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This book has been proven a fraud by historians around the world time and time again, including by many leading historians in the United States. It’s fraudulenc

by halsom 5y ago

This book has been proven a fraud by historians around the world time and time again, including by many leading historians in the United States. It’s fraudulence, and the support and proliferation of it by US state officials and US academies is sheer embarrassment. The fact that anyone still has the nerve to so much as imply that this is a worthwhile source of information should serve as a stain on the prevailing liberalism of our times.

WalterBright 5y ago
Cites, please. Are you claiming that the famines in the USSR and the gulags, for example, didn't happen? How about Pol Pot's massacres? I'm curious as to your explanation for why communist countries built walls to keep people in, and the US builds walls to keep people out? Can you point out famines and gulags in the US? I toured East Berlin in 1969. I went through the wall. East Berlin looked like a drab prison camp compared to West Berlin. You can believe whatever you like, but I've seen it with my own eyes. I think the Berliners were a little too eager to tear down that wall, though I totally understand why. Should have left more of it up to inform later revisionists.
- lucian1900 5y ago
  The GDR was poor because it was small, didn’t start out with much industry, had a hostile enclave forced on half its capital, paid reparations, competed with the US-funded western part and was under constant attack from it. Don’t confuse the effects of your country’s imperialism with efforts to resist it.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    They were poor because they spent a large fraction of their GDP on the Wall. I've heard the claim before that the Wall was built to keep Westerners out. But, as I said, I've visited the Wall in 1969. It was very clearly designed to keep people in, not out. The defenses pointed East. It was a layered defense, with the weakest parts easternmost and the deadliest parts adjacent to the Wall itself. Exactly what would be built to defend from attack from the East. You'll see the same setup in fortifications from castles (layers pointing outwards) to prisons (layers pointing inwards). For another example, West Berlin helped out people who wanted to invade East Berlin by building platforms so one could look over the Wall (as myself and lots of tourists did). Nobody hopped over, though, to invade the East. But many got shot trying to go the other way, there's a museum there documenting it. BTW, it was the East that blockaded West Berlin, attempting to starve the city into submission, not the other way around.
    - lucian1900 5y ago
      The wall was mainly built to prevent brain drain. The richer West was bribing people to move there, after they were raised and trained with the resources of the poorer East. It was a last resort taken out of desperation over the West’s constant economic and covert military attacks and arguably still a mistake. For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it. A similar kind of brain drain is happening all over Eastern Europe, to disastrous consequences. Especially with COVID it’s a massive problem that most trained medics have emigrated.
      - detaro 5y ago
        The West didn't need to bribe people, it just had to not take people's rights and things. > For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it. It's a laughable idea that the GDR did decide such things without Moscow. Closing and fortifying the German-German border effectively happened on Stalins orders, the Berlin Wall was built with Moscows permission.
        lucian1900 5y ago
        The why do the Soviet archives contain detailed accounts of Stalin himself (and several other leaders) discussing the matter and sending a recommendation against the wall? Why do the same archives tell us about the proposal of a unified neutral Germany after the war?
        WalterBright 5y ago
        > recommendation Recommending is not the same thing as ordering or proscribing. > proposal I'm sure a lot of proposals were floated and discussed.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        > after they were raised and trained with the resources of the poorer East Yeah, I've heard that before. How the communists provided a free education, and so the citizens then owed a lifetime of servitude in return.
  - allendoerfer 5y ago
    While not agreeing with them, I was interested in your arguments in the parent comments. This one is wrong to the point of making you seem delusional. > The GDR was poor because it was small, It was about double the size of Switzerland, four times the size of Norway or Denmark, 30 times the size of Luxembourg. Do you see where I am going here? > didn’t start out with much industry, Berlin and Prussia have a rich industrial history. > had a hostile enclave forced on half its capital, Calling West-Berlin the hostile enclave is insulting to hundreds of people getting shot trying to flee towards it. You should be ashamed for this sentence. > paid reparations, ... enforced on it by their communist puppet-master. > competed with the US-funded western part The effects of the Marshall plan are overestimated. It competed with its dysfunctional system against a functioning one. > and was under constant attack from it. I am confused. Are you talking about the care-packages sent to Eastern Germany by western family members?
    - FredPret 5y ago
      That person should watch The Lives of Others/Das Leben der Anderen
    - lucian1900 5y ago
      I understand it is difficult to question much of what one has learned growing up about the past. It took me a lot of talking to older Eastern Europeans and reading history and political theory to begin questioning the default narrative. The GDR was small and with little industry compared to its Western counterpart, not in absolute terms. When we’re talking about people moving between the two that is what is relevant. It’s not the people of West Berlin that were hostile, but its state and US occupiers. The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany. Leaving Nazis in positions of power in the west was the second. Now you are insulting the people of the former GDR by implying they were puppets of the Soviets. Did you know the USSR were against the wall, but the GDR built it after all? In terms of reparations, it’s normal for an invader to pay reparations to their victim, if nothing else to rebuild. What is unusual is that the rest of Germany didn’t pay reparations to Eastern Europe. In addition to the Marshal plan (which was significant in West Germany), imperialism continued. As the most obvious example, West German banks continued to export capital at extortionate rates to extract profits from poorer countries. There were numerous covert attacks against the GDR, what do you think the Stasi were fighting? Western agents were found all over Eastern Europe spreading lies, arming fascists, assassinating people, etc. I recommend you speak to some people that experienced the GDR. Their opinions are instructive.
- halsom 5y ago
  The book is full of wildly exaggerated statistics that have been proven so. It’s that simple.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Proven by who? I'll need more than an anonymous internet person to take it seriously. A book or paper by a professional historian would be credible. Besides, even if the stats are exaggerated by factor of 10, communism still winds up being terrible.
    - andrepd 5y ago
      Simple question: do you attribute all preventable or violent deaths under capitalism to the ideology of capitalism? If yes you probably have over billions of deaths since the ~1600s.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Simple answer: I would count violent purges and death camps, mass executions, deliberate impositions of famine, deaths due to mass confiscation of property, gulag deaths, etc. Those are active killings of people.
        andrepd 5y ago
        Okay, then capitalism far out-scores Marxist-Leninism in that departament. From man-made famines in colonies to the genocide of natives. Near the entire land area of the US was made by "mass confiscation of property", oops I mean manifest destiny.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Even more grim is the bullet holes in that wall... on the Eastern side. Another interesting thing is aerial photos of Korea. The South is lit brightly, while the North looks like a stain of black paint.
- andrepd 5y ago
  Genocide of Native Americans, man-made famines in India, imperialism and colonialism in general, the >100 coups executed by the US in the 20th century...

by halsom 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

Cites, please. Are you claiming that the famines in the USSR and the gulags, for example, didn't happen? How about Pol Pot's massacres? I'm curious as to your explanation for why communist countries built walls to keep people in, and the US builds walls to keep people out? Can you point out famines and gulags in the US? I toured East Berlin in 1969. I went through the wall. East Berlin looked like a drab prison camp compared to West Berlin. You can believe whatever you like, but I've seen it with my own eyes. I think the Berliners were a little too eager to tear down that wall, though I totally understand why. Should have left more of it up to inform later revisionists.

lucian1900 5y ago
The GDR was poor because it was small, didn’t start out with much industry, had a hostile enclave forced on half its capital, paid reparations, competed with the US-funded western part and was under constant attack from it. Don’t confuse the effects of your country’s imperialism with efforts to resist it.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  They were poor because they spent a large fraction of their GDP on the Wall. I've heard the claim before that the Wall was built to keep Westerners out. But, as I said, I've visited the Wall in 1969. It was very clearly designed to keep people in, not out. The defenses pointed East. It was a layered defense, with the weakest parts easternmost and the deadliest parts adjacent to the Wall itself. Exactly what would be built to defend from attack from the East. You'll see the same setup in fortifications from castles (layers pointing outwards) to prisons (layers pointing inwards). For another example, West Berlin helped out people who wanted to invade East Berlin by building platforms so one could look over the Wall (as myself and lots of tourists did). Nobody hopped over, though, to invade the East. But many got shot trying to go the other way, there's a museum there documenting it. BTW, it was the East that blockaded West Berlin, attempting to starve the city into submission, not the other way around.
  - lucian1900 5y ago
    The wall was mainly built to prevent brain drain. The richer West was bribing people to move there, after they were raised and trained with the resources of the poorer East. It was a last resort taken out of desperation over the West’s constant economic and covert military attacks and arguably still a mistake. For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it. A similar kind of brain drain is happening all over Eastern Europe, to disastrous consequences. Especially with COVID it’s a massive problem that most trained medics have emigrated.
    - detaro 5y ago
      The West didn't need to bribe people, it just had to not take people's rights and things. > For example, the USSR disagreed with the wall and recommended against building it. It's a laughable idea that the GDR did decide such things without Moscow. Closing and fortifying the German-German border effectively happened on Stalins orders, the Berlin Wall was built with Moscows permission.
      - lucian1900 5y ago
        The why do the Soviet archives contain detailed accounts of Stalin himself (and several other leaders) discussing the matter and sending a recommendation against the wall? Why do the same archives tell us about the proposal of a unified neutral Germany after the war?
        WalterBright 5y ago
        > recommendation Recommending is not the same thing as ordering or proscribing. > proposal I'm sure a lot of proposals were floated and discussed.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > after they were raised and trained with the resources of the poorer East Yeah, I've heard that before. How the communists provided a free education, and so the citizens then owed a lifetime of servitude in return.
- allendoerfer 5y ago
  While not agreeing with them, I was interested in your arguments in the parent comments. This one is wrong to the point of making you seem delusional. > The GDR was poor because it was small, It was about double the size of Switzerland, four times the size of Norway or Denmark, 30 times the size of Luxembourg. Do you see where I am going here? > didn’t start out with much industry, Berlin and Prussia have a rich industrial history. > had a hostile enclave forced on half its capital, Calling West-Berlin the hostile enclave is insulting to hundreds of people getting shot trying to flee towards it. You should be ashamed for this sentence. > paid reparations, ... enforced on it by their communist puppet-master. > competed with the US-funded western part The effects of the Marshall plan are overestimated. It competed with its dysfunctional system against a functioning one. > and was under constant attack from it. I am confused. Are you talking about the care-packages sent to Eastern Germany by western family members?
  - FredPret 5y ago
    That person should watch The Lives of Others/Das Leben der Anderen
  - lucian1900 5y ago
    I understand it is difficult to question much of what one has learned growing up about the past. It took me a lot of talking to older Eastern Europeans and reading history and political theory to begin questioning the default narrative. The GDR was small and with little industry compared to its Western counterpart, not in absolute terms. When we’re talking about people moving between the two that is what is relevant. It’s not the people of West Berlin that were hostile, but its state and US occupiers. The insistence of the US on a split Germany with half of the capital as an enclave was the first such hostile action, especially when the USSR was proposing a united neutral Germany. Leaving Nazis in positions of power in the west was the second. Now you are insulting the people of the former GDR by implying they were puppets of the Soviets. Did you know the USSR were against the wall, but the GDR built it after all? In terms of reparations, it’s normal for an invader to pay reparations to their victim, if nothing else to rebuild. What is unusual is that the rest of Germany didn’t pay reparations to Eastern Europe. In addition to the Marshal plan (which was significant in West Germany), imperialism continued. As the most obvious example, West German banks continued to export capital at extortionate rates to extract profits from poorer countries. There were numerous covert attacks against the GDR, what do you think the Stasi were fighting? Western agents were found all over Eastern Europe spreading lies, arming fascists, assassinating people, etc. I recommend you speak to some people that experienced the GDR. Their opinions are instructive.
halsom 5y ago
The book is full of wildly exaggerated statistics that have been proven so. It’s that simple.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Proven by who? I'll need more than an anonymous internet person to take it seriously. A book or paper by a professional historian would be credible. Besides, even if the stats are exaggerated by factor of 10, communism still winds up being terrible.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    Simple question: do you attribute all preventable or violent deaths under capitalism to the ideology of capitalism? If yes you probably have over billions of deaths since the ~1600s.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Simple answer: I would count violent purges and death camps, mass executions, deliberate impositions of famine, deaths due to mass confiscation of property, gulag deaths, etc. Those are active killings of people.
      - andrepd 5y ago
        Okay, then capitalism far out-scores Marxist-Leninism in that departament. From man-made famines in colonies to the genocide of natives. Near the entire land area of the US was made by "mass confiscation of property", oops I mean manifest destiny.
FredPret 5y ago
Even more grim is the bullet holes in that wall... on the Eastern side. Another interesting thing is aerial photos of Korea. The South is lit brightly, while the North looks like a stain of black paint.
andrepd 5y ago
Genocide of Native Americans, man-made famines in India, imperialism and colonialism in general, the >100 coups executed by the US in the 20th century...