Russia: No CFE treaty for you!

[Patroklos]

35 million seems to be more than an adequae figure for Russians civilians killed from 1913-89.

Especially if you believe in the Ukranian figures given above.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by 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 I am not trying to defend mass deportations or anything but they were not uncommon elsewhere. Poland has relocated millions of Germans from territories she gained after WW2. Granted, many of them fled on their own while Poles largely had nowhere to flee. Not just Poland - every East European country did a fair bit of ethnical cleansing after WW2.

Even oh-so-democratic Americans herded their Japanese minority into concentration camps after Pearl Harbor. About 200,000 Japanese-Americans were put into these camps iirc. They were not housed in 5-star hotels, either.

It all sounds horrible from the point of view of modern sensibilities but things were not pleasant back then. Every country is suscpicious of parts of population that are likely to side with the enemy in the upcoming war or to start ethnic troubles. Nobody wants fifth column. Poland did not want any German-majority regions to prevent any sort of "reunification with the Greater Germany" movement in the future. Similarly, Stalin thought that Polish were "unreliable" which was not entirely unwarranted. Sure, it was horrible but it was not too different from other countries' actions in the same time period.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by 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.

Come to think about it, Saras, your numbers actually support Serb's claims.

Let's try to do a ballpark estimate.

What was Lithuanian population in 1930s? I don't have exact numbers, probably somewhere between 2 and 3 mln. Let's be conservative and assume 2mln. population. 100,000 dead imples then 1:20 casualties ratio.

Lithuanians always claimed that they suffered disproportionally hard during Stalin's era. But let's say that the same 1:20 ratio applies elsewhere in the former USSR as well. Let's take ~200mln. as USSR pre-war population (which overestimates Soviet population quite a bit). This means ~10mln. casualties as an upper bound for Stalin victims.

That's still an enormous number of casualties but nowhere near 60mln or even 35mln.

[DinoDoc]

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

Well what sources without a pro-Soviet bias do you trust because stringing together a set of assumptions to arrive at a number isn't a wise thing to do. Which strangely seem to be the way the posts are going in this thread.

[ErikM]

Well what sources without a pro-Soviet bias do you trust because stringing together a set of assumptions to arrive at a number isn't a wise thing to do. Which strangely seem to be the way the posts are going in this thread.

I'd say that a diligent, unbiased research on Soviet era casualties is yet to be done. Only after Soviet era archives are completely opened and all this information is processed can we expect a more or less accurate number.

Prior to Gorbachev era, Stalin's regime casualties were underplayed both in the Western press and in the USSR. During 80s, they were exaggerated both in the West and in Russia. BTW, the claim that Soviet historians were somehow interested in underestimating casualties is incorrect. 60mln. casualties is not the highest estimate that I've heard. Iirc V. Korotich (editor of the popular Soviet magazine Ogonyok with a "liberal" bias) claimed 100mln. casualties at some point.

During 90s large part of Soviet archives were opened and some research based on real documents (and not on demographic projections) was done (and this work is still largely in progress). But in the light of this new evidence it became apparent that perestroika-era numbers were grossly exaggeratted.

You are right that demographic-projection studies are basically no good. It's "what you assume is what you get" kind of thing. If one uses optimistic estimates for population increase rates, one can get 40mln. "excess deaths". If one uses pessimistic estimates, you can get zero casualties. It's a huge error margin. But before archives were open it was the only type of research possible.

[Patroklos]

Come to think about it, Saras, your numbers actually support Serb's claims.

Let's try to do a ballpark estimate.

What was Lithuanian population in 1930s? I don't have exact numbers, probably somewhere between 2 and 3 mln. Let's be conservative and assume 2mln. population. 100,000 dead imples then 1:20 casualties ratio.

Lithuanians always claimed that they suffered disproportionally hard during Stalin's era. But let's say that the same 1:20 ratio applies elsewhere in the former USSR as well. Let's take ~200mln. as USSR pre-war population (which overestimates Soviet population quite a bit). This means ~10mln. casualties as an upper bound for Stalin victims.

That is an extreme set of assumptions there. There is NO reason to assume that Stalin's (who only rules for part of Soviet history) repression was blanket nation wide. Some areas were higher and some lower. And once again the pre 1930's was no walk in the park for Soviet citizens. Lithuania might have lost 1:20 of their population (using questionable numbers) but they also missed out on a good decade of Soviet civic kindness.

I think 2 million is a very low population figure for Lithuania, especially if we are talking about pre-WWII.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Patroklos
That is an extreme set of assumptions there. There is NO reason to assume that Stalin's (who only rules for part of Soviet history) repression was blanket nation wide. Some areas were higher and some lower. And once again the pre 1930's was no walk in the park for Soviet citizens. Lithuania might have lost 1:20 of their population (using questionable numbers) but they also missed out on a good decade of Soviet civic kindness.

I think 2 million is a very low population figure for Lithuania, especially if we are talking about pre-WWII.

They are only extreme in a sense that they are likely to exaggerate Soviet casualties. Lithuania and other Baltic states were among the areas that suffered the worst from repressions.

If Lithuania's population was higher than 2 million, then the casualty ratio was lower than 1:20. I only used this number to provide a semi-reasonable upper bound.

And let's part with "Stalin ruled for only part of Soviet history" argument. Most of Soviet civilian casualties fall into collectivization period, Stalin's purges and mass deportations of late 30s, and of course WW2.

While there were some political prisoners and executions after Stalin, their number is in hundreds, maybe thousands. It is possible that the total number of executions in a post-Stalin USSR was lower than in the US during the same period.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by ErikM

Heresson I am not trying to defend mass deportations or anything but they were not uncommon elsewhere. Poland has relocated millions of Germans from territories she gained after WW2. Granted, many of them fled on their own while Poles largely had nowhere to flee. Not just Poland - every East European country did a fair bit of ethnical cleansing after WW2.

Nobody wants fifth column. Poland did not want any German-majority regions to prevent any sort of "reunification with the Greater Germany" movement in the future. Similarly, Stalin thought that Polish were "unreliable" which was not entirely unwarranted. Sure, it was horrible but it was not too different from other countries' actions in the same time period.

I find it quite unreasonable to blaim Poland for what happened after ww2 on its territory. Poland was under Soviet occupation, and the communists that ruled controlled by Moscow. It weren't Poles that ordered the action - Americans, Soviets and British were (the case of Czechia is pretty different). You can blaim Poles, Jews, Russians etc who participated in acts of violence towards Germans after the war, but not quite Polish state, simply because the legal gouverment (which, abandoned by its allies, stayed in London) was not responsible what was happening there.
And this gouverment, as I mentioned many times, was hesitant when it comes to this matter. Arciszewski wasn't sure if Lower Silesia should be added to Poland, because He didn't see any possibility of assimilation of almost clearly German region with Poland.
Also, while Germany posed some threat, and didn't approve its post-war boarders up to 1990, when it finally did, Poland was hardly any threat and Moscow-controlled Polish gouverment was hardly revisionistic

[Ned]

It seems the Europeans long ago resettled displaced persons and have substantially agreed to the realignment of borders. Yet, the very same Europeans keep the Palestinian refugee problem and the border issue of Israel to the forefront of their complaints against Israel rather than press the Arab world to accept the status quo after so many years. Rather than learn lessons from their own experience, it seems they either have learned nothing, are major hypocrites, are major anti-Semites, or perhpaps all of the above.

[Heresson]

Again, you're compairing Arabs to nazi Germans, and those who do not agree, You call antisemites.
That's not nice.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Heresson
I find it quite unreasonable to blaim Poland for what happened after ww2 on its territory. Poland was under Soviet occupation, and the communists that ruled controlled by Moscow. It weren't Poles that ordered the action - Americans, Soviets and British were (the case of Czechia is pretty different). You can blaim Poles, Jews, Russians etc who participated in acts of violence towards Germans after the war, but not quite Polish state, simply because the legal gouverment (which, abandoned by its allies, stayed in London) was not responsible what was happening there.
And this gouverment, as I mentioned many times, was hesitant when it comes to this matter. Arciszewski wasn't sure if Lower Silesia should be added to Poland, because He didn't see any possibility of assimilation of almost clearly German region with Poland.

1. It was not my intention to blame either Polish citizens or Polish government. Rather, I wanted to point out that mass deportations happened not just in USSR, but in other countries as well. On the larger scale, even. Iirc, about 8 mln ethnic germans were forcefully rellocated after WW2 from Silesia, Eastern Prussia, Moravia, etc.

2. This being said, it is not correct to put the blame squarely on Allied governments. Poland western borders negotiotions were conducted on Potsdam conference and are described in great detail in (among others) Churchill's "Second Warld War". According to Churchill, Stalin's position on these negotiotions was essentially to legalize the status quo. Stalin claimed that by the time Potsdam conference took place, Poles de facto occupied territories later transferred to Poland from Germany and basically asked allies to legalize this outcome de jure.

If anything, Churchill accused Stalin as being pro-Polish on these negotiations. Himself, Sir Whinston thought that "Poland wants too much".

[W. Churchill, Second World War, vol. 6, last two chapters]

3. So mass deportations de facto started before Allied negotiations took place. Polish government-in-exile indeed cannot be hold accountable for this, but this government did not really control the situation in Poland - it was a government in name only.

Poland was hardly any threat and Moscow-controlled Polish gouverment was hardly revisionistic

I don't quite understand this sentiment. Are you saying that Poles were exemplary, loyal Soviet citizens, showing no sign of dissent whatsoever? Maybe you should come back to Mama Russia then, eh?

Originally posted by Ned
It seems the Europeans long ago resettled displaced persons and have substantially agreed to the realignment of borders. Yet, the very same Europeans keep the Palestinian refugee problem and the border issue of Israel to the forefront of their complaints against Israel rather than press the Arab world to accept the status quo after so many years. Rather than learn lessons from their own experience, it seems they either have learned nothing, are major hypocrites, are major anti-Semites, or perhpaps all of the above.

Just add Americans to your list of alleged hypocrites and I might agree with you
Israeli/Palestinian problem does not belong in this thread, though.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by ErikM

1. It was not my intention to blame either Polish citizens or Polish government. Rather, I wanted to point out that mass deportations happened not just in USSR, but in other countries as well. On the larger scale, even. Iirc, about 8 mln ethnic germans were forcefully rellocated after WW2 from Silesia, Eastern Prussia, Moravia, etc.

This number is heavily exagerrated. Most of them escaped earlier, fearing Soviet army. And often, they didn't want to stay.
Also, I think You've written it pretty different earlier. Outside USSR? Yes, but in link with it,

2. This being said, it is not correct to put the blame squarely on Allied governments. Poland western borders negotiotions were conducted on Potsdam conference and are described in great detail in (among others) Churchill's "Second Warld War". According to Churchill, Stalin's position on these negotiotions was essentially to legalize the status quo. Stalin claimed that by the time Potsdam conference took place, Poles de facto occupied territories later transferred to Poland from Germany and basically asked allies to legalize this outcome de jure.

You know the same well as I do, that it's not right. It was not Poland who occupied this land, but USSR.

If anything, Churchill accused Stalin as being pro-Polish on these negotiations. Himself, Sir Whinston thought that "Poland wants too much".

It's not quite what Poland wanted, but what Stalin wanted for her.

3. So mass deportations de facto started before Allied negotiations took place. Polish government-in-exile indeed cannot be hold accountable for this, but this government did not really control the situation in Poland - it was a government in name only.

It was the legal gouverment. It was Stalin's pressure on the Allies, and their lack of effort to support their Polish ally, to make it gouverment without real power. This gouverment still had enough power to control the underground army, underground education system etc. I remind You that it was Polish guerilla to liberate Vilnius and, partially, Lwow, and start uprising in Warsaw. The problem was that Soviets were generallly hostile to it and destroyed independant Polish political movements on grounds "liberated" by them.

I don't quite understand this sentiment. Are you saying that Poles were exemplary, loyal Soviet citizens, showing no sign of dissent whatsoever? Maybe you should come back to Mama Russia then, eh?

Not quite Poles, but Polish communists - yes. Before ww1, Polish communists claimed that Poles have to resign of independance. During Polish-soviet war, they supported Soviets. After the war, they supported Soviet claims to eastern territories...

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Heresson
This number is heavily exagerrated. Most of them escaped earlier, fearing Soviet army.

It could easily be that this number is exaggerated. It's the same type of shoddy reasearch I have written about earlier in response to Soviet civilian casualties issue.

You know the same well as I do, that it's not right. It was not Poland who occupied this land, but USSR.

Let's keep the facts straight...

44- Spring 45 - USSR liberates territories occupied by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe. Some German civilians flee before approaching Soviet Army.

Spring/Summer 45 - population of these regions move to former German lands to work the fields etc (as pretty much everything in their native regions is destroyed). More Germans flee/are driven out in response to violence against Germans from the population.

[I do not blame Poles for these acts of violence, btw. Understandably, Germans were not exactly the most beloved people on earth these days].

Potsdam conference - establishes new borders in Eastern Europe. Stalin insisted that these new borders have to established based on the status quo, ie. it would be crazy to forcefully relocate Polish who physically occupied these lands earlier. Stalin point of view prevails.

It was Stalin's pressure on the Allies, and their lack of effort to support their Polish ally, to make it gouverment without real power.

What I want to point out is that without Stalin's participation, Poland would likely end up with much smaller post-WW2 territory. Maybe it's ironic, but Stalin was the only person on Potsdam conference who actually had some concern for Polish. As I said earlier, Churchill thought that "Polish want too much" and Truman spent most of his time worrying how to break news of nuclear weapons to Stalin like a teenage girl going to her Prom dance.

True, Stalin probably wanted more lands for Poland because he planned on Poland being a Soviet ally in the post-WW2 Europe. But other allies largely had no concern for Poland at all.

[CharlesBHoff]

In 1918 America sent marine to fight the Soviet Force in Northeastern Russia around Archangle. They aim was to overthrow the newly form Soviet Union. This force was there untril around 1923-25 fighting than secert war against the Soviet Union. They where finaly ridden out of Soviet Union. We didnot get back the dead bodies untril 1934 when we finally recognite the Soviet Union as than legimate government even them there where evil people in America who didnot like the Soviet Union and plot evil deeds against.

[Serb]

Originally posted by CharlesBHoff
In 1918 America sent marine to fight the Soviet Force in Northeastern Russia around Archangle. They aim was to overthrow the newly form Soviet Union. This force was there untril around 1923-25 fighting than secert war against the Soviet Union. They where finaly ridden out of Soviet Union. We didnot get back the dead bodies untril 1934 when we finally recognite the Soviet Union as than legimate government even them there where evil people in America who didnot like the Soviet Union and plot evil deeds against.

In 1918-1919 at Northern part of Russia landed 29 000 British and 6 000 American soldiers. They occupied and plundered Murmansk, Kem, Onega and Archangelsk. First concentration camps on Russian land were created not by Lenin or Stalin as many seems to believe, they were created by Americans. Between 1918-1919, intervents thrown 52 000 people (every sixth inhabitant of those lands) in such camps. Prisoners worked 18-20 hours per day, no drugs, no doctors, hunger, 4 000 among them were shot after trial, how many shot without a trial or died because of terrible conditions is unknown.
In August 1918 9 000 American soldiers landed at Russian Far East, in Vladivostok previosly captured by Japanese. Only in Amur Oblast (region), during anti-partisan punishing raid, American forces burned 25 villages to the ground.
American forced were finally driven out from Northern part of Russia at summer 1919, from Russian Far East, at April 1920.