Friend of mine takes "Butterfly effect" way too seriouslly

[PeZook]

I found during one of my discussions with Stas that one has to be careful with sources that didn't base their counts on hard evidence from the archives: it was about the number of dead Poles due to forced relocation, which was consistently and widely given at around 1,5-2 million dead for years after the transformation.

It took a trip to the university library to see that recent archival evidence showed this figure was five times the number of people relocated, much less the death total. Which means Polish historians distorted the actual number of deaths fifteen times upwards.

So, uh...it pays to do some research before making a historical claim, especially since a lot of figures will change in the near future as people dig through recently opened archives.

I think this came from the fact the Soviets were a recent enemy, while the Nazis were a past one, and already defeated, so there was this huge need to justify the fact the West should hate/feat the Soviets, so people tried to say that Staling was just as bad as Hitler, etc.

This is hard to do, BTW, due to the fact that the Nazis were going to murder everyone in Russia and most people in Poland, save for the minority deemed fit for germanization.

Think about it. The difference in death toll after 28 years would've been two orders of magnitude. Stalin had nothing on the Nazis, despite all his brutality.

[K. A. Pital]

My god you're a lunatic. First, you make the assumption that one is incapable of educating themselves outside of high school history class. Then, you assume that a theory I've heard brought up in various places, some of the academic or otherwise researched in nature, MUST come from a game I listed as an expression of caution over the idea, due to potential pop culture contamination. While I might defer that you are better informed on actual figures, you're otherwise an insane jackass and you need to learn to calm the fuck down.

Name calling, eh? Here no one would care that I'm a jackass, so as long as my facts are correct. Man, look around. People here have a little more education in history than you do, quite probably, and they are all telling you to back your claims up。 Why did you mention the computer game at all? Do you understand that computer games and works of fiction do not constitute any valid historical sources，and actually neither does your "history class" constitute that as well.

I'm pretty calm as it goes and even having fun. I know and you should know as well that one of the rules of this board is backing your claims up. That gave me a few smacks back in the day, and taught me well not to claim something without solid grounds. You are not any different from any other poster, neither can you give advice to me on how I should behave. So will you back your claims up or should I take those antics of yours as a concession?

*shakes head* Man, man... Didn't expect that outburst from you. Did you graduate just recently or what?

[Spoonist]

Rome eternal! Er, I think it is possible to make beneficial alterations to history- of course forseeing the effects is alot harder but there are some things are that are almost certainly benefits (medicine, industrialization, age of reason, etc).

Agreed. Providing you could remove yourself from the causation paradox and set up a "time police" (as suggested in other sci-fi). Where you do a change, then fast forward, rewind, do a new change, fast forward, etc. Then you are guaranteed a "better" outcome. However we should also consider our own cultural bias and that what we consider "normal"/"good"/"evil" is only true for our time. So much so that I suggest that anyone who would like to change the past would first have to educate themselves in the future to know their own cultural limitations.

But to your topic of time travel. There are plenty of fiction in this field. The latest one I read had exactly the dystopian plot suggested by your friend. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_History_(novel)

The Nazis with nukes in '38. Yeah, I'm not seeing that.

Masive plot device. =)
As I said the narrative of our stories demand dramatic effects, not necessarily possible in real life. This has the effect to paraphrase Pratchet that we as story driven apes expect the narrative to be more true factuallly than it is.We see coincidences where there is none, we see threats where there is none, etc. This effects our real life choices so much that we in many cases make the narrative true where if it was left alone it would not have happened. This effect is mostly seen when looking at human internal relations where how the universe really works have a minimum effect. If you think that a relationship is "too good to be true" your are more likely to do something that "proves" you where right. Religion is arguably an example of this.

[Edi]

Stas, how high are the pre-Stalin death toll figures for various things in Soviet records? They weren't peanuts, things like building the canal through Soviet Karelia from the White Sea to the Gulf of Finland, where between 30,000 and 50,000 men were killed by forced labor with inadequate rations.

If you're wondering at my source for those, they come from the autobiography of "Poika" Tuominen, who was one of the main leaders of the Finnish communist Party in the 1920s and spent several years in Moscow during the 1930s during Stalin's purges before he finally managed to get the hell out through Sweden. He had no reason to lie about what he saw and as far as I know, his story has been thoroughly checked out as far as Finnish historians have been able to do. No idea what the Soviet ones have done.

[K. A. Pital]

Stas, how high are the pre-Stalin death toll figures for various things in Soviet records?

Oh, pretty high, especially in what concerns the building of canals. That is very much possible. For example, the White-Sea Baltic channel (infamous "Belomor") had ~10,000 recorded deaths for the years of construction (discounting those who might've died upon release from the job. Canals in general are very nasty constructs, IIRC, the Suez channel claimed the lives of 100,000 labourers. In total, all the Soviet channels constructed would claim several hundred thousand dead, I would presume.

[Simon_Jester]

Given that would require fighting all of Europe I don't put alot of stock into it. Seriously, communist hordes attempting to conquer the world is a really good reason for a continent wide alliance.

Yeah. Remember that anti-communism was one of the things that made the Nazis actually look good to a lot of Europeans in the late '30s, and even in the early war years. Sure, they were openly conquering and occupying entire nations, but hey! At least they were doing something against the Red Menace!

You might, for example, get the communist party on power by some weird set of circumstances and that party might want to align with Stalin, thus shifting the balance of power.

How could the communists take power? Wasn't the German army and a large portion of the population against them?

Right after World War I, it was at least slightly plausible; the army wasn't all that impressive at the time and most of the population was desperate for any kind of change. There was a lot of open street fighting going on, and for a while the Communists were giving about as good as they got. That changed after the right-wing groups got organized, of course.

[open_sketchbook]

My god you're a lunatic. First, you make the assumption that one is incapable of educating themselves outside of high school history class. Then, you assume that a theory I've heard brought up in various places, some of the academic or otherwise researched in nature, MUST come from a game I listed as an expression of caution over the idea, due to potential pop culture contamination. While I might defer that you are better informed on actual figures, you're otherwise an insane jackass and you need to learn to calm the fuck down.

Name calling, eh? Here no one would care that I'm a jackass, so as long as my facts are correct. Man, look around. People here have a little more education in history than you do, quite probably, and they are all telling you to back your claims up。 Why did you mention the computer game at all? Do you understand that computer games and works of fiction do not constitute any valid historical sources，and actually neither does your "history class" constitute that as well.

I'm pretty calm as it goes and even having fun. I know and you should know as well that one of the rules of this board is backing your claims up. That gave me a few smacks back in the day, and taught me well not to claim something without solid grounds. You are not any different from any other poster, neither can you give advice to me on how I should behave. So will you back your claims up or should I take those antics of yours as a concession?

*shakes head* Man, man... Didn't expect that outburst from you. Did you graduate just recently or what?

I never claimed anything. I'm not a professional history type; my interest in this sort of stuff is purely amateur. I did maybe an hour's worth of reading before I posted, and now that I look at it the books are mostly from the late 70s and early 80s, which makes the sort of distortions mentioned earlier in the thread seem a plausible source for the distortion of the figures I read. I came across the theory that Stalin was using his massive 1930s military build-up to prep for an invasion of Europe in several of them, but that the German invasion got in the way. So I posted it, but I mentioned nervously that it sounded like something out of a video game. I wasn't using it to back myself up, I was using it to express that I wasn't sure and that it sounded more fiction than fact. I know that we're all supposed to be hyper-educated super-genius physic engineer biologist-historians on this board, but unfortunately I'm not; I'm an amateur game designer and art student. I figured reading for an hour before making a speculative post on a discussion board (you know, to be discussed) would be sufficient for somebody like you to not take it as a personal fucking insult.

[PeZook]

Do you understand that computer games and works of fiction do not constitute any valid historical sources，and actually neither does your "history class" constitute that as well.

Stad, I really think that's exactly what he meant: That the theory the 1930s buildup was an indicator of some sort of Evil Plan to invade Europe sounded like something a poorly paid video game writer might cook up. It didn't look like sketchbook was trying to use Red Alert as a historical source at all...

[Darth Wong]

My god you're a lunatic. First, you make the assumption that one is incapable of educating themselves outside of high school history class. Then, you assume that a theory I've heard brought up in various places, some of the academic or otherwise researched in nature, MUST come from a game I listed as an expression of caution over the idea, due to potential pop culture contamination. While I might defer that you are better informed on actual figures, you're otherwise an insane jackass and you need to learn to calm the fuck down.

What are these "various places" where this "theory" was discussed?

[Samuel]

Right after World War I, it was at least slightly plausible; the army wasn't all that impressive at the time and most of the population was desperate for any kind of change. There was a lot of open street fighting going on, and for a while the Communists were giving about as good as they got. That changed after the right-wing groups got organized, of course.

Actually the communists did attempt an uprising immediately after the war. They were crushed by goverment.

However we should also consider our own cultural bias and that what we consider "normal"/"good"/"evil" is only true for our time.

Easiest way would be to go by life expectancy.

Masive plot device. =)

Yeah, but it sort of defeats the whole point of the book. I guess you shouldn't read it seriously.

[xerex]

You might, for example, get the communist party on power by some weird set of circumstances and that party might want to align with Stalin, thus shifting the balance of power.

How could the communists take power? Wasn't the German army and a large portion of the population against them?

Yes but
with a weaker Nazi party it is conceivable that the Communists could have gained enough support for a March on Berlin patterned after Mussolini's March on Rome. or instead of the Spanish Civil war we have the German Civil War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_fed ... ember_1932


1932 German elections results

Nazis -33%
Social Dems - 20%
Communists - 17%
Centre -12%
Nationalists -8.5%

[xerex]

^^^^

also without Hitler a NSDAP dominated by Strasser and Goebbels could have lurched to the left and made common cause with the Communists. IIRC those two (and maybe Roehm) really did believe in the 'Socialist' part of National Socialism.

there really are alot of variables to consider. The only certainty is the Germany was ripe for someone to takeover

[K. A. Pital]

I figured reading for an hour before making a speculative post on a discussion board (you know, to be discussed) would be sufficient for somebody like you to not take it as a personal fucking insult.

I never took it personally - it seems you did, however. You've made some poorly researched statements, that's okay, everyone does even the "super biologist historical engineers". Just don't get so agitated when someone corrects you. I'm not an academic either, just fond of historical academia. Other than that, I'm no more experienced than you are. That's all.

I came across the theory that Stalin was using his massive 1930s military build-up to prep for an invasion of Europe in several of them, but that the German invasion got in the way.

This so-called "theory" was first invented by Goebbels and later pioneered by Holocaust deniers and historical revisionists of the same kind. But, like says for example professor M. Harrison, who is one of the prime archive experts on the Soviet military-industrial complex of the 1930s, there's no more hard evidence for that speculation after the opening of archives than there were before, and I'm inclined to agree with that statement. The only places one could see that "theory" touted is pop fiction, neo-nazi or holocaust denier propaganda and the like.

There's a much more nuanced argument to be made that the USSR might (but by no ways was it obliged to) have attacked Hitler's Reich in 1942 pre-emptively, or conduct a pre-emptive strike after the mobilization in late 1941, but that's quite different from "invasion of Europe buildup wahaaaa!".

It's a fact that there's zero evidence of a political decision to go to war with Nazi Germany in the USSR, whereas Germany has taken that decision back in 1940 and there's ample documentary evidence for that. So that "theory" is nothing more than speculation in the "coulda shoulda woulda" fashion - "If the USSR had so decided, it might have attacked Germany" - gee, the sky is blue. Hope I was clear enough.

[Darth Hoth]

I think that the phrase "generally agreed upon by historians" actually means "that's the number from my high school history class".

Have I given you any particular reason to be antagonistic towards me? I would have hoped that during my time here I have at least demonstrated a knowledge of history greater than the average high school graduate.

As for the implied question, I cannot remember my high school class saying much anything about the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. We did get a couple of textbook pages about the Winter War; one paragraph that covered the Eastern Front from June 21 to the surrender of the 6th Army; and a table of military casualties compared for the major powers; that was basically it. Honestly, I cannot remember learning anything in history class that my own studies (undertaken as an interested amateur) did not later show to be either downright false or significantly simplified.

By which historians? None of the more or less serious academia (Harrison, Ellman, Davies, Getty, Paul Gregory, Applebaum, etc.) never generally agreed upon a number so outrageous and impossible. Unless you mean the total number of people who at some point in history were imprisoned of course.

Looking through the books I happen to have at home at the moment (given my limited funds, I mostly rely on libraries for the literature), this appears to be the most commonly cited figure for generalist history on the period and on the Second World War. In my experience it is also the one usually given in popular journals (I know, I know . . .). I do not presently possess any studies on the particular matter in question (except a virulently anti-Communistic one that cites Rummel and Victor Suvorov, and thus is not to be viewed as credible for obvious reasons). The name I run across the most often when I attempt to confirm it would be Robert Conquest; I have not read his Reassessment of the Great Terror myself, but I was not aware that his research had been discredited.

Still, your mention of several disagreeing historians (Getty I was aware of before, the others I have not read) makes it appear as though the number would be more contested than I believed; I will read up on their arguments, and you may consider my point withdrawn for now.

The very mention of Rummel as a "historian" makes poor Stanislav cringe along with all academic history.

As I said, he was included for completeness, not because I hold him in any high regard.

The breakdown of documented deathtolls for famines, penal system deaths and executions one can find in the recent monographies based on the archives. Of course, neither of which provides anything even close to "20 million", like I said, unless you mean the entirety of people imprisoned at some point in time.

Are Soviet archival figures generally reliable, though? I have frequently seen the argument made that the released figures downplay the full scope of the atrocities and that they would not agree with figures for excess mortality derived by demographic reconstruction.

[K. A. Pital]

The name I run across the most often when I attempt to confirm it would be Robert Conquest; I have not read his Reassessment of the Great Terror myself, but I was not aware that his research had been discredited.

Conquest was working for British propaganda and has been quite throughly discredited after he flat out refused to take the archival evidence at face value. There's actually absolutely no need to read his books now that we have archival data. He's only slightly better than Rummel in shitting all over the scientific method in history.

Still, your mention of several disagreeing historians (Getty I was aware of before, the others I have not read) makes it appear as though the number would be more contested than I believed; I will read up on their arguments, and you may consider my point withdrawn for now.

The historians as peple actually mean little to me. The numbers themselves, as evidenced from the archives, disagree. In that light the opinion of historians is only that, an opinion - not a fact. At one time when the USSR was still there opinions were all the West could have. Now it's not so. There are facts - one can either accept them or deny them, but two opinions cannot be equally true, obviously.

Are Soviet archival figures generally reliable, though?

The NKVD and the ministries of GULAG supply, etc were huge bodies that worked with a gigantic penal economy of sorts. There cannot be any more reliable information than that from the archives. Disrepancies of a certain scale can exist, but not disrepancies of order of a magnitude like your claims would imply.

I have frequently seen the argument made that the released figures downplay the full scope of the atrocities and that they would not agree with figures for excess mortality derived by demographic reconstruction.

Why would the archives "downplay" the scope of mortality when those archives were run by the people in charge of the penal system? Or in charge of executions? Care to explain?

Excess mortality derived by demographic reconstruction in general is in agreement with the archives. Demographic reconstruction of the Soviet early years is hard because the birth rates, death rates were very connected with the economic situation. Attributing non-occured births to excess deaths is very much possible under such circumstances, even though clearly they are not the same despite being both a source of demographic loss for a projected future population.

On the other hand, the archival GULAG mortality data, for example, may be incorrect and even downplayed - but not by an order of magnitude! Sure, there can be dispute over if 1,7 million died or 2 million taking into account the people who were released from the camps but quickly died afterwards due to health damage, et cetera.

But this is a dispute over the details. The archives set the order of magnitude, and that order of magnitude is nowhere close the Cold War speculations. That would be not just my opinion, but the only logical opinion when it comes to the matter of facts.

[PeZook]

The thing about archives is that it's downright impossible to falsify them for an organization as large as the GULAG - at least not convicingly. The body of material isn't just huge, it's absolutely gigantic: any attempt to alter the records or falsify them would be a conspiracy on the level of trying to fake the WTC attacks, not to mention impossible to coordinate well enough to create a self-consistent set of records with no dumbass errors or flukes.

Event he Nazis didn't bother, chosing instead to destroy as many concentration camp records as possible, and the had an easier time: because you could just annihilate prisoners without entering them into the system if you had the excess capacity, while the GULAG always had to assign them some sort of work. No easy option to hide atrocities there.

The usually undertaken method to obscure history is to release only partial records, and even then, historians can usually tell there's something missing, because the very purpose of documentation is to keep track of what is going on in an organization, and most record-keeping procedures are designed to self-identify mistakes and attempts at fraud.