quote:

The agrarian historian Mark Tauger writes that the famines were not “fundamentally or exclusively” man-made. Both D&W and Tauger show how anti-communist writers underestimate the role of ecological factors in producing bad harvests and overlook the states use of famine relief

D&W not only rule out genocide, but also explicitly rule out the conscious intent to murder,which makes it fundamentally unlike the Indonesian massacres and other genocides or genocide-like events of deliberate, mass killing. In D&Ws words famine was “unexpected and undesirable”

ill-informed political decisions contributed to unintended consequences. Polices were made by men conditioned by a brutal civil war with little knowledge of agriculture reacting to difficult natural/climate circumstances at a tumultuous time of grave international uncertainty

Bilous seems to concede that it wasn’t genocide, but is still driven by the same intentionalist motivations as Ukrainian nationalists to discredit the Soviet project. He’s more interested in moral judgement and scapegoating than understanding history in an objective way

Many Ukrainian nationalists believe their historical trauma and victimhood gives them the right to falsify history, inflate death tolls, engage in holocaust revisionism (double genocide theory) and erase the suffering of ethnic minorities. It doesn’t.

Ukraine’s state-promoted narrative around these events have been criticized by historians for good reasons, as theyre bound up with these falsities/exaggerations. Its no surprise the left has taken issue with it. We shouldn’t settle for bad history that emboldens antisemitism

quote:

Bilous tries to obscure how [Davies & Wheatcroft's] book is generally lauded as an authoritative text in the field, and the most comprehensive work on the topic (see marples, moore, tauger). Like any landmark work, it has provoked responses, which vary in quality

Its odd that Bilous cites this criticism of D&W, because Tauger argues for lower harvest estimates! Bilous is citing evidence that contradicts his own position. Tauger's critique posits that the famine's causes were largely natural, which I agree with

Tauger did identify an error in Wheatcroft's calculations of the 1932 yields, which Wheatcroft acknowledged and corrected in the revised edition of his work. They agree on most aspects of this debate and both reject the flimsy intentionalist interpretations.

D&Ws book being the most comprehensive work on the topic is a widely held opinion in the field, noted by the scholar whose criticism Bilous cites (Tauger). Pretending otherwise is a dishonest attempt dismiss D&Ws acclaimed work, misleading those unfamiliar with the scholarship

Much of this "semi-peripheral" scholarship (Ie. Ukrainian) is faced with serious political pressures, as they are researching in a country in which denial of the famines as man-made is illegal. Other scholars are unburdened by this draconian constraint and inherent bias

That D&W quote is qualified by the following paragraph, where they describe the multi-causal, impersonal, complex. and unintended nature of the famine. I don't contest a degree of responsibility, the issue is intent

In my last thread I cited a paper where Wheatcroft rails against the way famine has been simplified as a mono-causal event in order to serve moralistic and political ends. Bilous selectively quotes Wheatcroft in order to misrepresent his nuanced views as something more simplistic

D&W have always been consistent that ill-informed policies made within the context of intransigent geopolitical and ecological constraints in part led to **unintended** consequences. Again, the reduction of these events to a state's singular mentality or plan is wrong.

Bilous cites [Michael Ellman's work], whose arguments around Soviet intentionality crumble under scrutiny. D&W's response shows how Ellman astonishingly provides next to no evidence to substantiate his specific claim that the leadership had intent to deliberately starve

Ellman is eager to describe the state's sinister ambitions, but then struggles to present any concrete evidence substantiating the claim. This is a persistent problem for intentionalists who largely lack concrete archival evidence for their claims

Although, contra Bilous, it is worth noting that even Ellman doesn't see the Soviet state as specifically targeting Ukrainians, stating "The notion that Ukraine was uniquely victimised by Soviet famines is just a nationalist fantasy."

Bilous then cites Danilov, a historian whose zealous Trotskyist ideological beliefs played a role in him fudging data and seriously confusing the debates around the alleged intentionality of the famines. Very embarrassing stuff.

Bilous implies there was no food aid given in 1933. This is false. The Soviets issued substantial food aid in 1933. This is what I mean by anti-communists either over-looking famine relief or attempting to downplay it for ideological reasons

The notion of sending famine relief to a population that you are purposely trying to starve is frankly an incoherent position. Over the duration of the famine, they sent millions of tonnes of aid. This doesn't absolve mistakes made, but clearly discredits famine as a willful act

Bilous himself reveals uncertainty in connecting the Ukrainian national question to the famines, because it has proven a speculative endeavor that has not produced *any* concrete evidence demonstrating Stalin set out to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

...

Since the evidence clearly discredits the Soviet famine as a genocide, Bilous shifts the terrain in an attempt to discredit the concept of genocide itself. Basically, "if we can't have it, no one should,"

Genocide is a useful term. It captures historically distinct acts of barbarity predicated on the *purposeful* destruction of particular racial groups. To discard the term is to de-emphasize the uniqueness of the holocaust and colonial genocide ie intentional racial extermination

Bilous preferred term is "crime against humanity" which, by the way, can apparently be worse than a genocide and the holocaust. Ukrainian scholar Lubomyr Luciuk described the famine as "a crime against humanity arguably without parallel in European history."

These morally-charged terms without clear definitions or criteria are useful for ideologues because they are conducive to making (dishonest) comparisons with the holocaust and colonial genocide, despite the unintended famine being fundamentally unlike these phenomena

Ultimately, "scholarship" that uses blame, scapegoating, hyperbole, and moral outrage in lieu of rigorous economic history and social scientific explanation is not worthwhile history. But they're not interested in history as it actually happened

some plague rats posted:

I ain't reading all that but I assume it confirms that the holodomor definitely happened

quote:

Dec. 28, 2022, 12:45 AM PST / Updated Dec. 28, 2022, 7:11 AM PST
By Julianne McShane

Whoopi Goldberg faces a fresh round of backlash after her latest historically inaccurate statement about the Holocaust, which she claimed "wasn't originally" about race in an interview with the U.K. newspaper The Sunday Times.

The controversy marks the second time this year that Goldberg, 67, has come under fire for what Jewish leaders and Holocaust experts say are inaccurate and offensive comments about the Nazi-sponsored mass murder of 6 million European Jews from 1933 to 1945.

Goldberg made the latest remarks in an interview published Saturday after the reporter said, "Nazis saw Jews as a race," referring to Goldberg's comments in January, when she claimed the Holocaust was "not about race."

“Yes, but that’s the killer, isn’t it?” Goldberg told The Sunday Times reporter. “The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They’re Nazis. Why believe what they’re saying?

“It wasn’t originally” about race, Goldberg continued. “Remember who they were killing first. They were not killing racial; they were killing physical. They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision.”

When the reporter told Goldberg that "the Nazis measured the heads and noses of Jews to 'prove' they were a distinct race," Goldberg replied: “They did that to Black people too. But it doesn’t change the fact that you could not tell a Jew on a street. You could find me. You couldn’t find them. That was the point I was making. But you would have thought that I’d taken a big old stinky dump on the table, butt naked.”

Best Friends posted:

post your freikorps

Larry Parrish posted:

if you have a strong opinion of the russo-ukranian war either way and you live in north America and your family isn't from there you're a moron. sorry. if this matches you you truly have absolutely no reason to care, and you shouldn't. looking at propaganda all day will just make you into a crazy person, not a good person.

EasilyConfused posted:

edit: Just to be clear (because this thread has a lot of people getting mad at unclear phrasing), I'm saying Larry's post is terrible, not that people shouldn't care about the holocaust.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

speng31b posted:

pyf genocide denial

fart simpson posted:

did the holodomor happen?

some plague rats posted:

your familys idea of generational wealth is hoarding chromosomes

Weka posted:

I thought Polish Operation was a board game like Operation except instead of tweezers it shipped with a spoon.

Xaris posted:

56m no

Cuttlefush posted:

unrelated, am I crazy or wasn't there a way to do nested quotes? like a decade ago you'd just quote someone's post and the post they quoted would be in there. wouldn't it?

is there some setting i'm missing. what the gently caress

my bony fealty posted:

THEE holodomor

Lib and let die posted:

I'm hearing some troubling concerns that this might be some sort of mock thread?

Gonna need to take a poll here, go on ahead and this post if you are 100% sincerely of the belief that The Holodomor Happened

Nix Panicus posted:

The Holodomor was a precision operation, targeting only Ukrainians according to a secret master kill file Stalin himself compiled by hand.

Pepe Silvia Browne posted:

Do something!!!

redneck nazgul posted:

obama making a photo op of eating "ukrainian" grain to show that it's plentiful and safe to eat

i say swears online posted:

i say swears online posted:

it was pretty out so i did a quick 22km bike ride today and still can't get any friends to join me. america is crippled