this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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What most historians agree on is that the famine happened, and that collectivization was botched. Kulaks burning their crops and killing their livestock, rather than handing it over, certainly accelerated the issue. However, outside of World War 2, where the Nazis took Ukraine (the USSR's breadbasket), this was the last famine, and as such life expectancy doubled. I am sure that if anyone could go back in time and prevent the famine from happening, they would. The fact that famine went from common and regular to stable food supplies and no more going hungry is an important one.
Moreover, again, this is just one aspect of a country where the working class saw free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, a dramatic lowering of wealth inequality with a dramatic raising in wealth, doubled life expectancy, lower retirement ages than the US from the State, women participating in the highest rungs of government, and more cannot be erased either.
Taken in total, again, there wasn't a country better for the working class in the 20th century, certainly none that did not owe part of their existance to the support recieved from the Soviets, like Cuba and China. There were many far worse, such as the US Empire and Nazi Germany, and the Soviets opposed both.
*there wasn't a country better for the working class that survived
Imo you can't just ignore all the people who died as a result of the rapid industrialization and collectivization. And how great is your life if you have to change everything about what you say and how you act just to appease party officials?
I don't want to ignore all the great things that happened during the Soviet era. I think you're right about better access to education and many of these other things, but there are so many asterisks.
I argue that the same things could have been achieved without collectivization and without so much political violence. Social support programs are great, but they should be available to everyone, regardless of how much you support the prevailing political party.
And just how sure are you that Stalin would have gone back in time to prevent the Holodomor? I'm unconvinced - it quelled an inconvenient uprising.
I am not ignoring collectivization. I am noting that it ended famine in a country that had regular famines. I believe collectivization could have been done better, but industrialization of farming had to be done to stop famine regardless, be it Capitalist or Socialist.
As for the hundreds of millions that got to live to their 70s vs dying in their 30s thanks to Soviet Policy, I think they were quite happy to not be dying en masse. They didn't have to change everything just to appease party officials.
As for whether or not these huge expansions in worker rights could have been achieved without Socialism, I believe the answer is no. The Soviets were the first to give such sweeping safety nets, and the Capitalist countries that expanded theirs did so in response as revolution became increasingly popular. Now that the USSR has fallen, these safety nets are eroding over time. Read Consessions. And yes, these were given to everyone, even immigrants without citizenship (including the right to vote if they worked there as well).
As for Stalin, here is archival evidence suggesting that he would rather not have had the famines happen. I'm not defending everything Stalin did, of course, but purely calling this point into question:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Basically, the Ukranian Communists appeared to have tried to save face and lied about how bad the situation was, especially Kosior who tried to say the "rumors" of famine were false in the face of Stalin telling him to get his act together and do something, even sending supplies. You could chalk this up to fear of Stalin or whatever, but it seems pretty clear that Stalin was anti-famine.
How do you defend the "blacklisted" villages? I don't detect any remorse in the material you have cited, just concern over making sure his policies are being properly enacted. It seems pretty clear to me that Stalin considered the loss of life in Ukraine to be worth it in order to drive his agenda forward - why else would he have allowed policies that forbid farmers themselves from eating the food from the fields they tended? Why else would he have allowed policies keeping farmers from traveling for any reason? To ensure that they produced food for the rest of the union, which would focus on industrial output. You can argue that he was right - without such rapid industrialization, they almost certainly would have lost to the Nazis imo.
Also, don't conflate socialism with collectivism. I never said that the gains made in terms of education, life expectancy, etc. were possible without socialist policies. You can have socialism without collectivism/without stalinism. I think it's much better that way.
I don't need to defend every Soviet policy, nor do I try to. I can merely explain why they happened and wether it has been fairly judged or not in the west, and overwhelmingly that tends to be "not." My opinion on the Soviets is that they were overall the best, not that they never committed errors or crimes.
Either way, Blacklisting was originally a punishment meant to counteract resistance to collectivization, the Kulaks often intentionally killed their livestock and burnt their crops. The execution of Blacklisting was obviously more hit or miss.
As for Stalin's role, it seems clear to me that when collectivization was met with outright hostility from the semi-Capitalist kulaks, that his goal was to finish collectivization and try to prevent further famine, not intentionally killing people. You said it yourself, if collectivization did not complete after it was started, even more famine would have occured. I am not sure what should have been done, but I don't think Stalin looks like he would have chosen for famine to happen, more that if anything he would have rather had it go off without a hitch.
As for Socialism vs Collectivism, I don't know what you mean. Socialism is a Mode of Production, characterized by Public Ownership and Planning as being the primary force of an economy. It isn't synonymous with Social Safety Nets.
I bring up blacklisting because it is the clearest demonstration of intentionally starving people that comes to mind. Sure, Stalin wanted collectivization to go off without a hitch. Problem was, there was a hitch. So he decided it would happen anyway, starving people be damned. Imo good governments don't intentionally starve people in order to achieve their goals.
To me your argument boils down to "the ends justify the means."
Blacklisting was a punishment for intentionally sabotaging your crop yields and contributing to the famine, the goal wasn't to starve but to prevent further starvation by preventing subsistence farming in a time where many people were starving to death. Had they not done something to prevent Kulaks from intentionally starving the rest of the USSR becayse their semi-bourgeois ownership was threatened, many more people likely would have died. I can't say if Blacklisting was the correct means to deal with this issue, but once collectivization started, it couldn't be stopped, as the Kulaks were destroying their farms to retain ownership.
It's not that the ends justify means, it's that by not doing anything, the ends would have been far worse and many more would have starved. How would you suggest collectivization occur, if you were in Stalin's shoes, or Kosior? I personally am glad that I never have to make such decisions.