Grover Carr Furr III (born April 3, 1944) is an Americanprofessor ofMedieval English literature atMontclair State University and independent scholar on theStalin-era Soviet Union, who is best known for hishistorically revisionist views on the subject.[1] Furr has written books, papers, and articles aboutSoviet history, especially theStalin era, in which he has stated that theHolodomor, the 1932–33 famine in theUkrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, was not deliberate, describing it as a fiction created by pro-NaziUkrainian nationalists,[2][3] that theKatyn massacre was committed by the NaziSchutzstaffel and not the SovietNKVD,[4] that all defendants in theMoscow Trials were guilty as charged,[5] that claims inNikita Khrushchev's speechOn the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences are almost entirely false, that the purpose of theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact was to preserve theSecond Polish Republic rather than partition it,[6] and that theSoviet Union did notinvade Poland in September 1939, on the grounds that the Polish state no longer existed.[7] Furr claims that the mainstream narrative of the Soviet Union and in particular the Stalin era is biased and that many of the claims by mainstream historians are unfounded, because they follow "anti-Stalin paradigm".[8][9]
Grover Furr graduated fromMcGill University, with aBA in English and received hisPh.D degree from Princeton University. He has been on the faculty atMontclair State University in New Jersey, specializing in Medieval English literature.[10]
In aCounterPunch article published in March 2017, Furr argues that "[t]here was a very seriousfamine in the USSR, including (but not limited to) theUkrainian SSR, in 1932–33. But there has never been any evidence of a 'Holodomor' or 'deliberate famine,' and there is none today. The 'Holodomor' fiction was invented byUkrainian Nazi collaborators who found havens in Western Europe, Canada, and the USA after the war."[2][non-primary source needed]
Contrary to the widely accepted view that theMoscow Trials were a series ofshow trials held at the instigation ofJoseph Stalin between 1936 and 1938 againstTrotskyists and members ofRight Opposition of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union,[11] Furr believes that all defendants in the Moscow Trials were at least guilty of what they were charged,[5] as argued in a 2017 article forJournal of Labor and Society, a quarterly journal published byBrill.[12]
In 2012, Furr stated that theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed by theSoviet Union to preserve an independent Poland rather than planning a partition of Poland, as was in fact stipulated in thesecret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact betweenNazi Germany and the Soviet Union.[6] Furr argues thatBritain andFrance also signed theMunich Agreement, a nonaggression pact with Germany that partitioned another state and that Poland too took part in the partition ofCzechoslovakia, making the Soviet Union not unique in its signing of a non-aggression pact with Germany. Furr criticises thePolish government in exile, arguing that it should have remained somewhere in Poland "at least long enough to surrender" or could have fled to Britain or France rather than in neutral Romania. In Furr's words, "[a] 'rump' Poland might finally have agreed to make a mutual defense pact that included the USSR. That would have restarted 'collective security', the anti-Nazi alliance between theWestern Allies and the USSR that the Soviets sought but UK and French leaders rejected." According to Furr, this would have "greatly weakened Hitler; probably eliminating much of theJewish Holocaust; certainly preventing the conquest of France, Belgium, and the rest of Europe; [and] certainly prevented many millions of deaths of Soviet citizens".[7]
Regarding theSoviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, Furr stated in 2009 that the Soviet Union did not actually invade theSecond Polish Republic because Poland no longer had a government and was not a state according tointernational law, further stating that "at the time it was widely acknowledged that no such invasion occurred." Furr believes that the state Poland no longer existed because the Polish government was interned in Romania, although it continued to be recognized by all Allied powers. According to Furr, the Polish government did not declare war on the Soviet Union and only declared war on Nazi Germany, as did Britain and France. Britain did not demand the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops and France had a mutual defense treaty with Poland. Secondly, the PolishGeneral Inspector of the Armed ForcesEdward Rydz-Śmigły ordered Polish soldiers not to fight the Soviets and instead to continue fighting the Germans while the Polish presidentIgnacy Mościcki, who was interned in Romania since September 17, 1939, tacitly admitted that Poland no longer had a government and maintained its stance of neutrality. Finally, Furr notes that theLeague of Nations did not determine the Soviet Union had invaded a member state and accepted the Soviet declaration of neutrality while it voted to expel the Soviets when the Soviet Union attackedFinland in theWinter War.[7]
Contrary to the historical consensus and as stated by both theSoviet Union (in 1991) and theRussian Federation (in 2004), Furr denies Soviet complicity in the Katyn massacre, arguing in a 2013 article in the Marxist journalSocialism and Democracy that theKatyn massacre was committed by the NaziSchutzstaffel rather than by the SovietNKVD.[4] In 2010, Furr said that he believed the widely accepted view until the discoveries in themass graves at Volodymyr-Volynskyi, which he says prove his thesis.[13] According to Furr, some Poles that were implicated inPolish war crimes against Soviet POWs during 1919–1921, were likely killed by the Soviets while Nazis shot the others later.[14] Furr cites a 1985 interview ofLazar Kaganovich in which he stated that the Soviets shot 3,200 Poles – all of whom were guilty ofcapital crimes.[14]
Furr's bookKhrushchev Lied, subtitled "The Evidence that Every Revelation of Stalin's (and Beria's) Crimes in Nikita Khrushchev's Infamous Secret Speech to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, Is Provably False", attacked the speech given byNikita Khrushchev called "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", more commonly referred to in the West as the "Secret Speech" because it was delivered at an unpublicized closed session of party delegates, with guests and members of the press excluded.
According to a review by Gregory Elich in the Marxist academic journalScience & Society, "it would be too much to expect from Furr to live up to his claim that not one specific statement by Khrushschev turned out to be true", that Furr's dislike of Khrushschev "often interferes with his analysis," and that the arguments by Furr about all defendants of Moscow Trials being guilty do not survive fact checking. Elich writes that "Furr demolishes Khrushchev's points" regarding the assessment of Stalin as a wartime commander.[11]
Furr has disagreed with many historians of the Soviet Union, includingRobert Conquest,[15] Sergey Romanov,[16]Timothy Snyder,[17] andStephen Kotkin,[18] and accused them of dishonestly distorting what he believes to be the truth[clarification needed] in their publications on Soviet history.
HistoriansJohn Earl Haynes andHarvey Klehr stated that Furr "lauded the creation of Communist regimes" in Europe and Asia because "billions of workers all over the world are exploited, murdered, tortured, oppressed by capitalism."[1] In response to Furr's critical review, historian Gerald Meyer ofHostos Community College wrote that "Furr defends the Soviet state's expulsion of the Volga Germans, Tartars, [sic] Chechens, and other ethnic minorities from their homelands", "objects to my contention that collectivization of agriculture resulted in widespread resistance and famine", and "spends most of his energy attempting to refute the truism that Stalin was aware of and approved of huge numbers of political executions."[19]
Cathy Young, describing Furr in an article forThe Daily Beast as "a 'revisionist' on a career-long quest to exonerate Stalin", said that Furr's work, along with that ofDouglas Tottle, was being used as part of a larger propaganda campaign by the Russian government to muddy the waters and obfuscate the history of Soviet crimes.[20]
HistorianJarosław Szarek, president of the PolishInstitute of National Remembrance,[13] condemned Furr's work as denyingSoviet war crimes, comparing it to "the scandalous manifestations of Holocaust denial."[21]
During a public debate at a university campus in 2012, Furr was quoted as saying: "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 theBig Lie is successful and this is the Big Lie: that the Communists — that Stalin killed millions of people and that socialism is no good." BothThe American Conservative and theWashington Examiner wrote that Furr referred toNazi propaganda because a mediator of the discussion suggested that Furr was using tactics invented byJoseph Goebbels.[22][23]
According to British journalistJohn O'Sullivan writing forNational Review, Furr is "a 'historian' who denies that Stalin committed any crimes at all. [...] On reading this, my first reaction was that Grover Furr must be a fictional character or teasing Internet hoax. Revisionist historians nostalgic for 'really existing socialism' have long sought to minimize the number of Stalin's victims and the scale of Soviet crimes. But the extravagance of Furr's claims — every accusation against Stalin false! — made it hard to take them seriously. They amount less to revisionism than to outright denial of historical reality."[24] Conservative writerDavid Horowitz included Furr in his bookThe Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, stating that Furr uses his university courses to "vent his political passions on his helpless students", citing Furr's denunciation of "Western imperialists" that was published in theMontclair State University student newspaper.[25][26]
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