<DIV>I think the estimates for collectization deaths run up to 8 million. I am not sure what exacttly Brad's point is, but the fact is that on the best evidence we now have (1) the toll of imprisonment and death of innocent people during the Stalin Terror was unacceptably high, and (2) was much, much lower than the standard guesstimates made before the archive were opened (20 million dead according to Conquest, 35 million according to Pipes, 50 million according to Solzhenitsyn, and indeed 10-15 million according to Medvedev). That does not make Stalinism OK. jks<BR><BR><B><I>Brad DeLong <jbdelong@uclink.berkeley.edu></I></B> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> <STYLE type=text/css></STYLE> <BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite"> <BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite"><FONT face=Arial size=-1>From: "Chris Doss" <itschris13@hotmail.com><BR><BR><BR>I just read that during the worst years of Stalin only 2.5% of the Soviet</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE cite="" type="cite"><FONT face=Arial size=-1>population was in prison. This CAN'T be true, can it?</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1><BR></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1>Your stay in the GULAG could be short for one of two reasons, remember.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1><BR></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1>What's the current guess of deaths during the collectivization of agriculture? 5 million? What proportion of the 5 million "displaced persons" returned to the Soviet Union after World War II ever made it home? Half?</FONT> Perhaps 1 million shot by the NKVD during the Great Terror itself who never made it to the GULAG.</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <DIV>I do remember being struck that *both* of Gorbachev's grandparents were arrested during the 1930s (although both survived): his paternal grandfather for failing to meet production targets, and his maternal grandfather for being a right-wing Trotskyist. Stalin was much harder on Communists than on peasants and workers, and the closer you got to Stalin, the lower your chances of surviving became...</DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1><BR></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1><BR></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=-1>Brad DeLong</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><p><br><hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!?<br> <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/search/mailsig/*http://search.yahoo.com">The New Yahoo! Search</a> - Faster. Easier. Bingo.