I miss the old Russia, straight outta food Russia
Starve the people Russia, set on it's goals Kanye
I hate the new Russia, the pro-Trump Russia
The anti-gay Russia, hacking the email Russia
It's kinda like holocaust deniers or other conspiracy theorists where the goalpost runs around like a greased pig. They say it was natural until you point out the stuff Stalin did to starve them like take their seed grain multiple years in a row and forbid them from travel, then they blame it on """"sabotage""" by the kulaks (wealthy farmers) until you point out that stalin already gulag'd most of them in the years before holodomor happened. Then they'll bring up the deaths in Kazakhstan and you have to explain to them that a group of farmers is actually better at farming than a group of nomads that have never grown a plant in their lives.
So tldr is basically "not intentional" at first, yeah.
The intentionality matters imo, and that's really the critical point of the debate. Soviet regime under Stalin was both utterly inept and inhumanly brutal in its pursuit of food reform and the accompanying massive industrialization program. They were clearly willing to sacrifice any number of peasants to keep their factories and infrastructure projects going - while at the same time were unable to properly manage the agricultural transition and produce enough food to feed everyone. They even sold grain to pay for machinery and tech, while people were starving to death.
And that's pretty fucking horrible and extreme already. But it wasn't an attempt to kill off any ethnicity specifically, even though Ukrainians were the hardest hit by the process. So probably not a genocide.
But an event can be a horrible kafkaesque monstrosity even without the label.
/u/12broombroom Summed it up well but usually they deny it happened at all. Then when they can't do that they deny it was that bad. Then when they can't do that they deny that it was intentional. Then when they can't do that they argue about what intentional actually means.
I think you see where I'm going with this. They'll almost always deny it happened at all and just hope you agree with them.
Personally I think /r/Drama should all crowdfund a vacation for the users of /r/LateStageCapitalism to a real North Korean gulag. If they ever do make it out we can all just claim that the gulag never existed and that they're lying about the forced labour.
Wow, that was one of the longest comment chains I've seen in a while. You really cared about proving that tankie wrong, /u/Prince_Kropotkin, almost as much as you care about GamerGate.
Yeah, one of those guy got sucked into an /r/drama thread the other day. Flat out saying good things about Mao and Stalin. Even acknowledged how strange that sounded in his comment. Unfortunately, acknowledgement that the thing you are saying is odd does not excuse you from how remarkably fucked up it is. His references from 1933 didn't really hold up, either.
You tried /u/Prince_Kropotkin but you'd have better luck teaching a dog table manners than having a tankie admit they're wrong. They'll try and blame anything aside from Stalin, it doesn't matter if you show them the the Red Army raided peoples homes for hidden foods and traded away massive amounts of grain while people were starving to death in the streets and resorting to cannibalism. They'll just find a way to say that it wasn't intentional, even though the Red Army forcibly kept people in an area with no food and turned down international aid that was offered.
Apparently refusing to let people leave their farms and refusing international food aid means that it totally wasn't an intentional genocide. It's not like Stalin had a massive hate-boner for crushing the Ukrainian independence movement. Refusing food aid for starving people and raiding their homes for hidden food stores is totally a natural event and not the result of intentional actions.
Yeah, like it wasn't genocide in the sense of people going door to door shooting everyone like in the Holocaust, but it counts as genocide in my book if you're intentionally making a group people more susceptible to a terrible natural disaster and upping their already huge death rate.
It's not even like Stalin was just making them more susceptible, he flat out knew exactly what he was doing. If it was just an accident why turn down international food aid? If you actually cared about those peasants wouldn't it be the obvious choice to keep the workers in the workers paradise alive?
Yeah it wasn't Cambodian killing fields level genocide but keeping people in an area with no food, taking their seed grain, and trading away what they do manage to grow for machines while subsequently turning down food aid meant for them absolutely classifies as intentional.
I think there is legitimate historical dispute about how much active fucking those people over there was and how much was the everyday dysfunction of the Stalinist Soviet Union fucking them over, but it seems highly likely that there was an intention to kill as many as possible IMO. But unfortunately it doesn't look like there is a rock-solid case to be made and a perfect paper trail like with the Holocaust.
I think there is legitimate historical dispute about how much active fucking those people over there was and how much was the everyday dysfunction of the Stalinist Soviet Union fucking them over
Tankies will both use this argument and deny that there was anything wrong with the Soviet Union in the same breath. I'm not sure that you've seen that yet but it's a fun one.
For me the fact they took all the grain, to an extent that no one else suffered from at the same time, while subsequently using the military to keep them in place and turning down food aid seals it as a genocide. When the Nazis starved the Jews in the Ghettos it was definitely intentional, and while you could say that at that time it wasn't "Come to their door and shoot them" genocide it was definitely intentional genocide. I personally don't think that what constitutes a genocide really is the admittance you find in paper trails, but rather the result of actions.
23 comments
n/a SnapshillBot 2017-01-23
You're oversimplifying a complex situation to the point of adding nothing to the discussion.
Snapshots:
I am a bot. (Info / Contact)
n/a supergauntlet 2017-01-23
ok but ur a nazi tbh
n/a Dolphin_Gokkun 2017-01-23
no u
n/a Dial_A_Dragon 2017-01-23
no
u
n/a Dial_A_Dragon 2017-01-23
no
u
n/a Eternal_Mr_Bones 2017-01-23
So do all these commies love Russia for being commie once or hate Russia for helping Trump.
This shit is too confusing.
n/a Nomadlads 2017-01-23
I miss the old Russia, straight outta food Russia Starve the people Russia, set on it's goals Kanye I hate the new Russia, the pro-Trump Russia The anti-gay Russia, hacking the email Russia
n/a SmurfPrivilege 2017-01-23
Can someone tl;dr their issue for me. Do they deny the famine happened or do they just deny it was an intentional act of genocide by Stalin?
n/a StrategicSarcasm 2017-01-23
Does it matter?
n/a 12broombroom 2017-01-23
It's kinda like holocaust deniers or other conspiracy theorists where the goalpost runs around like a greased pig. They say it was natural until you point out the stuff Stalin did to starve them like take their seed grain multiple years in a row and forbid them from travel, then they blame it on """"sabotage""" by the kulaks (wealthy farmers) until you point out that stalin already gulag'd most of them in the years before holodomor happened. Then they'll bring up the deaths in Kazakhstan and you have to explain to them that a group of farmers is actually better at farming than a group of nomads that have never grown a plant in their lives.
So tldr is basically "not intentional" at first, yeah.
n/a Taipers_4_days 2017-01-23
Don't forget that Stalin also refused international food aid. That was somehow part of the 5-year plan and had nothing to do with starvation.
n/a eskachig 2017-01-23
Mostly had to do with pretending there was no famine.
n/a gardar15 2017-01-23
That's kinda metal tbh
n/a eskachig 2017-01-23
The intentionality matters imo, and that's really the critical point of the debate. Soviet regime under Stalin was both utterly inept and inhumanly brutal in its pursuit of food reform and the accompanying massive industrialization program. They were clearly willing to sacrifice any number of peasants to keep their factories and infrastructure projects going - while at the same time were unable to properly manage the agricultural transition and produce enough food to feed everyone. They even sold grain to pay for machinery and tech, while people were starving to death.
And that's pretty fucking horrible and extreme already. But it wasn't an attempt to kill off any ethnicity specifically, even though Ukrainians were the hardest hit by the process. So probably not a genocide.
But an event can be a horrible kafkaesque monstrosity even without the label.
n/a Taipers_4_days 2017-01-23
/u/12broombroom Summed it up well but usually they deny it happened at all. Then when they can't do that they deny it was that bad. Then when they can't do that they deny that it was intentional. Then when they can't do that they argue about what intentional actually means.
I think you see where I'm going with this. They'll almost always deny it happened at all and just hope you agree with them.
Personally I think /r/Drama should all crowdfund a vacation for the users of /r/LateStageCapitalism to a real North Korean gulag. If they ever do make it out we can all just claim that the gulag never existed and that they're lying about the forced labour.
n/a CondeTrocola 2017-01-23
Millennial tl;dr: crop prank (gone wrong)
n/a ironicshitpostr 2017-01-23
Wow, that was one of the longest comment chains I've seen in a while. You really cared about proving that tankie wrong, /u/Prince_Kropotkin, almost as much as you care about GamerGate.
n/a Prince_Kropotkin 2017-01-23
it's probably like 200 words altogether, mostly me trying to figure out if they're trolling or serious (unfortunately they were serious)
also gamergate is hitler
n/a zahlman 2017-01-23
Yeah but his opinion about tankies is actually correct.
n/a ghostchamber 2017-01-23
Yeah, one of those guy got sucked into an /r/drama thread the other day. Flat out saying good things about Mao and Stalin. Even acknowledged how strange that sounded in his comment. Unfortunately, acknowledgement that the thing you are saying is odd does not excuse you from how remarkably fucked up it is. His references from 1933 didn't really hold up, either.
n/a Taipers_4_days 2017-01-23
You tried /u/Prince_Kropotkin but you'd have better luck teaching a dog table manners than having a tankie admit they're wrong. They'll try and blame anything aside from Stalin, it doesn't matter if you show them the the Red Army raided peoples homes for hidden foods and traded away massive amounts of grain while people were starving to death in the streets and resorting to cannibalism. They'll just find a way to say that it wasn't intentional, even though the Red Army forcibly kept people in an area with no food and turned down international aid that was offered.
Apparently refusing to let people leave their farms and refusing international food aid means that it totally wasn't an intentional genocide. It's not like Stalin had a massive hate-boner for crushing the Ukrainian independence movement. Refusing food aid for starving people and raiding their homes for hidden food stores is totally a natural event and not the result of intentional actions.
n/a Prince_Kropotkin 2017-01-23
Yeah, like it wasn't genocide in the sense of people going door to door shooting everyone like in the Holocaust, but it counts as genocide in my book if you're intentionally making a group people more susceptible to a terrible natural disaster and upping their already huge death rate.
n/a Taipers_4_days 2017-01-23
It's not even like Stalin was just making them more susceptible, he flat out knew exactly what he was doing. If it was just an accident why turn down international food aid? If you actually cared about those peasants wouldn't it be the obvious choice to keep the workers in the workers paradise alive?
Yeah it wasn't Cambodian killing fields level genocide but keeping people in an area with no food, taking their seed grain, and trading away what they do manage to grow for machines while subsequently turning down food aid meant for them absolutely classifies as intentional.
n/a Prince_Kropotkin 2017-01-23
I think there is legitimate historical dispute about how much active fucking those people over there was and how much was the everyday dysfunction of the Stalinist Soviet Union fucking them over, but it seems highly likely that there was an intention to kill as many as possible IMO. But unfortunately it doesn't look like there is a rock-solid case to be made and a perfect paper trail like with the Holocaust.
n/a Taipers_4_days 2017-01-23
Tankies will both use this argument and deny that there was anything wrong with the Soviet Union in the same breath. I'm not sure that you've seen that yet but it's a fun one.
For me the fact they took all the grain, to an extent that no one else suffered from at the same time, while subsequently using the military to keep them in place and turning down food aid seals it as a genocide. When the Nazis starved the Jews in the Ghettos it was definitely intentional, and while you could say that at that time it wasn't "Come to their door and shoot them" genocide it was definitely intentional genocide. I personally don't think that what constitutes a genocide really is the admittance you find in paper trails, but rather the result of actions.
n/a glmox 2017-01-23
id drink a soda called stalin did nothing wrong
n/a Prince_Kropotkin 2017-01-23
don't give 'em ideas
n/a AgentGotse 2017-01-23
Soviet union did nothing wrong and it's not true communism obvs.
n/a rultes 2017-01-23
Prince? Defending my people? Well, shit. Thank you prince.