Originally published in The Montclarion, student newspaper of Montclair State College (now University), Thursday, September 23, 1982, p. 9.

Note (Dec. 13, 1996): I have removed the real last name of the then-head of MSC Young Republicans, substituting "X". I did this because earlier this week he emailed me to let me know that he was no longer a "conservative". "You were right to criticize me in 1982," he wrote. "I was naive." This young man, long since graduated, now works in the helping professions and describes himself as a "progressive."

He did not ask me to remove his name, but in light of his note and the change in his views, I think it appropriate to do so. The target of this and the previous article is not him personally, but the views he once represented, but not longer does.

"Sources verify letter"

To the editor:

In my letter of September 9 I stated that "the 'NTS -- Alliance of Russian Solidarists' is a pro-nazi, fascist group," and I attacked the "MSC Republicans" for endorsing NTS literature.

The paragraph containing the proof for this statement was removed by The Montclarion for reasons of space, however, giving the impression that I had no evidence. Here is that paragraph.

NTS began in the mid-1930s as a far-right organization of Russian exile opponents of the Soviet Union. A 1951 book published by The National Committee for a Free Europe, a US-government-funded group which at that time also ran Radio Free Europe, noted the following about NTS: "The original program of the NTS was based upon the ideas of Mussolini's corporate state ... After the war ... its program, published in its most recent form in 1948, still retains many traces of fascism ... The core of the group rep ortedly remains the same as before the war, and its leaders are charged with proceeding in the same authoritarian manner as before."

The NTS collaborated actively with the German nazis during the war: "The NTS people were permitted by the Germans to work among the Russian slave laborers and Russian prisoners."

This while the Nazis were murdering 20 million Soviet citizens! As the Nazis' allies (against their own people, too), the NTS shares the guilt for this genocidal mass murder. As a result of this fascist record, another fiercely anti-communist group of Rus sian exiles, SBONR, declared at its 1949 Congress that NTS was "unfit for cooperation for democratic-republican groups."

The source of these facts is Russian Émigré politics, ed. George Fischer (New York: Free Russia Fund, 1951, p. 72). Thus the "MSC Republicans" did in fact endorse a fascist group.

It is inevitable that, in every society grounded in inequality and exploitation -- whether it be France (1968), Newark, New Jersey (1967) -- rebellion will break out among the oppressed. Anyone who defends such societies will be led, logically, to defend fascism and repression for the sake of preserving that inequality and exploitation. Fundamentally, therefore, Brezhnev, Jaruzelski, LBJ, and Reagan are equivalent; the bullets are the same, only the "justification" for them differs.

I offered, in a phone conversation on September 14, to debate Jerry X, head of "MSC Republicans," on the broader issues of Soviet and US-style fascism; he has refused. His silence speaks louder than all his shrill leaflets and "Rebuttals." Fascists ar e still fascists, Mr X.

Grover Furr

BACK to first article on this subject, or to Grover Furr's Politics and Social Issues Page.

Please send me your comments and criticisms!