On December 2 of this year, I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on day two of a three-day “residence” sponsored by the Ann Arbor Coalition Against War. The first day, December 1, saw a wonderful event the organizers called “Pubology,” set in the upstairs bar of the
Thanks. A helpful article. I studied the 1930s USSR at Oxford in the mid 80s and do not recall the term Holodomor either. Our tutor (now Director at some Estonian think tank...) did say that Stalin sought to eliminate the Ukrainian peasant class. But I do not recall any evidence for that other than Robert Conquest’s assertions.
Classic historical myth making. I sometimes point out to British people who reference this alleged genocide that Indian Nationalists accuse us (perhaps fairly) of creating or at least not alleviating famines in India. Including in Calcutta in 1944. But not only then. They get very indignant.
Feels a bit like how Scottish Nationalists use events such as the Battle of Culloden, which they present as English versus Scots, when the reality was much more complex and as much akin to a civil war within both England and Scotland than a war between the two kingdoms. The tragic 1930s USSR famines hurt all nationalities but are now being used as a way to sow ethnic hatred. Good to push back on that.
As I recall, Stalin didn't want to eliminate the peasant class but instead the Kulaks, which were the wealthier landowners that stood in the way of Collectivization.
By this point there weren’t any wealthy landowners left. “Kulaks” were the upper end of the peasant class. They weren’t wealthy, but they had just enough to be self-sufficient. They “stood in the way of collectivization” in the sense that they could survive outside of it, and potentially compete with collective farms for labor.
If you don't have peasants, there's no one to do the farming. It was the Kulak class that resisted the most as with Collectivization they had the most to lose
I should add, however, Collectivization wasn't the only prime driver of the famine. Stalin needed foreign capital at the time and the only commodity available to export was wheat. Accordingly his over-zealous Commissars went out of their way to steal what they could from the prime grain-growing regions, the Steppe across Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Didn't matter the ethnic makeup to Stalin, but there was a certain Party element that made sure they targeted those they blamed for programs.
Personal question for Stephen--just wondering if our paths crossed at Oxford. I was there from 1982-1986, studying Soviet politics and geography and very involved in the British peace movement at the time. Not sure how to contact you privately so posting this as a comment. Would enjoy chatting more. I do remember references to the famine of Ukraine, but not under that name (Holodomor), and as just one of a long litany of horrors that all Soviet people were subjected to during Stalin's rule.
Reminder: you just read an article in which someone who married his KGB handler fantasized about murdering a protester at an event he attended in cold blood.
Excellent article Scott, as usual. I appreciate your work. I always wonder how can a well informed person like yourself be labelled a propagandist by what is clearly nothing but a textbook propagandist himself. An uniformed one at that. People also fail to see that the leader of the Ukrainian ssr at the time was Lazar Kaganovich, a Ukrainian. Some of the most important people in the soviet Union weren't Russian, brezhnev, kruschev, beria, stalin. Why are all the Soviet Union tragedies or even atrocities inherited by Russia but not Ukraine? They were both part of the soviet Union. I am sure no one in 1970 in the USA would call someone from Kiev, ukranian, I am sure he would be addressed as a Russian. Hell even he himself might call himself a Russian.
Actually, per capita, the Ukrainian communist party was bigger than the Russian communist party, which is why their hierarchy virtually dominated the SU, leading to 2 Ukrainians, Krushe & Bresnev getting right to the top. Plus as we all know, Stalin was a Georgian
Also Jews from the Ukraine dominated the NKVD. If we list all the bad things that came out of the SU & list all the good things that came out of the SU. It seems Russia has inherited most of the good, while another place, we'll call the Borderlands, inherited most of the bad things.
"Other books that seem to explore a identical thesis as Starikov are ‘Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America Made the Third Reich’ from Guido Preparata and ‘Wall street and the rise of Hitler’ by Antony Sutton."
not impressed with Ritter's "blob" theory when we know exactly who is pulling the strings. Soros and the city of london are directly responsible for the situation in the ukraine.
Starikov is a great story teller, with a big fantasy. The idea that the US 'created' Hitler is hilarious, and seems completely oblivious to actual history other than knowing of the existence of Hanfstaengl.
So in other words - History is repeating. The West still uses evil, and illogical methods to try to contain/denigrate Russia, and still uses the same lies and deceipts to pin the blame on Russia, when in fact it was, and is, the West who repeatedly cause these disasters.
When they succeed in causing the pain and suffering they intended, they further insult and betray Russia and Russians, by claiming Russia and its people did this to themselves, and worse, that they planned this to harm 'Ukraine' (insert Russian foe as desired), rather than the truth, which is that the West's insane greed and arrogance, it's love of murder and theft, nay its WORSHIP of these things, is where the blame (and claims of genocide) really belong.
Interesting information. How do I know the facts provided are real?
Not wanting to get into an argument about it. I'm inclined to believe it. After all the "West" has been trying to destroy Russia since, well, "forever".
No need to argue but I don't know. I did look into the gold thing a few years ago and I was satisfied that it was real. Starikov's contrarian views I think are important and they should be brought into view although I think he is perhaps too much of an apologist. I take these informations as part of a conglomerate and try to piece them together as best I can. I have asked historians about it but only got a few comments. Here is one from the comments to the article.
I read the article and that is what I must say about it: good article no doubt, but too one-sided and sometimes even not true.
From it you will learn that "The famine of 1932-33 was carefully organized by the West" and that "The government collected grain and sent it to the West, but not to starve part of a country’s population to death, but because there was no other way it could pay for the supply of equipment". And from these statements you get an impression (at least I got when read it) that the famine was just an economical mistake of the soviets because "All of Stalin’s hopes were on a new harvest, but turned out to be a small one" and that as soon as they realized it they tried to do everything possible to stop it, such as "Attempts were urgently made to get supplies of grain from Persia" and "in 1934, grain exports from the USSR completely stopped. By order of the Soviet government".
Well, just digging into russian (notice - russian! not ukranian or english) wikipedia will give already quite a different perspective on the actions of the soviet government. Plus some "facts" used as arguments in Starikov's article - well you will find out that actually they are not true. As such:
1) the idea that some natural factor (the drought , according to Starikov) played any significant role in the famine of 32/33 is not true. According to historian Kondrashin, who studied the famine of that time, the springs and summers of 1932 and 1933 were normal , there was no evidence of any exceptionally dry year. The only natural reason argued is by Nazarenko who indicates the spread of diseases of grain crops in 1932-33. Because of this according to him, up to 50% of the grain collected in some regions was spoilt. Howeevr, the reasons for such spread according to Nazarenko go back to the year 1920, so why would they cause the famine exactly in the year 1932/33 is not clear for me.
2) from Starikov’s article you get an impression that the grain taken away from peasants and used for export helped Stalin to ensure his industrialization plan. In order for this to happen the grain exports must have grown dramatically in 1933, because there was no other means of payment for Stalin in this year. In reality, as official statistics show (Коллективизация в СССР — Википедия (archive.org) ), the exports of grain fell: in the year 1931 it was 5,2 mln tones, 1932 – 1,81, 1933 – 1,77. So one cannot claim that but taking away grain from peasants and selling it to the West, Stalin ensured his industrialization plans..
3) Starikov claims that “Attempts were urgently made to get supplies of grain from Persia” . Yeah, they were made in 1932, but in VERY limited amount – only 0,2mln tones! And in 1933 Stalin already refused from grain import altogether, because it would have meant that his plan of “a great leap” was an error.
4) Starikov always talks about the famine of the years1932/33. Just like it was the problem of one particular year or winter. In reality Russian agriculture was steadily deteriorating from the year 1929 – since the decision about mass-collectivisation was made. The reason for this was mass-migration to urban areas + repressions (people sent to Siberia, many killed or imprisoned as “people’s enemies”) + lack of draft power (peasants preferred to slaughter their animals than to give them to kolkhozes’ hands). The result of this was that a lot of grain stayed in the field uncollected and got spoilt. So it is not like suddenly Stalin and co. found themselves countering famine. People wrote to Stalin about the situation, about the tortures used by the Red Army to rub peasants of their last bread. If you have a little bit of brain, you understand that leaving peasants in autumn in the village without any grain is a death sentence for them. But Stalin did not care. He didn’t like peasants. That’s it.
5) You get an impression from Starikov’s article that the soviet government wanted to help starving people as much as possible. No, they didn’t. When in winter 1933 Ukrainian peasants started to mass-migrate to towns in order to save their lives from hunger, Stalin and Molotov issued a directive in which they forbid a mass departure of peasants to other areas, and ordered to immediately arrest those who "made their way to the north" and, after "counter-revolutionary elements" were identified, expel the rest to their former places of residence. The territories affected by famine were surrounded by military cordons, and the population was not released from them. As for the children – remember the photo in the beginning of the article – that’s what the Italian consul in Ukraine Graziosi wrote about the situation in Kharkov in those days:
“Children were brought here and left by their parents, who themselves were forced to return [to the village] to die at home. The parents hoped that someone in the city would take care of their offspring. <...> The city authorities mobilized janitors in white aprons who patrolled the city and brought abandoned children to police stations. <...> At midnight they were taken away by trucks to the freight station on the Seversky Donets. Other children found at train stations, on trains, in gipsy peasant families were also gathered there, and elderly peasants wandering around the city during the day were brought here. There was a medical staff who conducted the "sorting". Those who were not yet swollen from hunger and could survive were sent to barracks on Hungry Hill or to barns, where 8,000 more souls, mostly children, died on straw. [Others were sent to work] The weak were sent on freight trains outside the city and left fifty to sixty kilometers from the city to die away from people. <...> Upon arrival in these places, all the dead were unloaded from the wagons into large ditches dug in advance”. That is how much Stalin tried to help starving children.
Quite a long comment it was. But I really gave a thought to this topic, as I just could not sleep well for two days after seeing the faces of these starving children. Mr Ritter says that this photo is from the year 1920. Well, I don’t know if replacing it with the photos of starving children of the year 1933 would do any better.
My point is: Do not think that the West is the first to blame for the famine of 1932-33 in the USSR. It was Stalin and his cabinet. Please do not try to justify them even accidentally by such articles as Starikov’s, even thought the article itself has a point.
You were rebutting the Starikov article I just want to make clear what Scott's position is.
There is a short video at the from Ukraine claiming that the Holodomor was unique to Ukraine. It states 3-12Million people died.
Ritter is on a hit list, so his reaction to the provocation seems reasonable to me. Hearing him explain it adds to what he described in the article.
His point, "this wasn't targeted genocide of the Ukrainian people, that's insane. This was a famine that killed up to 12 million people." The number that died is unknown. "If you want to condemn the Soviet system -- feel free. Condemn away. But to say that Stalin purposely singled out the Ukrainians for genocide is absurd in the extreme." "[they, Ukrainian Nationalists] needed something that generates hate. That's literally what they are trying to do. And so they invented this word 'Holodomor', they invented it."
Jeff points out that the "non-existent genocide is now being ascribed to Putin."
Ritter, "The irony is that the only ones committing cultural genocide in that area are the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are the ones who are denying the Russian religion, Russian language, Russian culture."
It ends about 15 minutes and they move on to discussing wine and discussion listener questions.
I think the gold boycott is the thread that could unroll one ball of yarn, at least in regard to Western intentions (They are doing the same thing now with sanctions BTW) This is not to discount other threads.
So, historians present view and counter view, somewhat better than an online slug fest.
I sure miss Stephen Cohen, one of the few historians I could trust.
I think you should post this as a comment under the Starikov article. Also I'm not trying to justify anything which is why I ask historians for comments. As far as who to post, I'll post anything I like. Thanks for this one: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Коллективизация_в_СССР
EU, and especially the German parliament should very very carefully not to be relativising the term genocide... especially the Germans. No matter what are they trying to say, they are the last nation on the continent that should be throwing that term with ease... the definition of genocide is very clear, and tragedy of USSR’s famine can be called many names, but not a genocide.
All that stated with US whitewashing of their role in the Bosnian war, and using the Srebrenica massacre as a genocide so that their version of narrative would be cemented for ever, and no universally or academic could ever look i to it or question it, or any journalist writing about, without a danger of being labelled a genocide denier, something reserved, up to that point, only for some fringe holocaust deniers. Chomsky was one of these Srebrenica war crimes “deniers” because he pointed that if what happened in Srebrenica was a genocide, we need to find a different term for what happened with Jews in Nazi Germany, what happened to American natives, Armenians, Serbs in nazi Croatia and so on.
Perhaps that is the plan of EU parliament’s decision, even if its non legally binding, it is the start of that process or banning discussion on that topic, labelling Russians as genocidal, and therefore worth punishing, dehumanising and destroying.
Again, the German parliament followed with that formulation of the events, that is very very dangerous thing to do. No one has right to play with that term, to revoke a memory of monstrosities of genocide for their political gains.
"Chomsky... he pointed that if what happened in Srebrenica was a genocide, we need to find a different term for what happened with Jews in Nazi Germany..."
Funny you claim that this was an economic mistake. That because Stalin, in direct conversation with Churchill, I believe in Iran, termed the holodomor "the war on the Peasants". He claimed it was a bigger threat at the time than the then current war agajnst the NAZIs.
The internal passport system of the Soviet Union was instituted at the time so folks from targeted areas, the Ukraine, could not escape.
Why you feel necessary to trash history in order to defend Putin against what a Georgian Dictator did in the 1930s is bunk.
Putin is in no way a Soviet Dictator. Nor is he Georgian as the Dictator was or Jewish as many if the Commissars who commited the atrocities were.
Putin as a matter of fact requires the reading of the Gulag Archepelago in school. He is not Stalin.
I am not sure Scott Ritter is twisting history. I think the point being made is simply that this was not a racial genocide aimed expressly at Ukrainians. Stalin sought to control everyone and he killed plenty of Russians and other nationalities.
The false idea that this was a national genocide though seems to be used by Ukrainian elites and western historians to create more hatred between Ukrainians and Russians, when in reality both were victims. In fact, the common experience maybe ought to be used to help create mutual solidarity. But that would not fit the desire to create a big dividing line between Russians and Ukrainians; much as some people seek to do between English and Scottish, when in reality our DNA is pretty much the same and the English phone books are full of Scottish names.
That was my interpretation of this article. Not a defence of President Putin, who clearly was not even born at the time.
He is fostering lies. A not uncommon thing for Leftists who discount the crimes of the Communists.
1. The Collectivization campaign was a horrible atrocity Worse than the Holocaust by many orders of magnitude when you count all the nations it was used in.
2. It was a campign of control, a political campaign not a mistaken economic one.
3. It seems Scott, who I think is spot on with 99% of his analysis over the years, is off track here.
4. I agree it was not a racial campaign. It was a political one. Does that make it better?
5. Russia is the good guy in the current war in Ukraine. The Soviet Union was evil and no better than the NAZIs during certain periods. Scott is just plain off base with his poorly researched and worded response.
Robert Conquest was an pioneer in bringing out the history of the famine. Many works since him out there. The truth on the Holodomor is it was a targeted counterinsurgency campaign. It worked well in the Moslem stans of the Soviet Union.... and for that matter was pioneered in the Boer War by the British. Starvation is a power means of control.
And again, quotes of imaginary conversations. You are simply ridiculous. Putin never required Solzhenitsin in schools, why would require books by a pathological liar anywhere near children?
What? I am missing what you are trying to say? Elaborate.
Kulaks were whomever the Communists said was a Kulak. For the most part it was the more competent and harder working Peasants. There was no consistant definition.
Churchill was quoting Stalin, but yeah, he may have interpeted it in his own words?
Meaningless dribble. Funny how folks who are not too smart always try to sound knowing and mysterious when they have no a clue.
Nice try.
Just say you think Churchill was incorrect in his quote as if that means something important. Churchill had his own interpreter. He Stalin talked about a lot of things. Both men were brilliant. Both men analyzed what was said with a microscope. But you think that Stalin was misinterpreted? Or are you saying Churchill was a liar?
Ok, you vs Churchill. I'm sorry, going with Churchill.
But there is a documented forced starvation in which more than 4 millions of Bengali Indian people were starved to death by no other than Winston Churchill. Still everyone in the west worship Churchill, no one in the west talked about his crime against humanity.
The Holodomor stems from the "War Communism" practiced by the Communists during the revolution. That is where the factories in the Cities run by the workers produced nothing to trade with the farmers for food. So the Cities starved. Under "War Communism" Red Army detachment stole every scrap of food the Peasants had and let them starve. It turned out to be a very effective counterinsurgency method as fighters could not live off starving people.
Ukraine was a problematic province the the Communists. The Anarchist Black Army had held swaybin the area during the Revolution. Trotsky once complained that everyone in the Ukraine had a rifle, except his Red Army Troops. The Counter-Revolution was strong in Ukraine.
The same starvation/collectivazation strategy is employed in most Communist Countries to consolidate power in rural areas.
In China the Great Leap Forward may have killed 30-45 million people in 1958 to 1961.
The laughable part of historical analysis is that all these kook Historians buy the goals stated by the Communists. Better farming. The reality is better control.
Famine happened before 1932 and after. Russia, as a large agricultural country greatly depended on grain production, thus any significant changes in the weather could have resulted in shortage of food.
Early and harsh winter of 1890 (no communists in site) resulted in famine of 1891-1892 about 400000 died
Civil War resulted in 1921-1922 famine, at least 6 million people died, mostly Russians, 1 million deaths in Kazakhstan
WWII resulted in famine of 1946-1947 about 1.5 million people died
This is an idiocy, according to every single historical fact. You are quoting nonexistent remarks and factoids as if they are some truth. It's just painful to read for anyone who knows anything about the period.
in our small town on rapidly growing long island there wsas a ukraiian 'catholic' church and a few kids in school..... typical of polish kids in size.....
from the stalin famines one claim i heard was the 'anti collectivists' threatened to starve the industrial centers, the industrialization which was in process to compete with germany.,..
ukraine partisans killed general vatutin a front commander who excelled at kursk in donabs region in spring 1944.
last ukraine infantry was involved at omaha beach operating mk 34's on us assault troops.
i do not give a tinker's dam for ukraine and even less for the us' strategy to break up russia.
the anti russian propagandists have been working the area since the usa tried to ruin russia in 1990 with the harvard ecvonomists sent to set up a capitalist economy....
Great summary. The narrative the Ukrainians use is consistent with other young "nationalisms" that constantly use the victim narrative and invent genocides (sometimes dozens of them, common among Balkan muslims for some reason) to mask their own virulent chauvinism.
The farmers in Ukraine, who had their crop stolen, were almost exclusively ethnical Russian. living in the part of Ukraine that just a bit more than a decade earlier, was part of Russia. The people that suffered most from the Holodomor in Ukraine were livining in the Russian part of Ukraine. To claim that this was a genocide against Ukrainians is ridiculous. The number of ethical Ukrainian who died during the Holodomor is in the range of single digit percentage of the total death toll
Professor Grover Carr Furr did an archive dive after the Soviet Union fell, and one of the books he wrote on his archive research covers the subject, with many points in accord with Scott Ritter's comments. However Furr has a much lower number than Conquest in total deaths. One other thing Scott does not mention, so he may also not agree, is Furr reports at that time there was a 2nd civil war going on in Ukraine, where the Kulaks were not only hording grain with the intent to cause famine, but ala KKK, using night riders and other terror tactics to undermine the government's attempts to distribute relief.
Scott quotes Robert Conquest that there is no documentation that Stalin ordered the Holodomor.
There is no documentation showing that Hitler ordered the Holocaust. Yet, I'm pretty sure he did. He threatened to murder all the Jews in Europe during speeches aimed at those who were organizing a World War against him. There is lots of circumstantial evidence that Hitler knew and wanted it done.
Scott, you are being disingenuous. Stalin was inundated with letters about what was going on in the Ukraine. The letter writers would end up arrested. Stalin's minions continually were replaced as they wore out conducting his terror campaigns. The head of the NKVD would appear at Stalins nightly drunken parties with brain matter on his tunic from where he had been beating the skulls of high level prisoners.
Stalin knew exactly what he was doing. Just as Trotsky knew what he was doing during War Communism and the Famine then. Both men, and Lenin ordered extreme ruthless measures to be taken from the early days on.
The Collectivization Campaign was Soviet Union wide, but it was especially brutal in places like the Ukraine that had been a continous threat to Soviet Rule.
It was not a Racial Campaign, but it might as well have been. But it was not a Russian Campaign, it was a Soviet one.
Stephan Bandera was a brutal guy. You think someone who was not ruthless would have had any success fighting the Soviets? The less brutal types were dead.
The fact that the Holodomor was a political move is irrelevant. If you were some Ukrainian Peasant of the time watching your people, moms, dads, sons, daughters, cousins, either dying of starvation, being gunned down for resistance, or exiled to a Siberian Death Camp you would hate the Soviet power structure. I've read personal accounts from the Holodomor where the folks living through that time are convinced that it was a campaign to murder everyone in the Ukraine.
That power structure was overly Jewish and Russian. The Ukrainians who had died or lived through hell in 1932-34 were only 7 years later "rescued" by the NAZIs and it was entirely logical for them to join them and help murder the Jews they had seen supporting the Communists, and etc.
Yeah, it was not only Jews, or Russians, it was Ukrainian Commisars too. But from some poorly educated Ukrainian Peasant of the time seeing what he had witnessed, I understand.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A great man whose works did as much as anyone to defeat the Soviet Union blames the Jews for what happened and he too was there. He studied the situation a lot closer than either of us. His book "200 Years Together" is effectively banned in the United States and its not even Antisemitic. It merely tells the truth about the complicated relationship between the Russian and Jewish people. For that it was banned. Or can you find a published copy in English in this country?
Stephan Bandera was fighting evil, fighting allied with evil, and became evil. But you tend to attack only him completely out of context with what was going on.
There is plenty of evil going on now in Ukraine with our Puppet Regime murdering its own people and our money going to the deaths of so many brave Ukrainians for nothing.
The biggest crimes against Humanity in world history is the purposeful famines of the Communists from Russia to China to Pol Pot and beyond. Stop with the ignorant denialism.
Ignore, don't delete - deletion isn't for people with a difference of opinion (no matter how well or badly presented) - deletion is for those who break laws.
This is not "difference of opinion". This person doesn't add anything to discussion by presenting distorted and non-factual "views". Essentially, every word he types is a total fabrication.
His views are his opinion, which in your opinion are not an opinion, and deserves deletion. Opinions by the very nature of those having them, don't need to be factual to be opinions. Deletion of someone's account (I presume) whos opinions you don't agree with, is censorship, and if that's what you want, then why did you come to Rumble? Presumably because you wanted to excercise your right to your opinion, as everyone who posts here does.
I do not agree with what was written either, and I have a similar opinion to you regarding that post, but not so far as to desire an autocratic solution that is the road to an echo-chamber and the stiffling of free speech, which is why I said "Ignore, don't delete".
Also, others have the right to read that post and draw their own conclusions. Delete if someone posts illegal material, absolutely yes, but not for posting thier opinion - no matter how unsupported the claims, how bad the grammar, spelling, linguistical skills or ideas.
I understand that post hit a nerve, it did for me too, I didn't vote on it, and am ignoring it, but your response does raise a debatable point, which is what I am doing.
Should people have thier accounts deleted for not supporting thier opinions with hard evidence-backed facts?
Should those who post be restricted to rules that are in addition to Rumble's own, and the laws of our lands?
"fuck off" - I love it!! So wish I could tell that to all the blowhards that think Ukraine is the righteous party in the crazy back-to-front information war currently waging in all across western social media. Keep it up Scott, for all our sakes.
For some on the left, this serves an additional purpose: shifting blame to rehabilitate collectivization and central planning more generally.
By this logic, there was nothing *essentially* wrong with the system. Rather, the famine was caused by things that were not essential elements of the system: Stalin, animus towards Ukrainians per se, anything OTHER than communism per se.
Scott Ritter's essay "The Holodomor Myth" makes an impression that nowadays, one can exercise one's freedom of speech only if one is a marine.
Genocide
In addition to knowledge of history, Scott Ritter uses an exact definition of genocide. It turns out that what is called "Holodomor" has not been proven to be genocide of the Ukrainian nation committed by Stalin or the Soviet Union or Russians.
First, not only the Ukrainians but also the Russians were among the victims.
Second, it has not been proven Stalin's intention to target specifically the Ukrainians.
Therefore, instead of genocide, we should rather talk about populicide, targeted not against some specific nations but against some social classes.
Thus, Scott Ritter successfully debunks the myth of genocide used in the propaganda of Ukrainian nationalists.
Nationalism
However, Scott Ritter complains that he has been accused of being a Russian propagandist. However, the truth is that his present essay on Holodomor is biased in favour of Russia concerning the Russia/Ukraine war — but not because of those reasons quoted in Ukrainian propaganda.
Scott Ritter is an excellent critic of Ukrainian demagoguery, but he seems to ignore flaws in Russian propaganda.
Scott Ritter uses both the term Nazi and nationalist. However, the difference, if any, has not been explained in the essay.
I suggest that the correct use of the terms would discern between nationalism and extreme nationalism, while Nazism would be regarded as an extreme form of nationalism.
After all, Russians are too the nationalists, and Russia is defending its national interests.
Concerning Bandera, we should say that he was an extreme nationalist. He considered it morally acceptable to use whatever means to achieve Ukrainian nationalist aims, and whatever allies were fine.
But it would be wrong to infer, as Russian propaganda does, that the mere fact that some nationalists were Nazis somehow undermines the ideal of national independence.
Note also that in the current propaganda of Russian military channels, all Ukrainian soldiers are called Nazis. But the mobilized soldiers may not be Nazis — they may not even be nationalists.
Totalitarianism
There is a more significant problem with Russian ideology. According to official Russian propaganda, in WW2, the Soviet Union liberated Eastern Europe from the Nazi regime. Russia speaks a lot about the atrocities of the Hitlerian regime. However, Russian propagandists completely ignore that the Soviet Union occupied many countries and that the Stalinist regime too committed massive repressions.
Hitlerian and Stalinist regimes were both totalitarian regimes. Hannah Arendt has explained the similarities between these regimes in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Conclusion
If Scott Ritter would equally well criticize the Ukrainian and the Russian propaganda, the Ukrainians would label him as a "Russian propagandist", and the Russians would label him as a "Nazi propagandist". While giving public lectures, he should defend himself as a marine against the agents of the secret services of several countries.
Seems to me you think that because Scott Ritter was a Marine, he was not also a UN Weapons Inspector, and so much mor. To you, a Marine is all he is, which is why you take exception to a 'Marine' speaking truth.
I am NOT a marine, but I am right now excersisng MY freedom of speech, just as YOU did without being deleted or struck down.
You appear to be the ONLY person who sees what Scott wrote as restricting freedom of speech to marines only, and frankly there is absolutely no evidence to support what you claim - at all.
In fact, I'll go further, and for once use less words in doing so - you just don't like the way Scott Ritter wrote (nothing wrong with his writing), and wished to substitute your own words, because you are not even close to his calibre, you thought by pretending to accedemically challenge him, others would not notice the fact you support none of what you say with actual facts - it's all opinion, and all completely unsubstantiated critisisms.
It is you only, who thinks Scott Ritter is claiming 'only Marines have the right to freedom of speech', there is NOTHING in what he wrote that gives even the impression that he beleives everyone but a marine should shut up - as you infer.
Regarding Russian and Ukrainian propaganda - care to furnish us with examples of the 'Russian' propaganda you claim Scott has ignored? I have literally heard Scott acknowledge the fighting capability of some of the Ukrainian military (not the Nazi regiments though), and critisize some of Russia's tactics - that isn't typically the hallmark behaviour of a unbalanced viewpoint.
You pretend to be balanced, but so badly, that your literal words and wording betray your intent to those with actual skills, and real balance.
Your title in caps of your text = "FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR MARINES" ...
... and your text below it = "Scott Ritter's essay "The Holodomor Myth" makes an impression that nowadays, one can exercise one's freedom of speech only if one is a marine. "
Your Cognitive Dissonance is displayed for all to see - how clever of you!
You're the one that is lost, you are obviously an extreme narcissist that can't take what you dish out, and has a severe mental issues in that you can't even recognise the antagonism of your own pathetic words.
What you wrote is exactly your claim - written for all to see, from a cognitively impaired individual, that has no comprehension that your ascriptions are your own doing,
If you don't like getting responses to your ignorant, deceitful posts that were indeed attacking Scott and making stupid claims about only marines being allowed to express themselves, then don't do it. it is that simple.
Don't cry about it, I'm not getting lost, and you well know it child. If you are so sure your words are not what they obviously appear like, how about you cut and paste what you wrote, and put it into Ask The Inspector, and see how Scott Ritter feels about what you wrote?
But you won't will you? To frightened Scott will verbally tear you a new one as he sees straight through your narcissism.
Thanks. A helpful article. I studied the 1930s USSR at Oxford in the mid 80s and do not recall the term Holodomor either. Our tutor (now Director at some Estonian think tank...) did say that Stalin sought to eliminate the Ukrainian peasant class. But I do not recall any evidence for that other than Robert Conquest’s assertions.
Classic historical myth making. I sometimes point out to British people who reference this alleged genocide that Indian Nationalists accuse us (perhaps fairly) of creating or at least not alleviating famines in India. Including in Calcutta in 1944. But not only then. They get very indignant.
Feels a bit like how Scottish Nationalists use events such as the Battle of Culloden, which they present as English versus Scots, when the reality was much more complex and as much akin to a civil war within both England and Scotland than a war between the two kingdoms. The tragic 1930s USSR famines hurt all nationalities but are now being used as a way to sow ethnic hatred. Good to push back on that.
As I recall, Stalin didn't want to eliminate the peasant class but instead the Kulaks, which were the wealthier landowners that stood in the way of Collectivization.
By this point there weren’t any wealthy landowners left. “Kulaks” were the upper end of the peasant class. They weren’t wealthy, but they had just enough to be self-sufficient. They “stood in the way of collectivization” in the sense that they could survive outside of it, and potentially compete with collective farms for labor.
If you don't have peasants, there's no one to do the farming. It was the Kulak class that resisted the most as with Collectivization they had the most to lose
I should add, however, Collectivization wasn't the only prime driver of the famine. Stalin needed foreign capital at the time and the only commodity available to export was wheat. Accordingly his over-zealous Commissars went out of their way to steal what they could from the prime grain-growing regions, the Steppe across Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Didn't matter the ethnic makeup to Stalin, but there was a certain Party element that made sure they targeted those they blamed for programs.
That's true.
Personal question for Stephen--just wondering if our paths crossed at Oxford. I was there from 1982-1986, studying Soviet politics and geography and very involved in the British peace movement at the time. Not sure how to contact you privately so posting this as a comment. Would enjoy chatting more. I do remember references to the famine of Ukraine, but not under that name (Holodomor), and as just one of a long litany of horrors that all Soviet people were subjected to during Stalin's rule.
Excellent comments --thanks for showing me some new comparisons.
Mr. Ritter, I sincerely admire your self-control and dedication to the truth. Thank you, sir.
Bwahaha! Good one.
Reminder: you just read an article in which someone who married his KGB handler fantasized about murdering a protester at an event he attended in cold blood.
Excellent article Scott, as usual. I appreciate your work. I always wonder how can a well informed person like yourself be labelled a propagandist by what is clearly nothing but a textbook propagandist himself. An uniformed one at that. People also fail to see that the leader of the Ukrainian ssr at the time was Lazar Kaganovich, a Ukrainian. Some of the most important people in the soviet Union weren't Russian, brezhnev, kruschev, beria, stalin. Why are all the Soviet Union tragedies or even atrocities inherited by Russia but not Ukraine? They were both part of the soviet Union. I am sure no one in 1970 in the USA would call someone from Kiev, ukranian, I am sure he would be addressed as a Russian. Hell even he himself might call himself a Russian.
People who have been successfully propagandized don't see it in themselves.
Actually, per capita, the Ukrainian communist party was bigger than the Russian communist party, which is why their hierarchy virtually dominated the SU, leading to 2 Ukrainians, Krushe & Bresnev getting right to the top. Plus as we all know, Stalin was a Georgian
Also Jews from the Ukraine dominated the NKVD. If we list all the bad things that came out of the SU & list all the good things that came out of the SU. It seems Russia has inherited most of the good, while another place, we'll call the Borderlands, inherited most of the bad things.
This article by Nikolay Starikov should be of interest as well as the comments that follow.
https://orientalreview.org/2012/12/17/episodes-10-who-organised-famine-in-the-ussr-in-1932-1933/
Yes, and his book "who turned hitler against Stalin" is even more revealing.
"Other books that seem to explore a identical thesis as Starikov are ‘Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America Made the Third Reich’ from Guido Preparata and ‘Wall street and the rise of Hitler’ by Antony Sutton."
https://cassiopaea.org/forum/threads/nikolai-starikov-who-set-up-hitler-against-stalin.37623/
not impressed with Ritter's "blob" theory when we know exactly who is pulling the strings. Soros and the city of london are directly responsible for the situation in the ukraine.
Starikov is a great story teller, with a big fantasy. The idea that the US 'created' Hitler is hilarious, and seems completely oblivious to actual history other than knowing of the existence of Hanfstaengl.
So in other words - History is repeating. The West still uses evil, and illogical methods to try to contain/denigrate Russia, and still uses the same lies and deceipts to pin the blame on Russia, when in fact it was, and is, the West who repeatedly cause these disasters.
When they succeed in causing the pain and suffering they intended, they further insult and betray Russia and Russians, by claiming Russia and its people did this to themselves, and worse, that they planned this to harm 'Ukraine' (insert Russian foe as desired), rather than the truth, which is that the West's insane greed and arrogance, it's love of murder and theft, nay its WORSHIP of these things, is where the blame (and claims of genocide) really belong.
Thank you for the link, that was most revealing!
Interesting information. How do I know the facts provided are real?
Not wanting to get into an argument about it. I'm inclined to believe it. After all the "West" has been trying to destroy Russia since, well, "forever".
No need to argue but I don't know. I did look into the gold thing a few years ago and I was satisfied that it was real. Starikov's contrarian views I think are important and they should be brought into view although I think he is perhaps too much of an apologist. I take these informations as part of a conglomerate and try to piece them together as best I can. I have asked historians about it but only got a few comments. Here is one from the comments to the article.
https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/facts-about-the-holodomor-and-why-its-fake/
I read the article and that is what I must say about it: good article no doubt, but too one-sided and sometimes even not true.
From it you will learn that "The famine of 1932-33 was carefully organized by the West" and that "The government collected grain and sent it to the West, but not to starve part of a country’s population to death, but because there was no other way it could pay for the supply of equipment". And from these statements you get an impression (at least I got when read it) that the famine was just an economical mistake of the soviets because "All of Stalin’s hopes were on a new harvest, but turned out to be a small one" and that as soon as they realized it they tried to do everything possible to stop it, such as "Attempts were urgently made to get supplies of grain from Persia" and "in 1934, grain exports from the USSR completely stopped. By order of the Soviet government".
Well, just digging into russian (notice - russian! not ukranian or english) wikipedia will give already quite a different perspective on the actions of the soviet government. Plus some "facts" used as arguments in Starikov's article - well you will find out that actually they are not true. As such:
1) the idea that some natural factor (the drought , according to Starikov) played any significant role in the famine of 32/33 is not true. According to historian Kondrashin, who studied the famine of that time, the springs and summers of 1932 and 1933 were normal , there was no evidence of any exceptionally dry year. The only natural reason argued is by Nazarenko who indicates the spread of diseases of grain crops in 1932-33. Because of this according to him, up to 50% of the grain collected in some regions was spoilt. Howeevr, the reasons for such spread according to Nazarenko go back to the year 1920, so why would they cause the famine exactly in the year 1932/33 is not clear for me.
2) from Starikov’s article you get an impression that the grain taken away from peasants and used for export helped Stalin to ensure his industrialization plan. In order for this to happen the grain exports must have grown dramatically in 1933, because there was no other means of payment for Stalin in this year. In reality, as official statistics show (Коллективизация в СССР — Википедия (archive.org) ), the exports of grain fell: in the year 1931 it was 5,2 mln tones, 1932 – 1,81, 1933 – 1,77. So one cannot claim that but taking away grain from peasants and selling it to the West, Stalin ensured his industrialization plans..
3) Starikov claims that “Attempts were urgently made to get supplies of grain from Persia” . Yeah, they were made in 1932, but in VERY limited amount – only 0,2mln tones! And in 1933 Stalin already refused from grain import altogether, because it would have meant that his plan of “a great leap” was an error.
4) Starikov always talks about the famine of the years1932/33. Just like it was the problem of one particular year or winter. In reality Russian agriculture was steadily deteriorating from the year 1929 – since the decision about mass-collectivisation was made. The reason for this was mass-migration to urban areas + repressions (people sent to Siberia, many killed or imprisoned as “people’s enemies”) + lack of draft power (peasants preferred to slaughter their animals than to give them to kolkhozes’ hands). The result of this was that a lot of grain stayed in the field uncollected and got spoilt. So it is not like suddenly Stalin and co. found themselves countering famine. People wrote to Stalin about the situation, about the tortures used by the Red Army to rub peasants of their last bread. If you have a little bit of brain, you understand that leaving peasants in autumn in the village without any grain is a death sentence for them. But Stalin did not care. He didn’t like peasants. That’s it.
5) You get an impression from Starikov’s article that the soviet government wanted to help starving people as much as possible. No, they didn’t. When in winter 1933 Ukrainian peasants started to mass-migrate to towns in order to save their lives from hunger, Stalin and Molotov issued a directive in which they forbid a mass departure of peasants to other areas, and ordered to immediately arrest those who "made their way to the north" and, after "counter-revolutionary elements" were identified, expel the rest to their former places of residence. The territories affected by famine were surrounded by military cordons, and the population was not released from them. As for the children – remember the photo in the beginning of the article – that’s what the Italian consul in Ukraine Graziosi wrote about the situation in Kharkov in those days:
“Children were brought here and left by their parents, who themselves were forced to return [to the village] to die at home. The parents hoped that someone in the city would take care of their offspring. <...> The city authorities mobilized janitors in white aprons who patrolled the city and brought abandoned children to police stations. <...> At midnight they were taken away by trucks to the freight station on the Seversky Donets. Other children found at train stations, on trains, in gipsy peasant families were also gathered there, and elderly peasants wandering around the city during the day were brought here. There was a medical staff who conducted the "sorting". Those who were not yet swollen from hunger and could survive were sent to barracks on Hungry Hill or to barns, where 8,000 more souls, mostly children, died on straw. [Others were sent to work] The weak were sent on freight trains outside the city and left fifty to sixty kilometers from the city to die away from people. <...> Upon arrival in these places, all the dead were unloaded from the wagons into large ditches dug in advance”. That is how much Stalin tried to help starving children.
Quite a long comment it was. But I really gave a thought to this topic, as I just could not sleep well for two days after seeing the faces of these starving children. Mr Ritter says that this photo is from the year 1920. Well, I don’t know if replacing it with the photos of starving children of the year 1933 would do any better.
My point is: Do not think that the West is the first to blame for the famine of 1932-33 in the USSR. It was Stalin and his cabinet. Please do not try to justify them even accidentally by such articles as Starikov’s, even thought the article itself has a point.
Ritter explains why he wrote the article in his youTube show: It is episode 30 which isn't on the home page for some reason right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NksapV24TyA
You were rebutting the Starikov article I just want to make clear what Scott's position is.
There is a short video at the from Ukraine claiming that the Holodomor was unique to Ukraine. It states 3-12Million people died.
Ritter is on a hit list, so his reaction to the provocation seems reasonable to me. Hearing him explain it adds to what he described in the article.
His point, "this wasn't targeted genocide of the Ukrainian people, that's insane. This was a famine that killed up to 12 million people." The number that died is unknown. "If you want to condemn the Soviet system -- feel free. Condemn away. But to say that Stalin purposely singled out the Ukrainians for genocide is absurd in the extreme." "[they, Ukrainian Nationalists] needed something that generates hate. That's literally what they are trying to do. And so they invented this word 'Holodomor', they invented it."
Jeff points out that the "non-existent genocide is now being ascribed to Putin."
Ritter, "The irony is that the only ones committing cultural genocide in that area are the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are the ones who are denying the Russian religion, Russian language, Russian culture."
It ends about 15 minutes and they move on to discussing wine and discussion listener questions.
I think the gold boycott is the thread that could unroll one ball of yarn, at least in regard to Western intentions (They are doing the same thing now with sanctions BTW) This is not to discount other threads.
So, historians present view and counter view, somewhat better than an online slug fest.
I sure miss Stephen Cohen, one of the few historians I could trust.
I think you should post this as a comment under the Starikov article. Also I'm not trying to justify anything which is why I ask historians for comments. As far as who to post, I'll post anything I like. Thanks for this one: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Коллективизация_в_СССР
You're welcomed 😊 thanks for your link, too 👍
EU, and especially the German parliament should very very carefully not to be relativising the term genocide... especially the Germans. No matter what are they trying to say, they are the last nation on the continent that should be throwing that term with ease... the definition of genocide is very clear, and tragedy of USSR’s famine can be called many names, but not a genocide.
All that stated with US whitewashing of their role in the Bosnian war, and using the Srebrenica massacre as a genocide so that their version of narrative would be cemented for ever, and no universally or academic could ever look i to it or question it, or any journalist writing about, without a danger of being labelled a genocide denier, something reserved, up to that point, only for some fringe holocaust deniers. Chomsky was one of these Srebrenica war crimes “deniers” because he pointed that if what happened in Srebrenica was a genocide, we need to find a different term for what happened with Jews in Nazi Germany, what happened to American natives, Armenians, Serbs in nazi Croatia and so on.
Perhaps that is the plan of EU parliament’s decision, even if its non legally binding, it is the start of that process or banning discussion on that topic, labelling Russians as genocidal, and therefore worth punishing, dehumanising and destroying.
Again, the German parliament followed with that formulation of the events, that is very very dangerous thing to do. No one has right to play with that term, to revoke a memory of monstrosities of genocide for their political gains.
"Dehumanization" is a step towards rationalizing genocide. There is a risk of genocide in Ukraine, and it is not of Ukrainians.
Agreed, if there is an ethnic group that is facing extinction in Ukraine, that (was)/is Russians.
"Chomsky... he pointed that if what happened in Srebrenica was a genocide, we need to find a different term for what happened with Jews in Nazi Germany..."
Can you provide some reference or link?
https://youtu.be/heio3aZq-og
Thank you!
Glad I can help.
This video is from a muslim scholar, and on the same topic:
https://youtu.be/XYIcTX9bS_s
Funny you claim that this was an economic mistake. That because Stalin, in direct conversation with Churchill, I believe in Iran, termed the holodomor "the war on the Peasants". He claimed it was a bigger threat at the time than the then current war agajnst the NAZIs.
The internal passport system of the Soviet Union was instituted at the time so folks from targeted areas, the Ukraine, could not escape.
Why you feel necessary to trash history in order to defend Putin against what a Georgian Dictator did in the 1930s is bunk.
Putin is in no way a Soviet Dictator. Nor is he Georgian as the Dictator was or Jewish as many if the Commissars who commited the atrocities were.
Putin as a matter of fact requires the reading of the Gulag Archepelago in school. He is not Stalin.
I am not sure Scott Ritter is twisting history. I think the point being made is simply that this was not a racial genocide aimed expressly at Ukrainians. Stalin sought to control everyone and he killed plenty of Russians and other nationalities.
The false idea that this was a national genocide though seems to be used by Ukrainian elites and western historians to create more hatred between Ukrainians and Russians, when in reality both were victims. In fact, the common experience maybe ought to be used to help create mutual solidarity. But that would not fit the desire to create a big dividing line between Russians and Ukrainians; much as some people seek to do between English and Scottish, when in reality our DNA is pretty much the same and the English phone books are full of Scottish names.
That was my interpretation of this article. Not a defence of President Putin, who clearly was not even born at the time.
He is fostering lies. A not uncommon thing for Leftists who discount the crimes of the Communists.
1. The Collectivization campaign was a horrible atrocity Worse than the Holocaust by many orders of magnitude when you count all the nations it was used in.
2. It was a campign of control, a political campaign not a mistaken economic one.
3. It seems Scott, who I think is spot on with 99% of his analysis over the years, is off track here.
4. I agree it was not a racial campaign. It was a political one. Does that make it better?
5. Russia is the good guy in the current war in Ukraine. The Soviet Union was evil and no better than the NAZIs during certain periods. Scott is just plain off base with his poorly researched and worded response.
Robert Conquest was an pioneer in bringing out the history of the famine. Many works since him out there. The truth on the Holodomor is it was a targeted counterinsurgency campaign. It worked well in the Moslem stans of the Soviet Union.... and for that matter was pioneered in the Boer War by the British. Starvation is a power means of control.
Dude, you know nothing about the Collectivization. I lived it. My family was sent to Siberia, you are literally talking out of your ass.
And again, quotes of imaginary conversations. You are simply ridiculous. Putin never required Solzhenitsin in schools, why would require books by a pathological liar anywhere near children?
Kulak (vs. Serf) = peasants in the hands of Churchill.
What? I am missing what you are trying to say? Elaborate.
Kulaks were whomever the Communists said was a Kulak. For the most part it was the more competent and harder working Peasants. There was no consistant definition.
Churchill was quoting Stalin, but yeah, he may have interpeted it in his own words?
Glad to see you started to figure it out by the last sentence. Good on you.
Meaningless dribble. Funny how folks who are not too smart always try to sound knowing and mysterious when they have no a clue.
Nice try.
Just say you think Churchill was incorrect in his quote as if that means something important. Churchill had his own interpreter. He Stalin talked about a lot of things. Both men were brilliant. Both men analyzed what was said with a microscope. But you think that Stalin was misinterpreted? Or are you saying Churchill was a liar?
Ok, you vs Churchill. I'm sorry, going with Churchill.
But there is a documented forced starvation in which more than 4 millions of Bengali Indian people were starved to death by no other than Winston Churchill. Still everyone in the west worship Churchill, no one in the west talked about his crime against humanity.
The Holodomor stems from the "War Communism" practiced by the Communists during the revolution. That is where the factories in the Cities run by the workers produced nothing to trade with the farmers for food. So the Cities starved. Under "War Communism" Red Army detachment stole every scrap of food the Peasants had and let them starve. It turned out to be a very effective counterinsurgency method as fighters could not live off starving people.
Ukraine was a problematic province the the Communists. The Anarchist Black Army had held swaybin the area during the Revolution. Trotsky once complained that everyone in the Ukraine had a rifle, except his Red Army Troops. The Counter-Revolution was strong in Ukraine.
The same starvation/collectivazation strategy is employed in most Communist Countries to consolidate power in rural areas.
In China the Great Leap Forward may have killed 30-45 million people in 1958 to 1961.
The laughable part of historical analysis is that all these kook Historians buy the goals stated by the Communists. Better farming. The reality is better control.
This is an idiotic comment.
Famine happened before 1932 and after. Russia, as a large agricultural country greatly depended on grain production, thus any significant changes in the weather could have resulted in shortage of food.
Early and harsh winter of 1890 (no communists in site) resulted in famine of 1891-1892 about 400000 died
Civil War resulted in 1921-1922 famine, at least 6 million people died, mostly Russians, 1 million deaths in Kazakhstan
WWII resulted in famine of 1946-1947 about 1.5 million people died
This is an idiocy, according to every single historical fact. You are quoting nonexistent remarks and factoids as if they are some truth. It's just painful to read for anyone who knows anything about the period.
what i know of ukrainians:
in our small town on rapidly growing long island there wsas a ukraiian 'catholic' church and a few kids in school..... typical of polish kids in size.....
from the stalin famines one claim i heard was the 'anti collectivists' threatened to starve the industrial centers, the industrialization which was in process to compete with germany.,..
ukraine partisans killed general vatutin a front commander who excelled at kursk in donabs region in spring 1944.
last ukraine infantry was involved at omaha beach operating mk 34's on us assault troops.
i do not give a tinker's dam for ukraine and even less for the us' strategy to break up russia.
the anti russian propagandists have been working the area since the usa tried to ruin russia in 1990 with the harvard ecvonomists sent to set up a capitalist economy....
Great summary. The narrative the Ukrainians use is consistent with other young "nationalisms" that constantly use the victim narrative and invent genocides (sometimes dozens of them, common among Balkan muslims for some reason) to mask their own virulent chauvinism.
The farmers in Ukraine, who had their crop stolen, were almost exclusively ethnical Russian. living in the part of Ukraine that just a bit more than a decade earlier, was part of Russia. The people that suffered most from the Holodomor in Ukraine were livining in the Russian part of Ukraine. To claim that this was a genocide against Ukrainians is ridiculous. The number of ethical Ukrainian who died during the Holodomor is in the range of single digit percentage of the total death toll
Professor Grover Carr Furr did an archive dive after the Soviet Union fell, and one of the books he wrote on his archive research covers the subject, with many points in accord with Scott Ritter's comments. However Furr has a much lower number than Conquest in total deaths. One other thing Scott does not mention, so he may also not agree, is Furr reports at that time there was a 2nd civil war going on in Ukraine, where the Kulaks were not only hording grain with the intent to cause famine, but ala KKK, using night riders and other terror tactics to undermine the government's attempts to distribute relief.
Scott quotes Robert Conquest that there is no documentation that Stalin ordered the Holodomor.
There is no documentation showing that Hitler ordered the Holocaust. Yet, I'm pretty sure he did. He threatened to murder all the Jews in Europe during speeches aimed at those who were organizing a World War against him. There is lots of circumstantial evidence that Hitler knew and wanted it done.
Scott, you are being disingenuous. Stalin was inundated with letters about what was going on in the Ukraine. The letter writers would end up arrested. Stalin's minions continually were replaced as they wore out conducting his terror campaigns. The head of the NKVD would appear at Stalins nightly drunken parties with brain matter on his tunic from where he had been beating the skulls of high level prisoners.
Stalin knew exactly what he was doing. Just as Trotsky knew what he was doing during War Communism and the Famine then. Both men, and Lenin ordered extreme ruthless measures to be taken from the early days on.
The Collectivization Campaign was Soviet Union wide, but it was especially brutal in places like the Ukraine that had been a continous threat to Soviet Rule.
It was not a Racial Campaign, but it might as well have been. But it was not a Russian Campaign, it was a Soviet one.
Stephan Bandera was a brutal guy. You think someone who was not ruthless would have had any success fighting the Soviets? The less brutal types were dead.
The fact that the Holodomor was a political move is irrelevant. If you were some Ukrainian Peasant of the time watching your people, moms, dads, sons, daughters, cousins, either dying of starvation, being gunned down for resistance, or exiled to a Siberian Death Camp you would hate the Soviet power structure. I've read personal accounts from the Holodomor where the folks living through that time are convinced that it was a campaign to murder everyone in the Ukraine.
That power structure was overly Jewish and Russian. The Ukrainians who had died or lived through hell in 1932-34 were only 7 years later "rescued" by the NAZIs and it was entirely logical for them to join them and help murder the Jews they had seen supporting the Communists, and etc.
Yeah, it was not only Jews, or Russians, it was Ukrainian Commisars too. But from some poorly educated Ukrainian Peasant of the time seeing what he had witnessed, I understand.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A great man whose works did as much as anyone to defeat the Soviet Union blames the Jews for what happened and he too was there. He studied the situation a lot closer than either of us. His book "200 Years Together" is effectively banned in the United States and its not even Antisemitic. It merely tells the truth about the complicated relationship between the Russian and Jewish people. For that it was banned. Or can you find a published copy in English in this country?
Stephan Bandera was fighting evil, fighting allied with evil, and became evil. But you tend to attack only him completely out of context with what was going on.
There is plenty of evil going on now in Ukraine with our Puppet Regime murdering its own people and our money going to the deaths of so many brave Ukrainians for nothing.
The biggest crimes against Humanity in world history is the purposeful famines of the Communists from Russia to China to Pol Pot and beyond. Stop with the ignorant denialism.
"There is lots of circumstantial evidence that Hitler knew and wanted it done".
So your suggesting the circumstantial evidence for both cases is of nearly the same weight: 50/50, 60/40, 90/10, 99/01?
Why is this moron allowed to talk this utter bull here? Delete him.
Ignore, don't delete - deletion isn't for people with a difference of opinion (no matter how well or badly presented) - deletion is for those who break laws.
This is not "difference of opinion". This person doesn't add anything to discussion by presenting distorted and non-factual "views". Essentially, every word he types is a total fabrication.
His views are his opinion, which in your opinion are not an opinion, and deserves deletion. Opinions by the very nature of those having them, don't need to be factual to be opinions. Deletion of someone's account (I presume) whos opinions you don't agree with, is censorship, and if that's what you want, then why did you come to Rumble? Presumably because you wanted to excercise your right to your opinion, as everyone who posts here does.
I do not agree with what was written either, and I have a similar opinion to you regarding that post, but not so far as to desire an autocratic solution that is the road to an echo-chamber and the stiffling of free speech, which is why I said "Ignore, don't delete".
Also, others have the right to read that post and draw their own conclusions. Delete if someone posts illegal material, absolutely yes, but not for posting thier opinion - no matter how unsupported the claims, how bad the grammar, spelling, linguistical skills or ideas.
I understand that post hit a nerve, it did for me too, I didn't vote on it, and am ignoring it, but your response does raise a debatable point, which is what I am doing.
Should people have thier accounts deleted for not supporting thier opinions with hard evidence-backed facts?
Should those who post be restricted to rules that are in addition to Rumble's own, and the laws of our lands?
"fuck off" - I love it!! So wish I could tell that to all the blowhards that think Ukraine is the righteous party in the crazy back-to-front information war currently waging in all across western social media. Keep it up Scott, for all our sakes.
For some on the left, this serves an additional purpose: shifting blame to rehabilitate collectivization and central planning more generally.
By this logic, there was nothing *essentially* wrong with the system. Rather, the famine was caused by things that were not essential elements of the system: Stalin, animus towards Ukrainians per se, anything OTHER than communism per se.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR MARINES
Scott Ritter's essay "The Holodomor Myth" makes an impression that nowadays, one can exercise one's freedom of speech only if one is a marine.
Genocide
In addition to knowledge of history, Scott Ritter uses an exact definition of genocide. It turns out that what is called "Holodomor" has not been proven to be genocide of the Ukrainian nation committed by Stalin or the Soviet Union or Russians.
First, not only the Ukrainians but also the Russians were among the victims.
Second, it has not been proven Stalin's intention to target specifically the Ukrainians.
Therefore, instead of genocide, we should rather talk about populicide, targeted not against some specific nations but against some social classes.
Thus, Scott Ritter successfully debunks the myth of genocide used in the propaganda of Ukrainian nationalists.
Nationalism
However, Scott Ritter complains that he has been accused of being a Russian propagandist. However, the truth is that his present essay on Holodomor is biased in favour of Russia concerning the Russia/Ukraine war — but not because of those reasons quoted in Ukrainian propaganda.
Scott Ritter is an excellent critic of Ukrainian demagoguery, but he seems to ignore flaws in Russian propaganda.
Scott Ritter uses both the term Nazi and nationalist. However, the difference, if any, has not been explained in the essay.
I suggest that the correct use of the terms would discern between nationalism and extreme nationalism, while Nazism would be regarded as an extreme form of nationalism.
After all, Russians are too the nationalists, and Russia is defending its national interests.
Concerning Bandera, we should say that he was an extreme nationalist. He considered it morally acceptable to use whatever means to achieve Ukrainian nationalist aims, and whatever allies were fine.
But it would be wrong to infer, as Russian propaganda does, that the mere fact that some nationalists were Nazis somehow undermines the ideal of national independence.
Note also that in the current propaganda of Russian military channels, all Ukrainian soldiers are called Nazis. But the mobilized soldiers may not be Nazis — they may not even be nationalists.
Totalitarianism
There is a more significant problem with Russian ideology. According to official Russian propaganda, in WW2, the Soviet Union liberated Eastern Europe from the Nazi regime. Russia speaks a lot about the atrocities of the Hitlerian regime. However, Russian propagandists completely ignore that the Soviet Union occupied many countries and that the Stalinist regime too committed massive repressions.
Hitlerian and Stalinist regimes were both totalitarian regimes. Hannah Arendt has explained the similarities between these regimes in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Conclusion
If Scott Ritter would equally well criticize the Ukrainian and the Russian propaganda, the Ukrainians would label him as a "Russian propagandist", and the Russians would label him as a "Nazi propagandist". While giving public lectures, he should defend himself as a marine against the agents of the secret services of several countries.
Seems to me you think that because Scott Ritter was a Marine, he was not also a UN Weapons Inspector, and so much mor. To you, a Marine is all he is, which is why you take exception to a 'Marine' speaking truth.
I am NOT a marine, but I am right now excersisng MY freedom of speech, just as YOU did without being deleted or struck down.
You appear to be the ONLY person who sees what Scott wrote as restricting freedom of speech to marines only, and frankly there is absolutely no evidence to support what you claim - at all.
In fact, I'll go further, and for once use less words in doing so - you just don't like the way Scott Ritter wrote (nothing wrong with his writing), and wished to substitute your own words, because you are not even close to his calibre, you thought by pretending to accedemically challenge him, others would not notice the fact you support none of what you say with actual facts - it's all opinion, and all completely unsubstantiated critisisms.
It is you only, who thinks Scott Ritter is claiming 'only Marines have the right to freedom of speech', there is NOTHING in what he wrote that gives even the impression that he beleives everyone but a marine should shut up - as you infer.
Regarding Russian and Ukrainian propaganda - care to furnish us with examples of the 'Russian' propaganda you claim Scott has ignored? I have literally heard Scott acknowledge the fighting capability of some of the Ukrainian military (not the Nazi regiments though), and critisize some of Russia's tactics - that isn't typically the hallmark behaviour of a unbalanced viewpoint.
You pretend to be balanced, but so badly, that your literal words and wording betray your intent to those with actual skills, and real balance.
Narcicists project.
"Ranger's..." comment has nothing to do either with my text or Scott Ritter's essay I commented.
Your title in caps of your text = "FREEDOM OF SPEECH FOR MARINES" ...
... and your text below it = "Scott Ritter's essay "The Holodomor Myth" makes an impression that nowadays, one can exercise one's freedom of speech only if one is a marine. "
Your Cognitive Dissonance is displayed for all to see - how clever of you!
Get lost. Your arbitrary and insulting ascriptions have nothing to do either with Scott Ritter's essay or my comments to it.
You're the one that is lost, you are obviously an extreme narcissist that can't take what you dish out, and has a severe mental issues in that you can't even recognise the antagonism of your own pathetic words.
What you wrote is exactly your claim - written for all to see, from a cognitively impaired individual, that has no comprehension that your ascriptions are your own doing,
If you don't like getting responses to your ignorant, deceitful posts that were indeed attacking Scott and making stupid claims about only marines being allowed to express themselves, then don't do it. it is that simple.
Don't cry about it, I'm not getting lost, and you well know it child. If you are so sure your words are not what they obviously appear like, how about you cut and paste what you wrote, and put it into Ask The Inspector, and see how Scott Ritter feels about what you wrote?
But you won't will you? To frightened Scott will verbally tear you a new one as he sees straight through your narcissism.