Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Stalin V Hitler - playing the numbers game
Comments
-
No, of course they can be questioned. They are however, by some distance, the best figures that we currently have to work with. If at some point in the future new or contradictory evidence emerges then naturally this would lead to a re-evaluation. For now though we work with what we have and this points to a range of deaths far lower than many, but not all, pre-1990 estimatesYou're looking at this in entirely the wrong way. In the first place, no, there is no political bias present
It is not a matter of ‘these are THE figures - if new figures come along we can talk about it then’. These revisionist figures are unproven, open to doubt, scepticism and discussion as they are. I think the picture you paint here is one of a universal academic acceptance of the new 75% reduction, this is false. I also disagree that there is no political element related to the study of WW2 deaths, (particularly the overall 75% reduction of Soviet killed & 'leaving as is' of German killed).Secondly, the "German figures" are entirely irrelevant to estimates of Stalinist victims. Why should they be? . . .
That the same standards, level of scrutiny and methodology (not to mention climate of free and open dialogue) should apply in the compilation of, and discussion of both sets of data – all of this does not mean that one death at the hands of one regime is less or more valuable than a death at the hands of another.Again, if new evidence comes to light as to Nazi crimes then of course the numbers may be revised. This is unlikely to happen however given the academic attention that the Third Reich has drawn over the past 60-70 years. We're nowhere near that level of knowledge with regards the USSR
As above re the recent or ‘revisionist’ soviet figures, my thoughts on this would be that both sets of data should have the same standards and openness to review/discussion/disagreement and criticism.What Nazi figures are you referring to? We know of the vast majority of Nazi victims because the Nazis themselves were kind enough to record their details. Where this is lacking - such as the activities of the Einsatzgruppen or deaths of Soviet civilians - then the numbers are much more fuzzy
The numbers of people deemed to have been killed by the N.S. regime are not entirely based on signed lists of names. You are dealing again with census estimates, extrapolation and figures compiled on the basis of x trains per day filled to x capacity running round the clock for x months. It is not credible to suggest the figures of N.S. regime killed are entirely based on verifiably named lists. It goes without saying that within that mix are lists of names but it would be a false to say that they form the bulk of the numbers.Prove it. This is a position that is entirely unsupported by historical evidence. Not even the likes of Conquest seriously contends that Stalin deliberately brought the soviet economy, and state, to the brink of ruin. But then if it is so evident then feel free to prove it
I am not in a position to produce a document signed by stalin ordering the Holdomor.And I'd also like to qualify "accidental". The famine was definitely a product of a disastrous Soviet agricultural policy, admittedly exacerbated by weather conditions, but it was not intentional. And that I feel is key. Does it absolve the Stalinist state of blame? Of course not. But it does make it difficult to construct a comparison with Nazi atrocities
I disagree, the direct, foreseeable & inevitable consequence of state policy leading to millions of dead. Let’s clarify what is provable after the famine struck: Stalin ordering that certain people be prevented from fleeing famine areas, continuing to export grain in the midst of a catastrophic man-made famine - that much is provable, combined with the Great Terror and daily repression of the communist state they do put into a very narrow category.Are you suggesting that there is no evidence that genocide of the Jews was planned by top Nazi officials, including Hitler? :confused
What I stated is in relation to your point about ‘no smoking gun’ to prove Stalin ordered the Holdomor.
There is no signed document by Stalin ordering the holdomor, likewise there appears to be no signed document by hitler ordering the annihilation of the jews. I do not agree that the absence of a Stalin-Holdomor smoking gun is sufficient to prove his innocence (as you appear to believe), I have asked you – do you think the same standard should be applied to either regime ? Or are you just applying that 'smoking gun' standard in the case of Stalin’s Holdomor ? I would suggest whatever standard is used it should apply to both regimes equally.Huh? Of course there is. Soviet reports intended for propaganda or other publishing (such as census figures or grain yields) are obviously of suspect nature. These numbers are not derived from such a source. It's possible of course that the security services were simply lying to both the political leadership and their other, but that seems unlikely. Certainly it would be stupid to throw out such a resource, and return to guesswork, on the basis of such an unfounded suspicion
I disagree with your assertion that internal NKVD-compiled, KGB Stored, Communist Party documents - which are selectively released are inherently trustworthy, and that only public documents are suspicious. To give you a simple offhand example, it is common knowledge that Soviet forces plucked civilians from the fields of Europe to join death marches of German troops (in order that the numbers of ‘German troops’ that would arrive at their destination would be the same as the number who had left). This is because many died enroute or were shot out of hand. Paperwork wise the nkvd documentation will record no discrepancy - whereas there are 2, one for each soldier killed/dies on the death march and one more for the hapless civilian thrown into his place. It’s also worth pointing out that there is a lot more scope for nuances in NKVD documents beyond the simple example above. You could also break this down into parts. Firstly NKVD local documents to party, then those documents which get filed and kept for 70 years and released as opposed to documents not filed, not present or not released or simply falsely or incorrectly recorded to begin with.The point I do take is that the statistics themselves are incomplete and be misleading in places. But that's why we employ reason and scepticism. No one believes, for example, that all those executed under 'counter-revolutionary crimes' were actually guilty of anti-Soviet agitation. Similarly, ranges are built into the estimates for this reason. The archives state that only 800k (IIRC) political executions took place during the Stalin years but most historians are smart enough to round this up to 1m or 1.5m to account for understating. What is not justified is to assume that the records only account for a small fraction of the total deaths; there's just no basis for that
I think there is a distinction between ‘political execution’ and execution for other purposes at the hands of a communist regime.
A person could be sent to a gulag for being late for work. I believe twice within a single week something along those lines, (particularly due to alcoholism). This person dying in a hard labour camp may not be classified as ‘Political execution’, it may be classed as a criminal & non political death, (it may even be classified as old age or natural causes) but I would disagree with that distinction.Ah, but this is not the case at all. Unless you are arguing that the Soviet Union never collapsed? Or that there is no difference between the USSR and the Russian Federation? By which logic today's Germany has an interest in minimising Nazi war crimes... :confused
I think you are avoiding answering a straightfoward, honest question on a slim technicality there.Again, this just seems to me to be an unjustified national bias on your part. So we can never trust any records that emerge from Russia, even if the research has been conducted by Western historians, just because the sources are Russian? That's nonsensical
There is a difference between a) Russian historians and b) NKVD/Communist Party sources. To distrust Nkvd-Communist party documents does not suggest a prejudice against Russian people. At the same time - to completely disregard the factor of efforts at stalin’s rehabilitation on the basis that it may leave you open to accusations of prejudice against Russians as a people would be silly.Frankly I don't care about Putin, what matters here is what Russian academics are writing and, AFAIK, it does not flatter Stalin. No one would ever accuse the likes of Medvedev, Andreev or Darsky of being pro-Stalin
For something to be a factor in a dialogue does not require that it apply to every example every time.Of course if you want to put forward some evidence...
OK, here is one that springs to mind (from 2009)
http://www.rferl.org/content/Trying_To_Bury_An_Inconvenient_History/1503708.html
What's The Real Reason My Book On Stalin Isn't Being Published In Russia?
On March 2, the Moscow publishing house Atticus Group (Inostranka) canceled a contract to publish my latest book in Russia. The reason given by the publisher is the economic situation, which may be part of the story, though I suspect (as do my friends in Russia) that the real reason is political.
The history in my book is inconvenient to the current regime in Russia.
"The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia" draws on several hundred family archives and thousands of interviews with survivors of the Stalinist regime that I conducted with Memorial, a nationwide human rights and historical research center which for 20 years has pioneered the research of Stalinist repressions in the Soviet Union. Memorial has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times in the past three years.
On December 4, a group of masked men from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office forced their way with police truncheons into the St. Petersburg offices of Memorial.
After a search, the men confiscated hard drives containing the entire archive of Memorial in St. Petersburg: databases with biographical information on victims of repression, details about burial sites in the St. Petersburg area, family archives, sound recordings, and transcripts of interviews.
Among the confiscated items was the entire collection of materials in the Virtual Gulag Museum, a much-needed initiative to rescue precious artifacts, photographs, and documents from more than 100 small exhibitions under threat across Russia (a country where there is just one substantial museum of the gulag, Perm-36, in the Urals).
All the materials I collected with Memorial in St. Petersburg (about one-third of the sources used in "The Whisperers") were also confiscated by the police. Luckily, I have copies of all the documents on my website. But the rest of the confiscated items remain in the hands of the police.
Rehabilitation Of Stalin
The raid on Memorial is part of a broader ideological struggle over the control of history publications and teaching in Russia that may have influenced the decision of Atticus to cancel my contract.
The Kremlin has been actively working for the rehabilitation of Stalin. Its aim is not to deny Stalin's crimes, but to emphasize his achievements as the builder of the country's "glorious Soviet past." It wants Russians to take pride in their Soviet past and not to be burdened with a paralyzing sense of guilt about the repressions of the Stalin period.
At a conference in June 2007, then-President Vladimir Putin called on Russia's schoolteachers to portray the Stalin period in a more positive light. It was Stalin who made the Soviet Union great, who won the war against Hitler, and his "mistakes" were no worse than the crimes of Western states, he said.
Textbooks dwelling on the Great Terror and the gulag have been censored, historians attacked as "antipatriotic" for highlighting Stalin's crimes.
The presidential administration has promoted its own textbook, "The Modern History of Russia, 1945-2006: A Teacher's Handbook." According to one of its authors -- the Kremlin propagandist Pavel Danilin -- its aim is to present Russian history "not as a depressing sequence of misfortunes and mistakes, but as something to instill pride in one's country. This is precisely how teachers must teach history and not smear the Motherland with mud."
Danilin is a close associate of Gleb Pavlovsky, a presidential adviser and the editor of the "Russian Journal," which aims to create an intellectual base for Putin's pseudo-democracy.
A special December issue on the "Politics of Memory" was published to coincide with the raid on Memorial. It contained two articles viciously attacking the work of Memorial for playing into the hands foreign historians accused of setting out to blacken Soviet history by focusing on Stalin's crimes.
"The Whisperers" has been translated into 22 foreign languages, including all the European languages of the former Soviet Union -- except Russian, it now seems.
Orlando Figes is a professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London. The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.If this goes against your previous preconceptions, then you have two choices. You can either accept the 'new' figures (or at least work off them) in modifying your views on this period, or you can simply dismiss any evidence that you do not agree with and cling to discredited notions
Those are not the options here. ‘Accept new figures or be wrong’. It serves no positive, constructive, useful purpose to try to compress such a complex issue into such a narrowly defined loaded point.If you want to do the latter then fine, I honestly don't care. Just let me know because while I'm happy to have a conversation on the topic, I'm not going to bang my head against a brick wall or a series of national prejudices
There is no question of a national prejudice on my part against Russia. I am personally extremely interested in Russia and look forward to visiting for example St Petersburg, or Moscow at the soonest opportunity. So I would prefer you refrained from accusing me of prejudice against russians as a people, against the communist party - by all means but as stated that is a different thing to Russian People.0 -
....
....
....
likewise I would not be inclined to trust Russian scholars on this as the re-habilitation of Stalin has been long underway (both for clear political reasons).There is no question of a national prejudice on my part against Russia. I am personally extremely interested in Russia and look forward to visiting for example St Petersburg, or Moscow at the soonest opportunity.
Prejudice against Russian scholars, but not Russians?
Although I suppose you don't limit your opinion to just Russians
You really should get a grip at this stage you are loosing touch. You refuse to accept studies on the basis of their authors nationality. Perhaps you should clarify this?I would not be inclined to trust Israeli scholars on this subject0 -
It is already clear. In the case of a Russian scholar dropping the Stalin death toll by 75%, then no, I would not be in such a hurry to rule out political considerations.
If this 75% drop supports a persons ideological, or pro-communist or sympathetic to communist (not Russian, Communist) political viewpoint then I would not expect objectivity to enter into it on their part. I would probably also expect them to disingenously ridicule and attempt to undermine the notion that political considerations exsist around this issue and need to be factored in.0 -
You know what this reminds me of? Stalinist apologists who claim that anything published post-1953 is the product of 'Khrushchev revisionists' or 'Yeltsin liberals'. The research does not tally with your preconceptions and so it can only be the product of some political conspiracy or bias. You are effectively dismissing twenty years of research - by American, English, Russian, German, Israeli, French, etc academics - on the basis of... what? That Orlando Figes can't get published in Russian?It is already clear. In the case of a Russian scholar dropping the Stalin death toll by 75%, then no, I would not be in such a hurry to rule out political considerations
You have yet to demonstrate in any way that the academics who have advocated these figures are "pro-communist" or "sympathetic to communism" or anything of the sort. At least, nothing beyond poor national stereotypes and the (circular) assumption that anyone proposing such figures must be a communistIf this 75% drop supports a persons ideological, or pro-communist or sympathetic to communist (not Russian, Communist) political viewpoint then I would not expect objectivity to enter into it on their part
Which is ridiculous and, frankly, not worth my time. You are right and all those professional historians are wrong :rolleyes:
Where did I suggest "universal academic acceptance"? I believe the phrase I used was "rough academic consensus". Again, the fact that they have been accepted by the likes of Snyder (are you seriously going to suggest that he is "pro-communist"?) demonstrates the degree to which they have been accepted in academiaIt is not a matter of ‘these are THE figures - if new figures come along we can talk about it then’. These revisionist figures are unproven, open to doubt, scepticism and discussion as they are. I think the picture you paint here is one of a universal academic acceptance of the new 75% reduction, this is false
Regardless, the archive figures form the basis of today's research in the field. Some disagree with them, some believe that they have been misinterpreted but no one (outside of fringe Stalinists like Furr) seriously believes that they are "unproven" or can be discarded. If only because they are of magnitude better than previous estimates. Seriously, how do you believe that the pre-archive figures were arrived at? Why do you have faith in their figures?
Actually don't answer that last one. Conquest's numbers tally with your own preconception and are therefore beyond reproach
It does!That the same standards, level of scrutiny and methodology (not to mention climate of free and open dialogue) should apply in the compilation of, and discussion of both sets of data
This is getting tiring. A huge source of data regarding Nazi deaths is derived from German archives. These have been open to scholars since the 1950s and have been extensively pored through for decades. It is only since the fall of the USSR that historians have had (limited) access to similar resources in Russia. Studies into Soviet crimes are still catching up on equivalent studies into Nazi crimes. It will likely be decades before we can be as confident in the Stalinist figures as we are on the Nazi ones
If we were to follow your suggestion and rely exclusively on pre-archive material in Russia then, again with your logic, you would have to rip up decades of research into Nazi Germany and return to 1940s estimates of Nazi victims. Madness
In short: the Nazi figures have not been amended downwards because there have been no new revelations emerging from the German archives. Figures for Stalinist victims have been revised downwards because older estimates are not compatible with new evidence emerging from the archives. I'm not going to explain that any more
No you're not. No one is. And it's not just a "signed document by Stalin". There is no record of plans to devastate the Ukraine, no record of meetings to discuss the purposeful killing of millions, no orders implicating anyone in genocide*. At the heart of the 'Holdomor' argument is a vast void of missing paperwork or evidence. When something emerges to fill that hole then I'll reconsider the intentions of the Soviet state. Until then it's just baseless speculationI am not in a position to produce a document signed by stalin ordering the Holdomor
*All of which, as I've already mentioned, is present in the case of Nazi Germany. Your talk of treating the cases equally is laughable when you ignore the vast body of evidence that directly implicates the Nazi state in deliberate genocide
1) The vast majority of 'labour crimes' would be dealt with by the judicial courts and result in a non-custodial sentence (and yes, there are figures out there to prove this). Even then it would be strange in the extreme for such a case to end up in the GULAG, as opposed to a labour colony or a special settlementA person could be sent to a gulag for being late for work. I believe twice within a single week something along those lines, (particularly due to alcoholism). This person dying in a hard labour camp may not be classified as ‘Political execution’, it may be classed as a criminal & non political death, (it may even be classified as old age or natural causes) but I would disagree with that distinction
2) Obviously a person who died in the GULAG would not be classified as a 'political execution', for the very straightforward reason that it wasn't one. It would be classified as a GULAG death, a category that I fully believe the Soviet state bears criminal responsibility for
What? How is the fall of the USSR a "a slim technicality"?I think you are avoiding answering a straightfoward, honest question on a slim technicality there
You want a straightforward and honest answer? Your question was stupid in the extreme. It both provides a pointless hypothetical and ignores the distinctions between the USSR and the Russian Federation or Nazi Germany and Germany. The USSR did not 'release' these figures, period
By the same token we can't trust any German archives because they were compiled by Nazis. In the case of Russia it's much better to rely on the odd smuggled work by intellectuals than a vast database of detailed records. Ideological purity must be maintained at all costs :rolleyes:There is a difference between a) Russian historians and b) NKVD/Communist Party sources. To distrust Nkvd-Communist party documents does not suggest a prejudice against Russian people
Seriously, scepticism is required when dealing with the archives but your complete rejection of them is just baseless. No, worse than that: it's destructive. You are essentially demanding that we reject the past twenty years of Russian historiography. Except for when the likes of Figes draws upon security reports; that's grand0 -
I think your phrasing here is misleading. I am not talking about 'research not tallying with preconceptions'. I am talking about the 75% reduction in Stalin's death toll by some historians.
Nor am I talking about :You are effectively dismissing twenty years of research - by American, English, Russian, German, Israeli, French, etc academics - on the basis of... what? That Orlando Figes can't get published in Russian?
Let's be clear here - you asked for an example of the Rehabilitation of Stalin being a factor in modern Russia. I posted an article to illustrate this. This article mentioned several points, which you ignore while continuing to assert politics and the rehabilitation of stalin is not a factor in Russian WW2 history. Here is a summary of the points contained in the single article :
a) the author's book not being published in Russia (but 22 other languages).
b) the new 'revised' russian school books with a more cheery outlook on Stalin
c) the seizure of computer databases belonging to the 3x Nobel peace prize nominated 'memorial' organisation (devoted to the memory of stalin's victims).
d) censoring of school textbooks & labelling of historians as 'antipatriotic' etc.
It is misleading to portray the above (which were never intended to be definitive to begin with) in the terms you have chosen to. There are also other examples of the rehabilitation of Stalin, many of which are widely known, this would include the recent BBC documentary on this topic. The continued insistence that the politics around the Rehabilitation of Stalin is a non factor lacks credibility in my view. Again, to return to your tired allegation - this has nothing to do with national stereotypes or a prejudice on my part against the Russian People. Nothing whatsoever. I have always had a great admiration for Russian culture tradition and history, (also Cossack, Kulak and Ukranian as it happens). Bolshevism is a seperate matter entirely.
I have not said such research should be discarded. I articulated a scepticism around them, I have said that I do not accept them as definitive as presented in the original unclear article which formed the starting point of this discussion.
Neither you (to begin with) nor I (nor apparently anyone else) were clear on which study this article referenced. Though to be fair you did edit your post afterwards (to include what is the source of the study).
This is not the same thing as saying they should be completely discarded so If you are going to repeat what I said you should make an attempt at accuracy, rather than rephrase what I did say, out of context into something I did not say.If we were to follow your suggestion and rely exclusively on pre-archive material in Russia
Point out where I said that. Your general approach here of re-phrasing what is said into what was not said is tedious. At the same time I would not throw the baby out with the bathwater. In fact much of the dialogue between historians on this topic appears to be based on attempts at re-conciliation between the earlier estimates and the ones based on selective releases from soviet archives. Related discrepancies and so on.No you're not. No one is. And it's not just a "signed document by Stalin". There is no record of plans to devastate the Ukraine, no record of meetings to discuss the purposeful killing of millions, no orders implicating anyone in genocide*. At the heart of the 'Holdomor' argument is a vast void of missing paperwork or evidence. When something emerges to fill that hole then I'll reconsider the intentions of the Soviet state. Until then it's just baseless speculation
*All of which, as I've already mentioned, is present in the case of Nazi Germany. Your talk of treating the cases equally is laughable when you ignore the vast body of evidence that directly implicates the Nazi state in deliberate genocide
I can take if from your reply that your defence of Stalin in terms of the holdomor, being based on the lack of a paper trail - this standard of 'no smoking gun' = innocent does not then aply equally to Hitler and the subject of the annihilation of the jews.
Considering there is no paper order signed by either man ordering either event. In one case it's proof of innocence, in the other it's not.
This scenario presented here for the purposes of dialogue was about soviet archives, being in soviet hands for decade after decade after decade after the war. NKVD /Commissar compiled documents stored by the KGB throughout multiple communist regimes not containing a Stalin signed order or paperwork associated with the holdomor. At least not among those so-far released.
If you considered an equivalent scenario of N.S. regime victory in WW2, with the additional factors of - no comprehensive longerm and widereaching de-nazification process in place, NS Archives being in NS hands for multiple decades after the war, would you find them to be reliable if selectively released by a successor government at a later date ? In a climate where re-habilitation was a factor ? Would you automatically accept them as safe to supercede other estimates previously peer-reviewed and universatlly accepted which were gathered elsewhere ?
While this discussion continues I remain curious here about where the millions of missing ethnic germans fit into these new figures. Also the millions of missing wehrmacht soldiers. Do you know if these are factored into the downward revised totals ? They do not appear to be and in my view should be considered whether referenced in recent releases or not.0 -
Advertisement
-
[Edit: The article in question is probably 'Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, (1993), Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years'. It's well known enough that it's probably available online and is well worth the read.
That particular piece is in the list of Articles Here. No 7.
.0 -
marcsignal wrote: »
Yes. I have been going through them over the last few days. I think it would be fair to say that there has been bitter dispute over these revised figures.0 -
Yes. I have been going through them over the last few days. I think it would be fair to say that there has been bitter dispute over these revised figures.
Well tbh, when I read the OP I assumed this was a new study, which will explain the cynicism in my reply in the 2nd post.
My first thought was "Oh Christ! What's about to be ratcheted up in the Middle East now?" because Finkelstein (one of many Jewish scholars, that I have the utmost respect and admiration for) goes on about this all the time. ie: Holocaust Newsflash!! folllowed by 20 dead Palestinians or New Israeli Settlements Under Construction a week later.
It's important to consider, that pre 1967, there were only 2 scholarly works written on the Holocaust, and now there are thousands.
Although The Holocaust, and Israel, are 2 completely seperate things, they are intrinsically linked.
The Gaza atrocities in Dec 2008, stopped suddenly, about a week before Holocaust Memorial day in 2009 (Jan 27th). It wouldn't have looked too good, to be lamenting the Holocaust dead, while youre indulging in very brutal violence against a section of your own population at the same time.
0 -
marcsignal wrote: »Well tbh, when I read the OP I assumed this was a new study, which will explain the cynicism in my reply in the 2nd post.
My first thought was "Oh Christ! What's about to be ratcheted up in the Middle East now?" because Finkelstein (one of many Jewish scholars, that I have the utmost respect and admiration for) goes on about this all the time. ie: Holocaust Newsflash!! folllowed by 20 dead Palestinians or New Israeli Settlements Under Construction a week later.
It's important to consider, that pre 1967, there were only 2 scholarly works written on the Holocaust, and now there are thousands.
Although The Holocaust, and Israel, are 2 completely seperate things, they are intrinsically linked.
The Gaza atrocities in Dec 2008, stopped suddenly, about a week before Holocaust Memorial day in 2009 (Jan 27th). It wouldn't have looked too good, to be lamenting the Holocaust dead, while youre indulging in very brutal violence against a section of your own population at the same time.
"The Gaza atrocities"?, I take it you mean Operation Cast Lead. The palestinians are not part of the Israeli population because Gaza is not part of Israel, neither is it occupied so the IDF wasn't doing anything to its own population...besides protecting them I guess. If someone is sending rockets into another territory then they shouldn't be surprised if action is taken.
Is this study some part of an Israeli plot I wonder?, way of diminishing the Soviet crimes so the jewish holocaust reigns supreme?
I've got my own doubts about this study though, pretty much along the same lines as Morlar. The paperback for Snyders book comes out in September so I'll probably read that before I judge but based on the language in the link posted in the op it does seem like they're trying to bend over backwards to find ways of reducing the soviet figures.0 -
That's the one 'Operation Cast Lead' and that was Not an atrocity? No?BlaasForRafa wrote: »"The Gaza atrocities"?, I take it you mean Operation Cast Lead.
Just out of curiosity, do you refer to The Holocaust as 'Operation Reinhard' or The Holocaust?BlaasForRafa wrote: »The palestinians are not part of the Israeli population because Gaza is not part of Israel, neither is it occupied so the IDF wasn't doing anything to its own population...besides protecting them I guess. If someone is sending rockets into another territory then they shouldn't be surprised if action is taken.
Ok, perhaps. So, the palestinians that are living in Israel, have absolute freedom of movement?
No Jewish only roads? Is that just a lie, perpetuated by Palestinians and neo-nazis??BlaasForRafa wrote: »Is this study some part of an Israeli plot I wonder?, way of diminishing the Soviet crimes so the jewish holocaust reigns supreme?
Well comparisons with the Holocaust, are out of the question, by all accounts.
@36mins here. Listen very carefully to Abraham Foxmans (ADL) delivery and language, when he is addressing his Ukrainian hosts.BlaasForRafa wrote: »I've got my own doubts about this study though, pretty much along the same lines as Morlar. The paperback for Snyders book comes out in September so I'll probably read that before I judge but based on the language in the link posted in the op it does seem like they're trying to bend over backwards to find ways of reducing the soviet figures.
I agree with this.
.0 -
Advertisement
-
marcsignal wrote: »@36mins here. Listen very carefully to Abraham Foxmans (ADL) delivery and language, when he is addressing his Ukrainian hosts.
Trying to think how to say, that video comes across to me
its disturbing, apart from the fact I thought the foxman guy was pretty arrogant and rude towards the Ukranian premier, at about 45 mins the group of people, saying I can see people being marched out and shot?? wtf?. It was interesting what the rabbi's were saying, the guy in NY and in Russia, about religious Jewish people and "secular" Jewish people.
And then in the end, the girl saying she'd like to kill people wtf?? is that what its all about, politicizing them so they can demonise who they perceive to be enemies??
It's frightening really, imagine Irish people going on like that about the famines (not just 1840).
I know this was about Stalin and Hitler, but that **** scares me as much as revising the deaths attributed to either of those dictators overall (whoever they were) in history books.0 -
at about 45 mins the group of people, saying I can see people being marched out and shot?? wtf?.
In fairness, I think she was imagining the Jews that were murdered in that place by the Nazis. I'm sure she wasn't suggesting, or believed that Ukrainians today would do anything like that to Jews.It was interesting what the rabbi's were saying, the guy in NY and in Russia, about religious Jewish people and "secular" Jewish people.
Yes, it sure is an eye opener.
Good point about the Irish and the famine.0 -
marcsignal wrote: »In fairness, I think she was imagining the Jews that were murdered in that place by the Nazis. I'm sure she wasn't suggesting, or believed that Ukrainians today would do anything like that to Jews.
Yes, it sure is an eye opener.
Good point about the Irish and the famine.
I just went back and watched it again to make sure I didnt hear what i thought I heard, but she does say,
"the worst thing is, I can see it happening today, I can see people being marched out of Kiev"
thats as insulkting to the people of Kiev/ukraine as that guy was to the premier, probably worse.
I was shocked when I heard her say it first, maybe she/that group she was in a have a fear it can happen, but listening to the American guy (the proffesor that got sacked), the Rabbi's and the Israeli guy (that was/is the leader of a labour party? if I got that right), it seems more likely to me that some individuals/groups have an agenda to and are looking for opportunities to find perceived wrongs.
As I was looking at the clip, I noticed when I opened it I could only open it at the moment when the elderly couple were being interviewed just before the bit where the woman was talking about Kiev, I guess I cant get my head around what they were saying, it almost seems like a contradiction, they feel the ADL keeps them informed about Jewish issues, but neither are they orthodox (okay, that seems ok to me) , but they seem like they suggest they are not even religiously Jewish?? which ties into what the Russian Rabbi guy was saying about "Secular" Jewish people.
Definitely, history cannot/should not be forgotten, but to move forward, to change for the better, needs to in someway accept the past and ensure it doesnt happen again, but not just to ourselves or our own group, but to anyone, the Israelis should have been the International champion of Human rights, but it never turned out that way, Its unfortunate really.
edit,regarding history should not be forgotten applies to the numbers killed by stalin too, I dont like the idea of trying to turn him back into some hero of Russia by changing the text books. Not accepting what he was in one way or another a part of is not accepting what happened/denying history and opens the doors for someone to demonise another group today to allow something like to happen again.0 -
-
I'd have preferred I stood corrected, glad i'm not from Kiev, I think I'd be a bit annoyed.
Neither can I say I am a fan of anyone parading around draped in their national flag anywhere, it just tells me they likely dont know or fail to see what really happens in the world or what their (not just Israel) country is like.
I dislike seeing that here (Irish in tricolour, but more so abroad), I would not like to see irish people parading around anywhere draped in the tricolour really. I dislike the irish Gov, current and former but I still feel their are things for people to be proud of nationally (anywhere), like unique identity/history/cultures, but I dislike the certain kind of nationalism that comes with draping a flag. I think it just dawned on me, I'm only probably only ok with it in the olympics0 -
And you've objected strenuously to this. Instead you strongly favour previous tallies. The latter are no more factual than the new figures; they are in fact considerably more tenuously and rely heavily on conjecture and scraps. You're also choosing to ignore the existence of pre-1990 estimates that pointed to significantly lower deaths. In short you are resisting anything that suggests that the previous 'high' estimates are wrongI think your phrasing here is misleading. I am not talking about 'research not tallying with preconceptions'. I am talking about the 75% reduction in Stalin's death toll by some historians
To be perfectly honest I strongly suspect that I'm the only person in this thread who is even slightly familiar with current research into the period in questionNeither you (to begin with) nor I (nor apparently anyone else) were clear on which study this article referenced. Though to be fair you did edit your post afterwards (to include what is the source of the study).
You accuse me of being repetitive and then you demonstrate why I am so. So let me make this clear: this is not about one signed order. It's not necessary to present such an order in the case of Hitler because there is a vast body of evidence that undeniably implicates the Third Reich in genocide. This, the vast body of evidence, is entirely lacking in the case of the USSR and it's this that I want to see. This is not complicatedI can take if from your reply that your defence of Stalin in terms of the holdomor, being based on the lack of a paper trail - this standard of 'no smoking gun' = innocent does not then aply equally to Hitler and the subject of the annihilation of the jews
If this evidence emerges then I'll obviously change my stance. Until then it was not genocide
The Federal Republic of Germany is a "successor government" to Nazi Germany. And yes, I consider that a report written in 1953 contains the same truths in 2011 as it did then. Unless of course it had been tampered with by the academic who published it; a very strong charge to makeIf you considered an equivalent scenario of N.S. regime victory in WW2, with the additional factors of - no comprehensive longerm and widereaching de-nazification process in place, NS Archives being in NS hands for multiple decades after the war, would you find them to be reliable if selectively released by a successor government at a later date ?
I don't think you quite understand just what these terms mean. In the first place, Conquest's figures were never "universally accepted". Secondly, these archive figures have also been presented in papers that have been "peer reviewed". "Peer reviewed" merely means that the paper is fit for publishingWould you automatically accept them as safe to supercede other estimates previously peer-reviewed and universatlly accepted which were gathered elsewhere ?
Yes, they should be. Don't have the figures on hand but I can tell you that in 1946 there were just under 900k Germans (civilian and military) in exile within the USSR. Again, a matter of hundreds of thousands rather than "millions"While this discussion continues I remain curious here about where the millions of missing ethnic germans fit into these new figures. Also the millions of missing wehrmacht soldiers. Do you know if these are factored into the downward revised totals ? They do not appear to be and in my view should be considered whether referenced in recent releases or not.0 -
-
I do actually. Call it the certain confidence that comes from knowing what it is I'm actually talking about. I've spent years reading up on the early Soviet Union so you'll excuse me if I don't have much of an appetite for much of the fiercely defended bull**** flying around here. Seriously, it's like talking football with someone who's just found out what 4-4-2 is and who, more importantly, isn't actually bothered to watch the matches
But hey! What does actual research count for? Sure, wasn't it all just an "Israeli plot" anyways? :rolleyes:0 -
I do actually. Call it the certain confidence that comes from knowing what it is I'm actually talking about. I've spent years reading up on the early Soviet Union so you'll excuse me if I don't have much of an appetite for much of the fiercely defended bull**** flying around here. Seriously, it's like talking football with someone who's just found out what 4-4-2 is and who, more importantly, isn't actually bothered to watch the matches
But hey! What does actual research count for? Sure, wasn't it all just an "Israeli plot" anyways? :rolleyes:
I'm not doubting how much you've read up, while i've read a few things here and there myself, I'm sure I probably have only scratched the surface.
What would you suggest to read to gain more insight into the soviet union from the 20's to say the start of WW2
And the formation of the communist party,how it came together/evolved, how it dealt with its opponents (not just the party members but whole organisations) and maybe the formation of the red army from existing Russian units.
Its an interesting subject, but surely huge too.0 -
I do actually. Call it the certain confidence that comes from knowing what it is I'm actually talking about.
Ah right
you mean like Here?? Where you claimed 2 million Roma were killed by the Nazis ??
I mean, you were only out by One million seven hundred and eighty thousand...
And you wade in here thinking you're some kind of scholar ??? :P:P
Source
0 -
Advertisement
-
OPDoes anyone have details on the recent Israeli, Russian & German study which downgrades the numbers killed by stalin from 20,000,000 to 6,000,000 ?
For decades these figures were solid, peer reviewed and well established ; that Stalin killed far more than hitler.
It seems that the figures mentioned by Snyder are in reference to medium term studies using archives uncovered after the fall of communism. A starting point as referenced by earlier post is linked here for analysis http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf
This deals with the pre-war years.0 -
I have some further links on papers mentioned in this and in similar thread on history forum here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=73505951&postcount=134For anyone thats interested here are a few links to information posted by Reekwind in earlier post. I have only had a quick scan through these at this stage so have no comment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reekwind View Post
... introduced archival evidence into the discussion is 'Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, (1993),
http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reekwind View Post
... The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings (1993),
http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Scale_Repression.pdf
Quote:
Originally Posted by Reekwind View Post
Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments
http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/SovietCrimes.pdf0 -
This is going to be a big one
As you say, it's absolutely huge. Unfortunately the historiography is also in a complete mess. Not only is Soviet history highly politicised but it's also exceptionally patchy. There are dozens of popular works available on the October Revolution, the Great Purge and, to a lesser degree, the Eastern Front in WWII but relatively little has been written in English about the 1930s or the 1940s... the NEP period has been largely ignored altogether. And on top of that, sources are scarce enough that decoding what actually happened is difficultWhat would you suggest to read to gain more insight into the soviet union from the 20's to say the start of WW2
And the formation of the communist party,how it came together/evolved, how it dealt with its opponents (not just the party members but whole organisations) and maybe the formation of the red army from existing Russian units.
Its an interesting subject, but surely huge too.
Things are getting better but slowly. I reckon that it will take another few decades of research before we have a confident picture of the early Soviet state. Anyways, on to what we actually have today. Bear with me here:
I'd start at the beginning. Understanding the dynamics behind 1917 is crucial because this was the event that defined the USSR and legitimised Soviet rule in the eyes of the population. Rex Wade's The Russian Revolution is probably the best introductory work available but Shelia Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution is a (very) concise introduction that covers the major themes up until the 1930s. Rabinowitch's The Bolsheviks in Power covers the crucial first years of Bolshevik rule (his two works on 1917 - Prelude to Revolution and the Bolsheviks in Power are highly recommended) and hints at how the revolution degenerated into one-party dictatorship. There's a few works out there on the Civil War, of which Mawdsley's The Russian Civil War is probably best. I do have serious issues with Figes' A People's Tragedy but it is well detailed and covers both 1917 and the intra-party struggles of the 1920s
As I say, the NEP period is criminally neglected. Most works on the period are economic in nature. Nove's An Economic History of the USSR is the definitive work on that topic but Davies' The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union also covers a who range of socio-economic topics. These are not easy books to read, and are slightly outdated, but they do contain a wealth of information. Also check out Murphy's Revolution and Counterrevolution also comes into it's own here, examining the evolution of a single factory through the 1920s and into the 1930s.
I prefer that sort of 'bottom up' history to the usual political narratives. So I'd also recommend Rossman's Worker Resistance Under Stalin for an excellent archive driven approach to the impact of Stalinist economics on ordinary Russians. For a less critical view of the 1930s, Fitzpatrick's Everyday Stalinism does what it says on the tin. On the famine of the 1930s, Davies and Wheatcroft's The Years of Hunger (and its predecessor The Soviet Collective Farm) are long and incredibly statistically rich but pretty much the definitive works. Getty's work on the purges, probably most fully explored in The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks is controversial but well worth reading... if you're into political minutiae at least.
For a general work, Lewin's The Soviet Century is suitably broad but as a result lacks detail. His Making of the Soviet System is highly detailed but not really concerned with the topic of it's title. In many ways EH Carr's massive multi-volumed A History of Soviet Russia remains the best work on the evolution of the Soviet state but it's also expensive and, well, huge
[Edit: Forgot, Fitzpatrick's [i]Beyond Totalitarianism[/i] is highly relevant to this topic. It's a serious of essays that compare various facets of both the Nazi and soviet states]
And that's enough for now. See jonnie's link, and my own earlier in this thread, for some paper references. To that you can add Haslam's Political Opposition to Stalin and the Role of Terror for a look at the intra-party squabbles of the mid-1930s. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific but for now I need to rest my brain after that dump0 -
jonniebgood1 wrote: »OP
It seems that the figures mentioned by Snyder are in reference to medium term studies using archives uncovered after the fall of communism. A starting point as referenced by earlier post is linked here for analysis http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf
This deals with the pre-war years.
On the previous page of this thread those figures have already been referenced :marcsignal wrote: »Yes. I have been going through them over the last few days. I think it would be fair to say that there has been bitter dispute over these revised figures.
It's also worth pointing out that that page :
http://sovietinfo.tripod.com
contains both sides of the discussion, not just the 'low estimates' side of things.0 -
On the previous page of this thread those figures have already been referenced :
It's also worth pointing out that that page :
http://sovietinfo.tripod.com
contains both sides of the discussion, not just the 'low estimates' side of things.
Having gone through the study by Michael Ellman (2002 comments) I cannot find to many holes in his review of the changes to the figures, he explains it well. The previous figures are understandable given the lack of information availiable at the time they were put together. Do the authors of these works have much other work that would allow a neutral view on their competency?
Edit -author check- http://www1.fee.uva.nl/pp/mjellman/0 -
There is an interesting article here on the different schools, and regions of figures on this subject :
http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#StalinSoviet Union, Stalin's regime (1924-53): 20 000 000
There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school. The two schools are generally associated with the right and left wings of the political spectrum, and they often accuse each other of being blinded by prejudice, stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, and maybe even having a hidden agenda. Also, both sides claim that recent access to former Soviet archives has proven that their side is right.
Here are a few illustrative estimates from the Big Numbers school:
Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993 cites these:
Chistyakovoy, V. (Neva, no.10): 20 million killed during the 1930s.
Dyadkin, I.G. (Demograficheskaya statistika neyestestvennoy smertnosti v SSSR 1918-1956 ): 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" for the USSR overall, with 34 to 49 million under Stalin.
Gold, John.: 50-60 million.
Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998): c. 50 million killed 1924-53, excluding WW2 war losses. This would divide (more or less) into 33M pre-war and 17M after 1939.
Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago,
Intro to Perennial Classics Edition by Edward Ericson: Solzhenitsyn publicized an estimate of 60 million. Aleksandr Yakovlev estimates perhaps 35 million.
Page 178: citing Kurganov, 66 million lives lost between 1917 and 1959
Rummel, 1990: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:
1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
1939-45: 18,157,000
1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine
William Cockerham, Health and Social Change in Russia and Eastern Europe: 50M+
Wallechinsky: 13M (1930-32) + 7M (1934-38)
Cited by Wallechinsky:
Medvedev, Roy (Let History Judge): 40 million.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: 60 million.
MEDIAN: 51 million for the entire Stalin Era; 20M during the 1930s.
And from the Lower Numbers school:
Nove, Alec ("Victims of Stalinism: How Many?" in J. Arch Getty (ed.) Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, 1993): 9,500,000 "surplus deaths" during the 1930s.
Cited in Nove:
Maksudov, S. (Poteri naseleniya SSSR, 1989): 9.8 million abnormal deaths between 1926 and 1937.
Tsaplin, V.V. ("Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody" 1989): 6,600,000 deaths (hunger, camps and prisons) between the 1926 and 1937 censuses.
Dugin, A. ("Stalinizm: legendy i fakty" 1989): 642,980 counterrevolutionaries shot 1921-53.
Muskovsky Novosti (4 March 1990): 786,098 state prisoners shot, 1931-53.
Gordon, A. (What Happened in That Time?, 1989, cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993): 8-9 million during the 1930s.
Ponton, G. (The Soviet Era, 1994): cites an 1990 article by Milne, et al., that excess deaths 1926-39 were likely 3.5 million and at most 8 million.
MEDIAN: 8.5 Million during the 1930s.
As you can see, there's no easy compromise between the two schools. The Big Numbers are so high that picking the midpoint between the two schools would still give us a Big Number. It may appear to be a rather pointless argument -- whether it's fifteen or fifty million, it's still a huge number of killings -- but keep in mind that the population of the Soviet Union was 164 million in 1937, so the upper estimates accuse Stalin of killing nearly 1 out of every 3 of his people, an extremely Polpotian level of savagery. The lower numbers, on the other hand, leave Stalin with plenty of people still alive to fight off the German invasion.
Although it's too early to be taking sides with absolute certainty, a consensus seems to be forming around a death toll of 20 million. This would adequately account for all documented nastiness without straining credulity:
In The Great Terror (1969), Robert Conquest suggested that the overall death toll was 20 million at minimum -- and very likely 50% higher, or 30 million. This would divide roughly as follows: 7M in 1930-36; 3M in 1937-38; 10M in 1939-53. By the time he wrote The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (1992), Conquest was much more confident that 20 million was the likeliest death toll.
Britannica, "Stalinism": 20M died in camps, of famine, executions, etc., citing Medvedev
Brzezinski: 20-25 million, dividing roughly as follows: 7M destroying the peasantry; 12M in labor camps; 1M excuted during and after WW2.
Daniel Chirot:
"Lowest credible" estimate: 20M
"Highest": 40M
Citing:
Conquest: 20M
Antonov-Ovseyenko: 30M
Medvedev: 40M
Courtois, Stephane, Black Book of Communism (Le Livre Noir du Communism): 20M for the whole history of Soviet Union, 1917-91.
Essay by Nicolas Werth: 15M
[Ironic observation: The Black Book of Communism seems to vote for Hitler as the answer to the question of who's worse, Hitler (25M) or Stalin (20M).]
John Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen (2001): 20M, incl.
Kulaks: 7M
Gulag: 12M
Purge: 1.2M (minus 50,000 survivors)
Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin: directly responsible for 20 million deaths.
Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europes Ghosts After Communism (1995): upwards of 25M
Time Magazine (13 April 1998): 15-20 million.
AVERAGE: Of the 17 estimates of the total number of victims of Stalin, the median is 30 million.
Individual Gulags etc.
Kolyma
Kuropaty
Vorkuta
Bykivnia
Famine of 1926-38, including the Holodomor:
Richard Overy, Russia's War (1997): 4.2M in Ukraine + 1.7M in Kazakhstan
Green, Barbara ("Stalinist Terror and the Question of Genocide: the Great Famine" in Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust Unique?) cites these sources for the number who died in the famine:
Nove: 3.1-3.2M in Ukraine, 1933
Maksudov: 4.4M in Ukraine, 1927-38
Mace: 5-7M in Ukraine
Osokin: 3.35M in USSR, 1933
Wheatcraft: 4-5M in USSR, 1932-33
Conquest:
Total, USSR, 1926-37: 11M
1932-33: 7M
Ukraine: 5M0 -
@marcsignal: I'm not a fan of Snyder (his work is too close to the totalitarian school for my liking) but that someone like him, whose work is otherwise fairly conservative, has come round to the 'low figures' is an indication of how far academia has come over the past twenty years
To quote from the Ellman paper that I've already referenced: "The best estimate that can currently be made of the number of repression deaths in 1937-38 [ie, the height of the violence during the Stalinist period] is the range of 950,000-1.2million, ie about a million. This is the estimate which should be used by historians, teachers and journalists concerned with 20th C Russian - and world-history"
I see no reason to disagree with that
So we take the estimates based on complete conjecture and estimates based on solid archival evidence and plump for something resembling a halfway point? No, just noThere is an interesting article here on the different schools, and regions of figures on this subject :
Seriously, why is anyone even mentioning figures like 50-60 million? That would imply that between the Stalinist regime and the Nazis, and excluding natural deaths, almost half the entire Soviet population died between 1924 and 1953. Some people just don't think. To arrive at those figures you have to engage in some unbelievable or underhand demographic contortions, such as assuming an absurdly high birth rate (ie, many times higher than Tsarist or post-Stalin periods) or conjuring up a 'birth deficit' (ie, people who weren't born). And you're still left with an assumption that the country was depopulated by up to half of it's population
It's simply nonsense and we know it's nonsense. I mean, Gulag Archipelago is a harrowing account but we know that its representation of the GULAG is misleading at best. You can't simply take one dissident literary account and extrapolate upwards into the tens of millions. Or if you're going to do so then please don't have the gall to accuse others of speculation or political bias
(On which note, you don't have a problem with Medvedev or The Black Book of Communism? Both are highly politicised and make no secret of their strong anti-Stalinism. But I'm sure that their numbers are reliable)0 -
@marcsignal: I'm not a fan of Snyder (his work is too close to the totalitarian school for my liking) but that someone like him, whose work is otherwise fairly conservative, has come round to the 'low figures' is an indication of how far academia has come over the past twenty years
To quote from the Ellman paper that I've already referenced: "The best estimate that can currently be made of the number of repression deaths in 1937-38 [ie, the height of the violence during the Stalinist period] is the range of 950,000-1.2million, ie about a million. This is the estimate which should be used by historians, teachers and journalists concerned with 20th C Russian - and world-history"
I see no reason to disagree with that
Seems a fair enough assessment.
If I am honest, I am not very well versed in the pre-war period, and it seems there is a mountain of conflicting evidence on both sides.
Just with regard to the papers cited, it will take me ages to get through them atm in order to find myself in a fair position to decide objectively for myself.0 -
Advertisement
-
And you've objected strenuously to this. Instead you strongly favour previous tallies. The latter are no more factual than the new figures; they are in fact considerably more tenuously and rely heavily on conjecture and scraps. You're also choosing to ignore the existence of pre-1990 estimates that pointed to significantly lower deaths. In short you are resisting anything that suggests that the previous 'high' estimates are wrong
Actually it's you who have ignored post 1990 higher range estimate (where ignore=disregard.).
NKVd compiled, kgb stored documents, kept in communist state archives for decades through multiple communist regime leadership changes and then selectively released post-glasnost are far from definitive in my view. The notion that they are
a) inherently trustworthy
b) accurately and honestly compiled to begin with
c) reliable in terms of completeness
are far from objective notions.The Federal Republic of Germany is a "successor government" to Nazi Germany. And yes, I consider that a report written in 1953 contains the same truths in 2011 as it did then. ....
Yes, they should be. Don't have the figures on hand but I can tell you that in 1946 there were just under 900k Germans (civilian and military) in exile within the USSR. Again, a matter of hundreds of thousands rather than "millions"
NKVD compiled documents are not inherently trustworthy. To give you one example, The Finnish army lost certain men in the Winter war, X Killed and X missing. Many of the missing are safely presumed captured. However after the war less than 2,000 were returned prisoners of war. Do you honestly expect people to believe that the soviet forces recorded every prisoner they executed in the field or who died either on their way to or in a gulag ?
To disregard the missing : Ethnic Germans - 3,000,000 estimated by the West German authorities in 1953 were still missing at that point. The missing wehrmacht (which number is 900k only if you believe the lowest concievable estimate btw)
This is not to mention Soviet partisans atrocities against civilians in Russia, Finland and elsewhere in east europe. The notion that every rape and every torture or murder were conciencously recorded by either Soviet partisans or Red Army is ludicrous. Someone with no regard for personal consequence happened to be present in documenting every soviet rape and atrocity and murder, not only that, but those records then survived intact. They survived the initial contact with NKVD and Communist Party officialdom and were later stored for decade after decade safe ? This is the same communist state that not only murdered their own, but at times literally airbrushed them out of history, or, engaged in black propaganda to concoct evidence against the other side (one example of which would be Katyn - unless we are to believe the only time they did this was the time they were found out). We are to believe these same individuals 'archive supported' 75% reduced figures are inherently more trustworthy than all other sources ?To be perfectly honest I strongly suspect that I'm the only person in this thread who is even slightly familiar with current research into the period in question
Knowledge of this specific aspect of communist archival research, that's a possibility. In terms of in depth knowledge of the necessary wider context of WW2 - absolutely not.You accuse me of being repetitive and then you demonstrate why I am so. So let me make this clear: this is not about one signed order. It's not necessary to present such an order in the case of Hitler because there is a vast body of evidence that undeniably implicates the Third Reich in genocide. This, the vast body of evidence, is entirely lacking in the case of the USSR and it's this that I want to see. This is not complicated
We can wrap this part up with - 'no written order means stalin has no responsibilty for Holdomor'. For all your protestations it's clear this same standard of yours clearly does not apply to the opposing regime.So we take the estimates based on complete conjecture and estimates based on solid archival evidence and plump for something resembling a halfway point? No, just no
You really need to stop taking what people say and re-phrasing it into something they did not say.
We are not talking about 2 strands here, high estimates based on pre glasnost sources and low post glasnost sources.
The pre-glasnost ranges as you yourself mentioned varied, some exceptional pro-Stalin ones quite low, the majority of the rest not so low.
Nor are all of the post-glasnost estimates equally reduced for that matter.Seriously, why is anyone even mentioning figures like 50-60 million? That would imply that between the Stalinist regime and the Nazis, and excluding natural deaths, almost half the entire Soviet population died between 1924 and 1953. Some people just don't think. To arrive at those figures you have to engage in some unbelievable or underhand demographic contortions, such as assuming an absurdly high birth rate (ie, many times higher than Tsarist or post-Stalin periods) or conjuring up a 'birth deficit' (ie, people who weren't born). And you're still left with an assumption that the country was depopulated by up to half of it's population
No it would not, as is mentioned in the link posted. Also you are overlooking the fact that not all of those estimates cover the same timeframe. Some are for the entire soviet period. So 50,000,000 over 50 years is not half the Soviet population, (which is considerably higher than 100m in any event).It's simply nonsense and we know it's nonsense.
As above.I mean, Gulag Archipelago is a harrowing account but we know that its representation of the GULAG is misleading at best. You can't simply take one dissident literary account and extrapolate upwards into the tens of millions. Or if you're going to do so then please don't have the gall to accuse others of speculation or political bias
One of the central factors in this discussion is the question of whether or not equal scrutiny be applied to both sets of statistics. This would extend to literature and survivor accounts of the period. I have yet to see the same level of scepticism and scrutiny applied to, for example, holocaust literature. Much of which is patently falsified and massively exaggerated. In general the more extreme inaccuracies can come to light but the notion that they are the target of an equal level of scepticism and scrutiny is not one I would agree with, unfortunately.
The Gulag Archipelago has not been referenced or put forward by anyone as being definitive. Nor can you say you 'know' it is wrong or intentionally misleading, you can disagree, find it unreliable but taken as a whole you do not know this to be the case. It is one out of many, many referenced in this discussion thread. To attempt to zero in on and undermine that single, non definitive source is as incorrect as it would be to utterly discard it. The balance of this discussion does not hang on any single work, it's more complex than that. So again, trying to present this issue in those terms is what is misleading, not the book's author.(On which note, you don't have a problem with Medvedev or The Black Book of Communism? Both are highly politicised and make no secret of their strong anti-Stalinism. But I'm sure that their numbers are reliable)
So let me get this straight, to begin with on this thread you asserted that rehabilitation of Stalin was not a factor in the 75% reduction of Stalin death toll. In fact at one point you even claimed to believe that my posts reminded you of Stalin Apologists !! Now you accuse some of the earlier higher estimates as being tainted by political considerations of the West - while simultaneously asserting that political considerations in reduced figures are not an issue ? That is a neat trick if you believe it. As has been illustrated on this thread Rehabilitation of Stalin is a factor, it is every bit as real a factor today as the Cold War was in decades past. It is not the only political factor and nor is it necessarily an over riding factor in every aspect but it is a factor when looking at the overall attempts at 75% reduction and general impetus in that direction.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKQdJCOjLlE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTBLbeCbUsoAdvertisement