The Weekly Sam: What’s Wrong With Government Education?
The enormous failure of our government school system was nicely summed up by a Boston high school teacher in a recent issue of Education Week (12/9/98). He said: “I have about 30 kids in my U.S. history class. They come from nine different countries; most of them can’t read. Even if they can read the text, they don’t know what it means. How am I supposed to teach U.S. history to kids who can’t read? I could come in here every day for 20 years and still not figure out how to do it.” Obviously, this particular teacher had no idea how these kids got into high school without knowing how to read. He had no idea what goes on in primary school that prevents these children from learning to read, and he had no idea what to do with older students who are functionally illiterate. Clearly, the teacher himself is part of the problem. His ignorance of how the system functions prevents him from helping his students get through it in one piece. In other words, the compartmentalization of teachers explains why so many of them have no idea of how the total system works and why the system can lurch from crisis to crisis without any effective change taking place.
The real blame for the system’s dysfunction, however, must lie with the professors of education, the state departments of education, and the administrators who have all conspired to create the functional illiteracy that plagues the public schools of America — once considered the most literate and advanced nation on earth. Deliberately induced illiteracy among students is a vital part of the plan to dumb down Americans so that they will be unable to resist the imposition of social and political control by an arrogant universitarian elite determined to create a new world order based on humanist-socialist values. This “education” plan is part of the utopian socialist agenda set down by the progressives at the turn of the century. The progressives were members of the Protestant academic elite who no longer believed in the religion of their fathers. They put their new faith in science, evolution, and psychology. Science explained the material world (matter in motion), evolution explained the origin of life (organisms crawling out of the primordial ooze), and psychology explained human nature and provided the elite with the scientific means of controlling human behavior. These men were also socialists. Why? Because they had to deal with the problem of evil.
The Bible tells us that evil is the result of man’s innate depravity, his innate sinful nature. But since the progressives did not believe in the Bible, they decided that evil was caused by ignorance, poverty, and social injustice. And what was the cause of social injustice? Why, it was this horrible capitalist system with all of its inequities. Socialism, it was believed, would remove these inequities and thereby solve the problem of evil. By the way, the progressives did not get their model of socialism from Karl Marx. They got it from an American by the name of Edward Bellamy whose book, Looking Backward, published in 1888, projected the fantasy of a socialist America in the year 2000. And so, the progressives, dedicated to their utopian ideal, decided to do all in their power to change America from an individualistic, capitalist, and religious society into a socialist, collectivist, humanist or atheist society. How were they to accomplish that? Through the education system.
They would change the curriculum and teaching methods in the public schools so that American children would emerge as young socialists willing to change our way of life into a socialist one. The socialists realized that the transformation might take as much as a hundred years to complete. In fact, John Dewey wrote in 1898: “Change must come gradually. To force it unduly would compromise its final success by favoring a violent reaction.” Dewey then outlined the long-range strategy which the progressives were to adopt: What is needed in the first place is that there should be a full and frank statement of conviction with regard to the matter from physiologists and psychologists and from those school administrators who are conscious of the evils of the present regime. Educators should also frankly face the fact that the New Education, as it exists today, is a compromise and a transition: it employs new methods, but its controlling ideals are virtually of the Old Education. Wherever movements looking to a solution of the problem are intelligently undertaken, they should receive encouragement, moral and financial, from the intellectual leaders of the community.
There are already in existence a considerable number of educational “experiment stations,” which represent the outposts of educational progress. If these schools can be adequately supported for a number of years they will perform a great vicarious service. After such schools have worked out carefully and definitely the subject-matter of the new curriculum, –finding the right place for language-studies and placing them in their right :5. perspective, –the problem of the more general educational reform will be immensely simplified. One hundred years later we can see how successful the Dewey plan has been in transforming our educational system into one that serves the needs of the atheist socialist state. Dewey was aided and abetted by a cadre of reformers that included such luminaries as Edward L. Thorndike, James McKeen Cattell, Elwood P. Cubberly, George D. Strayer, Charles Judd, James R. Angell and a host of others. Thorndike, Cattell, and Strayer ran educational mafia out of Teachers College (Columbia), Cubberly reigned at Stanford, and Angell became president at Yale. Change in the curriculum of public education has happened so gradually that most parents haven’t the faintest idea what is happening to their children, four million of whom are being drugged daily with Ritalin so that they can sit in their classroom seats and be socialized without resistance.
What is truly amazing is the coherence and continuity of the progressive agenda which is as much alive today at it was when Dewey and company were pontificating. For example, The Whole Language Catalog, a sort of bible of the whole-language movement published in 1991, has 15 entries for John Dewey in its index. After citing his debt to Dewey, Kenneth Goodman, the leading guru of whole-language philosophy, writes: Whole language picks up where the progressives left off. … [It] takes the philosophy and positive, child-centered view of the progressive educators and adds the knowledge of language, of learning, of child development, and of teaching, and builds a strong scientific base under them. It is this combination of science and humanistic educational and social philosophy that forms the foundation for whole language curriculum. … We use the psychological concepts of Piaget and Vygotsky to underscore Dewey’s concept of learning as transaction: pupils making sense of their world and being changed themselves in the transactions. (p. 281) In the early days, the progressives were mainly supported by the major philanthropic foundations.
Today the reforms are being underwritten by federal and state governments. Three recent federal programs are funding the massive restructuring of American education in accordance with the progressives’ plans: Goals 2000 (enacted 3/31/94), School-to-Work Opportunities Act (enacted 5/4/94), and the Improving America’s Schools Act, a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (enacted 10/20/94). Thus, the Congress of the United States has become an accomplice in the progressive plan to restructure American education in the socialist mold. Apart from needing the funds to carry out their plan, the progressives also realized that coherence and continuity of their agenda over a hundred years was vitally necessary if the plan was to be successful. Thus, in 1901 they created the National Society for the Study of Education, wherein the progressive leaders would be able to formulate their programs of reform, debate their effectiveness, and pass on the baton to their loyal disciples. By studying their yearbooks, the first of which was published in 1902, one can follow the inexorable progress of the socialist takeover of American education. All of this was accomplished by tenured professors of education and behavioral psychologists, working within a maze of well-funded professional organizations, publishing journals, writing textbooks, holding hundreds of conferences, seminars, and conventions each year.
None of this has been visible to the average parent who puts a child in a public school. Parents assume that their schools are run by local school boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers. What they don’t see is the invisible hand behind this constant pressure for reform that keeps recreating the curriculum. The average teacher may feel that there is some kind of invisible hand at work, but teachers would rather blame failure on cultural trends, excessive television viewing, dysfunctional parents, and such student disabilities as attention deficit disorder and dyslexia. Obviously, this is a system of education that cannot be supported by any Christian. Local control no longer exists. It was inevitable that a government education system would become a federal system controlled by those who have been leading us toward totalitarian socialism. Do I exaggerate? To be convinced that the end goal is a totalitarian system, all one has to do is read the Student Data Handbook for Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education (NCES 94-303). This is the official guidebook for the computerized data-gathering system dreamed up by our totalitarian bureaucrats. The data will include massive information on health, family, religion, attitudes, psychological assessments, etc. For example, the attitudinal test is described as: “An assessment to measure the mental and emotional set or patterns of likes and dislikes or opinions held by a student or a group of students.
This is often used in relation to considerations such as controversial issues or personal adjustments.” All of this sensitive, personal data will be housed in a central computer in Washington making it easy for “educators” to control just about everyone. But the question is simply this: does the government of a free people have the right to collect this kind of information on all of its citizens for its own political or social purposes? Should the government of a free people record the attitudes and opinions of its citizens so that it can engineer their personal adjustment? The time has come for Christians to realize what has become of the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” If Christians want to restore the full measure of our freedoms, they will have to do what they are reluctant to do: remove their children en masse from the public schools. What is needed now is not accommodation to the plans of the American Pharoah but a full-fledged exodus of Christian children. That’s the easiest and most peaceful way to put an end to the socialist agenda and return America to its basic constitutional principles. Will Christians have the courage to do what must be done? That test will be upon us sooner than anyone anticipated.
The Blumenfeld Archives
“The Gun Control Debate Is Over” An Interview with Lily Tang Williams Who Confronted David Hogg
We recently caught up with our friend Lily Tang Williams to discuss her viral video of her asking David Hogg-America’s own Greta Thunberg who heroically hid in a closet while his classmates were getting shot. Hogg was at a debate on gun control at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH and during a question an answer session, Lily asked if Hogg could guarantee that the U.S. would never be tyrannical. He answered truthfully, and Lily exclaimed “The gun control debate is over.” The short video went viral.
About Lily Tang Williams
Born to illiterate working-class parents in China’s western Sichuan province just before Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Lily Tang Williams grew up experiencing extremely poor living conditions, food rationing, social chaos, and Communist indoctrination.
In spite of these hardships, she learned to work hard, persevere, and was grateful for the opportunities she was given. After universities were re-opened, she graduated from the Fudan University law school in Shanghai, where she was one of the first to be selected to re-populate the law school faculty, as well as being encouraged to practice corporate law in Shanghai to help China begin rebuilding its economy.
In 1988, Lily Tang Williams decided to attend university in the U.S., leaving her faculty position with only $100 in her pocket and $1200 in debt to her American sponsor, a Fulbright professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Although she could not speak English fluently, she was determined to achieve success in this country, earning a Master’s degree in Administration and Planning from the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin.
Subsequently, Lily started work for Wyoming Home Health as a medical social worker, and within a few years she was working as an executive for corporations in both Hong Kong and the U.S. Eventually, she went into business for herself, providing consulting and expert witness services in China-related business and legal cases. She and her husband also manage residential real estate properties they own.
During this time of hard work, and raising her family, Lily began her journey of discovery of liberty and representative democracy. She began traveling the country as a professional speaker sharing her story about the horrors of Socialism and Communism, inspiring people to value their American heritage and their freedoms and opportunities.
Her passionate presentations and interviews have been featured on Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Fox Business, Newsmax, Timcast, Huckabee TV, John Stossel, Joe Pags Show, Gothix TV, Shawn Ryan Show, Epoch Times TV, Glenn Beck Radio, and many other podcasts. Also, she has authored opinion articles for The Epoch Times, Town Hall, National Review, Union Leader, Concord Monitor and Granite Grok. Her story was included in the Oral History of Communism Project funded by the State of Florida for K-12 Education. Recently featured in the documentary film, “The Great Awakening,” she has been speaking to students and parents and she never fails to inspire people to get involved with the Liberty movement.
Lily Tang Williams is a Congressional Candidate for the 2024 elections in NH District 2 and has numerous endorsements from prominent citizens and organizations. She is Chair of the NH Asian American Coalition (which she helped to found), a member of the Advisory Board of USPIE, (U.S. Parents involved in Education), and on the Speakers Bureau of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington DC.
Camp Constitution At Mass HOPE’s 2024 Homeschool Convention
Since 2010, Camp Constitution has been participating in Massachusetts Homeschool Organization of Parent Educators https://masshope.org/ -Mass HOPE’s -annual conventions. From 2010-2019, it was held in Worcester at the DCU Center. Due to the unconstitutional Covid lockdown, there was a two-year hiatus, but in 2022, the annual convention reconvened and relocated to Sturbridge Host Hotel in Sturbridge, MA-a more user-friendly venue. This year’s convention was held last weekend Friday April 19 to Saturday April 20.
Our information table was manned by Rev. Steve Craft, Mrs. Edith Craft and me. We had an excellent time introducing Camp Constitution to dozens of people, making many new friends, and seeing old friends who enjoy what we have to bring to the convention. Our well-stocked table offering books, DVDs, bumper stickers, information about our Sam Blumenfeld Archives, and Camp Constitution’s promotional brochures is interactive. We offer a ten-question quiz on the U.S. Constitution, review the answers, and hand them pocket copies of the Constituon. We also have a quill pen and encourage youngers to sign their name in cursive. Edith, our unofficial goodwill ambassador, made some friends with the folks manning the Northeastern Baptist Bible College and taught them the 1st Amendment song:
Over the years, numerous attendees of this convention have attended Camp Constitution’s annual family camp. A special thanks to Mrs. Pamela Fitzgerald who stopped by the convention on Saturday to serve us lunch, and Mr. Adrian Villa who covered our lodging expenses.
Is It Just a Coincidence That Earth Day Falls on Lenin’s Birthday?
Lenin’s birthday was April 22, 1870, and the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. Was it just a coincidence that that Earth Day was first celebrated on the 100th Anniversary of the birthday of communist mass murderer Vladimir Lenin? The late Gary Allen didn’t think so. Here is an excerpt from his article on the subject “Ecology” published in the May 1970 issue of American Opinion:
Nobody is willing to admit who selected the date of April twenty-second for the “Earth Day” teach-ins. That is, after all, the one -hundredth anniversary of Lenin’s birth. A coincidence you think? The student activists just picked a convenient weekend? Hardly. April twenty-second falls on a Wednesday. For months the radical and Communist Press has been detailing plans to celebrate Lenin’s centennial birthday with worldwide demonstrations. April twenty second is as familiar a date to these people as Washington’s Birthday is to real Americans. The selection of this date as “Earth Day” provides an excellent indication of who is running the campus ecology movement. I telephoned the Teach-In’s national coordinator, Denis Hayes, to ask him how April twenty-second happened to be selected for the ecology festivities. Mr. Hayes, late of Harvard ‘s Graduate School of Government, had obviously memorized his answer: “It also happens to be William Shakespeare’s birthday, Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, Maryanna Kaufman’s birthday and her Aunt Ann’s birthday, but I am sure that none of those entered into Gaylord Nelson’s thoughts when he and the steering committee or whoever it was chose that date. Mr. Hayes should avoid lying about matters so easily checked. The date settled upon as the national day of William Shakespeare is April 23 , 1564 ; Queen Elizabeth was born on April 21, 1926. Which leads one to suspect that even Hayes’ friends Maryanna Kaufman and her aunt (if they exist) might well have been born on some Friday the thirteenth for all he knows. What else do you suppose Mr. Hayes lies about?
Sponsors of Earth Day have already prepared a 367 -page manifesto, published by Ballentine, called The Environmental Handbook. The sponsoring steering committee, according to Hayes, includes Gaylord Nelson, Far Left Republican Pete McCloskey of California, Sidney Howe of the Conservation Foundation, Paul Ehrlich of Stanford, Harold Jordoff of the University of Wisconsin, and three students. The Environmental Handbook is totally Marxist in orientation and contains excerpts from the writings of all the key environment radicals. According to columnist Paul Scott, Earth Day already has the backing of Walter Reuther’s United Auto Workers and “several of the big tax -free liberal foundations. ” This ecology business has a particular attraction for hippies, who live in filth but claim to love the beauties of nature. According to Professor Paul Ehrlich, a good deal of the success of the ecology revolution is to be attributed to the “much despised ‘hippie’ movement … a movement wrapped up in Zen Buddhism, physical love and a disdain for material wealth. It is small wonder that our society is horrified at hippies’ behavior – it goes against our most cherished religious and ethical ideas.” A link to the entire article: https://s3.amazonaws.com/camppictures/CampArchive/Domestic/Ecology.pdf
Camp Constitution’s 16th Annual Family Camp Less Than Three Months Away
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(Camp Constitution instructor Professor Willie Soon with Tucker Carlson.)
Camp Constitution Ladies ‘Spring Fling’ Report by Edith Craft
Camp Constitution Ladies’ ‘Spring Fling’/Advance was held Friday, April 12–- Sunday, April 14, 2024, at Alton Bay Christian Conference Center in Alton, New Hampshire. This was our first time using this facility but will not be our last!
The Advance was a great success and a huge Blessing! to all who attended. We were rather small in number but large! in Blessings! Every Camp C. Lady contributed in their own unique way. We made some new friends and welcomed back our ‘old’ friends.
Dr. Felecia Nace was our featured guest speaker and gave a very insightful talk on Artificial Intelligence or A.I. Here are just three points from Dr. Nace’s presentation slide: “How is A.I. Being Marketed? 0 A. I. is marketed as a technological advancement in society. 0 It is advertised as harmless and a seamless extension of man’s ability to think. 0 A.I. is solely marketed as having to do with technology. We learned a great deal from her research and presentation.
Special thanks to our endearing, compassionate, generous Organizer, Roberta and Co-organizer, Maura, who brings unique artistic skills to craft-making. Sapphire helped us Ladies prepare for the day with Stretching combined with ‘worship’ — Scripture, music, wisdom from her acquired experience as ‘Coach’ Gimenez, and ample encouragement. Edith and Charmaine presented devotional songs in a printed format (Edith) and a well-prepared ‘dive’ into God’s Word by Charmaine. Our campfire singing was led by Paulie, an experienced and anointed singer. All the Ladies worked so very well together. All Ladies helped wherever there was a need!
A great treat at the Advance was the Marksmanship Skill-building time. We received much instruction and experience from Captain P. It was a confidence-building activity where we all benefitted.
The food at the Dining Room was always delicious, nicely presented by friendly, caring staff—the kind of people you want to serve you! Hats off to the Dining Room staff!
Camp Constitution visionary and founder, Hal, also played a huge part in making this Advance a success. Hats off to Hal, as well!
Mark your calendars for the Ladies Fall Advance at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center Friday November 22 to Sunday November 24 and next year’s Spring Fling Friday May 2 to Sunday May 4.
Camp Constitution’s 2nd Annual Patriots Day Overnight Lexington, MA
While Camp Constitution has been conducting tours of Lexington Green for many years and have videotaped the Battle of Lexington Reenactment for ten years, since last year we have been hosting Patriots Day overnights for homeschool families at the Lane House in Lexington. The overnight starts with the showing of the video Johnny Tremain-a historical fiction based on the book by Esther Forbes. After the video, the attendees play some board game, take a tour of Lexington Battle Green and then a walk to the nearby Hancock Clark where we take in the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere Reenactment.
We return to the Lane House for a few hours’ sleep before getting up at 3:45 and walk to the Lexington Green to get a good spot for viewing the reenactment. After the reenactment, we return to the Lane House for a hearty breakfast and fellowship. This year’s attendees included the Johnson Family from new Boston, NH. It was their first-time touring Lexington and takin in the two reenactments.
The Weekly Sam: How to Raise a Literate Child
Sam spent a good portion of his adult life exposing the deliberately dumbing down of America and teaching people to not just read but be literate. In this unpublished manuscript which we plan to put in print, Sam lays out the problem and solutions. The first step is to get your children out of government schools.
http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/Manuscripts/How%20to%20Raise%20a%20Literate%20Child.pdf
The Blumenfeld Archives
KATYN – 84 YEARS AGO Unravelling One of the Many Secrets of the Second World War
To view the video of this presentation on our Vimeo Gallery, click here.
To listen to the audio lecture on Sermon Audio, click here.
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To read this article on the web with pictures click here
Disinformation Campaign Exposed
One of the most extraordinary mysteries, conspiracies and disinformation campaigns has finally been exposed, implicating numerous prominent heads of state in the atrocities and subsequent cover-up scandals. A complex edifice of deception has been thoroughly dismantled by patient and persistent perseverance and pressure.
One of the most extraordinary mysteries, conspiracies and disinformation campaigns has finally been exposed, implicating numerous prominent heads of state in the atrocities and subsequent cover-up scandals. A complex edifice of deception has been thoroughly dismantled by patient and persistent perseverance and pressure.
Mission to Poland
On a Mission to Poland in 1990, I saw a monument for the victims of the Katyn Forest Massacre in 1940, I questioned whether they did not mean 1941? “Surely you don’t believe the Russian propaganda?” they challenged me. I did not know what they were talking about. The Polish Christians were most agitated over my ignorance on this matter.
A Lesson in History
They explained that although Great Britain and France had declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, ostensibly because Germany had invaded Poland, so Russia also invaded Poland in 1939. “Of course, most history books omit that fact.” The Katyn Forest is deep in Soviet territory, closer to Moscow than Warsaw, they pointed out. Over 22,000 Polish prisoners, including over 8,000 officers, were murdered in cold blood by the Soviet NKVD in the spring of 1940. When this crime was discovered, Stalin’s Soviet Russia was an ally of Great Britain and the United States of America. Therefore, they found it more convenient to attribute this Russian atrocity to their German enemies.
Judicial Fraud
The Polish Christians informed me that the British, Americans and French chose to participate in judicial fraud at the Nuremberg Trials by indicting the German Army with what were plainly Communist atrocities committed by Soviet Russia.
Missing Polish Prisoners of War
In December 1941, the head of the London based Polish government-in-exile, General Wladyslaw Sikorski enquired of Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, what had become of Polish prisoners of war captured by the Soviets during their invasion of Poland in September 1939. Stalin assured Sikorski that all Polish POWs had been released. He opinioned that some might have moved to Manchuria.
Mass Graves Exhumed
In 1943, a German intelligence officer, Rudolph von Gersdorff, serving with the Abwehr, received reports about mass graves of Polish military officers near Katyn. A ditch 28m long and 16m wide was found which contained the bodies of 3,000 Polish officers piled up in 12 layers. This was only the first of many such graves to be unearthed. German soldiers unearthed numerous mass graves of many thousands of Polish officers who had been massacred in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. German news reports claimed that this was yet another evidence of the war crimes and atrocities committed by the Communist commissars of the Soviet Union. When the German government announced the discovery of the mass graves in the Katyn Forest, the London based Polish government-in-exile requested an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it and claimed that the victims had been murdered by the Nazis.
Investigation
The German government brought in a European Commission of 12 forensic experts and their staff from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia and Hungary. Even Polish, American and British Prisoners of War were included in the investigation. The reports of these neutral investigators confirmed that the victims were indeed Polish officers, NCOs and intellectuals who were victims of Russian forces in the summer of 1940. When the Polish government-in-exile insisted on bringing the matter before the International Red Cross, General Sikorski died in an aircraft crash in July 1943, an event that was described as “convenient to the allied leaders.” Numerous books and documentary films have been made of “The Assassination of General Sikorski.”
The Burdenko Commission
The Soviets hastened to orchestrate an alternative Soviet version of the now disclosed massacre, to claim that the Polish POWs had been massacred, not by the Soviets, but by the Nazis. Nikolai Burdenko, the President of the Soviet Academy of Medicine, presided over a commission appointed by Stalin to investigate the incident. Burdenko claimed to have interviewed more than a hundred eyewitnesses who swore that the Nazis had massacred the Polish POWs in autumn, 1941.
The Nuremberg Trials
At the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-1946, the German military was proclaimed guilty of shooting Polish Prisoners of War in the Katyn Forest. So, the Soviet version of the Katyn Massacre moved from war-time propaganda into school history books: The Germans shot Polish Prisoners of War in Katyn Forest in 1941.
Duplicity
The Polish-Soviet crisis threatened Western-Soviet relations and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt were torn between their commitment to their Polish ally and the demands of Stalin. In private, Churchill agreed that the atrocity was most likely carried out by the Soviets. According to Edward Raczynski, Churchill admitted on 15 April 1943, during a conversation with General Sikorski: “Alas, the German revelations are probably true. The Bolsheviks can be very cruel.” However, on 24 April 1943, Churchill assured the Soviets: “We shall certainly oppose vigorously any investigation by the International Red Cross or any other body…” Classified UK documents concluded that Soviet guilt was “a near certainty”, but the alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than the moral issue. The official version parroted the Soviet propaganda and the censors suppressed all contradictory accounts.
Cover-up
The British Foreign Secretary pointed out several inconsistencies, and near impossibilities, in the Soviet version. Churchill’s post-war account of Katyn skirts over the Katyn Massacre by referring to “the 1944 Soviet Enquiry which attributed guilt to the Germans” adding cryptically: “belief seems an act of faith.”
Suppressed
When US Navy Lieutenant Commander George Earle produced a report concluding that the massacres were committed by the Soviet Union, President Roosevelt ordered Earle’s report to be suppressed. When Earle formally requested permission to publish his findings, the President issued a written order forbidding it. Earle was reassigned and spent the rest of the War in the remote island of American Samoa.
Reports Destroyed
Two senior American Prisoners of War, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Stewart and Colonel John van Vliet, taken by the Germans to Katyn for investigation, submitted a report, after their release in 1945, that the Soviets were definitely responsible for the Massacre. George Marshall’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Major General Clayton Bissell, destroyed the report. During the 1951-1952 Congressional Investigations, General Bissell defended his action before Congress arguing that it was not in the US interest to antagonise the Soviet Union, which was America’s ally.
Embarrassed
The Americans and British were embarrassed by the Soviet inclusion of the Katyn Forest Massacre in the indictments against the German military at Nuremberg. Soviet General Roman Redenko, at the Nuremberg Tribunal, stated that “One of the most important criminal acts for which the major war criminals are responsible was the mass execution of Polish Prisoners of War shot in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk by the German Fascist invaders.” Katyn was: “The worst massacre of Prisoners of War in history.”
Hypocrisy
For sheer bare-faced hypocrisy, this accusation was classic. All present at the trial, including the one making the accusation, knew that this was judicial fraud and farce.
Censorship
The Black Book of Censorship in the People’s Republic of Poland expressly stated: “Any attempt to burden the Soviet Union with the responsibility for the deaths of Polish officers in Katyn Forest is forbidden.” Further evidence that everyone knew who was really responsible, was that even the most simple memorial erected in Poland such as Katyn 1940, was confiscated by police and destroyed. The Polish practice was to erect memorial crosses on All Saints’ Day. These were always dismantled by the police. If Katyn had really been a Nazi atrocity, it would not have been a taboo subject in Communist-controlled countries. Not only did the Soviet Union forbid any monuments to be erected to victims of the Katyn Massacre, but the British government also objected to plans to build a Katyn monument in the UK.
Disinformation Campaign
In the 1960s, the Soviets launched a Disinformation Offensive to side-track the persistent accusations of Soviet atrocities and massacres throughout Eastern Europe. A village in Belarus, Khatyn, whose name is very similar to Katyn, was chosen as a site for a memorial to commemorate the victims of Nazi atrocities. Apparently, 149 Khatyn villagers had been massacred by Ukrainian and Belarus soldiers fighting for the Nazis in March 1943. This Khatyn Memorial became an obligatory stop for all foreign visitors. This Disinformation Campaign scored its major success in 1974 when US President Richard Nixon was brought to Khatyn to remember the Polish victims of the Nazis! From this time all Soviet publications displaced Katyn with Khatyn, including in Polish encyclopaedias and historical dictionaries.
Facts are Stubborn Things
Every Soviet leader had to deal with the persistent Polish charges of the Katyn Forest Massacre. The Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s used underground printing presses to expose the Soviet duplicity and print the facts about the Katyn Forest Massacre.
Gorbachev’s Glasnost
Mikhail Gorbachev launched a historical commission in 1987 to create a new Soviet version of what had actually happened at Katyn. Gorbachev’s Politburo proposed in 1988 to build a memorial to the victims of the massacre “executed by Hitlerites in Katyn” alongside a memorial to 500 Soviet POWs supposedly also killed at Katyn by the Germans – a myth created by the Burdenko Commission with absolutely no evidence that it ever happened at all. Gorbachev also offered the Poles “a simplified procedure” for relatives wishing to visit the sites where their loved ones lay buried.
One of the Worst Crimes Ever
However, the Polish historians tenaciously exposed the Russian responsibility, and the Catholic church in Poland labelled the Katyn Massacre “one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind.”
Exposure
Gorbachev’s trusted advisor, Valentin Falin, reported that Polish historians subverted the Soviet Commission by producing their own evidence exposing the 1944 Burdenko Report as spurious. Without waiting for the Soviet Commission’s response, the Poles began publishing the facts. The problem stubbornly refused to go away. Even the communist puppet government of Jaruzelski was forced to admit that “the liquidation of the Polish officers was the responsibility, of the USSR.”
Admission
On the symbolic date of 13 April 1990, 47 years after Berlin radio had announced the discovery of the massacre site, Gorbachev handed over two boxes of evidence to the Poles. The documents made clear that the Katyn Massacre was the work of the head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria. Gorbachev attempted to convince the Poles that more than 20,000 Polish nationals had been executed by the secret police chief without any authority from the Soviet Politburo!
Deception Rejected
This limited confession and further attempts at deception only enraged the Polish people further. An investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Soviet Union in 1991, and later by the Russian Federation, confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres. However, the Russian Federation later tried to diminish the number of deaths to 1,803 Polish citizens. They also refused to classify the action as a war crime, or as an act of genocide. They declared the investigation closed on the grounds that the perpetrators of the massacre were already dead.
Finally the Truth Comes Out
In October 1992, Boris Yeltsin, who had replaced Gorbachev, lowered the Soviet flag, abolished the Soviet Union and handed over “newly found” secret documents from the Soviet Politburo to Polish president Lech Walensa. The Politburo order dated 5 March 1940, was entitled, Question of the NKVD. In it, Beria informed Stalin that 14,736 Polish officers, officials, police officials, gendarmes and other intellectuals were being held in prison camps in occupied Polish territory and that 18,632 similar people were being held in camps in the Western Provinces of Ukraine and Belarus. Beria requested permission to shoot them all.
Stalin’s Order
Stalin’s “in favour” and bold signature are scrawled at the top of Beria’s question. Five other Politburo members also signed and approved the execution order. The document was labelled Top Secret. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were Polish military officers taken prisoner during the September 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. Another 6,000 were police officers, with the rest being Polish Intelligentsia arrested for being “bourgeois”. The Katyn Forest Massacre was justified by Stalin’s Politburo as necessary to deprive a potential future Polish military of its leadership. Since Russia intended to keep the Eastern portion of Poland, he was determined to deprive it of a large proportion of its military and intellectual elite.
Cold-Blooded Mass Murder
Those who were murdered, in the first batch alone, included: an Admiral, 2 Generals, 24 Colonels, 79 Lieutenant Colonels, 258 Majors, 654 Captains, 17 Naval Captains, 3,420 NCOs, 7 Chaplains, 20 University Professors, 300 Physicians, hundreds of lawyers, engineers and teachers, more than one hundred writers and journalists and over 200 pilots. Altogether during the massacres, the NKVD murdered 14 Polish Generals. Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin, the Chief Executioner for the NKVD, is reported to have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, from the Ostashkov Camp, over a period of 28 days in April 1940.
A Legacy of Deception
Further documents revealed that every Soviet chairman since Joseph Stalin had signed out the Politburo’s Katyn file and was well aware of the Russian complicity in this crime. In a Memo dated 20 March 1959, to Chairman Khrushchev, Interior Minister Alexander Shelepin reported: “The Committee of State Security… has held, since 1940, case files and other materials regarding prisoners and interned officers, policemen, gendarmes, military settlers, landowners, etc., persons from former bourgeois Poland who were shot in the same year. In all, on the basis of the decision of a special Troica of the NKVD, USSR, 21,857 people were shot… the entire operation was carried out on the basis of the decision of the Central Committee of 5 March 1940. Since 1940, no information from these files was released to anyone. All of the files, numbering 21,857, have been stored in a sealed location. To Soviet organs, all of these files represent neither operational interest nor historical value. It is also doubtful that they could be of any real value to our Polish friends. Quite the contrary, any unforeseen incident may lead to revealing the operation with all the undesirable consequences for our state. This is especially so because, regarding those shot in the Katyn Forest, there is an official version supported by an Investigation carried out on the initiative of the Soviet state in 1944, by the Burdenko Commission… which concluded that all of the Poles liquidated there are considered to have been killed by the German invaders. The conclusions of the commission became firmly established in international public opinion. It seems appropriate to destroy all of the records regarding the persons shot in 1940, in the above mentioned operation.”
Evidence Destroyed
Shelepin’s recommendation to purge the records was carried out with these over 21,000 case files destroyed. However, the Politburo Execution Order and Memo from Beria remained in the official record. Files later released from Gorbachev’s time included advice from advisors, that should the truth of the Katyn Forest Massacre come out, “people could be convinced that the Soviet Union was no better than, and may have been worse than, Nazi Germany during the war and that the Soviet Union bears no less responsibility for the war.”
Polish Deportations
Polish historians point out that during the 1930s, hundreds-of-thousands of Poles living in the Western areas of the Soviet Union were marked out for persecution by Stalin – either execution, or deportation to Central Asia. The Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, was followed by more waves of arrests and mass deportations to the East. When the Katyn Forest Massacre took place, hundreds-of-thousands of Poles, mostly the better-educated and economically active citizens, were already in exile in Siberia, or in labour camps in Central Asia. They were herded there in horribly overcrowded freight trains and at least one out of every five of them died during transportation to the Soviet concentration camps.
Oppression
Between 320,000, to possibly up to one million, Polish citizens were deported to the Soviet Union. Of one group of 12,000 Poles incarcerated in Delstroy, near Kolyma, in 1940, only 583 survived by 1942. Over 570,000 Polish citizens were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps by the Soviets during the war. Polish prisoners were subjected to lengthy interrogations between October 1939 and February 1940. These interviews were a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. According to NKVD reports, if the prisoners could not be persuaded to adopt a pro-communist attitude, they were declared “hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority” and condemned to death.
Further Massacres
When Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941, the NKVD concentration camp guards massacred thousands more Polish prisoners before fleeing eastwards to avoid the German advance.
The Betrayal of Warsaw
When the war was reaching its end and the Red Army was at the very gates of Warsaw, radio broadcasts from Russia urged the Polish citizens to rise up in revolt! The Soviet Army was then ordered to stand by and render no assistance as the Germans crushed the Warsaw Uprising. Stalin said that it was better that all resistance in Poland be crushed before Soviet occupation.
South Africa’s Support Remembered
The Polish Christians in 1990 reminded me that only the South African Air Force (SAAF) had flown in weapons and aid to the Polish underground during the Warsaw Uprising. I was surprised. I had read that the RAF had done so – but that was another lie. It was actually the SAAF, but because of apartheid, historians had expunged South Africa’s role and replaced it with the RAF. The fact that history books could be re-written to conform to politically correct dictates is disturbing.
Never Liberated
Polish citizens strenuously objected to any suggestion that they had been “liberated” by the Soviets. “The Soviets never liberated anyone!” they insisted. The first act of the Soviets on occupying Poland was arresting all leaders of the underground army and government. Polish Christians pointed out that most of the atrocities attributed to the Germans were actually communist atrocities committed by the Soviets and conveniently blamed on their enemies. Polish relatives of the victims continued to urge the European Court of Human Rights to rule on the crimes of the Stalin regime.
Putin’s Perspective
To Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the Katyn Forest Massacre is an inconvenient truth which taints Russian war-time heroism. Putin’s chief military prosecutor, Alexander Savenkov, issued a ruling on Katyn on 11 March 2005, in which they acknowledged that the NKVD Troika found 14,542 Polish citizens, held in NKVD camps, guilty of committing state crimes and made a decision to shoot them in the spring of 1940. Putin’s representative claims that these Soviet officials “abused their authority,” but that no criminal cases could be opened against them because the guilty parties had since died. The Polish claim of genocide was rejected and although they agreed to hand over 67 of the 183 volumes of evidence, two-thirds of the remaining evidence was to remain classified.
Outrage
The Polish parliament was outraged and demanded that Russia’s Katyn archives all be declassified and that Russian courts rule that the Katyn Forest Massacre was an act of genocide. Communists throughout the world would prefer the truth about Katyn to be buried, but Christians in Poland, and throughout Eastern Europe, determined to exhume the secrets and expose the true nature of Soviet Communism.
Pressure
Human Rights societies continued to pressure the Russian government, until in November 2010, the Russian Duma approved the declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the Massacre of Polish Prisoners of War. This was only after the disastrous plane crash of Polish leaders, enroute to Katyn for the 70th Anniversary Commemoration.
Death Flight – 12 Years Ago
On 10 April 2010, an aircraft carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 87 other politicians and high-ranking army officers, crashed near Smolensk, killing all 96 on board the aircraft. The passengers were to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. The Polish people were convinced that they were the victims of a communist terror campaign which assassinated their president and senior leaders on the eve of the most important and solemn anniversary of this massacre. Many observed that it was like the assassination of Poland’s wartime leader, General Sikorski, in 1943. In the furore following the death flight of the Polish government, the Russian Duma finally acknowledged Russia’s guilt for the Katyn Forest Massacre.
War Crime
In 2011, the European Court of Human Rights declared admissible two complaints of relatives of the massacre victims against Russia concerning the inadequacy of their investigations. In a ruling on 16 April 2012, the court found that Russia had violated the rights of victims’ relatives and described the Massacre as a war-crime. It had taken 72 years, but facts are stubborn things.
“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity…” 2 Peter 2:19
In His grace and service
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Please Pray for and Support: https://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/priority-projects.html
Sources:
Katyn: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Polish Massacre, by Allen Paul, Scribner, 1991
Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory, by George Sanford, 2005
Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment, by Anna Cienciala, Jael University Press, 2007
Class Cleansing: The Katyn Massacre, by Victor Zaslavski, Telos Press, 2008
World War II Behind Closed Doors, by Laurence Rees, Random House, 2010
Katyn: Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth, by Allen Paul, Northern Illinois University Press, 2010
See also:
Do Not Be Deceived (to see the video, click here; to listen to the audio, click here.)
How Propaganda Changes Perceptions and People (to see the PowerPoint, click here.)
Dealing with Deceit
The Greatest Killer (to see the video, click here; to see the PowerPoint, click here; to listen to the audio, click here.)
Death By Government
Communist Liberation – Myth and Reality (to view the tract, click here.)
The Heart of Communism (to see the PowerPoint, click here; to view the tract, click here.)
The Heart and Soul of Karl Marx (to see the PowerPoint, click here; to view the tract, click here; to listen to the audio, click here.)
Farms and Freedom Under Fire in South Africa (to listen to the audio, click here.)
Lessons from the Rwandan Holocaust (to listen to the audio, click here.)
Security and Survival Handbook
Camp Constitution is sponsoring a speaking tour for author and documentary producer Vince Ellison
Camp Constitution Speakers Bureau is pleased to announce that it is hosting a speaking tour for Mr. Vince Everett Ellison, author and documentary producer in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire from Thursday May 2 to Saturday May 4.
Where:
Rhode Island:
Thursday May 2
East Warren Rod and Gun Club. 24 Long Ln. Warren.
Time: 4:00 PM
Food and beverages available for sale
Mr. Ellison will start speaking around 6:00 PM
This event is hosted by CORR USA
Massachusetts:
Friday May 3:
12:00 Noon A luncheon at a private residence in Lexington, If interested, E-mail me for more info.
7:00 PM One Cranberry Hill Lexington
New Hampshire
Saturday May 4:
11:00 AM Charlies Barn Community Center 29 S. Village Rd. Loudon, NH
7:00 PM Alton Senior Center 7 Pierson Rd. Alton, NH
All events are free. Donations accepted.
Mr. Ellison’s bio:
Vince‘s Bio: Vince Everett Ellison was born on a cotton plantation in Haywood County, Tennessee. His parents at that time were sharecroppers. Through hard work and a belief in Jesus Christ, his parents pulled him and his seven siblings out of poverty. His family started the Ellison Family Gospel singing group, where Vince sang and played multiple instruments as a child and young adult. Vince worked for five years as a Correctional Officer at the Medium/Maximum Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia, SC. Afterward, Vince worked in the nonprofit arena.
In 2000, Vince received the Republican Party nomination for the South Carolina 6th Congressional District. In 2019, Vince wrote The Iron Triangle: Inside the Liberal Democrat Plan to Use Race to Divide Christians and America in their Quest for Power and How We Can Defeat Them, which became an Amazon #1 bestseller. He has appeared numerous times on Hannity, The Laura Ingraham Show, Newsmax, OAN, The Joe Pags Show, The Brian Kilmeade Show, Tucker Carlson, and many other radio and television programs. He is the producer of the documentary “Will You Go to Hell For Me.” His latest book is Crime INC.
Vince speaking at Camp Constitution’s 2023 annual family camp: