As for the case of Mao, it's not that hard to argue. A bad use of top-down bureaucracy and killing sparrows do not equate to communism nor socialism. These are just faults of Mao's party and leadership.
@@Echani3007 Mao was socialist as Lenin or Stalin, he was not perfect but I his "good" overcomes the "bad", if you know China and his context you know he already did what he could.
@@dorottagati6883 I know, and I won't forget his attitude regarding workers, which was far better than the Soviet perspective. But I won't forget such avoidable mistakes too. And the Red Gaurd. Seriously those guys are fucking batshit crazy. Also, Mao didn't need to alienate his nation. Forget Khrushchevs nasty policy, it was necessary he had some allies who could help China's difficulty situation.
When I look at the statistics of the ukrainian famine and the russian famines before the ussr, I can very much conclude that the difference is almost night and day.
@@sturmtruppen2353 it is not only a man defending communism, is a group of people who gathered a lot of different information from historians and brought them in a single video. Look at the sources in description: Sources: Davies, R.W., & Wheatcroft, S.G. (2006). Stalin and the Soviet famine of 1932-33: A reply to Ellman. Europe-Asia Studies, vol 58, No.4, pp.625-633.
Ellman, M. (2005). The role of leadership perceptions and of intent in the Soviet famine of 1931-1934. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 57. No. 6, pp.823-841. Ellman, M. (2007). Stalin and the Soviet famine of 1932-33 revisited. Europe-Asia Studies, vol 59, No.4, pp. 663 - 693. Kuromiya, H. (2008). The Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Reconsidered. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 60. No. 4, pp.663-675. Tauger, M.B. (2006). Arguing from errors: On certain issues in Robert Davies’ and Stephen Wheatcroft’s analysis of the 1932 Soviet grain harvest and the Great Soviet famine of 1931-1933. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 58, no. 6, pp. 973-984. Wheatcroft, S.G. (2007). On continuing to misunderstand arguments: Response to Mark Tauger. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 59, no. 5, pp. 847-868 Кабанов, В.Г. (2011). Зерновые ссуды во время голода 1932 1933 гг. В СССР. Известия Пензенского государственного педагогического университета им. В.Г. Белинского, (23). Кондрашин, В. В. (2009). Голод 1932-1933 годов общая трагедия народов СССР. Известия Пензенского государственного педагогического университета им. В.Г. Белинского, (15). Кондрашин В. В. (2010). Голод 1932 - 1933 гг. в Российской Федерации (РСФСР). Журнал российских и восточноевропейских исторических исследований, (1), 6-20. Леконцев, О. Н. (2010). Причины и последствия голода 1932-1933 гг. (на материалах Кировской области и Удмуртской Республики). Вестник Самарского государственного университета, (81), 170-173. Назаренко Н. Н., & Башкин А. В. (2016). Экспорт зерновых начала 30-х гг. Хх В. В контексте голода 1932-1933 гг. Новейшая история России, 3, (17), 105-120. Назаренко Н. Н., & Башкин А. В. (2019). Сорная растительность, болезни и вредители как факторы голода 1932--1933 годов. Самарский научный вестник, 8, 1 (26), 186-193.
@@hominideoconsciente5523 all sources from the past 15 years i wonder who funded the research for these sources tyou sound like a holocaust denier you are a fucking moron
I think one of the craziest claims regarding the soviet famines is that the soviet union actively tried to starve their own citizens. On a practical level, why would the soviet union - as a country that has been through 2 bloody civil wars in the immediate decade and a half prior, and a country which faced repression from nearly all major capitalist states - want to decimate their population through famine. If the soviet union were truly the tyranical despots they were claimed to be, then decimating their population would also decimate their production, and any capacity to defend themselves. The claim is that the soviet union was so cunning that it existed as a tyrannical expansionist movement on the one hand, but were also simultaneously too stupid to understand that they would destroy their productive capacity for their project in starving their population to death. Even if the USSR was a tyrannical state hell bent on the starvation of the peasantry, how would this benefit them in any way? Even the most despotic state aims to treat its civilians in a way that they are most productive - for example, look at the way Nazi Germany provide social reforms for white German citizens.
Haven't watched the video yet, but a quick look at Wikipedia shows that famines are common in Russia, even during the Tsar's reign. So are droughts. Which paints the picture that this was inevitable and not something caused by the government.
@@hornedgoddess8191 I'm pretty sure the Dust Bowl happened for different reasons than the 1932 famine. The former because of capitalist overproduction, and the latter because of reasons laid out here
@@devinward461 I mean isn’t it pretty clear? Mao had moronic ideas that had disastrous agricultural consequences. Killing sparrows caused a famine because the crops were eaten by insects sparrows would usually eat
You should also point out to census of 1937. Years before, 1934-1936, Stalin claimed that due to improved living standards, collectivization and industrialization population of USSR rose rapidly, saying that USSR has one new Finland every year (3 million) people. Gosplan also claimed that population in beginning of 1937 should be around 177-178 million people (+30 million from 1926). Soviet demographers claimed much smaller numbers, 170 million. On the peak of Stalin's preparation to deal with rightist opposition that spoke aginast rapid collectivization and industrialization (execution of Ryutin, case against Bukharin) Soviet government organized a census. It was done in just one day on Christmas eve when much of population was in transit. Result was only 162 million people. Head of Soviet demographers, Kraval, requested demographer Kurman to explain 8 million gap. He said that census was done harshly and 1 million people weren't recorded, that some 2 million people from Asia emigrated (over estimate but there were hundreds of thousands that escaped from Kazakhstan to China) that 1-1,5 million deaths weren't recorded in NKVD camps, exiles and military (overestimate as well) and that at least 1 million of deaths weren't recorded during famine. Kraval got arrested, put on trial and executed, while Kurman got sent to camp for slandering NKVD. Popov, Lenin's demographer that was sacked to to disagreement with Stalin in 1926 took up next census in 1939. Before this was done, Popov sharply warned Stalin that census won't show better results than one in 1937. In 1939 results showed that there was indeed under registration in 1937. Some consider this fraudulent but Wheatcroft and many other demographers think it was only thing that was fixed was recording much of NKVD exiles and prisoners in their original places of residence. Stalin accepted these results and census was published, mostly because in meantime most of rightist opposition got imprisoned or executed. This also shows that famine wasn't planned by Politburo or at least not on genocidal scale, otherwise they wouldn't have planned a census on a date when it could have been disaster for Poltiburo. Given that excess mortality to famines and diseases in 1930-1934 Soviet Union amounted to some 7 million (I disagree with with ADK estimates of 8,5 million given that there really was under registration in botched 1937 census) compared to other pre 1917 famines when "only" hundreds of thousands died we shouldn't absolve Stalin of blame. During harvest collection of 1932 he tried to get grain that reports showed that was there, but no one could find it. He was aware of famine, but blamed it on sabotages and strikes among peasantry as well as ex-kulaks hiding grain. Decisions to blacklist certain villages, forced requisition by brigades, heavy taxes to those that didn't meet quotas, prevention of migration to other areas and other decision in that period (August 1932 to January 1933) caused deaths of millions while otherwise "only" hundreds of thousands would have died.
I would like to add that the reason for the excessive demands with the peasants of their grain was due to the fact that Western countries refused to trade with the Union through gold, the "golden blockade" now traded and accepted only resources like grain. It was extremely necessary for the Union to purchase European and American machine tools for rapid industrialization in order to keep up with the same West. And because of such a trick, all subsequent events began like dominoes, Stalin tried to negotiate with the gold trade with Persia, but then it was too late, the famine happened, but the subsequent droughts were no longer deadly as in 1932. So the city can also blame the sanctions policy from Western "democratic" states. By the way, I would like to advise you to get acquainted with other material on the Ukrainian FAMINE (and not intentional pestilence) from a Russian-speaking communist colleague. ruclips.net/video/tUMLN73Pc14/видео.html
@@-1cm-546 He uses much of same sources as authors I use (Danilov, Wheatcroft...), but only partially. He really downplays a role of Soviet mismanagement and extreme decisions taken by Politburo
@@-1cm-546 You're seriously arguing that it was a good trade for millions of people to starve to death so the USSR could purchase machine tools with their food. ANYTHING but accept your pedophile cop hero Stalin and his little oligarch buddies were responsible for the deaths by their decisions.
More information is always an excellent thing. Thanks, comrade. I've definitely encountered too many fellow communists who feel the need to completely excuse Stalin's government of all wrongdoing in this matter, because they believe what he wrote was literally true. They convince themselves that MILLIONS of Ukrainian peasants were kulaks deserving to have their grain taken by force, as was Stalin's policy. It should be self-evident that is absurd - millions of people are not that stubborn. It seems it was the Politburo that was misinformed and problematically stubborn, and they do deserve the blame for much of the death toll. But not because of communism. No capitalist government would have treated this situation any better. If anything, this is a rare example of communist imperialism. This seems like a serious case for communist countries being more economically independent, as this whole thing amounts to the USSR not being structurally willing or able to drop grain quotas from Ukraine, making a bad famine much worse and creating a lasting grudge between the Ukrainians and the rest of the Soviets.
This was very even-handed; I appreciate that you presented the academic debates in context. I'm always stuck between cold war-era propaganda, and tanky arguments, which are often just as propagandistic.
the west was on the right side of the cold war. the tankies were shooting women and children dead in the basement of the lubyanka. there is no equivalence between them.
@@christophercolumbus1560 you are equating the worst atrocities committed by the tankies to the west - of course it’s not even close. It’s not like the CIA wasn’t also shooting people dead during the Cold War…
Ian, the old visual material used in this video is taken from archives of soviet propaganda… Also, post-soviet Russia has become a criminal regime, the regime, that still keeps communist party in power, but vigorously and systematically destroying democratic opposition. Soviet criminal past has been justified on all government controlled mass media. As result old generation is nostalgic about USSR. So, this video is not representation of reality, it’s propaganda!!!
A big part in intensifying the famine was the subpart Soviet (ML) agricultural and economic policy. The irrational approach at industrialisation and the rapid, forced, collectivisation without proper agricultural industrialisation (rotation of crops, mechanisation, ...) led to the overestimation of expected mechanisation, overconfiscation of grain from the collective farms over the previous years, and the shattering of the alliance with the peasantry (who still retained their petty burgeoise nature and were dissatisfied with the collective farms) Still, this video does a great job at shattering the myth of the holodomor and the "totalitarian evil absolute" rule of Stalin and the centrists On that note, comrade, I'd like to ask, what is your opinion on Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky?
You must put that in context. USSR was militarily and politically surrounded by the most powerful capitalist nations at the time. Besides, USSR (as you can see in its party history) considered that a war against them was imminent.
@@jacarandabahiano9833 that does not excuse the bad policies steemed from the incorrect analysis of the domestic and foreign situation, which only hurt the union and the revolution. Nor does the argument of "they did not know better" apply since there were quite a few people in the party who predicted its problems and offered considerably better ones
@@Kolokommouna this seem too severe to me. That was the first time the proletariat had to deal with this problem. Erros would be expected, but erros as of pioneers do. It's easy to say, now, which analysis were correct or not. I think we should concede more to the proletariat.
@@jacarandabahiano9833 those failures are derived by the effects of the bureaucracy and, until a point, the rich peasantry on the party. The Proletarian group predicted the effects of the multiple failures of the Stalin-Bukharin group, such as the scissors crisis and the kulaks withholding and burning crops
Many MLs underplay the mistakes of past socialist states, I appreciate the importance you place on analyzing the problems of these states, even if this particular video was less focused on that, and more focused on debunking liberal propaganda.
China wasn’t Maoist, it was Marxist-Leninist. Maoism is an advancement of ML theory synthesized by the Peruvian Communist Party and its chairman, Gonzalo. Modern-day China is a capitalist shithole of revisionism and social-imperialism.
@@sonofnyx9437 *Maoists are modern revisionists, they brought state capitalism to China. There was never a socialist state in China, nor a Marxist-Leninist government like Enver Hoxha's Albania.*
@Karl Marx technically no country (to my knowledge) is 100% fully and explicitly capitalist with zero socialized or non-capitalist for that matter features. A planned economy, the government doing stuff, poor but functional housing, and provision of some but absurdly minimal resources is not inherently socialist. Just like welfare isn’t and can be used as a tool to reinforce capitalism in the US. Plus allowing your working clsss to be exploited for pennies on the dollar in order to serve the supply chain and economy of global superpower so that uses their cheap labor to become said superpower, in the contingency that Chinese capitalists and state can in turn become wealthy and have a fat economy.. yeah not very socialist... I don’t remember that part of labor theory or the part of Marx and Engels where it ties that in
A video on collectivization and how Stalin actually managed to achieve this would be handy as well. When you Google collectivization mostly of what appears is that it was forced upon the people of the USSR and not helpful at all. Was it though, which incidentally I think is bourgeois propaganda? Or was it voluntary and if so how was it achieved if it was? Or all the above through some kind of form of conscription (like national service) and cooperation?
Addendum to the minutes of Politburo [meeting] No. 93. RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS OF THE UKRAINIAN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC AND OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (BOLSHEVIK) OF UKRAINE ON BLACKLISTING VILLAGES THAT MALICIOUSLY SABOTAGE THE COLLECTION OF GRAIN. In view of the shameful collapse of grain collection in the more remote regions of Ukraine, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee call upon the oblast executive committees and the oblast [party] committees as well as the raion executive committees and the raion [party] committees: to break up the sabotage of grain collection, which has been organized by kulak and counterrevolutionary elements; to liquidate the resistance of some of the rural communists, who in fact have become the leaders of the sabotage; to eliminate the passivity and complacency toward the saboteurs, incompatible with being a party member; and to ensure, with maximum speed, full and absolute compliance with the plan for grain collection. The Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee resolve: To place the following villages on the black list for overt disruption of the grain collection plan and for malicious sabotage, organized by kulak and counterrevolutionary elements: village of Verbka in Pavlograd raion, Dnepropetrovsk oblast. … village of Sviatotroitskoe in Troitsk raion, Odessa oblast. village of Peski in Bashtan raion, Odessa oblast. The following measures should be undertaken with respect to these villages : Immediate cessation of delivery of goods, complete suspension of cooperative and state trade in the villages, and removal of all available goods from cooperative and state stores. Full prohibition of collective farm trade for both collective farms and collective farmers, and for private farmers. Cessation of any sort of credit and demand for early repayment of credit and other financial obligations. Investigation and purge of all sorts of foreign and hostile elements from cooperative and state institutions, to be carried out by organs of the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate. Investigation and purge of collective farms in these villages, with removal of counterrevolutionary elements and organizers of grain collection disruption. The Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee call upon all collective and private farmers who are honest and dedicated to Soviet rule to organize all their efforts for a merciless struggle against kulaks and their accomplices in order to: defeat in their villages the kulak sabotage of grain collection; fulfill honestly and conscientiously their grain collection obligations to the Soviet authorities; and strengthen collective farms. CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS OF THE UKRAINIAN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC - V. CHUBAR'. SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (BOLSHEVIK) OF UKRAINE - S. KOSIOR. 6 December 1932.
For all those who are interested have a listen to the podcast "Stalin: A Marxist-Leninist Perspective" from Revolutionary Left Radio who is joined by Justin and Jeremy from Proles of the Round Table. They talk about the Kulak's and collectivization. They start discussing this around half an hour in. It's actually very interesting. In fact, the whole podcast is also very interesting and worth listening to.
It was forced and the kulak death toll illustrated how far a communist regime can go without any repercussion. After all, in communism, the state rule like feudal lords over the nation
Time stamps 3:16 “There might be a famine approaching, we better release prisoners, and also then more people can work in agriculture” Scholars hear “Lets intentionally stop deportations to create a famine” 5:22 famine for the tzar only progressive; famine in socialist era demonstrates a failure and return not a necessary evil 7:00 claim Stalin knew a famine would come and so intended it. Assumed implementation of industry would increase harvest conditions , but meteorological and environmental factors led to 2 negative harvests ( not to mention post war ) 7:10 mistake- machinery ≠ obvious increase in crops. Serious misunderstanding of harvest conditions and agriculture 8:00 rations to countryside and Ukraine 8:20 drop grain exports , only export for binding int’l contracts 9:00 import agreements from others not fulfilled; sanctions and forced int’l grain agreements 11:40 proof of attempts to mediate famine 14:20 threat from Japan 20:19 targeted attack 20:34 death rates a common tragedy and aid received 22:40 not intentional and attempted to alleviate, though Soviet policy inadvertently exacerbated or caused the problems
the western history websites narrate the history of the famine without mentioning the material conditions of the society back then which were complex factors . they follow the method of spreading lies till they become facts just by repetition . what amazes me is how they connect the famine even if we say the result of personal desire of stalin with socialism as a socio economic system ( production and distribution ) ... these ass holes are really annoying and that specific topic will be on my homemade studies list as i tend to make an encyclopedia about marxism for beginners and reaponses to the most arguments about the soviet union and other socialist states in the past .
Yeah Stalin simply clumsily increased demands on Ukraine which was already known to be struggling food wise, and then prohibited people from Ukraine from leaving, silly Stalin. While then being smart enough to dedicate the entire soviet media complex to covering up any mention of foul play. Nope not intentional Definitely can’t find Russian secret police documents specifically stating its purpose is to “break the wills of Ukrainians” While many other communications even with Stalin himself show their for some reason more focused on talking about the potential threat of Ukrainian independence rather than the fact hundreds of thousands are dying as a direct result of their policies.
Thank you so much for this. The fact that the Holodomor issue is considered unanimosuly by Western media and think tanks as a deliberate attempt to erase ukranian dissidence makes it difficult to hear other perspectives or even to take seriously a different scenario, because honestly sometimes it is hard to not believe a repeated argument. But I think this video shows the nuance of the situation. Not everything has to be black or white, or in this case, outright overblown accusations vs denial of the famine. Again thank you for your research and please keep providing more historical content because for whatever reason you do it in a really ententaining and informative way.
Ugh, tell me about it. Western media also is constantly agreeing unanimously about the Holocaust issue, the Armenian genocide, the Great Famine in China, and other well documented tragedies. It’s almost like when something is unanimously agreed by academics and only rejected by apologists of dictators it might actually be true.
I read or saw a RUclips video about the Soviet and China famines, forgive me for not remembering my sources. What they said was that in Soviet Union went from an agricultural, to an industrial country, so he most of the workers from farms, to work in factories. And he also ordered that a predator, I cannot remember what animal it was, but ordered them to kill it, this disrupted the ecosystem and insects ate the crops, which caused the famine, later when China was under Mao's rule, he followed the same blueprint as Stalin when it came to agriculture.
if as your show details were relayed to us, we would have cried for stalin... bcoz in secondary school is when we hear stories of students of their grandmothers who cooked rice soup bcoz of drought that destroyed grains harvest... we were speechless knowing there were places much affected by drought/famine that experienced eating measured bowl of rice soup 3 times a day... i apologize to those who hate stalin... but people directly affected with famine understood stalin... mao never said stalin is bad... i am sorry, nobody can change my mind on this...
@@proximaism I’m interested in what you mean - as far as I can tell, this video is merely showing the non-Marxist positions on the nature of the 1932-1933 famine, and how some historians have stronger arguments than others
@@proximaism he literally brought up scholars of the field that probably don’t even know what Reddit is. Just because someone else mentioned most of the same stuff and some brain let ideologues on r/badhistory used conquest doesn’t mean anything.
I'm goin gto need to save the video link for every time someone says "But Stalin starved millions in Ukraine!!!1!11!!" The fact that the broader academic community accepts that this was not the case is proof enough. This was an excellent video.
Broader academic community only recently started accepting the facts of Stalin's death by hunger in Ukraine. For a long time western academics thinking was shaped by the limited materials made available by Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, which thoroughly whitewashed this genocide.
I am sorry, you are wrong. The broader academic community does not accept that. Why do you think the video cannot quote a single non-Russian source after 2006 though there are plenty?
Nope, Stalin was very beloved by the vast majority of the Soviet people and in the international communist movement. He was and is only regarded as controversial in the capitalist/imperialist US/EU and their puppet states. During his lifetime even Social Democrats from most countries held him in high regard. If the capitalist ruling class and Fascists would have liked him that would not shed a very good light on him, would it?
@@pablobarroso7193 I think it's great that you ask and want to educate yourself in an unbiased manner! But from the top of my head I only know a few sources that I think are factual and unbiased. I would need to check for more. But what I will list below is surely more than enough for a beginner. Read "Another view of Stalin" by Ludo Martens. I found it as a free PDF online (in German that is). This is a must read if you really want to learn about this topic. If you don't mind that it was published in the Soviet Union and the chapter "On Dialectical and Historical Materialism" was written by Stalin himself, then I would wholeheartedly recommend reading "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) :Short Course". Then there are of course all the books by Grover Furr. He did deep and systematic research into all the accusations about Stalins alleged crimes. He exposes all the western propaganda and supposedly academic works on the topic for what they are. That is mostly lies without any evidence to back them up. If you don't want to spend so much time, check out the RUclips channels "The Finnish Bolshevik" and "Hakim". Just type in the names plus Stalin. There is much more on the topic and times to find there if you scroll through their list of videos. Grover Furr has many of his lectures and talks on RUclips. Check them out too. But it seems to me that you are new to the topic of Marxism, actually existing Socialism, the history of the socialist and workers movements and the like. If you read books on those topics from and about the period you will see that what I stated in my above comment is true to the letter. For example the SPÖ, the Social Democratic party from my home country Austria, didn't join the communist international, but critically supported the Soviet Union throughout the Stalin Era. Party members and leadership visited the USSR under Stalin regularly and they never expressed anything but admiration for him and the socialist revolution and state in the Soviet Union. The vast majority of workers and the labor movement internationally in general felt the same. Only small factions of it did not. This all slowly changed because of the Cold War and after the death of Stalin(who was not an autocratic dictator, but always had the majority behind him in all the policies he enacted) and through the putsch by Krushchev, who broke with that tradition of socialist democracy and the Soviet constitution and came to power through a military coup, this all changed very fast and the demise of the Soviet Union and the international communist movement began. I hope you learn, learn, learn and that you find what you're looking for and educate yourself about factual history instead of swallowing the capitalist /imperialist propaganda of heavily biased pseudo academia and pseudo documentaries. Wish you all the best! BTW, if you are interested in Marxism in general and Marxism-Leninism in particular I can really recommend "The foundations of Leninism" and" Questions of Leninism" by Joseph Stalin! Those are very short and easily understandable works about those important ideas, that don't add any new theory , but just summarize the works and ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin in a manner that is very easy to comprehend for beginners.
@@maxmeggeneder8935 I'm a learning ML. This video and comment really helped me more. I have to have physical books due to my ADHD, but thank for the recommendations (even if it was towards someone else).
@@aworldtowin80 I am very glad that you found my recommendations helpful! It gives me joy that my comment inspired you to learn ML and helped you in your study. I don't know where you live. All the books I recommended are available in university libraries here in Austria and I'm sure in most other European countries. You can order them pretty cheap, maybe second hand, online. If you want to learn ML philosophy, political theory and economy, I would stick to Stalins works "Foundations of Leninism" and "Questions of Leninist". Also the history of the CPUSSR(B) short course. Which brings me to the next topic. If you are interested in ML history the "short course", which is actually not that short is a great introduction. The books 9f Grover Furr if you are interested specifically in Stalin. And I have to stress that the works of Michael Parenti are most helpful, especially for beginners. If you have any questions or want book recommendations on certain topics I'm happy to help. Ordering those books is great, if you stay clear of Amazon. But it is much better to approach ML or MLM groups or parties, that often have their own libraries, if you want to learn or better yet become organized. Just search online for communist groups in your area. If you don't know which group to approach I can try to assist you with that as well. Just stay clear of Trotzkist ones, social democrats(often call themselves "Democratic Socialists" in the US) and Anarchists if you want to learn about anything related to Marxism, because they can be very judgemental and will try to convert you with bourgouis propaganda talking points. In the revolution there is a place for everyone. Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!
5:33 While i do agree to that though You have to consider the fact that most of the holodomor[the part often talked aboit] happened in ukraine, the percieved (by Stalin) hotbed of ukran8an nationalism, he himself has stated multiple times that ukrainiens were untrustworthy, even saying that ukranians moving to moscow in search of food was an act of propaganda, which i need not say more about. [Search the multiple letters that he sent, or look for firsthand sources if you want]
Meanwhile: the most untrustworthy Ukrainian nationalists were from the parts of Ukraine, liberated from Polish occupation. Majority still joined the Red Army, despite being supposedly genocided by Moscow and having a chance to join Nazis as national saviours.
the only way a marxist can convince people of his ideas in our day and age is to hide them in word soup and hope nobody notices what's going on. it's an interesting tactic. derrida and foucault did this A LOT.
Hello comrade, we are a group of believers in Marx and Lenin from China. Could you allow us to post the video produced by your group on the Chinese intranet, of course we will cite the source of the video. If so, would you allow us to post it with the label “self-produced”? That way we can make a small profit.
The sources are all books. They are linked in the description so you should be able to find them on the internet and order them via Amazon. Or a local book store if you don't want to support Amazon.
You did a very good job in dispelling the genocide myth! I don't know what do you think about the purge and repression in the Stalin era. I think that these catastrophes were the result of a terrible civil war between Stalin and Trotsky and i also think that Stalin is not personally responsible for all the deaths that of course aren't milions... It will be great to see a video about these topics!
@@meneliki8709 you could search for the account made by the Finnish Bolshevik about the Moscow Trials or search for Grover furr book about the evidence of Trotsky collaboration with German and Japanese government. There you will get some insights.
I saw some videos lately ( which I now think was likely propaganda) which claimed the man put in charge of agrarian issues, early on, was an anti science nut. Do you know about this? Sorry but I don't recall his name.
There's a lot of information here that I wish was more commonly known. Thanks for providing it. I didn't hear it mentioned, but where would you put Lysenko's contributions to famine in all of this? Not specific to this video, but I've heard/read conflicting things about Stalin in terms of "was he even a socialist." Most notably, he undermined socialist revolutions around the world (China, Spain, etc) while siding with their national bourgeoisie, which Lenin (and pretty much any socialist at any time) would rightfully point out as being "anti-socialist." (Additionally, he apparently had photos and documents from Lenin's time doctored to fit his agenda.) On the other hand, there are things that happened during his tenure that were beneficial, including rapid increases in literacy, industrial and agricultural production, and other things that socialists would say "those are good." If you haven't already, could you do a video that looks at the big picture of "was Stalin a socialist or an opportunist" by considering the arguments and available data/sources? And if you already have, could you give a link or title? (RUclips is finnicky about links, so maybe just the title.) I'm of the view that Stalin was an opportunist, despite overseeing a lot of pro-social advancements, but I'm also torn over it because I recognize that things would have been very different if not for the intense interventionism of the U.S. and Europe following the 1917 February revolution. Further, I recognize that a government that does good things is not definitionally socialist unless it is the people themselves who are in charge via democracy (of the real sort, with public debates and direct representation in concentric circles encompassing more communities, as opposed to a republic, where the people merely vote for who will make the decisions) and direct participation in running things, which leads me to the view that the USSR was not a socialist country, but merely a (mostly) pro-social republic that rejected a market-based economy.
Hey stupid When Lenin sized power with his socialist backers the first thing he did was create a communist government and kill the socialist. Stalin followed in his footsteps. Every communist will be executed in self defense My property is not yours.
Being this ignorant in a time of easy access to information goes to show that people believe what they want to believe. The Soviets moved grain out of Ukraine while the people resulted to cannibalism
You are wrong .My wife’s family can tell you first hand what happened in the Holodomor The Soviets killed children for taking grain from the fields They took everything from the farmers until the “ Kulaks” were forced to eat their dead children You know know nothing about what you are talking
The intent was to lie and murder for political reasons There is no difference if the aim was to exterminate Ukrainians or just steal all their food for export But all the evidence proves the Russification was genocidal in essence for centuries
Stalin would never have starved ethnic Russians on a large scale Just for increased exports If it was inadvertent then Moscow residents would have also starved
I get kind of crestfallen by the pointlessness of bringing factual accounts to a debate that is largely decided on biases before the evidence is even introduced. Like no matter how solid our arguments are, the battle lines on communism are so starkly drawn already that you'll just get called a monstrous genocide denier no matter what. The contrivance of 'totalitarianism' to draw a symmetrical equivalence in supposed evil between Nazis and Communists is one of the most effective and thorough pieces of cold war propaganda and it's so hard to get past it and bring factual arguments to people who are ideologically, essentially, already communists, and just don't know it.
Brilliant video. Thank you. Would be good to post western manipulation (not getting to depth now) in the course of. events in USSR . Keep up your good work. ✊
I think the fact that famines happened regularly and periodically in Russia before 1932, is enough for me to conclude that even the more measured "unintentional but man made famine due to communist policies" is still also wrong. Obviously the rapid industrialization and collectivization (and the resistance to it by some) contributed to the famine, but they weren't the primary cause. Famines were going to keep happening in the USSR regardless, had it not been for the Soviet rapid industrialization policies. Even worse, If the USSR hadn't industrialized by the 1930s, Germany would've exterminated or starved them anyways.
Yeah Stalin was prophet and knew about Barbarossa in 1920-30s Would you accept death in unbearable pain because your crops were taken from you, by government for which you didn't vote and which denied you right to vote when it was given in 1917, so they would industrialise faster Would you? Would you wish it for your family members and friends? Be honest
My Ethnic German grandparents were vignerons in Vrasic/Werschetz on the Danube, next to Rumania, which adjoins Ukraine. In 1932 and 33 they did not pick a grape in those two years, and they lost their house and some of their vineyards. The distance to Lviv is roughly 700km. In other words, the 'famine' conditions in that part of Ukraine-the so-called Holomidor-extended to many areas of eastern Europe. The so-called US Academic scrutiny of these tragic crop failures is just US Cold War propaganda. And, naturally, it is so easy to shove 'Poor Ukrainians' down the gullets of Western sheople ever since the Cold War started and finished and continues in the minds of those fed Anti-Russian propaganda from their mothers' breast milk'. In the meantime, Congress is full of people like Schiff and Graham who are happy to continue its proxy war on Russia to 'the last Ukrainian'.
Do you believe that the USSR was a failure, or that this was merely one slip up in its history? It should be noted that there were famines in the U.S around this time in which many struggled.
I'd encourage everyone on this channel to look up Stephen Kotkin and interviews with on Stalin. Stephen was given access by the Russian government to the archives on Stalin.
I like how balanced this is, it critiques the liberal caricature of Soviet intentions but also avoids venturing into Soviet/Stalin apologia. Great work!
@@UmQasaann Shut up with your stupid social fascosm thesis. This bs is exactly what split the german workers and allowed the nazis to gain power without much resistance.
@@projectpitchfork860 Shut up and read a book for once in your wage/debt slave sorry ass, liberals and social democrats would rather choose fascism over socialism because fascism doesn't threatens private property and bend over to the ruling class selects and fund their fale as hell campaigns that they bought and paid for so they can give capitalism a human face!
I have heard stories about the Kulaks. A farmer class that resisted the Soviet model of collective farming. They burnt their own crops and needlessly slaughtered livestock rather than turn them over to the state.
So it was wrong to resist Moscow's economic command economy diktats, and a bunch of NKVD commissars controlling your life? If they already consider you a class enemy (and therefore not worth keeping alive), why bother helping those who hate you that much?
Well, Kulak workers actually were anti-communist or abti-Stalin activists who had not been successful in their activism and their exercise of speech. Them being deported to kulaks was punishment. Therefore, them rebelling and messing up what they were forced into working for and working with makes tremendous sense.
I might have missed it, but why aren't scholars like Norman Naimark or Timothy Snyder discussed? Ellman only considers the famine as a crime against humanity, no a genocide. I haven't done a lot of research on the topic, but even wikipedia mentions Naimark and Snyder (who believe it was a genocide), why not this video?
The famine might not have been intentional. But, this does not excuse the USSR for covering up the famine. The western nations had more than enough food for Ukraine, and they could have sent in massive amounts of foreign aid. Freedom of speech and information is important.
But the USSR could buy machines from the West only with grain payment due to the embargo, imposed by western powers. If you watch the video, you will know how the soviet government tried to send aids to Ukraine and they even reduce the export of grain and they imported also some food... But the west had no reason to help the USSR. They were already in the middle of a Cold War, as a canadian historian pointed out... (I don't remember his name now, sorry)
@@meneliki8709 You're missing the point. The USSR covered it up. It is wrong to restrict information and the freedom of speech for political points. "But the west had no reason to help the USSR." The US did provide food, medicine, and supplies to USSR controlled east Germans during the cold war. The U.S. did not expect payment. Even now, North Korea gets foreign aid from Western countries like the US. I do not know for certain whether or not the Western governments or Western private charities would have sent aid to Ukraine. I do think there is a high chance that SOMEONE would have given foreign aid. But with the USSR covering it up, there was 0% chance of foreign aid.
@@danielladner374 so your point about Ukraine is based on a speculation... I don't know if the US gives free aids to East Germany, could you indicate your sources? And even if they send them, they also tried any kind of tactics (even very criminal ones) to infiltrate and destroy the socialist governments (see for example William Blum, Killing Hopes or Tim Weyner CIA). And I never said that not having free speach is a good thing, and that's not even the topic of the discussion... The USSR still had some form of free speach and democracy (see the videos of Tovarish Edymion and FinnishBloshevik about these topics), but it also had the Great Purge and some form of repressions (the Soviet Union was still far from being a "totalitarian" state) that are not good of course, but they must be contestualized and that is not, again, the point of this discussion.
@@meneliki8709 The US gave huge amounts of food and economic aid from WW1 to the cold war. I don't think it is speculation to say that either the US, other countries or private charities were very likely to give aid to 1930s Ukraine if they knew about it. You can see some of the details of US foreign aid here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid#Cold_War Here is an example of the USSR accepting U.S. foreign aid for armenians: www.nytimes.com/1988/12/10/world/soviets-accept-us-aid-for-first-time-since-40-s.html "that is not, again, the point of this discussion." I am confused, do you not agree that the USSR covered up the famine? What I am saying is that the USSR forced people not to talk about the famine and shot Ukrainians that tried to leave Ukraine to find food. The rest of the world didn't even know there was a problem in Ukraine. I am saying this was bad and made the famine worse. If you support freedom of information, then shouldn't you condemn the USSR for shooting Ukranians that wanted to leave and lying about the famine? Especially when foreign nations could have sent food aid and saved millions? Just allowing Ukrainians to leave would have improved the situation. Even if for some reason no one in the the rest of the world decided to help Ukraine, the USSR still shouldn't have covered it up. Some details about these actions can be seen here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Aftermath_and_immediate_reception
@@danielladner374 still, the video debunk the man made argument... There are a lot of other sources that I could cite to you, but it's late so I think we could just stop here. But I want to point out some other things... The Ussr suppressed people that talked about the famine? If you read the letters that Stalin send to the local government, you will understand how the ukrainian rulers tried to hide the famine (or maybe they are too stupid to recognise it), but the central government didn't trust them and infact they tried to stop the famine, maybe they could have done better, but for sure the 1932 tragedy is not man made! And still, the aids argument is speculation (maybe a credible one) because there is no document or evidence that confirm a western aid for Ukraine in that case. And I don't think that the US aids were an act of charity, but they were probably a propaganda act because the US tried in any way to destroy the bolshevik revolution... They send troops in the russian civil war against the communists, they even reclute nazi in post world war 2 to deal against the USSR and they planned to bomb (with an atomic bomb) all the principal soviet and chinese cities... I mean didn't carry of the soviet people at all...
@@jeremikorybutwisniowiecki8333 if you were a comrade you'd know the earth is our home, borders are an instrument of manipulation for the owners to pit workers against each other.
В обществе, основанном на эксплуатации, высшей моралью является мораль социалистической революции. Л. Троцкий. Агония капитализма и задачи Четвертого Интернационала
What about the 4 million tons of grain taken from Ukraine and relocated to Russian cities in summer 1932? What about the hundreds of eye witness accounts of Soviet troops and police men seizing grain and anything edible in farming villages in the region in winter of 1932? What about the ridiculous grain quotas the state set which blacklisted hundreds of towns from receiving financial aid and food in Ukraine during the famine? Much of the aid you said was put in place, wasn't enacted until 1933 after nearly 3.8 million Ukrainians across Ukraine and the Khakasses, and 1.5 million people in Kazakhstan starved. Why did Stalin ban the foreign press from those regions during the famine? Why did the reporters who did sneak in get arrested and have their photos burned? Why did they arrest the people who did the 1937 census which showed a massive drop in the population of Ukraine? Most of the points that you used to "disprove" this were proven to be Soviet disinformation. The stats and numbers they provide don't match up with the reality. It's convenient how you left out a majority of the events, facts, and the thousands of pictures and documents proving that the people outside of Russia proper starved while the people in the cities of Russia got all of their food. Not to mention the resettlement program which took place after the famine which redistributed the farms of the dead to Russians?
This really isn’t a hill worth dying on, and I mean this in the most sincere way possible. Even if you’re trying to be nuanced, it just comes off as very sociopathic and is not at all a good look to go “it wasn’t genocide, it was incompetence” doesn’t matter, these people were still suffering in agony, just imagine being in a famine yourself. Would you still support your government? It also legitimizes much worse apologism even if you aren’t full on Tankie Juchepilled
Необходимо ликвидировать капитализм, частную собственность, конкуренцию, бюрократию, рыночную экономику, рынок недвижимости, риелторскую деятельность, рынок ценных бумаг, биржи, предпринимательство, маркетинг, рекламу. Слово "бизнес" пора забыть. Всё должно быть национализировано. Общество должно быть бесклассовым.
Да, ведь ты бомж и всем вокруг завидуешь, вот и хочешь стать рабом государства, чтобы оно наказало тех кто живет лучше тебя Лучше уж все будут мучатся чем только ты
It may have started as a natural famine but why did so many Ukrainians die from it compared to the rest of the Soviet Union? Regions in Ukraine with more Russians also got more food according to what I’ve heard. There could be other explanations though and it isn’t proof of intention. Famines also happened in other parts of the world and still do. Not accepting foreign help because it might make communism look bad is however not ok. It’s one thing if it isn’t offered but another thing if refused. I recently saw a video about farming in North Vietnam and in the south after the reunification. It explained how their small personal plots produced more than the collective farms because people were incentivised to work harder when it was their land and they only did the bare minimum at the collective farms and then went to tend their own land. People tend to care more when it is their land not belonging to the state or some corporation. The issue isn’t exclusively a problem for socialist nations as capitalist societies have people working for some corporation and you only do what is required and your bosses get the bonus if you manage to work harder.
"but why did so many Ukrainians die from it compared to the rest of the Soviet Union?" Because they did not in fact suffered more than the rest of the USSR. The republic that suffered the most from the famine was Kazakhstan, which lost 50% of its population. Also the Kulaks that were arrested were kept fed, which more than proves their starvation was not the fucking point.
"Communism created famine" is simply a substitution of concepts. If you didn't understand me, then read the following Capitalism created world wars, colonial system, african slavery, famine in Africa and India. Capitalism created genocide in America, post USSR globalism etc.
Yet you are not proving anything The argument here is in defence of the Holodomor being a genocide of a political source, Genocide can happen in capitalist regimes and so can expanded famines,[The Irish potato famine] Yet notice how In such a thing, what you argue for as communism gave incredible power and capability to commit such an act The British could not have forcefully starved the Irish with the same efficiency as the USSR for multiple reasons, not least of which is the ad-hoc system created in the 1917 revolution. If the British had allowed the importation of wheat in 1870 from America [ who I assume you are from] the famine would be far less devasting Blaming capitalism for colonialism and other things ignores the entire system that existed in the multiple eras of colonialism You are merely conflating what you believe to be a great historical narrative of capitalism vs. communism even when most of the governments that did colonialism were not capitalist in the modern day. Unrestricted capitalism lacking in any control or regulation will inevitably lead to the exploitation of labour by large companies. Unrestricted communism based on government control will also result in the exploitation of Labour by a central government that lacks any checks and balances upon it. [《Warning:Opinion》] The best system of government is one that safeguards human ideals set by the population while adjusting itself and its relation to the world based on circumstance, rather than blindly following a grand narrative that has been proven to cause famines. (See the Bengal and Chinese famines for examples of capitalist and communist-based famines, they are both similar and yet, diametricaly opposed, and both are just as terrifying).
So… a lot of natural factor influenced the bad harvest compeled with bad practices extended by the collectivization of farms and a late response of the government plus not wanting to increase too much the exports and not wanting to reduce too much the grain for the army and the cities resulted in the famine… It looks like, in a time of very bad conditions, central planning has more “friction” to react and that made all of this worse
I take slight issue with how this is argued and i wanna give context to why. I am currently in the process of getting a degree in history and have my basic classes out of the way so i dont wanna come off as someone just looking for an excuse to call it a genocide, i genuinely honestly want to get a degree in genocide studies and have been working at it for a few years now. I strongly believe giving Stalin agency by using his intentions as the mark of grievous destruction done to a people group completely misses the point. As someone who has studied 'Indian removal' as a policy I am familiar with the trappings of how a state justifies avoidable mistakes in policy when it produces genuine and extensive harm to minorities. Stalin putting the pride of collectivism before famine relief is a piece of a wider problem. The state is failing to respond properly to a problem that were it happening in the streets of Moscow would give greater pause to policy choices. This behavior is a part of any empire style structure that prioritizes a core culture and as a result the policy decisions will materially favor the survival of that internal power structure to the detriment of other not because of meticulous planning but as part of continued mismanagement. It wasn't only Ukraine but also Kazakhstan among others including some Russians. Even today the recruitment of minority communities threaten to shrink vulnerable indigenous populations while more 'valuable' towns are left alone more or less. As someone with a Lumbee father the lessons in history we talk about go deeper than intention, the way we think and talk about these things often times gives an agency to someone not fully in control of a wider tragedy, but for those who fall victim to whatever crime you want to call it, giving agency to intention does not change the outcome.
@@Doughtube no thats too simplified, giving agency entirely to Stalin fails out underline the interpersonal systems that can both worsen crises like this famine or tip itself into deeper horror. Genocide is possible when the wider society and state both exhibit the same pattern of "hedonistically self preservationist" behavior, I think a better historical label of genocide should go farther than the legal definition so its easier to explain the relationships and patterns that allow apathy in the face of a systemic wrong that, intentional or not, is a systemic threat to the survival of the state.
I’m not here to arguing one way or the other. I just want to say that for being one of the few people to respond with a reasoned argument that is clearly not founded on “commies bad.” I hope your studies go well and that you get to learn more about these topics.
@@brianbelgard5988 both are documented. the holocaust is a horrific crime on humanity - the "holodomor" is the thought child of banderites in US exile - everything documented and publicly available, fuck - even the mongols sent thousands of tons of helping goods to help the people in the starving regions - distributed and documented. The famin DID happen - throughout the wolga region, poland and czechoslovakia, but not because of reasons some nazi collaborants promote.
@@brianbelgard5988 comparing industrialized mass murder with weather induced mass famine requires not only delusion but brain acrobatic on olympic lvls
I'm only a third of the way through but I came here to arm myself with the facts of why there was a famine in the Soviet Union, how bad it was, who or what was responsible. Rehashing lame arguments appears unnecessary to me.
no wonder... it is said that time & time, mao say, only the head of stalin can handle & stabilize the chaotic times of russia & power struggle for the highest seat...
You guys should do something like this explaining the Chinese famine and the Great Leap Forward
"uh im in an argument on twitter could you give me some useful lies to throw around so i can retake my place clouding the air of history?"
@@christophercolumbus1560 You need a screen for that projection?
@@Zarastro54 apparently you need one comrade.
Because your reply to @Christopher Columbus was literally nothing but projection.
@@st.michaelofcigarillo2845 I don't think you know what projection is friend.
@@christophercolumbus1560 Kinda ironic considering western propaganda has been doing just that for the past 80 years.
On behalf of all of us who go through this "communism caused famines" debate, thank you.
As for the case of Mao, it's not that hard to argue. A bad use of top-down bureaucracy and killing sparrows do not equate to communism nor socialism. These are just faults of Mao's party and leadership.
@@Echani3007 Mao was socialist as Lenin or Stalin, he was not perfect but I his "good" overcomes the "bad", if you know China and his context you know he already did what he could.
@@dorottagati6883 I know, and I won't forget his attitude regarding workers, which was far better than the Soviet perspective. But I won't forget such avoidable mistakes too. And the Red Gaurd. Seriously those guys are fucking batshit crazy.
Also, Mao didn't need to alienate his nation. Forget Khrushchevs nasty policy, it was necessary he had some allies who could help China's difficulty situation.
Had to go through that shit last month lol
@@Echani3007 I mean the Mao deaths are incredibly over inflated anyways. like its fucking stupid. It doesnpeasants
You're getting much better at the doco format, love your stuff, keep at it comrade!
this video was hot trash full of the typical neomarxist propagandist strategies.
@@christophercolumbus1560 There's no such thing as "neo-marxism". kek
@@camaradamanuel5025 lol ok
@@camaradamanuel5025 nah bro it's like the matrix films
🤢
When I look at the statistics of the ukrainian famine and the russian famines before the ussr, I can very much conclude that the difference is almost night and day.
Yeah, the Ukrainian famine was much worse than anything that came before it in recent memory.
I wish you were there in the room for so many interviews I've heard with supremely confident academics that present such a simplistic view of events.
Can you do a vid on series of imperialist invasions following the revolution? I wanna know the players and their tactics.
THANK YOU! Finally, a sobber analysis insted of the "Evil Empire" style hysteria.
3/4th of the CheKa and OGPU was Jewish of course you find this a sober analysis
@@leviginsberg3022 What are you trying to say?
Jew use communism and left ideas as leverage to gain power
this will be my go-to resource on the 1932 famine from now, keep up the great work you are one of the best:-)
No please find a more non-partisan source don’t trust a man defending communism named the marxist project
@@sturmtruppen2353 it is not only a man defending communism, is a group of people who gathered a lot of different information from historians and brought them in a single video. Look at the sources in description:
Sources:
Davies, R.W., & Wheatcroft, S.G. (2006). Stalin and the Soviet famine of 1932-33: A reply to Ellman. Europe-Asia Studies, vol 58, No.4, pp.625-633.
Ellman, M. (2005). The role of leadership perceptions and of intent in the Soviet famine of 1931-1934. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 57. No. 6, pp.823-841.
Ellman, M. (2007). Stalin and the Soviet famine of 1932-33 revisited. Europe-Asia Studies, vol 59, No.4, pp. 663 - 693.
Kuromiya, H. (2008). The Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Reconsidered. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 60. No. 4, pp.663-675.
Tauger, M.B. (2006). Arguing from errors: On certain issues in Robert Davies’ and Stephen Wheatcroft’s analysis of the 1932 Soviet grain harvest and the Great Soviet famine of 1931-1933. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 58, no. 6, pp. 973-984.
Wheatcroft, S.G. (2007). On continuing to misunderstand arguments: Response to Mark Tauger. Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 59, no. 5, pp. 847-868
Кабанов, В.Г. (2011). Зерновые ссуды во время голода 1932 1933 гг. В СССР. Известия Пензенского государственного педагогического университета им. В.Г. Белинского, (23).
Кондрашин, В. В. (2009). Голод 1932-1933 годов общая трагедия народов СССР. Известия Пензенского государственного педагогического университета им. В.Г. Белинского, (15).
Кондрашин В. В. (2010). Голод 1932 - 1933 гг. в Российской Федерации (РСФСР). Журнал российских и восточноевропейских исторических исследований, (1), 6-20.
Леконцев, О. Н. (2010). Причины и последствия голода 1932-1933 гг. (на материалах Кировской области и Удмуртской Республики). Вестник Самарского государственного университета, (81), 170-173.
Назаренко Н. Н., & Башкин А. В. (2016). Экспорт зерновых начала 30-х гг. Хх В. В контексте голода 1932-1933 гг. Новейшая история России, 3, (17), 105-120.
Назаренко Н. Н., & Башкин А. В. (2019). Сорная растительность, болезни и вредители как факторы голода 1932--1933 годов. Самарский научный вестник, 8, 1 (26), 186-193.
@@sturmtruppen2353 Of course you'd day this without actually grasping the video.
if this is your source you will just sound like a holocaust denier you are a fucking piece of shit
@@hominideoconsciente5523 all sources from the past 15 years i wonder who funded the research for these sources tyou sound like a holocaust denier you are a fucking moron
Oh my god I wish those papers would be translated to english.... great video
Use google translate
Amazing video, comrade! Waiting for the next vid!
I think one of the craziest claims regarding the soviet famines is that the soviet union actively tried to starve their own citizens.
On a practical level, why would the soviet union - as a country that has been through 2 bloody civil wars in the immediate decade and a half prior, and a country which faced repression from nearly all major capitalist states - want to decimate their population through famine. If the soviet union were truly the tyranical despots they were claimed to be, then decimating their population would also decimate their production, and any capacity to defend themselves.
The claim is that the soviet union was so cunning that it existed as a tyrannical expansionist movement on the one hand, but were also simultaneously too stupid to understand that they would destroy their productive capacity for their project in starving their population to death.
Even if the USSR was a tyrannical state hell bent on the starvation of the peasantry, how would this benefit them in any way? Even the most despotic state aims to treat its civilians in a way that they are most productive - for example, look at the way Nazi Germany provide social reforms for white German citizens.
Haven't watched the video yet, but a quick look at Wikipedia shows that famines are common in Russia, even during the Tsar's reign. So are droughts. Which paints the picture that this was inevitable and not something caused by the government.
@@hornedgoddess8191 I am sure they would say Stalin struck a deal with the clouds not to rain...LOL.
@@JohnT.4321 Lmao. The famine of 1932 also happened around the time the Dust Bowl happened in the US.
@@hornedgoddess8191 Yipper
@@hornedgoddess8191 I'm pretty sure the Dust Bowl happened for different reasons than the 1932 famine. The former because of capitalist overproduction, and the latter because of reasons laid out here
Can you make a Video like this on trofim Lysenko and Maos so called sparrows Campaign?
Seconded, I currently don't know what to believe about either of those since I've only ever seen western sources talking about them
Yes please!
@@devinward461 I mean isn’t it pretty clear? Mao had moronic ideas that had disastrous agricultural consequences. Killing sparrows caused a famine because the crops were eaten by insects sparrows would usually eat
@@Andy-km1xp I don't think "Great revolutionary and thinker was just a braindead moron LOL" is a good explanation
@Jean Sanchez Mao did not just "make great economical theories" lol.
You should also point out to census of 1937. Years before, 1934-1936, Stalin claimed that due to improved living standards, collectivization and industrialization population of USSR rose rapidly, saying that USSR has one new Finland every year (3 million) people. Gosplan also claimed that population in beginning of 1937 should be around 177-178 million people (+30 million from 1926). Soviet demographers claimed much smaller numbers, 170 million. On the peak of Stalin's preparation to deal with rightist opposition that spoke aginast rapid collectivization and industrialization (execution of Ryutin, case against Bukharin) Soviet government organized a census. It was done in just one day on Christmas eve when much of population was in transit. Result was only 162 million people. Head of Soviet demographers, Kraval, requested demographer Kurman to explain 8 million gap. He said that census was done harshly and 1 million people weren't recorded, that some 2 million people from Asia emigrated (over estimate but there were hundreds of thousands that escaped from Kazakhstan to China) that 1-1,5 million deaths weren't recorded in NKVD camps, exiles and military (overestimate as well) and that at least 1 million of deaths weren't recorded during famine. Kraval got arrested, put on trial and executed, while Kurman got sent to camp for slandering NKVD. Popov, Lenin's demographer that was sacked to to disagreement with Stalin in 1926 took up next census in 1939. Before this was done, Popov sharply warned Stalin that census won't show better results than one in 1937. In 1939 results showed that there was indeed under registration in 1937. Some consider this fraudulent but Wheatcroft and many other demographers think it was only thing that was fixed was recording much of NKVD exiles and prisoners in their original places of residence. Stalin accepted these results and census was published, mostly because in meantime most of rightist opposition got imprisoned or executed. This also shows that famine wasn't planned by Politburo or at least not on genocidal scale, otherwise they wouldn't have planned a census on a date when it could have been disaster for Poltiburo. Given that excess mortality to famines and diseases in 1930-1934 Soviet Union amounted to some 7 million (I disagree with with ADK estimates of 8,5 million given that there really was under registration in botched 1937 census) compared to other pre 1917 famines when "only" hundreds of thousands died we shouldn't absolve Stalin of blame. During harvest collection of 1932 he tried to get grain that reports showed that was there, but no one could find it. He was aware of famine, but blamed it on sabotages and strikes among peasantry as well as ex-kulaks hiding grain. Decisions to blacklist certain villages, forced requisition by brigades, heavy taxes to those that didn't meet quotas, prevention of migration to other areas and other decision in that period (August 1932 to January 1933) caused deaths of millions while otherwise "only" hundreds of thousands would have died.
I would like to add that the reason for the excessive demands with the peasants of their grain was due to the fact that Western countries refused to trade with the Union through gold, the "golden blockade" now traded and accepted only resources like grain. It was extremely necessary for the Union to purchase European and American machine tools for rapid industrialization in order to keep up with the same West. And because of such a trick, all subsequent events began like dominoes, Stalin tried to negotiate with the gold trade with Persia, but then it was too late, the famine happened, but the subsequent droughts were no longer deadly as in 1932. So the city can also blame the sanctions policy from Western "democratic" states.
By the way, I would like to advise you to get acquainted with other material on the Ukrainian FAMINE (and not intentional pestilence) from a Russian-speaking communist colleague.
ruclips.net/video/tUMLN73Pc14/видео.html
@@-1cm-546 He uses much of same sources as authors I use (Danilov, Wheatcroft...), but only partially. He really downplays a role of Soviet mismanagement and extreme decisions taken by Politburo
Thanks
@@-1cm-546 You're seriously arguing that it was a good trade for millions of people to starve to death so the USSR could purchase machine tools with their food.
ANYTHING but accept your pedophile cop hero Stalin and his little oligarch buddies were responsible for the deaths by their decisions.
More information is always an excellent thing. Thanks, comrade. I've definitely encountered too many fellow communists who feel the need to completely excuse Stalin's government of all wrongdoing in this matter, because they believe what he wrote was literally true. They convince themselves that MILLIONS of Ukrainian peasants were kulaks deserving to have their grain taken by force, as was Stalin's policy. It should be self-evident that is absurd - millions of people are not that stubborn. It seems it was the Politburo that was misinformed and problematically stubborn, and they do deserve the blame for much of the death toll.
But not because of communism. No capitalist government would have treated this situation any better. If anything, this is a rare example of communist imperialism. This seems like a serious case for communist countries being more economically independent, as this whole thing amounts to the USSR not being structurally willing or able to drop grain quotas from Ukraine, making a bad famine much worse and creating a lasting grudge between the Ukrainians and the rest of the Soviets.
thank you, this is one of the most concise and to the point videos that still goes in depth on the matter
This was very even-handed; I appreciate that you presented the academic debates in context. I'm always stuck between cold war-era propaganda, and tanky arguments, which are often just as propagandistic.
the west was on the right side of the cold war. the tankies were shooting women and children dead in the basement of the lubyanka. there is no equivalence between them.
@@christophercolumbus1560 you are equating the worst atrocities committed by the tankies to the west - of course it’s not even close. It’s not like the CIA wasn’t also shooting people dead during the Cold War…
Ian, the old visual material used in this video is taken from archives of soviet propaganda… Also, post-soviet Russia has become a criminal regime, the regime, that still keeps communist party in power, but vigorously and systematically destroying democratic opposition. Soviet criminal past has been justified on all government controlled mass media. As result old generation is nostalgic about USSR. So, this video is not representation of reality, it’s propaganda!!!
It was absolutely not even handed.
This literally was a ta kid argument
A big part in intensifying the famine was the subpart Soviet (ML) agricultural and economic policy. The irrational approach at industrialisation and the rapid, forced, collectivisation without proper agricultural industrialisation (rotation of crops, mechanisation, ...) led to the overestimation of expected mechanisation, overconfiscation of grain from the collective farms over the previous years, and the shattering of the alliance with the peasantry (who still retained their petty burgeoise nature and were dissatisfied with the collective farms)
Still, this video does a great job at shattering the myth of the holodomor and the "totalitarian evil absolute" rule of Stalin and the centrists
On that note, comrade, I'd like to ask, what is your opinion on Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky?
You must put that in context. USSR was militarily and politically surrounded by the most powerful capitalist nations at the time. Besides, USSR (as you can see in its party history) considered that a war against them was imminent.
@@jacarandabahiano9833 that does not excuse the bad policies steemed from the incorrect analysis of the domestic and foreign situation, which only hurt the union and the revolution. Nor does the argument of "they did not know better" apply since there were quite a few people in the party who predicted its problems and offered considerably better ones
@@Kolokommouna this seem too severe to me. That was the first time the proletariat had to deal with this problem. Erros would be expected, but erros as of pioneers do. It's easy to say, now, which analysis were correct or not. I think we should concede more to the proletariat.
@@jacarandabahiano9833 those failures are derived by the effects of the bureaucracy and, until a point, the rich peasantry on the party. The Proletarian group predicted the effects of the multiple failures of the Stalin-Bukharin group, such as the scissors crisis and the kulaks withholding and burning crops
@@Kolokommouna who are you calling the "proletarian group"?
Many MLs underplay the mistakes of past socialist states, I appreciate the importance you place on analyzing the problems of these states, even if this particular video was less focused on that, and more focused on debunking liberal propaganda.
Great work! I hope that you make more regarding Maoist China and the current state of China!
China wasn’t Maoist, it was Marxist-Leninist. Maoism is an advancement of ML theory synthesized by the Peruvian Communist Party and its chairman, Gonzalo. Modern-day China is a capitalist shithole of revisionism and social-imperialism.
@@sonofnyx9437 based
Jacian Wynn Yeah I am
@@sonofnyx9437 *Maoists are modern revisionists, they brought state capitalism to China. There was never a socialist state in China, nor a Marxist-Leninist government like Enver Hoxha's Albania.*
@Karl Marx technically no country (to my knowledge) is 100% fully and explicitly capitalist with zero socialized or non-capitalist for that matter features. A planned economy, the government doing stuff, poor but functional housing, and provision of some but absurdly minimal resources is not inherently socialist. Just like welfare isn’t and can be used as a tool to reinforce capitalism in the US. Plus allowing your working clsss to be exploited for pennies on the dollar in order to serve the supply chain and economy of global superpower so that uses their cheap labor to become said superpower, in the contingency that Chinese capitalists and state can in turn become wealthy and have a fat economy.. yeah not very socialist... I don’t remember that part of labor theory or the part of Marx and Engels where it ties that in
A video on collectivization and how Stalin actually managed to achieve this would be handy as well.
When you Google collectivization mostly of what appears is that it was forced upon the people of the USSR and not helpful at all. Was it though, which incidentally I think is bourgeois propaganda? Or was it voluntary and if so how was it achieved if it was? Or all the above through some kind of form of conscription (like national service) and cooperation?
Addendum to the minutes of Politburo [meeting] No. 93.
RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS OF THE UKRAINIAN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC AND OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (BOLSHEVIK) OF UKRAINE ON BLACKLISTING VILLAGES THAT MALICIOUSLY SABOTAGE THE COLLECTION OF GRAIN.
In view of the shameful collapse of grain collection in the more remote regions of Ukraine, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee call upon the oblast executive committees and the oblast [party] committees as well as the raion executive committees and the raion [party] committees: to break up the sabotage of grain collection, which has been organized by kulak and counterrevolutionary elements; to liquidate the resistance of some of the rural communists, who in fact have become the leaders of the sabotage; to eliminate the passivity and complacency toward the saboteurs, incompatible with being a party member; and to ensure, with maximum speed, full and absolute compliance with the plan for grain collection.
The Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee resolve:
To place the following villages on the black list for overt disruption of the grain collection plan and for malicious sabotage, organized by kulak and counterrevolutionary elements:
village of Verbka in Pavlograd raion, Dnepropetrovsk oblast.
…
village of Sviatotroitskoe in Troitsk raion, Odessa oblast.
village of Peski in Bashtan raion, Odessa oblast.
The following measures should be undertaken with respect to these villages :
Immediate cessation of delivery of goods, complete suspension of cooperative and state trade in the villages, and removal of all available goods from cooperative and state stores.
Full prohibition of collective farm trade for both collective farms and collective farmers, and for private farmers.
Cessation of any sort of credit and demand for early repayment of credit and other financial obligations.
Investigation and purge of all sorts of foreign and hostile elements from cooperative and state institutions, to be carried out by organs of the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate.
Investigation and purge of collective farms in these villages, with removal of counterrevolutionary elements and organizers of grain collection disruption.
The Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee call upon all collective and private farmers who are honest and dedicated to Soviet rule to organize all their efforts for a merciless struggle against kulaks and their accomplices in order to: defeat in their villages the kulak sabotage of grain collection; fulfill honestly and conscientiously their grain collection obligations to the Soviet authorities; and strengthen collective farms.
CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS OF THE UKRAINIAN SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC - V. CHUBAR'.
SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (BOLSHEVIK) OF UKRAINE - S. KOSIOR.
6 December 1932.
For all those who are interested have a listen to the podcast "Stalin: A Marxist-Leninist Perspective" from Revolutionary Left Radio who is joined by Justin and Jeremy from Proles of the Round Table. They talk about the Kulak's and collectivization. They start discussing this around half an hour in. It's actually very interesting. In fact, the whole podcast is also very interesting and worth listening to.
It was forced and the kulak death toll illustrated how far a communist regime can go without any repercussion. After all, in communism, the state rule like feudal lords over the nation
@@AbdirahmanIdris-ku9xm "After all, in communism, the state rule like feudal lords over the nation" What does that even means?
Time stamps
3:16 “There might be a famine approaching, we better release prisoners, and also then more people can work in agriculture”
Scholars hear “Lets intentionally stop deportations to create a famine”
5:22 famine for the tzar only progressive; famine in socialist era demonstrates a failure and return not a necessary evil
7:00 claim Stalin knew a famine would come and so intended it. Assumed implementation of industry would increase harvest conditions , but meteorological and environmental factors led to 2 negative harvests ( not to mention post war )
7:10 mistake- machinery ≠ obvious increase in crops. Serious misunderstanding of harvest conditions and agriculture
8:00 rations to countryside and Ukraine
8:20 drop grain exports , only export for binding int’l contracts
9:00 import agreements from others not fulfilled; sanctions and forced int’l grain agreements
11:40 proof of attempts to mediate famine
14:20 threat from Japan
20:19 targeted attack 20:34 death rates a common tragedy and aid received
22:40 not intentional and attempted to alleviate, though Soviet policy inadvertently exacerbated or caused the problems
the western history websites narrate the history of the famine without mentioning the material conditions of the society back then which were complex factors .
they follow the method of spreading lies till they become facts just by repetition .
what amazes me is how they connect the famine even if we say the result of personal desire of stalin with socialism as a socio economic system ( production and distribution ) ... these ass holes are really annoying and that specific topic will be on my homemade studies list as i tend to make an encyclopedia about marxism for beginners and reaponses to the most arguments about the soviet union and other socialist states in the past .
Hey! 2 years on, how's your learning developed? I mean, I would want in on this encyclopedia if it ever materialized:D !
Yeah Stalin simply clumsily increased demands on Ukraine which was already known to be struggling food wise, and then prohibited people from Ukraine from leaving, silly Stalin. While then being smart enough to dedicate the entire soviet media complex to covering up any mention of foul play.
Nope not intentional
Definitely can’t find Russian secret police documents specifically stating its purpose is to “break the wills of Ukrainians”
While many other communications even with Stalin himself show their for some reason more focused on talking about the potential threat of Ukrainian independence rather than the fact hundreds of thousands are dying as a direct result of their policies.
Thank you so much for this. The fact that the Holodomor issue is considered unanimosuly by Western media and think tanks as a deliberate attempt to erase ukranian dissidence makes it difficult to hear other perspectives or even to take seriously a different scenario, because honestly sometimes it is hard to not believe a repeated argument. But I think this video shows the nuance of the situation. Not everything has to be black or white, or in this case, outright overblown accusations vs denial of the famine.
Again thank you for your research and please keep providing more historical content because for whatever reason you do it in a really ententaining and informative way.
Ugh, tell me about it. Western media also is constantly agreeing unanimously about the Holocaust issue, the Armenian genocide, the Great Famine in China, and other well documented tragedies. It’s almost like when something is unanimously agreed by academics and only rejected by apologists of dictators it might actually be true.
I feel the same way about the holocaust
@@MM-op6ti nah thats crazy
@@gabrielalmanza9433 einsatsgruppen + typhus + starvation = 300K at most
I read or saw a RUclips video about the Soviet and China famines, forgive me for not remembering my sources. What they said was that in Soviet Union went from an agricultural, to an industrial country, so he most of the workers from farms, to work in factories.
And he also ordered that a predator, I cannot remember what animal it was, but ordered them to kill it, this disrupted the ecosystem and insects ate the crops, which caused the famine, later when China was under Mao's rule, he followed the same blueprint as Stalin when it came to agriculture.
if as your show details were relayed to us, we would have cried for stalin... bcoz in secondary school is when we hear stories of students of their grandmothers who cooked rice soup bcoz of drought that destroyed grains harvest... we were speechless knowing there were places much affected by drought/famine that experienced eating measured bowl of rice soup 3 times a day... i apologize to those who hate stalin... but people directly affected with famine understood stalin... mao never said stalin is bad... i am sorry, nobody can change my mind on this...
Thanks a lot for the video! Could you also provide material /sources for further reading? (im 3 years late, i know)
Thank you from Ukraine
Thank you from Ukraine? Doubt you are you are even Slavic.
Thank you for this!
Idiot. he is merely parroting same old reddit arguments that were thoroughly debunked so many times over.
@@proximaism I’m interested in what you mean - as far as I can tell, this video is merely showing the non-Marxist positions on the nature of the 1932-1933 famine, and how some historians have stronger arguments than others
@@proximaism he literally brought up scholars of the field that probably don’t even know what Reddit is. Just because someone else mentioned most of the same stuff and some brain let ideologues on r/badhistory used conquest doesn’t mean anything.
I'm goin gto need to save the video link for every time someone says "But Stalin starved millions in Ukraine!!!1!11!!" The fact that the broader academic community accepts that this was not the case is proof enough. This was an excellent video.
Broader academic community only recently started accepting the facts of Stalin's death by hunger in Ukraine. For a long time western academics thinking was shaped by the limited materials made available by Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, which thoroughly whitewashed this genocide.
I am sorry, you are wrong. The broader academic community does not accept that. Why do you think the video cannot quote a single non-Russian source after 2006 though there are plenty?
Yeah stealing people's crops is not starving them
“The broader academic community” 😂😂😂
Stalin was very controversial. Good work for this historical event.
Nope, Stalin was very beloved by the vast majority of the Soviet people and in the international communist movement.
He was and is only regarded as controversial in the capitalist/imperialist US/EU and their puppet states.
During his lifetime even Social Democrats from most countries held him in high regard. If the capitalist ruling class and Fascists would have liked him that would not shed a very good light on him, would it?
@@maxmeggeneder8935 I did not know that. Where can I find that? Because Western European historiography is very anti-Russian. I would like to learn.
@@pablobarroso7193 I think it's great that you ask and want to educate yourself in an unbiased manner!
But from the top of my head I only know a few sources that I think are factual and unbiased. I would need to check for more. But what I will list below is surely more than enough for a beginner.
Read "Another view of Stalin" by Ludo Martens. I found it as a free PDF online (in German that is). This is a must read if you really want to learn about this topic.
If you don't mind that it was published in the Soviet Union and the chapter "On Dialectical and Historical Materialism" was written by Stalin himself, then I would wholeheartedly recommend reading "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) :Short Course".
Then there are of course all the books by Grover Furr. He did deep and systematic research into all the accusations about Stalins alleged crimes. He exposes all the western propaganda and supposedly academic works on the topic for what they are. That is mostly lies without any evidence to back them up.
If you don't want to spend so much time, check out the RUclips channels "The Finnish Bolshevik" and "Hakim". Just type in the names plus Stalin. There is much more on the topic and times to find there if you scroll through their list of videos.
Grover Furr has many of his lectures and talks on RUclips. Check them out too.
But it seems to me that you are new to the topic of Marxism, actually existing Socialism, the history of the socialist and workers movements and the like. If you read books on those topics from and about the period you will see that what I stated in my above comment is true to the letter.
For example the SPÖ, the Social Democratic party from my home country Austria, didn't join the communist international, but critically supported the Soviet Union throughout the Stalin Era. Party members and leadership visited the USSR under Stalin regularly and they never expressed anything but admiration for him and the socialist revolution and state in the Soviet Union.
The vast majority of workers and the labor movement internationally in general felt the same.
Only small factions of it did not.
This all slowly changed because of the Cold War and after the death of Stalin(who was not an autocratic dictator, but always had the majority behind him in all the policies he enacted) and through the putsch by Krushchev, who broke with that tradition of socialist democracy and the Soviet constitution and came to power through a military coup, this all changed very fast and the demise of the Soviet Union and the international communist movement began.
I hope you learn, learn, learn and that you find what you're looking for and educate yourself about factual history instead of swallowing the capitalist /imperialist propaganda of heavily biased pseudo academia and pseudo documentaries.
Wish you all the best!
BTW, if you are interested in Marxism in general and Marxism-Leninism in particular I can really recommend "The foundations of Leninism" and" Questions of Leninism" by Joseph Stalin! Those are very short and easily understandable works about those important ideas, that don't add any new theory , but just summarize the works and ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin in a manner that is very easy to comprehend for beginners.
@@maxmeggeneder8935 I'm a learning ML. This video and comment really helped me more. I have to have physical books due to my ADHD, but thank for the recommendations (even if it was towards someone else).
@@aworldtowin80 I am very glad that you found my recommendations helpful! It gives me joy that my comment inspired you to learn ML and helped you in your study.
I don't know where you live. All the books I recommended are available in university libraries here in Austria and I'm sure in most other European countries.
You can order them pretty cheap, maybe second hand, online.
If you want to learn ML philosophy, political theory and economy, I would stick to Stalins works "Foundations of Leninism" and "Questions of Leninist". Also the history of the CPUSSR(B) short course. Which brings me to the next topic.
If you are interested in ML history the "short course", which is actually not that short is a great introduction. The books 9f Grover Furr if you are interested specifically in Stalin.
And I have to stress that the works of Michael Parenti are most helpful, especially for beginners.
If you have any questions or want book recommendations on certain topics I'm happy to help.
Ordering those books is great, if you stay clear of Amazon.
But it is much better to approach ML or MLM groups or parties, that often have their own libraries, if you want to learn or better yet become organized.
Just search online for communist groups in your area. If you don't know which group to approach I can try to assist you with that as well. Just stay clear of Trotzkist ones, social democrats(often call themselves "Democratic Socialists" in the US) and Anarchists if you want to learn about anything related to Marxism, because they can be very judgemental and will try to convert you with bourgouis propaganda talking points.
In the revolution there is a place for everyone.
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite!
I'm not sure why it happened, but it was definitely ugly
5:33 While i do agree to that though
You have to consider the fact that most of the holodomor[the part often talked aboit] happened in ukraine, the percieved (by Stalin) hotbed of ukran8an nationalism, he himself has stated multiple times that ukrainiens were untrustworthy, even saying that ukranians moving to moscow in search of food was an act of propaganda, which i need not say more about.
[Search the multiple letters that he sent, or look for firsthand sources if you want]
Meanwhile: the most untrustworthy Ukrainian nationalists were from the parts of Ukraine, liberated from Polish occupation.
Majority still joined the Red Army, despite being supposedly genocided by Moscow and having a chance to join Nazis as national saviours.
What a great video. Thank you
b a s e d
Thank you for this video
Thank you...I've been getting harassed on Twitter bc of this topic.
We all have. I had a near stroke because of the Vox video
@@Ocinneade345 Yeah because facts and real people suffering run contrary to your ideology.
@@joeroganpodfantasy42 Thank you for elaborating Your Ideology in a Ironic way
Before a word with a vowel, you are to use the word "an" not "a," but please carry on trying to pretend to be an intellectual.
"I just want free stuff and then someone says that it is bad if I take it from someone else against their will, now I'm sad "
Здравствуйте, товарищи. Привет из Беларуси! Успехов Вам! ✊
🇨🇺❤🇧🇾 ☭
...Complicated, not easily reduced to a soundbite or a quip.
But very interesting. Thank you.
the only way a marxist can convince people of his ideas in our day and age is to hide them in word soup and hope nobody notices what's going on. it's an interesting tactic. derrida and foucault did this A LOT.
Hello comrade, we are a group of believers in Marx and Lenin from China. Could you allow us to post the video produced by your group on the Chinese intranet, of course we will cite the source of the video. If so, would you allow us to post it with the label “self-produced”? That way we can make a small profit.
Which country(s) did they clandestinely import grain from? I hadn't heard that before. I would like to learn more about that
You won’t 😂
Do you have links to any of the sources? Id love to follow along but if I don't need to make a library trip that would be awesome
The sources are all books. They are linked in the description so you should be able to find them on the internet and order them via Amazon. Or a local book store if you don't want to support Amazon.
It will be great also a video about the purge or the soviet democracy!
You did a very good job in dispelling the genocide myth! I don't know what do you think about the purge and repression in the Stalin era. I think that these catastrophes were the result of a terrible civil war between Stalin and Trotsky and i also think that Stalin is not personally responsible for all the deaths that of course aren't milions... It will be great to see a video about these topics!
@@meneliki8709 you could search for the account made by the Finnish Bolshevik about the Moscow Trials or search for Grover furr book about the evidence of Trotsky collaboration with German and Japanese government. There you will get some insights.
@@rafaelboss_3.14 yes, it was the first book I read on Stalin
I saw some videos lately ( which I now think was likely propaganda) which claimed the man put in charge of agrarian issues, early on, was an anti science nut. Do you know about this? Sorry but I don't recall his name.
Also Stephen Kotkin thinks in his Stalin-biography that the famine wasn't intentional and that Ukraine wasn't the only region that suffered from it
There's a lot of information here that I wish was more commonly known. Thanks for providing it.
I didn't hear it mentioned, but where would you put Lysenko's contributions to famine in all of this?
Not specific to this video, but I've heard/read conflicting things about Stalin in terms of "was he even a socialist." Most notably, he undermined socialist revolutions around the world (China, Spain, etc) while siding with their national bourgeoisie, which Lenin (and pretty much any socialist at any time) would rightfully point out as being "anti-socialist." (Additionally, he apparently had photos and documents from Lenin's time doctored to fit his agenda.) On the other hand, there are things that happened during his tenure that were beneficial, including rapid increases in literacy, industrial and agricultural production, and other things that socialists would say "those are good."
If you haven't already, could you do a video that looks at the big picture of "was Stalin a socialist or an opportunist" by considering the arguments and available data/sources? And if you already have, could you give a link or title? (RUclips is finnicky about links, so maybe just the title.)
I'm of the view that Stalin was an opportunist, despite overseeing a lot of pro-social advancements, but I'm also torn over it because I recognize that things would have been very different if not for the intense interventionism of the U.S. and Europe following the 1917 February revolution. Further, I recognize that a government that does good things is not definitionally socialist unless it is the people themselves who are in charge via democracy (of the real sort, with public debates and direct representation in concentric circles encompassing more communities, as opposed to a republic, where the people merely vote for who will make the decisions) and direct participation in running things, which leads me to the view that the USSR was not a socialist country, but merely a (mostly) pro-social republic that rejected a market-based economy.
Hey stupid
When Lenin sized power with his socialist backers the first thing he did was create a communist government and kill the socialist.
Stalin followed in his footsteps.
Every communist will be executed in self defense
My property is not yours.
Stalin gave gifts to orphans like he isn't some evil villain...
13:43
@@dungeontntSlava Stalin! 🚩☭
Robert Conquest proposed numbers, William Randolf Hurst published!
Please make a video on the Volga famine of 1921
Being this ignorant in a time of easy access to information goes to show that people believe what they want to believe.
The Soviets moved grain out of Ukraine while the people resulted to cannibalism
Mind you the commie are one of the most educated and yet so rockheaded when it comes to criticizing marx
Actually USissyR was rainbow and butterflies and everyone was happy and ones who died are just fake propaganda of rich people!!!
There’s literally more evidence for the Ukrainian famine being intentional than the holocaust. Just shows you how biased people are.
No, they tried to stop the famine, not just in Ukraine but in the entire USSR.
@@onsholo You are proving my point by having Stalin as a pf and "kulak remover" as your name
Absolutely disgusting
Very nice video. Sadly saying this today here will get me fined since we got the ukrainian lies as truth from the EU now.😢
You are wrong .My wife’s family can tell you first hand what happened in the Holodomor
The Soviets killed children for taking grain from the fields
They took everything from the farmers until the “ Kulaks” were forced to eat their dead children
You know know nothing about what you are talking
The intent was to lie and murder for political reasons
There is no difference if the aim was to exterminate Ukrainians or just steal all their food for export
But all the evidence proves the Russification was genocidal in essence for centuries
It wasn’t inadvertent, it was a result of their racism against “lesser “Slavs
Stalin would never have starved ethnic Russians on a large scale
Just for increased exports
If it was inadvertent then Moscow residents would have also starved
Stalin would never have starved ethnic Russians on a large scale
If it was inadvertent then Moscow residents would have also starved
12:35 A wild Budyonny appears! (I think that's Budyonny? That moustache...)
That's undoubtedly marshall Budionny
I get kind of crestfallen by the pointlessness of bringing factual accounts to a debate that is largely decided on biases before the evidence is even introduced. Like no matter how solid our arguments are, the battle lines on communism are so starkly drawn already that you'll just get called a monstrous genocide denier no matter what. The contrivance of 'totalitarianism' to draw a symmetrical equivalence in supposed evil between Nazis and Communists is one of the most effective and thorough pieces of cold war propaganda and it's so hard to get past it and bring factual arguments to people who are ideologically, essentially, already communists, and just don't know it.
Read Douglas Tottle's book: Fraud, Famine and Fascism.
Brilliant video. Thank you. Would be good to post western manipulation (not getting to depth now) in the course of. events in USSR
. Keep up your good work. ✊
I think the fact that famines happened regularly and periodically in Russia before 1932, is enough for me to conclude that even the more measured "unintentional but man made famine due to communist policies" is still also wrong. Obviously the rapid industrialization and collectivization (and the resistance to it by some) contributed to the famine, but they weren't the primary cause.
Famines were going to keep happening in the USSR regardless, had it not been for the Soviet rapid industrialization policies. Even worse, If the USSR hadn't industrialized by the 1930s, Germany would've exterminated or starved them anyways.
Yeah Stalin was prophet and knew about Barbarossa in 1920-30s
Would you accept death in unbearable pain because your crops were taken from you, by government for which you didn't vote and which denied you right to vote when it was given in 1917, so they would industrialise faster
Would you? Would you wish it for your family members and friends? Be honest
Ukraine still has a nazi problem to this day because of this “accident”
@@ВячеславВячеславыч-с7с Who died in unbearable pain?
Important to recall a lot of farmers killed their cattle pigs and sheep to avoid low price sells or just giving them up
We need more of this
We need you out of our homelands
@@wdsftygt ?
Please keep me informed on your next video.
My Ethnic German grandparents were vignerons in Vrasic/Werschetz on the Danube, next to Rumania, which adjoins Ukraine. In 1932 and 33 they did not pick a grape in those two years, and they lost their house and some of their vineyards. The distance to Lviv is roughly 700km. In other words, the 'famine' conditions in that part of Ukraine-the so-called Holomidor-extended to many areas of eastern Europe. The so-called US Academic scrutiny of these tragic crop failures is just US Cold War propaganda. And, naturally, it is so easy to shove 'Poor Ukrainians' down the gullets of Western sheople ever since the Cold War started and finished and continues in the minds of those fed Anti-Russian propaganda from their mothers' breast milk'. In the meantime, Congress is full of people like Schiff and Graham who are happy to continue its proxy war on Russia to 'the last Ukrainian'.
Do you believe that the USSR was a failure, or that this was merely one slip up in its history? It should be noted that there were famines in the U.S around this time in which many struggled.
@@wdsftygt nazi giga virgin
You call the death of millions a “slip up”??
Promote the truth!
i dont think that means what you think it means.
I'm sure this isn't biased in any way.
I'd encourage everyone on this channel to look up Stephen Kotkin and interviews with on Stalin. Stephen was given access by the Russian government to the archives on Stalin.
I like how balanced this is, it critiques the liberal caricature of Soviet intentions but also avoids venturing into Soviet/Stalin apologia. Great work!
Liberals and social democrats are not leftists but closeted fascists.
@@UmQasaann Shut up with your stupid social fascosm thesis. This bs is exactly what split the german workers and allowed the nazis to gain power without much resistance.
@@projectpitchfork860 Shut up and read a book for once in your wage/debt slave sorry ass, liberals and social democrats would rather choose fascism over socialism because fascism doesn't threatens private property and bend over to the ruling class selects and fund their fale as hell campaigns that they bought and paid for so they can give capitalism a human face!
the party struggle elman is talking about is not really one since the trotskyites were really unpopular .
Thank you for this!
Great topic! Thanks a bunch!
I have heard stories about the Kulaks. A farmer class that resisted the Soviet model of collective farming. They burnt their own crops and needlessly slaughtered livestock rather than turn them over to the state.
So it was wrong to resist Moscow's economic command economy diktats, and a bunch of NKVD commissars controlling your life? If they already consider you a class enemy (and therefore not worth keeping alive), why bother helping those who hate you that much?
@@christopherharmon2433the actions of the kulaks exacerbated a massive famine. They were fucking evil.
Well, Kulak workers actually were anti-communist or abti-Stalin activists who had not been successful in their activism and their exercise of speech. Them being deported to kulaks was punishment. Therefore, them rebelling and messing up what they were forced into working for and working with makes tremendous sense.
@@BroJo676 Sure, let your own people stave and blame Stalin for the famine.
You steal from people and then bash on them that they do not comply, it's disgusting honestly
I might have missed it, but why aren't scholars like Norman Naimark or Timothy Snyder discussed? Ellman only considers the famine as a crime against humanity, no a genocide. I haven't done a lot of research on the topic, but even wikipedia mentions Naimark and Snyder (who believe it was a genocide), why not this video?
Their research is kind of outdated I think.
The famine might not have been intentional. But, this does not excuse the USSR for covering up the famine. The western nations had more than enough food for Ukraine, and they could have sent in massive amounts of foreign aid. Freedom of speech and information is important.
But the USSR could buy machines from the West only with grain payment due to the embargo, imposed by western powers. If you watch the video, you will know how the soviet government tried to send aids to Ukraine and they even reduce the export of grain and they imported also some food... But the west had no reason to help the USSR. They were already in the middle of a Cold War, as a canadian historian pointed out... (I don't remember his name now, sorry)
@@meneliki8709 You're missing the point. The USSR covered it up. It is wrong to restrict information and the freedom of speech for political points.
"But the west had no reason to help the USSR."
The US did provide food, medicine, and supplies to USSR controlled east Germans during the cold war. The U.S. did not expect payment.
Even now, North Korea gets foreign aid from Western countries like the US.
I do not know for certain whether or not the Western governments or Western private charities would have sent aid to Ukraine. I do think there is a high chance that SOMEONE would have given foreign aid. But with the USSR covering it up, there was 0% chance of foreign aid.
@@danielladner374 so your point about Ukraine is based on a speculation... I don't know if the US gives free aids to East Germany, could you indicate your sources? And even if they send them, they also tried any kind of tactics (even very criminal ones) to infiltrate and destroy the socialist governments (see for example William Blum, Killing Hopes or Tim Weyner CIA). And I never said that not having free speach is a good thing, and that's not even the topic of the discussion... The USSR still had some form of free speach and democracy (see the videos of Tovarish Edymion and FinnishBloshevik about these topics), but it also had the Great Purge and some form of repressions (the Soviet Union was still far from being a "totalitarian" state) that are not good of course, but they must be contestualized and that is not, again, the point of this discussion.
@@meneliki8709 The US gave huge amounts of food and economic aid from WW1 to the cold war. I don't think it is speculation to say that either the US, other countries or private charities were very likely to give aid to 1930s Ukraine if they knew about it. You can see some of the details of US foreign aid here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid#Cold_War
Here is an example of the USSR accepting U.S. foreign aid for armenians: www.nytimes.com/1988/12/10/world/soviets-accept-us-aid-for-first-time-since-40-s.html
"that is not, again, the point of this discussion."
I am confused, do you not agree that the USSR covered up the famine? What I am saying is that the USSR forced people not to talk about the famine and shot Ukrainians that tried to leave Ukraine to find food. The rest of the world didn't even know there was a problem in Ukraine. I am saying this was bad and made the famine worse. If you support freedom of information, then shouldn't you condemn the USSR for shooting Ukranians that wanted to leave and lying about the famine? Especially when foreign nations could have sent food aid and saved millions? Just allowing Ukrainians to leave would have improved the situation. Even if for some reason no one in the the rest of the world decided to help Ukraine, the USSR still shouldn't have covered it up. Some details about these actions can be seen here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor#Aftermath_and_immediate_reception
@@danielladner374 still, the video debunk the man made argument... There are a lot of other sources that I could cite to you, but it's late so I think we could just stop here. But I want to point out some other things... The Ussr suppressed people that talked about the famine? If you read the letters that Stalin send to the local government, you will understand how the ukrainian rulers tried to hide the famine (or maybe they are too stupid to recognise it), but the central government didn't trust them and infact they tried to stop the famine, maybe they could have done better, but for sure the 1932 tragedy is not man made! And still, the aids argument is speculation (maybe a credible one) because there is no document or evidence that confirm a western aid for Ukraine in that case. And I don't think that the US aids were an act of charity, but they were probably a propaganda act because the US tried in any way to destroy the bolshevik revolution... They send troops in the russian civil war against the communists, they even reclute nazi in post world war 2 to deal against the USSR and they planned to bomb (with an atomic bomb) all the principal soviet and chinese cities... I mean didn't carry of the soviet people at all...
I have got one question, where you’re from??
Thanks for the heart, but what about my question?? Which country you’re from ??
@@jeremikorybutwisniowiecki8333 if you were a comrade you'd know the earth is our home, borders are an instrument of manipulation for the owners to pit workers against each other.
@@untraceablefgc-9mkii251 shut up
@@jeremikorybutwisniowiecki8333 American accent.
@@matthewkopp2391 thank you
They took all the farmers food
Um actually the academic community says otherwise, sorry nazi chud! Fact checked by Stalin
Specifically I recall they took seed stock
19:12 i didnt notice that until now 😂
hmmmmmmmmmmmm interesting thanks for the video.
Great video!
В обществе, основанном на эксплуатации, высшей моралью является мораль социалистической революции.
Л. Троцкий. Агония капитализма и задачи Четвертого Интернационала
What about the 4 million tons of grain taken from Ukraine and relocated to Russian cities in summer 1932? What about the hundreds of eye witness accounts of Soviet troops and police men seizing grain and anything edible in farming villages in the region in winter of 1932? What about the ridiculous grain quotas the state set which blacklisted hundreds of towns from receiving financial aid and food in Ukraine during the famine? Much of the aid you said was put in place, wasn't enacted until 1933 after nearly 3.8 million Ukrainians across Ukraine and the Khakasses, and 1.5 million people in Kazakhstan starved. Why did Stalin ban the foreign press from those regions during the famine? Why did the reporters who did sneak in get arrested and have their photos burned? Why did they arrest the people who did the 1937 census which showed a massive drop in the population of Ukraine? Most of the points that you used to "disprove" this were proven to be Soviet disinformation. The stats and numbers they provide don't match up with the reality. It's convenient how you left out a majority of the events, facts, and the thousands of pictures and documents proving that the people outside of Russia proper starved while the people in the cities of Russia got all of their food. Not to mention the resettlement program which took place after the famine which redistributed the farms of the dead to Russians?
What about all those things you made up or misconstrued?
12:15 wtf is going on???
Soviet power.
Gay commie,
This is what libleft love to tell the world how peaceful communism until the people they advertise so much erase them from all history
Great video, I made a similar one a week ago!
Im happy that channels like this still exist. Please, spread the truth
@@actualideas8078 It's unavailable
What truth?
0:43 "To mercifully put down anti-soviet..." mercifully? Did you mean that?
Mercilessly*
Lmao if the harvests were so bad why did grain procurement from the state literally double during the years of the famine
This really isn’t a hill worth dying on, and I mean this in the most sincere way possible. Even if you’re trying to be nuanced, it just comes off as very sociopathic and is not at all a good look to go “it wasn’t genocide, it was incompetence” doesn’t matter, these people were still suffering in agony, just imagine being in a famine yourself. Would you still support your government? It also legitimizes much worse apologism even if you aren’t full on Tankie Juchepilled
Необходимо ликвидировать капитализм, частную собственность, конкуренцию, бюрократию, рыночную экономику, рынок недвижимости, риелторскую деятельность, рынок ценных бумаг, биржи, предпринимательство, маркетинг, рекламу. Слово "бизнес" пора забыть. Всё должно быть национализировано. Общество должно быть бесклассовым.
Да, ведь ты бомж и всем вокруг завидуешь, вот и хочешь стать рабом государства, чтобы оно наказало тех кто живет лучше тебя
Лучше уж все будут мучатся чем только ты
@@ВячеславВячеславыч-с7сЧеловечеству не видать счастья, пока последнего капиталиста не задушат кишкой последнего бюрократа
Balanced video.
lol
It may have started as a natural famine but why did so many Ukrainians die from it compared to the rest of the Soviet Union? Regions in Ukraine with more Russians also got more food according to what I’ve heard. There could be other explanations though and it isn’t proof of intention. Famines also happened in other parts of the world and still do. Not accepting foreign help because it might make communism look bad is however not ok. It’s one thing if it isn’t offered but another thing if refused. I recently saw a video about farming in North Vietnam and in the south after the reunification. It explained how their small personal plots produced more than the collective farms because people were incentivised to work harder when it was their land and they only did the bare minimum at the collective farms and then went to tend their own land. People tend to care more when it is their land not belonging to the state or some corporation. The issue isn’t exclusively a problem for socialist nations as capitalist societies have people working for some corporation and you only do what is required and your bosses get the bonus if you manage to work harder.
"but why did so many Ukrainians die from it compared to the rest of the Soviet Union?" Because they did not in fact suffered more than the rest of the USSR. The republic that suffered the most from the famine was Kazakhstan, which lost 50% of its population. Also the Kulaks that were arrested were kept fed, which more than proves their starvation was not the fucking point.
Totally BASED video.
"Communism created famine" is simply a substitution of concepts.
If you didn't understand me, then read the following
Capitalism created world wars, colonial system, african slavery, famine in Africa and India. Capitalism created genocide in America, post USSR globalism etc.
Yet you are not proving anything
The argument here is in defence of the Holodomor being a genocide of a political source,
Genocide can happen in capitalist regimes and so can expanded famines,[The Irish potato famine]
Yet notice how In such a thing, what you argue for as communism gave incredible power and capability to commit such an act
The British could not have forcefully starved the Irish with the same efficiency as the USSR for multiple reasons, not least of which is the ad-hoc system created in the 1917 revolution.
If the British had allowed the importation of wheat in 1870 from America [ who I assume you are from] the famine would be far less devasting
Blaming capitalism for colonialism and other things ignores the entire system that existed in the multiple eras of colonialism
You are merely conflating what you believe to be a great historical narrative of capitalism vs. communism even when most of the governments that did colonialism were not capitalist in the modern day.
Unrestricted capitalism lacking in any control or regulation will inevitably lead to the exploitation of labour by large companies.
Unrestricted communism based on government control will also result in the exploitation of Labour by a central government that lacks any checks and balances upon it.
[《Warning:Opinion》]
The best system of government is one that safeguards human ideals set by the population while adjusting itself and its relation to the world based on circumstance, rather than blindly following a grand narrative that has been proven to cause famines. (See the Bengal and Chinese famines for examples of capitalist and communist-based famines, they are both similar and yet, diametricaly opposed, and both are just as terrifying).
This is so fucking good ohh I love this channel!!!
So… a lot of natural factor influenced the bad harvest compeled with bad practices extended by the collectivization of farms and a late response of the government plus not wanting to increase too much the exports and not wanting to reduce too much the grain for the army and the cities resulted in the famine…
It looks like, in a time of very bad conditions, central planning has more “friction” to react and that made all of this worse
I take slight issue with how this is argued and i wanna give context to why. I am currently in the process of getting a degree in history and have my basic classes out of the way so i dont wanna come off as someone just looking for an excuse to call it a genocide, i genuinely honestly want to get a degree in genocide studies and have been working at it for a few years now.
I strongly believe giving Stalin agency by using his intentions as the mark of grievous destruction done to a people group completely misses the point. As someone who has studied 'Indian removal' as a policy I am familiar with the trappings of how a state justifies avoidable mistakes in policy when it produces genuine and extensive harm to minorities. Stalin putting the pride of collectivism before famine relief is a piece of a wider problem. The state is failing to respond properly to a problem that were it happening in the streets of Moscow would give greater pause to policy choices. This behavior is a part of any empire style structure that prioritizes a core culture and as a result the policy decisions will materially favor the survival of that internal power structure to the detriment of other not because of meticulous planning but as part of continued mismanagement. It wasn't only Ukraine but also Kazakhstan among others including some Russians. Even today the recruitment of minority communities threaten to shrink vulnerable indigenous populations while more 'valuable' towns are left alone more or less.
As someone with a Lumbee father the lessons in history we talk about go deeper than intention, the way we think and talk about these things often times gives an agency to someone not fully in control of a wider tragedy, but for those who fall victim to whatever crime you want to call it, giving agency to intention does not change the outcome.
So in other words, the Soviet famine was a combination of bad yields and Stalin not having his priorities straight?
@@Doughtube no thats too simplified, giving agency entirely to Stalin fails out underline the interpersonal systems that can both worsen crises like this famine or tip itself into deeper horror. Genocide is possible when the wider society and state both exhibit the same pattern of "hedonistically self preservationist" behavior, I think a better historical label of genocide should go farther than the legal definition so its easier to explain the relationships and patterns that allow apathy in the face of a systemic wrong that, intentional or not, is a systemic threat to the survival of the state.
I’m not here to arguing one way or the other. I just want to say that for being one of the few people to respond with a reasoned argument that is clearly not founded on “commies bad.” I hope your studies go well and that you get to learn more about these topics.
Thank you for this awesome video. I'm saving this as a reference source to show anyone who says "muh holla da moor".
We wuz Moors n sheit.
But vuvuzuela!
Oh thank goid
JFK at 12:03
on behalf of all the "holodomor" propaganda - thank you for your video.
Denying the Holomodor takes the same level of delusion as denying the holocaust.
@@brianbelgard5988 both are documented. the holocaust is a horrific crime on humanity - the "holodomor" is the thought child of banderites in US exile - everything documented and publicly available, fuck - even the mongols sent thousands of tons of helping goods to help the people in the starving regions - distributed and documented. The famin DID happen - throughout the wolga region, poland and czechoslovakia, but not because of reasons some nazi collaborants promote.
@@brianbelgard5988there’s more evidence for holodomor than the holocaust
@@brianbelgard5988 comparing industrialized mass murder with weather induced mass famine requires not only delusion but brain acrobatic on olympic lvls
I'm only a third of the way through but I came here to arm myself with the facts of why there was a famine in the Soviet Union, how bad it was, who or what was responsible. Rehashing lame arguments appears unnecessary to me.
not the video to look to for facts😂
18:38 Ladies and Gentlemen. We got em
Where did I see that before... HEY SOUTH AFRICA! Does that remains you of anything? No? Oh Okay.
Cool
no wonder... it is said that time & time, mao say, only the head of stalin can handle & stabilize the chaotic times of russia & power struggle for the highest seat...
Предприниматели (бизнесмены) - это спекулянты, ростовщики, эксплуататоры. Они классовые враги.