So, over the past year I have learnt so much about the amazing achievements these men (and the party they were the leaders of) did that I was never taught. I’ve ‘semi-intentionally’ deprogrammed myself of so much anti-communism bullshit while having to live with that most still in the West, based upon misinformation, view them as ‘evil, 100 quintillion deaths, dictator, psychopath where muh freedoms’.
The reason I am focusing on Stalin and Mao in particular in this post is, to be very open, due to a truth-seeking hyperfixation that I must satisfy so I can move on to the next topic of intense, dopamine chasing, obsession. Yeah I love being me. Anyway, propaganda, mythologising, exaggerating and misattributed blame brushed aside, what is left?
I am quite knowledgeable of, thanks to some high quality M-L documentaries, educational videos and podcast episodes, the more obvious wrongdoings such as the Great Leap Forward killing of pests worsening the famine, purges of comrades who were legitimately innocent, re-criminalising homosexuality, support of Khmer Rouge and ethnic deportations to name a few.
I wouldn’t mind hearing more obscure examples, or a deeper analysis of the mistakes and unjustifiable actions I am already aware of. And as much as a few good book recommendations probably would give me the answers I crave, I am lowkey illiterate with long-form reading thanks to my ADHD (still waiting on meds after being diagnosed 8 months ago).
Can’t give you more examples that you aren’t already aware of, but just wanted to argue that within the historical context, most of these actions are somewhat justifiable i think.
Only in hindsight, with the information we have today, we wouldn’t support most of those actions. For example, as far as i know, they did gather information from farmers on how to fix the issue, the farmers themselves were just not knowledgeable enough about the ecological impact. So, they did everything right and asked the people that have the most authority and knowledge, but this specific knowledge was just not available to them in the first place and the famine got worse.
In this case, there is no way to not make this same mistake if we are in the same situation of our most knowledgeable people not having enough information and being under immense pressure to act now with the information we have.
The ethnic deportations seem to be contested. From what i have seen is that there are two camps on this. The first camp says that there have been rising numbers of fascist collaborators within those groups and that the deportations during war time and immediately after were a chance that they just weren’t willing to take, as it could have done irreversible damage to the union.
The second camp is more like “ethnic deportation bad, unless 100% justified due to guaranteed worse outcome if not done”. That would be the case for when the union moved a bunch of jews from their home because they were about to be invaded by the nazis there and the soviets couldn’t defend that area. They see those other ethnic deportations by the USSR more like what the USA did with asian people due to fear of collaborating with japan.
‘Would you, with the knowledge available to you at the time, with the pressure to act and primary goal of maintaining the socialist project have made a different decision?’ Is something people really need to ask themselves before they judge so much.
Wrt the ethnic deportations of Tartars, Chechens, and I’m sure others that I cannot think the names of rn, I’m of the opinion that it was a policy failure on Stalin’s/Politburo’s part. Like, I hear what you’re saying that it’s not dissimilar to USian detainment of Japanese Americans, but I think most people here will agree thay was pure racism from FDR and his administration. To the OP, a bit of a problem is that the best scholarship engages with the primary sources (as in most historical study), all of which are in Russian and/or the languages of the various SSRs. So if you’re looking for English-language books, you’re already kinda hamstrung.
Probably unpopular opinion to plug a lib source, but Sean’s Russia Blog (having trouble getting a link to work, here’s a UPitt link. I include cause I think it’s important to note he’s an academic: https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/schoolsandcommunity/resources/seans-russia-blog-and-podcast) is a good place to start. I took his class years ago, he’s a good dude (I think, I ain’t his biographer). I specifically took a course on Stalinism with him, so he’s got lots of sources on that.
Good luck in your journey, the study of history is always worthwhile!
I think there was some level of racism involved in the USSR deportations, but also resentment from Nazi collaborators increased that racism factor. So it was like collective punishment for the crime of some collaborators, or for the possible existence of collaborators among their ranks.
I have yet to read any source for racism playing any part in those deportations. It also was not thought of as punishment for colllaborating, but rather a very pragmatic decision that does the least harm and reduces the potential danger of further collaboration as far as i know.
I don’t know if they ever wrote down their thought process for these decisions, but mine would be “these collaborators are dangerous to the socialist project and need to be removed. Can we kill them? No, we do not know exactly who it is and how widespread the problem already is. Can we kill all of them? No, that would be unquestionably evil and reactionary. Can we move all of them?..Maybe”
I do think racism played a part because during a long time Russian ethnic superiority was part of the major consciousness of the population. During tsarist rule ethnical minorities were mistreated, and many times forbidden to have their cultural practices.
While we saw during Stalin’s period many steps to overcome these prejudices, such as restoration of many of these many nations languages, this prejudiced past don’t disappear overnight. So, while I do think there was some pragmatism involved, I don’t discard the idea of collective punishment. Not to mention these deportations didn’t occur in the best conditions, people had to walk for long distances with their families (which could have children, elderly and sickly people) and not everyone made it to the end. I also think there was resistance in the process as well.
For the people that downvoted me, I’m not trying to demonize the Soviets like the average liberal. If any people have more skeletons in the closet than anyone, these are the Western liberals and Westerns in general. But what I mean is that the USSR wasn’t perfect, there was a historical precedent, and it wasn’t like the existence of socialism made disappear all prejudices overnight.
Good post.
On the subject of deportations, I get the feeling that those who reduce it to mere unjustified paranoia and racism are not from Eastern Europe and don’t know the full extent of our murderous and intensely reactionary petty nationalisms where everyone wants their own ethnostate and hates the Soviet Union for attempting to civilize them. While you can argue that as a collective punishment it was unjust, there was a very real danger that anyone familiar with the history of the region should understand. In face of the existential threat of fascist invasion, I can’t in good conscience say that I would have done something different nor do I feel comfortable casting judgement from the comfort of hindsight.