https://lemmy.ml/post/22222655

Just copying over my response to you on Lemmy.ml

No, it was not. Once discovered that a famine was occuring, the soviets did what they could to prevent and alleviate it once it had started. The idea of an intentional famine is simply fringe among contemporary historians, same with claims of white genocide in South Africa. For example, serious bourgeois academic sources tend to say it was a failure of planning, rather than intentional and genocide. For instance, Mark Tauger wrote:

[data] indicate that the famine was real, the result of a failure of economic policy, of the 'revolution from above,' rather than of a 'successful' nationality policy against Ukrainians or other ethnic groups.

Tauger believes it was a failure of economic policy, not an intentional attack on ethnic Ukrainians. The 1930s famine was a combination of drought, flooding, and mismanagement. Further, the Kulaks, wealthy bourgeois farmers, magnified matters by killing their own crops in the midst of a famine rather than letting the Red Army collectivize them. The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:

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

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

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

Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN

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

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

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

Comrade Kosior!

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

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

Sincerely, J. Stalin

Muggeridge and Jones reported on the famine. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. Why would the soviets try to starve their own people? It was because of the soviets and collectivization of agriculture that famine was ended, and that's why outside of wartime the 1930s famine was the final famine in those regions, with life expectancies doubling.

Overall, trying to hold on to red scare historiography does absolutely nothing to help the cause of socialism. The soviet archives have provided a wealth of knowledge largely affirming the communist narrative, and debunking liberal and fascist narratives about existing socialism.

Further, the Ukrainian nation was supported by the soviets, to the point that they were often accused of being biased! There was no Russification, instead the soviets promoted a Soviet identity alongside national identities, to protect the identities of the nations while also unifying them.

Returning to the 1930s famine, as I showed above the Central Committee was kept in the dark by the Ukrainian communists as to the famine. They tried to save face by telling the Central Committee that everything was fine and under control, but this was not the case. Drought, flooding, and kulaks burning their crops and killing their livestock as protest against collectivization had destroyed output, and the soviets were still exporting grain in order to trade for industrial equipment with the west (which is what the west wanted in exchange for industrial equipment).

Upon learning the truth of how bad it was getting, the Central Committee was furious. The officials responsible in Ukraine were held accountable, hundreds of tractors and other farming equipment was directed to Ukraine, as well as ~17 million poods (~14ish kg/pood) of grain were redirected towards Ukraine. The Central Committee had been deciding policy based on the reports they were recieving, and these reports were falsified to protect the Ukrainian communist party leadership.

Had famine been the goal, no aid would have been given at all, or perhaps token aid. Sending hundreds of millions of kg of grain to Ukraine is no petty tribute, and punishing Ukrainian party leaders that lied and facilitated famine was the correct course of action for such treason. Counter-revolutionary is correct! They had put their own skin above the peasantry.

In all of this, there was absolutely no reason to have intentionally created a famine. The USSR needed grain for industrial equipment and to feed its people, it would not have sabotaged output deliberately. On top of this, there was existing accusations of the soviets overly supporting Ukrainian national identity, Lenin had given them the Donbass region and in an effort to overturn the Tsar's oppression the soviets highly valued national identity and self-determination.

There is no real evidence of deliberate starvation or creation of famine. All that exists is evidence of tragedy, weather adversity, class conflict between kulaks and the peasantry, and mismanagement in part by the Ukrainian communists and in part caused by disinformation fed to the Central Committee, which changed how they treated Ukraine. Again, they needed grain for industrialization, which they saw as necessary for defense (and this was proven correct as the rapid industrialization in the 20s and 30s is what enabled soviet victory over the Nazis in the 40s).

Is this supposed to be unreadable?

This is a fringe position rejected by mainstream historians. Even Robert Conquest stopped calling it a genocide after the Soviet archives opened. If you want a definitive scholarly source (not funded by anticommunist hacks) I recommend Davies & Wheatcroft “The Years of Hunger,” part of a series on Soviet Agriculture, specifically the second version (or more recent). They didn’t address the alleged controversy in the first edition because it wasn’t one, but the intro to the second edition is all you’ll actually need.

Now, I don’t expect you to read anything that isn’t western anticommunist propaganda and I doubt you’re capable of learning, but someone has to try.

'The Holodomor' is a Neonazi propaganda buzzword invented in the 80s to equivocate between the USSR and the Third Reich, specifically chosen to imply similarity to the Holocaust which in turn is a form of Holocaust minimization. The origin of the 'intentional famine' myth was literally Joseph fucking Goebbels, and was spread by the media empire of avowed US fascist media tyrant William Randolph Hearst.

Here's what a die-hard Ukrainian nationalist had to say about the famine of 1932:

The USSR did everything it could to alleviate the famine - which stretched beyond Ukraine both further into the USSR and out beyond its borders, shattering the notion it could possibly have been targeted - and once it was brought under control, no famine ever affected the USSR again in peacetime.

The bears can have a chew toy as a treat. Until 1900 EST everyone can go hog wild on this loser. Just try to keep to the CoC, and make sure to start reporting if and when this person gets tired of being thrashed and starts using heated gamer words.

Bahriany Foundation

lmao, what's next, a "source" from the John Birch Society?

Bahriany Foundation is a neat source. It's a foundation from America, that funded anti-communist propaganda in the 20th century, named after a man who was part of the "government in exile" of Ukraine in the US after WWII.

Just because you can find a piece of evidence supporting the Holodomor narrative doesn't mean it is good or comprehensive evidence. One or two contemporary accounts stripped of context isn't a strong argument.

this mf named "pee lube" 💀

"Hey Google, when was the Irish Potato Genocide?"

first thing I do during an artificial famine is set my own crops on fire

when I'm trying to figure out who the good guys are in any scenario, I first check who is setting food on fire.

and then stalin came with his big spoon

I think it'd be a shame if we called the upcoming famine the Epstein famine instead of the Trump famine.

And you're next.

inb4 u get nuked from orbit