I just discovered that Radical Reviewer believes the western account of the 1932 Ukranian famine, and I could not be more disappointed.
The overwhelming majority of people don't know that it is mainstream historical academic consensus today that the 32-33 famine, while certainly drastically exacerbated by government policy, was absolutely not a deliberate genocide.
Literally just read the preface to the revised edition of Davies and Wheatcroft's The Years of Hunger and it will give you the gist. It pretty emphatically denounces the narrative that it was a genocide. The entire rest of the book is nerd shit on agricultural yields and Soviet government policy.
I'm not going to go into the myriad causes of the famine, but it was essentially a natural famine that was made considerably worse because forced collectivization severely disrupted traditional peasant agricultural practices and relentless state pressure on the farmers drove yields continuously downward over a three-year period.
The famine was most acute in Kazakhstan, but Ukraine gets the main focus of propaganda rhetoric because the "Holodomor" narrative was concocted by Ukrainian nationalists who later collaborated with the Nazis, and was pushed in Nazi propaganda. The real reason the famine was so bad in Ukraine was because Ukraine had always been the breadbasket of the Russian Empire, and therefore when other regions failed to make their quotas pressure from the Moscow center fell upon Ukraine to make up the difference, with the accompanying coercive measures.
For example, a pretty prominent aspect of the "Holodomor" narrative is the allegation that Stalin used troops and internal passports to forcibly prevent Ukrainians from fleeing their famine-stricken regions as a means of deliberately killing them through starvation. This is a malicious misinterpretation of the facts. In reality internal passports and coercive measures were issued across much of the Union to prevent a catastrophic rural exodus to the cities in search of food and employment, which would have exacerbated the famine from "catastrophic" to "biblical" and probably toppled the government to boot. The Moscow center prioritized feeding the cities over the rural regions because the cities were not only their power base but also because urban unrest was a legitimate threat to the stability of the state.
there wasn't relentless pressure & grain requisitions were reduced multiple times
aid was increased many fold & all manner of healthcare and other outreach were mobilized immediately upon hearing of these issues
I don't think many serious communists actually say the famine never happened as it obviously did. This is kind of a strawml. I almost never see it. Hell I see more leftists say that it was a genocide despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I think its much more important to combat the people who say it was a genocide.
That requires tankies to care about the truth when they seem to so often live in their own fantasy world where they replace inconvenient facts with their own versions of events.
Most socialists of all types do exactly what you're saying. It's the kids who are only socialist to stick it to mommy and daddy that are arguing that it never happened (with the genuine loon here and there too).
Please stop using the word "tankie" unironically. Even if you think it's a useful label, it's already been adopted by liberals as their go-to pejorative for anyone to the left of Liz Warren. Nobody benefits from this.
forced collectivization severely disrupted traditional peasant agricultural practices
What does this actually mean though?
A big part was they stopped doing crop rotation, especially because of the immense pressure to push up yields
no, the collectivization had to take place
Tsarist "Stolypin reforms" gave preference to rich kulaks&nanny state capitalism propped up rich landowners above poor
"Stolypin reforms" gave undue market access & held back real class mobility
rich "khutors" & a form of nanny state capitalism artificially created a mass of poor & powerless farm hands who had to give their entire lives in order to stay a near serf basically
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EonoId_W4AAMHs-?format=png&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EonoJX-W8AEq1ky?format=png&name=medium
the backwardness of their inefficient feudal style agricultural production guaranteed shortage
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Epg_HctW8AEK7so?format=jpg&name=medium
Stalin said "forced collectivization" wasn't the correct way, as he didn't have dictatorial control over the areas
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Epg_JNxW8AU9PHb?format=png&name=900x900
http://jstor.org/stable/4202829
Kulaks infiltrated collectives& ruined them as well as committing many other crimes
they were feudal era producers that could not feed the masses as was needed for these areas to progress, they had to be supplanted
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqN4Yb4XEAA3cOp?format=jpg&name=medium
whole country was modernizing& mechanizing... there were no real tractors or modern technological agriculture in these areas at the time
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eo2uqDeXUAAIlr-?format=png&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Epb_HP7XIAE0NmJ?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Epb_IkvXYAAg0I7?format=png&name=medium
And yet despite this, the first successful year of collectivization implementation in 1930-31 literally more than tripled the amount harvested from Kulak style backward methods in just 2 years
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpjmCsvW4AAkSzL?format=jpg&name=medium
many different scholarly sources... one of them is listed there under the JSTOR link
which image would you like the scholarly resource link to specifically?
It wasn’t even really a logistics problem all that much. It was a Kulak sabotage problem
Davies and Wheatcroft’s The Years of Hunger
Wish I could, but most people can't afford a $200 book.
Added a "history" folder to the new archive I'm managing with a pdf copy.
I got my paperback copy for like $20 but it seems the price has gone up since then
Looks like that's only hardcover. I might scoop up a $40 used paperback.
Wheatcroft & Davies do get on the bandwagon of denouncing Stalin and blaming USSR "mismanagement", but it's more like standard issue Western Sovietology boiler plate stuff
In fact, some of their revelations from the archives about Stalin sending direct aid immediately & chastising those on the ground for not moving fast enough belies the anti-USSR conclusions that Wheatcroft and Davies make. And I honestly think they know that
I mean I might straight-up post the whole part of the preface I highlighted at some point. The Years of Hunger is that expensive especially in hardcover because it's pretty much literally a 90s-era Oxford textbook. I'm not kidding when I say "the majority of the book is nerd shit" ie tons and tons of agricultural statistics. If you're not into that pass it up.
Reading a pdf now I found on libgen. Definitely post the preface some more, it gets right to the heart of the politicization.
I'm going into a career in history, if I can force myself to read a book about diplomatic processions during the Congress of Vienna I can fuck with agricultural yields. Actually it's really rare to have that kind of hard data, very cool.
It was drastically affected by Kulak reaction to government policy. No Kulaks, only collective farms, no famine.
i mean drastically exacerbating a famine i guess isnt a genocide, but its some sort of idk mass murder? its not a great defense for sure
It's the drastically exacerbated it part that the tankies refuse to admit to. Must less the other worse things he did.
I believe it because:
-It validates my lifetime of media tropes about the evil commies
-I've never heard of Mark Tauger
-I'm a fucking idiot
If it was a planned genocide against Ukrainians, then how come so many ethnic russians were affected? And how come in terms of % of population more ethnic Kazakhs died?
kulaks slaughtered animals needlessly& backwardness of inefficient feudal style agriculture guaranteed shortage
Stalin said "forced collectivization" wasn't the correct way, as he didn't have dictatorial control over the areas
what destroyed these people was lack of modern machines & lack of control over this feudalistic style of grain production
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqeQ6GoW4AArnoI?format=png&name=900x900
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqeQ6_jXAAE8tua?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqeQ8ehXUAAKxn0?format=png&name=900x900
And a little bit of: Fuck em their Ukrainian
A bit of a theme with Russians
This site is very simpy though so they hate any criticism of the USSR
Ah yes, the Ukraineophobic Russians. They hated them so much that Stalin’s successor was one of them
I'm out of my depth as far as the history of the famine but this is kind of like saying the election of Obama proved America isn't racist lol
I'm 100% sure you're pulling this out of your ass.
theres hardly any ethnic animosity between the people...between the governments of now, yea, but not the people at large.
the anti-USSR Ukrainian ultranationalist leader&primary sources writing in 1933-34 in the West admit the largest issue with this famine was internal wrecking&Kulak resistance/murder/sabotage of USSR attempts to harvest
Food shortages caused by kulaks
https://jstor.org/stable/4202897
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpbaeoNXcAAkSB1?format=png&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnZalbTWMAgtFl_?format=jpg&name=large
I think Stalin and the Soviet leadership are responsible of criminal negligence and they should have resigned after their failure.
Could they have done better with the tech and organization at the time? I dunno if an underdeveloped war torn country they could have made much better choices. I think if we compare it to the american dust bowl the numbers dont look as bad as we think.
We could make better choices now. I think we forget sometimes just how wild and new a thing it was they were doing.
Was Stalin's agricultureal policy up to the task at the time? No, he was born in the 1800s and was a robber by trade. The last policy they had was set by an inbred wizard. He was still a step up you know?
Probably something to the argument that the chaos caused by their rapid reforms didn't help.
They, at the very least, failed to address it.
real problem wasn't really grain procurements or kulaks infiltrating collectives and ruining them per se. at least not when looking in the aggregate
it was literally the volume&state of productive forces within agriculture in these vital areas
kulaks stood on a gold mine, and just like how emerald mines in Afghanistan work with 19th century tech to keep prices high, kulaks wanted to remain on top of the pile & hold back the technology to benefit selfishlessly
remember famine was endemic to these areas until after collectivization
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpahneNXcAUbwKk?format=jpg&name=medium
compare it to the american dust bowl the numbers dont look as bad as we think
somehow the americans avoided tens of thousands of deaths that might be worth looking into
pretty sure more people than that died of starvation/malnutrition in the US during that period
much much fewer than the USSR. high estimates of 7,000 from the dustbowl, couple hundred from starvation in the GD generally. even if underreported the numbers are very different.
Even if we take the low estimate, The United States should have fared even better in comparison. They had much more developed industrial agriculture whereas Russia was still transitioning away from peasant farming through the collectivization policy in question, and had suffered a recent famine in 1891-92. Through the Agricultural Adjustment Act, FDR paid farmers not to plant in order to keep food prices high during a shortage instead of... distributing food to those who needed it and still providing financial support to the farmers to prevent them from going under, or something.
I'd of said his numbers were too high but living through covid it all feels real plausible
What about the embargos that the USSR weathered between the October Revolution and the famine? Surely had they not been being scalped by the western world, they could have been better prepared for a famine, or prevented it all together?
Massive negligence and callousness. Happened in Kazakhstan too, there's a good book on the famine in Kazakhstan that came out recently, The Hungry Steppe.
Kazakhstan where backward elements & kulak-bai criminals & nomadic warlords attempted to resist modernization to the point of destroying their neighbors' ability to produce food?
kind of makes me cringe that you are defending kulak-bai destruction of the harvest, ngl
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Epjl2a-W8AMJtfE?format=png&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Epjl3dCXEAUDyOA?format=jpg&name=medium
Do you have any sources on the forced population movement they did, or the settling of ethnic Russians in the soviet satellite nations? I know for sure about some degree that went on in Azerbaijan
isn't it incredible how literally everything western sources say about stalin and the soviet union is a lie?
Gulags were shut down for a reason. They were questionable, especially because they weren't used for just re-education. Having a system of forced labor as a means of being allowed into the proletariat after existing as a hostile member of the bourgeoise or as one of their allies is okay in my books, make them work to rebuild what they destroyed for a year or two (giving them housing and healthcare), then allow them back into the urban centers and they'll appreciate the communal housing and 6 hour 4 day work weeks.
I don’t believe it was a genocide, as it was not an attack on a specific group of people. I do believe that it was the fault primarily of the Ukrainian Anarchists and Trots.
Those were actually in different parts of Ukraine, and that bourgeois you speak of were Ukrainians, and they got gulagged for burning grain, whatever nationalist reasons they had for doing so don't make any difference.
The Makhnovists power base was the peasantry, they were the centrist option between white army serfdom and red army collectivization and requisitioning grain for the cities. Though Makhno would later lose support due to him too using forced requisitioning and conscription of the peasantry under the pretext that the community had as a whole voluntarily accepted anarchism and as a whole had volunteered for mobilization, meaning individuals had no say in the matter.
And why would the Bolsheviks collaborate with Anarchists who had committed terrorist acts against Bolshevik figures and engaged in pure banditry against supply lines while openly advocating the razing of the soviet state? This great betrayal shit is fucking cringe, own up to the fact that the Anarchists were locked in a mortal battle with the Bolsheviks and fucking lost once the white army threat was eliminated.
The most infuriating part is if I point out the literal terrorist bombings that nearly killed prominent figures like Bukharin or the assassination attempt on Lenin, a ton of anarchists will reply that that stuff was cool and based without resolving the contradiction of the Bolsheviks betraying people who literally tried to destroy the Bolsheviks.
The truth of the matter is the Bolsheviks didnt betray the anarchists, the anarchists who wanted a revolution and recognized reality in what was happening joined the Bolshevik party, and those who were more interested in idealistically fighting all states equally decided to attack the Bolsheviks and were therefore obviously enemies to be destroyed.
Yeah, I would wish that in a future revolution, that brings forth ML and Anarchist organized communities like back then, one doesn't stab the other in the back and roots them out completely.
Or am I naive for thinking that a commune could even exist under let's say an ML led federation because it directly would be evidence that even this state is unnecessary and it would therefore be in conflict with the bureaucracy of the ML state needing to keep itself alive, especially ideologically?
You are working under the assumption that anarchist communes couldn't federate with each other to defend a wider territory.
Although, I have to admit I wouldn't call myself the best read, but I think the communes in Spain should give an example of such things being totally possible and actually working quite well.
During the Spanish Civil War, workers in occupied factories coordinated an entire wartime economy. Anarchist organizations that had been instrumental in bringing about the revolution, namely the CNT labor union, often provided the foundations for the new society. Especially in the industrial city of Barcelona, the CNT lent the structure for running a worker-controlled economy — a task for which it had been preparing years in advance. Each factory organized itself with its own chosen technical and administrative workers; factories in the same industry in every locality organized into the Local Federation of their particular industry; all the Local Federations of a locality organized themselves into a Local Economic Council “in which all the centers of production and services were represented”; and the local Federations and Councils organized into parallel National Federations of Industry and National Economic Federations.[49]
The Barcelona congress of all Catalan collectives, on August 28, 1937, provides an example of their coordinating activities and decisions. The collectivized shoe factories needed 2 million pesetas credit. Because of a shortage of leather, they had to cut down on hours, though they still paid all their workers full time salaries. The Economic Council studied the situation, and reported that there was no surplus of shoes. The congress agreed to grant credit to purchase leather and to modernize the factories in order to lower the prices of the shoes. Later, the Economic Council outlined plans to build an aluminum factory, which was necessary for the war effort. They had located available materials, secured the cooperation of chemists, engineers, and technicians, and decided to raise the money through the collectives. The congress also decided to mitigate urban unemployment by working out a plan with agricultural workers to bring new areas into cultivation with the help of unemployed workers from the cities.
Or take the example of Native Americans resisting their colonizers:
Even more impressive than the example provided by the Makhnovists is the victory won by several indigenous nations in 1868. In a two year war, thousands of warriors from the Lakota and Cheyenne nations defeated the US military and destroyed several army forts during what became known as Red Cloud’s War. In 1866, the Lakota met with the US government at Fort Laramie because the latter wanted permission to build a military trail through the Powder River country to facilitate the influx of white settlers who were seeking gold. The US military had already defeated the Arapaho in its attempt to open the area for white settlers, but they had been unable to defeat the Lakota. During the negotiations it became apparent that the US government had already started the process of building military forts along this trail, without even having secured permission for the trail itself. The Oglala Lakota war chief Red Cloud promised to resist any white attempts to occupy the area. Nonetheless in the summer of 1866 the US military began sending more troops to the region and constructing new forts. Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors following the direction of Red Cloud began a campaign of guerrilla resistance, effectively closing down the Bozeman trail and harassing the troops stationed in the forts. The military sent down the order for an aggressive winter campaign, and on December 21, when their wood train was attacked yet again, an army of about one hundred US soldiers decided to pursue. They met a decoy party including the Oglala warrior Crazy Horse and took the bait. The entire force was defeated and killed by a force of 1,000–3,000 warriors that waited in ambush. The commanding officer of the white soldiers was knifed to death in hand to hand combat. The Lakota left a young bugle boy who fought with just his bugle covered in a buffalo robe as a sign of honor — with such acts the indigenous warriors demonstrated the possibility of a much more respectful form of warfare, in contrast with the white soldiers and settlers who often cut out fetuses from pregnant women and used the amputated genitals of unarmed victims as tobacco pouches.
In the summer of 1867 US troops with new repeating rifles fought the Lakota to a standstill in two battles, but they failed to carry out any successful offensives. In the end, they asked for peace talks, which Red Cloud said he would only grant if the new military forts were abandoned. The US government agreed, and in the peace talks they recognized the rights of the Lakota to the Black Hills and Powder River country, a huge area currently occupied by the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.
During the war, the Lakota and Cheyenne organized without coercion or military discipline. But contrary to the typical dichotomies, their relative lack of hierarchy did not hamper their ability for organization. On the contrary, they held together during a brutal war on the basis of a collective, self-motivated discipline and varying forms of organization. In a Western army, the most important unit is the military police or the officer who walks behind the troops, pistol loaded and ready to shoot anyone who turns and runs. The Lakota and Cheyenne had no need for discipline imposed from above. They were fighting to defend their land and way of life, in groups bound by kinship and affinity.
Some fighting groups were structured with a chain of command, while others operated in a more collective fashion, but all of them voluntarily rallied around individuals with the best organizational abilities, spiritual power, and combat experience. These war chiefs did not control those who followed them so much as inspire them. When morale was low or a fight looked hopeless, groups of warriors often went home, and they were always free to do so. If a chief declared war, he had to go, but no one else did, so a leader who could not convince anyone to follow him to war was engaging in an embarrassing and even suicidal venture. In contrast, politicians and generals in Western society frequently start unpopular wars, and they are never the ones to suffer the consequences.
The warrior societies played an important role in the indigenous organization of warfare, but women’s societies were vital as well. They played a role similar to that of the Quartermaster in Western armies, provisioning food and materials, except that where the Quartermaster is a simple cog obeying orders, the Lakota and Cheyenne women would refuse to cooperate if they disagreed with the reasons for a war. Considering that one of Napoleon’s most important contributions to European warfare was the insight that “an army marches on its stomach,” it becomes apparent that Lakota and Cheyenne women exercised more power in the affairs of their nations than the histories written by men and white people would lead us to believe. Additionally, women who chose to could fight alongside the men.
Despite being impossibly outnumbered by the US military and white settler paramilitaries, the Native Americans won. After Red Cloud’s War, the Lakota and Cheyenne enjoyed nearly a decade of autonomy and peace. Contrary to pacifist allegations about militant resistance, the victors did not begin oppressing one another or creating uncontrollable cycles of violence just because they had violently fought off the white invaders. They won themselves several years of freedom and peace.
FYI the quotes are from Gelderloos' "Anarchy Works".
but in the case of Ukraine we only need to look at what actually happened with these anarchist "communes"... practically no one participated
so the Makhno tales have always been overblown. and while he did contribute to defeating the White army, the average peasant wanted nothing to do with this project
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFGJXXcAEgiDZ?format=jpg&name=large
If no one participated how the fuck could they organize an army that held out for years against the Red army and the whites?
practically no one participated in the communes... are you reading the link I provided correctly?
and it's not as though Makhno really held out against the Reds, at least not after Trotsky moved against Makhno
The black army was more like the green armies just with an anarchist figurehead, the peasantry that were Makhnos power base supported him as a centre position between the whites and the reds and mostly didnt care for his commune shit. The workers in his territory were ignored and neglected, which Makhno advicing that poor railway workers who needed wages for food should try and hold up and extort a toll from passing red trains, full of soldiers.
Makhno destroyed trains & wrecked equipment that needed to be be preserved
this is largely why figures like Kropotkin advocated for the nascent Soviet states & criticized anarchists in their overzealous actions& lack of foresight
It's honestly amazing that people still idolize Makhno, he's practically a mythical figure at this point with no possible connection to the man himself or the armies he led, a construct of left-anticommunists who need a martyr that would have done everything absolutely correct if those devilish Communists just hadn't betrayed him for their own power.
this is why anarchism as such is ultimately an insect reared in the nest of socialism, just as destructive in the medium term to the aims of the Left as are SuccDems
This is an SLP publishing in 1901 talking about a bourgeois German newspaper in Chicago at the time:
"That German capitalist paper, with its intimate knowledge of European matters, counseled the State to “rear the Anarchist insect in the nests of Socialism to devour the Socialist eggs”.... "The European “Anarchist,” accordingly, turns his whole effort towards destroying. But destroying what? The Capitalist System? No! Such destruction, being constructive in its nature, implies virility. Hatred, malevolence and envy are attributes of degeneracy. The degenerate never tackles the strong: he tackles the weak. Capitalist Society being powerful, he leaves it substantially alone: the camp of Socialism, having to be raised under the fire of the enemy, is exposed and substantially weak. The Anarchist, accordingly, turns his face against Socialism."
I don't approve of the term "degenerate", but it's interesting to see that these strains existed even 120 years ago
The assertion that anarchists don't even want to destroy capitalism or private property is completely wrong. Of course anarchists want to do exactly that and then establish a community based on socialist principles, like mutual aid and absolute solidarity.
Honestly, if I hadn't recently started reading more anarchist theory I would've probably written something like your reply as well, either describing anarchists as naive utopians at best and wreckers at worst, but please for the love of god just pick up any book. Something basic and introductory like "Anarchy Works" from Gelderloos does a great job of explaining anarchism or something from Kropotkin like "Mutual Aid" or "Conquest of Bread" and you will at least begin to understand where anarchists are coming from. You don't have to agree but this vitriol is totally unnecessary.
I have no problem with having different opinions on how this or that is best achieved or whatever but describing each other as insects is just disgusting language, I wouldn't say anything about it if it was just in that quote there, but that you would refer to your fellow comrades here like this is a bit disappointing I have to say.
Here is just the introduction to "Anarchy Works", maybe despite everything, you might find it interesting:
spoiler
Anarchy Would Never Work
Anarchism is the boldest of revolutionary social movements to emerge from the struggle against capitalism — it aims for a world free from all forms of domination and exploitation. But at its heart is a simple and convincing proposition: people know how to live their own lives and organize themselves better than any expert could. Others cynically claim that people do not know what is in their best interests, that they need a government to protect them, that the ascension of some political party could somehow secure the interests of all members of society. Anarchists counter that decision-making should not be centralized in the hands of any government, but instead power should be decentralized: that is to say, each person should be the center of society, and all should be free to build the networks and associations they need to meet their needs in common with others.
The education we receive in state-run schools teaches us to doubt our ability to organize ourselves. This leads many to conclude anarchy is impractical and utopian: it would never work. On the contrary, anarchist practice already has a long record, and has often worked quite well. The official history books tell a selective story, glossing over the fact that all the components of an anarchist society have existed at various times, and innumerable stateless societies have thrived for millennia.
How would an anarchist society compare to statist and capitalist societies? It is apparent that hierarchical societies work well according to certain criteria. They tend to be extremely effective at conquering their neighbors and securing vast fortunes for their rulers. On the other hand, as climate change, food and water shortages, market instability, and other global crises intensify, hierarchical models are not proving to be particularly sustainable. The histories in this book show that an anarchist society can do much better at enabling all its members to meet their needs and desires.
The many stories, past and present, that demonstrate how anarchy works have been suppressed and distorted because of the revolutionary conclusions we might draw from them. We can live in a society with no bosses, masters, politicians, or bureaucrats; a society with no judges, no police, and no criminals, no rich or poor; a society free of sexism, homophobia, and transphobia; a society in which the wounds from centuries of enslavement, colonialism, and genocide are finally allowed to heal. The only things stopping us are the prisons, programming, and paychecks of the powerful, as well as our own lack of faith in ourselves.
Of course, anarchists do not have to be practical to a fault. If we ever win the freedom to run our own lives, we’ll probably come up with entirely new approaches to organization that improve on these tried and true forms. So let these stories be a starting point, and a challenge. What exactly is anarchism?
Volumes have been written in answer to this question, and millions of people have dedicated their lives to creating, expanding, defining, and fighting for anarchy. There are countless paths to anarchism and countless beginnings: workers in 19th century Europe fighting against capitalism and believing in themselves instead of the ideologies of authoritarian political parties; indigenous peoples fighting colonization and reclaiming their traditional, horizontal cultures; high school students waking up to the depth of their alienation and unhappiness; mystics from China one thousand years ago or from Europe five hundred years ago, Daoists or Anabaptists, fighting against government and organized religion; women rebelling against the authoritarianism and sexism of the Left. There is no Central Committee giving out membership cards, and no standard doctrine. Anarchy means different things to different people. However, here are some basic principles most anarchists agree on.
Autonomy and Horizontality: All people deserve the freedom to define and organize themselves on their own terms. Decision-making structures should be horizontal rather than vertical, so no one dominates anyone else; they should foster power to act freely rather than power over others. Anarchism opposes all coercive hierarchies, including capitalism, the state, white supremacy, and patriarchy.
Mutual Aid: People should help one another voluntarily; bonds of solidarity and generosity form a stronger social glue than the fear inspired by laws, borders, prisons, and armies. Mutual aid is neither a form of charity nor of zero-sum exchange; both giver and receiver are equal and interchangeable. Since neither holds power over the other, they increase their collective power by creating opportunities to work together.
Voluntary Association: People should be free to cooperate with whomever they want, however they see fit; likewise, they should be free to refuse any relationship or arrangement they do not judge to be in their interest. Everyone should be able to move freely, both physically and socially. Anarchists oppose borders of all kinds and involuntary categorization by citizenship, gender, or race.
Direct Action: It is more empowering and effective to accomplish goals directly than to rely on authorities or representatives. Free people do not request the changes they want to see in the world; they make those changes.
Revolution: Today’s entrenched systems of repression cannot be reformed away. Those who hold power in a hierarchical system are the ones who institute reforms, and they generally do so in ways that preserve or even amplify their power. Systems like capitalism and white supremacy are forms of warfare waged by elites; anarchist revolution means fighting to overthrow these elites in order to create a free society.
Self-Liberation: “The liberation of the workers is the duty of the workers themselves,” as the old slogan goes. This applies to other groups as well: people must be at the forefront of their own liberation. Freedom cannot be given; it must be taken.
Again, I was quoting an SLP publication from 1901, and I was not using that language against anyone as such. I said that "anarchism" without qualification or further clarification is and always has been a disastrous & destructive counterproductive undertow within leftism at worst. And in the short-term it's a purposeful swamp light and diversionary tactic at best. Lofty & noble to think about, but far more contradictory & dependent on weird niche community fandoms than ML states. Anti-communist anarchists are still just anti-communists.... there's not really much to discuss beyond that.
The point is to see that this language isn't anything new, and these tensions don't belong totally to us or to this moment. Anarchists who want to help defeat communists can go ahead call themselves "leftists", but we get into some seriously counterproductive and counterrevolutionary territory when "tankies" become the prime target for these "self-identified" anarcho-socdem whatevers.
States & jurisprudential authority and organizational methods of hierarchical/knowledge-based expertise will still be absolutely necessary in the medium term. We can't forget that or side-step or put it off til after the cops & imperialists & capitalist-funded death squads just suddenly "give up" because the anarchists are just too "principled" and logically compelling to crush outright.
Kropotkin had much the same criticism of anarchists' tendency to criticize communists & revolutionaries far more than they plan to engage in the work of rebuilding after capitalists & imperialists have been ousted. Kropotkin says “We anarchists have talked much about the revolution, but how many have ever taken pains to prepare for the actual work during & after the revolution? The Russian Revolution has demonstrated the imperativeness of such preparation of practical reconstructive work”
Lucy Parsons was a noted anarchist & communist & socialist & committed revolutionary who never backed down & always stood for these positions at key points. Parsons again disagrees with Goldman's privileged & aloof anti-communism, "After telling that the Russian revolution was doomed at its birth, fought by united capitalism of all countries, she tries to show that it was only the Marxian policies that weakened the strength of the revolution. Not entirely satisfied with this statement, which she knew to be false when she wrote it, she adds, “Counter-revolutionists, Right-Social-Revolutionaries, Cadets, and Mensheviks were the disrupting internal forces against Russia.” She could have also truthfully said, “Anarchists of the Mahkno school, leader of the bandits,” of which Emma seems to be a warm disciple. Something more will be said of the viciousness of this type of anarchist. Miss Goldman quotes from somewhere, “It was not against the Russian people, but against the Bolsheviks—they have instigated the revolution, and they must be exterminated.” This is given as the hypocritical attitude of the interventionists, but I ask if it is not exactly the thing she had in her heart to do with her miserable malignant stories. "
"authoritarianism" is a canard, and in this way... especially within Left discourse & historical discussion, left anti-communists act as merely vessels for Cold War propaganda & McCarthyist self-annihilation
Again, I was quoting an SLP publication from 1901, and I was not using that language against anyone as such. I said that “anarchism” without qualification or further clarification is and always has been a disastrous & destructive countervailing undertow within leftism at worst. And in the short-term it’s a purposeful swamp light and diversionary tactic at best. Lofty & noble to think about, but far more contradictory & dependent on weird niche community fandoms than ML states. Anti-communist anarchists are still just anti-communists… there’s not really much to discuss beyond that.
Then I misunderstood your point, to me it seemed like you were dismissing anarchism and anarchists as a whole, sorry.
The rest I think I can mostly agree to except for this part maybe, I'd say I am a bit more optimistic about what people are capable of themselves without needing any high court to tell them what they can and cannot do, what they are allowed to think, and so on and so forth.
States & jurisprudential authority and organizational methods of hierarchical/knowledge-based expertise will still be absolutely necessary in the medium term. We can’t forget that or side-step or put it off til after the cops & imperialists & capitalist-funded death squads just suddenly “give up” because the anarchists are just too “principled” and logically compelling to crush outright.
Otherwise, what is your opinion on having, in the event of something as monumental of scope as the Russian revolution actually were to happen in the future, would you think there is a possibility for communes(of course based on the principle of AnCom) to exist side-by-side with an ML state and not be crushed by it?
Yeah, i read it but i'm more susceptible to believe books that were written by people who were there than 4 line screenshots from Twitter.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Makhnovshchina_1917_1921.html?id=cMCEnQAACAAJ
this is the source used... what is your expert criticism of the source? or will you dismiss it out of hand because the warlord Makhno isn't getting his typical hagiography?
You're aware he wrote a new book about Makhno, don't you ?
yes, and Darch talks shit about the wrecker Makhno in that one too
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq4QxxJXUAI27Zu?format=png&name=900x900
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq4U2hRXYAEkwGH?format=png&name=900x900
all you have is Arshinov's hagiography. We can look at Makhno in a more critical way today lol
You're not looking at Makhno critically, you're just a sectarian dickhead.
Forced conscriptions, they demanded that peasants join under the excuse that the community had consented to anarchism and as a community volunteered to mobilize, and as such individuals who refused were branded traitors and liable to be punished or flat out summarily executed as sympathizers by the anarchist secret police.
Literally everyone who read anything about Makhno knows this is not true,
I have read about Makhno, from literally people who knew him personally like Voline, I should add that him and his men were notorious for gang rape during drunken parties and refused to pay his workers for things like repairing armored cars and running the railways.
But these examples end in military defeat, and Socialist states have not suffered collapses due to military defeats but instead fought off military threats long term.
True, but not because of how they were organized, but because they were severely outnumbered.
But what you're calling a federation of autonomous zones fulfills exactly the same role and functions that Marxists call a proletarian state. You're just using a different name.
When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.
In a two year war, thousands of warriors from the Lakota and Cheyenne nations defeated the US military and destroyed several army forts during what became known as Red Cloud’s War.
This is where i started McMahon-facing. No wonder we don't learn this stuff in school.
I think in the event of something as monumental of scope as the Russian revolution actually happening in the future, it should IMO, at first at the least be tolerated and some form of mutual agreement should always be possible, and once there is no more immediate danger new forms of stateless societies should even be encouraged to also explore ways for the future when even the ML state might begin to wither away.
The question to me is only if any state ever will let itself wither away or if that will turn out never actually to happen because the bureaucracy that operates said state, and profits from holding these elevated positions within society, will always try to maintain that order?
Even though I have to say I'm not quite sure where I really stand between the Anarchist and ML ideas at this moment, having only recently begun reading Anarchist theory, but I would say, even if my understanding of it is still relatively basic, it would be preferable not having to find that out if those bureaucrats have formed their own class again or not in the first place.
But anyways, any movement that overthrows capitalism and private property and establishes a new society formed on socialist principles, sign me up for that.
Sorry, I unfortunately don't have the time to think more about this and come up with a better response right now, it is late, I really need to go to bed.
You know, gotta work, work, work. lolIt is possible to build institutions that are designed with trust and accountability in mind.
We are not familiar with these institutional principles because the only context from our lived experience is from institutions that were never designed to serve us in the first place.
The condition for the state withering away is the end of class conflict. The state is merely an instrument of class conflict, through which one class exerts its will and dominance over the other. So long as there is a capitalist class anywhere in the world that is organized militarily and is capable of re-asserting itself as a dominant geopolitical force, then the conditions that necessitate a proletarian state still exist and the withering away of that state would be premature.
Well, yes it would, because it would show that part of the territory can operate without any state whatsoever, so thereby making the point: "Why shouldn't the whole federation be able to operate in the same manner?"
You don't show that the territory can operate without any state whatsoever. You demonstrate that a territory can be managed around anarchist principles when there is a strong state surrounding it that is capable of protecting the anarchist project from the inevitable sabotage that is faced by every existing anti-capitalist project.
It wasnt a stab in the back, the Anarchists took active actions to try and sabotage the Bolshevik leadership to raze the Soviet state, all the anarchists who were focused on just defending the revolution had joined the Bolsheviks already, those left were aiming to try and destroy it.
It wasn't only them but they could've hold them back if the Bolsheviks leave them be instead purging them and then leaving since they were doing that long before their conflict started.
Makhno did not accomplish anything
he's beatified in a way comporting with Western anti-communism, not in a historically or functionally accurate manner
In this same way Emma Goldman was only ever published in 1920s because of anti-USSR sentiment. Not because "anarchism" is interesting
And while Makhno himself may not have technically "ordered" or even approved of pogroms. Anarchist groups did carry them out
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq153D1XYAElHIP?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGKG7_W8AA0irL?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGKHrJXEAEUr44?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq14CdiWMAQSeKB?format=png&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFGJXXcAEgiDZ?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFG-DW4AEcIhi?format=jpg&name=large
Makhno would have had no bearing on disempowering the greedy kulaks & moving the state of productive forces forward here
are you suggesting that your blaming the 1930s Ukraine famine on Makhno destroying property and acting like a bandit(events occurring over a decade apart) was done in good faith?
the Ukraine famine happened in the 1930s & Makhno's MGTOW rebellion was put down in 1921
Makhno's "communes" were never very successful and few in the countryside ever participated
so you're simply engaging in wishful thinking & trying to pump up & obscure Makhno's history of banditry & warlordism
If you're using 4 lines cut out of books by Arshinov or cite Skirda (who took back vbasically every negative stuff about Makhno when he was confronted about it), at least read the whole thing.
I still don't see where i was talking about the famine here.
OP & entire thread was about the famine, what do you mean?
your bringing up Makhno & defending his warlordism and banditry here at all is deflection & hand-waving on its face
"The USSR fucking over and slaughtering the Ukranian anarchists and allowing the bourgeoisie to reclaim the territory is enough to justify the Ukranians not cooperating with the USSR."
Makhno's warlordism & idiotic wrecking of equipment and trains is not something to simp for here, bubba
It is absolutely something to simp in any serious socialist site,
Nah, he wasn't. But now that i know that you're coming at him from a guy's critique who uses sources biased towards the whites, i'm not surprised you say that.
nah, I am coming at Makhno from Lucy Parsons' POV, who bodied Emma Goldman's idiot elitist ass, and had real impact on American radical tradition
Parsons again disagrees with Goldman’s privileged & aloof anti-communism, "After telling that the Russian revolution was doomed at its birth, fought by united capitalism of all countries, she tries to show that it was only the Marxian policies that weakened the strength of the revolution. Not entirely satisfied with this statement, which she knew to be false when she wrote it, she adds, “Counter-revolutionists, Right-Social-Revolutionaries, Cadets, and Mensheviks were the disrupting internal forces against Russia.” She could have also truthfully said, “Anarchists of the Mahkno school, leader of the bandits,” of which Emma seems to be a warm disciple. Something more will be said of the viciousness of this type of anarchist. Miss Goldman quotes from somewhere, “It was not against the Russian people, but against the Bolsheviks—they have instigated the revolution, and they must be exterminated.” This is given as the hypocritical attitude of the interventionists, but I ask if it is not exactly the thing she had in her heart to do with her miserable malignant stories. "
so you're going to worship Makhno strictly on the basis that he was an anti-Bolshevik
typical Western anti-communism
that's not leftism, bubba... and Makhnovism in practice wasn't either
so you’re going to worship Makhno strictly on the basis that he was an anti-Bolshevik
Can you point out where the fuck did i do that?
typical Western anti-communism
I'm literally from the Eastern Bloc.
that’s not leftism, bubba… and Makhnovism in practice wasn’t either
*yawn
what does being from Eastern Europe have to do with believing Western anti-communist lies or not? don't take it so personally hehe. it's all the same ahistorical revisionism, doesn't matter where you're from. Cold War anti-communism informs "anti-authoritarian" busy bodied nattering no matter where you go.
you can "asterisk yawn" all you want, but you're proving my point that you're not here in good faith, and merely wish to pimp a false historiography about what "could've" been if only more than a few highly educated & well-positioned families took Makhno's nonsense seriously
Calling every account that speaks positively of Makhno hagiographic is totally not ahistorical and not bad faithed.
All i did here was pointing out that anarchists could've handled the kulaks if they weren't slaughtered since they did that already. You were the one coming in with boring shit that was debunked decades ago attacking me for nothing with fucking Twitter screenshots.
I'm all about having a honest discussion about Makhno, but you proved you won't be the person i'll have it with here.
anarchists couldn't handle kulaks, and kulaks weren't "slaughtered", they were just declassed
they are screenshots and quotes of actual scholarly articles & published sources both printed at the time and recently... you haven't brought any scholarly or primary source material to bear here, just vague hand-waving & "*yawn" and no real credible information to back up your strange misconceptions about USSR history.
You don't want actual discussion about Makhno, you just want to believe in him as some inviolate alternative to the boogieman of USSR
Arshinov is fucking primary source material, it's not my fault you haven't read a word of him.
What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander
Yeah i want actual discussion but you're still not wanting to have any. That's unfortunate.
Arshinov is the one who can't help but overexaggerate the "importance" of Makhno & only writes glowingly
all you have is Arshinov's idiotic hagiography of Makhno. Makhno and Arshinov both in reality were clowns. In no way is Arshinov's biased effusive Makhno fanfic infallible or completely credible
This is how even-handed & unbiased Arshinov is in his recounting the history: "The Makhnovshchina is a colossal event in contemporary Russia. By the breadth and profundity of its ideas, it transcends all the spontaneous working class movements known to us"
Give me a break lol
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFFNaW8AAsRZ4?format=png&name=medium
Arshinov's work is the original beatifying propaganda I am referring to lol. Others also reference it as such
Arshinov can't even keep his own contradictions straight.
At one point Arshinov says: "It must be noted that, like vast and spontaneous peasant insurrections which rise without any preparation, these organized guerrilla actions were always performed by the peasants themselves, with no help or direction from any political organization" and then no more than a paragraph later he says.... "The most important role in this effort at unification and in the general development of the revolutionary insurrection in the south of the Ukraine was played by the insurrectionary detachment guided by a peasant native to the region, Nestor Makhno"
That's not just a hypocritical and confounded untruth, it's silly
I will quote another primary source documentation of the period from the perspective of an anarchist again in Lucy Parsons: "The “anarchist” Mahkno is mentioned by Emma Goldman as a friend and sending food to Kropotkin. In a diary of Fedora-Gianko, the wife of Mahkno, are recorded facts and dates to show that these marauders were guilty of arson, train-wrecking, murder, robbery, all committed against the Soviet Government. By them workers were killed, villages destroyed, bridges blown up, wrecks caused by wild engines turned loose against approaching trains until Mahkno was driven from the country. This kind of work against the Soviet Government meets with the approval of Miss Goldman. Her heart was never with the Bolshevik revolution. Compelled to leave the United States, she came to Russia as there was no other place to which she could go. Friends have not cut her off; she has excommunicated herself. "
"What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander"
Lucy Parsons as primary source. Ok.
In no way is Arshinov’s biased effusive Makhno fanfic infallible or completely credible
Lucy Parsons lived during the time and visited Russia in this period. She published this scathing dismissal of Goldman in 1922 a year before Arshinov's book was published... making Parsons' writing even more of a primary source lmfao
Oh she visited Russia, that's fine, she was probably very well versed in life there then.
"What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander"
yes, she was... at least far more than the elitist radlib Goldman was
"It is to be regretted that Emma could not have visited Sparrow’s Hill, and seen there the thousands of children, boys and girls, robust and rugged, rosy-cheeked and beautiful in their remarkable collective exercise. Or have spent days at Pushkino, or some of the many hundreds of similar communities throughout Russia, where the summer homes of the bourgeoisie are turned into children’s colonies. At one of these homes I saw between forty and fifty of these little tots just after their bath, romping and frollicking, laughing and full of glee, a sight that would please the heart of almost any man or woman. Too bad that Miss Goldman could not have visited the Moscow River within the environs of the city, where on summer days anyone could see the naked boys and girls at play enjoying a plunge in the water. She should have met the children that Mary Heaton Vorse had temporarily adopted while here. Little Demitrus and his friends would have been other laughing children to her credit. It is a great loss to think that she did not visit Children’s Town. There the babes are learning, as they do in play, the advantage of association and solidarity. It is possible that Miss Goldman might have learnt, even from the little ones, that rules of order, discipline and self-government are the essentials of a socialised community. Miss Goldman would mention in the same breath men of such splendid character and attributes as Lunaraharsky and Gorky, comparing them with that crooked little politician, Judge Linsay, who conducted the juvenile Court in Denver, Colorado, and who only by the efforts of the officials of the Western Federation of Miners was prevented from sending little boys, who for delinquency were dealt with in his court, to work in the beet fields of Colorado, there to take the place of Russian emigrants who seasonally migrated from industrial centres for that work."
sounds like Arshninov and Emma just have a touch of Russophobia lol, which isn't really all that surprising considering
again, I notice you don't quote from any of these works, and still aren't bringing much to bear here other than personal sideways remarks & temperamental deflection
Emma Goldman the Russophobe russian.
"What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander"
she was born in an Orthdox Jewish family in modern day Lithuania, but keep deflecting lmfao
No, but it would be just as stupid as calling Goldman a russophobe.
she is listed as a Jewish-Lithuanian most places I read about her. She was taught within Prussian education system to hate Russia and admits in her anti-USSR screed that "My Russian at this time was halting"
and I was more speaking about the Ukrainian Arshinov's hint of Russophobia in his writings, recall that I said I detected a HINT. Also Emma Goldman similarly takes quite a dismissive attitude toward Bolsheviks despite her also admitting they fed orphaned children & did much in the way toward righting the wrongs of the Tsarist period.
Goldman literally admits to growing up hating Russia and Russian culture "Under the discipline of a Germanschool in Königsberg and the Prussian attitude toward everything Russian, I had grown up in the atmosphere of hatred to that country. I dreaded especially the terrible Nihilists who had killed Tsar Alexander II, so good and kind, as I had been taught. St. Petersburg was to me an evil thing"
Though she admits to growing spiritually in later years, and through all her talks & history as an activist appears to take stands for these nations from a Western vantage, Emma just can't seem to hide her elitism & underhanded dismissal of USSR & Russian attempts to socially & economically & politically address its own issues
"I began to suspect that the reason for much of the evil was also within Russia, not only outside of it.But then, I argued, police officials and detectives graft everywhere. That is the common disease ofthe breed. In Russia, where scarcity of food and three years of starvation must needs turn mostpeople into grafters, theft is inevitable."
"After showing us about, Zorin invited us to the Smolny dining room. The meal consisted of goodsoup, meat and potatoes, bread and tea--rather a good meal in starving Russia, I thought. "
I suspect she never really outgrew some of her kneejerk Russophobia from her childhood
what's important today is how these historiographies are used to demonize USSR/communism generally and Russia specifically.
Makhno is often lifted up by Ukrainian nationalist historians and his name invoked in their desperate attempts to demonize Soviet history.
The ukrainian peasants opportunistically supported Makhno because they thought he'd not conscript or requisition their grain like the Bolsheviks had to, and that they would get to keep their land without being subservient to the bourgeoise like the white army wanted.
But once War Communism began to end and Makhno had started doing the exact same shit as the Red army by necessity they stopped giving a fuck, there is no correlation between Makhno getting victory royaled and kulaks burning their grain and cattle.
Stalin is a dinosaur. Talk about building socialism now instead of trying to whitewash your favorite leader.
This isn't an organizing effort, this is an educating effort. Also how dare you talk about my peepaw that way.
The only thing I care about Stalin is how the fuck do we prevent it from happening again.
"Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union fall to pieces? An important reason is that in the ideological domain, competition is fierce! To completely repudiate the historical experience of the Soviet Union, to repudiate the history of the CPSU, to repudiate Lenin, to repudiate Stalin was to wreck chaos in Soviet ideology and engage in historical nihilism. It caused Party organizations at all levels to have barely any function whatsoever. It robbed the Party of its leadership of the military. In the end the CPSU—as great a Party as it was—scattered like a flock of frightened beasts! The Soviet Union—as great a country as it was—shattered into a dozen pieces. This is a lesson from the past!" -Comrade Xi
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The USSR did not commit any genocides.
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If you can't even be specific about the so-called "genocides" that you're talking about, then you might've swallowed pills fed to you by capitalists whole
Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Chechens
just cause they're small groups doesn't mean their treatment wasn't genocidal.
Arguments don't usually change peoples' minds, at least not with the direct interlocutor. But, we aren't really having an argument to begin with because I don't know what I'm to argue against. Give me a specific "genocide" to work with, and then we can talk about what happened and what our sources of information are.
I'm really sorry to get into an argument about semantics, but I mean, I think that definition reaches beyond genocide
political opinion, social status, or other particularity.
This seems to reach into other forms of political killing, or classicide.
gen·o·cide /ˈjenəˌsīd/
the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group
This is usually what I perceive to be the meaning of a genocide. I don't see an ethnic or national thread between these people, they were prisoners and accused of anti-revolutionary activities. Their executions may have been unjust, but I disagree that they were motivated by any desire to exterminate their race or nationality
If you think killing based on political beliefs is genocide, you are committing genocide denial.
Genocide is a historical process which has been clearly documented. There is a short Wikipedia summary on it. I have not seen credible evidence that the USSR engaged in the process of genocide.
You are denying the reality of genocide. You are claiming that the murder of a dozen Anarchists was a genocide.
Genocide denial isn't just about denying a particular genocide. It is denying the process of genocide, which we must study and combat.
was a part of a larger genocide done to anarchists and other left wing political enemies.
Targeting political enemies is not "genocide." You are denying the scientifically agreed upon definition of genocide, which is genocide denial.
If you want to say "the USSR shouldn't have killed political dissidents", say it. Don't call it genocide.
Using a false definition of genocide is genocide denial. I don't know what else to say.
There are fascists who think there's an ongoing "white genocide." Their definition denies the reality of genocide. It is a form of genocide denial.
The same is true for people trying to claim the killing of political dissidents is genocide. It is not.
Insofar as you are denying the agreed upon definition of genocide, yes.
Genocide denial needs to be called on the Left. That's what this entire thread is about.
their definition of genocide is when black people have sex with white people. mine is when a group of people is systematically massacred.
Neither of these are genocide.
Was the systematic killing of American soldiers in the Vietnam War a genocide? What about the systematic killing of Nazi & Japanese soldiers in WWII?
you can’t tell me in good faith that you think we are in any capacity making the same argument.
I'm not saying you are making the same argument. I'm saying you are both engaging in genocide denial. You are taking a "bad faith" interpretation of my words.
There is no moral equivalence here. I've made no moral statement.
White supremacist genocide denial ("white genocide") is used to further genocide against black people in the US.
Your genocide denial is used to accuse the USSR of committing a genocide.
The former is a much more pressing and dangerous use of genocide denial.
However, we can still recognize that you are engaging in genocide denial, even if genocide denial is weaponized in more dangerous ways.
Okay, let's fix that.
Genocide studies is a serious historical and scientific endeavor. There is an agreed upon definition of genocide, which outlines the process, including its method and characteristics.
Genocide denial is the denial of the process of genocide. This manifests in two ways:
- Denying that a genocide is a genocide.
- Claiming there is a genocide when there is not one.
This is a very important to understand. The US has used both methods of genocide denial to carry out genocide. The accusation of a Kuwati genocide by Iraqis led to the US genocide against Iraqis, for example.
Killing political dissidents is not genocide. Calling it genocide is genocide denial. That is where I'm coming from.
That's a fair way to put it. Here's an example which involves my political tendency:
The US mass killing of communists is not a genocide. The US mass killing of black communists has been a part of the genocide the US is carrying out against black people.
Mischaracterizing genocides is a very very touchy subject to me, both for personal reasons & the shit the US has done under the guise of "preventing genocide." I do consider it genocide denial. I don't mean to call you a bad person.
The mass killing of Indonesian communists is often characterized as genocide, and that was carried out targeting political ideology above all else.
When people use the term "genocide" they generally mean "mass, systematic extermination of an identifiable group." I don't see a good argument for limiting that to racial groups, especially when you start digging into how race is socially constructed in a manner similar to political identity. And I don't think this sort of good-faith disagreement over the definition of genocide can be appropriately called "genocide denial," because that's a term loaded with moral condemnation.
Have you read the research into the Indonesian genocide? I'll need to find it. It does a good job highlighting how the political suppression of communists developed into a genocide. I don't mean to say that political killings cannot be a component of genocide. My comment here is meant to demonstrate thst.
I don’t think this sort of good-faith disagreement over the definition of genocide can be appropriately called “genocide denial,”
When there's a scientific definition for genocide with observable characteristics, it's important to call out accusations of genocide which are not genocide. False accusations of genocide need to be seriously condemned, since they are often used to justify genocide.
"The Jakarta Method" is on my reading list, so I haven't done anything close to a deep dive. Good sources are always welcome.
I'm 100% with you on the dangers of playing fast and loose with the definition of "genocide." I don't think that can be quite extended to this argument, though:
When there’s a scientific definition for genocide with observable characteristics
The way I see it, the most authoritative definition of "genocide" is a legal definition, analogous to the legal definition of "murder." There's at least some level of popular input into this definition, formally applying it requires significant fact finding and extensive debate over whether the facts fit the stated criteria, and there are (in theory) consequences if the definition is applied. Still, this isn't a scientific definition -- I'm not aware of any legal scholars who'd make that argument, just as I'm not aware of any legal scholars who'd argue that "murder" is a scientific definition. And because it's a legal definition instead of a scientific one, it can't be treated as some immutable truth, because legal definitions can and do change.
The next most authoritative definition of "genocide" can be found in academia, and although this would fall under the realm of social sciences, I don't think it's very common for academics to argue that their work is so conclusive and unchangeable that it should carry the weight of scientific certainty. The academic consensus around how events are best classified can and does change, too. Even in "hard" sciences you see definitions change over time.
I don't think it makes sense to imply that what constitutes a genocide is clear and forever-unchangeable, because all of the above schools at some point deal with definitions with some wiggle room, and at some point amend or revise their definitions. This is especially true of legal definitions, where the idea that genocide has fixed criteria is most entrenched. So I don't see how it makes sense to call someone asking "isn't this mass killing deserving of the label 'genocide'"? a genocide denialist, at least as long as they're asking that in good faith (and I see no indication otherwise here). That's analogous to calling someone a "murder denialist" over a question like "isn't walking away from a drowning person when you could have easily thrown them a life jacket deserving of the label 'murder'"?
You are not denying a specific genocide. You were denying genocide as an agreed upon process, which is a form of genocide denial.
This form of genocide denial is incredibly common in genocidal cultures, which we both live in. We have all been guilty of this form of genocide denial.
It is often used to further genuinely genocidal aims, so I think we need to be more willing to name it and combat it.
No. Genocide is a historical process by which one faction of a population exterminates another. It is a specific social phenomenon which has objective characteristics that are necessary to function [1]
Also, genocide produces an imperative for other countries to intervene. As a result, warping the definition of genocide is a tool that imperialist nations use for invasion. In most cases, when the definition of genocide is warped in imperialist society, it is used to further imperialism and actual genocide.
There are obvious exceptions, e.g. the US denial of the early Holocaust. However, if the scientific method for identifying a genocide was used in the US given the evidence at the time, then one would correctly identified it as a genocide. The problem was that the US capital was heavily invested in Nazi Germany.
A strict adherence to the scientific method for identifying a genocide is the only way to prevent genocide denialism.
You are saying that though. "One group of people sytematically eliminating another" is the entire idea of warfare, and why we have other words for it. To define that as genocide is to remove all meaning from the word.
Genocide is when one ethnic or national group sets out to exterminate another ethnic or national group, for ethnic or national reasons. You are describing a massacre of political dissidents, but not a genocide.
its not genocide to kill political groups off. Would destroying the bourgeois, liberals, and fascists be genocide to you?
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The Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–33 – a man-made demographic catastrophe unprecedented in peacetime. Of the estimated six to eight million people who died in the Soviet Union, about four to five million were Ukrainians ... Its deliberate nature is underscored by the fact that no physical basis for famine existed in Ukraine ... Soviet authorities set requisition quotas for Ukraine at an impossibly high level. Brigades of special agents were dispatched to Ukraine to assist in procurement, and homes were routinely searched and foodstuffs confiscated ... The rural population was left with insufficient food to feed itself.
Stalin wanted to punish those who resisted his authority, so while while he didn't outright crack their windpipe, he sure as shit didn't take his foot off their neck.
The Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–33 – a man-made demographic catastrophe unprecedented in peacetime.
*Looks up source*
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-famine-of-1932-33
So while i don't believe it. What's the Problem with britannica? The fact that's it from oxford or someplace like that?
Issue is that for the "integrity" of their publication, they will cling to the official narrative on topics like these.
Britannica was bought by an American company a while back
but specifically the Holodomor entry in Britannica was written by a non-scholar named Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum admits to never earning her PhD and giving up on academic pursuits in college... therefore she isn't a lecturer or a historical authority in any real sense
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EqeK6slW8AEW6tI?format=jpg&name=large
the review of the book on which she has built this recent reputation as a "popularizer" of historical narratives here is quite illuminating
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169438
Anne Applebaum is not a serious scholar of history nor is she a credible source on these matters
