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Time to hear an apology for the Great Terror in the Soviet Union

1K views 9 replies 4 participants last post by  Max 
#1 ·
Eric Margolis speaks


By ERIC MARGOLIS, TORONTO SUN, Sun, November 4, 2007

Time to hear an apology for the Great Terror in the Soviet Union

This seems to be historic guilt month. Germany just opened a new memorial to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. Armenians demand Turkey admit Ottoman-era massacres were genocide. Japan is being blasted anew for denying wartime atrocities.

Yet the greatest crime in modern history, and bloodiest genocide, have almost vanished from our collective memory. Last week marked the 70th anniversary of the Great Terror in the Soviet Union in which tens of millions were murdered or imprisoned.

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, at least commemorated for the first time what he termed "colossal" Soviet crimes by attending a memorial this week for its victims.

It was interesting watching Putin, former head of the FSB security service, denouncing crimes of its direct predecessors, KGB and NKVD. The same Putin who recently called the Soviet Union's collapse a "tragedy." Still, we applaud his long-overdue recognition of Communist-era crimes.

The Soviet terror began in the 1920s when Lenin ordered the extermination of Cossacks and opponents of the Bolsheviks. Next came Catholics of White Russia, and resisters to communism in the Baltic states and Moldova. Stalin then ordered liquidation of two million small farmers, known as "Kulaks."

In 1932-33, Stalin unleashed genocide against Ukraine's independent-minded farmers.

Six to seven million Ukrainians were shot or purposely starved to death. The man who directed this genocide, Lazar Kaganovich was made Hero of the Soviet Union and died in Moscow in 1991.

ATTENTION GRABBER

When Communist Party bureaucrats delayed Stalin's plans to transform the Soviet Union from a backward rural society into a modern industrial powerhouse, "Koba," as he was called, had NKVD shoot 700,000 party members. Thereafter, his orders were promptly obeyed.

Almost all the party and military hierarchy were executed during the Great Purges of 1937-38, which culminated in the Moscow Show Trials.

From 1934-1941 alone, some seven million victims were sent to the system of concentration camps known as the "gulag," including one million Poles, hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, and half the entire Chechen and Ingush people. Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Bashkirs, Kalmyks followed. Stalin's gulag did not need gas chambers: Cold, disease and overwork killed 30% of inmates yearly.

To this day, Russian and foreign historians are unsure of the full number of Lenin and Stalin's victims. Estimates range from 20-40 million total deaths from 1922 to 1953.

Stalin committed his worst crimes well before Hitler's major atrocities got under way.

We have forgotten that Germany alone did not spark the Second World War. Germany and the U.S.S.R. jointly invaded Poland in 1939; Stalin then attacked Finland. Two years later, Britain and the U.S.S.R. invaded neutral Iran. History indeed remains the propaganda of the victors.

If we keep hectoring Germany and Japan to admit guilt for events of the 1940s, is it not time the United States, Britain and Canada admit their own culpability in allying themselves to Stalin, a monster who killed over four times the number of Hitler's victims?

After all, Stalin's concentration camps were up and running a decade ahead of Germany's. The murder of millions of Ukrainians and Balts took place before the world's gaze -- six or seven years before the Second World War.

'UNCLE JOE'

The foolish Roosevelt, who hailed Stalin as "Uncle Joe," and the cannier Winston Churchill both knew they were allied to the biggest mass murderer since Genghis Khan.

They used a larger devil to fight a smaller, less dangerous one -- then paid his price by handing over half of Europe to Moscow.

Remember this when today's warmongers wax poetic about the glories of World War II -- and call for WW III.

Western powers should practise what they piously preach to Germany, Japan and, lately, Turkey, by at least apologizing for their sordid deal with Stalin, which was every bit as immoral as if they had made a deal with Hitler, as Stalin long feared they would, to destroy the Soviet Union.
the voices of millions cry out for remembrance
 
#2 ·
Michael, I am firmly behind you on this one. I recall speaking with a collegue who had a wife with parents from Ukraine. She spoke of how the rich harvests from the farms in Ukraine were ALL sent off to Russia, with the farmers left to starve. May Stalin rot in hell alongside of Hitler.

Paix, mon ami.
 
#3 ·
Followed abruptly by a US and Canadian and Australian and Spanish apology to indigenes.

Why am I not holding my breath on this one.
 
#5 ·
those are also horrific crimes that have gone ignored and should be acknowledged and reparations made - Canada is slowly doing something, but it is slow going as non-natives feel it's a matter of "sore losers"

imagine in today's day and age, a professional, high profile, popular sports team using a racially derogatory name for their team, and this team is based in the country's capital; "Washington Redskins"

and where are the biting, scathing editorials in the NY Times?

for shame
 
#6 ·
I imagine there are more useful things to do than wallow in shame for the ten thousand things man has done to his fellow man, nation to nation, religion to religion. Were we as a species to stop and think it all over very carefully, we might never stop apologizing to one another.

And the Redskins thing? Well, somehow I doubt that Washington folk are steeped in unspeakable sorrow over the name of their team. I'm guessing they're pretty solid about what fights are most worth pursuing.
 
#7 ·
I imagine there are more useful things to do than wallow in shame for the ten thousand things man has done to his fellow man, nation to nation, religion to religion. Were we as a species to stop and think it all over very carefully, we might never stop apologizing to one another.

And the Redskins thing? Well, somehow I doubt that Washington folk are steeped in unspeakable sorrow over the name of their team. I'm guessing they're pretty solid about what fights are most worth pursuing.
i'm quite surprised by your matter-of-fact view on the issue
that word is as racially charged as others that nobody would dream of using in the naming of a professional sports team

as for the lack of concern by Washington folk, well, that's just not surprising
at one time nobody really cared about slavery or forcing certain people to use the backs of busses or were refused entry into restaurants

if only the American Native Indians had a powerful lobby that could make this a real issue, alas, they don't and that's why the "Washington types" don't really give a damn
 
#8 ·
You needn't be surprised that I am not keen to take up your cause... I consider the matter of what they call their team their business, not mine. If there were a huge national outcry I'd take note and think more of it, certainly. As it is, I think there are other battles more worth fighting over. We can hemhorrage a lot of otherwise useful energy over the endless details of establishing a safe, clinical, utterly inoffensive world for us all.
 
#9 ·
Well Max you might be not care but the indigenes seem to

Let's spread the fun around...

During the past couple of seasons, there has been an increasing wave of controversy regarding the names of professional sports teams like the Atlanta "Braves," Cleveland "Indians," Washington "Redskins," and Kansas City "Chiefs." The issue extends to the names of college teams like Florida State University "seminoles," University of Illinois "Fighting Illini," and so on, right on down to high school outfits like the Lamar (Colorado) "Savages." Also involved have been team adoption of "mascots," replete with feathers, buckskins, beads, spears and "warpaint" (some fans have opted to adorn themselves in the same fashion), and nifty little "pep" gestures like the "Indian Chant" and "Tomahawk Chop."

A substantial number of American Indians have protested that use of native names, images and symbols as sports team mascots and the like is, by definition, a virulently racist practice. Given the historical relationship between Indians and non-Indians during what has been called the "Conquest of America," American Indian Movement leader (and American Indian Anti-Defamation Council founder) Russell Means has compared the practice to contemporary Germans naming their soccer teams the "Jews," Hebrews," and "Yids," while adorning their uniforms with grotesque caricatures of Jewish faces taken from the Nazis' anti-Semetic propoganda of the 1930's. Numerous demonstrations have occurred in conjunction with games - most notably during the November 15, 1992 match-up between the Chiefs and Redskins in Kansas City - by angry Indians and their supporters.
 
#10 ·
Over the past few years, David? We ought to go back further than that. Seems the outcry is much more cyclical in nature. Again, how do you suggest we get to that lovely place where no one is offended and no one gives offense? Seems to me we are always going to be dealing with this sort of thing. People who get easily outraged also tend to have highly selective memories.

Boycott them if you think it'll work. Hit them in the pocketbook. Don't stop alerting the world to these and other injustices. I wouldn't dream of asking that people do otherwise. Human nature being what it is, we'll be taking one step forward and two back, time and time again.
 
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