Joseph Stalin once said "A single death is a tragedy. Millions of deaths are a statistic". A recent documentary on the History Channel about Stalin called STALIN: DECLASSIFIED has gotten me thinking about the collectivized famine that took place in the Ukraine between 1929-1933. The reasons for the man-made famine are complex, which is why I am reading a book written by Robert Conquest on the subject called HARVEST OF SORROW (link attached). Conservative estimates put the death toll between these years at 14.5 million. 14.5 million people were forcibly starved to death in order to create "paradise on earth". This is insane!!! Am I the only one whose heart sinks when I hear this? Why is it that, as a nation, we really have not discussed this tragedy? We talk endlessly about the Holocaust, and try to do our best to learn the valuable lessons from that tragedy. Yet, this horror has proven the Stalin quote above true. We all know millions of people died. But that's all we know. I will write more on this subject matter later in more detail. It is about time the story of the peasant's suffering be told.
2 comments:
does the quote you start with portray a sympathetic stalin or a cold and indifferent stalin?
indeed, the famine you talk about, also known as the "holodomar" (great hunger) is one of the lesser known human atrocities of the last century.
perhaps you should address the broader topic - genocide. you should also look at what happened in bosnia not long ago, rowanda in the 90's, what's currently happening in sudan, in the late 1800's under the control of king leopold of belgium, millions of congolese were heinously murdered, the great bengal famine that killed millions in the early '40's etc.
maybe as interesting as the broader topic of genocide would be examining what it is about the human condition that allows these cruel events to take place.
When I write more on the subject, I will explain Stalin for what he was...a cold hearted, evil mass murderer.
I think you touch upon something very intersting. I saw a documentary once on genocide, but it was not very good. I wish a documentary, the like of Ken Burn's PBS documentary of the Civil War, could be done the subject. I think it is important that we understand what people are capable of. Especially, as you mentioned, because of the genocides that have taken place in recent years in Rwanda and the Sudan. We are STILL in denial. We are STILL ignoring it.
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