Ukraine Famine Diaries on Display in UK

[Ben]

I think these would make fascinating (if kinda downer) reading. I hadn't heard of them before, and it's interesting that the British reporter was discredited at the time, and then later murdered in China.  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8359029.stm

Edit to correct my poorly worded comment above. I am of course familiar with the Ukraine famine, but not with the diaries.

[MechAg94]

"discredited by other journalists" 
I guess "journalists" haven't really changed much.  So much for the mythical time when journalists were supposed to be honorable or something. 

[MicroBalrog]

These are important reading. Many ppeople in Russia still try to deny or downgrade Stalin's atrocities. They're no different in any way, shape, or form, from Holocaust deniers.

[Standing Wolf]

Many ppeople in Russia still try to deny or downgrade Stalin's atrocities.

Yep. Many people in America think nothing of the sort could happen here, never minding Stalinism is alive and well and gaining new adherents daily.

[Ben]

Yep. Many people in America think nothing of the sort could happen here, never minding Stalinism is alive and well and gaining new adherents daily.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm currently reading "Liberal Fascism". It's fascinating to read how many Americans (including -- or perhaps specifically -- elected officials) were pro-Stalin, pro-Mussolini, and pro-Hitler prior to our involvement in WW2.

[roo_ster]

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm currently reading "Liberal Fascism". It's fascinating to read how many Americans (including -- or perhaps specifically -- elected officials) were pro-Stalin, pro-Mussolini, and pro-Hitler prior to our involvement in WW2.

Not only that, they were pro all three at the same stinking time!

[Standing Wolf]

It's fascinating to read how many Americans (including -- or perhaps specifically -- elected officials) were pro-Stalin, pro-Mussolini, and pro-Hitler prior to our involvement in WW2.

They're no longer in favor of those individuals; the ideology of statism, however, is alive and well in Washington, D.C.

[RevDisk]

I think these would make fascinating (if kinda downer) reading. I hadn't heard of them before, and it's interesting that the British reporter was discredited at the time, and then later murdered in China. 

I really have no idea why folks continue to ignore the largest threat to humanity to have existed since Genghis Khan.  Communism has killed more people than any other man-made plague upon humanity, by a wide margin.  It is the embodiment of evil.  We have no other better example of all that can possibly be wrong, insane and evil. 

We know tens of millions were slaughtered under communism.  It is probably many more.  Each and every communist country is founded upon and relied upon genocide to maintain power.  Unlike the Nazis who were largely punished for their deeds against humanity, communism has never been brought to justice and now likely never will.  While I acknowledge the Holocaust as being an evil act by evil men, one of the worst evils in our history which should never be forgotten, I am at a loss of why we do not spend ten times as much time dwelling upon the horrors of communism and the threat it will always present humanity. 

[Boomhauer]

These are important reading. Many ppeople in Russia still try to deny or downgrade Stalin's atrocities. They're no different in any way, shape, or form, from Holocaust deniers.

Right now, I am doing my senior thesis on the massacre of the Polish officers and intelligentsia at Katyn and the other sites and how it was basically ignored by many after the war. Small number compared to the other purges done by the communists, but important nonetheless.

Finding sources has been a real problem. Plenty has been written on the massacres, but not nearly as much has been written on what happened after WWII.

I very badly want to brutally come to the point of how communist sympathizers in the West are responsible for helping cover up the atrocities, but I have not found the sources to allow me to do so in a defensible manner when it comes up for defense.

[Ben]

I really have no idea why folks continue to ignore the largest threat to humanity to have existed since Genghis Khan.

Because so many college students step into the world with the belief, preached to them by professors who have never set foot outside of academia, that communism is really all cuddly and fluffy. And if it wasn't for the evil, capitalist, military-industrial complex*, it would have already worked. And hey, it may take a few million more deaths, but they'll eventually be proven right gosh darn-it. Plus the chicks dig the Mao and Che t-shirts -- they're edgy.

*Few of them, it seems, read the rest of Eisenhower's speech, or they wouldn't throw that phrase around so haphazardly.

[Viking]

I really have no idea why folks continue to ignore the largest threat to humanity to have existed since Genghis Khan.  Communism has killed more people than any other man-made plague upon humanity, by a wide margin.  It is the embodiment of evil.  We have no other better example of all that can possibly be wrong, insane and evil. 

We know tens of millions were slaughtered under communism.  It is probably many more.  Each and every communist country is founded upon and relied upon genocide to maintain power.  Unlike the Nazis who were largely punished for their deeds against humanity, communism has never been brought to justice and now likely never will.  While I acknowledge the Holocaust as being an evil act by evil men, one of the worst evils in our history which should never be forgotten, I am at a loss of why we do not spend ten times as much time dwelling upon the horrors of communism and the threat it will always present humanity. 

Back in the 90's, the current government over here got horrified when a poll among school kids revealed that a large number of them doubted that the Holocaust had taken place, and that a very large number of them listened to white power-music. They ordered the book "...om detta må ni berätta..." (Tell Ye Your Children), about the Holocaust from 1933-1945. The book was quite well-received, and distributed free of charge to all school children (I think I still got mine somewhere). Later, our current government decided to do a similar book about the evils of communism. Boy did this cause trouble? Leftists came out of the woodwork to explain how the Soviet Union never were communist, that this was all a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Financed By The International Capital . Nevertheless, I think the project went through, though there hasn't been as much about it in the media as there was about the first book...

[RevDisk]

Back in the 90's, the current government over here got horrified when a poll among school kids revealed that a large number of them doubted that the Holocaust had taken place, and that a very large number of them listened to white power-music. They ordered the book "...om detta må ni berätta..." (Tell Ye Your Children), about the Holocaust from 1933-1945. The book was quite well-received, and distributed free of charge to all school children (I think I still got mine somewhere). Later, our current government decided to do a similar book about the evils of communism. Boy did this cause trouble? Leftists came out of the woodwork to explain how the Soviet Union never were communist, that this was all a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Financed By The International Capital . Nevertheless, I think the project went through, though there hasn't been as much about it in the media as there was about the first book...

I'm impressed by such prudent measures.  When did Sweden put out the anti-communist book?  Can't have been that recently. 

[Viking]

I'm impressed by such prudent measures.  When did Sweden put out the anti-communist book?  Can't have been that recently. 

I'm not sure if it's out yet, but it was decided sometime within the last 3 years. The current government is...atleast slightly, to perhaps even moderatly conservative by our political standards, both economically and socially.