Unit 731

Originally posted by Sarmat12 You can't prove the thing which didn't exist.

what you call this?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmyk_deportations_of_1943

Originally posted by Sarmat12 Yes. Soviet repressions were rather political in nature. Also the main victims of the Soviet terror were Russians by absolute numbers. Besides it was noticed correctly that a lot of Bolshevik and later Soviet leaders were not ethnically Russians. In any case nobody was descriminated or prosecuted by the Soviet State just because he belonged to another race. Actually, racism was labeled as "afake theory invented by capitalistic imperialists" in the USSR.

thats the typical Russian apologism. Russians were not main victims by total numbers, thats liek saying Germans were primary victims of Nazis. total number of gypsies in Germany was low and a total extermination of them would not have resulted in huge numbers but i would clal a total extermination very much as "main victims". same goes for Jews.
minorities were of course smaller in numbers than Russians but their persecution was more thouroughly compared to those Russians which became target of the Soviets. it were mostly minorities that became victims of Reds like Ukrainian Holodomor which affected most Ukrainians but only few Russians that were just unlucky to live there. and besides i already mentioned elsewhere that it matters little if the ruling elite itself is not the same ethnic than the primary subject people, i mean Hitler was Austrian and not few of his generals were not ethnic Germans, for example Polish Bach-Zelewski who was mainly responsible for putting down the Warsaw uprising of 44. it matters little who is in charge, it only matters who execute the orders and this was done by the Russians on other minorities. if i use your logic on the Warsaw uprising i could as well claim that a few German soldiers got caught up in a Polish Civil War or something...

the inhabitans of the areas primarily affected were all not Russian but Ukrainian, Cossack and German (Volga). the only real question is if those famines were engineered or not.

yeah of course deportations were political but they were targeted at ethnic groups and not political groups or individuals which makes it racist. ethnic Russians also colaborated with Germans on large scale but no Russian populations were deported (except prisoners of war).

Sorry about turning this into a argument of morals it wasn't my intention.

Originally posted by Lipovan87 What is well noted is the giving of denigrating jobs and severe abuse to Central Asians in the Red Army.

USSR definately DID target ethnic groups ...

... HOWEVER ....

They did not do so out of any sort of racial theory. Collective terror was employed against a number of ethnic groups who were seen as harbouring nationalist or separatist aspirations, or a cultural defiance of communist politics. The goal was to repress political elements, not races. Individuals from such ethnic communities who were seen as strongly pro-Bolshevik could aspire to high positions in the state bureaucracy - a great example is Stalin himself, a Georgian.

This is in contrast to the racial persecution of groups like the Nazis. Jews were targetted for being Jewish and it didn't matter how enthusiastic a particular Jew might have been about Hitler and Nazism, he was considered an enemy regardless of politics. No Jew was ever going to be Postmaster General, let alone Reichsfuhrer.

Instances of racism in the Red Army or society at large were present also, however, this had very little to do with Bolshevik policies - it was just a feature of Russian society, existing before, during, and after the communist period, and having no real impact on communist policies or aims - such racism was never formally institutionalized.


Edited by edgewaters - 30-Oct-2008 at 10:34

Originally posted by Lipovan87 http://www.amazon.com/National-Bolshevism-Stalinist-Formation-1931-1956/dp/0674009061/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top National Bolshevism is a book.

After a period of distrusting Russian Nationalism from 1917 to 1940, the war brought a refocus on Nationalism supporting the government. I am not saying that it was in any way related to the modern phenomenon. Simply that Russian Nationalism and Socialism became the two pillars of the government's ideology after WWII.

The Russian society has always had a degree of anti-semetism in it but the ideological considerations of the people in power tolerated it. You say there were many Jews in the Communist party, they were nominal Jews who like Trotsky did not care if Jews lived or died and hence might be considered to be no longer Jews. The refusal to hire people based on the third or fifth lines (referring to religion and ethnicity on the ID cards) in cases where they were well qualified would indicate that the uncompetitiveness of the Socialist economy gave room for people to hire along their prejudices.

While the USSR created to Jewish Autonomous Region, it was part of an effort to coopt Jewish sentiment from Israel to the Soviet Union. It mostly failed and was definitely given-up on with the shift to a more-pro Arab policy in the 60's. This shift entailed the demonization of Jews in general, not just Israel. This enabled long standing anti-semetism in the Party and people. Oftentimes the anti-Zionism of the Soviet Union by the 80's was little more than anti-semetism thinly veiled.

That may be true for WWII but the hazing indicates harsher relations for everyday activity. By the 70's and 80's, Central Asians were demeaned frequently and were treated as subordinate to Russians even when they theoretically outranked them.

Originally posted by Lipovan87 After a period of distrusting Russian Nationalism from 1917 to 1940, the war brought a refocus on Nationalism supporting the government. I am not saying that it was in any way related to the modern phenomenon. Simply that Russian Nationalism and Socialism became the two pillars of the government's ideology after WWII.

Edited by Sarmat12 - 31-Oct-2008 at 16:25