SPECIAL FOR NSC
March 8, the Stalin Society of North America (SSNA) was founded as an educational, political and historical society at a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The Founding Congress was attended by about a dozen people, including many young people, from different parts of the United States, from several different ML parties and organizations as well as unaffiliated people The Congress opened with a reading of greetings from the Indian SSNA. After some discussion a mission statement and by-laws were drawn up and unanimously approved. These will be available at the web-site of the Society at www.stalinsociety.org/ and should soon be translated into Spanish and French. An Executive Committee was also established according to the by-laws in order to guide the work of the society.
The founders were all in agreement that the Society will not become a political party or organization. However, it is not meant to be an academic institution. The Society hopes to have an influence on the revolutionary movement and left in general in North America, by providing an understanding of the contributions of J.V. Stalin to Marxism-Leninism and to the building of socialism in the USSR.
At a separate event in Cambridge on the same evening, Professor Grover
Furr of Montclair State University gave an inspiring talk to some 40
people on his two books, Khrushchev Lied and the Murder of Kirov,
followed by a lively question and answer session. Professor Furr was
presented with a plaque by Alfonso Casal, the chair of the Society.
Alfonso Casal stated: The society was "specifically created to counter
anti-communist history, cold war myths, and specifically to restore the
original historical verdict of Joseph Stalin as one of the giants of
the 20th centuries and one of the figures in the progression of
mankind". Casal then thanked Stalin Societies from England to India to
Pakistan for their help. He then continued, "From the first, we knew we
were going to honor an individual whose numerous articles both in
Russian and English, whose two books Khrushchev Died and the Murder of
Kirov, have placed him as the leading Marxist writer of Soviet history.
The full video of the talk (2 hours) can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPY0O3HN3rA
