It’s a bit murkier than that. Stalin ordered the purges, but ordered them to stop when it got to him that the number sentenced to death was higher than anticipated, as he wasn’t carrying out the orders but instead by troikas. Stalin and Molotov had initially set a limit of 72,950 executions. Further, the 681,692 figure was the number sentenced to death, not necessarily executed, though this number is often given by anti-communist historians like Robert Conquest as assumed 100% executions.
Overall, most communists agree that the purges certainly had excess, but also agree that purges were necessary. The assassination of Kirov had revealed that there were indeed fascists in government and other critical areas, and on the eve of an expected war with the Nazis it would be suicide to not address this.
Stalin is seen generally positively among communists for managing to stablize socialism in the world’s first socialist state, and though there certainly are mistakes to learn from, there’s also plenty of successes to learn from as well.
Thanks for some more info. But you say the death sentences were necessary at the time. But is it really ever necessary. If we ever achieve socialism it has to be possible to avoid death sentences, they are proven to go wrong and are generally inhumane.
Purges were necessary, that doesn’t mean the executions were. Purges often meant simply expelling someone from the party or a prison sentence, not necessarily execution. What’s clear when studying the soviet union, though, is the sheer siege and subterfuge targetting them from right when they first began. We can understand why they did what they did, while also understanding that if they had better resources and political stability then the better option would have been imprisonment and potentially rehabilitation.
Oh good, im glad he had a number in mind of how many executions was too many. People in power are well known for keeping to such limits. And of course to the 608,742 sentenced to death who were not executed were totally chill with the mix up.
The choice to starve all of those people in the holodomor was totally fine and humane because hunger is such a great way to go and genocides can totally make room for the innocent to survive.
For clarity, greater than 100,000 people were for sure executed. The limit to the executions was surpassed, which is why it was stopped. Either way, they weren’t randomly grabbing people off the street and executing them like some kind of kill quota, they had investigated criminals, former Tsarists, and others guilty of crimes and treason. Again, on the eve of World War II, it was certainly necessary to investigate the party and the state, as it was absolutely infiltrated.
As for the famine in the 1930s, what do you mean by the “choice to starve all those people?” Once discovered that a famine was occuring, the soviets did what they could to prevent and alleviate it once it had started. The idea of an intentional famine is simply fringe among contemporary historians, same with claims of white genocide in South Africa. For example, serious bourgeois academic sources tend to say it was a failure of planning, rather than intentional and genocide. For instance, Mark Tauger wrote:
[data] indicate that the famine was real, the result of a failure of economic policy, of the ‘revolution from above,’ rather than of a ‘successful’ nationality policy against Ukrainians or other ethnic groups.
Tauger believes it was a failure of economic policy, not an intentional attack on ethnic Ukrainians. The 1930s famine was a combination of drought, flooding, and mismanagement. Further, the Kulaks, wealthy bourgeois farmers, magnified matters by killing their own crops in the midst of a famine rather than letting the Red Army collectivize them. The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN
Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].
Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Comrade Kosior!
You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation invillages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?
Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of
the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.
Sincerely, J. Stalin
Muggeridge and Jones reported on the famine. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. Why would the soviets try to starve their own people? It was because of the soviets and collectivization of agriculture that famine was ended, and that’s why outside of wartime the 1930s famine was the final famine in those regions, with life expectancies doubling.
Overall, trying to hold on to red scare historiography does absolutely nothing to help the cause of socialism. The soviet archives have provided a wealth of knowledge largely affirming the communist narrative, and debunking liberal and fascist narratives about existing socialism.
When I talk politics on my stream, chatters often reference a letter by Stalin regarding the limiting of movement of Ukrainian peasants during the famine. They use this letter as proof he facilitated the famine.
I’ve largely interpreted this letter as an antirevolutionary measure that happened after the famine had already claimed millions of lives, but I would love to know how you view that correspondence as I’m not nearly educated enough on Soviet history.
I can find the specific letter if you’re not familiar with it, I can’t recall the title off the top of my head.
If you could find it, that would help! I’m unfamiliar with that specific letter. You could also ask over on Grad or Hexbear, their soviet history is much better than mine.
“Directive of the Central Committee on preventing the mass departure of starving peasants.” January 22, 1933.
I will absolutely be joining Lemmygrad convos after I learn more about socialism. But for now I couldn’t help myself but ask you given the context of this conversation.
fyi: hexbear seems to be the social leftist center of the lemmyverse while lemmygrad seems to excel at exploring leftist theory.
this matters if you’re like me who has a nascent understanding of leftism that leaves you unaware of most things and best become aware of it by engaging in interactions where people (mostly tangentially) banter about it rather than strict exploration of specific topics.
From what I can tell, it looks like the aim was to solidify collectivization of agriculture and prevent mass disruption at the end of the famine. The famine lasted until 1933, which puts this letter at the tail-end of the famine. What it looks like is an order to prevent mass disruption of farming in a time where every grain was precious, and the collective farms were beginning to produce more and more. Whether or not this is an example of mismanagement is certainly a valid question, but a smoking gun explaining an intention to starve Ukrainians it is not.
It’s a bit murkier than that. Stalin ordered the purges, but ordered them to stop when it got to him that the number sentenced to death was higher than anticipated, as he wasn’t carrying out the orders but instead by troikas. Stalin and Molotov had initially set a limit of 72,950 executions. Further, the 681,692 figure was the number sentenced to death, not necessarily executed, though this number is often given by anti-communist historians like Robert Conquest as assumed 100% executions.
Overall, most communists agree that the purges certainly had excess, but also agree that purges were necessary. The assassination of Kirov had revealed that there were indeed fascists in government and other critical areas, and on the eve of an expected war with the Nazis it would be suicide to not address this.
Stalin is seen generally positively among communists for managing to stablize socialism in the world’s first socialist state, and though there certainly are mistakes to learn from, there’s also plenty of successes to learn from as well.
Thanks for some more info. But you say the death sentences were necessary at the time. But is it really ever necessary. If we ever achieve socialism it has to be possible to avoid death sentences, they are proven to go wrong and are generally inhumane.
Purges were necessary, that doesn’t mean the executions were. Purges often meant simply expelling someone from the party or a prison sentence, not necessarily execution. What’s clear when studying the soviet union, though, is the sheer siege and subterfuge targetting them from right when they first began. We can understand why they did what they did, while also understanding that if they had better resources and political stability then the better option would have been imprisonment and potentially rehabilitation.
Oh good, im glad he had a number in mind of how many executions was too many. People in power are well known for keeping to such limits. And of course to the 608,742 sentenced to death who were not executed were totally chill with the mix up.
The choice to starve all of those people in the holodomor was totally fine and humane because hunger is such a great way to go and genocides can totally make room for the innocent to survive.
For clarity, greater than 100,000 people were for sure executed. The limit to the executions was surpassed, which is why it was stopped. Either way, they weren’t randomly grabbing people off the street and executing them like some kind of kill quota, they had investigated criminals, former Tsarists, and others guilty of crimes and treason. Again, on the eve of World War II, it was certainly necessary to investigate the party and the state, as it was absolutely infiltrated.
As for the famine in the 1930s, what do you mean by the “choice to starve all those people?” Once discovered that a famine was occuring, the soviets did what they could to prevent and alleviate it once it had started. The idea of an intentional famine is simply fringe among contemporary historians, same with claims of white genocide in South Africa. For example, serious bourgeois academic sources tend to say it was a failure of planning, rather than intentional and genocide. For instance, Mark Tauger wrote:
Tauger believes it was a failure of economic policy, not an intentional attack on ethnic Ukrainians. The 1930s famine was a combination of drought, flooding, and mismanagement. Further, the Kulaks, wealthy bourgeois farmers, magnified matters by killing their own crops in the midst of a famine rather than letting the Red Army collectivize them. The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Muggeridge and Jones reported on the famine. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. Why would the soviets try to starve their own people? It was because of the soviets and collectivization of agriculture that famine was ended, and that’s why outside of wartime the 1930s famine was the final famine in those regions, with life expectancies doubling.
Overall, trying to hold on to red scare historiography does absolutely nothing to help the cause of socialism. The soviet archives have provided a wealth of knowledge largely affirming the communist narrative, and debunking liberal and fascist narratives about existing socialism.
When I talk politics on my stream, chatters often reference a letter by Stalin regarding the limiting of movement of Ukrainian peasants during the famine. They use this letter as proof he facilitated the famine.
I’ve largely interpreted this letter as an antirevolutionary measure that happened after the famine had already claimed millions of lives, but I would love to know how you view that correspondence as I’m not nearly educated enough on Soviet history.
I can find the specific letter if you’re not familiar with it, I can’t recall the title off the top of my head.
If you could find it, that would help! I’m unfamiliar with that specific letter. You could also ask over on Grad or Hexbear, their soviet history is much better than mine.
“Directive of the Central Committee on preventing the mass departure of starving peasants.” January 22, 1933.
I will absolutely be joining Lemmygrad convos after I learn more about socialism. But for now I couldn’t help myself but ask you given the context of this conversation.
fyi: hexbear seems to be the social leftist center of the lemmyverse while lemmygrad seems to excel at exploring leftist theory.
this matters if you’re like me who has a nascent understanding of leftism that leaves you unaware of most things and best become aware of it by engaging in interactions where people (mostly tangentially) banter about it rather than strict exploration of specific topics.
From what I can tell, it looks like the aim was to solidify collectivization of agriculture and prevent mass disruption at the end of the famine. The famine lasted until 1933, which puts this letter at the tail-end of the famine. What it looks like is an order to prevent mass disruption of farming in a time where every grain was precious, and the collective farms were beginning to produce more and more. Whether or not this is an example of mismanagement is certainly a valid question, but a smoking gun explaining an intention to starve Ukrainians it is not.
Thanks for the comment, I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.
No problem! Don’t take my word for it though, that’s just my first impressions. I’m sure others have made it an intention to study.