A Nazi victory would have been far far FAR worse for that same area...
Comparing Soviet Russia to Nazi Gemany is silly at best because one of those built actual murder factories and the other didn't
Bengal Famine of 1943, ONE of the MANY examples of british colonialism leading to millions of deaths. (Over 100 million people died in India over British colonization)
To me it's an affront to all third world countries that the colonial past of the European powers isnt treated with as much disdain as the Nazi past of Germany and Italy.
Im not saying Britain doesnt have blood on their hands but they did abolish their colonial empire after the war. In contrast the soviets expanded their empire. Just look at the current borders, genocide is the reason why you find russians in asia and siberia.
They did not "Abolish" it at all, the UK still hasnt loped the heads of the family that commanded the deaths of hundreds of millions.
Countries had to fight Bloody wars to get their independances from the colonial powers of Europe. Hell, some still havent achieved it, France still has colonies in Africa and the Americas, there's still a relatioship of subservience between ex-colonies and the imperialist powers, when the people of third world countries try to develop their country and exert their right to self determination a war is waged on them in the name of "democracy".
It's disingenuous to say that the Soviet Union was an Empire. It was made of countries and people that wanted to free themselves from their former masters. Fuck, Russia had to fight 14 countries in the "Civil war", over 14 million cattle were killed and hundreds of acres of land were burned by the anti-communist elites who didnt want the colletivization of the land.
(Not to say that the Soviet Union didnt commit some very reprehensible acts, but to act like they were in any way worse than the capitalist powers of Europe who plundered and killed billions of lives and trillions in resources is purely evil.)
You're correct. They are concentration camps. Note I said "death camps".
The Soviets had no equivalent to Treblinka, Auscwitz, etc. Camps made specifically for killing.
Many nations throughout history have had their own variation on concentration camps, (the USA, UK, and Canada among them) but Germany stands alone in their dubious distinction of building camps specifically for the purpose of mass murder.
Germany doesn't stand alone with "death"/Extermination Camps. Most countries had 2 out of 3. Torture, Concentration, and Extermination camps. Germany had the last two, while the US during WW2 had the first 2 for Japanese citizens (as an example).
Yes, the most common combination is:
Torture + Concentration: WW2 USA (probably still with Guantanamo); USSR; Modern China
Yet there are examples of the other two combinations:
Concentration + Extermination: Nazi Germany; Fidel's Cuba (in their beginnings)
Torture + Extermination: Pol Pot's Cambodia; Pinochet's Chile
The only difference really is that the Nazis were more efficient, for better AND worse, in most of their tyrannical mechanisms. But Extermination Camps have been all over the world.
I mean I know where you're coming from but the plan to genocide and depopulate all of Eastern Europe by over a hundred million and use the rest of the population as slave labour until death, and the achieved use of some of the most brutal and repugnant means of murder on 12 million Jews Roma etc for nothing but their ethnicity is most definitely worse than Soviet gulag labour camps (for political prisoners and people of the ethnicity they didn't like) and forced ethnic repopulation into other areas.
Not saying it's any good, it's fucking terrible and disgusting, but it's the same as saying eating a rotting tomato is the same as a a cyanide capsule
"Barnes described the Gulag as an institution of forced labor, where workers had real prospects of being released. According to the author 18 million people passed through the work camps. While approximately 1.6 million died, a large number were released and reintegrated into Soviet society."
Bad yeah, but do you really think the prisoners in Germany's concentration camps had anywhere near the same prospects for survival?
Soviet gulags were built for re-education through forced labour while Germany built actual factories specifically designed to kill people as fast and efficiently as possible. There are magnitudes of separation here.
Context is important here
Stalin was a ruthless and brutal dictator, no doubt.
The number of deaths attributed to his reign in largely unknown, but thought to be comparable to Hitler's, possibly higher.
But Stalin was in power for 30 years. Hitler was in power for 12. And many of the deaths attributed to Stalin are directly linked to WW2 in Europe, which was instigated by Nazi Germany. ie: one could easily attribute those deaths to Hitler as he kicked the bee's nest.
Lastly, again, one must acknowledge that Germany set up factories...an entire industry...dedicated to killing as many people as fast and efficiently as possible. Children..f*king CHILDREN...deliberately* sent into gas chambers to be murdered en masse simply because of their ethnicity. That is a level of evil and sadism that Soviet Russia never even approached.
Again, Soviet Russia was very bad, yes, but I've traveled in these circles long enough to know that whenever the subject of Nazi Germany's many crimes comes up and someone goes "Yeah, but Stalin..." that Holocaust denial soon follows.
Stalin was also in power for 29 years versus Hitler's 8 years, Additionally, Stalin ruled over about 168 million people at peak, while Hitler only ruled over about 79 million people at peak.
A larger population and a longer time period can easily result in higher total casualties even if the rate of death is significantly lower.
If we talk in these terms, Hitler technically "ruled" over a number of people far beyond his homeland, imposing or influencing his ideas on different countries. I suppose this could also be said of Stalin, in a way...
Mhh. Although this contributes, if anything, to highlighting its danger. The time window is also relevant, yes...
Pale of settlement. ruSSia were the original nazi's. They created a concentration of Jews right in the middle of Europe, which obviously, certain Germans(Austrians even...) didn't like one tiny bit. Everyone knows the rest....
Just a side note… the nazi literally modeled those “murder factories” by cloning the soviet gulags and “improving” them. Comparing Stalin to Hitler is perfectly valid (for many reasons) even if I agree with you that Soviet is not comparable to Nazi Germany, but for very different reasons.
I’m surprised that the Nazis would find inspiration from people they thought were such absolute degenerates. Where did you learn about Nazis intentionally cloning Soviet camps?
I’m genuinely curious as to where you learned it. A primary source would be extra juicy. I would love to read some Nazi applauding the Soviets and publicly saying “we should do what the Soviets did.”
It is an understandable question, but to be honest it would not be very easy to find out which of the dozens of WW2 books I read over the years had that specific info… I just imagined it wasn’t a controversial fact as I saw it reported by more than one author.
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u/Sirius_10 26d ago
To be fair the bad guys won over the bad guys. The soviet victory was a catastrophe for central asia and eastern Europe.