Famine in Ukraine was 'not genocide'

[red_elk]

You repeatdly claimed, in a disgusting apologistic manner, that the deportations were merely the result of nationalities collaborating with the Nazis.

Collaboration was major reason for most of the deportations. Not some "mistrust" of Stalin towards people of those nationalities. That's what I stated here. If you disagree, provide my citation, where I said elsewhere.

As for the famines, you only produced obscure apologist russian sources, while I linked to mainstream articles.

Sorry, if you consider Mark Tauger, one of the most well-known specialists for this particular issue as "some obscure apologist russian source", you have probably to begin researching of this issue from very basic facts.

Mark Tauger
Associate Professor
202E Woodburn Hall
(304)293-2421 x5228
Ph.D. UCLA
Specialization: Russian/Soviet History, Agrarian History, World History
http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/

You use only the officially recorded number of executions as the grand total of Stalin's victims.

I never said this is a "grand total" or something. This is a number of primary victims of regime. You disagreed with it, said that it is confirmed by some "obscure" sources and then immediately provided your source which stated the same number

it exposes you for the sick evil person your are.
Let me list all your crap:
expose you for the uncivilized monster
This is yet another example of your sick apologism.
You are a sick, evil and immoral individual.

May I kindly ask you to abstain from personal remarks?

 

[luiz]

Collaboration was major reason for most of the deportations. Not some "mistrust" of Stalin towards people of those nationalities. That's what I stated here. If you disagree, provide my citation, where I said elsewhere.

I already provided, in bolded letters, citations of several deportations that have nothing to with collaboration. I am still waiting for you to explain them. I'd really like to know how deporting Koreans in 1937 or a whole bunch of Eastern Europeans in 1932 is related to collaboration with the Nazis. What was the moral reason behind those deportations?

Sorry, if you consider Mark Tauger, one of the most well-known specialists for this particular issue as "some obscure apologist russian source", you have probably to begin researching of this issue from very basic facts.

Mark Tauger
Associate Professor
202E Woodburn Hall
(304)293-2421 x5228
Ph.D. UCLA
Specialization: Russian/Soviet History, Agrarian History, World History
http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/

There is no debate that:
a)The Soviets confiscated food at a time of famine;
b)The Soviets were exporting much of that confiscated food;
c)The Soviets executed tens of thousands of Ukranians for resisting those policies.

This is all documented and I don't care what apologists say; it is the consensus. BTW, even neonazis have thier David Irving; you can find "specialists" stating anything. Fortunately there is a consensus on some issues where there exists such vast evidence as the Terror Famine and the Holocaust.

I never said this is a "grand total" or something. This is a number of primary victims of regime. You disagreed with it, said that it is confirmed by some "obscure" sources and then immediately provided your source which stated the same number

Please be honest. My source explicitly states that that number does not even reflect the number of executions, because known massacred such as Katyn are not accounted for, since they were not recognised by Moscow.

So your number did not reflect even the correct number of executions. And not taking into account the number of people killed in the deportations and as slave workers is just bizarre (actually it is something else, but I'll refrain from saying it).

May I kindly ask you to abstain from personal remarks?

Sure, you already know my opinion now.

 

[luiz]

You know, Luiz, that parts of the USSR produced considerably less grain than the Ukraine did, and had far more people to feed. Similar requisitions existed during the Civil War, when the Soviets controlled no great grain producing areas (the other being between the Ural and Yenisei rivers), yet had more mouths to feed than all White-controlled areas combined. These parts of the country had always relied upon the black-soiled areas to the south to feed them, so to speak of this famine as an unnecessary and concerted effort to destroy the Ukrainians is really kind of silly. If there was no famine in the Ukraine those years, it would have been at the expense of other areas, where more and even perhaps worse famines would have happened.

Now you can, perhaps, lay the blame for that on collectivization, and I would not contest it one way or the other, being no fan of collectivized farming myself, but also not really possessing the knowledge to debate the merits and vices of that system, and least of all not desiring to get into another invective-laced mudwrassle. But a shortage of food was a simple fact of life in the USSR in those times and would be for another thirty years, no thanks to the extensive destruction carried out by both sides during the Civil War but especially the Whites, German actions during the First World War, and the long-lasting effects of Kulak sabotage during the first wave of forced collectivization, particularly in the areas of head of cattle.

Again, if you wish to may lay this blame on policy because communism and all that communists do is as black as the devil and dripping with twice as much evil, and as we all know the Bolsheviks bear full responsibility for the civil war because they should have just sat on their hands and known who their masters were, and I could really care less what your opinion on that matter is, but the long-lasting effects on Russian agriculture cannot be denied, and you cannot take a bad situation and point at the failures of policy makers to adequately address them, and pretend that anyone could have done so, simply because you dislike those who actually made the policy historically.

That's a fine piece of apologism, Cheezy, but it kind of falls apart when we consider that the food was not being confiscated merely to feed other parts of the Soviet Empire, but was also being exported in enormous quantities to fund Stalin's megalomania.

So please, do try to come up with a new excuse, because it is pretty clear that the lack of food was not a fact of life but rather the result of government policy.

Maybe Stalin was pursuing a policy that would lead to the unnecessary deaths of millions because he was a commited environmentalist and wanted save Mother Earth from overpopulation? Or maybe (and red_elk will love this one) in his great wisdom he had foreseen that many Ukranians would collaborate with the Germans and so he was actually protecting his people?
I don't know what excuse you'll come up with; but clearly people were being starved to death because Stalin loved them too much.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

That's a fine piece of apologism, Cheezy, but it kind of falls apart when we consider that the food was not being confiscated merely to feed other parts of the Soviet Empire, but was also being exported in enormous quantities to fund Stalin's megalomania.

That which was was being exported was in order to get foreign currency with which to buy the factory technologies that proved necessary to save their country, and the world, from Nazism.

But we already know which you regard to be the greater evil, so I'm sure that will not get me far with you.

So please, do try to come up with a new excuse, because it is pretty clear that the lack of food was not a fact of life but rather the result of government policy.

No, its really not clear at all. You just keep repeating that because you want it to be true.

Maybe Stalin was pursuing a policy that would lead to the unnecessary deaths of millions because he was a commited environmentalist and wanted save Mother Earth from overpopulation?

No, I believe that is the realm of some more contemporary Eastern Europeans, two of whom are fond of posting on this very board.

 

[red_elk]

I already provided, in bolded letters, citations of several deportations that have nothing to with collaboration. I am still waiting for you to explain them. I'd really like to know how deporting Koreans in 1937 or a whole bunch of Eastern Europeans in 1932 is related to collaboration with the Nazis. What was the moral reason behind those deportations?

What you provided is nowhere contradicts with my views and my statements here. Most of the deportations were caused by collaboration with Nazis and have nothing to do with alleged Stalin's mental problems or "inhuman" communist ideology.

There is no debate that:
a)The Soviets confiscated food at a time of famine;
b)The Soviets were exporting much of that confiscated food;
c)The Soviets executed tens of thousands of Ukranians for resisting those policies.

This is all documented and I don't care what apologists say; it is the consensus. BTW, even neonazis have thier David Irving; you can find "specialists" stating anything. Fortunately there is a consensus on some issues where there exists such vast evidence as the Terror Famine and the Holocaust.

Mark Tauger is respectable and widely known author. The fact that you characterized him as "obscure russian (sic!) source" shows your level of knowledge on this issue very well. And he correctly described what had happened and what was the role of government in that events:

"The low 1932 harvest meant that the regime did not have sufficient grain for urban and rural food supplies, seed, and exports. The authorities curtailed all of these, but ultimately rural food supplies had last priority. The harsh 1932-1933 procurements only displaced the famine from urban areas, which would have suffered a similar scale of mortality without the grain the procurements provided (though, as noted above, urban mortality rates also rose in 1933). The severity and geographical extent of the famine, the sharp decline in exports in 1932-1933, seed requirements, and the chaos in the Soviet Union in these years, all lead to the conclusion that even a complete cessation of exports would not have been enough to prevent famine. This situation makes it difficult to accept the interpretation of the famine as the result of the 1932 procurements and as a conscious act of genocide. The harvest of 1932 essentially made a famine inevitable"
http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Facul...932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933, SR 91.pdf

The fact that "monstrous genocidal" Soviet government was sending hundreds of thousands tons of food aid to Ukraine makes the classification of this allegedly genocidal issue pretty easy task.

Please be honest. My source explicitly states that that number does not even reflect the number of executions, because known massacred such as Katyn are not accounted for, since they were not recognised by Moscow.

So your number did not reflect even the correct number of executions. And not taking into account the number of people killed in the deportations and as slave workers is just bizarre (actually it is something else, but I'll refrain from saying it).

I'm absolutely honest. The number of primary victims of regime is measured in hundreds of thousands, not millions. I don't agree that all the people who died in Soviet prisons for all reasons, can be simply added to that number and considered as regime victims together with executed people.

As for slave workers - it would probably be a big discovery for you to find out that GULAG inmates were paid for their work.

 

[luiz]

That which was was being exported was in order to get foreign currency with which to buy the factory technologies that proved necessary to save their country, and the world, from Nazism.

But we already know which you regard to be the greater evil, so I'm sure that will not get me far with you.

So you are saying that Stalin knew about Barbarossa about a decade before it actually happened? Additionally, are you saying that starving to death millions of people can somehow be justified if it makes the country stronger?

As I said to red_elk, many countries managed to industrialise in short period of times without resorting to that sort of slaughter.

And I don't want to get dragged into an endless discussion of Barbarossa here; but I will say that a considerable quantity of the raw resources that made the invasion possible came from the Soviet Union itself, so the argument that Stalin starved the Ukranians to death 10 years before the invasion to prepare for the invasion is just completely and utterly wrong.

There is no way around it, and you know it. Confiscating food from a starving population with the purpose of exporting it is just plain evil. I mean, it is evil in its purest form. Any human being should be able to see that.

No, its really not clear at all. You just keep repeating that because you want it to be true.

Repeating what I wrote to another poster:
a)The Soviets confiscated food at a time of famine;
b)The Soviets were exporting much of that confiscated food;
c)The Soviets executed tens of thousands of Ukranians for resisting those policies.

No, I believe that is the realm of some more contemporary Eastern Europeans, two of whom are fond of posting on this very board.

And that's an abominable position.

 

[luiz]

What you provided is nowhere contradicts with my views and my statements here. Most of the deportations were caused by collaboration with Nazis and have nothing to do with alleged Stalin's mental problems or "inhuman" communist ideology.

Oh my.
Millions of people were deported both before and after the War. Can you please give the justification for that? Please. Or are millions just not enough to count?

Mark Tauger is respectable and widely known author. The fact that you characterized him as "obscure russian (sic!) source" shows your level of knowledge on this issue very well. And he correctly described what had happened and what was the role of government in that events:

"The low 1932 harvest meant that the regime did not have sufficient grain for urban and rural food supplies, seed, and exports. The authorities curtailed all of these, but ultimately rural food supplies had last priority. The harsh 1932-1933 procurements only displaced the famine from urban areas, which would have suffered a similar scale of mortality without the grain the procurements provided (though, as noted above, urban mortality rates also rose in 1933). The severity and geographical extent of the famine, the sharp decline in exports in 1932-1933, seed requirements, and the chaos in the Soviet Union in these years, all lead to the conclusion that even a complete cessation of exports would not have been enough to prevent famine. This situation makes it difficult to accept the interpretation of the famine as the result of the 1932 procurements and as a conscious act of genocide. The harvest of 1932 essentially made a famine inevitable"
http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Facul...932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933, SR 91.pdf

The fact that "monstrous genocidal" Soviet government was sending hundreds of thousands tons of food aid to Ukraine makes the classification of this allegedly genocidal issue pretty easy task.

Holy crap!

So this guy is engaging in counterfactuals (claiming that less confiscation would lead to famine in the cities), and trying to minimize the evil of exporting a good deal of the confiscated food!

Note that your very source recognises that there was food confiscation; that it was massive; and that food was being exported. How can any of that be justified is beyond me. Usin soft words like "procurements" does not change anything. This apologist is saying that even a cessation of exports would not have prevented the famine; but obviously it would have decreased it enormously and saved millions of lifes. That's a good point to focus at. Additionally, he does not explain why the harvest fell as much as it did, but we know why. Forced collectivization, murder of the Kulaks, executing people for "theft of socialist property" and so on. So basically, while he is arguing that it was not genocide, he is still assigning the blame, or a good part of the blame, on the Soviet Government, which makes this a man made famine.

BTW, I did a little research on this "well known and respected" Mark Tauger (who is a professor at West Virginia, not UCLA), and I found, unsurprisingly, that he is quite controversial and considered to have an extreme view on the famine. As I said, quite outside of the mainstream. For instance:

Tauger's evidence, methodologies and conclusions in regard to the famine were criticized by Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft in their book The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–33, published in 2004.[60] Wheatcroft additionally claims Tauger's view represents the opposite extreme in arguing the famine was totally accidental.[61] Tauger, however, maintains that his harvest estimates are supported by evidence, and his conclusions are shared by a number of other scholars.[60] In reply, Wheatcroft continues to maintain Tauger's use of the evidence is oversimplified, that his methodology is faulty, and that his conclusions overall are wrong.[62] Tauger replied in kind, defending his work against Wheatcroft's criticisms.[63]

Historian James Mace wrote that Mark Tauger's argument "is not taken seriously by either Russians or Ukrainians who have studied the topic."[64]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor_genocide_question

Additionally, the debate is whether or not it was genocide. Nobody in their right minds would call it a "natural famine". This was the result of Soviet policies of collectivization, confiscation and exporting of food even during a harvest drop and widespread starvation.

Edit: I did more research and found out that Tauger's point rests on the assumption that Soviet statistics for harvests of the period were wrong. Basically, his argument is that the famine was caused by a falling harvest because of a natural catastrophe, but the official Soviet statistics show no such thing, so he says they must be wrong. Great stuff, keep it up red_elk. I'm sure this guy is the pride of the West Virginian university he works on.

I'm absolutely honest. The number of primary victims of regime is measured in hundreds of thousands, not millions. I don't agree that all the people who died in Soviet prisons for all reasons, can be simply added to that number and considered as regime victims together with executed people.

As I said, your number is not a reflection even of the "primary" victims (directly executed), which by most modern estimates is between 2 to 3 millions.

Second, I absolutely do not understand how the victims of deportations (and there were many, many victims) are not primary victims of the Stalinist terror. Third, slave laborers are also considered victims by all sane people, you see.

As for slave workers - it would probably be a big discovery for you to find out that GULAG inmates were paid for their work.

It is very hard to be polite when I read statements like this. Really mods, this is too much.

So let me get this straight. Someone makes a critical comment about the regime (or is merely accused of making a critical comment), so he is shipped to some concentration camp in Siberia, where he is forced to live the most atrocious conditions, eating just a small fraction of the calories a healthy man needs, and on top of that is forced to work an enormous amount of hours per day, frequently to his death (yes, mortality rate in the GULAG was extremely high). And this guy here is saying that it was not slave labor!

No red_elk, the workers of the GULAG were all voluntary and received remuneration to work God knows how many hours per day breaking their backs, eating bread and water and sleeping in the freezing cold. It was all fine and dandy, like some holiday camp perhaps. No slave labor, not in the Glorious Soviet Union, not under the guise of Father Stalin.

 

[DinoDoc]

Would we accept democide if genocide is too touchy a subject?

 

[luiz]

BTW, here's Wiki entry on conditions on the GULAG, which red_elk compares to a regular prison system (nevermind the fact that it was full of innocent people):

Living and working conditions in the camps varied significantly across time and place, depending, among other things, on the impact of broader events (World War II, countrywide famines and shortages, waves of terror, sudden influx or release of large numbers of prisoners). However, to one degree or another, the large majority of prisoners at most times faced meagre food rations, inadequate clothing, overcrowding, poorly insulated housing; poor hygiene, and inadequate health care. The overwhelming majority of prisoners were compelled to perform harsh physical labor.[46] In most periods and economic branches, the degree of mechanization of work processes was significantly lower than in the civilian industry: tools were often primitive and machinery, if existent, short in supply. Officially established work hours were in most periods longer and days off were fewer than for civilian workers. Often official work time regulations were extended by local camp administrators.

Andrei Vyshinsky, procurator of the Soviet Union, wrote a memorandum to NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov in 1938 which stated:

Among the prisoners there are some so ragged and liceridden that they pose a sanitary danger to the rest. These prisoners have deteriorated to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings. Lacking food . . . they collect orts [refuse] and, according to some prisoners, eat rats and dogs. [47]

In general, the central administrative bodies showed a discernible interest in maintaining the labor force of prisoners in a condition allowing the fulfillment of construction and production plans handed down from above. Besides a wide array of punishments for prisoners refusing to work (which, in practice, were sometimes applied to prisoners that were too enfeebled to meet production quota), they instituted a number of positive incentives intended to boost productivity. These included monetary bonuses (since the early 1930s) and wage payments (from 1950 onwards), cuts of sentences on an individual basis, general early release schemes for norm fulfillment and overfulfillment (until 1939, again in selected camps from 1946 onwards), preferential treatment and privileges for the most productive workers (shock workers or Stakhanovites in Soviet parlance).[48]

A distinctive incentive scheme that included both coercive and motivational elements and was applied universally in all camps consisted in standardized "nourishment scales": the size of the inmates’ ration depended on the percentage of the work quota delivered. Naftaly Frenkel is credited for the introduction of this policy. While it was effective in compelling many prisoners to make serious work efforts, for many a prisoner it had the adverse effect, accelerating the exhaustion and sometimes causing the death of persons unable to fulfill high production quota.

Immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 the conditions in camps worsened drastically: quotas were increased, rations cut, and medical supplies came close to none, all of which led to a sharp increase in mortality. The situation slowly improved in the final period and after the end of the war.

Considering the overall conditions and their influence on inmates, it is important to distinguish three major strata of Gulag inmates:

people used to physical labor: "kulaks", osadniks, "ukazniks" (people sentenced for violation of various ukases, such as Law of Spikelets, decree about work discipline, etc.), occasional violators of criminal law
dedicated criminals
people unused to physical labour sentenced for various political and religious reasons.
Mortality in GULAG camps in 1934-40 was 4-6 times higher than average in Russia. The estimated total number of those who died in imprisonment in 1930-1953 is 1.76 million , about half of which occurred between 1941-1943 following the German invasion.[49][50]

You see folks, it was all fine! Those nice soviets offered some monetary rewards (which I am sure were enormous!) to the slaves, oops, enemies of the people who would put up that extra effort! Lets not focus on the fact that they were dying by the millions, that they lived like animals, that many were entirely innocent - no, lets focus on the fact that there was a monetary incentive for those slaves, eh, forced workers to do more than what was required - and lets forget that failing to do the required quota meant starving or freezing to death.

It was all fine, the GULAG was excellent.

It was so excellent that perhaps we should build some and send all Stalin apologists there. I'm sure they would make a fortune with all the monetary incentives they would receive for exceeding their quota.

 

[red_elk]

Oh my.
Millions of people were deported both before and after the War. Can you please give the justification for that? Please. Or are millions just not enough to count?

Explain me, why should I give justification for that?

Holy crap!

Glad that you begun to read at least wikipedia on this topic.
Explain me, how it's possible that monstrous genocidal regime was sending food aid to Ukraine, while other regions were starving?

As I said, your number is not a reflection even of the "primary" victims (directly executed), which by most modern estimates is between 2 to 3 millions.

Second, I absolutely do not understand how the victims of deportations (and there were many, many victims) are not primary victims of the Stalinist terror. Third, slave laborers are also considered victims by all sane people, you see.

I claimed the official number of executions of political inmates. Supported it with the link. What you want from me?

It is very hard to be polite when I read statements like this. Really mods, this is too much.

So let me get this straight. Someone makes a critical comment about the regime (or is merely accused of making a critical comment), so he is shipped to some concentration camp in Siberia, where he is forced to live the most atrocious conditions, eating just a small fraction of the calories a healthy man needs, and on top of that is forced to work an enormous amount of hours per day, frequently to his death (yes, mortality rate in the GULAG was extremely high). And this guy here is saying that it was not slave labor!

No red_elk, the workers of the GULAG were all voluntary and were received remuneration to work God knows how many hours per day breaking their backs, eating bread and water and sleeping in the freezing cold. It was all fine and dandy, like some holiday camp perhaps. No slave labor, not in the

As I said, discovering the fact that GULAG prisoners were paid for their work might damage your brain

Glorious Soviet Union, not under the guise of Father Stalin.

Please stop this apologism, I cannot tolerate it.

 

[Tani Coyote]

When did you become a card-carrying member of the Republican party who is always foaming about "The Left"?

Since I had another one of my political transformations recently; I saw the decadence of countless nations under the influence of socialist policies. It made me realize that America truly is endangered by those who would seek to implement them. It seeks to spend us into oblivion, and erode at the institutions so that they are beyond repair; they've been trying to do it - and succeeding - ever since FDR opened the floodgates for them and threw in the towel for capitalism. Not even Reagan could stem the tide of such horrible policies, only able to cut taxes and not the socialist policies because of the fact even the Republicans have been infected with support for them.

Furthermore, my father states that I must be a Republican in order to vote and still live in his house once I come of age. As well, he will only give the largest share of his inheritance to whichever child declares their affiliation as Republican; my sister has taken this role, and I am surely more worthy than her of that extra 1%.

And when until you start advocating executions in the name of freedom and liberal democracy?

I would like to see an actual border wall and not that pitiful excuse for one we have now.

The Commies may have sucked, but at least they knew how to build an effective deterrent against movement. Illegal immigration would surely evaporate if we followed in the Reds' footsteps in that regard.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

So you are saying that Stalin knew about Barbarossa about a decade before it actually happened? Additionally, are you saying that starving to death millions of people can somehow be justified if it makes the country stronger?

Yes, I am saying that he knew about an imminent Imperialist Western invasion. With the failure of 1920s revolutions in Europe, and the inability of Sovnarkom to carry it there itself, it was only a matter of time before the West came to finish the job it had attempted during the Civil War: to exterminate the socialist movement. Everyone knew it, it completely dominated Soviet thought after 1927. It was the reason for the Five Year Plans, for almost every thing that the USSR did economically and diplomatically. That you are confused by my suggestion shows your utter ignorance of the Soviet mindset and of Soviet policy.

As I said to red_elk, many countries managed to industrialise in short period of times without resorting to that sort of slaughter.

Yes, and they did it instead with imperialism as a substitute, and slaughtering other people instead of their own.

And I don't want to get dragged into an endless discussion of Barbarossa here; but I will say that a considerable quantity of the raw resources that made the invasion possible came from the Soviet Union itself, so the argument that Stalin starved the Ukranians to death 10 years before the invasion to prepare for the invasion is just completely and utterly wrong.

If you don't want to get into another argument, then don't make completely and utterly stupid statements like that.

There is no way around it, and you know it. Confiscating food from a starving population with the purpose of exporting it is just plain evil. I mean, it is evil in its purest form. Any human being should be able to see that.

It was the confiscation that made them starve, it wasn't taking food from an already starving populace.

At any rate, I don't want to get into it with you again, because all you do is put your fingers in your ears and repeat "there's no place like the established mainstream consensus," so I'm going to pull a you, make some provocative statements, then leave the thread.

 

[Yeekim]

As I said, discovering the fact that GULAG prisoners were paid for their work might damage your brain

Well, iirc they started to get paid in 50-s. Also, they were paid considerably less than free workers would have been paid for similar job and finally costs of guarding them were deduced from their wages.
Thus, I'd write this admittedly less-known fact off as just a PR-trick.

 

[red_elk]

Well, iirc they started to get paid in 50-s. Also, they were paid considerably less than free workers would have been paid for similar job and finally costs of guarding them were deduced from their wages.
Thus, I'd write this admittedly less-known fact off as just a PR-trick.

Since 30-s.
And since 50-s they were paid wages on a regular basis.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Since I had another one of my political transformations recently; I saw the decadence of countless nations under the influence of socialist policies....

Pity,you were kinda interesting before.

 

[plarq]

Pity,you were kinda interesting before.

There're not too many socialists policies, there're just not enough.

 

[onedreamer]

So, what do you think?

the whole argument is ludicrous, as are any other arguments from nationalists accross the world. Ukrainian nationalists are not an exception, I'm appalled you waste time to hear what they say.

 

[luiz]

Explain me, why should I give justification for that?

You repeatdly stated that the deportations were the result of collaboration with the Nazis. I pointed out that millions were deported for reasons unrelated to the war (and obviously their deaths should be counted as primary victims of the regimes). I am waiting for you to comment on that, given your insistence that it was all justified as a response to Barbarossa.

Glad that you begun to read at least wikipedia on this topic.
Explain me, how it's possible that monstrous genocidal regime was sending food aid to Ukraine, while other regions were starving?

Sending food aid? They caused the famine with the impossible quotas, the confiscation, the collectivization and the executions!

I claimed the official number of executions of political inmates. Supported it with the link. What you want from me?

To recognise that this number is bogus. Tell me, are the folks massacred at Katyn primary victims or not? Because they're not included in your bogus number.

As I said, discovering the fact that GULAG prisoners were paid for their work might damage your brain

Maybe it is hard for your to understand, but merely giving monetwary rewards to slaves who were forced to work or die does not constitue paid labor. It is still slave labor. You see, in the Americas some slave owners also gave rewards to their slaves - some were able to buy their freedom with the rewards they accumulated. I can give more than one example. That does not mean that it was free paid labor - it was still slave labor. The GULAG was a system of massive slavery, to not recognise that is as offensive as calling the african slaves guest workers.

Please stop this apologism, I cannot tolerate it.

He is your Father Stalin, not mine. Personally I would not think too fondly of a man who enslaved my forefathers, but I guess that's just me.

 

[luiz]

Yes, I am saying that he knew about an imminent Imperialist Western invasion. With the failure of 1920s revolutions in Europe, and the inability of Sovnarkom to carry it there itself, it was only a matter of time before the West came to finish the job it had attempted during the Civil War: to exterminate the socialist movement. Everyone knew it, it completely dominated Soviet thought after 1927. It was the reason for the Five Year Plans, for almost every thing that the USSR did economically and diplomatically. That you are confused by my suggestion shows your utter ignorance of the Soviet mindset and of Soviet policy.

Bogus.
The West did not put a serious effort to destroy the USSR ever since the Civil War (and even that was not a proper effort). Stalin was paranoid, he executed many people close to him and several of the Old Bolsheviks, so he might have been paranoid about some invasion as well. But that's irrelevant.

My point, which was completely lost to you, is that you can't justify starving millions to death to pay for industrialisation. Tell me, how did Korea and Taiwan industrialise without employing the massive terror and slavery used in the USSR? How did they manage, in a very shot period of time, to go from societies more backwards than Tsarist Russia to essentially First World Countries, far surpassing the USSR in any economic or social measure?

It is nothing but an apologistic myth that the barbarism unleashed by Stalin was necessary to make the USSR strong. Other nations achieved more without starving anyone to death.

Yes, and they did it instead with imperialism as a substitute, and slaughtering other people instead of their own.

Really?
Tell me, who did South Korea slaughter to become industrialised? What about Taiwan or Singapore?

If you don't want to get into another argument, then don't make completely and utterly stupid statements like that.

A-ha, typical denialist apologism.
I'm right now in Vitória for business reasons, but I'll be back in Rio today and I'll post the exact quantities of raw materials sent to Nazi Germany by your idol Stalin. Yes, that number is available and I happen to have it in a book I just read.

I must say denying the shipments to Nazi Germany is yet another step in your denial of history.

It was the confiscation that made them starve, it wasn't taking food from an already starving populace.

They kept confiscating nevermind repeated pleas from Ukranians.

At any rate, I don't want to get into it with you again, because all you do is put your fingers in your ears and repeat "there's no place like the established mainstream consensus," so I'm going to pull a you, make some provocative statements, then leave the thread.

When did I leave this thread? In fact, if anything I should be blamed for engaging in endless arguments with radical Bolsheviks such as you; accusing me of abandoning the discussions is completely unfair. I try to address every single objection made to my statements, as absurd as those objections may be.

 

[red_elk]

I am waiting for you to comment on that, given your insistence that it was all justified as a response to Barbarossa.

Where I insisted? Citation please.

Sending food aid? They caused the famine with the impossible quotas, the confiscation, the collectivization and the executions!

Yes, sending food aid. I'm still waiting for you to explain how Soviet regime wanted to starve Ukrainians out and in the same time was sending food aid to them.

According to the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Ukraine Decree as of February 8, 1933, no hunger cases should have remained untreated, and all local authorities were directly obliged to submit reports about numbers suffering from hunger, the reasons for hunger, number of deaths from hunger, food aid provided from local sources and centrally provided food aid required. Parallel reporting and food assistance were managed by the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Scope_and_duration

To recognise that this number is bogus. Tell me, are the folks massacred at Katyn primary victims or not? Because they're not included in your bogus number.

It is not bogus, it is correct and supported by mine and yours links.
Including or excluding Katyn victims won't change 700.000 - 800.000 number.

Maybe it is hard for your to understand, but merely giving monetwary rewards to slaves who were forced to work or die does not constitue paid labor. It is still slave labor. You see, in the Americas some slave owners also gave rewards to their slaves - some were able to buy their freedom with the rewards they accumulated. I can give more than one example. That does not mean that it was free paid labor - it was still slave labor. The GULAG was a system of massive slavery, to not recognise that is as offensive as calling the african slaves guest workers.

This is interesting, tell me something more about slave labor.