Howard Zinn - Communist Ideologue

"Objectivity is impossible and it is also undesirable. That is, if it were possible it would be undesirable, because if you have any kind of a social aim, if you think history should serve society in some way; should serve the progress of the human race; should serve justice in some way, then it requires that you should make your selection on the basis of what you think will advance causes of humanity.” - Howard Zinn

 “I wanted my writing of history and my teaching of history to be a part of social struggle. I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.” -Howard Zinn

Zinn was a communist, (read his FBI File) so his viewpoint is not surprising.  It is surprising that some historians take him seriously. 

Mere Innocence is No Defense

I couldn't care less about Andrew Sullivan or TNR but I thought Matt Y's quoting - and explaining - the Bolshevik attitude toward "justice" was cool:

Like most of TNR’s very worst work, it suffers deeply from schizophrenia about the idea of flinging around baseless charges of anti-semitism. On the one hand, the charges are baseless so the writer hesitates to fling them around. On the other hand, flinging baseless charges of anti-semitism is the essence of the magazine’s commentary on Israel. For the purposes of intimidation, after all, baseless charges work better than well-grounded ones. Nikolai Krylenko, Bolshevik Minister of Justice, said “we must execute not only the guilty, execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more.” And it’s much the same here. If you call anti-semites anti-semites, then people who aren’t motivated by anti-Jewish racism will figure “hey, since my political opinions aren’t motivated by anti-Jewish racism, then I’m safe.” The idea is to put everyone on notice that mere innocence will be no defense. But relatively few people are actually goonish enough to execute the strategy properly, so instead Wieseltier’s piece beats around the bush and doesn’t really come out and say what it’s saying."

Stalin - Not a "Russian nationalist" or an Anti-semite

One of the more enduring myths of history is that Stalin was a "Russian nationalist". John Lukacs seems to be particularly wed to this theory. The fact is that is that Stalin was a dedicated communist revolutionary. Further, he is a Georgian not a Russian. Stalin grew up in Georgia and spoke Georgian as a child. He only learned and spoke Russian in school. His only wife was a Georgian. Stalin thought nationalism petite-bourgeoisie.

Stalin gave his whole life to the revolution. After leaving school in 1899 at the age of 20, he joined a tiny, obscure extremist party - i.e the Russian Communist party. He spent the next 17 years in exile, prison, and engaging in revolutionary activity. He November 1917 he joined Lenin in a risking takeover of the Russian government and then spent the next 3 years fighting a bloody civil war to establish a Bolshevik dictatorship.

As anti-semitism, Stalin's inner group at the Politboro in 1939 consisted of the following:

Beria -head of the NKVD -Georgian
Molotov - Russian married to a high level Jewish communist official
Kaganovich - Jewish
Voroshilov - Commissar of War -Russian married to a high level Jewish communist official
Mikoian - Armenian
Andreev -Russian married to a high level Jewish communist official
Zhdanov - Russian
Litvinov - Commissar of Foreign Affairs -Polish Jew
Mekhlis - Jewish, Stalin's former aid and editor of Pravda
Poskrebyshev - Russian, Stalin aide

It should also noted that Stalin's 1st son was married to Jewish girl called Soloman and Stalin only daughter was married to a Jew. His second son was also briefly married to a Jewish girl, but divorced her.

Also, from 1927-1936 Stalin would usually go on a 2 month vacation near the Black Sea. Who did he leave in Charge? From 1927-1930 it was Molotov. From 1930-1936 it was Kaganovich. IOW, one was married to a Jew, and the other was a Jew. Some anti-semite!