04:41 AM

Culpability is also disputed about WW1 but that doesn't stop you pontificating.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 05:53 AM

'It is silly because it is the wrong way round.
My viewpoint is formed by reading the historians.
I agree with them on history(obviously), not the other way round.'

bit nit picking. you come up with a statement. historians know more than you so you enlist them on your side. chicken and the egg - i don't think its that you and jim are arguing about.

i would say this. if you know nowt about the Irish famine, you're not really in a position to assess whether the historian is talking bollocks. unless you've actually seen them fighting in the pub.

you really are baiting someone who obviously feels passionately about the subject. wouldn't you agree.

do you two think i got the Stalin bit right?

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 08:38 AM

you really are baiting someone who obviously feels passionately about the subject. wouldn't you agree.

No.
I merely point out that his view is not accepted by many historians.
I am sorry that makes him cross, but the fact needd not be suppressed just because of that.

You yourself have been known to say things that contradict others.

Guest,
Culpability is also disputed about WW1

The points I argued were not disputed by historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Puzzled
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 09:02 AM

Statement 1. "I have no view on the famine and always acknowledged that I am not read on Irish history"

Statement 2. " I merely point out that his view is not accepted by many historians"

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 09:26 AM

Oh fuck me gently.

We are getting the benefit of the opinion of the fictitious "historians" on this one too.

Your alter ego Keith. Not enough for it to be one person, it has to be a whole "consensus" of "eminent" make believe characters.

Says a hell of a lot about your personality trait.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 10:09 AM

Says a hell of a lot about your personality trait.

As do your ad hominems about yours.

Subject: RE: BS: Stalin
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 10:16 AM

Can I just point out that Keith has claimed (quite rightly) that he has no knowledge and no interest in Irish history or the Famine, yet on two previous threads he made respectively 214 postings on one and 322 on the other.
On both threads he became contemptuous of those who disagreed with him and it was only towards the end, when he found himself unable to defend his arguments that he fell back on claims of ignorance
At no time did he ever claim to have read anything on the subject in hand - his sole purpose being to exonerate Britain from any blame.
He (of course) put up his usual argument about "real historians" - dismissing those who didn't back his arguments
When Tim Pat Coogan's research on Trevelyan's letter was raised, rasther than discuss it, Coogan was dismissed as an extreme republican (which he is not)
It seems to me that posting 536 times on a subject somebody has "no interest in or knowledge of" is a grotesque case of extreme trolling and can only be regarded as an attempt to suppress discussion on an uncomfortable topic.
This is by means the first time this has happened with Keith in exactly the same manner, and I doubt if it will be the last.
If the overseers of this forum are unable or unprepared to deal with this behaviour, I really think it needs to be borne in mind for future reference - now we have had the example of somebody who has show
n he is prepared to filibust a topic to destruction.
Jim Carroll