The Other Holocaust...

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

This is, of course, old news. I'm bringing this up to ask a somewhat interesting question...... why dosen't this one recieve the attention that is devoted to the Nazi one?

[fgalkin]

It doesn't? I might not have noticed, since my great-grandparents were killed in it, so it does recieve quite a lot of attention in my family.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Well your in Russia.... so the situation is somewhat different in that regard. I really should have been more clear.... why dosen't it recieve "any" attention in the USA?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Because fgalkin's people do not have the societal, cultural, and political clout the Jews do in America.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

Because fgalkin's people do not have the societal, cultural, and political clout the Jews do in America.

Are you saying that sarcastically? If not you better watch out for that "Anti-Semite" label.

[Joe]

Because fgalkin's people do not have the societal, cultural, and political clout the Jews do in America.

Are you saying that sarcastically? If not you better watch out for that "Anti-Semite" label.

Oh, shut up.

In any case, you do have a point, sort of. It's no secret that the horrors the Soviet system inflicted upon its citizenry are far less widely-known or taught in America than the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Duranty's Pulitzer still hasn't been revoked, after all.

[Rogue 9]

Known to me at any rate. The publicity for the Nazi Holocaust is mostly due to the fact that U.S. soldiers rolled into those camps while they were occupied and, of course, talked, made videos, wrote home, and so on. No one invaded Siberia to force a sudden revelation.

[Thinkmarble]

I donnot know enough about the "famine", but it seems to be more the result of plain incompentence and self-delusions at the upper level then malice. I tend to think the nazistic campaigns of genocide were worse mainly because for them the dieing of millions was not a side effect but rather the main goal.

If you want malice I would suggest to check out archipel gulag, which depicts the system of stalinists concentration camp.

And just because it fits the scope:
Anyone heard about the armenian genocide comitted by the turks ?

[Faram]

I donnot know enough about the "famine", but it seems to be more the result of plain incompentence and self-delusions at the upper level then malice. I tend to think the nazistic campaigns of genocide were worse mainly because for them the dieing of millions was not a side effect but rather the main goal.

If you want malice I would suggest to check out archipel gulag, which depicts the system of stalinists concentration camp.

And just because it fits the scope:
Anyone heard about the armenian genocide comitted by the turks ?

Yes I have. Hitler used the Armenian genocide as a rationale for his own genocide campain with somthing like "who remembers the Armenian genocide?"

They thought me that one in history class waay back.

[Darth Wong]

The Soviets were allied with the US at the time. And despite the huge numbers of people killed, a famine doesn't seem as methodically inhumane as gas chambers and death camps. While the results are truly horrifying, some idiot in the Kremlin screeching "MORE GRAIN, DAMMIT!" does not seem as deliberately malicious as someone deciding to build gas chambers for orderly extermination.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

The Soviets were allied with the US at the time.

Your wrong. The "famine" occured almost ten years before the US entered WWII and allied with the USSR.

While the results are truly horrifying, some idiot in the Kremlin screeching "MORE GRAIN, DAMMIT!" does not seem as deliberately malicious as someone deciding to build gas chambers for orderly extermination

And what makes you so sure that the entire process was due to incompetence? Its not like Stalin was oblivious to what his policies were doing to the people of the Ukraine, espically in light of all the other atrocities he commited.

And despite the huge numbers of people killed, a famine doesn't seem as methodically inhumane as gas chambers and death camps.

Unless its a deliberate famine which was implimented specifically to kill large amounts of people.

[Darth Wong]

The Soviets were allied with the US at the time.

Your wrong. The "famine" occured almost ten years before the US entered WWII and allied with the USSR.

You're assuming that "at the time" means the time of the actual famine. I'm talking about the time when the Americans finally picked up their heads from their navels and started looking at what was going on outside their own borders, which would have been ... Dec 7, 1941.

While the results are truly horrifying, some idiot in the Kremlin screeching "MORE GRAIN, DAMMIT!" does not seem as deliberately malicious as someone deciding to build gas chambers for orderly extermination

And what makes you so sure that the entire process was due to incompetence? Its not like Stalin was oblivious to what his policies were doing to the people of the Ukraine, espically in light of all the other atrocities he commited.

And despite the huge numbers of people killed, a famine doesn't seem as methodically inhumane as gas chambers and death camps.

Unless its a deliberate famine which was implimented specifically to kill large amounts of people.

The purpose of the famine was to starve the people off and kill them all? I must admit that I never studied the Stalinist famine in great detail, but what makes you say that they were deliberately conducted in an attempt to cause mass exterminations, as opposed to serving some other purpose?

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

You're assuming that "at the time" means the time of the actual famine. I'm talking about the time when the Americans finally picked up their heads from their navels and started looking at what was going on outside their own borders, which would have been ... Dec 7, 1941.

1. Given what you said, and that it was said in context to the famine, there was no way I could have known that 1941 was what you meant when you said "at the time".

2. Even before 1941, during the actually famine itself actually, many "pinko" journalists (I remember reading about some that worked for the NY Times in particular) denied that a famine was even occuring in the Ukraine, let alone one a deliberalty planned one that was killing millions of people.

The purpose of the famine was to starve the people off and kill them all? I must admit that I never studied the Stalinist famine in great detail, but what makes you say that they were deliberately conducted in an attempt to cause mass exterminations, as opposed to serving some other purpose?

I remember reading it at some point in the past. I'm not going to look it up at this very moment (its 4am and I'm not going to take the time to find it) but the very fact that Stalin had millions killed, with a bullet to the back of the head, during the purges of the 30s certainly provides some applicable, credible evidence about the methods and morality of Stalin.

[Vympel]

Duranty's Pulitzer still hasn't been revoked, after all.

Didn't we already have this discussion?

Ah yes, and here's what was said last time:

That's fine by me. It is not justified to revoke a Pulitzer in light of information that the subject has not been proven to have at the time. As preposterous as it sounds, the 1930s Soviet Union was not well known, these Ukranian's outraged no-proof assertions nonwithstanding- and the articles for which he was awarded the prize happened *before* the famine.

and

So are you saying that people should be held responsible for not reporting events that have not yet taken place? I guess if you believe in psychics that might be a reasonable take.

and

did read it. He was given the Pulitzer in 1931, before the mass starvation in the Ukraine. While he may not have been given a Pulitzer today, this is irrelevant. Revoking it seven decades after the fact is nothing more than revisionist history at work.

and

He couldn't have reported on the Ukrainian famine at the time he won his Pulitzer, as it had not happened yet. Whether he reported on it afterwards doesn't really enter into the equation.

and

Pulitzer's are given for specific works, not lifetime achievements. I could win a Pulitzer and write the worst crap anyone had ever seen afterwards, and there'd be nothing anyone could do about it.

[Colonel Olrik]

The purpose of the famine was to starve the people off and kill them all? I must admit that I never studied the Stalinist famine in great detail, but what makes you say that they were deliberately conducted in an attempt to cause mass exterminations, as opposed to serving some other purpose?

From what I know, Staline saw the peasants as burguesy, because they owned lands despite their poverty, unlike factory workers. So, they were the enemy. Further, they were in the way of his plans for a socialistic, centralized agriculture, and he had a special way of dealing with obstacles.

[Vympel]

Stalin saw *some* of the peasants, the kulaks, as bourgeoise, but not all the peasants; it was the kulaks who were the subject of Stalin's wrath.

And I did hear about it- Australian education system and all that; it's good.

[Patrick Degan]

The reason Hitler's genocide "gets so much more attention" is not because of mere numbers of people killed but because of the fact that the Nazi Final Solution not only sought the annihilation of an entire people and culture but was organised along industrial lines for precisely that purpose. Careful records were kept and calculations formulated to yield the maximum economic benefit from each prisoner in the camps before they were worked to the point of being marked for death, the production value of each camp, the most economical means for killing prisoners and disposing of the corpses, and the maximum value yielded from each prisoner's seized wealth, personal effects, gold teeth, hair, skin, and body-fat. It was a system set up not only to annihilate the target despised minority within the homeland but throughout all Nazi-occupied Europe.

Furthermore, Hitler's death machine was aimed not only at the Jews but all those classified as "subhuman" and "defective" to bring about a racially-pure Europe. There were ten million victims of the death-camps —six million being the Jews, and the remaining four million comprised of Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, political dissidents, Soviet war prisoners, and the handicapped and the mentally deficient. Each of these minorities were methodically targeted and methodically exterminated on an assembly-line basis. For all the horror of Stalin's purge of the kulaks, the sheer scope of Hitler's evil remains unparalleled for the level of its organisation and the detail invested in its construction and operation. Industrialised genocide. The only reason Hitler didn't manage to rack up a higher body-count than Stalin was because he was stopped in 1945.

[Sebastin]

I don´t know if it was part of stalins rationale to cause it but a famine is also a very effective method of "crowd control" during times of political unrest. People who struggle to survive are usually politically passive. You don´t take to the streets to fight for things like liberty, rights and democracy if your prime concern is how to fill your families stomachs today. Hardship tends to lead to a personalisation of issues.

This is also why revolutions often started after a period of significantly improving living conditions for the populace while detoriating living conditions often worked to strenghten the status quo.

Stalin surely benefited from having the population too preoccupied with personal problems to care about larger issues for a few years while he was rebuilding the soviet union.

[Peregrin Toker]

This is, of course, old news. I'm bringing this up to ask a somewhat interesting question...... why dosen't this one recieve the attention that is devoted to the Nazi one?

The explanation to this question seems to be the Soviet Union's high level of secrecy towards outsiders and since it goes without saying that they'd do their best to suppress information which would internationally present them in a bad light, it's quite understandable.

Recently, however, knowledge of Soviet atrocities seemingly has become more common. (the publishing of "The Black Book Of Communism" and similar works certainly whipped conservative newspapers into an anti-socialist frenzy)

[Illuminatus Primus]

Because fgalkin's people do not have the societal, cultural, and political clout the Jews do in America.

Are you saying that sarcastically? If not you better watch out for that "Anti-Semite" label.

I'm not sarcastic, and yes, I know many Jews like to hide behind baseless accusations of racism. Let them. Just proves they are racist assholes.