“Abuse of power comes as no surprise.” Reading up on the GULAG.
Annie Clark aka St. Vincent - She actually did an interview where she talked about Stalin and it’s as bad as you’d think.
How much podcast and audiobook listening do you typically do?
I’m obsessed with podcasts and audiobooks. I probably listen to more audiobooks than I do music. I mean, I certainly listen to music — for enjoyment, for research, for just making sure I know what is happening. Luckily, maybe because I’m a musician, I can retain a lot of information that comes through on the auditory side. I mean, I’ve really been brushing up on my Stalin.
You’ve brushed up on your Stalin?
It makes me feel much better about where we are today. Because they had it bad.
It’s pretty bad now.
It’s really bad now. But it was worse. I’ll go ahead and say it was worse in Stalin’s Russia. So there we are. That makes me feel bright and sunny. I’ve been on a real Stasi Gulag Stalin kick for the past many months. Cold war, espionage — all of it.
https://archive.vn/Ci86Z
Yes I am really into history so I am reading a book by a pop journalist who likes to pretend she's a historian. Applebaum sucks so much, when anti-communist Stephen fucking Kotkin is dunking on you maybe you should rethink your career.
Anyways if this person has actually read any real history about communism I'll eat my hat.
Honestly a lot of bourgeoisie historians of Communism "know a lot" in a basic sense it's just the rail guards within academia when it comes to the Soviet Union in particular(but all communist states) keeps them from correcting even the most glaring lies, omissions and obfuscations that are largely taken as a given in the field . That with a ton of false consciousness. No amount of corrections and counter history will change some of these people's minds, they've made their bed. Ann Applebum is straight up in the orbit of NATO with her husband and is clearly an outright propagandist of empire . I don't feel like going into it but her book Red Famine is a joke . Mark Tauger easily poked holes in it like swiss cheese :
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169438
I actually think about this alot. The reality is that academic historians of the Soviet Union do generally disregard the Holodomor narrative as well as the pinball scores from The Black Book of Communism. But they don't really talk about it much, I think for a couple reasons:
They don't want to be see as "communism apologists". So I'm doing this from memory, but in The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin talks about how for the period from like 1959-1985, the average number of either arrest or convictions (don't remember which) per year in the USSR for political crimes was between 300-400. Not 300,000-400,000; 300-400. And that's not executions, that's just arrests/convictions (again, don't remember which). This is so dramatically counter to popular narratives. But even when talking about this, Lewin has to say "but this doesn't excuse the horrors of living in the USSR!". They always feel the need to add these qualifiers. Being seen as a Soviet "apologist" is worse than actually promoting the truth.
I think a lot of academics - in many fields - just don't concern themselves with popular misconceptions in their fields. A different example... I love talking to geologists, because I was raised to believe the earth is 6,000 years old and there was a real, global flood like 4,000 years ago. So whenever I read a geologist talking about the age of rocks and stuff, it blows my mind. I can't get enough of it, and I haven't been a Christian for like a decade. But I also find that a lot of geologists don't like "debunking" Young Earth Creationist myths. Because to them, it's so obviously bullshit, it almost feels embarrassing to explain why it's wrong. And I get that. But the reality is something like 40% of the US population thinks the earth is less than 10,000 years old. These anti-science or anti-history popular narratives really do cause significant societal damage and hinder our progress as humans. But in regards to communism, I don't think any academic Sovietologist takes the 100 million number seriously at all. It's so far from reality they see it as waste of their time to address, in addition to the point I made above.
Definitely, Albert Sysmanski does this for the post WW2 Soviet Union even with comparisons to the United States in his wonderful book Human Rights In The Soviet Union . From what I've read though many academics do in fact frame the Ukrainian famine largely under the Holdamor narrative(or just Ukrainian nationalist perspective in general) , i.e. it was a deliberate starvation to subdue Ukraine . Anyways though "Being seen as a Soviet “apologist” is worse than actually promoting the truth." Man hit the nail on the fucking head, totally .
Indeed anti science narratives and general reactionary delusions and conspiracies permeate this country, where the conspiratorial "Anti mason" party was huge in the 19th century. It's to be expected in a white settler nation dominated by Christianity . But I wouldn't really compare anti Soviet mythology to creationism, I think anti Soviet myths are easily translated into liberal or conservative circles and so permeate this country and it's culture on nearly all levels while creationism is easily outright laughed at by most in elite circles.
I think conspiracy's like flat earth and Qanon and so on have as much to do with modern media , cell phones and psy ops as the idiocy of a large sections of this country and our reactionary history .
And no most academics don't take The Black Book Of Communism seriously I was being partially sarcastic with "gulag 20 million dead" but most are basically a step behind and do inflate Gulag deaths .
I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case now, but literally less than a year ago the overwhelming majority of academic historians were in agreement that the famine wasn't a genocide or intentional and avoided the politicized term "Holodomor".
I simply do not see the evidence to believe that the "overwhelming majority" of academic historians agreed that the Famine in Ukraine during the Soviet Famine 31-34 wasn't a deliberate act to punish land holding peasents and Ukrainian nationalism/separatism . Because many mainstream historians from Applebum to Figes(and now dead popular historians like Richard Pipes) hold that view and held that before a year ago to say the least.
There's even an Encyclopedia Britannica entry for the Holodomor written by the author OP is reading . I don't think that's just or even mostly all recent in the academic field although with the wider imagination that's probably true to an extent.
One can reject the exact term "Holodomor" and then churn around and basically recite it's narrative as well .
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There are Some like Tauger and J Arch Getty but for instance your assertion that Robert Conquest doesn't assert the Famine in parts of Ukraine wasn't a deliberate act(Holodomor) isn't remotely true . He in fact wrote a whole Book on it arguing just that titled The Harvest Of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v09/n02/j.-arch-getty/starving-the-ukraine Applebaum is from Yale and Conquest is also very important for the general view of Americans. Kotkin on other hand yes mostly blames the famine on Collectivization in particular but doesn't think it was was deliberate let alone a genocide. https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/11/08/studying-stalin/ and is an effective anti communist historian although i haven't read his tombs on Stalin yet. .
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Yes years later he would back peddle but basically argue the same thing.
"Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine. No. What I argue is that with resulting famine imminent, he could have prevented it, but put “Soviet interest” other than feeding the starving first – thus consciously abetting it "
That is the Consensus among many is true and also wrong and flawed imo and not much different from the Holodomor narrative which is also a popular view among historians and the wider public.
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Ooooh.... that sounds like a great read, heading over to libgen now!