When is war justified?

[Ned]

molly, there was a whole discussion of the Ukrainian famine some time ago now here on Apolyton. I didn't participate, but just read it. I don't pretend to be an expert on how people calculated how many died. But it wasn't based on a published list from Stalin's government, but from census data before and after.

Jon Miller was one of the participants IIRC.

I conducted a brief search, but the thread is long gone it appears.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
molly, there was a whole discussion of the Ukrainian famine some time ago now here on Apolyton. I didn't participate, but just read it. I don't pretend to be an expert on how people calculated how many died. But it wasn't based on a published list from Stalin's government, but from census data before and after.

Jon Miller was one of the participants IIRC.

I conducted a brief search, but the thread is long gone it appears.

I am aware of both the Ukrainian famine and the liquidation of the kulaks, and of the purges of the Red Army and intellectuals.

Indeed one of the reasons for Stalin agreeing to the non-aggression pact with Hitler may have been the Red Army's lack of trained leaders, with only Zhukov having recently acquitted himself in the meatgrinder battles with the Japanese.

However, my being aware of the deaths attributed to Stalin and his regime does not absolve you from having to produce the goods whenever you pop up and go:

" Tens of millions! Stalin! Very bad! Killed more than Hitler before WWII!!! "

I produce sources for my figures or attributable cites- it's not too much to expect you to do so.


By the way, about the Final Solution- you are quite wrong. The mass killing of unarmed or non-combatant Jews had begun when German forces entered Poland and when Operation Barbarossa began.

The problem was that uncoordinated piecemeal massacres across such a wide area (even by the Einsatzgruppen) was not deemed to be terribly efficient- even extermination camp guards were warned about wasting bullets, and so mass shootings or gassing in the backs of trucks with carbon monoxide (or even 'just' beating Jews to death in the street, or having their neighbours do it) was not going to solve the 'problem' of European Jewry for the Nazis.

Accordingly the Wannsee Conference proposed the industrialization and streamlining of a process that had already begun, in German occupied Poland, the Ukraine, the Baltic States, and the Crimea.