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History of the Gulag: From Collectivization To the Great Terror
January 15, 2007 - 7:24am
[Edited title to the thread to reflect the book we're ACTUALLY talking about.]
[ 16 January 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
Powell books.com
I see he has records of the number of dead:
Interestingly, he apparently argues that the Gulag was specifically Stalinist. At least, that's what I glean from this review, which emphasizes Stalin's role, and doesn't mention Lenin at all.
http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/9525.html
If that were true, then the Soviet project would not be irretrievably contaminated by repression, and a kernel of revolutionary purity could be pointed to as the real, or the valid, revolution.
It certainly is contrary to what Solzhenitsyn wrote, as he argued that a system of slave-labour and murder camps were an integral part of the Soviet system, from start to finish.
As for the record of dead, as he acounts for it, he is very careful to dilineate the difference between the dead that can be accounted for by reviewing the archived Soviet Material, while at the same noting the areas where there was room for likely and substantial distoritions.
You type better and with more authority when you put you hatchet, or whatever it is that you are holding in your hand, down.
For instance did you ever read anything of what I ever wrote on this site about Lenins notions about Democratic Centralism as the essential element contributing to the rise of Stalanism, on this web site?
No? I didn't think so.
My critique was detailed and lengthy, and I am not going to repeat it here, now, for you as I have made it numerously on this site, and you are obviously not really interested in doing much more than outing "Bolshies" of your own imaginings, because I had the temerity to defend communists and call Louise Arbour a ninny.
And this, when I had thought that job of a civil rights lawyer was defending people from unfair persecution and defamation, not pursuing spurious accusations against them based on little to no information.
Thanks.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
I didn't accuse you of anything at all.
Then we agree, I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the communist party, right?
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
I simply referred him to my past postings on the nature of Democratic Centralism, and Leninism. He was the one who raised the issue of Leninism and its relationship to Stalanism in the first place, after all, so I thought those might be instructive.
But, I then suggested that the reason that he hadn't read them already was perhaps because he is far more interested in "outing reds," than actually reading what people say, especially if they happen to do things like challenge the NATO narrative on the Bosnian war and the activties of the ICTY. I referred to, as you put it, "the past."
It all seems fair and reasonable to me.
I also, in passing, complimented him on having put his hatchet down, or whatever else it was he was holding, and that he was typing better and with more authority now that he had.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
He said he was reading a book, and I said it looked interesting.
Apparently, this makes Cuebby laugh maniacally.
I wish him a nice day.
Ok.
As for the book, so far Khlevniuk, has not said anything that I would call a critical theoretical analysis of the relationship between Stalin's practice and Lenin's thought. He seems mostly interested in building up a picture of the events themselves, their purpose and how they were organized, not abstractions about theory and practice.
Disingenuous? I was flat out lying.
Be that as it may, I detected a tenor to Jeff's "innocent" questions, which had the ugly tinge of some of what has gone before, so I decided to protest my innocence as well. I thought rather that he was dragging in the past, as it were.
Perhaps I was wrong, but another example of Jeff mounting "innocent" questions of this type was he asking me, "what the Communist Party line was," on the recent bombing of Somalia was in the thread on that subject, as if I would know.
So, no I don't think Jeff's questions are always as innocent as they seem.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
WSWS
Generally a good point, and clever too, in terms of some critiques, but a straw man in my case.
This because I would argue that a proper Marxist critique based in a dialectical materialist analysis would include "outcomes of the unfolding of Bolshevik ideology," as an expression of social relations defined by the material conditions.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
Doesn't everyone believe that actions have partially predictable consequences? If you create a rigid, top-down party, won't you end up with excesses committed by the Leader whose orders cannot be opposed?
Maybe it isn't "inexorable", but it's pretty damn likely to occur. It is not necessary to "resort to the most extreme determinism" to think that bad decisions will have serious negative consequences in the long run.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
I suppose the same was said of Hitler and his entourage. We know about the corporate feeding frenzy in Berlin during the buildup of the Nazi war machine. But the first German-inspired coup plot against the fuhrer before the outbreak of war is not well known, and the plotters made their pleas for assistance as far away as the embassy in London leading up to war. Hitler's security was always assured of by a well-trained and loyal Praetorian guard, the SS. Surely Stalin delegated routine sentencing and murder to a top-down hierarchy of loyal executioners?.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
A good review of the Khlevniuk book which includes information on this question can be found here:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.cgi?path=306101138032746
According to the review, Khlevniuk's review of the archives leads him to believe that
"repression and terror were always initiated and supervised from Moscow, and Stalin's role was active and decisive."
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]
I think it is a good review of the book, however, having read most of it now, I would hardly single out the phrase you have as exemplary of the boook, because it gives a false impression of what the book and, incidentally, the review of the book are about.
Instead I would focus on the real issue the book discusses which is the actual mechanism and purposes of the Gulag, so this paragraph, more accurately summarizes the content of the book, though it too is conjectural.
Note that Khlevniuk does not venture an overall estimate. And is he not right to do so, since no one will ever truly be able to make a comprehensive and final estimate. Rather he has concerned himself with something that no one has done before or was able to do before, which is review the actual archival material available.
This will no doubt be of use to many people regardless of there theoretical stand. For no matter what their are plenty of grounds for dispute given that there is a natural a common arguement about wherein the total number of people killed in famine of 1931-32 truly count among the intentional victims of Stalanist Russia, and how that intentionality or lack of it accords in terms of asssesing responsibility.
That question will always be argued, and Khlevniuk rightly avoids it, in my view, as this has been hashed over again and again infinitely, and making determinations of this sort, not his ojective. Instead Khlevniuk tries as much as possible to make an objective schollarly assessment of the "facts" including what remains of the official record, which he treats with much circumspection.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
They weren't as efficient as Eichmann and the Einsatsgruppen over a shorter period, but Kaganovitch and Yagoda administered and delegated the mass murder of several million Russians, well over ten million I believe.
Life was difficult in the gulags. Pay and bonuses for production were meagre. Food was rationed but far moreso I think after 1941. They were short of food all over Russia during the 1930's by what I've been told by two Jewish people, older friends of my parents. Many Jews actually credited Stalin for their survival because they were in Siberia at the time. Some professionals, like doctors, even volunteered to go. And many volunteered for the Russian front during the war.
Yes.
Lets not forget that the obstensible purpose of the anti-kulak campaign was to "destroy the Kulaks, as a class."
This doesn't necessarily mean the extermination of them as people, though it is clear that CPSU had no compunction in physically elminating dissenting person, or putting them in circumstance (mass deportation to the east) where they were vulnerable (quite precicatbly) to the extremely adverse conditions of the Soviet hinterland.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]
The definition of Kulaks isn't even a communist creation, it exists in pre-soviet times under the Czars.
This exists seperately from the effort of the CPSU to collectivize everyone, including any peasants, whereas Kulaks were afforded a special status which was less beneficial to their prospects, and often resulted in internal deportation, as opposed to local collectivization.
[ 15 January 2007: Message edited by: Cueball ]