Cowbee [he/they]

Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us

He/him or they/them, doesn’t matter too much

Marxist-Leninist ☭

Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don’t know where to start? Check out my Marxist-Leninist study guides, both basic and advanced!

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  • 18 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: December 31st, 2023
  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mltoShowerthoughts@lemmy.world•The same people who rage against authority love moderating communities where their ideology is the only one allowed
    42·
    1 month ago

    Rimu considers the viewpoint that the 1930s famine in the soviet union being a combination of mismanagement and adverse weather conditions, rather than a deliberate targeting of ethnic groups, to be “genocide denial” and thus worthy of total censorship. This is despite the fact that the mainstream contemporary opinion on the 1930s famine even among reputable liberal historians is that it was as I said.

    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.

    This, to Rimu, is considered to be genocide denial. This is despite Wikipedia’s own acknowledgement that “scholars continue to debate whether the human-made Soviet famine was a central act in a campaign of genocide,[169] or a tragic byproduct of rapid Soviet industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture.[170]:”

    Other historians such as Michael Ellman consider the Holodomor a crime against humanity, but do not classify it as a genocide.[181] Economist Steven Rosefielde and historian Robert Conquest consider the death toll to be primarily due to state policy, and poor harvests.[182] Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Conquest was granted access to the Soviet state archives alongside other western academics.[183] In 2004, Wheatcroft published a private correspondence that he had with Conquest. In the exchange, Conquest wrote that he is now of the opinion that the Holodomor was not purposefully inflicted by Stalin but “what I argue is that with resulting famine imminent, he could have prevented it, but put ‘Soviet interest’ other than feeding the starving first – thus consciously abetting it”.[184] In an interview recorded in 2006 Conquest stated the Holodomor should be recognized as an attack on the Ukrainian people and discussed problems with the use of the term genocide.[185]

    Robert Davies, Stephen Kotkin, Stephen Wheatcroft and J. Arch Getty reject the notion that Stalin intentionally wanted to kill Ukrainians, but conclude that Stalinist policies and widespread incompetence among government officials set the stage for famine in Ukraine and other Soviet republics.[186][187][108] Anne Applebaum believes that the famine was planned to undermine Ukrainian identity but discusses how shifts in understanding of the term genocide mean that it is more difficult to apply now that it was when the term was initially conceived. Another argument she puts forward is that the question of genocide is not as important as it once was because it was a proxy debate about Ukraine and Ukrainians’ right to exist, a right which no longer needs historic justification.[188]

    Further, Rimu repeats the far-right McCain Institute talking points about supposed “organ harvesting” in China towards the far-right Falun Gong cult:

    And this is despite the fact [that no supporting evidence for this conspiracy theory has been found](Here’s an example of investigating claims made by the Falun Gong about organ harvesting, with no evidence found, even from western investigation.)

    Overall, Rimu in particular promotes an unquestioning, dogmatic view of history that goes well beyond what’s considered definitive even in the west. Rimu also therefore uses the admin position of PieFed.social to silence any reasonable, developed dissent, no matter how well-sourced.

    Was that specific enough?