Holodomor Memorial, Kiev
There is, sadly, a striking difference between Ukraine dealing with their horrible past with sorrow and honesty, and the shameless Soviet revivalism that is taking place in Russia.
Posted on 04/08/2013 6:31:24 PM PDT by annalex
wait til it comes here! The Starving time is coming and the Minorities will suffer the most as the state tries the colective experiments ending all farms. You wanted equality—we shall all be equally poor and oppressed. Only good Party members will have access to markets. A wall will be build between Mexico and the New USSA—to keep people IN so they can not escape into Mexico.
The reality is noone knows exactly how many people died to communist terror and mismanagement.
All the estimates has one flaw or another.
One is for sure a really lot died.
And then there’s Rachel Carson - 50 million and counting.
There is, sadly, a striking difference between Ukraine dealing with their horrible past with sorrow and honesty, and the shameless Soviet revivalism that is taking place in Russia.
The thing is, the same ideas inflict different nations differently. With certainty, socialist ideas have taken root in America and over time will produce the same violence and the same loss, but just like few Russians at the time could see the devastating historical trend behind everyday misery, few Americans will realize that the same error is now applied to a different nation, -- ours.
“The Black Box of Communism”
You mean “The Black Book of Communism”. Few people will read that, but yes, that was an outstanding publication.
By the way, it would be a mistake to attribute the famines that would strike the USSR entirely to the ineptness of socialism. In addition to the structural damage done to the economy by socialist reform, there was an effort to intimidate and kill. As Solonevich writes in his "Russia in Concentration Camp": "Lack of food one could perhaps explain by economic difficulties. But why would they feed us with salted herring and not give us water?"
The facts pointed out are that compared to Russian losses in WWII, the loss of jews was insignificant. Compared to losses in the named 13 nations, the Jewish loss was great.
The current events in Europe are the direct result of the destruction and loss of life in the 40’s. The fear of Europe, that is, the justified fear and hatred of Europeans by Russians, resulted in the establishment of European buffer zone that would succumb before aggression could strike into Russia again.
Very soon, if not already, those with direct memory of the death and destruction in Europe proper will be dead. There will be no real memory, only hearsay descriptions of what was. Once all the old folks and their kids are gone and no longer holding the governmental reins, the loathing of war will dissipate.
It is then that a weak Russia will be in trouble. The hardened buffer of Eastern European states will be gone. The weakened population, nearly destroyed by alcohol will be unable to resist the influx.
I’m not holding out any hope for the future.
If anyone has any softness or sentimentality, I would suggest purging that stuff from yourselves. There won’t be any room for that when the big war starts.
You are quite right. Putin is unabashedly proud of the “glories” of the Soviet Union no matter what it cost other peoples, and he has plenty of support in that sentiment. It does not bode well for, especially, Russia’s near neighbors. The Russian incursion into Georgia in 2008 is proof enough of that, especially since Putin called a halt to the advance only after his forces had taken Gori. I am sure all the former Social Republics took note of that fact.
Stalin saw independent farmers as a threat to Soviet power. And at that time, the vast majority of the population of the Soviet Union was engaged in agriculture, Stalin wanted to crush it and bring it under his control.
I think Putin is more partial to Imperialist Czarist Russia than to the Soviet Union.
Most Americans did not have the patience to read Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, and so really did not grasp the true nature of the ideology behind the Soviet Union. One of the better ways for an American to wrap his mind around the concentration camps that made up the Gulag Archipelago is to read Alexander Dolgun’s Story: An American in the Gulag. Because it is written by an American chiefly for Americans it is more comprehensible that Solzhenitsyn, although no less horrifying. Instead of Solzhenitsyn’s thousands upon thousands, Dolgun’s story is that of one man. But it brings across the calculated cruelty and inhumanity of the camp system. Dolgun is also footnoted by Solzhenitsyn (in Gulag, volume 1, as I recall) as the only known survivor of Sukhanovka who retained his sanity.
I don’t know about that. Look into his family history and connections a bit more.
Thanks again for remembering me with this posting.
Thank you very much for taking the time to translate and post this paper by Mr. Koshkin/Kurganov. I cannot believe he survived the Stalin purges in the 30s. What a very lucky man.
I’m reading “Bloodlands” right now and this paper fits very nicely with that book. I highly recommend Bloodlands if you haven’t read it.
The Jewish losses are between several nationalities and at times, I think, were not counted by either side due to population transfers.
Do not confuse that with the spirit though. People of faith, even if killed, rescued their souls.
That would be wonderful, but unfortunately, cannot be true. On every step it is the Soviet Union that he seeks to restore: its bloody symbolism and its brutality. What he may have learned is that command economy does not work. Possibly, he thinks that his mafia entrepreneurialism has something to do with free market, but that is the best I can think of him.
Thanks for the referral to “Alexander Dolgun’s Story” — I just bought it on Amazon. I tried reading Gulag Archipelago about 20 years ago and couldn’t get very far. I have more interest today (thanks to Obama) and 20 years additional maturity and patience, so I may give it a go one more time.
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