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Take your pick based on if you are more comfortable with mass killings based on political affiliation or race.

by gnarbarian 6y ago

rbanffy 6y ago
I prefer people who don't employ genocide victims as slaves for building weapons of mass destruction, but that's me.
- gnarbarian 6y ago
  If that's your actual beef, Forced Labor Camps/ Gulags were far more heavily used by the Soviet Union than by the Nazis. They were also used to produce weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag#Economic_role https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag#Economic_role
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    “Far more heavily used” is incorrect (particularly in Tsiolkovsky‘s time; they became a big deal a bit later), but yes, the gulags existed. Tsiolkovsky wasn’t personally involved with them, though (he was a maths teacher).
  - avmich 6y ago
    According to Chertok, GULAG workforce wasn't used at least when Baykonur, a significant project, was being built. It was direct involvement of Army corps used there. Imprisoned labor force was used in WWII time Soviet aviation and rocketry development (Tupolev, Glushko, Korolyov). Other large projects were possibly too technical, challenging to employ forced labor?..
elil17 6y ago
Sorry to be a little pedantic but genocide specifically means mass killing based on race, ethnicity, or nationality. The word was coined in response to the Nazi Holocaust because the systemtimatic, ethnically motivated killings were considered to be so abhorrent. There’s no such thing as genocide based on political affiliation.
- gnarbarian 6y ago
  A fair point but not an undisputed one. https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310/ https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide... "All early drafts of the U.N. genocide convention included social and political groups in its definition. But one hand that wasn’t in the room guided the pen. The Soviet delegation vetoed any definition of genocide that might include the actions of its leader, Joseph Stalin. The Allies, exhausted by war, were loyal to their Soviet allies – to the detriment of subsequent generations. Naimark argues that that the narrow definition of genocide is the dictator’s unacknowledged legacy to us today."

Take your pick based on if you are more comfortable with mass killings based on political affiliation or race.

rbanffy 6y ago

I prefer people who don't employ genocide victims as slaves for building weapons of mass destruction, but that's me.

gnarbarian 6y ago
If that's your actual beef, Forced Labor Camps/ Gulags were far more heavily used by the Soviet Union than by the Nazis. They were also used to produce weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag#Economic_role https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag#Economic_role
- rsynnott 6y ago
  “Far more heavily used” is incorrect (particularly in Tsiolkovsky‘s time; they became a big deal a bit later), but yes, the gulags existed. Tsiolkovsky wasn’t personally involved with them, though (he was a maths teacher).
- avmich 6y ago
  According to Chertok, GULAG workforce wasn't used at least when Baykonur, a significant project, was being built. It was direct involvement of Army corps used there. Imprisoned labor force was used in WWII time Soviet aviation and rocketry development (Tupolev, Glushko, Korolyov). Other large projects were possibly too technical, challenging to employ forced labor?..

elil17 6y ago

Sorry to be a little pedantic but genocide specifically means mass killing based on race, ethnicity, or nationality. The word was coined in response to the Nazi Holocaust because the systemtimatic, ethnically motivated killings were considered to be so abhorrent. There’s no such thing as genocide based on political affiliation.

gnarbarian 6y ago
A fair point but not an undisputed one. https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide-092310/ https://news.stanford.edu/2010/09/23/naimark-stalin-genocide... "All early drafts of the U.N. genocide convention included social and political groups in its definition. But one hand that wasn’t in the room guided the pen. The Soviet delegation vetoed any definition of genocide that might include the actions of its leader, Joseph Stalin. The Allies, exhausted by war, were loyal to their Soviet allies – to the detriment of subsequent generations. Naimark argues that that the narrow definition of genocide is the dictator’s unacknowledged legacy to us today."