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Victims of Communism (lemmy.ml)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[+] -16 points 7 months ago* (3 children)

The Kulaks killed by the Soviets were primarily Ukranian, and many farmers who weren’t Kulaks were still branded enemies of the state to deport them and kill off Ukranian independence and culture. It is clear they were not trying to preserve Ukranian culture, but to subvert and replace it and use the valuable agricultural land.

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  • [–] 19 points 7 months ago*

    The slave owners killed by the northerners were primarily white southerners that tortured and killed slaves. Kulaks were not an ethnicity to be targeted for eradication, but a class that often violently resisted collectivization. Kulaks that complied were largely left alone.

    As I proved to you, the soviets actually supported the preservation of Ukrainian identity, which was oppressed by the Tsarist empire. The soviet union was a multinational federation, it was in everyone's interests for people to not starve, as you need people to farm. Russians were not trying to replace Ukrainians, a naturally occuring famine was made worse by kulaks resisting collectivization. After collectivization, crop yields were higher, and famine eradicated.

    You are parroting literal Nazi propaganda.

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  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    If that was the intent, why were they given their own Soviet Socialist Republic and not just folded into the Russian one? Would-be conquerors don't give statehood and political autonomy to the people they're trying to erase and absorb.

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  • [+] -9 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Clearly this process was not successful. If the Soviets were not trying to directly control the land and people to slowly assimilate, why wasn’t Ukraine a satellite republic like Poland?

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  • [–] 16 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Because "soviet" isn't a nationality, but a multinational federation of socialist republics.

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  • [+] -9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Then why leave Poland out of the union but not Ukraine. Unless you want direct control over the land and want to replace the people to consolidate that control.

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    The Polish People's Republic wasn't a member nation of the soviet union, but was a member of the Warsaw Pact. That's like asking why Cuba was left out of the USSR. You're deeply unserious.

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  • [+] -7 points 7 months ago (1 child)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago

    Ukrainians had control and autonomy as the Ukrainian SSR. They were not a target of genocide either, these claims are utterly unsourced and originate with the Nazis.

    The soviets tried to preserve Ukrainian culture while establishing a common "soviet identity," in line with being a multinational federation.

    The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:

    From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.

    Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.

    The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.

    Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN

    Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.

    There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].

    Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.

    Comrade Kosior!

    You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation invillages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?

    Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.

    Sincerely, J. Stalin

    The origins of such a story of forced starvation came from the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in 1933. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. We are not qustioning the legitimacy of the famine, but whether or not it was intentional, which all evidence post-opening of the soviet archives points to it not being intentional.

    We are having this conversation because you believe Nazi propaganda, and distrust historical evidence.

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    If the Soviets didn't give the Ukranians statehood and autonomy, it was to murder and replace them. But when in fact they did give them statehood and autonomy, it was somehow also to murder and replace them. You are operating on an unfalsifiable orthodoxy where if the Soviets did something, it had to be for nefarious purposes simply because the Soviets did it.

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  • [+] -6 points 7 months ago (2 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    and have now convinced you of their narrative.

    This is something that you guys can never explain. I live in America, in the most concentrated hotbed of anticommunist propaganda the world has ever seen, and have never encountered so much as an old Soviet TV show. How the fuck did they "get" me? Countless billions of US government dollars and a century of red scare propaganda have gone towards trying to turn me into someone who froths at the mouth with rage upon hearing the word "socialism". There are entire government initiatives, think tanks, and NGOs dedicated to spreading anticommunist propaganda throughout the world. What is the equivalent of that for a state that has not existed for longer than I've been alive? What does Occam's Razor say about who is more likely to be the propagandized one in this situation?

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago

    The soviets did not force assimilation, nor erase Ukrainian culture, not force a famine. Ukraine was a soviet republic in the multinational USSR, with its own preserved culture. "Soviet" is not an ethnicity, but was a multinational identity. The origins of such a story of forced starvation came from the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in 1933.

    None of us are falling for propaganda here except for you.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    many farmers who weren’t Kulaks were still branded enemies of the state to deport them and kill off Ukranian independence and culture

    If the USSR was trying to kill their culture, they weren’t very good at it, because Ukrainians are still speaking Ukrainian to this day.

    It is clear they were not trying to preserve Ukranian culture

    but to subvert and replace it and use the valuable agricultural land.

    No shit. That’s the point of socialism: to expropriate bourgeois private property and redistribute it to the masses.

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  • [+] -8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    If the USSR was trying to kill their culture, they weren’t very good at it, because Ukrainians are still speaking Ukrainian to this day.

    Taking this argument in isolation, it's the same argument used today to say Israel isn't conducting a genocide. "If Israel wanted to genocide Palestinians, they aren't very good at it, cause only 70K killed."

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    1. Taken in isolation, THIS argument could be used to cast the Allied invasion of Italy in WW2 as a project of genocide. They did kill a number of Italians, after all.

    2. Does Israel recognize the state of Palestine?

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  • [+] -11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    1. But did the allies attempt to destroy Italian culture, language, and identity, along with systematically killing Italian civilians?

    2. Does it matter what Israel thinks?

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  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago

    1. What evidence do you have to justify your assertion that Ukrainian culture, language, and identity were targets of destruction?

    2. In this case, yes??? If we're setting out to prove intent to commit genocide, both the actions and rhetoric of the accused are pretty important evidence. You don't really get one without the other, the rhetoric is necessary to justify the actions to the people who will ultimately have to commit them.

    Recognizing statehood is a pretty base level of recognizing the humanity and sovereignty of those that occupy it, which the USSR would not have done for Ukraine if their intent was to wipe out the Ukrainian culture and national identity and replace it with Russian identity. As evidenced by Israel, genocidaires prefer their victims as defenseless and disorganized as possible. Colonizers don't recognize borders on land they seek to colonize. Israel has denied and undermined Palestinian statehood at every stop, literally rewriting history to support their narrative, because allowing Palestinians to have a state with any level of recognized sovereignty would be wholly counter-productive to Israel's colonial project.

    So how do you explain Ukraine being granted statehood within the Soviet Union? If, by your account, the USSR went to all this trouble to brutally cleanse the land of Ukrainians and their culture by means of starvation, why did they then just leave the land to be looked after by a Ukrainian state? Why did they give up on this ambition for Russia to occupy Ukraine? Where else have you ever seen a colonizer just up and leave a colony, still mostly occupied by natives, and grant those natives full statehood in their union??? What you're claiming just makes no sense when put into greater context.

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  • [+] -10 points 7 months ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Every year since 1929 has seen the publication of more books in the Ukrainian language than were published in the whole 118 years before the Revolution.

    What a novel way to attempt to wipe out a language, publishing books in it.

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