![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Note: to make this archive easier to read, I have added subheadings and attempted to indent text where necessary. If I have made mistakes in my attempt, please feel free and revert the changes or modify them to make things correct. KC9CQJ 11:16, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Anonymous edits are reverting to old version, which describes the Tribunal as being an investigation of U.S. Vietnam war crimes while blithely ignoring that no enemy war crimes were examined. The old article also ignores the membership of the Tribunal and the assistance from North Vietnamese forces. -- SEWilco 17:23, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
By the indications of the sources provided in that article, war crimes and conduct were indeed the topic of that hearing. Additionally, are you complaining that each member of the Tribunal isn't listed? -Rob
The Tribunal members were GOOD. They managed to make decisions on all these issues, and they all happen to agree with the aims. But they keep talking about Vietnam, when there were two Vietnams. Golly Gee, what a mistake to make. SEWilco 04:15, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You managed to delete some info, but forgot to note who won which of those awards to which you referred. SEWilco 04:15, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In what way was the Tribunal not a show trial? -- SEWilco 20:12, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It wasn't a trial as much as it was a tribunal - where a judgement (pre-formed or not) is presented and supported. Did it qualify as a "public" event? If you wish to insert the allegation by some that it was a "show trial," you should do so without the exclusion of other descriptors. See latest revision. -Rob
(section originally called Solzhenitsyn's Indirect Comments and Rhetorical Questions to Russell)
Why is one Nobel Laureate in Literature's (Solzhenitsyn) three direct comments to another Nobel Laureate in Literature (Russell)
(1) Not interesting
(2) Been removed twice by an anonymous user Gulag Archapelgo
Solzhenitsyn gives two referances addressed directly to Bertrand Russell, and one referance directly to the 'Bertrand Russell Tribunal', challenging the Tribunal to use Solzhenitsyn foregoing text derived from testimony of Gulag witnesses.
Here is the complete material in question, text & footnote:
Part II Perpetual Motion
Chapter 2. The Ports of the Archipelago
{v.i, p. 534}….”Well, even if the Ivanovo Transit Prison isn’t one of the more famous, my friends, just ask anybody imprisoned there in the winter of 1937-1938, the prison was unheated—and the prisoners not only didn’t freeze to death, but on the upper bunks they lay there undressed. And they knocked out all the windowpanes so as not to suffocate. Instead of the twenty men Cell 21 was supposed to contain, there were three hundred and twenty-three! There was water underneath the bunks, and the boards were laid in the water and people lay on those boards. That was right where the frost poured in from the broken windows. It was like Arctic night down under the bunks. There was no light down there either because it was cut off by the people lying on the bunks above and standing in the aisle. It was impossible to walk through the aisle to the latrine tank, and people crawled along the edges of the bunks. They didn’t distribute rations to individuals but to units of ten. If one of the ten died, the others shoved his corpse under the bunks and kept it there until it started to stink. They got the corpse’s ration. And all that could have been endured, but the turnkeys seemed to have been oiled with turpentine—and they kept driving the prisoners endlessly from cell to cell, on and on. You’d just get yourself settled when ‘Come on, get a move on! You’re being moved!’ And you’d have to start in again trying to find a place! And the reason for such overcrowding was that they hadn’t taken anyone to the bath for three months, the lice had multiplied, and people had abscesses from the lice on their feet and legs—and typhus too. And because of the typhus the prison was quarantined and no prisoner transports could leave it for four months.”
”Well, fellows, the problem there wasn’t Ivanovo, but the year. In 1937-1938, of course, not just the zeks {prisoners} but the very stones of the transit prisons were screaming in agony. Irkutsk was no special transit prison either, but in 1938 the doctors didn’t even dare look into the cells but would walk down the corridor while the turnkey shouted through the door: ’Anyone unconscious, come out.’”
”In 1937, fellows, it was that way all across Siberia to the Kolyma, and the big bottleneck was in the Sea of Okhotsk, and in Vladivostok. The steamships could transport only thirty thousand a month, and they kept driving them on and on from Moscow without taking that into account. Well, and so a hundred thousand of them piled up. Understand?”
”Who counted them?”
”Whoever was supposed to, counted.”
{p.536} “If you’re talking about the Vladivostok Transit Prison, then in February, 1937, there weren’t more than forty thousand there.”
“People were stuck there for several months at a time. The bedbugs infested the board bunks like locusts. Half a mug of water a day; there wasn’t any more! —no one to haul it. There was one whole compound of Koreans, and they all died from dysentery, every last one of them. They took a hundred corpses out of our own compound every morning. They were building a morgue, so they hitched the zeks to the carts and hauled the stone that way. Today you do the hauling, and tomorrow they haul you there yourself. And in Autumn the typhus arrived. And we did the same thing: we didn’t hand over the corpses till they stank—and took the extra rations. No medication whatever. We crawled to the fence and begged: ‘Give us medicine.’ And the guards fired a volley from the watchtowers. Then they assembled those with typhus in a separate barracks. Some didn’t make it there, and only a few came back. The bunks there had two stories. And anyone on an upper who was sick and running a fever wasn’t able to clamber down to go to the toilet—and so it would all pour down on the people underneath. There were fifteen hundred sick there. And all the orderlies were thieves. They’d pull out the gold teeth from the corpses. And not only from the corpses.”
“Why do you keep going on about 1937? What about 1949 on Vanino Bay, in the fifth compound? What about that? There were 35,000! And for several months too! There was another bottleneck in the transport to the Kolyma. And every night for some reason they kept driving people from one barracks to another and from one compound to another. Just as it was with the Fascists: Whistles! Screams! ‘Come on out there without the last one!’1 And everyone went on the run! Always on the run! They’d drive a hundred to get bread—on the run! For gruel—on the run! No bowls to eat from. Take some gruel in whatever you could—the flap of your coat, your hands! They brought water in big tanks and there was nothing to distribute it in, so they shot it out in sprays. And whoever could get his mouth in front of one
1 “Without the last one!” —a menacing command to be understood literally. It meant: “I will kill the last man” (literally or at least warm his hide with a club). And so all piled out so as not to be last.
{p. 537} got some. Prisoners began to fight in front of the tanks—and the guards fired on them from the towers. Exactly like under the Fascists! Major General Derevyanko, the Chief of Administration of the Norhteast [i.e., Kolyma] Corrective Labor Camps, came, and while he was there an air force aviator stepped out in front of the crowd and ripped his field shirt down the front: ‘I have seven battle decorations! Who gave you the right to shoot into the compound?’ And Derevyanko replied: ‘We shot and we will go on shooting until you learn how to behave.’” 2
2 Say there, Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”! Why don’t you use this bit of material? Or doesn’t it suit you?
Fellow Nobel Laureate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was critical of the Russell Tribunal in The Gulag Archipelago for which he won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Literature for attacking the Vietnam War while ignoring the human rights violations of the Soviet Union, or alternatively, Fellow Nobel Laureate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was critical of the Russell Tribunal's objectives and motives in The Gulag Archipelago for which he won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Literature -- nobs
Fellow Nobel Laureate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was envious of the attention generated toward the war crimes of the Vietnam conflict by the Russell Tribunal. This is evidenced by the rhetorical questions and quips contained in the footnotes of his manuscript The Gulag Archipelago. -Rob
Since he doesn't put forth any actual criticisms of the Tribunal, and you have avoided my repeated requests to explain just what you have interpreted as "criticism," you have lost me as to what your intentions are. -Rob
(1) Text reads Many of these individuals were winners of the Nobel Prize, Medals of Valor and awards of recognition in humanitarian and social fields.; Solzhenitsyn is a qualified critic by the standards of both the original Tirbunal and todays Wiki guardians of the page.
(2) The pointed referance in question is directed at Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”, and not to Bertrand Russell, per se. Here is the actual referance from Gulag Archipelago, Part II, chap. 2, p. 537, footnote 2, Afred Knopf Edition (1976): Say there, Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”! Why don’t you use this bit of material? Or doesn’t it suit you?as you can plainly see, again, this statement is directed to the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal, and not Bertrand Russell individually, singularaly, personally, or professionally.
(3) The fact that the Nobel Prize was awarded to Solzhenitsyn for the Gulag Archipelago (and not Ivan Denisovich, The First Circle or other writings), to which this quotation is extracted, leads to the consideration of the Nobel Prize Committee's sentiments regarding their name being used in the entire context of the War Crimes Tribunal. This is of immense historic interest.
(4) Leonid Brezhnev, the entire Politburo, and the Soviet judiciary failed to censor Alexandr Solzhenitsyn; wiki editors should learn from this.
In summary, nothing is pristine in this world and immune from qualified criticism, not God, not Jesus Christ, and neither the sacred Russell War Crimes Tribunal. -- nobs
Perhaps you are right, I'll take your word for it to spare me the research on the subject; my only point is the Gulag was the last work to appear before Solzhenitsyn was recognized by the Nobel Committee. I beleive that language is more appropriate, being recognized by the committee, instead of the every day corrupted use among Amnerican journalists, 'prize winner. Thanks -- nobs
Interesting link; now I recall how Menachim Begin [3] won the "Peace" Prize in 1978 and invaded Lebanon in 1982 [4] (with the Shabra & Chatilla massacres in its aftermath); or when Mikhail Gorbachev won his peace prize in 1992 after this action [5]. Or Charles Dawes in 1925, of coarse nobody told the folks who put out this site [6], here's the relevent text:
I propose this language under a heading of criticism: Fellow Nobel Laureate in Literature for 1974 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was critical of the Russell Tribunal's objectives and motives in The Gulag Archipelago, Part II, chap. 2, p. 537, footnote 2, Afred Knopf Edition (1976). without perhaps quoting the actual text, Say there, Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”! Why don’t you use this bit of material? Or doesn’t it suit you? or any link to it. A reasonable compromise -- nobs
Have forced labour camps been createdthere is no section regarding testimony before the Tribunal; under conclusions there is no statement regarding the findings of the Tribunal regarding this item; and there are no sources sited for any of this information
I see a lot of heat generated here without actual understanding what was Solzh's phrase about. To understand it, one must also understand the political atmosphere in the Soviet Union at these times. Briefly. Soviet press made a great fuss about Russel Tribunal that uncovered "crimes of American imperialism". In this atmosphere Solzh's remark (poorly translated. I will look into the Russian origin) reads as following: "You are speaking too much of Russel Tribunal. But what is discussed there is a mere triffle in comparison what happened in Russia" And he addresses no to Tribunal, but to Russian press: "why don't you speak about our own bitter issues instead?". Kind of "mote in the eye of thy brother" message. I hope this closes the issue. (revoked myself)
Mikkalai 01:33, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Right now the only criticism of the Tribunal page is this "was portrayed by the mainstream United States media as ineffectual, biased and a show trial." Being that Wiki is truely an international effort, would you object to invitng Mikkalai to insert a phrase about how the Tribunal was covered in the Soviet media at the time? Here's got the credentials, you should see [7] Thx -- nobs
As I promised, I looked into the source and unfortunately have to admit that my reading (based on English text) was totally wrong. A lesson for future not to speak out of memory. The original text goes as follows: "Эй, "Трибунал Военных Преступлений" Бертрана Рассела! Что же вы, что ж вы материальчик не берете?! Аль вам не подходит?". And the translation is basically correct. Indeed, Solzhenitsyn addresses directly to the Tribunal. The phrasing is rather teasing, jeering, rather than deriding, angry or annoyed. (I am not good at translating the terms of emotion.) The remark is out of context. I will try to find the overall attitude of the author to the Tribunal. Mikkalai 03:15, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In fact, in Vol. 3 Ch. 13. He makes a similar note once more: "Эй, "Трибунал Военных Преступлений" Бертрана Рассела и Жана Поля Сартра! Эй, философы! Матерьял-то какой! Отчего не заседаете? Не слышат..." "Hey, “War Crimes Tribunal” of Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre! Hey, philosophers! See what a material is here! Why aren't you in session? They probably don't hear...." Looking for more... Mikkalai 03:30, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
OK it seems I narrowing this down. It seems that these phrases show the Solzh's attitude not to Tribunal, but rather to Russel and other Western pro-communuist intellectuals, who close their eyes on the Soviet atrocities. The key is the following quotation from Solzh's interview:.
Now I will not be so bold as to declare that the case is closed. You are welcome to ask for additional explanations and research. Sorry I confused you earlier. Mikkalai 03:48, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You did not confuse me. :) Your conclusions were still correct, even if your translation was off. The Soviet press did indeed trumpet the findings of the Tribunal, while ignoring the crimes occurring in Russia. But alas, the Russell Tribunal's focus was only Vietnam. As I said before, I too hope this closes the matter. Again, thank you for your time and effort, Mikkalai. -Rob 04:07, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
About Russell himself: while he stood for Soviet disidents, and even made a declaration in their defense (of Vladimir Bukovsky et al.), his declaration was phrased in such a way that the dissident's unjust trial is an aberration during the last 15 years of "big changes in the Soviet directed, of course to larger happiness and freedom, and this humiliating trial is a threat to this marvellous development" (this is an not actual Russel's quotation, but my quick translation from it translation into Russian, but I hope I did not skew the idea too much ), i.e., he was still blind to what actually the Soviet Union was, as I seee it. Mikkalai 04:11, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The Gulag Archipelago text was completed in 1956. As Solzhenitsyn said, all 1800 pages never were at one place in time before him on his desk. It was circulated in samizdat, without official Soviet Imprimatur stamp. It existed in single type written copies, produced one at a time, even up to the time Solzhenitsyn was awarded his Nobel Lauraete. Solzhenitsyn continued editing it into the 1960's, i.e. adding footnotes. The footnotes regarding the Russell Tribunal were contemporaneous, i.e. at the same time, as Soviet newspapers headlined detailed accounts of the Russell tribunal proceedings. Though the primary audience is Soviet and Russian speaking, Solzhenitsyn throughout the Gulag Archipelago is addressing an international audience. There remains problems with the Wiki article. (1) It begins with in intro about the charges, and skips (2) a conclusion and verdict, without any body of text about testimony regarding the charges. For example, charge No. 5 is use of forced labor, and no referance to this charge exists in body, text, testimony, or conclusion. This places the entire article in a light of lacking a NPOV. Solzhenitsyn's comments are obviously about this charge.
Most obvious is the lack of any sourcing on the page. The links at the bottom are however, a good excercise in self-congratulations. -- nobs
My referance is to this one specific charge, forced labor. The article simply states ""Have War Crimes been committed? then concludes with Yes War crimes have been committed", leaving the disposition of the charges to the imagination. Then, to use your term, a bunch of self-promiting, self-congratuling links are added as supposed source information, without any specific index to testimony on, for example, forced labor. One can only imagine why it was ommitted. The quality of the article speaks for itself. -- nobs
Response to issue (1): a footnote, published in samizdat, type written and smuggled out of the Soviet Union, at risk of imprisonment for ASA Anti-Soviet agitation and being branded a Article 58 political prisoner, that made its way to the Nobel Committee for which its author became a Nobel Laureate soon after, is of significance precisiecely because of the circuitous route it traveled to Oslo and the Nobel Committee. To argue Solzhenitsyn, from internal exhile and banishment in Kazakhstan, should have done more research and published despite the problems he had both recieving and communicating information from Europe, is ludicrous on its face. Simply because of the gap between the circulation of the Gulag Archipelago in samizdat, and its mass commercial publication in Europe, first in Swedish in 1973, and English in 1976, does not mean it was held in secret. The POV that complaints about the Soviet Gulag slave system were "out of sight, out of mind" evidently still has currency. -- nobs
Response to the second issue gets closer to the point. The Tribunal is not really a Tribunal at all, and it does much to denigrate the historic meaning of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. The so-called "charges" read like an acedemic debate, "Has such and such occured", an effort to determine whether or not laws of war have been violated, without any attempt to explain what "laws of war" are. Without being constituted by any international authority to investigate violations of laws of war or international law, as the Nuremberg Tribunal was duly constituted. "Mock trial" as practiced in Law school's is perhaps more fitting than "show trial". Perhaps this issue and discussion needs to be transferred to the Nobel Committee page, in a subsection entitled Russell vs Solzhenitsyn, after all it appears the Nobel Committee was perhaps using Solzhenitsyn to repent of their error for ever elevating Bertrand Russell to status of prize winner. Interesting how the wiki page says Russell was awarded the prize for his advocacy of freedom of thought, yet criticism of the Tribunal today is strictly censored. -- nobs
Let me say this. I've placed my comments under every major place that I thought I needed to say something. Anon IP user (for lack of your name), you have some very good points, and I agree - the Alex material should go over to Gulag Archipelago. I am an advocate, yet first, I am fair. I was following your new discussion regarding where the content should go. I was attempting to clarify your comments and got you to break the issues out so everyone could understand precisely where the issues are. I wanted to see general consensus, and you brought it out. You have proven your point, and you did a fine job of referring Nobs/Rob to the right place where I made a query about putting the commented quotes there. Thank you.
I would like to see EXACTLY where your accusations of harassment and vulgarity are coming from. I don't take those accusations lightly at all, especially when you state that another editor has written idiocy, which, in my opinion, could be construed as a personal attack. More interesting, in the same paragraph might I add, you state that nobs has a problem with Wikipedia and has taken it to his blog, when in all actuality, it's an unofficial online text repository that nobs runs just in case he needs to cite some material to please Wikipedians like yourself. Lighten up! You're quick to figure out what's going on without reading everything related first, and perhaps that's why you edit behind an IP address and not a username like the rest of us. Although you are correct in stating that there are some genuine problems with putting Alex's comments into this article, I'd still like an answer as to whether the Tribunal was an academic debate or not. KC9CQJ 13:48, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Anonymous user 165.247.204.55 reverted his signature to Rob, who of coarse is not myself, whom KC9CQJ initially addressed as Rob. -- nobs
Well, I was trying to prove the point that nobs was a newbie and I really thought that you had a good point. And I wanted you to clarify in some places. I didn't think I was on a high horse, but I guess you thought I was, and I'm sorry you misunderstood. All I was trying to do was get you to realize that if we don't have newbies, we might as well hang it up and go home. But, I think I've proven all my points, and it's time for me to move on from this article. Thanks for both of your insights, and I'll see you all later. KC9CQJ 21:30, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It would help others trying to follow this disussion if editors would stop interpolating their comments, and in addition, would indent their comments in a logical fashion. Right now the page appears as seemingly random bits of text by unknown authors. That makes it almost impossible to for anyone coming to this page to understand who is saying what to whom. Thanks, - Willmcw 17:11, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Note: to make this archive easier to read, I have added subheadings and attempted to indent text where necessary. If I have made mistakes in my attempt, please feel free and revert the changes or modify them to make things correct. KC9CQJ 11:16, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Anonymous edits are reverting to old version, which describes the Tribunal as being an investigation of U.S. Vietnam war crimes while blithely ignoring that no enemy war crimes were examined. The old article also ignores the membership of the Tribunal and the assistance from North Vietnamese forces. -- SEWilco 17:23, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
By the indications of the sources provided in that article, war crimes and conduct were indeed the topic of that hearing. Additionally, are you complaining that each member of the Tribunal isn't listed? -Rob
The Tribunal members were GOOD. They managed to make decisions on all these issues, and they all happen to agree with the aims. But they keep talking about Vietnam, when there were two Vietnams. Golly Gee, what a mistake to make. SEWilco 04:15, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You managed to delete some info, but forgot to note who won which of those awards to which you referred. SEWilco 04:15, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In what way was the Tribunal not a show trial? -- SEWilco 20:12, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It wasn't a trial as much as it was a tribunal - where a judgement (pre-formed or not) is presented and supported. Did it qualify as a "public" event? If you wish to insert the allegation by some that it was a "show trial," you should do so without the exclusion of other descriptors. See latest revision. -Rob
(section originally called Solzhenitsyn's Indirect Comments and Rhetorical Questions to Russell)
Why is one Nobel Laureate in Literature's (Solzhenitsyn) three direct comments to another Nobel Laureate in Literature (Russell)
(1) Not interesting
(2) Been removed twice by an anonymous user Gulag Archapelgo
Solzhenitsyn gives two referances addressed directly to Bertrand Russell, and one referance directly to the 'Bertrand Russell Tribunal', challenging the Tribunal to use Solzhenitsyn foregoing text derived from testimony of Gulag witnesses.
Here is the complete material in question, text & footnote:
Part II Perpetual Motion
Chapter 2. The Ports of the Archipelago
{v.i, p. 534}….”Well, even if the Ivanovo Transit Prison isn’t one of the more famous, my friends, just ask anybody imprisoned there in the winter of 1937-1938, the prison was unheated—and the prisoners not only didn’t freeze to death, but on the upper bunks they lay there undressed. And they knocked out all the windowpanes so as not to suffocate. Instead of the twenty men Cell 21 was supposed to contain, there were three hundred and twenty-three! There was water underneath the bunks, and the boards were laid in the water and people lay on those boards. That was right where the frost poured in from the broken windows. It was like Arctic night down under the bunks. There was no light down there either because it was cut off by the people lying on the bunks above and standing in the aisle. It was impossible to walk through the aisle to the latrine tank, and people crawled along the edges of the bunks. They didn’t distribute rations to individuals but to units of ten. If one of the ten died, the others shoved his corpse under the bunks and kept it there until it started to stink. They got the corpse’s ration. And all that could have been endured, but the turnkeys seemed to have been oiled with turpentine—and they kept driving the prisoners endlessly from cell to cell, on and on. You’d just get yourself settled when ‘Come on, get a move on! You’re being moved!’ And you’d have to start in again trying to find a place! And the reason for such overcrowding was that they hadn’t taken anyone to the bath for three months, the lice had multiplied, and people had abscesses from the lice on their feet and legs—and typhus too. And because of the typhus the prison was quarantined and no prisoner transports could leave it for four months.”
”Well, fellows, the problem there wasn’t Ivanovo, but the year. In 1937-1938, of course, not just the zeks {prisoners} but the very stones of the transit prisons were screaming in agony. Irkutsk was no special transit prison either, but in 1938 the doctors didn’t even dare look into the cells but would walk down the corridor while the turnkey shouted through the door: ’Anyone unconscious, come out.’”
”In 1937, fellows, it was that way all across Siberia to the Kolyma, and the big bottleneck was in the Sea of Okhotsk, and in Vladivostok. The steamships could transport only thirty thousand a month, and they kept driving them on and on from Moscow without taking that into account. Well, and so a hundred thousand of them piled up. Understand?”
”Who counted them?”
”Whoever was supposed to, counted.”
{p.536} “If you’re talking about the Vladivostok Transit Prison, then in February, 1937, there weren’t more than forty thousand there.”
“People were stuck there for several months at a time. The bedbugs infested the board bunks like locusts. Half a mug of water a day; there wasn’t any more! —no one to haul it. There was one whole compound of Koreans, and they all died from dysentery, every last one of them. They took a hundred corpses out of our own compound every morning. They were building a morgue, so they hitched the zeks to the carts and hauled the stone that way. Today you do the hauling, and tomorrow they haul you there yourself. And in Autumn the typhus arrived. And we did the same thing: we didn’t hand over the corpses till they stank—and took the extra rations. No medication whatever. We crawled to the fence and begged: ‘Give us medicine.’ And the guards fired a volley from the watchtowers. Then they assembled those with typhus in a separate barracks. Some didn’t make it there, and only a few came back. The bunks there had two stories. And anyone on an upper who was sick and running a fever wasn’t able to clamber down to go to the toilet—and so it would all pour down on the people underneath. There were fifteen hundred sick there. And all the orderlies were thieves. They’d pull out the gold teeth from the corpses. And not only from the corpses.”
“Why do you keep going on about 1937? What about 1949 on Vanino Bay, in the fifth compound? What about that? There were 35,000! And for several months too! There was another bottleneck in the transport to the Kolyma. And every night for some reason they kept driving people from one barracks to another and from one compound to another. Just as it was with the Fascists: Whistles! Screams! ‘Come on out there without the last one!’1 And everyone went on the run! Always on the run! They’d drive a hundred to get bread—on the run! For gruel—on the run! No bowls to eat from. Take some gruel in whatever you could—the flap of your coat, your hands! They brought water in big tanks and there was nothing to distribute it in, so they shot it out in sprays. And whoever could get his mouth in front of one
1 “Without the last one!” —a menacing command to be understood literally. It meant: “I will kill the last man” (literally or at least warm his hide with a club). And so all piled out so as not to be last.
{p. 537} got some. Prisoners began to fight in front of the tanks—and the guards fired on them from the towers. Exactly like under the Fascists! Major General Derevyanko, the Chief of Administration of the Norhteast [i.e., Kolyma] Corrective Labor Camps, came, and while he was there an air force aviator stepped out in front of the crowd and ripped his field shirt down the front: ‘I have seven battle decorations! Who gave you the right to shoot into the compound?’ And Derevyanko replied: ‘We shot and we will go on shooting until you learn how to behave.’” 2
2 Say there, Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”! Why don’t you use this bit of material? Or doesn’t it suit you?
Fellow Nobel Laureate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was critical of the Russell Tribunal in The Gulag Archipelago for which he won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Literature for attacking the Vietnam War while ignoring the human rights violations of the Soviet Union, or alternatively, Fellow Nobel Laureate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was critical of the Russell Tribunal's objectives and motives in The Gulag Archipelago for which he won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Literature -- nobs
Fellow Nobel Laureate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was envious of the attention generated toward the war crimes of the Vietnam conflict by the Russell Tribunal. This is evidenced by the rhetorical questions and quips contained in the footnotes of his manuscript The Gulag Archipelago. -Rob
Since he doesn't put forth any actual criticisms of the Tribunal, and you have avoided my repeated requests to explain just what you have interpreted as "criticism," you have lost me as to what your intentions are. -Rob
(1) Text reads Many of these individuals were winners of the Nobel Prize, Medals of Valor and awards of recognition in humanitarian and social fields.; Solzhenitsyn is a qualified critic by the standards of both the original Tirbunal and todays Wiki guardians of the page.
(2) The pointed referance in question is directed at Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”, and not to Bertrand Russell, per se. Here is the actual referance from Gulag Archipelago, Part II, chap. 2, p. 537, footnote 2, Afred Knopf Edition (1976): Say there, Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”! Why don’t you use this bit of material? Or doesn’t it suit you?as you can plainly see, again, this statement is directed to the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal, and not Bertrand Russell individually, singularaly, personally, or professionally.
(3) The fact that the Nobel Prize was awarded to Solzhenitsyn for the Gulag Archipelago (and not Ivan Denisovich, The First Circle or other writings), to which this quotation is extracted, leads to the consideration of the Nobel Prize Committee's sentiments regarding their name being used in the entire context of the War Crimes Tribunal. This is of immense historic interest.
(4) Leonid Brezhnev, the entire Politburo, and the Soviet judiciary failed to censor Alexandr Solzhenitsyn; wiki editors should learn from this.
In summary, nothing is pristine in this world and immune from qualified criticism, not God, not Jesus Christ, and neither the sacred Russell War Crimes Tribunal. -- nobs
Perhaps you are right, I'll take your word for it to spare me the research on the subject; my only point is the Gulag was the last work to appear before Solzhenitsyn was recognized by the Nobel Committee. I beleive that language is more appropriate, being recognized by the committee, instead of the every day corrupted use among Amnerican journalists, 'prize winner. Thanks -- nobs
Interesting link; now I recall how Menachim Begin [3] won the "Peace" Prize in 1978 and invaded Lebanon in 1982 [4] (with the Shabra & Chatilla massacres in its aftermath); or when Mikhail Gorbachev won his peace prize in 1992 after this action [5]. Or Charles Dawes in 1925, of coarse nobody told the folks who put out this site [6], here's the relevent text:
I propose this language under a heading of criticism: Fellow Nobel Laureate in Literature for 1974 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was critical of the Russell Tribunal's objectives and motives in The Gulag Archipelago, Part II, chap. 2, p. 537, footnote 2, Afred Knopf Edition (1976). without perhaps quoting the actual text, Say there, Bertrand Russell’s “War Crimes Tribunal”! Why don’t you use this bit of material? Or doesn’t it suit you? or any link to it. A reasonable compromise -- nobs
Have forced labour camps been createdthere is no section regarding testimony before the Tribunal; under conclusions there is no statement regarding the findings of the Tribunal regarding this item; and there are no sources sited for any of this information
I see a lot of heat generated here without actual understanding what was Solzh's phrase about. To understand it, one must also understand the political atmosphere in the Soviet Union at these times. Briefly. Soviet press made a great fuss about Russel Tribunal that uncovered "crimes of American imperialism". In this atmosphere Solzh's remark (poorly translated. I will look into the Russian origin) reads as following: "You are speaking too much of Russel Tribunal. But what is discussed there is a mere triffle in comparison what happened in Russia" And he addresses no to Tribunal, but to Russian press: "why don't you speak about our own bitter issues instead?". Kind of "mote in the eye of thy brother" message. I hope this closes the issue. (revoked myself)
Mikkalai 01:33, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Right now the only criticism of the Tribunal page is this "was portrayed by the mainstream United States media as ineffectual, biased and a show trial." Being that Wiki is truely an international effort, would you object to invitng Mikkalai to insert a phrase about how the Tribunal was covered in the Soviet media at the time? Here's got the credentials, you should see [7] Thx -- nobs
As I promised, I looked into the source and unfortunately have to admit that my reading (based on English text) was totally wrong. A lesson for future not to speak out of memory. The original text goes as follows: "Эй, "Трибунал Военных Преступлений" Бертрана Рассела! Что же вы, что ж вы материальчик не берете?! Аль вам не подходит?". And the translation is basically correct. Indeed, Solzhenitsyn addresses directly to the Tribunal. The phrasing is rather teasing, jeering, rather than deriding, angry or annoyed. (I am not good at translating the terms of emotion.) The remark is out of context. I will try to find the overall attitude of the author to the Tribunal. Mikkalai 03:15, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
In fact, in Vol. 3 Ch. 13. He makes a similar note once more: "Эй, "Трибунал Военных Преступлений" Бертрана Рассела и Жана Поля Сартра! Эй, философы! Матерьял-то какой! Отчего не заседаете? Не слышат..." "Hey, “War Crimes Tribunal” of Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre! Hey, philosophers! See what a material is here! Why aren't you in session? They probably don't hear...." Looking for more... Mikkalai 03:30, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
OK it seems I narrowing this down. It seems that these phrases show the Solzh's attitude not to Tribunal, but rather to Russel and other Western pro-communuist intellectuals, who close their eyes on the Soviet atrocities. The key is the following quotation from Solzh's interview:.
Now I will not be so bold as to declare that the case is closed. You are welcome to ask for additional explanations and research. Sorry I confused you earlier. Mikkalai 03:48, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You did not confuse me. :) Your conclusions were still correct, even if your translation was off. The Soviet press did indeed trumpet the findings of the Tribunal, while ignoring the crimes occurring in Russia. But alas, the Russell Tribunal's focus was only Vietnam. As I said before, I too hope this closes the matter. Again, thank you for your time and effort, Mikkalai. -Rob 04:07, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
About Russell himself: while he stood for Soviet disidents, and even made a declaration in their defense (of Vladimir Bukovsky et al.), his declaration was phrased in such a way that the dissident's unjust trial is an aberration during the last 15 years of "big changes in the Soviet directed, of course to larger happiness and freedom, and this humiliating trial is a threat to this marvellous development" (this is an not actual Russel's quotation, but my quick translation from it translation into Russian, but I hope I did not skew the idea too much ), i.e., he was still blind to what actually the Soviet Union was, as I seee it. Mikkalai 04:11, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The Gulag Archipelago text was completed in 1956. As Solzhenitsyn said, all 1800 pages never were at one place in time before him on his desk. It was circulated in samizdat, without official Soviet Imprimatur stamp. It existed in single type written copies, produced one at a time, even up to the time Solzhenitsyn was awarded his Nobel Lauraete. Solzhenitsyn continued editing it into the 1960's, i.e. adding footnotes. The footnotes regarding the Russell Tribunal were contemporaneous, i.e. at the same time, as Soviet newspapers headlined detailed accounts of the Russell tribunal proceedings. Though the primary audience is Soviet and Russian speaking, Solzhenitsyn throughout the Gulag Archipelago is addressing an international audience. There remains problems with the Wiki article. (1) It begins with in intro about the charges, and skips (2) a conclusion and verdict, without any body of text about testimony regarding the charges. For example, charge No. 5 is use of forced labor, and no referance to this charge exists in body, text, testimony, or conclusion. This places the entire article in a light of lacking a NPOV. Solzhenitsyn's comments are obviously about this charge.
Most obvious is the lack of any sourcing on the page. The links at the bottom are however, a good excercise in self-congratulations. -- nobs
My referance is to this one specific charge, forced labor. The article simply states ""Have War Crimes been committed? then concludes with Yes War crimes have been committed", leaving the disposition of the charges to the imagination. Then, to use your term, a bunch of self-promiting, self-congratuling links are added as supposed source information, without any specific index to testimony on, for example, forced labor. One can only imagine why it was ommitted. The quality of the article speaks for itself. -- nobs
Response to issue (1): a footnote, published in samizdat, type written and smuggled out of the Soviet Union, at risk of imprisonment for ASA Anti-Soviet agitation and being branded a Article 58 political prisoner, that made its way to the Nobel Committee for which its author became a Nobel Laureate soon after, is of significance precisiecely because of the circuitous route it traveled to Oslo and the Nobel Committee. To argue Solzhenitsyn, from internal exhile and banishment in Kazakhstan, should have done more research and published despite the problems he had both recieving and communicating information from Europe, is ludicrous on its face. Simply because of the gap between the circulation of the Gulag Archipelago in samizdat, and its mass commercial publication in Europe, first in Swedish in 1973, and English in 1976, does not mean it was held in secret. The POV that complaints about the Soviet Gulag slave system were "out of sight, out of mind" evidently still has currency. -- nobs
Response to the second issue gets closer to the point. The Tribunal is not really a Tribunal at all, and it does much to denigrate the historic meaning of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. The so-called "charges" read like an acedemic debate, "Has such and such occured", an effort to determine whether or not laws of war have been violated, without any attempt to explain what "laws of war" are. Without being constituted by any international authority to investigate violations of laws of war or international law, as the Nuremberg Tribunal was duly constituted. "Mock trial" as practiced in Law school's is perhaps more fitting than "show trial". Perhaps this issue and discussion needs to be transferred to the Nobel Committee page, in a subsection entitled Russell vs Solzhenitsyn, after all it appears the Nobel Committee was perhaps using Solzhenitsyn to repent of their error for ever elevating Bertrand Russell to status of prize winner. Interesting how the wiki page says Russell was awarded the prize for his advocacy of freedom of thought, yet criticism of the Tribunal today is strictly censored. -- nobs
Let me say this. I've placed my comments under every major place that I thought I needed to say something. Anon IP user (for lack of your name), you have some very good points, and I agree - the Alex material should go over to Gulag Archipelago. I am an advocate, yet first, I am fair. I was following your new discussion regarding where the content should go. I was attempting to clarify your comments and got you to break the issues out so everyone could understand precisely where the issues are. I wanted to see general consensus, and you brought it out. You have proven your point, and you did a fine job of referring Nobs/Rob to the right place where I made a query about putting the commented quotes there. Thank you.
I would like to see EXACTLY where your accusations of harassment and vulgarity are coming from. I don't take those accusations lightly at all, especially when you state that another editor has written idiocy, which, in my opinion, could be construed as a personal attack. More interesting, in the same paragraph might I add, you state that nobs has a problem with Wikipedia and has taken it to his blog, when in all actuality, it's an unofficial online text repository that nobs runs just in case he needs to cite some material to please Wikipedians like yourself. Lighten up! You're quick to figure out what's going on without reading everything related first, and perhaps that's why you edit behind an IP address and not a username like the rest of us. Although you are correct in stating that there are some genuine problems with putting Alex's comments into this article, I'd still like an answer as to whether the Tribunal was an academic debate or not. KC9CQJ 13:48, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Anonymous user 165.247.204.55 reverted his signature to Rob, who of coarse is not myself, whom KC9CQJ initially addressed as Rob. -- nobs
Well, I was trying to prove the point that nobs was a newbie and I really thought that you had a good point. And I wanted you to clarify in some places. I didn't think I was on a high horse, but I guess you thought I was, and I'm sorry you misunderstood. All I was trying to do was get you to realize that if we don't have newbies, we might as well hang it up and go home. But, I think I've proven all my points, and it's time for me to move on from this article. Thanks for both of your insights, and I'll see you all later. KC9CQJ 21:30, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It would help others trying to follow this disussion if editors would stop interpolating their comments, and in addition, would indent their comments in a logical fashion. Right now the page appears as seemingly random bits of text by unknown authors. That makes it almost impossible to for anyone coming to this page to understand who is saying what to whom. Thanks, - Willmcw 17:11, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)