Source: anti-imperialism.com.
When
discussing the merits and achievements of the Soviet Union,
detractors of various stripes, from anti-communist to anti-Leninist,
often point to a 2013 International Business Times article named “How
Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?” by Palash Ghosh. The article, which depicts Soviet leader J. V. Stalin
as an inhuman cold-blooded mass murderer, claims that up to 60
million people, nearly one-third of the USSR’s 1941 population,
were killed on the part of the government and the leadership of the
country.[1][2] But do these figures actually hold up? Through a
careful read of the article, one can find glaring problems with the
logic and the conclusion and deduce that the article is not much more
than crude propaganda.
The
article, having been published on the 60th anniversary of Stalin’s
death, introduces Stalin as “one of history’s most prolific
killers”, proceeding to list various events as atrocities. Included
in the list are “imprisonment in labor camps”, “manufactured
famines” and “forced displacements”, all of which are implied
to be inherently atrocious like the other items listed. While these
are indeed atrocious events, this should raise the question of
hypocrisy, as a neo-liberal news publication lists these events with
the intention of portraying a socialist leader as a “prolific
killer” when historically they have happened on a number of
occasions in the imperialist states and their semi-feudal colonies à
la the American internment of Japanese and Germans in World War II,
the systematic depopulation of indigenous lands by the US government,
and the number of famines in British India in the 19th and 20th
centuries. One might in response concede that the USSR was by no
means alone if it is responsible for such atrocities,
but,nevertheless,
the actions of other nations does not absolve the Soviet Union. This
is true. Therefore, we move on to see Ghosh’s backing for the
assertion of Stalin as a mass murderer.
Ghosh
makes the following assertion, which is entirely subjective and
opinionated, in the next paragraph, “An amoral psychopath and
paranoid with a gangster’s mentality, Stalin eliminated anyone and
everyone who was a threat to his power – including (and especially)
former allies. He had absolutely no regard for the sanctity of human
life.” Psychopathy, an actual personality disorder that requires
long-term management, seems to be the favorite baseless accusation of
liberals and anti-communists against non-Western leaders such as
Stalin. Likewise, the author’s claim of Stalin’s elimination of
all opponents and former allies lacks so much as names and details.
One can assume that Ghosh is referring to the Moscow Trials and the
prosecution of Bolshevik leaders in those trials as a personal plot
by Stalin, however they would still need to provide details and
backing here.
After
three paragraphs of sheer demonization, the author finally arrives at
the data. Ghosh initially reports 40 million deaths, as calculated by
a Georgian historian, which obscenely blames the Soviet government
for all of the Soviet deaths in World War II, despite the fact that
the blood for these wartime deaths is in the hands of Hitlerite
Germany which occupied parts of the country for nearly four
years and had a plan to depopulate the country through mass murder
and deportation to make way for German settlement.[3] Ghosh then
lays out the findings of the Georgian historian, which is the first
time that we see extensive data in this article. Problems with the
data appear almost immediately, as most of the figures are listed as
arrests, imprisonments and exiles, none of which equate to being
killed. As the author themselves is forced to admit, “Although
not everyone who was swept up in the aforementioned events died from
unnatural causes,
Medvedev’s 20 million non-combatant deaths estimate is likely a
conservative guess.”
The
only two major events listed where there are mass deaths are the
1932-1933 Ukrainian famine, which is listed as “artificial” and
thus blamed on Stalin and the Communist Party, and the 1937-1938
Great Terror which is also blamed on Stalin. While both events did
occur in the 1930s, the nature of the events is up for question.
There is firm evidence that the 1932 famine had natural causes, as it
was preceded by several other famines in the early 20th century and,
over the course of a year, ended with the onset of collectivization.
Contrary to being Ukraine’s only major famine or the first famine,
the “Holodomor” was actually the last famine of its kind.4 The
death toll is disputed, with a reasonable estimate being 1-2 million
people. As for the Great Terror, it is most likely true that nearly a
million people were killed, many of whom being innocent.
These
killings, however, may have been part of a plot against the Soviet
leadership rather than a plot by it, as the loyalty of the NKVD
leadership to the Soviet government was questionable.[5] Even if
both of these events were on Stalin’s informed orders and resulted
in the maximum death tolls alleged by this historian, the total would
be at 8 million people, less than half the original claim of 20
million. In fact, a total of 20 million can only be reached by
assuming that all of the people arrested, imprisoned, sent to camps
and exiled were later killed on Stalin’s orders, which would
require absolute and incontrovertible proof. Since the burden of
proof lies on those making the claim and yet this proof is not shown,
there is very little reason to believe the claim that 20 million
people died.
In
the next several short paragraphs, Ghosh commits to the bandwagon
fallacy by listing the estimates of various writers without
expounding on the data, instead implying that the readers of the
article should go through all of the works themselves. Doing so,
however, does not answer Ghosh’s question in the title of the
article, rather clouding it by suggesting that anywhere between 20
million and 60 million can be the correct figure.
Yet
the most damning part of Ghosh’s article is the false attribution
of two quotes to Stalin. The first is a quote that was debunked in
1998 in a letter by author Semyon Lipkin, who acknowledged that it
was written instead by author Anatoly Rybakov.[6] The second quote
originates from the 1925 work Französischer
Witz(French
Wits) by author Kurt Tucholsky.[7] Ghosh attempts to evade
criticism by using the word “allegedly”, while regardless
treating the quotes as evidence that Stalin had no interest in human
life.
As
the article concludes, Ghosh contradicts an earlier statement about
the “Holodomor” as an artificial event, saying that starvation
“may or may not have been directly connected to Stalin’s
policies” before moving on to set the enormous range of 20 to 60
million as the final figure, which almost directly contradicts the
question that the author sought to answer.
The
author concludes by making a very brief reference to Mao Zedong,
likewise as a “mass murderer” without any evidence or backing of
any kind, thus concluding an article founded on fallacies,
allegations and unproven claims with a transparently-poor attempt to
attack socialism, considering that Mao and Stalin were leaders in the
two greatest socialist revolutions in history.
If
we are to take the word of the article, the most reasonable death
toll we can reach is the sum of the deaths from the 1932-1933 famine
and the 1937-1938 Great Terror as calculated by the historian and
recited by Ghosh, which would be 8 million. If we are to go with the
more reasonable and easier to prove claim of 1-2 million for the
famine and the recorded number of 680,000 executions in the Great
Terror, the death toll would be less than three million. Neither of
these figures are anywhere near the 20 million “minimum” claimed
by the author, and considering the efforts by the Soviet state to end
the famine and Stalin’s possible lack of authority on the Great
Terror, there is little to no evidence to the idea that Joseph V.
Stalin was a cold-blooded mass murderer.
- Andreev, E.M., et al., Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1922-1991. Moscow, Nauka, 1993.