HIS CLASS KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100440044-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: May 24, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440044-8
ARTI~'l.E APPEARED ~ ~~ h'n~l ! t w(~ r(~~ ?r t r~i :~
Q~P~r,~ 3-~- z4 ~,.~,' l~as~
ARNOLD BEIChaVIAN
~ CI ~:110Ws
ass the
d
iff r
e ence
` he record of Stalin's that Professor Menasne srmply will a serious questron. Is it the duty, let
policy of appeasement not believe what these young ex- alone the right, of a historian to
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 belicl' 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 Nt`enashe'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 Iitler's aggressions." I think to myself: product of "a harsh, traumatic his-
Sowrote the man who knew Stalin Imagine that this is 1938 and an tort' ...deserves some balanced as
from the inside. He was 114aj. Gen. earlier Professor Menashe is well as critical understanding" Uid
Walter G Krivitsky, the first high- teachinf; a course called History of Hitler's Germany also deserve "bal-
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 .iewish 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 professor 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
pounced a suicide, although he had does have a socialist content? understanding" about the USSK is
told friends that if he were ever Thei?e 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- Olson? Sakharov? Schsharansky?
Krivitsky, who had directed dents when he describes their atti~
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
Nte British Foreign Office. Liiile quence to demonstrate that the them that the Soviet Union deserves
attention was given to his informs- 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
let, 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
Rrivitsky's experience has been the credo I bring to my class" itlenashe 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 over for the grace of God ..
their oven eyes what the Soviet Union words, one has documentation for '1'he 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 frorn the sot Menashe's credo 67 years after one of the Russian students in his
belly of the dragon. the Bolshevik revolution is that Mass, Roman Litvak, has the gall, the
Yet it is not such a far cry from there is a version of "socialism as a :~?dacity to say, according to the pro-
Krivitsky'sdiscounted warnings to a system of economic organization" fcssor, that "in their essence, fae
recent article in The New York which is superior to that of the cism and communism arc alike!"
Times Magazine, titled "The New Soviet version, where could that be professor IVlenashe cxpuswlatc
Wave From Russia" 1'he author, Pro- -Cuba, China, Yugoslavia, Soviet "Hold on, one thirst; at a t i nu?.
fessor Louis Menashe, teaches a Eastern Europe, Albania, Ethiopia, Roman. Farism and ccrmnuuiisni nr~?
course called History of the Soviet Nicaragua, Yemen? Erewhon? liow different m their(essci:rcL'fhe~ ai ~
Union at the Polytechnic Institute of shall we judge their socialism com- not alike u~ theory ur ~~~ idrals"
New York. It is a report about his pared to the Soviet version? One of What an example ut~ hrufessuru,;
class, in which 'there is f;roup of professor Menashe's Russian ignorance! Not only dues factsn~
young people, mostly Jewish, recent emigre students offers what he calls lack a theor~~, it even l~u~ks a def in ~
emigrees from the Soviet Union. abetter definition of socialism tiun. (Of c urse, there's the Jov~ic~
While the article is written in a ~'Socialismmeansashortageufsand detimtiun~"F.~scism, ;, hu~.n~~~~~~,~.
quasi-wistful style that borders on ut the desert" nu~~~emcnt and rc ~inu? h~hic~l of i!.~
the condescendinK, it is quite clear 1'rufessor ~lcnashe's words raisr ~.ra ut nntx~rialisr i'~i tiCh~~Lur ~,~.
r P~'P~~.r,..._
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440044-8
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440044-8
2
have studied fascism ha~~c aRrced
over and truer main that, unlcs; .nu'
relates fascism to communism, t:u
cism as a political phcnutncnur can-
not be understood. }?~as~ism's nrir!nu
arc probably IVlarxist-Leninist f lu~~
much ti?rser, then, rs Roman Lu~.+k,
the student, than his putatr~~c
teacher. And how much wiser. Mill,
is another student, Sasha Lekhtrnan,
whom Professor )Vlenashe calls t you
can be sure not as a complirnenU
"the resident voice of Sol?r.henitsvn;'
when he tells his teacher that Stalin
was worse than }{itler because while
Hitler victimised others, Stalin
slaughtered his own people, 4U mil-
lion, SO million, 60 million, whn
knows?
It is sad and also frightcnint;. to
say the least, that livin); ~~~itnessc~
from an empire that has become the
most powerful and most insatiable
dictatorship in the history of nuur
kind can be ridiculed in so pater
Wally superior a fashion by this
foolish professor who still scc?< a
moral difference between Stalin and
Hitler, between Nazi Germane anr1,
yes, Gorbachev's Soviet Union.
Arnolc! Beichman, a political sci-
entist, is a visiting scholar at the
Hoover Insititution.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/08 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100440044-8