Russian Historiography of the Korean War

Korean War memorial (Washington DC)

The history of the Korean War is not written only in English. It is also told, recorded and written in Korean, Chinese and Russian – and the languages of other participants in this monstrous and mostly ‘forgotten’ war.

One of its most controversial and still unresolved issues are accusations – made in February 1951, by North Korea, China and the Soviet Union at the United Nations – that the U.S. engaged in bacteriological warfare (BW) in Korea.

These accusations were and still are denied by the U.S. (and Allies) and dismissed as ‘Communist propaganda’ or a ‘hoax.’

Leitenberg: Siding with the devil, of course, like most who serve the empire.

The ‘denialist’ camp is led by Milton Leitenberg of the Woodrow Wilson Centre and his associates. His original refutations are based on 12 secret Soviet ‘documents’, allegedly copied from the Russian President’s Archive in Moscow by a person employed there and handed over to Japanese journalist, Yasuo Naito.

Mr. Naito first disclosed his ‘findings’ in an article titled The Use of Bacteriological Weapons by U.S. Forces During the Korean War Was Fabrication by China and Korea: Uncovered by Classified Documents of the Former Soviet Union (Sankei Shinbum, Jan. 8, 1998.) He is currently the chief editor of Japan Forward which claims that South Korean Wartime Sex Slaves is ‘Fake News’ (Japan Forward, Apr. 5, 2017.)

When he published his ‘revelations,’ Mr Naito was the Moscow correspondent of the right-wing newspaper Sankei Shinbum. An article in the current issue of Japan Focus reveals the role Sankei Shinbum plays in Japan’s ‘history wars’ as a platform for denying Japan’s criminal record in Korea, China and elsewhere and denouncing peace activists and critics of Japan’s militarist drift as ‘communists’ and ‘anti-Japan’.

According to Naito and Leitenberg, the 12 Soviet ‘documents’ prove that germ warfare was a ‘hoax’ concocted and coordinated by Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung to embarrass the U.S. and Allies in the eyes of world public opinion. (Milton Leitenberg, New Russian Evidence on the Korean War Biological Warfare Allegations: Background and Analysis, University of Maryland, December 1998.)

Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman have written a meticulously researched book on bacteriological warfare: The United States And Bacteriological Warfare, Secrets from the early Cold War and Korea(Indiana University Press, 1998). They have also written a detailed response to Leitenberg’s ‘revelations’: Twelve Newly Released Soviet-era ‘Documents’ and allegations of U.S. germ warfare during the Korean War.

The article begins:

“In 1998 a Japanese journalist from the Tokyo newspaper, Sankei Shimbun, found or was given eleven documents of 1953 and one of 1952 from the Presidential Archives in Moscow which he claimed showed that the Chinese and North Korean charges that the United States used biological weapons in the Korean War were fabricated and fraudulent. (…)

“The documents are not the kind of evidence upon which scholarly research is usually based. In this case the original source is not disclosed, the name of the collection is not identified, nor is there a volume number which would allow other scholars to locate and check the documents. They are not photocopies, but only hand-written copies or notes purportedly taken from the originals. (When these issues are clarified it may be time to remove the quotation marks surrounding these ‘documents.’) Further questions about motives in transferring documents are raised because they were obtained from an unidentified source and given to a journalist for a right-wing Japanese newspaper. Nevertheless, as translated into English by Kathryn Weathersby of the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, and published by Milton Leitenberg in The Korean War Biological Warfare Allegations Resolved,(40 pg. pamphlet, Stockholm, May 1998), they have become fodder for sensationalist journalistic articles as well as the subject of analysis and interpretation by Western historians.” (See also Endecott and Hagerman’s, On Wuzhili’s ‘false alarm‘.)

But what do Russians say, write, think about the war in Korea? Since I speak and read Russian, I decided to do an online search in Russian and see what would come up. So here are some of my findings…

In the U.S., Australia and other countries that fought in Korea under U.S. command, the Korean War is known as the ‘forgotten war.’ In the Soviet Union – now ex-Soviet Union – it was and is known as the ‘secret war.’ The USSR was allied with North Korea and China, but did not officially participate in military operations. But in fact, it did, secretly. The Soviet Union sent military advisors, pilots and airplanes, air-defense units, radio operators and other supporting personnel and equipment to Korea, and they did take part in military actions.

According to the article Soviet Pilots in Korean Skies, Soviet aircrews were first deployed to bases in China in August 1951 and in North Korea in 1952. In November 1952, there were 441 pilots and 321 airplanes. The new MIG-15 proved extremely effective in aerial combat.

“During the period of combat operations, Soviet pilots conducted 19,203 sorties. … From November 1950 to January 1952, 564 enemy aircraft were shot down in air battles. Soviet losses for the same time were: 34 pilots and 71 aircraft. Soviet aviation and antiaircraft artillery disrupted enemy air strikes, dispersing its combat orders and reducing the accuracy of bombing.”

12 April 1951 would be remembered as Black Thursday by the U.S. Air Force according to this article in Zvezda.

“On that day, 28 B-29 American bombers took off, covered by 80 jet fighters. 48 MiG-15 were sent to intercept them and all of them returned to base after the battle. The enemy’s losses were: ten B-29 bombers shot down and 15 were hit. Some 120 airmen were captured. This day went down in the history of American aviation as ‘Black Thursday’.

“The total loss of aviation during the Korean War amounted to 319 MiG-15 aircraft from the Soviet side and 1,097 bombers and fighters from the US.

“The war in Korea made it clear to the American military what force they would have to face in the event of an attempt to attack the Soviet Union.”

Experts will no doubt dispute these figures, but they certainly dispel the myth – partly protected by Soviet secrecy – of total American air superiority in Korea. I believe it is an important point.

Another article deals with bacteriological warfare. It is written by a biologist, Mikhail Supotnitskiy. He presents in great detail the various delivery methods of bacteriological agents used by the U.S. in Korea, many of them devised by Japan’s infamous Unit 731 and adopted by the Americans.

According to Supotnitskiy, by 1951, the U.S. and Allies had lost their air supremacy, the war turned static, with the North Korean and Chinese dug deep underground or sheltering in caves and tunnels. Korea is a mountainous country – especially the North – so there was no lack of comfortable places to hide from U.S. bombs.

Napalm was ineffective against well dug-in troops and chemical attacks risked provoking a North Korean-Chinese riposte – the Japanese had left plenty of deadly chemical stockpiles from World War 2 and the Sino-Japanese war.

So let’s try to sketch the situation in late 1951, early 1952. The two sides were facing each other in mostly static battle positions along the 38th Parallel, where the war had started in July 1950. The U.S. had lost its nuclear monopoly in 1949, when the USSR successfully tested its first nuclear bomb. By then, the U.S. had also lost its initial supremacy in the air to the combined Soviet, Chinese and North Korean air forces. U.S. Command could not have been pleased with this situation. This was the first armed conflict of the nuclear age – and of the Cold War – and the United States were not winning it as expected, and by military and divine might.

The U.S. had been pursuing an active biological warfare program since 1942. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, the American absorbed the more advanced Japanese BW research and began an accelerated development program at Fort Detrick, Maryland and other secret facilities. They had already conducted secret tests by spraying anthrax over San Francisco Bay, in Alaska and elsewhere. (As revealed in the German documentary Codename Artichoke.) Now they had to test them in real war conditions, on ‘gooks’ and ‘reds’ that stubbornly refused yield to conventional military force and the natural superiority of the God-Fearing White Christian Man. (If you want to learn how deeply and fundamentally racist the Korean War was, read Bruce Cumings’ excellent The Korean War.)

According to Supotnitskiy, dropping a few rats with plague-bacteria-infected fleas, contaminated feathers, disease-carrying insects etc. into caves and tunnels where ‘red rats’ were hiding was very tempting and effective, both on an experimental and operational level.

Another useful Russian document is Russian Historiography of the Korean War compiled by historian Yuri Vanin (1930-2017). It is a detailed survey of Soviet and post-Soviet historical scholarship on the Korean war. It is interesting to learn how many historians in Russia (and China) changed their tune when the political wind shifted and started blowing Westward. From supporting – with reservations – North Korea in Soviet times, they turned – some virulently – against it and began toeing the Western line of blaming Stalin (mostly), Mao and Kim Il Sung for everything – including germ warfare. But the 1990’s were a confusing time in Russia, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Soviet society in general – including its academic institutions, libraries, archives and so on.

Vanin also writes that in 1994 the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation relating to the Korean War was donated to the Republic of Korea (South Korea). That is the very same archive from which Naito and Leitenberg’s 12 Soviet ‘documents’ originated in 1998, allegedly copied by an unknown archivist. Interesting…

Another important document in Russian is the full transcript of the Khabarovsk Trials. It is 538 pages long. That’s how it begins:

“From 25 to 30 December in the city of Khabarovsk, a trial was held in the case of twelve former officers of the Japanese army accused of preparing and using bacteriological weapons.”

These “former officers” belonged to Unit 731. While many of the worst Japanese war criminals were tried and sentenced to death by a U.S. Military Court in Tokyo, the leader of Unit 731, General Shiro Ishii, and his top aides, were granted immunity and asked to work on the U.S. BW research and development program.

If you want to read a point-by-point exposé of Japanese war crimes in English (170 pages) it is available here. Or you can watch the BBC documentary, Unit 731, Japan’s biological force.

My father, journalist Wilfred Burchett, had read the Khabarovsk Trial transcript when he was in China in 1951. He was also at a press conference in Chungking in late November 1941 at which Kuomintang China’s chief official spokesman, Dr Tsiang Ting-fu, accused the Japanese of having dropped infected fleas in the Changde district of Hunan province, causing an epidemic of bubonic plague in an area where it had previously been unknown. (The above mentioned BBC documentary investigates this.)

So when the North Koreans and Chinese made their accusations against the U.S. in February 1952, he had every reason to believe the allegations, investigate them and report them to the world.

One month after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, he wrote from the city’s still smoking ruins:

“In Hiroshima, 30 days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly – people who were uninjured by the cataclysm – from an unknown something which I can only describe as atomic plague.”

His eye-witness report was dismissed by the U.S. Military authorities as ‘Japanese propaganda’ and they tried to have him expelled from Japan. His Contax camera with his photos from Hiroshima mysteriously disappeared…

To this day, Wilfred Burchett is accused of having ‘fabricated’ the germ warfare ‘hoax’ – one of his many ‘sins.’ (See my Dirty Secrets of the Korean War, CounterPunch, Jan. 26, 2018.)

At least Naito-Leitenberg’s 12 Soviet ‘documents’ dispel that myth. According to them, the germ warfare ‘pranksters’ were Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung.

The evidence that the U.S. – and Japan – engaged in bacteriological warfare in Korea and China is overwhelming and conclusive – even if in the case of the U.S.A. a ‘smoking gun’ hasn’t been produced yet. And likely never will be.

12 suspicious Soviet ‘documents’ surreptitiously copied from an archive displaced from its original location into ‘enemy territory’ (North and South Korea are still technically at war – as we are reminded almost every day) cannot outweigh the compiled evidence of American guilt. Including the extensive and detailed evidence collected by the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of the Facts concerning Bacterial Warfare in Korea and China, led by Professor Joseph Needham of Cambridge University – one of Great Britain’s most eminent scientists and scholars. The International Scientific Commission’s finding were also dismissed as ‘communist propaganda’ and its distinguished members denounced as ‘dupes’ and ‘useful idiots.’

The ‘deniers’ are supported by a huge and mighty propaganda machine that serves the military-industrial complex, with its armies of enforcers, intelligence agencies, scribes, scholars, institutes, think tanks etc.

I detect a sickeningly familiar pattern here. I remember headlines like Comrade Burchett was a party hack (Peter Kelly, The Australian, Jan.7, 2006) or ‘Case closed’ as Soviet archives prove Wilfred Burchett was KGB (Robert Manne, The Australian, July 26, 2013) – to quote only two in a long and sustained stream of slanderous hatchet jobs in the Australian media. They all have one thing in common: they are almost always based on some newly discovered ‘document’ in some Soviet or former Soviet-satellite ‘archive,’ or ‘revelations’ by some ‘defector,’ and are triumphantly trumpeted in print, on the airwaves etc. as the latest ‘proof’ of Burchett’s ‘communist treachery.’

The people who write this stuff rarely, if ever, visit battlefields; they don’t see corpses and blood, smoking ruins, devastated landscapes, poisoned environments… They dwell in plush offices, editorial rooms, universities, ‘institutes’, think tanks etc., dig dirt on others, quote selectively and out of context, refer to each other’s ‘findings’, ‘discoveries’ etc. and write long pompous essays that are lauded and promoted by their media and other cronies as THE TRUTH (usually divorced from facts – we have to accept it on ‘faith,’ for they are privy to ‘information’ not available to the hoi poloi…) When their ‘truth’ turns out to be an un-truth, they are nonplussed, they just create another ‘truth.’ Truth is fun because they don’t have to look it in the eyes, or face the victims of their ‘truth’ or those on the receiving end of their ‘revelations’ and ‘allegations.’

These ‘truth-promoters,’ or gate-keepers, are usually polite, well-spoken, mild-mannered, well-dressed, well-groomed, they drink fine wines rather than whisky… They will denounce the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and so on with restrained conviction to cover up their own – or rather their paymasters’ past and present crimes. Shall we enumerate the countries invaded and devastated since Korea, in the name of ‘Freedom & Democracy,’ the twin guarantors of ‘Truth’ – as opposed to her nemesis ‘Propaganda’? Historian William Blum provides an extensive list in Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II – Updated Through 2003. (It needs updating.)

For the plush institutional ‘truth-seekers,’ ‘truth’ has a BBC accent or is delivered by CNN star reporters with meaningful frowns. Russian, Chinese and Korean are the languages of ‘communist propaganda’ or whatever narrative is currently disapproved of.

But I believe people around the world are beginning to see through the smokescreens and lies, they can see through the fog of war.

People are getting sick and tired of endless wars based on dodgy ‘dossiers’, lies, deception and media manipulations.

So kicking that old can of germs from the Korean War until the lid eventually comes off and spills its dark secrets is not a waste of time.

I am grateful to Russian historians and scholars for adding a few more elements to the compelling body of evidence of American – and Japanese – war crimes in Korea.

Including germ warfare.

For, as Bob Dylan sings:

Come, you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

George Burchett, son of legendary left journalist Wilfred Burchett, is an artist who lives in Ha Noi.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Russiagate Is Devolving Into an Effort to Stigmatize Dissent

An amicus brief to a lawsuit filed against Roger Stone and the Trump campaign raises troubling questions over the right to political speech.

DECEMBER 28, 2017

An invasion-of-privacy lawsuit, filed in July 2017 by a former DNC official and two Democratic donors, alleges that they suffered “significant distress and anxiety and will require lifelong vigilance and expense” because their personal information was exposed as a result of the e-mail hack of the DNC, which, the suit claims, was part of a conspiracy between Roger Stone and the Trump campaign.

Stone after being grilled by Congressional [illegal) inquisitors.

According to a report in The New York Times published at the time of the suit’s filing, “Mr. Trump and his political advisers, including Mr. Stone, have repeatedly denied colluding with Russia, and the 44-page complaint, filed on Wednesday in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, does not contain any hard evidence that his campaign did.” (Emphasis added.)In a new development, in early December, 14 former high-ranking US intelligence and national-security officials, including former deputy secretary of state William Burns; former CIA director John Brennan; former director of national intelligence James Clapper; and former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul (a longtime proponent of democracy promotion, which presumably includes free speech), filed an amicus brief as part of the lawsuit.

The amicus brief purports to explain to the court how Russia deploys “active measures” that seek “to undermine confidence in democratic leaders and institutions; sow discord between the United States and its allies; discredit candidates for office perceived as hostile to the Kremlin; influence public opinion against U.S. military, economic and political programs; and create distrust or confusion over sources of information.”

The former officials portray the amicus brief as an offering of neutral (“Amici submit this brief on behalf of neither party”) expertise (“to offer the Court their broad perspective, informed by careers spent working inside the U.S. government”).

The brief claims that Putin’s Russia has not only “actively spread disinformation online in order to exploit racial, cultural and political divisions across the country” but also “conducted cyber espionage operations…to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and, in the general election, influence the results against Secretary Hillary Clinton.”

According to the 14 former officials, Russia’s active-measure campaign relies “on intermediaries or ‘cut outs’ inside a country,” which are rather broadly defined as “political organizers and activists, academics, journalists, web operators, shell companies, nationalists and militant groups, and prominent pro-Russian businessmen.”

Such “intermediaries” can range from “the unwitting accomplice who is manipulated to act in what he believes is his best interest, to the ideological or economic ally who broadly shares Russian interests, to the knowing agent of influence who is recruited or coerced to directly advance Russian operations and objectives.”

In other words, a Russian “cut out” (or fifth columnist) can be defined as those “activists, academics, journalists, [or] web operators” who dissent from the shared ideology of the 14 signatories of the amicus brief.

In a recent essay for the London Review of Books, the historian Jackson Lears observed that “the religion of the Russian hack depends not on evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and their overlords.” And this amicus brief is one such pronouncement.

In spite of the brief’s high-flown language (“The threat posed to our democracy by Russian active measures campaigns is serious, ongoing and will require vigilance on the part of the U.S. government and people”), it is little more than yet another effort to stigmatize political speech that questions the necessity of demonizing Russia—political speech, in other words, with which these former high-ranking intelligence and national-security officials surely disagree.

Professor Lears also observed that as regards Russiagate, “In its capacity to exclude dissent, it is like no other formation of mass opinion in my adult life, though it recalls a few dim childhood memories of anti-communist hysteria during the early 1950s.”

That is only too true; indeed, as of this writing, the Russia-Trump collusion narrative is fast devolving into an effort to stigmatize and marginalize expressions of dissent, with the overarching aim of short-circuiting and stifling debate over US-Russia policy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Carden is a contributing writer at The Nation and the executive editor for the American Committee for East-West Accord.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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“This anti-Russian campaign is horrible”: An interview with antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

wsws.org

On October 19, WSWS journalist David Walsh spoke to Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist whose 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed during the Iraq War in early April 2004.

A little over a year after this tragedy, in August 2005, Sheehan came to prominence when she set up an antiwar camp, Camp Casey, outside George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. The month-long protest focused the attention of large numbers of people, in the US and around the world, on the human cost of the neocolonial invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Cindy was fortunate to meet the legendary Hugo Chavez.

When, in May 2007, the Democrats in Congress facilitated the authorization of an additional $100 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sheehan was outraged. In an open letter May 26 to the congressional Democrats announcing her departure from that party, she wrote, “You think giving him [Bush] more money is politically expedient, but it is a moral abomination and every second the occupation of Iraq endures, you all have more blood on your hands.”

Recently on her blog, Sheehan denounced actor/director Rob Reiner and actor Morgan Freeman for their video, announcing the formation of the “Committee to Investigate Russia.” This organization, which includes extreme right-wingers and assorted warmongers, was formed, according to the foul video, to help “Americans understand the gravity of Russia’s continuing attacks on democracy.” Freeman intones, “We have been attacked. We are… at war,” and proceeds from there.

In her comment, Sheehan recounted her experience with Reiner and his wife, Michele, who approached her in 2005 and attempted to bring her into the Hillary Clinton for president camp. As she noted on her blog and below, when she rejected that attempt, they ultimately reneged on their promises of assistance.

Sheehan concluded her piece, “Reiner et al, are enemies of truth; they are enemies of peace; they are enemies of true democracy; they should be exposed and shamed.”

* * *

David Walsh: Could you explain for the benefit of our readers your experience with Rob and Michele Reiner in 2005?

Cindy Sheehan: In August 2005 when I was in Crawford, Texas, Rob Reiner sent his wife Michele and a couple of people from his production team to Camp Casey to film a television commercial. It had me speaking about my son Casey, the war and how Bush lied. I demanded that Bush speak with me.

Of course, I thought it was because the Reiners cared about the wars. But it was actually because they wanted to further their anti-George Bush agenda, to benefit the Democrats. I didn’t know that at that time. They also filmed a couple of other Gold Star families and then the commercial was aired.

After Camp Casey was over, I was invited to Rob and Michele Reiner’s house. I had never met Rob before, I’d only met Michele. So we went, and Stephen Bing was also there. I didn’t know him. He is a movie producer, a businessman and a multi-, multi-millionaire—and a big funder of the Democratic Party. The meeting wasn’t so much about the Iraq War; it was about how I should support Hillary Clinton for president in 2008.

DW: Because you had a considerable following …

CS: I said, “I can’t support Hillary Clinton, she’s pro-war. I’ve given my promise that I’m not going to support any more pro-war politicians.” She not only voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she was actually one of the chief promoters of the wars. She provided Democratic Party cover and credibility, so to speak, for the lies justifying the wars. But they were lies no matter who told them.

Hillary Clinton: an arch typical warmongering corporatist Democrat.

Bing then looked at me and said, “Cindy, she’s our only hope.” I said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about when you say, she’s our only hope, but I cannot support her, and if she’s the only hope, we’re in very serious trouble. So are people all over the world.” He said to me, “She’s really against the wars, and she’s going to come out against them when it’s politically expedient.”

At that point, I started to cry. I said, “I can’t believe you just said that to me. She thought it was politically expedient to support the wars in 2001, 2002, 2003, and now my son has been killed. You’re saying that political expediency is more important than human life.”

We ended the meeting at the Reiners more or less like that. They were still supportive of me and my organization at the time, Gold Star Families for Peace. Our main office was in Los Angeles. My sister, Dede, was working there and she worked with Reiner and his team. They were helping us get our 501(c)3, our nonprofit status, they were paying for it, they were doing the legal work.

I was in Brooklyn to give a speech not too long after that, which of course was part of Clinton’s constituency, because she was one of the senators from New York. I told an anti-war rally what Bing had told me. He didn’t say it was a secret. And if he had, I probably would have reported it anyway. I said, we have to pressure her, because she’s not going to come out against the wars until it’s expedient. I knew my audience, I knew they didn’t like her.

This anti-Russian campaign is horrible. Would you really rather have a nuclear war than admit that your candidate, Clinton, lost because she’s a terrible person and ran a terrible campaign, and many people hate her?

Then, shortly afterward, I took part in a meeting with Hillary Clinton. She was really cold and callous. I was with another Gold Star mother, and my sister. The three of us poured our hearts out, we were crying. After the meeting, Clinton spoke to a reporter from the Village Voice and said, “Yes, I heard what they had to say, but I met with other Gold Star families before they came, and they want us to continue the mission to make sure that their loved ones’ sacrifices are honored.” She added, “I agree with them, the other families.”

In November 2005, there was a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles, and I was going to go down and protest at it. Michele Reiner called me that morning, and said, “Cindy, please don’t go and protest.” I had planned to get on a plane and go down there, from Northern California. Michele begged me not to go. I said, “Out of respect for the help you’ve given Gold Star Families for Peace, I won’t go.”

However, my sister and other antiwar activists still went. Rob and Michele Reiner saw them and actually gave them a middle finger. That was a Saturday. On Monday, Reiner’s assistant called my sister and told her, “We’re not supporting Gold Star Families for Peace anymore.”

Rob Reiner: the stuff that big phonies are made of. Or simply mainstream liberals. (Rob Reiner (Photo by Neil Grabowsky/Montclair Film Festival))

DW: They pulled the funding, and the support?

CS: Yes. We were right in the middle of getting our 501c3. After Rob and Michele treated my sister and my comrades so rudely, I wrote an article about how the antiwar movement shouldn’t support Hillary Clinton. It was posted at the Huffington Post. That’s the last contact I’ve had with the Reiners or Bing.

That was one of my early eye-opening experiences.

When my son was killed, I wasn’t an activist, a political person. I didn’t know who were true opponents of the war and who were just against the Republicans, or simply against Bush. Because it doesn’t seem as though many of these people are against the wars now that Trump is president. Or they’re not protesting, in any case.

I didn’t know. I thought that if people came to help, they were there because they had the same goals we did, and that would be ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of those people were just there to end Republican rule.

DW: Basically, they packed up the antiwar movement in 2006 when the Democrats retook Congress. There hasn’t been a major demonstration since that time. And the election of Barack Obama completed the process.

CS: Exactly. Of course, I was told by all the Democrats in 2005, Nancy Pelosi included, that if the antiwar movement helped them get back in power, in the elections of ’06, they would help us end the wars. Then, in ’07, they were sworn in and it wasn’t even on their agenda. They had their top 10 items they were going to work on, and ending the wars wasn’t there at all. Howard Dean told me, “Cindy, the wars are so hard.” Screw you. My son is dead, and so are many others.

In 2008, on the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, several “antiwar” organizations said that we shouldn’t have any protests in D.C. because it would embarrass the Democrats. One of them, United for Peace and Justice, was significantly supported by the Communist Party, and we know they have long been in the back pocket of the Democratic Party. I would normally say, up the butts of the Democrats, but I’ll try and be a little more dignified in this interview. The so-called left … !

DW: Let’s talk about the anti-Russian campaign. In our view, it’s both a matter of divisions over foreign policy within the ruling elite, and an effort to channel social anger in a reactionary direction. The Democrats have not challenged Trump on his extreme right-wing program, but primarily accused him of being “soft” on Russia, or a Russian puppet.

CS: Right. They can’t attack for him continuing the wars either, because the Democrats are part and parcel of that. To me, it’s just so patently bullshit, the propaganda about Russia. People just want to cling onto it.

In the “Committee to Investigate Russia” video, Morgan Freeman said, “For 241 years, our democracy has been a shining example of what we can all aspire to.” Really? You’re a black man, how can you even say that? A descendant of slaves. What about the genocide of the indigenous population? An example of democracy to whom?

Morgan Freeman: Uncle Toms don't come any better than this, or more toxic. Money and adulation went to his head.

Freeman suggests some gravitas. Whether he actually has it or not, he can act like he has. People see that and say, he was the president of the United States, in a movie, so I believe him when he says that Russia and Trump are destroying American democracy. Blah, blah, blah …

DW: The propaganda campaign has reached the most preposterous levels. They’re now arguing that basically every sign of discontent in the United States has been instigated by Russian agents. I don’t frankly think most people believe it.

CS: I hope not. That would make me very sad. I’m very active on social media, and there are a lot of people who are buying this. Rachel Maddow is another pusher of this.

DW: That’s the whole pseudo-left and miserable liberal-left, all of these people have gone over to or become the pro-war camp.

CS: There are hundreds of people thanking her …

DW: Don’t be too impressed. There are empty-headed types and loudmouths, or people who don’t see things yet. It’s a big country. But the social conditions in America are devastating. I don’t think that many people believe that anger in America is Russian-made! They know where the anger comes from and what it’s about.

CS: Well, they’re trying their hardest to confuse people.

DW: Of course. Now, your “friend” Clinton has accused WikiLeaks of being a tool of Russian intelligence. They’re all demanding that the Internet be censored. The great “fake news” story they don’t want people to receive or hear is that American capitalism is a disaster.

You made another point in your article: “The [Reiner-Freeman] video obviously was made to sink us back into the lowest depths of the McCarthy witch hunts and HUAC hysteria and as a Cold War Kid, ‘I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore,’ (Paul Simon, Graceland).” Could you talk about that a bit, about being a “Cold War Kid”?

CS: I think post-9/11 America might be even more propagandized and intimidated by the government and the corporate media than during the Cold War. But, oh, my goodness, from the time I was in the first grade until I was in the sixth grade every Friday we had those nuclear bomb drills where a siren would blow and we had to climb under our desks. We were told how evil and violent the Soviet Union was, along with “Red China.” You couldn’t say “China,” you had to say, “Red China.”

When I was in the second grade, my teacher asked us—mind you, we were 7- and 8-year-old kids—what would we do if a “red Communist” came up to us and told us not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and if we did it anyway, he would blow our heads off? I raised my hand, she called on me, and I said, I wouldn’t say it! That was not the answer she was looking for.

DW: Better dead then red.

CS: She dragged me to the corner, and she was calling me a traitor and anti-American. I was standing in the corner, and thinking, I don’t care what you say, I still don’t want to get my head blown off. It was child abuse the way we were terrorized.

After my son was killed, I went to Venezuela and other places, I talked to people who had been harmed by the US government and its policies, and I had been digging into what this country does. But when I went to Cuba in January of ’07, I was still a little bit trepidatious because of all the propaganda we had been taught about Cuba. If you live one way for 45 years, you have it pounded into your head how evil Castro and the Cuban revolution are, it’s kind of hard to break free of that.

DW: You also mention that this is the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and that you’re studying it. I’m curious what books you’re reading or what studying you’re doing.

CS: I just finished The Emancipation of Women by Lenin. I’ve read pamphlets by Lenin. And works by other people.

DW: You should read Trotsky’s The History of the Russian Revolution.

CS: I have read some Trotsky. I love your analysis on the World Socialist Web Site.

I’ve been trying to dig into the background and the heroism of the Bolshevik Revolution, because I have been so propagandized my whole life about the Soviet Union. I was taught about how America saved the world from fascism, but it was mainly the sacrifices made by the Soviet population that defeated Hitler.

DW: So you read the WSWS?

CS: Oh, all the time. I share it on my Facebook page a lot too. I have learned a lot from the analysis.

DW: Glad to hear it.

Let me ask you one more, and difficult, question. It’s been 13 years since your son died. This is not something you ever get over. How has that pain changed over the years, if it has?

CS: I’ve been thinking about it a lot, because my sister passed away in January. That was another huge blow to our family.

Recently, some US special forces were killed in Niger, in West Africa. There’s a big controversy because the family said that Trump upset them. Trump said something like, he [the dead soldier] knew what he was signing up for.

It’s really hard because Casey and millions of others should still be alive. The liberals are mad at Trump for upsetting the family, but they’re not asking, what are US Special Forces doing in Niger? There’s been so much death and destruction, and so my pain has become global instead of just local.

As far as Casey’s death is concerned, you learn how to live with it, but we still get assaulted all the time, by current events, and the news, and the lies. As an activist, it’s just something that’s constant. Sometimes I have to pull back, “I’m going to binge on Netflix for the rest of the day, watch something funny.” I have to remove myself from it occasionally, because it never stops.

I also have to mention my five grandchildren, from nine years old down to two. They helped me go through my sister’s terrible situation. I was her caregiver for two years. They just live life. So they’ve given me back a lot of my joy in living. Then I feel bad, because I ask myself, what kind of world are we giving them? A pretty shitty one.

DW: We’ll change it.

CS: Well, we’re trying.

The author also recommends:

An interview with antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan
[5 September 2007]

CINDY SHEEHAN—In the “Committee to Investigate Russia” video, Morgan Freeman said, “For 241 years, our democracy has been a shining example of what we can all aspire to.” Really? You’re a black man, how can you even say that? A descendant of slaves. What about the genocide of the indigenous population? An example of democracy to whom?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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THE CHARACTER OF RUSSIAN COMMUNISM

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. WE MUST BREAK THE IMPERIAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE.

A civilization reveals itself as fruitful by its ability to incite others to imitate it: when it no longer dazzles them, it is reduced to a mere collection of odds and ends and vestiges of former worldly greatness. The successive attempts of Napoleon and Hitler to create a world empire failed, as the United States of North America has failed in our time because any initial attraction they might have exerted on the conquered transformed into resistance and hate as a result of their genocidal policies or military occupation and/or exploitation of the resources of the conquered lands instead of gradual absorption and acceptance of different peoples and the furthering of local cultures. (Paraphrased from Cioran’s Histoire et Utopie)

The goal of the brutal Mongol domination of Russia (1240-1480) was even more ruinous than imperialism as we know it in our times. It was the physical destruction, occupation and colonialization of the known world of its times. Militarily the Mongol (Tatar) invasion was devastating, its historical effect ambivalent and long-range significance immeasurable. After widespread destruction and massacres of the populations from China to Germany, the Mongols reigned over most of Russia from their capital near the Caspian Sea; however, they mingled little in everyday Russian life—demanding chiefly financial tributes and recognition of their domination—during which centuries they themselves were gradually assimilated. Russian historians are therefore divided between those who pay only passing attention to the Mongol domination—known as the Mongol yoke—and those who stress its destructive influence on Russia.

13th Century Russian prince (and saint, later) Alexander Nevsky was victorious against the German knights and their allies, but had to accommodate his power to the Mongol presence throughout Russia and beyond. (In the still from S. Eisenstein classic, Alexander Nevsky, the hero refuses the mongol ambassador’s invitation to join the Golden Horde.)

Perhaps the most enduring effect of the Mongol yoke was to cut off the dominated Russian lands from the West causing Russia to look eastwards so that the Russian civilization did not experience the Renaissance of the West. On the other hand, as the philosopher Nicolas Berdyaev writes in The Origin of Russian Communism: “the immensity of those territories to the East, the absence of boundaries, came to be expressed in the breadth of the Russian spirit.”

Later rulers like Peter the Great who built St. Petersburg turned the Russian outlook westwards by force; yet the divisions persisted between Russia’s Westernizers who still look westwards and Slavophiles who cling to pure Russian traditions. The latter outlook is much in vogue today, buttressing Russia’s cold shoulder toward U.S. imposed economic sanctions.

It seems inconceivable to this observer that such a people, after the two centuries of the Mongol yoke, its cities destroyed and Moscow burned by Napoleon, and Nazi armies who laid waste to country up until their defeats at Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad costing however 27 million Russian, that such a people is now in a position to be on the point of becoming the world’s third economic power, that this people that has suffered harshly throughout its history can claim not to give a damn about America’s sanctions, (sanctions already opposed—out of self-interest—by some of America’s own European allies).

Moreover: Russia’s claims to be the savior of the West finds also historical justification in its having stopped and absorbed the brunt of the Mongol attacks on the West after which Russia paid the additional price of two centuries of servitude and exclusion from the rest of the world. In any case, during its period of exclusion Russia, retreating as always on itself, became increasingly conscious of its roots—also in its Eastern occupiers as according to the old expression: ‘Scratch a Russian and find a Tatar’—while Russia was becoming increasingly powerful before it centuries later adopted Marxism on which however it gave its Slavic imprint with its vestiges of the East which eventually marked also the Russian revolution itself.

That Asiatic-socialist mark not only survives but flourishes today in its capitalist society which bears definite Marxist collective overtones demonstrating that when a people with the wide breadth of view of Russians—its special and differentiating mirovozreniye—gained from its land expanses and its history adopts a foreign ideology so powerful as Marxism, that people assimilates and changes its nature: Lenin was a Marxist but he changed the essence of Marxism to suit Russia’s needs; Lenin never conceived of Russian Socialism/Communism as utopian; it was hard reality geared to Russia’s needs of the moment. Also for that reason, though the USSR dissolved, Marxism-Leninism remains in contemporary Russia and has already changed Russian society fundamentally. (And the heroic Russian army still flies the communist emblems on its uniforms and gear.)

Russian tanker crews parade in victory celebration over fascism (2013). The red star is affixed to all of Russia's tanks, navy and aviation equipment.

It has been said that the Russians were always socialistic, a trait engrained in its illiterate peoples long before the revolution. Russian revolutionaries were always ideological, it was in their blood. So it is no surprise that Lenin wrote in What Is To Be Done: "It is either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle road here … Therefore any belittling of socialist ideology, any alienation from it signifies the strengthening of the bourgeois ideology.” Russian people could understand him perfectly. And no wonder that The Communist Party of the Russian Federation with a program of Socialism for Russia had 570,000 members in 2015, the second Party in Russia, while recent polls show that more than 50% of Russians favor a return to the USSR.

Russian Expansionism

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n American propagandistic terms Russia’s expansionism is labeled imperialist aggression, citing as examples the annexation of (Russian) Crimea and the invention of Russian intervention in Ukraine and in the ridiculous and unfounded claims of Russian intervention in the U.S. presidential elections. There is a basic difference between American imperialism and aggression—which began with the Mexican War in 1846 and has since never ceased on a worldwide scale that the Mongols would admire—and Russia’s expansion to the East from European Russia to the Pacific. Not only was this expansion in the nature of an empire which stood with its back to the West and facing eastwards at a huge but extremely sparsely occupied territory, containing enormous wealth. That is what the West in general and the USA in particular envy Russia for: its natural wealth much of which is still buried under the soil beyond the Ural Mountains. Why should they have all that wealth? is the U.S. attitude, part of the justification for its great plot to subjugate Russia and split it up into small states.

Consistently encouraged by the West, Hitler eventually moved against Russia, wounding her terribly but being destroyed in the process.

Things changed dramatically when first the Russian empire, then the great Communist “beast”, turned westwards, first to defeat Napoleon, then to win World War II—again for the West as it had done against the Mongols. Revolutionary Communist Russia’s victory proved to be nearly unforgiveable in the West. As if it wanted to continue its march on from Berlin to Paris and Rome. Cossacks in the fountains of the Eternal City. Had Russian Slavophiles not always maintained that Russia was ‘destined to save the world’?

However, as Cioran wrote that claim was merely euphemistic. The bare expression “save the world” (i.e. save the West) did not mean to dominate it. In reality, spiritual Russia has always felt both love and hate, attraction and repulsion, jealousy and aversion inspired by a rottenness (of the West), both enviable and dangerous, with which contact is sought as well as evaded.

To be remembered: The soul of the Russian people was molded by the Orthodox Church. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire, called the Second Rome, which was the greatest Orthodox state in the world, the Russian Orthodox Church remained as the home of Orthodoxy. Thus emerged the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome. “Two Romes had fallen, but the third stands … and there will be no fourth.” The doctrine of Moscow the Third Rome became the basic idea of the former Moscow state. Its symbol was the messianic idea of that state. Tsar Ivan the Terrible ruled over a totalitarian state to the degree that among the people emerged the conviction of a plot of the Church hierarchy and State to betray the true faith. On which the people broke with Church and State and went underground from which arose the legend of the (pure) City of Kitezh hidden beneath a lake, a city that guaranteed social justice, another fundamental trait of the Russian people: the search for social justice as exemplified by the imaginary Utopian City of Kitezh.

During The Great War, the Russians suffered major setbacks for several years. but eventually, at enormous cost, they turned the Nazi tide. The Red Army proved invincible.

Intellectual asceticism, nihilism and materialism were traits of the nineteenth century Russian revolutionary character among the intelligentsia, qualities superimposed on the inherent sense of social justice among a largely illiterate people. Nihilism cannot be overemphasized in an understanding of Lenin’s generation of revolutionaries. Berdyaev defines Russian nihilism as “a revolt against the injustices of history, against false civilization, a demand that history shall come to an end, and a new life, outside or above history, begin….a demand for nakedness, for the stripping from oneself of all the trappings of culture, for the annihilation of all historical traditions, for the setting free of the natural man, upon whom there will no longer be fetters of any sort.”

Soviet soldiers hoisting the red flag over Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Such was the maximalist nature of the Russians (which became ideology) who then became the revolutionaries who in October of 1917 made the greatest revolution of our times that still appeals to major parts of mankind and changed the history of the world.

About the Author

GAITHER STEWART Senior Editor, European Correspondent } Gaither Stewart serves as The Greanville Post European correspondent, Special Editor for Eastern European developments, and general literary and cultural affairs correspondent. A retired journalist, his latest book is the essay asnthology BABYLON FALLING (Punto Press, 2017). He’s also the author of several other books, including the celebrated Europe Trilogy (The Trojan Spy, Lily Pad Roll and Time of Exile), all of which have also been published by Punto Press. These are thrillers that have been compared to the best of John le Carré, focusing on the work of Western intelligence services, the stealthy strategy of tension, and the gradual encirclement of Russia, a topic of compelling relevance in our time. He makes his home in Rome, with wife Milena. Gaither can be contacted at gaithers@greanvillepost.com. His latest assignment is as Counseling Editor with the Russia Desk. His articles on TGP can be found here.

On which the people broke with Church and State and went underground from which arose the legend of the (pure) City of Kitezh hidden beneath a lake, a city that guaranteed social justice, another fundamental trait of the Russian people: the search for social justice as exemplified by the imaginary Utopian City of Kitezh.

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Sweet Irony...
Amazon will donate a commission for every purchase you make using this app

We all know that Amazon is an uber-capitalist octopus swallowing ever more industries and openly collaborating with the CIA. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, probably the #2 richest man on earth, is no friend of radicals, or socialist revolution, that's for sure. But this app, ironically, promises to donate some money to whoever uses it to search and make a purchase on Amazon. Since many people will go on using Amazon due to habit or convenience, make it kick back a few dollars our way to continue our pro-peace and anti-imperialist work. Our financial situation leaves us no choice at this point. So consider it. A boycott of Amazon by lefties at this point is hardly going to register on their radar. But any funding we get, at our puny level, will keep us going. Simple as that.

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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

Tillerson says he and Trump ‘unhappy’ about new anti-Russia sanctions

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

RICKY TWISDALE, The Duran

The US secretary of state confirms that he and President Trump will continue working to improve relations with Russia despite new sanctions

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has spoken out regarding a tough new sanctions bill currently on Donald Trump’s desk. (UPDATE: Trump has since signed the sanctions into law, albeit expressing doubts about their constitutionality.)

The secretary answered questions regarding the sanctions during a nearly one hour press conference on Tuesday.

Congress sent legislation to the president last week which locks in sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea, requiring the consent of Congress for removal. The bill was passed by an overwhelming veto-proof margin in both houses.

During his remarks, Tillerson emphasized that he thought the American public supported better relations with Russia:

I think the American people want the two most powerful nuclear nations in the world to have a better relationship. I don’t think the American people want us to have a bad relationship with a huge nuclear power. But I think they are frustrated, and I think a lot of this reflects the frustration that we’ve not seen the kind of improvement in the relationship with Russia that all of us would like to see.

Following the latest move by the US congress, Moscow announced that 755 US diplomatic personnel would have to leave their positions in Russia. (The US presently maintains vastly more diplomatic staff in Russia than vice versa.) The Russians also cut off access to a vacation home and a warehouse owned by the US embassy.

According to the Kremlin, it was a countermove to President Obama’s seizure of Russian diplomatic property last December – not a reaction to the new sanctions bill. Secretary Tillerson expressed understanding for Vladimir Putin’s position:

I think it’s important to recognize that any leader of any country has their whole population watching them as well, and President Putin has his population of Russia watching him. And so I think the fact that they felt the need to take symmetrical action – and that’s the way they view it – is that they were delayed in taking this action, and I think President Putin has said that. He didn’t react when the two dachas were taken away in December. He didn’t react when 35 diplomats were sent home. He waited. And now this action came on top of that, and I think from his perspective and how he looks in the eyes of his own people, he felt he had to do something.

On the issue of the new sanctions bill itself, Tillerson made clear that both he and President Trump see the bill as counterproductive. He also said that although the Trump cannot stop the new sanctions, the administration will not allow them to obstruct continued efforts to build cooperation with Russia:

The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the President nor I are very happy about that. We were clear that we didn’t think it was going to be helpful to our efforts. But that’s the decision they made. They made it in a very overwhelming way. I think the President accepts that, and all indications are he will sign that, that bill. And then we’ll just work with it, and that’s kind of my view is we’ll work with it. We got it. We can’t let it take us off track of trying to restore the relationship.

Mr. Tillerson also left no doubt that the country’s head-of-state was in charge of setting foreign policy, and indicated that anyone in the state department unable to carry out the president’s policies was welcome to seek other employment:

The policy that we are leading is dictated by the President of the United States, who was selected by the American people. So we are working on behalf of the American people who selected this President to carry out his foreign policies…

Have I encountered some people on the way that didn’t want to do that, couldn’t do that? Yes. And we have given them permission to go do something else.

Tillerson gave no indication during the press conference that he was close to resigning, as mainstream media had been speculating for several days.

The secretary of state’s remarks on Russia stand in stark contrast not only to the view expressed by congress, but also Vice President Mike Pence, who is touring eastern european states reassuring them of US support in the face of a supposed threat posed by Russia.

The foreign policy schizophrenia in Washington looks unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

About the Author

Ricky Twisdale is a writer for The Duran based in Moscow. On Twitter @RickyTwisdale

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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found