4 ms·

You're beating the African card, or what? (Then, we could proceed to whether the landlords should own the land in a rural underdeveloped country, whether it rea

by mlvljr 12y ago

You're beating the African card, or what? (Then, we could proceed to whether the landlords should own the land in a rural underdeveloped country, whether it really was "the party" it went to, if the Romanian government was responsible for some indeed disgusting things going on there, or their Moscow patrons, whether it is always "from slavery" or rather plain "into better life" people are fleeing across the borders, and to the Transylvanian events) My best commie cheers from the land of Brutal Dictatorship! P.S. If your second line is indeed about Hitler regime being on-par (or "better") than the pre- / or post-war Soviet one (despite declared political goals, documented doings, and victim counts), just say so :)

BugBrother 12y ago
Oh please, realize that almost directly it was clear that Soviet divisions wouldn't again "visit" as an answer to democratization in East Europe, the juntas were gone. And Putin isn't brutal inside the borders, yet. The tendency seems clear. I really wish the best for the Russian people, they if anyone on the planet deserves better after the history. (It is not easy to go democratic for a country with big income from natural resources, see "the oil curse".) (I didn't compare with the German nazis, I noted that citizens are generally not enlightened about atrocities done by their own country, but I'd guess Soviet did have them beaten in absolute numbers. Number of millions, that is.)
- mlvljr 12y ago
  That guess would be wrong by a decimal order of magnitude then :)
  - BugBrother 12y ago
    Hardly a factor ten. Holodomor, the great purge, the red terror, forced resettlements, Gulag... Values between 8 and 61 millions, depending on if the starving are part of that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_r...
    - mlvljr 12y ago
      Now, that (and specifically, 50+ M starved to death by the "regime") is a what I'd call a BS view :) But merely the count of those executed during the "repressions" era / total count of Soviet civilian losses during WWII is less than 0.1 (and USSR was not the only side that has suffered from Hitler).
      - BugBrother 12y ago
        Bring your claims to the academic authors -- I quoted 8-61 million from the wikipedia page, which quoted the researchers. The researchers seem to differ in, amongst other points, how much of the hunger was planned. Quotes from the wikipedia page I referenced, with different researchers: "Some historians attempt to make separate estimates for different periods of the Soviet history, with casualties for the Stalinist period varying from 8 to 61 million." "Several scholars [...] put the death toll at about 20 million." "no fewer than 15 million deaths" "Wheatcroft excludes all famine deaths as "purposive deaths," and claims those that do qualify fit more closely the category of "execution" rather than "murder."[4] However, some of the actions of Stalin's regime, not only those during the Holodomor but also Dekulakization and targeted campaigns against particular ethnic groups, can be considered as genocide" (About the last quote -- I don't get the difference of execution and murder, when it comes to farmers whose only crime were to have been born.)
        BugBrother 12y ago
        Addendum to the last paragraph: I think the last researcher thought the ones killed through hunger were more random -- take most food from a population and you don't know exactly which ones will die. With murder, you are more specific. At least, I can't find any other way of reading that. Again -- argue what your schools taught you (or whatever source you have for your claims) with the researchers on the subject, not with me. (Or go the popular way and claim that Wikipedia and/or all the academic research are in a conspiracy... :-) ) Edit: Anyway, as I wrote, the original point is that you can define living in the Eastern Bloc as slavery. The slave owners did whatever they felt like to anyone -- e.g. if individuals or groups complained about the situation or tried to leave. Torture, murder, genocide and throwing complainers into prison or a mental hospital. See Pussy Riot.

by mlvljr 12y ago

BugBrother 12y ago

Oh please, realize that almost directly it was clear that Soviet divisions wouldn't again "visit" as an answer to democratization in East Europe, the juntas were gone. And Putin isn't brutal inside the borders, yet. The tendency seems clear. I really wish the best for the Russian people, they if anyone on the planet deserves better after the history. (It is not easy to go democratic for a country with big income from natural resources, see "the oil curse".) (I didn't compare with the German nazis, I noted that citizens are generally not enlightened about atrocities done by their own country, but I'd guess Soviet did have them beaten in absolute numbers. Number of millions, that is.)

mlvljr 12y ago
That guess would be wrong by a decimal order of magnitude then :)
- BugBrother 12y ago
  Hardly a factor ten. Holodomor, the great purge, the red terror, forced resettlements, Gulag... Values between 8 and 61 millions, depending on if the starving are part of that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes#Soviet_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_r...
  - mlvljr 12y ago
    Now, that (and specifically, 50+ M starved to death by the "regime") is a what I'd call a BS view :) But merely the count of those executed during the "repressions" era / total count of Soviet civilian losses during WWII is less than 0.1 (and USSR was not the only side that has suffered from Hitler).
    - BugBrother 12y ago
      Bring your claims to the academic authors -- I quoted 8-61 million from the wikipedia page, which quoted the researchers. The researchers seem to differ in, amongst other points, how much of the hunger was planned. Quotes from the wikipedia page I referenced, with different researchers: "Some historians attempt to make separate estimates for different periods of the Soviet history, with casualties for the Stalinist period varying from 8 to 61 million." "Several scholars [...] put the death toll at about 20 million." "no fewer than 15 million deaths" "Wheatcroft excludes all famine deaths as "purposive deaths," and claims those that do qualify fit more closely the category of "execution" rather than "murder."[4] However, some of the actions of Stalin's regime, not only those during the Holodomor but also Dekulakization and targeted campaigns against particular ethnic groups, can be considered as genocide" (About the last quote -- I don't get the difference of execution and murder, when it comes to farmers whose only crime were to have been born.)
      - BugBrother 12y ago
        Addendum to the last paragraph: I think the last researcher thought the ones killed through hunger were more random -- take most food from a population and you don't know exactly which ones will die. With murder, you are more specific. At least, I can't find any other way of reading that. Again -- argue what your schools taught you (or whatever source you have for your claims) with the researchers on the subject, not with me. (Or go the popular way and claim that Wikipedia and/or all the academic research are in a conspiracy... :-) ) Edit: Anyway, as I wrote, the original point is that you can define living in the Eastern Bloc as slavery. The slave owners did whatever they felt like to anyone -- e.g. if individuals or groups complained about the situation or tried to leave. Torture, murder, genocide and throwing complainers into prison or a mental hospital. See Pussy Riot.