History - The Ukrainian Famine

Joe Castro · 08-27-2008, 02:22 AM

You could be forgiven for holding the belief that the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 happened because of the failures of communism, socialism or the ruthlessness of Stalin. After all that is what the history books and media tell us, isn't it ? But what we hear little about is how these history books were compiled and what evidence they used.

So who did gather the evidence against the Soviet Union that the west uses ? Well none other than the Nazi propagandists under the stewardship of one Joseph Goebbels. We are often told about the power of the Nazi propagandists and their appetite for mistruths, half truths and outright lies. So it is no surprise that the capitalist powers would like to keep quiet their involvement in the compilation of our history books. It was Nazi propagandists who supplied American collaborater William Randolph Hearst with falsified photagraphs and documents. Even though a known Nazi collaborater by the US government, his testimony would become the basis for our 'knowledge' of the famine.(http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/famine.htm)

What this shows is not that a famine didn't occur, of course it did. But what it shows that what we accept as truth is most likely not so. Is it really the case that the Soviet Union wanted to commit genocide on its citizens or that it was a result of collectivisation being a blunder ?

It is unlikely it is the former given that before the famine Stalin had predicted the Union would be invaded by a Capitalist power. So it would be strange to deplete so much of your man power knowing war was looming. Losing millions of your population is not the best way to prepare for such a war.

Neither was it the latter. Collectivisation was a necessary part in the preparation for invasion. Collective farming meant the government could control what was grown and where it went. This was crucial in the industrialisation of the state, prepared for invasion and laid the foundations for the building of Socialism. If the state had not collectivised to feed the workers and trade for machinery then there would be no state left.

An interesting fact the media don't like us to know is the role of the peasants in the famine. " They slaughtered their cattle, smashed implements and burned crops....18 million horses had been slaughtered. So were 30 million large cattle, about 45% of the total, and nearly 100 million, or two thirds of sheep and goats. Vast tracts of land were left untilled." Isaac Deustcher

So it turns out it wasn't Socialism that caused the famine. It was the peasants. With the intention of holding on to the land and making personal profit they sabotaged the plans of the state to drive Socialism forward and prepare for invasion. Fortunately their plan didn't work, the drive to the speediest ever industrialisation of a state continued and the USSR saved the world from Nazi tyranny. Unfortunately and shamefully though they did succeed in killing millions of their fellow people

References :

Fraud, Famine and Fascism, The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard by Douglas Tottle

Stalin, a Political Biography by Isaac Deustcher

http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/node69.html

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/famine.htm

wanna be drummer · 08-29-2008, 01:02 PM

Not the greatest sources I've ever seen..

7960 · 08-29-2008, 05:49 PM

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

...... and the USSR saved the world from Nazi tyranny.

you need to take this show on the road. don't forget to end with "please, tip your wait staff!"

JaJae · 09-04-2008, 08:18 AM

Ukranian famine....

Famine isn't incommon unfortunately.

Health consequences of Cuba's Special Period -- 179 (3): 257 -- Canadian Medical Association Journal

Manuel Franco and colleagues have analyzed some of the health consequences of Cuba's socioeconomic collapse in 1990–1995, when the country lost the funding from the Soviet Union on which it had relied for the previous 30 years.1,2 During this period, Cubans essentially experienced a famine: adults had an average daily protein intake of 15–20 g and lost an average of 5%–25% of their body weight. Franco and colleagues neglected to mention many of the negative physical, mental and social consequences of this so-called Special Period.

The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s. Both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed; priority was given to the elite classes and the military.3 In North Korea, 3%–5% of the population died; in Cuba the death rate among the elderly increased by 20% from 1982 to 1993.2,4 Thirty thousand Cubans fled the country, and thousands of these emigrants drowned or were killed by sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. Cuba finally accepted US donations of food, medicines and cash in 1993, and a system of private farmers' markets was set up in 1994 to provide easy access to locally grown food.

In Communist China:

The Great Chinese Famine (Chinese: 三年大饑荒), officially referred to as the Three Years of Natural Disasters (simplified Chinese: 三年自然灾害; traditional Chinese: 三年自然災害; pinyin: sān nián zì rán zāi hài), was the period in the People's Republic of China between 1958 and 1961 characterized by widespread famine. According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period. Unofficial estimates vary, but are often considerably higher. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who spent over ten years gathering information available to no other scholars, estimates a toll of 36 million.[1]

Great Chinese Famine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can go on and on to show how Communism has a much worse track record.

Phantom · 09-04-2008, 10:43 AM

If you threatened to take the fruits of my labor by force, I would prefer to destroy those fruits before handing them over to you as well.

The reason collectivism is rightfully blamed for the most horrible famines the world has known is that it takes the fruits of labor from those who earn them and eliminates the incentives for anyone to earn anything, since the harder workers will be no better off than the slackers.

I guess you could blame the peasants for each famine, but the undeniable fact is that in each case the famines would not have occurred without government mandated collectivism.

7960 · 09-04-2008, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Phantom

If you threatened to take the fruits of my labor by force, I would prefer to destroy those fruits before handing them over to you as well.

The reason collectivism is rightfully blamed for the most horrible famines the world has known is that it takes the fruits of labor from those who earn them and eliminates the incentives for anyone to earn anything, since the harder workers will be no better off than the slackers.

I guess you could blame the peasants for each famine, but the undeniable fact is that in each case the famines would not have occurred without government mandated collectivism.

This is why collectivism won't work.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs; in other words, redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?” She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her father asked her, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend Audrey, who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That’s a crazy idea. How would that be fair? I’ve worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work. Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

And her father said, "Welcome to being a conservative."

Of course they'll say it's not working because the girl wasn't willing to give up 1.0 off her GPA and they'll miss the real message.

Joe Castro · 09-04-2008, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by 7960

This is why collectivism won't work.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be very liberal, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs; in other words, redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?” She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her father asked her, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend Audrey, who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That’s a crazy idea. How would that be fair? I’ve worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work. Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

And her father said, "Welcome to being a conservative."

Of course they'll say it's not working because the girl wasn't willing to give up 1.0 off her GPA and they'll miss the real message.

That's a rather long winded way to rip off the Nozick argument.

Of course the analogy is completely wrong. It's comparing apples and oranges. Grades are not a neccessity to life, food is. You may think that your wealth means you deserve food more than a pennilless African. People with morals flatly reject this.

What a socialist would ask for with grades is equal access to the means of acquiring good grades. That is something capitalism canot provide.

Food is very different. Food is a pre-requisite to life. On that basis, particularly in times of shortage there should be equal access to it. Only those who believe that the wealthy have a greater right to life than the poor would argue otherwise. That is what the self interested farmers in the Soviet Union believed, hence the famine.

7960 · 09-04-2008, 02:47 PM

how did you go from "a worker owns his means of production" to "food is a right"

?

Angus_Aboot · 09-04-2008, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by Joe Castro

Food is very different. Food is a pre-requisite to life. On that basis, particularly in times of shortage there should be equal access to it. Only those who believe that the wealthy have a greater right to life than the poor would argue otherwise. That is what the self interested farmers in the Soviet Union believed, hence the famine.

Didn't private farmers in the Soviet Union produce between 1/3 to 1/4 of all agricultural produce, despite never using more than 4% of the cultivable land?

Joe Castro · 09-05-2008, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by 7960

how did you go from "a worker owns his means of production" to "food is a right"

?

I never did.

Sir John · 09-05-2008, 01:09 AM

Yeah, If they're so starved, how come their basketball team kicks so much ass?