Hacker News Reader

Comment by BugBrother | Hacker News Reader

Hardly a factor ten.

Holodomor, the great purge, the red terror, forced resettlements, Gulag... Values between 8 and 61 millions, depending on if the starving are part of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_r...

View on HN

Now, that (and specifically, 50+ M starved to death by the "regime") is a what I'd call a BS view :)

But merely the count of those executed during the "repressions" era / total count of Soviet civilian losses during WWII is less than 0.1 (and USSR was not the only side that has suffered from Hitler).

Bring your claims to the academic authors -- I quoted 8-61 million from the wikipedia page, which quoted the researchers.

The researchers seem to differ in, amongst other points, how much of the hunger was planned.

Quotes from the wikipedia page I referenced, with different researchers:

"Some historians attempt to make separate estimates for different periods of the Soviet history, with casualties for the Stalinist period varying from 8 to 61 million."

"Several scholars [...] put the death toll at about 20 million."

"no fewer than 15 million deaths"

"Wheatcroft excludes all famine deaths as "purposive deaths," and claims those that do qualify fit more closely the category of "execution" rather than "murder."[4] However, some of the actions of Stalin's regime, not only those during the Holodomor but also Dekulakization and targeted campaigns against particular ethnic groups, can be considered as genocide"

(About the last quote -- I don't get the difference of execution and murder, when it comes to farmers whose only crime were to have been born.)

Addendum to the last paragraph: I think the last researcher thought the ones killed through hunger were more random -- take most food from a population and you don't know exactly which ones will die. With murder, you are more specific. At least, I can't find any other way of reading that.

Again -- argue what your schools taught you (or whatever source you have for your claims) with the researchers on the subject, not with me. (Or go the popular way and claim that Wikipedia and/or all the academic research are in a conspiracy... :-) )

Edit: Anyway, as I wrote, the original point is that you can define living in the Eastern Bloc as slavery. The slave owners did whatever they felt like to anyone -- e.g. if individuals or groups complained about the situation or tried to leave. Torture, murder, genocide and throwing complainers into prison or a mental hospital. See Pussy Riot.

That was no more slavery than what was happening in the West in the same time (protesters being fired at, i.e.).

On the last phrase: have you seen Pussy Riot yourself? :) (not even asking if you've ever listened to them -- as no one did)

Regarding school knowledge -- I'll claim that the sources listed on that page are BS w/o even looking (although going one-by-one could by a truly fruitful exercise in myth-debunking, probably) -- you may compare the then population count to the figures you mentioned to get some initial suspicions.

>>That was no more slavery than what was happening in the West in the same time

Oh, please... Extraordinary claims need extraordinary support. Post a careful comparison.

We are back to the original point -- people had to be put in prison (with guards that shot people fleeing!) to keep them in. The borders and information were open in the West.

>>have you seen Pussy Riot yourself?

I've seen that in civilized countries, we don't throw people in jail for being blasphemous. (And what in H-ll has artistic quality have to do with that?!)

>> I'll claim that the sources listed on that page are BS w/o even looking

As I guessed: "Or go the popular way and claim that Wikipedia and/or all the academic research are in a conspiracy..."

Well, I have better things to do than argue with people claiming Wikipedia is a conspiracy which misrepresent the present state of research -- without knowing the subject enough to recognize the sources!!

That is a basic test for non serious debaters, sorry.

So bye.

>> Extraordinary claims need extraordinary support. Then just do it yourself regarding the "Eastern Europeans enslaved by Soviet leaders" one then! As illegally crossing a border will get you detained or fired at in almost any place now and ever, just as politically-motivated oppression is not a Soviet invention (i. e. McCarthyism, for ex.). Regarding the emigration-preventing regulations, that may be a perfectly understandable brain-drain prevention practice stemming from the difference in income equalities between the blocks (a qualified worker would sometimes earn more than the factory's manager to the East of the curtain, a scientist with a well-established career earned enough, too, but less than his colleague on the other side, most probably, and a humble cleaning lady was a complete different story, I'm sure).

Speaking of seeing PR, and the civilized practice: the folks in question are not "a rock band who dared to say no to the dictator from a Cathedral stage (in music!) and were imprisoned", but rather a group of political hooligans, known initially for a group sex orgy in a museum (and an another alike event, which I'll not describe here), who then performed several rush-into-cathedral-and-start-cursing-and-jumping-around-with-a-guitar (sound to be overlayed later) acts, until finally getting whoever saw this pissed off enough for the freaks to be handled to the police (and then, the infamous trial happened). (coming from your original "See PR" -- you may indeed go and see the pictures).

Regarding renowned Wikipedia researchers in question -- you don't have to be one to highly doubt their claims: with nearly every family in ex-USSR losing members during what is called The Great Patriotic War here (the total losses are officially > 20 M), both the collective consciousness of the nation, the witnesses still alive, and their families share the memories of the losses' severity. Same applies to the 1936-39 repression era (< 2 M executed being the official figure), the ratio of "official figure" / "perceived impact", most importantly, seeming to be close to that in the case of the War. Now, the events costing 60 M in human lives would have roughly x3 the impact of the War, and still there's nothing like that -- which brings to a conclusion of roughly a 60/20 * 20/2 == 30x hoax!

And don't you dare to say that living here, we "don't know the subject enough" :)

>>illegally crossing a border will get you detained or fired at in almost any place now and ever,

Leaving a border will generally not make soldiers shoot at you from the country you leave.

Being that locked in only happens to slaves and other prisoners.

And I think you know that.

>>Regarding renowned Wikipedia researchers

(I already noted that you learn differently in your schools, like most all other countries with recent atrocities in their history.)

Sorry, if you argue against wikipedia without even looking at research references I can't take you seriously.

I didn't read the rest.

>> Leaving a border will generally not make soldiers shoot at you from the country you leave. Is it really so? Which countries can be left safely this way, in view of the border patrols? :)

>> I didn't read the rest. Arguing through not listening may indeed be an effective (albeit a solipsistic) strategy, but not in a public discussion :)

"Your schools covering up recent atrocities!", and Russian leaders historically outperforming the West in enslaving nations -- is that really what you've been taught?

Again, what cover up are we talking of? You very much cannot sell a 60 M dead from famine story to anyone here, due to presence of alive witnesses -- but it obviously flies much better over the curtain and far away. What is taught builds on information declassified during the 90-ies, when "dozens of millions dead" claim was fashionable, but found no supporting ground, to quite a surprise of those insisting on access to relevant documents and their publication.

>> Which countries can be left safely this way, in view of the border patrols? :)

You knowingly misrepresent my point. That is the only argument you have left. Sad.:-(

People couldn't leave East Europe freely, unlike the democratic world. (Hell, Romania charged Germany/Israel to let German speaking and Jewish Romanians leave.) And if they tried anyway, they were shot down.

Again -- I stopped reading after the first paragraph. If you hand wave at references with links to real research, you're just not serious.

Well, in all seriousness, I cannot see what was misinterpreted; may be not reading after the first paragraph could shed some light? Your real research smells hoax, and one obviously needs to be on the other side of the ocean to not notice that. Continue not reading :)

>>Your real research smells hoax

Discuss that on the wikipedia page, by presenting other research.

Oh wait, you don't know any.

Bye.

Farewell discovering more shocking (but well-researched) truth on Wikipedia, keep up the good job believing in a cover-up of 50 M deaths from a 200 M population :)

Yet another misrepresentation of what I wrote.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8372340

Original link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_r...

Subtract 8 from 61 (best combined with trying to force yourself to read what you claim to not have had read above).

Good luck promoting your very own criteria for people being "slaves in a prison country", may be one day the meaning of terms will change enough for your original post (the one on the nations "enslaved" by Russian Leaders) to make sense :)

As you know: In my references, most researchers seems to be between 15-20 millions.

My definition of slave:

Someone living with no rule of law. No human rights. E.g. their property and lives can be taken on a whim by their rulers. They are not allowed to leave, or there are violent repercussions.

A typical communist state. And slavery.

What is unique with those criteria?

Ok, so we are down from the sensational 60+ M figures to 3-4 times less now, that's progress (still questionable figures though) :)

A "typical" communist state from 50 years may not give its people what a pedantic contemporary person would call a full set of "human rights", but would provide free education, medicine, and so on (not to mention lesser level of violent crimes often), how's that slavery?

[as regarding not being able to leave -- you can make an attempt and force yourself to read above on that -- difference in income equalities, forming a nice "brain drain potential" is a pragmatic reason to constrain emigration, not some mysterious appetite of "party leader" for eating their own people alive]

You know absolutely nothing about communism, so to say :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com