Twenty-five Thousand Victims (Stalin’s) Per Day
We are approaching Thanksgiving, but Ukrainians are remembering Holodomor, the terrible famine of 1932-1933, when Stalin’s policies led to the starvation of millions of poor Ukrainians at the incredible rate of twenty-five thousand peasants per day. The European Parliament has proclaimed it a crime against humanity, and 14 countries have branded it a genocide.
As Robert Conquest, the great historian of the Soviet Terror, has noted, the deliberate and systematic decimation of the Ukrainians (and many other ‘nationalities’ in the Soviet Empire) had two terrible effects: over the next decade or so, more than ten million peasants died. At the same time, as Bukharin bitterly remarked, the Communists who oversaw the mass murder were transformed into brutal bureaucrats for whom terror was an acceptable, normal method of carrying out “the revolution.” Brutalization at the top, murder at the bottom.
And, in another leitmotif of the modern world, there was a strenuous effort to deny what was going on, just as with the Holocaust. The most celebrated case is the New York Times’ man in Moscow, the infamous Walter Duranty, who told his readers that there was no evidence for the genocidal famine, but informed the British Charge’ in Moscow that he believed ten million peasants had been killed. To this day, the Times refuses to give back the Pulitzer Prize Duranty was awarded for his pro-Stalin “reporting” during those dark years.
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus believes that someday all will recognize that Nazis and Communists were equally guilty of crimes against humanity. Speaking at a commemoration of the terrible famine, Adamkus warned against blaming individual nations or peoples for these horrors. Rather, we must put the blame on totalitarianism. Communism and Nazism were two variations on a single genocidal theme, and it’s time to stop making artificial distinctions between them.
“It is the last indispensable precondition for Europe’s moral and spiritual unity on the road towards mutual openness and genuine solidarity among the nations”, Adamkus said.
Fine words indeed. But they would be even more convincing if Lithuania took stronger action against the worrisome revival of antisemitism directed against the country’s miniscule Jewish population (95% of the country’s Jews were wiped out in the Holocaust). Indeed, Adamkus is right to put the Nazis and Communists on the same moral plane, but many Lithuanians have been saying and writing that Jews were in cahoots with the Soviets during the war, and were themselves guilty of genocide. This is a fantastic libel (the Lithuanian Jews were prime victims of Stalin’s killing sprees), and its clear intent is to whitewash Lithuanian collaborators with the SS mobile killing centers.
Those of us who have spent the better part of our adult lives studying the evils of totalitarian regimes know that it’s very hard to find good guys in the fascist/communist era, and for the most part, those few were killed. But the very worst thing that journalists and scholars can do is to start blaming the victims for the crimes they endured.
“Speaking at a commemoration of the terrible famine, Adamkus warned against blaming individual nations or peoples for these horrors. Rather, we must put the blame on totalitarianism.”
Not to put too fine a point on it, but … horsefeathers. Ideology is the framework men create to justify their actions and guide others, but men give the orders and do the killing. Statements like President Adamkus’ are just another way of saying “everyone’s guilty, so no one is responsible.”
“Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus believes that someday all will recognize that Nazis and Communists were equally guilty of crimes against humanity.”
Agreed.
off topic
Michael,
As a guy with a strong US Army connection I sometimes grit my teeth a little when you pen another tribute to the USMC (why do they need the LCAC’s if they can walk on water?). But they are truly a great organization and you have even more reason than most Americans to be proud of them. I thought you would enjoy the below additon to the USMC saga.
Marine Makes Insurgents Pay the Price
http://www.military.com/news/article/marine-corps-news/marine-makes-insurgents-pay-the-price.html
November 18, 2008
Marine Corps News|by Cpl. James M. Mercure
FARAH PROVINCE, Afghanistan — In the city of Shewan, approximately 250 insurgents ambushed 30 Marines and paid a heavy price for it.
Shewan has historically been a safe haven for insurgents, who used to plan and stage attacks against Coalition Forces in the Bala Baluk district.
The city is home to several major insurgent leaders. Reports indicate that more than 250 full time fighters reside in the city and in the surrounding villages.
Shewan had been a thorn in the side of Task Force 2d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Afghanistan throughout the Marines’ deployment here in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, because it controls an important supply route into the Bala Baluk district. Opening the route was key to continuing combat operations in the area.
“The day started out with a 10-kilometer patrol with elements mounted and dismounted, so by the time we got to Shewan, we were pretty beat,” said a designated marksman who requested to remain unidentified. “Our vehicles came under a barrage of enemy RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) and machine gun fire. One of our ‘humvees’ was disabled from RPG fire, and the Marines inside dismounted and laid down suppression fire so they could evacuate a Marine who was knocked unconscious from the blast.”
The vicious attack that left the humvee destroyed and several of the Marines pinned down in the kill zone sparked an intense eight-hour battle as the platoon desperately fought to recover their comrades. After recovering the Marines trapped in the kill zone, another platoon sergeant personally led numerous attacks on enemy fortified positions while the platoon fought house to house and trench to trench in order to clear through the enemy ambush site.
“The biggest thing to take from that day is what Marines can accomplish when they’re given the opportunity to fight,” the sniper said. “A small group of Marines met a numerically superior force and embarrassed them in their own backyard. The insurgents told the townspeople that they were stronger than the Americans, and that day we showed them they were wrong.”
During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone. What made his actions even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t miss any shots, despite the enemies’ rounds impacting within a foot of his fighting position.
“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.”
After calling for close-air support, the small group of Marines pushed forward and broke the enemies’ spirit as many of them dropped their weapons and fled the battlefield. At the end of the battle, the Marines had reduced an enemy stronghold, killed more than 50 insurgents and wounded several more.
“I didn’t realize how many bad guys there were until we had broken through the enemies’ lines and forced them to retreat. It was roughly 250 insurgents against 30 of us,” the corporal said. “It was a good day for the Marine Corps. We killed a lot of bad guys, and none of our guys were seriously injured.”
© Copyright 2008 Marine Corps News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Bravo, Mr. Ledeen.
it seems to me that one of the most incredible features of world discourse is the absence of truthful information – a truthful sentiment, if you will – about the Soviet Union. it really is incredible. i have a natural resistance to conspiracy theory, but that such an enormous evil should be so little acknowledged, let alone understood in specifics, really boggles the mind – not least because it was our principle adversary for 50 years.
i mean, the nature and behavior of the USSR accounts for all – ALL – our post-WWII policy, including the very international security structure which so many leftists and left-sympathizers take for granted. in fact, i intend to read Victor Suvorov’s book “The Chief Culprit” which argues that Stalin used Hitler as his “Icebreaker”: just as Lenin & Co. had recognized that World War I made the Bolshevik Coup possible, so Stalin & Co. recognized that the revolution’s chief means of global triump would be another world war – in which, as Stalin said, the USSR “would be the last to enter.”
In any case, the fact that this country should fail to fascinate minds supposedly so dedicated to the preservation of freedom ad furtherance of equality – so dedicated that their exquisite souls tremble at the vaguest movements of the incipient fascist BushCheneyCorp – the fact that the USSR has absolutely no influence on these minds is amazing!
is not such a gigantic hole in the culture suspicious?