Facts about Millions of "Victims" of USSR

[Comrade Marcel]

http://www.northstarcompass.org/

Historical Facts about Millions of "Victims" of Communism

BY VANYA KALASHNIKOV

The Bigger Lie Is , It’s Easier To Believe!

Brain washing of the world’s population about the so-called millions of people killed by the October Socialist Revolution and by Stalin, is going on even after over 52 years of the death of Stalin and over 14 years since the temporary collapse of the Soviet Union.

These lumpen "democrats" are very busy to cover their own war crimes, starting from WW II in Malaysia, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, North Africa, Central America, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia – you name it and everywhere you will find the hands of capitalism-imperialism and those that call themselves the "Children of God".

How long will the people of the world have to suffer these lies? As long as they will listen without questioning to the Big Lie and believing it!

Let us take a closer look at this big lie – these figures were taken and compiled from world press releases, books, and memories. I will round out the figures for easier calculation.

Russian Empire Population In 1913 – Including Finland

175,099,600

From here on and up to 1993, is just pure arithmetical exercise.

Russia Lost Finland:
3,000,000

Loss Of Poland:
20,000,000

Military Losses In WW1:
4,000,000

Here are the figures:
174,000,000
- 3,000.000
- 20,000,000
- 4,000,000
==========
147,000,000

Here comes the BIG LIE:

Russia lost in 1917: 4,000,000
Civil War in Russia: 10,000,000
Famine up to 1924: 600,000
========================
Total: 24,000,000

Taken from: 147,000,000
-24,000,000
=========================
123,000,000

Another BIG LIE is this:
Purges: 10,000,000
Collectivization: 10,000,000
Victims until 1929

=========================

Take the above from: 123,000,000
-20,000,000
=========================

This leaves a total of: 103,000,000

Take the enormous loses by the Soviet Union
in liberating mankind during Second World War:
-25,000,000

=========================

That supposedly leaves 1945 population of only:
88,000,000

We know that during any war there are very few children born and have a hard time to exist and survive. So we can forget the natural increase in population

So, how can these enemies and lie manufacturers explain the fact that the Soviet Union, before it temporarily collapsed in 1991 had almost 300,000,000 population!

Those enemies of progress and the crocodile tears of these traitors and enemies of Socialism, their unbelievable exaggeration of "Stalin and Gulags" is being fanned, promoted, well financed by imperialism since the earth shaking success of the Great October Socialist Revolution in 1917!

But in conclusion let’s speak about another actual GULAG in that seat of "freedom and democracy" the USA itself. The genocide committed against the Native Indians, the Black Afro-Americans and other non-white Americans is absolutely horrible. Besides, according to the United Nations itself, the number of Americans in jail is over 2,00,000. That means that there are more Americans sitting in jail than in any other country in the world and most of the jails are privatized and thus the costs are skyrocketing!

For more info on this question, see:

http://individual.utoronto.ca/mrodden/study/ssustudy.html

[JC1]

Good Article.

[Dean]

A list of wrongs by capitalist entities doesn't vindicate the imperialist "soviet" state of the USSR.

[chimx]

If you would like, I can whip out a book of primary source testimonials of Russian citizens forced to cannibalized their own children due directly to Stalin's purges.

Denying the millions starved or purged in Russia is as heinous as denying the holocaust.

[GWX]

I don't know if I would rather call it funny or really annoying that people like you defend what the Soviets have done..

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 07:03 AM
If you would like, I can whip out a book of primary source testimonials of Russian citizens forced to cannibalized their own children due directly to Stalin's purges.

Denying the millions starved or purged in Russia is as heinous as denying the holocaust.
Ok, please do so. Please link them directly to "Stalin's" purges.

It's interesting that you mention the Holocaust, since it is the same people who perpetrated that who made up these false numbers.

Of course, I'm not sure how you can compare racialist Genocide to socialist casualties, but anarchists never suprise me in their ignorance.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 06:42 AM
A list of wrongs by capitalist entities doesn't vindicate the imperialist "soviet" state of the USSR.
This is not "a list of wrongs by capitalist entities". Atleast read the thread before you comment.

[Comrade Marcel]

Oh, and Dean:

You are really going to have to explain how the USSR was at all "imperialist" during the Stalin era. Not even the most dogmatic Troskyist would even dare suggest such nonsense.

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 08:41 AM
I don't know if I would rather call it funny or really annoying that people like you defend what the Soviets have done..
I don't find it funny, but definately annoying that people on the "left" can be as useless as you!

[Eoin Dubh]

....the fact that the Soviet Union, before it temporarily collapsed in 1991 ......




Aside from Moldova, is there a Communist party in power in any other former USSR state?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Only Transnistria

[Dean]

This guy is a joke - he can't get over his simple, reactionary dogmatism. I'd let this moron wallow in his own feces for now, even if he does have good taste in movies.

[chimx]

Here's Miron Dolot's recollection of what he witnessed in the Ukraine. He published a book in 1985 called Execution by Hunger--The Hidden Holocaust


Soon . . . as we slowly made our way through the snow toward the village center, graphic evidence of starvation became visible. We noticed a black object which, from afar, looked like a snow-covered tree stump. As we came near, however, we saw that it was the body of a dead man. Frozen limbs protruding from under the snow gave the body the appearance of some grotesque creature. I bent down and cleared the snow off the face. It was Ulas, our elderly neighbor whom we had last seen about a month ago.

A few steps further, we saw another frozenbody. It was the corpse of a woman. As I brushed away the snow, horror made my blood turn cold: under her ragged coat, clutched tightly to her bosom with her stiff hands, was the frozen littly body of her baby.

. . .

We found the front door of [our neighbor] Solomia's house open, but the entrance was blocked with snowdrifts, and it was hard to get inside. When we finally reached the living room, we saw a pitiful sight: Solomia was hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. She was dressed in her Ukrainian national costume, and at her breast hung a large cross. It was obvious that she had made preparations befor committing suicide. Her hair was combed neatly intwo braids hanging over her shoulders.

Frightened, we ran to fetch Mother. We helped her take down Solomia's frozenbody, and laid it on a bench, and covered it with a handmade blanket. It was only after we finished doing this that we noticed the dead body of her little daughter. The child was lying in a wooden tub in the corner under the icons, clean and dressed in her best clothes. Her little hands were folded across her chest.

On the table was a note:

Dear Neighbors:
Please bury our bodies properly. I have to leave you, dear neighbors. I can bear this life no longer. There is no food in the house, and there is no sense in living without my little daughter who starved to death, or my husband. Ifyou ever see Dmytro, tell him about us. He will understand our plight, and he will forgive me. Please tell him that I died peacefully, thinking about him and our dear daughter.

I love you, my dear neighbors, and I wish with all my heart that you somehow recover from this disaster. Forgive me for troubling you. Thank you for everything you have done for me.

Solomia

. . .

The first rumors of actual cannibalism were related to the mysterious and sudden disappearances of people in the village. . . .

As the cases of missing persons grew in number, an arrest was made which shook us to our souls. A woman was taken into custody, charged with killing her two children.

Another woman was found dead, her neck contorted in a crudely made noose. The neighbors who discovered the tragedy also found the reason for it. The flesh of the woman's three-year old daughter was found in the oven.

Accounts like this are the byproduct of Stalin's feverish destruction of the Kulaks and his attempt to collectivize the agrarian sectors of Russia. It should be noted that during the beginning phases of the Russian Revolution, we saw a bit of compromise in regards to rural policy. Peasants were permitted to operate within a capitalist market setting, allowing some to accumulate capital and improve their farms. It should also be noted that these post-1929 kulaks were not the same rural property owners who sided with the whites during the Russian civil war. Rather, the growth of this new kulak class was the result of economic success within rural capitalist markets due to proper farming management practices. But what was Stalin's plan for this previously permitted kulak class?


“… [Should] the kulak … be permitted to join the collective farms [?] Of course not, for he is a sworn enemy of the collective farm movement. Clear, one would think.” -Joe "the cocksucker" Stalin

By liquidating Russia's most successful farmers, he forced onto Russia a famine that was responsible for killing upwards of 10 million people.

--

As far as State executions and gulags go, I direct your attention to the short novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn for an excellent first hand account of what that life was really like, as well as Koestler's Darkness At Noon.

And if you don't like reading novel's, than I suggest you check out Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech to the 20th Party Congress in 1956, in which he denounces the crimes of stalin during this period. It can be found online at the following address:

http://www.uwm.edu/Course/448-343/index12.html

I say again, denying the crimes of stalin is as wretched as denying the holocaust. Please do us all a favor and go back to listening to Screwdriver.

[bcbm]

That supposedly leaves 1945 population of only:
88,000,000

We know that during any war there are very few children born and have a hard time to exist and survive. So we can forget the natural increase in population

So, how can these enemies and lie manufacturers explain the fact that the Soviet Union, before it temporarily collapsed in 1991 had almost 300,000,000 population!

You postulate that, according to their numbers, the 1945 population should be X and then try to disprove it by showing the 1991 population was Y? The argument that population wouldn't increase because of war doesn't make since, as the USSR was not involved in any major world wars between 1945 and 1991.

What was the population of the USSR in 1945?

[Comrade Marcel]

Sorry, but Miron Dolot and the Ukraine famine has been debunked.

-
edit: I had been thinking of another book called Harvest of Despair that was debunked. Dolot's book seems to be just a first hand account and he doesn't even use last names when he refers to his neighbors who starved to death. I'm not saying no one starved, but this hardly puts anything on Stalin or even proves anything at all.

For more on the Ukraine, see:

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=19070
Fraud, Famine and Fascism- The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/famine.htm)
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/vv.html
http://www.plp.org/cd_sup/ukfam1.html
-

Was there a famine in the Ukraine? Yes. Did Stalin Engineer it? No.

It was a result of many things, including weather and class war. Liquidating the Kulaks had to be done. No doubt if that had not been done then you would be blaiming the deaths caused by that action on Stalin.

As MIM said, in reference to the Black Book of Communism:


Throughout his essay, Werth talks about grain requisitions by the Soviet state as if grain so obtained disappeared and thereby caused rural starvation.(e.g. p. 121) No mention is made of city people's non-negotiable rights with regard to eating. Even though the property system was no longer the capitalist style, he continued to refer to the grain as the "fruit of their[peasants'] labor"(e.g. p. 66, p. 148) that they were entitled to keep--omitting that some people work on much better land than others if there is no socialist cooperation to even out disparities in the means of production.

From 1923 to 1928, the peasants had a free market in grain. Yet, the bourgeois peasants blew their chance in 1928, because grain delivered to the cities was down to 4.8 million tons from 6.8 million the previous year. That spurred Stalin to favor collectivization of agriculture.(p. 142) No doubt, had Stalin let the peasants keep their grain, Courtois and Werth would have blamed Stalin for the starvation of people in the cities instead--unless Stalin changed the system to capitalism, in which case an 8 digit figure of peasants could die each year to this day without the bourgeois propagandists uttering a peep. Whether people starved in cities or in the countryside, Stalin was going to be blamed by these critics.

All along some of the fiercest resistance to doing the right thing centered in the Ukraine and Werth says the Ukrainian famine was the largest death toll Stalin was responsible for. The Ukraine is the equivalent of the U.$. "breadbasket"--states like Iowa or Kansas. Werth admitted as much in a concluding throw-away sentence: "The richest and most dynamic agricultural regions, which had the most to offer the state and the most to lose in the extortionate system of enforced collectivization, were precisely the regions worst affected by the great famine of 1932-33."(p. 168) The fact that these areas were the equivalent of Iowa should have been a clue that having the peasants just keep their food was not an option that should have been suggested lightly.

In 1929, more than 3,200 Soviet civil servants suffered terrorist attacks.(p. 145) 1,300 riots spread through the countryside in the years 1928-9. That is one indication of the class war going on. They had a history behind them of a movement called the "Greens" that also resisted requisition of food to the city.(p. 81-, p. 91- )

In the midst of this sort of political resistance, many Ukrainians resisted delivering grain to the state. Werth says that in response, Stalin starved 4 million of them to death in 1932-3 for a total of 6 million when other regions of the Soviet Union are counted for being in a similar situation.(p. 146)

But what do you expect from one demensional bourgeois view points like the ones you posted? It's interesting also that the numbers just has to be made a higher number than the Holocaust, hmmmm...


http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

One of the first campaigns of the Hearst press against the Soviet Union revolved round the question of the millions alleged to have died as a result of the Ukraine famine. This campaign began on 8 February 1935 with a front-page headline in the Chicago American '6 million people die of hunger in the Soviet Union'. Using material supplied by Nazi Germany, William Hearst, the press baron and Nazi sympathiser, began to publish fabricated stories about a genocide which was supposed to have been deliberately perpetrated by the Bolsheviks and had caused several million to die of starvation in the Ukraine. The truth of the matter was altogether different. In fact what took place in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1930s was a major class struggle in which poor landless peasants had risen up against the rich landowners, the kulaks, and had begun a struggle for collectivisation, a struggle to form kolkhozes.

This great class struggle, involving directly or indirectly some 120 million peasants, certainly gave rise to instability in agricultural production and food shortages in some regions. Lack of food did weaken people, which in turn led to an increase in the number falling victim to epidemic diseases. These diseases were at that time regrettably common throughout the world. Between 1918 and 1920 an epidemic of Spanish flu caused the death of 20 million people in the US and Europe, but nobody accused the governments of these countries of killing their own citizens. The fact is that there was nothing these government could do in the face of epidemics of this kind. It was only with the development of penicillin during the second world war, that it became possible for such epidemics to be effectively contained. This did not become generally available until towards the end of the 1940s.

The Hearst press articles asserting that millions were dying of famine in the Ukraine - a famine supposedly deliberately provoked by the communists - went into graphic and lurid detail. The Hearst press used every means possible to make their lies seem like the truth, and succeeded in causing public opinion in the capitalist countries to turn sharply against the Soviet Union. This was the origin of the first giant myth manufactured alleging millions were dying in the Soviet Union. In the wave of protests against the supposedly communist-provoked famine which the Western press unleashed, nobody was interested in listening to the Soviet Union's denials and complete exposure of the Hearst press lies, a situation which prevailed from 1934 until 1987! For more than 50 years several generations of people the world over were brought up on a diet of these slanders to harbour a negative view of socialism in the Soviet Union.

But who came up with these numbers (7-10 million in the Ukraine)? Well, it was originally fabricated by the nazis and Hearst's media empire in the U$ (he used the nazis as his sources). Hearst was a good friend of Hitler.

Later, Robert Conquest, a supposed "Soviet Scholar" used these same sources, only he quoted Hearst! I guess he just hoped no one would notice!


New York's newspaper the "Village Voice" of January 12, 1988 has already debunked the claims about the Ukrainian famine, as being wildly exaggerated and as having been created by fascist Ukrainians, in some cases caught in the act of fraud in propaganda creation.(7) Ludo Martens has also debunked poet, fiction-writer and government official Robert Conquest for his use of Nazi sources, Nazi collaborator sources and fiction books to buttress his most widely cited story of the Ukrainian famine.(8) 80,000 Ukrainians served in the Nazi army including some in the SS and that is the kind of humyn material that gets wide quotation.(p. 244)

Hence, while some people may have starved in the Ukraine, Werth's numbers are inflated to the point where the Village Voice referred to the famine as a "hoax." Nonetheless, Werth touches on the political choices some Ukrainians made. He quotes an alleged Stalin letter that MIM did not check on (because it was consistent with the times) as saying "the workers in your district--not just your district, but in many districts--went on strike, carried out acts of sabotage, and were prepared to leave workers from the Red Army without bread!"(p. 166) From MIM's point of view, even if all the fascist propaganda were true, Stalin would have been correct to take harsh measures against those who disobeyed the law, cut back their farming and generally acted as the spoiled and privileged owners of the best farming land.

Where Werth and Courtois agree is that the political choice of some peasants to resist delivering grain to the state is not an act of violence in itself against the city-dwellers; even though realistically, food has to come from farmland, especially the Ukraine and other lands in question. They speak of the land as if it were only the property of peasants who live on it. When peasants cut back their work only to grow their own grain and contrary to law, Werth and Courtois defend them. Indeed, Werth comes out openly in saying his approach depends on not recognizing Soviet law. He said that "'destruction of Soviet property'" and other items including "'speculation'" should not be counted as crimes.(p. 206) In contrast, we socialists are happy to deport such Ukrainian people as they were deported by Stalin and replace them with people who will do something with the fertile land--because people's lives are at stake and we see political games played by Ukrainians on breadbasket land as violence against city-dwellers.

The case of the Ukrainian breadbasket land is also important in reminding us why we have to oppose "local control" perfected under Tito's "market socialism" in Yugoslavia and also adopted by anarchists in Spain. After a revolution implementing "local control," people who happen to live on gold mines will become rich. People who live on the best land will have an easier time farming, and so on. "Local control" cannot be thought of as socialism, just a switch of owners. The central government has to play some role or the means of production are not truly socialist. Only when that day comes when people cooperate economically across large distances without coercion or reward will it be possible to take an easy-going approach to dividing up resources at the local level, because no one would think of hurting people in the rest of the country or the world based on their fortunate local position.

At a MIM Stalin talk coming out on CD, one critic from the audience said that Stalin induced the Ukrainian famine "for his own power." When asked what Stalin used that power for, the critic had nothing to say. In the capitalist countries, the sights of the masses are lowered to persynal gain, such that when they see someone with vast power and no persynal gain, they have no idea what to say. Stalin did not gain from starving Ukrainian peasants, unlike the way capitalist speculators who hoard food gain when peasants starve. To say that Stalin did gain is a simple projection of life under capitalism to life under socialism where often the politicians also persynally gain from development, weapons or other deals they broker politically.

In contrast the most bourgeois peasants in the USSR known as kulaks did gain monetarily and persynally from speculation in grain by letting the cities starve. Stalin did not himself benefit from the New Economic Policy (NEP) that allowed the free market in grain. It was the peasants in the countryside actually trying to increase their own power for persynal gain, so our critic has the accusation against Stalin completely upside-down.

In no way are Courtois and Werth correct in equating the holocaust of Jews with the starvation of some peasants who sat on fertile land and decided not to obey the law or cooperate in a new economic system. They chose to cut back their work and hide their grain despite knowing what targets of production they were to reach and despite having come closer to meeting them in the past. It is not that Werth ever claimed these peasants were struck by typhoon or drought. They had a choice, unlike the Jews who are born Jews according to the racial theories of the Nazis.

Since Werth says that Stalin's single largest crime was the alleged Ukrainian famine,(p. 263) our readers should note it carefully and decide how much credibility the overall criticism of the Soviet Union under Stalin has.

Do I like novels? I have a entire bookshelf dedicated to Soviet literature, and one for the Russian stuff too. I have access to novels you've probably never even heard of.

But why on earth would you tell me to read Solzhenitsyn (I have the novel you mentioned, and a collection of his speeches and letters)? How exactly is a fictional story going to prove your point? I'm not suprised, however, that a anarchist would side with a fascist. They did it in Spain.


http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9912/lies.htm

Another person who is always associated with books and articles on the supposed millions who lost their lives or liberty in the Soviet Union is the Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn became famous throughout the capitalist world towards the end of 1960 with his book, The Gulag Archipelago. He himself had been sentenced in 1946 to 8 years in a labour camp for counter-revolutionary activity in the form of distribution of anti-Soviet propaganda. According to Solzhenitsyn, the fight against Nazi Germany in the Second World War could have been avoided if the Soviet government had reached a compromise with Hitler. Solzhenitsyn also accused the Soviet government and Stalin of being even worse than Hitler from the point of view, according to him, of the dreadful effects of the war on the people of the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn did not hide his Nazi sympathies. He was condemned as a traitor.

Solzhenitsyn began in 1962 to publish books in the Soviet Union with the consent and help of Nikita Khrushchev. The first book he published was A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, concerning the life of a prisoner. Khrushchev used Solzhenitsyn's texts to combat Stalin's socialist heritage. In 1970 Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature with his book The Gulag Archipelago. His books then began to be published in large quantities in capitalist countries, their author having become one of the most valuable instruments of imperialism in combating the socialism of the Soviet Union. His texts on the labour camps were added to the propaganda on the millions who were supposed to have died in the Soviet Union and were presented by the capitalist mass media as though they were true. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn renounced his Soviet citizenship and emigrated to Switzerland and then the US. At that time he was considered by the capitalist press to be the greatest fighter for freedom and democracy. His Nazi sympathies were buried so as not to interfere with the propaganda war against socialism.

In the US, Solzhenitsyn was frequently invited to speak at important meetings. He was, for example, the main speaker at the AFL-CIO union congress in 1975, and on 15 July 1975 he was invited to give a lecture on the world situation to the US Senate! His lectures amount to violent and provocative agitation, arguing and propagandising for the most reactionary positions. Among other things he agitated for Vietnam to be attacked again after its victory over the US. And more: after 40 years of fascism in Portugal, when left-wing army officers took power in the people's revolution of 1974, Solzhenitsyn began to propagandise in favour of US military intervention in Portugal which, according to him, would join the Warsaw Pact if the US did not intervene! In his lectures, Solzhenitsyn always bemoaned the liberation of Portugal's African colonies.

But it is clear that the main thrust of Solzhenitsyn's speeches was always the dirty war against socialism - from the alleged execution of several million people in the Soviet Union to the tens of thousands of Americans supposedly imprisoned and enslaved, according to Solzhenitsyn, in North Vietnam! This idea of Solzhenitsyn's of Americans being used as slave labour in North Vietnam gave rise to the Rambo films on the Vietnam war. American journalists who dared write in favour of peace between the US and the Soviet Union were accused by Solzhenitsyn in his speeches of being potential traitors. Solzhenitsyn also propagandised in favour of increasing US military capacity against the Soviet Union, which he claimed was more powerful in 'tanks and aeroplanes, by five to seven times, than the US' as well as in atomic weapons which 'in short' he alleged were 'two, three or even five times' more powerful in the Soviet Union than those held by the US. Solzhenitsyn's lectures on the Soviet Union represented the voice of the extreme right. But he himself went even further to the right in his public support of fascism.

Support for Franco's fascism

After Franco died in 1975, the Spanish fascist regime began to lose control of the political situation and at the beginning of 1976, events in Spain captured world public opinion. There were strikes and demonstrations to demand democracy and freedom, and Franco's heir, King Juan Carlos, was obliged very cautiously to introduce some liberalisation in order to calm down the social agitation.

At this most important moment in Spanish political history, Alexander Solzhenitsyn appears in Madrid and gives an interview to the programme Directisimo one Saturday night, the 20th of March, at peak viewing time (see the Spanish newspapers, ABC and Ya of 21 March 1976). Solzhenitsyn, who had been provided with the questions in advance, used the occasion to make all kinds of reactionary statements. His intention was not to support the King's so-called liberalisation measures. On the contrary, Solzhenitsyn warned against democratic reform. In his television interview he declared that 110 million Russians had died the victims of socialism, and he compared 'the slavery to which Soviet people were subjected to the freedom enjoyed in Spain'. Solzhenitsyn also accused 'progressive circles' of 'Utopians' of considering Spain to be a dictatorship. By 'progressive', he meant anyone in the democratic opposition - were they liberals, social-democrats or communists. 'Last autumn,' said Solzhenitsyn, 'world public opinion was worried about the fate of Spanish terrorists [i.e., Spanish anti-fascists sentenced to death by the Franco regime]. All the time progressive public opinion demands democratic political reform while supporting acts of terrorism'. 'Those who seek rapid democratic reform, do they realise what will happen tomorrow or the day after? In Spain there may be democracy tomorrow, but after tomorrow will it be able to avoid falling from democracy into totalitarianism?' To cautious inquiries by the journalists as to whether such statements could not be seen as support for regimes in countries where there was no liberty, Solzhenitsyn replied: 'I only know one place where there is no liberty and that is Russia.' Solzhenitsyn's statements on Spanish television were a direct support to Spanish fascism, an ideology he supports to this day. This is one of the reasons why Solzhenitsyn began to disappear from public view in his 18 years of exile in the US, and one of the reasons he began to get less than total support from capitalist governments. For the capitalists it was a gift from heaven to be able to use a man like Solzhenitsyn in their dirty war against socialism, but everything has its limits. In the new capitalist Russia, what determines the support of the west for political groups is purely and simply the ability of doing good business with high profits under the wing of such groups. Fascism as an alternative political regime for Russia is not considered to be good for business. For this reason Solzhenitsyn's political plans for Russia are a dead letter as far as Western support is concerned. What Solzhenitsyn wants for Russia's political future is a return to the authoritarian regime of the Tsars, hand-in-hand with the traditional Russian Orthodox Church! Even the most arrogant imperialists are not interested in supporting political stupidity of this magnitude. To find anyone who supports Solzhenitsyn in the West one has to search among the dumbheads of the extreme right.

Anyways, people can read for themselves:

The Soviet Union and the Stalin Question (http://individual.utoronto.ca/mrodden/study/ssustudy.html)

there is plently of material throughout that debunks these capitalist myths, and plenty of material on the Ukraine and the Stalin era. If you want to read Mr. K and his "secret speech", go right ahead. But make sure you read more than just that by Mr. K so you know where the traitor is coming from (and we are talking about a guy who had a persynal bone to pick with Stalin, and took it out on everyone in the USSR by starting what would be the collapse of it).

[Comrade Marcel]

This guy is a joke - he can't get over his simple, reactionary dogmatism.

Please explain how it is reactionary (when I am not the one providing bourgeois and fascist sources) or dogmatic (I keep asking for evidence)?


I'd let this moron wallow in his own feces for now,

I'll think of you the next time I take a shit... :lol:


even if he does have good taste in movies.

How would you know?

[Comrade Marcel]

Originally posted by black banner black [email protected] 15 2006, 06:17 PM

That supposedly leaves 1945 population of only:
88,000,000

We know that during any war there are very few children born and have a hard time to exist and survive. So we can forget the natural increase in population

So, how can these enemies and lie manufacturers explain the fact that the Soviet Union, before it temporarily collapsed in 1991 had almost 300,000,000 population!

You postulate that, according to their numbers, the 1945 population should be X and then try to disprove it by showing the 1991 population was Y? The argument that population wouldn't increase because of war doesn't make since, as the USSR was not involved in any major world wars between 1945 and 1991.

What was the population of the USSR in 1945?
That is a good question, and I'm not sure why that was left out, but it was certainly more than 88,000,000.

In any case, the population is not going to basically triple in 40 years!

[Xanthus]

"Comrade" Marcel, it truly amazes me that a person can be so aware of the true nature behind some "facts" and yet so nievely believe others, but such is the nature of the Stalinist. The fact that you keep on replying to yourself is somewhat laughable, but the topic of this thread is anything but.

Some of these casualty examples were not caused by the USSR, but to deny all of them is beyond foolish, and very harmful to a proper understanding of what happened.

It's very true that the civil war casualties wer caused by the invading whites and not by the defending reds (although they were massive), and the early years of famine were an unavoidable combination of inhereting terrible conditions from previous regimes and that same civil war... but at the same time many of these crimes you dismiss so easily were caused by utter stupidity on the part of the beurocrats, or even worse.

The forced liquidation of the farmers by Stalin for example fits very neatly into the "utter stupidity" catagory. To piss of your food producers to that degree is something any competant leader would realise simply shouldn't be done. Nearly all farmers who were caught up in this at the very least burned their crops, and the majority of livestock-owners slaughtered their herds wholesale. The resulting famine was not only inevitable, but completely predictable by anyone with two brain-cells to rub together.

The purges are something very clearly falling into the "even worse" catagory. To deny them is to deny not only something the scale of the halocaust, but it's to deny the single most reactionary and counter-revolutionary move in capitalist history. The best marxist cadres were rounded up by the thousands and shot or worked to death in Siberia... This is something which, in my opinion, any honest revolutionary should consider the worst crime in human history. It boggles the mind that people who would dare to call themselves "progressive" much less "socialist" can deny this type of a crime. It is something of the same level as saying that Hitler's actions in slaughtering trade-unions were progressive, and necessary. I simply can't understand or in the very least fathom how anybody could have their head so far up their own ass to believe in this day and age that Stalin was anything other then a murdering, reactionary, beurocratic, counter-revolutionary tyrant.

As for the numbers, why can't the population triple in 40 years??? Especially with all the programs created with the purpose of breeding the "new soviet generation" and doing exactly that. Most African countries can put that growth rate to shame in the last decade or two. Not only that but you're completely failing to take into account that along with people dieing, there were also people born between 1917 and 1945. So, as much as tripling in 40 years is very possible, the numbers which you try to use to suggest that's what happened (or suggest that other people suggest that's what happened) are also fundamentally flawed.

To quote you, as this phrase is actually quite apt when turned back the other way, "I don't find it funny, but definately annoying that people on the "left" can be as useless as you!"

[Comrade Martin]

The holocaust was OBVIOUSLY invented by Jews. Just like how Kristal-Nacht was orchestrated by Jews to make the Nazis look bad. :P

But seriously, while the crimes of Stalinism are great, the numbers are INFLATED severely. You'd be lucky to prove 5 million people died as a result of purges, collectivization, and outright killings. I've been working with Russian institutes on this matter for a spell, and they've agreed with these findings.

[Eoin Dubh]

Originally posted by Compañ[email protected] 15 2006, 04:53 PM
Only Transnistria
Is this not a rebel region of Moldova?
If 'Communist' parties are in power in both areas and they don't get along.....is there really any hope of a reunited USSR?

On a side note, how many representatives of the CP are there in the Russian Duma? Any chance they could be voted in?
:huh:

[chimx]

Originally posted by Eoin Dubh+Mar 16 2006, 05:51 AM--> (Eoin Dubh @ Mar 16 2006, 05:51 AM)
Compañ[email protected] 15 2006, 04:53 PM
Only Transnistria
Is this not a rebel region of Moldova?
If 'Communist' parties are in power in both areas and they don't get along.....is there really any hope of a reunited USSR?

On a side note, how many representatives of the CP are there in the Russian Duma? Any chance they could be voted in?
:huh: [/b]
I haven't checked the numbers in numerous years, but when I did they still held slightly less than 1/3 of the seats, constituting a significant minority party--though no doubt this has dropped further since then.

I pray a reunited USSR doesn't occur and the likeliness of it occuring is pretty slim. The CP is generally considered to be politically out of touch with the average russian citizen, making duma elections unlikely in the future. There may have been some bit of hope during the mid to late 90s when the market wasn't responding well to the capitalism crash course and many continued to equate the CP with a time of economic stability, since the market has since turned itself around a bit there is no real reason for people of Russia to politically regress. This face of course can be seen with the CP slowly loosing their seating in the state duma.

[xprol]

Marcel,

I have not fully read all your figures and sources, but it is clear from what I have read that you are making many valid points. I am looking forward to checking them out.

Also the fact that your opposition has floundered about looking for (so far none existent) 'evidence' to counter attack with, lends credibility to your arguments.

Previously I have only read scant explanations of all this and although subjectively, and from a partisan position of defender of Soviet proletarian dictatorship, I would love to immediately stuff it down the through of all the counter revolutionaries, I am going to check it out.

Otherwise, Good work. Very encouraging so far.

[Invader Zim]

I wrote a short article on communism supposed 100 million victims a while back: -

The subject of communist death counts has been a subject of debate among historians and political scientists for a long time, during the cold war, and even today it is often politically motivated and open to bias. It was considered that when the Soviet archives were finally opened historians would be able to put the matter, of least Stalinist genocide, at rest; this has not been the case. The archives do not give a true representation of Stalinist Russia, because of the nature of secrecy which dominated Soviet Russia.

Despite the raging debate, serious doubt can be placed on the 100 million or more victims of ‘communism estimate, promoted by the likes of Rudolph Rummel, because it is not supported by any major evidence and is out of proportion to other estimates.

If we look at other reputable sources on the USSR, China, etc, then we can see a very different set of statistics. For example in the 1930's Rummel states that nearly 16 million were murdered, starved or worked to death.[1] While on the other hand other historians provide very different estimates. A second estimate, cited in G. Ponton's 'The Soviet Era' is that the toll for the period of 1926-39 was 3.5 million and at most eight million.[2] Obviously even the lower end of this estimate is shocking and indicative of a brutal regime, but it is in no way like the estimates of Rummel. Even the high end of the latter estimate, 8 million, is half of the figure promoted by Rummel for this period. Considering the lack of physical and documented evidence, a genocide of such major proportions as suggested by Rummel, seams unlikely; thus the second estimate would appear to be the more accurate estimate.

Based on this a conclusion can be drawn that similar exaggeration of other 'Red' regimes crimes have been accused of massive genocides by political scientists and historians of the opinion shared by such as Rummel. Rummel in fact places the death toll of Mao Zedung at a staggering 72,260,000, the Walker report places Mao's cost at 32 million to 59.5 million and the 'Black Book of Communism' places the toll at between 44.5 to 72 million. [3] However again, if we look at another estimate, that of Brzezinski, the estimate is significantly less at a still horrific 29 million. [4] But even so, that is not even close to the 72 million that Rummel and other proponents of huge estimates would have us believe.

We also have to consider that famine is a major cause for the often large figures cited; famine is rarely deliberate. Western nation’s intervention into other countries has caused far greater famine than ever caused by Mao Zedung or Stalin. For example, in the world today six million children under the age of five die every year.[5] Communism is blamed for these deaths, as we can see from the existence of the 'Walker report' and the 'Black Book of Communism', which categorise the cause as a single economic and social ideology. If the same logic were to be applied to the deaths of the six million children, then what is the sole cause of these deaths? The blame can be applied to western imperialism in the 19th century, but then again equally we can blame modern western economic policies which exploit such nations. However in either case, past imperialism or economic interference, we can see a clear linking factor: western intervention. Thus the west is responsible for the deaths of millions of children annually. The ideology of the west, on the whole is that of democracy. However, suggesting that democracy is responsible millions of deaths is inaccurate and misleading. If these de deaths are to be attributed to any individual uniting factors, then these should be the result of individual nation’s policies and long term economic intervention in developing countries.

In conclusion, claiming that ‘communism’, or any ideology for that matter, is the cause of numerous death, would appear to be an inaccurate hypothesis. To be more specific, claiming that the ‘communist ideology’ is the cause of over 100 million deaths is not only statistically unlikely but also inaccurate. The cause of millions of deaths in some ‘communist’ nations has been the individual policy these countries dictators or dictating party. The same conclusion can be applied to negative influence of the west on developing countries. Also, the estimate of 100 million deaths is also unlikely from a practical statistical point of view, in order to reach a figure of 100 million those seeking to generate an estimate must actively seek out and implement the more extreme figures into their calculations. This of course results in figures being excessively high and as such unlikely.




Notes:


[1] http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Stalin

[2] Ibid.

[3] http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao

[4] Ibid.

[5] http://www.fao.org/documents/



Some good reading: -


http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...,790476,00.html (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,790476,00.html)

[xprol]

What is immediately striking about the American figures on this allegedly highly bureaucratized "tyranny", is that 1,162,090 actually escaped from prison! I am no academic or statistician, but figures like this together with figures on deaths, etc, etc in prisons and comparisons with other states could through some light on the political 'culture' resulting from the prevailing theoretical struggles ongoing at different periods, rather than only chucking body suspect counts at each other.

After all that's what this dispute is about. Isn't it?