Joanna
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>Michael:
>
>The quote you sent me is a bunch of crap. Its support of the anti-Semitism
>charge rests on a flimsy translation of the misspelled Polish word
>"gazrurka." When translated literally, it indeed means "gas pipe" but its
>common usage has nothing to do with "gas." It refers to using a piece of
>steel pipe as a weapon in acts of hooliganism or street fights. This simply
>denotes the idea of resolving intellectual debates with the use of brute
>force, which was a common trope in the Stalinist discourse of that time,
>akin to the Nazi slogan "Wenn Ich Kultur hoere, entischere Ich meinen
>Browning" (when I hear about culture, I cock my pistol).
>
>A larger point is why people resort to such crap to make a point? While
>anti-Semitism was widely spread in Poland before WW2, the post war communist
>government was the first that eradicated all institutional barriers (e.g. to
>government employment) that Jews and other minorities faced. As far as I
>can tell, the surviving Jews were generally quite supportive of the
>communist government, perhaps even more so than the population at large - to
>the point that the reaction coined the derogatory term "zydo-komuna"
>(difficult to adequately translate, perhaps "kiko-commies" will do) to
>describe the new political regime.
>
>In that light, questionable charges of "anti-Semitism" against the post WW2
>authorities smack of anti-communist diatribes. This is not to say that
>there was no anti-Semitic prejudice among some party members, or that
>anti-Semitism was not used in internal party struggles (c.f. Mieczyslaw
>Moczar) - but the fact remains that socialism was the best thing that
>happened to Jews and, for that matter, non-Jews, in the entire history of
>that part of the world.
>
>Wojtek
>
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Michael Pugliese [mailto:michael098762001 at earthlink.net]
>>Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 1:18 AM
>>To: ssokolo1 at jhem.jhu.edu
>>Subject: Kazimierz Witaszewski
>>
>>------- Forwarded message -------
>>From: "Robert W. Cherny" <cherny at sfsu.edu>
>>To: H-HOAC at h-net.msu.edu
>>Subject: meaning of "Stalinism"
>>Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 20:59:13 -0800
>>
>>From: Leo Gluchowski <lwgluch at cogeco.ca>
>>
>>Can anyone provide me with an example of a leading CPUSA member, for
>>instance, who publicly articulted views interpreted to be antisemitic or
>>xenophobic? I am trying to discover if this was something peculiar to
>>Stalinists from the former Soviet bloc.
>>
>>(One of the most notorious example is that of Brigadier-General
>>Kazimierz Witaszewski, the chief political officer and ideologue of the
>>Polish People's Army in 1956. He worshiped Stalin and was Marshal K.K.
>>Rokossowski's personal friend and greatest supporter. Witaszewski told
>>party activists and workers at a factory in Lodz in April 1956 that the
>>party had the right to defend itself against anti-party elements, such
>>as the intellectuals critical of Stalin in light of Khrushchev's
>>'sercret speech', by using a 'gazrurek'--gas pipe [obvious reference to
>>a method used by the Nazis to murder Jews]--if it had to. The party
>>leadership warned Witaszewski a month later that he had 'inappropriately
>>accented and unjustly formulated' his thoughts, and that the comrade
>>general should 'stress the significant and constant work for even
>>stronger ties between the intelligentsia and the leading force in
>>society, the working class.' Witaszewski was also promoted in two months
>>later to the rank of Major-General.)
>>
>>Leo Gluchowski
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>Michael Pugliese
>>
>>
>
>
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