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The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. The 90th anniversary of t

by qsort 4y ago

The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. The 90th anniversary of the Holodomor was just two weeks ago.

xkcd1963 4y ago
I've to step in here, because also native Russians starved during the Holodomor. My grandmother saw half-starved people and corpses as a child in the city
- augustuspolius 4y ago
  Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories.
  - chokolad 4y ago
    > Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories. Outside. Specifically, Volga Region, Kazakhstan, Urals and Siberia This Wiki article describes it in details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%93...
  - alwayslikethis 4y ago
    I don't think "genocide" is the right term here. It is part of a wider man-made famine, which is an act of great evil perpetrated by the communist regime, but it affected all parts of the southern USSR, including areas with mainly ethnic Russian populations. For more information, you may want to read more about the policies that led to this event, such as "dekulakization"
    - augustuspolius 4y ago
      I am aware that genocide is a disputed term in this context. I lean towards it because the famine disproportionately affected Ukrainians (and Kazakhs) and was at least in part not mitigated intentionally to punish minorities with a stronger anti-Soviet sentiment.
      - justsomehnguy 4y ago
        > I am aware Yet you use it. > I lean towards Maybe because you just want to use it? Just look at the map[0], read the legend. Explain who were the people in 18, 17, 11 regions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Famine_en_URSS_1933.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Famine_en_URSS_1933.jpg
        asveikau 4y ago
        Probably a lot of ethnic Ukrainians? Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_Ukraine_%28postcard_1919%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_U... That's 14 years before 1933, and the border was not there by then, but...
        justsomehnguy 4y ago
        > Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders I would prefer a slighly more credible resource than a postcard made in times of great turmoil. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Evropayskye_gubernii_Rossii_1910.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Evropays... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Subdivisions_of_the_Russian_Empire_by_largest_ethnolinguistic_group_%281897%29.svg/4648px-Subdivisions_of_the_Russian_Empire_by_largest_ethnolinguistic_group_%281897%29.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Su...
        nullifidian 4y ago
  - orthoxerox 4y ago
    Outside. Basically, there was a broad swath of territories where smallholder peasants thrived and wouldn't agree to collectivization without state terror. It included most of Soviet-controlled Ukraine and a large chunk of southern Russia. The discussion basically amounts to "are heavy-handed anti-crime policies targeting urban youths racist against Blacks or not?" - "No they aren't, because they target all urban youths, including Hispanics and Whites, and not just Blacks" - "Yes they are, because they affect a disproportionate share of young Black people. The fact that they affect a disproportionate share of young Hispanics doesn't make it less racist"
  - xkcd1963 4y ago
    Rostov-on-Don. It was kind of founded 1749 on decree of the Empress Elizabeth so it couldn't get even more Russian. But we have many different ethnicities there https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWD2Kkrd_bo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWD2Kkrd_bo (german filmmaker 1918)
- thescriptkiddie 4y ago
  In fact more Kazakhs starved than Ukrainians. The idea that the famine was confined to Ukraine is completely ahistorical.
- murdoze 4y ago
  Collateral damage
  - xkcd1963 4y ago
    The fact that Holodomor was causing collateral damage as you call it means that it was not specifically targeted at Ukranians. The target must have been something else that might even not have to do with nationality
    - murdoze 4y ago
      Dare to substitute Holocaust for Holodomor in this context? If, of course, what you're telling is true.
kgeist 4y ago
>The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. Using "Soviet" and "Russian" interchangeably was, in my opinion, mostly a Western phenomenon. I don't remember Soviet propaganda mixing the two. It always felt weird to me when in Cold War Hollywood movies they would refer to USSR as Russia, or Soviets as Russians. You wouldn't do it here. Usually they put emphasis on "Soviet man", not on particular ethnicities.
- augustuspolius 4y ago
  I am curious to know whether this Western perception was supported or opposed by the Soviet state. They have definitely “prioritized” Russian culture internally, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this conflation was at least in part created by the Soviets.
  - kgeist 4y ago
    Well, the original Russian culture was destroyed/changed by the communists as much as the Ukrainian one (collectivization, anti-religious movement, industrialization, etc.) The Russian culture before the revolution was very different from what was under USSR. There was little left in the USSR of it other than the language and a few fairy tales.
    - augustuspolius 4y ago
      Never really thought of that in this way. Do you think Russian poets, writers, composers, artists of the early and mid 20th century were a product of the Soviet culture more than the Tsarist/pre-Soviet world?
- Viliam1234 4y ago
  > Usually they put emphasis on "Soviet man", not on particular ethnicities. Putting an emphasis on the Soviet man who always speaks Russian language, I can understand how that could create an impression of everyone being Russian.
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Holodomor was not genocide. Communists were internationalists and judged people based on their social class, not nationality. Many areas of the USSR, including in Russia proper, did experience precisely the same level of suffering and death from hunger. Also, food requisitions in Ukraine which led to Holodomor were organised and conducted by native Ukrainians. It is easy to look up that most senior party and NKVD posts in 1932-33 in Ukrainian SSR were held by Ukrainians - how many posts in Gestapo were held by Jews? For some reason Hitler didn't put Jews in charge of the Holocaust. It was not a systemic attempt also: if the USSR leaders wanted to kill of all Ukrainians, for some reason they didn't do it systematically at all, year after year. Maybe they didn't want to kill all Ukrainians, after all? Holodomor, hunger in all other parts of the USSR, Stalin's terror were all the result of the Soviet rule, deeply rooted in class struggle ideology and complete disregard for human life. A lot of people died of hunger simply because Stalin needed to export food taken from them to pay for his Industrialization. No, nationality did not play a role in choosing whom to plunder. Food requisitioners took food from whoever they could find. If you want a real genocide example perpetrated by the USSR, it is the Chechen expulsion. Systematic, not led by Chechens, ban on settlement remained for many decades. Holodomor was neither targeted only at Ukrainians, was led in Ukraine by Ukrainians, was not systemic, was never a policy of any kind.
- komali2 4y ago
  You are stating some of the objections to the argument of whether Holodomor constitutes a genocide, (minus the "there were ukranians in senior party positions," this seems a weak new argument to me, especially considering group 13: there absolutely were Jewish people working with the Gestapo), however I agree with Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide," and believes the famine was planned by Stalin because he feared Ukrainian independence. Poke through the wikipedia article on the subject, it's well sourced, and I think anybody can see that though there was famine across the USSR at the time, the situation in Soviet Ukraine was unique for many reasons, including in terms of how hard they were hit by the famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
pandaman 4y ago
But, through amazing coincidence, all the bad things the Russian Empire/USSR did were done by Russians while everything good by Ukrainians. It was some kind of magic. E.g. invasions in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Afghanistan - 100% Russians, not a single Ukrainian, even Brezhnev was Russian. Russian mathematicians? 100% Ukrainians, even Euler. Pushkin? He is the grand-grand-father of Bendera himself. Chikatilo? He is actually a cousin of Putin.
- zapotec 4y ago
  > Russian mathematicians? 100% Ukrainians It's not true. For example: Andrey Kolmogorov (Soviet Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov Nikolai Lobachevsky (Russian Empire) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Lobachevsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Lobachevsky Ivan Vinogradov (Russian Empire, USSR) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vinogradov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vinogradov And many others. Do not spread propaganda. Be objective, please.
  - berdario 4y ago
    He's been sarcastic: "through amazing coincidence"
orbital-decay 4y ago
Ironically, I mainly see foreigners drawing that false equivalence, and am always puzzled by it, as it seems to be far more persistent than anything constructed by the Soviets themselves. So I don't really think it's rooted in Soviet propaganda, it's always been there, even during early USSR which was worshipping the International. The perception in the US was especially persistent, you can see this in every media article and every public document/speech dating back to the 1920s as calling Soviets "Russians" was widespread.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It's not really surprising. The West has always seen USSR as a new reincarnation of the Russian colonial empire, and its nomenclature reflects that. Conversely, Soviet propaganda always focused on "internationalism" and "brotherhood of the nations" (on paper), and thus always made a clear distinction between the two.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    Well to be brutally honest the West is just not that interested in the complicated history and ethnicity of that part of the world and just likes to simplify things. Anything East of Berlin is "Eastern Europe" for instance.

by qsort 4y ago

The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. The 90th anniversary of the Holodomor was just two weeks ago.

xkcd1963 4y ago

I've to step in here, because also native Russians starved during the Holodomor. My grandmother saw half-starved people and corpses as a child in the city

augustuspolius 4y ago
Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories.
- chokolad 4y ago
  > Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories. Outside. Specifically, Volga Region, Kazakhstan, Urals and Siberia This Wiki article describes it in details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%93...
- alwayslikethis 4y ago
  I don't think "genocide" is the right term here. It is part of a wider man-made famine, which is an act of great evil perpetrated by the communist regime, but it affected all parts of the southern USSR, including areas with mainly ethnic Russian populations. For more information, you may want to read more about the policies that led to this event, such as "dekulakization"
  - augustuspolius 4y ago
    I am aware that genocide is a disputed term in this context. I lean towards it because the famine disproportionately affected Ukrainians (and Kazakhs) and was at least in part not mitigated intentionally to punish minorities with a stronger anti-Soviet sentiment.
    - justsomehnguy 4y ago
      > I am aware Yet you use it. > I lean towards Maybe because you just want to use it? Just look at the map[0], read the legend. Explain who were the people in 18, 17, 11 regions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Famine_en_URSS_1933.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Famine_en_URSS_1933.jpg
      - asveikau 4y ago
        Probably a lot of ethnic Ukrainians? Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_Ukraine_%28postcard_1919%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_U... That's 14 years before 1933, and the border was not there by then, but...
        justsomehnguy 4y ago
        > Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders I would prefer a slighly more credible resource than a postcard made in times of great turmoil. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Evropayskye_gubernii_Rossii_1910.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Evropays... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Subdivisions_of_the_Russian_Empire_by_largest_ethnolinguistic_group_%281897%29.svg/4648px-Subdivisions_of_the_Russian_Empire_by_largest_ethnolinguistic_group_%281897%29.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Su...
        nullifidian 4y ago
- orthoxerox 4y ago
  Outside. Basically, there was a broad swath of territories where smallholder peasants thrived and wouldn't agree to collectivization without state terror. It included most of Soviet-controlled Ukraine and a large chunk of southern Russia. The discussion basically amounts to "are heavy-handed anti-crime policies targeting urban youths racist against Blacks or not?" - "No they aren't, because they target all urban youths, including Hispanics and Whites, and not just Blacks" - "Yes they are, because they affect a disproportionate share of young Black people. The fact that they affect a disproportionate share of young Hispanics doesn't make it less racist"
- xkcd1963 4y ago
  Rostov-on-Don. It was kind of founded 1749 on decree of the Empress Elizabeth so it couldn't get even more Russian. But we have many different ethnicities there https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWD2Kkrd_bo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWD2Kkrd_bo (german filmmaker 1918)
thescriptkiddie 4y ago
In fact more Kazakhs starved than Ukrainians. The idea that the famine was confined to Ukraine is completely ahistorical.
murdoze 4y ago
Collateral damage
- xkcd1963 4y ago
  The fact that Holodomor was causing collateral damage as you call it means that it was not specifically targeted at Ukranians. The target must have been something else that might even not have to do with nationality
  - murdoze 4y ago
    Dare to substitute Holocaust for Holodomor in this context? If, of course, what you're telling is true.

kgeist 4y ago

>The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. Using "Soviet" and "Russian" interchangeably was, in my opinion, mostly a Western phenomenon. I don't remember Soviet propaganda mixing the two. It always felt weird to me when in Cold War Hollywood movies they would refer to USSR as Russia, or Soviets as Russians. You wouldn't do it here. Usually they put emphasis on "Soviet man", not on particular ethnicities.

augustuspolius 4y ago
I am curious to know whether this Western perception was supported or opposed by the Soviet state. They have definitely “prioritized” Russian culture internally, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this conflation was at least in part created by the Soviets.
- kgeist 4y ago
  Well, the original Russian culture was destroyed/changed by the communists as much as the Ukrainian one (collectivization, anti-religious movement, industrialization, etc.) The Russian culture before the revolution was very different from what was under USSR. There was little left in the USSR of it other than the language and a few fairy tales.
  - augustuspolius 4y ago
    Never really thought of that in this way. Do you think Russian poets, writers, composers, artists of the early and mid 20th century were a product of the Soviet culture more than the Tsarist/pre-Soviet world?
Viliam1234 4y ago
> Usually they put emphasis on "Soviet man", not on particular ethnicities. Putting an emphasis on the Soviet man who always speaks Russian language, I can understand how that could create an impression of everyone being Russian.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

Holodomor was not genocide. Communists were internationalists and judged people based on their social class, not nationality. Many areas of the USSR, including in Russia proper, did experience precisely the same level of suffering and death from hunger. Also, food requisitions in Ukraine which led to Holodomor were organised and conducted by native Ukrainians. It is easy to look up that most senior party and NKVD posts in 1932-33 in Ukrainian SSR were held by Ukrainians - how many posts in Gestapo were held by Jews? For some reason Hitler didn't put Jews in charge of the Holocaust. It was not a systemic attempt also: if the USSR leaders wanted to kill of all Ukrainians, for some reason they didn't do it systematically at all, year after year. Maybe they didn't want to kill all Ukrainians, after all? Holodomor, hunger in all other parts of the USSR, Stalin's terror were all the result of the Soviet rule, deeply rooted in class struggle ideology and complete disregard for human life. A lot of people died of hunger simply because Stalin needed to export food taken from them to pay for his Industrialization. No, nationality did not play a role in choosing whom to plunder. Food requisitioners took food from whoever they could find. If you want a real genocide example perpetrated by the USSR, it is the Chechen expulsion. Systematic, not led by Chechens, ban on settlement remained for many decades. Holodomor was neither targeted only at Ukrainians, was led in Ukraine by Ukrainians, was not systemic, was never a policy of any kind.

komali2 4y ago
You are stating some of the objections to the argument of whether Holodomor constitutes a genocide, (minus the "there were ukranians in senior party positions," this seems a weak new argument to me, especially considering group 13: there absolutely were Jewish people working with the Gestapo), however I agree with Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide," and believes the famine was planned by Stalin because he feared Ukrainian independence. Poke through the wikipedia article on the subject, it's well sourced, and I think anybody can see that though there was famine across the USSR at the time, the situation in Soviet Ukraine was unique for many reasons, including in terms of how hard they were hit by the famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

pandaman 4y ago

But, through amazing coincidence, all the bad things the Russian Empire/USSR did were done by Russians while everything good by Ukrainians. It was some kind of magic. E.g. invasions in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Afghanistan - 100% Russians, not a single Ukrainian, even Brezhnev was Russian. Russian mathematicians? 100% Ukrainians, even Euler. Pushkin? He is the grand-grand-father of Bendera himself. Chikatilo? He is actually a cousin of Putin.

zapotec 4y ago
> Russian mathematicians? 100% Ukrainians It's not true. For example: Andrey Kolmogorov (Soviet Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov Nikolai Lobachevsky (Russian Empire) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Lobachevsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Lobachevsky Ivan Vinogradov (Russian Empire, USSR) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vinogradov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vinogradov And many others. Do not spread propaganda. Be objective, please.
- berdario 4y ago
  He's been sarcastic: "through amazing coincidence"

orbital-decay 4y ago

Ironically, I mainly see foreigners drawing that false equivalence, and am always puzzled by it, as it seems to be far more persistent than anything constructed by the Soviets themselves. So I don't really think it's rooted in Soviet propaganda, it's always been there, even during early USSR which was worshipping the International. The perception in the US was especially persistent, you can see this in every media article and every public document/speech dating back to the 1920s as calling Soviets "Russians" was widespread.

int_19h 4y ago
It's not really surprising. The West has always seen USSR as a new reincarnation of the Russian colonial empire, and its nomenclature reflects that. Conversely, Soviet propaganda always focused on "internationalism" and "brotherhood of the nations" (on paper), and thus always made a clear distinction between the two.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  Well to be brutally honest the West is just not that interested in the complicated history and ethnicity of that part of the world and just likes to simplify things. Anything East of Berlin is "Eastern Europe" for instance.