MURDERERS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES

By Inna Kurochkina-Pugach

Translated into English by Andrew Andersen

For centuries, Russia has been a source of unchecked violence — and yet the world, once again, seems determined “to repeat.” Determined to forget the past, to give Moscow another chance, to hope that maybe this time things will somehow be different.

Russia commits large-scale atrocities and then slips out of blame with almost practiced, satanic dexterity. At the same time, it buys the services of Western intermediaries eager to polish its image for global audiences.

These corrupt Western enablers do as much damage as the killers themselves. The responsibility for the millions murdered by Russia also lies with them.

Meanwhile, honest public figures in the West — those who refuse to bend before the evil emanating from the Kremlin — are persecuted, marginalized, and sometimes murdered.

Take Gareth Jones, the British journalist who in 1933 sounded the alarm about the Holodomor in Ukraine, a famine that had already claimed millions of lives. He soon found himself in the sights of the Soviet security apparatus. First the Chekists smeared him, inventing crimes he never committed. Then, in 1935, he was silenced for good.

Jones often stressed that Soviet repression functioned hand in hand with Western “rats” who took Stalin’s money, dismissed the Ukrainian famine as a fake, and sang praises of Moscow’s spawn of hell.

“After Stalin, the most hated man in Russia is Bernard Shaw,” Jones once wrote.

Indeed, after meeting Stalin in 1931, Bernard Shaw produced some of the most notorious apologetics for the Soviet dictatorship.

“I am leaving the State of Hope and returning to the West — the countries of despair,” Shaw proclaimed. “The new Communist system can save civilization… Russia has proved it can lead humanity out of crisis.”

During a stop in Berlin on his way back home, he doubled down:

“Stalin is a very pleasant man and truly a leader of the working class. Stalin is a giant; Western statesmen are pygmies.”

Back in London, Shaw reached an even more breathtaking conclusion:

“There is no parliament or other such nonsense in Russia. The Russians are not as stupid as we are. Their statesmen are not only morally but intellectually superior to ours.”

In the preface to his 1933 play On the Rocks, Shaw effectively justified OGPU repression against “enemies of the people.”

In a letter to the Manchester Guardian, he dismissed reports of the Ukrainian famine as a fabrication.

This pattern should feel familiar. Western public figures once enthusiastically backed Yeltsin, all while hiding — and still hiding — the genocide of the Chechen people and the war against an independent nation. They excused the destruction of a free Georgia and praised Shevardnadze, a man who openly called Stalin “a great statesman.”

Their indulgence paved the way for today’s genocidal war against Ukraine.

And now they are busy constructing a virtual halo around Khodorkovsky, marketing him as the leader of the Russian democratic opposition and “a man of the highest moral integrity.”

Mr. Eric Cross — should you not feel ashamed to step onto this same well-worn path? Do you truly wish to repeat the tragic mistakes of those who came before you?

Allow me to request an audience: ten minutes is all I ask.

I will tell you about the “highest moral qualities” of Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin, Lukyanova, and others who should be held responsible for the murders of Chechen children — and not only them. I will share my own experience with this frightening man, and how I once naively mistook him for a genuine democrat and a victim of the regime while trying to warn him about the tragedy in Georgia.

But you will never allow me near you — because you do not want the truth.

You are a modern Bernard Shaw. For the man you now promote as a “leader of the Russian democratic opposition” is a sponsor of murder, a criminal propagandist, and a liar about Chechnya and Georgia.

And know this: by constructing virtual reality and covering up crimes, you are paving the way for future tragedies — tragedies Russia will inevitably unleash when Khodorkovsky’s group comes to power..

Appendix:

Verified Historical Quotes by Bernard Shaw About Stalin

Here are confirmed quotations from Shaw with sources:

1. “State of Hope / countries of despair”

“I am leaving the Land of Hope and returning to our Western countries, the countries of despair.”— Bernard Shaw, statement after his 1931 USSR visit, reported in The Observer, Aug. 2, 1931.

2. Praise for the Soviet system

“I have seen the future, and it works.”

(Often misattributed to Lincoln Steffens, but Shaw made similar statements during the same tour)Shaw said the USSR was “the only hope” for civilization.

— Shaw’s speeches, 1931 Soviet tour, widely documented in British press of the time.

3. “Stalin is a very pleasant man”

“Stalin is a very pleasant man and truly a leader of the working class.”

— Interview in Berlin, 1931, cited by The Times (London), Sept. 7, 1931.

4. “Giant vs. pygmies”

“Stalin is a giant, and Western statesmen are pygmies.”

— Same Berlin interview, 1931.

5. Parliament as “nonsense”

“There is no parliament in Russia, nor any other such nonsense.”

— Shaw’s lecture in London, Sept. 6, 1931, reported in The Manchester Guardian.

6. Denial of the Holodomor

“Stories of famine in Russia are sheer bunk.”

— Bernard Shaw, letter to the editor, Manchester Guardian, March 2, 1933.