A Scholar For Stalin (Only On American Campi Would One Be More Commie Than In Russia Alert)

Frontpagemag.com ^ | 03/16/05 | Rocco Di Pippo

[goldstategop]

For twenty years Grover Furr has been an English professor at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey, where he educates students in his peculiar worldview, which is an updated Stalinism and in which America is the world’s biggest oppressor and greatest terrorist state. While his academic expertise is English literature, he presents himself as an expert on communism, and scours academic forums like the Historians of American Communism net, defending Joseph Stalin and calling America’s role in bringing down the Soviet Empire a moral outrage. “Was there something morally wrong in trying to bring down the Soviet Union? I think the only honest answer possible is: Yes, it was wrong,” says Furr.

In a speech delivered at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Essex County in New Jersey Furr said, “I think the reason Stalin is vilified is because, in his day at the helm of the Soviet Union, the exploiters all over the world had something to worry about! That's why I feel some kinship with Stalin and the communist movement of his day.” And not only his day: “What the majority of humanity needs today is an international like that one, to co-ordinate the fight against exploitation -- just as the IMF and the World Bank, Exxon and Reebok, the US and French and the other governments, coordinate the fight FOR exploitation.” A copy of the entire speech appears on his website, the same site his students must use as a study resource.

Although not a historian, Furr frequents the “Historians of American Communism”, a scholarly forum inhabited by experts on Communism like Robert Conquest, John Earl Haynes and Robert W. Cherny. There he takes up causes like denying Stalin’s well-documented campaign to liquidate the Jews: “The mass murder of Jews, but not only of Jews, by the Nazis is very well documented. In the case of the Cold-War horror stories demonizing Stalin, the shoe is on the other foot -- all the evidence points in the opposite direction.” deny Stalin’s role in it, “Of the hoary horror tales virtually taken for granted as true concerning Stalin, I have researched many at this point in my life, and have yet to find a single one that is true, or anywhere near it. Participants in the forum generally find Furr’s positions to be absurd.

At Montclair University, Furr teaches a “General Humanities” course described on his website as, “an introduction to Western European culture and society from the Ancient World through the Middle Ages.” Required reading for the course includes the following authors: James Axtell, whose “The White Indians of Colonial America” implies that Native American culture was better than European culture in colonial America; Ronald Takaki, a prominent multiculturalist whose views of America’s oppression of minorities is only a shade more moderate than Ward Churcill’s; Rodney Hilton, a British Marxist, G.E.M. de Ste Croix, whose “The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World” is a Marxist tract; and I.F. Stone, a Communist fellow traveler and then New Leftist who once commended the Soviet Union for “steadily expanding democracy in every sphere.”

Another of Furr’s courses, titled “The Great Books and Ideas,” offers more radical-left fare. Readings for the course include works by Karl Marx, a Marxist analysis of Shakespeare by Richard Wilson, a book by Communist Party member Ted Allen, one by Marxist feminist Silvia Federici, and one by radical-left activist Marcus Rediker, who has worked to win a new trial for convicted cop killer and leftist icon Mumia Abu-Jamal.

While Furr has no credentials as a history teacher his duties at Monclair include teaching a course on the Vietnam War. Furr’s course paints America as an oppressive, terrorist state. His Vietnam war page, and his Politics and Social Issues web page, which are course resources, feature virulently anti-U.S. material, much of it penned by him. Furr’s personal views on Vietnam reflect the views of the leftist fringe: “‘The western imperialists, the U.S. among them, are the biggest mass murderers in history’….’The U.S. is even more guilty [of genocide] than Pol Pot.’…’it was a good thing that the U.S. ‘lost’ in Vietnam…. If the US and their South Vietnamese stooges had won, South Vietnam would have been yet another place for American companies to move to. Hundreds of thousands more American workers would have lost their jobs.’…’Under no circumstances, therefore, should we ever support the US government or believe what it says.’” [emphases as in the original]

A number of Furr’s views are taken directly from Challenge, the Revolutionary Communist Progressive Labor Party’s newspaper. Opinion pieces written by Furr on the other hand are published in the school newspaper The Montclarion and also posted on his Montclair University website, where he celebrates the violence that took place after the Rodney King verdict, accuses the U.S. of being behind the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II and echoing the views of Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky implies that on Sept.11, 2001 the U.S. got what it deserved when radical Islamists slammed jetliners into the Twin Towers, killing thousands of innocents.

Furr is involved in the Modern Languages Association, [MLA] the largest academic professional organization. MLA methods and recommendations are implemented across the U.S., down to the elementary school level. Professor Furr heads the MLA’s radical caucus. How much influence does he have in shaping the MLA’s agendas? Quite a bit, it appears. During the run-up to its 2003 national conference, the MLA put out a call for papers to be read and discussed at the conference. Out of the five papers submitted, four of them came from the radical caucus. One asked the MLA to work towards “the repeal of the U.S.A. Patriot Act.” A second wanted the MLA to deplore “government war-making projects” and urge “the withdrawal of troops and reallocation of funds to reverse inattention to, and grave deficits in, funding of education and other human services.” A third was concerned with pay for graduate students and faculty members. The last proposal is worth quoting, since it appears to have been penned by Furr himself:

“ Whereas in wartime, governments commonly shape language to legitimate aggression, misrepresent policies, conceal aims, stigmatize dissent, and block critical thought; and

“Whereas distortions of this sort proliferate now, as in the use of the phrase ‘war on terrorism,’ to underwrite military action anywhere in the world, against whomever our government sees as opponents; and

“Whereas we are professionals committed to scrupulous inquiry into language and culture;

Be it resolved that the Modern Language Association supports its members in conducting critical analysis of war talk, in public forums and, as appropriate, in classrooms.”

What do Professor Furr’s students think of him? A sampling of the views of forty of them is available on Rate My Professors, a website which allows students to rate teachers on a scale from 1-5, (Furr averaged 2.4) gives insight into how Furr is perceived by them: “’I can't believe this man is teaching!’... ‘He sends you radical left wing propaganda almost every day through email’… ‘Pretend to be a communist and he'll think you're the greatest thing ever’…’He uses the classroom as a platform to teach his radical political views’…’Leans so far to the left he's horizontal’… ‘Hates the USA’…’Keeps on talking about his life and nothing relating to the work’…’If he spent more time concentrating on teaching his students than spewing hate in the discussion threads, maybe he would be a happier person!’...’What a bitter, hateful man!’”

Furr’s own attitude towards conservatives in academia is this: “What [American universities] need, and would much benefit from, is more Marxists, radicals, leftists – all terms conventionally applied to those who fight against exploitation, racism, sexism, and capitalism. We can never have too many of these, just as we can never have too few ‘conservatives.’”

In an academia that has become highly politicized and where conservatives are increasingly rare, Furr’s views are valued currency. His web pages are recommended as both a teaching resource and as a resource in developing curricula.

[goldstategop]

Outrageous but true. On American campi you can be more of a Commie than in Russia. Grover Furr is an extreme Lefty scholar who holds it was a moral outrage to bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union. Its just as well he's an English professor from Montclair, New Jersey. He doesn't have a historian's credentials but he knows what the greatest country in world history was. Hint: its not the one he lives in now. There are lots and lots of like minded fellow travellers like him in academe.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[no_mm]

..may yet another 'L'-professor FRAUD join his counter-part, WARD, in obscurity soon... good riddance.

[iopscusa]

When are these lying Academic frauds going to pay the piper?

[Bogolyubski]

I don't know where one can find an online version, but there is a painting by the Russian artists Ilya Repin thaat strikes me as a "picture is worth a thousand words" answer to pukes like this professor. It's entitled "To all Great Conquerors" and features a great pyramid of skulls. This was a favorite calling card of the "Religion of Peace" after they would sack a Russian village.

Stalin butchered 40 million people, and we have idiots on US campuses promoting his ideas. While we're at it, why don't we have some defenders of "Mein Kampf " and Uncle Adolf on our campuses? The lunatics are running the asylum in academia.

[flying Elvis]

When are these lying Academic frauds going to pay the piper?

When folks bankrolling the schools start requiring accountability. Hit them where it hurts. Organize boycotts of their sports events like football and basketball. Athletic boosters are the most influential people around a university and when they become unhappy, university presidents get nervous, especially when negative publicity begins to harm recruiting.

[LibertarianInExile]

Montclair State has what sports events exactly? I need to make sure I'm not attending them. /sarc

But your point is well made.

[nathanbedford]

A little more than a half a century ago school kids huddled under their desks with their arms over their heads and their eyes firmly shut against the blinding flash which might come from an atomic attack launched by Comrade Stalin. The kids did this on the very campus which now gives a bully pulpit to this marxist.

In those days the campus consisted of a couple old spanish style buildings which had been used as a training facility for teachers known then as a "normal" school. After the war, students had quonset huts as temporary classrooms. They would certainly have provided scant protection against atomic attack launched by Stalin. Now the campus claims university status and oceans of money, state and federal, have washed over it. The physical facility now resembles a city rather than a California mission it resembled in the fifties and the student census now reaches into God knows how many thousands or tens of thousands of students.

It has become a mammoth bureaucracy which cannot control itself and, out of control, provides a happy hunting ground for professors like the one the article describes. In the days when everyone knew at least by reputation the whole of the faculty, eccentricity could be accommodated but never disloyalty. We hear the left decry the chilling effects of McCarthyism, but, as one who lived through this supposedly benighted era, I can only say we could use a large dose of its orthodoxy.

At least we would not have to suffer fools like Grover Furr and risk young minds to his care. Far better for his students to take cover under their desks with their arms protecting their faces and their eyes tightly shut against the deadly doctrine of this man. Better to return to a "normal" school.

[horse_doc]

When are these lying Academic frauds going to pay the piper?

He is facing the Big Piper pretty soon - Lefty Boomers are starting to die like flies from old age. This one will probably get to spend an eternity in Hell with his hero, Uncle Joe Stalin.

They can squat on the coals with Walter Duranty, and chat about what really happened in the Ukraine. Boy, will he be suprised . . .

[yer gonna put yer eye out]

"although not a historian..."

Probable winner of the "understatement Of The Century" award...

[JerseyHighlander]

flying Elvis, you're thinking too Texan, outside of men's wrestling, swim dive team, and womens' softball, sports are a minor concern here.

golden, campi is not a word in english.

Anger at this little man is not worth the time. He only poses one threat, this man is a in a position to shape the views of many first generation immigrants. He's particularly well liked by Muslim students, mostly because they have the prerequisite status of victimhood before entering his classroom.


The man will retire, and in 15 years no one will remember him, his writings, his rambling self aggrandizing lectures, nor his face. He knows this, and it eats him up every day.

What kills me is the cost, Out of state: $1082.78 In state $716.15, for his undergrad courses he teaches. Outside of a drug binge, this money could be better spent in any manner.

[Terpfen]

Abolish judicial activism, not judicial review.

[Terpfen]

Whoops... replied to the wrong topic. Sorry.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

We have a lot of people living in America who suffered under communism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. It's amazing how American taxpayers and parents keep paying good money to people posing as professors who try to keep marketing the great "solution" of communism in universities. Right in front of us are thousands of victims of communism who know the true, oppressive reality of it.

[nuke rocketeer]

I believe that it was Rush who said that after the fall of the Soviet Union, that the last bastions of communism were N. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and American college campuses.

The only D I ever got in college was in a government class taught by an Argentine woman who's lectures consisted of vicious screeds against the US and love ballads to Castro. I lost my passing grade when I stood up and asked her if America was so bad and Cuba so good, why in the hell is she still here in Texas?

[aculeus]

Tax dollars at work.

[Mike Darancette]

“I think the reason Stalin is vilified is because, in his day at the helm of the Soviet Union, the exploiters all over the world had something to worry about! That's why I feel some kinship with Stalin and the communist movement of his day.”

Winner: Walter Duranty Award for Creative denial.

[Richard Axtell]

I have always thought, and this article goes far to confirm my thesis, that Marxism in Western Universities, particularly on American campuses, is a result of 3 aspects of general ethical and moral decline; Economic- in the sense that the study of Marxism is enabled by the vast wealth and success of a free market economy cynically fed upon by a leftist academe establishment, Social and Moral- in the sense that Marxism flourishes like a septic infection when decadence and cultural decline sets in as a result of Liberal and Progressive social policy, and Psychological- in the sense that the individual purveyors of the idiocy of Marxism in academics are often misanthropic self-hating failures, determined to undermine the very society they blame for their mental illness and neuroses.

The delusionary nature of a man who denies the very existence of irrefutable contemporary Russian archival proof of the incredible level of evil and corruption that the criminal sociopath Stalin visited upon all of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century, takes one's breath away in it's surreal detachment from reality. Furr belongs among the members of the asylum that has become leftist academe, and to share their fate in the land of ridiculous revisionist ignominy.

[jordan8]

A hard communist for sure. Two of his articles:

Using History to Fight Anti-Communism

Welcome the rebellions!

[flying Elvis]

True, little can be done at the small liberal arts schools, however, the bigtime research schools, especially state universities with bigtime sports can be pressured.