[Ascetic]

New I may be, yes, but that's no reason for this... bickering.

I always try to be amused by the ignorance and stubbornness of others, and I almost always succeed. Beyond my own personal amusement, however, I try to correct them. Educate them. Convince them. Such things are not accomplished through insults, but through logical argument (with the odd evocation of emotional response).

I appeal once more to rationality, read each other's posts and go at this without flaying each other at first sight. As what seems to be the lone user with the avatar of Gandhi, I can do no less than mediate, such is my nature.

Out of curiosity, I'd like to ask how old Tov and Rude are, since we seem to be stuck on this '14-year old' insult business. I'm sure I could find some clever and well-read 14-year olds if I had to. I like to think -I- was an intelligent 14-year old when I was one.

[Koba.]

For the record this thread has a lot of informative stuff on it...

http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/view ... ine+famine

Also I dont think Ukraine Welcomed Nazi's as 'liberators'.. Yet more nationalist propaganda just being repeated here.. I've seen the money the 'liberated ukraine' used during the war... it used the Latin Alphabet for Ukrainian Language.... If you knew anything about Ukrainians and their thoughts on the Ukrainian language you would know that many would view this as being a synonym to slavery.

Theres also a good story I read about the 'Liberated Ukraine' (true story)... I'll try to dig it up.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

I try to correct them. Educate them. Convince them. Such things are not accomplished through insults, but through logical argument

I really don't have the time nor the patience to try and convince Rude...This topic has been debated TO DEATH by me and others in this forum...and it does absolutely no good...becasue all the facts and evidence and discussions you carry on...are destroyed by one single ignorant sentance..."millions died and Stalin surely did it".

So its a waste of time...

Read the thread Lutalo links to for more details...

[GandalfTheGrey]

I really don't have the time nor the patience to try and convince Rude...This topic has been debated TO DEATH by me and others in this forum

And yet still it keeps reapearing

[Gothmog]

In the winter of 1932-1933, several million Ukrainians (imprecise statistics account for the wide range in estimates, from as low as 2 million to as high as 7 million) died as a result of what was surely a preventable famine. The large-scale hunger was closely linked the collectivisation campaign of Soviet agriculture launched by the Communist party. Extortionate amounts of grain were requisitioned; sometimes all of it was simply confiscated. Despite the pleas of local party activists who realized that catastrophe was imminent, nothing was done to alleviate the peasants' hunger. Famine was inevitable. Millions of peasants died, cannibalism broke out, and the peasantry, especially the Ukrainian peasantry, which at that time was the core of the Ukrainian nation, was crushed. To what extent the communist party can be held responsible for the famine is an issue of historical debate. Most historians however agree that it was partly responsible. Accordingly, this is one of Stalin’s crimes against humanity.

-You´re right, but I would like to mention some points:
1.The famine was not restricted to Ukaraine. It also happened in Russia
2.The total deaths caused by famine around the country (and probably including the related epidemies of thyphus and malaria) were around 5 million people. Most recent data are those from S. Weathcroft
3.There WAS a failure crop that resulted from a sever droght in 1931-32. This wasn´t the only cause for famine but helped to create it
4.Grain requisitions actually DECREASED (as a % of total harvest) in 1932, and exports were latter limited. It seems the government took some action against the famine, but too late. It could be related to lack of information (like in China during the GLF)

-I´ve had an argument with TS about this and posted lot of data from Weathcroft, Mark Tauger and Arch Getty on this matter (I´m a follower of the revisionist school...). You can find them if interested. My opinion is that famine was not deliberate, but was poorly managed. So partial responsability is a good veredict.

[Gothmog]

The Soviet Famine of 1931-33: Politically Motivated or Ecological Disaster?
Carla Thorson

Stephen Wheatcroft, Professor of History, University of Melbourne, Australia, presented new information on the famine based on extensive archival data now available on the tragedy of the Soviet countryside, in a talk sponsored by the Center for European & Eurasian Studies on May 5, 2003.


Was the great Soviet famine of 1931-1933 purposely designed by the Soviet leadership to quell Ukrainian nationalism or was it an accident of ecological dimensions? Professor Stephen Wheatcroft, University of Melbourne Australia argued that neither is entirely correct, based on extensive archival research from the period.

In a talk sponsored by the Center for European & Eurasian Studies at UCLA on May 5th, Wheatcroft also challenged previous estimates of the number of people who died during the famine. His conclusions are based on statistical analysis of demographic and economic data, gathered while working among a large group of Western, Russian, and Asian scholars analyzing a vast collection of formerly secret Soviet documents, to be published in 6 volumes, entitled Tragediia Sovetskoi Derevni (The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside). These volumes contain extensive evidence that this was a Soviet-wide famine, and the data presented here permit a more accurate assessment of the human tragedy.

In 1987, Robert Conquest (Stanford University) published "Harvest of Sorrow" the first full history of collectivization, dekulakization and the famine, in which he argued that these events were largely manmade and politically motivated. He estimated the deaths during this period from these policies combined at 14.5 million (7 million of these from the famine itself). Mark B. Tauger (University of West Virginia) along with other scholars has since challenged Conquest's account. Two articles by Tauger , "The 1932 Harvest and the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933," Slavic Review, Spring 1991, and "Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933, Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, June 2001, present evidence that the famine resulted directly from a poor harvest, a harvest that was much smaller than officially acknowledged. He argues that this small harvest was in turn the result of a complex of natural disasters that [with one small exception] no previous scholars have ever discussed or even mentioned.

Wheatcroft suggested that the answer lies somewhere in between. Soviet state procurement policies clearly contributed to the famine, but it was not a grand design on the part of the Bolsheviks, nor was it entirely directed at Ukrainians. He argued that the famine was an accidental consequence of ill-conceived policies, and that Ukraine suffered inordinantly for demographic reasons. At the same time, he did not go so far as to say that the Tauger assessment is entirely accurate. He agreed that ecological factors were clearly significant, but he suggested that comparative study of the causes of modern famine worldwide indicate that most are caused by problems with exchange entitlements (a disequilibrium in the market) and not because of declining food availability. The Soviet famine, in his view, is no exception. Throughout the 1920s, the Soviet government had relied increasingly on state requisitioning of grain from the countryside to feed the urban population, and this policy over the years left the peasantry with no reserves. As early as, 1927 a grain procurement crisis had already developed, but it was the natural factors of insufficient rainfall in Spring of 1930, 1931, and 1932 and too much rain during midsummer in these years that contributed to the smaller harvest, based on weather data now available. There is also archival evidence of natural phenomena like wheat rust and ergotism that infected the grain supplies.

Finally, on the basis of substantial analysis of Soviet registration documents and mortality statistics, Wheatcroft concluded that the estimates of the human losses have been grossly exaggerated. In his view, the number of deaths due to the famine should be more accurately reported at around 4.5 million. A number, he was careful to point, that represents a horrendous human tragedy. But a tragedy at 4.5 million people is not any greater tragedy if the number is inflated to 7 million or more.

[Gothmog]

THE NEWS IN BRIEF, University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia, 19 June 1998, Vol 7 No 22



It is summer solstice in the USSR and General Secretary Stalin is at work by 5.45am. He is joined in his Kremlin office by commanders of the armed forces and prominent members of the Politburo.

Stalin remains in his office until 4pm while various visitors such as Beria, chief of the security services, clock in and out. At 12.05pm, Molotov, his closest colleague in the Politburo, leaves the room and returns 20 minutes later.

These administrative details mark the entry of the USSR into World War II in 1941. They are part of an extraordinary record of Stalin's office activities recently released in Russia. Everyone who visited for a period of two and a half decades from 1929 to 1953 was clocked in and clocked out in his secretarie's notebooks.

What does this information and other secret details from the Soviet archives tell us about one of the 20th century's most significant figures?

It means that we need to rewrite the political history of the Stalinist period and reassess the role of Stalin, says Stephen Wheatcroft, Associate Professor of History at the University of Melbourne.

"Much of the earlier political commentary on Stalin's period is based on very slight acquaintance with primary material from inside the system," Professor Wheatcroft says.

He cites the record of Stalin's activities during the declaration of war. When Molotov rather than Stalin announced on radio that Russia had declared war on Germany, many people jumped to the conclusion that Stalin had broken down.

The myth of Stalin as a mad dictator acting in isolation was largely perpetuated by rumour and defectors to the West, and by Stalin's own colleag ues who later were attempting to belittle their own involvement, Professor Wheatcroft says.

The Kremlin records tell a vastly different story. "The world sees Stalin as an individual tyrant but if you look at his meetings and the number of people passing through his office there appears to have been a far greater degree of collective responsibility," he says.

"We now know who Stalin's visitors were and can begin to understand how the decision-making system really worked."

Resolutions before the Politburo were redrafted in committees in meetings that typically lasted all night as members haggled over the wording of decrees.

"All of the political action was in these redrafting committees. Stalin was like a Sir Humphrey Appleby whose authority was initially based on his efficiency as a decree redrafter.

"It is clear that the Politburo was a most amazing political organisation unlike any other. A great many radical and terrifying decisions were made by this oligarchy. It was a bureaucracy gone crazy."

Dr Wheatcroft heads an ARC-funded project using these records to analyse Stalin's relationship with the major military, security, economic and cultural figures of the day. The work is part of a collaborative project with scholars in Moscow and the University of Birmingham.

In another ARC project he will use archival material recently released in Russia to revise Soviet social and economic history of the Stalin period.

This period covered one of the most dramatic and influential transformations the world has seen when the means of existence of over 100 million peasants changed from private to collective agriculture.

Dr Wheatcroft was the first Western scholar to gain access to the monthly registration data on mortality in the Ukraine and other parts of Russia which document the tragic famines that followed collectivisation from 1931 - 1933.

He claims that these famines - publicly denied by the Politburo, which suppressed census figures - were in fact the best recorded famines in history.

"What is remarkable is that the authorities were collecting and keeping mortality data which gives a detailed breakdown of the incidence of the famine through the geographic regions of the USSR."

Data interpreted by Dr Wheatcroft show mortality in Ukraine rural areas rose by up to five times the average rate. Researchers were also able to map the progress of the famines. "Results from mass secret food consumption surveys recorded peasant food consumption of as low as 830 Kcals per day in Odessa Oblast and 1100 in Kiev Oblast in the first half of 1933," he says.

Analysis shows the populous towns of Moscow and Petrograd suffered most from the early famines of 1918 - 1920, when millions of people were forced into rural areas.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s urban mortality again began rising sharply, and especially in comparison with rural mortality. At first this was mainly in the Urals, Siberia, Volga and Black Earth regions of Russia.

Ukraine, which was to become the major famine area, was relatively well protected until after the harvest of 1932. But from late 1932 and early 1933, when all other regions had been severely strained, there was a devastating increase in attention on Ukraine and the North Caucasus, where the famine reached its peak. "Some people claim the famines were purposely carried out to attack Ukrainian nationalism. Our conclusions are that there were major economic problems associated with industrialisation. The famines developed as unexpected consequences of over-ambitious plans."
Dr Wheatcroft admits that this research focuses on a very sensitive subject. "Some of the old Cold War warrior types claim that the opening up of the Soviet archives adds nothing new to the picture. Others say that this research diminishes the unthinkable Great Terror by quantifying the deaths. As a social scientist and an economic and social historian, I want to apply social scientific methodology to make sense of this tragic story," he says.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


THE NEWS IN BRIEF, University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia, 19 June 1998, Vol 7 No 22
http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ExtRels/Media ... /1998/319/
stalinismwasacollective.html FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY

http://www.cerc.unimelb.edu.au/russian/ ... /sgwab.htm

The Great Soviet Famines
in Comparison with
the Chinese Great Leap Forward Famine
Stephen Wheatcroft


Panel 46: Famines in China & the USSR
Thursday 9 July 1998
11:15 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
*** Please note new time for this panel ***
History stream
Abstract:

The famines associated with Soviet collectivisation, 1929-33, and the Chinese Great Leap Forward, 1958-61, are generally considered to have been the largest catastrophes ever to have affected any population. Measures of excess mortality in the order of 7 million for the USSR and 20 million for China, certainly make these the largest famines ever recorded. However, they both shared an important characteristic of being developmental crises, experienced by populations that were undergoing enormous economic changes and very rapid demographic transition. This paper will look in more detail at the causes and the consequences of these famines and will argue that because of the onset of demographic transition, both these societies faced a developmental crisis, which required an extraordinary response to avoid an even larger catastrophe. The nature of the developmental crisis and of the demographic transition which was taking place at these times makes it very difficult to assess what level of mortality should be taken as normal, and consequently what level should be taken as excess. This paper does not argue that the Soviet and Chinese solutions were in any way optimal, or that they were necessary. But it does suggest that comparisons with societies not facing developmental crises and that are not undergoing rapid demographic transition are rather misleading, and that we need a more sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of the problem.

Stephen Wheatcroft
History Department
University of Melbourne
Australia

Panel 46: Famines in China & the USSR

[Ixa]

To Kov:

What a schmit load of opinions...

Calling it names now, are we? How juvenile. And typical of you.

... I cannot belive I just read that bible of personal thoughs.

You mean facts. The statistics, everything, was based upon the facts.

If you can explain to me in non biblical format then who you think was responcible for it then?

What a stupid question. And my original post was not in "biblical format". What a convenient way to dismiss a good argument.

My answer is that no one person was responsible for the famine. Dought, invasion by eight imperialist powers, kulak terrorism, epidemics, among many other factors, all contributed to "it".

[Ixa]

To RudeBwoy:

In the winter of 1932-1933, several million Ukrainians (imprecise statistics account for the wide range in estimates, from as low as 2 million to as high as 7 million) died as a result of what was surely a preventable famine.

If the Kulaks had not destroyed grain deliveries, killed government officials, slaughtered millions of farm animals, destroyed collectives, etc., etc., etc; if the Soviet Union had not been invaded by eight imperialist powers - indeed, perhaps it would have been preventable! Of course, I am ignoring the draughts, the floods, the epidemics, etc., which all contributed to the famine, and which were at the time unpreventable. But you are used to ignoring facts anyway.

The large-scale hunger was closely linked the collectivisation campaign of Soviet agriculture launched by the Communist party. Extortionate amounts of grain were requisitioned; sometimes all of it was simply confiscated. Despite the pleas of local party activists who realized that catastrophe was imminent, nothing was done to alleviate the peasants' hunger. Famine was inevitable. Millions of peasants died, cannibalism broke out, and the peasantry, especially the Ukrainian peasantry, which at that time was the core of the Ukrainian nation, was crushed. To what extent the communist party can be held responsible for the famine is an issue of historical debate.

Must I repeat myself? Why must I repeat myself? I guess I must repeat myself (and next time read my entire post before replying to it).

Please answer these questions, which have not as yet been answered by anyone who replied to my post:

Why was the famine the worst in only those regions in which the Kulaks resisted the most? You know, those regions in which the Kulaks killed farm animals, destroyed grain deliveries, destroyed collectives. killed government officials, etc. How do you explain this?

How do you explain the peasants' enthusiasm for collectivisation? How do you explain the fact that the peasants were allowed to leave the collectives whenever they wanted to, and in fact did just that at some points? How does this fit?

How do you explain the fact that in 1935 the Kulaks leaving the colonies in fact outnumbered the Kulaks who arrived by approximately 300,000, and when collectivisation was done, they all returned to their homes?

How do you explain the fact that, according to the Soviet Archives, appriximately 300,000 people died between 1930 and 1940 in the special Kulak colinies; how do you explain that this figure, although correct, includes all causes, including -- it is true --
old age, disease, injury, etc. In point of fact, all the Soviet Archives really says is that the government refused to send food to six Kulak villages for their sabataging of the grain deliveries. And six Kulak villages does not translate into millions of people.

How do you explain the fact that the 1.8 million Kulaks who were deported to other areas to facilitate collectivisation were subsequently permitted to return to their former homes when collectisation was done in each region, and did just that? (Those 1.8 million people were neither arrested nor detained; they were
only placed in other special collectives.)

And then read the rest of my original post...

Meanwhile the famine has assumed mythic proportions for Ukrainians. It is the defining moment of their recent history, no less traumatic and portentous than the Holocaust is for Jews. The famine symbolizes the horror of the Soviet experience, the curse of Russian domination, and the necessity of Ukrainian liberation.

I have never read so many baseless assertions squeezed into such a short space in my entire life.

Some revisionist

That is not accurate.

Western scholars claim that Ukrainians are wrong to insist that the famine was intentional; other scholars support the Ukrainian position.

You mean the Ukrainian Nationalist position.

But the scholarly debate is beside the point for most Ukrainians, who perceived the famine as the culmination of centuries of Russian oppression.

That is highly inaccurate. We have another psychic here who can somehow read the minds of the Ukrainianian generality.

almost mythical

That much is true.

[Ixa]

Always remember, Stalin NEVER did anything wrong, he was after all God's gift to the human race

Stalin made many, many mistakes. Why would say such a thing, implying that it is the position of Marxist-Leninists and various historians?

the 'Stalin was God' vs. 'Stalin was the Devil' ideas, and neither side seems willing to subscribe to the 'Stalin was a man' idea.

Who has claimed that Stalin was a God, or imperfect? it seems to me that it is either "Stalin was a man" (on the part of Marxist-Leninists and reputable historians) and "Stalin was the devil" (on the part of propagandists and anti-Communist fanatics).

[Ixa]

TS said:

And all it gets me...is some ignorants coming here...completely ignroing EVERYTHING that was said before...and simply say "millions died...and its SURELY Stalin's fault".

Precisely. Too many times has this happaned.

I have written essays several pages long throroughly criticising the so-called artificial famine, with statistics, citations, and everything.

In response all I tend to get is assertions to the contrary without argumentation.

"The Ukrainian famine was a genocide blah blah blah all Stalin's fault etc etc etc."

You will notice that every time they turn a blind eye to such factors as the drought, kulak aggression, etc. In fact, they have absolutely nothing to say of these events.

[Ixa]

RudeByoy said:

No the Ukrainians do -- not me!

First, you mean "not I". Second, you mean the Ukrainian Nationalists.

TS you really should pay more attention to my post before slamming me.

You should pay more attention to MY post (i.e., read it) before asserting -- and only asserting -- the contrary to what I said.

The severity of the famine is certainly open to debate but survivors of the famine surely put forward a convincing recollection.

The survivors of the famine say that there was starvation in their respective areas. Survivors of the Depression say similar things. Your point?

And what about all the foreign journalists who were in the Ukraine where the "famine" was said to have occurred? Why do they report - nothing?

Would a 14 year old use words like "empirical corroboration"?

Most fourteen year olds I know would.


And the Ukrainians did not welcome the Nazis as liberators. Far from it.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

But you are used to ignoring facts anyway.

Funny how the first time we ever disagree on anything you come up with such a brilliant piece of mind.

And the Ukrainians did not welcome the Nazis as liberators.

When did I say that? I’m backing off here. I don't care how many predetermined essays you have written. You are too difficult to deal with.

[Gothmog]

-I cannot wait to put my hands in Wheatcroft data. From what I´ve read, the picture that emerges seems to be more complex than I thought. We know that there were food shortages in USSR in the last years of NEP (the so called "scissor crisis". This crisis hit more the urban population because the land reform, while improving the living conditions of the peasants, result in an agriculture that was less able to feed the cities than that from czarist Russia (because the % of grain production sold to the cities decreased). What I didn´t know is that the crisis was of such extent that the urban population from USSR was already at the verge of starvation, as can be demonstrated by the sharp increase in urban mortality by late 20´s. From this point of view the forced collectivization seems much more to be a desperate last ditch attempt to avoid another massive famine in urban areas than a step forward in the long road to socialism. This helps to explain the obvious mistakes made in that process. And it is obvious that Stalin gamble failed, as far we consider the absence of mass starvation as a measure of success. Was there an alternative? I think there weren´t nice alternatives, but I would mention two.
1-The government could have intervened in the market to increase grain prices. This would result in better grain supply to the cities, but also in a transfer of wealth from the cities to the countryside, which would be disatrous to the process of industrialization. And in the first moment it could have also worsened the crisis.
2-Increase taxation (in money, not in products) to the peasants. It would have forced them to sell their grain to the cities in order to pay the taxes. It was actually the strategy employed by capitalist countries. However, how this strategy could work in a country where there wasn´t private land ownership (and so the state couldn´t take the lands from the peasants who didn´t pay the taxes)? Furthermore, an increase of taxation could result in unrest in the countryside, just like the collectivization did.

-What do you think people, what would you do to deal with the scissor crisis in late 20´s???

[Kov]

"Calling it names now, are we? How juvenile. And typical of you."

If you where Sergei, Sokath, Spetz, or anyone else I have been on the forum with for more than a year and a half, then I would understand. I also have never battled this little topic with you for, therefore I can say that you know nothing about my debating tactics and or opinions. I was also under the impression that the word "Schmit" (Actually spelled with two t’s) which in no way is a slag word, would add some tinted humor to my side.

Sadly I can say now that I have met more open minded types.

“You mean facts. The statistics, everything, was based upon the facts.”

That is the same argument used by our side against you in many a thread past, and I will abstain from debating the factual data of it any longer, for it will only lead towards a fruitless debate.

“What a stupid question. And my original post was not in "biblical format". What a convenient way to dismiss a good argument.

My answer is that no one person was responsible for the famine. Dought, invasion by eight imperialist powers, kulak terrorism, epidemics, among many other factors, all contributed to "it".”

Thank you for the insult, if I must say “calling it names now, are we? How juvenile. And typical of you." Your data was long, and thus was crissoned by me as a biblical format. Act as you wish, I care not; once again the debate of how accurate it is comes into mind. Since your side calls everything we post a load of “BS” are we expected to agree with everything that you say is fact? Once again I will abstain for another wasted debate.

I will also abstain from all other debates in this, me and Spetz have done this far to many a time…