>>Now, if the documents actually exist and are genuine Soviet articles,
>>and if Brad rests his case on the documents, Endicott & Hagerman
>>argue that it only means that Brad is taking a side in intertwined
>>political struggles: between competing factions in the Soviet party
>>leadership; and between the USSR and China. As it befits a true
>>connoisseur of Stalinism, Brad's favorite Stalinist in this case is,
>>get this, Beria!
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>No. If the documents exist and if they are genuine Soviet articles,
>then they tell us interesting things about the sources of the Korean
>War germ-warfare accusations. That the germ warfare accusations were
>false may well have been to Beria's advantage in the days around
>Stalin's death, but that doesn't make them true...
>
>Brad DeLong
You may be also slow on the uptake, but even if the documents are genuine Soviet articles -- that is, in fact written by Soviets -- that in itself doesn't say anything about *whether what the documents say is true or false*. Unless you believe it is true because Beria says it is true. In your anti-Stalinist zeal, you are ironically becoming more Stalinist than those whom you brand as Stalinist: Beria is infallible, so long as he says what you want to believe. Wow! The cult of personality! Stalinists never made up stories to put down their fellow party members!
You have no rational epistemological ground to believe one Stalinist's testimony (Beria who says there was no US germ warfare in the Korean War) over another Stalinist's (Ignatiev who says there was US germ warfare).
Endicott & Hagerman write:
>Beria immediately set up an investigation. He claimed that as a
>result of Ignatiev's negligence or dishonesty "the Soviet Union
>suffered real political damage in the international arena" by
>supporting false biological warfare charges against the United
>States. Beria demanded that the Presidium name the guilty parties.
>
>According to these documents Ignatiev defended himself before the
>Control Commission of the Central Committee. He said that he was
>receiving the published materials and did not attach any significance
>to Glukhov's memorandum; he did not believe in the authenticity of
>the information contained in it.
>
>He said that he had shown Glukhov's note to Stalin. Since Stalin had
>died in the meantime it was not possible to verify this claim.
>Beria's plan of self-promotion worked to an extent. Molotov, the
>foreign minister, and Khruschev joined him in deciding to punish
>Ignatiev "for violation of state discipline and dishonest conduct" by
>excluding him from membership in the party.
Wait a minute, there is an emotional (though irrational) ground for believing Beria over Ignatiev. Beria won in this party struggle, and he succeeded in disgracing Ignatiev. Brad, being an American, prefers winners to losers, and Beria = winner, Ignatiev = loser, so Brad decides that truth belongs to Beria.
Hmmmn, according to this logic, all those defendants of show trials become real traitors, as opposed to poor victims' of Stalin's political machinations.
I, for one, refuse to accept such a lie.
In Beria You Trust,
Yoshie