Talk:Antony C. Sutton

NPOV - missing criticism

Sutton is a -hm- highly controversial author, his books are mainly cited in conspiraca websites and lack seriousness and deeper understanding and research (you better do not build a theory on sutton but at least try to cross check his findings with other, more serios sources. When I did I found nearly all of what he wrote in the chapter counter researched by me - from his "most important" skull and bones book- to be false). I do not see any criticism of Sutton in the article, what makes him look like a serious source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.54.55 (talk) 06:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

If you have references to published criticism of an article subject, add it to the article. If you don←'t, don't deface the article with tags. If no further information is submitted, other than your own personal research, I will consider this dispute resolved. - Crosbiesmith (talk) 08:24, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree and have removed the tag. 76.67.99.166 (talk) 14:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sutton is a conspiracy theorist who,at best,makes vague connections.The fact that all sources are Sutton makes this article a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.191.236.24 (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess you didn't notice the quote from Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Carter, or Richard Pipes. It needs to be included in bibliography, maybe you could be constructive and take care of that rather than making erroneous criticisms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.134.237.175 (talk) 16:33, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Well at the very least one should include a listing of Henry Ashby Turner, GERMAN BIG BUSINESS AND THE RISE OF HITLER, as an illustration of what is wrong with Sutton's work. Turner debunks the notion that Hitler was brought to power predominantly by big business, whereas as Sutton circulates the theory that Hitler's rise was engineered by Wall Street. That's a gross overstatement. Sutton offers some interesting information about some possible assistance which Hitler may have received in some specific instances, but not enough to contradict Turner's basic argument that other German conservative parties received more assistance and that Hitler's rise was primarily the result of his being underestimated by them rather than any specific funding done with the intent of putting Hitler in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.86.226.15 (talk) 15:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Turner does no such thing. Sutton is not even mentioned in mentioned in Turner's work, though he goes after Poole who wrote WHO FUNDED HITLER and Poole is not even an academic in this field. I think the most important and simple distinction to understand between the two books which you obviously did not make is that Turner's focus is on German business, and Sutton focuses on international and American business. Further Turner only looks at political contributions and not at the "war machine." Much of Sutton's work is now being vindicated by recent research and released archival information and Turner was in the middle of this before he died. When Ford and GM were came under fire recently for complicity with the Nazis and use of slave labor during the war, Ford opened up it's archives to the public and apologized while GM kept theirs closed and commissioned and expert to examine them and compile a report. That expert was none other than Henry Ashby Turner Jr, corporate shill. He painted the most favorable picture of GM as he could, and his book General Motors and the Nazis was based on this white wash. Compare this to award winning journalist Edwin Black's work on the subject, try Nazi Nexus. Watch Hitler's American Business Partners and Banking with Hitler. Sutton may not have been perfect but he was way ahead of his time with his correct assertions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.182.4.49 (talk) 08:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Typical Marxist crap. Sutton is not being "vindicated" by 'recent research' or anything else, as all his info is old stuff that academics already knew, all he did was spin it to suit his fanaticism and spout disinformation on it. As for Turner, you'll have to do a lot better then personal attacks and shrilly calling him that tired old insult of "corporate shrill." Edwin Black is a far left conspiracy theorist and lair (his misinformation and spin about IBM for instance was used in a lawsuit and it was tossed out) and his "awards" are phony garbage "awarded" by far left organizations and thus are meaningless other than to Commies. Try your tired Marxist crap somewhere else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.239.232.139 (talk) 23:26, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Its hard to find criticism for just the reason the mention. Barely anyone out of the world of conspiracy theory uses this material. However the facts he uses are actually well known amongst foreign policy experts, historians and some marxists. Plenty of books and newspaper articles going back to the 20's detail everything he says about collusion between the Soviet Government and western firms. He just took existing data people in the mainstream don't here or care about and added a conspiratorial twist.

Going through his surprisingly short books on wall street financing the nazis and commies I found incredible weak arguments backed up by a pretty small list of only moderately impressive sources he is forced to reuse. I'm not going to say there isn't some good stuff in there but there are mainstream sources about U.S Soviet trade relations before and after WW2. Sutton basically exaggerates Soviet "dependency" on the US, ignores their own technological achievements, projects insidious ambitions of the American firms involved in Soviet trade and fail to take relativism, context and nuance into his arguments. NeoStalinist (talk) 17:51, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you have sources or is it original research because you read his books and disagree for whatever reason? Popish Plot (talk) 19:19, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

A combination of both. Sutton's works were surprisingly short and poorly sourced in my opinion.

I read a lot about the Soviet Union and study its history. Its no secret that its early growth required working with American firms. The Russian empire was one of the least developed nations on Earth and was still essentially an agrarian feudal state. To me it makes complete sense to just go get the technology that exists instead of wasting your time developing it. Governments work with other governments that have technology they want, firms work with other firms when they are in need of technical assistance to. This isn't a conspiracy. Its what all firms and governments do. Not to mention this was mostly happening mostly in the 30's when money was scare to be made in America. Of course the Soviets did do a lot of good work developing physics, chemistry, and aerospace technology on their own and much of the industries Sutton points to as being assisted by US industries were already largely foreign owned during the Russian empire(oil stands out).

Marxists.org even has a book from the 20's detailing Soviet Trade relations with America. If there was some secret conspiracy to set up the Soviet Union I doubt Marxists would openly share this book online. Post WW2 trade was more limited but you can find plenty of work on it as well in main stream sources, they say similar things to Sutton but without the cryptic language or the rightous indignation about how they are being persecuted by a shadowy elite. Wikipedia itself uses sources from the 20's and 30's on the page about Amtorg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtorg_Trading_Corporation

How he defines "invention" is also incredibly dubious. 90-95% of Soviet technology was just "Western". Does this mean the US automotive industry is a shame created by a shadowy conspiracy to import the combustion engines(developed in Europe) to America?Russia had tractors before the revolution, they were just really bad. Do we include this in the page on the list of Russian inventions? Did the technology they got include Sputnik, the AK-47, leg lengthening surgery, blood banks, computers and cell phones? There are so many lists of "Soviet inventions" online it seems outright strange.

Finally there's a very good book called "Young Stalin". Its incredibly well written and sourced and details much of Stalin's activities before the Bolshevik Revolution in Georgia and Azerbaijan. One conclusion based on all of the bank robberies and extortions Stalin was engaged in made the author state "Stalin, through his bank robberies and gangsterism became Lenin's main fundraiser." Of course After the revolution the Soviets established their own banks, then confiscated wealth from the Czar and the aristocracy, so I really don't see why they needed Wall street money, they were doing well on their own. Either way very little foregn money was actually linked to them. Not to mention the Soviet government was one of the most contained on Earth. About 100% of capital investment was made by them. Based on everything I read the USA and USSR traded very little with each other, especially in the context of global trade. Mostly each side bought raw goods. Furs, caviar, lumber and ores from the USSR and grain, fertilizer and cotton from the USA. Technical parts, machine tools and the like constituted an insignificant amount either way, and that did go BOTH ways.

I'll try to be fair. His three volumes have are an impressive 1200+ pages altogether. But, despite some interesting facts, some useful anecdotes and thought provoking quotes he was only able to find abut 200 contracts for one book. This was over a span of 15-20 years, which in global historical context, is almost nothing. A few hundred or thousand engineers and business people in the entire Soviet economy is hardly condemnation of the entire Soviet economy. I'll quote one Amazon user's review of another conspiracy book

"A further note: just because the U.S. has a history of business dealings with the USSR hardly means it was "made in the U.S.A." We have extensive business dealings all over the world. Did we also "create" Japan, England and Germany?" NeoStalinist (talk) 01:04, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

References

karl marx

in his the federal reserve conspiracy he talks about karl marx he says that "the ten points of the Marxian Manifesto, a program designed to overthrow the middle class bourgeoisie (not the big capitalist)"

this is an error on Sutton's part as Marx does not talk much about a middle class, Marx defines bourgeoisie as the upper class the rulers.

This argument on Sutton part seems as a fallacy of redefining words.

I wonder how much or if any more Sutton crosses the line to conspiracy, which i find a waste of time.

Incorrect. From Wikipedia itself: "In English, the term 'bourgeoisie' is often used to denote the middle classes." And, "As the economic managers of the (raw) materials, the goods, and the services, and thus the capital (money) produced by the feudal economy, the term "bourgeoisie" evolved to also denote the middle class — the businessmen and businesswomen who accumulated, administered, and controlled the capital that made possible the development of the bourgs into cities." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.141.133.114 (talk) 13:29, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

You're definition mongering. The page specifically says that is the French use of the word. Within Marxism it essentially boils down to "ruling class" people who own productive forces. He differentiated between petit and haute bourgeoise but never went very far in depth in describing the former. The former essentially being upper middle class artisans and business owners and the later the upper class involved in financing and ownership of industry. NeoStalinist (talk) 17:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

References

Vandalism

This article was vandalized by someone who made it appear that Sutton's work done at and for Stanford Univ. was just shared with Stanford. 64.229.31.80 14:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I find earlier versions to be more descriptive, but some of your edits are also constructive, but, imo, bordering on POV. The revision before yours says: He shared his research with the University of London and Stanford's Hoover Institute and paid no heed to how governments, corporations, and political powers would react. I don't see what qualms you have here... If you could combine this current revision and the revision before into one article, that'd be awesome. Copysan 00:20, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

For the record Sutton's early work was in fact published by the Hoover Institution which is a unit Stanford University. He used to be listed as a fellow on the Hoover Institute website but no longer is. You can search his name on this stanford hyperlink and clearly see his name listed as a reference and his work listed as published by the Institute: http://hoohila.stanford.edu/books/russian_biblio.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Institution —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.211.248.17 (talk) 19:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

POV

"sharing with the public an evident life of unmitigated research [...], of passion in answers, in truths regardless of how government, corporations, and political powers would (and did) react." and "he was not one to characterize the notion of respect in acquiescence; thus he continued his research"

This is clearly POV:ed.. More a hagiography than actual facts. Apparatus 20:35, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Another view

There's barely any information in the article. The other people posting seem to be arguing over tiny crumbs. [Sept. 12, 2006]

"In his own words"

What's the story of this section? Is it an autobiographical sketch? What's the source? It should either be placed in quotation marks or edited for consistency with the other material. -Will Beback 20:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Skull and Bones membership is not "purported".

I'm changing "using membership lists purportedly revealing". It's not purported. Once you know what you are looking for, the list is actually right here for all to see, but a few years behind the times, in the Yale Library. That's where I found it and got it. Steranko. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steranko (talk • contribs) 11:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

wow I'm done with the thought police at wikipedia

has anyone noticed that the Richard Pipes quote has been removed? Professor Richard Pipes of Harvard noted: "In his three-volume detailed account of Soviet Purchases of Western Equipment and Technology ..." Sutton comes to conclusions that are uncomfortable for many businessmen and economists. For this reason his work tends to be either dismissed out of hand as 'extreme' or, more often, simply ignored." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.152.4 (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I see that quote is there but I'm not sure, is that actually said in his book "Survival Is Not Enough: Soviet Realities and America's Future (Simon & Schuster;1984)"? I am not sure, haven't read it. Popish Plot (talk) 19:23, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

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Nazi-era tropes in Sutton

I am amazed that there is no more direct criticism in the article of Sutton's book, Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. It isn't even presented as a controversial work here. What is implied by "Wall Street" is Jewish bankers and what is hinted at by connecting them to "Bolsheviks", is the Nazi-era theory of capitalism and communism being "controlled by Jews." The problem is, the Nazi-era Germans used this theory to cover up the fact that the German Empire, not Wall Street, had initially helped assist the October Revolution (this was embarrassing for Hitler and co to try and wriggle out of). Jacob Schiff, as well as other American financial interests, Jewish or non-Jewish, did bankrolls the liberals in the February Revolution, a bit like the phony George Soros "colour revolutions" the CIA backs today, but that has nothing to do with the October Revolution (the Bolsheviks). We need to take Sutton to task in the article a bit more over this. Claíomh Solais (talk) 00:42, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

This is nothing but bogus speculation that demonstrates a blatant unfamiliarity with Sutton’s work or even the basic orientation of his positions. In many of his books and interviews, he makes his opinion on this matter quite clear: the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy theory is unfounded and likely deliberate misdirection. The very book Claíomh Solais has cited in their above post includes an appendix dedicated to this very subject: "The Jewish Conspiracy Theory of the Bolshevik Revolution." The appendix is listed in the table of contents, making it difficult to miss even in a cursory examination of the book. The appendix addresses the theory as espoused by other authors, briefly reviews the literature often cited to support the claim, and concludes thusly:

"The persistence with which the Jewish-conspiracy myth has been pushed suggests that it may well be a deliberate device to divert attention from the real issues and the real causes. The evidence provided in this book suggests that the New York bankers who were also Jewish had relatively minor roles in supporting the Bolsheviks, while the New York bankers who were also Gentiles (Morgan, Rockefeller, Thompson) had major roles. What better way to divert attention from the real operators than by the medieval bogeyman of anti-Semitism?" (Source: Sutton, Antony C. "Appendix 2: The Jewish Conspiracy Theory of the Bolshevik Revolution." Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1974, p. 189.)

It additionally seems worth noting that the above user "has been blocked indefinitely because CheckUser evidence confirms that the account's owner has abusively used multiple accounts." Neighborhood Review (talk) 03:57, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• The War on Gold, by Antony C. Sutton (‘76 Press, 1976).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:51, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Overuse of primary sources and unsourced claims

Large parts of this article are unsourced or original interpretations of WP:PRIMARY and WP:SELFSOURCE material and lack the required references to reliable, independent secondary sources. Per WP:PSTS, "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and avoid novel interpretations of primary sources." WP:PRIMARY has a 6-part test for use of primary sources that warns, "primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." WP:SELFSOURCE also has a 5-part test that limits use of sources to describe themselves. The article has been tagged for overuse of primary sources since 2017. I added some inline tags. I suggest that unreferenced factual claims, and interpretations not referenced to independent secondary WP:RS, must be referenced or deleted soon. Llll5032 (talk) 18:01, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Filmography

Hello, Neighborhood Review, you recently undeleted content and removed "self-published source" tags from descriptions of works that may come from self-published sources and lack an independent RS. You cited WP:ABOUTSELF in your summary. Can you explain why it is WP:DUE and how WP:ABOUTSELF applies? Llll5032 (talk) 04:11, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi Llll5032, when I made that edit I was under the impression that the source satisfied all five criteria listed at WP:ABOUTSELF, but now that I’ve read the page over again I realize that I overlooked the extent to which that whole section relied on the one source alone. My apologies! I believe the cited interview reasonably meets the first four criteria, but I agree that too much of the article was based on such sources. Neighborhood Review (talk) 21:14, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Neighborhood Review. The shortened version may meet WP:ABOUTSELF criteria but may still not be WP:DUE. I have not been able to find WP:BESTSOURCES to describe most of his life and work per WP:INDY. Should we reach out to a message board (Perhaps NOR or NPOV) for help with finding sources or shortening the article? Llll5032 (talk) 00:33, 9 June 2022 (UTC)