Soviet Atrocities and the Killing of Disabled and Innocent Children

[Tania+]

My dear friends, it matters not in this case if ones t's are crossed, or i's dotted, but it matters greatly if we do not have the mortal courage to speak out against past, present, actions towards any human being, be it one or in the millions.

I hope all who have read have made measured notice as well that when posters as Zvezda makes the choice to post what they do, it is done as a 'political statement' whereas Elizabeth's, Bear's, and many more are offered to point out the horrendous savagery of such a political system, and the actions taken therein against helpless citizens, and children, anywhere.

There is no glory in standing with one's foot on a dead person's body ever, because this is the lasting picture such a governeng process as the old Soviet system was. As you can read in today's news, nothing has changed with the long arm of such manevolent, calculated, intensified actions to murder just one human being in London.

That's why countless lives as myself, and people as yourselves, continue to fight from our homes, on our computers, in this very century, to make sure that the likes of such a system never again takes control of any peoples, or country. Fight the good fight, and it will return to all those who love freedom, the peace and quiet they deserve so well !

Tatiana+

[Zvezda]

This is for "ZVEZDA":

What do you think about Breznev's  Atrocities?
I am originally from the Czech Republik, so I know what his communist party made there in the year of 1968.

I opposed military action in Czechoslovakia but I also opposed the bourgeois policies of Dubček. While the USSR and other socialist countries had legal justiication to intervene, the USSR destroyed its reputation with the international community with this disastrous policy. In any case, violence was not widespread as only 25 Czechoslovaks were killed.

[Belochka]

comment deleted
 

[Nikl]

This is for "ZVEZDA":

What do you think about Breznev's  Atrocities?
I am originally from the Czech Republik, so I know what his communist party made there in the year of 1968.

I opposed military action in Czechoslovakia but I also opposed the bourgeois policies of Dubček. While the USSR and other socialist countries had legal justiication to intervene, the USSR destroyed its reputation with the international community with this disastrous policy. In any case, violence was not widespread as only 25 Czechoslovaks were killed.

Well between 25 people was my best friend. The russian tank drove over him.  None never been charge for that.

[lexi4]

Niki,
I am so sorry that you had to endure that. What you have described is beyond horrific.
My deepest sympathies.
Lexi

[LisaDavidson]

There always denyers for every atrocity committed against humanity. To those who deny the Holocaust, my friend Ilana's mother says, "then, where is my grandmother?" There are those who still say that killing the tsar and those with him was no big deal, there were only 11 people. But, every single one of those people was loved by someone who survived, just as Niki still misses her friend.

[Nikl]

There always denyers for every atrocity committed against humanity. To those who deny the Holocaust, my friend Ilana's mother says, "then, where is my grandmother?" There are those who still say that killing the tsar and those with him was no big deal, there were only 11 people. But, every single one of those people was loved by someone who survived, just as Niki still misses her friend.

Thank you everybody for sympathies. Some people would just twist the history

[Tania+]

My Dearest Nikl,

One friend who longed for freedom, to be taken from life without reason, is one life too many ! I'm sorry you lost your friend.
To twist history is more than negligent, and takes away from every citizen's connect of their origin, and of their identies.
Those of us here on this forum, and beyond, who champion freedom, truth, and honesty stand with you and your country.
For this person to state 'only 11 people were killed' shows you that this person has no soul, no consicence.
Don't ever think for one moment that statements as Zevezda, nor people as this will be defended, ever, not even in on these past issues of historical mistruths.

Dear Nikl, do keep fighting back and telling your story, and that of your country. We are here to listen, and are supportive. God Bless their souls, for they are not ever forgotton, but will be remembered long after our lives have left this earth.
Thank you for you and others who continue to champion all that is good.
Goodness always triumphs over evil. God Bless !

Tatiana+

[James1941]

And yet I find there is some hypocrisy here.
I agree that the taking of even one life for political reasons is to be abhorred.
However, when some posters try to point out how the tsar's regime also killed or murdered people for so-called political reasons all sorts of excuses or justifications are made.
Alexander Ulyanov was a dedicated opponent of the tsar's autocracy. He was only eighteen or nineteen (sorry I can't remember which), only a youth with a youth's silly certitude that they are right, and I would imagine he had people, relatives, a mother who loved him despite his actions. And yet, he was hung and that young life ended, for political reasons. I know he was involved in plots to kill the tsar and that he refused to recant, but couldn't the government have showed leniency and sentenced him to a long term in prison instead of killing him. Who knows what he might have believed had he been allowed to live his biblical life span.
Both regimes, the monarchy and the communist, used killing to advance political aims. The extent and degree may be different but the intent is not. How can one be justified and the other not. Was it alright for the tsar's first minister Stolypin to send troops in to hang rioters (Stolypin's neckties) but when the communists did it to maintin their power or control it is labeled as "atrocity." Both thought they were defending a system worth defending.
If you are going to argue against governments using terror you must be fair and balanced and condemn all or you risk being a hypocrite, and losing creditbility.

[klava1985]

This is an old thread, but so interesting it seems worth resurrecting. Reading through it, I felt a number of things were left unaddressed or inadequately explored. Several posts as a consequence of coming late to this:

1. On the question of whether Soviet atrocities are taught in colleges and schools on the same level as the Holocaust, I thought so at the time. I was an undergraduate in the early 80s, though, studying International Affairs/Soviet Studies. None of my professors glossed over the Soviet atrociites. To the extent that Americans are generally more familiar with the Nazi horrors, I think it's just that more Americans have been exposed to W. European history, and not as many to larger portions of the world. I would say that Americans probably viewed the USSR as generically evil, rather than pinning as many specifics to it as could be pinned to the Nazis. But I think Americans during the Cold War would not have viewed the Sov. Union as less evil than Hitler's regime. BTW, I think Americans are even less well informed about, genocide in Turkey.

2. On the issue of whether Soviet and Nazi atrocities are a logical outgrowth of ideology, as Elisabeth suggests, vs a combination of SOP for a new regime/economic order establishing itself + a lack of practice at resisting authority, as Tsarfan suggests, it seems we could test this. Elisabeth's hypothesis predicts that communism will be more atrocious than other ideologies even over time. Tsarfan's that in general violence will fall off as the regime establishes itself. Tsarfan further suggests that previously authoritarian regimes will morph into truly horrible beasts if taken over by a regime that establishes a new basis for order. Which pattern seems more prevalent in the world today? Have the successors to Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot been driven by the ideology to continue the policy of mass murder? Who was more violent, the Sandinistas or the regime they overthrew? Has every communist leader been as bad? Was Allende worse than Pinochet? I don't know; I'm asking. It seems we have enough examples to support one generalization or another, though.

[klava1985]

3. Related to that, are there examples of ideology-driven mass murder or extreme state-sponsored terror that have persisted beyond the initial establishment of the regime? We probably don't have enough evidence, but I'm willing to bet that the Aztec, Mayan and Inca cultures could teach us some lessons about this. In the case of the Aztec, they were preceeded by 2 other very bloody cultures, the Toltec and Olmec... Point being this stuff went on for generations. There are mass graves...nothing on the scale of Stalin's or Pol Pot's, but then what was... Anyway, it didn't necessarily fall off as the regime established itself; in fact it seemed to intensify. And I would say it was ideologically driven, in the same way that a theocracy would be ideologically driven. But there may be many other factors at work, some of which we do have evidence about but would be off-topic. In any event, it's worth looking at the old new world as well as Asia and Europe if we're going to generalize about communism as a uniquely atrocious ideology. South Africa persisted over generations as well.

4. What accounts for Serbia?

5. My guess is that the atrocities under Stalin were ideologically driven to the extent that they were enabled by a philosophy that the individual does not matter. Or that the mass doesn't matter, depending on how you look at it. Stalinism shared this view with autocracy. It's also a big piece of many Asian cultures. And certainly it played a role in German nationalism.

[klava1985]

6. Atrocities committed under capitalism...would those living in Africa or Latin America agree that capitalism is inherently less atrocious, I wonder? Is capitalism just better at outsourcing its atrocities? You could argue that these conditions were caused by Colonialism, which was propelled by Imperialism as much as by capitalism, but in the end it's about the extraction of resources with no regard for the costs at the point of extraction. And if capitalism is as atrocious, or at least qualifies for the line-up of atrocious characters, then is this a result of ideology, a stabilization attempt, or what?

6. On genocide. I don't think that's the right term for Stalin's mass murders, even though Stalin was happy to incorporate genocidal elements into his policies. I'd say that genocide was a component, but not a governing ideology. That's a nit, I suppose. I'd like to see that term preserved as referring to the specific cultural and/or physical annihilation of an ethnic group. Native America qualifies. Armenia qualifies. Bosnia qualifies. Rwanda qualifies. European Jewry qualifies. So we can discuss genocidal components of Stalinism, but it's not a logical consequence of Marxism-Leninism.

7. On the question of whether we were guaranteed a mass murderer following Lenin... leaving Trotsky out of it for the nonce, are we stuck with Stalin? Where does Stephen Cohen's work fit into this discussion? I thought he pretty much obliterated the argument that Stalin was a given post-Lenin, but then I haven't been paying attention for a couple of decades. Lenin spoke of collectivizing the peasantry and destroying resistance, but he was also interested in *successful* policies and there was of course the NEP. It's not a given that if he had lived longer he would have essentially been Stalin.

[klava1985]

8. On Stalin and the peasants... I don't think it was primarily ideology that made him as brutal. Control, and also just hatred. He hated peasants. They reminded him too much of himself.

9. That's another thing about Leninism-Stalinism and Nazism--both were ideologies of revenge, of turning the tables. And they were propelled to success by individuals who were *outraged*. Outraged, to some degree by the conditions of their countrymen, but to a greater degree by they fact that they did not have any power in the existing systems. Grandiose individuals with high IQs, or who thought they had higher IQs than the country's current rulers and ruling classes, certainly, on average, and who were marginalized. The system had no means of co-opting talent when it came from a petty nobleman or a peasant, let alone a failed art student... Read the journals of Columbine mass-murderer Eric Harris--everyone deserves to die *because they're stupider than me,* or even if they're smarter, I've got a gun and you'll have a window into Stalin's soul. Or psyche, anyhow. Not sure he had a soul.

10. On the question of how would history view Hitler if he had succeeded, well... that's a scary one. Look at the current approval ratings for Stalin in Russia today and you'll probably find your answer. It seems that many contemporary Russians believe that it was worth the price--just for the status of being a superpower, as far as I can tell. Why it's not all right to be, say, Sweden, and be relatively prosperous and stable without having to kill several million people, I don't know. 

[klava1985]

So, I am reading Montefignore's Young Stalin at the moment. It's horribly overwritten and overwrought, but it's got me thinking. How much of what happened to the USSR is due to ideology per se and how much due to gangsterism and thuggery, given that Lenin et al relied on these tactics/elements for funding?

[AGRBear]

http://www.gulagletters.com/

Letters from very real people who suffered under the communists lead by Stalin.

AGRBear