Talk:History of the Soviet Union

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• I just discovered that History of the Soviet Union doesn't even summarize the named topic, and have reclassified the article as "Start class". This urgently requires attention. —Michael Z. 2007-07-21 19:34 Z

  While M.Z. correctly pinpointed the problem, his description is confusing. The problem is rooted in early days of wikipedia when user:172, who is credited with the whole wikipedia's Sovoiet history, attempted a non-standard way to handle the splitting of this huge topic into subarticles. I made the initial move and posted the note at the Soviet portal. `'Míkka 00:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

  Definitely needs attention.--Keerllston 21:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Summary of other articles is still necessary

While I admit that the topic is huge, this article is still needed: people have limited reading time. Andries (talk) 16:10, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

TODO

A {{History of the Soviet Union}} template must be created to replace {{History of Russia}} which sits in these articles. `'Míkka 00:56, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

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The problem of famine in the USSR

«Stalin's brutal methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, political repression of the general population, and forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps, during the man-made famine, and during forced resettlements of population.»

1. It is not clear what kind of political repression of the general population.
2. What is this forcible collectivization? Why is collectivization forced and not voluntary? Why is this written in Wikipedia? Where is the neutral point of view?
3. How many millions of deaths? Where are the dates, data, links? Why not a billion deaths or ten billion deaths?
4. According to the Soviet and Russian Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Zemskov, as well as S. Whitcroft, R. Davis, G. Rittersporn and others, 4,060,306 people were repressed from 1921 to 1953 for counter-revolutionary actions. What kind of forced relocations? Why are criminals called "victims of political repression"? Is it fashionable now? Where is the neutral point of view? This is 2% of the population over such a huge period of time.
5. Why are Stalin's methods brutal?
6. Crime: December 15, 1932: Special report of the Joint State Political Directorate on the disclosure of large-scale theft of flour from the mills of the All-Ukrainian Department of Agriculture and January 17, 1933: Special report of the Joint State Political Directorate on the disclosure of large-scale theft of bread in Kazakhstan... And similar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnosandes (talk • contribs) 17:09, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
7. Why man-made famine, and not because of drought, disease; poisoning the body with ergot poison, which causes edema, protein deficiency, which causes edema? All this can cause confusion when calculating and judging.

• Famine relief:

• May 16, 1932: From the minutes No. 100 of the Politburo meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union (bolsheviks) “On bread for Leningrad and the South of Ukraine”;
• February 22, 1933: From the minutes No. 57 of the meeting of the Bureau of the Kiev regional Committee of the Communist party of the (bolsheviks) of Ukraine “On the elimination of food difficulties in collective farms, hotbeds of acute malnutrition and facts of hunger”;
• March 13, 1933: Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the (bolsheviks) of Ukraine “On food aid;
• June 15, 1933: Minutes No. 139 of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union (bolsheviks);
• And so on and so forth...

Gnosandes (talk) 17:06, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

1. Agree
2. It's written that way to reflect that the collectivization was forced, in other works people couldn't refuse
3. Its unknown, there are different estimates but I would say around 5-7. why not a billion or 10 billion Cause most estimates are lower than that
4. what kind of relocations Forced deportations during and after ww2. Why are criminals called victims of political repression Cause they are victims of political repression.
5. They were a means to an end
6. Your point?
7. True, it wasn't a man made famine, we can change this part and provide sources like 1 2 3

2001:1970:564B:4700:C434:D3E7:4D55:4838 (talk) 21:02, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@2001:1970:564B:4700:C434:D3E7:4D55:4838: @Davide King: 2) Why couldn't people refuse? Where did individual farmers come from in the USSR? Weren't there people who embraced the idea of collectivization with particular enthusiasm? It is written rather one-sidedly. 3) All this is known, there are not 5‒7 million deaths. Why such a large spread? For you (not for you personally), human lives are a manipulation of 2 million lives? Are you sure they were scientists? The number of convicts who were sentenced to death for counter-revolutionary and other particularly dangerous state crimes is 799,455 people 🥀 (1921‒1953, first six months). This is according to the works of Viktor Zemskov. Where did you get the number of 5‒7 million people? 4) How is the number of dead people counted? How is mortality from old age, disease, accidents and the like differentiated? After all, this is nothing in the articles. Those criminals cannot be victims of political repression, except for the Great Terror or yezhovshchina (1937‒1938). Further, 837,000 people were rehabilitated and released by Lavrenty Beria. This, again, is not in the article. 5) Completely incomprehensible. This is a subjective and unscientific statement. 6) This can't be my point 1 2, etc. 7) Indeed, however, this can hardly be considered a scientific works or the primary sources. According to the documents, the Soviets provided incredible assistance to the Ukrainian SSR 1, etc. Where is the data for famine relief from the International Committee of the Red Cross? Gnosandes (talk) 21:51, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

@Gnosandes: 2) People could physically refuse, but there were consequences if they did. This is what's meant by forced. Yes, some people liked the idea but it wasn't their decision anyway, they were coerced by the state to give up their grain, if they didn't give it up there were consequences. Farmer's opinions on the collectivization doesn't change the fact that it was forced. What other sides are there, how else would you propose writing this? 3) If you are right, where are your sources? In English literature the estimates actually range from 3.5 million to 20 million. [1] I narrowed that down for the sake of people like you and put it back into reasonable proportion. What do scientists have to do with this? 4) Victims of repression are generally differentiated from other types of deaths. Why can criminals not be victims of political repression? After all the laws were put in place by the state and the state repressed those who broke the laws, aka criminals. Specific statistics like that don't need to be in the article because its a general sort of timeline article with links. You should add that to the History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953) article instead. 5) I'm not saying we should include this in the article, it was just a response to your question. Explain how this is subjective, also if you have a better answer to the question I would like to know it. Then again, why would you ask a question that you already know the answer to. 6) Elaborate on that, not sure what you mean here. 7) See if you can find an English translation, we should be using English sources for English language wikipedia but I do see where you're coming from. I also wasn't aware of the data from the red cross. 2001:1970:564B:4700:C434:D3E7:4D55:4838 (talk) 22:34, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

2) This is completely wrong. Even before the complete collectivization—which you call forced, but in fact it was necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite—the peasants united in collective farms in various forms: α) Asociation for Joint Cultivation of Land (TSOZ), β) Agricultural communes (SKhK), γ) Agricultural artels (SKhA). Moreover, that there were a sufficient number of individual farmers who did not join collective farms even after the first (shock) five-year plan. How did the state force them to give up grain? The collective farms produced not only grain, which you are so fond of telling everyone about… According to the plan, on average, the state took ~14% of the production from collective farmers, as well as ~8% for machine and tractor stations. Do you think that cities, that produce tractors and machines for collective farms, should not be supplied with food? Collective farmers still have an average of ~78% of the products that they can eat; they can sell products to the state at fixed prices, sell products to the consumer cooperative system, and sell products on collective farm markets. I will also note that the Soviet government buy tractors from the Americans, but then began to produce them itself according to the drafts. The Russian Empire and the Russian Republic did not have large-scale own production of tractors and machines. Thus, the collective farm will be able to plow more land and grow more products thanks to machines and spend less labor. It is very remarkable that the chemical industry has also only developed if we take the first (shock) five-year plan. Without the chemical industry and its production of fertilizers, we will get another famine with droughts and epidemics, which was in 1933. In the Russian Empire, famine due to drought appeared almost regularly. This is not written in the article. 3) I have already referred to the source of Viktor N. Zemskov, (2012), “On the scale of political repression in the USSR (against speculation, perversion and hoaxes)” (in Russian). He's writing: “According to the data, the total number of victims of political repression, even with the most extended interpretation, does not exceed 2,6 million people”. American Sovietology has long discredited itself in the Cold War, bringing the number to 50‒60 million people, and in the post-Soviet period with the number of 20 million people. Such propagandists took this numbers out of nowhere, since the archives were opened only during the period of Perestroika, and it was Zemskov who first published this numbers. Also, the term “victims of political repression” is not scientific, since it can be interpreted as anyone wants and how it is beneficial to whom. Imagine, scientists are doing this, if they are really scientists, and not charlatans... And I will not be surprised that the lists of such “victims” will include thieves who, for example, have stolen more than a ton of bread in Kazakhstan (1932), thereby condemning people to starvation. 4) I don't quite understand your conclusion in the first sentence: victims of repression ⇔ types of deaths… The fact that the term “criminal” differs from the term “punished as a result of a miscarriage of justice”. They are all on the list of those punished together. From 1954 to 1955, the Commission of Prosecutor General Rudenko worked, which considered 237,412 cases of the “yezhovshchina” period (1937–1938). Only 8,973 people were rehabilitated. At the same time, 93,223 cases were considered in the Ukrainian SSR (848 people were rehabilitated), and 76,038 cases were considered in the Russian SFSR (4,508 people were rehabilitated). If these data are extrapolated to all cases, it turns out that out of the total number of people convicted during the “yezhovshchina” period, about 160,000 people were actually innocent. Why are you dividing the history of the Soviet Union into pieces? Knowledge and expositions in the article should be made in motion and development. It is impossible to fit this in this article. 5) I didn't ask you to include it in the article. Country was ruled not by J. Stalin, but by the whole party and the Soviets. All these “expenses” are only the result of an inevitable new World War. After the war, the system, already under Stalin, begins to “soften” very much. Therefore, I refuse to discuss such things with you if you continue to tear them away from real life. I do not know the answer to the question. 6) You wrote that this is my personal point of view. I gave you links to the documents. 7) Other articles use articles without translation. What difference does it make where I come from? Gnosandes (talk) 12:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Gnosandes: 2) Necessary for what? Do you mean necessary to end the famine? Furthermore, the fact that it was necessary being a means to a particular end let's say, that doesn't change the fact that it was forced. Forced and necessary are not mutually exclusive. If you want we can add something that would be generally perceived as positive about the collectivization, but we should also state that it was forced to be historically accurate. The state would force peasants to give up their grain and animals by going to their houses and seizing them, I recommend sources on the topic like [2] and [3] to learn the details. I'm not telling you my opinion on the collectivization, I'm just telling you some facts about it which are in the article and which you apparently want to remove. At the beginning on the paragraph the accomplishments are listed, like the development of heavy industry and the victory against Nazi Germany. We can add a little more detail to the beginning if you want, I have no objection to that. The Russian Empire's famines are not written about in this article because its an article about the history of the Soviet Union, not the history of the Russian Empire. 3) 2.6 million is still millions so the article is still technically correct. Also, do you know which page he says this on (in the English translation)? I will add that not everything written on wikipedia has to be scientific. 4) Well to clarify my sentence, I meant that people who were killed by the state are distinct from people who died of natural causes like disease for example. Also we should consider that there were people who were repressed by the state but not killed, ie. people who were rehabilitated, which you mention yourself. I'm not dividing the Soviet history to pieces, it was done by other wikipedia editors, I'm assuming either because they reached a consensus on the decision or because they wanted to follow other examples for consistency (see the US history articles). Basically there is too much information to put into one article so people decided to split it up. 5) Stalin was the de facto leader of the country, and he is listed as such. Head of state was mostly a symbolic position, something like Queen of England. Also Stalin's methods were generally perceived as brutal by many people, although you might disagree with that. If you want we can remove brutal from that sentence, I'm fine with that. By the way your explanation of me "tearing things away from real life" is not clear so you might want to clarify what you mean there. 6) You misunderstood me, I was asking you why did you bring this up, not saying that its just your point of view. Also, this event is probably not notable enough to be included in this article. 7) Yes but most of there is a difference between mentioning foreign language wikipedia articles on English wikipedia and using foreign language external sources. It doesn't matter where you come from but you should have a good understanding of English if you are editing English wikipedia articles, which you seem to lack. 2001:1970:564B:4700:C434:D3E7:4D55:4838 (talk) 22:33, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Error in the lead

The article's lead says, "The Soviet Union played a crucial role in the Allied victory in World War II, with no human cost, with no Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict."

This is definitely a mistake, it should say instead, "The Soviet Union played a crucial role in the Allied victory in World War II, with high human cost, with millions of Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict." 2600:4809:90B2:4700:E0B2:D5F7:83D0:A439 (talk) 21:48, 19 September 2024 (UTC)