""Critically"" ""Evaluating"" Grover Furr's Blood Lies

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botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

swampman posted:

The most prominent scholars on the subject of the 1932-33 famine are Matthew Tauger, who has basically spent his life studying Russian famines, and to a lesser extent Davies and Wheatcroft. Their work backs up Furr's thesis at each turn.

Davies & Wheatcroft are on the record saying that the agricultural and industrial policies are responsible for the famine. In general it seems to me that the most common academic position is that the Holodomor was less some cartoon-villainous deliberate genocide, complete with cackling and mustache-twirling, but somewhere on the continuum between reckless stupidity and willfull acceptance of deaths as collateral damage or punishment for specific transgressions against Kremlin policy. Where does Furr stand on this? Does he think the official Soviet policies had any ill effect at all?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 15:55

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# ? May 2, 2024 09:58

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

Sinnlos posted:

Golod 1932-1933 rokiv na Ukraini: ochima istorikiv, movoyu dokumentiv is what you are looking for.

Oh, you mean this? http://www.archives.gov.ua/Sections/Famine/Publicat/Fam-Pyrig-1932.php

There's nothing in this that refers to the famine continuing into 1934 as you claim. And definitely nothing that shows any sort of malicious or unfair behavior on the part of the Politburo, although you're free to cite text and make your case.

Document 129 is indirectly cited by Snyder, through Graziosi. First, Graziosi lies that the document is proof that Kaganovich set seed stock seizure as a precondition of fulfilling the grain collection plan. Then Snyder lies, citing Graziosi's statement based on Document 129, to say:

quote:

A simple respite from requisitions for three months would not have harmed the Soviet economy, and would have saved most of those three million lives. Yet Stalin and Kaganovich insisted on exactly the contrary. The state would fight "ferociously," as Kaganovich put it, to fulfill the plan.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:04

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

botany posted:

Davies & Wheatcroft are on the record saying that the agricultural and industrial policies are responsible for the famine. In general it seems to me that the most common academic position is that the Holodomor was less some cartoon-villainous deliberate genocide, complete with cackling and mustache-twirling, but somewhere on the continuum between reckless stupidity and willfull acceptance of deaths as collateral damage or punishment for specific transgressions against Kremlin policy. Where does Furr stand on this? Does he think the official Soviet policies had any ill effect at all?

That's a great question. As it turns out, Davies and Wheatcroft formerly collaborated with Tauger on research into this period of history, but have gone their separate ways and disagree in some ways on the causes for the famine. In the "what really happened" section, Furr sides with Tauger:

quote:

The main causes of the 1932-33 famine were environmental factors that led to a poor harvest. These factors were: drought in some areas; unusually heavy rainfall in others; serious infestations of the crop diseases rust and smut; plagues of pests, including Asian locusts, beet weevils, meadow moths, and caterpillars; and a huge infestation of mice. The harvest was so small that the amount of food available in the USSR was apparently less than was necessary to feed the whole population.

Contributing factors were due to the interaction of human agency with these environmental causes. There was a widespread and serious problem of weeds, caused by a shortage of labor to weed the fields due to population flight and the weakness of many remaining peasants. Much land remained unplanted or unharvested due to labor shortages caused by population losses both from peasants moving to towns and cities and from peasants weakened by or dying of starvation.

Horses were the chief draught animals used for plowing and other agricultural tasks. Many horses had been lost or were already severely weakened by a famine in 1931-32 and by desperate peasants eating oats, the horses' fodder. The Soviet state imported some tractors and manufactured others. This did have some effect but not enough to overcome the loss of draft power from horses. (Tauger 2001b)

Much of the land had been planted in grain for years in a row. This resulted in soil exhaustion that severely reduced fertility. Farms and agricultural officials were finding it hard to find additional land in the established agricultural regions. The increased area put the peasants under considerable strain. Nevertheless there was sufficient labor to bring in a good harvest in 1933 and so put an end to the famine. That means there ahd been enough labor in 1931 and 1932 as well. That the harvest in those years was fatally small was mainly due to the environmental factors listed above.

The Soviet leadership did not fully understand these environmental causes. Nor did their informants, the OGPU and local Party leaders. Therefore, they tended to blame human factors like mismanagement, faulty leadership, and, to some extent, peasant resistance and kulak sabotage. Not understanding, at least for many months, the primary importance of environmental causes, and believing reports that the harvest should have been a good one, the only logical alternative was that the famine was caused by various kinds of sabotage: direct sabotage by Ukrainian nationalists; peasants withholding grain; peasants and others hoarding grain for sale; peasants unwilling to work the fields; Party, kolkhoz, and other officials collaborating in these efforts, and so on.

Nevertheless the Soviet government did greatly reduce exports of grain. It also began to ship aid in food and seed to Ukraine and other hard-hit areas. Tauger (2004, 82-3) writes:
quote:
By early 1933 the USSR was in the throes of a catastrophic famine, varying in severity between regions but pervasive. After efforts in January to procure more grain, the regime began desperate efforts in February to aid peasants to produce a crop. The political departments (politotdely), which the regime introduced into the state farms (sovkhozy) and the machine tractor stations (MTS) in early 1933, played a crucial role in these efforts. These agencies, composed of a small group of workers and OGPU personnel in each MTS or sovkhoz, removed officials who had violated government directives on farm work and procurements, replacing them with kolkhozniki or sovkhoz workers who they thought would be more reliable, and organized and otherwise helped farms to produce a good harvest in 1933. They were supported by draconian and coercive laws in enforcing labour discipline in the farms in certain regions, but also by the largest allocations of seed and food aid in Soviet history, 5.76 million tons, and by special sowing commissions set up in crucial regions like Ukraine, the Urals, the Volga and elsewhere to manage regional-level aspects of organization and supplies to the farms.
Historians seldom discuss the role of these politotdely. Tauger believes they made a significant contribution to the efforts to organize production and overcome the famine. He summarizes at some length a report of December 1933 from the Central Blackearth Oblast' (south of Moscow and directly north of Ukraine) about the important role these bodies played in helping the peasants bring in the good harvest of 1933:
quote:
The report first describes the crisis conditions of early 1933: peasants starving and dying, horses exhausted, dying and neglected, tractors repaired poorly or not at all, labour discipline weak among kolkhozniki, tractor drivers and individual peasants, with frequent cases of refusals to work and avoidance of responsibility. The politotdely began by talking with and organizing the kolkhozniki, and by purging kolkhozy, MTS, and other local agencies of what it termed kulak and counter-revolutionary elements. According to the report kolkhozniki participated in these actions and developed enthusiasm for work from them. With politotdel help, MTS and kolkhozy finished sowing 15 days earlier than they had in 1932, and sowed 3.4 million hectares instead of the 2.85 million hectares they had in 1932. They used fertilizer for the first time and sorted seed, they treated more seed against plant diseases, they weeded crops sometimes two and three times, and they took measures against insects. They completed harvesting grain crops in 65 days, versus 70 in 1932, and threshing in December 1933, a process that in 1932 had lasted in the region into March 1933. They completed grain procurements in November 1933 (those of 1932 had lasted like threshing into spring 1933), paid off all of their seed loans, formed the necessary internal funds in kolkhozy and still managed to distribute to kolkhozniki much more in labour-day payments than the previous year, thereby ending the famine in the region. The kolkhozniki also provided all their livestock with basic fodder, and built granaries, livestock shelters, clubs and other buildings. ...

As a result of these efforts, the CBO harvested some 24 per cent more grain in 1933 than in 1932 {Tauger, 199lb: 81}. While weather conditions played a role in these successful results, clearly peasants worked harder and differently in 1933, during the peak of the famine, than they had earlier, and management by the politotdely contributed to this. (Tauger, 2004, 84)
Tauger cites evidence that many peasants who hated or did not like the kolkhozy nevertheless worked hard in them, while many other peasants "worked willingly during the whole period ... siding with the system." (Tauger 2004, 85)

As a result, on the whole peasants accepted collectivization:

quote:
All of this is not to deny that some peasants in the 1930s, especially in famine years, used the 'weapons of the weak' against the kolkhoz system and the Soviet government. The issue is how representative evidence is of peasants generally, which is another way of asking how important such incidents were. Certainly resistance was greater and more important in 1930 and possibly 1932. But any analysis of this must also take into account natural disaster, the diversity of peasants' responses, and overall results of their work. Studies conducted in the mid-1930s found that kolkhozniki actually worked harder than non-collectivized peasants had worked in the 1920s, clear evidence of significant adaptation to the new system. (Tauger 2004, 87)

swampman fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Mar 24, 2016

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:10

emdash: Oct 19, 2003; and?

i don't think what you linked is the actual thing Sinnlos was referring to. it appears to be a 603-page beast according to the stanford library https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/3068181

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:15

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

TheQat posted:

i don't think what you linked is the actual thing Sinnlos was referring to. it appears to be a 603-page beast according to the stanford library https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/3068181

Those are the texts of the rulings of the Politburo contained in that book, that are cited by Snyder as evidence that Kaganovich and Stalin "knowingly" "condemned" millions to starve. Otherwise, the book is simply an account of the famine - nobody disputes that millions did starve.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:23

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

botany posted:

Does he think the official Soviet policies had any ill effect at all?

To answer this more fully - Furr also says

quote:

The results of my study of Bloodlands are so overwhelmingly negative that some readers may suspect that this study lacks objectivity. I wish to assure the reader that I have done my best to point out those very few cases in which Snyder makes a fact-claim about the Soviet Union that both is of a negative tendency and is true.

As far as the role of policy exacerbating the famine - it is certainly likely that Soviet policy did exacerbate the famine in some ways, in that the Soviets did not understand many of the famine's causes. At the same time, as we see with the cancellation of the December decrees by the Ukrainian politburo, the Moscow politburo had no problem changing tactics when the old ones proved ineffective, and mostly behaved practically in response to a terrible disaster. In a sense, one Soviet failure was that they should have collectivized earlier, in a non-famine year, but that's pretty easy to type eighty years on.

edit: vvvv Glad I anticipated some of your response, but I can add more detail as well - I'm running out of time

swampman fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Mar 24, 2016

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:30

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

swampman posted:

That's a great question. As it turns out, Davies and Wheatcroft formerly collaborated with Tauger on research into this period of history, but have gone their separate ways and disagree in some ways on the causes for the famine. In the "what really happened" section, Furr sides with Tauger:
Historians seldom discuss the role of these politotdely. Tauger believes they made a significant contribution to the efforts to organize production and overcome the famine. He summarizes at some length a report of December 1933 from the Central Blackearth Oblast' (south of Moscow and directly north of Ukraine) about the important role these bodies played in helping the peasants bring in the good harvest of 1933:

Tauger cites evidence that many peasants who hated or did not like the kolkhozy nevertheless worked hard in them, while many other peasants "worked willingly during the whole period ... siding with the system." (Tauger 2004, 85)
As a result, on the whole peasants accepted collectivization:

That's all well and good but doesn't answer my question. Most historians, as far as I can tell, agree that the main cause of the famine was natural, but that the official Soviet policies made a bad situation much, much worse. Specifically, the high expectations for grain produce based on non-famine years, coupled with a complete unwillingness to accept lower-than-expected results, led to substantial retaliation against farmers. At least towards the end of 1932, this included in-kind fines, i.e., if you're not growing enough grain for us we'll confiscate your "debts" in potatos, meat and oats. Doing this during a famine is obviously a horrendously lovely thing to do. So now people are starving because the weather sucks and due to bad agricultural planning they are obligated to grow wheat on fields that have been robbed of nutrients since they've been growing wheat on them for years, and since that's a hard thing to do, the rest of their food gets confiscated. That means people, in order to survive, steal and hold back some food. So now Stalin signs a law that says that theft of "socialist property" (i.e., food) is punishable by death.

Yes, in 1933 the harvest got a lot better, and the change in official policy had something to do with that. But doesn't that just mean the Soviet officials made better what they had made worse before? The massive starvation between 31 and 33 is at least to some extent surely also the fault of Stalin, no? Does Furr have a position on this?

edit since you posted again:

swampman posted:

To answer this more fully - Furr also says

As far as the role of policy exacerbating the famine - it is certainly likely that Soviet policy did exacerbate the famine in some ways, in that the Soviets did not understand many of the famine's causes. At the same time, as we see with the cancellation of the December decrees by the Ukrainian politburo, the Moscow politburo had no problem changing tactics when the old ones proved ineffective, and mostly behaved practically in response to a terrible disaster. In a sense, one Soviet failure was that they should have collectivized earlier, in a non-famine year, but that's pretty easy to type eighty years on.

That seems like an extremely tendential thing to say. The fact that they changed tactics too late and got lucky - literally - with the weather doesn't mean that they "had no problem changing tactics when the old ones proved ineffective", especially since during 32 they already tried adressing the problem multiple times, but never actually did enough. Instead they doubled down:

quote:

Farmers did not fulfill the sowing plans, however, and the harvest decreased even relative to that of 1931 by a complex mix of natural disasters and mismanagement. While official projections of the harvest dropped substantially, however, Soviet leaders refused to believe that another catastrophe like 1931 had occurred, and pressed forward with only a moderately reduced procurement plan. Implementing this plan, however, brought a tremendous struggle between regime and peasants, simultaneous with a disastrous decline in food supplies for the towns, and widespread theft and attempted theft at all stages of distribution. In response, Stalin wrote a law issued on 7 August that imposed death penalties or 10-year exile for theft of �socialist property.�

That's Tauger, by the way, who Furr cites approvingly. Are there any like passages in Furr's text at all, any sign that he understands that there was a significant responsibility on the Soviet side for making a bad situation worse?

botany fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Mar 24, 2016

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:31

Grand Theft Autobot: Feb 28, 2008; I'm something of a fucking idiot myself

Why do we keep referring to Grover Furr in the third person? Grover Furr is the OP.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:36

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

Why do we keep referring to Grover Furr in the third person? Grover Furr is the OP.

Actually, you can use archives to find my embarrassing old posts from years ago, and crush me with them if you like.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:41

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

Why do we keep referring to Grover Furr in the third person? Grover Furr is the OP.

Gonna assume that a grown-rear end literature prof like Furr doesn't still live with his parents, as indicated by swampman's post history.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:42

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

swampman posted:

Furr discusses the evidence for the so-called "Katyn Massacre" at great length, and I will take the time to outline all of his major points so you can decide for yourself if his argument makes sense.

In the OP, I mentioned Furr's stance on the killings of Polish POWs, as listed on his website. Essentially, Furr claims that this was not a discrete event but a series of many executions committed by both Nazi and Soviet soldiers, and that Nazis killed the majority of the Polish officers. The version of events that claimed the Soviet NKVD organized to murder 18-22,000 Polish POWs originated in a Nazi report of 1943.

The idea that Russia "admits responsibility" for the killings is a total exaggeration. In this report on the "admission" of 2010, Putin's more complete statement is that many Soviet soldiers shot Poles "in revenge for" the tens of thousands of Russian POWs who were murdered in Polish captivity in 1920-21.

I'm sorry, did you post this to help your argument? Because its not helping.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:52

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

botany posted:

Gonna assume that a grown-rear end literature prof like Furr doesn't still live with his parents, as indicated by swampman's post history.

My old post history is from my early 20s when I was pretty annoying. My current post history is much cooler, I guess, or whatever.

I wanted to see what the general response to Furr would be here and I've got my answer. Of course I am dedicated to sticking with this thread until it gets too repetitive for everyone. There is still a lot more to post about. You can see that the anticommunists in this thread resort to personal attacks without making a case. Silent readers of this thread can see it as well. I have already mentioned in this thread that I don't particularly care about, or for, Stalin. What the people who argue with me are silent about is the Nazi and Ukrainian Nationalist (Nazi collaborator) origin for their account of history. The book by Douglas Tottle I've linked to, "Fraud, Famine, and Fascism" explores this connection. Does anyone have a response to the well-supported charge that the concept of a planned "Holodomor" is a myth originated by Goebbels?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:57

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

Tottle also isn't a historian. Funny how that keeps popping up.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 16:59

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

R. Mute posted:

Tottle also isn't a historian. Funny how that keeps popping up.

You know, based on the amount of complete fraud that is proven to have gone into Snyder's book, he's not a historian.

Do you think that Furr's criticisms of Snyder and his (mis)use of sources are invalid? Do you at least admit that Robert Conquest, who - YES CONQUEST - backed off his claims that the famine of 1932-33 was deliberate, was mistaken? Don't you think that at the least, Snyder should endure some publicity over his blatant lies?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:10

ugh its Troika: May 2, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

swampman posted:

You know, based on the amount of complete fraud that is proven to have gone into Snyder's book, he's not a historian.

Also, I bet I'm not the only one who noticed how you quietly dropped the whole Katyn massacre thing when it was instantly proved Furr was completely full of poo poo about it.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:17

Tacky-Ass Rococco: Sep 7, 2010; by R. Guyovich

So, uh, what's Furr's position on the show trials? Oh: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/trials_ezhovshchina_update0710.html

Jesus. It's not just fascists and anti-communists who are all liars, but Trots also.

swampman posted:

In a sense, one Soviet failure was that they should have collectivized earlier, in a non-famine year, but that's pretty easy to type eighty years on.

It's difficult to imagine anything more anti-socialist than advocating for the workers have the means of production seized out of their hands.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:21

R. Mute: Jul 27, 2011

swampman posted:

You know, based on the amount of complete fraud that is proven to have gone into Snyder's book, he's not a historian.

Do you think that Furr's criticisms of Snyder and his (mis)use of sources are invalid? Do you at least admit that Robert Conquest, who - YES CONQUEST - backed off his claims that the famine of 1932-33 was deliberate, was mistaken? Don't you think that at the least, Snyder should endure some publicity over his blatant lies?

I don't particularly care about Snyder or Conquest (well I do care about Conquest because he's a hack), I care about you going down the 'STALIN DID NOTHING WRONG' line and how you're propping this idea up with the academic equivalent of political pamphlets.

As to the Holodomor, it's obviously a sticky point because there isn't much of a historical consensus there - in that there's still a lot of debate going on, especially about applying the term "genocide", which I consider to be somewhat of a red herring. I'm personally more inclined towards the position botany mentioned - the cause for the famine being somewhere between stupidity and wilful acceptance of death - but with various policies and the way the response to the famine was handled pushing it into the realm of crimes against humanity.

Either way, you're still a long way from clearing Stalin's name. Assuming everybody in this thread is a Conquest-level fanatic isn't going to do you much good.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:23

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

botany posted:

That's Tauger, by the way, who Furr cites approvingly. Are there any like passages in Furr's text at all, any sign that he understands that there was a significant responsibility on the Soviet side for making a bad situation worse?

Thanks for the post. Making it quick Furr underlines an important fact of the famine in the Ukraine of 1932-33: the famine was not just in the Ukraine, it was enormous famine that affected a lot of Russia. People in the cities were starving just like rural peasants. The Politburo could not let the cities starve, but felt compelled to intensify the search for stores of grain, and end the illegal trade of grain speculation, since they could only understand the human factors of the famine. This combined with the basic fact that there were "counterrevolutionary" elements - kolkhozes and individual peasants alike hiding grain, or attempt to redefine it as "seed grain" - led many people to act with extreme cruelty, just as, for example, many American police today behave with extreme cruelty to enforce laws that are supposed to benefit the public. I personally think whatever they would have done, they would be accused of cruelty. Considering that the USSR absolutely needed to industrialize to survive World War 2, feeding the workers and cities was not optional.

One thing that is rarely mentioned in the grain collections is that the grain was not collected and whisked away, but was redistributed immediately - but fairly. I can come back later today and get deeper into this point with citations, if you like.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:24

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

swampman posted:

My old post history is from my early 20s when I was pretty annoying. My current post history is much cooler, I guess, or whatever.

I wanted to see what the general response to Furr would be here and I've got my answer. Of course I am dedicated to sticking with this thread until it gets too repetitive for everyone. There is still a lot more to post about. You can see that the anticommunists in this thread resort to personal attacks without making a case. Silent readers of this thread can see it as well. I have already mentioned in this thread that I don't particularly care about, or for, Stalin. What the people who argue with me are silent about is the Nazi and Ukrainian Nationalist (Nazi collaborator) origin for their account of history. The book by Douglas Tottle I've linked to, "Fraud, Famine, and Fascism" explores this connection. Does anyone have a response to the well-supported charge that the concept of a planned "Holodomor" is a myth originated by Goebbels?

We're still discussing how much of the Holodomor was planning and how much was just criminal negligence. In any case, why should we care where it's coming from? Surely the fact that the Nazis said something about Stalin doesn't automatically make it false. The recent debates (and everything I've posted) comes largely from declassified internal Soviet documents.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:25

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

-Troika- posted:

Also, I bet I'm not the only one who noticed how you quietly dropped the whole Katyn massacre thing when it was instantly proved Furr was completely full of poo poo about it.

What are you referring to?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:25

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Jack of Hearts posted:

So, uh, what's Furr's position on the show trials? Oh: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/trials_ezhovshchina_update0710.html

Jesus. It's not just fascists and anti-communists who are all liars, but Trots also.

It's difficult to imagine anything more anti-socialist than advocating for the workers have the means of production seized out of their hands.

quote:

Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night; and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a small antechamber�which had been painted red and was known as the "Leninist room"�for a brief and cursory positive identification, before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. The room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose, and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against. Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb: a leather butcher's apron, leather hat, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol.[13][14][15] He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue Soviet TT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended. The use of a German pocket pistol, which was commonly carried by German police and intelligence agents, also provided plausible deniability of the executions if the bodies were discovered later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_operations_of_the_NKVD

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Mar 24, 2016

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:25

Control Volume: Dec 31, 2008

swampman posted:

What are you referring to?

I think he's referring to the Katyn massacre.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:27

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

CommieGIR posted:

Blokhin initially decided on an ambitious quota of 300 executions per night; and engineered an efficient system in which the prisoners were individually led to a small antechamber�which had been painted red and was known as the "Leninist room"�for a brief and cursory positive identification, before being handcuffed and led into the execution room next door. The room was specially designed with padded walls for soundproofing, a sloping concrete floor with a drain and hose, and a log wall for the prisoners to stand against. Blokhin would stand waiting behind the door in his executioner garb: a leather butcher's apron, leather hat, and shoulder-length leather gloves. Then, without a hearing, the reading of a sentence or any other formalities, each prisoner was brought in and restrained by guards while Blokhin shot him once in the base of the skull with a German Walther Model 2 .25 ACP pistol.[13][14][15] He had brought a briefcase full of his own Walther pistols, since he did not trust the reliability of the standard-issue Soviet TT-30 for the frequent, heavy use he intended. The use of a German pocket pistol, which was commonly carried by German police and intelligence agents, also provided plausible deniability of the executions if the bodies were discovered later.

Where is this text from?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:29

PleasingFungus: Oct 10, 2012; idiot asshole bitch who should fuck off

swampman posted:

Where is this text from?

Given [13][14][15], it's gotta be wikipedia.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:32

Tacky-Ass Rococco: Sep 7, 2010; by R. Guyovich

I'd really like swampland to respond to the absolute lunacy that I just posted.

Grover Furr posted:

If Bukharin had told the truth -- if he had, in fact, informed on Ezhov -- Ezhov's mass murders could have been stopped in their tracks. The lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people could have been saved.

But Bukharin remained true to his fellow conspirators. He went to execution -- an execution he swore he deserved "ten times over"* -- without revealing Ezhov's participation in the conspiracy.

This point cannot be stressed too much: the blood of the hundreds of thousands of innocent persons slaughtered by Ezhov and his men during 1937-1938, are on Bukharin's hands.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:36

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

We keep posting simultaneously.

swampman posted:

Thanks for the post. Making it quick Furr underlines an important fact of the famine in the Ukraine of 1932-33: the famine was not just in the Ukraine, it was enormous famine that affected a lot of Russia. People in the cities were starving just like rural peasants. The Politburo could not let the cities starve, but felt compelled to intensify the search for stores of grain, and end the illegal trade of grain speculation, since they could only understand the human factors of the famine. This combined with the basic fact that there were "counterrevolutionary" elements - kolkhozes and individual peasants alike hiding grain, or attempt to redefine it as "seed grain" - led many people to act with extreme cruelty, just as, for example, many American police today behave with extreme cruelty to enforce laws that are supposed to benefit the public. I personally think whatever they would have done, they would be accused of cruelty. Considering that the USSR absolutely needed to industrialize to survive World War 2, feeding the workers and cities was not optional.

One thing that is rarely mentioned in the grain collections is that the grain was not collected and whisked away, but was redistributed immediately - but fairly. I can come back later today and get deeper into this point with citations, if you like.

You're right, the famine was not just in the Ukraine, but I don't understand why that is important. One big exascerbating factor that made the famine much worse than it had to be was the Soviet leadership's insistence on following the sowing plans. The peasants knew what they were doing, and had regularly rotated crops before the 30s, which they were now forbidden to do. As a result, the volume and quality of harvested grain declined. This is a direct result of Soviet policy, it has nothing to do with counterrevolutionary elements or over-zealous enforcement of laws. This, and many other decisions like it, were absolutely avoidable and as a result the Soviet leadership is responsible for making the famine as bad as it was. Do you disagree? Does Furr?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:37

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

botany posted:

We're still discussing how much of the Holodomor was planning and how much was just criminal negligence. In any case, why should we care where it's coming from? Surely the fact that the Nazis said something about Stalin doesn't automatically make it false. The recent debates (and everything I've posted) comes largely from declassified internal Soviet documents.

Consider the famine of 1920-21, which was well documented in photographs by the Nansen Commission. Nobody alleges that this was a planned famine. It killed more people than the famine of 1932-33, and a decade earlier. I find it hard to believe that, aided with extremely bad weather, the Soviets could not starve as many people from a larger population intentionally, than had starved in normally recurring famines on a regular basis in Russia over the previous centuries.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:45

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

Jack of Hearts posted:

I'd really like swampland to respond to the absolute lunacy that I just posted.

I haven't read that yet, but please explore Furr's reasoning on your own and report back.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:47

swampman: Oct 20, 2008; by Shine

botany posted:

We keep posting simultaneously.

You're right, the famine was not just in the Ukraine, but I don't understand why that is important. One big exascerbating factor that made the famine much worse than it had to be was the Soviet leadership's insistence on following the sowing plans. The peasants knew what they were doing, and had regularly rotated crops before the 30s, which they were now forbidden to do. As a result, the volume and quality of harvested grain declined. This is a direct result of Soviet policy, it has nothing to do with counterrevolutionary elements or over-zealous enforcement of laws. This, and many other decisions like it, were absolutely avoidable and as a result the Soviet leadership is responsible for making the famine as bad as it was. Do you disagree? Does Furr?

It's important because grain collection is only possible in rural areas. The Soviets had to behave with cruelty to collect grain in rural areas - because the cities do not produce any grain at all. They went looking for grain where they could find it. Their efforts did, in fact, produce enough grain to save the lives of 90% of Ukrainians. That is a higher percentage than survived the famine of 1920-21.

I wish I had time to make more complete responses to this, but you would be well served by reading the book. I have to go at the moment but will try to make longer responses with citation when I return.

swampman fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Mar 24, 2016

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:49

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

swampman posted:

Consider the famine of 1920-21, which was well documented in photographs by the Nansen Commission. Nobody alleges that this was a planned famine. It killed more people than the famine of 1932-33, and a decade earlier. I find it hard to believe that, aided with extremely bad weather, the Soviets could not starve as many people from a larger population intentionally, than had starved in normally recurring famines on a regular basis in Russia over the previous centuries.

swampman posted:

I haven't read that yet, but please explore Furr's reasoning on your own and report back.

You realize Furr's claims make him an outlier unsupported by current evidence. Right now, you are arguing uphill against what we know by established evidence, and its not working in your favor.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:52

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

Vasily Blokhin was just a simple baker who wore an apron and long gloves because he didn't like to get flour on himself. He also carried a briefcase full of Walther pistols for, um, the same reason, to keep flour off of himself.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 17:58

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

swampman posted:

It's important because grain collection is only possible in rural areas. The Soviets had to behave with cruelty to collect grain in rural areas - because the cities do not produce any grain at all. They went looking for grain where they could find it. Their efforts did, in fact, produce enough grain to save the lives of 90% of Ukrainians. That is a higher percentage than survived the famine of 1920-21.

I wish I had time to make more complete responses to this, but you would be well served by reading the book. I have to go at the moment but will try to make longer responses with citation when I return.

They didn't just produce grain though, they grew potatos, sugar beets and other high-energy crops (as well as industrial crops like flax or cotton) at industrial scale as well. As far as I can tell, those fields were not rotated either. On top of that, Russia still used 1.6 tons of grain for export during the famine years of 32/33, rather than using it to feed the starving. I'd like to hear from you whether you consider these things to be failures on the part of the Soviet leadership.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 18:01

Tacky-Ass Rococco: Sep 7, 2010; by R. Guyovich

swampman posted:

I haven't read that yet, but please explore Furr's reasoning on your own and report back.

There isn't any reasoning, it's cult of personality nonsense. Stalin wasn't responsible for the hundreds of thousands of political murders committed while he was paramount leader of the USSR, because his chosen head of the NKVD *~duped~* him.

Grover Furr posted:

Ezhov lied to Stalin, the Party and government leaders about all this. The truly horrific mass executions of 1937-1938 of almost 680,000 people were in large part unjustifiable executions of innocent people carried out deliberately by Ezhov and his top men in order to sow discontent among the Soviet population.

Although Ezhov executed a very large number of innocent people, it is clear from the evidence now available that there were also real conspiracies. The Russian government continues to keep all but a tiny amount of the investigative materials top-secret. We can�t know for sure exactly the dimensions of the real conspiracies without that evidence. Therefore, we don�t know how many of these 680,000 people were actual conspirators and how many were innocent victims.

(See also the quote posted earlier, in which all these deaths were put at the doorstep of Bukharin.)

Note that this wouldn't fly with literally any other dictator. If Pinochet had somehow managed to remain unaware of what his security services were doing, he wouldn't have been any less a butcher.

Oh, right, and Ezhov was a German agent in all of this (presented without evidence, seemingly taking Ezhov's confession at face value):

Grover Furr posted:

Ezhov, head of the NKVD (People�s Commissar for Internal Affairs), had his own conspiracy against the Soviet government and Party leadership. Ezhov had also been recruited by German intelligence.

Like the Rights and Trotskyites, Ezhov and his top NKVD men were counting on an invasion by Germany, Japan, or other major capitalist country. They tortured a great many innocent people into confessing to capital crimes so they would be shot. They executed a great many more on falsified grounds or no grounds at all.

Ezhov hoped that this mass murder of innocent people would turn large parts of the Soviet population against the government. That would create the basis for internal rebellions against the Soviet government when Germany or Japan attacked.

Oh, and the show trials were all legit:

Grover Furr posted:

The defendants at the Moscow Trials of August 1936, January 1937, and March 1938, were guilty of at least (emphasis added) those crimes to which they confessed. A "bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" did indeed exist. It planned to assassinate Stalin, Kaganovich, Molotov, and others in a coup d�etat , what they called a "palace coup" (dvortsovyi perevorot). The bloc did assassinate Kirov.

I feel like this would strain even Horselord's credulity.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 18:05

Sharkie: Feb 4, 2013; by Fluffdaddy

Regarding Blood Lies, I'm curious about how Grover portrayed American leadership. Would you say that the real monster, at the end of the book, was Harry S Truman?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 18:25

Tacky-Ass Rococco: Sep 7, 2010; by R. Guyovich

Here's another good one, where Furr asserts that Trotsky was in league with the Germans and the Japanese: http://clogic.eserver.org/2009/Furr.pdf

This guy is the left wing equivalent of a mises.org writer.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 18:53

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Jack of Hearts posted:

Here's another good one, where Furr asserts that Trotsky was in league with the Germans and the Japanese: http://clogic.eserver.org/2009/Furr.pdf

This guy is the left wing equivalent of a mises.org writer.

"Nazi Germany was just defending itself from Soviet aggression" :qq:

# ? Mar 24, 2016 19:06

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

Jack of Hearts posted:

I'd really like swampland to respond to the absolute lunacy that I just posted.

That really is absolute lunacy. :stare:

The notion that Bukharin could have informed on Yezhov and thus brought down the whole NKVD apparatus, when Bukharin was already considered a discredited traitor by most of the country, shows that Furr really doesn't have any business talking about Soviet history or the Stalinist period.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 19:27

Avshalom: Feb 14, 2012; by Lowtax

# ? Mar 24, 2016 19:42

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009; Inverted Offensive Battle: Acupuncture Attacks Convert To 3D Penetration Tactics Taking Advantage of Deep Battle Opportunities

botany posted:

Davies & Wheatcroft are on the record saying that the agricultural and industrial policies are responsible for the famine. In general it seems to me that the most common academic position is that the Holodomor was less some cartoon-villainous deliberate genocide, complete with cackling and mustache-twirling, but somewhere on the continuum between reckless stupidity and willfull acceptance of deaths as collateral damage or punishment for specific transgressions against Kremlin policy.

Indeed, the intention was largely retaliation. Per Michael Ellman of the University of Amsterdam:

quote:

In his speech of 11 January 1933, Stalin (1951b, pp. 227 � 231) explained that the killings and deportations undertaken up until then had not yet eliminated all the �class enemies�, and that many of them were still at loose in the collective farms, into which they had wormed themselves. The newly formed collective farms were often being used by �counter-revolutionaries�. He argued that the �kulaks� had been beaten but not yet finished off. The situation was still one of fierce �class struggle�. The implication of these remarks was that the repression up until then was insufficient�by then more than two and a half million peasants had been arrested, deported, resettled, shot, or sent to prisons and camps�and that more would be necessary.

As for the �idlers� (or �slackers�), they deserved to starve. In his speech of 19 February 1933, delivered while the famine was raging, Stalin (1951c, p. 249) quoted from Lenin the words: �He who does not work, neither shall he eat�.

Quoted in the same piece is the then-People�s Commissar for Agriculture of Ukraine, A. Odintsov:

quote:

�There is a growing consciousness among the people, including the starving, that the way out of the situation is primarily to fulfil the spring sowing. The conscientiously working collective farmers are angry about the idlers and thieves. The conscientiously working collective farmers argue this way: let the idlers and thieves who have condemned me to semistarvation die from hunger. We will somehow or other get by, will not permit more idling and theft and in the future will improve our life

More from Stalin himself (Davies and Wheatcroft, p. 174.):

quote:

[F]rom today the dispatch of goods for the villages of all regions of Ukraine shall cease until kolkhozy and individual peasants begin to honestly and conscientiously fulfill their duty to the working class and the Red Army by delivering grain.

Finding these quotes took me only a couple minutes, but they paint a pretty convincing picture of the Holodomor being at least partially a retaliatory action against innocent civilians falsely accused of being class enemies.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 19:47

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# ? May 2, 2024 09:58

Tacky-Ass Rococco: Sep 7, 2010; by R. Guyovich

Did you guys know that the Soviet Union never invaded Poland?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 19:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > ""Critically"" ""Evaluating"" Grover Furr's Blood Lies

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