That’s extremely vague and could easily describe Nazis, who, as others have stated, absolutely deserved to be killed. Do you have any names? Events? Places? Timespans? Anything beyond unnamed “political opponents” and “military figures”?
According to declassified Intel from the soviet union after it’s fall there was a recorded amount of deaths of 3.3 million with approximately 1 million of them being on purpose and the rest due to neglect. You telling me they were all Nazis?
Which declassified intel? Again with the vagueness. Got a link to this intel so we can all read it and decide for ourselves what it says instead of just taking your word for it?
Wheatcroft, Stephen G. (1999). “Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. Not the Last Word” (PDF). Europe-Asia Studies. 51 (2): 315–45. doi:10.1080/09668139999056. “During 1921–53, the number of sentences was (political convictions): sentences, 4,060,306; death penalties, 799,473; camps and prisons, 2,634397; exile, 413,512; other, 215,942. In addition, during 1937–52 there were 14,269,753 non-political sentences, among them 34,228 death penalties, 2,066,637 sentences for 0–1 year, 4,362,973 for 2–5 years, 1,611,293 for 6–10 years, and 286,795 for more than 10 years. Other sentences were non-custodial”
So, from those quotes from a book you haven’t read, the number killed would be 800,000 over a period of 30 years. And around 10 million imprisoned. Over 30 years, so on average less than 400,000 per year in a country with a population of around 150 million. And this is including much of the fallout of the civil war and overlaps with WWII.
This led to a lower incarceration rate than the United States today.
Note also that the term “political” is used to discriminate the sentences and this is presumably what is being conflated with a politically motivated “Stalinist” purge. But how do you know that it is? Was Stalin in power in 1921? What counted as political? What of the bureaucracy or the party? Or was it just all Stalin and his big evil pen signing millions of sentences?
Why would I read and refute something you can’t even be arsed to read? You’ve already got two responses, which is two more than what you deserve for “citing” (very heavy air quotes) the first book with a somewhat usable title, the contents of which you still don’t know, nor do you know anything about the validity of the work or its authors.
And meanwhile you gave me a source from before the bulk of Stalins leadership to educate me. If you had taken the time to actually read it yourself you would have noted its irrelevance to this conversation as well as the overall topic.
What are you talking about?
I haven’t made any claims towards a specific period, you asked for reading material and I presented some to you. Of this I gave you material that was an indepth detailing of the soviet gulag system up to world war 2, and several other pieces of reading material. You asked what you were supposed to read and I gave you some pointers, does your elevator not go all the way to the top or?
Austin Murphy’s book The Triumph of Evil (Page 74):
Long Quote
The claim that Stalin and other Soviet leaders killed millions (Conquest, 1990) also appears to be wildly exaggerated. More recent evidence from the Soviet archives opened up by the anticommunist Yeltsin government indicate that the total number of death sentences (including of both existing prisoners and those outside captivity) over the 1921-1953 interval (covering the period of Stalin’s partial and complete rule) was between 775,866 and 786,098 (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). Given that the archive data originates from anti-Stalin (and even anticommunist) sources, it is extremely unlikely that they underestimate the true number (Thurston, 1996). In addition, the Soviet Union has long admitted to executing at least 12,733 people between 1917 and 1921, mostly during the Foreign Interventionist Civil War of 1918-22, although it is possible that as many as 40,000 more may have been executed unofficially (Andics, 1969). These data would seem to imply about 800,000 executions. The figure of 800,000 may greatly overestimate the number of actual executions, as it includes many who were sentenced to death but who were not actually caught or who had their sentences reduced (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). In fact, Vinton (1993) has provided evidence indicating that the number of executions was significantly below the number of civilian prisoners sentenced to death in the Soviet Union, with only 7,305 executions in a sample of 11,000 prisoners authorized to be executed in 1940 (or scarcely 60%). In addition, most (681,692) of the 780,000 or so death sentences passed under Stalin were issued during the 1937-38 period (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), when Soviet paranoia about foreign subversion reached its zenith due to a 1936 alliance between Nazi Germany and fascist Japan that was specifically directed against the Soviet Union (Manning, 1993) and due to a public 1936 resolution by a group of influential anti-Stalin foreigners (the Fourth International which was allied with the popular but exiled Russian dissident Leo Trotsky) advocating the overthrow of the Soviet government by illegal means (Glotzer, 1968). Stalin initially set a cap of 186,500 imprisonments and 72,950 death penalties for a 1937 special operation to combat this threat that was to be carried out by local 3-man tribunals called ''troikas" (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). As the tribunals passed death sentences before the accused had even been arrested, local authorities requested increases in their own quotas (Knight, 1993), and there was an official request in 1938 for a doubling of the amount of prisoner transport that had been initially requisitioned to carry out the original campaign “quotas” of the tribunals (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). However, even if there had been twice as many actual executions as originally planned, the number would still be less than 150,000. Many of those sentenced by the tribunals may have escaped capture, and many more may have had their death sentence refused or revoked by higher authorities before arrest/execution could take place, especially since Stalin later realized that excesses had been committed in the 1937-38 period, had a number of convictions overturned, and had many of the responsible local leaders punished (Thurston, 1996). Soviet records indicate only about 300,000 actual arrests for anti-Soviet activities or political crimes during this 1937-38 interval (Davies, 1997). With a ratio of 1 execution for every 3 arrests as originally specified by Stalin, that figure would imply about 100,000 executions. Since some of the people sentenced to death may have already been in confinement, and since there is some evidence of a 50,000 increase in the total number of deaths in labor camps over the 1937-38 interval that was probably caused by such executions (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), the total number executed by the troika campaign would probably be around 150,000. There were also 30,514 death sentences passed by military courts and 4,387 by regular courts during the 1937-38 period, but, even if all these death sentences were carried out, the total number remains under 200,000. Such a “low” number seems especially likely given the fact that aggregate death rates (from all causes) throughout the Soviet Union were actually lower in 1937-38 than in prior years (Wheatcroft, 1993). Assuming the remaining 100,000 or so death sentences passed in the other years of Stalin’s reign (i.e., 1921-36 and 1939-53) resulted in a 60% execution rate, as per the Vinton (1993) sample, the total number executed by Stalin’s Soviet Union would be about 250,000. Even with the thousands executed between 1917 and 1921, it is plausible that the number of unarmed civilians killed between 1917-1953 amounted to considerably less than a quarter million given that thousands of these victims may have been Soviet soldiers (Freeze, 1997), given that some may have been armed bandits and guerrillas (Getty, 1985), and given that at least 14,000 of the actual executions were of foreign POWs (Vinton, 1993). A USA former attache to the Soviet Union, George Kennan, has stated that the number executed was really only in the tens of thousands (Smith, 2000), and so it is very likely that the true number of unarmed civilians killed by the Soviet Union over its entire history (including the thousands killed in Afghanistan more recently) is too small for the country to make the top ten in mass murders.
Where’s your outrage at capitalists then, cac? The magnitude of capitalism’s four fucking times your bullshit settler’s-encyclopedia-sourced figure; but you can only fix your face to talk about the spooky scary (extinct) soviets.
That’s extremely vague and could easily describe Nazis, who, as others have stated, absolutely deserved to be killed. Do you have any names? Events? Places? Timespans? Anything beyond unnamed “political opponents” and “military figures”?
According to declassified Intel from the soviet union after it’s fall there was a recorded amount of deaths of 3.3 million with approximately 1 million of them being on purpose and the rest due to neglect. You telling me they were all Nazis?
Which declassified intel? Again with the vagueness. Got a link to this intel so we can all read it and decide for ourselves what it says instead of just taking your word for it?
Wheatcroft, Stephen G. (1999). “Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. Not the Last Word” (PDF). Europe-Asia Studies. 51 (2): 315–45. doi:10.1080/09668139999056. “During 1921–53, the number of sentences was (political convictions): sentences, 4,060,306; death penalties, 799,473; camps and prisons, 2,634397; exile, 413,512; other, 215,942. In addition, during 1937–52 there were 14,269,753 non-political sentences, among them 34,228 death penalties, 2,066,637 sentences for 0–1 year, 4,362,973 for 2–5 years, 1,611,293 for 6–10 years, and 286,795 for more than 10 years. Other sentences were non-custodial”
So, from those quotes from a book you haven’t read, the number killed would be 800,000 over a period of 30 years. And around 10 million imprisoned. Over 30 years, so on average less than 400,000 per year in a country with a population of around 150 million. And this is including much of the fallout of the civil war and overlaps with WWII.
This led to a lower incarceration rate than the United States today.
Note also that the term “political” is used to discriminate the sentences and this is presumably what is being conflated with a politically motivated “Stalinist” purge. But how do you know that it is? Was Stalin in power in 1921? What counted as political? What of the bureaucracy or the party? Or was it just all Stalin and his big evil pen signing millions of sentences?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin#cite_note-13
You haven’t read the source you’re citing. I learned this trick in 6th grade. I grew out of it in 8th. It’s a cheap trick and incredibly obvious.
Yeah I read the summary of it. You’re welcome to explain why you think it’s wrong.
Why would I read and refute something you can’t even be arsed to read? You’ve already got two responses, which is two more than what you deserve for “citing” (very heavy air quotes) the first book with a somewhat usable title, the contents of which you still don’t know, nor do you know anything about the validity of the work or its authors.
And meanwhile you gave me a source from before the bulk of Stalins leadership to educate me. If you had taken the time to actually read it yourself you would have noted its irrelevance to this conversation as well as the overall topic.
What are you talking about?
I haven’t made any claims towards a specific period, you asked for reading material and I presented some to you. Of this I gave you material that was an indepth detailing of the soviet gulag system up to world war 2, and several other pieces of reading material. You asked what you were supposed to read and I gave you some pointers, does your elevator not go all the way to the top or?
Austin Murphy’s book The Triumph of Evil (Page 74):
Long Quote
The claim that Stalin and other Soviet leaders killed millions (Conquest, 1990) also appears to be wildly exaggerated. More recent evidence from the Soviet archives opened up by the anticommunist Yeltsin government indicate that the total number of death sentences (including of both existing prisoners and those outside captivity) over the 1921-1953 interval (covering the period of Stalin’s partial and complete rule) was between 775,866 and 786,098 (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). Given that the archive data originates from anti-Stalin (and even anticommunist) sources, it is extremely unlikely that they underestimate the true number (Thurston, 1996). In addition, the Soviet Union has long admitted to executing at least 12,733 people between 1917 and 1921, mostly during the Foreign Interventionist Civil War of 1918-22, although it is possible that as many as 40,000 more may have been executed unofficially (Andics, 1969). These data would seem to imply about 800,000 executions. The figure of 800,000 may greatly overestimate the number of actual executions, as it includes many who were sentenced to death but who were not actually caught or who had their sentences reduced (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). In fact, Vinton (1993) has provided evidence indicating that the number of executions was significantly below the number of civilian prisoners sentenced to death in the Soviet Union, with only 7,305 executions in a sample of 11,000 prisoners authorized to be executed in 1940 (or scarcely 60%). In addition, most (681,692) of the 780,000 or so death sentences passed under Stalin were issued during the 1937-38 period (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), when Soviet paranoia about foreign subversion reached its zenith due to a 1936 alliance between Nazi Germany and fascist Japan that was specifically directed against the Soviet Union (Manning, 1993) and due to a public 1936 resolution by a group of influential anti-Stalin foreigners (the Fourth International which was allied with the popular but exiled Russian dissident Leo Trotsky) advocating the overthrow of the Soviet government by illegal means (Glotzer, 1968). Stalin initially set a cap of 186,500 imprisonments and 72,950 death penalties for a 1937 special operation to combat this threat that was to be carried out by local 3-man tribunals called ''troikas" (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). As the tribunals passed death sentences before the accused had even been arrested, local authorities requested increases in their own quotas (Knight, 1993), and there was an official request in 1938 for a doubling of the amount of prisoner transport that had been initially requisitioned to carry out the original campaign “quotas” of the tribunals (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). However, even if there had been twice as many actual executions as originally planned, the number would still be less than 150,000. Many of those sentenced by the tribunals may have escaped capture, and many more may have had their death sentence refused or revoked by higher authorities before arrest/execution could take place, especially since Stalin later realized that excesses had been committed in the 1937-38 period, had a number of convictions overturned, and had many of the responsible local leaders punished (Thurston, 1996). Soviet records indicate only about 300,000 actual arrests for anti-Soviet activities or political crimes during this 1937-38 interval (Davies, 1997). With a ratio of 1 execution for every 3 arrests as originally specified by Stalin, that figure would imply about 100,000 executions. Since some of the people sentenced to death may have already been in confinement, and since there is some evidence of a 50,000 increase in the total number of deaths in labor camps over the 1937-38 interval that was probably caused by such executions (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), the total number executed by the troika campaign would probably be around 150,000. There were also 30,514 death sentences passed by military courts and 4,387 by regular courts during the 1937-38 period, but, even if all these death sentences were carried out, the total number remains under 200,000. Such a “low” number seems especially likely given the fact that aggregate death rates (from all causes) throughout the Soviet Union were actually lower in 1937-38 than in prior years (Wheatcroft, 1993). Assuming the remaining 100,000 or so death sentences passed in the other years of Stalin’s reign (i.e., 1921-36 and 1939-53) resulted in a 60% execution rate, as per the Vinton (1993) sample, the total number executed by Stalin’s Soviet Union would be about 250,000. Even with the thousands executed between 1917 and 1921, it is plausible that the number of unarmed civilians killed between 1917-1953 amounted to considerably less than a quarter million given that thousands of these victims may have been Soviet soldiers (Freeze, 1997), given that some may have been armed bandits and guerrillas (Getty, 1985), and given that at least 14,000 of the actual executions were of foreign POWs (Vinton, 1993). A USA former attache to the Soviet Union, George Kennan, has stated that the number executed was really only in the tens of thousands (Smith, 2000), and so it is very likely that the true number of unarmed civilians killed by the Soviet Union over its entire history (including the thousands killed in Afghanistan more recently) is too small for the country to make the top ten in mass murders.
Well according to declassified intel they were all concentration camps guards each and every one of them
Where’s your outrage at capitalists then, cac? The magnitude of capitalism’s four fucking times your bullshit settler’s-encyclopedia-sourced figure; but you can only fix your face to talk about the spooky scary (extinct) soviets.
4000 times, actually, and 12 times even the Black Book’s grossly inflated numbers for all communist countries!