Some 54 million dead in china due to famine. Calculation is extremely sketchy though, as they have just two data points of census in 10 years, so they calculate unborn babies and stuff.
Stalin killed in the black book of communism like 30 millions, which is simply weird calculation, (including nazis and somehow half of ukraine died before ww2, but they were there and fighting :shrug-outta-hecks: )
Realistic wise: numbers are closer to 4-6 for stalin (including famine) or 1.5-2.5 if direct policies only (purges and forced relocations)
Is there anything worthwhile to consider with the communism kills idea, or are we always talking about deaths that would've been avoided if capitalists left peacefully instead of fighting to maintain their power?
I think of the famine in Ukraine, which seems like the expected outcome of what was essentially a protracted civil war, but seems like it could've been avoided if landlords didn't fight to keep their holdings.
I don't know a lot about China, but it seems like the communist killing spree idea doesn't hold up to honest scrutiny in the case of the USSR.
Is there anything worthwhile to consider with the communism kills idea, or are we always talking about deaths that would’ve been avoided if capitalists left peacefully instead of fighting to maintain their power?
A lot of the count isn't even deaths, it's changes in birthrate. So the USSR industrializing, educating its populace, and reducing infant mortality gets spun as costing many millions of hypothetical lives in the form of fewer births, disregarding the fact that high birthrates in agrarian societies go along with and are to an extent fueled by high infant mortality.
I don’t know a lot about China
The worst catastrophe, the Great Leap Forwards, was a colossal policy failure but still happened for clear reasons: the commune models it pushed were ones that originated from rural communes in the first place, in places and at times where the material conditions meant they worked; China had a pressing strategic need to try to move its industrial bases west away from the vulnerable coasts and to decentralize them to make the sorts of strategic bombing campaigns they'd seen the US carry out in the Korean War impossible; and there was a driving need to increase industrial capability in general in order to mechanize the communes and increase agricultural output while freeing labor for more industrial work. This was further compounded by the relative autarky of the rural communes and how dysfunctional the overall logistics system was, leading to rampant problems of local officials reporting that grain production was higher than it was and that they were shipping more than they were because there were little to no checks to ensure that any of the reports were accurate and higher numbers went along with greater compensation and prestige.
Ah, don’t do communist revolution in agrarian society? Well, and forced relocations unequivocally bad.
I think main thing leftists (we) should consider very carefully is purges/cultural revolution, because obviously the scale was completely out of proportion to the number of saboteurs, so some external accountability is very much preferable to killing, with something close to Soviet (council) structure being judges of good job/bad job of particular party functionary (or just anarcho-communes, whatever)
I suppose, but even the ugliest relocations and purges were responses to the presence of actual capitalist threats, or so it seems to me. I don't know anything about the cultural revolution. I only have my impressions of Soviet history.
I saw a Bald and Bankrupt episode from a Buddhist republic (pretty far west) that experienced mass deportations, allegedly because of fascist collaboration. The idea that there were collaborators in these communities was presented as absurd, but I couldn't help but notice that no one confesses to fascism, yet all the fascists came from somewhere.
Well, being from russia I have somewhat more varied sources, I think I looked up last week tatar deportation from crimea, something like 20k were collaborating (including giving shelter, which considering family ties is not that implicating) 5k likely directly involved in military activities, 200k relocated - seems completely disproportionate.
It’s solving big issue by ethno judgment, of course it was war and blah blah, still could have been done miles better (especially travel conditions and return honestly, even doing same shit).
As for purges, meh, I think there were a lot of opportunistic purge of inconvenient critics (not only for stalin, for local parties as well), numbers don’t make sense otherwise and stories as well.
Serious question, because I have heard this in real life, what are people talking about when people they say communism killed 100 million people?
Some 54 million dead in china due to famine. Calculation is extremely sketchy though, as they have just two data points of census in 10 years, so they calculate unborn babies and stuff.
Stalin killed in the black book of communism like 30 millions, which is simply weird calculation, (including nazis and somehow half of ukraine died before ww2, but they were there and fighting :shrug-outta-hecks: )
Realistic wise: numbers are closer to 4-6 for stalin (including famine) or 1.5-2.5 if direct policies only (purges and forced relocations)
Is there anything worthwhile to consider with the communism kills idea, or are we always talking about deaths that would've been avoided if capitalists left peacefully instead of fighting to maintain their power?
I think of the famine in Ukraine, which seems like the expected outcome of what was essentially a protracted civil war, but seems like it could've been avoided if landlords didn't fight to keep their holdings.
I don't know a lot about China, but it seems like the communist killing spree idea doesn't hold up to honest scrutiny in the case of the USSR.
A lot of the count isn't even deaths, it's changes in birthrate. So the USSR industrializing, educating its populace, and reducing infant mortality gets spun as costing many millions of hypothetical lives in the form of fewer births, disregarding the fact that high birthrates in agrarian societies go along with and are to an extent fueled by high infant mortality.
The worst catastrophe, the Great Leap Forwards, was a colossal policy failure but still happened for clear reasons: the commune models it pushed were ones that originated from rural communes in the first place, in places and at times where the material conditions meant they worked; China had a pressing strategic need to try to move its industrial bases west away from the vulnerable coasts and to decentralize them to make the sorts of strategic bombing campaigns they'd seen the US carry out in the Korean War impossible; and there was a driving need to increase industrial capability in general in order to mechanize the communes and increase agricultural output while freeing labor for more industrial work. This was further compounded by the relative autarky of the rural communes and how dysfunctional the overall logistics system was, leading to rampant problems of local officials reporting that grain production was higher than it was and that they were shipping more than they were because there were little to no checks to ensure that any of the reports were accurate and higher numbers went along with greater compensation and prestige.
Ah, don’t do communist revolution in agrarian society? Well, and forced relocations unequivocally bad.
I think main thing leftists (we) should consider very carefully is purges/cultural revolution, because obviously the scale was completely out of proportion to the number of saboteurs, so some external accountability is very much preferable to killing, with something close to Soviet (council) structure being judges of good job/bad job of particular party functionary (or just anarcho-communes, whatever)
I suppose, but even the ugliest relocations and purges were responses to the presence of actual capitalist threats, or so it seems to me. I don't know anything about the cultural revolution. I only have my impressions of Soviet history.
I saw a Bald and Bankrupt episode from a Buddhist republic (pretty far west) that experienced mass deportations, allegedly because of fascist collaboration. The idea that there were collaborators in these communities was presented as absurd, but I couldn't help but notice that no one confesses to fascism, yet all the fascists came from somewhere.
Well, being from russia I have somewhat more varied sources, I think I looked up last week tatar deportation from crimea, something like 20k were collaborating (including giving shelter, which considering family ties is not that implicating) 5k likely directly involved in military activities, 200k relocated - seems completely disproportionate.
It’s solving big issue by ethno judgment, of course it was war and blah blah, still could have been done miles better (especially travel conditions and return honestly, even doing same shit).
As for purges, meh, I think there were a lot of opportunistic purge of inconvenient critics (not only for stalin, for local parties as well), numbers don’t make sense otherwise and stories as well.
Fair. You have to decide how far to take the "it was war and blah blah blah" argument.