Folks will shit on Animal Farm night and day, but its crazy that you can read an allegorical depiction of the Holodomor in a children's anti-communist parable from the 1940s that is more accurate than 95% of western straight-laced high school / college history accounts.
Population health did not decline and indeed generally improved during the 4 years of the Great Depression, 1930–1933, with mortality decreasing for almost all ages, and life expectancy increasing by several years in males, females, whites, and nonwhites.
Like.... did anyone just not see that and wonder "why"? I guess most Imperial Core folks would just be like "yeah socialism is when evil so whatever" but how can folks who actually read that and think about it not have like one question.
Because the average person has no idea what the famine is as it’s never taught and never brought up outside of “gommunism bad” so their only viewpoint on it is gommunism bad
Most people assume the past was pretty much like things are today but with older tech. They don’t realize how deeply ingrained famine is to the human experience for thousands of years up until recent decades. In tsarist Russia in the 19th century there were 5-8 major famines that killed roughly 40 million people. In China, I recall seeing that for the 2,000 years until the Revolution, there was a major famine in at least one area on average once per year. When I’m tempted to think that life under feudalism actually sounds kinda nice, I recall how much famines suck (and medical technology). Famines happened a lot in the past, the Ukrainian famine was much more the historical norm. And it was the Soviets who ended famine within their borders after that (other than the famine right at the end of the war, but that was caused by the Nazis).
People in the west are taught to not think for themselves, we live in a world where "history ended" and all matters have been settled. It is not our job to examine things, to understand things, only to "know" things that are taught to us verbatim, freezepeach means "My ignorance is just as vital to society as your knowledge." and the ignorant are given megaphones by the wealthy to ensure that this is the version of things most people hear.
We would have to be federated with that instance and then she would have to search for Hexbear posts on Mastodon and then she'd have to reply so basically no
To quote one of this websites great posters:
The Atlantic are called that because they are reptilian fish people, not humans. Google innsmouth for more information about biological taxonomy
Damn, this lawn is so green and bright, and it doesn't require any watering at all! People driving by would never be able to tell it isn't a real lawn!
I was actually gonna give Red Famine the benefit of the doubt and read it but if this is the dumbass shit she says then cool. Just removed the book from my library.
Her scholarship has been torn apart for using bad data, cherry picking, completely trusting some sources for no reason, completely disregarding other sources as lies even when those sources are well corroborated…
Yeah and yet she is referenced in articles. I just had to read a book on supposedly antiracism (pov Europe) and this ghoul appears on the reference list, I knew to look for it as the article itself was very much anticommunism dressed as nuanced academics.
Her scholarship has been torn apart by bourgeois historians, not just us tankies. I think even J Arch Getty, who I have a ton of respect for, tore into her book somewhere.
Never trust anyone who self-identifies as a “historian” but whose background is in journalism. Not that academic historians are the only ones who can write about history, just that the people who don’t have that background who are trustworthy will always admit that upfront. Applebaum does everything she can to hide the fact that she is not an actual historian.
For her famine book, she just took what every Ukrainian historian told her about the famine uncritically and at face value, and repeated their bullshit. Her position and that of Ukrainian historians is so far against what even most mainstream, bourgeois understand as what happened, which is something along the lines of “the famine was naturally occurring; some Soviet policies likely made things worse but there was some intentional acts of sabotage are the part of the kulaks. Stalin may have dismissed early reports of famine and hardship but once Soviet leadership realized what was happening they took steps to alleviate it as best they could (but there was famine in other places going on at the same time so they could only do so much). Even Robert fucking Conquest says it wasn’t some intentional plot on the part of Stalin.