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Archaeologists Find Bound Bodies Of Enslaved Africans In Portuguese Trash DumpAdult female skeleton found at Villa da Gafaria, Portugal (Discarded in the trash: Burials of African enslaved individuals in Valle da Gafaria, Lagos, Portugal (15th-17th centuries).In the early 15th century, Portuguese explorers like Henry the Navigator began sailing to Africa, bringing back both goods and enslaved people. A new archaeological study of more than 150 skeletons dumped in Lagos, Portugal, reveals that many of the enslaved Africans were not given proper burials and that several of them may even have been tied up at death.From the middle of the 15th century, Africa was coerced into a unique relationship with Europe that led to the devastation and depopulation of Africa, but contributed to the wealth and development of Europe. From then until the end of the 19th century, Europeans facilitated a trade for African captives.At first this trafficking only supplemented a trade in human beings that already existed within Europe, in which Europeans had enslaved each other.[1] Some enslaved Africans had also reached Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world before the mid-15th century, as a result of a trade in human beings that had also long existed in Africa.[2] Many of these African captives crossed the Sahara and reached Europe and other destinations from North Africa, or were transported across the Indian Ocean.The Old Slave Market, Lagos, PortugalThe transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe.[3]Spanish records report that in mid-july, ‘English corsairs’ waylaid and captured the Portuguese slaver Sao Joao Bautista. She had below decks some 370 Angolans, who had been taken prisoner during Portugal’s bloody war of conquest in Luanda.[4]It is estimated that by the early 16th century as much as 10% of Lisbon's population was of African descent.[5] After the European discovery of the American continent, the demand for African labour gradually grew, as other sources of labour - both European and American - were found to be insufficient. By the mid-16th century, when sugar plantations introduced to Brazil required a cheap source of labour, the Portuguese settlers looked not to the native Indians but across the Atlantic to the slaves they could easily ship from Africa.[6] Slowly but surely, as larger boats carried bigger cargoes back to Europe and returned with ever-larger quantities of slaves, Africans became the labour force of choice.Elmina Castle, Elmina, Ghana (Elmina Castle and its Dark History of Enslavement, Torture, and Death)During the 15th century, the port of the Portuguese city of Lagos was a hub for slave ships from Africa. From here, human cargo was transshipped for transportation on to other locations in Portugal and Europe. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sent a trading expedition to Africa, to explore the little known continent, in 1441.[7] By 1444, a ‘cargo’ of 235 enslaved Africans had been brought to Lagos in Portugal.[8] The Portuguese were using enslaved Africans on sugar plantations in Madeira, a Portuguese island off the west coast of Africa, by 1460.[9] They built the first slave fort in 1481, on the coast of modern Ghana. This was Elmina Castle, the headquarters of the Portuguese slave traders.[10]In the early 17th century, Portugal was a major trader in enslaved Africans. At this time, it held the asiento, or contract, to supply the Spanish colonies with slaves.[11] This meant that as well as buying their own slaves, the Portuguese were buying slaves for Spanish owned plantations.This added to the overall number of slaves which Portuguese ships carried. Records show the total figure to be 4,650,000 enslaved Africans.[12]Recent rescue excavations by a Portuguese team at an underground car park in the town of Valle da Gafaria revealed a sinkhole, which incorporated a former burial site outside the medieval walls of the port city of Lagos, along the southwest coast of Portugal.[13] Used between the 15th and 17th centuries as a dumping ground, the site also offered up remains of imported ceramics, butchered animal bones, and a few African style ornaments. Interestingly, cultural items associated with some skeletons (beads, ivory and bone sculptures)[14], and intentional dental modifications suggested sub Saharan African origins for some of the individuals in the pit.[15]When the human skeletons were first analyzed, their shape and unique dental style suggested they may have been of African origin,[16] and a later genetic analysis confirmed ancestry with southern African, Bantu-speaking populations.[17] Due to the archaeological and historical information, it is likely that all of these people were enslaved.Deliberate dental modification in Bantu skeletal remains (Sofia Wasterlain | University of Coimbra, Coimbra | UC | Department of Life Sciences)Excavations in Valle da Gafaria (Lagos, Portugal), revealed two contiguous burial places outside the medieval city walls, dating from the 15 th–17th centuries AD: one was interpreted as a Lepersarium cemetery and the second as an urban discard deposit, where signs of violent, unceremonious burials suggested that these remains may belong to slaves captured in Africa by the Portuguese.[18] Various lines of evidence strongly suggest that the 158 individuals recovered include some of the first enslaved Africans to arrive at the city of Lagos during the 15th century as well as individuals arriving in subsequent shipments until the 17th century.[19]An AMS C14 investigation dated the beginning of the burials to the time between 1420 and 1480 – and thus around the same time as the first arrival of ships of African slaves in Lagos, according to historical references.[20]The first of these burial caches has been interpreted as a burial site attached to a Leprosarium which would have been traditionally situated outside urban limits. The eleven individuals recovered from this necropolis exhibited several pathological lesions both in the skull and postcranial skeleton.[21] The recovered individuals were buried directly in the soil, in positions and orientations discordant to the prevailing Christian rules.[22] Leprosy was diagnosable in two individuals and it is expected that people suffering from a range of diseases were also housed in a similar context.The Leprosarium site samples were less preserved but gave some probability of both African and European ancestry. The two discard deposit burials each gave African affinity signals, which were further refined toward modern West African or Bantu genotyped samples.[23] These data from distressed burials illustrate an African contribution to a low status stratum of Lagos society at a time when this port became a hub of the European trade in African slaves which formed a precursor to the transatlantic transfer of millions.Old Slave Market, Lagos Portugal (The Old Slave Market, Lagos, Portugal)The second comprised an urban discard deposit (UDD) where skeletal remains belonging to 158 individuals including males and females, adults and sub-adults, were retrieved.[24] These were distressed burials; the bodies were found together with urban and domestic garbage in a large pit with apparent disrespect for the canonical burial traditions. [25] It was possible to infer that these individuals were deposited in the trash dump area (both in the sinkhole and in its boundaries) and immediately covered with trash deposits. Many were deposited in atypical positions, suggesting a pronounced lack of care in inhumation. Also both direct and indirect cases of violence were recorded; for example, three cases of hand and/or feet binding.[26]The skeletal remains were meticulously removed before subsequent state-of-the-art anthropological and genetic analyses were conducted. Genetic analyses revealed an affinity to West African or Bantu-speaking (Central to Southern African) populations in some of the DNA samples, which is in agreement with what is expected from historical records, and with some of the archaeological elements that suggested African ancestry.[27]Researchers conclude that around one third of the skeletons were from under-18s and that only 3% were from people aged 30 or more.[28] Identification of African characteristics was based on the assessment of traits such as the shape and measurements of the eye orbits and nasal cavity, and the assessment of dental traits such as tooth filing common in African people in that time.Researchers from the University of Coimbra elaborated upon the bone data in order to understand how the 158 enslaved Africans came to be buried in a trash pit in Lagos.[29] Specifically, they investigated the position of each burial, whether or not the burial was made with care, and whether they could identify any evidence that the person’s body had been bound.Adult female from Valle da Gafaria whose positioning suggests she may have been tied up for burial (Genetic Evidence of African Slavery at the Beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade)The Medieval Catholic concern with burial procedures meant that the church was crucial in handling deaths in Portugal. A body would be ferried to the church in a funeral procession, and a grave would be selected in close proximity to a religious building.[30] Elites and nobles were usually buried in an area protected by walls, while more marginal people were located outside.[31] Those who were further stigmatized by disease, condemned, or otherwise considered not to be deserving of care would be placed far outside sacred spaces.Enslaved occupants of Early Modern Portugal would not necessarily have been prevented from a proper burial. Many were baptized on arrival to Portugal and therefore had a right to a Christian funeral if the slave owner decided to do so.[32] However, due to the poor conditions aboard the ships, many people arrived so weakened that they died without baptizm. In such cases, as their humanity was not recognized, the corpses were treated as animal remains: summarily buried in any free field or dumped in the garbage.[33]African Slave TradeMore than half seemed to have been buried without care. Many of the skeletons were found in uncommon burial positions indicating that the slaves had their limbs tied to their necks or in other cases both hands tied to their backs.[34] In other cases the hands were placed in strand position in the front. These positions provide a detailed and disturbing glimpse into the early period of the European African slave trade.Moreover, six individuals (four females, one male, and one non‐adult individual) showed evidence of having been tied at the time of death and/or burial.[35] This suggestion that several people had been tied up has intrigued other scholars, although it is unclear from the published research whether the bound limbs were related to the people’s enslaved status or to a more functional method of disposing of bodies.Biological anthropologist Tim Thompson at Teesside University praised the “sound research” but stated “it is difficult to truly assess the examples of tied individuals because there are so few, and no figures are presented.” He suggests that comparing “the anatomical positioning with examples from modern mass graves would allow for deeper analysis. There are many examples of binding and blindfolding in these modern mass violence settings, along with disrespectful deposition of bodies.”[36]Archaeologists and scientists anticipate future publications on Valle da Gafaria and it's skeletal collection, as the site is an incredibly disturbing one, and one that clearly illustrates the pervasive mistreatment of enslaved people by the architects of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In particular, this skeletal collection is indicative of the high mortality associated with slave ships and the Middle Passage.[37] The findings have the potential to contribute to the comprehension of both ancient and modern forced slavery contexts. Not only are there few cemeteries of enslaved people in the world, but also, Lagos is the oldest sample to be discovered and comprehensively examined in decades.[38]Skeletons found in a Portuguese mass grave belonged to African slavesFootnotes[1] The Arrival of European Traders[2] Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade[3] The European slave trade: the destruction of Africa by Portugal[4] Portuguese Slave Raiders in Africa: The old Luso-African kingdom of Angola - written by - Nehesy; edited by Rasta Livewire[5] Portugal confronts its slave trade past[6] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.historyextra.com/period/the-origins-of-slavery/amp/[7] Prince Henry the Navigator: The Man Who Led Portuguese Exploration[8] Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery[9] madeira sugar cane - Google Search[10] Inside Ghana's Elmina Castle is a haunting reminder of its grim past[11] Asiento de negros | Spanish history[12] British Involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade[13] Skeletons found in a Portuguese mass grave belonged to African slaves[14] http://Neves M., Almeida M. & Ferreira M. História de um arrabalde durante os séculos XV e XVI: o “poço dos negros” em Lagos (Algarve, Portugal) e o seu contributo para o estudo dos escravos em Portugal. in A Herança do Infante 29–46 (2011). [15] http://Neves M., Almeida M. & Ferreira M. Separados na vida e na morte: retrato do tratamento mortuário dado aos escravos africanos na cidade moderna de Lagos. XELB Rev. 10, 547–560 (2010). [16] Antropologia Portuguesa vol. 32/33[17] Dispersals and genetic adaptation of Bantu-speaking populations in Africa and North America[18] Genetic Evidence of African Slavery at the Beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade[19] Lagos leprosarium (Portugal): Evidences of disease | Request PDF[20] A Journey Back in Time | L.I.S.A. SCIENCE PORTAL GERDA HENKEL FOUNDATION[21] http://Ferreira M. T., Neves M. J. & Wasterlain S. N. Lagos leprosarium (Portugal): evidences of disease. J. Archaeol. Sci. 40, 2298–2307 (2013). [22] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.researchgate.net/publication/257155203_Lagos_leprosarium_Portugal_Evidences_of_disease/amp[23] Genetic Evidence of African Slavery at the Beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade[24] Genetic Evidence of African Slavery at the Beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade[25] Archaeologists Find Bound Bodies Of Enslaved Africans In Portuguese Trash Dump[26] http://Neves M., Almeida M. & Ferreira M. Separados na vida e na morte: retrato do tratamento mortuário dado aos escravos africanos na cidade moderna de Lagos. XELB Rev. 10, 547–560 (2010). [27] Archaeologists Find Bound Bodies Of Enslaved Africans In Portuguese Trash Dump[28] Skeletons found in a Portuguese mass grave belonged to African slaves[29] Discarded in the trash: Burials of African enslaved individuals in Valle da Gafaria, Lagos, Portugal (15th-17th centuries)[30] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/journal/volumes/volume_18/Death%2520and%2520Dying%2520in%2520Medieval%2520and%2520Early%2520Modern%2520Europe.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwju1b6P96_hAhVKOK0KHRQ-A6YQFjASegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw3ayiQ2L_LVjBUBAdN-LpxY[31] Interpreting Rock-Cut Grave Cemeteries: The Early Medieval Necropolis and Enclosure of São Gens, Portugal[32] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php%3Fid%3D42397&ved=2ahUKEwjG6NaTzK3hAhURQ6wKHTRoA68QFjAKegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0fsD5aPcmGveryjgokabPA[33] Discarded in the trash: Burials of African enslaved individuals in Valle da Gafaria, Lagos, Portugal (15th-17th centuries)[34] Genetic Evidence of African Slavery at the Beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade | Scinapse | Academic search engine for paper[35] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.researchgate.net/publication/331280961_Discarded_in_the_trash_burials_of_African_enslaved_individuals_in_Valle_da_Gafaria_Lagos_Portugal_15th-17th_centuries/amp[36] Archaeologists Find Bound Bodies Of Enslaved Africans In Portuguese Trash Dump[37] Slave Ships and the Middle Passage[38] Buried at a rubbish dump, centuries-old bodies of tied enslaved Africans found in Portugal - Face2Face Africa

WARNING: LONG READ: In India, education is controlled both by Central and State Governments. I’ll talk about my experience i.e. learning about Pakistan from school textbooks designed by Central Government i.e. NCERT or National Council Of Educational Research And Training textbooks. In case anyone wants to read other books, the link provides all ebooks of NCERT for free.Summary: Pakistan is mentioned sparingly or is absent, except in Modern History (British Period) and Political Science books. In river systems portion of Geography, one does learn about the entire Indus Basin, including the portion in Pakistan. But that was about it. The history of the land that today constitutes Pakistan is a part of Indian History, as the brute majority of the Indian Subcontinent was called India before. Hence, Pakistan’s description is concerned only with the modern entity of Pakistan. Even in History books, the intricate details of Pakistan Movement, its genesis, leaders or demands are hardly mentioned. Mostly, Pakistan’s demand has been described as a result of both British Divide and Rule Policy and the communal politics of Muslim League. Partition of India is described with a sense of sorrow, reluctantly agreed upon at the very end by Indian leaders, who never accepted the Two Nation Theory. The great suffering, mass killings, rape and displacement induced by Partition, with both sides bearing equal blame is emphasized. Present history of Pakistan is absent, except in context of India-Pakistan wars, relations and problems in J&KTL;DR version: I read the Class XII Political Science Textbook (Re: Politics in India since Independence) and have divided the quotations from the book into three sections. First describes Partition of India and briefly, the Two Nation Theory. Second describes the Indo-Pak wars and relations. Third describes the Kashmir Issue.DEPICTION OF PARTITION AND BRIEF EXPLANATION FOR THE SAME [Re: Chapter 1]: Sorrowful, with both sides blamed for the violence. Two Nation theory of the Muslim League finds a mention.Page 2:Freedom came with Partition, which resulted in large scale violence and displacement and challenged the very idea of a secular India.Page 4:Tomorrow we shall be free from the slavery of the British domination. But at midnight India will be partitioned. Tomorrow will thus be a day of rejoicing as well as mourning - Mahatma Gandhi, 14 August 1947Page 6:This scarred, marred brightness, this bitten-by-night dawn -The one that was awaited, surely, this is not that dawn. - Faiz Ahmed FaizPage 7:Whatever the provocation from Pakistan and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with this minority in a civilised manner. We must give them security and the rights of citizens in a democratic State. - Jawaharlal Nehru, Letter to Chief Ministers, 15 October 1947Page 8 (Two Nation Theory comes into picture):According to the ‘two-nation theory’ advanced by the Muslim League, India consisted of not one but two ‘people’, Hindus and Muslims. That is why it demanded Pakistan, a separate country for the Muslims. The Congress opposed this theory and the demand for Pakistan. But several political developments in 1940s, the political competition between the Congress and the Muslim League and the British role led to the decision for the creation of Pakistan.Process of PartitionThus it was decided that what was till then known as ‘India’ would be divided into two countries, ‘India’ and ‘Pakistan’. Such a division was not only very painful, but also very difficult to decide and to implement. It was decided to follow the principle of religious majorities. This basically means that areas where the Muslims were in majority would make up the territory of Pakistan. The rest was to stay with India.Page 8 (Apparently a critique of Two Nation Theory):Secondly, not all Muslim majority areas wanted to be in Pakistan. Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, the undisputed leader of the North Western Frontier Province and known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’, was staunchly opposed to the two-nation theory. Eventually, his voice was simply ignored and the NWFP was made to merge with Pakistan.Page 8 continued:..a large number of people did not know on the day of Independence whether they were in India or in Pakistan. The Partition of these two provinces caused the deepest trauma of Partition.This was related to the fourth and the most intractable of all the problems of partition. This was the problem of ‘minorities’ on both sides of the border. Lakhs of Hindus and Sikhs in the areas that were now in Pakistan and an equally large number of Muslims on the Indian side of Punjab and Bengal (and to some extent Delhi and surrounding areas) found themselves trapped. They were to discover that they were undesirable aliens in their own home, in the land where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries. As soon as it became clear that the country was going to be partitioned, the minorities on both sides became easy targets of attack. No one had quite anticipated the scale of this problem. No one had any plans for handling this. Initially, the people and political leaders kept hoping that this violence was temporary and would be controlled soon. But very soon the violence went out of control. The minorities on both sides of the border were left with no option except to leave their homes, often at a few hours’ notice.Page 10:Thousands of women were abducted on both sides of the border. They were made to convert to the religion of the abductor and were forced into marriage. In many cases women were killed by their own family members to preserve the ‘family honour’. Many children were separated from their parents. Those who did manage to cross the border found that they had no home. For lakhs of these ‘refugees’ the country’s freedom meant life in ‘refugee camps’, for months and sometimes for years.Page 11 (human cost of Partition + pits communal ideas of Muslim League against secular ideals of Indian leaders):What also got divided were the financial assets, and things like tables, chairs, typewriters, paper-clips, books and also musical instruments of the police band! The employees of the government and the railways were also ‘divided’. Above all, it was a violent separation of communities who had hitherto lived together as neighbours. It is estimated that the Partition forced about 80 lakh people to migrate across the new border. Between five to ten lakh people were killed in Partition related violence.…The Muslim League was formed to protect the interests of the Muslims in colonial India. It was in the forefront of the demand for a separate Muslim nation. Similarly, there were organisations, which were trying to organise the Hindus in order to turn India into a Hindu nation. But most leaders of the national movement believed that India must treat persons of all religions equally and that India should not be a country that gave superior status to adherents of one faith and inferior to those who practiced another religion. All citizens would be equal irrespective of their religious affiliation. Being religious or a believer would not be a test of citizenship. They cherished therefore the ideal of a secular nation. This ideal was enshrined in the Indian Constitution.DEPICTION OF WARS AND RELATIONS WITH PAKISTAN (Re: Chapter 4): The only other substantial mention of Pakistan I found in this book. For 1965, 1971 and 1999 wars, Pakistan is depicted as the aggressor i.e. initiator of hostilities. 1965 war is painted as inconclusive with India inflicting more losses on Pakistan. 1971 is depicted as clear victory. While Kargil war of 1999 is depicted as return of status quo for India through both military and diplomacy, for Pakistan, Musharraf is shown the winner and Nawaz Sharif the loser. Historically, this ain’t far from truth as well.Page 74 (1965 war):In April 1965 Pakistan launched armed attacks in the Rann of Kutch area of Gujarat. This was followed by a bigger Offensive in Jammu and Kashmir in August-September. Pakistani rulers were hoping to get support from the local population there, but it did not happen. In order to ease the pressure on the Kashmir front, Shastri ordered Indian troops to launch a counter-offensive on the Punjab border. In a fierce battle, the Indian army reached close to Lahore.The hostilities came to an end with the UN intervention. Later, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan’s General Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Agreement, brokered by the Soviet Union, in January 1966. Though India could inflict considerable military loss on Pakistan, the 1965 war added to India’s already difficult economic situation.Page 74 (1971 war):..The Bengali population of East Pakistan had voted to protest against years of being treated as second class citizens by the rulers based in West Pakistan. The Pakistani rulers were not willing to accept the democratic verdict. Nor were they ready to accept the Awami League’s demand for a federation.Instead, in early 1971, the Pakistani army arrested Sheikh Mujib and unleashed a reign of terror on the people of East Pakistan. In response to this, the people started a struggle to liberate ‘Bangladesh’ from Pakistan. Throughout 1971, India had to bear the burden of about 80 lakh refugees who fled East Pakistan and took shelter in the neighbouring areas in India. India extended moral and material support to the freedom struggle in Bangladesh. Pakistan accused India of a conspiracy to break it up.A small side cartoon with the following quote:Why do we say India and Pakistan had a war? Leaders quarrel and armies fight wars. Most ordinary citizens have nothing to do with these.Page 75 (1971 war contd.):After months of diplomatic tension and military build-up, a full-scale war between India and Pakistan broke out in December 1971. Pakistani aircrafts attacked Punjab and Rajasthan, while the army moved on the Jammu and Kashmir front. India retaliated with an attack involving the air force, navy and the army on both the Western and the Eastern front. Welcomed and supported by the local population, the Indian army made rapid progress in East Pakistan. Within ten days the Indian army had surrounded Dhaka from three sides and the Pakistani army of about 90,000 had to surrender. With Bangladesh as a free country, India declared a unilateral ceasefire. Later, the signing of the Shimla Agreement between Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on 3 July 1972 formalised the return of peace.A decisive victory in the war led to national jubiliation. Most people in India saw this as a moment of glory and a clear sign of India’s growing military prowess.Page 75 (Kargil War of 1999):In the early part of 1999 several points on the Indian side of the LoC in the Mashkoh, Dras, Kaksar and Batalik areas were occupied by forces claiming to be Mujahideens. Suspecting involvement of the Pakistan Army, Indian forces started reacting to this occupation. This led to a confrontation between the two countries. This is known as the Kargil conflict. This conflict went on during May and June 1999. By 26 July 1999, India had recovered control of many of the lost points. The Kargil conflict drew attention worldwide for the reason that only one year prior to that, both India and Pakistan had attained nuclear capability. However, this conflict remained confined only to the Kargil region. In Pakistan, this conflict has been the source of a major controversy as it was alleged later that the Prime Minister of Pakistan was kept in the dark by the Army Chief. Soon after the conflict, the government of Pakistan was taken over by the Pakistan Army led by the Army Chief, General Parvez Musharraf.DEPICTION OF PRESENT DAY INDO-PAK RELATIONS: Seems too neutralPage 79:Indo-Pakistan relations have witnessed many new developments during this period. While Kashmir continues to be the main issue between the two countries, there have been many efforts to restore normal relations. This means that cultural exchanges, movement of citizens and economic cooperation would be encouraged by both countries. Do you know that a train and a bus service operate between these two countries? This has been a major achievement of the recent times. But that could not avoid the near-war situation from emerging in 1999. Even after this setback to the peace process, efforts at negotiating durable peace have been going on.DEPICTION OF KASHMIR ISSUE (Re: Chapter 8) :Page 151:Roots of the problemBefore 1947, Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was a Princely State. Its Hindu ruler, Hari Singh, did not want to merge with India and tried to negotiate with India and Pakistan to have an independent status for his state. The Pakistani leaders thought the Kashmir region ‘belonged’ to Pakistan, since majority population of the State was Muslim. But this is not how the people themselves saw it – they thought of themselves as Kashmiris above all. The popular movement in the State, led by Sheikh Abdullah of the National Conference, wanted to get rid of the Maharaja, but was against joining Pakistan. The National Conference was a secular organisation and had a long association with the Congress. Sheikh Abdullah was a personal friend of some of the leading nationalist leaders including Nehru.In October 1947, Pakistan sent tribal infiltrators from its side to capture Kashmir. This forced the Maharaja to ask for Indian military help. India extended the military support and drove back the infiltrators from Kashmir valley, but only after the Maharaja had signed an ‘Instrument of Accession’ with the Government of India. It was also agreed that once the situation normalised, the views of the people of J&K will be ascertained about their future. Sheikh Abdullah took over as the Prime Minister of the State of J&K (the head of the government in the State was then called Prime Minister) in March 1948. India agreed to maintain the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir.Page 154Externally, Pakistan has always claimed that Kashmir valley should be part of Pakistan. As we noted above, Pakistan sponsored a tribal invasion of the State in 1947, as a consequence of which one part of the State came under Pakistani control. India claims that this area is under illegal occupation. Pakistan describes this area as ‘Azad Kashmir’. Ever since 1947, Kashmir has remained a major issue of conflict between India and Pakistan.Page 157..it was widely believed that the results did not reflect popular choice, and that the entire election (1987) process was rigged. A popular resentment had already been brewing in the State against the inefficient administration since early 1980s. This was now augmented by the commonly prevailing feeling that democratic processes were being undermined at the behest of the Centre. This generated a political crisis in Kashmir which became severe with the rise of insurgency.By 1989, the State had come in the grip of a militant movement mobilised around the cause of a separate Kashmiri nation. The insurgents got moral, material and military support from Pakistan. For a number of years the State was under President’s rule and effectively under the control of the armed forces. Throughout the period from 1990, Jammu and Kashmir experienced violence at the hands of the insurgents and through army action. Assembly elections in the State were held only in 1996 in which the National Conference led by Farooq Abdullah came to power with a demand for regional autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir.Overall, when compared with Pakistani textbooks (check the link to compare with Pakistani Textbooks), I found this particular book and other Indian NCERT textbooks to be:Less hyperbolic, less emotional and more factualEspousing secularism over communalism. Hardly anything is painted with a religious colour.Better at depicting the human aspects of politics and war (shown in the harrowing description of Partition of India)More scholarly, neutral and professionally written.

Almost from the beginning the lies about the Soviet Union and Stalin were spread for propaganda purposes. Stalin is probably the most slandered figure in human history, with Mao being second.The HolomodorThe famine in the Ukraine in 1932–1933 was caused by drought, higher birth rates prior to it, the urbanization of the population, deliberate sabotage, and other factors.In this photograph Soviet workers found grain hidden by kulaks. Many hid the grain to speculate on the grain market or to hold out for higher requisition prices. Meanwhile people in the cities were starving.“The Famine of 1932–33 affected population of at least three Soviet republics, not just Ukraine, and in the areas predominantly populated by ethnic Russians:Southern RussiaNorth Kazakhstan (primarily populated by ethnic Russians)Central and Eastern Ukraine (primarily populated by ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking population).”Source: Serge MavrodisGoebbels blamed Stalin for the famine, which was untrue. In fact Stalin ordered grain to be sent to alleviate the famine:“It is a matter of some significance that Cardinal Innitzer’s allegations of famine-genocide were widely promoted throughout the 1930s, not only by Hitler’s chief propagandist Goebbels, but also by American Fascists as well.It will be recalled that Hearst kicked off his famine campaign with a radio broadcast based mainly on material from Cardinal Innitzer’s “aid committee.” In Organized Anti-Semitism in America, the 1941 book exposing Nazi groups and activities in the pre-war United States, Donald Strong notes that American fascist leader Father Coughlin used Nazi propaganda material extensively. This included Nazi charges of “atrocities by Jew Communists” and verbatim portions of a Goebbels speech referring to Innitzer’s “appeal of July 1934, that millions of people were dying of hunger throughout the Soviet Union.”Tottle, Douglas. Fraud, Famine, and Fascism. Toronto: Progress Books,1987, p. 49-51″Stop Spreading Nazi Propaganda: on Holodomor“This is Stalin urging the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine to take appropriate measures to prevent a crop failure.The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALINFrom the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.”Stop Spreading Nazi Propaganda: on Holodomor“This is the response of Anna Louise Strong, an American journalist famous for reporting on the Soviet Union, to a question about the supposed genocide.QUESTION: Is it true that during 1932-33 several million people were allowed to starve to death in the Ukraine and North Caucasus because they were politically hostile to the Soviets?ANSWER: Not true. I visited several places in those regions during that period. There was a serious grain shortage in the 1932 harvest due chiefly to inefficiencies of the organizational period of the new large-scale mechanized farming among peasants unaccustomed to machines. To this was added sabotage by dispossessed kulaks, the leaving of the farms by 11 million workers who went to new industries, the cumulative effect of the world crisis in depressing the value of Soviet farm exports, and a drought in five basic grain regions in 1931.The harvest of 1932 was better than that of 1931 but was not all gathered; on account of overoptimistic promises from rural districts, Moscow discovered the actual situation only in December when a considerable amount of grain was under snow.Strong, Anna Louise. Searching Out the Soviets. New Republic: August 7, 1935, p. 356Here is Strong again on the harvest of 1933.The conquest of bread was achieved that summer, a victory snatched from a great disaster. The 1933 harvest surpassed that of 1930, which till then had held the record. This time, the new record was made not by a burst of half-organized enthusiasm, but by growing efficiency and permanent organization … This nationwide cooperation beat the 1934 drought, securing a total crop for the USSR equal to the all-time high of 1933.Strong, Anna Louise. The Stalin Era. New York: Mainstream, 1956, p. 44-45This is what a study of the Russian Archives led to.Recent evidence has indicated that part of the cause of the famine was an exceptionally low harvest in 1932, much lower than incorrect Soviet methods of calculation had suggested. The documents included here or published elsewhere do not yet support the claim that the famine was deliberately produced by confiscating the harvest, or that it was directed especially against the peasants of the Ukraine.Koenker and Bachman, Eds. Revelations from the Russian Archives. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997, p. 401Another confirmation after a search of the Russian archives.In view of the importance of grain stocks to understanding the famine, we have searched Russian archives for evidence of Soviet planned and actual grain stocks in the early 1930s. Our main sources were the Politburo protocols, including the (“special files,” the highest secrecy level), and the papers of the agricultural collections committee Komzag, of the committee on commodity funds, and of Sovnarkom. The Sovnarkom records include telegrams and correspondence of Kuibyshev, who was head of Gosplan, head of Komzag and the committee on reserves, and one of the deputy chairs of Komzag at that time.We have not obtained access to the Politburo working papers in the Presidential Archive, to the files of the committee on reserves or to the relevant files in military archives. But we have found enough information to be confident that this very a high figure for grain stocks is wrong and that Stalin did not have under his control huge amounts of grain, which could easily have been used to eliminate the famine.Stalin, Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933 by R. W. Davies, M. B. Tauger, S.G. Wheatcroft.Slavic Review, Volume 54, Issue 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 642-657.”Stop Spreading Nazi Propaganda: on HolodomorThe Holodomor Hoax: Joseph Stalin’s Crime That Never Took PlaceThis newspaper was published by Hearst as part of his deal with Goebbels to promote the Nazis. Hearst was also a Nazi supporter. The photos were found to be from other famines, one of them 10 years earlier. The “reporting” was fabrication. Other reporters that actually looked into it report that while there was a famine it was not intentional.“The CIA believed that Ukrainian nationalism could be used as an efficient cold war weapon.While the Ukrainian nationalists provided Washington with valuable information about its Cold War rivals, the CIA in return was placing the nationalist veterans into positions of influence and authority, helping them to create semi-academic institutions or academic positions in existing universities.By using these formal and informal academic networks, the Ukrainian nationalists had been disseminating anti-Russian propaganda, creating myths and re-writing history at the same time whitewashing the wartime crimes of OUN-UPA.“In 1987 the film “Harvest of Despair” was made. It was the beginning of the ‘Holodomor’ movement. The film was entirely funded by Ukrainian nationalists, mainly in Canada. A Canadian scholar, Douglas Tottle(1), exposed the fact that the film took photographs from the 1921-22 ‘Volga famine’ and used them to illustrate the 1932-33 famine. Tottle later wrote a book, ‘Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard,‘ about the phony ‘Holodomor’ issue,” Professor Furr elaborated. “The Holodomor Hoax: Joseph Stalin’s Crime That Never Took Place“In the last 15 years or so an enormous amount of new material on Stalin … has become available from Russian archives. I should make clear that as a historian I have a strong orientation to telling the truth about the past, no matter how uncomfortable or unpalatable the conclusions may be. … I don’t think there is a dilemma: you just tell the truth as you see it.(“Stalin’s Wars”, FPM February 12, 2007. At http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/35... )The common or “mainstream” view of Stalin as a bloodthirsty tyrant is a product of two sources: Trotsky’s writings of the 1930s and Nikita Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” to the XX Party Congress in February, 1956. This canonical history of the Stalin period – the version we have all learned — is completely false. We can see this now thanks mainly to two sets of archival discoveries: the gradual publication of thousands of archival documents from formerly secret Soviet archives since the end of the USSR in 1991; and the opening of the Leon Trotsky Archive at Harvard in 1980 and, secondarily, of the Trotsky Archive at the Hoover Institution (from where I have just returned).Khrushchev LiedIn its impact on world history Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” is the most influential speech of the 20th century. In it Khrushchev painted Stalin as a bloodthirsty tyrant guilty of a reign of terror lasting more than two decades.After the 22nd Party Congress of 1961, where Khrushchev and his men attacked Stalin with even more venom, many Soviet historians elaborated Khrushchev’s lies. These falsehoods were repeated by Cold War anticommunists like Robert Conquest. They also entered “left” discourse through the works of Trotskyists and anarchists and of “pro-Moscow” communists.Khrushchev’s lies were amplified during Mikhail Gorbachev’s and Boris Eltsin’s time by professional Soviet, then Russian, historians. Gorbachev orchestrated an avalanche of anticommunist falsehoods that provided the ideological smokescreen for the return to exploitative practices within the USSR and ultimately for the abandonment of socialist reforms and a return to predatory capitalism.During 2005-2006 I researched and wrote the book Khrushchev Lied. In my book I identify 61 accusations that Khrushchev made against either Stalin or, in a few cases, Beria. I then studied each one of them in the light of evidence available from former Soviet archives. To my own surprise I found that 60 of the 61 accusations are provably, demonstrably false.The fact that Khrushchev could falsify everything and get away with it for over 50 years suggests that we should look carefully at other supposed “crimes” of Stalin and of the USSR during his time.Trotsky’s ‘Amalgams’From 1980 till the early 1990s Pierre Broué, the foremost Trotskyist historian of his day, and Arch Getty, a prominent American expert in Soviet history, discovered that Trotsky had lied, repeatedly and about many issues, in his public statements and writings in the 1930s. In my book Trotsky’s ‘Amalgams’ (2015) I discussed the implications of these lies by Trotsky and of some additional lies of his that I discovered myself. They completely invalidate the “Dewey Commission,” to whom Trotsky lied shamelessly and repeatedly, as well as Trotsky’s denials in the Red Book and elsewhere of the charges leveled against him in the First and Second Moscow Trials.Challenging the “Anti-Stalin Paradigm”I have not reached these conclusions out of any desire to “apologize” for – let alone “celebrate” — the policies of Stalin or the Soviet government. I believe these to be the only objective conclusions possible based on the available evidence.The conclusions I have reached about the history of the Soviet Union during the Stalin period are unacceptable to people who, like Proyect, are motivated by prior ideological commitments rather than by a determination to discover the truth “and let the chips fall where they will.”The “anti-Stalin paradigm” is hegemonic in the field of Soviet history, where it is literally “taboo” to question, let alone disprove as I do, the Trotsky-Khrushchev-Cold War falsehoods about Stalin and the Stalin period. Those in this field who do not cut their research to fit the Procrustean bed of the “anti-Stalin paradigm” will find it hard if not impossible to publish in “mainstream” journals and by academic publishers. I am fortunate: I teach English literature and do not need to publish in these “authoritative” but ideologically compromised vehicles.Those who, like Proyect, are motivated not to discover the truth but to shore up their ideological prejudices think that everybody must be doing likewise. Therefore Proyect argues not from evidence, but by guilt by association, name-dropping, insult, and lies.A few examples:Guilt by association: Proyect claims that I am “like” Roland Boer, Roger Annis, and Sigizmund Mironin.Name-dropping: Davies and Wheatcroft are well-known and disagree with Tauger, so – somehow – they are “the most authoritative,” “right” while Tauger is “wrong.”Insult: Tauger is complicit in “turning a victim into a criminal.”Proyect: “…it seems reasonable that Stalin was forced to unleash a brutal repression in the early 30s to prevent Hitler from invading Russia—or something like that.” In reality neither I nor Tauger say anything of the kind.Lies: Proyect quotes a passage from Tauger’s research about the Irish potato famine and then accuses Tauger of wanting to exculpate the British:“The British government responsible? No, we can’t have that.”But the very next sentence in Tauger’s article reads:“Without denying that the British government mishandled the crisis…”Proyect is a prisoner of the historical paradigm that controls his view of Soviet history. A few examples:* Proyect persists in using the term “Holodomor.” He does not inform Cp readers that Davies and Wheatcroft, whose work he recommends, reject both the term “Holodomor” and the concept in the very book Proyect recommends!* Proyect: “…no matter that Lenin called for his [Stalin’s] removal from party leadership from his death-bed.”But, thanks to careful research by Valentin Sakharov of Moscow State University, even “mainstream” researchers know that this note, like “Lenin’s Testament,” is probably a forgery:There is no stenographic original of the “Ilich letter about the [general] secretary.” In the journal of Lenin’s activities kept by the secretarial staff there is no mention of any such “Ilich letter.” … not a single source corroborates the content of the January 4 dictation. Also curious is the fact that Zinoviev had not been made privy to the “Ilich letter about the [general] secretary” in late May, along with the evaluations of six regime personnel. The new typescript emerged only in June. (Stephen Kotkin, Stalin 505)* Proyect: “Largely because of his bureaucratic control and the rapid influx of self-seeking elements into the party, Stalin could crush the opposition…”However, in his 1973 work Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution Stephen Cohen wrote:But machine politics alone did not account for Stalin’s triumph. … within this select oligarchy, Stalin’s bureaucratic power was considerably less imposing…. By April 1929, these influentials had chosen Stalin and formed his essential majority in the high leadership. They did so, it seems clear, less because of his bureaucratic power than because they preferred his leadership and politics. (327)* Proyect: “Stalin’s forced march did not discriminate between rich and poor peasants.”But in 1983 James Mace, a champion of the Ukrainian Nationalist fascist collaborators, wrote about the role of “committees of poor peasants,” komitety nezamozhnykh selian, in supporting collectivization. There is much other evidence of peasant support for collectivization.What it meansCorrectly understood, history is the attempt to use well-known methods of primary-source research in an objective manner, in order to arrive at accurate – truthful — statements about the past. Very often the result is disillusioning to those who cling to false ideological constructs, even when those constructs constitute the “mainstream” of politicized historiography.No one who does not try to discover the truth and then tell it without fear or favor, is worthy to be called a historian, regardless of how famous, honored, or “authoritative” he or she may appear to be.Distortions and lies about Soviet history of the Stalin period predominate everywhere, including Ukraine, Russia, and in the West. These lies mainly consist in repeating Trotskyist and Khrushchevite lies, in defiance or in willful ignorance of the primary-source evidence now available.The newly-available evidence from archival sources necessitates a complete rewriting of Soviet history of the Stalin period and a complete revision of Stalin’s own role. This exciting yet demanding prospect is of great importance to all who wish to learn from the errors, as well as from the successes, of the Bolsheviks, the pioneers of the communist movement of the 20th century.”Source: The Ukrainian Famine: Only Evidence Can Disclose the TruthThe Chief Propagandist, Robert ConquestRobert Conquest at the heart of the mythsThis man, who is so widely quoted in the bourgeois press, this veritable oracle of the bourgeoisie, deserves some specific attention at this point. Robert Conquest is one of the two authors who has most written on the millions dying in the Soviet Union. He is in truth the creator of all the myths and lies concerning the Soviet Union that have been spread since the Second World War. Conquest is primarily known for his books The Great Terror (1969) and Harvest of Sorrow (1986). Conquest writes of millions dying of starvation in the Ukraine, in the gulag labour camps and during the Trials of 1936-38, using as his sources of information exiled Ukrainians living in the US and belonging to rightist parties, people who had collaborated with the Nazis in the Second World War. Many of Conquest’s heroes were known to have been war criminals who led and participated in the genocide of the Ukraine’s Jewish population in 1942. One of these people was Mykola Lebed, convicted as a war criminal after the Second World War. Lebed had been security chief in Lvov during the Nazi occupation and presided over the terrible persecutions of the Jews which took place in 1942. In 1949 the CIA took Lebed off to the United States where he worked as a source of disinformation.The style of Conquest’s books is one of violent and fanatical anti-communism. In his 1969 book, Conquest tells us that those who died of starvation in the Soviet Union between 1932-1933 amounted to between 5 million and 6 million people, half of them in the Ukraine. But in 1983, during Reagan’s anti-communist crusade, Conquest had extended the famine into 1937 and increased the number of victims to 14 million! Such assertions turned out to be well rewarded: in 1986 he was signed up by Reagan to write material for his presidential campaign aimed at preparing the American people for a Soviet invasion, The text in question was called ‘What to do when the Russians come – a survivaists’ handbook’! Strange words coming from a Professor of History!The fact is that there is nothing strange in it at all, coming as it does from a man who has spent his entire life living off lies and fabrications about the Soviet Union and Stalin – first as a secret service agent and then as a writer and professor at Stamford University in California. Conquest’s past was exposed by the Guardian of 27 January 1978 in an article which identified him as a former agent in the disinformation department of the British Secret Service, i.e., the Information Research Department (IRD). The IRD was a section set up in 1947 (originally called the Communist Information Bureau) whose main task it was to combat communist influence throughout the world by planting stories among politicians, journalists and others in a position to influence public opinion. The activities of the IRD were very wide-ranging, as much in Britain as abroad. When the IRD had to be formally disbanded in 1977, as a result of the exposure of its involvement with the far right, it was discovered that in Britain alone more than 100 of the best-known journalists had an IRD contact who regularly supplied them with material for articles. This was routine in several major British newspapers, such as the Financial Times, The Times, Economist, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Express, The Guardian and others. The facts exposed by the Guardian therefore give us an indication as to how the secret services were able to manipulate the news reaching the public at large.Robert Conquest worked for the IRD from when it was set up until 1956. Conquest’s ‘work’ there was to contribute to the so-called ‘black history’ of the Soviet Union fake stories put out as fact and distributed among journalists and others able to influence public opinion. After he had formally left the IRD, Conquest continued to write books suggested by the IRD, with secret service support. His book ‘The Great Terror’, a basic right-wing text on the subject of the power struggle that took place in the Soviet Union in 1937, was in fact a recompilation of text he had written when working for the secret services. The book was finished and published with the help of the IRD. A third of the publication run was bought by the Praeger press, normally associated with the publication of literature originating from CIA sources. Conquest’s book was intended for presentation to ‘useful fools’, such as university professors and people working in the press, radio and TV, to ensure that the lies of Conquest and the extreme right continued to be spread throughout large swathes of the population. Conquest to this day remains for right-wing historians one of the most important sources of material on the Soviet Union.Alexander SolzhenitsynAnother person who is always associated with books and articles on the supposed millions who lost their lives or liberty in the Soviet Union is the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn became famous throughout the capitalist world towards the end of 1960 with his book, The Gulag Archipelago. He himself had been sentenced in 1946 to 8 years in a labour camp for counter-revolutionary activity in the form of distribution of anti-Soviet propaganda. According to Solzhenitsyn, the fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War could have been avoided if the Soviet government had reached a compromise with Hitler. Solzhenitsyn also accused the Soviet government and Stalin of being even worse than Hitler from the point of view, according to him, of the dreadful effects of the war on the people of the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn did not hide his Nazi sympathies. He was condemned as a traitor.Solzhenitsyn began in 1962 to publish books in the Soviet Union with the consent and help of Nikita Khrushchev. The first book he published was A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, concerning the life of a prisoner. Khrushchev used Solzhenitsyn’s texts to combat Stalin’s socialist heritage. In 1970 Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature with his book The Gulag Archipelago. His books then began to be published in large quantities in capitalist countries, their author having become one of the most valuable instruments of imperialism in combating the socialism of the Soviet Union. His texts on the labour camps were added to the propaganda on the millions who were supposed to have died in the Soviet Union and were presented by the capitalist mass media as though they were true. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn renounced his Soviet citizenship and emigrated to Switzerland and then the US. At that time he was considered by the capitalist press to be the greatest fighter for freedom and democracy. His Nazi sympathies were buried so as not to interfere with the propaganda war against socialism.In the US, Solzhenitsyn was frequently invited to speak at important meetings. He was, for example, the main speaker at the AFL-CIO union congress in 1975, and on 15 July 1975 he was invited to give a lecture on the world situation to the US Senate! His lectures amount to violent and provocative agitation, arguing and propagandising for the most reactionary positions. Among other things he agitated for Vietnam to be attacked again after its victory over the US. And more: after 40 years of fascism in Portugal, when left-wing army officers took power in the people’s revolution of 1974, Solzhenitsyn began to propagandise in favour of US military intervention in Portugal which, according to him, would join the Warsaw Pact if the US did not intervene! In his lectures, Solzhenitsyn always bemoaned the liberation of Portugal’s African colonies.But it is clear that the main thrust of Solzhenitsyn’s speeches was always the dirty war against socialism - from the alleged execution of several million people in the Soviet Union to the tens of thousands of Americans supposedly imprisoned and enslaved, according to Solzhenitsyn, in North Vietnam! This idea of Solzhenitsyn’s of Americans being used as slave labour in North Vietnam gave rise to the Rambo films on the Vietnam war. American journalists who dared write in favour of peace between the US and the Soviet Union were accused by Solzhenitsyn in his speeches of being potential traitors. Solzhenitsyn also propagandised in favour of increasing US military capacity against the Soviet Union, which he claimed was more powerful in ‘tanks and aeroplanes, by five to seven times, than the US’ as well as in atomic weapons which ‘in short’ he alleged were ‘two, three or even five times’ more powerful in the Soviet Union than those held by the US. Solzhenitsyn’s lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.Source: Lies concerning the history of the Soviet UnionThe Great PurgesIt has been shown that the purges were more complicated than one might imagine. Russia had always been under great pressure from attack on all sides. Within a few years Russia had seen the Tsar overthrown, a bloody civil war sponsored by 18 imperialist nations, conspiracies within his own party as discovered earlier in an undercover sting called “Operation Trust.” 37 volumes of conspiracies and treachery were discovered. The intelligence services would arrest people and then torture them until they admitted they knew something, believing that something had to be happening given the threats from outside the country, particularly the Nazis and Japan. People would say anything to make the torture stop. This led to more arrests and tortures. Members of the party, the factory workers, and everyone in the society believed there were conspiracies afoot. Stalin was terrified of the revolution being toppled. He also knew that Germany planned on invading for certain by 1939 and the country was not ready. Production shortfalls led to the belief by members of the party that there was intentional sabotage. This led to the estimation that based on intelligence (faulty) that it was “for certain” there were a certain number of traitors. This led to quotas. The individual members of the party at the lower levels began to increase their numbers to give the impression of loyalty so they wouldn’t be blamed. The entire thing became its own system of feedback loops. As documents have not been released it is not known how many conspiracies there were, or how they could know. This is not the first time this has happened in history.During the Red Scare in America a sense of great fear and paranoia overcame the American public. Each accusation led to more, and the paroxysm of fear overcame the bourgeoisie in America. It reached critical mass, ruining the lives of many before people took a step back and stopped it. This also happened with the ramp up to the Iraq war after 911. America was terrified after the attack. It felt powerless. It was reported that Dick Cheney almost had a nervous breakdown. The response was to pressure the intelligence services to find out who caused 911 and to root out the terrorists. This led to expectations. The intelligence services began to see conspiracies where they did not exist. Anything that could remotely be seen as negative was. There became a genuine belief that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. This led to a mass hysteria in the U.S. It was rumored that Saddam was developing biological weapons that would be released to terrorists. The U.S. invaded Iraq. It would be found there were no WMDs. The U.S. also started the “War on Terror,” which saw conspiracies where they did not exist. Torture began to be used to get information, but this information was unreliable. It led to false accusations which led to more arrests. Then drone attacks, indefinite detention, and black op cites. The large scale surveillance program began. Likewise, the Salem Witch Trials took on a similar tenor. Mass accusations, paranoia, murders, and more repression. Feedback loops of torture, accusations, more torture followed. But somehow they never seemed able to get to the root of the problem. Enemies were everywhere and nowhere. People were tortured with the expectation that they would say something incriminating. Protestations of innocence were regarded as lies. But then the torture led to them getting whatever they wanted to hear because torture is an unreliable way to get information as people will say anything to make the torture stop.Released documents show no disparities in Stalin’s agreement to the repressions and his own personal thoughts. They confirmed he believed they were real. There was no indication that they repressions were done for cynical, self serving purposes. Stalin knew that purging the military would make the country more weak, but he feared conspiracies more. The conventional wisdom was that people were working with Trotsky, who was collaborating with Germany and Japan to overthrow the Soviet Union. After the civil war there were a number of Tsarists, fascists, and others who had indeed has some conspiracies. But the extent of this is unknown. And it wasn’t just Stalin that expressed these fears. The fears went all the way down to the factory worker level.Source: The Great Fear: Stalin’s Terror of the 1930s, by James HarrisThe Role of Historical InterpretationThe issue of Stalin’s legacy and the Soviet Union is an interesting study in how we know what we know1. Historians are influenced by the cultural norms and bourgeois influences of society. History is also written by the victors.2. Propaganda has a cognitive framing effect. It creates associations between images and narratives that are false. But we see propaganda based narratives so much, and they are repeated by so many, they become the prevailing cognitive “frame” used when thinking about an issue.3. Goebbels talked about this in reference to propaganda. Edward Bernays was one of the leading advertising experts in the U.S. He used Freudian psychoanalysis to tap into the deepest and most basic subconscious desires and urges in people. Prior to this advertisers relied upon rationality to sell a product. When selling cars they would talk about the practicality of the car, the build quality, etc. After Bernays you would see a car commercial with someone driving fast, a beautiful woman in the car, and images related to status. You might see the person driving the BMW going to a cocktail party in a swanky part of the city while a valet drives the car away. Beautiful people await. All of these are appeals to subconscious desires, such as status, sex appeal, money and power. Bernays used these techniques to convince America to stop being isolationist and enter the WWI. Goebbels directed an enormous amount of energy creating propaganda against the Soviet Union and communism. After WWII the U.S. government hired former Nazis to work on “fighting communism” and creating propaganda against the Soviet Union. The U.S. even waived prosecution against them for war crimes in exchange for these services. The U.S. government also used its resources to demonize Stalin and communism. Operation Mockingbird was a CIA operation that brought in mainstream journalists to demonize the Soviet Union. This was only one of many anti-communist operations.4. The primary purpose of schooling is socialization. This means teaching students to value the things required to work in a modern industrial and office environment. The bells are like a work bell. Listening to the teacher and following directions is like following a line foreman. Being on time means arriving to work on time. Even lunch break is similar. Socialization also requires conformity. This means accepting the narrative espoused by the teacher in history.5. There were many primary source documents about actions done by Stalin and the USSR only just released within the last few decades. And many are still not released. The primary narrative about Stalin was written by Robert Conquest. Conquest was a rabid anti-communist. Due to a lack of historical records and the influence of Nazi propaganda from the Hearst publishing machine and others, there was significant “gap filling” used in writing his narrative. This was the “frame” for other historians to consider, including Applebaum. This narrative became so ingrained in the minds of people that others started repeating it, such as journalists and other writers. This narrative also happened to go along well with demonizing the Cold War enemy. The military industrial complex depended on the evils of communism to justify massive defense budgets. Presidents also wanted to use the Cold War and Soviet “aggression” to justify wars in Korea and Vietnam. Now that the Soviet Union is gone Russia was quickly replaced as the “bad guy” to justify the bloated military budget of the U.S. The real reason for the bloated military budget was economic—many representatives in Congress have military bases, production of armaments, or have constituents that join the military for jobs—thus the military industrial complex has become an essential part of the U.S. economy.6. The “Evil Empire” narrative of the Soviet Union and Stalin have become so ingrained that academics that look at new information and attempt to correct the historical record are labeled “Stalin apologists,” which they equate to being a Holocaust denier. Thus there is great peer pressure and risk of becoming a pariah due to scorn from others that don’t want to be associated with someone like that. Many scholars would rather just not bother with it.7. In the Soviet Union the oligarchs and elites benefit from the demonization of Stalin and the USSR because it is against their interest to have the Soviet Union resurrected. Marx taught that the social classes of different nations have more similarites in interests than do different nations. Proof of this is how the artistocracy in Europe would sometimes not even know the language of the nation they were governing, such as Catherine the Great, who had to learn Russian.8. In many respects Hitler and the Nazis did more to harm communism than anyone. By effectively using propaganda against communism it created the false “mainstream narrative” in the West that communism “Doesn’t work,” “killed 100 million people,” “starved and imprisoned millions,” and “always leads to mass death.” Attempts by historians to attack these lies using newly released primary sources is met with eye rolls, claims of being “The same as the Holocaust deniers.” It even becomes a form of moral judgment against the person stating the truth, “What kind of person denies such atrocities? Do you support mass murder?” Thus members of the left distance themselves from Lenin, Stalin, and the Soviet Union. And by cutting themselves off from the rich writings of Lenin and Stalin one loses an important source of real historical examples of the achievements of Marxism Leninism. A similar example would be if the Apostles were labeled as sex offenders and mass murderers. The de-Stalinization by Khruschev in his “Secret Speech” had a devastating effect on the faith in the Soviet Union. In fact it was so devastating it was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. In fact during the Gorbachev period dissidents played a litany of anti-Stalin and anti-USSR propaganda on TV. It was this and the showing of the lives of rich American movie stars that led the people to lose their faith in the Soviet Union and socialism. Sadly, they would find out all too brutally what capitalism really meant—austerity, starvation, homelessness, massive inflation, and poverty. To this day Russia has not recovered. A recent poll showed that 60% of those living in the former Soviet Union said they miss it. Stalin has a 55% approval rating. Many now say that had they known what would happen they would have fought hard for the Soviet Union.IS THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO BY ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN AN ACCURATE DEPICTION OF WHAT THE SOVIET UNION WAS LIKE?No.His wife told the truth very clearly:A 2003 article regarding the death of Solzhenitsyn’s wife put it like this:“In her 1974 memoir, Sanya: My Life with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn”…, she wrote that she was ”perplexed” that the West had accepted ”The Gulag Archipelago” as ”the solemn, ultimate truth,” saying its significance had been ”overestimated and wrongly appraised.”Pointing out that the book’s subtitle is ”An Experiment in Literary Investigation,” she said that her husband did not regard the work as ”historical research, or scientific research.”She contended that it was, rather, a collection of ”camp folklore,” containing ”raw material” which her husband was planning to use in his future productions.”The Gulag Archipelago shouldn’t be taken seriouslyFurther, Solzehenitsyn was a right wing radical and extremist.“But there's something else that makes him more complex than just a victim of tyranny and a crusader against it. Once in America and feted by Western leaders, he urged the US to continue bombing Vietnam. He condemned Amnesty International as too liberal, opposed democracy in Russia, and supported General Franco.”Mark Steel: A reactionary called SolzhenitsynThe other accounts of the gulags from letters written by prisoners depicts a whole different reality.“Well-known accounts of Stalin-era labor camps like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” and Gustaw Herling’s “A World Apart” imply, in their very titles, that detention sites were almost entirely cut off from the rest of Soviet society – islands divided from the country’s “mainland,” or underworlds into which prisoners disappeared, never to be heard from again.In fact, most Stalin-era labor camp inmates theoretically enjoyed at least some letter-writing privileges. Although rules varied depending on where and when a prisoner was held, often inmates could receive an unlimited amount of correspondence through the official camp mail system (though this was heavily censored).The amount they could send depended on the crime, with harsher limits for political offenders. In the 1940s, inmates sentenced for political crimes were often limited to sending only two to three letters home per year. But some political prisoners, like Formakov, managed to get around these constraints and send steady streams of letters through a mixture of official and illicit channels.”“In a separate series of letters, Formakov describes the stage shows he performed in as part of a camp cultural brigade. In a letter to his wife dated March 9, 1946, Formakov explained that the sunny attitudes the inmates who participated in these shows had to assume were often very much at odds with their reality:“We had a concert on the 8th in honor of International Women’s Day. I served as the emcee… You act as master of ceremonies, make some witty remarks, and then head backstage, release your soul, and you just want to wail… For this reason, I never let it go; my soul is always in a corset.”In addition to letters on standard lined notebook paper and mass-produced postcards, Formakov sent handmade birthday and Christmas cards. In one case, he carved a special anniversary greeting into birch bark for his wife. He wrote and illustrated short stories for his two children (Dima, five years old at the time of Formakov’s first arrest in July 1940, and Zhenia, born in December 1940). And he decorated the pages of some of the letters he sent with pressed wildflowers.”In letters from Stalin's labor camps, a window into Soviet political oppression“But his letters – both those sent through official channels and those smuggled out – capture many details that rarely figure in the memoirs of labor camp survivors. For instance, in a letter dated August 10, 1944, Formakov describes the surreal experience of going to the camp club to watch the 1941 American musical comedy “Sun Valley Serenade,” which had just been purchased by Soviet authorities and would have been a hot ticket in Moscow. Similarly, in a communication dated Oct. 27, 1947, he references rumors of an impending devaluation of the ruble, which suggests that – despite the Soviet state’s efforts to keep plans for a December 1947 currency reform secret – news had leaked, even to distant labor camps.Such passages support recent research by scholars Wilson Bell and Golfo Alexopolous, who have noted that labor camps were far more intertwined with the rest of Soviet society than previously thought.”Other accounts have also corroborated these facts.The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA““Humanitarian” lies serve to brainwash the population into supporting imperialist wars. Fed by far-right propaganda, and funded by the CIA, the mainstream “news” outlets describe the Soviet labour camps – also known as the “the Gulags” – as Stalin’s means to repress pro-democracy dissidents and to enslave the Soviet masses. However, the same CIA that, through Operation Mockingbird, gave the US military almost-total control over mainstream press in order to foster anti-Soviet disinformation (Tracy 2018), has recently released declassified documents that invalidate the slanders surrounding the Gulags.The CIA which conducted various anti-Soviet operations for almost five decades, and whose staff strived to obtain accurate intelligence about the USSR, cannot be said to have any bias in favor of the USSR. Therefore, the following declassified CIA files that surprisingly “confess” in favor of the Soviet Union are particularly valuable.”“The Conditions of the PrisonsA 1957 CIA document titled “Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six:1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon “economic accountability” such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid.3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day.4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners’ food supplies.5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day.6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals.7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the “ordinary criminals” of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes.The following are excerpts of the CIA document, underlined and put together for the reader:“According to page four of another CIA (1989) document titled “The Soviet Labour System: An Update,” the number of Gulag prisoners “grew to about 2 million” during Stalin’s time.These figures match Soviet statistics as well, from declassified Soviet achieves. The following is a 1954 declassified Soviet archival document (Pyakhov), an excerpt of which is translated into English:“During the period from 1921 to the present time for counterrevolutionary crimes were convicted 3,777,380 people, including to capital punishment – 642,980 people to the conent in the camps and prisons for a period of 25 years old and under – 2,369,220 into exile and expulsion – 765,190 people.“Of the total number of convicts, approximately convicted: 2,900,000 people – College of OGPU, NKVD and triples Special meeting and 877,000 people – courts by military tribunals, and Spetskollegiev Military Collegium.“It should be noted… that established by Decree … on November 3, 1934 Special Meeting of the NKVD which lasted until September 1, 1953 – 442,531 people were convicted, including to capital punishment – 10,101 people to prison – 360,921 people to exile and expulsion (within the country) – 57,539 people and other punishments (offset time in detention, deportation abroad, compulsory treatment) – 3,970 people…Attorney General R. RudenkoInterior Minister S. KruglovJustice Minister K. Gorshenin”The Soviet archives remained declassified for decades, only to be released near or after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In addition, after Stalin died, the pro-Stalin head of the NKVD (Soviet interior ministry) Lavrenty Beria had already been executed by Khrushchev, a staunch anti-Stalinist (History in an hour 2010). These facts make it very unlikely that the Soviet intelligence would have a pro-Stalin bias.The Italian-American historian Michael Parenti (1997, pp. 79-80) further analyzes the data provided from the Soviet archives:“In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. At about that time, there began a purge of the purgers, including many intelligence and secret police (NKVD) officials and members of the judiciary and other investigative committees, who were suddenly held responsible for the excesses of the terror despite their protestations of fidelity to the regime.“Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the Nazis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies…. [T]he great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as ‘the largest system of death camps in modern history’.“Almost a million gulag prisoners were released during World War II to serve in the military. The archives reveal that more than half of all gulag deaths for the 1934-53 period occurred during the war years (1941-45), mostly from malnutrition, when severe privation was the common lot of the entire Soviet population. (Some 22 million Soviet citizens perished in the war.) In 1944, for instance, the labor-camp death rate was 92 per 1000. By 1953, with the postwar recovery, camp deaths had declined to 3 per 1000.“Should all gulag inmates be considered innocent victims of Red repression? Contrary to what we have been led to believe, those arrested for political crimes (‘counterrevolutionary offenses’) numbered from 12 to 33 percent of the prison population, varying from year to year. The vast majority of inmates were charged with nonpolitical offenses: murder, assault, theft, banditry, smuggling, swindling, and other violations punishable in any society.”Thus, according to the CIA, approximately two million people were sent to the Gulag in the 1930s, whereas according to declassified Soviet archives, 2,369,220 up until 1954. When compared to the population of the USSR at the time, as well as the statistics of a country like the United States, the Gulag percent population in the USSR throughout its history was lower than that of the United States today or since the 1990s. In fact, based on Sousa’s (1998)research, there was a larger percentage of prisoners (relative to the whole population) in the US, than there ever was in the USSR:“In a rather small news item appearing in the newspapers of August 1997, the FLT-AP news agency reported that in the US there had never previously been so many people in the prison system as the 5.5 million held in 1996. This represents an increase of 200,000 people since 1995 and means that the number of criminals in the US equals 2.8% of the adult population. These data are available to all those who are part of the North American department of justice…. The number of convicts in the US today is 3 million higher than the maximum number ever held in the Soviet Union! In the Soviet Union, there was a maximum of 2.4% of the adult population in prison for their crimes – in the US the figure is 2.8% and rising! According to a press release put out by the US department of justice on 18 January 1998, the number of convicts in the US in 1997 rose by 96,100.”ConclusionSeeing the USSR as a major ideological challenge, the Western imperial bourgeoisie demonized Stalin and the Soviet Union. Yet after decades of propaganda, declassified archives from both the US and USSR together debunk these anti-Soviet slanders. Worth our attention is the fact that the CIA – a fiercely anti-Soviet source – has published declassified documents debunking the very anti-Soviet myths it promoted and continues to promote in the mainstream media. Together with declassified Soviet archives, the CIA files have demonstrated that the bourgeois press has lied about the Gulags.Notes13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery. (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2018, from 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of SlaveryCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA). (1989). THE SOVIET FORCED LABOR SYSTEM: AN UPDATE (GI-M 87-20081). Retrieved February 12, 2018, http://fromhttps://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000500615.pdfCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA). (2010, February 22). 1. FORCED LABOR CAMPS IN THE USSR 2. TRANSFER OF PRISONERS BETWEEN CAMPS 3. DECREES ON RELEASE FROM FORCED LABOR 4. ATTITUDE OF SOVIET PRISON OFFICIALS TOWARD SUSPECTS 1945 TO THE END OF 1955. Retrieved January 5, 2018, from https://www.cia.gov/library/read...Hillary and Bill used ‘slave labour’. (2017, June 08). Retrieved June 10, 2017, from Hillary and Bill used ‘slave labour’Игорь, П. (n.d.). Книга: За что сажали при Сталине. Невинны ли «жертвы репрессий»? Retrieved August 28, 2018, from Книга: За что сажали при Сталине. Невинны ли "жертвы репрессий"?Parenti, M. (1997). Blackshirts and reds: Rational fascism and the overthrow of communism. San Francisco, Calif: City Lights Books.Sousa, M. (1998, June 15). Lies concerning the history of the Soviet Union. Retrieved August 27, 2018, from Lies concerning the history of the Soviet UnionThe Death of Lavrenty Beria. (2015, December 23). Retrieved August 31, 2018, from http://www.historyinanhour.com/2...Tracy, J. F. (2018, January 30). The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know. Retrieved August 28, 2018, http://fromhttps://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-the-media-50-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/5471956 “Source: The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIAAlexander Finnegan's answer to How many people did Stalin really kill?The actual number is no more than 2.76 million.