The Rosenberg's Guilt

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

In a previous posting1 I discussed the Rosenberg case. In that case Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were found guilty of espionage and both were eventually executed.

What was especially interesting about the case was the refusal of so many for so long to accept that the Rosenberg's were guilty. As of late 2011 it appears that virtually everyone has accepted that Julius Rosenberg engaged in spying and his wife Ethel was well aware of her husband's activities.2 

At the time it was quite clear that the Rosenberg's were likely quite guilty. It was also clear that they could be quite useful as propaganda weapons. Both of the Rosenberg's were Communists and in that time period it meant that they were Stalinists.

Now Stalinists were abject true believers and political fanatics whose grovelling at the feet of Stalin was quite revolting. Like all true believers they rejected all evidence that contradicted their true faith; their doubleplusgood duckspeak regarding Stalin. Thus they ignored the veritable mountains of evidence of terror, violence and oppression in the Soviet Union. Their adoration of the most holy divine Stalin could not be besmirched by mere fact.

Thus they supported and indeed desired the establishment of a Communist system in the United States, for in their doupleplusgood minds slavery equaled freedom. Thus the one party tyranny of the Soviet Union was freedom and the terroristic Soviet system "liberation" for mankind.3

Thus to the Rosenberg's and their fellow true believers Stalin meant "freedom", "liberation" etc. No doubt black was white also.

This position of abject, true believing fanatical support for a brutal, genocidal regime is part of the actual guilt of the Rosenbergs. By supporting one of the most murderous political tyrannies in human history the Rosenbergs and their ilk were little better than Nazi supporters.

American Communists supported, murder, terror and the imposition of this murderous system in the United States. As I have mentioned before in another place many people were attracted to American Communism by a belief in Social justice etc.; but such an attraction required either doublethink to persist or a willful and deliberate ignoring of what the Soviet system was really like. Thus many American Communists wilfully ignored the Soviet Union while concentrating on things that really concerned them. Stalin's horrors being like a dog's indiscretion in the living room. Thus good causes were supported while the elephant in the room was ignored.4

Thus for example in the Rosenberg case, it was only after the trial that the Communists began their well orchestrated campaign on the Rosenberg's behalf. Included were baseless accusations of anti-Semitism. The actual purpose of the campaign on behalf of the Rosenbergs was their usefulness in distracting attention from the following disgraceful events behind the Iron Curtain. The infamous Slansky and related trials that had, like the show trials of the 1930's heaping helpings of absurd confessions to non-existent crimes and over 10 carried out death sentences. In the USSR there was the infamous "Doctor's Plot" that looked like it was to be the prelude to a new Great Terror. Those events were characterized by a wave of anti-Semitic propaganda in both Eastern Europe and the USSR, thinly veiled as anti-Zionism but full of anti-Semitic coded language. The Rosenberg case served a useful purpose of distracting attention from the above atrocities and were used as such.5

During all of this Ethel and Julius Rosenberg remained good little party minions, the atrocities and anti-Semitic campaigns of Eastern Europe dominated by the "Great Leader" Stalin were consigned by their duckspeak minds to the memory hole and forgotten. To the end Julius and Ethel Rosenberg remained fanatical, committed true believers. Mere fact made no impression on them.

That they believed they were innocent is also clear after all they were looking after the "true" interests of the USA and it's peoples by helping the land that would inaugurate the true emancipation and freedom of the human race. That they were in fact helping one of the most repellent tyrannies of history is abundantly clear.

At the time the Rosenbergs were alive the mass of abundant, accurate information about Stalin's Soviet Union would have indicated to any fair minded person that the Soviet Union under Stalin was a brutal tyranny; only a wilful act of self lobotomy and the need to "believe" could deny those facts. That anyone would characterize the Soviet Union under Stalin as anything but a brutal Police State, certainly not a "free" society of any description required much practice in deception and self deception along with wilful stupidity.6

Like Nazism, Communism, especially in its Stalinist form killed tens of millions so in this respect the Rosenbergs were like supporters of Nazism, for like Nazi supporters they supported a regime one of whose defining characteristics was a willingness to mass murder and oppress.

Thus aside from the Rosenberg's guilt for espionage for supplying top secret information to the Russians, the Rosenbergs were guilty of intellectual and moral idiocy and corruption of a very high order. That is the other guilt of the Rosenberg's.

1. See Here.

2. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's two sons concede that their parents were spies - Meeropol, Michael, and Meeropol, Robert, The Essential Lessons of the Rosenberg Case, Los Angles Times, October, 5, 2008, Here. see also Radosh, Ronald & Milton, Joyce, The Rosenberg File, Second Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven CONN, 1997.

3. See Caute, David, The Fellow Travellers, Second Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988, pp. 64-139, Judt, Tony, Past Imperfect, New York University Press,  New York, 2011, pp. 101-138, See also Haynes, John Earl, & Klehr, Harvey, In Denial, Encounter Books, New York, 2003, pp. 11-58.

4. IBID, and Judt, pp. 151-226.

5. Caute, pp. 311-312, 321, 334-335, Radosh et al, pp. 347-360, 452-453, Haynes et al, pp. 147-148, 198-205, Judt, pp. 104-108, 148-149.

6. See Caute, pp. 64-139, and Judt.

Pierre Cloutier