Ukrainian Crisis thread 1.2

[luiz]

I might be wrong too, may be the Soviets indeed weren't much better than Nazis. Didn't they continue to mass murder Jews and Ukrainians after WW2, in Nazi-built concentration camps? Perhaps Soviets expel all ethnic Ukrainians in Siberia and colonize their territory with Russians? It wasn't liberation after all, Ukrainians surely didn't feel anything changed for them after Nazis were driven away...

The Soviet policies for Ukraine resulted in millions of deaths by starvation. And of course the Soviets also executed Ukraine's cultural and literary elite, much like they did elsewhere in their empire.

And the Soviets also deported entire ethnic groups from Ukraine, such as the Crimean Tartars, in one of the most disgusting examples of collective punishment in modern history. Even the Tatars who were fighting for the Red Army got sent to labor camps! If that's not Nazi-style discrimination, I don't know what is.

Oh, and much like the Germans, the Soviets also settled the territories they occupied with ethnic Russians. For instance, after they ethnically cleansed Crimea from Tatars, the Soviets largely repopulated the area with Russia settlers, and the Russian proportion of the population of Crimea went up significantly (from 47.7% in 1937 to 61.6% in 1993).

 

[luiz]

I repeat, this "widespread support" was not on a higher scale than it was in other places invaded by Nazis. I already given examples.


You have a thing in common with Terxpahseyton. To skip a word "some" in your sentences and trying to speak for all Ukrainians.
Disregarding hundreds of thousands of them who served in Red Army and participated in a very significant guerilla movement on their territory.

Nobody in France outside of very fringe groups welcomed the Germans. Nobody laid flowers to the Germans as they did in say Austria or Ukraine.

As for the French who fought for the Third Reich, much like the Dutch or the Belgians and etc, they were basically motivated by anti-communism, and they fought on the Eastern Front, against the hated USSR. They didn't fight the Free French, or the Western Allies. It's a totally different situation from Ukrainians, who actually saw at first the Germans as potential liberators. Nobody in France saw the Germans as liberators, because they were not occupied. In Ukraine they did believe to be occupied.

Of course after the Germans started their genocide Ukrainians fought back en masse. But that doesn't mean they wanted to be part of the USSR. Why would they? As I said, the USSR was responsible for millions of deaths by starvation, cultural persecution, deportations, and so on and so forth. And your only defense is that they didn't treat Russians any better. Is that supposed to make Ukrainians yearn to be part of the USSR? "Oh yeah the Soviet policies have made us die of hunger by the millions and resort to cannibalism, and they also shoot whoever disagrees with them and executed our whole artistic class. But they treat ethnic Russians just the same! What's not love, let's join them forever and ever!!" Does that sound logical to you?

 

[red_elk]

The Soviet policies for Ukraine resulted in millions of deaths by starvation. And of course the Soviets also executed Ukraine's cultural and literary elite, much like they did elsewhere in their empire.

And the Soviets also deported entire ethnic groups from Ukraine, such as the Crimean Tartars, in one of the most disgusting examples of collective punishment in modern history.

Oh, and much like the Germans, the Soviets also settled the territories they occupied with ethnic Russians. For instance, after they ethnically cleansed Crimea from Tatars, the Soviets largely repopulated the area with Russia settlers, and the Russian proportion of the population of Crimea went up significantly (from 47.7% in 1937 to 61.6% in 1993).

Now can you explain what your answer has to do with my message you were replying to?
Looks like you've slided to usual "USSR is evil" line of argument and stopped reading my messages at all. It won't lead us to anything good.

 

[luiz]

Now can you explain what your answer has to do with my message you were replying to?
Looks like you've slided to usual "USSR is evil" line of argument and stopped reading my messages at all. It won't lead us to anything good.

You were listing the evils the Nazis perpetrated against Ukrainians, I listed the evils the Soviets perpetrated against Ukrainians. Some are nearly identical (deportations / re-settlements, execution of dissidents, etc). Reading those lists, isn't it pretty obvious why so many Ukrainians viewed the Nazis and Soviets as two faces of the same coin?

 

[red_elk]

You were listing the evils the Nazis perpetrated against Ukrainians, I listed the evils the Soviets perpetrated against Ukrainians. Some are nearly identical (deportations / re-settlements, execution of dissidents, etc). Reading those lists, isn't it pretty obvious why so many Ukrainians viewed the Nazis and Soviets as two faces of the same coin?

And I'm answering that the "evils" were incomparable and that "so many" Ukrainians in fact fought on the Soviet side. And that in the only referendum where they were asked whether they want to be part of USSR, majority voted for it.

 

[luiz]

And I'm answering that the "evils" were incomparable and that "so many" Ukrainians in fact fought on the Soviet side. And that in the only referendum where they were asked whether they want to be part of USSR, majority voted for it.

No, they really weren't incomparable at all. Millions of deaths, execution of all dissenters, cultural suppression. Seem damn similar to me. And why are you putting evils in quotation marks? Do you deny that the USSR inflicted several evils on Ukraine? (don't answer that they did the same to Russians, as that only makes it worse).

And what referendum are you talking about, exactly? The only free referendum regarding their membership to the USSR was the one where 92.3% voted for indepence from the USSR. So much for wanting to be part of it.

 

[red_elk]

Seem damn similar to me.

Because you apparently don't understand the difference between deliberate extermination of people, and deaths due to large famine, caused by a bunch of reasons. Such as general ineffectiveness and backwardness of Russian agricultural sector, and ongoing reform coinciding with natural reasons (drought) - in addition to mismanagement of that reform by authorities on different levels. It was already mentioned that famines with mass starvation happened in Russia several times in XIX century only. Agricultural reform of mid 30-s despite all its flaws, actually stopped them from reoccurring, as well as released lots of workforce for industrialization.

And what referendum are you talking about, exactly? The only free referendum regarding their membership to the USSR was the one where 92.3% voted for indepence from the USSR. So much for wanting to be part of it.

Ukraine sovereignty referendum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_sovereignty_referendum,_1991
In December 1991, USSR de-facto didn't exist. Referendum about independence merely formalized state of affairs existed by that time.

Of course you have an option to declare all referendums which results you disagree with, as unfree.

Edit:

Do you deny that the USSR inflicted several evils on Ukraine?

I told many times my opinion about it. Stalin was a cruel dictator who committed many crimes.

 

[luiz]

Because you apparently don't understand the difference between deliberate extermination of people, and deaths due to large famine, caused by a bunch of reasons. Such as general ineffectiveness and backwardness of Russian agricultural sector, and ongoing reform coinciding with natural reasons (drought) - in addition to mismanagement of that reform by authorities on different levels. It was already mentioned that famines with mass starvation happened in Russia several times in XIX century only. Agricultural reform of mid 30-s despite all its flaws, actually stopped them from reoccurring, as well as released lots of workforce for industrialization.

And you are apparently so blinded by your pathological and extreme Russian nationalism and belief that Russia is holy and can do no wrong that you can't see that for an Ukrainian peasant having his production stolen at gunpoint and watching his kids starve to death is no difference than being shot for being a Slav. You seem to ignore that the Holodomor, whether deliberately targeted at Ukrainians or not, was still the result of man-mad policies. Disastrous policies, that made agricultural output drop dramatically wherever they were enforced. And policies enforced with the utmost brutality, with people resisting it being executed on the spot. You seem to ignore that both Soviets and Nazis executed dissenters with pretty much the same thoroughness. So it was perfectly logical for Ukrainians to grasp at any opportunity to leave Soviet rule, as that rule proved completely and utterly catastrophic for them.

Ukraine sovereignty referendum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_sovereignty_referendum,_1991
In December 1991, USSR de-facto didn't exist. Referendum about independence merely formalized state of affairs existed by that time.

Of course you have an option to declare all referendums which results you disagree with, as unfree.

Yeah in that referendum the idea of independence was not at all present - the core message was the protection of freedom and full sovereignty of the Republics, and that's what people voted on.

That's why just a few months later over 90% of Ukrainians voted for independence.

 

[red_elk]

And you are apparently so blinded by your pathological and extreme Russian nationalism and belief that Russia is holy...

And you apparently so blinded by ideological motives, that every time we talk, eventually resort to personal attack and cease to listening to my arguments. This time is no exception
If national-wide hunger is the same for you as the planned policy of extermination, I give up.

 

[luiz]

And you apparently so blinded by ideological motives, that every time we talk, eventually resort to personal attack and cease to listening to my arguments. This time is no exception

Well you seem to think Ukrainians had no reason to want to get out of the USSR and should in fact be grateful for the Soviet "agricultural reforms", which just so happened to have killed millions of them and reduced them to barbarism and cannibalism. I really know not what else to say.

---

BTW, it was machinery and evolution in agricultural practices that finally ended hunger - in the whole world. Soviet "reforms" made agricultural output drop to below Czarist levels. And later their embrace of Lysenkoism pseudo-science and persecution of actual geneticists made their agricultural sector lag the West even further.

 

[red_elk]

BTW, it was machinery and evolution in agricultural practices that finally ended hunger - in the whole world. Soviet "reforms" made agricultural output drop to below Czarist levels.

Definitely. Agricultural output dropped to "below Czarist" levels in the same time when hunger was stopped

 

[luiz]

Definitely. Agricultural output dropped to "below Czarist" levels in the same time when hunger was stopped

No it dropped when collectivization was first implemented and only recovered decades later, due to advances in technology that had nothing to do with reforms. Hunger stopped in virtually the whole world for the same reason, without the need to rape peasants like the Soviets did. And of course agricultural productivity in the USSR continued to lag behind the West for all of its existence.

Collectivization was an unmitigated disaster, and coupled with mass murder of kulaks is a big reason why the Soviets were so hated in Ukraine.

 

[red_elk]

No it dropped when collectivization was first implemented

It reality it didn't drop (after famine was over) - the country continue to be able to feed its population, despite sharp decrease in number of peasants (comparing to "Czarist" time when about 98% of population were peasants).

 

[luiz]

It reality it didn't drop (after famine was over) - the country continue to be able to feed its population, despite sharp decrease in number of peasants (comparing to "Czarist" time when about 98% of population were peasants).

No, agricultural output in the USSR as a whole fell as a result of collectivization, and peasants kept a smaller part of their own output than they did before, so it was an universal catastrophe.

In many cases, the immediate effect of collectivization was to reduce output and cut the number of livestock in half.
...
However the largest loss of livestock was caused by collectivization for all animals except pigs.[38] The numbers of cows in the USSR fell from 33.2 million in 1928 to 27.8 million in 1941 and to 24.6 million in 1950. The number of pigs fell from 27.7 million in 1928 to 27.5 million in 1941 and then to 22.2 million in 1950. The number of sheep fell from 114.6 million in 1928 to 91.6 million in 1941 and to 93.6 million in 1950. The number of horses fell from 36.1 million in 1928 to 21.0 million in 1941 and to 12.7 million in 1950. Only by the late 1950s did Soviet farm animal stocks begin to approach 1928 levels.[38]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet_Union#Results

So as you see it took decades to recover to previous levels due to the abomination of collectivization. Recovery was due to technological progress, progress which happened all over the world. The difference is the rest of the world didn't brutalize its peasants like the Soviets did.

BTW, most countries had a majority working in agriculture prior to WW2.

 

[red_elk]

No, agricultural output in the USSR as a whole fell as a result of collectivization, and peasants kept a smaller part of their own output than they did before, so it was an universal catastrophe.

If you look at statistics, the agricultural output grew steadily since the end of Civil War (with drop in 1932-1933), together with processes of urbanization and industrialization.
It was part of reform, to replace peasants and horses with machinery.

BTW, it was machinery and evolution in agricultural practices that finally ended hunger

On their own, of course. Soviet government which spent 300 mln. rubles in 1926-1933 on farm machinery imports, has nothing to do with it.

 

[Darza]

That's just some crazy logic. So Western Ukraine was under "Polish military occupation" but Eastern Ukraine was a integral part of the USSR and both were liberated following WW2. I guess I just can't argue with suck bizarre double standards.

I'm just re-checked, and conversation between Domen and me about that stuff is still up. How come you're came with same question again, where you got the idea about "was under "Polish military occupation"" from the start, can i ask?

Holodomor question was discussed many times here. There are not a single evidence that mass starvation was intended result of policies, rather than result of mismanagement. Ukrainians in USSR were treated the same as Russians.

Tens of millions of people die between 1914-1939, even before WW2 started. Ukrainians as a national group weren't discriminated in USSR, in fact number of Russians who suffered and died from hunger in 1932-1933 was even higher. Comparing it to Nazi policies of purposeful extermination of Slavs and other groups is totally wrong.

If national-wide hunger is the same for you as the planned policy of extermination, I give up.

Actually the 2 events are somewhat close, and worth comparing. As the Nazis didnt performed the aforementioned planned purposeful extermination (and now we even wouldnt be able to check if they would'd do it or not (what is very good on its own, as we could expect bad outcome)), the named mismanagement did resulted in a huge casualties. You can compare them to a some huge technogenic or transport catastrophe, what came not out of sudden, but has been preceded with warning calls on various levels about the obvious incompetence of the management running the objects in charge, while the management claimed what absolutely no problems claimed are exist; and to a death treat issue. Both are pretty severe crimes, and actually there is a quite good chance, what the named management, the action(s) of what is resulted in large number of deaths due to incompetence (even without evidence about direct malicious intent for those deaths) would get a more harsh justice from some court in charge than some guys who's sended a death treats on a radio about "we will kill you all", while not performed the planned action. Also the timescale posted is making the idea about "moving away" from good-hearted, but blatantly incompetent management, what is also clearly showed the intent of not accepting any criticism, so unlikely to become any more competent in foreseeable future quite valid. Those people quite likely was not so deeply aware about stuff going on under Nazi regime (mainly due to mass communications being in early stage those time), but was pretty aware about stuff whats going on right where they are. Somewhat similar to a people, who's jump off windows during the fire raging in a building they are in.

You have a thing in common with Terxpahseyton. To skip a word "some" in your sentences and trying to speak for all Ukrainians.

Looks like they are just trying to make a conversation more coherent by adapting your (and most other (pro)Russians here) way of doing it. Maybe they just assumed what word "some" is intended by default in a Russian manner of speaking, or so.
Actually i still have some doubts what i really saw it posted from a guy, who is redundantly speaking for all Russians, explaining what they are doing, and why they are doing (essentially skipping that boring "some" in a process). And actually skipping the word "some" in a sentences is lesser damage than skipping the pivotal parts of a statement one is supposedly replying to, and replying to something completely different in result, as it lead either to direct ceasing of communication, or long and boring process of fixing stuff, what was so easy not to break from the start.

 

[luiz]

If you look at statistics, the agricultural output grew steadily since the end of Civil War (with drop in 1932-1933), together with processes of urbanization and industrialization.
It was part of reform, to replace peasants and horses with machinery.

Agricultural production did not reach pre-Revolution levels for decades. And they fell during the push for collectivization from 1927-1933 (not just 1932-1933). So collectivization led to a disaster, and was done in the most brutal possible manner.

And horses and peasants were replaced with machinery in the whole world. Russian logic is really bizarre. The only difference is the rest of the world didn't brutalize its own peasants like the Soviets did (except in places like the also Communist China). And that productivity grew much faster in the rest of the world than in the USSR.

On their own, of course. Soviet government which spent 300 mln. rubles in 1926-1933 on farm machinery imports, has nothing to do with it.

Oh, that noble Stalinist government, so concerned with the welfare of peasants. Too bad for the peasants that after collectivization they were allowed to keep a smaller part of their own production than before. Too bad for the peasants collectivization was forced down their throats and amounted to re-institution of serfdom.

And again. Places that were even more backwards than Imperial Russia, such as Mexico or Brazil, and which also had periodic famines all the way to the early 20th Century, also managed to end hunger through mechanization and improvement in farming techniques.

Agricultural productivity was actually a permanent problem in the USSR, precisely because their reforms were so terrible.

 

[red_elk]

As the Nazis didnt performed the aforementioned planned purposeful extermination (and now we even wouldnt be able to check if they would'd do it or not (what is very good on its own, as we could expect bad outcome)),

If you mean they did not complete it, then I agree. But generally, killing ~5 millions of civilians and reducing for example, Kiev population by about 60% were quite impressive results for ~2 years of occupation. They probably were ahead of Generalplan Ost timeline.

the named mismanagement did resulted in a huge casualties. You can compare them to a some huge technogenic or transport catastrophe, what came not out of sudden, but has been preceded with warning calls on various levels about the obvious incompetence of the management running the objects in charge, while the management claimed what absolutely no problems claimed are exist;

As I said, I'm not trying to excuse failures on Soviet government part. But the absense of intention to kill people and presence of other reasons such as drought, must be taken into account, discussing the reasons of famine. To put it in simple terms, we are comparing accidental killing due to negligence, with deliberate murder.

Looks like they are just trying to make a conversation more coherent by adapting your (and most other (pro)Russians here) way of doing it.

This argument would sound much more convincing, if you add a few quotes of me trying to speak for all Ukrainians or Russians.

And horses and peasants were replaced with machinery in the whole world.

On their own, without any effort from governments?
Mechanization was a part of agricultural reform, USSR spent half of its grain export revenue buying farm machinery in 30-s.
Reading your posts, looks like your impression about Soviet government is that the only purpose of it was murdering and tormenting of Soviet population

 

[red_elk]

Reports about heavy fighting near Donetsk. Rebels are attacking UA forces positions in airport, UA continue shelling the city.

Artillery exchange near Peski village

Link to video.

 

[luiz]

On their own, without any effort from governments?
Mechanization was a part of agricultural reform, USSR spent half of its grain export revenue buying farm machinery in 30-s.
Reading your posts, looks like your impression about Soviet government is that the only purpose of it was murdering and tormenting of Soviet population

Depends on the country. In some places private enterprise had the biggest role in mechanization, in others the government provided subsidized financing, and in others the government took an even more direct role. But in none did they have to resort to the same sort of brutality and mass murder that the Soviet government undertook against its own peasant population.

As for the Soviet government, under Lenin and Stalin, it's not that their purpose was murdering the Soviet population. It's that they were guided by an insane ideology, which attracted psychopathic leaders and henchmen, who saw millions of deaths as a small price to pay to build the society they envisioned.