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Was Stalin really that bad

jimbob said:
Stalinist and Maoist agricultural reforms have killed tens of millions of people
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Before "Stalinist agricultural reforms": on average, in the region: food shortage every 3 years, and full-blown famine every 10 years.

After "Stalinist agricultural reforms": nothing, other than the 1946 one which had nothing to do with any agricultural reforms.

Yay for Stalin's industrialization of agriculture! :D



And since you seem so terribly confused about political categories (including your own): no I'm not a Stalinist, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize obvious Nazi propaganda when I see it.

If Stalin wanted to "destroy the Ukrainian Nation" he'd have deported them to Siberia or something. But no, making the harvest fail so that there isn't enough grain to feed everyone so that then Ukrainian nationalists could die as some Grand Evil PlanTM. Nazi conspiracy theories are always the best :)
 
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I think it's fairly safe to assume that Stalin was not an utter idiot, and that therefore, if the systematic destruction of the peasantry through famine happened to coincide with genocide he probably knew it. Whether or not it was a side effect, one can hardly call it unintentional. If you're in control of the situation, then you are in control of its consequences, and if one of the major consequences is genocide, it follows that you find genocide at least acceptable.
 
Let's put it this way; Uncle Joe is Adolf's main competitor in the "Greatest Mass Murderer in History" competition.with Mao a close third place.
Sadly, some ..by no means all...on the Left are in denial that a Left Wing, Socialist Regime can be just as murderous as a Right Wing Regime.
Another good example of this is Noam Chomsky's notorious attempts to whitewash the Pol Pot regime.
 
And aside from the Holdomor, let's not forget the Purges, the Mass Deportation of Minorities in the Caucasus and the Crimea,the Gulag and the Millions of Soviet Soldiers who died as a result of Stalin's military incompetence in the first two years of World War 2. Even without the Ukraine Famine,Stalin would still be a major contestant in the Worst Human Being In History competition.
 
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Stalin intended to secure state control over the harvests obtained by the peasantry. His strategy was collectivisation. His purpose was to export grain and use the revenue to invest in industrial expansion. If he could have achieved that without causing the deaths of millions of people he would have done so. But he could not. He was willing to destroy millions of lives, and he pursued his policies knowing that millions of lives were being lost. The famine was the result of Stalin's policies, but the policies were not designed for the purpose of killing millions of people.

Stalin's responsibility is that he continued to pursue them even when their effects became evident.

Moreover, he did send into exile a huge number of "kulaks" in conditions which must inevitably have resulted in mass mortality. He is as directly responsible for that as are the landowners for the Highland Clearances, or the US government for the deaths suffered by native peoples in the USA during their expulsion from the lands east of the Mississippi.
 
BTW,Anne Applebaum Author of "The Gulag" probably the single best overall history of the Gulag, is bringing out a book "Red Famine" on Stalin's campaign against the Ukraine.
 
bruto said:
If you're in control of the situation, then you are in control of its consequences
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If you have a theory, feel free to support it. Before you go that particular route, though, consider whether the reserves committee formally asking dictatorial powers over the Soviet Union sounds like "in control of the situation" to you.
 
Craig B said:
Stalin intended to secure state control over the harvests obtained by the peasantry. His strategy was collectivisation. His purpose was to export grain and use the revenue to invest in industrial expansion. If he could have achieved that without causing the deaths of millions of people he would have done so. But he could not. He was willing to destroy millions of lives, and he pursued his policies knowing that millions of lives were being lost. The famine was the result of Stalin's policies, but the policies were not designed for the purpose of killing millions of people.
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Also, if you have a theory feel free to support it. And also, before you go that particular route, consider whether Stalin, when the information on the famine reached the Politburo, stopping the export of grain and sending food-aid transports from the reserves to the famine-struck regions sounds like "willing to destroy millions of lives in pursuit of grain export policies."
 
Cleon said:
"Was the Holodomor intentional genocide, or merely an unintentional side effect of Stalin's policies" could have led to an interesting historical discussion.
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It's also a false dilemma. How about "the side effect of, you know, not having enough food to feed everyone"?

"The question at the trial is: is the suspect guilty in way A or guilty in way B?"
 
caveman1917 said:
It's also a false dilemma. How about "the side effect of, you know, not having enough food to feed everyone"?

"The question at the trial is: is the suspect guilty in way A or guilty in way B?"
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Why was there not enough food? If it was because of agricultural pests, as your sources suggest, and if these affected Germany and Romania too, as you have stated, why was there no mass famine in these countries?
 
Craig B said:
Why was there not enough food? If it was because of agricultural pests, as your sources suggest, and if these affected Germany and Romania too, as you have stated, why was there no mass famine in these countries?
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Stalin was definitely in Hitlers league when it comes to his genocidal intentions.

I can't imagine anyone making apologetics for Stalin. Why would anyone do that?
 
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Trumpf (that flaming orange tird eating slime muffin) may well wind up outdoing him though!
 
John Jones said:
Stalin was definitely in Hitlers league when it comes to his genocidal intentions.

I can't imagine anyone making apologetics for Stalin. Why would anyone do that?
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Stalin's victims were mainly his "own people". Hitler's were mainly "outsiders". Hitler was a practitioner of genocide, more than Stalin was. Stalin was more a "social engineer". Both men were psychopaths.
 
Craig B said:
Why was there not enough food? If it was because of agricultural pests, as your sources suggest, and if these affected Germany and Romania too, as you have stated, why was there no mass famine in these countries?
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Feel free to present a theory and back it up. I'm not particularly interested in the mortality figures there, I needed widespread harvest-reducing disease and I supported it.
 
Craig B said:
Stalin's victims were mainly his "own people". Hitler's were mainly "outsiders". Hitler was a practitioner of genocide, more than Stalin was. Stalin was more a "social engineer". Both men were psychopaths.
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And Churchill and plenty of others as well. It was en vogue at the time. None of which of course in any way implies Stalin caused a famine, let alone master-minded one in some CT against the Ukrainian Nation.
 
caveman1917 said:
Feel free to present a theory and back it up. I'm not particularly interested in the mortality figures there, I needed widespread harvest-reducing disease and I supported it.
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Why are you interested in mortality in Ukraine, but not in Romania or Germany. What did you "need widespread harvest reducing disease" for, if not as an explanation for the Ukraine famine?
 
Craig B said:
Why are you interested in mortality in Ukraine
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I'm not. Which you could see by me not going into your question about how many millions died.

What did you "need widespread harvest reducing disease" for, if not as an explanation for the Ukraine famine?
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Nothing, It was all I needed to refute that Nazi myth about Stalin having master-minded the famine, hence it was all I used.

Again, though, feel free to present any theory you like and back it up.
 
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