About the "100 million deaths of socialism"-myths...

[Counterreactionary]

Hello to all the proud comrades in the mud.

I'm just curious, if you could recommend a stack of articles (left as well as versatile ones) debunking the widespread liberalistic fairy tales about communism having murdered more than 100 million people?
I know the data analysed from the re-opened soviet archives in the 90s, suggested the death toll for USSR was quite lower than imagined by these hordes of lousy bourgeois bell jar-revisionists (sry :laugh:). But I haven't seen much material handling the supposed global casualties for so-called communism, really.

I'm kinda bugged with these exagerrated casualties being repeated over and over again in an almost religious tone in the postmodern, neoliberal everyday debate and I would therefore appreciate a more depthy read on this matter. Versatile and nuanced sources would especially be interesting, as these are more safe to refer to, although socialist analysts can definitely also be willing to discover both sides of the coin.

You're also welcome to throw some analyses calculating the death tolls for the horrors of capitalist exploitation, bourgeois dictatorships, multinational oppression and far-right paramilitary forces combined. That'd be bitter sweet to get a greater view on.
And of course, a debate by itself would be interesting.

Greetings, Thomas.

[NecroCommie]

I cant point any such articles, because in fact communism has killed 700 billion trubillion and one third of a people. What that semi-serious sentence was intented to point out is that never think that you would have the burdain of proof. Ask the liberal nitwits for sources.

And no, I am not aware of any such articles, I have gathered my info on the subject from previous topics on this.

[MilitantAnarchist]

To be honest.... This stinks like a lefties version of the rights 'Zog Exaggeration' claims...

I've never heard anyone say 100million deaths by communism before anyway.

[Dimentio]

Wasn't it 180 million? ^^

[scarletghoul]

I've never heard anyone say 100million deaths by communism before anyway.
It's a widespread claim, mostly by Americans.

I swear I once heard an estimate of 100 million communism-based deaths in Maoist China alone.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Actually, 100 million is a common claim. They kind off do wet finger work there.

Lets see, some 20 million on the USSR 70 million on China, uhm... damn... we need another 10 million, ok well just do... (etc... etc...)

Srsly, i have actually seen the paper with death-tolls from the archives (or rather a copy of it) unfortunately i haven't ever spotted it on the internet. I believe the sum total (that is ALL deaths of people in gulags, not just un-natural ones.) was 1,2 million. Still high, but you gotta consider 2 famines, WW2, the purges, etc...
And China... well if we cant believe the bourgeouis sources on the USSR. Why should we believe similar sources on China (To be honest i couldn't back up any numbers on Chinasince not much is public).

[debase89]

ok well you try to deny this its considered as bad as denying the holocaust right? i mean both have evidence for and against, besides is it so hard to believe i mean times were tough?

-debase

[Dimentio]

They actually claim 120 million excess deaths in Soviet Russia alone. Sometimes its 30, sometimes its 64, sometimes 120.

The most believable numbers of Stalin's reign is actually 11 million, and that is hella lot excess that.

What Rummel does to get 64 million is to look at tsarist Russia's population growth in 1913 and then the population in 1953, and the estimated population in 1953 given the birth rates of 1913. That is not the optimal way of calculating excess deaths given that birth rates tend to sink with higher literacy rates amongst women.

But its idiotic to try to defend Stalin's government. 11 million dead is yet a big pile of bodies.

[Wanted Man]

To be honest.... This stinks like a lefties version of the rights 'Zog Exaggeration' claims...

I've never heard anyone say 100million deaths by communism before anyway.

It's quite common, actually:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_black_book_of_communism
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
http://www.globalmuseumoncommunism.org/museum_faq
http://www.victimsofcommunism.org/media/article.php?article=4738

http://www.thoseshirts.com/images/shirtsquare-lousy.jpg

[bailey_187]

ok well you try to deny this its considered as bad as denying the holocaust right? i mean both have evidence for and against, besides is it so hard to believe i mean times were tough?

-debase

50million (number used in the 100million figure usually) not dieing in the USSR is hard to believe?
The USSR population was 150million, that would make Stalin as bad the the plague/black death of Europe. Thats hard to believe

Rather than making petty points (not you personally) trying to compare it to Holocaust denial, why not actually debate it?

[debase89]

well i dont know abouot it, im just saying times were tough and sure maybe the figures are exaggerated, but i can see people having to die to get the good system. After all, you don't get everything for nothing.

[bailey_187]

the Maoist International Movement wrote a review of the Black Book of Communism. That might be a good article to read.

Joseph Ball's "did mao really kill millions in the great leap forward" essay is good for the Mao part of the 100million

Ludo Martens - Another View of Stalin is good for the Stalin part

the Stalin Society website will also have sources

[bailey_187]

well i dont know abouot it, im just saying times were tough and sure maybe the figures are exaggerated, but i can see people having to die to get the good system. After all, you don't get everything for nothing.

Yes people died of famine, yes people were executed. No one is denying that.

What we are denying is that Stalin wiped out 1 in 3 people in the USSR and that every death was the diabolical plot of Stalin hatched in the Kremlin because he was evil.

If you want to draw parellels with the Holocaust, I dont know the exact details (maybe someone good at German History can tell us) but the Nazi leaders got together to discuss "the final solution".
Stalin did not gather the CC to decide to wipe out 1/3 of USSR (or whatever other ridiculous number).

Also, there is a wide degree of debate around the number of deaths (ranging in 10s of millions) in the Soviet Union, existing amongst Bourgeois historians. there is not amongst historians on Holocaust numbers - nearly all accept 6 to 8 million

[Counterreactionary]

well i dont know abouot it, im just saying times were tough and sure maybe the figures are exaggerated, but i can see people having to die to get the good system. After all, you don't get everything for nothing.

I would say it's a misunderstanding that anyone would have to be sacrificed in order to achieve a better system, but under conditions like under-development, wars and massacres by i.e. reactionary feudalists and imperialist armies, it's impossible to avoid any deaths. That's mostly the fault by hostile actions. Not a choice by the commuist parties at hand.

[debase89]

i guess i get where you guys are coming from.

[Lyev]

Something that springs quickly to mind, unlike deaths in famine or underdeveloped countries, is the direct killing of over 100,000 Parisian communards by armed, greedy, French cappies.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Disderi_2.jpg
All they wanted was freedom and equality. It was obviously an inconvenience to the bourgeoisie's comfortable lives.

[revolution inaction]

Hello to all the proud comrades in the mud.

I'm just curious, if you could recommend a stack of articles (left as well as versatile ones) debunking the widespread liberalistic fairy tales about communism having murdered more than 100 million people?
I know the data analysed from the re-opened soviet archives in the 90s, suggested the death toll for USSR was quite lower than imagined by these hordes of lousy bourgeois bell jar-revisionists (sry :laugh:). But I haven't seen much material handling the supposed global casualties for so-called communism, really.

I'm kinda bugged with these exagerrated casualties being repeated over and over again in an almost religious tone in the postmodern, neoliberal everyday debate and I would therefore appreciate a more depthy read on this matter. Versatile and nuanced sources would especially be interesting, as these are more safe to refer to, although socialist analysts can definitely also be willing to discover both sides of the coin.

You're also welcome to throw some analyses calculating the death tolls for the horrors of capitalist exploitation, bourgeois dictatorships, multinational oppression and far-right paramilitary forces combined. That'd be bitter sweet to get a greater view on.
And of course, a debate by itself would be interesting.

Greetings, Thomas.

regardless of the numbers killed in the ussr, china, korea etc, none of them can be balmed on socialism or communism because these countries and their governments where nether socialist nor communist. Infect the economic system was a form of capitalism.
Its a really bad idea to acept the premise that the number of deaths in countries like the ussr has any relevance to communism.

[bailey_187]

regardless of the numbers killed in the ussr, china, korea etc, none of them can be balmed on socialism or communism because these countries and their governments where nether socialist nor communist. Infect the economic system was a form of capitalism.
Its a really bad idea to acept the premise that the number of deaths in countries like the ussr has any relevance to communism.

Why turn this thread into THAT?

Oh wow, "state capitalism" blah blah blah smash the state blah blah. Can you not just ignore this thread?

[Counterreactionary]

regardless of the numbers killed in the ussr, china, korea etc, none of them can be balmed on socialism or communism because these countries and their governments where nether socialist nor communist. Infect the economic system was a form of capitalism.

Its a really bad idea to acept the premise that the number of deaths in countries like the ussr has any relevance to communism.

You're completely right, though it wasn't a market-based form of capitalism. The economy was also processed on a more bureaucratical basis than under private capitalism. Here it was managed from one central unit, in market corporations the production is managed per each.
But they did accumulate capital. And there was no sign of councils and workers' democracy under the management of the economy.
That's why I typed "so-called communism" in the end of the post.

The origins of the USSR and the leading party were socialistically based though, so at least to some extent the USSR & co. has an association to leftist ideology.

[Pogue]

If you worked out the number of people killed by 'socialism', you'd probably have a couple of thousand fascists, a record we can all be proud of.

[PRC-UTE]

If you worked out the number of people killed by 'socialism', you'd probably have a couple of thousand fascists, a record we can all be proud of.

good point. the number would be higher than a couple thousand, though.

[red cat]

Take a look at these:

http://www.indianetzone.com/35/famine_south_india_1877-1878_british_india.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/82/a1934282.shtml
http://www.countercurrents.org/polya240509.htm
http://gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=17
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876%E2%80%9378

A fraction of the glorious deeds of just one capitalist country in just one of its colonies.

[makesi]

Chomsky talks about the famine deaths in China and, although an ideological opponent of the communist bloc states, favorably compares the results in China to the deaths due to poverty in India calculated by Amatrya (sic?) Sen.

Capitalist ideologues, as a rule it seems to me, refuse to attribute any deaths to capitalism. For them poverty is a mainstay of human existence and capitalism should only relieve praise as having alleviated it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

They actually claim 120 million excess deaths in Soviet Russia alone. Sometimes its 30, sometimes its 64, sometimes 120.

The most believable numbers of Stalin's reign is actually 11 million, and that is hella lot excess that.

What Rummel does to get 64 million is to look at tsarist Russia's population growth in 1913 and then the population in 1953, and the estimated population in 1953 given the birth rates of 1913. That is not the optimal way of calculating excess deaths given that birth rates tend to sink with higher literacy rates amongst women.

But its idiotic to try to defend Stalin's government. 11 million dead is yet a big pile of bodies.

The big ticket, though, is the death toll under Chairman Mao (popularized as being 70 million). What was the death toll in Mao's China, anyway?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

The claimed death toll varies widely (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin). Because most of it is completely made up.

Even the part that is not made up relies overwhelmingly on deaths by hunger. You know, hunger? That thing that kills 20,000 people per day in capitalist countries (meaning 100 million people every 14 years).

And let's not forget that when they say "communism", what they really mean is "Mao and Stalin." No matter what the total number of victims is, it's always clear that Mao and Stalin alone are responsible for over 90% of it. Which may leave you thinking that perhaps the crimes of two individuals can't exactly be generalized to an entire ideology.

[Glenn Beck]

The big ticket, though, is the death toll under Chairman Mao (popularized as being 70 million). What was the death toll in Mao's China, anyway?

You mean everyone that ever died for any reason during Mao's lifetime?

Because I suspect that's how they get alot of these estimates.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The claimed death toll varies widely (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin). Because most of it is completely made up.

Even the part that is not made up relies overwhelmingly on deaths by hunger. You know, hunger? That thing that kills 20,000 people per day in capitalist countries (meaning 100 million people every 14 years).

And let's not forget that when they say "communism", what they really mean is "Mao and Stalin." No matter what the total number of victims is, it's always clear that Mao and Stalin alone are responsible for over 90% of it. Which may leave you thinking that perhaps the crimes of two individuals can't exactly be generalized to an entire ideology.

That link is only on Stalin, though (I'm more or less on the 10 million figure, and when I suggested 20 million to a history teacher, even he said that's an exaggeration). Where's Mao? I'm less familiar with the downside effects of Mao's economic policies.

P.S. - I agree with you that, even with more reasonable death tolls, it does indeed come down to Stalin and Mao.

[pranabjyoti]

the Maoist International Movement wrote a review of the Black Book of Communism. That might be a good article to read.

Joseph Ball's "did mao really kill millions in the great leap forward" essay is good for the Mao part of the 100million

Ludo Martens - Another View of Stalin is good for the Stalin part

the Stalin Society website will also have sources
Can you please mention the websites.

[Pogue]

good point. the number would be higher than a couple thousand, though.

Well actually it'd be interesting to try and work this one out.

You'd have to work out the number of fascists killed by the Italian anti-fascists at the beginning in the street fighting, then the number of fascists killed by various partisan groups, the bulk number would come from Spain...I'd be interested to see a figure. Of course, it depends on your definition of what can be considered a socialist force.

[revolt4thewin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S69s8YyJMlM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSW2sRKgLwo&feature=related
Six million rubles.

[bailey_187]

Can you please mention the websites.

http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/presentations.html

http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/mim-on-the-black-book-of-communism/
(im not a MTWer before an overzealous mod gets any ideas)

http://www.maoists.org/

The others i mentioned are books. Both of which are available from the Stalin Society i believe (they sell them at meetings so i assume they are on their site)

thisiscommunism.org also has some good stuff by the RCP-USA defending Mao and the PRC

[JimmyJazz]

I don't think one can make excuses for the deaths. They are a tragedy.

But it is a valid point to make that they are a tragedy not unique to Communism.

Ironically, I think that I've seen the point made most succinctly by a Democrat-loving liberal who posts on another discussion I occasionally read:





I ask again, how does this Communism thing work in the real world with real people?
Well, it took two feudal nations noted for poverty and illiteracy, who happen to contitute the largest nations on the planet by population and size, and made them economic and military superpowers in the span of several decades. So much so that American conservatives wound up almost bankrupting the US in order to constantly attempt to suppress their influence.

Seems like it worked to me.

How many people had to starve to death first?

Are you volunteering to be one of those than is needed to starve to death to achieve such goals?Millions.

That's an important but different topic. Kind of like the topic of how many slaves and Native Americans died to modernize the US economy.

I don't recommend communism. I do deny it is "irrelevant" as the dunce Rathpig said.

I think the bottom line is that the tragic human toll of industrialization under capitalism and the tragic human toll of industrialization under state-run economies in Stalinist and Maoist systems have the exact same root cause. In both the capitalist and "Communist" cases, "living labor [was] but a means to increase accumulated labor." Whereas "In [genuine] communist society, accumulated labor is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer."

In that sense, I think the parallel failures of capitalism and Stalinism rather prove our point about the need for a socialist system--one where humans take precedence over property and mere accumulation for accumulation's sake.

[pranabjyoti]

I don't think one can make excuses for the deaths. They are a tragedy.
But it is a valid point to make that they are a tragedy not unique to Communism.
Those people are conservative pigs, so IT IS VERY MUCH COMMON THAT THEY DON'T MENTION THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE MILLIONS(!) OF DEATH IN USSR AND CHINA IS IMPOSED IMPERIALIST SABOTAGES, BLOCKADE, WAR. As for example, 25 million died in USSR in the STALIN REGIME, but due to Nazi attack.
I am curious to know, what can be the possible death toll on a socialist country, which have never been sabotaged, not faced any kind of blockade or haven't have to face any war. As for example, what can be the possible place of Cuba in the Human Development Index without the US Blockade. But, asking that to a trotskyte or anarchist is useless, to them all are capitalist and there is not difference between Nazi Germany and USSR and it isn't a matter at all if anyone takes one side.

[Dimentio]

The guy with the 100 million figure has a blog - http://rudyrummel.blogspot.com

Maybe you should ask him yourselves?

[Rakhmetov]

Hello to all the proud comrades in the mud.

I'm just curious, if you could recommend a stack of articles (left as well as versatile ones) debunking the widespread liberalistic fairy tales about communism having murdered more than 100 million people?
I know the data analysed from the re-opened soviet archives in the 90s, suggested the death toll for USSR was quite lower than imagined by these hordes of lousy bourgeois bell jar-revisionists (sry :laugh:). But I haven't seen much material handling the supposed global casualties for so-called communism, really.

I'm kinda bugged with these exagerrated casualties being repeated over and over again in an almost religious tone in the postmodern, neoliberal everyday debate and I would therefore appreciate a more depthy read on this matter. Versatile and nuanced sources would especially be interesting, as these are more safe to refer to, although socialist analysts can definitely also be willing to discover both sides of the coin.

You're also welcome to throw some analyses calculating the death tolls for the horrors of capitalist exploitation, bourgeois dictatorships, multinational oppression and far-right paramilitary forces combined. That'd be bitter sweet to get a greater view on.
And of course, a debate by itself would be interesting.

Greetings, Thomas.

You can consult Michael Parenti's book Blackshirts & Reds which goes into detail.

[Manifesto]

I was just looking at wikipedia and they actually say that the Soviet Union was the cause of these deaths...


Freedom of religion


Temple of St Vladimir. It was turned into bus station in Soviet time.


Main article: Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union)
The Soviet Union was an atheistic state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism). The stated goal was control, suppression, and, ultimately, the elimination of religious beliefs, which were seen as backward and disuniting. Atheism was propagated through schools, communist organizations, and the media. Organizations such as the Society of the Godless (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Godless) were created. All religious movements were either prosecuted or controlled by the state and KGB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB). The result of this was the death of 21 million Russian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia) Orthodox Christians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Christians) by the Soviet government

[Philosophical Materialist]

Regarding the USSR, Western propagandists like Robert Conquest used figures and testimony from wartime Nazi propagandists. On top of this was some dubious accounting, such as adding people 'who would have been born' to the supposed figure, so a lower birthrate equals deaths. In that logic, Western governments are killing millions due to their low birth rate!

[Tatarin]

Yet, this "worse than Hitler"-supernation 'collapsed'? They can kill half a billion people but can't prevent their empire from doom?
:confused:

[KurtFF8]

It's certainly important to point out that capitalist countries are responsible for more death than any "socialist" country. But that sort of response is a sort of...well non-response itself. We need to be able to either counter or deal with these accusations, no matter how absurd we may see them.

When Glenn Beck interviewed Sam Webb (CPUSA Chairman) and tried to compare Communism to Nazism, Webb hardly even responded. This is a major error, we need to be able to dispel myths about socialism, not try to distract people and move their attention away from the myths and only look within capitalism for flaws. Even if our own "well look how bad capitalism is!" is successful and makes people question capitalism, we still need some sort of response (as socialists/leninists/etc. obviously anarchists already have their own response) to those claims themselves.

Some would argue that what happened under Stalinist USSR and even Maoist China (although I know significantly less about China's development) is that the Communist Party essentially was engaging in catching up to the capitalist West and was thus industrializing in a similar way (although with different goals) that the West did. Thus it was in a way the capitalist method of industrialization that was responsible for these deaths, only in the West, more of those deaths happened, it was just spread out, while in the USSR the deaths were more compressed. This is a sort of economic determinist argument that I'm not sure I'd stand fully behind, but it's one that I've heard before and it's worth considering at least.

Now another point is that these numbers tend to be quite exaggerated, and that's easy to dispel (or at least should be) through different sources/pointing out the biases in the sources they use, etc. BUT we're still left with millions of deaths, and even if the overwhelming majority of those deaths are caused by economic policy, that is no better as it is viewed instead as a failure of our response to capitalism.

I'd like to see a good source that addresses these things head on from a perspective that isn't Liberal, Conservative, or (And I mean no offense at all here) Anarchist.

[bailey_187]

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/

Grover Furrs works are very good for dispelling myths

Furr uses many primary sources in Russian as well

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

People die because of capitalism every single day again and again, capitalism has killed hundreds and hundreds of millions already.
Hell, I think it has killed over a billion in total.

Be that as it may, here is the socialist apology:laugh::

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/ngoisaodo/socialist_apology.jpg

[mikelepore]

The previous posts here are missing the cause of the misconception. To answer those critics effectively, it's necessary to discuss how a society can operate without having private ownership of the means of production, and yet not have to oppress people to maintain this situation. The critics' visualization of socialism is a system which will forever be doing this: "We just caught someone owning a chicken. Shoot them. We just caught someone owning a wheelbarrow. Shoot them." That's what they think the meaning of socialism is. This is the misconception that has to be identified and corrected through education.

[Kayser_Soso]

The previous posts here are missing the cause of the misconception. To answer those critics effectively, it's necessary to discuss how a society can operate without having private ownership of the means of production, and yet not have to oppress people to maintain this situation. The critics' visualization of socialism is a system which will forever be doing this: "We just caught someone owning a chicken. Shoot them. We just caught someone owning a wheelbarrow. Shoot them." That's what they think the meaning of socialism is. This is the misconception that has to be identified and corrected through education.

Unfortunately, for a long time it is impossible to have such a society and not have the institutions to supress the expropriated classes, as well as those that arrise from natural inequalities spawned by the capitalist system(i.e. the divide between mental and manual labor). Just as the police and military protect private property rights, so too must a socialist nation have the ability to protect socialist property- and history teaches us that not only is there the internal enemies to consider, but also artificial dissent piped in from abroad(I trust many here have read William Blum's Killing Hope).

[Muzk]

People die because of capitalism every single day again and again, capitalism has killed hundreds and hundreds of millions already.
Hell, I think it has killed over a billion in total.

Be that as it may, here is the socialist apology:laugh::


Everyone should thank you, save the picture, and learn to recite this

[Kayser_Soso]

Everyone should thank you, save the picture, and learn to recite this

True, but the sad thing is there actually are hardcore libertarians out there who will challenge you to cite one figure of people killed by capitalism. Any time you do they will say something like- THAT STATE WASN'T CAPITALIST! Usually they will "prove" that by pointing out how the country in particular had some kind of government involvement in the private sector(like every capitalist state in history), and that somehow makes it "not really capitalism".

One thing we have to face unfortunately, is that a drawback of socialist nations was that once you have a society guided by socialism, people can then attribute what happens in that country to socialism, right or wrong. The libertarian nutcase can easily claim that wars started for economic reasons were not really the fault of capitalism- but if someone died unnaturally in a nation with the word "socialist" in its name then it MUST be ideological somehow.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Everyone should thank you, save the picture, and learn to recite this
I didn't make it myself, I want to make that clear.

[KurtFF8]

Everyone should thank you, save the picture, and learn to recite this

It still doesn't answer, in any way, the criticisms brought up about deaths under socialism. It's just a red herring: look how bad capitalism is! Let's not talk about socialist states!

There's certainly value in pointing out how Capitalism is responsible for more, but it doesn't follow for people that socialism is the answer unfortunately because they will still believe the propaganda about socialist "murderers" and the such. Those things need to be addressed directly, not avoided by talking just about capitalism, it's just a different subject.

[Kayser_Soso]

It still doesn't answer, in any way, the criticisms brought up about deaths under socialism. It's just a red herring: look how bad capitalism is! Let's not talk about socialist states!

There's certainly value in pointing out how Capitalism is responsible for more, but it doesn't follow for people that socialism is the answer unfortunately because they will still believe the propaganda about socialist "murderers" and the such. Those things need to be addressed directly, not avoided by talking just about capitalism, it's just a different subject.

This is actually a good point. When bringing up this issue I point out that like other social transitions before it, the birth of capitalism was incredibl bloody, with the body counts still rising. As such, it should only be expected that the rise of socialism would also be an upheaval, and not something pleasant like a tea party. That being said, when looking at the real amount of deaths attributable to socialism in its birth, it was far less than capitalism caused.

That is a better way to frame the argument.

[ReggaeCat]

At a book I read Called "Another View Of Stalin" by ludo martens the actual deaths in gulags it's like 1,890,000 dont remeber the exact number...lets think aging,famine,bad healtchare and all this stuff....

Let me tell you another pointview...
Why on earth would Stalin at the moment he most needed workers kill them??:confused:
Why on earth would Stalin Kill people when they had jails???:confused:
Why you belive very easily Stalin was an evil bastard and it's hard for you to beelive that it was the kulaks and some trotskist who started an anti revolution???:confused:
Why dont you try to read Buharin last words in court about kamenef-zinovief,tokajef and such???:confused:

Mistakes were made but hey....we're people..stalin was under pressure...but in 1933
300,000 families had their cases rechecked and put them back in place.It's a BIG country God damnit not a net cafe.:cursing:

[Intelligitimate]

Most of the deaths attributed to Stalin are bullshit, as has been known by scholars since the 1950s. the Russian death tolls were most seriously debunked in the 1980s. One of the most important papers on the subject is Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR. Barbara A. Anderson; Brian D. Silver. Slavic Review. Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 517-536. It's just a game of mathematical trickery that anti-communists use to promote these numbers, which have been debunked by serious demographers.

There is still nothing even slightly definitive when it comes to the Chinese numbers. I think Mobo Gao has an essay in his book The Battle for China's Past, and the Joseph Ball article mentioned earlier is also very good in discussing the actual demography for these absurd claims.

Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward (http://monthlyreview.org/0906ball.htm)

[KC]

Most of the deaths attributed to Stalin are bullshit, as has been known by scholars since the 1950s. the Russian death tolls were most seriously debunked in the 1980s. One of the most important papers on the subject is Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR. Barbara A. Anderson; Brian D. Silver. Slavic Review. Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 517-536. It's just a game of mathematical trickery that anti-communists use to promote these numbers, which have been debunked by serious demographers.Well the reason these numbers are so highly inflated is because not only does it include the number that died due to famine, but it also includes those that died in general (of natural causes, of accidents, etc...). Granted, many people were imprisoned and killed by the state, but even if you include conspiratorial claims of "terror famine" the number doesn't even top 10 million. Hell, most of these numbers even include those that died in World War 2!

You can have the most rudimentary knowledge of Russian/Soviet history and it is enough to point out the holes in this "argument".

BTW congrats on making a post that isn't attacking Trotsky, Trotskyists or Anarchists.

[Kayser_Soso]

Well the reason these numbers are so highly inflated is because not only does it include the number that died due to famine, but it also includes those that died in general (of natural causes, of accidents, etc...). Granted, many people were imprisoned and killed by the state, but even if you include conspiratorial claims of "terror famine" the number doesn't even top 10 million. Hell, most of these numbers even include those that died in World War 2!

You can have the most rudimentary knowledge of Russian/Soviet history and it is enough to point out the holes in this "argument".

BTW congrats on making a post that isn't attacking Trotsky, Trotskyists or Anarchists.


To this I would add that the deaths directly attributable to WWII have recently been increased dramatically, which must be taken into account. For decades they were pegged at 20 million, but the have in recent years been revised to be up to 30 million, more likely around 25-27 million. This, it must be remembered, mainly counts people who died as a direct result of the war in one way or another- in other words, due to the Fascist invasion. The "global loss", as cited by Chris Bellamy, may be as high as 50 million.

So if Stalin killed 20 million, we'll assume that includes the "famine genocide"(COUGH! BULLSHIT!! COUGH! COUGH!!), and 20 million is a commonly agreed upon figure these days, we would get something like 47 million if we are being most conservative, when adding the war. If we take the global loss, 49-50 million, at that, we get something around 70 million deaths, in a country which before the war had around 170 million to begin with. Given the rise in population after the war, you can easily see what's wrong even with the 20 million figure. Obviously if we take the ridiculous 40 or 60 million figures and then add the war it gets even more absurd.

It is also worth noting that unlike the US after the war, the USSR didn't exactly have a "baby boom". Entire villages and towns were left without men in many cases.

[CJCM]

Indeed.
The blogspot page had a rather good one on this :
By J. Slavyanski

40 Helpful tips for Becoming a Successful Anti-Communist

1. Constantly insist that Marxism is discredited, outdated, and totally dead and buried. Then proceed to build a lucrative career on beating that supposedly ‘dead’ horse for the rest of your working life.

2. Remember, any unnatural death that occurs under a ‘Communist’ regime is not only attributable to the leaders of the state, but also Marxism as an ideology. Ignore deaths that occur for the same reason in non-Communist states.

3. Communism or Marxism is whatever you want it to be. Feel free to label countries, movements, and regimes as ‘Communist’ regardless of things like actual goals, stated ideology, diplomatic relations, economic policy, or property relations.

4. If there was a conflict involving Communists, the conflict and all ensuing deaths can be laid at the feet of Communism. Be careful when applying this to WWII. Fascist movements who fought against the Soviets or Communist partisans are fine, but try not to openly praise Nazi Germany. Save that for private conversations if you must do so.

5. You decide what Marxism “really means”, and who the rightful representatives of Communism were. Feign interest that Trotsky was somehow robbed of power by Stalin, despite the fact that you hate him as well.

6. Constantly talk about George Orwell. Quote from Animal Farm or 1984. Do not worry about the fact that he never set foot in the Soviet Union and both of those books are novels.

7. Quote massive death tolls without regards to demographics or consistency. 3 million famine deaths? 7 million? 10 million? 100 million deaths total? You need not worry about anyone checking your work, which is good for you seeing that you probably haven’t done any.

8. Everyone ever arrested under a Communist regime was most likely innocent of any crime. Communists only arrested harmless poets and political prophets who had a beautiful message to share with the world.

9. Everything Stalin did or didn’t do had some sinister ulterior motive. Everything.

10. Keeping with the spirit of #9, remember that Stalin was an omnipotent being, perhaps an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu, who had full awareness of everything going on in the Soviet Union and total control over every occurrence which took place between 1924 and 1953. Everything that occurred during that time was the will of Stalin. Stalin knew the exact details of every criminal case that took place during that era and out of his boundless cruelty, had tons of innocent people shot for no reason regardless of where they were or their position in life. Being omnipotent, he was not dependent on information passed up from tens of thousands of subordinates.

11. Constantly attack ‘Communist’ regimes for actions that occur in capitalist regimes up to this very day.

12. Claim that Marxism is utopian because of its description of a possible future society. Alternately claim that Marxism failed because it never gave a detailed description of how a Communist society would look. Do not pay attention to the massive contradiction here.

13. Start referring to Marxism as being some kind of religious faith, Messianic, or whatever other spiritualist bullshit you can come up with. When people point out that you can draw similarities between virtually any political ideology and other religions, ignore them.

14. Remember the one-two anti-Communist attack: Attack the post-Stalin system on economic grounds, and claim it just doesn’t work. Since an informed opponent will most likely point out that actual socialist economics did indeed work during the Stalin era, and in fact worked very well, attack that era on human rights grounds.

15. Two words- Human nature. What is human nature? For your purposes, human nature is a quick explanation why political ideas or systems you don’t like are wrong.

16. Bolshevik revolutions were carried out with violence and bloodshed. Bourgeois revolutions were all carried out by democratic referendums, and there was no violence whatsoever.

17. Use words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ constantly. Do not accept any challenge to define these terms.

18. Communists can be for or against whatever is popular in your particular area. If you are preaching to a right-wing crowd, Communists are for degeneration and homosexuality. If you are preaching to a more mainstream audience, Communists were homophobic. Essentially, Communists are for moral degeneration and puritanical prudery at the same time. Again, do not notice the contradiction.

19. Constantly flog Stalin over the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, while totally ignoring massive support and collaboration with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan on the part of America, Britain, and France, long before the war and even after in some ways. As usual, do not allow your opponent to examine the context of the non-aggression pact.

20. Praise the newfound “freedom” of Eastern Europe. Ignore the massive depopulation via migration, plunging birthrates, huge alcohol and drug problems, political instability, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, sex trafficking and child prostitution, organized crime, high suicide rates, unemployment, disease, etc. Who cares about all that when you have freedom of speech?!

21. Constantly talk about the culture of fear in Communist nations, about that ‘knock on the door’ in the middle of the night. Ignore the ‘kick in your door in the middle of the night, stick a shotgun in your back, and haul your ass out of bed etc. because you are suspected of dealing,’ a normal occurrence in the American War on Drugs.

22. Attack Communists for suppression of religion. Attack Islamic fundamentalists for not being secular. What contradiction?!

23. Do not notice the irony that the US is currently fighting an incredibly expensive, losing war against an opponent which it funded, supported, and even handed its first victory in Afghanistan.

24. What should you say when confronted with all the continuing and often worsening problems in the world today, and asked for a solution? FREEDOM!! (Repeat as necessary until your opponent goes away)

25. Nothing from “Communists” can be trusted. Unless it somehow works in your favor, ala Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ from 1956, or anything Trotsky wrote.

26. Communist leaders were ‘paranoid’ for devoting so much time to security against counter-revolution. Ignore the mountains of evidence, including the restoration of capitalism in the East Bloc, that this threat was indeed real.

27. Communist regimes were never popular. If proof is presented in various cases to show otherwise, claim that the people were brainwashed. Make no effort to consider the budgetary and logistic constraints on such an undertaking.

28. Communist propaganda is crude and primitive. If someone mentions Red Dawn or worse, mentions the J. Edgar Hoover-endorsed comic book series known as The Godless Communists, run away.

29. Praise secularism in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘pluralism’ until faced with a Communist. Then play the religion card.

30. Atrocities and other bad things that happen under non-Communist regimes are the fault of individual ‘bad people’. Anything bad that happens under a ‘Communist’ regime is the fault of the ideology and system. And Stalin.

31. Being an anti-Communist means not having to have any sort of ideological consistency whatsoever. Preach populist left-wing pseudo-socialism 90% of the time, and then compare the capitalist system to “Stalin’s Russia”(if you never really studied the subject, just read 1984 and Animal Farm). ***** about capitalism 99% of the time, but balk when someone suggests Communism as an alternative. Far right wing Fascist? Constantly ***** about cultural degeneracy under capitalism, while remaining fanatically opposed to Marxism for no discernable reason save for your affinity for historic nationalism.

32. If you’re an anarchist, keep pointing out the ‘failure’ of Marxism while ignoring the fact that your ideology has a 100% failure rate throughout its entire history. Blame those failures on Communists, or stronger military powers. Ignore the fact that the most wonderful society is worthless if it can’t defend itself from reaction.

33. Neo-Nazi? Communism is Jewish!! Debate over.

34. Neo-Hippy? Tibet!

35. Constantly condemn the genocide that allegedly occurred under Mao, while ignoring the US’ relations with China established by Nixon, and the massive role capitalist China has played in the modern US economy. When you want to talk positively about China, it’s a capitalist country. If you need to criticize it, it’s still ‘Communist’.

36. Claim Marxism is not empirical. Neither are neo-liberalism, ‘democracy’, or ‘freedom’, but don’t worry about that.

37. Always insist that despite the location, country, historical era, past experience, and all other factors, Communists must want to recreate a modern-day copy of Stalin’s Russia, and all that entails according to you. Do not notice the inherent idiocy in this concept, such as your particular country being already industrialized, and not having a historical problem of severe backwardness.

38. Learn to use the magic word ‘totalitarian’. This word allows you to link two ideological opposites, Communism and Fascism.

39. Ignore the fact that socialist states experienced more economic problems parallel to the number of market reforms they made.

40. When challenged about numbers or historical context, resort to labels like “ruthless tyrant”, “cruel murderer”, and such. Remember, people like Stalin were mass-murderers because of all the people they killed, and we know they killed all those people because they were mass-murderers. It totally tracks!
:lol:
CJCM

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

At a book I read Called "Another View Of Stalin" by ludo martens the actual deaths in gulags it's like 1,890,000 dont remeber the exact number...lets think aging,famine,bad healtchare and all this stuff....

Let me tell you another pointview...
Why on earth would Stalin at the moment he most needed workers kill them??:confused:
Why on earth would Stalin Kill people when they had jails???:confused:
Why you belive very easily Stalin was an evil bastard and it's hard for you to beelive that it was the kulaks and some trotskist who started an anti revolution???:confused:
Why dont you try to read Buharin last words in court about kamenef-zinovief,tokajef and such???:confused:

Mistakes were made but hey....we're people..stalin was under pressure...but in 1933
300,000 families had their cases rechecked and put them back in place.It's a BIG country God damnit not a net cafe.:cursing:
I am also reading Another View on Stalin, and I must say it's really magnificent to read.

For example the Purge of the 1930's: Zinovjev and Kamenev were kicked out of the Party three times, the first two times they were allowed back in after they apologised for their actions. In 1934, after the Party Congress and the second time that Zinovjev and Kamenev were allowed back into the Party, Stalin wrote that every Party member who had made mistakes in tha past, but are willing to apologise officially have to be allowed back into the Communist Party. Stalin was convinced that Zinovjev and Kamenev had changed. If anything, he hasn't done enough to stop them.
The traitors of the Party who were reinstalled by Stalin "thanked" him by killing Kirov, Stalin's second in command. It has been proven that Zinovjev and Kamenev formed a clique which cooperated with Trotsky, who was represented by his son, in an attempt to overthrow Stalin. The meeting between Trotsky's son and the representatives of the clique took placen Western Europe, and the existance of this has been juridically proven. Even several Western European experts on the case have no doubts abut this being true.

And the Ukrainian Famine? Several American journalists have stated in their reports to their news papers that the tales about the massive genocide-famine, lasting untill 1937, were complete false.
One of them wrote: I was in Kiev at the me that people were supposed be dying there. I have seen nothing that pointed in that direction.

[Paul Cockshott]

Actually, 100 million is a common claim. They kind off do wet finger work there.

Lets see, some 20 million on the USSR 70 million on China, uhm... damn... we need another 10 million, ok well just do... (etc... etc...)

Srsly, i have actually seen the paper with death-tolls from the archives (or rather a copy of it) unfortunately i haven't ever spotted it on the internet. I believe the sum total (that is ALL deaths of people in gulags, not just un-natural ones.) was 1,2 million. Still high, but you gotta consider 2 famines, WW2, the purges, etc...
And China... well if we cant believe the bourgeouis sources on the USSR. Why should we believe similar sources on China (To be honest i couldn't back up any numbers on Chinasince not much is public).

Read Mobo Guao's book The Struggle over China's Past

[Paul Cockshott]

They actually claim 120 million excess deaths in Soviet Russia alone. Sometimes its 30, sometimes its 64, sometimes 120.

The most believable numbers of Stalin's reign is actually 11 million, and that is hella lot excess that.

What Rummel does to get 64 million is to look at tsarist Russia's population growth in 1913 and then the population in 1953, and the estimated population in 1953 given the birth rates of 1913. That is not the optimal way of calculating excess deaths given that birth rates tend to sink with higher literacy rates amongst women.

But its idiotic to try to defend Stalin's government. 11 million dead is yet a big pile of bodies.

This methodology is completely useless, aside from unknown changes in the birth rate, one has huge uncertainties about the number of casualties during world war 2.

[bailey_187]

One of the most important papers on the subject is Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR. Barbara A. Anderson; Brian D. Silver. Slavic Review. Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 517-536.

Do you know were i can get hold of this article, either online or an actual copy of this volume of Slavonic Review?

[bailey_187]

Heres a post from another forum concerning the number of deaths in the Ukranian Famine, although most comes from Ludo Martens. (This post does not deal with the cause of the Famine, just numbers)

"Correct me if i'm wrong but you quoted the 10million figure of dying in the famine?* I dont know where the numbers for these figures come from (I'm sure there is a source somewhere) but I will deal with the more regularly quoted number of 7.5million.. This number is calculated like this:
"Taking the data according to the 1926 census and the january 1939 census and the average (population) increase before collectivisation (2.36% a year), it can be calculated that Ukraine lost 7.5million people between the two censuses"

however, there is a problem with this seemingly scientific method of calculated how many died in this famine is very inaccurate.
The World War, Civil War etc all provoked a considerable large fall in the birth rate. The generation born/who would of been born in these years (1914-1923) would be reaching physical maturity and reproductive age in the 1930s. Hence, there would be a drop in the birth rate in the 1930s. Another factor contributing to the drop in birth rates in the 1930s in the huge upsurges of 1929-1933. Blame these on Stalin or blame them on a class struggle between the poor peasants and Kulaks - either way a situation was created where people are less likely to be reproducing.
Also, the number of people registering as Ukrainians would have dropped due to interracial marriages.
Also, the Kuban Cossacks, between 2 and 3 million people, were classified as Ukrainian in 1926 but were reclassified as Russian at the end of the 1920s. "



*the 10million number comes from supposedly what Stalin admitted privatley to Churchill :rolleyes:

[spiltteeth]

Heres a post from another forum concerning the number of deaths in the Ukranian Famine, although most comes from Ludo Martens. (This post does not deal with the cause of the Famine, just numbers)

"Correct me if i'm wrong but you quoted the 10million figure of dying in the famine?* I dont know where the numbers for these figures come from (I'm sure there is a source somewhere) but I will deal with the more regularly quoted number of 7.5million.. This number is calculated like this:
"Taking the data according to the 1926 census and the january 1939 census and the average (population) increase before collectivisation (2.36% a year), it can be calculated that Ukraine lost 7.5million people between the two censuses"

however, there is a problem with this seemingly scientific method of calculated how many died in this famine is very inaccurate.
The World War, Civil War etc all provoked a considerable large fall in the birth rate. The generation born/who would of been born in these years (1914-1923) would be reaching physical maturity and reproductive age in the 1930s. Hence, there would be a drop in the birth rate in the 1930s. Another factor contributing to the drop in birth rates in the 1930s in the huge upsurges of 1929-1933. Blame these on Stalin or blame them on a class struggle between the poor peasants and Kulaks - either way a situation was created where people are less likely to be reproducing.
Also, the number of people registering as Ukrainians would have dropped due to interracial marriages.
Also, the Kuban Cossacks, between 2 and 3 million people, were classified as Ukrainian in 1926 but were reclassified as Russian at the end of the 1920s. "



*the 10million number comes from supposedly what Stalin admitted privatley to Churchill :rolleyes:

Actually, Stalin never admitted to 10 million, after Churchill asked him how many he's killed, (according to Churchill) he simply raised his hands, which Churchill interpreted as meaning 10 million, one million for each finger.

[Kayser_Soso]

Actually, Stalin never admitted to 10 million, after Churchill asked him how many he's killed, (according to Churchill) he simply raised his hands, which Churchill interpreted as meaning 10 million, one million for each finger.


Geoffery Roberts offers very detailed accounts of interaction between Stalin and Churchill in his book Stalin's Wars, but never mentions anything of this sort. What is the source on this?

[spiltteeth]

Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution
~ Stephen F. Cohen
PG 463

Also cited in Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
~ Michael Parenti
pg 78

[Kayser_Soso]

Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution
~ Stephen F. Cohen
PG 463

Also cited in Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
~ Michael Parenti

But Churchill allegedly personally claimed this?

[spiltteeth]

But Churchill allegedly personally claimed this?

Yes, this is Churchill's testimony.

[ComradeRed22'91]

why turn this thread into that?

Oh wow, "state capitalism" blah blah blah smash the state blah blah. Can you not just ignore this thread?

sweet jebus, thank you!!!

[ComradeRed22'91]

At a book I read Called "Another View Of Stalin" by ludo martens the actual deaths in gulags it's like 1,890,000 dont remeber the exact number...lets think aging,famine,bad healtchare and all this stuff....

Let me tell you another pointview...
Why on earth would Stalin at the moment he most needed workers kill them??:confused:
Why on earth would Stalin Kill people when they had jails???:confused:
Why you belive very easily Stalin was an evil bastard and it's hard for you to beelive that it was the kulaks and some trotskist who started an anti revolution???:confused:
Why dont you try to read Buharin last words in court about kamenef-zinovief,tokajef and such???:confused:

Mistakes were made but hey....we're people..stalin was under pressure...but in 1933
300,000 families had their cases rechecked and put them back in place.It's a BIG country God damnit not a net cafe.:cursing:

Thanks, man. You rule.