Stalin’s Crimes: Genocide or Not Genocide? It is no mystery that Stalin’s brutal totalitarian regime costed the lives of millions of Soviet citizens. It is estimated that between 1930 and 1953, over one million Soviet citizens were executed, six million were deported to special settlements, 16 to 17 million were imprisoned in forced labor, and three to five million starved to death (131-132). However, the question is, do these crimes amount to genocide, the crime of crimes? Many scholars would not label Stalin’s crimes as genocide since they do not fit nicely into the definition of ‘genocide’ as stated in the Genocide Convention of 1948, which defines genocide as, “Acts committed with the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” (15-24). However, in his book “Stain’s Genocides”, Norman Naimark, argues that there is overwhelming evidence that Stalin’s crimes amount to genocide. To prove his case, Naimark brings up the controversy …show more content…
Naimark depicts Stalin as the mastermind behind the dekulakization campaign; Stalin ordered the attack, oversaw the operations, and made it clear that the kulaks were to be “eliminated as a class: killed, displaced, deported, and scattered in special settlements” (58). Stalin was also well aware of the atrocious conditions at the special settlements and at times even reduced funding for the settlements, making life for the kulaks there even more unbearable. Naimark claims that Stalin’s “indifference to this suffering and dying was certainly murderous, if not genocidal” (53). While there is no doubt Stalin is a ruthless murderer, it is questionable whether Stalin intended to destroy the kulaks as a class. Overall, it seems that Stalin targeted anyone who challenged his policies thus the category ‘kulaks’ was really a group of dissidents rather than any particular social or political
Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.
As relations changed between Russia and the rest of the world, so did the main historical schools of thought. Following Stalins death, hostilities between the capitalist powers and the USSR, along with an increased awareness of the atrocities that were previously hidden and ignored, led to a split in the opinions of Soviet and Western Liberal historians. In Russia, he was seen, as Trotsky had always maintained, as a betrayer of the revolution, therefore as much distance as possible was placed between himself and Lenin in the schoolbooks of the 50s and early 60s in the USSR. These historians point to Stalin’s killing of fellow communists as a marked difference between himself and his predecessor. Trotsky himself remarked that ‘The present purge draws between Bolshevism and Stalinism… a whole river of blood’[1].
Originally platformed by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin took control of the communist party in 1924 when Lenin died of a stroke. Communist ideals were heavily in opposition to classical liberal values; Whereas Liberalism stressed the importance of the individual, Communism sought to better the greater good of society by stripping many of the individual rights and freedoms of citizens. Communism revoked the class structure of society and created a universal equality for all. This equality came with a price however. Any who opposed the communist rule were assassinated in order to keep order within society. Joseph Stalin took this matter to the extreme during an event known as the Great Purge. The Great Purge, also known as The Great Terror, began in 1936 and concluded in 1938. During these two years, millions of people were murdered and sent to labour camps in Siberia for opposing the Communist party and the ultimate dictator, Stalin himself. In some cases, even those who did not oppose the regime were killed. Sergey Kirov was a very popular member of the communist party and Stalin saw this as a possible threat to his ultimate power. As a result, Stalin order Kirov to be executed. Stalin furthered his violation of individual rights by introducing the NKVD who worked closely with the russian secret police force. One of the primary goals of the secret police was to search out dissidents who were not entirely faithful to the communist regime. This violation of privacy caused histeria en mass in the Soviet Union and millions were killed as a result. The Soviet union resisted liberalism to such an extreme that it resulted in the deaths of millions of people, leading to some of the darkest days in russian
The intentional murder of an enormous group of people is near unthinkable in today’s society. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, numerous authoritarian regimes committed genocide to undesirables or others considered to be a threat. Two distinct and memorably horrific genocides were the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany and the Holodomor by the Soviet Union. In the Holocaust, The Nazis attempted to eradicate all European Jews after Adolf Hitler blamed them for Germany’s hardship in recent years. During the Holodomor, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union attempted to destroy any sense of Ukrainian nationalism by intentionally starving and murdering Ukrainian people. The two atrocities can be thoroughly compared and contrasted through the eight stages of genocide. The Holocaust and Holodomor shared many minor and distinct similarities under each stage of genocide, but were mainly similar to the methods of organization, preparation, and extermination, and mainly differed
Countless reports possess trials and executions of captives [kulaks] who, at the time, dared not to speak a word of their experience in fear of retaliation among the Soviet militia. Accordingly, Orlando Figes documented memoirs, letters, and many other stories in The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia unraveling the reasons for Stalin’s doing. One leader of Komsomol brigade recalled, “Hatred of the ‘kulaks’ were drummed into them [soldiers] by their commanders and by propaganda which portrayed the ‘kulak parasites’ and ‘blood-suckers’ as dangerous ‘enemies of people’. We were trained to see the kulaks, not as human beings, but as vermin, lice, which had to be destroyed.” (Figes Paragraph 2) In the eyes of Stalin and his Soviet army, kulaks were nothing but animals who deserve torture and death. One other reason why soldiers forced the peasants into farmhouses, or kolkhoz exclaimed by the activist, “Without the kolkhoz, the kulaks would have grabbed us by the throat and skinned us all alive!” (Figes Paragraph 2) Stalin’s determination and pride in holding control of the Soviet Union and spreading Communism ended with a stroke.
The horrors of Hitler and the Holocaust are well known events during World War II, but many people don’t know that Stalin killed over 20 million people in the same time frame, either by murder or starving them to death in Siberian work camps. Between Shades of Gray uncovers the lost story of the millions of Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian, and Finnish lives lost. The Baltic states annexation, the harsh conditions of Siberia, and the fearful lives they had to lead after being freed are wonderfully depicted in the novel.
Throughout history mass murder has not been a problem to the same level and in the same sense as it is today. A related occurrence that is seen in history, which can be studied for its similar preparation and organization, is genocide. Genocide, an international crime, is a large-scale form of mass murder, in which many people are killed in a string of independent events because of prejudices or war (Reisman, 2008). Killing a large group of people takes a high level of organization. The logistics of how to do it, where to do it, where to dispose of the bodies, among other things must be examined before killing begins (Reisman, 2008). The only similarity to the 21st century version of mass murder is the predatory violence involving extensive planning and little to no emotion involved in the killing (Meloy et al., 2004). However aside from that it is difficult to compare the two events because genocide has many killers and can take place over extended periods of time. For example, during the Holocaust Nazi Germany systematically exterminated millions of Jew over a period of three years (Reisman, 2008). This trend is relevant due to the death of more than three p...
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
...he human depravity one can imagine. Even though Genocide did not begin with the Holocaust, Germany and Adolf Hitlers’ heartless desire for “Aryanization” came at the high cost of human violence, suffering and humiliation towards the Jewish race. These warning signs during the Holocaust, such as Anti-Semitism, Hitler Youth, Racial profiling, the Ghettos, Lodz, Crystal Night, Pogroms, and Deportation unraveled too late for the world to figure out what was going on and help prevent the horrors that came to pass. The lessons learned from all of this provide a better understanding of all the scars genocide leaves behind past and present. In spite the ongoing research in all of these areas today, we continue to learn new details and accounts. By exploring the various warning signs that pointed toward genocide, valuable knowledge was gained on how not to let it happen again.
This is clearly evident towards the victims of the Holocaust, whereby the ultra-nationalist mentality of the Nazi Party established a culture of immense violence against the targeted population. A major characteristic of modernisation was ethnic targeting and an underlying racial dimension which motivated perpetrators to commit wholesale massacres. A number of violent policies stemming from the notion of ethnic cleansing became conducive to repression, murder and ultimately genocide. The scope of twentieth century violence can be explained by modernity’s defining features such as the combined force of new technologies of warfare and administrative techniques that “categorised people along strict lines of nation and race”. Genocides stem from long-term obsession on the part of the perpetrators with the emphasis on religious or cultural differences of the victim group. Nationalism provided society with an opportunity to systematically categorise society based on ethnicity and race. This was certainly a modern phenomenon and was conducive in spreading violence and ultimately genocide. A defining feature of the twentieth century, and more specifically the Holocaust is the perpetrators ability to totally disregard the identity of its victims. Fear and “ubiquity of perpetrators and victims” are considered at the core of modern genocide that “encompasses society in a vicious cycle of devastation and murder”. The premeditated plan of the Nazi Regime is outlined in its ability to merely transform society’s perception of the victims into repulsive figures that threaten the prosperity of the nation. This became an effective technique that rendered mass support among the citizens of Nazi Germany. Hitler’s vision of the Final Solution was to create a Judenfrei Europe as Judaism was considered “a mortal, universal
History aims to examine the actions and legacy of mankind. The past is filled with the achievements that humans have reached, however, history also shows us the evil that man is capable of. No atrocity against mankind is more heinous than the act of genocide. Genocide is the aim to destroy all (or part of) of a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group of people. This paper will examine two famous cases of genocide in history: The holocaust of Jews and other groups in Nazi Germany, and the destruction of the Congolese people under Belgian colonialism. The Holocaust remains as one of the main legacies of Hitler and the Nazi party, who claimed an estimated 11 million victims, 6 million of which were Jews. Comparatively, the Congolese Genocide
Under a backdrop of systematic fear and terror, the Stalinist juggernaut flourished. Stalin’s purges, otherwise known as the “Great Terror”, grew from his obsession and desire for sole dictatorship, marking a period of extreme persecution and oppression in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. “The purges did not merely remove potential enemies. They also raised up a new ruling elite which Stalin had reason to think he would find more dependable.” (Historian David Christian, 1994). While Stalin purged virtually all his potential enemies, he not only profited from removing his long-term opponents, but in doing so, also caused fear in future ones. This created a party that had virtually no opposition, a new ruling elite that would be unstoppable, and in turn negatively impacted a range of sections such as the Communist Party, the people of Russia and the progress in the Soviet community, as well as the military in late 1930 Soviet society.
There are several aspects to look at when distinguishing a systematic genocide from other humans’ rights violations, and it is not an easy task. The current definition covers a basis of the word, but several other generalizations and details can be concluded to recognize when seeds of genocide are being sown. Genocide The Systematic Killing of a People indicates...
“Holocaust, 1933-1945, The” World Without Genocide. William Mitchell College of Law, 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
SAINATI, TATIANA E. "Toward A Comparative Approach To The Crime Of Genocide." Duke Law Journal 62.1 (2012): 161-202. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Nov. 2013