Re: Discussion of Stalinism
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 haveOriginally Posted by Sarmatian
aprettygoodan excellent case for accurate numbers.
With the extent of corruption and intelligence agents in the Soviet Union, I somehow doubt it.Accessible records - very few, as already stated.
No, we cannot. You didn't ask for how complete they were, you asked for the fact that they were Russian. They were.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.
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.
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.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.
People have been there, examined it. A link has been posted.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.
It remains a crime against humanity, end of story.True, but I'd still make a very large and important distinction between an innocent man and a criminal punished too harshly.
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?"Also a drop in the ocean of examples. What about those who acted subversively during the Nazi invasion/occupation, what about collaborationists etc...
That was what Stalin thought of them, no?
Not from what the way I phrased it, it can't.That part might also mean - we took into consideration the part which increases the death toll and declared the other parts as unreliable
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.I was dismissing them because I don't believe they could have done any serious field research or get access to any serious documents.
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.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.
Easy to Google.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.
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.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 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.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 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.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
Reply With Quote
Refreshing discussion though, thanks.
Re: Discussion of Stalinism
#139 posts for Stalinism! As if enough people have not died because of his madness. 
Bookmarks