gun

gun, 9 months ago

You trying to tell me that The Polish Operation was necessary?

Yezhov was responsible for that. He abused his power, and was rightly executed.

the blame falling squarely on the Soviet government due to their forced collectivisation programme

Collectivization of farming happened in every modern economy in the world. There’s a reason why only 4 countries in the US produce all of the chicken and eggs. It is simply more efficient than having thousands individual farmers. When the USSR began, they still plowed fields with tractors. Before and after the Russian revolution, malnutrition was the norm. To end this, agriculture has to be modernized like it had been in other countries. This had to be built from scratch. There were virtually no factories building tractors, harvesters, etc. Dams offset the effects of drought by creating reservoirs of water in good times to allow saving for bad times. The USSR had some of the world’s greatest hydroelectric projects, but these could not be built immediately. So clearly, prioritization of industry was vital for population growth to be sustained with a stable food supply.

In a capitalist system the market determines food prices. If people can’t afford to buy food at the market price, the food is destroyed, and production is scaled back. Sometimes food is destroyed in massive quantities on purpose to manipulate the market. There are very recent examples of this in the US where fresh milk is simply dumped down the drain by the gallon. Before collectivization, some farmers in the USSR were destroying grain. After collectivization, this type of rebellion and manipulation is not possible.

When farmland is parcelized, it makes it hard for the individual landowners to afford the necessary equipment to increase output. When farmland is consolidated, a dozen farmers can pool together funds to buy a tractor. In capitalist countries, this happened gradually over time when more efficient larger farms bought out smaller ones, cutting out small farmers completely. In the USSR, this process was accelerated and they did not have to wait decades to modernize, it could happen in years. And at the end of the day, the small farmers still had a stake. These soviet policies did not cause the famine. They would have prevented it if they could have been implemented sooner.

it took 40 years to recover from the 10 million population deficit caused by the Holodomor

Why not say 100 million Ukrainians since we are just making up numbers? 10 million is like double the estimate for ALL the USSR, not just Ukraine. And that’s the figure coming from scholars who say the Holodomor was even a thing. Like, according to them, it was 2-3 million Ukrainians. How does that create a deficit of 10 million?

Also it’s real convenient that your graph only starts in 1950

I went for the first result when searching “Ukraine population graph.” Most results on Google start at 1950. What, is Worldometers communist now? I’m sorry professor, I know this isn’t A+ work, but frankly, I give a shit about other things besides debate silly people online class.

Also, you know genocide isn’t just about straight murder right?

This is a classic dishonest motte and bailey tactic. When most people think genocide, they think of it as mass murder and forced sterilization targeting a specific ethnic group with the goal of elimination of that group. The same claim was made with the Uyghur genocide to get the idea in people’s heads that China was mass murdering and sterilizing Uyghurs, an obvious lie if you research it. Then when people respond with scrutiny they backpedal and call it actually a “cultural genocide,” whatever that means. But every claim that I’ve seen of a cultural genocide in Xinjiang I have later found was a lie. It’s easy to debunk when we live in the 21st century, you can go to China and film people and buildings. Back then, not so much. Psyops in the news make their way into the textbooks.

Nationalism was limited by the USSR when it contradicted Proletarian Internationalism. For this reason the Russian tricolor was banned, and the official Russian flag was only a variation of the Soviet one. Is that cultural genocide against the Russians? If Ukrainian culture is flying a Wolfsangel flag, venerating Stepan Bandera, etc., then I guess they were suppressed. I’m not crying over it though. I think its clear Communists did Ukraine better than the current nationalists do.

USSR’s success at Russification is literally one of the things Putin is using to excuse his invasion.

It’s the exact opposite! Listen again to Putin’s speech on the eve of the SMO. He blames Lenin and communism for giving too much away to Ukraine. Lenin recognized Ukraine as a nation, which is a stretch. Then he gave Ukraine Russian land in the Southeast. Stalin gave Ukraine part of Poland, and Kruschev gave Ukraine Crimea. If anything, the communists did Ukrainization of Russia, and this is what Putin reacts against in his speech. You have it twisted.

They could have consolidated everything under the RSFSR during the revolution. This would have violated the Marxist principle of self determination of nations. Read Stalin’s “On the National Question.” The USSR’s legislative system was even reformed from a unicameral to a bicameral system, introducing the Soviet of nationalities, giving smaller nationalities in the USSR disproportionately higher representation. This is comparable to the US, where despite California having nearly 80 times the population of Wyoming, they both have two senators, equal representation. Instead of over-representing rural people, in the USSR, smaller nationalities were over-represented.

gun, 9 months ago

How does a purge of corrupt officials constitute a genocide? Let alone mass genocide which was your claim.

There was no systemic starvation of Ukrainians. There was famine that killed a comparable number of Russians and Kazakhs. However, Soviet industrialization and dam building ended a cycle of harsh famines that predated communism, providing a stable food supply for Ukrainians and all nationalities in the Soviet Union.

www.macrotrends.net/countries/UKR/…/population
From the beginning of this graph to the end of communism, the Ukrainian population grew 13 million. That’s unusual if Stalin wanted to genocide Ukrainians, seems like he’s not very good at it. Seems like the more effective genocidal policy based on the graph starts immediately after the end of communism. Curious.

And no, Stalin killing Trotsky was not made up I don’t think. But I have no issue with that; I only wish he had gotten to all of the Trotskyists.

gun, 9 months ago

Disagree. Look up compatibilism

gun, 11 months ago

Right, but if you want to stop school shootings with gun control and are also left wing enough to want zero borders, how will gun control be possible if crazies can just go and get their guns from places where its legal to get them. Am I fascist for pointing out an obvious contradiction?

gun, 11 months ago

Well maybe if you read past the title you would be following the conversation better

gun, 11 months ago

The Budapest Memorandum was violated and therefore nullified before 2014. It literally says that in your wikipedia article

gun, 11 months ago

What do you use as a search engine instead of Google? I feel like I've tried everything, but always end up back at Google search.

gun, 1 year ago

You're really that upset on behalf of voting machine companies?
Like wow, spreading hate is all good with me, but hurting Dominion Inc.'s PR? That's where I draw the line!

gun, 1 year ago

I wonder if they include Biden's bombing of Nord Stream

gun, 1 year ago

This is the Oakland bay bridge. The lanes only expand to this wide to accommodate more toll booths. Because cars move slower on lanes when they are paying tolls, the tolls will become a bottleneck unless there are more toll lanes than highway lanes. You can see up ahead where the lanes merge back together again.

This is the only direct road connection between Oakland and San Francisco, so of course there will be heavy traffic no matter how much public transport you have. And the bay area has decent public transport by american standards, which isn't saying much, but many people live close to commuter rail.

I don't see the problem with this, there are much worse examples of modern car infrastructure imo.

gun, 1 year ago

That is correct

gun, 2 years ago

No it’s just a realist view. Great man theory was completely discredited by modern political economy. Read a book.