I've read countless times that Rubinstein's experiences during the World War
I left him with bad nerves and psychological problems for the rest of his
life, but I've never read anything specific. Has anyone ever come across any
details about what sort of things happened to him during the war? If so, can
you tell me in which book?

Bob Lablaw wrote:

I've read countless times that Rubinstein's experiences during the World
War I left him with bad nerves and psychological problems for the rest of
his life, but I've never read anything specific. Has anyone ever come
across any details about what sort of things happened to him during the
war? If so, can you tell me in which book?

Dear Mr. Lablaw,

I can't help you with what happened specifically; what I can do is give you
an indication of the sort of things that occurred on the Eastern Front
during the Great War and the Russian Civil War. Please accept my apologies
if what I write is already known to you, there may others who are less
aware.

In what follows I have kept the names of the towns unchanged; thus it may be
useful to bear in mind that Lemberg is Lwow is Lvov, more obviously Vilnius
is Vilna is Wilno, and so on. I shall be slovenly in not distinguishing the
Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, ... territories; suffice it to note that they
were forever changing.

From page 28 of "The Saving Remnant" by Herbert Agar:

'In the autumn of 1914, when the Russians occupied Lemberg, in Galicia, a
journalist described the plight of the Jews: "I saw dens of naked starving
people," he wrote- "people driven insane by what they had experienced."

'But there were two differences: first, even to the enemy the non-Jews had
certain faint rights pertaining to them as human beings. The Jews had no
rights, once war had let slip the beast that inhabits all men. Both armies
robbed and murdered the Jews, seemingly as a release from nervous tension.
The fact that hundreds of thousands of Jews served bravely in both armies
made no difference. Second, the non-Jews at the start of the war, were not
so precariously low on the ladder. ... Many of them lived on the land,
where Jews were not permitted.'

Continuing to page 31:

'Southwards from the German zone, however, on the border of the Russian and
the Austro-Hungarian Empires, the troubles of the Jews were still more
acute .... Six times the Russians invaded Galicia and Bukovina, and six
times they retreated.

'Descending the ladder of horrors, we find that the worst doom of all was
that of the Jews in unoccupied Russia- in the part of the Pale that the
Germans never reached. The Pale itself was abolished, for all practical
purposes, by 1916, so that the Jews could be got out of the way. Half a
million were deported by the Russian army at the beginning of the war,
under conditions which recall the German death trains of 1942-45. They were
not, however, sent to be murdered, but merely to starve inconspicuously in
some place where they were no trouble to the soldiers.'

From page 32:

'Then came the two revolutions. After a period of high hope these proved to
be the greatest calamities ever to have befallen the Jews of Eastern
Europe.'

From page 35:

'A week after the armistice of November 1918 the Jews of Lemberg were
overwhelmed by a pogrom. This was the capital of Galicia, where all had
suffered grievously for four years. Yet as soon as the shooting stopped the
Jewish quarter was almost completely destroyed by its surviving
neighbours.'

From page 39:

'To suggest the extent of the ruin: in many parts of Lithunia, whence the
Russians had deported the Jews in 1915-16, whole streets of Jewish houses
had disappeared totally, leaving no trace behind... Jews who survived the
war and returned "home" sometimes found that the land on which their houses
once stood had been ploughed and transformed into somebody's vegetable
patch.'

Also on page 39, pertaining to the Russo-Polish War:

'The whole of this useless war- in Poland, the Ukraine and the edges of
Lithunia- was fought through, and over, the centres of Jewish population.
Hated ferociously by both sides, the Orthodox life of the shtetl might have
been exterminated on the spot, without having to wait for Hitler, had it
not been for the agents of the Joint.'

From page 45:

'By the end of 1921, after seven years of repeated attacks on their
spiritual and bodily wellbeing- and after the resuscitation of such
physical assets as schools, hospitals, bathhouses, synagogues, and credit
facilities- the Jews of Poland need most of all a long term project for
building the health of child and adult alike. Tuberculosis, favus and
trachoma were epidemic. The decay had gone too far to be arrested by a mere
succouring of the decrepit- and even that was too expensive for the
resources of the local communities.'

From page 49;

'So the grain was seized, either as a so-called tax or in return for
so-called cash. And the Jews were blamed. Meanwhile, in the Ukraine, came
the worst outbreak of pogroms since the seventeeth century- sheer malice on
the part of anti-revolutionay forces. They raged from the end of the war
until the end of 1919, and again during the Polish-Russian War.'


From page 67:

'Here is an example of the troubles they had: in June 1919 Kolchak's troops
evacuated Ekaterinburg, and the town was taken over by General Anenkoff,
chief ataman of the region. His cossacks set briskly to work and killed
some three thousand Jews. The British Consul at Ekaterinburg, an
eye-witness, said the streets were "filled with Jewish blood".'


By now you probably get the drift. One book I could suggest is "Red Victory"
by Bruce Lincoln. Pages 317 to 324 of the Cardinal first paperback edition
recount what happened to the Jewish populations inside the borders of
Czarist Russia. There are many horrors recounted in that book, on page 384
is an example of what the Cheka did to "counter-revolutionaries":

'In Kiev, Chekists installed rats in pieces of pipe that had been closed at
one end, placed the open end against prisoners' stomachs, and then heated
the pipes until the rats, maddened by the heat, tried to escape by gnawing
their way into the prisoners' intestines.'




Regards,

Simon.

Dear Simon,

Thank you very much for taking the time to type up all the excerpts. I have
to admit I had absolutely no knowledge of this aspect of the World War I. My
knowledge of it was really restricted to the sorts of things that happened
on the front.

Bob

'The whole of this useless war- in Poland, the Ukraine and the edges of
Lithunia- was fought through, and over, the centres of Jewish population.
Hated ferociously by both sides, the Orthodox life of the shtetl might have
been exterminated on the spot, without having to wait for Hitler, had it
not been for the agents of the Joint.'

And Pilsudzki and Polish government giving Polish citizenship for
escapees from Denikin hordes were just a footnote, of course.

a.d.danilecki wrote:

'The whole of this useless war- in Poland, the Ukraine and the edges of
Lithunia- was fought through, and over, the centres of Jewish population.
Hated ferociously by both sides, the Orthodox life of the shtetl might
have been exterminated on the spot, without having to wait for Hitler,
had it not been for the agents of the Joint.'

And Pilsudzki and Polish government giving Polish citizenship for
escapees from Denikin hordes were just a footnote, of course.

Dear Mr. Danilecki,

I suspect that this quote from "The Saving Remnant", particularly the
initial clause has irritated you, which is a matter of regret. The Battle
of Warsaw, which may be what you have in the back of your mind, has
sometimes been considered one of the decisive battles in history, given
that this Polish victory successfully halted the Bolsheviks until the
outbreak of WWII.

These are emotional subjects which can make it difficult to retain the
necessary detachment. This is one reason why I have largely stuck to quotes
from existant books. Note that no ethnic grouping can be considered
entirely blameless, what I did not mention in my previous post is that
(from memory) seven out of ten Chekhists in Kiev were Jews; "Iron Feliks"
head of the Cheka had a policy of sending Chekhists from hated minorities
to various regions; thus Lithuanian Chekhists served in Russia, Armenian
Chekhists in Georgia, and Jewish Chekhists in the Ukraine. I shall not
cover Pilsudski's intentions in this post; what I will do here is is
further expand upon Denikin, quoting from the previously cited "Red
Victory."


From page 322:

'Although Denikin himself never approved of pogroms, he spoke out against
them with caution, for there was dissension enough in the White camp
without taking its officers to task for their blatant anti-semitism,
especially since he believed the masses had good reason to hate the Jews.
Unwilling to punish officers whose paranoid delusions about the Jewish
threat made them obsessed with seeking out and eradicating
"Jew-Communists", Denikin allowed the pogroms to continue as the Whites
searched frantically for common ground upon which to construct a social
base for support for their regime among the bitterly anti-semitic people of
the Ukraine. No longer spontaneous outpourings of racial and religious
hatred, pogroms now became coldly calculated incidents of wholesale rape,
extreme brutality, and unprecendented destruction. In a single day at the
end of August in the Jewish settlement of Kremenchug, the Whites raped 350
women, including pregnant women, women who had just given birth, and even
women who were dying.

'Then, as the Reds began to challenge the Volunteer Army more effectively
from the north and east that fall, the pogroms turned into orgies of mass
butchery. At the end of September, a five-day pogrom destroyed two hundred
buildings and slaughtered nearly two thousand Jews in Fastov, a town that
Baedeker had described before the Great War as "prettily situated" along
the route of the Moscow-Kiev railroad. After the pogrom, the Jewish quarter
of Fastov lay in utter ruins, its synagogue strewn with the bodies of
murdered men, women, children, and old people. "The flourishing town of
Fastov," the Kievan Echo reported, "has been transformed into a graveyard."
A few days later, the Jews of Kiev suffered a similar fate. Inflamed by
articles in Shulgin's Kievlianin and its companion in anti-semitism,
Vechernie ogni (Evening Lights), Denikin's men threw defenceless Jews from
the upper stories of buildings, killing others with bayonets and sabers,
and drowned still others in the river.'

Continuing on page 323;

'Certain that they faced extermination if the Whites remained, the Jews of
the Ukraine turned to the Bolsheviks, who shot pogromists and outlawed
anti-semitic writings. From time to time sporadic pogroms occurred in
regions held by the Reds to be sure, but when compared with the tens of
thousands of murders by the Whites, the few hundred pogrom deaths that Jews
suffered in Bolshevik-held territory left few among them in doubt that
Lenin's regime offered better chances of survival. It therefore was no
accident that entire Jewish settlements began to follow Read Army units
when they retreated rather than face the tender mercies of Denikin's
soldiers.'



Putting the thing crudely, under the Reds Jews merely faced economic ruin;
under the Whites, they faced death, a quick one if they were lucky.

A final point is that the people of today can in no wise be held responsible
for the events of eighty years ago.



Regards,

Simon.

Bob Lablaw wrote:

Dear Simon,

Thank you very much for taking the time to type up all the excerpts. I
have to admit I had absolutely no knowledge of this aspect of the World
War I. My knowledge of it was really restricted to the sorts of things
that happened on the front.

Bob

Dear Bob,

Thank you for your kind remarks. To lighten the atmosphere a bit, I quote
below a Moscow joke of that day which can be found towards the end of
chapter one in the book Memoirs of a British Agent by R.H. Bruce Lockhart.

'In the winter of 1915 the Kaiser visited Lodz and with a view to placating
the local population made a speech. His audience was, of course, mainly
Jewish. As they listened to him, they heard him refer, first, to the
Almighty and the All-Highest, then to God and himself, and finally to
himself and God. When the speech was ended, the leading Jews withdrew into
a corner to discuss the situation.

'"This man will do for us," said the Chief Rabbi. "He's the first Christian
I've met who denies the Holy Trinity."'





Regards,

Simon.

chapman Billy wrote in message
...(to A.D. Danilecki):
I suspect that this quote from "The Saving Remnant", particularly the
initial clause has irritated you, which is a matter of regret. The Battle
of Warsaw, which may be what you have in the back of your mind, has
sometimes been considered one of the decisive battles in history, given
that this Polish victory successfully halted the Bolsheviks until the
outbreak of WWII.

Dear Simon,

Polish victory in the Battle of Warsaw has been attributed largely to
disunity
among the Red Army's leaders, particularly conflict between General
Tukachevski
and Stalin. (Eventually, Tukachevski was executed by Stalin.) Until
1939, Poland had large minorities of Belorussians, Ukrainians, and
Germans.

Putting the thing crudely, under the Reds Jews merely faced economic ruin;
under the Whites, they faced death, a quick one if they were lucky.

"Do you want to be more humanistic than Lenin, who ordered Dzerzhinsky
to
throw Savinkov out a window? Dzerzhinsky had for this job special
people--
Letts who fulfilled this commission. Dzerzhinsky was no match for
you, but
he didn't shirk the dirty work. You work like waiters in white
gloves. If
you want to be Chekhists, take off your gloves. Chekist work--this is
for
peasants and not for barons."
--Stalin (November 1952, as quoted by S.D. Ignatiev)

"Boris Savinkov's whole life had been spent in conspiracy. Without
religion
as the Churches teach it; without morals as men prescribe them;
without home
or country; without wife or child, or kith or kin; without friend;
without
fear; hunter and hunted; implacable, unconquerable, alone. Yet he had
found
his consolation. His being was organised upon a theme. His life was
devoted
to a cause. That cause was the freedom of the Russian people. In
that cause
there was nothing he would not dare or endure. He had not even the
stimulus
of fanaticism. He was that extraordinary product--a Terrorist for
moderate
aims. A reasonable and enlightened policy--the Parliamentary system
of
England, the land tenure of France, freedom, toleration and
goodwill--to be
achieved whenever necessary by dynamite at the risk of death. No
disguise
could baffle his clear-cut perceptions. The forms of government might
be
revolutionised; the top might become the bottom and the bottom the
top; the
meaning of words, the association of ideas, the roles of individuals,
the
semblance of things might be changed out of all recognition without
deceiving
him. His instinct was sure; his course was unchanging. However winds
might
veer or currents shift, he always knew the port for which he was
making; he
always steered by the same star, and that star was red."
--Winston Churchill (Great Contemporaries, p. 126)

(Boris Savinkov, who was supported by the British SIS, was an
important
leader of the Whites during the Russian Civil War.)

Here's a new book:
"Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953"
by Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov (2003)

"Stalin's Doctors' Plot came to worldwide attention in January 1953,
two
months before his death. It has been called 'the provocation of the
century';
it has also been described as the irrational product of the aging
dictator's
diseased mind. Though Stalin died before he realized his intentions,
the
archival record allows us to reconstruct his purpose with some
confidence....

The 'dyelo vrachey' (case of the doctors), as it was called by the
Soviet
government, was alleged at the time to be a widespread conspiracy in
the
Soviet medical profession organized by Jewish physicians against
Kremlin
leaders. A.A. Zhdanov was one victim; A.S. Scherbakov was another....
Jewish doctors were accused of either murdering these leaders or
planning
their murders in league with American intelligence and a corrupt
Ministry of
state security (MGB). Hundreds of doctors were arrested over a period
of
five months, beginning in October 1952 and ending in February
1953....After
Stalin's death, in March 1953, the core group of thirty-seven doctors
and
their wives was released from prison. More releases followed in a
general
amnesty; apparent calm returned to daily life. Of the thirty-seven,
only
seventeen were Jews. Of the original group of six doctors accused of
murdering
A.A. Zhdanov in 1948, none was Jewish with the exception of the EKG
technician,
Sophia Karpai. This fact is one of the plot's deepest tangles.

Today it is generally thought that the Doctors' Plot instead of being
a
conspiracy of doctors against the government was a conspiracy by the
government
against the Jewish doctors. The documents assembled in this book tell
a
different story. They show us that the 'case of the doctors' was
actually a
conspiracy of the government, in the person of Stalin, against itself.
Had
it succeeded, its rabid, anti-Semitic character would have had
devastating
consequences for the trapped Soviet Jewish population, but it had far
wider
implications, well beyond those of the 1952 trial of the Jewish
Anti-fascist
Committee...

Standing at the apex of the state, Stalin had absolute power. He
achieved
this not because absolute power was conferred on hm by the state but
because
he succeeded in finding means to delegitimize the state itself. The
Doctors'
Plot became his most powerful weapon in the last years of hs life in
pursuing
this end; it starkly demonstrates that Stalin's power did not derive
from the
state and its institutions but from the underlying system that allowed
him to
manipulate them. This book is a study in the exercise of this
enormous power.

Terror and naked force became the system's principal means of
achieving a world
in which equality was based on mass disenfranchisement. The resulting
inversion
of the Western ideal of the social contract caused radical distrust to
prevail
throughout the social-political-human world that Lenin founded and
Stalin
developed....As the case of the quack botanist T.D. Lysenko
demonstrates,
rational thought itself was subject to the dictates of the state.

Coinciding with the early phase of the Cold War, Stalin's conspiracy
against
the Jewish doctors reflected both the general external and internal
conditions
of the Soviet Union at the time. As such the plot has significance
far beyond
specific Kremlin rivalries, Stalin's personal anti-Semitism...The
Doctor's Plot
was the natural outgrowth of the bureaucratic, political,
psychological, and
moral structure of Stalin's system of government....

The plot grew far beyond the boundaries of an anti-Semitic action. It
encompassed the security services and led to widespread purges.
Kremlin
leaders like Molotov, Mikoyan, and Voroshilov were denounced as spies.
Citizen's committees were formed to identify and denounce Jews and
other
dubious individuals. Scientists, doctors, and intellectuals were
arrested
or came under increasing suspicion. As newly discovered documents
show, in
the months preceding Stalin's death four new, large concentration
camps were
put under construction."

--Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov (Stalin's Last Crime, pp. 3-9)

'A fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.'
--Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and the Margarita)

--Nick

This post corrects the inadvertent spacing flaws in my previous post.

chapman Billy wrote in message
...(to A.D. Danilecki):
I suspect that this quote from "The Saving Remnant", particularly the
initial clause has irritated you, which is a matter of regret. The Battle
of Warsaw, which may be what you have in the back of your mind, has
sometimes been considered one of the decisive battles in history, given
that this Polish victory successfully halted the Bolsheviks until the
outbreak of WWII.

Dear Simon,

Polish victory (under Pilsudski) in the Battle of Warsaw has been
attributed largely to disunity among the Red Army's leaders,
particularly to conflict between General Tukhachevsky and Stalin.
(In 1937, Tukhachevsky was executed by Stalin.) Until 1939, Poland
had large minorities of Belorussians, Ukrainians, and Germans.

Putting the thing crudely, under the Reds Jews merely faced economic ruin;
under the Whites, they faced death, a quick one if they were lucky.

"Do you want to be more humanistic than Lenin, who ordered Dzerzhinsky
to throw Savinkov out a window? Dzerzhinsky had for this job special
people--Letts who fulfilled this commission. Dzerzhinsky was no match
for you, but he didn't shirk the dirty work. You work like waiters in
white gloves. If you want to be Chekhists, take off your gloves.
Chekhist work--this is for peasants and not for barons."
--Stalin (November 1952, as quoted by S.D. Ignatiev)

"Boris Savinkov's whole life had been spent in conspiracy. Without
religion as the Churches teach it; without morals as men prescribe
them; without home or country; without wife or child, or kith or kin;
without friend; without fear; hunter and hunted; implacable,
unconquerable, alone. Yet he had found his consolation. His being
was organised upon a theme. His life was devoted to a cause. That
cause was the freedom of the Russian people. In that cause there
was nothing he would not dare or endure. He had not even the
stimulus of fanaticism. He was that extraordinary product--a
Terrorist for moderate aims. A reasonable and enlightened policy--
the Parliamentary system of England, the land tenure of France,
freedom, toleration and goodwill--to be achieved whenever necessary
by dynamite at the risk of death. No disguise could baffle his
clear-cut perceptions. The forms of government might be
revolutionised; the top might become the bottom and the bottom the
top; the meaning of words, the association of ideas, the roles of
individuals, the semblance of things might be changed out of all
recognition without deceiving him. His instinct was sure; his
course was unchanging. However winds might veer or currents
shift, he always knew the port for which he was making; he always
steered by the same star, and that star was red."
--Winston Churchill (Great Contemporaries, p. 126)

(Boris Savinkov, who was supported by the British SIS, was an
important leader of the Whites during the Russian Civil War.)

Here's a new book:
"Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953"
by Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov (2003)

"Stalin's Doctors' Plot came to worldwide attention in January 1953,
two months before his death. It has been called 'the provocation
of the century'; it has also been described as the irrational
product of the aging dictator's diseased mind. Though Stalin died
before he realized his intentions, the archival record allows us
to reconstruct his purpose with some confidence....

The 'dyelo vrachey' (case of the doctors), as it was called by the
Soviet government, was alleged at the time to be a widespread
conspiracy in the Soviet medical profession organized by Jewish
physicians against Kremlin leaders. A.A. Zhdanov was one victim;
A.S. Scherbakov was another....Jewish doctors were accused of
either murdering these leaders or planning their murders in league
with American intelligence and a corrupt Ministry of state security
(MGB). Hundreds of doctors were arrested over a period of five
months, beginning in October 1952 and ending in February 1953....
After Stalin's death, in March 1953, the core group of thirty-seven
doctors and their wives was released from prison. More releases
followed in a general amnesty; apparent calm returned to daily life.
Of the thirty-seven, only seventeen were Jews. Of the original
group of six doctors accused of murdering A.A. Zhdanov in 1948,
none was Jewish with the exception of the EKG technician, Sophia
Karpai. This fact is one of the plot's deepest tangles.

Today it is generally thought that the Doctors' Plot instead of being
a conspiracy of doctors against the government ws a conspiracy by the
government against the Jewish doctors. The documents assembled in
this book tell a different story. They show us that the 'case of the
doctors' was actually a conspiracy of the government, in the person
of Stalin, against itself. Had it succeeded, its rabid, anti-Semitic
character would have had devastating consequences for the trapped
Soviet Jewish population, but it had far wider implications, well
beyond those of the 1952 trial of the Jewish Anti-fascist Committee...

Standing at the apex of the state, Stalin had absolute power. He
achieved this not because absolute power was conferred on him by the
state but because he succeeded in finding means to delegitimize the
state itself. The Doctors' Plot became his most powerful weapon in
the last years of his life in pursuing this end; it starkly
demonstrates that Stalin's power did not derive from the state and
its institutions but from the underlying system that allowed him to
manipulate them. This book is a study in the exercise of this
enormous power.

Terror and naked force became the system's principal means of
achieving a world in which equality was based on mass
disenfrachisement. The resulting inversion of the Western ideal
of the social contract caused radical distrust to prevail throughout
the social-political-human world that Lenin founded and Stalin
developed....As the case of the quack botanist T.D. Lysenko
demonstrates, rational thought itself was subject to the dictates
of the state.

Coinciding with the early phase of the Cold War, Stalin's conspiracy
against the Jewish doctors reflected both the general external and
internal conditions of the Soviet Union at the time. As such the
plot has significance far beyond specific Kremlin rivalries,
Stalin's personal anti-Semitism...The Doctor's Plot was the natural
outgrowth of the bureaucratic, political, psychological, and moral
structure of Stalin's system of government....

The plot grew far beyond the boundaries of an anti-Semitic action.
It encompassed the security services and led to widespread purges.
Kremlin leaders like Molotov, Mikoyan, and Voroshilov were denounced
as spies. Citizens' committees were formed to identify and denounce
Jews and other dubious individuals. Scientists, doctors, and
intellectuals were arrested or came under increasing suspicion.
As newly discovered documents show, in the months preceding Stalin's
death four new, large concentration camps were put under construction."

--Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov (Stalin's Last Crime, pp. 3-9)

'A fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.'
--Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and the Margarita)

--Nick

Nick wrote:

chapman Billy wrote in message
...(to A.D. Danilecki):
I suspect that this quote from "The Saving Remnant", particularly the
initial clause has irritated you, which is a matter of regret. The Battle
of Warsaw, which may be what you have in the back of your mind, has
sometimes been considered one of the decisive battles in history, given
that this Polish victory successfully halted the Bolsheviks until the
outbreak of WWII.

Dear Simon,

Polish victory in the Battle of Warsaw has been attributed largely to
disunity
among the Red Army's leaders, particularly conflict between General
Tukachevski
and Stalin. (Eventually, Tukachevski was executed by Stalin.) Until
1939, Poland had large minorities of Belorussians, Ukrainians, and
Germans.

Putting the thing crudely, under the Reds Jews merely faced economic ruin;
under the Whites, they faced death, a quick one if they were lucky.

"Do you want to be more humanistic than Lenin, who ordered Dzerzhinsky
to
throw Savinkov out a window? Dzerzhinsky had for this job special
people--
Letts who fulfilled this commission. Dzerzhinsky was no match for
you, but
he didn't shirk the dirty work. You work like waiters in white
gloves. If
you want to be Chekhists, take off your gloves. Chekist work--this is
for
peasants and not for barons."
--Stalin (November 1952, as quoted by S.D. Ignatiev)

"Boris Savinkov's whole life had been spent in conspiracy. Without
religion
as the Churches teach it; without morals as men prescribe them;
without home
or country; without wife or child, or kith or kin; without friend;
without
fear; hunter and hunted; implacable, unconquerable, alone. Yet he had
found
his consolation. His being was organised upon a theme. His life was
devoted
to a cause. That cause was the freedom of the Russian people. In
that cause
there was nothing he would not dare or endure. He had not even the
stimulus
of fanaticism. He was that extraordinary product--a Terrorist for
moderate
aims. A reasonable and enlightened policy--the Parliamentary system
of
England, the land tenure of France, freedom, toleration and
goodwill--to be
achieved whenever necessary by dynamite at the risk of death. No
disguise
could baffle his clear-cut perceptions. The forms of government might
be
revolutionised; the top might become the bottom and the bottom the
top; the
meaning of words, the association of ideas, the roles of individuals,
the
semblance of things might be changed out of all recognition without
deceiving
him. His instinct was sure; his course was unchanging. However winds
might
veer or currents shift, he always knew the port for which he was
making; he
always steered by the same star, and that star was red."
--Winston Churchill (Great Contemporaries, p. 126)

(Boris Savinkov, who was supported by the British SIS, was an
important
leader of the Whites during the Russian Civil War.)

Here's a new book:
"Stalin's Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953"
by Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov (2003)

"Stalin's Doctors' Plot came to worldwide attention in January 1953,
two
months before his death. It has been called 'the provocation of the
century';
it has also been described as the irrational product of the aging
dictator's
diseased mind. Though Stalin died before he realized his intentions,
the
archival record allows us to reconstruct his purpose with some
confidence....

The 'dyelo vrachey' (case of the doctors), as it was called by the
Soviet
government, was alleged at the time to be a widespread conspiracy in
the
Soviet medical profession organized by Jewish physicians against
Kremlin
leaders. A.A. Zhdanov was one victim; A.S. Scherbakov was another....
Jewish doctors were accused of either murdering these leaders or
planning
their murders in league with American intelligence and a corrupt
Ministry of
state security (MGB). Hundreds of doctors were arrested over a period
of
five months, beginning in October 1952 and ending in February
1953....After
Stalin's death, in March 1953, the core group of thirty-seven doctors
and
their wives was released from prison. More releases followed in a
general
amnesty; apparent calm returned to daily life. Of the thirty-seven,
only
seventeen were Jews. Of the original group of six doctors accused of
murdering
A.A. Zhdanov in 1948, none was Jewish with the exception of the EKG
technician,
Sophia Karpai. This fact is one of the plot's deepest tangles.

Today it is generally thought that the Doctors' Plot instead of being
a
conspiracy of doctors against the government was a conspiracy by the
government
against the Jewish doctors. The documents assembled in this book tell
a
different story. They show us that the 'case of the doctors' was
actually a
conspiracy of the government, in the person of Stalin, against itself.
Had
it succeeded, its rabid, anti-Semitic character would have had
devastating
consequences for the trapped Soviet Jewish population, but it had far
wider
implications, well beyond those of the 1952 trial of the Jewish
Anti-fascist
Committee...

Standing at the apex of the state, Stalin had absolute power. He
achieved
this not because absolute power was conferred on hm by the state but
because
he succeeded in finding means to delegitimize the state itself. The
Doctors'
Plot became his most powerful weapon in the last years of hs life in
pursuing
this end; it starkly demonstrates that Stalin's power did not derive
from the
state and its institutions but from the underlying system that allowed
him to
manipulate them. This book is a study in the exercise of this
enormous power.

Terror and naked force became the system's principal means of
achieving a world
in which equality was based on mass disenfranchisement. The resulting
inversion
of the Western ideal of the social contract caused radical distrust to
prevail
throughout the social-political-human world that Lenin founded and
Stalin
developed....As the case of the quack botanist T.D. Lysenko
demonstrates,
rational thought itself was subject to the dictates of the state.

Coinciding with the early phase of the Cold War, Stalin's conspiracy
against
the Jewish doctors reflected both the general external and internal
conditions
of the Soviet Union at the time. As such the plot has significance
far beyond
specific Kremlin rivalries, Stalin's personal anti-Semitism...The
Doctor's Plot
was the natural outgrowth of the bureaucratic, political,
psychological, and
moral structure of Stalin's system of government....

The plot grew far beyond the boundaries of an anti-Semitic action. It
encompassed the security services and led to widespread purges.
Kremlin
leaders like Molotov, Mikoyan, and Voroshilov were denounced as spies.
Citizen's committees were formed to identify and denounce Jews and
other
dubious individuals. Scientists, doctors, and intellectuals were
arrested
or came under increasing suspicion. As newly discovered documents
show, in
the months preceding Stalin's death four new, large concentration
camps were
put under construction."

--Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov (Stalin's Last Crime, pp. 3-9)

'A fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.'
--Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and the Margarita)

--Nick

So what?! I note not a whit mention 'Zhukov' why is this? You can answer
this Nick?..

(Nick) wrote in message . com...

chapman Billy wrote in message
...(to A.D. Danilecki):

I suspect that this quote from "The Saving Remnant", particularly the
initial clause has irritated you, which is a matter of regret. The Battle
of Warsaw, which may be what you have in the back of your mind, has
sometimes been considered one of the decisive battles in history, given
that this Polish victory successfully halted the Bolsheviks until the
outbreak of WWII.

Indeed. The world wide positive effects of that
great Polish victory are felt to this day.

Dear Simon,

Polish victory in the Battle of Warsaw has been
attributed largely to disunity among the Red Army's
leaders, particularly conflict between General Tukachevski
and Stalin.

May be, but I don't think so. On a scene of this large
scale you always have disagreemments. There were serious
disagreements also on the Polish side.

(Eventually, Tukachevski was executed by Stalin.)

This does not prove anything. Stalin was in a habit
of killing everybody who would count in any way, plus
millions of who didn't.

Poles won because they were fighting for their survival,
for their independence. They won also thank to the military
and political (I mean international politics) genius of
Jozef Pilsudski. (When it comes to the internal politics
-- nobody is a prophet among his own people; but until about
that time Pilsudski did the right, fundamental steps also in
the Polish internal politics).

Until 1939, Poland had large minorities of Belorussians,
Ukrainians, and Germans.

Diring the 1920 war Pilsudski's idea was to have
an independent and free, democratic Ukraine and other states
around Poland, which would also serve as a buffer
separating Poland from Russia. Unfortunately, despite
Pilsudski'd efforts, Ukraine was not ready, the political
Ukrainian scene was not mature enough at the time.

Poles won the war just barely Poland was stretched to
its limits while in a long range the Soviet Russia
military potential was enormous. Pisudski had a good touch.
He was one of those people who make you wonder about the
influence on history of a single person. Many recognized
politicians serve, but a few people influence, change and
create history. Pilsudski was one of them, in the most
humane, positive sense.

Best regards,

Wlod