Reddit reviews Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
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Basic Books AZ
I agree with both of the other commenters, but thought some perspective might perhaps be helpful.
In his highly acclaimed work Bloodlands, Timothy Snyder estimates that 3.1 million Soviet POWs were murdered by the Nazis through forced starvation as a part of Generalplan Ost. The USHMM estimates that about 1.7 million people were murdered in the Operation Reinhard camps, while another 1.1 million were murdered at the Auschwitz camps.
While many, many more people were murdered as part of the Holocaust via open air shootings, starvation, etc., it is not inaccurate to recognize that the Nazis killed more Soviet POWs through forced starvation than they did through the killing centers most people generally associate with the Holocaust.
Bloodlands is a great read about Eastern Europe mostly under Stalin. It also talks about the famines in Ukraine. It was difficult to read at night for me because what I read would be so depressing, disgusting, horrifying that I would have constant nightmares.
The Soviets in the 30s and 40s were, as a whole, far more competent in controlling large areas and people than the Germans. Case in point, the German "Hunger Plan" intended to starve millions of Slavs hardly got off the ground in conquered territories, whereas the NKVD was able to systematically control every field, granary, and loaf of bread in the entirety of modern Ukraine. The Germans resorted to shooting mass numbers of Poles and Belorussians instead.
The Soviets were equally as successful with their Gulag deportations. Party officials were embedded enough to identify problem families in even the smallest hamlets of the USSR and ship them thousands of miles to Kazakhstan or Siberia. This is millions of people we're talking about, all specially selected, charged, and recorded in Soviet archives. While the Germans were very good at rounding up and killing people, they weren't nearly as discriminatory or efficient as the Russians.
Bottom line is that if Trump wants to round up and deport millions of people in a systematic, targeted effort, he should look to the USSR rather than the comparatively sloppy Nazis. I would recommend he read Bloodlands for further research into turning America into an ethno-centrist, totalitarian dictatorship.
According to Timothy Snyder in his book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, an important reason is Hitler ordered the army to be ruthless based on his belief that that ruthless behavior would make his troops understand that retreat was not an option since they would be targets of revenge if they failed. Snyder's book is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand that period. As for the specifics of your question, he provides long, detailed explanations/descriptions of what happened in Belarus and Ukraine, in addition to the other regions.
To add to this, two good books to read are:
Gulag Archipeligo - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin - Timothy Snyder
this is a good recent book about it http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371077339&sr=8-1&keywords=bloodlands
another thing they apparently did was have the prisoner stand against the wall ostensibly to measure his height, then shoot him in the head via a hole in the wall. this way the prisoner didn't struggle.
> I don't deny facts or anything, thats not who I am.
If you're a communist, you are either denying facts or advocating genocide. Your pick which you are.
>For the events you linked, the evidence backing death counts is widely sporadic. 2 to 12 million people? That's a ridiculous range that would be thrown away in any other circumstance.
there are very precise estimates of the deaths. but "we killed so many people we lost track of how many died" is NOT a good argument for your ideology of choice.
> My point in mentioning how capitalism is responsible for millions of deaths every day
you can mention things that aren't true all you want, that doesn't make them good arguments. There are 8 billion people alive on the planet today, almost all of them because of capitalism.
> Due to man-made limitations on health care access
This phrase makes zero sense. man made limits on healthcare? Where do you think healthcare comes from? It doesn't grow on trees. People have to make it, they have to learn to become doctors, have to produce medicine, etc. Under capitalism, people are rewarded for doing that, so lots of healthcare is produced. Communism did not pave the way in medical science and practice, capitalist countries did.
> Its not even remotely the same as denying the holocaust.
It's exactly the same. You're denying the crimes of people you are ideologically sympathetic towards. If anything, that's worse that holocaust denialism. Most holocaust deniers, while awful people, don't say hitler had a bunch of ideas that were really good, just poorly implemented.
>I can tell you have a hatred of communism and for that reason you aren't providing anything constructive for someone like me. Thanks for the attempt though.
if 100 million corpses wasn't enough to change your mind, I certainly don't expect to.
You may want to read up on how the USSR treated ethnic minorities. A lot of it is covered in Bloodlands by Yale historian Timothy Snyder.
In short - a lot of murdering and ethnic cleansing.
I've specifically read documented cases of it happening during the Holodomor, as well as among [Soviet prisoners of war](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_prisoners_of_war_(Nazi_Germany) (a group of Holocaust victims that are often overlooked, ignored, or simply not included).
Off the top of my head I can't recall ever reading about cannibalism happening inside the concentration camps. This does not mean that it didn't happen, and logic would tell us it almost certainly did. However getting caught engaging in cannibalism would almost certainly be a capital offense. Furthermore there is the cultural stigma that it carries. These factors would contribute to participants remaining silent on the matter.
Other factors would include a lack of the necessary free time required to engage in it (daily schedules for prisoners were meticulous, and purposefully designed to ensure very little free time and privacy), a lack of method for preparing a body for consumption (some barracks had stoves but they were usually in the middle of the room and therefore constantly under scrutiny, and then you have to think about the tools that would be required to butcher a corpse. It would be very difficult to butcher meat without a knife, and where do you get that in a concentration camp?), and finally the fact that any bodies that would be available for consumption would almost certainly be severely malnourished and therefore not a great source of nutrition (and it's not like humans are an ideal source of food to begin with).
However, knowing what we know about starvation, it almost certainly did happen. At some point when human beings' needs are not met, we WILL revert to our baser instincts. I have read accounts that inmates would beat or kill over matters of food. Fistfights would often break out in the meal lines (your place in line could easily determine whether you would get food that day). Inmates would eat food regardless of its condition. Even if food was moldy, dirty, soggy, or stale, it would still be eaten. I've read that when soup was spilled, inmates would drop to their hands and knees and suck at the mud in order to get a few drops. In addition to the simple needs of humans, food could also be used for bribes and favors.
If you have any clarifying questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
EDIT: As far as bugs and rodents, I again can't recall any specific instances, but when you're starving to death, you'll eat anything. Conditions in the camp certainly attracted all sorts of vermin, so they were definitely available to those that could devise a way of catching and eating them.
Sources
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness
Maus: A Survivor's Tale
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin - http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394553680&sr=8-1&keywords=bloodlands+europe+between+hitler+and+stalin
I was a bit of a history nerd in school and university, still am a bit, I'm not a historian by any stretch of the imagination. The North Africa theatre is fascinating, and can be somewhat disassociated from the war crimes narrative that accompanies most of the Wehrmacht's campaigns, as it was fought in a somewhat 'gentlemanly' fashion. If you have any interest in the real WW2 I cannot recommend Timothy Snyder's 'Bloodlands' as a primer, great book about the Eastern Front:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465031471?pc_redir=1411768435&robot_redir=1
>The center's findings come after Communist Party members earlier this month called for streets to be renamed and monuments to be erected to Stalin throughout Russia ahead of celebrations in May marking 70 years since the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, the Kommersant newspaper reported.
Asked by the Levada Center how they felt about the initiative, 39 percent of Russians said they would back plans for erecting a monument to Stalin, who was supreme commander in chief of the Soviet army during World War II.
That's fucked up. Everyone needs to read 'The Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin' by Timothy Snyder. I'd venture to say Stalin was worse than Hitler after reading that.
http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471
"They weren't Nazis. They just adhered to the Nazi ideological/racial worldview and were complicit in mass murder."
Inform yourself OP.
Poland has been through some shit.
You need to read some books then. Hitler and Stalin were both massive pieces of shit but the nature and the motivation was always different.
Snyder is a quality historian on this subject
Check out Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. It covers the history of Poland and Ukraine in excruciating detail about this topic.
Read https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471/
The crop-demands of the soviets were absurd. They literally exceeded the most optimistic yields in any nation by several magnitudes.
The USSR famines go beyond simple droughts/natural-disasters/etc. It was deliberate and the consequence of millions starving was simply an acceptable price to pay to urbanize the nation.
There are many incidents in history of short-sighted policies having unintended consequences (e.g. The Four Pests Campaign). But this isn't the case for millions of the victims under the USSR rule.
Read Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. It's an exhaustive chronicle of the extermination programs of each respective regime, and argues quite persuasively that the development of extermination camps was a direct result of the combination of the two factors you mentioned in your post.
Ignore the idiot and better yourself.
Start with this: https://www.amazon.com/Archipelago-Peterson-introduction-Aleksandr-Solzhenitsyn/dp/1784871516/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=gulag&qid=1567319207&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Continue with this: https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=bloodlands&qid=1567319292&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Then come back here and ask for some more.
Collectivization and forced industrialisation were part of Stalinist Communism because he viewed the Soviet Union as lacking an industrial base to support a true marxist communist state. They were stepping stones to that end. Nazism gave a head nod to socialism but Hitler in actuality just played lip service to the German people in that respect.
I'm done arguing but I'll leave you a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nazism_and_Stalinism.
You can also take a gander at this book http://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471 if you're interested in a more in depth look at the state practices of both countries in Ukraine, the Balkans, and Poland.
In practice sure both countries were similarly brutal but there's a difference in why they were brutal.
Edit: Also why did you sarcastically write 'attempted' changes? Millions of people starved or were killed during those programs. The border between Ukraine and Poland was literally shut down to prevent people from fleeing. Stalin and the Comintern was wholeheartedly devoted to collectivization and making it succeed to support the next stage of industrialization. This was while they were planning to support a communist revolution in Poland. Also look at after the war how the Soviet Union exported communism to the countries it occupied. You can't ignore that and say they half-assed their attempt to make communism work.
I notice that nobody has mentoned Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder.
This is the story, not only of the Holocaust, but also of the millions of people either executed or starved by either Stalin or Hitler for other reasons such as Stalin's enthusiasm for dreaming up ways of consolidating his personal power. These people were either civilians or non-combatants such as prisoners of war. The final tally including the Holocaust and Stalin's purges and the Katyn massacre and much more is about 14 million people. This took place between 1932 and 1945 in an area that included most of Poland, a lot of Belarus and the Ukraine and a big chunk of western Russia.
It is an interesting read but also a difficult one. It has taken me a long time to get through the first three hundred or so pages not because the book is badly reading but simply because the subject matter is so depressing. Still, I recommend reading it if you have an interest in the time surrounding World War II.
> Hitler took about a decade from locking people up to systematically killing them. Concentration camps were never intended to kill people. I mean, of course plenty of people died, but mostly due to neglect. They didn't really care if people died, but it wasn't the goal. Death camps were part of their Final Solution which only really happened when their war in the East started and they were suddenly in a hurry.
There's a great book, Bloodlands (https://www.amazon.ca/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471/) I recently read that focuses on the years of 1933-1945 on Hitler and Stalin in central and eastern Europe.
Hitler initially hoped to 'rid' to Jews to Russia, after it was taken over by Nazi Germany. It was supposed to be dumping ground. When he failed in doing that, that's when the plans changed, and the concentration camps shifted to extermination camps.
Well, right now I'm reading Bloodlands for a history course, so that should be... uh, inspiring?
Then again, just seeing the rules, I would have to be careful about selections here.
I suggest you read this book.
>Did you bother to read who wrote the "Tauger, Natural Disaster and Human Actions" paper?
yes, he's a stalin apologist. Have you bothered to read anyone else? Because much better historians dismiss him completely. the ukrainians did not starve because the harvest was bad, they starved because stalin requisitioned their food at gunpoint.
I recommend the book Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder.
Please provide a source for your revisionist 10M figure.
Second: am I not saying that both are equally as responsible for war crimes, democide and genocide?
Look, you can take a look at the numbers the way you want. Brutally killing noncombatants in the millions still makes you a regime that stands on the wrong side of history.
I dare you to read Bloodlands. You won't finish it.
Whether you establish a classification between whoever kills more is up to you; defending either of them likens you to both.
Here's a book recommendation for you: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Read it and be informed. Trigger warning: intentional famine leads to cannibalism.
https://mises.org/library/economics-one-lesson
https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471
My favorite work on the eastern front.
It’s an easy spot to start as well.
Not OP but the 6 million victims number is correct. You can check it here or here.
Also most of the Soviet killing took place in times of peace while Hitler killed in wars. So comparing WWII stats is misleading.
Also not well known is the fact that Stalin killed another 1,5 million people in Ukraine right after WWII in 1945/46 through another forced starvation.
>The atlantic slave trade moved about 10 million slaves in total, and not all of them died.
12 million in total. But I am referring to all slaves. Those born slaves as well. That numbers in the 10s of millions. And dying as a slave counts as dying due to slavery.
>no, they didn't.
Compelling argument. The Congo Free State contolled by Belgium alone killed around 10 million Africans.
And great job ignoring all the other examples of Western atrocities!
>ah, yeas, I forgot how tenured professors were considered just as reliable as reddit posts. how silly of me.
Oh you want a professor! No problem!
>except they aren't,
Yes they are. See how great of an argument that is!
>atrocities of a certain size most definitely are.
No, certainly not. As I've shown.
>this is a flat out lie. It was the bolishiveks and their allies who covered up the extent of the famine, as has been well documented.
Perhaps you should read some more of the book.
>socialists have spent a century arguing for nationalization of hte means of production. when that ends badly, as it does in almost all cases, you don't get to redefine your terms and ignore your failures.
Many, but not all, socialists saw or see nationalization as a way for worker control, but that doesn't mean nationalization is socialism. And no, it doesn't always end badly anyway. Worker control is what all socialists can agree on, and therefore is socialism.
Well you see, the reason I defend Operation Condor and Cold War FP is because of this debate about the best form of government.
Let's say group A wants to form a Marxist vanguard party and wishes to suspend democracy due to democracy being a tool of the bourgeois. So they run in the next election says they want to suspend democracy to give the people the true power through a dictatorship of the proletariat. Sounds pretty cool right? Labor rights, free stuff, worker's paradise! Sounds like the kind of political system for me. Except, oh no, it doesn't work like that. Instead of a worker's paradise, it devolved into a secret police state where no property, personal, economic, political or spiritual rights exist. Well shit, what am I supposed to do now?
My point is that yeah, we should kill people that meet two criteria, those criteria being:
So no I don't think we should bust into every fourteen year old's room that browses /r/LateStageCapitalism and murder them, but if they grow older, begin to voice totalitarian, anti-market opinions, begin to arm up and talk of revolution, then yeah let's get some deathsquads.
If nazis were a credible threat to our democracy, we certainly should eliminate them, the same for the anarchists, socialist and other totalitarian ideologies.
Pinochet, Franco, Salazar and Peron were hardly totalitarian, they were people who just wanted to see their country do better. Now, thanks to their efforts, those countries all enjoy successful liberal democracies today.
I have some reading lists which would be better than reading internet forums posted anonymously about political economies that have never worked.
The Condor Years
Diplomacy by Kissinger
Bloodlands: The Land Between Hitler and Stalin
The Black Book of Communism
Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin is an excellent source on why and how Hitler killed non-combatants. I do not recall anything about suicide rates changing policy. When the war was going well, the plan was to ship undesirables east and starve them to create the new German frontier, sort of like the Wild West in the US. When the war stalled, they became mouths to feed, so they starved and shot them. When the war created labor shortages in German factories, they shipped laborers back to Germany to work since all the Germans were busy dying in Russia/Ukraine/Belarus. Most non-combatant victims never saw the inside of a concentration camp.
TLDR on book
lazy TLDR: it's complicated.
Lviv was part of Poland for 20 years until 1939.
WW2 happened
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-13/world-war-ii-isn-t-quite-over-for-poland-and-ukraine
Read about the history of Stepan Bandera and the UPA
You should visit Lviv!
https://lifeinua.info/love-lviv/
http://www.lvivtoday.com.ua/exploring-lviv/1512
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/travel/lvivs-and-a-familys-stories-in-architecture.html
https://fredandreaseasterneurope2013.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/lviv-the-ancient-polish-city-in-the-ukraine/comment-page-1/
read Bloodlands
>at the top of the screen? THE holocaust is a specific event involving nazi germany. It is distinct from A holocaust.
And, nobody uses Holocaust to address a genocide different than THE Holocaust.
>No grain was requisitioned.
This is a lie.
Trosky, exiliated in Mexico during those years, is a really great source about the USSR agriculture.
>declaring that the state now owns your grain is the definition of requisition.
Declaring the land state owned is requisition. Give that land to the peasants, in exchange of an annual production quota, isn't.
>I fail to see what you think you're proving with these numbers.
That the USSR had not INTENDED to starve the peasants.
>Again, you straight up deny a holocaust. There is no doubt that millions starved. The reduced demand quotas were still in excess of what was produced.
Again, you still doesn't know what a Genocide is. I never denied the deaths by starvation, I deny that the USSR had the INTENTION of starving them. Without intention, you CAN'T have a genocide.
>There is no doubt that the famine was denied, that international aid was refused.
So, they denied the famine, but they low the quotas and send food to the starving areas?? Strange.
Check out the book Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. It's an excruciating and depressing read, but the empirical evidence Snyder uses makes its very clear that the famines in the early years of the USSR were NOT by any means accidental or due to ineptitude. Unfortunately, I do not have my copy with me at the moment, but if you're interested in know way more than you ever wanted to know about the Soviet Famines in the 1930's, this is the book to go to. Here is a rather grizzly excerpt:
>Survival was a moral as well as a physical struggle. A woman doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was “not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you.” The good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to prostitute themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died. Parents who resisted cannibalism died before their children did.
I had read Bloodlands a while back and it did touch on this issue a few times. The Bolvsheviks and NKVD were not mostly Jewish, but they were disproportionately Jewish. If I recall correctly it was something on the order of 1% of the population was Jewish but 10% of the NKVD leadership was Jewish. That still leaves ~90% non-Jews most of them being ethnic Russians.