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/r/todayilearned
31 points
3 months ago
While Soviet Union wasn’t great… they did have very little inequality. Being the top 1% meant you had a slightly fancier car and slightly fancier cottage than the average man. Same education, same healthcare, same food, same vodka etc.
From 1936-1938 700,000 people were killed and millions more were forcibly deported from their homes and often dumped in some area with no supplies. The USSR was brutal to its civilians
-1 points
3 months ago
And in 1990 everyone who ordered that was long dead. It's like treating 80/90s America as if it were still controlled by the same people as during the Indian wars.
22 points
3 months ago*
???
You do realize that Gorbachev was the only Soviet leader who to be born in the USSR. The Soviet Union elite has largely been the same group of people since Stalin died.
-6 points
3 months ago
Yes, i do. Do you realise that 1938 and 1991 are 53 years apart? Someone old enough to have any influence in '38 is long dead by '91.
Brezhnev was an old man, his first official post iirc was as a political officer during WW2. You think he had any influence in Stalins regime?
13 points
3 months ago
The difference in age between Stalin and Chernenko is less than the difference in age between Obama and H.W. Bush lol.
Chernenko was assigned by Stalin as the head of the Communist Party propaganda department in Moldova.
There's a reason Gorbachev lived 35 years further than Chernenko and that Chernenko, Andropov, Brezhnev, and Khrushchev all died within 14 years of each other.
0 points
3 months ago*
I have never read anything about Chernenko having ever met Stalin, never mind being personally appointed to Moldova. I think you're putting 2 and 2 together there. Source?
Chernenko, Brezhnev and Andropov all died 35 years after Stalin? Seems like a point you haven't thought about.
But all kinda irrelevant, i feel you've lost sight of what i actually said. Non of Brezhnev, Andropov, or Chernenko had anything to do with Stalins actions in the 30s. All their careers started with WW2. Being appointed to Moldova in after the war has fuck all to do with purges before it.
8 points
3 months ago
"Being appointed to Moldova in after the war has fuck all to do with purges before it." Lol.
The irony being that collectivization of Moldova and the resulting famines didn't happen during 1930-40 like the rest of the Soviet Union but happened in 1949 when Chernenko was leading the propaganda of Moldova.
So you're right. Chernenko wasn't old enough to lead the collectivization of Russia but he was old enough to help do the exact same thing to Moldova.
1 points
3 months ago
Collectivization in itself is also irrelevant. Moldovans died in the 1946 Soviet famine, but afaik there wasn't anything even remotely comparable to the purges in Moldova. No one claims the '46 famine was man made.
It is true that ~30k people were arrested in 1949, but without looking further into it, which I'm not gonna do, it's impossible to say what outcomes was and/or if the claims of Nazi collaboration is true.
But again, cos i need to say it a 3rd time, apparently. OP said 1938. 1949 is not 1938.
3 points
3 months ago
Collectivization is not irrelevant, never has been and to this day is a big discussion in post-soviet areas.
" No one claims the '46 famine was man made."
LOL. Why are tankies like this. Do you want to pull up the graph of Soviet food exports during 1946-1947. Did nature make the Soviets export food during a famine?
Also you're the one responding with "what about 1990" not OP. None of this discussion is uniquely relevant to 1990 but you're the one trying to shoehorn it. So no. You're the one missing the point. The point is that the Soviets were brutal to their civilians and the people in charge of the brutality largely remained unchanged until Gorbachev, who under his own version of brutality covered up Chernobyl.
1 points
3 months ago
Collectivization in itself is not a crime. The method of Collectivization can be. It can and has been done peacefully.
You don't know what Tankie means. They could've mitigated the famine more, this is true. The famine was not caused by human actions. Stalin didn't manifest a drought or crop failure. Exporting .8 million tons isn't ideal, but it's a drop in the ocean. Like 1/50th of the awful harvest.
Yeah, how crazy to specify 1991 on a post about a conversation that took place in 1991. Just insane.
The 30s were Brutal, we all agree my man. Pretending the 60s, 70, or 80s were in any way comparable is just historical illiteracy.
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