Stalin Committed No Crimes, Says Obscure Tax-Funded Professor

by Gary North
Tea Party Economist

Recently by Gary North: How To Cry 'Wolf Cub' on Social Security and Medicare

There were never many Stalinists teaching in American universities. There are fewer today. That’s why a story like this gets some coverage.

This guy was flushed like a quail by Yuri Maltsef. They were debating at a meeting held by Young Americans for Liberty, which is allied with Ron Paul.

Maltsev lived under the USSR. He knows what the score is. But some obscure professor at the equally obscure Montclair State University did not know who Maltsev is. Now he does.

Professor Grover Furr gets paid tax dollars to tell his students that Stalin never committed a crime. Not one.

One student had done his homework. He asked Furr about Khrushchev’s leaked “secret speech” of 1956, where he talked of mass murders. Professor Farr had a scholarly response. “It’s bullshit.”

Furr authored Khrushchev Lied. “I have spent many years researching this and similar questions and I have yet to find one crime… that Stalin committed.”

I have been reading about that speech, on and on, for over 50 years. Before this, I had not heard of anyone in an American university defending Stalin against Khrushchev.

Taxpayers in New Jersey should know where their money is going.

What is Furr’s field of expertise? Medieval English literature.

There are more Stalinists teaching English today in American universities than teaching economics. Maybe there are more than even those who teach sociology. Possibly.

If it was not Stalin, then when who committed what Robert Conquest called the Great Terror? At least 20 million people died.

Why, it was the head of the Secret police, Nikolai Yezhof. This was . . . hang onto your seats . . . a right-wing conspiracy.

Shades of Hillary Clinton’s vast right-wing conspiracy.

Stalin was like Sergeant Schultz in the 1960s TV sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes. He knew nothing. Nothing!

“This is the big lie: that the Communists – that Stalin — killed millions of people, and that socialism is no good.”

In addition, Furr said, the USA has the lowest standard of living of any of the industrialized nations.

Was this a set up? Did Maltsev get an actor to do this? Was this one of those comedy skits we read about?

Nope. Pofessor Furr is the real deal. Some university bureaucrat has defended this guy’s presence on the faculty.

Montclair State University is an open university in what is fortunately a free society. As a consequence, we would never seek to censor or interfere with such an event, no matter how absurd anyone might find some of the views expressed. Free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy, and it is a principle that is easy to defend when we are in agreement with, or at least not offended by, the views being expressed. We are only really tested in our adherence to the principle when the views being expressed are abhorrent to us.

My view is that tenure should be abolished, that anyone with a Ph.D. in English should have a chance to underbid Farr, and that a lower wage offer should be accepted.

But I’m old fashioned. I have always believed Khrushchev’s 1956 speech.

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November 15, 2012

Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 31-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible.

Copyright © 2012 Gary North

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