UN Compact 2018

JW Insider · December 27, 2018

3 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I read three of Solzhenitsyn's books and found them completely and totally credible.

What did I miss?

You probably didn't miss much in his books, but one could go on for thousands of pages about where the most credible evidence about Russian history differs considerably from the perspectives that the West has been given.

Solzhenitsyn (I'll call him A.S., if you don't mind) wrote very credibly from a literary perspective. The West ate it up. So did at least 10 minority political/social factions in and around Russia who had fought against Russia being ruled by the communist party. In fact, A.S. was one of the earliest promoters of the fantastic conspiratorial numbers of the supposed hidden Gulag system that he said was still operating on a massive scale, in secret, with millions of people even during the Cold War. Remember, of course, that his books from 1958-68 were published in 1973-4. (Communism underwent changes in the mid-1980's under Gorbachev, leading to the collapse of the communist government under Yeltsin and the Russian Federation in 1991.) Those fantastic numbers had not really been invented yet until he created a version of them.

However, even when communism fell, there was still absolutely no evidence of an ongoing Gulag system. One would have to assume that it is still in operation today, and still secret, and that all those anti-communists were never released when communism fell and therefore never allow to help the current leaders now that Russia is run by anti-communists who want to paint a very bad picture of historical Russia under communism. Surely, these millions of political prisoners described by A.S. could help paint the picture and prove the claims that would keep the communist party at bay. (The communist party is Putin's only true competitor at present.)

Yet more and more evidence continues to show up about the actual Gulag system from various sources, even Russian enemies. It consistently shows that it was nothing like a system of torture and death that A.S. describes. More evidence comes forth from the release of historical documents from Russia, and many of these are perfectly dovetailed with the evidence from the release of historical documents from Russia's worst enemies including the release of Nazi documents, Japanese documents, etc. The Gulag system was actually Russia's prison system that went back to feudalism, the czars, the Duma. Criminals were to be rehabilitated with sentences that typically maxed out at about 10 years, after which the prisoner was released, with exceptions for multiple murders or heinous crime. There are, of course, abuses in every institution (look at American prisons, too) but Russian prisons were unique in many ways. Where we typically hear stories of exile to Siberia, and monotonous crushing of rocks, the prisons really did include building activities, sometimes mining, sometimes roads, and buildings, but not with slavery and the chain-gang systems common to American prisons. The Gulag was especially full during WW2 with captured prisoners from other nations, but many were given land to farm, or even a place with their family. In fact some German Gulag prisoners, although still hated for their politics, were actually paid more than the average Russian for their work on equipment -- their material production. Stalin himself had been sentenced to the Gulag half-a-dozen times, and escaped each time before serving out a full sentence.

We should remember the context: A.S. came from a large group of displaced Czarists, sometimes called "White Russians" as opposed to Red (Communist), Green and later Brown Russians (Fascists), and Czarists really were often imprisoned and mistreated. This group composed the earliest and most saboteuristic of the parties in the Russian Civil War from 1918 after WWI. And Stalin really did imprison thousands, and one of his security chiefs, Yezhov and his henchmen, really did imprison probably "200,000", and this probably included thousands of murders and unjust deaths. (As stated before, when Stalin recalled Yezhov and replaced him with Beria, the reports of deaths dropped dramatically, and some say up to 91% of the "200,000" were released.) But Stalin, a paranoid leader, amidst powerful saboteurs, was also personally responsible for many hundreds of unjust imprisonments and likely many executions, too. So almost every bad story heard must have had at least some truth to it, even if the several-orders-of-magnitude differences had not been invented until decades later.

(Of course some of the violence of the Civil War could not be stopped and had little to do with Communism. It was the peasantry running wild after Germany had colluded with Lenin to help crush the Czar. They were killing their landowners and taking the land. Lenin, of course, wrote against this, but there was nothing they could do about it except condemn it. Lenin argued with Marx that successful communism should be built on the backs of capitalism, and supported the capitalist status quo as the basis for continuing the revolution.)

But again, credibility comes from the fact that Stalin really did promote frequent purges, where lists of thousands of members of the communist party were dismissed from the party. Stalin's purges have often been confused with so-called "death lists" but it primarily meant that you lost your privileges as members of the party, and therefore your aspirations of political advancement were gone. Of course, this dismissal from the party could often be based on one's committing crimes, even war crimes, war profiteering, etc. So executions especially during the excesses of war, could have been fairly common.

The writings of "White Russians" (Czarists) were common and held to the same common themes whether from those who escaped Russia in all directions, including all parts of Canada, even families I have spoken to that ended up in Brooklyn. A major theme, of course, for credibility is to build off some of the violence, and excesses and injustice and magnify it to defend against the communist government. But these stories, are full of lies as they exaggerate different things, and full of inconsistencies as some will pick different areas where the problems were and report that there were no problems in areas that another writer will pick on.

These types of fabrications need to be merged ALL the evidence in ways that various scholars have attempted. Some scholars are better than others, of course. But when even anti-communists, or non-supporters of communists who have accepted A.S. and other writers in the past have begun to recant based on EVIDENCE, then it's probably time that the rest of us at least looked at some of this same evidence. There is no perfect way to get historical truth from history, but there are still some methods that are better than others.

We can't just decide to reject all scholarly evidence in favor of a writer who fits into an existing group who have been continuously discredited by all new evidence, while even unexpected sources of new evidence will uphold the current body of existing evidence. In other words, I don't think this is a valid guideline quoted below, because it simply says ignore anything that doesn't fit the very source of most of our prejudices:

On 12/25/2018 at 12:20 PM, Arauna said:

Instead of reading scholarly books which give the opinions of Marxist scholars at universities (many scholars today love the ideas of Marxism and have in the last 40 years started to sanitize and whitewash its history), rather read the books of the Russian writer Aleksandr I Solzhenitsyn. He opened the eyes of the West about life behind the Iron curtain – what was really happening to the ordinary people of his country. His writings contributed to the fall of the dream of communism. He estimated the government ordered deaths to be at 60 million in totalitarian Russia.

To be sure, A.S. does provide pieces of evidence that can't be ignored outright. But we have to evaluate them for what they're worth.

There is a ton of specifics that would take days and pages. But I think as we begin to discuss claims like "orchestrated famines" "death purges" supposed "massacres" etc., the picture will come into better focus.

Anna · December 27, 2018

I think the best way to really know about life behind the iron curtain is to have the "privilege" of having experienced it. Not even I experienced it fully, (only when vacationing there) but my mother has, and many of my peers who stayed behind have, while my mum and I were allowed out because of my mother marrying a foreigner out of the country. My grandparents defected shortly after the country was overtaken by the "Bolsheviks", as we called them. They couldn't go back until after the the fall of communism. My grandmother cried when she and grandpa returned and saw the dilapidated and forsaken state of the towns and villages. No money had been invested into any kind of upkeep, and anything that was manufactured was shipped off to Russia....which wasn't much anyway. I could tell stories upon stories...

I have not read Solzhenitsyn, but I imagine not everything he wrote was accurate, just like not everything that communist propaganda told us about life in the West was. One of my distant relatives, a staunch communist herself, believed that Americans were so badly off that they had to eat out of garbage cans. As regards violence, yes, a few people mysteriously disappeared, but mainly, oppression came from a much subtler direction. Education, decent jobs, and pretty much anything else depended on whether you supported the communist party or not. So people pretended to do so, while they did their own thing. The motto was; "if you don't steal from the state, you are stealing from your family". Everyone had to to work, but the quality of work was nonexistent because no one cared since nothing was for them anyway. Funnily enough many people look back on those times with a kind of nostalgia, because although no one had anything no one had to chase after anything either, because there was nothing to have. There was no ambition, but no stress either. So people concentrated on having a good time. Work days were short and weekends were long. Most families had country cottages where they would spend all their free time with family and friends. It was a kind of solidarity that does not exist any more, and some people miss that. Who had it most difficult were political dissidents and Jehovah's Witnesses of course because they did not pander to the communists. Brothers were sent to work in coal mines and so were the political dissidents. Quite a few spent some months in jail. Intellectuals, the bourgeois, and highly educated people were not trusted either, and of course many of them defected to the West. My grandfather had a thriving engineering company that he had to give up, and he went to jail for a short time, but I forget the exact reason, I will have to ask my mum.....

Arauna · December 27, 2018

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 10:14 PM, JW Insider said:

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was found to be a liar. H

The archives in Russia have been opened up and two books have been produced by an authority on Stalin and Russia.

This helps one to understand collectivism...... and why so many people died.

This is a must watch - or read the books.

Today one dare not say that 6 million Jews were not murdered because there are organizations which keep this memory alive and it is a crime to say this. Unfortunately, when rulers do the same to their own people there are no organizations to keep the victims fate alive or make it a crime to say that it did not happen.......especially under a suppressive regime.

Communism has come in through the back door in the West during the last 40 years and many university professors now openly teach their students that it was not REAL communism under Stalin..... LOL. Some new candidates for congress seems to have swallowed the pill.

What does this mean for the future? People no longer see a threat of this form of regime especially after Perestroika. It has given the UN opportunity to bring in propaganda for a similar kind of rule which is now embodied in " communalism" and a sustainable environment. The reason given is beautiful - the method to bring this about is deadly .

Bible prophecy indicates that UN will rule for a short time - the image of the Beast..... so we trust bible prophecy. We can therefore analyze the UN ideology and get a good idea where it is leading to.

The ideology is similar to Communism, so we can understand that they eventually will follow their ideology to the letter to get it installed (agenda 21) - similar to Stalin and his friends....

It is during this installation period that we will see the intensifying of the woes (birth pains) spoken of in the bible. By these environmental and migration ' agreements' which these nations have signed, their autonomies have been compromised and passed on to the UN - who now has jurisdiction over their borders and can interfere more aggressively with the treatment of people within those borders - if the cause suits their final outcome.

Most members are already looking to the UN to arbitrate their problems (USA is now scoffed at), and a good indication is the daily criticism and regular decisions taken against Israel at the UN with the approval of most member nations. The Isolation of USA, who in the past has used to use its military to intervene, is now becoming more apparent. The withdrawal from Syria seems to have sealed it.

Those nations which have signed up on these UN agreements can be taken to International Human Rights court (which is now a farce regarding human rights and has become a tool for the UN to push through, with deliberate focus, their own agenda 21).

The agreements are 'supposed to be non-binding' but similar to EU history - the non-binding agreements became the norm. If the majority agree (democracy) then this norm becomes law and is accepted as law. EU history was the same. Non-binding agreements were made with most countries and the others (France) had to follow. Learn from history.

UN is already dealing with the renegade nations. The interest rates and other factors (such as world currency) can be manipulated so that a heavily indebted nation can become unstable and see social upheaval. Social upheaval is already being fomented in USA by the donation of millions of dollars to front organizations. (Soros comes to mind. He is a proponent of UN ideas. CAIR and other Islamic front organizations are weakening the current laws so that child marriage, female mutilation and child marriage is accepted and not prosecuted - even if there are laws against it. Recent court cases makes the official laws of the country invalid. The racial and far-right far-left divide is becoming a powder keg.

UN wants USA on board and will stop an nothing to get them included in the Compact. Their powers are already far-reaching in the NGOs who support them and are pushing through their ideas. USA is already saturated with these subversive organizations and it is a matter of time before the new morality and new ideology is accepted. Other nationalistic countries are being dealt with on an individual basis.

So is this a political discussion? The fact that we do not vote is political...... and is already a factor in our persecution. Jesus was executed for his apolitical stance and for the preaching of another heavenly government. We are not pacifist but activists for Jehovah's kingdom - that is - if we preach about it.

I am looking to the prophecies to have an idea of what will happen. Some of it is speculation and some of it is based on historical facts. When the bible says we will see the worst tribulation ever - I believe it. I think it 100 percent possible under these new proposals and they are very anxious to implement it more quickly. The pressure is on and this will bring mega human errors and an abuse of power. It is a direct fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

I saw communism in Africa and have a very good idea of its affects. When they remove all other religions / ideologies to replace it with their ideology and their new moral standards, people may go along for a time. When they then call "peace and security" the power keg is ignited.

JW Insider · December 27, 2018

7 hours ago, Anna said:

I think the best way to really know about life behind the iron curtain is to have the "privilege" of having experienced it.

This is definitely true. Of course, each person will have their own experience. And the same overall decisions will effect everyone differently. If you were part of a poor peasant family under the terribly inefficient system of serfdom under czarist Russia, then you will have quite a different experience after 1917 from one who had a business in St. Petersburg. Or if you lived in one of the 14 provinces that Russia gave up to Germany during WWI, but had to give back after the German losses and the 1918 Treaty of Versailles. Or if you had been part of the Duma, or if you were yourself a prior landowner, or if you were a person like one of the large variety of characters in Tolstoy novels, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, or Sholem Aleichem (Tevye - Fiddler on Roof, etc).

Fortunately, there were a lot of interviews with Russians who stayed throughout the years. Many records and interviews come from people who lived under communist rule under Lenin, Stalin, Krushchev, etc, and many from those who could speak more freely about their government after communism fell. All along we also have defectors from Russia who have told their stories. We also have stories from ex-pats who moved in and out of Russia. "Subversives" who lived in and out of Russia.

But to get a full picture, we have to put ALL these stories together, and see how they match up against internal documentation (with expected bias) and external documentation (with expected bias) and defector stories (with expected bias) and those who lived under these "regimes" (with expected bias). And then there is a ton of "material" evidence to sift through, too.

It's also easy to see what happens to those who have tried to get a more accurate picture if the new picture conflicts with a current one.

Sometimes it must seem like an argument that goes like this:

A. Hitler killed 40,000,000 people.
B. No he didn't, he only killed 20,000,000 people.
A. Why do you love Hitler?

But the variation in stories about Lenin, Stalin and Mao, for example, make this history even more intriguing.

Anna · December 27, 2018

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

This is definitely true. Of course, each person will have their own experience. And the same overall decisions will effect everyone differently. If you were part of a poor peasant family under the terribly inefficient system of serfdom under czarist Russia, then you will have quite a different experience after 1917 from one who had a business in St. Petersburg. Or if you lived in one of the 14 provinces that Russia gave up to Germany during WWI, but had to give back after the German losses and the 1918 Treaty of Versailles. Or if you had been part of the Duma, or if you were yourself a prior landowner, or if you were a person like one of the large variety of characters in Tolstoy novels, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, or Sholem Aleichem (Tevye - Fiddler on Roof, etc).

Yes, you are very correct of course. But I am the exception. You see I am totally unbiased

Seriously though, it is a very interesting subject and I wish I had more experience of it as an adult. As a child I could not understand why people were not allowed out of their own country and why the borders were guarded by soldiers with guns and dogs, not to stop people coming in, but to stop people leaving. At one time my mum and I were traveling out of the country (because we could) on a train and the border guards were searching underneath the trains with flashlights and dogs. There was barbed wire everywhere.

Just wanted to add one more thing. Some people may not realize but many of our illustrations in our publications remind some people of communist propaganda, especially those where people are seen building houses and sharing food. After the iron curtain fell it took some brothers and sisters a while to get used to some of those illustrations. Not so long ago my mum gave her study the Kingdom book, and this lady, in her 70s' was horrified and said it's like communism. Well it kind of is isn't it? Lol.

Maybe someone should create a topic for this in the JW only club...

Anna · December 27, 2018

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

It's also easy to see what happens to those who have tried to get a more accurate picture if the new picture conflicts with a current one.

Sometimes it must seem like an argument that goes like this:

A. Hitler killed 40,000,000 people.

B. No he didn't, he only killed 20,000,000 people.

A. Why do you love Hitler?

Yes. Just because you love facts, doesn't mean you love someone bad. Unfortunately emotions take over rationality. My son came home from school one day, they had just had history, and he was telling me that Hitler had done a lot of good for the people (jobs etc.). I understood what he meant. He did a lot of good initially. But that doesn't mean we think Hitler was a wonderful man. Those gas chambers and concentration camps were real.

James Thomas Rook Jr. · December 28, 2018

Well Arauna ... you've done it now !

With my apparent OCD I have latched onto a new fixation ... which is actually a continuation of my many years ago reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn " The Gulag Archipelago " series of books.

I watched several episodes on YouTube of "Uncommon Knowledge", about Joseph Stalin, one of which you posted, above featuring the Author Stephen Kotkin, and am downloading everything I can about this ( pant! pant! pant! ....) I also plan on ordering Kotkin's three books and reading them.

I strongly suspect that my perceptions that everything Stalin is accused of as far as quantities of mass murders, etc. will be born out, but JWInsider has raised questions that need to be resolved in my mind.

Thank you for giving me the key to the door to find out.

I find Solzhenitsyn and Kotkin absolutely credible at face value .... so far.

JW Insider · December 28, 2018

21 hours ago, Arauna said:

The archives in Russia have been opened up and two books have been produced by an authority on Stalin and Russia.

When people find out that these "opened up archives" contradict the accepted stories they soon begin arguing that the archives have not been opened up, or that all the archives have been whitewashed. After about 4 minutes into the interview, every point became predictable, and most of them were unsubstantiated falsehoods and opinion. He has a lot of things correct, but most of it is complete pseudo-scholarship. I think that pseudo-scholarship is the only kind of scholarship on THIS topic has a guaranteed profitable audience.

People should still hear what these people (like Stephen Kotkin, Timothy Snyder, Solzhenitsyn, etc) are saying as the important basis for this discussion, but they should compare it with the scholarship of those who are deemed pseudo-scholars by people like Stephen Kotkin and Timothy Snyder.

J. Arch Getty and Grover Furr have put a lot of work into evaluating the evidence of men like Kotkin. Naturally they are seen as pseudo-scholars by the other side, too. I have a feeling that truth lies towards the middle of the two ends, but the more I take time to check out the claims for myself, the more I see that this "middle" lies MUCH closer to the Getty/Furr end rather than the Kotkin/Snyder end.

Here are just some quick excerpts Furrs' book which is a response to Snyder's most famous work on Stalin: Bloodlands.

[After spelling out a primary example of clear scholastic dishonesty in detail, Grover Furr says this about Snyder's use of sources:]

Upon checking Snyder's source we normally find either (1) that his source does not support what Snyder's text says or imply that it does; or (2) that the source does reflect what Snyder says in his text but that source itself is dishonest, in that (a) it does not reflect what its own evidence states or (b) its source is yet another secondary source which, when examined, does not support the fact-claims given; or (c) it cites no evidence at all.

I happen to own this book and several others by Furr, Getty, and Snyder in real paper variety, too, plus the Gulag Archipelago. I'd love to quote large chunks, but someone has OCR scanned it at: https://rhizzone.net/forum/topic/13291/?page=1 The intro, chapter 1 and chapter 2 are on that first page, with chapters 3 and 4 landing on page 4: https://rhizzone.net/forum/topic/13291/?page=4 (There are a lot of comments worth skipping in between.)

In fact if you look up in Google: Kotkin and Grover Furr, you should see links to about 10 videos. Some are up to two hours long, so I'd start with some short ones: