NationStates Jolt Archive


+1 for Cuba!

Sel Appa
29-02-2008, 05:10
Cuba signed TWO human rights treaties in a nice slap in the face to American propaganda. Their constitution actually already affirms most of the rights, but now this adds more to it. Just a look at what Raul's Cuba will be bringing us...

The foreign minister also stated that he has a preferred candidate for US president: *cough*Obama*cough*. :)

Also, Cuba supposedly has 234 political prisoners in jail. I bet the US has more.

Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080228/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/un_cuba_human_rights)

UNITED NATIONS - Cuba's government signed two key international human rights treaties Thursday that Fidel Castro long opposed, but said it had reservations about some provisions and accused the United States of impeding the Cuban people's enjoyment of their rights.

Fidel Castro was still president when Cuba announced Dec. 10 that it would sign the accords on civil, political and economic rights and at the time he asked government television to re-air his objections in case Cubans had forgotten his opposition.

The formal signing came four days after Fidel's younger brother, Raul, permanently replaced him in the presidency after filling in during Fidel's illness since mid-2006.

Whether the signing by Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque marks a turning point for human rights on the communist island nation remains to be seen.

Asked at a news conference whether Fidel's opposition to parts of the two covenants, including the right to form independent trade unions, had changed now that Raul is president, Perez Roque said no. He reiterated that Cuba would later specify some reservations about treaty provisions.

Cuba has long been criticized by the United States and others for jailing dissidents, who the government generally characterizes as U.S. mercenaries.

A Cuban activist group, the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, estimated early this year that 234 prisoners of conscience were held on the island. That was down from 246 last June 30 — continuing a decline since Raul took over from the ailing Fidel.

Elizardo Sanchez, head of the rights group, called Thursday's action by Perez Roque "positive news because the signing of these pacts is an old demand from inside Cuba and from the international community."

"I hope it honors the letter and spirit of the law of these pacts, but I am not sure it will," Sanchez said of Cuba's government.

A statement Cuba submitted when it signed the two treaties said its constitution and laws "guarantee the effective realization and protection of these rights for all Cubans," but also stressed that the government would register "reservations or interpretative declarations it considers relevant."

The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees "civil and political freedom," including the right to self-determination, peaceful assembly, freedom of religion, privacy, freedom to leave a country, and equal protection before the law.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requires countries to ensure the right to work, fair wages, freedom to form and join trade unions, social security, education and the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

At the Summit of the Americans in 2001, Fidel Castro criticized the International Covenant on Economic and Social and Cultural Rights. He said it "could serve as a weapon and a pretext for imperialism to try to divide and fracture the workers, create artificial unions, and decrease their political and social power and influence."

Perez Roque said Cuba was signing the covenants now because the U.N. Human Rights Commission — which he claimed the U.S. used for "brutal pressure and blackmail" against Cuba — had been "defeated" in what he called "a historic victory for the Cuban people."

The widely discredited and highly politicized commission, which adopted a number of resolutions condemning rights abuses in Cuba, was replaced by a new Human Rights Council in 2006. The Geneva-based council dropped Cuba last year from the list of countries whose rights records are subject to investigation, a move that the U.S. and Canada strongly criticized.

According to the Cuban statement submitted at the signing, the United States' economic embargo and hostility to Cuba's communist government "constitutes the most serious obstacle to the enjoyment by the Cuban people of the rights protected by the covenants."

"We are sure that the lifting of the embargo will come in the future," Perez Roque told reporters.

But he stressed that the 46-year-old embargo has to be lifted "without any conditions whatsoever."

Asked whether he could foresee improved U.S.-Cuban relations since Cuba has a new president and the U.S. will have a new leader next year, Perez Roque said he had "a favorite candidate" in the U.S. election — but he wouldn't say who.

He also noted that in the past, American candidates have said one thing about Cuba and then changed their position after being elected. "We will be very patient," Perez Roque said.
Bann-ed
29-02-2008, 05:12
You can't trust anything liberal supporting commie dictators do.
Andaluciae
29-02-2008, 05:17
I'll wait to see actual progress, rather than merely signing a document and promising to abide by it. I want to see progress in Cuba, and I want to see verification of such progress. Until then, pre-existing concerns remain in force, including, but not limited to, some of the stuff discussed here:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/americas/caribbean/cuba
http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/cuba14886.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba
Privatised Gaols
29-02-2008, 05:20
Don't forget, Pinochet's Chile signed similar things. Would you call him a protector of human rights?
Soheran
29-02-2008, 05:21
"We'll accept these treaties, except for the parts we don't like."

At least Fidel was honest and straightforward about his rejection.
Cannot think of a name
29-02-2008, 05:22
The foreign minister also stated that he has a preferred candidate for US president: *cough*Obama*cough*. :)
Not all endorsements are a good thing...

Also, Cuba supposedly has 234 political prisoners in jail. I bet the US has more.


Ironically, in Cuba...
Privatised Gaols
29-02-2008, 05:24
Also, Cuba supposedly has 234 political prisoners in jail. I bet the US has more.

Name one.
-Dalaam-
29-02-2008, 05:28
This is a good sign, but nothing more. A reason for optimism. I hope to see more like it, and I hope to see it enforced.
Vaule
29-02-2008, 05:30
A step forward it seems. Maybe the US can start talks to lift the relatively useless embargo on Cuba (Since Fidel Castro isn't the President anymore).
Marrakech II
29-02-2008, 05:33
Cuba signed TWO human rights treaties in a nice slap in the face to American propaganda.

Really, how so? Because the way I understand the United States wants a Democratic Cuba. Since when did human rights become un-democratic? Sounds to me that this is a slap to Castro's style of Communism.
-Dalaam-
29-02-2008, 05:37
Really, how so? Because the way I understand the United States wants a Democratic Cuba. Since when did human rights become un-democratic? Sounds to me that this is a slap to Castro's style of Communism.

true, it seems less like a slap and more like looking at Obama as an opportunity to have sanctions lifted, since he's basically talking about reopening diplomatic relations with them if they clean up their act.
Marrakech II
29-02-2008, 05:39
true, it seems less like a slap and more like looking at Obama as an opportunity to have sanctions lifted, since he's basically talking about reopening diplomatic relations with them if they clean up their act.

I hope the next president whomever it is does take the opportunity to open dialog which leads to the embargo lifted.
Plotadonia
29-02-2008, 05:40
Cuba signed TWO human rights treaties in a nice slap in the face to American propaganda. Their constitution actually already affirms most of the rights, but now this adds more to it. Just a look at what Raul's Cuba will be bringing us...

lol. A constitution means nothing if the government that signs it does nothing on it's account. They can sign treaties all day long, just like America did with the Indians.
-Dalaam-
29-02-2008, 05:43
I hope the next president whomever it is does take the opportunity to open dialog which leads to the embargo lifted.

Just image! Legal cuban cigars! It would be wonderous!

also it might help those impoverished cubans some.
Marrakech II
29-02-2008, 05:43
lol. A constitution means nothing if the government that signs it does nothing on it's account. They can sign treaties all day long, just like America did with the Indians.

At least the Native Americans can open Casinos, sell tax free cigarettes, sell fireworks and hunt the occasional whale. When was the last time you heard of a Cuban whale hunt!
Privatised Gaols
29-02-2008, 05:44
lol. A constitution means nothing if the government that signs it does nothing on it's account. They can sign treaties all day long, just like America did with the Indians.

Yup. And don't forget, North Korea's constitution also "guarantees" that human rights are protected.
Cannot think of a name
29-02-2008, 05:44
Name one.

Leonard Peltier (http://www.leonardpeltier.net/).
Marrakech II
29-02-2008, 05:45
Just image! Legal cuban cigars! It would be wonderous!

also it might help those impoverished cubans some.

The Cuban cigar manufacturing does very well. It is run like a cartel so I hear. Also I get my Cubans by mail from Vancouver, Canada. Been buying them for years. Never lost a package yet.
Andaras
29-02-2008, 05:50
True human rights can only come through a system of socialized relations, only when workers control their labor can such rights be established. What the US wants is not freedom for the Cuban people, it's freedom for the rich Florida exiles to come and buy up casinos and rape the country through privatization, the US stands for the 'liberty' to exploit others.

We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. There certainly are some communists who, with an easy conscience, refuse to countenance personal liberty and would like to shuffle it out of the world because they consider that it is a hindrance to complete harmony. But we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership. - Marx

Socialism is about ending subjective abstract 'freedom' and replacing it with real freedom.
Privatised Gaols
29-02-2008, 05:59
Leonard Peltier (http://www.leonardpeltier.net/).

From Wikipedia:

In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two FBI Agents who died during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The victim of an unfair trial, possibly, but hardly a political prisoner. And considering it's Amnesty International, I would take what they say with a very, very big grain of salt.
Privatised Gaols
29-02-2008, 06:00
Do you ever get tired of parroting Marx over and over? Because we get tired of listening to it.

I second this.
Knights of Liberty
29-02-2008, 06:02
True human rights can only come through a system of socialized relations, only when workers control their labor can such rights be established. What the US wants is not freedom for the Cuban people, it's freedom for the rich Florida exiles to come and buy up casinos and rape the country through privatization, the US stands for the 'liberty' to exploit others.



Socialism is about ending subjective abstract 'freedom' and replacing it with real freedom.


Do you ever get tired of parroting Marx over and over? Because we get tired of listening to it.
Plotadonia
29-02-2008, 06:04
At least the Native Americans can open Casinos, sell tax free cigarettes, sell fireworks and hunt the occasional whale. When was the last time you heard of a Cuban whale hunt!

I love you. :fluffle:
Andaras
29-02-2008, 06:28
Do you ever get tired of parroting Marx over and over? Because we get tired of listening to it.

Do you ever get tired of parroting capitalism over and over? Because I get tired of listening to it.

Also, I note your use of one-line flames because you refuse to answer my statement. And what's with the 'We', does your opinion hold more weight because the majority of NSG agrees with you? Collective ignorance ftl.
Dododecapod
29-02-2008, 06:34
True human rights can only come through a system of socialized relations, only when workers control their labor can such rights be established. What the US wants is not freedom for the Cuban people, it's freedom for the rich Florida exiles to come and buy up casinos and rape the country through privatization, the US stands for the 'liberty' to exploit others.



Socialism is about ending subjective abstract 'freedom' and replacing it with real freedom.

What freedom? Socialism sound's good, makes a lot of promises, demonizes the right people (those easy to hate), and gives everybody nice, touchy-feely words about family and freedom and all the good stuff. But the fact is, all it provides is a different ruling class (the Party instead of the old "capitalists") a different underclass ("counterrevolutionaries") and all the dictatorship you can stand. Want to go to the seaside? Gotta have a pass. Want to change your job? Gotta get permission. Want your kid to go to college? Sorry, a Party man's son got that position.

You can argue that it's "not true socialism", but it's the REALITY of socialism. It's a broken system, that has never provided what it promised. Did it have some good ideas? Yeah, it did, and we've adopted those good ideas into our current, functioning socities. It's time to jettison the dead hulk and look to the future - not to the obsolete musings of 160 years ago.
Andaras
29-02-2008, 06:47
What freedom? Socialism sound's good, makes a lot of promises, demonizes the right people (those easy to hate), and gives everybody nice, touchy-feely words about family and freedom and all the good stuff. But the fact is, all it provides is a different ruling class (the Party instead of the old "capitalists") a different underclass ("counterrevolutionaries") and all the dictatorship you can stand. Want to go to the seaside? Gotta have a pass. Want to change your job? Gotta get permission. Want your kid to go to college? Sorry, a Party man's son got that position.

You can argue that it's "not true socialism", but it's the REALITY of socialism. It's a broken system, that has never provided what it promised. Did it have some good ideas? Yeah, it did, and we've adopted those good ideas into our current, functioning socities. It's time to jettison the dead hulk and look to the future - not to the obsolete musings of 160 years ago.

Sorry, but I am not interested in your conservative claptrap in the slightly, given that I denounce the Soviet union at the point where it went down hill economically (about 1960) when market-based capitalist 'reforms' were introduced, before that under local worker soviets and full collectivization the economy was rocketing along beating the whole world in industrial output combined. Yes some did die and in some cases industrial conditions weren't so good, but famines were caused when the kulaks in Ukraine horded grain surplus and speculated to gain higher prices in foreign capitalist markets. Considering how many millions of slaves died (not to mention the domestic cost) of capitalist industrialization the cost the USSR paid to keep their independence from both the Entente, the Allies (including Japan) and Nazi Germany, I think the cost was minor.

Sorry to disappoint you, I know your American eyes hurt from non-exposure whenever something slightly left-wing is said at you, but socialism is built scientifically by industrialization and socialization of production, ie true democracy.
Non Aligned States
29-02-2008, 06:59
but socialism is built scientifically by industrialization and socialization of production, ie true democracy.

The true democracy to starve everyone else while Stalin feasted in Moscow? Or how about sending everyone who was discontent, and their families, and everyone they talked to in the last 24 hours, to forced labor camps for the rest of their lives on starvation rations? A democracy of one you mean.

Ahh, but you follow in Stalin's footsteps, living the life of the bourgeois, don't deny it, we have you on record, while condemning everyone else to barely subsistence living or death in a grand orgy of hypocritical thinking.

Just like the religious extremist preacher, telling his followers to massacre and die, while he sits safely in his palace, wallowing in the luxury that their blood and sweat provides.

You are no different from that sort of person. You never will be.
Andaras
29-02-2008, 07:03
The true democracy to starve everyone else while Stalin feasted in Moscow? Or how about sending everyone who was discontent, and their families, and everyone they talked to in the last 24 hours, to forced labor camps for the rest of their lives on starvation rations? A democracy of one you mean.

Ahh, but you follow in Stalin's footsteps, living the life of the bourgeois, don't deny it, we have you on record, while condemning everyone else to barely subsistence living or death in a grand orgy of hypocritical thinking.

Just like the religious extremist preacher, telling his followers to massacre and die, while he sits safely in his palace, wallowing in the luxury that their blood and sweat provides.

You are no different from that sort of person. You never will be.
Wow, please keep saying stuff you can't prove, your nothing but the embodiment of cultural mass ignorance and collective stupidity. Whenever bested in argument you crudely revert to emotional appeals and buzzwords rather than objective fact. Please give me your sources, I want evidence to your claims now, let me guess I will have to read Hitler's reflections of 'communist exterminations', or maybe McCarthy?
Privatised Gaols
29-02-2008, 07:11
The true democracy to starve everyone else while Stalin feasted in Moscow? Or how about sending everyone who was discontent, and their families, and everyone they talked to in the last 24 hours, to forced labor camps for the rest of their lives on starvation rations? A democracy of one you mean.

Ahh, but you follow in Stalin's footsteps, living the life of the bourgeois, don't deny it, we have you on record, while condemning everyone else to barely subsistence living or death in a grand orgy of hypocritical thinking.

Just like the religious extremist preacher, telling his followers to massacre and die, while he sits safely in his palace, wallowing in the luxury that their blood and sweat provides.

You are no different from that sort of person. You never will be.

People, for goodness' sake: Stop. Feeding. The troll.
Privatised Gaols
29-02-2008, 07:21
if I am troll report me to the Mods and we'll let them decide.

It's been tried.
Dododecapod
29-02-2008, 07:24
Sorry, but I am not interested in your conservative claptrap in the slightly, given that I denounce the Soviet union at the point where it went down hill economically (about 1960) when market-based capitalist 'reforms' were introduced, before that under local worker soviets and full collectivization the economy was rocketing along beating the whole world in industrial output combined. Yes some did die and in some cases industrial conditions weren't so good, but famines were caused when the kulaks in Ukraine horded grain surplus and speculated to gain higher prices in foreign capitalist markets. Considering how many millions of slaves died (not to mention the domestic cost) of capitalist industrialization the cost the USSR paid to keep their independence from both the Entente, the Allies (including Japan) and Nazi Germany, I think the cost was minor.

Sorry to disappoint you, I know your American eyes hurt from non-exposure whenever something slightly left-wing is said at you, but socialism is built scientifically by industrialization and socialization of production, ie true democracy.

Your lies about history do not do you well.

The term Kulak, meaning "Rich Peasent", is not valid in the context you are using it. The Kulaks ceased to exist under Lenin's policy of "War Communism" and the other pressures of the Russian Civil War.

Rather, the term "NEPmen" is somewhat more accurate. These are people who managed to use the New Economic Policy of Lenin to attain some wealth, and to restore the Soviet Union to an even keel economically. The NEP was best described as a form of controlled capitalism, with people allowed to make money and trade what they made in excess of what was required by the state.

However, in this case, you are not even speaking of them. Rather, you are speaking of the populace of the Ukraine, which was not part of the Soviet Union, until Stalin, in a clear instance of outright imperialism, invaded and annexed the country. Prior to that the Ukraine was doing quite nicely as an independent state.

Further, you mix cause and affected, if you'll pardon the garbled cliche. The Stalin Famines were cause by the Soviets taking the harvest from the Ukraine - and quite deliberately taking everything, including the seed for the next year. The Ukraine had been called the "breadbasket of Europe", and provided food for most of the southern Soviet Union - so the Stalin Famines affected the populace of the Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and much of Russia - though at least the Russians got to eat stolen Ukrainian grain.

Precise numbers of those who died are not known. Reasonable estimates range as high as 15 million, with averages between 5 and 10 million.

Further, the "local worker's soviets" you're so fond of talking about lost most of their power to do anything under Lenin, and ALL of it under Stalin. Under the pressures of War Communism, all such Soviets had to have their membership approved by the local Party official. At the beginning of the Five Year Plans, this was changed to placing the appointed Party official as chairman of the Soviet - and having veto power over it's membership. So anyone who deviated from the Party line simply stopped being a member of the Soviet, and the Soviets themselves became nothing more than rubber stamps for Moscow - and a means to keep an eye on the workers.

Oh, and Czarist Russia did not have slaves, nor even serfs. Alexander II, father of Nicholas II and a better man in all respects, had freed all serfs decades before the Revolution. Russian peasents had been free to leave the land and go where they wished - until the iron hand of communism made them slaves once more (sorry, couldn't resist :D ).

Finally, I must take umbrage at your description of socialism as "scientific". Socialism is not based on any scientific principle, nor any "special knowledge" - it is merely based upon philosophy, an idea of how the world works. This in itself is not a bad thing, but don't try and make it out as anything more than it is - a flawed, and failed, philosophy.
Eire Mor
29-02-2008, 07:24
Cuban whale hunt!

That's going to be an entry on Urban Dictionary by next week, I'm sure of it. Undoubtedly it will be some obscure sex position involving tobacco leaves and makeshift rafts.
Andaras
29-02-2008, 07:27
People, for goodness' sake: Stop. Feeding. The troll.

I'd say you are the troll, because your the one constantly using personal attacks on me, if I am troll report me to the Mods and we'll let them decide.
Non Aligned States
29-02-2008, 07:31
Wow, please keep saying stuff you can't prove, your nothing but the embodiment of cultural mass ignorance and collective stupidity.

I can prove that you have an xbox by self admission and a privately owned computer, and that you purchase entertainment media from the so called "bourgeois", again by self admission, that you call traitors against a socialist movement, thereby supporting them and by your own definition, a traitor too.


Whenever bested in argument you crudely revert to emotional appeals and buzzwords rather than objective fact.

Objective fact. Your stated stances and personal lifestyle do not match and are in fact, polar opposites. Ergo you are a hypocrite.

Objective fact. Whenever someone provides evidence to the contrary to your claims, you dismiss it, claiming either "bourgeois" or "fascist" bias with no evidence proving your claims.

Objective fact. A factual comparison between your stance and lifestyle is responded to with claims of "emotional appeals" and logically empty claims of "Hitler" sourcing.

Objective fact. You respond to allegations of trolling with counter allegations of trolling, on the basis of the allegation alone.
Greater Trostia
29-02-2008, 07:42
Yes some did die and in some cases industrial conditions weren't so good, but famines were caused when the kulaks in Ukraine horded grain surplus and speculated to gain higher prices in foreign capitalist markets. Considering how many millions of slaves died (not to mention the domestic cost) of capitalist industrialization the cost the USSR paid to keep their independence from both the Entente, the Allies (including Japan) and Nazi Germany, I think the cost was minor.

It's funny how you claim to hate capitalism, yet think in terms of "cost" comparisons. It's funny that you claim to support the rights of anyone - like workers - when you simultaneously deny and callously dismiss the massive human rights violations of Stalinism as "minor." To you, it seems, human lives are nothing more than numbers on a scorecard between competing ideologies.

So when you make your specious arguments and your self-righteous appeals to "True human rights," in your rather obvious attempt to claim the moral high ground, it fails. Miserably. No one is convinced; you may as well drop that as a tactic and appear slightly less foolish.

Not even any of the socialists and communists on this site will defend the extremities of your vapid defense of mass murder, genocide, oppression and injustice.

Sorry to disappoint you, I know your American eyes hurt from non-exposure whenever something slightly left-wing is said at you, but socialism is built scientifically by industrialization and socialization of production, ie true democracy.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but there's nothing "slightly left-wing" about defense of Stalinism, any more than there's something "slightly right-wing" about defending Nazism.
Netherrealms
29-02-2008, 07:56
In my opinion, no state (USA, Canada, UK, Cuba, China or else) has any right to criticise other states about "democracy" and "human and civil rights". Everyone has to clean their own problems first. Until then they are nothing more than hypocrites.
Tongass
29-02-2008, 08:16
/grats to Raul for mastering the art of the PR stunt so swiftly.
Trotskylvania
29-02-2008, 08:25
/grats to Raul for mastering the art of the PR stunt so swiftly.

Maybe he was the PR guy all along.
Gauthier
29-02-2008, 08:27
"We'll accept these treaties, except for the parts we don't like."

At least Fidel was honest and straightforward about his rejection.

Maybe if Raul issued Signing Statements then the American Public would gladly swallow like an intern.
Vetalia
29-02-2008, 08:46
The term Kulak, meaning "Rich Peasent", is not valid in the context you are using it. The Kulaks ceased to exist under Lenin's policy of "War Communism" and the other pressures of the Russian Civil War..

Interestingly, by successfully denouncing a neighbor as a "kulak", you received a quarter of their seized assets. That, in turn, elevated your own income to a point where others could begin to use the term against you, and undoubtedly over time the state would recover all of that money in one way or another.

One might see the irony in this use of the profit motive. The "liquidation of the kulaks" was a liquidation in the truest sense of the term...
Plotadonia
29-02-2008, 08:57
In my opinion, no state (USA, Canada, UK, Cuba, China or else) has any right to criticise other states about "democracy" and "human and civil rights". Everyone has to clean their own problems first. Until then they are nothing more than hypocrites.

As wonderful and philosophical and moral as your opinnion sounds, if no one ever criticized someone elses civil rights, nothing would ever change, and if we waited for somebody to become perfect in that respect, it would never happen.
Andaras
29-02-2008, 09:06
I'll quote a good and well sourced work to counter the claims of those slandering comrade Stalin:

The collectivization `genocide'

During the eighties, the Right took up several themes that the Nazis had developed during the pyschological war against the Soviet Union. Since 1945, efforts to rehabilitate Nazism have generally started with affirmations such as `Stalinism was at least as barbaric as Nazism'. Ernst Nolte, followed by Jürgen Habermas, claimed in 1986 that the extermination of the kulaks by Stalin could be compared to the extermination of the Jews by Hitler!

`Auschwitz is not primarily a result of traditional anti-semitism. It was in its core not merely a `genocide' but was above all a reaction born out of the anxiety of the annihilating occurrences of the Russian Revolution. This copy was far more irrational than the original.'

.

Stefan Merl, ,,Ausrottung`` der Bourgeoisie und der Kulaken in Sowjetruss land? Geschichte und Gesellschaft 13 (1987), p. 368.

Hence the Nazis were tormented by the `anxiety' that the Stalinist crimes created; and the extermination of the Jews was a `reaction' to this `anxiety'. Hitler, in his time, made similar declarations: the invasion of the Soviet Union was a `self-defence' measure against Judeo-Bolshevism. And some still wonder why fascism is rising in Germany.

The Soviet term, `liquidation of the kulaks as a class', indicates perfectly clearly that it is the capitalist exploitation organized by the kulaks that is to be eliminated and not the physical liquidation of the kulaks as persons. Playing with the word `liquidation', academic hacks such as Nolte and Conquest claim that the exiled kulaks were `exterminated'.

Stefan Merl, a German researcher, describes the precarious conditions in which the first kulaks were expropriated and sent to Siberia, during the first wave of collectivization in January--March 1930.

`With the beginning of spring, the situation in the receiving camps aggravated. Epidemics were widespread, leaving many victims, particularly among the children. For this reason, all children were removed from the camps in April 1930 and sent back to their native villages. At that time, some 400,000 persons had already been deported to the North; until the summer of 1930, probably 20,000 to 40,000 persons died'.

.

Ibid. , p. 376.

Here, Merl informs us that a great number of the `victims of the Stalinist terror during the collectivization' died because of epidemics and that the Party promptly reacted to protect children.

Merl estimated that the fall 1930 transports `took place in less barbaric conditions'. The majority were sent to Siberia and Kazakhstan, `regions where there existed a considerable deficit of labor ....'

.

Merl, op. cit. , p. 377.

During the years 1930--1935, the Soviet Union was short of labor, especially in newly developed regions. The régime tried to use all available forces. It is difficult to see why it would have `killed' men who had been working the land in Siberia or Kazakhstan for the previous year or two. Nevertheless, Merl estimates that the 100,000 heads of family of the first category, sent to the Gulag system, are all dead. But the Party only placed 63,000 kulaks in the first category and only those guilty of terrorist and counter-revolutionary acts should be executed. Merl continues:

`Another 100,000 persons probably lost their lives, at the beginning of 1930, due to expulsion from their houses, deportation towards the North and executions'. Then he adjusts the number by another 100,000 persons, `dead in the deportation regions at the end of the thirties'. Once again, no precision or indication.

.

Ibid.

Merl's number of 300,000 dead is based on very approximate estimates and many of these deaths were the result of natural causes, old age and disease, and general conditions in the country.

Nevertheless, he is forced to defend these `weak' estimates when confronted by a crypto-fascist such as Conquest, who `calculated' that 6,500,000 kulaks were `massacred' during the collectivization, 3,500,000 in the Siberian camps!

.

Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 306. Stefan Merl, Wie viele Opfer forderte die ,,Liquidierung der Kulaken als Klasse``? Geschichte und Gesellschaft 14 (1988), p. 534.

Conquest is a major `authority' in the right wing. But Merl noted that Conquest's writings show a `frightening lack of criticism of sources'. Conquest `uses writings from obscure émigrés taking up information transmitted by second or third hand .... Often, what he presents as `facts' are only verified by a single questionable source.'

.

Ibid. , p. 535.

`The number of victims put forward by Conquest is more than double the number of deportees, according to his ``proof''.'

.

Ibid. , p. 537.

For a long time, writings by authors who are not Communists, such as Merl, allowed one to refute Conquest's gross slanders.

But in 1990, Zemskov and Dugin, two Soviet historians, published detailed statistics of the Fulag. Hence the exact figures are now available and they refute most of Conquest's lies.

During the most violent period of the collectivization, in 1930--1931, the peasants expropriated 381,026 kulaks and sent their families to unplowed land to the East. These included 1,803,392 persons. As of 1 January 1932, there were 1,317,022 people in the new establishments. The difference is of 486,000. The disorganization helping, many of the deported were able to escape during the trip, which often took three months or more. (To give an idea, of the 1,317,022 settled, 207,010 were able to flee during the year 1932.)

.

Nicolas Werth, `Goulag: les vrais chiffres'. L'Histoire 169 (September 1993), pp. 38--51. More details can be found in J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov. Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence. The America Historical Review, October 1993, pp. 1017--1049.

Others, whose case was reviewed, were allowed to return home. An undetermined number, that we have estimated at 100,000, died during the travels, mainly because of epidemics. The considerable number of deaths during displacements must be seen in the context of that epoch: a weak administration, precarious living conditions for the entire population, sometimes chaotic class struggles among the peasant population overtaken by leftism. Of course, for each death during displacement, the Right affirms that the guilty party is the Party, is Stalin. But in fact the contrary is true. The Party's position is clearly stated in one of the numerous reports about this problem, this one dated 20 December 1931 by the person responsible for a work camp at Novossibirsk.

`The high mortality observed for convoys nos 18 to 23 coming from the North Caucasus --- 2,421 persons out of 10,086 upon departure --- can be explained by the following reasons:

`1. A negligent, criminal approach to the selection of deported contingents, among whom were many children, aged over 65 years of age and sick people;

`2. The non-respect of directives about the right for deportees to bring with them provisions for two months of transfer.

`3. The lack of clean water, which forced the deported to drink unclean water. Many are dead of dysentery and of other epidemics.'

.

Werth, op. cit. , p. 44.

All these deaths are classed under the heading `Stalinist crimes'. But this report shows that two of the causes of death were linked to the non-respect of Party directives and the third had to do with the deplorable sanitary conditions and habits in the entire country.

Conquest `calculated' that 3,500,000 kulaks were `exterminated' in the camps.

.

Conquest, op. cit. , p. 306.

But the total number of dekulakized in the colonies never exceeded 1,317,022! And between 1932 and 1935, the number of departures exceeded by 299,389 the number of arrivals. From 1932 to the end of 1940, the exact number of deaths, essentially due to natural causes, was 389,521. And this number does not just include dekulakized, since after 1935 other categories were in the colonies as well.

What can one say about Conquest's affirmation of 6,500,000 `massacred' kulaks during the different phases of the collectivization? Only part of the 63,000 first category counter-revolutionaries were executed. The number of dead during deportations, largely due to famine and epidemics, was approximately 100,000. Between 1932 and 1940, we can estimate that 200,000 kulaks died in the colonies of natural causes. The executions and these deaths took place during the greatest class struggle that the Russian countryside ever saw, a struggle that radically transformed a backward and primitive countryside. In this giant upheaval, 120 million peasants were pulled out of the Middle Ages, of illiteracy and obscurantism. It was the reactionary forces, who wanted to maintain exploitation and degrading and inhuman work and living conditions, who received the blows. Repressing the bourgeoisie and the reactionaries was absolutely necessary for collectivization to take place: only collective labor made socialist mechanization possible, thereby allowing the peasant masses to lead a free, proud and educated life.

Through their hatred of socialism, Western intellectuals spread Conquest's absurd lies about 6,500,000 `exterminated' kulaks. They took up the defence of bourgeois democracy, of imperialist democracy. In Mozambique, Renamo, organized by the CIA and the security services of South Africa, has massacred and starved 900,000 villagers since 1980. The goal: prevent Mozambique from becoming an independent country with a socialist direction. In Mozambique, Western intellectuals did not need to invent cadavers, all they needed to do was write about imperialist barbarity. But these 900,000 deaths are a non-fact: no-one talks about them.

Unita, also openly financed and supported by the CIA and South Africa, killed more than one million Angolans during the civil war against the MPLA nationalist government. After having lost the 1992 elections, Savimbi, the CIA man, took up his destructive war yet again.

`The Angolan tragedy threatens the life of 3 million people .... Savimbi refused to accept the government's electoral victory of 129 seats against 91 and has plunged Angola yet again in a ferocious conflict that has taken another 100,000 lives (in the last twelve months).'

.

Time, 18 October 1993, European edition, p. 50. Translated from the French translation.

One hundred thousand Africans, of course, are nothing. How many Western intellectuals who still like to scream about the collectivization have simply not noticed that two million Mozambican and Angolan peasants were massacred by the West to prevent these countries from becoming truly independent and escaping from the clutches of international capital?
Source: http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/node67.html
Andaras
29-02-2008, 09:19
So, you're not going to actually argue but instead post tiresome propaganda mixed with comical "Comrade Stalin" sieg heils. Good to know - you're dismissed.

How is it propaganda? I think it's simply that you can't refute it's facts.
Greater Trostia
29-02-2008, 09:25
I'll quote a good and well sourced work to counter the claims of those slandering comrade Stalin:

So, you're not going to actually argue but instead post tiresome propaganda mixed with comical "Comrade Stalin" sieg heils. Good to know - you're dismissed.
Achrensburg
29-02-2008, 09:25
At least the Native Americans can open Casinos, sell tax free cigarettes, sell fireworks and hunt the occasional whale. When was the last time you heard of a Cuban whale hunt!

They go on them all the time!!! They're not very good though, they just end up on the beaches of Florida. lol
Andaras
29-02-2008, 09:31
I can't refute your sourced facts so I will continue to troll.
Thanks for that.

comical "Comrade Stalin" sieg heils. Good to know - you're dismissed.
Comrade just means in this case that I have 'common' ideas. Maybe it's you who needs the dictionary?
Greater Trostia
29-02-2008, 09:32
How is it propaganda?

Do you need a dictionary?

I think it's simply that you can't refute it's facts.

Nice try.

I will tire of debating your copy-and-paste articles before you tire of copying and pasting. And since you're already at the point where you aren't reading or responding to what others say - hence the strawmen, copy-and-paste, flaming and baiting - what exactly would be the point in my taking the time to post a response?

To put it succinctly, you aren't worth it, and there's no one else here who would get much benefit from seeing me explain in detail why up is indeed the opposite of down to someone who will never believe they are anything but synonyms.
Netherrealms
29-02-2008, 09:54
As wonderful and philosophical and moral as your opinnion sounds, if no one ever criticized someone elses civil rights, nothing would ever change, and if we waited for somebody to become perfect in that respect, it would never happen.

That is why we have multilateral organizations like UN, no?
Andaras
29-02-2008, 09:54
Oh, you're welcome. Anytime you want to "win" debates where you don't actually communicate with other debaters and where you get to declare the winner AND make up what the other person says, just let me know. Doesn't take much effort from me at all, does it - and you get to have your strawman victories as I said. Win-win!



It seems to mean you have a hero-worship of one of the most prolific mass murderers in history and like to mention it as often as possible just in case anyone forgets.



Yes! And I refer to it often. I don't know what I would do without it. Which is why I keep suggesting you should get one, too.

I won't worship anything, I don't honor the man, I recognize his advancement of and defense of Marxism-Leninism. And if you would just read the work I posted you'll discover just how wrong and ill-conceived your 'arguments'(more like latent examples of cultural ignorance and propaganda) are.
Greater Trostia
29-02-2008, 09:56
Thanks for that.

Oh, you're welcome. Anytime you want to "win" debates where you don't actually communicate with other debaters and where you get to declare the winner AND make up what the other person says, just let me know. Doesn't take much effort from me at all, does it - and you get to have your strawman victories as I said. Win-win!

Comrade just means in this case that I have 'common' ideas.

It seems to mean you have a hero-worship of one of the most prolific mass murderers in history and like to mention it as often as possible just in case anyone forgets.

Maybe it's you who needs the dictionary?

Yes! And I refer to it often. I don't know what I would do without it. Which is why I keep suggesting you should get one, too.
Greater Trostia
29-02-2008, 10:08
I won't worship anything, I don't honor the man

Yes. You do. See, if you can't even recognize something so basic as this, there's no hope at all for discussion of actual politics or economics.

Particularly since your typical responses always seem to be shit like:

your 'arguments'(more like latent examples of cultural ignorance and propaganda) are.

Or outright lies/baiting like your clever quote altering you did.

So no, I'm not going to read your propaganda. I skimmed as much as I needed to - and looked about on the website you copied and pasted it from - and I can 100% guarantee you that reading that trash will not make me "discover" how "wrong" I am.
Andaras
29-02-2008, 10:08
Yes. You do. See, if you can't even recognize something so basic as this, there's no hope at all for discussion of actual politics or economics.

Particularly since your typical responses always seem to be shit like:



Or outright lies/baiting like your clever quote altering you did.

So no, I'm not going to read your propaganda. I skimmed as much as I needed to - and looked about on the website you copied and pasted it from - and I can 100% guarantee you that reading that trash will not make me "discover" how "wrong" I am.

Fine then, suit yourself, wallow in your own ignorance for all of I care, I'd say you are in desperate need of self-criticism.
Greater Trostia
29-02-2008, 10:20
Fine then, suit yourself

I actually don't need your permission, comrade.

, wallow in your own ignorance for all of I care,

Continue to demonstrate the uselessness of talking with you. I am increasingly glad I didn't fall for your trick and respond to the article. You wouldn't have come up with any counter-rebuttal, just this kind of thing.

I'd say you are in desperate need of self-criticism.

Well that would be yet another thing I can't get from you. Good-night!
Ardchoille
29-02-2008, 11:04
This is no longer a debate, it's a shouting-match. Locked.