(Forgive me if this isn't the right community for this.)

So, yeah, my gf and I are presently having strained conversations with each other because we have differences of opinion over the Holodomor. I'm not denying the Ukrainian famine happened nor the number of deaths involved. We can set aside the historiography and the Kulak memes, but at the end of the day, I'm a monster because I'm somehow denying justice to the survivors because they call their experience a genocide and I'm more hesitant to do so. It's less about "who's right" or "what really happened" but more about the larger implications that come from genocide denial: she says if survivors say they experienced a genocide, it's important to acknowledge that. She's very uncomfortable that my sympathy to their suffering isn't enough. I'm somehow suggesting the survivors are bad faith actors or dupes (I don't think that's what I'm doing), and because the waters are so muddy on this issue (her words), I ought to consider the other side of the debate instead of reading the preface to Davies and Wheatcroft's The Years of Hunger (which she doesn't want to read).

I feel like even if I were to say "I admit there's a possibility the Holodomor was a genocide," I'd still find myself in the doghouse. This is an impasse we're going to have to navigate before our relationship can return to normal. While we're not big on labels, I'd say I lean more toward ML and she's more anarchist. Maybe that's part of our disagreement? No idea. I'm completely vexed and don't know how to move forward.

I can't imagine anyone's been in this exact position before, but maybe something similar? I wish I could compartmentalize it and move on, but I don't think she can. Any advice, comrades? How can I do justice to the famine survivors while not calling said famine a genocide?

  • Bluegrass_Buddhist [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    do any of us really need to waste time taking a bullet for Stalin’s honor seventy years after he died, thirty years after the country he once led literally ceased to exist? Does that help build socialism?

    ...yes? Absolutely yes. Whatever one's thoughts on Stalin's personal bigotries or excesses, his government led the USSR from the brink of collapse to a world superpower and saved Eurasia from a fascist takeover in the meantime. At its height, it was perhaps the most socially progressive society of the 20th century and led the way in the ongoing fight for the working class' liberation. We likely wouldn't have gotten the New Deal if it wasn't for Stalin.

    Emphasizing this has to be a high rhetorical priority for any socialist in the imperial core. It has to be, because so much of our political culture is built around delegitimizing communism by pointing to SpOOkY sCArY StALiN and his gulags. We must push back against it if we ever want "The Left" in the imperial core to move past tepid socdem reformism.