Stalin era famine..?
That’s very tame:
Stalin INDUCED famine, completely deliberate.
Holodomor is great victory for noble people’s socialisma plan, nyet, comrade?
The Clinton Era of American History commenced circa 1978.
It’s now 2018 or 40 fn years later. Ask yourself if your trust in Uncle Sam has increased or decreased during that timeframe.
So, when our State Department says Stalin “intentionally” starved millions of his own people, what’s your first reaction? Do you believe Stalin or do you believe our State Department?
Arguably, our State Department has lied to us more than Stalin.
That’s my SAD point!
I can understand why the Ukraine government is angling to tie the Holodomor to the Russian Government. Nations in conflict take every opportunity to besmirch each other.
However, it is intellectually dishonest to do so.
The Holodomor was not a genocide of ethnic Ukrainians directed by ethnic Russians. It had nothing at all to do with ethnicity. The Holodomor was the consequence of communism: Lenin and Stalin wanted rapid industrialization in the cities and the kolkohz communal farm system in rural areas. Successful kulaks were not keen to have their lands, herds, and farm equipment collectivized. So, Stalin killed all the successful kulaks so they couldn’t put up resistance. The remaining farmers were those who figured they would benefit from collectivization; in other words, peasants who were at best mediocre, but overwhelmingly lazy and/or stupid. But, when they couldn’t manage to harvest crops like the eradicated kulaks had done before, they didn’t have enough food to send to the cities. So Stalin had to seize their food to support his industrialization plans.
The Holodomor did not just involve the Ukraine; all USSR peasants were affected in much the same way.
It is intellectually dishonest for the US to tie the Holodomor to the current row between Russia and Ukraine. It would be productive to commemorate the Holodomor by portraying it a completely predictable consequence of Marxism.