[Gothmog]

How does people in this Forum see the Ukarine famine
in 1932-33. Was it a deliberate attempt to punish
the peasants or just the result of extreme poor planning
and lack of information (as it was the Chinese famine
of 1958-61)?

[Steve]

First off, this topic is going to be strongly denied by Tovarish Spetsnaz. Get ready for it. It's not going to be pleasant.

Secondly, this university history textbook I'm looking at says the following, which I am inclined to believe.

Stalin also deliberately kept food from the Ukrainians, who were always too independent-minded for his taste. Stalin's action, according to some estimates, caused over 5 million deaths in the Ukraine alone during the famine of 1932-1933.

Bring it on, TS!

[Gothmog]

First off, this topic is going to be strongly denied by Tovarish Spetsnaz. Get ready for it. It's not going to be pleasant.

Secondly, this university history textbook I'm looking at says the following, which I am inclined to believe.

Stalin also deliberately kept food from the Ukrainians, who were always too independent-minded for his taste. Stalin's action, according to some estimates, caused over 5 million deaths in the Ukraine alone during the famine of 1932-1933.

Bring it on, TS!

-Well, the death toll is close to reality (best estimates are 7 million for
-all the USSR, being 2 million for Kazhakistan and 5 million for Ukraine
-plus Russia). The deliberate nature of the famine, however, is opened
-to discussion. There was a terrible drought in 1931 and famine was
-not restricted to Ukraine, so this weakens the point on deliberate
-famine. However, serious authors like JA Getty and A. Nove put the
-blame on poor planning and ignorance. Grain quotas to be given to
-the state were actually increased, despite the drought, and this
-caused the famine. The government didn´t have good information
-on what they were doing. However, once the famine started, there
-were no relieving efforts, unlike in 1921-22.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

Here it comes...you knew it was comming...

The..."famine"...was not limited to Ukraine...but spread all the way to the Mongolian border...

So that means it was not "deliberate"...and anyone who says so is a total idiot.

Second...there WAS NO FAMINE...rather shortages in some areas...civil war in others and great unrest throughout the country.

Yes there was a bad drought in 1931...grain production dropped a bit from 71 million tons to 69 million tons.

The conditions in the Ukraine were the worst...becasue that was where the Kulaks resisted the most.

In most of the USSR...collectivization was going smoothly...with even the kulaks cooperating. In the Ukraine...that did not happen. The Kulaks organized terrorist bands which went around destroying collectives, killing officials, sabotaging grain deliveries, destroying trains full of grain and so forth. The peasntry themselves...which was in favor of collectivization...opposed the Kulaks with forc of their own. The government was forced to retaliate by sending troops to the Ukraine to keep the peace. Kulak bands were destroyed or escaped into Romania where they continued to carry out border attacks.

Certainly the situation did not last past 1932...as by 1933 collectivization increased production considerably more and all the shortage problems were solved.

The turth is...no millions of people died. That is all invented BS. There were IN SOME AREAS shortages or near-famine conditions...especially in the areas where the Kulaks were most active. They casued problems in the distribution of food....It was not that food was not being produced...but it was not being delivered becasue the distribution process was disrupted.

The situation was reported by the Soviet press in detail...nothing was hidden. Kulak attacks were reported in Pravda as were the government's responses. Contrary to what western BS says...the Soviet government did not deny anything...it only denyed the stupid lies of millions of dead...which never happened.

In the Soviet Archives...there is NO EVIDENCE of any sort of deliberate starving of the Ukrainian population...as that simply never happened. Ukraine had over 25 million people...living in such huge cities such as Kiev and so forth from where thousands of people traved to and from every day. Do you really think a city like that can be starved???...without anyone knowing about it?? Of course NOT!!

There is only one document in the Soviet Archives...one which says that 6 Kulak villages which had been sabotaging deliveries...should not have any food shipped to by the government. 6 villages...does not mean millions...and if these 6 Kulak villages were carrying out such acts...why was the government under obligation to deliver food to them???

Either way...no millions died simply beasue there IS NO EVIDENCE of anything of the sort. There were foreing journalists and visitors in the Ukraine at the time...You don't think there were foreigners in Kiev or other areas??? According to their reports...there was no famine going on at all...on the contrary...collectivization was improving life considerably in those years!!! This is from authentic reports from foreigners in the Ukraine...

On the other hand...reports of famiens and such came from the Kulaks who escaped into Romania...from the Nazi press...and from the American press which was reporting the words of FAKE journalists who HAD NEVER BEEN IN THE UKRAINE. There simply IS NO REPORT of the famine in the Ukraine. Furthermore...books on the subject have been PROVEN to use FAKE photographs which are not from the Ukraine. For example, the best known book on the subject "Famine of Disspair" uses photographs from the 1920 Volga famine, photos of dead soldiers from battlefields and such. NONE of the photos are real...

The question must than be asked...that if this was a famine that killed 20-30% of the Ukrainian population...why is there absolutely no evidence of any sort to suggest that it even happened?????


Shortages??? YES!!! Fighting between peasants, kulaks and soldiers??? YES!! Millions of dead??? NO!!! Famine??? NO!!

This is the same as the situation in Kosovo. About 2000 people died in 2 years of fighting between KLA and the Serbian Army. On CNN however....we were hearing reports of 100.000 dead and of concentration camps and of rape camps and other such BS. Lies and propaganda completely fabricated...whcih everyone believes becasue no one questions them.


As for you saying the Soviet government did not try to end the shortages...you are wrong. Reports were comming in from places liek Khazakhistan and Ukraine that the collectives were in trouble...they needed more help from the government to stay on top. As a result...Stalin send massive aid to the collectives...starting from seeds...which were missing...to tractors and modern machinery and so forth...Collectives were made productive again...outproducting private farmers by many times.

By 1933...the Kulaks were defeated...collectivization was procedeing smoothly...the troubles in the Ukraien were over and production of food had greatly increased.


What was the Ukraine Famine?? It was the troubles socialism found in the villages...troubles such as Kulak resistance and Kulaks disrupting collectivization.

The rest about famines and millions of dead...is complete BS and completely invented. Millions of Ukrainians fought against the Nazis in the Red Army. You would think these people would remember the famine and would have sided with the Germans...But no such thing happened.


Lets see...Stalin starves the Ukraine...but there is no evidence of it at all....The Germans starve Ukraine...and there are tons of pictures and videos and testimonies THE GERMANS SHOT themselves. When they starved Kiev...they went about taking pictures and videos and documenting their starvation of the Ukrainian population.

I wonder where the evidence of a famine which killed many more people...is...???


Use your minds people...unless you are willing to fall for the stupid BS of 100.000 dead Kosovars and rape camps and concentration camps...

Capitalists are very good and making up stupid propaganda...and you very good for falling for it.

I have some intersting facts too...CNN was saying in ALbania we had 1 million prisoners. Strangely...we also had a population of 3 million. That means...every single adult male...was in jail. Believe that if you want...

[Russian]

you need a gigantic History IQ to argue with Spetsnaz

STALIN WAS A BLOODY BASTARD, A BLOODY BASTARD YA HEAR!?

...and im done

[CasX]

In most of the USSR...collectivization was going smoothly...with even the kulaks cooperating. In the Ukraine...that did not happen. The Kulaks organized terrorist bands which went around destroying collectives, killing officials, sabotaging grain deliveries, destroying trains full of grain and so forth. The peasntry themselves...which was in favor of collectivization...opposed the Kulaks with forc of their own. The government was forced to retaliate by sending troops to the Ukraine to keep the peace. Kulak bands were destroyed or escaped into Romania where they continued to carry out border attacks.

Alternatively viewed as: The peasants were starving, organised resistance to the 'forced collectivisation' of Stalin's government, and the army went in to keep them down.

[Gothmog]

[quote="Tovarish Spetsnaz"]Here it comes...you knew it was comming...

The..."famine"...was not limited to Ukraine...but spread all the way to the Mongolian border...
So that means it was not "deliberate"...and anyone who says so is a total idiot.

-That´s a reasonable point, as I said, this is a main point against the
-"deliberate thesis"

Second...there WAS NO FAMINE...rather shortages in some areas...civil war in others and great unrest throughout the country.

-Sorry, but the high death toll is quoted even by the best USSR historians
-like A. Nove and A. Getty. And civil war was largely due to collectivization

Yes there was a bad drought in 1931...grain production dropped a bit from 71 million tons to 69 million tons.

-That´s ok, I saw the data. The fact that there was no significant drop
-in agricultural output is a strong argument for those who defend the
-"deliberate" famine thesis

The conditions in the Ukraine were the worst...becasue that was where the Kulaks resisted the most.

In most of the USSR...collectivization was going smoothly...with even the kulaks cooperating. In the Ukraine...that did not happen. The Kulaks organized terrorist bands which went around destroying collectives, killing officials, sabotaging grain deliveries, destroying trains full of grain and so forth. The peasntry themselves...which was in favor of collectivization...opposed the Kulaks with forc of their own. The government was forced to retaliate by sending troops to the Ukraine to keep the peace. Kulak bands were destroyed or escaped into Romania where they continued to carry out border attacks.

-Yes, there were near civil war conditions, but those were largely
-made by the brutality of the collectivization process

Certainly the situation did not last past 1932...as by 1933 collectivization increased production considerably more and all the shortage problems were solved.

-Actually didn´t. Grain output became stagnated for the next years
1934: 67 M tons
1935: 62 M tons
1935: no statistics
1937: 87 M tons
1938: 67 M tons

The turth is...no millions of people died. That is all invented BS. There were IN SOME AREAS shortages or near-famine conditions...especially in the areas where the Kulaks were most active. They casued problems in the distribution of food....It was not that food was not being produced...but it was not being delivered becasue the distribution process was disrupted.

-Ukarine was the main food producer. How distribution problems created
-the worst conditions there (maybe there was a higher drop in Ukraine
-agricultural output?)

The situation was reported by the Soviet press in detail...nothing was hidden. Kulak attacks were reported in Pravda as were the government's responses. Contrary to what western BS says...the Soviet government did not deny anything...it only denyed the stupid lies of millions of dead...which never happened.
In the Soviet Archives...there is NO EVIDENCE of any sort of deliberate starving of the Ukrainian population...as that simply never happened. Ukraine had over 25 million people...living in such huge cities such as Kiev and so forth from where thousands of people traved to and from every day. Do you really think a city like that can be starved???...without anyone knowing about it?? Of course NOT!!

-Could you quote references denying the famine?


On the other hand...reports of famiens and such came from the Kulaks who escaped into Romania...from the Nazi press...and from the American press which was reporting the words of FAKE journalists who HAD NEVER BEEN IN THE UKRAINE. There simply IS NO REPORT of the famine in the Ukraine. Furthermore...books on the subject have been PROVEN to use FAKE photographs which are not from the Ukraine. For example, the best known book on the subject "Famine of Disspair" uses photographs from the 1920 Volga famine, photos of dead soldiers from battlefields and such. NONE of the photos are real...

-Harvest of Despair is the movie. Harvest of Sorrow is the book. And
-you´re right. They used false photographs in the movie. This doesn´t
-mean the famine din´t happen

The question must than be asked...that if this was a famine that killed 20-30% of the Ukrainian population...why is there absolutely no evidence of any sort to suggest that it even happened?????

-I don´t believe in the 20-30% of population killed. You must consider
-two points:
1-Famine was widespread and so a better estimate would be near 10%
of population
2-Probably a minority of people were starved to death. Many of excess
deaths were due to infectious diseases (like thypus and malaria) in a
poorly nourished population
3-Even Duranty (a US journalist living in USSR) made an estimate of
1-2 million deaths. He has the lowest estimates for the Ukranian
famine


As for you saying the Soviet government did not try to end the shortages...you are wrong. Reports were comming in from places liek Khazakhistan and Ukraine that the collectives were in trouble...they needed more help from the government to stay on top. As a result...Stalin send massive aid to the collectives...starting from seeds...which were missing...to tractors and modern machinery and so forth...

-People can´t feed tractors.....

Collectives were made productive again...outproducting private farmers by many times.

-So why production didn´t improve?


The rest about famines and millions of dead...is complete BS and completely invented. Millions of Ukrainians fought against the Nazis in the Red Army. You would think these people would remember the famine and would have sided with the Germans...But no such thing happened.

-There was Ukrainians who fought WITH the Nazis too

-On death toll, I would remember you that the 1937 census showed
-a lack of 17 million people in relation to expected demographic
-trends (quoted by E. Hobsbawn-Age of Extremes). Of course, it
-don´t implies that Stalin killed 17 million people. Many of this
-deficit is birth decrease. An excess mortality in the range of 8-10
-million is a reasonable estimate. As we know that deaths in labor
-camps (500,000) and executions in the Great Terror (800,000)
-are much less than previously reported, we could reasonably
-accept a estimate near 7 M excess deaths for famine and disease.
-On the other way, I would like to see your references.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

Sorry, but the high death toll is quoted even by the best USSR historians
-like A. Nove and A. Getty

Both are of the revisionist historian group...neither is a "best". Getty can be considered better that the trash of Solzhenitysn and Conquest...becasue Getty bases his work on the Soviet archives. But even Getty is totally pulling it out of his ass in the Ukraine...since there are no documentation and no evidence of millions of deaths...it is totally factless.

And civil war was largely due to collectivization

There was no civil war...just in some areas where Kulaks organized rezistance. And again...thats is the KULAKS...not peasantry. The peasantry in most areas was very much pro-collectivization...and also they were allowed to leave the collectives if they so desired (and some did in fact do just that). Collectivization was NOT forced...since it took more than 10 years to complete...becasue the peasants had to be convinced to join collectives...and even by 1939 in some areas of the USSR...collectivization was not yet complete. Forced collectivization can be done very quickly...this was NOT.

The fact that there was no significant drop
-in agricultural output is a strong argument for those who defend the
-"deliberate" famine thesis

Thats if you start from the assumptin that there was a famine...

but those were largely
-made by the brutality of the collectivization process

The collectvization process was very much NOT brutal...not on the government's side at least...but on the Kulaks side who resisted. Collectivization was NOT forced. There were only individual cases where local officials threatened peasants with force if they did not collectivize...but this was not accompanied with actual use of force...and those few individual cases were publically denounced and the officials responsible punished!!!

There was struggle...suerly...but as I said thatw as on the part of the Kulaks who resisted...The peasantry had no reason to resist...they lost nothing but gained much...the Kulaks lost everything.

Actually didn´t. Grain output became stagnated for the next years
1934: 67 M tons
1935: 62 M tons
1935: no statistics
1937: 87 M tons
1938: 67 M tons

I don't know where those numbers are from. My numbers say this...

1933- 89.8 million tons
1934- 89.4 million tons
1935- 90.1 million tons

1936 there was drought - 69.3 million tons

1937- 120.9 million tons
1938- 95 million tons
1939- 105 million tons
1940- 118.8 million tons

Numbers are from Charles Bettelheim. L'économie Soviétique, Paris: Éditions Recueil Sirey, 1950
As you can see...by 1937...production had almost doubeled...

Ukarine was the main food producer. How distribution problems created
-the worst conditions there (maybe there was a higher drop in Ukraine
-agricultural output?)

Becasue that is where the Kulak resistance was the fiercest...

-Could you quote references denying the famine?

Well it should be the other way around...trying to prove it happened instead of it didn't happen.

It didn't happen...becasue during 1930-32 period on the USSR...where the battle between the Kulaks and peasntry was the fiercest...the Soviet government arrested 63.000 Kulaks accused of crimes such as acts of terrorism, murder, sabotage and so forth. These were send to the Gulags...and SOME were excecuted depending on their crime. Also, besides these 63.000 arrested Kualks, another 1.8 million Kulaks (including family and so forth) were deported to other areas...in order to facilitate collectvization. These Kulaks were later allowed to return to their old homes after collectvization was completed in their region.

There simply is no evidence in the Soviet archives of millions of people being arrested or excecuted...except for 63.000 arrested and 1.8 million deported. 1.8 million deported of whcih some 500.000 were allowed back to their homes by 1932...and the rest in the years following. These 1.8 million people were not charged with any crime and were not arrested or dentained. They were simply placed in other special collectives only for former Kulaks.

There were thousands of deaths however to these deportees...due to the long journey and becasue the local authorities treated them with distain. This is again not due to government fault...as the Soviet government addressed this issue by saying that the local officials must treat them better and respect the rights of the deportees and provide better transoprtation for them. Also there were epidemics which broke out...Again...this was 1930...don't expect too much!!! In cases of epidemics...the deportees had to be removed elsewhere...

By 1935...the number of Kulaks leaving the colonies exceded the number of arrivals by 300.000...so Kulaks were returned to thier homes after collectvization was completed in each area.

According to the Soviet Archives...becasue this was all documented...between 1930 and 1940 in these special Kulak colonies...some 300.000 people died. But this was to ALL casues...and they were to NATURAL casues...old age, disease, injury and so forth. Again here there is nothing to be said of any sort of "genocide" or famine...

Also keeping in mind that there were 10 million Kulaks in the USSR...and out of these 10 million only 1.8 million were deported...


Second...to disprove the lies of the supposed "journalists" and "photographs" of the Ukrainian famine...Douglas Tottle, a Canadian historian in his book Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard , proves the pictures and the accounts of the famine are all fakes.

Third...as some actual accounts from people who were there...

Frederick Schuman traveled as a tourist in Ukraine during the famine period. Once he became professor at Williams College, he published a book in 1957 about the Soviet Union. He spoke about famine.

`Their kulak opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,0000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000. Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941.

`... Some kulaks murdered officials, set the torch to the property of the collectives, and even burned their own crops and seed grain. More refused to sow or reap, perhaps on the assumption that the authorities would make concessions and would in any case feed them.

`The aftermath was the ``Ukraine famine'' of 1932--33 .... Lurid accounts, mostly fictional, appeared in the Nazi press in Germany and in the Hearst press in the United States, often illustrated with photographs that turned out to have been taken along the Volga in 1921 .... The ``famine'' was not, in its later stages, a result of food shortage, despite the sharp reduction of seed grain and harvests flowing from special requisitions in the spring of 1932 which were apparently occasioned by fear of war in Japan. Most of the victims were kulaks who had refused to sow their fields or had destroyed their crops.'

Also as Issac Mazepa, leader of the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement in 1934 said about what his Kulaks friends were doing in the Ukraine to casue the problems:

`At first there were disturbances in the kolkhosi [collective farms] or else the Communist officials and their agents were killed, but later a system of passive resistance was favored which aimed at the systematic frustation of the Bolsheviks' plans for the sowing and gathering of the harvest .... The catastrophe of 1932 was the hardest blow that Soviet Ukraine had to face since the famine of 1921--1922. The autumn and spring sowing campaigns both failed. Whole tracts were left unsown, in addition when the crop was being gathered ... in many areas, especially in the south, 20, 40 and even 50 per cent was left in the fields, and was either not collected at all or was ruined in the threshing.'

Also as you point out...there were epidemics spreadin in that area at the time. Keep in mind what time persiod this is...1930-33...Epidemics took the lives of MILLIONS of people ALL OVER THE WORLD. In Europe a case of Spanish Flue in 1920 killed 20 MILLION people in 2 YEARS!! So to have epidemics which killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Ukraine or elsewhere in the USSR...was not something that is unbeliavable...they happened in those times and there were no medicines to prevent them

Dr. Hans Blumenfeld, internationally respected city planner and recipient of the Order of Canada, worked as an architect in Makayevka, Ukraine during the famine. He wrote:

`Probably most deaths in 1933 were due to epidemics of typhus, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Waterborne diseases were frequent in Makeyevka; I narrowly survived an attack of typhus fever.'

Again he continues...

Hans Blumenfeld presented, in his autobiography, a résumé of what he experienced during the famine in Ukraine:

`[The famine was caused by] a conjunction of a number of factors. First, the hot dry summer of 1932, which I had experienced in northern Vyatka, had resulted in crop failure in the semiarid regions of the south. Second, the struggle for collectivization had disrupted agriculture. Collectivization was not an orderly process following bureaucratic rules. It consisted of actions by the poor peasants, encouraged by the Party. The poor peasants were eager to expropriate the ``kulaks,'' but less eager to organize a cooperative economy. By 1930 the Party had already sent out cadres to stem and correct excesses .... After having exercised restraint in 1930, the Party put on a drive again in 1932. As a result, in that year the kulak economy ceased to produce, and the new collective economy did not yet produce fully. First claim on the inadequate product went to urban industry and to the armed forces; as the future of the entire nation, including the peasants, depended on them, it could hardly be otherwise ....

`In 1933 rainfall was adequate. The Party sent its best cadres to help organize work in the kolkhozes. They succeeded; after the harvest of 1933 the situation improved radically and with amazing speed. I had the feeling that we had been pulling a heavy cart uphill, uncertain if we would succeed; but in the fall of 1933 we had gone over the top and from then on we could move forward at an accelerating pace.'

So here we have some accounts of people who were actually there and experienced it first hand. This ws not a "famine"...even though it is called so...But rather shortages and great social upheavel to chnage society even more than the 1917 revolution had done...This was a far greater revolution.

Second...saying that the famine claimed millions of lives is ABSURD!!! The people who were there...as you point out...say the number was closer to 1 million. And yes...probably true...1 million...but as you see there was also the epidemics and NATURAL casues which claimed the VAST MAJORITY of the deaths...epidemics which struck the world at that time and did in fact casue millions of deaths wherever they struck.

So no...there were no millions of deaths and there was no famine...


The cornerstone of the western version of the famine is the millions upon millions which supposedly died during the period. Those millions are completely FABRICATED.

Ukraine at the time had a population of 25 million people. Accoridng to Conquest...the number of deaths was 15 million...and according to others up to 16 million. This means...that 60% of the Ukrainian population died!!! Clearly that makes absolutely no sense...and is absolutely NOT true. As I said....in most of the Ukraine the situation was not even noticed...in the cities especially it was not even noticed. Nothing of the sort happened...there were no millions of dead.

This doesn´t
-mean the famine din´t happen

But if all their facts are fakes...why am I to belive it did happen when they have no real facts???

1-Famine was widespread and so a better estimate would be near 10%
of population

According to Conquest...who worte Harvast of Sorrow...he says 15 million. That is 60% of the population. Obviously completely false. If we are to take the more realisitic number of 1 million...which includes deaths to natural casues such as the epidemics...that means we have about 4% of the population...But even this number is wrong...beacsue the epidemics, droughts and shortages spread into the Lower Volga and the Caucasses...so the 1 million dead is for all those areas...although the majority in the Ukraine.

2-Probably a minority of people were starved to death. Many of excess
deaths were due to infectious diseases (like thypus and malaria) in a
poorly nourished population

Yes...epidemics...disaeas...which in 1930 was not uncomon even in Europe to kill millions. How did this get twisted to "deliberate genocide against Ukrainians"?

3-Even Duranty (a US journalist living in USSR) made an estimate of
1-2 million deaths. He has the lowest estimates for the Ukranian
famine

Everyone who was there at the time...made the estimation of 1 million dead. Everyone who was not...said 15 million. 1 million dead is possible...if you take into account the natural casues.

As far as the government is concerned...due to its intervention the deaths numbered only in the thousands...

-People can´t feed tractors.....

Tractors can feed people...Collectives were unrpdocutive in the beggining becasue they did not have the machinery, the knowhow, the organization to operate. You can't just take 14th century peasants and give them a collective and expect them to be productive. The government had to intervene to indroduce modern farming methods...which greatly increased production and distribution.

-So why production didn´t improve?

It did...considerably!!

-There was Ukrainians who fought WITH the Nazis too

There were about 50.000 Ukrainians who fought with the Nazis...or rather with the local fascist Ukrainian government the Nazis set up. There were 5 million Ukrainians who fougth AGAINST them. Shouldn't it have been the other way around if the Soviet government was so cruel to the Ukrainians??? 50 thousand verses 5 million...

-On death toll, I would remember you that the 1937 census showed
-a lack of 17 million people in relation to expected demographic
-trends (quoted by E. Hobsbawn-Age of Extremes)

That again...is completely false. The population of the Ukraine did not lose 17 million people..becasue that would mean more than 60% of the population. Those numbers are obviously false...even Conquest who says 15 million dead does not claim a 17 million drop in population. What Conquest does with his "calculations" of the population...is take the 1926 cencsus and compare it with the 1936 census...Taking into account a 2.36% increase in population of the late 20s...Conquest concludes that the population of the Ukraine was missing 7.5 million people. So he comes up with some more crazy numbers.

Either way...this is a completely WRONG way of determining a number. It makes no sense. First of all...the population increase does not stay constant...especially not after abortion was legalized and accordingly women had fewer children. Second there were migrations of people in and out of the Ukraine...and third the borders of the Ukraine were not the same. The Crimea and the Kuban were now part of Russia...not Ukraine...and that was 3 million people which were "missing" from the Ukrainian census. So the census shows absolutely nothing to indicate a famine of any large scale...certainly not one that killed 60% of the population.

In fact...between 1926 and 1936...the population actually increased by about 3.3 million people...What Conquest is saying is that it should have increased by 10 million...but if you take into account the border changes, the migration and the lower birth rate...that 10 million dissapears. It is a completely unscientific method of determining anything.

An excess mortality in the range of 8-10
-million is a reasonable estimate

As I said above...nothing of the sort. A death of 10 million people is nearly 40% of the Ukrainian population. Are you aware the population of the Ukraine was 25 million???

and executions in the Great Terror (800,000)

There weren't even that many people arrested during the "Great Terror"...certainly nothing of the sort died. Those are figures that Conquest pulls out of his ass...with no evidence to back it up.

As we know that deaths in labor
-camps (500,000)

Which was over a period of about 30 years and for ALL of the USSR...so still irrelevant to the Ukraine. As I said...the number of Kulaks arrested was 63.000...and this again was for all the USSR.

we could reasonably
-accept a estimate near 7 M excess deaths for famine and disease

But the census doesn't even show that!! If Onquest says there is a deficit of 7.5 million...and 3 million of those are Cossacks which become Russian and not Ukrainian...than we are left with 4.5 million missing. If you take into account migration and lower birth rate and many other factors...than the deficit is almost non-existant!!! Certainly the number was no where near in the millions...and the 95% of those who did die...did so to epidemics and natural causes (again...by comparison Spanish Flue claimed 20 million in Europe in 2 years in 1920!!)

-On the other way, I would like to see your references.

I think I have done a good job at that. Hopefully I have changed your mind.

But the most important question you need to ask...is...do you really think that a social upheavel as great as taking 14th century serfs still under their Kulaks as if they were under the Lords...and throw them into 20th century modern farming with socialist labor relations...a revolution far greater than even the 1917 revolution...Do you really think that such a drastic and dramatic change in society will not face difficulties in the beggining??? Of course!!! Can you expect everything to go smoothly??? Of course not!! But the result was that in 2-3 years...agriculture was dramatically changed in the USSR...and for the first time the USSR was not under threat of famine which it had been constantly during the reign of the nobels and the Kulaks. During the reign of the nobles and the Kulaks...famine was a constant reality to the peasantry. After collectivization...it was a distant memory!!

[Gothmog]

Both are of the revisionist historian group...neither is a "best". Getty can be considered better that the trash of Solzhenitysn and Conquest...becasue Getty bases his work on the Soviet archives. But even Getty is totally pulling it out of his ass in the Ukraine...since there are no documentation and no evidence of millions of deaths...it is totally factless.

-The revisionist group (as they are called in the USA) are historians who
-based their research on Soviet archives. They belong to the "low death
-toll" group, as opposed to Conquest, Soljenitsin, Pipes and other, who
-I won´t even quote. A. Nove is not from the revisionist school. The
-evidence of excesses deaths in USSR in the 30´s were largely due
-to the 1939 census (sorry, I said 1937 before, but it was 1939). I will
-place some data as soon as possible. Of course, the death toll of famine
-in Ukraine is debatable, and is based on demography trends. Deniers
-of famine argue that Conquest added birth decrease to his death toll
-estimate and that many Ukranian were reclassified as Russian after
-1939, which accomplished for some additional decrease in Ukraine
-population. However, even these sources make an estimate of 1-2
-million deaths.


There was no civil war...just in some areas where Kulaks organized rezistance. And again...thats is the KULAKS...not peasantry. The peasantry in most areas was very much pro-collectivization...and also they were allowed to leave the collectives if they so desired (and some did in fact do just that). Collectivization was NOT forced...since it took more than 10 years to complete...becasue the peasants had to be convinced to join collectives...and even by 1939 in some areas of the USSR...collectivization was not yet complete. Forced collectivization can be done very quickly...this was NOT.

-It was actually very fast. By 1930, 60% of families were already
-living in collective farms. Then there was that article "Dizzy of
-success", and so this % decreased to 21% four months after and
-then increased gradually to 98% by 1935.



Thats if you start from the assumptin that there was a famine...

-That´s ok. I will put my sources. I will avoid any document from
-Pipes, Malia, Conquest and Soljenitsin. I will try to find data from
-Nove, Getty, Thurston and less biased authors.


The collectvization process was very much NOT brutal...not on the government's side at least...but on the Kulaks side who resisted. Collectivization was NOT forced. There were only individual cases where local officials threatened peasants with force if they did not collectivize...but this was not accompanied with actual use of force...and those few individual cases were publically denounced and the officials responsible punished!!!

-Another point to make a research. The nature of collectivization
-is quoted as brutal even by left wingers authors.

Actually didn´t. Grain output became stagnated for the next years
1934: 67 M tons
1935: 62 M tons
1935: no statistics
1937: 87 M tons
1938: 67 M tons

I don't know where those numbers are from. My numbers say this...

1933- 89.8 million tons
1934- 89.4 million tons
1935- 90.1 million tons

1936 there was drought - 69.3 million tons

1937- 120.9 million tons
1938- 95 million tons
1939- 105 million tons
1940- 118.8 million tons

Numbers are from Charles Bettelheim. L'économie Soviétique, Paris: Éditions Recueil Sirey, 1950
As you can see...by 1937...production had almost doubeled...


-My numbers come from Moshe Lewin and Daniel Aarão Reis Filho
-(a Brazilian left wing author who published a book on the Soviet
-era, very critical, btw). He mentions that those data come from
-Soviet official sources, but don´t quote exactly what. If your
-numbers are the right ones, than of course my argument is
-weakened.



Becasue that is where the Kulak resistance was the fiercest...

-Any data on production fall?



Well it should be the other way around...trying to prove it happened instead of it didn't happen.

-But you probably know authors who proved the statistics from
-Conquest and others are wrong, don´t you?

It didn't happen...becasue during 1930-32 period on the USSR...where the battle between the Kulaks and peasntry was the fiercest...the Soviet government arrested 63.000 Kulaks accused of crimes such as acts of terrorism, murder, sabotage and so forth. These were send to the Gulags...and SOME were excecuted depending on their crime. Also, besides these 63.000 arrested Kualks, another 1.8 million Kulaks (including family and so forth) were deported to other areas...in order to facilitate collectvization. These Kulaks were later allowed to return to their old homes after collectvization was completed in their region.
There simply is no evidence in the Soviet archives of millions of people being arrested or excecuted...except for 63.000 arrested and 1.8 million deported. 1.8 million deported of whcih some 500.000 were allowed back to their homes by 1932...and the rest in the years following. These 1.8 million people were not charged with any crime and were not arrested or dentained. They were simply placed in other special collectives only for former Kulaks.
There were thousands of deaths however to these deportees...due to the long journey and becasue the local authorities treated them with distain. This is again not due to government fault...as the Soviet government addressed this issue by saying that the local officials must treat them better and respect the rights of the deportees and provide better transoprtation for them. Also there were epidemics which broke out...Again...this was 1930...don't expect too much!!! In cases of epidemics...the deportees had to be removed elsewhere...
By 1935...the number of Kulaks leaving the colonies exceded the number of arrivals by 300.000...so Kulaks were returned to thier homes after collectvization was completed in each area.
According to the Soviet Archives...becasue this was all documented...between 1930 and 1940 in these special Kulak colonies...some 300.000 people died. But this was to ALL casues...and they were to NATURAL casues...old age, disease, injury and so forth. Again here there is nothing to be said of any sort of "genocide" or famine...

-Thank you, that´s nice information



Second...to disprove the lies of the supposed "journalists" and "photographs" of the Ukrainian famine...Douglas Tottle, a Canadian historian in his book Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard , proves the pictures and the accounts of the famine are all fakes.

-I know this book, never read it. Tried to find some reference in the
-Net, but couldn´t

.

`Their kulak opposition took the initial form of slaughtering their cattle and horses in preference to having them collectivized. The result was a grievous blow to Soviet agriculture, for most of the cattle and horses were owned by the kulaks. Between 1928 and 1933 the number of horses in the USSR declined from almost 30,000,000 to less than 15,000,000; of horned cattle from 70,000,000 (including 31,000,0000 cows) to 38,000,000 (including 20,000,000 cows); of sheep and goats from 147,000,000 to 50,000,000; and of hogs from 20,000,000 to 12,000,000. Soviet rural economy had not recovered from this staggering loss by 1941.

-Yes, but this was the result of cattle confiscation. It wasn´t a very wise
-policy to collectivize livestock, as you see by the results.


Also as you point out...there were epidemics spreadin in that area at the time. Keep in mind what time persiod this is...1930-33...Epidemics took the lives of MILLIONS of people ALL OVER THE WORLD. In Europe a case of Spanish Flue in 1920 killed 20 MILLION people in 2 YEARS!! So to have epidemics which killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Ukraine or elsewhere in the USSR...was not something that is unbeliavable...they happened in those times and there were no medicines to prevent them

-Agree with you, but usually those massive epidemics happen in poorly
-nourished populations, whose immunologic system is debilitated.

Dr. Hans Blumenfeld, internationally respected city planner and recipient of the Order of Canada, worked as an architect in Makayevka, Ukraine during the famine. He wrote:

`Probably most deaths in 1933 were due to epidemics of typhus, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Waterborne diseases were frequent in Makeyevka; I narrowly survived an attack of typhus fever.'

Again he continues...

Hans Blumenfeld presented, in his autobiography, a résumé of what he experienced during the famine in Ukraine:
`[The famine was caused by] a conjunction of a number of factors. First, the hot dry summer of 1932, which I had experienced in northern Vyatka, had resulted in crop failure in the semiarid regions of the south. Second, the struggle for collectivization had disrupted agriculture. Collectivization was not an orderly process following bureaucratic rules. It consisted of actions by the poor peasants, encouraged by the Party. The poor peasants were eager to expropriate the ``kulaks,'' but less eager to organize a cooperative economy. By 1930 the Party had already sent out cadres to stem and correct excesses .... After having exercised restraint in 1930, the Party put on a drive again in 1932. As a result, in that year the kulak economy ceased to produce, and the new collective economy did not yet produce fully. First claim on the inadequate product went to urban industry and to the armed forces; as the future of the entire nation, including the peasants, depended on them, it could hardly be otherwise ....
`In 1933 rainfall was adequate. The Party sent its best cadres to help organize work in the kolkhozes. They succeeded; after the harvest of 1933 the situation improved radically and with amazing speed. I had the feeling that we had been pulling a heavy cart uphill, uncertain if we would succeed; but in the fall of 1933 we had gone over the top and from then on we could move forward at an accelerating pace.'

So here we have some accounts of people who were actually there and experienced it first hand. This ws not a "famine"...even though it is called so...But rather shortages and great social upheavel to chnage society even more than the 1917 revolution had done...This was a far greater revolution.
Second...saying that the famine claimed millions of lives is ABSURD!!! The people who were there...as you point out...say the number was closer to 1 million. And yes...probably true...1 million...but as you see there was also the epidemics and NATURAL casues which claimed the VAST MAJORITY of the deaths...epidemics which struck the world at that time and did in fact casue millions of deaths wherever they struck.
So no...there were no millions of deaths and there was no famine...

-My point is that excess deaths of infectious diseases whose mortality
-is increased by poor nutrition must be considered as famine deaths.
-For instance, in 1891, the famine in Russian caused 500,000 deaths,
-but there were more deaths from thyphus than from starvation
-properly. Also in the great famines of India (1877-78 and 1896-1900)
-there were millions of deaths by malaria, which don´t exempt the
-British colonial authorities by their mismanagement of Indian
-economy and brutal exploitation of the Indian people.



Ukraine at the time had a population of 25 million people. Accoridng to Conquest...the number of deaths was 15 million...and according to others up to 16 million. This means...that 60% of the Ukrainian population died!!! Clearly that makes absolutely no sense...and is absolutely NOT true. As I said....in most of the Ukraine the situation was not even noticed...in the cities especially it was not even noticed. Nothing of the sort happened...there were no millions of dead.

-Agree with you that 15 million in Ukraine is a big lie. But 3-4 million
-is not so bad, when you consider famine related epidemcs.


According to Conquest...who worte Harvast of Sorrow...he says 15 million. That is 60% of the population. Obviously completely false. If we are to take the more realisitic number of 1 million...which includes deaths to natural casues such as the epidemics...that means we have about 4% of the population...But even this number is wrong...beacsue the epidemics, droughts and shortages spread into the Lower Volga and the Caucasses...so the 1 million dead is for all those areas...although the majority in the Ukraine.

Yes...epidemics...disaeas...which in 1930 was not uncomon even in Europe to kill millions. How did this get twisted to "deliberate genocide against Ukrainians"?

-I don´t buy the thesis of deliberate genocide, but, as I say epidemics
-usually kill millions only when there is a predisposing factor. Another
-example. The Brazilian famine of 1877-78 killed 0,5-1 million, but
-the majority of them dided from smallpox.



Everyone who was there at the time...made the estimation of 1 million dead. Everyone who was not...said 15 million. 1 million dead is possible...if you take into account the natural casues.

-There was Ukrainians who fought WITH the Nazis too

There were about 50.000 Ukrainians who fought with the Nazis...or rather with the local fascist Ukrainian government the Nazis set up. There were 5 million Ukrainians who fougth AGAINST them. Shouldn't it have been the other way around if the Soviet government was so cruel to the Ukrainians??? 50 thousand verses 5 million...

-You have the point here

[

That again...is completely false. The population of the Ukraine did not lose 17 million people..becasue that would mean more than 60% of the population. Those numbers are obviously false...even Conquest who says 15 million dead does not claim a 17 million drop in population. What Conquest does with his "calculations" of the population...is take the 1926 cencsus and compare it with the 1936 census...Taking into account a 2.36% increase in population of the late 20s...Conquest concludes that the population of the Ukraine was missing 7.5 million people. So he comes up with some more crazy numbers.

-This data of 17 million is related to USSR as a whole. That´s were
-come the main estimates for the school of "low deaths number"
-in which I believe. They divide this number by 2 to reach 8-9 million
-excesses deaths (this is to make for births decrease, that is where
-Conquest made a huge mistake, he should made an estimate of
-3-4 million missing people, but then he should make an evaluation
-of migration)

Either way...this is a completely WRONG way of determining a number. It makes no sense. First of all...the population increase does not stay constant...especially not after abortion was legalized and accordingly women had fewer children. Second there were migrations of people in and out of the Ukraine...and third the borders of the Ukraine were not the same. The Crimea and the Kuban were now part of Russia...not Ukraine...and that was 3 million people which were "missing" from the Ukrainian census. So the census shows absolutely nothing to indicate a famine of any large scale...certainly not one that killed 60% of the population.

-Agree with you, there is a good argument.

In fact...between 1926 and 1936...the population actually increased by about 3.3 million people...What Conquest is saying is that it should have increased by 10 million...but if you take into account the border changes, the migration and the lower birth rate...that 10 million dissapears. It is a completely unscientific method of determining anything.

-I´ve already listened to this argument seems to be reasonable.


As I said above...nothing of the sort. A death of 10 million people is nearly 40% of the Ukrainian population. Are you aware the population of the Ukraine was 25 million???

-As I said, this is calculated for all the Soviet Union for 1929-39, not
-only for Ukraine.


There weren't even that many people arrested during the "Great Terror"...certainly nothing of the sort died. Those are figures that Conquest pulls out of his ass...with no evidence to back it up.

-No! This 800,000 estimates are from Getty. Conquest make a
-crazy estimate of up to 7 million.



Which was over a period of about 30 years and for ALL of the USSR...so still irrelevant to the Ukraine. As I said...the number of Kulaks arrested was 63.000...and this again was for all the USSR.

-No, again those 500,000 estimates are for the 30´s. Overall estimates
-for 1934-53 are 1,5 million deaths (the majority of them in WWII)

we could reasonably
-accept a estimate near 7 M excess deaths for famine and disease

But the census doesn't even show that!! If Onquest says there is a deficit of 7.5 million...and 3 million of those are Cossacks which become Russian and not Ukrainian...than we are left with 4.5 million missing. If you take into account migration and lower birth rate and many other factors...than the deficit is almost non-existant!!! Certainly the number was no where near in the millions...and the 95% of those who did die...did so to epidemics and natural causes (again...by comparison Spanish Flue claimed 20 million in Europe in 2 years in 1920!!)

-Again, this value is for all USSR and for the 1930´s. There was
-also famine and disease in Khazakistan and Russia, as you said.


I think I have done a good job at that. Hopefully I have changed your mind.

-I think you did an excellent job, and you were quite reasonable and
-civilized. I must make more research, and will post here. Still, it
-remains that 17 M people missing in the 1939 census. Could you
-provide me with data on that census? Are you from Russia?

[Gothmog]

Here are the estimates of death toll from Stálin´s period, with
my own remarks



http://www.parkland.sd63.bc.ca:1084/the ... events.htm

SOVIET UNION, Stalin’s Regime (1924-53)

o There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school. The two schools are generally associated with the right and left wings of the political spectrum, and they often accuse each other of being blinded by prejudice, stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, and maybe even having a hidden agenda. Also, both sides claim that recent access to former Soviet archives has proven that their side is right.

o Here are a few illustrative estimates from the Big Numbers school:

§ Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993 cites these:

§ Chistyakovoy, V. (Neva, no.10): 20 million killed during the 1930s.

§ Dyadkin, I.G. (Demograficheskaya statistika neyestestvennoy smertnosti v SSSR 1918-1956 ): 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" for the USSR overall, with 34 to 49 million under Stalin.

§ Gold, John.: 50-60 million.

§ Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998): c. 50 million killed 1924-53, excluding WW2 war losses. This would divide (more or less) into 33M pre-war and 17M after 1939.

§ Rummel, 1990: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:

§ 1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)

§ 1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)

§ 1939-45: 18,157,000

§ 1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)

§ TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine

§ Wallechinsky: 13M (1930-32) + 7M (1934-38)

§ Cited by Wallechinsky:

§ Medvedev, Roy (Let History Judge): 40 million.

§ Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: 60 million.

§ MEDIAN: 51 million for the entire Stalin Era; 20M during the 1930s.


-Well, those guys from the big numbers scholl are an absolute
-nulity as far as methodology is of concern. Rummel the champion
-of charlatanism, but here are those numbers


o And from the Lower Numbers school:

§ Nove, Alec ("Victims of Stalinism: How Many?" in J. Arch Getty (ed.) Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, 1993): 9,500,000 "surplus deaths" during the 1930s.

§ Cited in Nove:

§ Maksudov, S. (Poteri naseleniya SSSR, 1989): 9.8 million abnormal deaths between 1926 and 1937.

§ Tsaplin, V.V. ("Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody" 1989): 6,600,000 deaths (hunger, camps and prisons) between the 1926 and 1937 censuses.

§ Dugin, A. ("Stalinizm: legendy i fakty" 1989): 642,980 counterrevolutionaries shot 1921-53.

§ Muskovsky Novosti (4 March 1990): 786,098 state prisoners shot, 1931-53.

§ Gordon, A. (What Happened in That Time?, 1989, cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993): 8-9 million during the 1930s.

§ Ponton, G. (The Soviet Era, 1994): cites an 1990 article by Milne, et al., that excess deaths 1926-39 were likely 3.5 million and at most 8 million.

§ MEDIAN: 8.5 Million during the 1930s.

-As you say, all those guys use demographic data from the 1939
-census to reach the number around 8-10 million.

o As you can see, there's no easy compromise between the two schools. The Big Numbers are so high that picking the midpoint between the two schools would still give us a Big Number. It may appear to be a rather pointless argument -- whether it's fifteen or fifty million, it's still a huge number of killings -- but keep in mind that the population of the Soviet Union was 164 million in 1937, so the upper estimates accuse Stalin of killing nearly 1 out of every 3 of his people, an extremely Polpotian level of savagery. The lower numbers, on the other hand, leave Stalin with plenty of people still alive to fight off the German invasion.

o Although it's too early to be taking sides with absolute certainty, a consensus seems to be forming around a death toll of 20 million. This would adequately account for all documented nastiness without straining credulity:

-This author is somewhat biased, it´s obvious that the low numbers
-school is right.

§ In The Great Terror (1969), Robert Conquest suggested that the overall death toll was 20 million at minimum -- and very likely 50% higher, or 30 million. This would divide roughly as follows: 7M in 1930-36; 3M in 1937-38; 10M in 1939-53. By the time he wrote The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (1992), Conquest was much more confident that 20 million was the likeliest death toll.

§ Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin: directly responsible for 20 million deaths.

§ Brzezinski: 20-25 million, dividing roughly as follows: 7M destroying the peasantry; 12M in labor camps; 1M excuted during and after WW2.
-Bzerzinsky numbers grossly overestimate labour camps
deaths.

§ Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europes Ghosts After Communism (1995): upwards of 25M

§ Daniel Chirot:

§ "Lowest credible" estimate: 20M

§ "Highest": 40M

§ Citing:

§ Conquest: 20M

§ Antonov-Ovseyenko: 30M

§ Medvedev: 40M

§ Courtois, Stephane, Le Livre Noir du Communism: 20M for the whole history of Soviet Union, 1917-91.

§ Essay by Nicolas Werth: 15M
-Nicholas Werth here is considering all the Soviet history from 1917
-to 1956 (he believes post 1956 USSR was not responsible by mass
-murder). His estimate is quite resonable.

§ Time Magazine (13 April 1998): 15-20 million.

o AVERAGE: Of the 14 estimates of the total number of victims of Stalin, the median is 30 million.

o Famine, 1926-38

§ Green, Barbara ("Stalinist Terror and the Question of Genocide: the Great Famine" in Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust Unique?) cites these sources for the number who died in the famine:

§ Nove: 3.1-3.2M in Ukraine, 1933

§ Maksudov: 4.4M in Ukraine, 1927-38

§ Mace: 5-7M in Ukraine

§ Osokin: 3.35M in USSR, 1933

§ Wheatcraft: 4-5M in USSR, 1932-33

§ Conquest:

§ Total, USSR, 1926-37: 11M

§ 1932-33: 7M

§ Ukraine: 5M

-Again, we have Nove with the best estimates.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

-It was actually very fast. By 1930, 60% of families were already
-living in collective farms. Then there was that article "Dizzy of
-success", and so this % decreased to 21% four months after and
-then increased gradually to 98% by 1935.

Right...but there is something interesting to be seen here. In 1930...57.2% of the peasantry had joined collectives (60% as you say). Some areas like the Black Earth Region, Urals and North Caucass were near 80%...

What is interesting here...as you mention Stalin's article "Dizzy with Success"...is that the decrease of collectivization was the result of criticism from the top. Stalin and the CC started correcting excesses which were occuring in some areas...and called for more cooperation with the middle peasants and so forth. What happened here...clearly shows collectivization was NOT the brutal thing it is portrayed to be. Collectivization was carried out on bases of convincing the peasantry to join collectives...even though most peasants wanted to join collectives to being with. This was a popular movement...and proceded so fast only becasue the peasants themselves wanted it.

Also...as you point out...peasants LEFT collectives when they wanted to. In 1931...the percentage of collectivized families had fallen to 25.9%! from 60 %! So clearly...if collectivization was "forced"...than how could peasants be allowed to leave the collectives if they so chose to???

The fact is...that in 1930-31...collectives were not performing very well. They were still underproductive...and that is why many peasants simply left them...they could not support them. However with more government aid...sending them specialists, machinery, funds and so forth...collectives were brought back up to produactivity by 1933. Peasants started rejoining collectives once more. By 1935 however, the number was 83.2%...not 98%. And even by the late 30s...there still were individual producers that had not joined collectives.

But this is essential in understanding the nature of collectivization. Regardless of what western historians and supposedly "left-wing" historians say...how can they explain the fact that peasants could freely leave collectives on such a massive scale?? If they were forced into them...shouldn't they have been forced to stay in them?? They can't explain it becasue they were not forced...this was not the character of collectivization.

I will try to find data from
-Nove, Getty, Thurston and less biased authors.

They are less biased certainly...but they still have no facts when it comes to Ukraine...simply becasue there is no facts.

The nature of collectivization
-is quoted as brutal even by left wingers authors.

Look above..."left wing" measn Trotsky's supporters...they are even less reliable than the western historians.

-Any data on production fall?

On the Ukraine itself?? I read those numbers somewhere...but I don't have them anymore.

-Thank you, that´s nice information

Well there is some more info. For example, those 1.8 million people constituted about 330.000 Kulak families. But you must realize the situation the USSR was in that time...massive upheavel that was equal in size to the 1917 revolution. So sometimes...excesses were carried out by localc officials. After all...peasants who had been freed from 300 years of exploitation by the Kulaks...would take revenge on the Kulaks...and sometimes punish even those Kulaks who were innocent. So in 1931...Stalin launched an investigation of those who had been deported...and determined that 70.000 families of those 330.000 were wrongly deported...and were thus freed by 1932.

Reading this...it gives you a completely different view of what happened. This was not evil Stalin sitting in Moscow organizaing some massive genocide. That is rubish. This was poor peasants taking matters into their own hands and punishing Kulaks for 300 years of exploitation...with the Soviet government trying to control the anger of the poor peasants and trying to fis some of the excesses carried out.

But as I said...do you really think a massive upheavel such as this will come about without excesses and inocent people dying???

-Yes, but this was the result of cattle confiscation. It wasn´t a very wise
-policy to collectivize livestock, as you see by the results.

Not quite...it was mostly the result of famr animals killed by the Kulaks...who were the ones who owned the animals.

but usually those massive epidemics happen in poorly
-nourished populations, whose immunologic system is debilitated.

Yes...but they also happen in other places where they are not...and claim large numbers as well. Children, old people and such...are especially vulnerable. Perhaps epidemics also play a part in causing famines rather than the other way around...

But there were not peaceful times...suerly...and there were shortages...and these did play a part.

But than again...who is to blame??? The government and the poor peasants for pushing for collectives...or Kulaks for resisting and fighting to keep thier control over the peasantry???

This data of 17 million is related to USSR as a whole.

Oh ok...I did not understand that...thought you were talking only of Ukraine...which would be absurd.

But a 17 million drop in a population of 170 million...does not mean famine either...as the same decrease in population increase applied to the whole of the USSR...

They divide this number by 2 to reach 8-9 million
-excesses deaths

That is still unscientific...it makes little sense to determine deaths to "famine" or anyting through censuses. There are so many variables to account for...that an 8-9 million or a 4-5 million decrease in a nation of 170 million...is completely negliable and can be explained by a number of factors...It would be ridiculous to say that anyone who is missing...is therefore dead...LOL

Numbers of 1-2 million...are more appropriate for the whole of the USSR...

No! This 800,000 estimates are from Getty. Conquest make a
-crazy estimate of up to 7 million.

Yes Conquest is quite mad!!! But even Getty...seems to pull some stuff out of his ass. Looking at the Soviet acrhives...there is simply no evidence of 800.000 dead...As you yourself point out...in the whole Gulag system's histoyr up to 1953...about 1.5 million died and the majority of these during WW2. So where does that leave 800.000 during 1936-38??? No way that many died. The total number of arrested people was something like 1 million...of which about 200.000 were released after their cases were re-investgated and they were found to have been wrongly arrested. Between 1936 and 1938...the number of people who died in prison to ALL causes was 20.595 in 1936, 25.376 in 1938 and 90.546 in 1937 (a great increase)...for a total of 136.517 in those years to ALL casues...meaning most were natural casues of disease and such. Yes many people were excecuted during these years...but they numbered in the tens of thousands..if we are to look at the Soviet Archives...not 800.000!!!

No, again those 500,000 estimates are for the 30´s.

That doesn't make sense accoridng to the Archives either...I get a number of 240.000 to ALL reasons...

Still, it
-remains that 17 M people missing in the 1939 census.

In a nation of 170 million...and 17 million with all the errors you yourself mentioned. The actual number of "missing" people is 4-5 million as you said...but that again is very wrong simply becasue there are so many factors to take into account in population changes...that you can't just say the missing people are dead. They may never have existed!!!

Are you from Russia?

No...I am Albanian.

[Gothmog]

Look at this very interesting article.

DOC]Soviet repression statistics : A note
Formato do arquivo: Microsoft Word 97 - Ver em HTML
... Stalin agreed…” 16. ... as to fact).” 49 Conquest is not a specialist in demography
or penology whose ... He is a writer on Soviet affairs for the general public. ...
www.fee.uva.nl/toe/content/people/content/ ellman/downloadablepapers/repression.doc - Páginas Semelhantes

[Gothmog]

They are less biased certainly...but they still have no facts when it comes to Ukraine...simply becasue there is no facts.

-Hmmmm...I find difficult to believe that so may good historians are so
-wrong.


Not quite...it was mostly the result of famr animals killed by the Kulaks...who were the ones who owned the animals.

-Well, but wasn´t that predictable, that faced with confiscation
-of livestock they would slaugher them for meat of for money?

This data of 17 million is related to USSR as a whole.

Oh ok...I did not understand that...thought you were talking only of Ukraine...which would be absurd.
But a 17 million drop in a population of 170 million...does not mean famine either...as the same decrease in population increase applied to the whole of the USSR...

-Here I strongly disagree from you. Of course a 17M drop don´t
-mean a famine, but it means a VERY large excess deaths, which
-points to the fact that something very wrong happened.


That is still unscientific...it makes little sense to determine deaths to "famine" or anyting through censuses. There are so many variables to account for...that an 8-9 million or a 4-5 million decrease in a nation of 170 million...is completely negliable and can be explained by a number of factors...It would be ridiculous to say that anyone who is missing...is therefore dead...LOL

-As I said, the number missing is 17M, so the 8-9M excess deaths.
-However, it seems the results from the 1937 census point to a
-3M excess deaths (6M peoples missing) in Ukraine. I don´t know
-if Nove make some estimate for the impact of changing frontiers.

Numbers of 1-2 million...are more appropriate for the whole of the USSR...

-I will take Nove´s estimates

Yes Conquest is quite mad!!! But even Getty...seems to pull some stuff out of his ass. Looking at the Soviet acrhives...there is simply no evidence of 800.000 dead...As you yourself point out...in the whole Gulag system's histoyr up to 1953...about 1.5 million died and the majority of these during WW2. So where does that leave 800.000 during 1936-38???

-These were executions, not considered as gulag deaths

No way that many died. The total number of arrested people was something like 1 million...of which about 200.000 were released after their cases were re-investgated and they were found to have been wrongly arrested. Between 1936 and 1938...the number of people who died in prison to ALL causes was 20.595 in 1936, 25.376 in 1938 and 90.546 in 1937 (a great increase)...for a total of 136.517 in those years to ALL casues...meaning most were natural casues of disease and such. Yes many people were excecuted during these years...but they numbered in the tens of thousands..if we are to look at the Soviet Archives...not 800.000!!!

-NKVD archives point to 680,000 executions from 1937-38. These
-are not counted as deaths in prison.



That doesn't make sense accoridng to the Archives either...I get a number of 240.000 to ALL reasons...

-Did you consider 1938 and 1939?

In a nation of 170 million...and 17 million with all the errors you yourself mentioned. The actual number of "missing" people is 4-5 million as you said...but that again is very wrong simply becasue there are so many factors to take into account in population changes...that you can't just say the missing people are dead. They may never have existed!!!

-Many of them probably never existed, but not all the 17 M.

[Gothmog]

Getty on Ukraine

UKRAINE FAMINE RESPONSE NUMBER TWELVE

From: Arch Getty getty@ucla.edu
List Editor: Elizabeth Morrow Clark eclark@mail.wtamu.edu
Editor's Subject: Re: Ukrainian Famine
Author's Subject: Re: Ukrainian Famine
Date Written: Tue, 7 May 2002 17:23:48 -0500
Date Posted: Tue, 7 May 2002 17:23:48 -0500

Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 1:44 AM
Subject: Re: Ukrainian Famine


I am not a specialist on the Ukrainian famine but I am familiar with the recent research by several scholars on the matter, and think rather a lot of the deep and broad research that Mark Tauger has conducted over many years.

That familiarity leads me to believe that there are no simple answers to this. A "man-made" famine is not the same as a deliberate or "terror-famine". A famine originally caused by crop failure and aggravated by poor policies is "man aggravated" but only partially "man-made". Why in this field do we always insist on absolutes, especially categorical, binary and polemical ones? True/false. Good/evil. Crop failure/Man made. Reminds me of the Stalinist approach.

Many questions have ambiguous answers.



1 Why was the Ukraine sealed off by the Soviet authorities?
Not necessarily to punish Ukrainians. It was also done to prevent starving people from flocking into non-famine areas, putting pressure on scarce food supplies there, and thereby turning a regional disaster into a universal one. This was also the original reason for the internal passport system, which was adopted in the first instance to prevent the movement of hungry and desperate people and, with them, the spread of famine.

2 Why were foreign journalists, even Stalin apologists like Duranty, refused access to the famine areas?
For the same reason that US journalists are no longer allowed into US combat zones (Gulf War, Afghanistan) since Vietnam. No regime is anxious to take the chance on bad press if they can control the situation otherwise.

3 Why was aid from other countries refused?
Obviously to deny the "imperialists" a chance to trumpet the failure of socialism. Certainly politics triumphed over humanitarianism. Moreover, in the growing paranoia of the times (and based on experience in the Civil War) the regime believed that spies came along with relief administration.

4 Why do I read and hear stories of families who tried to take supplies from other regions to help their extended families through the period having all foodstuffs confiscated as they crossed back into the famine regions?
The regime believed, reasonably I think, that speculators were trying to take advantage of the disaster by buying up food in non-famine (but nevertheless food-short) regions, moving it to Ukraine, and reselling it at a higher price. In true Bolshevik fashion, there was no nuanced approach to this, no distinguishing between families and speculators, and everybody was stopped.
As with point 1 above, regimes facing famine typically try to contain the disaster geographically. This is not the same as intending to punish the victims.

5 If it was a harvest failure, why was the burden of that failure not simply shared across the Soviet Union?
It was. No region had a lot of food in 1932-33. Food was short and expensive everywhere. Everybody was hungry.

With the above suggestions, I do not mean to make excuses or apologies for the Stalinists. Their conduct in this was erratic, incompetent, and cruel and millions of people suffered unimaginably and died as a result. But it is too simple to explain everything with a "Bolsheviks were just evil people" explanation more suitable to children than scholars.

It was more complex than that. Although the situation was aggravated in some ways by Bolshevik mistakes, their attempts to contain the famine, once it started, were not entirely stupid, nor were they necessarily gratuitously cruel. The Stalinists did, by the way, eventually cut grain exports and did, by the way, send food relief to Ukraine and other areas. It was too little too late, but there is no evidence (aside from constantly repeated assertions by some writers) that this was a deliberately inflicted "terror-famine."

Finally,

To deny the Jewish genocide quite rightly brings opprobrium. Surely to deny the terror famine of 1932-33 ought to provoke the same response.

This is a position that I personally find grotesque, insulting and at least shallow. Nobody is denying the famine or the huge scale of suffering, (as holocaust-deniers do), least of all Tauger and other researchers who have spent much of their careers trying to bring this tragedy to light and give us a factual account of it. Admittedly, what he and other scholars do is different from the work of journalists and polemicists who indiscriminately collect horror stories and layer them between repetitive statements about evil, piling it all up and calling it history.

A factual, careful account of horror in no way makes it less horrible.



Professor of History, UCLA
getty@ucla.edu

[Gothmog]

-Another historian, Mark Tauger, argues that there was simply a
-crop failure in Ukraine, and the harvest was overestimated by
-Soviet authorities.

WHAT CAUSED FAMINE IN UKRAINE? -- A POLEMICAL RESPONSE. (This article by Professor Mark B. Tauger (mark.tauger@mail.wvu.edu), Ph.D., associate professor at West Virginia University, responds to the article by Dr. Taras Kuzio in "RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" of 12 June 2002.)

Dr. Kuzio's article concerns a discussion on H-Net Russia, which began when in response to a question, I sent in a list of my recent publications (listed below) and summarized their main points. These points were that the 1933 famine was not limited to Ukraine and resulted from a shortage due to natural disasters that no other scholars have investigated. Dr. Kuzio's article distorts this discussion and misrepresents Western scholarship and my works in particular, which were the main ones at issue but which apparently almost none of my detractors had read.

Dr. Kuzio claims that Western scholars refuse to compare Soviet and Nazi crimes, and are Russia-centric. On the first point, he quotes other scholars' statements that any questioning of the Ukrainian genocide argument is "immoral and absurd." On the second point, he cites my doubts concerning Ukrainian memoirs and asserts that no one questions similar accounts of the Holocaust. He refers to my criticism of Robert Conquest's work and cites James Mace's dismissal of my work as "baseless statistical circumlocutions" and "garbage." He asserts that Western scholars ignore Ukrainian sources and publications, and that the famine left no "memory" in the Russian consciousness. Here I will briefly respond to these claims.

With respect to memory of the famine in Russia, Dr. Kuzio seems unaware of such publications as "Tragediya sovetskoi derevni," a massive five-volume collection of documents published in Russia with the support of the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, which evidences the severity of the famine in Russia as well as Ukraine, and the imprint of the famine on the consciousness of all the Soviet peoples. Dr. Kuzio's point is also problematic because Ukraine is a multinational state, all of whose citizens -- Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Poles, Tatars, and others -- were victims of the famine, as documented in recent Ukrainian publications.

Dr. Kuzio is wrong to characterize me as a Russia-centered Western scholar. I use Ukrainian sources, I have worked in Ukrainian archives, and I have published a study of the Ukrainian famine of 1928-1929 that the Ukrainian scholar S.V. Kulchytskyy described as one of the "blank spots" to which Dr. Kuzio refers. I published this in a collection of articles on Soviet history in the national republics ("Provincial Landscapes," listed below) by a group of scholars, and this publication is not unique. Dr. Kuzio's criticism of U.S. scholarship, therefore, at least as it refers to me, my associates, and many other Western scholars, is unjustified.

On the question of statistics, James Mace and other advocates of the genocide argument insist that the famine was "man-made" on the basis of Soviet official statistics that the total grain harvest in 1932 was 68.9 million tons and testimonies and memoirs from decades after the event that the harvest was excellent. Their argument therefore rests on the statistical claim that no genuine food shortage prevailed in the USSR in 1932. If it can be shown that such a shortage prevailed, this argument has to be rejected.

The official statistics, however, show that the procurements taken from the 1932 harvest were less than the procurements in any other year in the 1930s (and archival documents show that the data actually overstate the amount procured). In other words, the rural remainder for the whole USSR in that year appears larger than any other year in the early 1930s, so there should not have been a famine by those statistics. Several other scholars noted this before me, including the Ukrainian emigre scholar Dmytro Solovey. These are not "baseless statistical circumlocutions" but a fundamental problem in the evidence, which Conquest, Mace, and other recent Ukrainian scholarship never mention.

Yet there was a famine, and as the archives document exhaustively, people were dying of starvation all over the country (see the article by Wheatcroft in Getty and Manning, "Stalinist Terror," Cambridge University Press 1997). So that harvest statistic is wrong. As I show, the harvest figure that Mace and others rely on was a biological yield projection, not harvest data, and was imposed on Soviet statistics by Stalin in 1933.

I obtained the archival annual reports from the collective farms themselves, including those from more than 40 percent of the collective farms in Ukraine (the remainder of the farms did not complete and submit annual reports, apparently because of the crisis). These data show that the 1932 harvest was at least one-third below the official figures. These are data from the farms, including Ukrainian farms, data gathered and prepared by Ukrainian peasants and other villagers at the time that the famine took place. I also show that even these data, which imply in Ukraine a harvest of less than 5 million tons instead of the 8 million-ton official figure, overstate what must have been a famine harvest. I show that these annual-report data are the only reliable data on Soviet grain production in the 1930s, and that peasants used them to resist outside officials' demanding high procurements based on Soviet biological yields.

So while Mace stands by Stalin's false statistics, backed up with memoirs written decades later, to argue that a small harvest did not occur, my evidence (which Mace calls "garbage") -- desperately put forward by Ukrainians and other peasants themselves, which Soviet leaders received and rejected -- documents incontrovertibly that the country had a famine harvest. This is why I question Ukrainian memoir accounts. Their insistence on the false assertion that the harvest was good undermines their credibility. It is also a general principle of evidence that contemporaneous evidence concerning an event is considerably more reliable than reports decades after the event: The memoir and testimony sources on the famine date from the 1950s to the 1980s and later. Substantial critical literatures in history and psychology have demonstrated the problems of memoirs and oral history, which contrary to Dr. Kuzio's claim have been applied extensively to the literature of Holocaust memoirs and testimonies.

The evidence that I have published and other evidence, including recent Ukrainian document collections, show that the famine developed out of a shortage and pervaded the Soviet Union, and that the regime organized a massive program of rationing and relief in towns and in villages, including in Ukraine, but simply did not have enough food. This is why the Soviet famine, an immense crisis and tragedy of the Soviet economy, was not in the same category as the Nazis' mass murders, which had no agricultural or other economic basis. This evidence also explains why it is false to describe me and other Western scholars as "deniers" of the famine. There is nothing "immoral" or "absurd" about this evidence, which comes directly from Ukrainians and other villagers at the time, and it is in no way comparable to a denial of the Holocaust.

Mace, Krawchenko, and Kuzio responded to careful research that tests received interpretations, certainly accepted scholarly practice, with derogatory comments, misrepresentations, and moral condemnations, without apparently having read all of the publications they attacked. Perhaps this is why they have encountered some opposition to their views in the United States. This kind of ad hominem attack only makes it more difficult to get at the truth behind the tragedies in Soviet history.

Mark B. Tauger, "The 1932 Harvest and the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933," Slavic Review v. 50 No. 1, Spring 1991;

Tauger, R.W. Davies, and S. G. Wheatcroft, "Stalin, Grain Stocks, and the Famine of 1932-1933," Slavic Review v. 54 No. 3, Fall 1995;

Tauger, "Natural Disaster and Human Action in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933," The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh, No. 1506, 2001 (65pp); (412) 648 9881

Tauger, "Statistical Falsification in the Soviet Union: A Comparative Case Study of Projections, Biases, and Trust," The Donald Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, University of Washington, No. 34, 2001 (82pp); (206) 221 6348

Tauger, "Grain Crisis or Famine? The Ukrainian State Commission for Aid to Crop Failure Victims and the Ukrainian Famine of 1928-1929," in Donald Raleigh, ed., "Provincial Landscapes: Local Dimensions of Soviet Power," 1917-1953, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

-Here I strongly disagree from you. Of course a 17M drop don´t
-mean a famine, but it means a VERY large excess deaths, which
-points to the fact that something very wrong happened.

But you yourself said this 17 million is wrong. It only would happen if the rate of increase in population remained constant...which it did not. So this number is wrong...So far...Russia's population has decreased by 10 million...with negative growth rates...But does this mean massive genocide or massive famine which killed the missing 10 million people in Russia...TODAY??? Of course not...that is why these numbers are completely false.


Here is the state of the Ukraine TODAY:

At the beginning of the 1990s there lived in Ukraine over 52 million people. Today, the figure has fallen to below 50 million. Where did all these people go to? Inside of a few years close to 2,000,000 disappeared (based on official figures they state the number as 1.7 million people). If we accept the official figures, then this is more than 500 times the dead in the Afghanistan conflict! Then who is going to take responsibility for this hunger genocide? In the country the rise of deaths is alarming. As the Minister of Health A. Serdiuk stated, last year the able-bodied workers who died prematurely rose by 24.3%. The percentage of men who did not reach retirement age and died rose to 81%. The Ukraine now is in the top 10 countries of the world where premature deaths are recorded. In this realm of longevity, the Ukraine is in 120th place in the world. The longevity of men on average is only 62.3 years, women -- 73.2 years.

A population decrease...a decrease in life expectency...a drastic decrease actually...But are we to now say...HEY...there is famine and genocide going on today?? If so...than Kuchma today is guilty of it too!!! But of course...there is no famine going on today...and if we compare today's population with that of 1930-32...than the crises which is hitting today's Ukrainian population must be at least of the magnitude which hit them in 1930 (taking into account...that people don't die of epidemics anymore today)

Hmm...statistical cenusus data doesn't work so well...

-However, it seems the results from the 1937 census point to a
-3M excess deaths (6M peoples missing) in Ukraine. I don´t know
-if Nove make some estimate for the impact of changing frontiers.

I don't understand this 'excess deaths"...when these numbers are based on wrong assumptions...and don't take into account the main factors involved. Its simply taking a number...comapring it with what you expected...and say all the rest are dead becasue they do not show up!!! That is ridiculous!!

-NKVD archives point to 680,000 executions from 1937-38. These
-are not counted as deaths in prison

That is incorrect. Those are execution orderes signed by Yezhov...not the number of people actually excecuted. Yezhiv did not have the authority to excecute anyone...so all his decisions were reviwed by Troikas empowered by the Soviet Supreme Court. NKVD did not kill anyone...it did not have authority to so NKVD archives are only Yezhov's orders. Most of Yezhov's decisions were overturned...Yezhov pretty much signed the order to kill almost everyone arrested...but that did not happen. That is why Yezhov was eventually removed and all the arrests were re-examined.

But that number of 700.000 is orders given by Yezhov...not actual excecutions. There is a lot of this in the archives...which historians jump on and interpret them their way. But it didn't happen...Actual excecutions of those 700.000 Yezhov ordered were no more than 150.000 probably...but certainly most were overruled by the Troikas.

In the whole of the USSR...from 1921 to 1953...32 years...799.455 executions were ordered...but that does not mean actually carried out. Of these 799.000...Yezhov ordered 680.000 as you say in those 2 years alone...but they DID NOT HAPPEN...becasue Stalin stopped Yezhov becasue Yezhov was going out of control. And these numbers are included in the Gulag numbers...becasue those ordered to be executed...were not killed imediately..but sent to prison first until their case was reviewed by the Troikas...and eventually when their cases were reviewed by Stalin when he stopped Yezhov. Becasue those "Gulag" numbers...are not just Gulags...but the all detention facilities (except juvinile detention of course).

Did you consider 1938 and 1939?

I included 38 didn't I??? 1939 had only 2.552 execution orders...which was more normal number... As I said...Yezhov pretty much ordered everyone killed...but he was not allowed to. Those NKVD archives have Yezhov's orders...not the actual executions. Yezhov had no authority to kill anyone without every case being re-examined, first by Troikas...and eventually by Stalin and Molotov.

Anyway...this has nothing to do with the Ukraine. NKVD did not go around arresting peasants or workers...they were an economic police who kept managers and officials in check.

1 Why was the Ukraine sealed off by the Soviet authorities?

Sealed off??? Internal passaport system was put in place to keep the Kulaks from escaping. In 1931...200.000 Kulaks simply left their Kulak colonies and returned to their homes without premission. The internal passaport was introduced to keep track of these Kulaks who could freely leave. Ukraine was not sealed off...the Red Army was deployed there...and certainly restrictions were put...but sealed off is an exageration...

Also...in areas struck the hardest...the population mostly left. Villages near Novosibirsk...which was hit hard...were abandoned and villigers moded elsewhere. They were not stopped...Soviet government moved people out of epidemic areas and so forth. All this ASSUMPTIONS by Getty that the Soviets were actually trying to keep them there and essentially kill them...is rubish. They did no such thing...

The Stalinists did, by the way, eventually cut grain exports and did, by the way, send food relief to Ukraine and other areas. It was too little too late

Too little too late??? 1933 harvest was a great success!!! I would say the Soviet government's intervention was enough to end the trouble...

Their conduct in this was erratic, incompetent, and cruel

Erratic...YES...how else does one react to such a situation...Incompetent...YES...what can you expect...1930 and a revolution of unimaginable proportions and officials were at times incompetent. They were facing angry peasants who were forcibly removing Kulaks...Kulaks who were retaliating with force...and no one producing food becasue of the great upheavel. In some areas...it was Civil War. Kulak bands had bases in Romania...and Red Army had to guard the borders...

I obtained the archival annual reports from the collective farms themselves, including those from more than 40 percent of the collective farms in Ukraine (the remainder of the farms did not complete and submit annual reports, apparently because of the crisis). These data show that the 1932 harvest was at least one-third below the official figures

Yes...but he read only 40% of the reports from the Ukraine. becasue he did not read the other 60%...does not mean the other 60% did not produce anything. There are many reasons why the other 60% did not report...or maybe these documents are simply missing for some reason. But this is an incomplete picture he gets...and thinks he can see the whole picture based on 40%?? So he says it was 5 million instead of 8 million in the Ukraine. And this he bases on 40% of the data??? Perhaps 8 million is the right number...he can't PROVE otherwise!!!


Now these historians do a good job in studying the events that happened. But they do not put them into context as well as they should...that the Soviet government in 1930 was a farely young government that did not have all the ability in the world to control what happened in the USSR. Also, their study is incomplete...as we see he read only 40% of the reports of the Ukraine and becasue there were no other 60% he assumes they did not produce and he ASSUMES Soviet data is wrong. But what does he base that on??? 40% of the Ukrainian farms???

The problem was not necessarely not producing food...but rather the delivery and transportation of the food. In many areas...it was not picked up or it could not be transported and whole fields were lost.

Not to mention drought...

And than he says that the Soviet government was getting reports about the conditions...but was doing nothing. That is not true!! Yes there were reports coming in from many areas. And the Soviet government did not dismiss them. That is absurd that the Soviet government would get reports of failures...and ignore them or reject them!!! Of course they did not...they addressed them by sending a lot more aid to these areas which helped bring collectivization back up.

And certainly...they do not give us any numbers of millions of deaths...no evidence on those numbers. Statistical data and statistical assumption on censuses...in no way point to millions of deaths simply becasue censuses never do that.


So again...yes the whole USSR was affected by shortages bwteen 1930-32...Yes these were the HARDEST years the young Soviet state had to go through since the 1922 famine (which BTW killed 8 million...and is documented)...but with approproate response...and with more hard work...by 1933 it was all over and collectivization solving the food problem in the USSR forever!!!

[Gothmog]

But you yourself said this 17 million is wrong. It only would happen if the rate of increase in population remained constant...which it did not. So this number is wrong...

-It´s wrong if you use them to say the government slaughered 17 M
-people, but they point to the fact that there was an excess mortality.
-Consider birth rates of 4% in the preceding ten years and a 2%
-mortality rate. Now consider that birth rate decreased by 20% in
-1926-37. This would give 12 M deficit. You still would have 5M
-excesses deaths. It´s very hard to look for birth rates data in the
-30´s USSR. I use this arbitrary 50% estimate, because it was
-reasonably correct for other events where we have best statistics,
-like the Bengal famine and the GLF famine in China. In both cases
-the population deficit (which doesn´t imply in absolute population
-losses) is two times the number of excess deaths.


So far...Russia's population has decreased by 10 million...with negative growth rates...But does this mean massive genocide or massive famine which killed the missing 10 million people in Russia...TODAY???

-Actually, 50% of those people are non births. The remaining are
-excess deaths, due to worsening of living conditions, collapse of
-healthcare system and so on. It´s not deliberate extermination,
-like the Germans did in WWII. But it is the result of poor policies,
-just like in Stalin´s USSR. I think Yeltsin is a mass murderer
-worse than Stalin, because Stalin at least achieved significant
-economic progresss while Yeltsin just ruined his country and
-killed millions of people with his stupid policies.


Of course not...that is why these numbers are completely false.


Here is the state of the Ukraine TODAY:

At the beginning of the 1990s there lived in Ukraine over 52 million people. Today, the figure has fallen to below 50 million. Where did all these people go to? Inside of a few years close to 2,000,000 disappeared (based on official figures they state the number as 1.7 million people). If we accept the official figures, then this is more than 500 times the dead in the Afghanistan conflict! Then who is going to take responsibility for this hunger genocide? In the country the rise of deaths is alarming. As the Minister of Health A. Serdiuk stated, last year the able-bodied workers who died prematurely rose by 24.3%. The percentage of men who did not reach retirement age and died rose to 81%. The Ukraine now is in the top 10 countries of the world where premature deaths are recorded. In this realm of longevity, the Ukraine is in 120th place in the world. The longevity of men on average is only 62.3 years, women -- 73.2 years.

A population decrease...a decrease in life expectency...a drastic decrease actually...But are we to now say...HEY...there is famine and genocide going on today?? If so...than Kuchma today is guilty of it too!!! But of course...there is no famine going on today...and if we compare today's population with that of 1930-32...than the crises which is hitting today's Ukrainian population must be at least of the magnitude which hit them in 1930 (taking into account...that people don't die of epidemics anymore today)

-I think Kuchma is following policies that are killing his people. In moral
-grounds, he, like Yeltsin, are in the same cathegory as Stalin, Mao and
-the British rulers of India, whose policies killed millions, althought they
-were not designed to do it. And, btw, what the British did in India was
-100 times worse than Stalin did in the USSR. Have you ever read
-"Late Vitorian Holocaust", from Mike Davis?



I don't understand this 'excess deaths"...when these numbers are based on wrong assumptions...and don't take into account the main factors involved. Its simply taking a number...comapring it with what you expected...and say all the rest are dead becasue they do not show up!!! That is ridiculous!!

-Excesses deaths: I told you many times that a population deficit is made
-of (1) birth decreases and (2) excess deaths. (1) + (2)=overall deficit.
-To calculate the % of (1) an (2) you must know previous statistics on
-overall mortality (annual deaths/population) and birth rates (annual
-births/population). A sudden upward trend in (2) indicates there was
-some factor who increased mortality. However, those raw statistics
-don´t point to some cause. Those must be researched. In the USSR,
-these excesses deaths must be related to the following factors:
1-Famine
2-Epidemics (nutrition related or maybe urbanization related?-I think
the excesses deths related to urbanization might be studied better)
USSR faced a very fast urbanization in the 30´s and it may have
predisposed to diseases like tuberculosis.
3-Executions
4-Deaths in labor camps (of course, there is an expected natural
death rate in camps, so you might calculate the death rate above
that in general population)
-Given all those facts there are considerable uncertainty over the %
-of the excesses deaths in USSR in the 30´s. However, most honest
-authors come to something like 8 million, who is, btw, a number
-very close to Yeltsin excess deaths, both in absolute numbers
-and in % of population.

-NKVD archives point to 680,000 executions from 1937-38. These
-are not counted as deaths in prison

That is incorrect. Those are execution orderes signed by Yezhov...not the number of people actually excecuted. Yezhiv did not have the authority to excecute anyone...so all his decisions were reviwed by Troikas empowered by the Soviet Supreme Court. NKVD did not kill anyone...it did not have authority to so NKVD archives are only Yezhov's orders. Most of Yezhov's decisions were overturned...Yezhov pretty much signed the order to kill almost everyone arrested...but that did not happen. That is why Yezhov was eventually removed and all the arrests were re-examined.

But that number of 700.000 is orders given by Yezhov...not actual excecutions. There is a lot of this in the archives...which historians jump on and interpret them their way. But it didn't happen...Actual excecutions of those 700.000 Yezhov ordered were no more than 150.000 probably...but certainly most were overruled by the Troikas.

In the whole of the USSR...from 1921 to 1953...32 years...799.455 executions were ordered...but that does not mean actually carried out. Of these 799.000...Yezhov ordered 680.000 as you say in those 2 years alone...but they DID NOT HAPPEN...becasue Stalin stopped Yezhov becasue Yezhov was going out of control. And these numbers are included in the Gulag numbers...becasue those ordered to be executed...were not killed imediately..but sent to prison first until their case was reviewed by the Troikas...and eventually when their cases were reviewed by Stalin when he stopped Yezhov. Becasue those "Gulag" numbers...are not just Gulags...but the all detention facilities (except juvinile detention of course).


-That´s a point I never heard of. Where could we get the right numbers?
-Would be the case that so many scholars commited this grossly
-mistakes.


Anyway...this has nothing to do with the Ukraine. NKVD did not go around arresting peasants or workers...they were an economic police who kept managers and officials in check.

-Agree with you. I quoted those numbers to argue that execution and
-Gulag deaths had actually a small impact in USSR demography, which
-points to famine and famine related epidemics as being the most
-important factors in the registered excess deaths.



Too little too late??? 1933 harvest was a great success!!! I would say the Soviet government's intervention was enough to end the trouble...

-If you believes this you are actually supporting the arguments of
-Ukrainian nationalists, who said there was no crop failure in
-1933, against Getty and Tauger, who argue that there was a poor
-harvest an so famine was not intentional (it seems almost all the
-scholars believe there was a famine)

I obtained the archival annual reports from the collective farms themselves, including those from more than 40 percent of the collective farms in Ukraine (the remainder of the farms did not complete and submit annual reports, apparently because of the crisis). These data show that the 1932 harvest was at least one-third below the official figures

Yes...but he read only 40% of the reports from the Ukraine. becasue he did not read the other 60%...does not mean the other 60% did not produce anything. There are many reasons why the other 60% did not report...or maybe these documents are simply missing for some reason. But this is an incomplete picture he gets...and thinks he can see the whole picture based on 40%?? So he says it was 5 million instead of 8 million in the Ukraine. And this he bases on 40% of the data??? Perhaps 8 million is the right number...he can't PROVE otherwise!!!

-From a statistical point of view it´s very unlikely to have happened.
-If he didn´t have any bias in the selection of 40%, the probability
-that he had chosen exactly the poor reports is very, very small.
-Look to the fact that statistics with large samples are usually
-very accurate. That is the principle behind opinion polls.

Now these historians do a good job in studying the events that happened. But they do not put them into context as well as they should...that the Soviet government in 1930 was a farely young government that did not have all the ability in the world to control what happened in the USSR. Also, their study is incomplete...as we see he read only 40% of the reports of the Ukraine and becasue there were no other 60% he assumes they did not produce and he ASSUMES Soviet data is wrong. But what does he base that on??? 40% of the Ukrainian farms???

-He argues that the 8 million tons was not a official Soviet estimation,
-just a projection..and the dramatic reduction in procurement also
-points to the fact the government knew something was going wrong.



And than he says that the Soviet government was getting reports about the conditions...but was doing nothing. That is not true!! Yes there were reports coming in from many areas. And the Soviet government did not dismiss them. That is absurd that the Soviet government would get reports of failures...and ignore them or reject them!!! Of course they did not...they addressed them by sending a lot more aid to these areas which helped bring collectivization back up.

-As you said, the central government din´t have 100% control, it´s
-quite possible it was mislead by poor information, like it happened
-in China in the GLF famine.

And certainly...they do not give us any numbers of millions of deaths...no evidence on those numbers. Statistical data and statistical assumption on censuses...in no way point to millions of deaths simply becasue censuses never do that.

-This was Nove´s works. I don´t have access to them to judge his
-methodology.


...and with more hard work...by 1933 it was all over and collectivization solving the food problem in the USSR forever!!![/quote]

-It actually didn´t. The USSR depended on grain imports from the 50´s
-to its final collapse.

-I think you have a point here. While I firmly believe in a 8-10 M
-excess deaths in the USSR in the 30´s, I have strong doubts in
-the composition of those deaths. Maybe famine estimatives by
-Western scholars are wrong. But then we should search for other
-sources of excess deaths. Probaly what happened was not very
-diferent from what happened in Yeltsin´s era (which was horrible,
-btw). Certainly, there was no deliberate famine, as Tauger proves.

[GlobalJustice]

Whether or not this was a deliberate famine, Stalin definitely brought it about.

Stalin misprioritized the distribution of grain in the Soviet Union. He fed all of his city workers before he would feed the rural workers. Of course, this meant the rural workers died first and this caused a shortage of rural workers, bringing about an even larger lack of grain during the next harvest.

Stalin brutally collected on the rural countrymen, but never gave back.

[Tovarish Spetsnaz]

But I have a problem with this "excess deaths"...

If we compare the numbers of Yeltsin's "excess deaths" today with those of Stalin during a 10 year period...we get pretty much the same number. But you say the excess deaths in Stalin's time were due to famine, epidemics, excecutions and such. But what are they due to in yeltsin's Russia?? Is there epidemics, famine and mass excecussions??? NO!!! And yet we get the same number??? Something is wrong with this method...becasue you get same numbers for a country where you know none of this is happening.

I am no fan of Yeltsin...but there are no mass famines in Russia today. At best...there are limited famines in some areas of Siberia today...but hardly anyone starves to death.

So I don't put any weight to these statistical analysis with the censuses...there are far too many factors to take into account...and they don't work. Yes there were hard times between 1926 and 1936...which resulted in decreased rate growths and so forth...but they still do not point to "excess deaths"...just as much as they point to famine in today's Russia.

And, btw, what the British did in India was
-100 times worse than Stalin did in the USSR

I am very certain of that.

-That´s a point I never heard of. Where could we get the right numbers?
-Would be the case that so many scholars commited this grossly
-mistakes

I don't know where you would find the exact numbers...but I would look at the Supreme Court's archives. ONLY the Supreme Court had the authority to order an excecution...not NKVD. This was the case especially in 37-38 when Yezhov was condeming everyone to death...but Troikas of the Supreme Court were overruling his decision...until in 1938 Stalin stepped in and stopped the NKVD completely...and reexamined all the cases...and from what I know a couple of hundred thousand people were found to have been wrongly accused and freed from jail.

Second...these people did go through the prison system...and thus are counted in those numbers form the archives of the 1.5 million dead. But how many of them were executed??? Certainly not 700.000 in just those 2 years!! In all the 32 years from 1921 to 1953...less than 800.000 people were condemed to death...Is it possible that 88% of them were killed in those 2 years?? Seems very odd...but the archives say that during those years...from 35 to 38 actually...the number of deaths was about 100.000 or so people...and I would say the number of executions was somewhat less than this total number. Usually...the number of people condemed to death in a year in the USSR was in the hundreds or maybe one or 2 thousand (except during WW2 for example and 37-38 where most of them are said to have happened)...but it still doesn't mean these executions actually happened.

Soviet government recognized that Yezhov was doing something wrong...and they took measures to control him first and than stop him.

I don't doubt those numbers you give...becasue I have read them myself. But I doubt that those are real executions...But rather just Yezhov's orders. But these were not directly carried out...but rather went through examinations, appeals and so forth. Prisoners could appeal...and did...

-If you believes this you are actually supporting the arguments of
-Ukrainian nationalists, who said there was no crop failure in
-1933, against Getty and Tauger, who argue that there was a poor
-harvest an so famine was not intentional (it seems almost all the
-scholars believe there was a famine)

1933...there was no crop failure. 1933 was a high production year...1931 and 32 were failures. Yes most agree there was a faimne...but I have a problem with their deffinition of famine. They call famine a shortage of food...but that doesn't mean starvation. There is famine in some areas of Siberia today...where people can't plant food and have no money and have very little to eat. But few if any starve to death. There is also famine in Ethiopia...where 8 million have starved to death. These are two different forms of "famine".

I don't know...there was "famine" in the US in the early 30s...with some areas had to be abandoned entirely and production fell greatly. It would be interesting...to do a similar study of the US population in the early 30s...where the situation was bad...and compare the numbers. Perhaps...we will get the same millions of "excess deaths" as with the USSR.

But the point is..."excess deaths"...may not be deaths at all...just people never born or died to early...

If he didn´t have any bias in the selection of 40%, the probability
-that he had chosen exactly the poor reports is very, very small.

Oh no I am not saying the 40% he selcted was the lower 40%. It may have been the higher 40%. The point is...he only had 40% to work with...so he can't make a very accurate prediction to say the Soviet government is lying. If the Soviet government woul lie...it wouldn;t decrease numbers from the 80 million it was in 1929 to the 68 million it was in 1932...That would make the Soviet government look bad...they wouldn't do it. But they did...so I don't think the Soviet government lied...becasue their data too shows a great drop.

Look to the fact that statistics with large samples are usually
-very accurate. That is the principle behind opinion polls.

Opinion polls showed Yeltsin had an 80% popularity...LOL...

-As you said, the central government din´t have 100% control, it´s
-quite possible it was mislead by poor information, like it happened
-in China in the GLF famine.

In individual cases...sure...But overall the government was getting reoprts of trouble...and was addressing the trouble. Those historians say they were getting reports...but rejecting them and ignoring them. That is not true...as the government's response was based on what was being requested by the local authorities in aid.

-This was Nove´s works. I don´t have access to them to judge his
-methodology.

Well in that case I was speaking of Conquest...but I don't know where anyone would get numbers...except from reports coming in from the people in the area at the time. Anything else...is pure speculation.

-It actually didn´t. The USSR depended on grain imports from the 50´s
-to its final collapse.

In the 1950s...there was the Khruschiev economics...which were quite different. Khruschiev considered himself somewhat of an agrarian expoert...and throught he could do a better job than Stalin...and ended up runing the entire system. Yes...USSR did import food...but that still does not mean there were famines in the USSR...wheres in pre-revolutionary Russia...famines were a constant reality. But either way...collectivization increased production and consumption considerably and rasied the Soviet standard of living near to those of western countries...wheres in the 20s...it had been below even most Easuert European countries. So I would say it was quite a success for as long as it continued uninterrupted by Khrsuchiev.

Probaly what happened was not very
-diferent from what happened in Yeltsin´s era (which was horrible,
-btw). Certainly, there was no deliberate famine, as Tauger proves.

That is what I believe. Yes it was a hard period which certainly casued "excess deaths". But as I said...keep in mind this was a radical transformation of society....just as Yeltsin carried out a radical transformation of society. However...one trnasformation was for the positive...to bring peasants who were still serfs into the 20th century...while the other a very negative transformation.

Deliberate famine and millions of deaths to it...is what I oppose...and you seem to partially agree with me on that.

[Gothmog]

If we compare the numbers of Yeltsin's "excess deaths" today with those of Stalin during a 10 year period...we get pretty much the same number. But you say the excess deaths in Stalin's time were due to famine, epidemics, excecutions and such. But what are they due to in yeltsin's Russia?? Is there epidemics, famine and mass excecussions??? NO!!! And yet we get the same number??? Something is wrong with this method...becasue you get same numbers for a country where you know none of this is happening.

-As I said, excess deaths point to no specific causes. In Yeltsin´s Russia
-there were no mass executions or starving, but there was an collapse
-of the healthcare system, which meant that diseases almost erradicated
-as tuberculosis, measles and others. It seems also alcoholism increased
-too. On the other hand, in Stalin´s Russia there was no clear worsening
-of living standards, however, the majority of authors point to a period
-of famine (now I´m uncertain on the extent of excess deaths caused by
-famine) and some excesses deaths caused by repression.

I am no fan of Yeltsin...but there are no mass famines in Russia today. At best...there are limited famines in some areas of Siberia today...but hardly anyone starves to death.

-Agree with you.

So I don't put any weight to these statistical analysis with the censuses...there are far too many factors to take into account...and they don't work. Yes there were hard times between 1926 and 1936...which resulted in decreased rate growths and so forth...but they still do not point to "excess deaths"...just as much as they point to famine in today's Russia.

-Here I disagree with you. The diference between expected increase
-in population and observed increase points to a increase in overall
-mortality, which is, btw, very rare in modern societies in peacetime.
-Of course, eventually those diferences are very small and if we
-have reliable data on birth and mortality rates, then we can say
-that the diference is due to minor variations in birth rate (which
-are usually declining in the long run both in developed and non
-developed countries)



I don't know where you would find the exact numbers...but I would look at the Supreme Court's archives. ONLY the Supreme Court had the authority to order an excecution...not NKVD. This was the case especially in 37-38 when Yezhov was condeming everyone to death...but Troikas of the Supreme Court were overruling his decision...until in 1938 Stalin stepped in and stopped the NKVD completely...and reexamined all the cases...and from what I know a couple of hundred thousand people were found to have been wrongly accused and freed from jail.

Second...these people did go through the prison system...and thus are counted in those numbers form the archives of the 1.5 million dead. But how many of them were executed??? Certainly not 700.000 in just those 2 years!! In all the 32 years from 1921 to 1953...less than 800.000 people were condemed to death...Is it possible that 88% of them were killed in those 2 years?? Seems very odd...but the archives say that during those years...from 35 to 38 actually...the number of deaths was about 100.000 or so people...and I would say the number of executions was somewhat less than this total number. Usually...the number of people condemed to death in a year in the USSR was in the hundreds or maybe one or 2 thousand (except during WW2 for example and 37-38 where most of them are said to have happened)...but it still doesn't mean these executions actually happened.

Soviet government recognized that Yezhov was doing something wrong...and they took measures to control him first and than stop him.

I don't doubt those numbers you give...becasue I have read them myself. But I doubt that those are real executions...But rather just Yezhov's orders. But these were not directly carried out...but rather went through examinations, appeals and so forth. Prisoners could appeal...and did...

-I will try to ask Getty himself on that point. Maybe I´m look if he
-answers me.



1933...there was no crop failure. 1933 was a high production year...1931 and 32 were failures. Yes most agree there was a faimne...but I have a problem with their deffinition of famine. They call famine a shortage of food...but that doesn't mean starvation.

-Usually famine means an acute lack of food followed by increasing
-mortality due to starvation and nutrition related diseases.

There is famine in some areas of Siberia today...where people can't plant food and have no money and have very little to eat. But few if any starve to death. There is also famine in Ethiopia...where 8 million have starved to death. These are two different forms of "famine".

-That´s a good point. Only Ethiopia has a famine, then, according to
-common standards. That´s opposed to chronic undernutrition, who
-can claim even more peoples than famine, but wich is usually
-unoticed for demographic calculations, since it is already included
-in the baseline mortality rate.

I don't know...there was "famine" in the US in the early 30s...with some areas had to be abandoned entirely and production fell greatly. It would be interesting...to do a similar study of the US population in the early 30s...where the situation was bad...and compare the numbers. Perhaps...we will get the same millions of "excess deaths" as with the USSR.

-A question that I´ve already did to myself, but looking at the data,
-I found no evidence of that. Population growth in the USA was 1,5%
-an year from 1920 to 1928 and the same 1,5% from 1928 to 1938.
-No evidence of a sudden change in demographic patterns here.

But the point is..."excess deaths"...may not be deaths at all...just people never born or died to early...

-Agree with you, but the diference in USSR in the 30´s is too large to
-be explained by that. Maybe 50% of that diference could be related
-to non births.


Opinion polls showed Yeltsin had an 80% popularity...LOL...


-I´m thinking about non biased polls. Biased statistics is no statistics
-at all...but statistics made with the correct methods is a powerful
-tool for population based studies.



In individual cases...sure...But overall the government was getting reoprts of trouble...and was addressing the trouble. Those historians say they were getting reports...but rejecting them and ignoring them. That is not true...as the government's response was based on what was being requested by the local authorities in aid.



In the 1950s...there was the Khruschiev economics...which were quite different. Khruschiev considered himself somewhat of an agrarian expoert...and throught he could do a better job than Stalin...and ended up runing the entire system. Yes...USSR did import food...but that still does not mean there were famines in the USSR...wheres in pre-revolutionary Russia...famines were a constant reality. But either way...collectivization increased production and consumption considerably and rasied the Soviet standard of living near to those of western countries...wheres in the 20s...it had been below even most Easuert European countries. So I would say it was quite a success for as long as it continued uninterrupted by Khrsuchiev.

-I don´t know if I agree with you, since we came with diferent numbers
-for grain output in the 30´s (althought you had more precise quotes,
-your sources seems to be older than mine, I will check data on grain
-output for USSR)



That is what I believe. Yes it was a hard period which certainly casued "excess deaths". But as I said...keep in mind this was a radical transformation of society....just as Yeltsin carried out a radical transformation of society. However...one trnasformation was for the positive...to bring peasants who were still serfs into the 20th century...while the other a very negative transformation.

-Agree with you. That´s why I said Yeltsin was worse than Stalin.

Deliberate famine and millions of deaths to it...is what I oppose...and you seem to partially agree with me on that.[/quote]

-Yes, I agree on the absence of intentions and disagree on the existence
-of famine, but maybe the real causes of excesses deaths are still
-uncertain.