It doesn’t matter if he personally loved every single Ukrainian that died, the fact is that even if you believe everything that was done to mitigate it was a best effort, and that everything that led to the union at large being essentially helpless to feed its people was an accident, it still paints the picture of a big talker that managed a country into the ground.
At best, in the most forgiving light, Stalin was an incompetent head of state, regardless of how smart he was, and was responsible for a lot of people who died reaching out their hands begging for help while he pulled out his pockets and shrugged. And that would have been the end of it, but no, he goes and waxes poetically about how starving people don’t have freedom while the graves are still fresh.
Uh huh so by your logic then every world leader that exists, has existed, and will exist is a genocidal monster on the same level of Stalin because there’s always some form of poverty in the world.
it still paints the picture of a big talker that managed a country into the ground.
I suppose if you squint at it and ignore all the other stuff sure? But the problems with famine relief were mainly local and partially caused by kulak sabotage (and they bragged about how effective that sabotage was, you can look it up), when the central committee understood the extent of the problem measures were quickly taken.
If we look at other facts though, like how successful collective farming was at breaking the cycle of famine and how rapidly the Soviets were able to industrialize, quick enough to defeat nazi-ism lose 1/6 of their population in the fight and still make it to space before anyone else, it paints a much better picture of the competence of soviet democratic economic management.
Because the rapid industrialization and according massive reorganization of the economy and productive capacity of the country was messy and imperfect. And also because famines are only really uncommon in already industrialized economies.
In addition civil war, kulaks burning food, imperfect management science (Taylorism which had problems with adjusting controlling to the reality on the ground), natural disasters and bad climate for crops. For example even when harvest was going on in plenty of areas the weather was too damp to gather crops at the ideal point in time which greatly diminishes your harvest. The same process could be seen this year in Europe.
The UK did embargo the Soviet Union till Lenin’s NEP and similar things did happen regularly, this means that international finance and industrial capital would’ve often sought other countries in which they didn’t have to fear such things, too. This means that the Soviet Union had to try to generate capital from other sources and those are the the surplus of the working class or the savings of people (vs. consumption).
It doesn’t matter if he personally loved every single Ukrainian that died, the fact is that even if you believe everything that was done to mitigate it was a best effort, and that everything that led to the union at large being essentially helpless to feed its people was an accident, it still paints the picture of a big talker that managed a country into the ground.
At best, in the most forgiving light, Stalin was an incompetent head of state, regardless of how smart he was, and was responsible for a lot of people who died reaching out their hands begging for help while he pulled out his pockets and shrugged. And that would have been the end of it, but no, he goes and waxes poetically about how starving people don’t have freedom while the graves are still fresh.
Uh huh so by your logic then every world leader that exists, has existed, and will exist is a genocidal monster on the same level of Stalin because there’s always some form of poverty in the world.
At least you’re consistent with your dumb take.
I suppose if you squint at it and ignore all the other stuff sure? But the problems with famine relief were mainly local and partially caused by kulak sabotage (and they bragged about how effective that sabotage was, you can look it up), when the central committee understood the extent of the problem measures were quickly taken.
If we look at other facts though, like how successful collective farming was at breaking the cycle of famine and how rapidly the Soviets were able to industrialize, quick enough to defeat nazi-ism lose 1/6 of their population in the fight and still make it to space before anyone else, it paints a much better picture of the competence of soviet democratic economic management.
From 1928 to 1939 (the period of full planning pre-war) industrial output increased 350%.
Then why did people starve?
Cite sources showing people starved or you will be banned
Because the rapid industrialization and according massive reorganization of the economy and productive capacity of the country was messy and imperfect. And also because famines are only really uncommon in already industrialized economies.
In addition civil war, kulaks burning food, imperfect management science (Taylorism which had problems with adjusting controlling to the reality on the ground), natural disasters and bad climate for crops. For example even when harvest was going on in plenty of areas the weather was too damp to gather crops at the ideal point in time which greatly diminishes your harvest. The same process could be seen this year in Europe.
The UK did embargo the Soviet Union till Lenin’s NEP and similar things did happen regularly, this means that international finance and industrial capital would’ve often sought other countries in which they didn’t have to fear such things, too. This means that the Soviet Union had to try to generate capital from other sources and those are the the surplus of the working class or the savings of people (vs. consumption).