Russia: No CFE treaty for you!

[Serb]

Ten millions it's almost 1/2 of Ukraine population of this time or 1/4 of urban population of ENTIRE USSR.

To your luck, I don't have full statictic about Ukraine total population, birth/death rates, average yearly growth, etc. right now.

Btw, I'm Ukranian on 1/4.

[Heresson]

Commendable. I'm all for a civil discussion. But perhaps then you might realize that calling Russians "vultures", "barbarians", and inserting here and there some condolescing remarks about "Russian culture" or "Russian education" just might qualify as "offending other nations"? I mean really, what kind of response do you think these remarks would solicit?

I didn't call Russian vultures, I compared Soviet behaviour towards Poland in 1939 to vultures' behaviour. It's a difference and I don't find it at all bad, as well as my "barbarian" comment. I've written that barbarians think that if one nation is defenceless, it can be freely attacked. Do You disagree? By that, I was indicating not even that Soviet behaviour in 1939 was barbaric, though I think it was, but that Serb's claim was wrong. Perhaps I've offended Him, but not Russians in general.

When it comes to the next remarks, perhaps they may be offensive, not more than yours when it comes to Poland, I would say less, and definitevely less than Serb's comments. But why have I used such words? To let Serb know that by his posts, he brings shame to the nation he's trying to "defend" or glorify. Oh, I know I shouldn't.

Originally posted by Saras
--"Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a state of Polish culture"

I could agree to some extent that a large part of our nobility by the end of 18th century was polonised. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, though, has come into life in the 12-13th centuries and was hardly polish back then.

That's why I've written "at least in the end". The "at least" thing is redundant, true
(have I mentioned that my original surname was supposed to sound something like Mintwid?
I could be Algerdas (my second name) Mintwitus (or whatever)

[notyoueither]

Good for you. Many of the survivors are 100%, and they are a somewhat pissed off living testimony to what happened in the Ukraine in 1932 and 33.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Serb
Ten millions it's almost 1/2 of Ukraine population of this time or 1/4 of urban population of ENTIRE USSR.

Nice trick, but I think that at this time, urban population was modest compared to rural one.
And... that it's such a big part of the population, it is quite irrelevant

[Serb]

You know, my dobre pan, I've decided to give Patroklos a little time-out.
Now it's turn for you and your crap that you've posted earlier. Perhaps later, we will talk about tricks.

[Saras]

Serb, you really are a revisionist stalinist apologist. At least 200 thousand LITHUANIANS ALONE were deported, and about 1/2 of them died. So by your figures they comprise 1/3 of total killed. Nice.

[Serb]

This figure do not include deported people. It only include the number of people who were found guilty in anti-revoultion/anti-state crimes.

Ssylka bila odnim iz vidom nakazaniya za anti-sovetskuy deyatelnost' po zakonu.

Deportation is other case. The people who were deported, were deported without trial. It was more like military opertation. I don't know how about 200 000, and 1/2 of them dead, but I guess you meant the case just after the war. You mean deported relatives of "forest brothers" right? The former nazi servants who after defeat of their masters hid in forests and constantly terrorized, pillaged and murdered? To deport their relatives was a cruel mean, but after this, banditism had stopped pretty quickly. Stalin used the same strategy at Caucasus.
And I've never said Stalin wasn't cruel. He was.

[Serb]

Russian human rights organization "Memorial" (it's not exactly a human rights organization, but more decendents of victims of Stalinism, Saras, I guess you heard about them) says about 3 millions of deported during Stalin's rule. How much among those 3 millions died, I have no idea. But I doubt death rate among them is greater than among German POW's captured by Soviets during WW2, because: 1) aside deported people, POW's were imprisoned and worked hard; 2) again aside deported people, nazi's soldiers were the most hated persons at this time, and 1/8 of those POW's never returned home, it is true (just for note 2/3 of Soviet POW's died in German camps).

Anyhow, correct number about deported, can be found in archives. The archives of NKVD are open now.
The point of my posts, however was to show idiocy of this 60 millions of murdered figure, not to prove that it was everything fine in USSR and no innocent were harmed. Many innocent people suffered. It was a cruel times and cruel decisions.

p.s. I guess I've found an English equivalent for Russian "ssylka" - it's "exile".

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Serb
The point of my posts, however was to show idiocy of this 60 millions of murdered figure, not to prove that it was everything fine in USSR and no innocent were harmed.

You didn't have to Serb IMHO. The figure is idiotic in itself and people who believe it obviously don't have a clue.
Mind you the people who believe that are propably the same who supported Juntas all over the world, bombed people mercilessly, killed 3 millions in Vietnam, greenlighted East Timor and Cyprus and directly or indirectly have the blood of dozen of millions on their own hands. And propably say that a good communist is a dead communist. What do you expect them to say?

If you want to play with them fine but personally I think there's no real point. But it can be amuzing.

[Patroklos]

Hey, give me a figure and I'll mull it over, but this has yet to be done.

It could go something like NUMBER NUMBER, NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER, NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER.

Easy as that.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by notyoueither
No, I was kind of thinking of what they did in the Ukraine that led to up to 10 million deaths by starvation. Of course, none of those people were ever tried, so I guess they wouldn't show up in crime statistics.

The 10 million deaths in Ukraine number is by no means an accepted figure for 32-33 famine casualties, neither in FSU nor in the West.

See, for instance,
Douglas Tottle, Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard, Toronto, Progress Books, 1987.

Now, the author of this book (I've read some parts of the book on the net long time ago) has a clear leftist bias, so I am suspect of his findings.

But I equally distrust Robert Conquest's "The Harvest of Sorrows" and other mainstream western press on the subject.

All numbers that are published on Ukrainian famine in 1930s are based on indirect evidence. In particular, the number of ~7.5mln. casualties is obtained by comparing USSR census figures in 1926 and 1939. The population of Ukraine increased by ~3.5mln during this period which is lower than one might expect given average birth rates and mortality rates in preceding years and in the USSR overall. By making population growth projections and comparing them with census numbers, Conquest & co. arrive at ~7.5 mln. "excess deaths" which are than attributed to the famine.

Problems with this approach:

1. Birth rates were likely to be lower than assumed, partially due to poor economic and sociological conditions, and partially due to increased use of contraceptives, legalizing abortions, etc. Birth rates declined not just in USSR but elsewhere in Europe during this period.

2. Death rates were likely to be higher than assumed. For instance, it was wildly publicised that by early 90s the average life expectancy for Russian males has fallen to 57 years vs. 69 years in 70s-80s. While economic conditions in USSR worsened during 80s, I'd think they still were much better than during late 20s-early 30s. So it is only reasonable to assume that natural mortality rates were much higher during this period.

3. The number of people registering as "Ukrainians" changed throug inter-ethnic marriages, rural-urban migrations, changes in declared nationality and so such. For instance, Kouban cossacks (between 2-3mln. people) were recored as "Ukrainians" in 1926 census but were reclassified as "Russians" in 1939 census. That change alone accounts for ~30% of assumed "casualties".

And so on. Prior to Gorbachev's era, the accepted figure for Ukrainian famine casualties among Western historians was put at between 300,000 and 1mln. Than in 80s it started to grow on and on and on, and one would naturally think that this is due to some "new information" being released from Soviet archives. But this is just not true. Simply, old data were reinterpreted to exaggerate Soviet era casualties as it became fashionable in academic circles to treat communists as scum of the earth, being worse than Nazi and so such. Ukrainian nationalists were also interested in exaggerating collectivisation casualties to lend some credibility to their ludicrous claims of Russian genocide against Ukrainians and so on.

Another thing. USSR in 1930s was not as closed society as commonly assumed. Iron curtain has not fallen yet. Many thousands of western workers and specialists worked in Ukraine. Many of them left memoirs. All of them mention economic hardships and such, but nobody writes about these millions of dead. Now, 7.5mln dead is 25% of Ukrainian population at that time. One in four. It is very difficult for any government, no matter how totalitarian, to hide that many casualties from outsiders.

I am not a historian, but it just goes against common sense that 1933 casualties could have been that high. Ukrainians would remember this period as being worse than Nazi invasion and will tell their kids so. But this is just not the case.

BTW, before someone accuses me of pro-Russian bias, I'm a Ukrainian. Actuallly half Russian, half Ukrainian as is common in both Ukraine and Russia.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Serb
I don't know how about 200 000, and 1/2 of them dead, but I guess you meant the case just after the war. You mean deported relatives of "forest brothers" right? The former nazi servants who after defeat of their masters hid in forests and constantly terrorized, pillaged and murdered? To deport their relatives was a cruel mean, but after this, banditism had stopped pretty quickly. Stalin used the same strategy at Caucasus.
And I've never said Stalin wasn't cruel. He was.

Well, let me break this to you, 'cause they EVIDENTLY DON'T teach this at school - mass deportations started BEFORE THE WAR.

[Saras]

--"Anyhow, correct number about deported, can be found in archives."

This very plainly shows how well based your arguments are

[Heresson]

I can only tell that on the formerly Polish grounds annexed by USSR, Poles were being systematically deported (it's zsylka in Polish) to inner USSR. The goal was complete clearing of this grunds of Poles. Started with the ones with higher education (not counting those killed at once), later were others. My grandma was deportated as well. Some were let out after the war, many still live somewhere there, especially in Kazakhstan. I don't have to add that the conditions weren't good. My grandma suffered from this up to her death.

[Heresson]

Oh, and I don't believe in 60mln people killed, obviously, though we may count USSR citizens killed during the war into that number.