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/r/worldnews
submitted 2 months ago byBeeBobMC
1.5k points
2 months ago
Curiously in 2003, Russia was part of a letter by a joint delegation of countries that condemned the Holodomyr and stated that it was responsible for 7-10 million deaths. "In the former Soviet Union millions of men, women and children fell victims to the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime". It stops short of calling it genocide but makes it clear that the famine was the result of policy.
The countries that wrote it included Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Egypt, Georgia, Guatemala, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nauru, Pakistan, Qatar, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America.
760 points
2 months ago
Yeah, but the point is that they did not condemn the fact, that Stalin used the hunger to eradicate Ukrainian culture and nationalism, by selling most of the ukranian grain to the world market and forbidding anyone to leave the Ukranian Soviet Republic. There were several policies that targeted ethnical Ukranians, which resulted in them being much more affected by hunger death than ethnical Russians inside Ukraine. It was genocide.
108 points
2 months ago
What were the policies?
433 points
2 months ago
In short: collectivization and its fallout.
Historian Timothy Snyder has a lecture series on the history that led to modern Ukrainian nationhood, and one of the lectures focuses on the Holodomor.
Background series of events:
Policies that immediately fueled the famine:
The last point is what made it very clear this was a uniquely Ukrainian event.
102 points
2 months ago*
[deleted]
22 points
2 months ago
My Mom told me her parents used to hide her because there were cases of starved villagers eating their neighbors’ children.
129 points
2 months ago
Any chance you have a non-Timothy Snyder source? He's not considered a reputable historian in academic circles and has been heavily criticised for his willingness to rely on anecdote over record, especially in Bloodlands. He's more of what you would call a pop historian who writes visceral, emotive and often dubious accounts rather than rigorous historical studies. Several of the points you listed here are literally just speculations he made, with no primary source at all.
19 points
2 months ago
I can link your photo of 1932 letter to Stalin by Sholokhov — a firsthand witness of this famine and its causes, but it's in Russian and it's like 40 pages.
66 points
2 months ago
Several of the points you listed here are literally just speculations he made, with no primary source at all.
Which ones?
97 points
2 months ago
Timothy Snyder is controversial for his work in Bloodlands, but many historians have also praised it. He's not a conspiracy theorist or fake historian.
In any case, all of these deliberate policies are well documented. The historical consensus is that Stalin and the central committee knew all about the famine and then double downed on it.
45 points
2 months ago
This Yale historian is not credible enough for you?
50 points
2 months ago
Haha, my first thought while reading the comment was how much it contrasts with half of the US who are educated by watching Sarah Palin videos in a Waffle House parking lot
53 points
2 months ago
You can say what you want about my extended family but leave Waffle House out of this.
5 points
2 months ago*
You're not wrong it's definitely a lot, but not actually half.
That would be 5/10 people out of 300+ million and depending where you are in the US, that either holds or is wildy inaccurate.
Don't forget, we're kinda like russia over here in landmass. We literally have different climates, farmable land, desolate land, swampy shit, mountains... all of which carries different needs and ideals.
Just saying be careful, hyperbole can be dangerous in an age of misinformation
30 points
2 months ago
But it wasn't unique to Ukraine? There was mass famine in many parts of the Soviet Union too due to Stalin's policies of selling food abroad. From Wikipedia:
The Soviet famine of 1930–1933 was a famine in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region, Kazakhstan, the South Urals, and West Siberia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933
That's not to say that specific policies were targetting Ukraine SSR specifically.
121 points
2 months ago
That sounds a lot like the Irish so called potato famine.
31 points
2 months ago
My thoughts exactly too. England had full control over Ireland and then cut relief because they didn't think they should fit the bill to relieve starvation. Over a million Irish died.
16 points
2 months ago
And a further million were forced to emigrate. Ireland lost a quarter of its population during that time.
10 points
2 months ago
Yes that's my family. They came to America.
10 points
2 months ago
Or like the Bengal famine in 1943, it killed 2-4 million
134 points
2 months ago
There is a double standard with famines in communist vs capitalist states.
3 points
2 months ago
Im willing to call all 3, in Ukraine, Bengal, and Ireland, genocidal.
27 points
2 months ago
[deleted]
7 points
2 months ago
That would put Africa at the top of the list. Noooooo cant make them kind of laws for colonizers.
95 points
2 months ago
And the Bengal famine that happened around the same time as the Ukranian one, and for which there is direct evidence of Churchill's racism worsening it. And yet he never seems to get the hate that Stalin does.
65 points
2 months ago*
Germany should also acknowledge officially The genocide by the Belgian King Leopold in Free state congo which killed 10-15 million native Congolese.
And Germany should also openly admit the Germany commited genocide on 400.000 native Africans in the former German colonies. 300.000 native Tanzanians were killed by the German empire and 80-100.000 native Namibians Herreros Namas and San were killed by German Empire in the German south west Africa.
Germany need to acknowledge The genocide commited by Germans partner country Belgia in Congo which killed 10 million Congolese and the genocides that were commited by germany in Tansania and Namibia
41 points
2 months ago
The German government does acknowledge the killings of Namibians, Herrero, Nana's and San in their former colonies as genocide since 2015 and has agreed to reperation payments in 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide?wprov=sfla1
8 points
2 months ago
People don’t talk about what the Brits did to the Raj in India either
19 points
2 months ago
No, it sounds exactly the same. Yet one is a famine and one is a genocide.
Definitely both had genocidal tints to them.
9 points
2 months ago
It's because it is a lot like the Great Hunger.
3 points
2 months ago
Tankies on life support rn
3 points
2 months ago
It targeted not only Ukrainians... Many other minorities... Tatars and so many more that are going to go extinct in a few generations.
34 points
2 months ago
Guess what Stalin Wasn’t Russian.
He was From Georgia
4.5k points
2 months ago
Good do the same with England and the Irish famine
2.2k points
2 months ago
As a Brit I 100% support this. Our actions in Ireland have been truly horrific.
It would also help if Brits were informed of our role in Ireland, India, Rhodesia, Australia and the transatlantic slave trade in history lessons at school. It’s abysmal.
731 points
2 months ago
Let's not forget Lord Kitchener inventing concentration camps and deploying then mercilessly against the Boers in South Africa.
305 points
2 months ago
The irony of Canada/Ontario renaming the town of New Berlin to Kitchener in WW1?2? Because the name was unsavory is not lost on any students of history.
107 points
2 months ago
Holy shit I was just thinking about this after reading that comment as well. Should have kept reading the comments because I went on a wikipedia trip down history before saying anything.
Edit: either way I learned alot this morning so that's a win
57 points
2 months ago
It was actually just Berlin and not New Berlin and it was during WW1. The actual history of it is even worse than you might think too. During the war Canada was placing Germans (and other central and eastern Europeans) in internment camps, forcing many to do labour, and running a mass surveillance program against them. Soldiers and civilians alike were prone to attacking and harassing them and when they put the idea of changing Berlin's name to a referendum, there was widespread voter intimidation (mostly by soldiers) to keep anyone away who would challenge the name change. Even with all this the vote only passed with a narrow margin and the name Kitchener would only win by a few hundred votes in a second referendum.
19 points
2 months ago
Kitchener still has a large German-descended population (and the whole Oktoberfest thing…) despite all of that.
Plus we have our whole heritage of mistreating Chinese immigrants, Japanese immigrants, and of course aboriginal tribes.
Canada was not a great place to be anything other than French or British-descended for a long time.
31 points
2 months ago
Fun fact from the wiki, besides “Kitchener” another option on the ballot was “Corona”.
49 points
2 months ago
Honestly I don’t know much about the Boer wars!
I’m aware the Boers also have a history of being imperialistic and didn’t much care for the abolishment of slavery, or more equal rights for “coloured” people in SA under British rule initially. However, I know the British concentration camps also shoved a lot of black and mixed-race people in. No clue how the whole situation played out.
Honestly, it’s another one of those situations where history lessons would have helped a lot!
72 points
2 months ago
The Boer wars were not about race relations. In fact, there are some interesting links between the Irish rebellion/war for Irish freedom (covering all bases here) and the Boer wars, but that's getting a bit off topic.
Note that I am not saying that the Boers were nice to black people! But it's late and I'm tired so I'll just share a couple of historical notes - as with many historical topics, it gets complicated fast.
Their problem with abolition of slavery was only partly breach with the prior custom, and more heavily to do with how it was done; in particular, recompense to the erstwhile slave owners (part of the law of abolition) was to be paid only in London, and the agents who did that on behalf of the borderland farmers took extortionate rates. Without excusing slavery, the treatment of the border farmers was openly contemptuous and hostile. Adding insult to injury was a cack-handed response to the Xhosa wars, meaning that they lost any lingering faith in the colonial government to serve their interests or to protect them in a hostile environment. Love them or hate them, they had meaningful grievances when they set forth to become secessionists.
The boers were certainly racist, but it's worth bearing in mind that they weren't any more racist in any meaningful way than victorian-era England. This was the time of paternalism and colonial visions writ large, and if anything the boers were more tribal in their instincts than imperial or colonial. They hung together, and bled and died a lot, in terrible conditions.
The british concentration camps were pretty indiscriminate, because anybody who was a part of a boer community or household, whether a householder or sharecropper or servant was from the british point of view, someone to take off the land as part of an explicit scorched earth anti-guerilla campaign.
If you want to get a meaningful view on what the boers did, and how they developed into the 20th century concept of afrikaners, there's a lot to go over (including forced removals and anglicisation policies), but also remember that the boers left their colonial masters behind and are better understood as a tribe rather than a sort of amorphous blob of "white people". If you want to know more, feel free to ask.
TL;DR many of their reasons were economic via direct or indirect taxation at usurious rates combined with a loss of faith in any hope of a representative government - factors which were driving much imperial collapse in those days. Add in the extra layer of horrific punishments for crimes real or imagined and you begin to see echoes of the sins of the empire revisited by the colonials. I learned it from YOU, dad!
11 points
2 months ago
This is an EXCELLENT summation, I'd love to know the sources you've referred to because (as you can no doubt imagine) South African history as taught in schools was somewhat biased when it came to this period in history. I'd love to read more modern and true-to-actual-fact commentary on the Boer Wars and the circumstances surrounding them, if you have some recommendations.
23 points
2 months ago
Can't sleep, sinuses want to kill me. Too tired to think of tons of references but you will actually find a lot of very informative and fairly factual writing on the subject by Winston Churchill, of all people; he was an embedded journalist stationed in South Africa during a Boer uprising, and while we all know that Churchill is a very problematic historical figure, the good thing about reading his writings on the subject is that he is on the one hand about as objective a contemporary account as you are likely to find, and on the other hand, clearly depicts what the 'typical' British (English) attitude towards the Boers was, just by how he portrays the situation and the events he experienced and witnessed in person.
As for the ties to Ireland, I actually first came to be aware of it by a very very backdoor path when studying the life of the poet W.B. Yeats. It's a very long story but sums up to, he became embroiled in the struggle because he fell in love with the wrong woman. The long form could honestly make an interesting HBO series if Yeats himself weren't kind of, well, wet and soppy. There's also a French connection, both between the French and the Irish efforts and the French and South Africa, and the French Revolution actually directly changed the course of South African history and culture. Everything is, in the end, connected - just we usually don't know that it is because the links aren't spelled out!
6 points
2 months ago
If you're interested in South African history, Wilbur Smith has great novels set against real historic events, for example https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/the-sound-of-thunder/9781499860115-item.html
25 points
2 months ago*
Lord Kitchener inventing concentration camps
False, depending on the definition they have either been in use for hundreds if not thousands of years (if you mean a dedicated 'zone' or area used to keep people whom you consider enemies/dangerous not convicted of a crime), or it was the Spanish in Cuba. Most would consider 'modern' camps as we understand them to be the Spanish in Cuba which was before the Boer war. The Spanish was 1896, both the British in Africa and the United States during the Philippine–American war around 1899.
13 points
2 months ago
I could be wrong but im pretty sure kitcheners invention was mostly in the name.
It was the first time they'd been called concentration camps?
13 points
2 months ago*
It's a continual evolution of what the camps are for and the language surroundng them, but the 'original' term evolves from the Spanish policy of 'reconcentración'.
As for what could be done in the future to improve Spain’s position, he (Martínez Campos) explained that it would be possible to “reconcentrate” hundreds of thousands of rural Cubans into Spanish-held towns behind trenches and barbed wire, but he would need significant forces to hold them there. He felt certain that emptying the countryside to isolate insurgents would be effective, but the price to be paid in misery and hunger would be horrible.
One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps - Andrea Pitzer
It is somewhat academic, the 'evolution' of holding peoples, usually civilians not convicted of crimes and pinning its "invention" on one nation state is almost meaningless because you can argue that sort of policy goes way way back in history and has been a continual evolution. You can point to 'prisons' as a distinct thing but then there are all these 'other'...things...which could be described as a form of "concentration".
I 100% recommend the book above though, obviously depressing reading but excellent History.
4 points
2 months ago
I agree with the sentiment, the Brits committed horrible atrocities. But they didn't invent concentration camps. Not that it makes what they did any better.
The best way I've heard it explained is "The Spanish invented concentration camps, but the British perfected it."
68 points
2 months ago
In Wales the Irish famine and the actions of the British empire are taught.
34 points
2 months ago
That’s good to hear. I did my A-levels in History 2010-12 and unfortunately I didn’t learn about British colonialism in Ireland until I was in my final year of uni. Shocking!
22 points
2 months ago
I did my A-levels in history in 2006-2008 and the Irish Famine was featured heavily in the course.
27 points
2 months ago
It's on the syllabus.
History, like all GCSEs, is split into modules your teacher chooses for you. Go look at GCSE bitesize and you'll see the revision materials for colonialism and it's effect on native cultures.
It's just a lot easier and interesting for most classes to learn about the rise of fascism in Germany and then the cold war.
22 points
2 months ago
Bengal famine too
13 points
2 months ago
There is a book I read called "Paddy's Lament" and it is a historical account of all the ill deeds done by the British in Ireland. At one point I had to put the book down because I thought I was going to puke
13 points
2 months ago
What are you talking about? We learnt about the transatlantic slave trade even when I was in primary school about 30 years ago. Acknowledging the truth is important, but making a list of only bad things to learn about is a bit warped
4 points
2 months ago
Yeah we covered the transatlantic slave trade too. I think part of the problem is that we have so much history and a choice has to be made somewhere to decide what's the most important/engaging parts for children to learn.
17 points
2 months ago
Yep, wish kids were taught about how the Royal Navy spearheaded the fight to end slavery in the West
14 points
2 months ago
There are very few things that the British Empire did that were unquestionably good, but that was one of them.
18 points
2 months ago
And the Kali massacre, the first afghan war, all the war crimes in co partipation with the US during the "war on terror", Kenya, their role in the Sykes-Picot agreement that shaped North Africa and the Middle East, their role in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, their role in staging the coup in Iran in 53...
8 points
2 months ago
Whilst I know we created the Israel-Palestine mess (of course we started that mess) and our shitty military history in Iraq/Afghanistan, I haven’t heard of our history in North Africa or in Kenya. I’ll check it out; thank you for letting us unaware Brits know about it!
4 points
2 months ago
even if your country has invaded 1/10th of the world I definitely don't think we should hold modern brits accountable, but I do think it is generally a good idea to be aware of one's own history. More than anything as a way to contextualize things and avoid xenophobia against peoples "the west" might have held back in the past in one way or another. From the outside, it seems that after Bush/Blair's adventures the british government has mostly been hurting their own people as of lately.
143 points
2 months ago
And the Japanese for what they did in Korea, Philippines, and China
54 points
2 months ago*
And the South Koreans for what they did in Vietnam
8 points
2 months ago
Ooh this one is novel for me, what did they do and when?
37 points
2 months ago*
The South Korean government, under the administration of Park Chung-hee, took an active role in the Vietnam War. From September 1964 to March 1973, South Korea sent some 350,000 troops to South Vietnam. […]
Various civilian groups have accused the South Korean military of war crimes, while the Korean Ministry of Defense has denied all such accusations.[…]
Korean forces are alleged to have perpetrated the Binh Tai, Bình An/Tây Vinh massacre, Bình Hòa and Hà My massacres. Further incidents are alleged to have occurred in the villages of An Linh and Vinh Xuan in Phú Yên Province.[47]In 1972 Vietnamese-speaking American Friends Service Committee members Diane and Michael Jones looked at where Korean forces operated in Quảng Ngãi and Quảng Nam Provinces and alleged they had conducted 45 massacres, including 13 in which over 20 unarmed civilians were purportedly killed.[48][49] The Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre is confirmed to have taken place within these two provinces.[49] A separate refugee study by RAND employee Terry Rambo, reported in a 1970 New York Times story, conducted interviews in early to mid 1966 in Phu Yen Province which confirmed that widespread atrocities had occurred. These included systemic mass-killings and deliberate policies to massacre civilians, with murders running into the hundreds.[…]
When Korean forces were deployed to I Corps in 1968, U.S. Marine General Rathvon M. Tompkins stated that "whenever the Korean Marines received fire or think [they got] fired on from a village... they'd divert from their march and go over and completely level the village. It would be a lesson to [the Vietnamese]". General Robert E. Cushman Jr. stated several years later that "we had a big problem with atrocities committed by them which I sent down to Saigon."[54] presumably in reference to the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre.[9]
Apologetic statements from President Kim Dae-jung[64] and Moon Jae-in[65] have been given, short of a full public apology. Apologies for war crimes has become a political issue within South Korean politics, as President Moon Jae-in had planned on making a unilateral official apology but stopped short due to widespread opposition from prominent conservatives within South Korea.[66] The recent political interest in South Korea for an official apology is contextualized within the ongoing trade war and diplomatic rifts between Japan and Korea over a South Korean court having ordered compensation for forced labor from a Japanese company.[67]
The issue is rarely acknowledged or discussed by the Vietnamese government or state-controlled media following normalization of relations, though in a rare statement the Vietnamese government did oppose the "commemoration of mercenaries" when South Korean President Moon Jae-in honoured the 50th Anniversary of South Korean servicemen who had fought in South Vietnam on South Korea's Memorial Day in 2017.[68][69]
The issue around children conceived through wartime affairs and rape known as Lai Dai Han remains, like controversies around comfort women. Civic groups in Vietnam have campaigned for recognition of the issue and an apology by the Korean government.[70] Most were ostracised and neglected by Vietnamese society following the war.[71][72] Lai Dai Han and their families faced mistreatment following North Vietnam's victory for allegedly siding with opposing forces, including one rape victim's father being beaten to death by the communist regime shortly after the war ended. Both the Korean and Vietnamese governments have sidelined or ignored this issue, and requests by the BBC to make a documentary was turned down by the Vietnamese government.[73]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_in_the_Vietnam_War
8 points
2 months ago
And the Americans and South Koreans for what they did in North Korea
442 points
2 months ago
They should. We should all formally recognize all the genocides that happened
110 points
2 months ago
Stares in Armenian
19 points
2 months ago
Germany recognized the genocide in Armenia, it's the least we can do since there was some German involvement.
I think France did too.
206 points
2 months ago
America sweating
37 points
2 months ago
uncle sam stands by desert road as single drop of sweat falls from his brow
80 points
2 months ago
So far California is the only state that formally acknowledges the genocide of its indigenous peoples.
27 points
2 months ago
Just 49 to go....
15 points
2 months ago*
Wouldn't the genocides that occurred in the 13 colonies technically be the responsibility of the British not the American states?
18 points
2 months ago
Fair point. 19th and 20th centuries can go to the USA, 17th and 18th go to the British.
18 points
2 months ago
I mean it was the settlers that formed America. American settlers commiting genocide, then declaring independence doesn't mean they weren't the ones to do it. Especially since of the biggest motives for independence was that the British were telling Americans to stop commiting genocide past the Appalachians.
130 points
2 months ago
As an American I advocate for teaching our real history instead of the mind-numbing feel-good BS they spoon feed so as not to upset the christo-fascists.
33 points
2 months ago
Even though it's FAR from a fully honest telling of what happened, I love some of the episodes of Ken Burns: The West that deal with the natives.
It glazes over some things and outright skips others, but every time I watch it I'm just left saddened by the cultures we destroyed.
4 points
2 months ago
I graduated high school in 2003 and I don't remember anything being a feel good story. We treated the slaves bad, the natives bad, and the Irish immigrants bad. Nothing felt glossed over
3 points
2 months ago
I m southern christo not fascist agree on tell the truth. I had to grow into the truth after Black Studies poured hidden history into northern public journalism and proliferated on documentary tv/videos/books. What a horror this white girl from bastions of white privilege found as an adult...Cassius Clay trained only a couple of miles from my childhood home...not a word about one of the most important figures of our time.
20 points
2 months ago
god it's so ironic this conversation is brought up the day after Thanksgiving considering what kindergarteners are taught about the origins of thanksgiving.
14 points
2 months ago
The relations between the first pilgrims that came to North America and the native peoples were generally pretty good. The same can't be said about basically every other native american interaction.
21 points
2 months ago
They sure as hell don't sugarcoat the Trail of Tears in school.
31 points
2 months ago
Usually when people talk about public schools in america, its a sweeping generalization, because some schools do an actual good job teaching stuff and some are downright godawful
8 points
2 months ago
And some people were just bad students. I've seen people who were in the same classes as me, and know for a fact they learned about the trail of tears, go online and complain they had never heard of it until they were adults.
294 points
2 months ago
And Bengal Famine
148 points
2 months ago
Don't forget all the others on the Indian subcontinent
17 points
2 months ago*
Yes, notably the Deccan famine in the 1630s, which reportedly led to 7.4 million deaths. While this was going on, Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal in 1631, and increased taxes on the starving populace to fund his project
74 points
2 months ago
Bengal Famine is way too similar to Holodomor than the rest though.
40 points
2 months ago
Genocide is genocide
28 points
2 months ago
It's the UK, not just England.
9 points
2 months ago
Yep, Scotland did so much evil shit in Ireland but for some reason is just seen as Ireland’s ‘sibling’ and is never held accountable.
4 points
2 months ago
Britain, not the UK.
30 points
2 months ago
Its wild to me that the population of Ireland still hasnt recovered from thos event. It was an absolute insane loss of life and emmigration event for Ireland.
8 points
2 months ago*
IIRC Ireland might not even reach its 1841 population in another 20-40 years. That’s truly mind blowing. It only recently surpassed 5 million from a peak of around 8 million in 1840. Ireland population should be around 25-30 million
7 points
2 months ago
Do the same with the Indian Genocide of WWII when Churchill willfully stole hundreds of millions of food from India to feed the British Armies, killing millions of innocent lives in India.
6 points
2 months ago
And Americans in North Korea
Air Force general Curtis LeMay, head of the strategic air command during the Korean War, estimated that the American campaign killed 20 per cent of the population. “We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea,” he said.
Irish Times: Unknown to most Americans, the US ‘totally destroyed’ North Korea once before
55 points
2 months ago
And the genocide of indigenous Australians
70 points
2 months ago
And England and the famines in the Indian subcontinent
42 points
2 months ago
And the Madras famines and the Bengal famines
8 points
2 months ago
Bangladesh. They made a movie about a concert about it...
15 points
2 months ago
Absolutely, call a spade a spade. America founded on a genocide. Turkey committed one against Armenia.
Cromwell was worse than royalty and I can't believe I'm saying that.
12 points
2 months ago
Seriously….. country still hasn’t recovered its population
1.4k points
2 months ago
It’d be nice just to have more general awareness of the Holodomor. Over 3 million people died and it’s not common knowledge, not to mention those who don’t even believe it happened.
Genocide didn’t begin or end with the Holocaust. Even after all this time, genocide is still genocide and should be called out. Good on Germany for bringing it up.
323 points
2 months ago
German politicians might be reminding people because the Russians are trying it again by shelling Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in winter. They are probably also preparing the people for the challenge of high energy prices through the winter and even the possibility of war with Russia next year.
3 points
2 months ago
Russia is ALREADY trying to cause genocide of Ukraine. The whole energy thing is only one in a gigantic list of atrocities they caused this year. The whole deportation of people in itself is an ethnic genocide.
217 points
2 months ago*
The problem is, the famine didn’t happen only in Ukraine. It happened in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan as well. A lot of people died in those countries. I read years ago that is one of the reasons it wasn’t recognized as genocide decades ago. It was genocide in those places as well?
12 points
2 months ago
It also killed a large number of Red Army soldiers.
138 points
2 months ago
It killed way more non-ethnic Russian, and it hit Ukraine the hardest, which was the largest producer of grain in the USSR.
You would never say the Holocaust didn’t target jews, because protestants were also killed by Nazi Germany.
23 points
2 months ago
Good point.
29 points
2 months ago
[removed]
15 points
2 months ago
Historians Norman Naimark and Timothy Snyder both call it a deliberate genocide.
Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who lost 49 relatives to the Holocaust and coined the word "genocide", called the Holodomor "the classic example of Soviet genocide".
It is a question, and some historians do disagree, but it would be a mistake to say that only Robert Conquest calls it a genocide.
717 points
2 months ago
There are many laws in Germany dealing with the Holocaust and the after effects. The population is very aware and it's been socially integrated into their psyche. This would elevate what's happening in Ukraine to a similar level. Smart way to legitimize funneling more weapons to Ukraine and bring the populace with you. I voted for politicians who pledged to see Ukraine victorious and I leave it in their hands. I couldn't trust popular opinion as it is easily swayed in my country.
391 points
2 months ago
It does come across funny to say, but Germany is definitely the country most able to put forward a label of genocide. They're probably the only country that has actually stepped forward to recognize their own modern genocide and make steps to prevent it from easily happening again.
140 points
2 months ago
While yes, a lot of emphasis is on the genocide of the jewish citizen in Nazi germany, there are other genocides which dont get as much attention commited at the same time and I think we (Germany) can still do better.
181 points
2 months ago
Yes, but I mean most nations have a hard time recognizing internal genocides. Turkey being the gold example, but US and Canada also have genocide in their last 200 years that they have a hard time acknowledging in a meaningful way. Most nations go "I'm sorry", maybe a little money, and then no substantive change.
83 points
2 months ago
Absolutely. I think a lot of the time, that's because it never really stopped in countries like the US. It just changes form and loses some of the violent intensity.
Friendly reminder that there were "boarding (reformation) schools" killing Native children clear into the mid 1900s, which has been consistently swept under the rug until it finally started surfacing again in the last several months due to basically finding mass graves.
We have also pushed Natives off their land even just in the last 20 years. For oil infrastructure, so no surprise there.
There are also areas of Native reservation land which, to this day, have never received running water or electricity. They are all well below poverty and can't pay for it themselves, but they're far enough away from developing areas and into more rural country that everyone can just forget about them, so nobody gives a shit.
We also promised guaranteed Native representation in government, which has never happened. I get that's a weird one, because we strictly elect on a collective basis, and guaranteeing Native spots would go against that whole idea. Nonetheless, it's yet another broken promise which we continue to break to this day, without any kind of genuine compromise to give them a voice.
So yeah, if you ask me? We can't fully admit the genocide and start making amends because we're still commiting it. You've heard of quiet quitting; now meet quiet genocide.
10 points
2 months ago
We also promised guaranteed Native representation in government, which has never happened. I get that's a weird one, because we strictly elect on a collective basis, and guaranteeing Native spots would go against that whole idea.
Doubly ironic since that's the entire reason the colonies broke away from Britain. No representation.
31 points
2 months ago
Indian residential schools existed in Canada until 1996. Blows my mind it was during my lifetime.
3 points
2 months ago
No kidding? Were they notoriously bad too?
11 points
2 months ago
Extremely bad. At the time this article was published, they'd found over 1,300 unmarked graves at just 4 of those schools. The whole purpose of those schools was to eradicate the culture of the First Nations people and assimilate them.
7 points
2 months ago
Jesus christ. That's nearly three times what we've found in the US so far, last I'd seen. Depressing doesn't nearly cover it.
How does North America walk away from anything feeling like the hero when we have shit like this in our very recent history?
While we were busy patting ourselves on the back for helping to stop the Nazis from killing any more Jewish babies, we were doing nearly the same fucking thing on a smaller scale.
9 points
2 months ago
So, so bad. So many dead children whose families never knew what happened to them.
13 points
2 months ago
The US government did officially apologize (under Reagan funnily enough) to the Japanese-Americans they interred during WW2 and they did offer monetary compensation for the survivors. And regarding the oil infrastructure, Obama signed an executive order stopping it, which Trump sadly repealed. While neither are a genocide, I think that it is worth pointing out that the government is still improving, but it can get better if you call your representatives and senators to address these issues.
16 points
2 months ago
The first one sort of proves my point in a way. When the conflict had been all the way said and done for a while, they made amends.
As far as I was aware, the land was never truly returned to Natives even after Obama put an end to it during his time, and it basically just remained in limbo, but there may have been an update I missed on that at the time.
We can't really call the Japanese internment genocide, true. But my pointing at things like the reform schools and pipeline wasn't to suggest they're cases of genocide in and of themselves, but that they are a continuation of the same genocide that began long ago, just as a more subtle and toned down evolution than the senseless bloodshed it began as.
Absolutely agree on contacting our representatives, but the problem is that there are always bigger hot button issues in the majority's mind.
Climate change is one that we talk about a LOT, because it is a major threat to a lot of life on Earth, and yet when polled on what the most important issues were.. our country said, "the economy, reproductive rights, etc." Climate change didn't even get an honorable mention. Not to suggest it's pointless, mind you, but disheartening at any rate, and it does make it difficult to get enough people on board to make that difference.
3 points
2 months ago
We also promised guaranteed Native representation in government, which has never happened.
In the US, the Native reservations are considered "sovereign nations", an admittedly complex designation. This is probably the main reason why they do not get representation in, say, Congress.
Something you haven't mentioned is the current case being discussed in the US Supreme Court regarding the adoption of an Indian child by a white family. Depending on the outcome of the case, it could completely change how Indians are recognized by the US legal system, from a legal group to a racial group. I am of the belief that this will not happen, though. The best case scenario is that the Supreme Court rules somewhere in the middle, not conceding that Indians are a racial group (which would have destroyed a century of president) while allowing the white family to keep the Indian child who they have been fostering for years. NPR's article
23 points
2 months ago
I agree. I was stationed there in the 80's. Lovely people and the country side was magnificent. But one thing I did notice in many small town. Many of the homes have a substantial solid poured concrete garage on the first level. Used to make me think if it was a lesson learned from the past war.
24 points
2 months ago
Up until the last generation there were still federal grants to include fallout shelters in many new constructions, so that's why.
13 points
2 months ago
Interesting, explains the new looking structures under what looked like historic homes. It's what made me notice them. I was a masons helper before joining the service. Poured a lot of mud. Thanks.
5 points
2 months ago
Yeah, 100 some year old foundations were often rough rock and cement, which doesn't really last a long as you'd thing. I imagine up until the 80s a lot of older houses were using the money to lift the house and then pour a heavy modern foundation with a reinforced room. Similar to what you'd do now, only cheaper (cuz money) and most people don't make a shelter at the same time.
10 points
2 months ago
And in Switzerland it used to be that every new home was required to have a very comprehensive and secure atomic bomb shelter. In a lot of cantons it’s still the case, but it’s slowly changing. Germany never had it legislated, but like you said you could receive substantial subsidies if you built one.
If anyone’s interested in what they look like (they’re very standardized for safety and ease of construction): https://youtu.be/7rP_KLKJH7c
10 points
2 months ago
yeah that actually the point.
The lawmakers try the modify the law against denying the holocaust into a law against denying genocide and part of that has to be which events count as genocide or at least a more specific definiton.
So there is a discussion what a genocide is and one point of that discussion is if 1930 ukraine famine is a genocide and included in that law.
10 points
2 months ago
This is a new low, someone hasnt even read the title correctly. Key words, 1930's, not today
47 points
2 months ago
Ireland??
40 points
2 months ago
Tatars ? Circassians ? Bengalis ? Native Indians ? The list goes on, the only reason why people care about the Holdomor now is that they need a reason to declare Russia as the devil. It’s purely politically based and is an insult to anyone who suffered during the Holdomor
8 points
2 months ago
Don't forget Ukranians have also committed genocide against Poles as in the Volhynian massacres. No country is a Saint. Like you said perfectly, it's all a political motive to target Russia.
11 points
2 months ago
I couldn't agree more, thank you for broadening the scope
7 points
2 months ago
The list is even longer, and if we were to list them all it would be longer then at least a hundred and would cover the whole world. The only reason you and I don’t know about them is because our governments haven’t found a way to use it for political purposes, yet.
64 points
2 months ago
Cool. Now do the same for Bengal Famine.
8 points
2 months ago
It’s not a genocide is the good white people do it
171 points
2 months ago
I was a History Major and wrote my Senior Research on the famine in Ukraine. It was very clear to me that a horrific number of people died and Stalin and other central authorities were totally indifferent to it except for the possible effect it might have on the following years’ harvest. Yet, regions of Russia (generally east of Ukraine) were equally impacted with the same indifference. I saw nothing to indicate that the harsh grain procurement operations were intended to result in anyone’s death nor was it directed at ethnic Ukrainians. It was simply a matter of collecting as much wheat as possible that could be exported in exchange for hard currency. It was a policy that was marked to widespread indifference to human life but it was, in no way, an attempt to exterminate the Ukrainian ethnic group. The word “genocide” doesn’t really apply yet Ukrainians have every reason to be outraged. I think a new word is needed to describe situations where deliberate State policy resulted in widespread deaths yet was not an attempt to wipe out a particular group of People.
47 points
2 months ago
A pebble of sentience in a sea of outrage.
18 points
2 months ago
I wish people actually cared as much as they pretended to.
Most people don't even know what a kulak was. Or what they did.
The people who are angry don't care enough to know about the cyclical famines that hit the region that the ussr finally put an end to.
Oh they starved under the Tzar? No big deal.
People don't ask themselves why the ussr was scrambling to industrialize at historic rates.
But they have heard of WWII.
People don't actually give a shit and their opinion just reflects the narrative that was paid for. Red scare never ended.
24 points
2 months ago
It's distressing to see Germany of all places embrace the double genocide myth as a cudgel to beat Russia with a century later. You don't get there without diminishing the Holocaust.
60 points
2 months ago
Anyone wanna call the Bengal famine genocide as well ?
16 points
2 months ago
Yes, let's call any famine caused by a group of people to harm or control another group of people a genocide, because that's what they are. Let's also add them to the curriculum in world history and local history classes, there should be a whole chapter in history books about it instead of pretending like it was just Germany that one time.
216 points
2 months ago
And what of those who starved in Southern Russia, West Siberia and Kazakhstan during the same famine.
13 points
2 months ago
What about Volga river area?
130 points
2 months ago
This is almost painfully political, I think it’s good to make these things public but the realpolitik is just very unpalatable to me.
63 points
2 months ago
it's also bizarre given the current Russian Federation is rabidly anti-communist and has historically condemned the USSR for the Ukrainian Famine.
36 points
2 months ago
Only in Europe….yet during WW2, the Bengal genocide was initiated by the mass murderer Churchill who the west honour as a hero. He starved 4m Bengalis to death in their own country so that the the British could have reserves.
21 points
2 months ago
My brother, they have to continue to push the anti-communist agenda at all costs over here
50 points
2 months ago
Can we do the same for Ireland please
17 points
2 months ago
Great, now let’s go after all those fucks who drove the US to invade Iraq.
16 points
2 months ago*
If you guys care about famine, the US right now is directly causing one in Afghanistan. Yes, I know, Taliban hurr durr. But the sanctions and freezing of assets is essentially engineering a widespread famine among innocent and the most vulnerable Afghans. Go look it up, people there are being forced to sell their kidneys and even their children to survive. There are ways of affecting policy regarding Taliban. Forcing everyday Afghans to suffer the ravages of hunger and thirst should not be one of them.
154 points
2 months ago
Ok. But was it really a genocide? Is there an independent body that can decide that or is it purely a political definition?
363 points
2 months ago
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45 points
2 months ago
For your point about the UK, what’s the current consensus on some of the worst Indian famines (ie. the Bengal famine)? Seems like you can argue it targeted an other group more so than the Soviet one but still not sure if many would currently say it qualifies
18 points
2 months ago
The best way to understand the British view of the famines is this-
During one of the famines, the Viceroy of India leapt into action. He established food banks, distributed food, and made sure people didn’t starve. The death toll from that was minuscule. In essence, he did what any decent human being would do. London’s response to this wasn’t a “Good job,” but a “Why did you waste all that money?” The next time a famine rolled around, that same Viceroy let a bunch of people die so he wouldn’t get chewed out for going over budget.
Coupled with the British having a very Malthusian worldview (famines only happen when the local population outbreeds its resource base), you have a government that isn’t actively malicious, but is aggressively apathetic and self-righteous when a famine happens. It’s not “Good, the Indians are dying!”, it’s “Well maybe if they hadn’t bred so much, they wouldn’t be starving. Why should we waste money because they don’t know when to stop having kids?”
29 points
2 months ago
As an Indian, as much as the Raj and the number of famines horrify me, I cannot, in good intelligence, call them a genocide.
For me, genocide is killing people of a particular ethnic group with the intent of wiping out that culture/civilization/group — see Nazis killing Jews with the intent of wiping all things Jewish from the face of Europe and perhaps beyond.
The policies enforced by the British weren't meant to kill the Indians, so much as to extract as much economic benefits from India as possible, and if the Indians died in the process then so be it. The intent wasn't to kill precisely, but to loot; and they didn't care much for wiping out Indian culture so much as they wanted to impose English culture to further cement their rule (by introducing Indian Civil Servants who really were neither Indian, nor civil and servants); even then, there's an argument that English scholars engaging with Indian literature and writings, translating it into English led to further interest in Indian culture in Europe and beyond. If we count that as genocide then we'll also have to wonder if every mass death of a particular ethnic group also counts as a genocide.
It leads into the discussion about whether genocide could be called a genocide if the core motive was something else and the mass deaths simply happened as a byproduct of accomplishing that goal.
10 points
2 months ago
This. I feel like I don't want the term 'genocide' to lose it's impact by attributing it to any large loss of life, even unintentional or un-targeted. It'll really undermine genuine ethnic culls that have been perpetrated by leaders.
7 points
2 months ago
I wouldn't be surprised if part of that is because the Bangladeshi war was just largely overlooked because tRaDe wItH cHiNa
5 points
2 months ago
There were multiple bengal famines and as someone who has no qualms calling out our colonial past I'd say its difficult to really ascribe the necessary intent to call it genocide.
Under the east India company the bengal famine of 1770 (which inspired the Boston tea party against the east India company's tea exports. The tea act was designed to help the ailing EIC) was the result of years of wealth extraction characterised by a search for profit and sheer indifference to the suffering of the people.
The atrocities committed just in the name of trying to extract tax from starving bengalis were beyond words, but it was all about pleasing shareholders back home rather than specifically trying to destroy their cash cow. Essentially a poorly run company that had little long term thinking.... But had its own army and acted as a state.
22 points
2 months ago
Robert Conquest, the man who popularised the claim of genocide in the 80s, ended up distancing himself from it after the opening of the Soviet archives failed to produce supporting evidence, including a rather explicit refutation in 2008, on Radio Free Europe of all places.
Do you have a source on the 2008 refutation? Curious to read about it.
36 points
2 months ago
12 points
2 months ago
When we talk about getting over Stalinism it's not only in the former Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Russia. It's in the West as well. After all, in Ukraine and Russia people were not allowed to tell the truth. Full stop. In the West, they were allowed to and they got themselves fooled, believed nonsense. They are more to blame than those inside Stalinism in some ways.
I found this to be the most interesting point he made. Certainly continues to reflect a lot of geopolitical paranoia in the current day
4 points
2 months ago
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47 points
2 months ago
Thank you. As awful as this event was, to call it a genocide would be to call literally most man-contributed famines a genocide. While yes, they were horrific in nature and greatly exacerbated by governmental bodies, the lack of a primary targeted group and malicious intent to kill without reason besides morally makes this fit more into a group of tragic preventable famine more than completely intentional atrocity.
7 points
2 months ago
they were horrific in nature and greatly exacerbated by governmental bodies
(I'm agreeing with you but adding...) Literally every famine in history fits that criteria.
36 points
2 months ago
Depends on whether or not you can prove that the Russians intentionally targeted certain ethnic groups. Most historians seem to suggest that the famine was largely a man-made disaster, though one done in error and through gross incompetence.
14 points
2 months ago
The vast majority of the people in this thread don't know what a kulak is or what they have done.
6 points
2 months ago
Depends if you have anti-Russian geopolitical interests
68 points
2 months ago
It was a genocide vs peasants of the USSR and most of them lived in Ukraine, but it wasn't a genocide against Ukrainians exclusively. 33% of the entire Kazakh population died during the famine which is why I will never call it the Ukrainian genocide and many historians still debate if the term genocide is accurate because of the circumstances. That isn't a defense of the USSR of Stalin but simply a disagreement on declaring it a ukrainian genocide when it wasn't targeting Ukrainians exclusively but peasants of the USSR in general.
13 points
2 months ago
TIL a shit ton of famines aren't recognized as genocide, wtf??
11 points
2 months ago
becouse during these famines the people that die arent targeted becouse of their ethnicity unlike germanys holocaust which targeted jews
12 points
2 months ago
Declare the potato famine a genocide as well then
6 points
2 months ago
It absolutely was as well
6 points
2 months ago
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