-By Warner Todd Huston
Here is a heartwarming tale of your education tax dollars at work. At a recent school event at a New Jersey public university, a tax paid professor said that Joseph Stalin, the murderous head of the Soviet Union during the WWII era, never committed any crimes against humanity. “I have yet to find one crime that Stalin committed,” the professor yelled at students.
The comments were uttered by Grover Furr, a professor in Medieval English at Montclair State University, a public university in New Jersey. The event at which Furr appeared was billed as a “Campus Debate,” and also featured libertarian professor Yuri Maltsev and conservative professor David Tubbs.
The exchange occurred between an audience member and the erstwhile professor who in his most genteel manner denounced as “bullshit” any claims that Stalin and the Soviet regime was responsible for genocide.
The professor went on to claim that widely known Soviet history as well as U.S. and Canadian history are all “falsified” and wrapped up telling the audience that we should all have socialist medicine.
At least most of the audience booed this nut case as herd in the video. Still, some applauded and it’s sad that any students at all would applaud such craziness.
Furr has been making these fringe claims for years and is responsible for perpetrating on the world a book he subtly titled Khrushchev Lied. In this laughable excuse for historical investigation, Furr attempts to exonerate both Stalin and communism saying that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev lied when in a 1956 speech he admitted and apologized for Stalin’s crimes against humanity.
Of course, there is little question at all among historians that the Soviets, Stalin and other communist regimes were responsible for the deaths of upwards to 150 million of their own people. Many famous books such as The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others attest to the true murderous history of communism. As Gabriella Hoffman notes, there is even a newer book by Stanford Professor of History Norman Naimark that suggests that Stalin is guilty of multiple genocides.
Professor Furr is decidedly on the finge with his theories. As some might say, this professor’s cheese has slid off his cracker.
Montclair State is a public research university situated in Essex County, New Jersey, a deep blue area that serves as a home away from home for many of the liberal media’s leading lights. With so many extremely left-wing folks milling about the place, it’s no wonder some didn’t think that professor Furr’s comments were outrageous.
**UPDATE**
Who ever posted the original video I referenced in this story removed it from YouTube. So, I found a different video that has a bit less of what I transcribed below, but it is of the same event.
Transcript of exchange
Audience member: Yes I have a question for the, uh, the liberal, uh, spokesman. You said that, uh, the idea of communist mass killings was baloney….
Professor Furr: It’s baloney.
Audience member: … or something to that word. Yet in 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, the Premiere of the Soviet Union, apologized to the Communist party for the killings that were done by Stalin under his personality cult.
Professor Furr: Yep.
Audience member: So he conceded that there were a lot of murders. And I have a question for you. Was Khrushchev lying? Or if you concede that there were state murders under Stalin, uh, do you see that that’s a continuing tool under communist regimes?
(Here the moderator notes that Furr’s book was titled Khrushchev Lied.)
Audience member: … the consensus number seems to be between 100 and 150 million killed by communist regimes. And I’m wondering, communism wasn’t successful do you think maybe there’s an optimum number that, if enough people were killed that it would be successful? Maybe a billion? Two billion?
Professor Furr: Well, that’s not a serious question.
Audience member: Actually it is, mass murder is a…
Professor Furr: And I’m gonna answer it.
Audience member: … it’s a tool of the communist regimes, so they thought it worked.
Professor Furr: And I’m gonna answer it.
Audience member: Did they not do it enough?
Professor Furr: And I’m gonna answer you, OK? Finished asking? I’m going to answer you. (raising his voice) What you said is BULLSHIT! It’s all, it’s a lie.
The history of the Soviet Union is the most falsified… American history is falsified. Alright? I was in Canada for a number of years, the Canadian history is falsified. But of all the falsifications that go on in the school systems in this country and this world, Soviet history is falsified the most.
I have spent many years researching this and similar questions and I have yet to find ONE CRIME, yet to find ONE CRIME, that Stalin committed. I know, they all say, you know, 20 and 30 and 40 million people, it’s BULLSHIT.
Audience member: Was it Goebbels that said it’s the big lie that’s successful?
Professor Furr: Goebbels said the big lie is successful and THIS IS THE BIG LIE!
Audience member: There ya have it.
Professor Furr: This is the big lie, that the communists, that Stalin killed millions of people and that socialism is no good. Just a word about socialist medicine… you should have it too.
Audience Boos heartily
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.