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> in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing It (The USSR) was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives. Because it was too busy

> in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing It (The USSR) was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives. Because it was too busy selling gold and wheat to buy industry from Americans (that's who built all those plants). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor I think I'd skip an industrialization like that.

rangibaby 10y ago
> I think I'd skip an industrialization like that. Then you could enjoy Holodomor every day thanks to the unfortunate fact that you happened to occupy some prime Lebensraum. Stalin was a mass murderer, but he ultimately made or allowed the correct strategy to put the USSR in a position to defeat Germany, which was a pretty good trick (to put it lightly).
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE
  - Aloha 10y ago
    Arguably the social policies of Nazi Germany likely would have kept the birthrate high for another 2-3 generations, after that.. its hard to say. Alternative histories of Germany winning the war are many, and interesting (and scary) though experiments.
    - guard-of-terra 10y ago
      Nobody got 2-3 generations in their position, I think they could only aim for a half generation of high-ish birthrate. That's what USA got, and it was arguably less urbanized to begin with. They'll still have massive debt and huge costs of security and investments in freshly acquired "lebensraum". Honestly I think they'll crumble anyway.
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    Your first paragraph is "the Nazis didn't have enough coal to burn 6M Jews"-level dishonesty. They would have found a way to populate all that sweet, sweet land, like any colonizer in the past or present. I agree with the second one. The "spoils" claimed weren't much compared to the destruction inflicted on their country and people. That has nothing to do with my original comment though.
    - guard-of-terra 10y ago
      Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. I see rapid decolonization. Japanese leave rural areas and northern territories. Russians fled Central Asia, pushed off Caucasus, large swaths of land become anthropic deserts. French in no position to colonize Africa anymore, if anything they're getting colonized. Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "sraum". Arguable, Polish and Balts skip their countries for greener pastures. If anybody in EU will be lacking room they can move there any minute.
      - rangibaby 10y ago
        > Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. The main example of "old school" colonization (other than the Chinese example mentioned below) I can think of in 2016 is the Israeli colonization of the occupied territories. Colonies provided wealth and a logistical advantage to their owners. UK and France both fought hard to hold onto theirs well past the end of WWII. More recently, Russia considered Crimea important enough to accept the economic punishment annexing it entailed. > Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Do you have a good source or book that I can read about this? I would like to know more. > Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "scram". The Nazis are not known for paying careful attention to the climate when drawing up their grand plans. Lebensraum was their official policy, and I doubt they would have left the local population alone, considering what they did to other undesirables.
astrodust 10y ago
In the 1930s the US was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
- knowaveragejoe 10y ago
  Do you really not see the difference between these two events?
  - astrodust 10y ago
    I'm trying to draw parallels here, that sometimes shit happens. Russia's mismanagement of agriculture notwithstanding, sometimes you're up against forces you can't control.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      There's a hell of a big difference between an inadvertent result of ill-considered agricultural practices and a deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation.
      - pastProlog 10y ago
        If there was a "deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation" happening, I'm sure I could look in the New York Times archives of the period and read about that. If I consult the archives, the reporters going through the Ukraine said reports of that were false. Also, all of Europe had a bad crop that year, I guess the Soviets were controlling the weather?
        astrodust 10y ago
        There's a lot of hyperbole on both sides here. The Soviets at the time claimed Americans were starving by the millions, and of course Americans claimed the Soviets were starving by the millions. Of course this is a point too subtle to work on Hacker News. The data on both sides is wobbly to the point of being undependable. Until modern social security systems kicked in the number of people living in the US was largely a hypothetical quantity, especially in far-flung rural areas, the very sort of which were impacted by the Dust Bowl. The 1930 census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census seems to be fairly comprehensive, but you have to wonder how far into the wilderness these people were willing to go to tabulate who was living in the extreme edges of the American frontier.
pastProlog 10y ago
> I'd skip an industrialization like that That's how the British empire industrialized (in India, Ireland) etc. The western countries bordering Ukraine had food shortages the same year the Ukraine did, no mention of that. Also if you read New York Times during this period, the reporters travelling the Ukraine said there were no famine conditions - the Times said this, not Pravda.

rangibaby 10y ago

> I think I'd skip an industrialization like that. Then you could enjoy Holodomor every day thanks to the unfortunate fact that you happened to occupy some prime Lebensraum. Stalin was a mass murderer, but he ultimately made or allowed the correct strategy to put the USSR in a position to defeat Germany, which was a pretty good trick (to put it lightly).

guard-of-terra 10y ago
As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE
- Aloha 10y ago
  Arguably the social policies of Nazi Germany likely would have kept the birthrate high for another 2-3 generations, after that.. its hard to say. Alternative histories of Germany winning the war are many, and interesting (and scary) though experiments.
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    Nobody got 2-3 generations in their position, I think they could only aim for a half generation of high-ish birthrate. That's what USA got, and it was arguably less urbanized to begin with. They'll still have massive debt and huge costs of security and investments in freshly acquired "lebensraum". Honestly I think they'll crumble anyway.
- rangibaby 10y ago
  Your first paragraph is "the Nazis didn't have enough coal to burn 6M Jews"-level dishonesty. They would have found a way to populate all that sweet, sweet land, like any colonizer in the past or present. I agree with the second one. The "spoils" claimed weren't much compared to the destruction inflicted on their country and people. That has nothing to do with my original comment though.
  - guard-of-terra 10y ago
    Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. I see rapid decolonization. Japanese leave rural areas and northern territories. Russians fled Central Asia, pushed off Caucasus, large swaths of land become anthropic deserts. French in no position to colonize Africa anymore, if anything they're getting colonized. Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "sraum". Arguable, Polish and Balts skip their countries for greener pastures. If anybody in EU will be lacking room they can move there any minute.
    - rangibaby 10y ago
      > Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't. The main example of "old school" colonization (other than the Chinese example mentioned below) I can think of in 2016 is the Israeli colonization of the occupied territories. Colonies provided wealth and a logistical advantage to their owners. UK and France both fought hard to hold onto theirs well past the end of WWII. More recently, Russia considered Crimea important enough to accept the economic punishment annexing it entailed. > Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans. Do you have a good source or book that I can read about this? I would like to know more. > Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "scram". The Nazis are not known for paying careful attention to the climate when drawing up their grand plans. Lebensraum was their official policy, and I doubt they would have left the local population alone, considering what they did to other undesirables.

astrodust 10y ago

In the 1930s the US was also busy having famines that claimed millions of lives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

knowaveragejoe 10y ago
Do you really not see the difference between these two events?
- astrodust 10y ago
  I'm trying to draw parallels here, that sometimes shit happens. Russia's mismanagement of agriculture notwithstanding, sometimes you're up against forces you can't control.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    There's a hell of a big difference between an inadvertent result of ill-considered agricultural practices and a deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation.
    - pastProlog 10y ago
      If there was a "deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation" happening, I'm sure I could look in the New York Times archives of the period and read about that. If I consult the archives, the reporters going through the Ukraine said reports of that were false. Also, all of Europe had a bad crop that year, I guess the Soviets were controlling the weather?
      - astrodust 10y ago
        There's a lot of hyperbole on both sides here. The Soviets at the time claimed Americans were starving by the millions, and of course Americans claimed the Soviets were starving by the millions. Of course this is a point too subtle to work on Hacker News. The data on both sides is wobbly to the point of being undependable. Until modern social security systems kicked in the number of people living in the US was largely a hypothetical quantity, especially in far-flung rural areas, the very sort of which were impacted by the Dust Bowl. The 1930 census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_Census seems to be fairly comprehensive, but you have to wonder how far into the wilderness these people were willing to go to tabulate who was living in the extreme edges of the American frontier.

pastProlog 10y ago

> I'd skip an industrialization like that That's how the British empire industrialized (in India, Ireland) etc. The western countries bordering Ukraine had food shortages the same year the Ukraine did, no mention of that. Also if you read New York Times during this period, the reporters travelling the Ukraine said there were no famine conditions - the Times said this, not Pravda.