Talk:Holodomor

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About the David Duke quote

Should we have strikeouts in a direct quote? It feels wrong, but I know this wiki loves snark so I thought I should bring it up first.-Flandres (talk) 17:58, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I think context makes it clear that the strikeout parts aren't part of the original quote. However, I'm still fine with removing it if you want to do so. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:47, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

SKP do not deny that it happened

Hi. In the introduction it is claimed that the Swedish Communist Party denies that the Holodomor happened (archive.org link of the page in question). As a Swedish speaker I question this assertion. From SKP's site:

Roughly 2,5 million people died in Ukraine from starvation and decease during the worst period.

This is clearly an admission that it happened. What is denied however is that the CPSU under Stalin deliberately caused the famine and that they targeted Ukrainians in particular. The latter would obviously constitute genocide. The section "Blunder or murder?" points out that the Holodomor not being a genocide is indeed a possibility. This is an issue that is debated in the academic literature to this day, and when reading the literature one must be aware of the historikerstreit and Ernst Nolte's "double genocide" narrative (a form of Holocaust denial). I will remove the mention in the introduction in a couple of days if I receive no objections. Folköl (talk) 19:15, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I think you are correct that the SKP did not deny the Holodomor. The main problem from what I have seen from that page in Google translate is engagement in Soviet apologetics. For example, they cite Douglas Tottle as authoritative, when there are some doubts about his scholarship, having himself been called a Soviet apologist.

“”Myten om folkmordssvälten i Ukraina avslöjades en gång för alla av en kanadensisk journalist vid namn Douglas Tottle i Fraud, famine and fascism - The Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard, Progress Books, Toronto, 1987. Boken är ett imponerande exempel på historisk forskning, med omfattande dokumentation av citat och fotografier samt tydliga källhänvisningar.

Bongolian (talk) 01:10, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

They do indeed cite Tottle, and it should be noted that his book was published before 1989 and so necessarily lacks the kind of sources that modern research on this topic has access to, in particular the Soviet archives. But modern research also backs up Tottle's view, for example the works of Kristen Ghodsee and J. Arch Getty. Sneers like "apologist" are little more than ad hominem attacks that, unfortunately, serves a Holocaust denialist purpose. See the Seventy Years Declaration. Folköl (talk) 11:42, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Should there be a page for Holodomor denial?

I feel like we should have a page for Holodomor denial since (like Holocaust denial) it is common amongst red fascist circles (and occasionally neo-nazi circles as well). Rational Dude (talk) 05:38, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

We already have Stalin apologetics. Plutocow (talk) 07:58, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

My bad, I forgot about that. Rational Dude (talk) 05:36, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Funny

This article is very funny to me, as it seems to use anti communist propaganda, especially propaganda used from the 90's by fascists, neo nazis and anti communists, and it doesnt mention how Kazakhstan suffered worse than Ukrainian, and how did the supposed genocide start? What was the reason for it? What were the effects of it? It seems to be missing alot haha ^{— Unsigned, by: Yumemiko / talk / contribs}

Antisemitism

I understand that RationalWiki's articles are written more breezily than those one might see on Wikipedia, that it doesn't weigh itself down with a pathological urge towards "both sides"-ism. I get that the writing is more informal. I respect that. But I'd like to draw your attention to this paragraph:

"Certain bigots such as neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers have accused Jews of deliberately not giving the Holodomor (as well as other genocides) enough attention in the media (as they supposedly run it) in order to focus solely on the Holocaust. This didn't exactly come out of nowhere: Stalin had stacked the NKVD with Jews (consisting of over 30% of the force at its highest) to create a convenient scapegoat during the Great Purge, and, inadvertently, it seems to have been a factor as to why so many Ukrainians were later joining the SS in World War II (which was pretty ironic since the Nazis were anti-Slavic)."

I think that, despite the theme of this article, it might be going a bit too far to validate neo-Nazis' and Nazi collaborators' (to be generous, mind you) antisemitic conspiracizing so that you can blame Stalin for their actions. ^{— Unsigned, by: DylainBradiou / talk / contribs}

That doesn't necessarily imply conspiracy (well, except maybe a conspiracy by Stalin). Early on for instance in Tsarist Russia, the Bolsheviks tended to recruit in cities which meant their demographics were a bit lopsided towards urbanized groups like Latvians and Jews. These groups also had somewhat higher literacy rates early on (prior to, I believe the 1920s or so when the Soviets did literacy drives of some kind) which might have made them better candidates for leadership positions. I'm not sure the thing about Stalin hand-selecting Jews for top positions as a way to paint a target on them is accurate, however, I believe I read something in a book by Timothy Snyder or someone, somewhere, about him making people purge people within their own ethnic communities as a way to display loyalty, so I guess it wouldn't be excessively out of character. Chillpilled (talk) 03:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The neo-Nazi conspiracy about the supposed Jewish control over Hollywood is baseless, of course, and the start of this paragraph rightly mocks it. That said, it seems like a good rule of thumb not to follow a description of antisemitic conspiracy theories with a statement like, "Well, this conspiracy didn't come out of nowhere!"

It's the rest of the paragraph that makes the whole thing a little uncomfortable. It reads, at least to me, as apologia for the Ukrainian people who enthusiastically joined the Nazi party and so lends credence to the first half. Ukraine had been the site of several antisemitic pogroms since well before the Nazis showed up, and many Ukrainians did not need convincing to participate in yet another. In the middle of an article emphasizing Stalin's cruelty to Ukraine, this paragraph in particular seems to absolve Ukrainian collaborators on two grounds: First, that their collaboration with the Nazis could be read solely as anti-Stalinist and thus not as morally culpable as committed German Nazis, and second, that those who really did join the SS out of antisemitic hatred may still be less culpable because Stalin tricked them into hating Jewish people. This is barely a step removed from textbook Holocaust denial of the "Double Genocide" variety, which I understand might not be as recognizable these days given the popularity of writers like Snyder. DylainBradiou (talk) 02:21, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I edited that sentence a bit in the article just now (added reference actually mentions how the Nazis found the level of Ukrainian collaboration desire to be lackluster). Many conspiracy theories have some basis for developing, that's not to excuse them, just to explain them. I remember people boldly claiming that the unnamed country which had links to 9/11 (referred to in some previously-classified US government report), was in fact Israel — only for the declassification years later to reveal that it was Saudi Arabia. It is on some level understandable that some people would believe it was Israel, read: because that fulfilled their confirmation bias. A solution to such things is skepticism, critical thinking. And with benefit of hindsight, to learn from past mistakes. Chillpilled (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Like I said, it sounded a lot worse with the excuses for the OUN at the end. The whole article is pretty loose in the first place - see the other references to "Ukrainian nationalism" solely as victims of Stalin - but that's good enough here. Might be worth looking into getting a "Double Genocide theory" section into the Holocaust denialism page, if not a page of its own. DylainBradiou (talk) 17:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)