[Ixa]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... s&n=507846

Fraud Famine and Fascism the Ukrainian Genocide Myth
by Tottle

Reviews.

***** (five stars)
Tottle has uncovered fraudulent use of photographs in the film "Harvest of Despair", and exposes many lies in claims about "deliberate Soviet genocide against Ukrainians." In short, there was none.

Tottle's research is excellent. This gives the book great value for anyone, regardless of political persuasion, who is interested in the truth.

Tottle has a pro-Soviet bias. Many writers on this topic have an anti-Soviet, anti-communist, or right-wing Ukrainian Nationalist bias. The reader can put the biases themselves aside.

But, without reading works from very different points of view, it's impossible to be exposed to all the evidence that exists. That's what makes this book a good counterpose to, say, Robert Conquest's _Harvest of Sorrow_. Tottle is pro-Soviet, Conquest anti-Soviet. I find Tottle's research to be far more solid, however.

No one denies there was a serious famine -- though it wasn't only in the Ukraine. The scholarly works of Mark Tauger are really the 'last word' on this subject, and they are as politically neutral as it's possible to be. But Tottle's work is a valuable corrective to the Uk. Nationalist "party line", which usually dominates in the Western media and classes. The Cold War isn't dead - not by a long shot!

___

***** (five stars)
Douglas Tottle's book is a complete diary of all of the misnomers and outright lies perpetuated in the capitalist press. Many say his book is incorrect because of recently released archival information, but this is also false, as the first US professor to examine them said the notion that there was a famine-genocide in the ukrain is absolutely idiotic. Tottle's book is a great triumph against fascism and capitalist bourgeois lies.

[Maxim Litvinov]

It sounds interesting based on those reviews, Ixabert. My only problems are:

* It is out of print.
* The two OTHER reviews are quite negative.
* It was written in 1987, and a LOT of information about the famine has filtered out since then.

But, based on the evidence here, I can't really say if the book's any good or not.

Have you read the book? If so, what are YOUR comments? Are you intending to read it?

I haven't done much reading on the famine at all, but my advice would be to go to a university library and follow the ongoing exchange of letters and articles between the two famine camps that have been going back and forth for the past ten years or so in a few Soviet periodicals. It will give you a broader and more up-to-date perspective than this book, however good, could hope to.

[Ixa]

I am intending to read it.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

So what caused the famine? German spies?

But really, even if there was no famine, a claim which flies in the face of millions of testimonies from the survivors of it, there has to be SOME REASON why the grain production of the Soviet Union was LOWER than that of the Russian Empire in 1913 (I'm aware that the Russian Empire was larger than the Soviet Union, but you'd think that after over forty years of "progress", they'd be growing more grain).

[Maxim Litvinov]

This book doesn't seem to deny the famine, if I read the "No one denies there was a serious famine -- though it wasn't only in the Ukraine." comment in one of the reviews correctly.

So, yes, it is a matter of interpreting *how* bad the famine was, and to what extent Soviet authorities were guilty.

As you probably know, there are a bunch of kooky stories out there. Like Ukrainians who will claim that the Russian/Soviet government was *hording grain* and even selling it abroad, while letting Ukrainians die because it wanted to exterminate the Ukrainian people.

As it won't surprise you, there are many reasons for the famine. These would include high levels of grain collection, dekulakisation which lowered the number of peasant agricultural specialists, cropping systems which didn't adequately recognise the need for crop rotation, the lack of traction power, and the weather.

It is a complex issue, which isn't helped by over-simplification. For instance, where grain production was at eighty million tons in 1913, because of the combined effects of the First World War and Civil War, it was down to around 37.6 million tons in 1921. On a general trend, it increased more rapidly from 1930 to 1950, than it had under the tsars.

But there were obviously a number of drops in grain production, and there causes have to be analysed as objectively as possible. What I believe, and what I hope this book is saying, is that to say the authorities alone were to blame, or that they were deliberately killing off peasants through starvation, is substituting history for conspiracy theories, and is entirely unhelpful.

[Intelligitimate]

I was going to buy this book sometime ago, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere.

[Intelligitimate]

Great news, guys! I do believe I've found it online!

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/ ... g00204.htm

Thanks go out to David Siar, who got ahold of this rare book and scanned it for everyone who is interested. I'm downloading the pdf files now.

[Ixa]

Great news, guys! I do believe I've found it online!

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/ ... g00204.htm

Thanks go out to David Siar, who got ahold of this rare book and scanned it for everyone who is interested. I'm downloading the pdf files now.

Excellent. How do I go about downloading it? If I am unable to download
it, could you send it to me?

[Intelligitimate]

This should be easier for everyone:

ftp://tottle87:H-Russia03@furrg.montcla ... efraud.pdf

[Ixa]

Thank you, Intelligitimate..

From the back of the book:-

"Douglas Tottle exposes the fraudulent charge of famine-genocide made
against the USSR . . . Skillfully Tottle traces the labyrinthine history of the
"evidence" - documentary and photographic - on its convoluted passage
from nazi publications to the Hearst press to the misfounded "scholarship"
of such present-day Kremlinologists as Robert Conquest. Tottle's sharp and
engagingly written investigation is useful and intelligent. The author makes up an
important contribution by exposing the ways and wiles of
anti-Communist propaganda."
-Clarence J. Munford
Professor of History
University of Guelph

"For almost 70 years the study of the Soviet Union has been trapped in a sea of
distortion, lie and propaganda. While this has not always been one-sided, its overall
effect has been to stimulate fear, suspicion and danger of war. In the present age
of new thinking about the history of socialism in the USSR, it remains necessary to
deal with and disperse at least the worst of the lies. Tottle's book demonstrates
clearly the viciousness surrounding the theory of the Ukrainian genocide and
hopefully will open the way to genuine stufy of the Ukrainian road to socialism."
David Whitefield
Professor of History
University of Calgary

[Maxim Litvinov]

Thanks for the PM about this, Intelligitimate,

I am downloading it now, and hope to read it sometime soon.

[glinert]

I think cause of famine fairly simple. If you surround city and not allow anyone into it, people will die. THis waht germans wanted. Ukraine suffered heavily.

I also once heard lots of Russian partisans were just as bad as Nazis.

[malachi151]

I would really like to get this issue straight once and for all. I don't care if the fact are that 100 million people died, or 10 people died, I just want to know the truth of it and why, this issue really pisses me off, it seems to be one fo the most, if not THE most difficult thing to really verify.

I'd like to get an origional of this book. It pisses me off that its out of print, but it is to be expected.

For those interested, here is a library search for the book:

http://partneraccess.oclc.org/wcpa/serv ... wo&recno=1

Notice almost NONE in America!

[malachi151]

The most interesting thing about all of this is my research on Hearst from the opposite end of the spectrum, which completely coroborates the claimes of this author.

See:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/artic ... ascism.htm

Which is a not quite finished piece I am about to "publish" on my website soon.

Dodd is William E. Dodd, American Ambassador to Germany:

Dodd stated that:

“Since the present regime began, von Wiegand has been very much embarrassed, and Hearst has been even more embarrassing to him. A little more than a year ago he and George Vincent were guests at my house, and he told us then how Hearst had subsidized Mussolini.”

Dodd then went on to relay information directly from von Wiegand:

...In 1924, Hearst sent Bertilli, one of his best correspondents, to Italy for a series of articles designed to appraise accurately the Mussolini movement. After a month or so of work, the first article was sent to Hearst. It was plain enough that the verdict of Bertilli was not flattering.

It had also been understood that Hearst had no sympathy with dictatorial governments. Strangely enough, Bertilli was recalled and all his work scrapped. Another strange thing, Gianini, President of the Italian Bank System of California, an ardent supporter of Mussolini, agreed to lend Hearst some millions of dollars, Hearst being thought at that time to be in embarrassing financial circumstances...

Hearst then sent me (von Wiegand) to Rome for an interview with Mussolini, and asked me to engage him to write articles whenever he chose for the Hearst press at $l a word. Mussolini was greatly pleased and he wrote articles over a number of years, and I delivered to him large checks from time to time. From that time on Hearst was considered by his correspondents as an ally of Mussolini...

In 1934 he (Hearst) came with a big party, including his mistress, and spent the summer at Nauheim. Once more representatives of the German Government visited him, and finally Rosenberg (editor of the VOELKISCHER BEOBACHTER and representative of German foreign propaganda work) made an engagement for him to see the Chancellor, and he flew to Berlin one night in September. The next day he had an interview of nearly an hour with the Chancellor, and he reported to me that he was greatly impressed with the genius and friendliness of Hitler...

A little later he asked me to negotiate a deal with Goebbels for supplying the German Propaganda Ministry with all the Hearst news service. I declined. Hearst then appointed Hillman, of London, to work out the deal, and I went to London to continue my work for the International News Service. Hillman arranged for the Propaganda Ministry to have all continental Hearst information in Europe delivered to its office at the same time it went to the Hearst press over the world. For this service Hearst was to receive $200,000 a year, and he at once began to bring pressure to bear on his correspondents to give only friendly accounts of what happened in Germany...

...I learned a little later that all my reports from Germany went directly to Hearst and were re-edited so as to fit the new program...

...he at the same time sent Dosch-Fleurot here from Paris to administer the service in such a way that it would always be friendly to the Hitler regime. However, Dosch-Fleurot's attitude in the winter of 1934-35 began to change, and now he is called home for discipline. I might add that other representatives of the service in Germany have been dismissed, and still others dislike to write one-sided reports...


In his closing Dodd stated:

“You will see from von Wiegand's statements that what I told you about Hearst being an ally of Mussolini and Hitler is correct.”

In 1938 George Seldes, famous American journalist, wrote of Hearst in Lords of the Press:

“The year 1935 marked the height of the Hearst Red-baiting campaign in the universities. It must be remarked here and now that there is no Red teaching in the schools and colleges of the United States, but the institutions of learning of our country still attempt to give their students a liberal education. It is inconceivable that they should do anything else. No school can supply an anti-liberal education, or a Fascist education, as these terms are contradictory. Liberalism and education are one, and all Hearst did was to call liberal education "Red" education.

To this day the Hearst press is filled with Red-baiting articles and attacks upon such notable Americans as Prof. Charles A. Beard, Prof. George S. Counts, of Teachers College; Prof. E.A. Ross, of the University of Wisconsin; Prof. Frederick L. Schuman, of Chicago. Hearst reporters in numerous instances have been sent as students to interview professors or to take courses for the purpose of writing Redbaiting articles. When these reporters found nothing to write about they falsified. In several cases they later confessed.“

In the 1930s Heart Consolidated Publications was the largest publishing business in the world, and his publications had a definite impact on the views of Americans. It is obvious that Hearst was attempting to influence Americans to be sympathetic to the European fascist cause, and it is arguable that it his efforts were in fact working.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

But really, even if there was no famine, a claim which flies in the face of millions of testimonies from the survivors of it, there has to be SOME REASON why the grain production of the Soviet Union was LOWER than that of the Russian Empire in 1913 (I'm aware that the Russian Empire was larger than the Soviet Union, but you'd think that after over forty years of "progress", they'd be growing more grain).

First of all...what millions of testimonies??

Second of all...what year are you SPECIFICALLY talking about?? The 1930s saw a steady increase of production from around 89 million tons in 1933 up to 120 million tons in 1937...considerably above Czarist-time production. So your assumption that it was lower is plain wrong.

Czarist Russia of 1913 included the VERY large grain producing regions of Belorussia, Ukraine and Lithuania that were invaded by the Poles in 1920...

Also...and more importantly...was the distribution of this grain. Under the primitve production methods of Czarist Russia only about 14% of the grain produced by the peasants reached the cities...the rest was consumed locally. Under collectivized agriculture, over 45% of that grain reached the cities. Food consumption increased dramatically during the construction of socialist agriculture...while Czarist Russia was plagued with famines which happened on regular intervals.

Prior to 1933...it was no socialist agriculture but primarely small scale Kulak agriculture as it had been in the time of the czars. The production in the 1920s was lower for the reasons Maxim gave...primarely WW1 and the devastating Civil War. Also 1913 was a record year for Czarist agriculture...it usualy provided enough for the peasants to survive and not die...although they did die in the periodic famines which plagued Czarist Russia. So to say that socilaist agriculture didn't improve on it...is just plain wrong.

[Gothmog]

-This question of agricultural improvement after collectivization is subjected to some discussion. Althought official estimates show a clear improvement due to collectivization (with no worsening in 1932-33, which actually make the thesis of man made famine stronger), other authors claim that there this improvement was the result of innacurate methodology and the production in 1941 was not very different from 1913 (which, as TS points, was an exceptional year). I will place some stuff on that discussion here (by Tony Cliff)

[Gothmog]

-Here is Cliff´s text. I´m not taking position in this question, only presenting data on collectivization. Any comments?



http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/w ... a/ch11.htm

The greatest achievements of Stalin’s agricultural policies were claimed in the field of grain production. But it is precisely in this field that information on economic achievements under Stalin was more misleading than in any other.

At the very beginning of the collectivisation drive in 1929, Stalin promised that in some three years the USSR would be the greatest grain producing country in the world. [1] A couple of years later came the great famine. This did not prevent Stalin from repeating the declaration, and promising (on December 1, 1935) that within three or four years USSR grain output would be raised to 120-130 million tons. [2] This is virtually the same figure – 130 million tons – the 18th Party Congress planned for the end of the Third Five-Year Plan in 1942. And, oddly, the target for Plan after Plan remained in the region of the same amount. The Fourth Five-Year Plan aimed at 125 million tons of grain for 1950. At the 19th Party Congress (1952) Malenkov proudly announced that at last a harvest of 130 million tons of grain had been collected. He concluded triumphantly: “The grain problem, which in the past was regarded as our most acute and gravest problem, has thus been solved, solved definitely and finally.” [3] On the basis of this victory. the Congress set the target for the Fifth Five-Year Plan at a rise in grain output of 40-50 per cent [4], or an overall output of some 175 million tons in 1955. The assurance given by Malenkov in 1952 that there was enough grain was repeated in September 1953 by Khrushchev. [5] And one Soviet economist, following Malenkov and Khrushchev, went so far as to write in 1953 that in 1952 grain output was 95.1 per cent above the 1910-14 level. [6]

However, this was a paper victory, the result of a statistical trick. Up to 1933, the grain crop was calculated as the quantity harvested and stored. From 1933 it was computed on the basis of what was grown in the field, the so-called “biological yield”. From this figure 10 per cent was deducted, on the assumption that this is the average amount lost between field and barn. [A] The 1937 deductions for losses were discontinued altogether.

The two years 1933 and 1937 in which changes in statistical methods were introduced showed the greatest and most sudden jumps in gross output.

At last, on December 15th, 1958, Khruschev completely debunked the success story of Soviet grain, saying: “In actual fact, as regards grain production, the country remained for a long time at the level of pre-revolutionary Russia.” He went on to give the following figures to support this statement:

Sown Areas, Actual (Barn) Crop per hectare, and Total Crop

Grain Area
(million hectares)
Crop per Hectare
(centners)
Total Grain Return
(million poods)

1910-44 (average per year
over present territory)
102.5
7.0
4,380

1949-53 (average per year)
105.2
7.7
4,942


As you see, in sown areas, crop yield and grain returns, the country remained, in practice, at the same level as before the Revolution, though in numerical strength the population, and especially that of the industrial centres and cities, had considerably increased ... [8]

Thus the harvest in 1949-53 was only 91.7 million tons, hardly larger than in 1910-14. During the same period the population increased by some 30 per cent!

[PatrickSMcNally]

Tottle's book is good for the purpose just of appreciating the willingness of Cold Warriors to manipulate photos for the sake of promoting a Cold War scare. But it is not primarily about the famine itself. If one is seriously interested in learning about the famine then Mark Tauger's research is the best place to begin, and a lot of that is online as well:

http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/soviet.htm

What Tottle accomplishes is a demolition of the credibility of James Mace as a historian. That's a worthy endeavour in its own right. But Tauger actually replaces the Mace thesis with a new thesis that is better supported by the evidence.

[The American Lion]

No bumping very old threads- TAL