Discussion of Stalinism

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Now, tell me how could possibly any of the pre-1990's research accurately assess how many gulags there were, where they were, how many people were in them and how many died in them?

Eyewitness accounts (from thousands of different people), accessible records, intelligence reports...the list really goes on and on and on.

Don't tell me they just know because that's precisely what I'm arguing - they don't know and there was no possible way for them to know. Based on what information they had they could only make a guess. An educated guess perhaps, but a guess nevertheless.

This has truth and untruth. Yes, the best they could do would be an educated guess - but this could come very, very close. I don't think you can get a closer figure by using the archives as your primary source, as you suggest.

Furthermore, how is it possible for them to know how many people in the Gulags were innocent? Not only political prisoners were sent to Siberia, criminals got sent there, too.

This falls under cruel and unusual punishment then, and remains a crime against humanity.

For example, during the WW2, there were tens of thousands of Russian fighting in the German army.

Tens of thousands is, with all due respect to the victims, a drop in the ocean against the forty million or so murdered by Stalin. I don't deny that there is some room for error - but not much.

It's impossible for archives to contain every bit of information about everything, true, but generally they contain a lot, even the "embarrassing" bits. That's probably the reason why UK and US archives aren't opened to the public still. Actually, I know they weren't a couple of years ago, maybe that changed in the meantime. Anyway, not really the point. I'm willing to accept that Russian archives may not be complete or 100% accurate, but they still seem much more sensible starting point for any research than research conducted 20-80 years ago from 10,000 km away.

Firstly, you're presuming that all research was conducted with no Russian sources - an presumption which is inaccurate, as stated below. Russian archives have, undoubtedly, been used - and the only information I can find on them in regard to death tolls is them telling us about people (specifically Americans) who we didn't even know had died in the Soviet Union (thereby very slightly increasing the toll). As well, I think it is quite safe to assume that the archives of Western countries are in a much better state than the Russian ones. Some countries have much more reliable archives than others, as Ms. Applebaum so eloquently stated.

What I don't understand is why you're considering NATO countries as totally guiltless of the same. Why is every western source automatically considered 100% accurate and free of bias, nationalism and similar stuff?

It isn't - but you're dismissing it all as Western. There is plenty of work by Russians on the subject from the same timeframe, including from Russians who had gone through the Gulags.

That's why I'm asking all these questions. Why are western sources considered perfect just because they are western when they come from a period when there was mutual bias, fear and even paranoia?

Shockingly to you, perhaps, the first real accounts of the Gulags, for example, were not Western sources. They were Russians, Ukranians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians, Cossacks, and Mongols. Solzhenitsyn is the first name that springs to mind in this - it was he who truly opened the Gulag story to the West, and he was a Russian if I ever saw one.

How it was possible to conduct serious scholarly work in the USSR back then?

I think you may have just proven my point with that line.

Why isn't new research conducted? If I tried to research the issue now, the first thing I'd do is head to Russia, instead of relying on papers written in 50's. Starting from the archives, trying to find as many as possible live people and question them directly. There's bound to be a good number of them. IIRC, just last year the last Serbian soldier involved in the breakthrough of the Macedonian Front in the WW1 died. Try to get my hands on as many documents from the Gulags as I can. Visit and check them out directly etc...

People have conducted plenty of new research, using old and new things that have been uncovered and examing their correlations. Have you read Anne Applebaum? Specifically Gulag: A History? She has studied extensively on the subject, and is fluent in Russian. She has viewed Russian sources firsthand.

[Sarmatian]

Eyewitness accounts (from thousands of different people), accessible records, intelligence reports...the list really goes on and on and on.

Thousands? How many thousands? One, two, three, four...forty? Compared to estimated death toll of 40,000,000, that's 0.1%. Any mathematician can tell you that 0.1% is not enough for serious statistical analysis. You need 2-4% (if I remember correctly, it's been a few years since I had statistics) of carefully selected samples, not random like those witnesses would have been. If it's random you need a much a larger sample to make an estimate with acceptable margin of error.

Accessible records - very few, as already stated.

Intelligence reports - well, you may be on to something there, although I don't think either of us can know just how complete those reports were. Somehow I think that western intelligence agents in the USSR had more pressing concerns than finding out stuff about gulags and, as you said, it was people from the USSR who first got the story out, not western intelligence agencies.

This has truth and untruth. Yes, the best they could do would be an educated guess - but this could come very, very close. I don't think you can get a closer figure by using the archives as your primary source, as you suggest.

Glad that we agree on that at least.

I wasn't suggesting using only archives. It's a good starting point, but the key should be field research. What's left of those gulags is still there and it would speak volumes.

This falls under cruel and unusual punishment then, and remains a crime against humanity.

True, but I'd still make a very large and important distinction between an innocent man and a criminal punished too harshly.

Tens of thousands is, with all due respect to the victims, a drop in the ocean against the forty million or so murdered by Stalin. I don't deny that there is some room for error - but not much.

Also a drop in the ocean of examples. What about those who acted subversively during the Nazi invasion/occupation, what about collaborationists etc...

Firstly, you're presuming that all research was conducted with no Russian sources - an presumption which is inaccurate, as stated below. Russian archives have, undoubtedly, been used - and the only information I can find on them in regard to death tolls is them telling us about people (specifically Americans) who we didn't even know had died in the Soviet Union (thereby very slightly increasing the toll). As well, I think it is quite safe to assume that the archives of Western countries are in a much better state than the Russian ones. Some countries have much more reliable archives than others, as Ms. Applebaum so eloquently stated.

It isn't - but you're dismissing it all as Western. There is plenty of work by Russians on the subject from the same timeframe, including from Russians who had gone through the Gulags.

That part might also mean - we took into consideration the part which increases the death toll and declared the other parts as unreliable

I think you misunderstood me here. I wasn't trying to dismiss those source because they are western and are inherently biased or prejudiced, although some certainly are. It's not - John Smith = bad, Oleg Ivanov = good, no. I was dismissing them because I don't believe they could have done any serious field research or get access to any serious documents.

Those works that were listed in bibliography on that site which authors were Russian are published in USA. It's not about the nationality of the author, it's about where that work has been done. It is - John Smith or Oleg Ivanov conducting research in the USA = bad and John Smith or Oleg Ivanov conducting research in what used to be USSR = good, if I may be so blunt. The only Soviet source (as in from Soviet Union) that I've seen on that list were Moscow News, which I presume are daily newspapers. There are several others where it says "translated", but doesn't state from which language, what's the name of original work and where it was originally published.

Shockingly to you, perhaps, the first real accounts of the Gulags, for example, were not Western sources. They were Russians, Ukranians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians, Cossacks, and Mongols. Solzhenitsyn is the first name that springs to mind in this - it was he who truly opened the Gulag story to the West, and he was a Russian if I ever saw one.

Getting the story out and performing a scientific research are two totally different things. No one here questioned existence of the gulags, just the numbers because of flawed/incomplete research after the story got out.

I think you may have just proven my point with that line.

Actually I meant for outside researchers but it's true for Soviet researchers in those times, although to a lesser extent. That's why any pre-1990's research should be taken with more than just a pinch of salt.

People have conducted plenty of new research, using old and new things that have been uncovered and examing their correlations. Have you read Anne Applebaum? Specifically Gulag: A History? She has studied extensively on the subject, and is fluent in Russian. She has viewed Russian sources firsthand.

Haven't read it so obviously I can't comment on the book or its sources. I'll do that if I get my hands on it, which would be so much easier if stupid Amazon would start delivering to Serbia

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Thousands? How many thousands? One, two, three, four...forty? Compared to estimated death toll of 40,000,000, that's 0.1%. Any mathematician can tell you that 0.1% is not enough for serious statistical analysis. You need 2-4% (if I remember correctly, it's been a few years since I had statistics) of carefully selected samples, not random like those witnesses would have been. If it's random you need a much a larger sample to make an estimate with acceptable margin of error.

If you have thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals who have gone through these atrocities (which is a very realistic number, mind you), all telling a similar story, you have a pretty good an excellent case for accurate numbers.

Accessible records - very few, as already stated.

With the extent of corruption and intelligence agents in the Soviet Union, I somehow doubt it.

Intelligence reports - well, you may be on to something there, although I don't think either of us can know just how complete those reports were.

No, we cannot. You didn't ask for how complete they were, you asked for the fact that they were Russian. They were.

The truth is there were plenty of ways for Western - and Russian - scholars to get this data. It is confirmed by multiple varying sources. It is, by any definition, completely sound. It may not have used the data you would have liked as much as you think it should have, but it is still very reliable.

Somehow I think that western intelligence agents in the USSR had more pressing concerns than finding out stuff about gulags and, as you said, it was people from the USSR who first got the story out, not western intelligence agencies.

They probably did have more pressing concerns, but I find it rather unbelievable that nothing would have been recovered. Even if little was recovered, you would still have stories from agents, especially from Russian agents recruited by the West.

I wasn't suggesting using only archives. It's a good starting point, but the key should be field research. What's left of those gulags is still there and it would speak volumes.

People have been there, examined it. A link has been posted.

True, but I'd still make a very large and important distinction between an innocent man and a criminal punished too harshly.

It remains a crime against humanity, end of story.

Also a drop in the ocean of examples. What about those who acted subversively during the Nazi invasion/occupation, what about collaborationists etc...

These are still relatively small numbers, but fair enough. How many of those individuals were driven to act by atrocities committed against them before the war? You make it sound like they were traitors, but many, like the Cossack brigades, were hoping (probably in vain) that the invaders would treat them better. Even so, I think a lot more were suspected of acting subversively than actually did. What about soldiers that wouldn't advance? Is the NKVD shooting them considered shooting a "collaborationist?"

That was what Stalin thought of them, no?

That part might also mean - we took into consideration the part which increases the death toll and declared the other parts as unreliable

Not from what the way I phrased it, it can't.

I was dismissing them because I don't believe they could have done any serious field research or get access to any serious documents.

Access to documents could be had through the connections some of these people would have had, the buddy system, family connections, so on and so forth. There are plenty of ways for an individual to get access. Even so, field research itself was both conducted (I mentioned eyewitness accounts of the camps) and largely unnecessary. You really don't need to look at what remains of the camps (which we have done, by the way, as Caius has shown) to get an accurate picture of the death toll. It isn't as if all of these people died in Gulags anyway.

Those works that were listed in bibliography on that site which authors were Russian are published in USA. It's not about the nationality of the author, it's about where that work has been done. It is - John Smith or Oleg Ivanov conducting research in the USA = bad and John Smith or Oleg Ivanov conducting research in what used to be USSR = good, if I may be so blunt. The only Soviet source (as in from Soviet Union) that I've seen on that list were Moscow News, which I presume are daily newspapers.

As I have said, even if this was true (and I'm sorry, but it isn't - maybe for that professor in particular, but for many researchers, there were an abundance of Eastern European refugees to interview - also, he has updated his research continually since the date of publication, a record of which can be accessed), modern research, such as Ms. Applebaum's, generally solidifies his research.

There are several others where it says "translated", but doesn't state from which language, what's the name of original work and where it was originally published.

Easy to Google.

Getting the story out and performing a scientific research are two totally different things. No one here questioned existence of the gulags, just the numbers because of flawed/incomplete research after the story got out.

Nonetheless, you cannot deny that many of these people made generally good estimates - sometimes a little high, yes, but generally good - and that they were absolutely instrumental in sparking further research of the Soviet system, which brought the numbers down a little bit, but largely confirmed their stories.

Actually I meant for outside researchers but it's true for Soviet researchers in those times, although to a lesser extent. That's why any pre-1990's research should be taken with more than just a pinch of salt.

I disagree. The research is fundamentally sound. It may not be perfect, but it is very close. All you need to do is to look at the ranges of estimates.

Haven't read it so obviously I can't comment on the book or its sources. I'll do that if I get my hands on it, which would be so much easier if stupid Amazon would start delivering to Serbia

I would recommend it strongly, as well as other works by Anne Applebaum. As pointed out, she is a relatively recent author who has done quite a bit of research on Russia.

[Sarmatian]

~snip~

Okay, whatever. I can't do this anymore.

Thanks, it was an interesting discussion

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Okay, whatever. I can't do this anymore.

Thanks, it was an interesting discussion

I'm aware I get tedious sometimes. Refreshing discussion though, thanks.

[Prince Cobra]

#139 posts for Stalinism! As if enough people have not died because of his madness.

I really can not see much difference between the terror of Hitler and Stalin with the difference the Hitler terror concentrated on the jews, gyspsies and certain Slavs while those of Stalin was more dispersed. So I can not say that one is better than the other. There is no difference except for the one had won the war.

+ the doctrine of stalinism was based on public ownership + complete lack of entrepreneurship which in fact was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the system

[Brenus]

“+ the doctrine of stalinism was based on public ownership + complete lack of entrepreneurship which in fact was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the system” and the other was based on Racism and murdering population not for what they thought but for what they were.
And Hitler as well killed for political reasons and as Stalin. The first concentration camps were built for the German opponents. He evens slaughtered in his own side (SA)…

By the way, the actual collapse is due to so-called entrepreneurs and their greed… So not really a valid reason to condemn Stalinism / Communism…

The fact is most of the reproaches towards Stalin (deportation, forced labours, Secret Police, political coup, absence of remorse and paranoia… etc) were actively done by the Capitalist states…

Communism didn’t work. But that is the only real difference with the Capitalism which is able to reinvent itself…

[Beefy187]

#139 posts for Stalinism! As if enough people have not died because of his madness.

I really can not see much difference between the terror of Hitler and Stalin with the difference the Hitler terror concentrated on the jews, gyspsies and certain Slavs while those of Stalin was more dispersed. So I can not say that one is better than the other. There is no difference except for the one had won the war.

+ the doctrine of stalinism was based on public ownership + complete lack of entrepreneurship which in fact was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the system

I suppose the biggest difference is that Stalin won while Hitler lost WW2.

Since the allied wanted to keep Stalin close, they didn't pressure him too hard when Stalin did something nasty.

Really the two are no different.. Heck I think Stalin is much worse in terms of how many he killed.