History is not some intellectual pursuit we analyze. It's a cudgel we use to reinforce the interests of the west

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/25/germany-set-to-declare-starvation-of-ukrainians-under-stalin-a-genocide-holomodor

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Kyiv regards the historical event as part of a deliberate campaign by Stalin’s regime to collectivise agriculture and root out Ukraine’s fledging nationalist movement. Historians estimate between 4 million and 7.5 million people were killed in the human-made disaster.

    This is an interesting paragraph. "Historians" of course overwhelmingly reject the holodomor narrative, but by putting these two technically true statements next to each other it implies that "historians" agree with the Ukrainian government's position.

    Moscow has rejected Kyiv’s version of history, placing the deaths in the broader context of famines that devastated regions of Central Asia and Russia.

    And then the entirely legitimate counterargument to the Holodomor narrative is presented as though it's historical revisionism being done by the Russians.

    • Vncredleader
      ·
      2 years ago

      Also "fledgling nationalist movement" Ukraine became a recognized country by Soviet Russia before anyone else, The Bolsheviks supported Ukrainian national identity with a lax they showed for no one else.

    • aqwxcvbnji [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Historians” of course overwhelmingly reject the holodomor narrative

      Can you point me towards some good sources for that?

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        2 years ago

        askhistorians threads about it are generally good, taking care to point out conservative researchers who concur with the consensus

      • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Even Stephen Kotkin (the lib), who is a highly esteemed academic historian (professor at Princeton), said it wasn't genocide in his Stalin biography. The only revisionism that's happening here is mainstream journos pretending that there is a consensus about calling it a genocide among academic historians.

        All of these actions were woefully insufficient for avoiding the mass starvation in the countryside caused by his policies, in the face of challenging natural conditions. Still, these actions do not indicate that he was trying to exterminate peasants or ethnic Ukrainians.

        Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin published in October 2017 by Penguin Random House

        Here's Mark Tauger's takedown of Applebaum's Holodomor book:

        Some might ask whether Applebaum’s writing is more accessible to “non-specialist” readers. There are many excellent writers among Slavic specialists, and a more accurate account could easily have been presented in clear and simple language. Applebaum’s writing does not “simplify” the truth, it obscures it, as discussed in this review. Red Famine thus does not fit well in the existing scholarly literature, even as “popular history.” Its interpretation resembles that of Conquest’s Harvest of Sorrow, and it does use recent published sources that provide vivid descriptions of many people’s experiences in the famine. But it leaves out too much important information, has false claims on key points, and draws unjustified conclusions on important issues based on incomplete use of sources, making it not even close to the level of genuine scholarship, like Davies and Wheatcroft’s Years of Hunger. Red Famine is better characterized by a passage from Peter Kenez’s book on The Birth of the Propaganda State: “propaganda often means telling less than the truth, misleading people … manipulating and distorting information, lying” and addresses “audiences in simple language…”

      • JuryNullification [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Check out the preface to Davies and Wheatcroft’s The Years of Hunger. It’s a scholarly work by mainstream historians that thoroughly debunks it.

    • plinky [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Also numbers are simply wrong, 4 million is high-ish upper bound, not lower one.

      Guess hanna arendt stays winning though :deeper-sadness:

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      That is a wild inflation. Most estimates I've seen are around 3 million.