jks:
> Making me out to be a Stalinist apologist is a losing proposition. I'm the
> house liberal democrat, remember?
Never meant to. Sorry if that was inferred.
> Your analogy is defective: the CCP (and the
> Chinese people) pulled together a totally undeveloped nation that had been
> devastated by period famine for centuries, that had no functioning
> governing, that had been not mere occupied but torn into balkanized
factions
> by predatory factions and greedy warlords. The Party's policies largely
> wiped out famine.
I conceded this, and perhaps this was the only way China could advance. Brutal but perhaps necessary, though I don't think all that cult worship of Mao was needed, esp since he and his cronies lived better than the people they claimed to represent. Greed and predatory factions didn't leave China once Mao took over; they just took different shapes, used different reasoning.
> The most reliable figures I am aware of do not support your death tolls.
The
> figures on the Stalin Terror unearthed by Getty suggest that the deaths
were
> in the hugh hundreds of thousands. You are doubtless counting in the
> Ukrainian collectivization famine, which probably boots the figures up to
> eight or nine million.
Are you serious? Is Conquest completely lying here? I mean, since the Ukraine was under Soviet control, then yes, I would add that to the tally. But it's all moot now, no?
DP