IdiotsOpposite
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Clearly, the best solution would have been for all African Americans of the time to move to the USSR, and all Ukrainians, Georgians, and Uzbeks to move to America.
The Cold War...
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Clearly, the best solution would have been for all African Americans of the time to move to the USSR, and all Ukrainians, Georgians, and Uzbeks to move to America.
Patroklos
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Ergo Sum
Prince
Outside of the famines in Ukraine in 32-33 and occasional targeted deportations - not to reduce the magnitude of these crimes - Soviet treatment of these nationalities simply cannot be characterized in blanket terms as genocidal. Better point to the Crimean Tatars or Chechens who were simply removed in total from the Crimea and Chechnya, deportation of Volga and Baltic Germans, or Poles deported from Byelarus SSR after the war, etc. etc. The NKVD, especially in the Stalin era, were ruthless, murderous, any number of a slew of condemnations, but to throw around blanket terms like you have without providing nuance or historical context simply brutalizes the experiences of these people.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
A picture doesn't tell us a whole lot. I can't imagine most Soviets, let alone the people in Moscow, interacted with the blacks on the PL campus a whole lot, anyway. Would ordinary Russians be prejudiced against them? I don't know, but the picture is just a picture.
Patroklos
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Mentioning more cases of genocide is not going to help your case.
I never said the Soviets were genocidal to all their minorities, or any of them all the time. In what world does that make them not genocidal or in any way sound better to you?
And yes, I meant to say the Baltic States not Georgians, my fault.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Fair enough.
I asked about evidences, not about unverified and disputed claims.
Among victims of Holodomor, there are more Russians than Ukrainians. Pretty strange genocide, if you ask me.
And what about Uzbeks and Georgians? I have no idea what you mean - was it Stalin who committed genocide of his own ethnic group?
Way to resurrect the single most boring recurring thread topic in the history of the World History forum. You know how many pages there are of red elk going back and forth with various people about this garbage?
Ergo Sum
Prince
My point was, Soviet treatment of X nationality was not genocidal outside of very specific moments, so saying "Soviets were genocidal toward x, y and z, therefore it was a terrible place" is pretty damn inaccurate. If we talk in such vague terms then saying "USA is genocidal toward American Indian/Philippino/African-American communities, so it's pretty terrible place" is equally true. Yes, bad things happened, and no, you aren't really saying anything accurate about the past that can be mobilized usefully in an argument without being more specific and more convincing. In short, you have to actually make an argument instead of rattling off the same impotent talking points.
GhostWriter16
Deity
Criticizing the USA for its wrongs in the Cold War is fine and isn't being pro-USSR.
Claiming that the USA's wrongs somehow compare to the USSR's wrongs or that the USSR shouldn't be judged just because the USA also did wrong really is, at the very least, putting the two on the same level.
Let me illustrate:
Say I steal a candy-bar. As I'm walking out of the store, I see someone else shoot someone. I call the police. Was I wrong for doing that, since I also broke the law? No! While I should certainly be punished for my crime, and I can't justify my crime, you can't even legitimately compare what I did to what that other person did. The negative effects were so much greater. Stealing a life is worse than stealing a dollar.
If, on the other hand, instead of killing someone, the other person stole a pack of bubble gum and I called the cops, then you could wonder how I could judge someone for doing a very similar crime to what I did.
Claiming that the USA's wrongs somehow compare to the USSR's wrongs or that the USSR shouldn't be judged just because the USA also did wrong really is, at the very least, putting the two on the same level.
Let me illustrate:
Say I steal a candy-bar. As I'm walking out of the store, I see someone else shoot someone. I call the police. Was I wrong for doing that, since I also broke the law? No! While I should certainly be punished for my crime, and I can't justify my crime, you can't even legitimately compare what I did to what that other person did. The negative effects were so much greater. Stealing a life is worse than stealing a dollar.
If, on the other hand, instead of killing someone, the other person stole a pack of bubble gum and I called the cops, then you could wonder how I could judge someone for doing a very similar crime to what I did.
Ergo Sum
Prince
When did anybody say this?
What are you even talking about? Did you really just compare supporting murderous dictatorships around the world and invading several different countries to stealing a candy bar?
rugbyLEAGUEfan
Deity
I quite liked your illustration Ghostwriter16 ( though that in itself is hardly a ringing endorsement)
In 1972, the War in Vietnam was winding down, the last ground troops were withdrawn, and the last Americans Drafted. Nixon visited China, signed SALT I and the ABM treaty, and worked towards Détente with the Soviet Union. This included the first major grain sales to the USSR, and a general lightening-up of the Cold War.
The USA had the highest standard of living in the world at this time, while the USSR - outside of the privileged party members - lived at a third-world standard. Hedrik Smith, a journalist for the New York Times was living in Russia then and would eventually write a best-seller, The Russians, which included this differentiation between living standards in the "open" cities (where westerners could visit) and the third-world-poverty of the rest of the country.
There were certainly problems in the USA at the time, but it was a reform period. Women's rights were big at the time - women were allowed in Dartmouth and other colleges then - and growing numbers of women entered the work force. For better or worse, Roe v. Wade was heard before the Supreme Court - ultimately legalizing abortion, considered by many to give women an added freedom.
And although Disco (#&$@!) was popular in certain shallow-minded venues, real Rock-and-Roll was still being played for the faithfully. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Rush, The Eagles, Yes, Lou Reed, David Bowie and many others groups were hot at this time. Russian Rock-and-Roll was still fairly primitive at this stage and Western Rock still largely suppressed by the Party.
Environmentalism was becoming important in the early 70's - The first Earth Day was held in 1970. The Clean Air Act was passed and the Environmental Protection Agency was created. Young people today probably don't appreciate how filthy America was in the 60's. It was like a big garbage can - rivers caught fire in those days. From the 70's everything improved - air, land , water.
In those days, if you were White and middle-class in America, things were very good.
The USA had the highest standard of living in the world at this time, while the USSR - outside of the privileged party members - lived at a third-world standard. Hedrik Smith, a journalist for the New York Times was living in Russia then and would eventually write a best-seller, The Russians, which included this differentiation between living standards in the "open" cities (where westerners could visit) and the third-world-poverty of the rest of the country.
There were certainly problems in the USA at the time, but it was a reform period. Women's rights were big at the time - women were allowed in Dartmouth and other colleges then - and growing numbers of women entered the work force. For better or worse, Roe v. Wade was heard before the Supreme Court - ultimately legalizing abortion, considered by many to give women an added freedom.
And although Disco (#&$@!) was popular in certain shallow-minded venues, real Rock-and-Roll was still being played for the faithfully. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Rush, The Eagles, Yes, Lou Reed, David Bowie and many others groups were hot at this time. Russian Rock-and-Roll was still fairly primitive at this stage and Western Rock still largely suppressed by the Party.
Environmentalism was becoming important in the early 70's - The first Earth Day was held in 1970. The Clean Air Act was passed and the Environmental Protection Agency was created. Young people today probably don't appreciate how filthy America was in the 60's. It was like a big garbage can - rivers caught fire in those days. From the 70's everything improved - air, land , water.
In those days, if you were White and middle-class in America, things were very good.
Yes they were.
In 1972, most Americans were indeed White. And many were middle-class or aspired to it. But your implied criticism is valid. To a minority it wasn't quite so good. That's why I specifically spelled out White middle class.
In the US at the time it was something on the order of 60-70% of the population. Except for small numbers, it was actually a very good time to be in the US. And even for the blacks, it was one of the best times to be in the country.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Ever since I was born I wanted to live in the U.S.
When I was growing up in communist Poland in the 80s the only glimpses of what life in the U.S. (or the west) was like was a live action robin hood tv show in black and white, the smurfs, Pink Floyd (that my dad listened to) and an occasional coke. I had an uncle who lived on the other side of the country who had access to a VHS player, smokey and the bandit, a couple disney cartoons.. but I only got to visit him a couple times.. (He was rich - somehow owned a business - a fur farm. I'm not sure why that was allowed under communism but I never asked..) then we'd get packages from Austria from people my dad met when he travelled, with chocolates, toys, and candy, but.. I think we only ever got 2. That's pretty much it.
And the thing is that when you were growing up everyone complained about how crappy it was and that it was all Russia's fault. Discreetly and privately, of course, but that was the sentiment. The U.S. was seen as a beacon of hope and freedom.
So when I pictured life in the U.S. I saw fancy cars, everyone drinking coke, Shakin' Stevens
Spoiler :
So that was then and I'm sure people had it good on the Russian side of the iron curtain, but the majority didn't. If you had asked me then which side I would want to live on, I would have picked the U.S. Probably New York, that was pretty much the only city I was familiar with.
Since then I've settled in Canada, which turns out to be even better than what I imagined the U.S. to be!
So my answer is clear, but don't use it as a talking point against communism because that would be stupid.
Having been in Europe since 1960, I must have failed any ´threat of immediate invasion from the USSR´ for all those years. (Actually, ofcourse, no such threat existed in the first place. Soviet plans were assuming the West would attack, not the other way around. So it was always theoretical. The biggest threat was an escalating nuclear conflict between the then two power blocs.)
You might have made it 1960-´61, when there was an actual chance of conflict between East and West. But in 1972 I was perfectly happy in Western Europe.
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