Thread for Che: Communism resurgent in Japan

[curtsibling]

Uh, millions?

Certainly more than a million - The Soviets claimed about 700k Kulaks liquidated.

So from that estimate, along with many millions that were sent to labour camps
or Gulags, we can extrapolate the numbers of victims must have been great...

Naturally, communist apologists will try to downplay the atrocity. It's
odd how everyone thinks the commies were incapable of mass genocide.

...

[chequita guevara]

The Kulaks never really existed. They were imaginary enemies cooked up by the Stalinists, which isn't to say there weren't well off peasants, but they weren't a class unto themselves.

In any event, the liquidation of the Kulaks as a class was not meant to mean their physical extermination. Very few of them were executed or shot. Most of them died because of bureaucratic ham-handed seizure of grain at the very time the crops failed. The liquidation of the kulaks was meant to be the collectivization of the farms, which would have turned the Kulaks into agricultural workers. If you transform a class of people into a different class, you have liquidated them as a class.

Also, the famine didn't discriminate by class or ethnicity. If you lived in the regions affected, death played no favorites. The famine hit the Don region particularly hard, and most of the people who lived there (in both Russian and the Ukraine) were Russians. The vast majority of deaths occurred there.

There was one class of people that were physically exterminated in modern history, the aristocracy. They were killed off by the bourgeoisie, however. So don't ride too high in that horse.

[chequita guevara]

Certainly more than a million - The Soviets claimed about 700k Kulaks liquidated.

So from that estimate, along with many millions that were sent to labour camps
or Gulags, we can extrapolate the numbers of victims must have been great...

Naturally, communist apologists will try to downplay the atrocity. It's
odd how everyone thinks the commies were incapable of mass genocide.

...

Except that you have almost no understanding of what actually happened.

[curtsibling]

OK.

And Germany was not beaten in WW1 either - The undefeated army was betrayed by cowards at home!

[chequita guevara]

Someone sporting an SS uniform shouldn't be quick to talk.

[chequita guevara]

Have you ever looked at the data from the Soviet archives?

I have.

[curtsibling]

Except that you have almost no understanding of what actually happened.

Oh? And naturally you do, of course.

I note your statement: "The Kulaks never really existed."
And I guess those all Jews in the holocaust were imaginary too?

I don't expect a self-styled communist to give an unbaised view on this matter.

Anyway - !
Continue with your obsolete political views...Don't mind me.

[curtsibling]

Someone sporting an SS uniform shouldn't be quick to talk.

It's a standard German army uniform, actually.

And that is my avatar, Che.

I am as much a living skeleton in WW2 garb as you are a small red toad.

(unless you are in fact a small red toad, in which case I apologise)

...

[curtsibling]

Have you ever looked at the data from the Soviet archives?

I have.

Of course the Sovs are going to give full uncensored accounts of their genocides.

As we all know, their government was famed for openness and truth.

(not to say that is not the case for any government)

...

[chequita guevara]

It's a standard German army uniform, actually.

And that is my avatar, Che.

I am as much a living skeleton in WW2 garb as you are a small red toad.

(unless you are in fact a small red toad, in which case I apologise)

...

I AM a small red toad!

[chequita guevara]

Of course the Sovs are going to give full uncensored accounts of their genocides.

As we all know, their government was famed for openness and truth.

(not to say that is not the case for any government)

...

The archives were the stuff that the Soviets wrote and kept secret. They were only accessible with the fall of the USSR. Lots of interesting stuff.

The Purges, which came after the Famine, killed some 800K people. You may be confusing your atrocities. Approximately 3.3 million extra deaths were recorded during the famine years, most of them from the Donbas.

Most of the people targeted in the Purges weren't Kulaks, but Communists. 2/3rds of the delegates to 1932 Congress of Soviets were executed, as were old Bolshevik leaders like Bukharin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev.

The biggest wave of deaths, however, occurred during WWII. About 4.5 million prisoners in the gulag system starved to death, as they were at the bottom of the totem pole for resources during the war. Given the shortages the whole country faced, I'm not sure that can correctly be laid at Stalin's feet. Most people in the gulags were there for real, not political, crimes. Course, 20% of millions is still a very big number, but most of the political prisoners were people like me: communists who oppose Stalinism.

[curtsibling]

I AM a small red toad!

Then accept my apologies, comrade!

[curtsibling]

The archives were the stuff that the Soviets wrote and kept secret. They were only accessible with the fall of the USSR. Lots of interesting stuff.

The Purges, which came after the Famine, killed some 800K people. You may be confusing your atrocities. Approximately 3.3 million extra deaths were recorded during the famine years, most of them from the Donbas.

Most of the people targeted in the Purges weren't Kulaks, but Communists. 2/3rds of the delegates to 1932 Congress of Soviets were executed, as were old Bolshevik leaders like Bukharin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev.

The biggest wave of deaths, however, occurred during WWII. About 4.5 million prisoners in the gulag system starved to death, as they were at the bottom of the totem pole for resources during the war. Given the shortages the whole country faced, I'm not sure that can correctly be laid at Stalin's feet. Most people in the gulags were there for real, not political, crimes. Course, 20% of millions is still a very big number, but most of the political prisoners were people like me: communists who oppose Stalinism.

Well, you make a good outline here.
Kudos for being anti-Stalin, too.

I will accept your WW2 deaths assessment, as it is mostly in line with
my own learning on this area. Well, leave it at that, as I guess the
topic is modern day Japan, and I dragged it away from that -

The floor is back to you, Che!

[chequita guevara]

You should have tried Cambodia, too late.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Thanks to this discussion, I wiki'd "Kulak".

Fascinating stuff. I knew the North Koreans had the "Loyal", "Wavering", and "Enemy" caste system, but I didn't realize it derived from the Soviets.

You live and you learn every day.