Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 17:20:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: "Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives"



I have refrained from participating in the discussion with Stalin's
defenders, and I still decline to debate with flat-earthers. But since
Chris brought up my endorsement of Getty's work, which suggests lower
"excess mortality" than normally attributed to Stalin and his policies, I
feel obliged to reiterate that I do not think this this research
execulpates Stalin. It just shows that he was a less terrific
mass-murderer than we had thought. But a mass-murderer he remains, as well
as a brutal tyrant and savage dictator, someone who set back our cause far
more than many of his capitalist opponents. --Justin Schwartz 

On 12 Feb 1996, Chris, London wrote:

> I was glad that earlier Justin and Matt D endorsed my recommendation of 
> this book edited by Getty and Manning, CUP 1993 pb.
> 
> I had quoted in a previous post their summary of what they call the 
> "totalitarian" paradigm of the history of the Soviet system under Stalin.
> This is what they are criticising on the basis of new material and 
> scholarly re-examination of old material.
> 
> Broadly their findings are of somewhat fewer though substantial deaths and a 
> process that was not just due to the decision making of one man, though 
> Stalin's contribution is clear enough at times.
> 
> Here I will quote the conclusion of the final article. If time permits I 
> will send conclusions from other sections. 
> 
> 
> Chris,
> London.
> 
> 
> "More light on the scale of repression and excess mortality in the
> ------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> Soviet Union in the 1930's" by Stephen G. Wheatcroft
> -----------------------------------------------------
> 
> "The new material on labour camps and other repressed groups has tended
> to confirm my arguments that the level of population in the Gulag system
> in the late 1930's was below 4 to 5 million. Zemskov's figures indicate
> that the Gulag population (excluding colonies) reached an early peak of 
> 1.5 million in January 1941, and this can be reconciled with Nekrasov's 
> figures of 2.3 million at the beginning of the war, if we include 
> prisoners in labour colonies and jail. 
> 
> There were also at this time a large number of *spetsposelentsy*
> [settlements]. By 1939, according to both Ivnitsky ans Zemskov, there 
> were only 0.9 million of the original 5 or so million former kulaks in 
> their place of exile.
> 
> Even if we allow another 1.5 million for Baltic and other mass groups in 
> *spetsposelentsy*, there would still be in the order of about 4 million.
> 
> Although this represents to my mind a sufficiently large and disgraceful
> scale of inhumanity, these are very much smaller figures than have been
> proposed by Conquest and Rosefelde in the West and by 
> Roy Medvedev and Antonov-Ovseenko in the USSR.
> 
> Concerning the scale of the famine in 1932/3, we now have much better 
> information on its chronology and regional coverage amongst the civilian
> registered population. The level of excess mortality registered by the 
> civilian population was in the order of 3 to 4 million. If we correct 
> this for the non-civilian and non-registered population, the scale of
> excess mortality might well reach 4 to 5 million, which is somewhat 
> larger than I had earlier supposed, but which is still much lower
> than the figures claimed by Conquest and Rosefelde and by Roy Medvedev.
> 
> Much more serious work is needed before we approach a definitive answer to 
> the problem of the scale of repression and excess mortality, but I hope
> that we will finally be done with some of the unrealistic figures
> that so often haunted this subject."
> 
> 
> 
> 
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