Was it acceptable to ally with Uncle Joe in WWII?

[Lone Wolf]

How many millions of people in the UK starved to death in the 20th century due to food exportation?

Well, there was the 1943 famine in Bengal.
I did mean the Irish and Indian famines of XIX century, though. Considering that a lot of pundits like to apologise for XIX century capitalism as well...

 

[History_Buff]

How many millions of people in the UK starved to death in the 20th century due to food exportation?

19th century. About a million in Ireland. Upwards of twelve million in India.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I've translated them to rough percentages above in the thread. Too lazy to translate the table itself, though I will do it if you or someone else requests it.

Ah, I found it. Thank you.

I meant "numbers of lost livestock", not hunger mortality of people.

As I noted in my own post, the number was closer to 1/4, and that I had misremembered. Two-thirds is a number of something, maybe it was destroyed farmland following the Civil War? Not sure. Anyway, it's quite possible that they did slaughter other cattle than their own, or that there are livestock that the Soviet statistics you cited do not take into account. At any rate, let's say that the top two tiers of your chart, which is 16% of farmers, slaughtered their cattle. That would be pretty close to 1/4 of total cattle head lost! Also, your percentages are average, obviously lower strata did not own .7 cows; proportionally, the upper strata did own the majority of cattle.

The phenomenon of peasants destroying food rather than allow it to be confiscated is not new: the French Republic encountered the same problems during the darker days of the Revolution/Civil War, and the revolt in the Vendee.

Uhm? There were similar famines "immediately before" the collectivization drive? Or do you mean the famine of 1921 that was not immediately before collectivization and which was the result of wartime economic collapse (WWI + civil war)?

Or so you also mean that while the harvests were similarly bad, they didn't result in famine?

Yes, the harvests in 1926 and 1927 put serious pressure on the Soviet government to do something different. It was their failure that convinced Stalin of the need to forcibly collectivize farming, since at the time the voluntarily collectivized farms were producing more food per farm than the still-private farming was. This collectivization was also believed to make the concordant mass-mechanization of farming much easier, since 50 farms brought into one large Kolkhoz or Sovkhoz would need less equipment than 50 individual farmers.

Also, do not underestimate the impact of famines and bad harvests many years previous. Not only do they affect grain reserves for many years after they happen, but they also take a serious physical toll upon their survivors. One might survive one famine by the skin of their teeth, only to be taken in a weakened state by the next.

So, who were the kulaks, then?

I have already explained this.

I am of course not denying that every label possible was used to remove or slander people Stalin deemed to be enemies: Trotskyist, Zinovievist, Imperialist Agent, Counter-revolutionary, Politically Liable Ethnicity, I'm sure Kulak was used as well. But that doesn't mean that dekulakization was general terror across the countryside, or that there was no definition of Kulak. We've already talked about how local authorities took the two concepts that we're talking about in this thread into their own hands at times.

Collectivization itself doesn't, but too much grain confiscation by the state in order to finance industrialization by selling that grain abroad (to which both you and me allude) does. The more food goes abroad, the less remains for the peasants and the cattle.

And if too much surplus grain collected by the peasantry is taken away and goes abroad - well, the peasants have no economic incentive to collect it.

Add to it undue haste, poor management, some over-optimistic Soviet estimation of mechanization (introducing of tractors to the kolkhozy) rates - and you have some problems on your hands.

I never said it was a perfect idea that was perfectly implemented. Merely that they believed they were doing what was necessary. What is necessary is never unwise. How can you say that it wasn't? Without that grain to sell, they don't industrialize as quickly, maybe they aren't ready in time for the Second Intervention that haunted every Russian communist's dreams (and which turned out to be very real and very worth the worry). Put yourself in their shoes (after all, it wasn't just Stalin who dreamed up these ideas one day, the CC had been tossing the idea around for years in private). Your harvests are sucking badly. People are hungry. Your economy is in ruins, you know that another invasion is coming, and that you have no industry capable of supporting that defense. What do you do?

The first sentence is true. I doubt that Stalin or some other Soviet bureaucrat was busy rending his heart over it, though.

You have no way of knowing. But I don't think leaders or their subalterns engage in policies they know are, or will, cause great pain to their people without some level of regret or remorse, knowing that such measures are necessary. I know that doesn't mesh well with the popular conception of Stalin as a heartless psychopathic butcher.

Except the USSR in 1932 and 1933 was still a net exporter of food, most notably grain.

I literally just said that. Lone Wolf and I have already gone over that.

How many millions of people in the UK starved to death in the 20th century due to food exportation?

Between 1.5 and 4 million in the year 1943 alone. I won't bring up the Irish Famine, since you said 20th century, but the British government neglected to help the Irish at all, and exported foodstuffs in the same way that you condemn the Soviets for, except that the Soviets used the proceeds to help their country vitally, while the British allowed their businessmen to grow richer in their case.

 

[kochman]

How many revolutions, civil wars and foreign invasions happened in UK in XX century?

Oh, so... none. On the Isle anyway.

Well, there was the 1943 famine in Bengal.
I did mean the Irish and Indian famines of XIX century, though. Considering that a lot of pundits like to apologise for XIX century capitalism as well...

Those were pretty much targeted...

19th century. About a million in Ireland. Upwards of twelve million in India.

See above.
Not excusing it at all.

My point being, the CCCP was targeting specific people... and if it wasn't, then they were just completely inept.

There's really no excusing the famines when being a net exporter of food... but some of you are still trying to.
This site never ceases to amaze me.

 

[red_elk]

Not excusing it at all.

You mean, British rulers who let those famines happen, were genocidal maniacs and mass murderers?
Or it's exclusive privilege of Soviet leaders only?

 

[kochman]

You mean, British rulers who let those famines happen, were genocidal maniacs and mass murderers?
Or it's exclusive privilege of Soviet leaders only?

I'm not to up to date on the history of the extended empire, relations between countries, etc...

However, if they were administering the country and exporting more food out of it, while people were starving, I would condemn any leadership for that.

 

[Crezth]

Why? That's the free market.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Government intervention =/= the free market.

 

[kochman]

Why? That's the free market.

Ummmm. Try again.
The UK has often had severely centrally controlled economic sectors.

 

[Crezth]

Ah. So if it was a free market, the starving peasants with no money would have received food?

 

[kochman]

Ah. So if it was a free market, the starving peasants with no money would have received food?

Yes, depending on government social programs, which are a separate entity from government control of the economy.

This shouldn't have to be explained.

 

[Crezth]

In the... 19th century?

 

[History_Buff]

However, if they were administering the country and exporting more food out of it, while people were starving, I would condemn any leadership for that.

The British government wasn't doing any such thing deliberately. The UK had gone pretty far down the free trade tree by then.

While the government did take steps to try and alleviate the famine, they didn't do a particularly good job of it for a few reasons. Grains from unaffected areas were not provided, as the governors of those other areas were criticized for being too charitable during previous famines. Adequate food was not provided from local authorities, as they wanted to avoid creating dependency.

 

[Dachs]

Weren't US troops in Europe on the brink of mutiny at the war's end? Something tells me renewed hostilities would not go over so great, either at home or with the men on the ground.

The brink of mutiny? What?

 

[kochman]

In the... 19th century?

Are you going to address the point?
I'm still trying to understand the criticism of free markets when it was not to blame, but social programs or lack of would be, in the context you are speaking.

The British government wasn't doing any such thing deliberately. The UK had gone pretty far down the free trade tree by then.

While the government did take steps to try and alleviate the famine, they didn't do a particularly good job of it for a few reasons. Grains from unaffected areas were not provided, as the governors of those other areas were criticized for being too charitable during previous famines. Adequate food was not provided from local authorities, as they wanted to avoid creating dependency.

As I said, I'm nowhere near well versed enough on what happened. I just assuring Red_elk that I didn't reserve criticism for only the Soviet bourgeois.

The brink of mutiny? What?

I've never heard of any such thing either. They were filled with elation of having defeated Germany, morale was high.

 

[Borachio]

Just how big was the Red Army in 1945, compared with the US forces in Europe?

 

[History_Buff]

Vast. Wiki has Soviet superiority at 4:1 in manpower.

 

[Dachs]

With that in mind, the Red Army was just about tapped out, in terms of manpower, and had actually declined in available troops since 1943, while the Americans were not nearly at that point.

 

[History_Buff]

So if the Western Allies really wanted to, was there any possibility of driving the Soviets out of, say, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Hungary?

I'd always thought any such attempt would be doomed to failure.

 

[Borachio]

With that in mind, the Red Army was just about tapped out, in terms of manpower, and had actually declined in available troops since 1943, while the Americans were not nearly at that point.

But quite a lot of US resource were still directed at Japan.