HIS CLASS KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090052-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 52
• Publication Date: May 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090052-1
ARTICLE APPEARED Knsi:1N(,rO 'llrTS
(2P P-?GE 24 Miv 1OS5
ARNOLD sEIamWnrv
Hip; class knows the difference
-
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r-lhc record of Stalin's
of appeasement ei
policy ppeasement not believe what these young e'x- alone the ri
ht
of
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i
g
,
a
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1 toward Hitler - both the Soviet citizens tell him about the "teach" a "credo" - his credo? Ever
open and the secret realities of Soviet socialism in mod- if his credo encompasses a belief in
record - reveal that the more ern urban Russia. After all, hove apartheid, or that the Holocaust is a
aggressive Hitler's policies became, could he accept their testimony historical fraud? And what does Pro-
the more Stalin pressed his when, as he tells us, most of these fessor Menashe's socialist
courtship. And the more ex-Russians cheered President Rea- apologetics mean when he tells his
strenuously Stalin wooed him, the gan's election and re-election? students that the Soviet Union, as a
bolder were Hitler's aggressions." I think to myself: product of "a harsh, traumatic his-
So wrote the man who knew Stalin Imagine that this is 1938 and an tory ... deserves some balanced as
from the inside. He was Maj. Gen. earlier Professor Menashe is well as critical understanding." Did
Walter G. Krivitsky, the first high- teaching a course called History of Hitler's Germany also deserve "hal-
ranking Stalin secret police agent to Nazi Germany to a class, among anced as well as critical understand-
defect to the West almost half-a- whom are a group of young Jewish ing"? Does South Africa today,
century ago. He wrote a book, "In refugees from the Third Reich. Is it which like most countries is "a prod-
Stalin's Secret Service;'(Harper's,. :onceivable that a processor would uct of a harsh, traumatic history"
1939), which tragically was ignored ignore the personal testimony of also deserve balanced as well as
by Western policy-makers. (In 1941, these emigrees and mutter that critical understanding, whatever
Krivitsky was found dead in his "National Socialism" can't be all bad these terms can mean? And when
Washington hotel room. He was pro- because, after all, the Third Reich the "balanced as well as critical
nounced a suicide, although he had does have a socialist content? understanding" about the USSR is
told friends that if he were ever There is something?pathetic in achieved, what then? Will we
found dead it would not be by his own Professor Menashe's first-person "understand" KAL 007? Major Nich-
hands.) report about his Russian Jewish stu
Krivitsky, who had directed dents when he describes their atti olson? Sakharov? Schsharansky?
Soviet spy networks in Western tude, one that "carries an authority How can Professor Menashe, him-
Europe, provided lots of information that is difficult to deny." He writes: self a Jew, stand facing these young
about Soviet implantation of spies in "I have to summon all my elo- Jewish men and women and tell
the British Foreign Office. Little quence to demonstrate that the them that the Soviet Union deserves
attention was given to his informa- Soviet Union is a product of a harsh, "balanced and critical under-
tion. No attention at all was paid to traumatic history and deserves standing;' a socialist country that
his insights about Stalin, who despite some balanced as well as critical made life so unbearable for them
his "non-aggression pact" with Hit- understanding. Also, I argue, social- and their families in the Soviet
ler, found himself at war with the ism as a system of economic organ- Union that they had to flee to cap-
Hitler he had wooed so assiduously ization must not be judged by the italist America seeking a new and
and so obsequiously. Soviet version or it. That, roughly, is better life? And even if Professor
Krivitsky's experience has been the credo I bring to my class" Menashe weren't a Jew, wouldn't
the story of many Soviet informants Some time ago I wrote an article such conduct be equally con-
who have tried to alert the aemocra- in the Wall Street Journal about the temptible? Shouldn't Professor
cies to what Stalinism and post- infiltration of Marxist propaganda, Menashe, as he faces those Russian
Stalinism meant. It is far too disguised as scholarship, into the Jewish emigres, say if only to him-
discomforting to heed such warn- contemporary university classroom self with a little humility, "There but
ings from people who have seen with Here, in Professor Menashe's `owr for the grace of God ..
their own eyes what the Soviet Union words, one has documentation for The intellectual arrogance of Pro-
is like, warnings from people who what I was writing about. If Profes- fessor Menashe is to be seen when
have lived and emerged from the sor Menashe's credo 67 years,after one of the Russian students in his
belly of the dragon. the Bolshevik revolution is that class, Roman Litvak, has the gall, the
Yet it is not such a far cry from there is a version of "socialism as a a?dacity to say, according to the pro-
Krivitsky's discounted warnings to a system of economic organization" fessor, that "in their essence, fas
recent article in The New York which is superior to that of the cism and communism are alike!"
author, Pew Soviet version, where could that be Professor Menashe expostulate,
Wave From Russia titled -The
- Cuba, China, Yugoslavia, Soviet -Hold on, one thing at a linic.
fessor Louis Menashe, teaches a Eastern Europe. Albania, Ethiopia, Roman. Facism and communise, , rc
course called History of the Soviet Nicaragua, Yemen? Erewhon? How different in their I essence I. They at v
Union at the Polytechnic institute of shall we judge their socialism com- not alike in theory or in ideals"
New York. It is a report about his pared to the Soviet version? One of "hat an example uF professorial
class, in which 't'here is group of Professor Menashe's Russian ignorance' Not only does facisna
young people, mostly Jewish, rece nt emigre students offers what he calls lack a theory, it even lacks a define
emigrees from the Soviet Union. a better definition of socialism - tiun. (Of L. wrse, there's the Sovi,,
While the article is written in a ",Socialism means a shortage of sand definition i"Fascism. :i bo!,rg,-,?.
quasi-wistful style that borders on in the desert" intwemcnt and regime tVnir;il ut ,i.?
the condescending, it is quite clear Professor Menashe's words rail` era of imfx'rialisn,''i S lwl,
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090052-1