These are fair points, but I would point out, I don't think Furr's tactic of ruthlessly defending Stalin in particular is actually working, whether he actually is one or not, he's pretty much considered a quack by most people, including a decent amount of MLs.
Contrast this with Parenti, who writes extensively defending socialist projects, including the USSR, but doesn't shy away from acknowledging their missteps. Parenti is respected by pretty much everyone on the left, many of whom were ex-liberals who found his work engaging. Parenti seems to be doing a much better job of doing what Furr claims to be doing.
Furr doesn’t get traction because he’s writing in the Anglosphere and historiography of the USSR in English speaking nations is strictly tied to the ideological preferences of the USA and the UK.
In non-English Europe you see a lot more nuanced takes and positions that are positive or rehabilitative of Stalin have more currency, although less in the past decade with the rise of European nationalism and the neoliberal takeover.
But for example Losurdo is basically the Grover Furr of the non-English speaking European academic world and while he isn’t considered mainstream he isn’t treated like a crank the way Furr is either.
Furr being treated as a crank has more to do with the fact capitalist / neoliberal triumphalism is the dominant ideology of Anglosphere historiography than it has to do with Furr.
Losurdo isn't treated as a crank because he doesn't say crank stuff like whatever this meme is referencing, or "Stalin never committed one single crime," etc.
I have yet to find one crime — yet to find one crime — that Stalin committed. I know they all say he killed 20, 30, 40 million people — it is bullshit... Goebbels said that the Big Lie is successful and this is the Big Lie: that the Communists — that Stalin killed millions of people and that socialism is no good.
The full quote makes it pretty clear he’s refuting the double holocaust theory, and the context was a debate where his opponent claimed 100-150 million were killed by the communists.
The quote isn’t actually denying Stalin robbed trains in Tsarist Georgia, that the Bolsheviks shot the Romanov children, that the gulags were a pretty unpleasant place to be (although this too is greatly exaggerated), and his work fully acknowledges that the Bolsheviks were Leninists who saw violence as a tool for revolutionary political change.
You’re forming an opinion on Grove from a cherry-picked quote, taken out of context to intentionally misrepresent his actual views.
Look at his “purge” and “show trial” series for example. Grove is a serious historian and his presentation of facts is thorough and clear eyed.
His “crank” status is based on quote mining, and even then it’s really this one quote. Selectively just one half of one quote, that is.
If he was really a crank then they would be attacking his work instead of an cuff comment taken out of context, made while being harangued by some Black Book of Communism shit.
Plucking a sentence from the middle of a a fucking accurate comment like that doesn’t make him a crank, it makes his opponents hacks.
my point wasnt that we should never criticize the point is that we not should look at blatant propganda and say "huh maybe its 80% false instead of 100" too many people think naunce is when you accept some kind of slander and both
Parenti and Furr are
whould be considerd to be crazy Tankies by the average person there is no such thing as a respctable tankie
Pretty sure Furr doesnt claim that AES that perfect either
It's not working because westoid obsession with middle ground fuck them up. People living in all encompassing, century old, anticommunist bubble can't even imagine the bubble being entirely wrong and malicious, they have to assume at least some of the middle ground reflexively. His books are well sourced and documented, and the methodology is explained.
These are fair points, but I would point out, I don't think Furr's tactic of ruthlessly defending Stalin in particular is actually working, whether he actually is one or not, he's pretty much considered a quack by most people, including a decent amount of MLs.
Contrast this with Parenti, who writes extensively defending socialist projects, including the USSR, but doesn't shy away from acknowledging their missteps. Parenti is respected by pretty much everyone on the left, many of whom were ex-liberals who found his work engaging. Parenti seems to be doing a much better job of doing what Furr claims to be doing.
Furr doesn’t get traction because he’s writing in the Anglosphere and historiography of the USSR in English speaking nations is strictly tied to the ideological preferences of the USA and the UK.
In non-English Europe you see a lot more nuanced takes and positions that are positive or rehabilitative of Stalin have more currency, although less in the past decade with the rise of European nationalism and the neoliberal takeover.
But for example Losurdo is basically the Grover Furr of the non-English speaking European academic world and while he isn’t considered mainstream he isn’t treated like a crank the way Furr is either.
Furr being treated as a crank has more to do with the fact capitalist / neoliberal triumphalism is the dominant ideology of Anglosphere historiography than it has to do with Furr.
Losurdo isn't treated as a crank because he doesn't say crank stuff like whatever this meme is referencing, or "Stalin never committed one single crime," etc.
The full quote makes it pretty clear he’s refuting the double holocaust theory, and the context was a debate where his opponent claimed 100-150 million were killed by the communists.
The quote isn’t actually denying Stalin robbed trains in Tsarist Georgia, that the Bolsheviks shot the Romanov children, that the gulags were a pretty unpleasant place to be (although this too is greatly exaggerated), and his work fully acknowledges that the Bolsheviks were Leninists who saw violence as a tool for revolutionary political change.
You’re forming an opinion on Grove from a cherry-picked quote, taken out of context to intentionally misrepresent his actual views.
Look at his “purge” and “show trial” series for example. Grove is a serious historian and his presentation of facts is thorough and clear eyed.
https://espressostalinist.com/the-real-stalin-series/party-purges/
His “crank” status is based on quote mining, and even then it’s really this one quote. Selectively just one half of one quote, that is.
If he was really a crank then they would be attacking his work instead of an cuff comment taken out of context, made while being harangued by some Black Book of Communism shit.
Plucking a sentence from the middle of a a fucking accurate comment like that doesn’t make him a crank, it makes his opponents hacks.
my point wasnt that we should never criticize the point is that we not should look at blatant propganda and say "huh maybe its 80% false instead of 100" too many people think naunce is when you accept some kind of slander and both
Parenti and Furr are whould be considerd to be crazy Tankies by the average person there is no such thing as a respctable tankie
Pretty sure Furr doesnt claim that AES that perfect either
It's not working because westoid obsession with middle ground fuck them up. People living in all encompassing, century old, anticommunist bubble can't even imagine the bubble being entirely wrong and malicious, they have to assume at least some of the middle ground reflexively. His books are well sourced and documented, and the methodology is explained.