Red Holocaust

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Red Holocaust

Twentieth and twenty-first-century communism is a failed experiment in social engineering that needlessly killed approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more. These high crimes against humanity constitute a Red Holocaust that exceeds the combined carnage of the French Reign of Terror, Ha Shoah, Showa Japan’s Asian holocaust, and all combat deaths in World War I and II. This fascinating book investigates high crimes against humanity in the Soviet Union, eastern and central Europe, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia 1929–2009, and compares the results with Ha Shoah and the Japanese Asian holocaust. As in other studies, blame is ascribed to political, ideological and personal causes, but special emphasis is given to internal contradictions in Marx’s utopian model as well as Stalinist and post-Stalinist transition systems concocted to realize communist ends. This faulty economic engineering forms a bridge to the larger issue of communism’s historical failure. The book includes: • • • • •

a comprehensive study of the transcommunist holocaust; a judicial assessment of holocaust culpability and special pleadings; an obituary for Stalinism everywhere except North Korea, and a death watch for contemporary communism in China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba and Nepal; a comparative assessment of totalitarian high crimes against humanity; a call for memory as a defense against recurrent economic, racial and ethnic holocausts.

This book will be useful to undergraduate and higher level students interested in Russian history, Stalinism, communism, Asia, comparative economic performance and international affairs. Steven Rosefielde is a Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. One of the world’s leading experts in Soviet/Russian Studies, Comparative Economic Systems and International Security, he is the author of numerous books including the Russian Economy: From Lenin to Putin (2007).



Red Holocaust

Steven Rosefielde


First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Steven Rosefielde All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rosefielde, Steven. Red Holocaust / Steve Rosefielde. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Communism—History—20th century. 2. Dystopias—Communist countries. 3. Capitalism—History. I. Title. HX40.R57 2009 335.43—dc22 2009022510 ISBN 0-203-86437-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–77756–9 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–415–77757–7 (pbk) ISBN10: 0–203–86437–9 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–77756–8 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–77757–5 (pbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–86437–1 (ebk)

Downloaded by [INFLIBNET Centre] at 05:11 29 August 2012 For my son, David Rosefielde



Contents

Tables, Figures and Boxes Acknowledgements Foreword Preface Introduction

ix xiii xv xvii 1

PART I

Red Holocaust: First Wave

11

1 Dystopia

13

2 20 Million Souls

17

3 Collectivization and Terror-Starvation

35

4 The Great Terror

53

5 Gulag

63

6 Ethnic Cleansing

78

7 Captive Nations

85

8 Sword and Torch

91

PART II

The Second Wave 9 Overlapping Empires 10 Killing Fields

99 101 115

viii

Contents

PART III

Liberalization

123

11 The Sixth Commandment

125


PART IV

Terror-Command Economy

133

12 Siege-Mobilization

135

13 Asian Terror-Command

144

14 Terror-Free Command

152

15 Illusion of Progress

160

PART V

Red Holocaust Denial

171

16 Corpus Delicti

173

17 Presumption of Innocence

184

18 Justifiable Homicide

194

19 Beyond Good and Evil

202

20 Clemency and Retribution

206

PART VI

Hitler’s and Hirohito’s Holocausts

215

21 Genocide and Lethal Labor Exploitation

217

PART VII

After the Second Wave

231

22 Prospects

233

Conclusion

239

Glossary Notes Bibliography Index

245 254 321 343


Tables, Figures and Boxes

Tables 2.1 2.2 A2.1 A2.2 3.1 3.2

Stalin’s terror-killings 1929–53 Rival estimates of Stalin’s Red Holocaust 1928–53 Excess deaths 1927–38 Excess deaths 1937–38 Soviet collectivization Types of agricultural institutions before and after collectivization 3.3 Starvation deaths in 1933 3.4 Excess collectivization deaths 1929–33 A3.1 Excess deaths 1929–33 A3.2 Excess deaths 1929–37 A3.3 Estimates of excess deaths from famine 1930–33: Davies and Wheatcroft 4.1 Key indicators of Soviet economic development 1928–37 4.1n Industrial and agrarian growth during the post-civil war recovery 4.2 Kulak death sentences 1929–33 4.3 Secret police executions 1921–45 4.4 Pool of potential war-related executions of Soviet and foreign citizens 5.1 Archival NKVD Gulag population mortality statistics 5.2 Contradictory Gulag camp population statistics 1929–45 5.3 Gulag camp population and deaths 1929–77 5.4 Estimated excess deaths 1940–49 (latest postwar vital statistics) 5.5 Official Soviet war-related deaths 1941–45 A5.1 NKVD sentencing statistics A5.2 Derivation of the official 26 million WWII excess deaths A5.3 Estimated excess deaths 1940–49 based on the 1939 census 6.1 Main ethnic and other groups held in special exile in October 1946 7.1 Postwar Soviet satellite excess deaths 1946–53

21 24 31 32 37 37 38 38 47 48 49 54 265 58 58 60 66 68 69 71 72 74 74 75 79 87


x

Tables, Figures and Boxes

9.1n China’s population 1956–61 9.1 Rummel’s estimates of Mao’s Red Holocaust 9.2 Rummel’s estimates of the North Korean,Vietnamese and Laotian Red Holocaust 9.2n Adjusted birth rates and death rates from several demographers 9.3n Calculated population change based on adjusted data 9.4n Amount of Governmental Collecting and Returning Agricultural Products during Starvation 9.5n Annual production of governmental grain collecting 9.6n Amount of grain storage during the year of starvation 9.7n The Food Products Export from China 1956–1965 9.8n 1956–1965 China food products import 9.9n 1956–1964 Investment in fixed assets by national owned companies 11.1 Red Holocaust: the death toll 1921–94 15.1 Communist gross domestic product 1928–2000 15.2 Communist gross domestic product growth 1929–2000 (siege-mobilized regimes) 15.3 Communist gross domestic product growth 1921–2000 (benchmarks) 15.4 Communist industrial and agricultural growth 1929–2000 15.5 Communist industrial and agricultural growth 1929–2000 (Red Holocaust benchmarks) 15.6 Communist population statistics 15.7 Communist superindustrialization surges 16.1 Population deficits 1927–39 16.2 Soviet vital statistics 1927–38 16.3 Excess deaths 1927–39 16.4 Estimated excess deaths 1940–49 16.5 Summary distribution of excess deaths 1929–49 18.1 Bergson’s munitions estimates 21.1 Nazi civilian executions and lethal forced labor killings 1933–45 21.2 Germany, Japan, South Korea gross domestic product 1928–45 21.3 Germany, Japan and South Korea gross domestic product Growth 1920–45 21.4 German, Japanese and Korean population statistics 21.5 Red and Racial Holocausts: Death Toll, 1921–94, selected estimates (millions)

279 107 111 280 281 283 283 284 285 287 288 126 163 164 165 166 166 167 168 175 176 177 178 179 199 221 224 224 225 226

Figures 12.1 15.1

Siege-mobilized terror-command communism 1929–53 USSR: Trends in GNP and industrial and agricultural output 1950–87

137 161

Tables, Figures and Boxes 17.1n

xi

Pareto efficiency possibilities

305

Stalin’s ethnic cleansing spetspereselentsy 1933–53 Stalin’s “final solution” to the Soviet Jewish question Terror-free command: the computopic benchmark Command planning: the political economic view The Millar-Barsov agrarian surplus test

81 83 188 190 197

Boxes


6.1 6.2 17.1 17.2 18.1



Acknowledgements

Red Holocaust is a complex reflection of diverse lifetime professional interests. My teachers and some of their peers: Alec Nove, Leonard Shapiro, Karl Popper, Abram Bergson, Alexander Gerschenkron, Wassily Leontief, Simon Kuznets, Adam Ulam, and Richard Pipes shaped my early attitudes. Their influence was enhanced over the decades by Emil Ershov, George Kleiner, Andrei Fonotov, Zurab Yakobashvili, Robert Conquest, Jan Rylander, William Van Cleave, Tanya Baeva, Alyona Kirstova, Leonid Lamm, Stephen Wheatcroft, Michael Ellman, Rudy Rummel and many others. Epochal events like Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the abandonment of communism everywhere in the former Soviet bloc, and the rise of market communism in Asia (except North Korea) deepened my understanding and led me to shift attention from Soviet crimes against humanity to a transcommunist perspective. Beyond these diffuse influences, many scholars, colleagues and research assistants helped me prepare Red Holocaust. Hsi Chu Bollik, Yu Tianying, Lina Huang, and Zhou Huan translated pertinent parts of Yang Jisheng’s Mubei and gathered other important primary Chinese source statistical materials. Olga Belskaya helped prepare the index. Edith Terry, Si Tong, and Jonathan Leightner provided useful advice on the China section. Peter Pham coached me on Indochina; Yasushi Toda on Japan, and Ron Childress and Alan Rosefielde on juridical matters. Philippe Debroux, Nicholas Eberstadt, Paul Gregory, Taras Hunczak, Yoji Koyama, Peter Pham, Romana Hlouskova, Quinn Mills, Lennart Samuelson, Gudrum Persson, Mark Tolts, James Millar, Yuri Avvakumov, Alex Sankin, Stefan Hedlund, Dan Goldberg, R. W. Pfouts, Natalia Vennikova, Eugene Kogan, Lawrence Simpson, Bruno Dallago, Jaroslav Folda, Liu Yuhong, and Kaoru Nakata gave me helpful advice. Nancy Kocher provided yeowoman service typing and retyping drafts. And my wife, Susan, as always was a source of immense support. My deepest gratitude to all, who deserve credit, but none of the blame.



Foreword

It always has been difficult to perceive and interpret the world as it is, rather than as we prefer it to be. The devout rely on concepts like providence to filter experience, believing that what they see is ordained and best. Many nonbelievers behave similarly, certain that reason compels mankind toward an harmonious, prosperous and just future, even though events often suggest otherwise. And there are garden variety panaceas. If people renounce evil, educate themselves and obey the law, wrongs will be righted. If there is perfect competition, perfect governance, perfect compassion and love, the woes which befall us can be averted. But the universe we inhabit operates on different rules. We don’t know if any of these verities are true, if we perceive accurately or our explanations are correct. Science is supposed to enable us to discriminate fact from fiction, but positivist, and rationalist methodologies often don’t settle anything, especially in economics and political affairs. People aren’t always rational and wise, and don’t utility maximize in the sense required by virtuous social welfare optimization. Consequently positivist and rationalist explanations about what happened or might have happened are musings, masquerading as knowledge. They fail not because they are based on unworthy principles, but because the approaches themselves are futile. There are no abstractions that can impose virtuous necessity on phenomena driven by incompatible forces, and positivist historical analysis is invariably over-determined and vulnerable to statistical deception. Rationalism, harmonism, convergence, statism, socialism, communism, capitalism, globalization and democracy cannot explain what was or might have been when they don’t fully govern behavior, and numbers don’t unambiguously speak for themselves. It is therefore essential to document, describe, interpret and explain events as they seem to have transpired using Romano Harre’s realist methodology, without normative gloss. If Stalin was capable of distinguishing right from wrong, but didn’t because he delighted in crushing opponents real and imagined, this must be accepted, even though it violates some people’s concept of rationality. If he glamorized his motives, was enthralled by his own


xvi

Foreword

rhetoric, was a paranoid psychotic and made bad choices for himself and Russia, this must be recognized as part of the mosaic. Only then can one attempt to sort out whether and in what senses the Red Holocaust documented in this treatise was necessary, assign blame and evaluate how the west should have responded. The task is intrinsically difficult, and complicated further by a literature inclined to conflate fables, wishful thinking and pretext with explanation. Western public culture is profoundly uncomfortable with the Red Holocaust. It is inclined toward denial because a communist state policy of mass civilian slaughter impugns the west’s faith in reason, progress, harmony and justice. For the same reason, it is prone to excuse the mote, and when all else fails, to sermonize. These biases must be extirpated by careful reconstruction and detached modeling to rescue the objective core. The story that emerges from the exercise is edifying. It reveals that the conditions for the Red Holocaust were rooted in Stalin’s, Kim’s, Mao’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s siege-mobilized terror-command economic systems, not in Marx’s utopian vision or other pragmatic communist transition mechanisms. Terror-command was chosen among other reasons because of legitimate fears about the long-term viability of terror-free command, and the ideological risks of market communism. The internal contradictions of communism confronted leaders with a predicament that could only have been efficiently resolved by acknowledging communism’s inferiority and changing course. Denial offered two unhappy options: one bloody, the other dreary, and history records that more often than not, communist rulers chose the worst option. Tens of millions were killed in vain; a testament to the triumph of ruthless hope over dispassionate reason that proved more durable than Hitler’s and Hirohito’s racism. These findings are likely to withstand the test of time, but are only a beginning, opening up a vast new field for scientific inquiry as scholars gradually gain access to archives in North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. April 2009


Preface

Communism once seemed destiny’s darling. The movement inspired in 1847 by Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto gradually gained political momentum during the second half of the nineteenth century by casting itself as capitalism’s chosen successor. To the amazement of many, the Bolsheviks fulfilled the prophesy by seizing control of Russia in 1917. The Reds then defeated their rivals during the ensuing civil war, spreading their tentacles globally through the Third International, military conquest and civil wars in Asia. Just over a century after Marx published his Manifesto, communism reigned in the USSR, parts of central and eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Albania, Mongolia, North Korea, and China. The ascent was spectacular, encouraging many to believe with Nikita Khrushchev that “We will bury you,” that prosperity, equality and global social justice was just around the corner. The enthusiasm continued throughout Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolutions, but afterwards things began to fall apart. Today, only North Korea survives as an orthodox remnant of the salad days. Communist parties continue to rule in China, Vietnam and Laos, but these regimes bear little resemblance either to Soviet command systems, or to Marx’s stateless, propertyless, harmonist utopia. Cuba is tottering and little yet can be said about Maoist Nepal. Communism seems to be in its death throes. The utopian dream is fading into obscurity, the international communist movement is moribund, and reforms in surviving communist states are increasingly detached from Marxist principles. The time therefore has come for a dry-eyed net assessment of the communist phenomenon, “utopian and scientific” without genuflecting to its visionary ideals, or obfuscating problematics like “Was Stalin Necessary?” The class struggle did not peacefully culminate in communist utopia, and Marx’s model could not have worked if it had. The command economy adopted by Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot as a transition vehicle to utopia failed to outperform democratic free enterprise and European social democracy. Communism didn’t advance socialist humanism. It never gained power through the ballot, was authoritarian,


xviii

Preface

repressed civil society, and as this study will show, was the world’s preeminent peacetime killing machine. There is no need to prove that communism was a conceptual dead end. The facts speak for themselves. The Soviet Union abandoned communism of its own volition, and nearly all its former European satellites have gained accession to the European Union. Many, however, resist believing that this dismal outcome was fated, or that communists employed massive violence to build and spread their systems. This treatise challenges the notion that communist economy was ever sound, and shows that Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s Red Holocausts were primarily intended to overcome the internal contradictions of command economy. Communism had many opponents, but the most lethal was the enemy within.


Introduction

Twenty percent of the world’s population in 2010 lives in states ruled by communist parties. Although, conspicuously on the defensive since the collapse of the Soviet Union, some communists continue to believe that the future is theirs. Are they right, and if so, would this be a bane or a blessing? This treatise provides a basis for assessing communism’s merit and prospects by constructing a balance, weighing material achievements and human costs. The indicators selected are per capita GDP, and excess deaths. Other factors could be added like democracy, civil liberties, oppression, torture, income inequality, social safety nets, scientific attainments, innovation, ethics and the arts, but the verdict is apt to be the same. GDP statistics are taken from standard international sources. They can be challenged on diverse grounds,1 however, they should be accurate enough for our purposes. The most controversial aspect of our net assessment is the Red Holocaust: peacetime communist state killings and related crimes against humanity perpetrated by Joseph Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot. If they are figments of the imagination, small, or pardonable in various degrees, then the future can be parsed solely on communism’s economic record (which some still believe was superior). Otherwise, communism’s economic virtues must be discounted for its inhumanities. This makes the Red Holocaust the centerpiece of any communist net assessment, requiring a thorough analysis of: 1) excess deaths, using demographic and archival data; 2) a searching determination of cause; and 3) assessment of criminal content in contemporary international law. The first ten chapters of the treatise are devoted to estimating excess deaths, and establishing their legal cause. Were people executed, worked to death or starved? The next five chapters examine causality in a deeper sense, assessing communism’s economic potential and performance. It fixes responsibility jointly on systemic defects and despotic motives and provides a solid foundation for investigating the legal nuances of communist mass killing in Chapters 16 through 20. The remainder of the book is devoted to comparing three totalitarian holocausts (Red, Third Reich and Showa Japan) and assessing the Red Holocaust’s and communism’s past, present and futures.


2

Red Holocaust

The approach is straightforward, but differs fundamentally from prior studies by placing partial responsibility for mass killing on the defective design of Marx’s communist utopia, and the transition vehicles adopted to achieve it. Ironically, the internal contradictions of the communist idea,2 and transitionary communist economic systems not only necessitated inferior economic performance, but in some instances dramatically increased the risk of high crimes against humanity.3 This insight has numerous ramifications. It reduces the importance of politics and ideology in communist construction, and increases the explanatory role of economic dysfunctionalities. It discredits claims that rapid forced industrialization could serve as a platform for building superior communist systems that might warrant breaking a few eggs to make utopian omelettes. It shifts attention from despots’ psychology and motives, to an appreciation that mass killing was common to an entire class of communist regimes across space and time;4 that the phenomenon was systemic, not idiosyncratic. It facilitates an appreciation of the fact that communist economic governance was not only intrinsically defective, but protean. States ruled by communist parties adopted command, siegemobilized terror-command, terror-free command and diverse market communist systems. Some of these models were killing machines but others weren’t, demonstrating that particular forms of communism, rather than communism itself, were responsible for high crimes against humanity. Stalin didn’t mass murder during NEP, but killed with impunity afterwards when homicide seemed to him essential for achieving communist industrialization. This offers some solace, and perhaps hope that future communisms can be terror-free and economically superior. Chinese, Vietnamese, and Laotian communism point the way. But it may be best to watch and wait, because the more states ruled by communist parties improve their economic and human performance, the less they display any recognizable correspondence with Marx’s communist utopian ideal. The primary finding of this study, given these subtleties, is that communism in its various manifestations killed approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more in two distinct waves for naught in a vain attempt to make a flawed utopian scheme and similarly defective transition vehicles work well enough to satisfy leaders’ despotic aspirations (Table 11.1). Liberalizing reforms in the new millennium should reduce the scale of killing and improve social welfare, but not enough to rekindle the dream, or eliminate catastrophic risk, while troglodyte siege-mobilized terror-command communist regimes like Kim Jong Il’s North Korea keep filling body bags. Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot deserved the severest punishments for their role in high crimes against humanity, and communism cannot avoid the sternest condemnation, whatever grounds exist for clemency, because of the carnage’s scale, and the pain and suffering inflicted by torture, sadism, mutilation, cannibalism, terror, cruelty, oppression, and deprivation of political, economic and human rights (see Chapter 20). A compelling case can be made for letting bygones be bygones, but not at the expense of selective amnesia

Introduction

3

that increases the risk of holocaust recurrence. Even while seeking reconciliation, the Red Holocaust cannot be belittled or forgotten because memory serves as a deterrent to fresh atrocities. The three great twentieth-century totalitarian holocausts, and the ongoing high crimes against humanity in North Korea must be collectively acknowledged and remembered, to deter future holocausts of every description.


Conceptual Boundaries The Red Holocaust could be defined to include all murders (judicially sanctioned terror-executions), criminal manslaughter (lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing) and felonious negligent homicide (terror-starvation) incurred from insurrectionary actions and civil wars prior to state seizure, and all subsequent felonious state killings. This treatise, however, limits the Red Holocaust death toll to peacetime state killings, even if communists were responsible for political assassinations, insurrections and civil wars before achieving power, in order to highlight the causal significance of communist economic systems. It also excludes deaths attributable to wartime hostilities after states were founded. As a matter of accounting, the convention excludes Soviet killings before 1929, during World War II (1940–45) and in Germany, occupied Europe, North Korea, Mongolia, Manchuria and the Kuril Islands (1946–53). Killings in China before October 1949 are similarly excluded, as are those in Indochina before 1954. Soviet slaughter of nobles, kulaks, capitalist and the bourgeoisie during War Communism are part of the excluded wartime group, but killings of similar social categories in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia after their civil wars in the process of Communist consolidation are included. The summary casualty statistics reported in Table 11.1 conform with this definition and in principle only reflect excess deaths, excluding natural mortality. It provides a comprehensive picture of discretionary communist killings unobscured by wartime exigencies. Others desiring a broader body count to assess the fullest extent of communist carnage can easily supplement the estimates provided here from standard sources.

Singularity Communists weren’t the only totalitarians who found it expedient to mass murder. Hitler and ultra-nationalist Showa Japan indulged in their own holocausts less than a decade after Stalin’s forced industrialization drive began in 1929. However, the causes of these holocausts differed. Hitler’s was primarily racially motivated, an attempt to eradicate Jews. Racism and imperialism governed Showa Japan’s mass killing, with short-term economic benefit playing a subsidiary wartime role. Only the communist holocaust was driven by the desire to make its command economy work well enough to meet leaders’ needs. The Red Holocaust in this regard was economically singular.

4

Red Holocaust

Once this is appreciated, communist crimes against humanity exhibit a distinctive systemic pattern obscured by focusing on the Soviet Union, or any other communist nation. Siege-mobilized terror-command including terrordiscipline, terror-execution, terror-starvation, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing devoured large numbers of its own, politicals, peasants and workers alike, because killing, forced labor and intimidation were integral to the terror-charged approach to rapid economic development.5


“H” Word Ever since Nikita Khrushchev revealed that Stalin slaughtered legions, in his secret speech to the 20th Communist Party Congress, February 1956, the west was aware on the highest Soviet authority that there might have been a major crime against humanity perpetrated in the USSR. Official acknowledgement of aspects of the second Asian wave wouldn’t emerge until much later. Comparisons were made between Nazi and Soviet terror, forced labor, mass murder and ethnic cleaning,6 but the “H” word was reserved for Hitler’s genocide. The discovery of 31 million missing adults in the census data 1940–49 also raised eyebrows,7 because demographers familiar with the infamous 1937 Soviet census understood that the figure might easily include collectivization and terror casualties from the 1930s. Nonetheless, most followed the official lead attributing the loss to Nazi aggression, and treating the carnage as a Soviet badge of honor. This reticence was the artifact of diverse sensibilities. The scale of Soviet noncombatant killing was difficult to calibrate and verify because key statistics including the suppressed 1937 census, the 1933 mortality rate, and wartime military fatalities weren’t yet publicly available. Even if the worst were true, the intent was said to be different. Hitler’s murders were racial genocide, whereas Stalin’s killings were diversely motivated. Even if the Ukrainian starvation (famine) 1932–33 had a genocidal aspect,8 it could be ascribed to a tactical error in a class war to save the revolution. Even if things got out of hand in the heat of battle, it could be claimed that kulak extermination wasn’t state policy.9 Even if terror and lethal Gulag labor exploitation occurred, they could be excused as self-defense for numerous reasons, including the imperative of rapid socialist construction. There always seemed to be extenuating rationalizations. Time, however, has been unkind to those putting a brave face on Stalin’s crimes against humanity. Post-Soviet archival access, often described as the archival revolution, has clarified the demographic record and unearthed documentary evidence demonstrating conclusively that Stalin killed more than thirteen million in addition to civilian and military casualties of war (Table 2.1), contrary to Barbara Anderson’s and Brian Silver’s counterclaims about the demographic evidence.10 The term holocaust, which was used before World War II to mean a great slaughter or massacre,11 has been broadened from its early postwar identification with Nazi extermination policies


Introduction

5

against Jews, to include Hitler’s genocidal actions against the Roma and Slavs, noncombatant mass killings by the Japanese (mostly in China) and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, whether or not these deaths were primarily genocidal.12 And, the presumption of communist innocence on the grounds that the ends justified the means was shattered by the Soviet Union’s demise, and market liberalization in China and Indochina. There wasn’t, nor would there be, a better proletarian future to justify the human cost of communist power. Consequently, the world finally may be ready to accept that all major crimes against humanity which rise to the scale of Ha Shoah (Hebrew word for Hitler’s decimation of the Jews) are holocaust class felonies, regardless of whether killings are racially, ethnically, economically or politically motivated, subclassified by type and heinousness. Ha Shoah magnitude criminal homicides against any population will be deemed first degree holocausts if the crime is considered inexcusable mass murder (terror-executions, lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing and terror-starvation). Major crimes against humanity caused by inexcusable felonious manslaughter, defined here to include lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing where killing is a secondary motive; and criminally negligent homicide covering cases like terror-starvation where killing is intended to shock and awe can be treated as lesser second degree holocausts, with third degree status reserved for cases solely comprised of criminally negligent shock and awe homicide. The term “high crimes against humanity” refers to holocausts of any degree, distinguishing this class from non-lethal crimes against mankind like mass rape. Standard international criteria for establishing guilt in any degree can be applied, with mitigating and aggravating circumstances taken into account to tailor sentences to fit the crime.

Legalities The distinctions establishing different categories of holocaustic killings reflect the debate over the appropriate interpretation of communist wrongful deaths. Executions, shootings, lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing and terrorstarvation may be legally sanctioned (capital punishment), misdemeanors or felonious depending on the exact character of each homicide. Terrorstarvation, for example, constitutes murder if Stalin and Mao deliberately starved victims to death. In the terminology adopted here, terror-starvation is criminal manslaughter if communist leaders used starvation as a cudgel to prod labor effort, knowing many would die. It is criminally negligent homicide if killing was the inadvertent, but acceptable consequence of shock and awe tactics. Most scholars agree that terror executions like Stalin’s during the Great Terror are murders. Many also consider Gulag forced labor excess deaths murders, but others prefer to treat them, and excess ethnic cleansing deaths, as felonious manslaughter. The most controversial category is


6

Red Holocaust

terror-starvation homicides. Some Cambodians consider the starvation deaths in the killing fields genocidal murder. Some prefer to classify them as felonious manslaughter and/or criminally negligent homicide, while others claim that they are non-felonious misdemeanors. Terror-starvation killings throughout the text will be treated as criminally negligent homicide, reflecting the author’s judgment that most starvation deaths during the Holodomor, Great Leap Forward, Pol Pot’s killing fields were felonious, without ruling out the possibility that portions of these deaths could be reclassified as murders, manslaughters and misdemeanors. Assessment of the magnitude of the Red Holocaust may be strongly affected by personal judgments about Stalin’s, Mao’s and Pol Pot’s culpability for the USSR’s, China’s and Cambodia’s terror-starvation deaths, and readers therefore should pay especially close attention to the details. With these principles in mind, communist mass noncombatant killings of individuals and groups whether or not they were politicals, through executions, lethal forced labor, starvation and privation, will be treated from a legal perspective as high crimes against humanity in the first degree under the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court article 7, subsections 1(a), 1(d) and 1(h), because terror-executions of various types figured prominently in the death toll.13 These high crimes against humanity constitute a Red Holocaust because communist states caused the deaths of tens of millions. Red refers to the killer not the victim. In the same sense the Third Reich’s and Showa Japan’s mass murders and manslaughters were Hitler’s and Hirohito’s holocausts.14 A lesser verdict of second degree holocaust might also be justified if evidence is unearthed showing that most communist crimes against humanity were caused by lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing and terror-starvation. A finding of aggravated first degree holocaust also could be rendered if sufficient evidence is found proving the accusation that communist killings were genocidal. The Ukrainian government believes that Stalin’s Holodomor terror-starvation of millions in the region 1932–33 does constitute genocide, and has petitioned the United Nations to issue a finding in its favor. Should it prevail, and the finding be upheld in subsequent litigation, in accordance with the stringency of the legal standards applied,15 Stalin’s and Hitler’s holocausts would have to be regarded as similarly heinous, albeit of different motive and scope. The final verdict regarding whether the Red Holocaust is primarily an aggravated first degree high felony,16 or a lesser crime in the first or second degree, therefore remains in doubt, but not the charge of an holocaustic crime against humanity for which communism is surely guilty whether or not the case is ever formally heard in the International Criminal Court.17 The appropriate punishment is uncertain and subject to pleas for excusability, mitigation and clemency. Victims’ claims for reparations cannot be excluded, and advocates of the international rule of law must ponder whether reparations would deter recidivism enough to justify various political risks.

Introduction

7

Legal scholars will have to determine whether Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Ho and Pol Pot can be tried retroactively for crimes against humanity committed before the Rome Statute came into force. The Ukrainian government believes that Stalin was accountable. Should it prevail, the judicial case against communism will be strengthened, but even if it isn’t, the standard provides a useful benchmark for the court of world public opinion.


Red Holocaust Denial After eighty years of controversy, the facts developed in this treatise prove that communism is indelibly stained by the Red Holocaust. Nonetheless, the will to deny, blur, soften, mitigate and pardon communist high crimes against humanity persists for complex personal, partisan, academic, cultural, political and pragmatic reasons.18 Skepticism, both healthy and paralytic, transforms what could be a straightforward scientific problem concerning excess deaths into an arcane moral debate with the contours of a legal proceeding. Participants wrangle over jurisdiction, corpus delecti, presumption of innocence, definitions of criminality, classification, severity, admissibility of evidence, standards of proof, extenuation, and clemency. Murders are characterized as executions, premature forced labor deaths are ascribed to climatic stress; ethnic cleansing to the rigors of deportation; and terrorstarvation to natural famine. Mock trials of these sorts are legitimate, and desirable from many standpoints. They could reveal that all evidence of criminality is inconclusive. Communism only killed in self-defense, and if the sixth commandment were transgressed, the murders were few in number, or the killers temporarily insane. The demographic, archival and economic systemic evidence adduced later, however, discredit all claims that communism’s high crimes against humanity were innocent or pardonable. Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot are collectively guilty of holocaust-scale felonious homicides. Moreover, even if some readers deem tens of millions of wrongful deaths few, self-defense, inadvertent or excusable, there is no wiggle room with regard to excess deaths. Communism was, is and will be a material failure, exacerbated by the killing of approximately 60 million people, and perhaps tens of millions more who, as some delicately phrase it, were caused to be killed by communism’s internal contradictions.

Lost Cause The significance of the Red Holocaust for its victims and the court of world opinion is that all were wrongfully killed. This is the most important point. However, it is worth observing that communist crimes against humanity also speak volumes about the communist phenomenon itself. They reveal that leaders of communist states often believed that rapid economic development, internal security and military power were best pursued with lethal methods;


8

Red Holocaust

that dystopia was a fast track to Marx’s stateless, private property-free, harmonious society where every man and every woman fully actualized his and her potential. This attitude betrays a lack of confidence in the possibilities of terror-free scientific planning. It can be inferred that Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot doubted that terrorless command could pass the competitive test, and used terror to bolster results. History has confirmed such misgivings. Communist nations, with the exception of North Korea, ultimately weaned themselves from mass killing when they became convinced that terror-free command economy might be best after all, but the outcomes were so poor that terror-free command regimes soon gave way to market communism. This solution too was futile. The Soviet Union collapsed, and Asian communism is fast becoming devoid of communist substance. The Red Holocaust can be construed as an early warning signal. It portended that communism was destined to fail, because socially engineered transition systems based on communist principles were economically, politically and civically inferior, and dialectical materialism wasn’t going to bring about Marx’s terror-free communist ideal. The Red Holocaust thus not only was an appalling crime against humanity; it was a lost cause. Some scholars are loath to accept this bitter truth. They want to believe that Marx is a genius, his vision of social action is profound, and that a better world is assured if his strictures are scrupulously followed. The Red Holocaust, the fall of the Soviet Union, the accession of most former communist states to the European Union, adoption of leasing markets in authoritarian communist Asia, and continued mass killings in Kim Jong Il’s North Korea prove beyond reasonable doubt that communist promises were a grand delusion. Communism had begun with the good news that salvation was at hand and would be peacefully achieved; but then killed more than 60 million trying to make the command economy work satisfactorily, before withering to the brink of oblivion.19

Summary • • • •

The communist world was convulsed in a Red Holocaust ten times more lethal than Hitler’s and Hirohito’s noncombatant atrocities combined. These killings were caused by the terror-command communist economic model and its despots’ pre-emptive approach to disposing of enemies real and imagined. The carnage ended when communist nations replaced terrorcommand with various reform economic mechanisms. Stalin pioneered the terror-command model for a society portrayed as being under siege, to annihilate opponents of his public programs, mobilize productive effort and bolster plan compliance.

Introduction • •


• • • • • •

•

• • • • • • • • •

Ethnic cleansing, especially by forced resettlement, was a corollary of terror-command. Hitler was motivated by racial dementia and Hirohito by racial disdain. Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot killed in accordance with their notions of ideal economic governance (despotism with a communist gloss), and their desire to eradicate enemies. The post-Soviet Kremlin officially acknowledged millions of terror, Gulag, deportation and peasant killings. The scale of Stalin’s democide is on a par with Hitler’s and Hirohito’s. Post-war communist holocausts, which constitute the Red Holocaust’s second wave in Asia, were greater than Stalin’s. Ha Shoah, the racial-religious genocide of Jews by the Nazis, is a unique crime against humanity, with no parallel. The wider German holocaust against Roma, Slavs and Soviet prisoners of war is comparable in scale to Hirohito’s and Stalin’s terror, lethal concentration camp forced labor and mass killings. Attitudes toward Hitler’s, Hirohito’s and communism’s holocausts vary. There are those who deny all, claiming that the democides are exaggerated, killings were self-defense, there were extenuating circumstances and that extermination wasn’t state policy. Additionally, in Stalin’s and subsequent red Asian cases, many believe that mass killings were incompatible with socialist principle, and Soviet economic accomplishments, and infer that classifying them as holocausts is improper. The nature of the Red Holocaust can be illuminated with established international law. Crimes against humanity which rise to the scale of Ha Shoah should be categorized as holocaust class felonies. First degree holocausts are inexcusable mass murders. Genocide of any degree compounds the felony. Second degree holocausts are caused primarily by inexcusable felonious manslaughter (lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing) and criminally negligent homicide (terror-starvation). Third degree holocausts are caused primarily by criminally negligent homicide. Judges should consider mitigating and aggravating circumstances in setting punishments and reparations. The Red Holocaust was an indictable felony high crime against humanity in the first degree, arguably aggravated by genocidal elements. The Red Holocaust could be reduced to a second degree felony, if millions of terror-executions were judged to be excusable, but the

9

10

Red Holocaust

•


• • • • •

•

• • •

rest of the killings were inexcusable manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The Red Holocaust could be reduced to a third degree felony, if tens of millions of terror-executions, lethal deportations and forced labor excess deaths were judged excusable, but terror-starvation and some other excess deaths were criminally negligent. The evidence adduced will show that the Red Holocaust is indictable as an aggravated (by torture), high first degree felony with genocidal aspects, that also includes second and third degree counts. Holocaust denial is widespread. It centers on Ha Shoah, but also includes the Red Holocaust. Holocaust denial can be very sophisticated and involves all aspects of homicide assessment. Holocaust denial must be rebutted claim by claim, just as would be required at a formal trial. When all is said and done, communism was, is and will be a material failure, exacerbated by approximately 60 million victims, and perhaps tens of millions more who were “caused to be killed” by communism’s internal contradictions. The sheer magnitude of communist killings and the pain and suffering inflicted through torture, sadism, mutilation, cannibalism, terror, cruelty, oppression and the deprivation of political, economic and human rights countervails all pleas for clemency. For this reason it is imperative not to gloss or forget. A compelling case can be made for letting bygones be bygones, but not at the expense of selective amnesia that increases the risk of holocaust recurrence. Even while seeking reconciliation, the Red Holocaust cannot be belittled or forgotten, because of the risk of fresh atrocities. The three great twentieth-century totalitarian holocausts, and the ongoing high crimes against humanity in North Korea, must be collectively acknowledged and remembered, to deter future holocausts of every description.


Part I




1

Dystopia

The Red Holocaust was a tsunami that swept across the planet, killing tens of millions in two primary waves. The first wave began in 1929 with Soviet collectivization, intensified during the Great Terror, changed character during and immediately after World War II, weakened, surging anew before Stalin died. Geographically, it inundated the Soviet Union, and was spread westward and eastward by military conquest, occupation and insurrectionary incitement in eastern Europe and North Korea. The second wave was driven by communist state seizures elsewhere in Asia and beyond, starting with Mao’s victory in 1949, and then sweeping south into Indochina, where it was intensified by anti-colonialism and national liberation. Although Stalin was complicitous in these killings, the primary responsibility lay with his devotees: Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot. The common denominators throughout were despotic resolve and terror command economy in the public, household and civic spheres. As long as they and Kim Il Sung reigned, the killings persisted, and still continue under Kim Jong Il. This wasn’t the utopia Marx envisioned in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, the Communist Manifesto or his more mature writings. Communism as he conceived it was an harmonious society free of human exploitation, where everyone fully actualized his or her human potential, achieved by abolishing private property, profit-seeking business and money. Although exploiters would resist, Marx predicted that the class struggle would ineluctably culminate in communism’s peaceful dialectical victory. A Red Holocaust was superfluous. Utopia couldn’t be denied. However, Lenin and Stalin claimed that communism’s birth pangs could be shortened by a vanguard of the working class using insurrection and repression to seize the state, and expedite the attainment of universal prosperity. This heresy didn’t alter the principles of communist humanitarianism, but opened the door to despotism. It makes little difference whether Lenin and Stalin were true believers, wolves in sheep’s clothing or schizophrenics. Whatever their intent, the humanist values they espoused would be mocked by their actions; everything would be topsy-turvy.


14


In Marx’s paradise, individuals would not only strive to maximize their personal welfare by searching utility-enhancing opportunities; they would harmoniously cooperate to chose the best communitarian provision of public goods and voluntary social activities. The people’s will would democratically govern the supply of public goods.1 Consumer sovereignty would determine the characteristics, quantities and assortments of household goods (even under conditions of full abundance),2 and community sovereignty would fix civic activities. Stalin’s directives in the best case would be redundant; otherwise, they would be discordant. Marxists didn’t contest that Lenin’s suppression of democracy and command economic domination over household and civic activities violated communist self-regulatory principles. State control was only intended as a temporary expedient that would gradually wither with the vestiges of capitalism, to be ultimately replaced by a mature popular reign foreswearing private property, business and entrepreneurship. The classless society of the future would be self-regulating just as Marx predicted, but in the interim, command economy and the Communist Party’s vigilance were indispensable. This wouldn’t matter if proletarian will initially, and the classless people’s will later, corresponded perfectly with Communist Party directives, but what if Marx were mistaken? Suppose that people in the classless future, discovering that communism didn’t generate the harmony and prosperity expected, decided to decriminalize private property, business, entrepreneurship and the money economy. If the Communist Party refused to accept this judgment, it would assume the role of people’s oppressor, not liberator as claimed. Instead of each individual compatibly actualizing his or her potential, everyone would be stifled by Marx’s misjudgment and the party’s intransigence. Lenin and Stalin could counterclaim that the Bolsheviks, not the people in the classless society, knew best, but why should anyone believe them? Worse still, suppose that Stalin’s humanist rhetoric was perfunctory, or a ploy compelling the people to do his despotic bidding, rather than a sincere strategy for creating utopia from above. Communism then wouldn’t merely thwart the classless people’s will; it would enslave society while paying lipservice to humanism. Stalin’s world would be the antithesis of paradise sought. It would be an infernal dystopia, as John Stuart Mill mused the year after the publication of Das Kapital, where every vice triumphed over virtue.3 Insofar as the historical record provides a basis for judgment, Marx’s predictions about the ineluctability of self-regulating communism have been falsified. Neither the class struggle nor totalitarian command forged communist utopia. Moreover, despotism typically had the upper hand. Life wasn’t an incessant hell for everyone, but was materially and spiritually grim for the vast majority. Although, Stalin and his clones could have adopted a liberal attitude toward dissenters, stressing humanism over dogma (or power), they created diverse communist dystopias.


Dystopia

15

The invisible hand of Marxist harmony was supposed to make everyone supremely free; yet few were at liberty to think, speak, write or publish proscribed ideas unless explicitly authorized. Not only were people prohibited from criticizing Marxist verities about property, business, entrepreneurship, religion, dialectical materialism, class struggle and communist superiority; they couldn’t challenge the party line on a host of important subjects. Workers couldn’t agitate for multiparty democracy, independent trade unions and syndicalist workers control. They couldn’t oppose the abolition of NEP (New Economic Policy) after Stalin defeated Bukharin. They couldn’t oppose collectivization, breakneck heavy industrialization, the rule of men, secret police violations of human rights, the forced relocation of punished peoples, terror, structural militarization, insurrectionary incitement abroad, involuntary annexation and the Red Holocaust. The same principle applied to more mundane aspects of life. Consumers were compelled to buy what the state supplied (forced substitution), and praise their good fortune. They couldn’t negotiate prices, characteristics, or bypass the state foreign trade monopoly. They had to take whatever health, education, recreation, vacation, transport and utility services they could get. They could not protest working conditions, hours of employment, compulsory assignments, obligatory overtime, wages, ecocide, destruction of cultural assets, abortion, marriage and divorce regulations, inadequate burial facilitates, poverty, inegalitarianism and pervasive shortages. Moreover, the proletariat couldn’t defame communism by calling the system dystopic. The people lived the terror command nightmare, but were forbidden to condemn it. They were compelled instead to laud communism’s march from victory to victory, and pretend they believed that paradise was at hand, while many in the west conflated Marxist aspirational rhetoric with reality.4

Summary •

•

• •

Stalin initiated the first wave of the Red Holocaust in 1929. It lasted until he died in 1953, spreading from the Soviet Union to Red Army occupied central and eastern Europe, Mongolia and North Korea. Mao started a second wave in 1949 that briefly overlapped the first wave, and then spread independently into Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. North Korea’s Stalinist wave merged with Mao’s as China’s power increased. The killings were concentrated in periods where the dominant economic management principle was terror-command. There was no place for mass killing in Marx’s concept of communist transition and utopian harmony.

16

Red Holocaust: First Wave •


•

•

Lenin and many of his successors heretically sought to ease communism’s birthpangs through insurrection and anti-communist repression. The principles Lenin and Stalin extracted from Karl Marx’s communist utopia for their transition model created an anti-utopia, called by John Stuart Mill and others dystopia. The same state that was supposed to protect the people from capitalist exploitation, and empower them, was used to subjugate and repress their freedom. The Red Holocaust epitomized twentieth-century communist dystopia.


2

20 Million Souls

Stalin’s Red Holocaust and the siege-mobilized terror-command system that drove the killing machine epitomize Soviet dystopia. They mock all claims of utopian intent and accomplishment. The proof long eluded researchers, but the archival revolution which began in Gorbachev’s waning days finally produced the smoking gun. We now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were millions of indictable Soviet crimes against humanity 1929–38, and additional millions 1939–53. We now know as well beyond a reasonable doubt that there were more than 13 million Red Holocaust victims 1929–53, and that this figure could rise above 20 million. This is a far cry from the days prior to the archival revolution when it was claimed on demographic grounds that it couldn’t be proven that Stalin’s agrarian collectivization, terror-starvation, Great Terror, lethal forced labor or ethnic cleansing wrongfully killed anybody. The doubts that linger primarily involve the incompleteness of NKVD archival data on executions and excess mortality in Gulag camps, colonies and prisons. No one claims they are complete, but there is wide disagreement about the degree of undercounting. One school relying on the character of archival records argues for a small margin of error, while the other, guided by demographic and testimonial evidence, contends that killings were many times greater than the NKVD archival data indicate. This treatise rejects the argument that NKVD archives are nearly complete, because demographic excess death statistics, supported by testimonial evidence point to vastly higher killings 1939–53. Demographic excess death predictors 1929–38 proved correct (Chapters 3–5), and it is reasonable to surmise that they are right again. The issue isn’t crucial for Stalin’s indictment, but it could affect sentencing. If the NKVD’s archival statistics are taken literally, most Soviet killings 1929–53 can be ascribed to criminally negligent homicide, with a modest admixture of murders and felonious manslaughter. But if they are seriously incomplete, then the murder-manslaughter component swells, buttressing the case for the charge of aggravated Red Holocaust in the first degree. Divergent assessments of the completeness of NKVD archival data also color interpretations of terror-command history. NKVD archival literalists


18


believe that Gulag excess deaths from overwork and execution tapered off after 1945 to low levels, and infer in the absence of terror-starvation and collectivization deaths on the scale of the thirties that Stalin matured; that the Soviet Union during his reign began transitioning from a terrorcommand to a terror-free-command economic system. Those favoring the demographic/testimonial evidence see more systemic continuity than change, until Khrushchev’s emergence in the mid-1950s. On these matters, as with the scale of Stalin’s crimes against humanity, the demographic/testimonial evidence appears more powerful, but there is room for splitting differences and navigating toward broad consensus. Table 2.1 presents the key summary findings, and supporting detail on Stalin’s terror-killings 1929–53. They are based on three distinctly different types of information: documentary, testimonial and demographic. Ideally, we desire a complete death registry, supported by independent coroner reports establishing the cause of each death. The closest Soviet data come to this standard is registration statistics found in secret police archival documents (NKVD) and in counterpart civic registries (Other). The first, primarily pertains to convicts in Soviet penal institutions, including prisons, Gulag concentration camps and colonies (containing groups, rather than individually convicted inmates); the second to terror-starvation and forcibly resettled ethnic cleansing victims, spetspereselentsy. Both sets of registration data are incomplete, and require diverse kinds of supplementary estimation. Often, they must be mined together for categories like collectivization killings (Mixed). Testimonial information on the Gulag penal population, forced labor excess deaths and executions frequently have some partial documentary basis, but are mostly derived from eyewitness accounts, scrutiny of inconsistencies in published official series, and eclectic forms of estimation. The term demographic employed in Table 2.1 refers specifically to census and vital statistic based estimates of missing persons; that is, individuals who should be alive based on death registries, but who have disappeared. These missing persons are called excess deaths (sometimes premature deaths) and serve as a reliable benchmark of the scale of dying, provided that they are adjusted for net emigration. Also, vital statistics must accurately reflect normal natality and mortality rates (including the effects of natural disasters, plagues, etc.), and censuses must be accurate (or inaccuracies must be offsetting). The summary results (Panel I) for the period 1929–38 (January 1, 1939) report 9.7 million missing persons, most of whose graves have been discovered outside the census bureau’s death registries by investigators scouring NKVD and civic archives. The residual, called the Gap, is negative: −1.6 million souls, which may be partly or wholly explained by additional shootings, and Gulag forced labor killings described in the testimonial literature. Other things equal, the documentary data (excluded from published census bureau statistics) tell us that collectivization (a one-time event) slaughtered 1.2 million peasant men, women and children; terror-starvation 1932–33


20 Million Souls

19

claimed 5.7 million lives, with terror-executions and Gulag forced labor deaths accounting for the rest. Also, given the gap, an additional 1.6 million may have perished without clear documentary support. It is this suite of relationships that permit us to assert that Stalin committed 8.1 million indictable crimes against humanity 1929–38, beyond a reasonable doubt involving murder, felonious manslaughter and inexcusable negligent homicide. The finding is a revelation because before the archival revolution, it could, and often was, claimed that there was no corpus delicti to support an indictment. Stalin had the draft 1939 census adjusted upward to disguise missing persons, suppressed the 1937 census and key vital statistics, making it easy to argue that while there might have been unreported foul play, the discrepancy just as well might be a statistical aberration. The documentary evidence is the smoking gun that destroyed this line of defense, not only for the few million excess deaths disclosed by the padded 1939 census and concealed vital statistics, but for the much greater level of violence reported in Panel I. The lattice of mutually confirming evidence 1929–38 also tells us that while terror-starvation was the primary killer, lethal forced labor, executions and ethnic cleansing weren’t far behind. However, rankings are not as crisp as the numbers in Panel I suggest, because the finer detail provided in Panel II shows the possibility of more documented collectivization and terror-starvation killings, as well as the possibility of higher testimonial fatalities. These ambiguities cannot be satisfactorily sorted out with our present state of knowledge, because there are too many degrees of freedom. Documented collectivization and terror-starvation deaths may be too high, due to estimation error; census mortality rates for the normal sampled population may be too high, and the testimonial estimates may be similarly exaggerated. Given this array of uncertainties, it is wisest to treat the figures in Panel I as best estimates, sufficient to sustain the Red Holocaust indictment, while keeping an open mind about further refinements. The evaluation of terror-killings 1939–53 follows the same script, complicated by the Second World War. The census bureau-based excess death figure presented in Panel I for the subperiod 1939–53 is 33.7 million, 24.7 million of which are attributed to military and civilian war casualties, together with net emigration. The gap between these non-war related missing persons and documented terror-starvation, terror-execution, Gulag forced labor and ethnic cleansing excess deaths is 5.7 million, all of which may be explained by Gulag forced labor killings indicated by the testimonial data, but excluded from NKVD death registries. Moreover the discrepancy may be much greater, because Third Reich archives don’t confirm the official Soviet claim that the Nazis “exterminated (shot, gassed, burnt, tortured)” 6.4 or 11.3 million Soviet citizens during World War II (see Table 5.5 and Table 21.1).Those who perceive the postwar Soviet landscape in relatively benign terms tend either to disregard the gap, or to ascribe it to statistical error. Both approaches were tenable before the archival revolution, but not now because there are no


20


compelling reasons to believe that estimated vital statistics 1941–45 are so seriously off the mark, that they could generate aberrations of this magnitude. While the problematic nature of wartime vital statistics, and broader uncertainties arising from the possibility of higher World War II death totals, preclude any claim that terror-execution and Gulag forced labor excess deaths were sextuple those acknowledged in NKVD archival documents, it seems reasonable to suppose that such killings were far greater than NKVD archival literalists believe. In short, the archival revolution, directly and indirectly strongly supports Stalin’s indictment for crimes against humanity on a scale in the vicinity of 20 million; 9.7 million 1929–38, and 9 million excess deaths 1939–53. The scale of the indictment can be whittled by making allowance for the unreliability of wartime vital statistics, but it doesn’t seem sensible to cavalierly assume the gap away, nor to ignore other aspects of Stalin’s killings. Also, it shouldn’t be forgotten, in assessing the Red Holocaust, that more than a halfmillion Axis war prisoners sent to Gulag in 1945 never returned (including Japanese captured in Manchuria, mostly after Japan’s surrender August 15, 1945). They are separate from Soviet census-based excess deaths, but most constitute holocaust-includable killings of foreign nationals, just like Nazi murders of Russian Jews. Likewise, more than a million Gulag prisoners were sent to the war front, many in suicide brigades that wouldn’t have been killed if treated as regular soldiers. The scale of these criminal deaths hasn’t be quantified, but many testimonial accounts suggest that it was very high. All in all, mass terror-command killing seems to have been part of the Soviet landscape throughout Stalin’s reign. If this wave of the Red Holocaust ebbed after 1945, the shift isn’t perceptible in the data taken in their entirety. Where is the evidence for an epiphany, or that the killings 1929–38 were mostly an aberration? Stalin slaughtered hundreds of thousands every year he ruled, roughly in equal numbers for the periods before and after the war. Collectivization and the terror-famine 1932–33 came and went without any discernible change in his terror-command system, or Stalin’s willingness to slaughter. Even the NKVD archival data show that the postwar Gulag population was larger than in the 1930s (Table 5.1). None of this could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt twenty years ago, but now we know. By and large the profession has taken note. There is a marked convergence of opinion on most scores including collectivization, terror-starvation (both 1932–33 and 1947), Great Terror and ethnic cleansing deaths. The general order of magnitude of Soviet fatalities incurred during World War II, and net emigration also are no longer controversial. Likewise, some scholars who previously disparaged census bureau excess death statistics have become noticeably silent on this score. The only remaining aspects of polarization concern the scale of Gulag forced labor excess deaths, and Stalin’s culpability. Even here, attitudes on both sides are softening. Wheatcroft and Davies are willing to concede that what we call terror-starvation and they call famine deaths at the very least constitute negligent homicide. Ellman goes further,


20 Million Souls

21

characterizing them as crimes against humanity. Perhaps, some day soon there will be a broad consensus not only on the scales of all forms of killing, but on the nature of the crimes, and Stalin’s responsibility. All that remains therefore with regard to the Stalin wave of the Red Holocaust is to elaborate upon the summary evidence in Table 2.1; demonstrate that his killings weren’t inadvertent, and place the results in larger historical perspective. Chapters 3–5 investigate the fine print and establish Stalin’s culpability. Chapter 6 examines the cognate issue of ethnic cleansing, and Chapter 7 terror-satellite building in eastern Europe. Gulag’s role in siege-mobilized terror-command is elaborated in Chapter 12, and other aspects of the communist project are considered in Part III. Table 2.1 Stalin’s terror-killings 1929–53 (millions) Panel I: Summary Excess deaths

Documents

Gap

(1)

(2)

(3)

Testimonial supplement (4)

1929–38 Collectivization Terror-starvation Terror-executions Gulag forced labor

9.7

8.1 1.2 5.7 0.6 0.6

−1.6

2.5

1939–53 Terror-starvation Terror-executions Gulag forced labor Resettlers WWII Net emigration

33.7

28.0 1.2 0.1 1.0 1.0 22.0 2.7

−5.7

8.7

Panel II: Detail Demographic excess deaths Soviet Citizens Period 1929–38 1. Collectivization 2. Starvation 3. Execution (.85) 4. Forced labor (.85)

(1)

Archivally documented NKVD (2)

Other (3)

Testimonial Mixed (4)

(5)

9.7 1.2,2.2 5.7,8.5 1.1

0.6 0.6

1.0,1.5 2.9 (Continued overleaf)

22


Table 2.1 Continued Demographic excess deaths


Soviet Citizens Period 1939–53 1. WWII (excess deaths) a. Gulag deaths b. Executions c. Gulag suicide brigades 2. Full period a. Gulag (excess deaths) (.85) b. Executions c. Resettlers (.85) d. Starvation 1947 e. Gulag suicide brigades Foreign citizens 1. War prisoners (Gulag) 2. Civilians Net emigration

(1)

Archivally documented NKVD (2)

Other (3)

Testimonial Mixed (4)

(5)

33.7 22,26 0.8 0.004 ?

1.0

8.7

0.1 1.0 1.2 ?

0.5 ? 2.7

Sources: Excess deaths A. 1929–38: Tables A2.1 and 3.3. B. 1937–38 Great Terror: Table A2.2, and Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 25(3), July 1983, p.393. C. 1939–53: Table 5.4, cf. Table A5.4. Archivally documented: NKVD A. 1929–38 Executions: Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48(8), 1996, Table 4, p.1336. Gulag forced labor: Table 5.1. Other A. 1929–38 Starvation: Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1932–1933, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p.415. See Table 16.3, this volume. B. 1939–53 WWII: Table 5.5. Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46(4), 1994, pp.671–680. Starvation 1947: Michael Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 224(5), September 2000, pp.603–630. Foreign war prisoners: Table 4.4. Wikipedia, Prisoners of War (German prisoners and deaths). Wikipedia, Japanese Prisoners of War in the Soviet Union (Japanese Prisoners and

(Continued overleaf)

20 Million Souls

23


Repatriations). William Nimmo, Behind A Curtain of Silence: Japanese in Soviet Custody, 1945–1950, Greenwood Press: New York, 1988. Nimmo reports that there were 2,726,000 Japanese in Soviet hands, August 1945. 254,000 were subsequently confirmed deceased, plus 93,000 missing or presumed dead. See p.116. Net emigration: Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46 (4), 1994, pp.678–679. The figure of 2.7 million comprises 2.3 million people transferred to Poland, 0.4 million Germans from the Baltic states transferred to the Third Reich, 0.5 million emigrants from the USSR including the Baltic states to the West, and 0.3 million Jews emigrating to Israel via Poland, less 0.1 million Russian immigrants from Europe and Manchuria, 0.1 million Armenian immigrants and 0.6 million Ukrainian and Belorussian immigrants from Poland. Mixed A. 1929–38 Collectivization: Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s,” Soviet Studies, 42(2), pp.1319–1354. B. 1939–53 Resettlers: Viktor Zemskov, “Deportatsii naseleniya: Spetsposelentsy i ssyl’nye. Zakluchennye,” Chapter IX in Naselenie Rossii . . . tom 2, Moscow, 2001. Also see Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies, 54(7), 2002, note 60, p.1169. Testimonial A. 1929–38: Table 5.3. Steven Rosefielde, “An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labor 1929–56,” Soviet Studies, 33 (1), 1981, Table 5, p.65. B. Executions: Robert Conquest, The Great Terror, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, p.485. C. Forced labor: Table 5.3. D. 1939–53: Table 5.3. Explanation A. Summary Excess deaths 1939–53: The 36.7 million figure includes net emigration, estimated by Ellman and Maksudov at 2.7 million. Documents: The handling of net emigration in official WWII war casualty statistics is unclear. See Ellman and Maksudov. Gap: The difference between column 2 minus column 1. The supplementary excess deaths estimated from the testimonial literature may explain this residual. Testimonial supplement: Excess death statistics imply that more people died prematurely than the numbers documented. The testimonial supplement is the pool of terror-execution and Gulag forced labor excess deaths calculated from the testimonial evidence that may explain the gap. B. Detail Excess deaths: computed from the latest census and vital statistic information in accordance with Frank Lorimer’s mean value method. NKVD: Secret police data uncovered in Soviet archives. Deaths are registered. The data are transformed to excess deaths using the conservative coefficient 0.85. There is no good scientific basis for this coefficient, and readers are encouraged to assess sensitivity by trying other coefficients. Ellman uses 0.9. Other: Non-NKVD documents, primarily demographic materials. Mixed: Data from NKVD and non-NKVD sources. Testimonial: Estimates of the Gulag population derived from inconsistencies in official labor statistics, diplomatic leaks, testimony of well placed officials, and first-hand prisoner accounts, selected and linked by the author in Table 5.3. Deaths are computed using Wheatcroft’s mortality statistics, and transformed into excess deaths with the same coefficient (0.85) employed to adjusted NKVD series. Stephen Wheatcroft, “Assessing the Victims of Repression 1930–45. Their Condition with Particular Reference to the Soviet Victims in the Famine of 1932/33,” 1995, Table 5, Table 8. NB: The Panel I reports “supplementary” testimonial killings. This means the number of testimonial executions and Gulag forced labor excess deaths displayed in Panel II, minus the same categories listed in the NKVD documents.

24


Table 2.2 Selected rival estimates of Stalin’s Red Holocaust and oppression 1928–53 (millions of people) Estimates


Homicides

Low

A. Collectivization 1 and terror starvation 1. Getty, Rittersporn 0.7 and Zemskov 2. Wheatcroft 3. Davies and Wheatcroft, Famine only All collectivization 4. Ellman 5. Nove 6. Conquest 7. Ellman, 1947 famine B. NKVD executions 1. Hough 0.02 2. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov 3. Conquest 1927–38 4. Volkogonov 1927–39 5. Volkogonov 1929–53 6. Grashoven 1935–45 7. Antonov-Ovseenko 1935–39 8. Wheatcroft and Davies 1929–33 C. Deaths in prisons, colonies, exile 1935–39 1. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov D. Deaths in Gulag camps, colonies, exile 1937–39 1. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov 2. Conquest 3. Rosefielde 4. AntonovOvseenko

Low/medium Medium Medium/high High 3.7–4.7

6.6–8.8

3–4

4–5 5.7

15

22.5–23.3

9.8 8 8.1 11–11.8 1.3

0.7 1 1.75 7 7 7 0.04

0.07

0.2 1.6–2.6 2.8 4.5


20 Million Souls Homicides

Low

Excess Mortality A. 1930–36 1. Rosefielde (Izvestiya) 2. Wheatcroft and Davies (1927–36) 3. Rosefielde (Census Board) 4. Rosefielde (Tolts) 5. Rosefielde (AntonovOvseenko)

0

Low/medium Medium Medium/high High

0 8.5 8.7 11.5 16.4

B. 1930–38 1. Anderson and 0.5 Silver 2. Anderson and Silver 3. Lorimer 4. Rosefielde (Urlanis) 5. Rosefielde (Tolts) 6. Wheatcroft and Davies (1927–38) Prisoners in Gulag 0.6 camps and colonies 1. Negretov (1938–39) 0.6 2. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov (1930–39) 3. Scherer and Jakobson (1933) 4. Conquest (end 1938) 5. Rosefielde (1930– 39) 6. Antonov-Ovseenko (1938) Key statistics A. 1937 Census 1. Antonov-Ovseenko 2. Census Board (Tolts) 3. Ellman 4. Conquest 5. Izvestiya 6. Ivestiya

25

156 156

5.5 5.5 9 9.7 10

0.7

1.3–5.6

16

0.7 1.3–2.7 5.6 5.6 16

162

164

170

162 162.7 164 169 170 (Table 2.2 continued overleaf)


26


Homicides

Low

Low/medium Medium Medium/high High

B. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

167.7 167.2 167.6 167.7

170.5

1939 Census Conquest Tolts Census Board Lorimer Original Official

C. Natality rate 1933–34 (per thousand) 1. Wheatcroft 2. Urlanis 3. 1926 Census

170.3 170.5

25.3 32.6 45

D. Mortality rate 1933 (per thousand) 1. Intercensus 19.8 interpolation 2. Wheatcroft E. Arrests, sentences 1. Wheatcroft 1930–39 2.8 2. Volkogonov 1937–39 3. Conquest 1937–38 4. Antonov-Ovseenko 1935–39

37.7

5–5.5 7 18.8

Sources: J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence,” American Historical Review, October 1993, pp.1017–1049; Stephen Wheatcroft, “Assessing the Victims of Repression 1930–1945: Their Condition with Particular Reference to the Soviet Victims in the Famine of 1932/33,” 1995, Table 3, Table 8; Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s,” Soviet Studies, 43(2), April 1990, pp.355–367; Stephen Wheatcroft and Robert Davies, “Population,” in Davies, Mark Harrison and Stephen Wheatcroft, (eds.), The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union 1913–45, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp.76–77; Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–33, Basingstoke: Macmillan Palgrave, 2004; Steven Rosefielde, “Incriminating Evidence: Excess Deaths and Forced Labor under Stalin,” Soviet Studies, 39(2), April 1987, pp.292–313; Steven Rosefielde, “Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labor and Economic Growth in the 1930s,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48(6), 1996, pp.959–987; Stephen Wheatcroft, “A Note on Steven Rosefielde’s Calculations of Excess Mortality in the USSR 1929–49,” Soviet Studies, 36(2), April 1984, pp.227–281; Robert Conquest, “Excess Camp Deaths and Camp Numbers: Some Comments,” Soviet Studies, 43(5), 1991, pp.949–952; Robert Conquest, “Communications to the Editor,” American Historical Review, June 1994, p.1039; Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 35(3), July 1983, pp.385–409; Steven Rosefielde, “An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labor 1929–56,” Soviet Studies, 33(1), January 1981, pp.51–87; Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths 1929–1933: The Demographic Evidence,” Slavic Review, 42(1), May 1984, pp.83–88; Mark Tolts, “The Soviet Census of 1937 and 1939: Some Problems of Data Evaluation,” paper presented at the Conference on Soviet Population in the 1920s and 1930s, Toronto, 27–29 January 1995; Boris Urlanis,

20 Million Souls

27


“Dinamika urovnya rozhdaemosti v SSSR,” in A.G. Vishnevsky (ed.), Brachnost’, rozhdaemost’, smertnost’ v Rossii v SSSR, Moscow, 1977; Alec Nove, “Victims of Stalinism: How Many?” in J. Arch Getty and Roberta Manning (eds.), Stalinist Terror: New Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp.161–174; Michael Ellman, “A Note on the Number of 1933 Famine Victims,” Soviet Studies, 43(2), 1991, pp.375–379; Michael Ellman, “On Sources: A Note,” Soviet Studies, 44(5), 1992, pp.913–915; Michael Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 224(5), September 2000, pp.603–630; John Scherer and Michael Jakobson, “The Collectivization of Agriculture and the Soviet Prison Camp System,” Europe-Asia Studies, 45(3), 1993, pp.533–546; Merle Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958, p.185; Jerry Hough, How the Soviet Union is Governed, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, p.177; P.I. Negretov, “How Vorkuta Began,” Soviet Studies, 29(4), October 1977, pp.571–572. Definitions Excess deaths: the unexplained discrepancy between the expected number of deaths based on official annual mortality statistics and the actual number computed ex post facto from the census data. The unexplained body count calculated in this manner is inexact for the usual statistical reasons and official concealment. Homicides: deaths directly attributable to Stalin’s oppression, whether or not judicially sanctioned through execution, brutalization, forced labor and terror starvation. Killings of other kinds are included in the official mortality rates. Not all excess deaths are homicides. Some may be attributable to natural causes and merely reflect the failures of the demographic accounting system. Homicides A. Collectivization and Famine: estimates cover the years 1930–36. There is considerable disagreement about the duration of the famine and the distribution of victims between these categories, and whether deaths caused by the famine were a natural catastrophe, or the result of Stalin’s policies. Broadly, those who interpret terror-command benighly blame these deaths on natural causes or peasant counterrevolution, while the others hold the Soviet regime responsible. 1. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov: They report incomplete NKVD enumerations of peasant deaths in exile of 437,835. This figure is computed by subtracting their execution, Gulag camp (from their appendix) and prison and labor colony camp deaths provided on p.1024 as follows: 1,473,424 (total)—724,381 (executions)—241,642 (Gulag camp deaths 1934–39)— 69,566 (prison and colonies 1934–39)—437,835. They also state that there could have been several hundred thousand more deaths among peasants, and other categories later in the 1930s. The arithmetic puts the figure at 536,576. This figure is the difference between the 2 million maximum estimated for the 1930s and the 1,473,424 deaths explicitly itemized. It is assumed in the table that half this residual should be imputed to peasant deaths and half to other categories. The cumulative peasant death total including these 263,238 souls is 701,123. 2. Wheatcroft: Having located the mortality rate for 1933 in Soviet archives, which indicated to him that there were 2.8 million famine deaths, he revised his prior range of collectivization and famine fatalities upwards by 1 million. 3. Ellman: Most of these deaths are attributed to the famine which he argues began earlier and ended later than usually supposed. His calculations depend on data developed by Andreev, Darsky and Khar’kova in “Opyt otsenki chislennosti naseleniya SSSR 1926–44gg,” Vestnik statistiki, 1990, 7, which show that population in 1933 falling 5.9 million. Their highly adjusted data assume that official mortality and natality rates were severely underestimated, and do not allow for other victims of Stalin’s oppression. 4. Davies and Wheatcroft: Starvation: Davies and Wheatcroft (2004), p.415. All collectivization: Davies and Wheatcroft (2004), p.415, (the ADK 8.5 million estimate) plus Wheatcroft (1990), where he computes 1,225,000 to 2,225,000 collectivization deaths, with a mean of 787,165, excluding his famine figure for 1933. Wheatcroft also acknowledges 500,000 probable additional collectivization deaths. The total is 1,287,165. The grand total is 9,787,165. 5. Nove: Nove adjusts archive director V.V. Tsaplin’s estimates by adding Maksudov’s Kazakh death figure of 1.5 million to Tsaplin’s 3.8 million famine deaths, and 2.8 million killed in places of detention, 1.3 million of whom died from hunger.

(Table 2.2 continued overleaf)

28



6. Conquest: The 11 million listed represent deaths which occurred up to the end of 1936. An additional 8 million in Gulag prisons, camps, colonies and exile are asserted to have died thereafter through the first half of the 1940s, although 0.75 million more perhaps should be transferred to the subperiod 1929–36 because the Gulag population indicated by the NKVD contingent in the 1937 census was less than he previously estimated. Seven of the 11 million peasant victims 1930–36 are imputed to the famine; 4 million to collectivization. A figure of 10 million is given in the same article as the minimum pre-1937 death count. Conquest (1991). 7. Ellman (1947 Famine): Ellman (2000). B. Executions 1. Hough: citing George F. Kennan, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1941, Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1960, p.89. 2. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov: Their figure is based on NKVD enumerations and shows 721,829 prison executions. 3. Conquest: Conquest (1991) Great Terror estimate only. 4. Volkogonov: Dmitri Volkogonov was head of Mosow’s governmental commission on rehabilitation. His estimates are based on NKVD documents and Stalin’s own archive. They are confirmed by Olga Shatunovskaya, a member of the Party Control Commission, and in that capacity of Khrushchev’s Rehabilitation Commission. Conquest (1994), pp.1038–1039. 5. Volkogonov. See entry 4. 6. Grashoven: Colonel Nikolai Grashoven was head of the Russian Security Ministry’s own rehabilitation team. Conquest (1994), p.1038. 7. Antonov-Ovseenko, The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny, 1980. 8. Wheatcroft and Davies (2004), p.38 report NKVD archival statistics showing 37,393 death sentences 1929–33, of which 28,136 were carried out by extrajudicial troikas under Efim Georgievich Evdokimov’s direction. Also see Stephen Wheatcroft, “Agency and Terror: Evdokimov and Mass Killing in Stalin’s Great Terror,” Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53(1), 2007, pp.20–43. C. Prisons and colonies 1. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov: Incomplete enumerations covering the period January 1935 to early 1940. D. Gulag camps, colonies, exiles 1. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov: direct enumeration from NKVD archives indicates 166,424 people died in Gulag camps. The figures probably exclude those who perished while being transported thoughout the archipelago. 2. Conquest: Estimates that 1–2 million died in camps during the Ezhov period, and that there were 5.5 to 6.5 million in the camps at the end of 1938. Assuming a 10 percent mortality rate (Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, 1993, report a 3.8 percent death rate), excluding new internments adds roughly 600,000 to the total. Conquest (1991, 1994). 3. Rosefielde: Assuming a 10 percent mortality rate, and the Gulag population reported in Rosefielde (1981) yields 2.75 million deaths. 4. Antonov-Ovseenko: It is asserted that there were 16 million zeks (zakliuchyonnyi: Russian slang for “incarcerated”) in Gulag in 1938. Assuming a 10 percent mortality rate, and somewhat lower internments in 1937 and 1939 crudely implied something like 4.5 million deaths. Excess mortality A. 1930–37 (Computed using Lorimer’s midpoint method) 1. Rosefielde (Izvestiya): According to G. van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice: Figures and Policy, Martinus Nijhoff, Kluwer Academic, 1985, Izvestiya reported that the Soviet census population was 170 million on 9 January 1937, revised downward to 169 million on 15 December 1937. If either number is used there are no excess deaths 1930–37. 2. Wheatcroft and Davies: The figure comprises 2.4 million registered deaths 1932–33 derived from the crude birth rate 1930–33, and 5.1 million unregistered excess deaths suggested by Tsaplin. Wheatcroft and Davies (1994), pp.75–76. 3. Rosefielde (Census Board): The suppressed 1937 population reported in 1987 by Tolts (Wheatcroft, 1990; Nove 1993), is 162 million. This figure together with Wheatcroft’s vital statistics produces 5,857,000 excess deaths, plus 2,825,000 famine deaths in 1933 computed as the difference between observed mortality and normal deaths using the 1932 mortality rates as the norm.

20 Million Souls

29


4. Rosefielde (Tolts): Tolts found that the 1939 census was approximately 3 million too high due to various technical errors. He has not yet completed his revision of the 1937 census. However, assuming proportionality using the method described in (3) yields 11,493,000 excess deaths: see Rosefielde (1997), Table 8. Nove (1993). 5. Rosefielde (Antonov-Ovseenko): Antonov-Ovseenko, The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny, New York: Harper and Row, 1980, p.256, reported that the suppressed 1937 census population was 156 million. Ellman (1992) has shown that this figure pertained to the civilian population, excluding various special categories. The figure reported is the original calculation based on Urlanis’s vital statistics. B. 1930–38 1. Anderson and Silver: Using sensitivity and life expectancy methods Anderson and Silver computed a range of possible adult excess deaths and child deficits. Their low adult estimate which they assert reflects Lorimer’s assessment of the mortality in 1926/27 is 0.5 million; their low child deficit is zero based on low fertility and high mortality rate assumptions. Anderson and Silver use the discredited 1939 census population. 2. Anderson and Silver: Using the same method, their best adult excess death estimate is 4.8 million. This is the mean of their estimates reflecting 1926/27 and 1938/39 mortality rates, both adjusted for age heaping. This figure corresponds with Lorimer’s without age heaping. Anderson and Silver compute a wide rate of child deficits, without committing themselves to best child excess death estimates. I have added 0.7 million child excess deaths to their adult figure in accordance with the natality rate uncovered by Wheatcroft (1990) for 1932. This coincidentally reconciles their (constructed) estimate with Lorimer’s. 3. Lorimer: Computed with his midpoint method from incomplete data, vital statistics subsequently revised, and the discredited 1939 census population. 4. Rosefielde: Rosefielde (1983) computed using Lorimer’s midpoint method with Urlanis’s interpolated vital statistics and the discredited 1939 census population. 5. Rosefielde (Tolts): Same as (4) but substituting Wheatcroft (1990) vital statistics, and Tolts’s 1939 revised census population. 6. Wheatcroft and Davies (1994), p.77. Prisoners in Gulag camps and colonies 1. Negretov: Negretov provides estimates for Vorkutpechlag from the Annual Accounts for Basic Activity of Vorkutstroi found in the Vorkuta Regional Museum. The figure in the table is an estimate for Gulag as a whole in the late 1930s. Rosefielde (1987), note 68, p.313. 2. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov: The figure in the table is the average Gulag and colony prisoner population 1930–39. Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, Appendix (a) and Wheatcroft (1995). 3. Scherer and Jakobson: According to Fainsod there were 399,999 inmates in prisons alone in May 1933. Prisoners were variously estimated at 15–30 percent of all inmates. Volkogonov does not believe the figure exceeded 20 percent. This implies a range between 1.3 and 2.7 million for 1933. 4. Conquest: Conquest (1994), p.1039. 5. Rosefielde: Rosefielde (1981). The figure in the table is the average population during the 1930s. 6. Antonov-Ovseenko: Antonov-Ovseenko (1980), p.256. Key statistics A. 1937 census 1. Antonov-Ovseenko: He was told by demographers who had participated in the 1937 census and served time with him in Gulag that the 1937 census population was 156 million. 2. Census Board (Tolts): The 1939 census was adjusted by Tolts for technical errors. He has not corrected the 1937 census yet for the same problems. An adjustment proportional to the 1939 census yields a figure of (167,557,000/170,467,168) (162) = 159,234,000. 3. Census Board (Wheatcroft, 1990), p.335. The original source is Mark Tolts, “Skol’ko zhe nas togda bylo?” Ogonek, 1987, p.51. Nove, 1993, reports that in addition to the 156 million civilian component of the 1937 census there were 2,653,035 “specially counted,” including prisoners, plus 2 million others on Kraval’s estimate, for a total of 161.2 million, which he rounds up to 162 million. 4. Ellman: Ellman reports the 1937 census statistics from Seriya, “Istoriya Statistiki,” vypusk 3– 5 (chast’ 1) Istoriya naseleniya SSSR 1920–1959 gg., Moscow, Goskomstat, mimeo, 1990, pp.31–34.

(Table 2.2 continued overleaf)

30

Red Holocaust: First Wave 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Total normally enumerated population (final data) Enumerated by NKVD (officials, guards, prisoner, deportees) Armed forces Civilians enumerated by the NKVD Frontier troops enumerated by NKVD Total census population Estimate population allowing for errors in census

156,996,000 2,660,000 1,687,000 427,000 269,000 162,039,000 162,739,000


This figure differs from the Census Board’s by the error term. 5. Conquest, 1986, p.302. A figure of 163.7 is obtained by extrapolating backwards from the old official population (used by Lorimer, 170,315,000. Rosefielde, 1983, Table 3, p.388. 6. Izvestiya: Rosefielde, 1983, note 19, p.306. 7. Izvestiya: Rosefielde, 1989, note 19, p.306. B. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

1939 census Conquest: Conquest, 1991a, p.949. Tolts: Tolts, 1995, p.8. Census Board: Conquest, 1991a, p.949. Lorimer: Lorimer, 1946, Table 53, Table 53, p.134. Original Official: Conquest, 1991a, p.949.

C. Natality rate 1933–34 1. Wheatcroft: Wheatcroft, 1990, Table 1, p.358, reports the natality rate in 1933 as 25.3, and in 1934 alternatively as 25.6 or 26.4. The data are from TsGANKh (SSSR), f. 1562, op.20, d.42, 1.85, and TsGANKh (SSSR), f.1562, op. 20, d.42, 1. 76. 2. Urlanis: Urlanis, 1962, pp.11–12. The figure entered is for 1932. Lorimer’s estimates are 34.4 in 1932, 32.4 in 1933 and 20.1 in 1934. Lorimer, 1946, p.134. 3. 1926 census: Lorimer, 1946, p.134. D. Mortality rate 1933 1. Intercensus Interpolation: Table 8. 2. Wheatcroft: Wheatcroft, 1990, Table 1, p.358. His source is TsGANKH (SSSR), f.1562, op.20, d.108, 1. 40. E. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Arrests, sentences 1930–39 Wheatcroft: Wheatcroft, 1990, Table 3. The data are from the NKVD archive. Volkogonov: Conquest, 1994, p.1039. Conquest: Conquest, 1994, p.1039. Antonov-Ovseenko: Antonov-Ovseenko, 1980, p.261.

20 Million Souls

31

Appendix


Table A2.1 Excess deaths 1927–38 (adjusted official census data; Wheatcroft’s vital statistics) Year

Population Births per (thousands) 1000 1 January population

Deaths per 1000 population

Births (thousands)

Deaths (thousands)

1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933

147,135 150,416 154,026 157,030 159,088 162,434 164,286

43.6 42.5 40.1 37.9 35.4 31.9 25.3

21.3 18.5 20.6 19.7 19.6 20.5 37.7

6,415 6,393 6,176 5,951 5,660 5,191 4,156

3,134 2,783 3,173 3,093 3,114 3,329 6,193

25.6 33.0 32.6 38.7 37.5

19.8 17.6 18.2 17.9 17.5

3,977 5,156 5,172 6,228 6,160

3,076 2,750 2,887 2,881 2,875

Discrepancy 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939

−6,915 155,333 156,234 158,640 160,925 162,272 167,557

Actual Increase

20,422

Expected Births

66,625

Expected Deaths

39,288

Births minus deaths

27,337

Discrepancy

−6,915

Source: Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–47, Soviet Studies 35(3), July 1983; Mark Tolts, “The Soviet Census of 1937 and 1939,” Some Problems of the Data Evaluation,” paper presented at the Conference on Soviet Population in the 1920s and 1930s, Toronto, January 27–29, 1995, p.8; Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s,” Soviet Studies, 42(2), April 1990, Table 1, p.358. Data: The population statistics for 1927 and 1939 are taken respectively from the 1926 census and Tolts, 1995. The vital statistics are a mix of previously published and new published data uncovered by Wheatcroft. Some of the new data pertained to the European part of the USSR and have been further adjusted without explanation to the union boundaries by Wheatcroft. The statistics used here are from the first entries in columns 4 and 8. Method: Estimates 1934–38 are extrapolated backward according to the formula Pt−1 = Pt/ (1 + a−b) where a is the birth rate and b is the death rate in year t−1.

32


Table A2.2 Excess deaths 1937–38 (adjusted official census data: Wheatcroft’s vital statistics) Year

Population Births per (thousands) 1000 1 January population

1937

162,000


Discrepancy 1937 1938 1939


Births Deaths (thousands) (thousands)

17.9 17.5

6,228 6,160

−1,075 160,925 164,272 167,557

Actual increase

5,557

Expected births

12,388

Expected deaths

5,756

Births minus deaths

6,632

Discrepancy

−1,075

38.7 37.5

2,881 2,875

Sources: Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 35(3), July 1983, p.393; Mark Tolts, “The Soviet Census of 1937 and 1939: Some Problems of Data Evaluation,” paper presented at the Conference on Soviet Population in the 1920s and 1930s, Toronto, January 27–29, 1995, p.8; Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1920s,” Soviet Studies, 42(2), April 1990, Table 1, p.358. Data: Population figures are the new official census for 1937 and Tolts’s estimate for 1939. The vital statistics are Wheatcroft’s. Method: Estimates 1934–38 are extrapolated backward according to the formula Pt−1 = Pt/ (1 + a−b) where a is the birth rate and b is the death rate in the year t−1.

20 Million Souls

Summary • •


• • • • • •

• • • •

• •

Soviet dystopia is epitomized by the Red Holocaust. Thanks to the archival revolution, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were millions of indictable Soviet crimes against humanity 1929–38, and additional millions 1939–53. We now know beyond a reasonable doubt that there were more than 13 million Red Holocaust victims 1929–53, and that this figure could rise about 20 million. The doubts that linger mostly involve the incompleteness of NKVD archival data on executions and excess mortality in Gulag camps, colonies and prisons. Census bureau excess death data 1929–38, and 1939–53 demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the NKVD archival data on Gulag camps, colonies and prisons are seriously incomplete. It follows, beyond a reasonable doubt, that inexcusable murdermanslaughter were significant components of Stalin’s Red Holocaust both in the 1930s and the 1940s. Census bureau excess death data demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Stalin retained his terror-command systems throughout his reign 1929–53, without fundamental alteration. The suite of mutually confirming evidence in Table 2.1 proves that Stalin committed at least 8.1 million indictable crimes against humanity 1929–38 involving murder, felonious manslaughter and inexcusable criminally negligent homicide. Terror-executions and Gulag forced labor excess deaths were more than twice as large as collectivization killings. Ambiguities remain regarding the incidence and scale of Stalin’s Red Holocaust. The killings could be higher than indicated in Table 2.1. The archival revolution strongly supports Stalin’s indictment for crimes against humanity on a scale in the vicinity of 20 million: 9.7 million 1929–38, and 10.9 million excess deaths 1939–53. In addition to Soviet citizens, Stalin slaughtered more than half a million Axis prisoners of war in Gulag after WWII, including Japanese captured in Manchuria mostly after Japan’s surrender in August 15, 1945. Likewise, more than a million Gulag prisoners were sent to the war front, many in suicide brigades that wouldn’t have been killed if treated as regular soldiers. There is a marked convergence of opinion on collectivization, terror-starvation (both 1932–33 and 1947), Great Terror and ethnic cleansing deaths.

33

34

Red Holocaust: First Wave •


•

The only remaining aspects of expert polarization concern the scale of Gulag forced labor excess deaths, and Stalin’s culpability. The spectrum of opinion regarding Stalin’s culpability is narrowing. Wheatcroft and Davies acknowledge that Stalin is indictable for mostly excusable negligent homicide, and Ellman characterizes Stalin’s prewar killings as crimes against humanity.


3

Collectivization and Terror-Starvation

What does all this show? That a radical turn of the countryside toward socialism may be considered as already achieved. But the successes have their seamy side . . . because our comrades have become dizzy with success. Joseph Stalin, Pravda, March 2, 1930

The Red Holocaust documented and detailed in Chapter 2 arose from the Bolshevik project of forcing its minority vision of siege-mobilizing command socialism on the Russian nation through violent means, including peacetime terror-execution, terror-starvation, ethnic cleansing and lethal forced labor. The widespread use of awesome, often lethal violence to achieve programmatic goals began with the November 7, 1917 coup d’état, but was obscured by the intertwined brutality of the First World War, the ensuing civil war, and foreign intervention. Terror was employed by all sides, with the peasants often the principal victims in the struggle to secure food for the Red or White armies, and deny it to enemies, even though Lenin claimed that workers and peasants were allies. Moreover, the residue of War Communist terror tactics (the period encompassing the First World War after November 7, 1917, the Civil War, and foreign intervention) contributed to the catastrophic famine/terror-starvation that claimed millions of peasant souls 1921–22. These killings could be added to the Red Holocaust roll of ignominy, but are excluded as casualties of war preceding Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) inaugurated March 1921; an implicit social contract establishing the rules of coexistence between the peasantry and Soviet power. Our story of the Red Holocaust therefore begins with Stalin’s unilateral abrogation of the New Economic Policy (NEP) social contract through terror-forced collectivization, terror-starvation, ethnic cleansing and lethal forced labor, followed by the application of similar forms of violence to other social strata, members of the Communist Party, nationalities, religious groups, foreign prisoners of war and captive nations. The peasantry was the Bolsheviks’ first and primary target, because it did not fit Lenin’s Marxist paradigm,1 founded on the criminalization of


36


private property, business and entrepreneurship.2 Lenin tried to implement the command concept during War Communism by nationalizing the means of production (including land), banning markets and imposing a monopoly of state employment in industry and non-agrarian services, but the peasantry for the most part was permitted to retain its traditional institutions. NEP preserved this arrangement, introduced leasing as a device facilitating some private commercial activity, and began building the foundation of planned command in the industrial, construction, mining, transportation and communication sectors.3 Stalin’s forced collectivization campaign, launched on the pretext that kulak grain hoarding was threatening communist development,4 in this perspective was an effort to incorporate agriculture into the command paradigm and eradicate the last bastion of the old order by making some peasants state workers (sovkhoz), and enserfing or re-enserfing (Ukraine) the rest (kolkhoz). Traditional and squatter rights claims to farms were summarily brushed aside, and the peasantry compelled to work for Stalin. Lofty communist justifications were made for this subjugation, but to the peasants forced collectivization was naked aggression; a despotic attack on their way of life. Stalin anticipated resistance and was prepared to use terror in what he himself described as a war against kulaks (better off peasants). In the process, he transformed plan-command into siege-mobilizing terror-command, not just in agriculture, but throughout the economy (see Chapter 12). It was his preferred instrument for intimidating opposition, rousing effort and bolstering plan compliance.5 Forced collectivization facilitated agrarian resource mobilization by leveraging Bolshevik coercive power in the countryside. It put party appointees in a position to assign agricultural tasks, monitor compliance and set rewards, instead of overseeing dispersed holdings. Red kolkhoz (collective farm) and sovkhoz (state farm) chairmen became harsh task masters, provoking peasants of all strata, including the wealthiest and most productive with the most to lose. Those who resisted were deported, exiled, shot or consigned to Gulag, where they served the cause of super-industriatization. Moreover, while the bulk of transition from traditional agriculture to collective farming was completed in two years (1930–31) (Table 3.1 and Table 3.2),6 terror-command persisted until 1953, oscillating in severity with the flow of events. Throughout, peasants were assigned aspirational tasks, lashed and held accountable for plan underfulfillment. If they died prematurely, that was part of the terror-management process. Terrorless command had to await the arrival of reform communism in the mid-1950s. Excess agrarian deaths generated by forced collectivization and its aftermath consequently weren’t clustered in the opening phase of peasant reenserfment, but were dispersed, with an enormous blip 1932–33 resulting from the use of mass starvation as an economic management tactic in the Ukraine and north Caucusus. Starvation deaths were also widespread in

Collectivization and Terror-Starvation 37


Table 3.1 Soviet collectivization Year

Percent of households collectivized

1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1937 1939

0.8 1.7 3.9 23.6 52.7 61.5 93.0 95.6

Source: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 Let, Iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Finansy i Statistika, Moscow, 1987, p.35.

Table 3.2 Types of agricultural institutions before and after collectivization Type

1927

1939

Kolkhozy (thousands) Sovkhozy (thousands) Peasant operations (millions) Kulaks (millions)

14.8 1.4 23.7 1.1

235.3 4.0 0.9 –

Source: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 Let, Iubileinyi Statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Finansy i Statistika, Moscow, 1987, p.35.

other parts of the USSR, including Saratov. These killings were concealed at the time and rumors denied, but are now archivally documented, and officially considered genocide by the post-Soviet Ukrainian government.7 The archival revolution clarifies the scale and composition of these various types and scale of felonious killings. J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, citing NKVD (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs)) archival data, report that 437,835 peasants were killed while being deported or in exile during the late 1920s and early 1930s (Getty et al., 1993).8 Many may have been shot, but most are thought to have died of starvation, malnutrition and privation. Likewise new archival vital statistics reveal first that terror-starvation killed 2,827,000 peasants in 1933 alone (Table 3.3, entry A), and second that excess collectivization deaths 1929–33 from all sources (executions, terrorstarvation, lethal resettlement and forced labor) totaled 8,759,000 (Table 3.4).9 Numbers of this magnitude which correspond with prior estimates based on Urlanis’s earlier vital statistics (Table A3.1), imply enormous killings before 1933, unless Urlanis’s population statistic is mistaken (it isn’t a census datum) or archival vital statistics are inaccurate.10

38



Table 3.3 Starvation deaths in 1933 (adjusted official census data: Wheatcroft’s vital statistics) Year

Population (thousands) 1 January

Births per 1000 population

1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933a 1933b

147,135 150,416 154,026 157,029 159,887 162,414 164,265 164,265

43.6 42.5 40.1 37.9 35.4 31.9 25.3

Deaths per 1000 population 21.3 18.5 20.6 19.7 19.6 20.5 37.7 (20.5)

Births (thousands)

Deaths (thousands)

6,415 6,393 6,176 5,951 5,660 5,181 4,156

3,134 2,783 3,173 3,093 3,134 3,329 6,194 3,367

A. Archivally document starvation death 2,827 1933c 158,000 37.7 1933d 158,000 (20.5)

5,957 3,239

B. Demographically computed starvation deaths 2,718 C. Mean starvation deaths 2,773 Source: Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s,” Soviet Studies, 43 (2), p.358. Naslenie SSSR (Moscow, 1974), p.9. Boris Urlanis, “Dinamika urovnia rozhdaemoti v SSSR,” in A.G. Vishnevskii, Brachnost’, rozhdaemost’, smertnost’ v Rossii i v SSSR (Moscow, 1977) Table 3, pp.11–12; Urlanis, Problemy dinamiki naseleniia SSSR (Moscow, 1974), p.319. Method The Soviet population in 1933 is extrapolated forward from the 1927 census figure using Wheatcroft’s vital statistics (i.e., revised and some previously unpublished official data). Starvation deaths are calculated as the difference between actual deaths, and those which would have occurred had the 1932 mortality rate applied to 1933.

Table 3.4 Excess collectivization deaths 1929–33 (official census data: published vital statistics; Urlanis’s population estimate for 1933) Year




Births (thousands)

Deaths (thousands)

1927 1928 1929 1930 1931

147,135 150,416 154,026 157,029 159,887

43.6 42.5 40.1 37.9

21.3 18.5 20.6 19.7

6,415 6,393 6,176 5,951

3,134 2,783 3,173 3,093

34.5 31.9

19.6 20.5

5,310 4,983

3,017 3,203

Discrepancy −5,961 1931 153,926 1932 156,219 1933 158,000

Collectivization and Terror-Starvation 39 1929–33 Actual Increase 10,865 Expected Births 35,228 Expected Deaths 18,402 Births Minus Deaths 16,826 Discrepancy −5,961 Death Surge 1933 −2,752


Total Excess Deaths 8,759 Sources: Boris Urlanis, “Dinamika urovnia rozhdaemosti v SSSR,” in A.G. Vishnevskii, Brachnost’, rozhdaemost’, smertnost’ v Rossii i v SSSR (Moscow, 1977) Table 3, pp.11–12; Urlanis, Problemy dinamiki naseleniia SSSR (Moscow, 1974), p.319; Naselenie SSSR (Moscow, 1974), p.9. Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s,” Soviet Studies, 43 (2), pp.355–367. Data The 1933 population estimate is Urlanis’s. The vital statistics are Wheatcroft (1990, Table 1, p.358). Method The methodology used to compute excess deaths in this table duplicates the procedures used by the noted Princeton demographer Frank Lorimer in his classic League of Nations study, The Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects (1946), p.134. The method has three distinct parts. First, births and deaths are calculated by multiplying the base year census population (December 17, 1926) adjusted to January 1, 1927) with official Soviet ex post-natality and mortality rates for 1927. These births and deaths are then employed to compute the population in 1928 and births and deaths in 1928, which in turn generate the population figure for the first year of the collectivization drive, 1929. Starting from this adjusted basis, the same procedures are employed once again to estimate births and deaths for the first half of the collectivization period 1929–31 and the subperiod population in 1931, using Wheatcroft’s vital statistics, which previously had to be interpolated because the official rates had been suppressed. In the second part, the first procedure is implemented in reverse. Beginning with Urlanis’s 1933 population, estimates are computed with the formula: 1) Pt-1 = Pt /1 + a–b) where a is the birth rate and b the mortality rate in year t–1. This procedure is the reverse of the initial one because 2) Pt = Pt-1 (1 + a–b). Applying formula 1 again, a second alternative estimate for the midpoint of the collectivization period, 1931 is obtained from the 1933 base. The discrepancy between these two population estimates for 1931 is attributable to excess deaths, and reflects the normal trend. The choice of the midpoint estimates, instead of endpoint estimates either for 1929 or 1933 is dictated by the neutrality principle. Estimates for 1929 using the procedures describe above would produce a minimum discrepancy and would imply that excess deaths all occurred in 1929. Estimates for 1933 would have the opposite effect. In fashioning this method, Lorimer preferred midpoint estimates because they produced mean values, and were in this sense least biased and best. This reasonable convention has been adopted here. In the third part of Lorimer’s method, the arithmetic accuracy of the discrepancy computed in the first two steps is confirmed by subtracting expected net births (the sum of column 4 minus the sum in column 5) from the actual increase in population (the population figure for 1933 less the figure for 1929). This alternative estimate of the discrepancy does not alter estimated excess deaths, but it serves the double purpose of illuminating the conceptual meaning of the calculation and detecting arithmetic errors.


40


These figures are compatible with Robert Davies’s and Stephen Wheatcroft’s archival based 5,700,000 famine fatality estimate for the period 1929–33 (Table A3.3),11 and their higher alternative estimates ranging to 8.5 million terror-starvation excess deaths (Table A3.3), which exclude deportation excess deaths and shootings.12 The 2.8 million 1933 starvation statistic is derived straightforwardly from official data. The total number of deaths is computed by multiplying the estimated 1933 population by the official 1933 mortality rate to obtain estimated official deaths, and subtracting the natural component calculated in the same way with the mortality rate for 1932 (Table 3.3). The difference contrasts normal expected deaths with the actual. The residual could contain other types of killings, and could underestimate excess deaths, because newborns dying of starvation up to a month after birth were classified as stillborns, and excluded from the mortality rate.13 The precipitous drop in natality 1929–33 (Table 3.3), triggered by sudden mass starvation, lends credence to this possibility and could add large numbers of infants misclassified as stillborns to the excess death roll. Some may also wish to include excess, starvation-induced abortions.14 Whatever the facts in these regards may be, the new archival mortality statistic, together with Davies and Wheatcroft’s archivally documented starvation death data and Getty’s terrorexecution, deportation, exile and forced labor excess deaths prove that as many as ten million peasants perished 1929–January 1, 1937. The archival revolution thus not only confirms the validity of demographically based suspicions going back to 1946, but reveals that, if anything, they were too low. Once upon a time, Anderson and Silver claimed that the author’s demographic estimates of excess deaths were inconclusive, and suggested that after proper adjustment no one may have died in Stalin’s Soviet Union before his or her time.15 The archival revolution has disproven their conjecture (cf. Table A3.3). No one contends that Stalin premeditated killing millions of peasants or plotted genocide in the Ukraine when he launched collectivization in 1929.16 Stalin wasn’t Hitler. Neither plans nor facilities (gas chambers) constructed for a Ukrainian Final Solution have been uncovered. However, he fully intended not only to terrorize the peasantry into submission, but to continue applying terror-command thereafter as a permanent form of discipline. This is denied by those who counterargue that Stalin attempted to alleviate mass starvation once he realized that malnutrition impaired agrarian productivity17 and slowed industrialization,18 but Michael Ellman has shown that this characterization is too generous. Citing a speech given January 11, 1933, he demonstrates that Stalin viewed his war against the peasantry as incomplete. Class enemies had wormed their way into collective farms, sabotaging production and had to be liquidated. “The implication of these remarks was that the repression up until then was insufficient—by then more than two and a half million peasants had been arrested, deported, resettled, shot, or sent to prison camps—and that more would be necessary.”19


Collectivization and Terror-Starvation 41 Moreover, Ellman quotes a subsequent speech February 19, 1933, delivered while starvation raged, where Stalin invokes Lenin’s slogan: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat,” and describes how local authorities interpreted this as an order to “let them perish.”20 The official rationale was that idlers and counter-revolutionaries deserved to die unless they saved themselves through redemptive labor. This doesn’t deny that Stalin’s and his administration’s (“Team-Stalin”) faulty agronomics contributed to the tragedy.21 It did, but it was part and parcel of terror-command. Stalin’s despotic approach to agrarian control is further substantiated by official mass deportation and involuntary resettlement plans prepared at the beginning of 1933 covering three million people.22 Moscow it seems intended to crush resistance to communist enserfment one way or another, and Ellman surmises that Stalin found starvation the most cost effective alternative.23 He also stresses that a quarter of a million people were charged by the OGPU under the notorious decree of 7 August 1932,24 and more than 200,000 sentenced, mostly to Gulag, with 11,000 condemned to death.25 Partial data indicate that extra-judicial repression was of a similar magnitude.26 These acts of omission and commission establish homicidal intent and prove that archivally documented mass killings weren’t inadvertent. Nonetheless, many who accept the founding Bolshevik revolutionary myth, and fail to comprehend the lethal logic of siege-mobilizing terror-command, find it difficult to believe that a communist leader could be so inhumane, and seek evidence that the killings were somehow justified. Davies and Wheatcroft rationalize Stalin’s crime against humanity by claiming that industrialization was his exculpatory greater good. Others have seen industrialization as a means to still higher ends, such as national defense, or the attainment of full communism. There is no doubt that many Bolsheviks were fixated on rapid industrialization for diverse reasons, and that they had numerous internal and external enemies, but this doesn’t mean that Stalin couldn’t have achieved the same ends with non-lethal means within the framework of communist humanism, that he was justified in killing those who resisted enserfment, nor that he would have behaved differently toward the peasantry if he had supported balanced modernization. The impulse to mobilize, control and repress through terror-command was primary. It, not the exigencies of crash industrialization and national security, pushed Stalin and his agents over the brink, from a policy of NEP tolerance to terror-starvation.27 Ellman appears to concur broadly with this interpretation, but also stresses Stalin’s opportunistic and despotic background. He contends that Stalin was predisposed to: (a) reject prioritizing humanitarianism; (b) hostility toward the peasants, whom he regarded as “second-class citizens;”

42 Red Holocaust: First Wave


(c) blame conflict on “enemy classes” (or “wrecking”/“sabotage” by “enemies of the people”); (d) emphasize the need to liquidate “class enemies” (or “enemies of the people”); and (e) evaluate the outcome of the famine in terms of its contribution to building socialism.28 Stalin killed with impunity, but he picked and chose whom to kill (which groups and subgroups) and where to draw the line. He didn’t decimate the entire peasantry, providing some starvation relief, although it paled in comparison with Alexander III’s response in 1891, and was too little too late, for many. Stalin’s post-1928 despotism moreover didn’t appear out of the blue. He not only had an unsavory past that included bank robbing, hiding from the law, and living in Siberian exile; he had also initiated a reign of terror in Tsaritsyn in 1918, where he ordered the execution of all suspected counterrevolutionaries.29 Stalin burned villages in the countryside to intimidate the peasants and discourage bandit raids on food supplies a decade before he became Red tsar.30 These penchants embodied in terror-command viciously reappeared in 1932–33, including his personal dispatch of special plenipotentiaries to Ukraine, North Caucasus and the Lower Volga to collect grain by force, despite the desperate situation in those regions. And it was repeated frequently thereafter. Stalin signed 357 proscription lists in 1937–38 for more than 40,000 people, of whom approximately 90 percent were shot. He ordered mass deportations and shootings of the inhabitants of the newly acquired territories in 1938–41. He had 10,000 of his own soldiers shot in the first four months of the Soviet–German war,31 and crowed that Ivan the Terrible was “a great and wise ruler, but that one of his mistakes was killing too few people.”32 Ellman judges these actions and all Stalin’s other terror-execution, terrorstarvation and forced labor killings to be (mass) murder, citing statute to brush aside Davies’s and Wheatcroft’s contention that only taking an action whose sole objective is to cause deaths among the peasantry counts as criminal intent.33 But does mass murder formally constitute a crime against humanity, or genocide?

Genocide The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court article 7, subsections 1(a), 1(d) and 1(h), provide the standard. Stalin’s treatment of the peasantry, his Ha Shoah-scale Red Holocaustic killings are indictable as crime against humanity as defined in subsections 1(d) and 1(h), and probably 1(a).34 However, the allegation of genocide put forward by the Ukrainian government, which adds a racial/ethnic link between Nazi and Soviet holocausts, turns out to be more complex. Genocide was declared a crime against


Collectivization and Terror-Starvation 43 humanity by the UN General Assembly in 1946, and is included in a 1948 UN Convention. The high felony applies only to national minorities,35 which excludes Russian victims. Kazakhs who suffered the greatest proportional number of excess deaths could qualify, but seem to be an example of negligent genocide, which falls outside the UN Convention.36 Consequently, the only genocide candidate 1932–33 is the Ukrainians. Did Stalin kill enough of this minority to sustain the allegation? S.V. Kul’chits’kii, who focused on the starvation years, fixes the geographical Ukrainian component of total Soviet killings for the subperiod 1932–33 at 3.2 million, or 9.8 percent of the population.37 Ellman concurs, offering a crude figure of 10 percent,38 but properly notes that non-ethnic Ukrainians need to be subtracted from the total, and Ukrainian victims outside the Ukraine added back to accurately assess genocide. Vallin, Mesle, Adamets and Pryozhkov suggest a lower figure of 2.6 million 1932–34,39 plus 1.1 million lost births. Libanova, Leochuk, Ryhacz, Rudnyckyj and Poniakina, using more comprehensive registration data, reported 4 million excess deaths and 1 million lost births,40 or 15 percent of the Ukrainian population. And higher figures are possible, because more than half the population of the starvation-devastated Kuban was ethnic Ukrainian. Although the absolute number of victims is horrific no matter how computed, it only covers a modest percentage of all Ukrainians (compared with Hitler’s genocide), and it is unclear whether Stalin intended to kill large numbers of peasants who happened to live in the Ukraine and Kuban, or intended Ukrainian extermination. Taras Hunczak argues forcefully that although Stalin probably didn’t seek the physical liquidation of the entire Ukrainian people, he deliberately killed a large portion of them to smash their aspirations for national independence and group resistance to terror command.41 A finding of genocide under the UN Convention doesn’t require complete minority extermination, so that the Ukrainian claim cannot be summarily dismissed on this score, but the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia recently found that evidence of intent to kill specific minority elements is essential.42 A very high standard of proof is required to establish genocidal intent, not just evidence of intent to terror-kill large numbers of a minority to pacify the rest, or to kill indiscriminately. If Stalin were an ethnically impartial terror-command mass murderer, then his crime against humanity wasn’t genocide. Likewise, it is unclear whether Stalin’s fears about Ukrainian nationalism and desire to suppress Ukrainian language and culture translates into sufficient proof of homicidal intent, because Mark von Hagen contends that crushing Ukrainian nationalism was a prelude to the suppression of all minorities.43 He doesn’t believe the evidence suffices to sustain the genocide charge on strict constructivist grounds, but Hunczak does.44 Nonetheless, some groups in Ellman’s view might still pass through this filter, particularly the Kuban Ukrainians/Kuban Cossacks (or the Ukrainians


44


of the North Caucasus as a whole), because they were intentionally eliminated as a major group in the Kuban in 1932–36. Alternatively, the Kuban Ukrainian case can perhaps be more appropriately construed as cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing, excluded from the scope of the UN Convention on genocide.45 The same problem of specific genocidal intent besets claims that Stalin’s death sentences for 111,000 Poles in the infamous “Polish operation” constituted genocide. He certainly intended to murder Poles whom he asserted were involved in the fictitious POV (Pol’skaya Organizatisiya Voiskovaya) organization, but he also killed non-Poles implicated, and it is difficult to prove sufficiently that the assault was on the ethnic minority, or the group.46 Stalin’s slaughter of 50,000 clergy 1937–39 runs afoul of the same problem, even though exterminating religious groups qualifies as genocide under the UN Convention. However, as Ellman points out, a different result is possible under the French Criminal Code (article 211–1), which defines genocide to include groups determined on any criterion. There were probably several Soviet genocides 1917–53 on this expansive definition, which encompasses the liquidation of the kulaks as a class and killing capitalists, landlords and specialists.47 The liberal approach, which can be contrasted with the strict constructionist view, is gaining acceptance in genocide studies, and may eventually prevail.48 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda stated in its 1998 Akayesu judgment that the “offender is culpable because he knew or should have known that the act committed would destroy, in whole or in part, a group.”49 The Ukrainian position on starvation, deportation and shootings under this standard would constitute genocide, as would the excess deaths of Kazakhs 1930–34. However, the norm would reclassify a wide range of historical events, including the Atlantic slave trade, European colonization of the Caribbean islands and the American continent, and even the Irish famine.50 Perhaps the conflicting claims can be reconciled by distinguishing different degrees of genocide, but whatever the ultimate disposition, the difference between Stalin’s and Hitler’s killings will still outweigh the similarities. Ha Shoah was an aggravate first degree genocidal holocaust. Stalin’s Red Holocaust was at worst partly genocidal on a lesser scale. This characterization may cheer some, but it doesn’t exonerate Stalin from perpetrating a terror-command holocaust. For three generations Red Holocaust deniers (rationalizers) have been unable to distinguish turvy from topsy, imagining somehow that the communist idea was sound, sensibly applied and dystopia-free. Many still haven’t sorted matters out.51 However, the new archival evidence proves that Stalin’s terror-starvation, terror-execution, involuntary resettlement and forced labor excess deaths 1930–36, which claimed a minimum of 7 million lives,52 are indictable as Ha Shoah scale, Red Holocaustic crimes against humanity.53



1947 Famine Western historical narratives of Soviet collectivization and famine convey the impression that the Kremlin’s campaign to socialize agriculture, harmonizing it with the rest of Stalin’s command institutions, was achieved soon after the great starvation of 1932–33. Results weren’t stellar, but total agricultural output for the entire period 1938–53 exceeded the pre-collectivization 1928 benchmark,54 with terror-command killings of various sorts tapering off to insignificance. This didn’t mean that the Soviet Union was famine-free after 1932–33. It was widely recognized that many died of starvation during the Axis siege of Leningrad (September 9, 1941 to January 18, 1943). Famine also appears to have killed millions in other parts of the USSR during WWII,55 and Nikita Khrushchev claimed that Stalin ordered grain to be exported in 1947 when people were starving.56 But no one equated any or all of these events with the terror-command practices that slaughtered millions 1929–33. Michael Ellman’s archival discovery in 2000 that between 1 and 1.5 million Russians, Ukrainians and Moldovans perished from an FAD2 famine in 1947 therefore came as a surprise to all but a few specialists,57 raising the possibility that agrarian terror-command didn’t diminish to vanishing point as the literature had implied.58 The acronym FAD2 describes mass starvation deaths that could have been avoided (or substantially mitigated) through feasible policies reallocating diminished food supplies, and was used by Ellman to fault Stalin for failing to feed victims because the Kremlin’s rationing priorities left them unentitled.59 Stalin on this interpretation was guilty of callousness and inflexibility; not inexcusable criminal negligent homicide, and/or manslaughter, even though Ellman now may reconsider this judgment based on his subsequent study of international law.60 The basic facts of the 1947 famine are as follows. Grain harvests during and after WWII were low, with the 1945 figure only officially 49.6 percent of 1940’s level, but perhaps somewhat better on a per capita basis. A drought in 1946 reduced the grain harvest, and procurements 16.3 and 12.5 percent respectively to levels which should have been well below those of the famine year 1933, if official series are consistent.61 Part of the burden of the droughtinduced decline fell on state procurements, but the lion’s share fell on the peasantry.62 Despite these diminished procurements, state net grain exports in 1946 were 1 million metric tons; dropping the next year to 0.3 million tons, accompanied by large gross additions to state grain reserves and seed issued to farms (indicating the importance attached to maintaining agricultural production). A bumper crop of 65.9 million metric tons was produced in 1947.63 Ellman then constructs an historical fact profile to interpret this behavior within the FAD paradigm, centering on a major build-up of state grain reserves 1947–53. “According to a top secret sovershenno sekretno decree of July 11, 1947 of the Council of Ministers of Ukraine and Central Committee


46


of the Communist Party of Ukraine on the grain procurement plan from the harvest of 1947, the build-up was intended to allow agricultural production to proceed normally, even when there had been a drought in the preceding year, e.g., by ensuring that there was adequate seed and also food for those engaged in the spring sowing and subsequent harvest; to permit famine relief after a bad agricultural year; to permit the end of rationing; and for purposes of national security.”64 Data on state grain reserve trends and planners’ grain stocks confirm that the strategy was implemented,65 allowing Ellman to infer that starvation deaths 1946–47 were caused by plan priorities taking precedence over saving lives. “. . . under the conditions prevailing in the USSR in 1946–7, the relatively large supply of food in the hands of the state is considered by present-day historians to be one of the causes of the famine . . ., large food supplies in the hands of the state did not constitute an effective method of breaking the famine.”66 In short, although, initial postwar conditions were dire, and were worsened by drought, the state chose to let people die, rather than reallocate its ample grain stocks. Ellman estimates that the number of registered excess deaths in 1946–48 was approximately 1,200,000,67 using a technique similar to the one employed in Table 3.3 to compute starvation deaths in 1933. This point estimate is subject to numerous data uncertainties, leading him to report that the 1947 famine produced 1–1.5 million starvation and disease-related fatalities.68 Lorimer’s procedure could not be employed because none of the population points were census based. Ellman’s finding is persuasive, if shaky on various grounds detailed in his paper. Nonetheless, we now know with some confidence that terrorstarvation deaths arising from Stalin’s terror-command mechanism didn’t end after 1932–34, that large numbers of peasants were shot or perished in Gulag during the Great Terror 1937–38 (see Chapter 4), and along the way are informed that starvation fatalities were widespread during WWII. His stress on the inflexibility of Stalin’s priorities is illuminating, but also gives the impression that terror-command had somehow been transformed into terrorless command during the postwar years. This is improbable. Stalin never introduced any fundamental reforms in his terror-command mechanism after 1928, and hardly lowered his despotic aspirations. Terror intensity ebbed and flowed, but was always endogenized in the control process. It therefore seems more reasonable to suppose that the terror driven effort mobilization and plan compliance mechanism caused agriculture to malfunction, and mal-adapt to natural adversity after WWII. Stalin may not have had any particular desire to slay Moldovans and Ukrainians in 1947, but their deaths were inexcusable felonious manslaughter and/or felonious negligent homicide includable in any indictment brought under the 1998 Rome Statute, generated by the terror-command system.


Appendix


Table A3.1 Excess deaths 1929–33 official census data; published vital statistics; Urlanis’s population estimate for 1933 Year




Births (thousands)

Deaths (thousands)

1927 1928 1929 1930 1931

147,135 150,578 153,740 156,876 160,045

43.7 44.3 41.8 41.2

20.3 23.3 (21.4) (21.0)

6,430 6,671 6,426 6,463

2,987 3,508 3,290 3,294

(32.6) 32.6

(20.6) (20.2)

5,027 5,088

3,177 3,152

Discrepancy −5,831 1931 1932 1933

154,214 156,065 158,000

1929–33 Actual Increase 10,865 Expected Births 36,105 Expected Deaths 19.409 Births Minus Deaths 16,696 Discrepancy −5,831 Excess Mortality Surge 1933 2,718 Collectivization Deaths 8,549 Sources: Boris Ts. Urlanis, “Dinamika urovnia rozhdaemosti v SSSR,” in A.G. Vishnevskii, Brachnost’, rozhdaemost’, smertnost’ v Rossii i v SSSR (Moscow, 1977), Table 3, pp.11–12; Urlanis, Problemy dinamiki naseleniia SSSR (Moscow, 1974), p.319; Naselenie SSSR (Moscow, 1974), p.9. Data The bracketed natality statistic is Urlanis’s estimate; bracketed mortality statistics have been interpolated from average observed values 1927–28 and 1937–38. The January 1, 1933 population estimate is Urlanis’s. The other vital statistics are official data reported in 1974. Method See Table 3.4. Collectivization deaths are the sum of the discrepancy 1927–32, plus the surge mortality computed in Table 3.3, B. Starvation deaths. For other prior estimates see Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths 1929–1933: New Demographic Evidence,” Slavic Review, 43(1), Spring 1984, Table A1, p.87, and Table 2, p.85.

48



Table A3.2 Excess deaths 1929–37 based on Wheatcroft’s vital statistics and Antonov-Ovseenko’s demographic statistics Year




Births (thousands)

Deaths (thousands)

1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934

147,135 150,416 154,026 157,029 159,887 162,414 164,265 162,228

43.6 42.5 40.1 37.9 35.4 31.9 25.3 25.6

21.3 18.5 20.6 19.7 19.6 20.5 37.7 19.8

6,415 6,393 6,176 5,951 5,660 5,181 4,156 3,847

3,134 2,783 3,173 3,093 3,134 3,329 6,194 2,975

33.0 32.6

17.6 18.2

4,987 5,013

2,660 2,799

Discrepancy −11,648 1934 1935 1936 1937

150,580 151,453 153,785 156,000

Actual Increase 8,865 Expected Births 53,797 Expected Deaths 33,286 Births Minus Deaths 20,511 Discrepancy −11,646 Source: Rosefielde (1983, p.393); Conquest (1991a, p.950); Wheatcroft (1990, Table 1, p.358). Antonov-Ovseenko, Portret Tirana (New York: Kronika, 1980), p.211. Data The 1937 population figure is taken from Antonov-Ovseenko, Portret tirana.

Collectivization and Terror-Starvation 49 Table A3.3 Estimates of excess deaths from famine 1930–33: Davies and Wheatcroft


Millions Kazakhstan famine: approximate Excess deaths in OGPU system Registered excess deaths, 1932–33 Estimate 1 Low estimate (total of above) Estimate 2 ADK estimate of all excess deaths, 1930–33 Estimate 3 Davies and Wheatcroft estimate, after “Lorimer corrections,” approx. (4.6 + 1.1 million from the Kurman gap)

1.3–1.5 0.3+ 2.9 4.6 8.5 5.7

Source: Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1932– 1933, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p.415. Note Excess deaths reported above are due only to starvation, privation and disease related to starvation. Shootings and other privation excess deaths are excluded. They are partly based on archival registration data. Method Davies and Wheatcroft use the difference between officially registered deaths in 1933 in the USSR (excluding Kazakhstan, where no registration system existed), and the normal amount (compared with the 1926–27 average) as a base (3 million; cf. Table 3.3, this chapter). They then add an undocumented estimate of 1.3–1.5 million Kazakhs, Russian and other national minorities inhabiting Kazakhstan, together with above normal Gulag excess deaths (0.3 million) to arrive at a base total of 4.6 million starvation excess deaths. Comment Davies and Wheatcroft note that registration data were periodically updated, so that their figures should be accurate, but acknowledge nonetheless that under-registration is possible. Specifically, there is a disparity between the archival 1937 census population, and the net population increase computed from the registration data. The 6.3 million difference is known as the “Kurman gap,” after the head of the population department of TsUNKhU in 1937. Three Russian demographers, known as ADK (E.M. Andreev, L.E. Darski and T.L. Kharkova), from the initials of their surnames, concluded that these unregistered deaths were concentrated in the years 1932 and 1933, and their estimates lead to the conclusion that excess deaths in 1930–33 amounted to 8.5 million, of which as many as 7.3 million occurred in 1933. Davies and Wheatcroft concluded that this figure is too high because it doesn’t take account of adjustments made by Lorimer (hardly an infallible standard), and using “intelligent guesswork” reduce the 7.3 million figure to 5.7 million shown in the table above.

50


Summary • •


•

• •

• • • •

• • •

•

The Red Holocaust was caused by peacetime terror-execution, terror-starvation, lethal deportation and forced labor. Killings associated with the First World War, the civil war and foreign intervention (subsumed under the concept of War Communism) are excluded from the Red Holocaust, together with the famine/terror-starvation 1921–22. Stalin initiated the Red Holocaust in 1929 as a component of his peacetime forced agrarian collectivization drive aimed at creating a unified terror-command Soviet economic system to replace NEP. Stalin’s forced collectivization is a euphemism for the re-enserfment of the peasantry. It was a deferred aspect of Lenin’s criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship in 1917, and a component of Stalin’s post-NEP terror-command economy-wide economic strategy. It contributed in some degree (taking weather into account) to two bad harvests in 1931 and 1932 (and the decimination of Kazakh herds). The bad harvests, often described as famines, reduced food supplies, but not enough to cause mass starvation. Starvation in any case was avoidable because global food supplies were abundant and cheap. Enough food could have been imported to prevent the loss of any lives. It is widely accepted that at least 7 million Soviets perished from terror-starvation, execution, lethal deportation and forced labor associated with collectivization, without taking account of child deaths resulting from the Soviet Union’s irregular definition of stillborns. As many as ten million may have perished 1929–37 in the Red Holocaust. These avoidable deaths are indictable as a crime against humanity, inexcusable felonious manslaughter and/or murder. They suffice to substantiate the charge of Red Holocaust. Terror-command was a principal cause of these outcomes. The need to mobilize effort, strengthen compliance and repress trumped any impulse to alleviate starvation on grounds both of economic efficiency and humanitarianism. The inner logic of terror command was consistent with Stalin’s class-historical mindset and his self-serving conviction that the famine was the peasants’ fault.



•

•

• • •

•

•

His malice, which complemented terror-command, was demonstrated on November 27, 1932 in a speech stressing the need to deal a knockout blow to some collective farmers and collective farms. On January 11, 1933, he argued that the kulaks had not yet been finished off and that the situation was still one of fierce class struggle. On February 19, 1933, he stated that he was engaged in a war with the peasants, who were trying to starve the workers and the army. Two years later, looking back, he explained the rapid industrialization had been essential, even if it meant some sacrifices and even though it had been necessary to economize also on food. In 1932–33 he pursued a multi-pronged policy of state terror against the population of the USSR, particularly the peasantry. The program included judicial repression; charges, arrests, investigations and sentences by the OGPU; deportations; and the sending of plenipotentiaries to the North Caucasus, Ukraine and Lower Volga to procure grain by force. He banned migration from two very badly affected areas, Ukraine and North Caucasus, thus preventing many from helping themselves. He also reduced procurement and export plans (but this was due to deficient supplies), and undertook some modest relief that was too little and too late. Stalin could have industrialized rapidly and achieved other goals without resorting to criminal violence. In January–February 1933, Stalin planned new mass deportations with millions of victims, later downscaled due to the opposition of West Siberian leaders, and cost considerations. Throughout his career as a Soviet leader, from Tsaritsyn (1918) to the doctors’ plot (1953), he used violence to achieve his political and terror-command goals. Why would he have stayed his hand in the Ukraine? In 1932–33 Stalin killed many by acts of omission, including failing to appeal for or accept international help, despite past Russian historical precedent. And he failed to import grain. He also killed by acts of commission. Numerous deportees and camp and prison inmates died. Grain which might have been used to feed the starving population was exported (albeit in smaller quantities than originally planned). Peasants who tried to flee from famine-stricken Ukraine and North Caucasus were turned back, many dying as a result. From the standpoint of international criminal law, the debate is about whether Stalin was indictable only for inexcusable (mass) murder and manslaughter (lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing), or felonious negligent homicide (terror-starvation).

52

Red Holocaust: First Wave • • •


•

• • • •

Stalin’s only defense is ignorance, or mental incompetence. Neither claim is sustainable. From the standpoint of contemporary international criminal law, Stalin, and Team-Stalin, are clearly indictable for crimes against humanity 1930–34. Stalin and Team-Stalin are also indictable for inexcusable mass murder and mass manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide. The further charge of genocide against him/them depends on genocidal intent. There is insufficient evidence to convict under the strict constructionist standard fixed by the UN Genocide Convention and subsequent case law. But he is almost certainly indictable under French criminal law and the emerging liberal standard. Terror-starvation and related killings associated with Soviet collectivized agriculture didn’t cease after the Great Terror 1937–38 (one aspect of which was a continued anti-kulak campaign). There were severe famine/starvation fatalities during World War II, but there is insufficient archival information to estimate how many should be attributed to the Red Holocaust. Ellman has shown that terror-starvation killed 1 to 1.5 million peasants in Moldova and the Ukraine in 1947. There is no reason to believe that terror-command was replaced by terrorless-command in any sector of the Soviet economy during Stalin’s reign.


4

The Great Terror

Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous. In order to live well and joyously, the benefits of political freedom must be supplemented by material benefits. It is a distinctive feature of our revolution that it brought the people not only freedom, but also material benefits and the possibility of a prosperous and cultured life. That is why life has become joyous in our country, and that is the soil from which the Stakhanov movement sprang. Joseph Stalin, “Speech at the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites, November 17, 1935,” in J.V. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1976

As the fateful years 1937–38 approached, in which archival records report 681,692 people were shot by the NKVD, Stalin found time to celebrate that “Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous.” Although his hard-fought terror-control and discipline campaign against the peasantry, aimed at completing the revolution by creating a comprehensive command economy based on the criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship, had been savage, the Soviets it would seem had emerged victorious, crowned by colossal industrial successes. Official statistics (Marxist categories) support Stalin’s assessment. They indicate that national income nearly quadrupled 1928–37, growing by 16.3 percent per annum, far faster than China subsequently claimed under Mao or Deng Xiaoping (Tables 15.3, 15.5). Industrial investment goods more than sextupled, and manufactured consumer products more than tripled. Western recalculations, however, show less exuberant rates of advance, but be that as it may, internal perceptions should have been reassuring. The Soviet state-controlled economy had passed the test, and had the luxury of proceeding temperately. The feasibility of comprehensive plancommand no longer seemed in doubt. If there had been an emergency in 1929, it had passed.1 Perhaps, the time was nigh to dispense with siegemobilized terror-command, relying instead on terror-free public administration from top to bottom? Opponents, shirkers and opportunists could be

54



Table 4.1 Key indicators of Soviet economic development 1928–37 (1928 = 1) 1932

1937

Net material product (NMP) National income

1.6 1.8

3.4 3.9

Industrial output Investment goods Consumer goods Agricultural output New Capital Formation Workers and assistants

2.7 1.6 0.9 4.2 2.1

6.5 3.1 1.1 5.4 2.5

Source: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 Let, Iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Finansy i Statistika, Moscow, p.41.

chided, censored, punished, demoted and dismissed, according to standard Weberian protocols, without resorting to threats, intimidation, violence, arrest, ethnic cleansing, forced labor and execution. Spectacular economic results, however, didn’t allay Stalin’s fears about internal and external enemies, his power to determine the scope, focus and content of public programs (plans and the control mechanism), his ability to assure plan implementation, and mobilize productive effort. Despite the good news, he chose to muster national energy by heightening anxieties about internal and external threats with a high-profile siege-mobilization, terror campaign against prominent party members, with spillover effects strengthening all aspects of the terror-command system. More than a million people were executed, with hundreds of thousands of others succumbing to lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing in a process textbooks variously label the Great Purge (Bol’shaya Chistka)2 or Great Terror. Some have even explicitly called these killings the Soviet holocaust,3 because the death toll from Stalin’s state-orchestrated killing spree was so extreme.4 The term “Great Purge” emphasizes expulsions from the Communist Party, while “Great Terror” stresses the subsequent repression, including mass arrests, prison sentences, ethnic cleansing and executions. The processes dovetailed, beginning with Communist Party expulsions (Great Purge) and ending in the graveyard (Great Terror). The first phase had three distinct aspects: 1) a series of show trials (1936); 2) the introduction of NKVD troikas vnesudebnaya rasprava (fast track, extra-judicial three-member commissions created to expedite the process of revolutionary justice against antiSoviet elements) July 1937, and mass prosecution under Article 58–14 of the RSFSR penal code on counter-revolutionary sabotage, newly introduced June 6, 1937.5 It provided the pretext for mass killings. The second stage began by expediting the incarceration and execution of high-profile former party members, followed by the mass prosecution of anti-Soviet enemies of the people, before engulfing a broad swath of military, administrative, service,


The Great Terror

55

industrial and agrarian personnel accused of being counter-revolutionary saboteurs. The Great Purge-cum-Great Terror started in early 1936 when Genrikh Yagoda, People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs (NKVD), oversaw the interrogation process leading to the first Moscow Show Trial and subsequent execution of former Soviet leaders Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev that August. After Yagoda was replaced September 16, 1936, the process continued uninterrupted under Nikolai Yezhov until November 17, 1938.6 The defendants in the first Moscow show trial held in August 1936 were 16 members of the alleged Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre. The most prominent were Grigory Zinoviev,7 a former Politburo member and favorite of Lenin’s, and Lev Kamenev,8 a former but lesser Politburo member in the early 1920s. All 16 defendants were convicted of complicity in Sergei Kirov’s assassination December 31, 1935, and of plotting to kill Stalin. They were executed, with many family members swiftly killed thereafter.9 The second trial January 1937 involved 17 smaller fry, including Karl Radek (former Comintern secretary), Yuri Piatakov (Deputy Chairman of VSNKh in 1922) and Grigory Sokolnikov (People’s Commissar of Finance during NEP, Soviet Ambassador to England 1929–32). Thirteen accused were eventually shot; the rest were consigned to Gulag, where they soon died. The final trial, known as the Trial of the Twenty-One, included 21 defendants indicted as members of the “Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites,” led by Nikolai Bukharin (former Politburo member and head of the Communist International), former Prime Minister Alexei Rykov, Christian Rakovsky (various high posts), Nikolai Krestinsky (Politburo member in 1919) and Genrikh Yagoda (former NKVD chief). All notables were executed. None of those convicted in the Moscow show trials had conspired with Hitler, Hirohito or Roosevelt, and none posed any threat to Stalin. None were current members of the Politburo, although active Politburo members’ heads would roll once the Great Terror gathered momentum.10 They were all broken men, with no influence over the NKVD, the sword and shield of the revolution (the Kremlin’s praetorians), or the Polituro. For example, Bukharin, who championed NEP in the mid-1920s, lost his comintern (Communist International Organization, known as the Third International) position in April 1929 and was expelled from the Politburo on November 17 that year. He was briefly rehabilitated in 1934 and made editor of Izvestiya, adhering to Stalin’s line. The public prosecution of 54 political discards had no bearing on Stalin’s control over the levers of state power. It didn’t destroy a nonexistent factional threat to his authority, and settling old scores wasn’t primary.11 The real motive behind Stalin’s political theater was restoking the siege-mobilizing, terror-command mechanism, arousing public support for a new surge of harsh superpower building super-industrialization with the aid of a fresh set of crises, some real and some imagined, after the kulak threat lost its luster (see Chapter 12). He was intent on strengthening Russia’s territorial security in the Far East, South and West, which required population transfers,


56


unflagging industrial development and war-preparedness. These goals in principle could be achieved by technocratic command, but Stalin preferred not to risk moral hazard, resistance to labor transfer and growth retardation. Show trials weren’t new.12 The Shakhty and Industrial Party trial had been used earlier to bolster productive effort, discipline and plan compliance. Neither the blood of disgraced former Communist Party leaders other than the defendants themselves, nor that of ordinary rank-and-file party members had been spilt for this purpose at the Shakty and Prom-party show trials, but with the Moscow show trials, things changed. Stalin put the nation on notice that he could no longer be propitiated by party expulsions and groveling public confessions, and that his wrath henceforth wouldn’t be confined to the peasantry and garden variety wreckers.13 Anyone, especially party officials who defied him, should expect a visit from the grim reaper. This message was driven home by the terror-purge of the Red Army, beginning with Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky,14 which removed three of five marshals (then equivalent to six-star generals), 13 of 15 army commanders (then equivalent to four- and five-star generals), eight of nine admirals,15 50 of 57 army corps commanders, 154 out of 186 division commanders, all 16 army commissars, and 25 of 28 army corp commissars.16 It was spread throughout the top ranks of the party, with the exception of a few Stalin stalwarts,17 and then down the chain of command. Almost all Bolsheviks who had played prominent roles during the Bolshevik coup d’état, or Lenin’s War Communist and NEP governments, were executed. Stalin, alone of the six members of the original Politburo, survived. Of the 1,966 delegates to the 17th Communist Party Congress in 1934, 1,108 were arrested and nearly all killed. On July 30, 1937, NKVD Order no.00447 authorized NKVD troikas to imprison and execute ex-kulaks and other anti-Soviet elements. Upper and lower quotas were set for all jurisdictions. By August 15, 1937, 101,000 had been arrested, and 14,000 convicted. At the same time a large segment of the nation’s productive personnel in all sectors of the economy were arrested, incarcerated and killed for counter-revolutionary sabotage under Article 58–14. These precedents were then extended to national operations, including one against the Poles.18 Eventually, according to declassified Soviet archives, the NKVD detained 1,548,367 victims, and shot nearly 700,000 during the twoyear period 1937–38.19 V.S. Isupov, relying on these NKVD data, estimates that there were about 1 million repression deaths in 1937–38, including 116,000 Gulag fatalities and non-article 58 arrestees who were shot.20 Michael Ellman estimates that 950,000 to 1.2 million were executed during this period (including those who died in Gulag),21 in line with Robert Conquest’s original figure (excluding those who died in Gulag), but Conquest himself now prefers a higher execution number, in the vicinity of 1.5 million.22 Memorial also reports that at least 436,000 people were sentenced to death by NKVD troikas as part of the kulak operation, and at least 247,000 people were


The Great Terror 57 sentenced to death by NKVD dvoikas (two-person committees) and the local special troikas as part of the Ethnic Operations. The archival revolution, particularly the NKVD data confirmed by demographic excess death estimates (Table 2.1),23 thus not only prove that close to a million or more souls were executed 1937–38 in the Great Purge morphed into the Great Terror, but victims were personnel from all walks of life, not just Communist Party cadre dragooned into maximizing Stalin’s sordid notion of national economic welfare.24 Since executions cannot be blamed on nature, in the way terror-starvation often is ascribed to famine, this leaves Red Holocaust rationalizers or deniers with only two options. They can blame excesses on Stalin’s henchmen,25 or claim that Moscow show trial defendants were guilty as charged. Joseph E. Davies, America’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1936–38) and an attorney by profession, stated that he thought the trials were fair.26 If the Soviet Union were riddled with traitors, saboteurs and virulent counterrevolutionaries, then the international court of justice might exonerate Stalin on grounds of self-defense. But it is preposterous. Stalin always invented enemies as a pretext for his crimes, and fully understood how the Cheka and NKVD fabricated cases. His homicidal responses predictably were overkill. Moreover, two post-Stalin Soviet investigatory commissions found that almost all charges lodged against Moscow show trial defendants were concocted, with confessions extracted through torture.27 Everyone was exonerated, and most rehabilitated before the Soviet Union vanished. The Great Terror, at the end of the day, proved to be pretextual from start to finish. Stalin killed, fully cognizant that millions of his terror-command victims were falsely accused, and therefore is indictable not only for millions of terror-starvation and other collectivization homicides, but for a million or more inexcusable Great Terror mass murder crimes against humanity in the first degree, aggravated by torture.

Indictable Executions 1929–36 State executions of falsely accused people, like the peasant killings, were concentrated around epic events, but weren’t confined to them. The NKVD archival data for the Stalin years before the Great Terror reveal that 37,393 counter-revolutionary kulaks were executed, 28,136 by extrajudicial troikas, during the early years of collectivization (Table 4.2), under the direction of Efim Georgievich Evdokimov, with much smaller numbers executed after 1931 until the Great Terror.28 However, there is abundant evidence proving that NKVD data are incomplete, and the demographic data point to the possibility of much higher shootings. For example, Wheatcroft and Davies find: “In summary, the total number of excess deaths in 1927–38 may have amounted to 10 million persons, 8.5 million in 1927–36, and about 1–1.5 million in 1937–8.”29 Their best estimate of terror-starvation deaths (they use the term “famine”) is 5.7 million, leaving 2.8 million unattributed excess

58

Red Holocaust: First Wave Table 4.2 Kulak death sentences 1929–33 Death sentences


1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1929–33

of which from Troiki

2,109 20,201 10,651 2,278 2,154 37,393

18,966 9,170

Source: Stephen Wheatcroft, ed., Challenging Traditional Views of Russian History, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, pp.118, 125.

deaths to executions, lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing and statistical discrepancy (see Chapter 5).30 It can be reasonably inferred that extrajudicial troika executions, other NKVD documented shootings and a vast number of undocumented NKVD and other state executions are also indictable as crimes against humanity, subject as usual to pleas of excusability on grounds of self-defense.

Indictable Executions: 1939–53 NKVD archival data indicate that there were 46,350 executions for counterrevolutionary crimes 1939–4531 (Table 4.3). Figures for 1946–53 aren’t yet Table 4.3 Secret police executions 1921–45 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1921–45 1939–45

9,701 1,962 414 2,550 2,433 990 2,363 869 2,109 20,201 10,651 2,728 2,154

1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945

2,056 1,229 1,118 353,074 328,618 2,552 1,649 8,011 23,278 3,579 3,029 4,252 792,570 46,350

Sources: Vestnik Arkhiva Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1, 1995; Istochnik, 1, 1995, p.120. Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48(8), 1996, p.1336. Table prepared by Colonel Pavlov of 1st Special Dept of MVD, dated 11/12/1953 and sent by General Kruglovoi (head of MVD) to Malenkov and Khrushchev on 5/1/1954 (35).


The Great Terror 59 available, but if terror-executions continued at the rate reported 1939–40, 16,804 more political killings could be added 1946–53, bringing the post-Great Terror total to 63,154. Presumably there were other shootings off the NKVD books,32 perhaps in proportion to the average 1929–38 that should be added to the cumulative indictable terror-execution count. For example, it isn’t known whether the mass shootings of “several tens of thousands of deserters” in the early stages of the Soviet–German war for which Beria claimed credit are in the NKVD compilations.33 Likewise, many were shot by the Red Army resisting Soviet power in the Western Ukraine and the Baltic Republics. The documented component of NKVD reported killings is 5.5 percent of the total 1921–53 (including the extrapolated component 1946–53), indicating that although indictable NKVD killings persisted after 1938, there was no return to the darkest levels of the Great Terror. This judgment can be called into question if more debatable types of executions are considered, like forced Gulag suicide brigade shootings during World War II concealed in battle casualty data, excessive executions of deserters, the killing of foreign prisoners of war, the murder of civilian enemies of the people in occupied territories outside post-WWII Soviet boundaries (including German civilians in Soviet work camps) and military shootings of Russians suspected of collaboration. The numbers could be very large, but are clouded by data and conceptual uncertainties. The rationale for treating these shootings as part of the Red Holocaust instead of ordinary casualties of war stems partly from the definition of crimes against humanity and partly from the logic of terror-command which substitutes excessive violence for optimal resource use in conquest and military defense, just as it does in the pursuit of material might in the public, private and civic sectors. When the Red Army began its sweep into Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania three weeks after Hitler invaded Poland (the September Campaign), and a month after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (with its secret protocol dividing these nations between Germany and the Soviet Union), the NKVD began arresting and shooting class enemies, and imposing the terror-command productive system. The killings, including 22,000 Poles murdered by the NKVD, pacified the population in conquered territories and put them in the terror-command economic harness. The same formula was applied after the German–Soviet Pact ended abruptly on June 22, 1941. Hitler’s blitzkrieg attack (Operation Barbarossa) on the Soviet’s newly occupied territories, and subsequent capture of large parts of the western USSR, including the Ukraine, prompted mass internal lethal deportations of national minorities, the formation of forced suicide brigades among Gulag inmates drafted into the Red Army, and an intensified struggle against domestic class enemies. Then, when the tide reversed at the Battle of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) February 2, 1943, the Kremlin re-imposed terror-command on the re-conquered territories and extended them beyond into the Axis’s domains. Some 3.7 million German and Japanese prisoners of war were pressed into lethal forced labor, not just

60


during WWII, but as late as 1950. Some 500,000 to 600,000 died in captivity. The same draconian practices were applied to Red Army troops suspected of disloyalty, and a huge number of Soviet soldiers, former prisoners of war of the Germans, after being repatriated, were shot or sent to Gulag for the crime of voluntarily surrendering to the enemy. Table 4.4 provides some selected statistics to gauge the potential scope of these related fatalities.


Table 4.4 Pool of potential war-related executions of Soviet and foreign citizens (with selected death estimates) 1. Archival Military Statistics a. Red Army soldiers dying from accidents and punitive shootings b. Repatriated prisoners of war subject to incarceration and execution for surrendering to the enemy c. Gulag suicide troops/Gulag inductees

289,000 1,836,000 1,000,000

2. Foreign soldiers executed by Soviets a. Katyn forest massacre b. prisoners of war i. German ii. Japanese c. deaths i. Germans ii. Japanese 3. Internally deported Soviet nationals 1940–53 4. Foreign civilian enemies of the people 5. Soviet collaborators in occupied territories

22,000 3,127,380 510,000 to 600,000 474,697 47,600 to 137,600 3,445,000 ? ?

Sources: Grif sekretnost snyat, Moscow, 1993, pp.130–131 and 136, reported in Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46(4), 1994, pp.671–680. (Archival Military Statistics, a, b): Steven Barnes, “ ‘All for the Front, All for Victory!’ The Mobilization of Forced Labor in the Soviet Union during World War Two,” International Labor and Working-Class History, No.58, Fall 2000, pp.239–260. Cited from p.252. “While over a million Gulag prisoners, perceived as less of a danger to the Soviet state, were released to join the Red Army, . . .”; G.F. Krivosheev, ed., Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, London: Greenhill Books, 1997. (German and Polish prisoners of war): Wikipedia, Prisoners of War (German prisons and deaths); Wikipedia, Japanese Prisoners of War in the Soviet Union (Japanese Prisoners and repatriations); Wikipedia, Population Transfer in the Soviet Union (deportations). Notes Katyn massacre was a mass execution of Polish military officers, policemen and civilian prisoners of war ordered by Soviet authorities March 5, 1940. There were approximately 22,000 shootings in the Katyn forest (Russia), the Kalinin (Tver) and Kharkiv of prisoners. About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, the rest labeled gendarmes, spies, saboteurs, landowners, factory owners, lawyers, priests and officials. Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics,” reports that these killings were excluded from the NKVD data, p.1154. This isn’t surprising, because the Soviets blamed the Nazis for the shootings.


The Great Terror 61 Summarizing, the Great Terror, its harbingers and echoes claimed millions of lives assessed from the standpoint of terror-command, which takes NKVD executions as a benchmark, adds estimated shootings omitted from the NKVD record, murders carried out by other state agencies including the Red Army and civilian courts, as well as terror-command killings in occupied territories, and among prisoners of war and repatriated Soviet soldiers sent to Gulag. Executions, more narrowly defined, focused on NKVD shootings of political victims of Soviet repression are much smaller, in the vicinity of 1 million. Since the Red Holocaust definition set forth in the Introduction excludes foreign nations and World War II causalities, Soviet terror-executions included in communist holocaust totals should be nearer the lower boundary of the spectrum.

Summary • • • • • •

• • •

Archival records report that the NKVD on Stalin’s orders shot 681,692 people 1937–38, despite the economic boom achieved during the first two five-year plans. Stalin’s holocaust, as some authors describe these executions, began with a purge of the Communist Party (Great Purge), before morphing into the Great Terror. The killings were foreshadowed by three Moscow show trials of prominent Bolshevik notables, who had been downgraded to minor positions. Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin were the most famous. But none was a threat to Stalin’s power. The real motivation behind the show trials was re-stoking the siegemobilizing terror command mechanism to strengthen Russia’s territorial security in the Far East, South and West, which required unwelcome population transfers, unflagging industrial development and war-preparedness related hardships. These goals in principle could have been achieved by technocratic command, but Stalin preferred not to risk moral hazard, resistance to labor transfer and growth retardation. The Great Terror killed roughly 1 million people. Many were party members, but most were ordinary personnel in the terror-command economic mechanism. Although, many have tried to defend Stalin, including American Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, on the grounds that all defendants

62


•


• • • • •

in the Moscow show trials were guilty as accused, two postStalin Soviet investigatory commissions exonerated everyone of all charges. They found the evidence concocted, and confessions extracted by torture. NKVD records report 63,154 additional terror-executions before and after 1937–38. The NKVD records are incomplete. The real number is much higher. Conquest estimates that there were 1.5 million Great Terror executions. Broader definitions of wrongful shootings could perhaps double this figure for the entire period 1929–53. Executions, whatever the true order of magnitude, contributed a relatively small proportion of the 20 million excess deaths 1929–53 presented in Table 2.1. Terror-starvation, lethal Gulag forced labor and forced collectivization claimed more lives.


5

Gulag

Stalin starved, executed and lethally overworked millions of Red Holocaust victims. This chapter quantifies forced labor killings in concentration camps, penal colonies and prisons. These casualties supplement the 13 million indictable Red Holocaust terror-executions and terror-starvations 1928–53 previously documented, and provide further insight into the dystopic universe of Soviet terror-command.1 The slaughter wrought by lethal forced labor (including shootings) stemmed from what was purported to be a progressive Bolshevik system of justice. Although it was confidently predicted that communism would be crime-free in the fullness of time, misdemeanors and felonies against people and property persisted during the transition period. The state set about dealing with the problem by devising socialist legal theories, and establishing appropriate courts and penal institutions to provide fair trials, equitable punishments, re-education and rehabilitation.2 These good intentions, like other ideals however, conflicted with Leninist authoritarianism to the extent that the Leviathan refused to be restrained by the rule of law. A two-tiered system reflecting the schizophrenia swiftly developed: one for political misdeeds, administered by the secret police (ChK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD); the other for mundane civil actions. Had Lenin refrained from criminalizing private ownership, business and entrepreneurship, the preponderance of criminal actions, as in market economies, would have been carried out in civil courts. However, because the Soviets nationalized the means of production and monopolized business, economic misdemeanors and felonies became acts against the state easily construed as wrecking, sabotage and diversions. This didn’t seem to matter before the Shakhty show trial (1928), but once Stalin embraced terror-command the secret police and their penal regimes became integral parts of the economic control system. As the Kremlin increased pressure on industrial workers (mobilization planning),3 and the peasantry, large numbers of kulaks and ordinary laborers who weren’t political opponents of the regime, together with common felons, were absorbed into the NKVD penal apparatus (prisons, concentration camps and colonies), or exiled spetspereselentsy from their homes (homelands) to other parts of the Soviet Union.4


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For a while, the swollen ranks of prisoners labored haphazardly, but this didn’t last. Stalin, with the advice of Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel, decided in the early 1930s to kill two birds with one stone by dispensing with rehabilitation in favor of self-financing corrective labor mobilization as an integral component of rapid superpower building economic development.5 In a terror-free command economy, where leaders are concerned with rehabilitating criminals, enhancing their human capital and allocating them to best productive use, this could have been virtuous. Prisoners could have been assigned to labor camps primarily to expedite their rehabilitation, and only secondarily to harness their productive effort.6 Criminals never should have been exploited (overworked) for the state’s benefit, because this would have been inhumane, or worked to death, because killing precluded rehabilitation and needlessly destroyed human capital, a key component of national wealth. Likewise, the state should never knowingly have treated innocent people as convicts to create a pool of juridically sanctioned slave labor. The size of the corrective labor force should have been strictly limited by the scale of criminal activity (using a terror-free command regime as the benchmark), the severity of crimes, and rehabilitative efficiency. Presumably, had these principles been followed, Soviet incarceration rates would have remained at very low late NEP levels,7 with corrective labor increasing in accordance with rehabilitative need. Likewise, nationalities and groups should never have been exiled (spetspereselentsy), regardless of the state’s economic requirements. If conscription were essential to critical national projects like the Belomor Canal or the Baikal-Amur main railway line (BAM) as is sometimes suggested, then it should have been accomplished through a lottery, not wrongful repression. There are no valid arguments for false imprisonment, penal labor exploitation and forced resettlement (ethnic cleansing). Terror-command by contrast implies a very different (in)justice and penal regime, because it substitutes the logic of effort mobilization, involuntary overwork and violence-driven discipline for economic efficiency in and outside prison. It necessarily subordinates optimal efficiency to brute coercion, but the sacrifice isn’t absolute. Leaders could and did choose terrorcommand regimes that preserved efficiency aspects of pure command regimes to the degree they considered best. The scale and exploitativeness of terror-command penal systems depends first on the ruler’s judgment about the net benefits of terror, and second on the opportunity costs of incarceration. Insofar as Stalin was rational, he should have preferred a relatively small forced penal labor system before Frenkel made him aware of its productive potential (including leasing convicts to non-penal enterprises), and a larger archipelago after. Frenkel taught Stalin that he could have his cake and eat it by combining “you-eat-as-youwork” aspirational tasking, with the knout, ruthless punishment, lethal overwork and shootings. Workers, bureaucrats and peasants who failed to act as Stalin desired in ordinary terror-command state enterprises weren’t just disciplined. They


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were arrested for wrecking, sabotage, diversions and as parasites and enemies of the people; tried, convicted and dispatched to penal forced labor servitude, where they could be squeezed even harder. There was no exit. Terrorcommand roused people’s energies to avoid repression in the non-penal workplace, and then intensified pressure on those caught in the NKVD web. The approach injured victims, innocent and guilty alike, but Stalin wasn’t perturbed. He turned a blind eye to the human costs, believing that communism’s (his) gain exceeded the sum of individual miseries. The ranks of Soviet prisoners, especially those under NKVD jurisdiction, consequently mushroomed more than they might have thanks to Frenkel, first from forced collectivization, then sequentially from terror-starvation, the Great Terror, territorial expansion, the vicissitudes of World War II, ethnic cleansing resettlements, and the mass arrest of repatriated Soviet war prisoners. Foreign prisoners of war and some civilians also swelled the concentration camp population. In the process, the rehabilitative component of penal forced labor diminished to the vanishing point. Although many were released,8 the death toll for the rest was horrific, due in equal measure to bloated corrective labor camp populations and high excess death rates. The name of this NKVD-administered lethal forced labor concentration camp and colony system was Gulag. The acronym (for Glavnoe Upravlenie Ispravitel’no-Trudovykh Lagerei i Kolonii) means Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies, and is often used more broadly to mean the entire Soviet penal system. It contained at least 476 separate camps spread across the entire Soviet space, some comprising hundreds, even thousands of subunits.9 Concentration camp prisoners were convicts (some innocent, some guilty), but most colony inmates weren’t, except in the non-juridical sense of being enemies of the people. Perceptions of Gulag remain polarized despite the archival revolution. While no one disputes its existence, physical dimensions, Frenkel’s influence, harshness and excessive lethality, one group of scholars claims that relatively few inmates died prematurely in the Soviet scheme of things (about 1.1 million),10 while another believes causalities were many times higher. The archival data uncovered after the Soviet Union’s demise, with notable exceptions, support the low fatality position. Table 5.1 presents a composite of these statistics from various sources. It reports mean camp and colony mortality rates, mostly derived from Wheatcroft’s mortality rate range statistics,11 and Gulag population data. There are some discrepancies in published series. Wherever possible, Wheatcroft’s data have been chosen, but this convention isn’t critical. Substituting alternative NKVD figures does not significantly alter the big picture. Also, it should be observed that in the absence of prison mortality statistics, non-camp fatalities are estimated by multiplying the Gulag colony mortality rates by the combined population of colonies and prisons. The bias, if any, cannot be assessed.

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Table 5.1 Archival NKVD Gulag population mortality statistics Mortality rates

Population


Gulag camp Colonies Gulag (per 1000) (per 1000) (1) (2) (3) 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1930–46 1930–1953

(67) (67) 43 154 75 53 47 42 99 40 57 88 212 221 101 97 34 (24) (24) 13 (13) (13) (13) (13)

(300)* 300* 108 174 50 25 22 22 18 17 17 (17) (17) (17) (17) (17) (17) (17) (17) 12 (12) (12) (12) (12)

Deaths Colonies

Prisons

Camps

Other

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

179,000 – – 11,993 – 212,000 – – 14,204 – 268,700 – – 11,554 – 334,300 440,000 800,000 51,482 215,760 510,000 400,000 575,000 38,250 48,750 725,483 – 240,259 38,451 6,006 839,406 457,088 39,452 – 10,056 820,881 375,488 34,477 – 8,260 996,367 361,555 548,756 98,640 16,386 1,317,195 355,243 350,538 52,688 11,998 1,344,408 315,584 190,266 76,631 8,599 1,500,524 429,205 487,739 132,046 15,588 1,415,596 361,447 277,922 300,000 10,869 983,974 500,208 235,313 217,458 12,504 663,594 516,225 155,213 67,023 11,414 715,506 745,171 279,969 69,404 17,427 583,899 956,224 279,060 19,853 21,000 808,839 912,794 261,500 19,412 19,962 1,108,057 1,091,478 306,163 26,593 23,760 1,216,361 1,140,324 275,850 14,496 16,994 1,416,300 1,145,051 18,412 – 13,741 1,533,767 994,379 19,939 – 11,933 1,711,202 793,312 – 22,246 9,520 1,727,970 740,554 – 22,463 8,887 13,410,833 6,588,926 4,420,032 1,204,202 414,977 22,933,319 13,406,808 5,263,545 1,347,770 519,766

Sources: Stephen Wheatcroft, “Assessing the Victims of Repression 1930–1945: Their Condition With Particular Reference to the Soviet Victims in the Famine of 1923/33,” 1995, Table 5, Table 8; Table A1. Wheatcroft cites V.N. Zemskov, “Gulag, Istorikosotsiologicheskii aspekt,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 1991,6, pp.14–15; Steven Rosefielde, “Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labor and Economic Growth in the 1930s,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48(6), 1996, Table A2, p.987. J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence,” American Historical Review, October 1993, pp.1017–1049; Appendix A and Appendix B, pp.1048–1049. Anatoly Vishnevsky, “Demograficheskie poteri ot repressii,” Demoskop Weekly, No.313–314, 10–31, December 2007. http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2007/ 0313/tema06.php http://publicist.n1.by/articles/repressions/repressions_Gulag2.html Note The colony mortality figures for 1930 and 1931 are maximums. Wheatcroft’s camp, colony and prison estimates end in 1945. Colony mortality rate 1949 computed using Wheatcroft’s colony population and Anatoly Vishnevsky’s colony death figure for 1949. Camp mortality rate 1949 computed from Vishnevsky’s camp death figure for 1949, and the camp population statistics from “Repression.” The camp mortality rates 1947 and 1948 were interpolated.


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According to these incomplete statistics, there were 1,867,536 fatalities 1930–53 in Gulag broadly defined. 1,347,770 occurred in concentration camps, and 285,270 in colonies.12 The maximum number of lethal forced labor deaths for all categories of convicts (excluding those in prison) is 1,633,040. However, some cannot be treated as killings, because a percentage might have died from natural causes. There are too many uncertainties for precise adjustment, but for didactic purposes let us discount the crude figures by 15 percent.13 This yields 1,587,406 total Gulag excess deaths, and 1,388,084 lethal forced labor fatalities, clustered in 1933, 1938 and 1940–45.14 Half of all Gulag excess deaths 1930–53 occurred during these eight years. There were 43,918 off-peak killings annually. Gulag mortality rates spiked 1933, 1938, 1941–45, and tapered off dramatically after 1948, when they approached civilian crude rates, and were less than twice age-adjusted values. Indeed, if adverse climatic conditions are considered, excess death rates at times might have been small.15 Gulag from this perspective seems to have added 1.6 million victims to the Red Holocaust death toll 1929–53, a grisly sum, yet lower than Orwellians might have expected. The archival data reported by Getty, Rittersporn, Zemskov and Wheatcroft suggest that Stalin exercised uncharacteristic self-restraint in working Gulagers to death, compared to his Great Terror execution and terror-starvation killings. This anomaly, however, may be more apparent than real. Victor Zemskov, using other archival material, reports that 1–1.5 million spetspereselentsy exiles also under NKVD jurisdiction were killed during Stalin’s reign.16 Internal inconsistencies in the archival data and other evidence indicate that the Gulag population and death statistics are incomplete. A few examples are revealing. When Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov first published their findings, they wrote: “We know that, between 1934 and 1953, 1,053,829 persons died in camps of the Gulag.”17 However, Table 5.1 using similar, but more complete archival data, increases camp deaths by 19.4 percent to 1,258,537. Likewise, Robert Davies recently discovered that the NKVD prisoner count given to the 1939 census taker was 2.5 million, not 1.3 million listed in the GARF archive (Table 5.1).18 If Wheatcroft’s mortality rate for 1939 Gulag camp inmates is applied to the census data, then 100,000 perished from lethal forced labor that year, not 52,688. Extrapolating the disparity for 1939 increases concentration camp deaths 1930–53 from 1,347,770 to 2,558,021. A glaring discrepancy between the Gulag populations implied by official sentencing data and published archival figures points the finger of suspicion in the same direction. Table 5.2 reveals that the number of sentences needed to generate the Gulag camp population 1930–45 is 6.2 times the archival magnitude. These aren’t minor discrepancies. They tell us that Gulag data may well have been selectively released to create a relatively mild impression of terror-forced labor. Compartmentalized intelligence of the sort discovered by Davies exposes the deception, leaving room for a darker interpretation of Stalin’s terror-forced labor.

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Table 5.2 Contradictory Gulag camp population statistics 1929–45: reported figures and those implied by NKVD sentencing data: average annual figures Sentences

Deaths Net new Years inmates served

Implied Gulag population

Documented Gulag population

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Coefficient of underreported sentences (7)

123,044

70,835

52,209

3.08

160,802

993,653

6.2

Sources: Stephen Wheatcroft, “Assessing the Victims of Repression 1930–1945: Their Condition with Particular Reference to the Victims in the Famine of 1932/33,” 1995, Table 3, Table 8; J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence,” American Historical Review, October 1993, Appendix (a), p.1043. Sentences 1929–45 (Gulag camp): Table A5.1, column 2 (obtained from Wheatcroft, 1995, Table 3). Deaths 1929–45 (Gulag camp): Table 5.1, column 6. This figure includes both natural and excess deaths. The excess death component is 54,948 (934,115/17 years). See Rosefielde, 1996a, Table A2, column 4, available on request. Documented Gulag population 1934–45: Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, 1993, Appendix (a), pp.1048–1049. The cumulative Gulag (end year) population was 11,923,831, 1934–45. Explained disparity: The percentage of the average documented Gulag population consigned to the camps without sentencing is 19% ((column 5/column 6) × 100) Coefficient of underreported sentences: The coefficient by which reported sentences used to compute the implied Gulag camp population would have to be increased to yield the documented population. The coefficient is 1/the explained disparity. Method: Column 1: summation of Table A5.1 column 1 (2,091,743, divided by 17 years). Column 2: Summation of Table 1 column 5 (1,204,202) divided by 17 years). Column 3: Column 1 minus column 2. Column 4: According to the Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov data 1934–45 the average Gulag population was 993,653 and the average number released 322,629. This implies on average that roughly one third of Gulag inmates were released annually, serving 993,653/322,629 = 3.08 years. Column 5: Column 3 multiplied by column 4. Column 6: Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, Appendix (a). Column 7: (1 divided by (column 5 divided by column 6)). Note: The end year figures in Table A5.1 are paired with the beginning year population data in Table 5.1.

There is no canonical set of comprehensive non-NKVD numbers, only a scattered selection of estimates based on inconsistencies in official labor statistics, diplomatic leaks, testimony of well placed officials and first-hand prisoner accounts. Some impression of scale is provided in Table 5.3, which stitches together strands of representative evidence into series that can be compared with the archival data. A complete derivation is provided in the table notes. A fuller account is available elsewhere.19 The estimates correspond broadly with Robert Conquest’s characterization of Gulag, but are disputed by scholars like Naum Jasny, and the conflicting opinions are difficult to

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reconcile, given Stalin’s prodigality. Behavior that seems unthinkable today, could have been normal then. The non-archival Gulag population figures therefore serve as benchmarks rather than an authoritative body of counterestimates. They are better than hearsay, but less than proof.20


Table 5.3 Gulag camp population and deaths 1929–77 archival and testimonial comparisons

1927 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954–55 1956 1957 1959 1960–76 1977 1930–38 1939–53 1930–53

Population (millions)

Deaths

Testimonial (1)

Archival (2)

Testimonial (3)

Archival (4)

0.1 0.4 0.8 2.0 3.0 5.0 5.5 6.0 6.5 8.0 9.5 9.3 10.0 9.5 10.0 10.0 11.0 12.0 12.5 12.5 12.5 12.5 12.5 11.0 11.0 11.0 8.0 6.0 4.0 4.0 2.5–5.0 4.0 46.3 121.0 167.3

– –

– – 53,600 134,000 129,000 713,400 412,500 318,000 305,500 336,000 940,500 380,000 570,000 836,000 2,120,000 2,210,000 1,111,000 1,164,000 199,800 199,800 199,800 199,800 199,800 143,000 143,000 143,000 – – – – – – 3,399,100 9,819,000 13,218,100

– – 11,993 14,204 11,544 51,482 38,250 38,451 39,452 34,477 98,640 52,688 76,631 132,046 300,000 217,458 67,023 69,404 19,853 19,412 26,593 14,496 18,412 19,939 22,246 22,463 – – – – – – 338,503 670,764 1,009,267

0.2 0.2 0.3 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.8 0.8 1.0 1.3 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.0 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.6 0.8 1.1 1.2 1.5 1.7 1.7 – – – – – – 4.8 25.6 30.4

Source: Table 5.1. Steven Rosefielde, “An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labor 1929–56,” Soviet Studies, 33 (1), 1981, Table 5, p.65. (Continued overleaf)

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Table 5.3 Continued Gulag camp population testimonial estimates are derived as follows: 1927 Avtorkhanov (see S. Swianiewicz, Forced Labour and Economic Development, London: Oxford University Press, 1965, p.37); 1929 is half the figure for 1930; 1930–33 Vyshinsky (ed.), Sovietskaya yustsiya, 1932, cited in Dallin and Nicolaevsy, Forced Labor in Soviet Russia, New Haven: Yale University Press, p.211), revised upward by 10 percent to allow for forced laborers outside the RSFSR, the Ukraine and Belorussia (except 1930, when this number is assumed to be too small to warrant adjustment); 1934 Solonevich, Rossiya v kontslagere (Sophia, 1938), (see David Dallin and Nicolaevsky, Forced Labor in Soviet Russia, 1947, pp.58, 311); 1935 Nikonov-Smorodin, Krasnaya katorga (Sophia, 1938) (Dallin and Nicolaevsky, op. cit., pp.58–59); 1936 Avtokhanov, alias Alexander Uralov, The Reign of Stalin, Westport, Connecticut: Hyperion Press, 1953, pp.8–10); the period 1937 to 1945 is difficult to assess. Avtorkhanov’s figure for 1938, 11.5 million, is not inconceivable in light of the Great Purge. I have, however, chosen to assume that the Mora-Zwerniak population density estimate for 1941 could serve as a benchmark for 1938, allowing a small increase thereafter until 1941 when because of the war and the Polish repatriation, the 1938 level was re-established (Sylvester Mora and Peter Zwierniak, La justice sovietique, Rome: Magi-Spinetti, 1945, pp.120–124). A slow increase is surmised for 1942–45, rising as Soviet forces recapture territory, permitting a higher arrest rate in the reconquered areas. The 1939 figure is interpolated. The period 1945–53 was tumultuous. Millions of ex-servicemen who had been captured by the Nazis were thrown into the Gulag for being traitors, while prisoners-ofwar in Soviet camps were slowly repatriated. No new purges, however, appear to have occurred to replace those who died after 1947. This suggests that the Gulag may have peaked around 15 million in 1947, declining by natural attrition thereafter until Stalin’s death. A partial amnesty was announced in 1953, but it did not affect the politicals (everyone arrested under Article 58). In 1956, the Gulag was abolished and the camps decentralized. This was an administrative action taken in conjunction with Khrushchev’s economic reforms and did not mean that concentration camps themselves were abolished. A statement by P.J. Kudryavtsev, Deputy Procurator General of the USSR in May 1957, indicated that the total number of prisoners held at that date was 30 percent of the number when Stalin died. Roy and Zhores Medvedev support this figure and my estimate for 1953 (R. and Z. Medvedev, Khrushchev’s Years in Power, New York: Columbia University Press, p.12), but do not cite sources. Robert Conquest cites a newspaper article claiming that there were 13 million Gulag inmates in 1953 (Conquest, The Great Terror, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. The postwar estimates reported in the table, therefore, must be interpreted only as interpolated impressions. If the 1953 Gulag population is in the right order of magnitude, then the 1957 estimate is supported by Kudryavtsev’s statement. See Swianiewicz, Forced Labor and Economic Development, pp.49–54, and Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, vol.I, pp.80–92. The only other piece of statistical information for the 1950s comes from Eason’s demographic analysis. Based on the discrepancy between the census total labor force and the labor force computed from establishment data for 1959, he concludes that there may well have been 4.1 million forced laborers in that year. According to Bukovsky there were never less than 2.5 million zeks in the 1960s and 1970s. See Vladimir Bukovsky, To Build a Castle, p.318. Frederikh Neznansky claims official MVD statistics show that there were 2.1 million prisoners and forced laborers on January 1, 1977. This estimate doesn’t include prisoners released into forced labor outside the camps. The figure for 1979 is based on a confidential CIA study, relying in part on national technical means.

The testimonial forced labor death figures are computed using the same mortality rate series applied to the archival populations in Table 5.1. They indicate that 13,218,100 Gulag camp inmates perished 1930–53; 3,399,100 during the intercensus period 1930–38, and 9,819,000 1939–53 (Table 5.3). The 1930–53 total is 13.1 times greater than the archival figure; the 1930–38 and 1939–53 disparities are 10 and 14.6 to 1 respectively. As suggested earlier, the archival data may be incomplete. Few deny it. But, can the omissions be as great as Table 5.3 indicates? Perhaps. As previously shown using Lorimer’s methodology (Tables 2.1 and Table 3.3), the Soviet Union sustained 9.7 million excess deaths 1929–38,21 a demographic estimate


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now corroborated by Wheatcroft’s and Davies’s summary archival based estimate of excess deaths 1927–38.22 This pool of nearly 10 million excess deaths is more than sufficient to cover 2.9 million Gulag forced labor killings (excess deaths,23 not deaths),24 and is consistent with the Wheatcroft and Davies best estimates of terror-starvation and Great Terror killings.25 Likewise, the 8,346,150 excess deaths 1 January 1939–1953,26 can be accommodated within the 33,739,000 excess deaths presented in Table 5.427 based on census data, and the latest postwar vital statistics (cf. Table A5.3), after a full accounting of wartime military and civilian excess deaths, adjusted for net emigration,28 and forced resettler spetspereselentsy killings, plus victims of the 1947 famine. Testimonial Gulag excess deaths during WWII (June 22, 1941-December 1945) of 2,376,600 also can be reconciled with the official Soviet 26.6 million wartime excess death figure (Table A5.2), as well as similar estimates in the 26–27 million range supported by Ellman,29 even though the wartime subperiod is murky. One set of sketchy official war related death statistics attribute all excess deaths to the Nazis (Table 5.5 and Table 5.4 Estimated excess deaths 1940–49 (latest postwar vital statistics) Population 1 January (thousands) (1) 1939 1940 Annexed populations postwar boundaries 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Discrepancy 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 Actual increase Expected births Births minus deaths Discrepancy

Births per 1,000 population (2)

Deaths per 1,000 population (3)

Births Deaths (thousands) (thousands) (4)

(5)

167,557 170,774 20,492

36.5

17.3

6,116

2,899

191,266 193,791 196,504 197,978 199,621 201,438 −33,739 167,699 169,359 171,510 173,105 175,321 178,547 −12,719 50,054 21,620 −33,739

31.2 (31.2) (23.8) (23.8) (23.8)

18.0 (17.2) (16.3) (15.5) (14.7)

5,968 6,046 4,677 4,712 4,751

3,443 3,333 3,263 3,069 2,934

(23.8) (28.5) (29.6) (26.4) (31.0) 26.7

(13.9) (15.8) (20.3) (13.6) (12.6) 9.7

3,991 4,827 5,077 4,570 5,435

2,331 2,676 3,482 2,354 2,209

Sources: Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza: 1922–1991, Moscow: Nauka, 1993, Table 32, p.71. Mark Tolts, “The Soviet Census of 1937 and 1939: Some Problems of Data Evaluation,” paper presented to The Conference on Soviet Population in the 1920s and 1930s, Toronto, 27–29, January 1995. Note: The statistics for 1946–49 are new estimates. See Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza for their derivation.

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Table 5.5 Official Soviet war-related deaths 1941–45 (millions) 1. Soviet military casualties (all causes) 2. Military excess deaths (Ellman) 3. Civilian deaths a. Exterminated (shot, gassed, burned) b. Famine and infectious diseases spread by the Germans c. Deaths among civilians deported to Germany for forced labor, while outside the USSR or shortly after returning to it d. Soviet citizens who did not return to USSR after the war 4. Civilian excess deaths Total war-related casualties Total war-related excess deaths

8.7 7.8 17.7 or 20.3 6.4 or 11.3 8.5 or 6.5 2.8 or 3.0 0.5 14.2 to 18.2 26.4 to 29 22.0 to 26

Sources: Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46 (4), 1994, pp.671–680. Grif sekretnosti snyat (Moscow, 1993), pp.130–131 and 136. A.A. Shevyakov, “Gitlerovskii genosid na territoriayakh SSSR,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 12, 1991; A.A. Shevyakov, “Zhertvy sredi mirnogo naseleniya v gody otechestvennoi voiny,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 11, 1992. Notes: Soviet military casualties (including frontier troops and internal troops of the NKVD): the data are from Grif sekretnosti snyat, and include the war against Japan in August 1945. For the full accounting, see Ellman and Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War.” Military excess deaths: Some soldiers killed during WWII would have died anyway from natural causes. Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov transform these deaths into excess deaths using age-sex appropriate mortality rate data, and deal with other statistical problems. Civilian deaths (extermination): Shevyakov reports two different figures in the publications listed above without explanation. Civilian deaths (famine and infectious diseases spread by the Germans): Again, Shevyakov provides conflicting figures. Both are archival for some of the territories concerned, together with an estimate for the territories not included. Soviet citizens who did not return to USSR after the war: non-returnees are excluded from the death figures in Table 5.5. They are listed merely for completeness. Civilian excess deaths. It is assumed that the ratio of excess deaths to death computed by Ellman and Maksudov for the military population applies to civilians: 7.8/8.7 = 0.8966.

Table A5.2)),30 despite the acknowledged 770,906 NKVD camp, colony and prison deaths shown in Table 5.1, but another leaves room for 4.6 million excess deaths, including omitted fatalities among Soviet citizens fighting in anti-Soviet formations.31 After persistent claims that the archival revolution proves that Gulag was smaller and milder than Conquest asserts, it turns out that the testimonial estimates of Gulag carnage are not only feasible, but that the demographic excess death statistics seem inexplicable without them. Readers therefore may wish to muse whether as many as 8.3 million Gulag camp inmates could have died prematurely 1939–53 (590,000 per year). The same kind of census-based excess death statistics which correctly signaled the terror-command killings of the 1930s suggest that the slaughter didn’t end with the Great Terror. Moreover, the testimonial Gulag camp population and


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death statistics can be quartered, halved or even reduced by 80 percent, and still support more than twice the casualties indicated by the incomplete NKVD Gulag camp statistics. The verdict on this important matter won’t affect whether Stalin is indictable for crimes against humanity, or if lethal forced labor was an integral component of terror-command. The partial NKVD Gulag camp, colony and prison data released substantiate both allegations. However, judgments about the testimonial evidence do affect perceptions of Stalin’s terrorcommand systems trajectory. Acceptance of the NKVD Gulag archival data, just as prior counterpart official juridical statistics before the 1990s,32 implies that terror-command faded rapidly toward terror-free command after WWII. However, terror persisted. There were excessive incarcerations of former Soviet and foreign prisoners of war, civilians in occupied territories were subjected to lethal concentration camp forced labor and executed, a halfmillion forced resettlers (transferred populations) prematurely died (Table 6.1),33 and 1.2 million were killed in the terror-famine of 1947, but according to the NKVD archival data, Gulag camp and colony death rates plummeted, and with them some harsh aspects of Stalin’s regime. Rejecting the completeness of the NKVD archival statistics, presses interpretation in the opposite direction, toward a uniformly brutal terrorcommand regime 1929–53 where the victims varied, but not the economic control strategy. Before the 1939 census, we now have confirmed evidence that Stalin killed roughly 1 million people annually through collectivization, terror-starvation, terror-executions, lethal Gulag forced labor and ethnic cleansing. Afterward, until spring 1953, the testimonial estimates tell us that the pace was roughly the same. There were 1.2 million archivally confirmed terror-starvation killings in 1947, and a half-million archivally documented forced resettler excess deaths. There were copious executions, and many lethal forced labor excess deaths, driven by a vast intake of former Soviet prisoners of war. Additionally, more than a half-million Axis and Japanese prisoners of war, together with civilians in occupied territories, were killed, and an untold number of Gulag prisoners drafted into suicide brigades who would not have died under normal combat conditions, all of whom perhaps should be, but are not included in the Red Holocaust. Whereas the NKVD Gulag archival data indicate a mellowing, other archival data and the testimonial evidence support continuity.34 The cognitive dissonance caused by the NKVD Gulag archival (dis)information isn’t an extraordinary occurrence in Soviet studies. During the 1970s and 1980s, scholars repeatedly asserted that the official defense budgetary statistic, and the impression it conveyed of Kremlin military activities, weren’t seriously distorted, despite abundant intelligence data to the contrary, until Gorbachev finally acknowledged that the datum omitted weapons!35 Perhaps, someday Medvedev too will admit that the NKVD figures were just another counterintelligence gambit to make Stalin’s crimes against humanity seem like transitory aberrations on the road to scientific socialism.

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Appendix Table A5.1 NKVD sentencing statistics


Gulag sentences

1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Total

Judicial repression (1)

Prison and camps

56,220 208,069 180,696 141,919 239,664 78,999 267,076 274,670 790,665 554,258 63,889 71,806 75,444 124,406 78,441 123,248 123,294 3,452,731

25,853 114,443 105,683 73,946 138,903 59,451 185,846 219,418 429,311 205,509 54,666 65,727 65,000 88,809 68,887 73,610 116,681 2,091,743

(2)

Exile

Other

Total

(3)

(4)

(5)

24,517 58,816 63,269 36,017 54,262 5,994 33,601 23,719 1,366 16,842 3,783 2,142 1,200 7,070 4,787 649 1,647 339,681

2,741 14,609 1,093 29,228 44,345 11,498 46,400 30,415 6,914 3,289 2,888 2,288 1,210 5,249 1,188 821 688 204,864

54,111 187,868 170,045 139,191 237,510 76,943 265,847 173,552 437,591 225,640 61,337 70,157 67,410 101,128 74,862 75,080 118,996 2,636,288

Source: Stephen Wheatcroft, “Assessing the Victims of Repression 1930–45: Their Condition with Particular Reference to the Soviet Victims in the Famine of 1932/33,” 1995, Table 3: J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Prewar Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence,” American Historical Review, October 1993, Appendix (a), pp.1048–1049. Sentences: Rendered by the Soviet Secret Police (CHK, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD). The NKVD archival figures are presented in Table 5.1.

Table A5.2 Derivation of the official 26 million WWII excess deaths (millions) 1. Population of the USSR on 22 June 1941 196.7 2. Population of USSR on 31 December 1945 170.5 3. Population of USSR on 31 December 1945 alive at 159.5 beginning of war 4. Population decline 22 June 1941–31 December 1945 alive on 37.2 22 June 1941 (196.7–159.5) 5. Normal deaths June 1941–December 1945 of those alive at 11.0 the beginning of war 6. Excess deaths of those alive in June 1941 (4–5) 26.2 7. Excess deaths of children born during war 1.3 8. Total population loss (6+7) 26.6 Source: E. Andreev, L. Darsky and T. Khar’kova, “Otsenka lyudskikh poteri v period velikoi otechestvennoi voiny,” Vestnik statistiki, 10, 1990. Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46(4), 1994, pp.671–680.

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75


Notes: Row 1 is an estimate derived from the (corrected) 1939 census. Row 2 is an estimate based on the 1959 census and estimated deaths in the postwar period. Row 3 is based on row 2 and estimated births in 1941–45. Row 5 is based on the counterfactual assumption that the 1940 death rate had applied in 1941–45. Row 7 is the difference between estimated 22 June 1941–31 December 1945 deaths of children born in this period and estimated deaths of children born in this period if the 1940 mortality figures had applied. These counterfactual assumptions differ from the extrapolated mortality rates used in Table 5.4. Caveat The handling of net Russian emigration during and immediately after WWII is not explained. An adjustment might be needed for as many as 2.7 million emigrants. See Ellman and Maksudov, note 9, pp.678–679.

Table A5.3 Estimated excess deaths 1940–49 based on the 1939 census Population 1 January (thousands) (1) 1939 167,557 1940 173,583 Annexed 20,492 population postwar boundaries 1940 191,266 1941 193,791 1942 196,569 1943 197,978 1944 199,621 1945 201,438 Discrepancy −34,037 1945 167,401 1946 169,058 1947 170,884 1948 173,190 1949 175,390 1950 178,547 1940–50 Actual increase −12,719 Expected births 47,727 Expected deaths 26,409 Births minus 21,318 deaths Discrepancy −34,037

Births per 1,000 population (2)

Deaths per Births Deaths 1,000 (thousands) (thousands) population (3) (4) (5)

36.5

17.3

6,116

2,899

31.2 (31.2) (23.8) (23.8) (23.8)

18.0 (17.2) (16.3) (15.5) (14.7)

5,968 6,046 4,677 4,712 4,751

3,443 3,333 3,203 3,069 2,934

(23.8) 23.8 25.7 24.1 28.5 26.7

(13.9) (13.0) (12.2) (11.4) (10.5) 9.7

3,984 4,024 4,392 4,174 4,999

2,327 2,198 2,085 1,974 1,842

Data: Bracket vital statistics are estimates Sources: Naselenie SSSR, pp.9, 163, 165; B. Urlanis, editor, Narodonaselenie stran mira, pp.13 and 79. Mark Tolts, “The Soviet Census of 1937 and 1939: Some Problems of Evaluation,” paper presented to The Conference on Soviet Population in the 1920s and 1930s, Toronto, 27–29, January 1995. (Continued overleaf)

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Table A5.3 Continued Method: Wartime natality rates 1942–45 are assumed on average to equal 23,8 per thousand, the published figure for 1946. Seventy-five percent of these children were conceived during 1945 and thus may serve as a benchmark for estimating wartime natality rates. Most children born in 1941 were conceived before June 22, 1941. For this reason the birth rate observed in 1940 is employed as a best estimate of the natality rate in 1941. Mortality rates are linearly interpolated 1940–50, following Urlanis’s example. See B. Urlanis, Rozhdaemost’ i prodolzhitel’nost’ zhizni v SSSR, Figure 5, p.89. Population 1940–50 has been extrapolated backwards with the formula:


Pt − 1 = Pt/1 + a–b where a is the birth rate and b is the mortality rate in year t−1.

Summary •

• • • •

• • • • •

People convicted of economic and political crimes in the Soviet Union were imprisoned, dispatched to concentration camps, labor colonies or exiled under the administration of the secret police (NKVD). Inmates were tried either by the Ministry of Justice or the NKVD tribunals. The penal component of NKVD operations encompassed prisons, concentration camps, colonies, and is commonly referred to as Gulag. The NKVD also supervised minority resettlers (transferred populations) who were victims of ethnic cleansing, but the literature usually treats them separately. Penal labor in Gulag concentration camps was lax in the late 1920s and the very early 1930s, before the peasant influx caused by forced collectivization. A much harsher prison labor regime, devised by Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel, compatible with carrot-and-stick incentive schemes introduced more broadly into the economy thereafter, quickly became the norm, however. Frenkel’s regime subordinated the goal of rehabilitation to penal material production, a critical aspect of Soviet dystopia. Frenkel is responsible for the lethality of Stalin’s Gulag forced labor. Frenkel’s regime incorporated all the conventional non-penal principles of terror-command into Gulag, but intensified them, including the use of torture. The prison and non-penal command mechanisms were essentially the same, including aspirational planning. Gulag terror-command, despite its excesses was rational from Stalin’s perspective. It enabled him to harness otherwise idle

Gulag


•

• • • • • • • •

• • •

resources, reduce risks of moral hazard and effort reservation, achieve some security objectives and more broadly enhance his personal utility beyond what was possible with terror-free command. The Gulag population mushroomed accordingly throughout the 1930s and 1940s, bolstered by forced collectivization, terrorstarvation, the Great Terror, territorial expansion, the vicissitudes of World War II, national resettlements and the mass arrest of repatriated Soviet war prisoners. Foreign prisoners of war, and some civilians, also swelled Gulag ranks. Perceptions of Gulag’s lethality are polarized. Some NKVD archival literalists put the death toll 1929–53 at 1.1 million. Those relying on testimonial evidence place the figure many times higher. NKVD archives support the belief that Gulag fatalities were small compared to some Orwellian claims. But their completeness is called into question by estimates derived from testimonial Gulag population figures, and NKVD/other archival Gulag mortality statistics. The best archivally based estimate of Gulag excess deaths at present is 1.6 million 1929–53. Internal discrepancies in NKVD and other archival material, however, suggest that the NKVD Gulag data are seriously incomplete. Testimonially based Gulag excess death estimates have flaws. The underlying data are better than hearsay, but less than proof. Total Gulag excess deaths computed from testimonial evidence is 13.1 times greater than the NKVD archival figure 1929–53. Despite the enormity of this disparity, Table 2.1 demonstrates that Gulag fatalities computed from the testimonial evidence can be accommodated within the missing persons revealed by the Soviet census bureau’s excess death statistics. The census bureau’s excess death estimates are inexplicable without more Gulag killings than the NKVD archives report. Gulag killings, moreover, were continuous. The NKVD archival evidence doesn’t prove that that terror-command faded after 1939. The incompleteness of the NKVD Gulag archival data isn’t unprecedented. The Soviets falsified their published defense budgetary statistic to deceive western analysts. The selective release of NKVD archival material may have been similarly motivated.

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6

Ethnic Cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is a euphemism that entered the English lexicon during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s to describe the repression, imprisonment, expulsion and killing of ethnic minorities. It has no formal legal meaning, but the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia have ruled that the forcible deportation of ethnic minorities is a crime against humanity.1 Excess deaths and killings among resettlers, as well as other ethnic terror-starvation, terror-execution and Gulag homicides are included in the Red Holocaust death roll compiled in Chapter 2 (Table 2.1). Attention here is focused on illustrating how ethnic cleansing served the purposes of Stalin’s siege-mobilized terrorcommand. The logic of forced resettlement closely parallels that of Gulag penal assignment. Terror-command mobilization in all spheres of public, household and civic life required the repression and punishment of individuals and groups, with survivors landing in Gulag concentration camps, colonies or exile. Stalin insisted that convicts and punished peoples serve the state,2 and commanded planners and NKVD administrators to put them to best use, subject to various constraints. Convicts could be assigned to prime urban locations like Moscow, to build the metro and Moscow State University, or luxury apartments for the party’s privileged. They could be sent to industrial centers like the Donbas (Donets Basin), Urals and Kuzbas (Kuznets Basin), to mineral and timber sites in Karaganda and remote areas like Norilsk and Kolyma, to construction projects like the Volga-Don Canal, the Kuibyshev hydro-electric station, the Baikal-Amur and Arctic railways. Regardless, of location, they provided basic productive services in accordance with the narrow material priorities of Stalin, planners, the NKVD and party, but also extended goals of territorial integration and defense. The Soviet Union was a far-flung empire, sparsely populated in some strategic areas, connected by a few vulnerable transport links. Ordinary workers were reluctant to volunteer for arduous strategicindustrial service in isolated climes for meager supplemental compensation, but convicts could be assigned without protest, and prevented from leaving jobs half-done. Stalin’s forced labor allocation policy thus boiled down first


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79

to expediently dispatching extra hands to priority projects anywhere, and using prisoners, ethnic minorities and religious groups as strategic-industrial pioneers. It was rational from the standpoint of terror-command, but might not have been so from Stalin’s perspective had he been compelled to maximize his utility within the voluntary labor supply restrictions of a terror-free command regime.3 The selection of ethnic minorities and religious groups for service as dragooned strategic-industrial pioneers depended on circumstances. Just prior to and during WWII, it was convenient to draft potential fifth column minorities for the task, but this wasn’t essential. Almost any pretext sufficed. The numbers assigned to man the wilderness were immense, averaging 2.6 million 1945–53 (Table 6.1). The figure for January 1, 1953 was 2,753,356.4 Viktor Zemskov estimates that there were no less than 6 million spetspereselentsy 1929–53.5 Forced resettlers, like all able-bodied Soviet citizens, were required to work in state-owned enterprises or state-administered collectives, but found themselves on the lowest priority rung. Although they were prevented from migrating, local authorities were ill-prepared and inadequately funded to cope with their diverse needs. Those assigned to conventional mining, logging, construction and industrial tasks had no locational, and limited job choice, but otherwise were treated like ordinary Soviet workers. Provisions for the rest were makeshift, and state services to households were rudimentary compared with those available in their home districts. Spetspereselentsy weren’t worked to death (in principle) like counterparts in Gulag camps and colonies, but conditions nonetheless were harsh enough to kill more than

Table 6.1 Main ethnic and other groups held in places of special exile in October 1946 Chechen and Ingush Karachai Balkars Kalmyks Crimean Tartars, Bularians and Greeks Germans Mobilized Germans Former kulaks Turks, Kurds, Khemshims Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) Volksdeutsch German collaborators Orthodox Christians Lithuanians Vlasovites Total listed

400,478 60,139 32,817 81,673 193,959 774,178 121,459 577,121 84,402 29,251 2,681 3,185 1,212 5,246 95,386 2,463,940

Source: N. Bugai, “The Devils Come at Dawn: from Stalin’s Special File,” Moscow News, 1990, 43, p.11. Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–1945,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48 (9) 1996, Table 8, pp.1341.


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1 million people out of a forced settlement population of “not less than six million.”6 The largest ethnic minority exile groups were the Crimean Tartars (1 million), Volga Germans (780,000), Chechens, Ingushes, Balkars (522,000),7 Germans, Poles from the Ukrainian SSR (412,000),8 Kazakhs (200,000) and Koreans (172,000). More than two-thirds of the national groups deported 1941–48 were exiled in their entirety.9 A statement by Nikita Khrushchev in his Secret Speech to the Twentieth Party Congress hints that, had Stalin lived a few months longer, Soviet Jews might have become the biggest deportee group of them all (2 million), and the only special settlers drawn from scattered urban populations, but there is no supporting documentation (see Box 6.2).10 Specific motives for ethnic cleansing varied, amid shifting nationalities and Russificiation policies.11 Some nationalities were believed to harbor separatist aspirations, including Ukrainians, Chechens, and Kazakhs. Some posed wartime fifth column risks, like the Volga Germans and Crimean Tatars. Others were swept up in the pacification and colonization of conquered territories, including Poland, Finland and the Baltic States. Some may have had a racial aspect. Koreans residing in the Soviet Far Eastern Maritime Province Dal’novostostochnogo kraya were portrayed as Japanese spies, but the vast majority were refugees from Japanese colonial occupation of their homeland (since 1910),12 with more to lose than gain by opposing Stalin. Soviet Jews also might have fallen into this category if the doctors’ plot process had been brought to fruition. Nonetheless, there was a common thread to Stalin’s ethnic and religious victimization. His animus was directed at groups that deviated from, or collided with his protean policy line. They were anti-communist, anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist, anti-Soviet enemies of the people in his eyes, who had to be broken and put to good use through exile, Gulag or execution as circumstances dictated. Just as he didn’t limit himself to killing kulak class enemies, all minorities that stood in his way were ruthlessly cleansed and pressed into terror-command service. The intent wasn’t genocidal, but the results sometimes seemed that way.13 Ethnic cleansing survivors were victims of non-lethal crimes against humanity; those shot, overworked and starved were consumed by the Red Holocaust.14 Box 6.1 vivifies the scope of Stalin’s ethnic cleansing and oppression by providing a timeline of group arrest, deportation and transfer in the Soviet Union 1929–53. It confirms that Stalin’s totalitarian aspirations weren’t restricted to hostile classes, but encompassed national, cultural and religious groups of all descriptions. In his dystopia, the full actualization of Soviet human potential required absolute servility.15

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Box 6.1: Stalin’s ethnic cleansing spetspereselentsy 1933–53 Date of Group timeline


1933

Numbers

Homeland

200,000 Kazakh SSR

1935

Nomadic Kazakhs Ingrian Finns

1935 1935

Germans, Poles Germans, Poles

1937

Kurds

1937

Koreans

412,000 Ukrainian SSR 45,000 Ukrainian SSR border region 2,000 Border regions of Georgian SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Armenian SSR, Turkmenian SSR, Uzbek SSR, Tajik SSR 172,000 Far East

1937

Chinese, Harbin Russians Persian Jews

1938 1938 1940

Azeris, Persians Kurds, Assyrians Poles

1942

Germans

1941

Ingrian Finns, Germans

1942

Ingrian Finns

1943

Karachais

1943

Kalmyks

1944

Chechens, Ingushes, Balkars Kalymyks Kurds, Azeris

1944 1944

30,000 Leningrad Oblast

9,000 Southern Far East 6,000 Mary Province Turkmen SSR — Azerbaijan SSR 276,000 Western Ukrainian SSR, western Byelorussian SSR 780,000+ Povolzhye, the Caucasus, Crimea, Ukraine, Moscow, Central Russia 91,000 Leningrad Oblast

Resettlement transfer North Russia Vologda, West Siberia, Tajik SSR, Kazakh SSR

Kazakh SSR Kyrgyz SSR

Northern Kazakh SSR, Uzbek SSR Kazakh SSR, Uzbek SSR Deserted areas of northern Turkmen SSR Kazakh SSR North Russia SFSR, Ural, Siberia, Uzbek, SSR, Kazakh SSR Kazakhstan, Siberia

Kazakhstan, Siberia, Astrakhan Oblast, Far East 9,000 Leningrad Oblast Eastern Siberia, Far East 70,500 Karachay-Cherkessia Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan 93,000 Kalmykia Kazakhstan, Siberia 522,000 North Caucasus Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan, 3,000 Rostov Oblast 3,000 Tbilisi

Siberia South Georgia (Continued overleaf)

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Box 6.1: Continued


Date of Group timeline

Numbers Homeland

1944

Balkars

1944 1944 1944

Crimean Tartars 1,000,000 Crimea Greeks, 42,000 Crimea Armenians, Bulgarians, Turks Kalmyks 26,000 Northeast regions

1944 1944

Kalmyks Kabardins

1,000 Bolgograd Oblast 2,000 Kabardino-Balkaria

1944

Russian True Orthodox Poles

1,000 Central Russia

1944 1944

1944 1944 1948 1948 1948 1949

Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, Hamshenis, Karapapaks Lazes Volksdeutsche Kulaks (Lithuanian) Greeks, Armenians Kulaks Kulaks (Baltic)

1949–52 Kulaks (Moldavia)

1951

Basmachis

1951

Jehovah’s Witnesses

100 North Georgia

30,000 Ural, Siberia, Kazakhstan 92,000 Southwest Georgia, Kazakhstan 1,000 Ajaria 1,000 Mineralnye Vody 49,000 Lithuania 58,000 Black Sea coast

Resettlement transfer Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Uzbekistan Central Russia, Ukraine Sverdlovsk Oblast Southern Kazakhstan Siberia Ukraine, European Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan Tajikistan Eastern Siberia Southern Kazakhstan Western Siberia Siberia, Far East

1,000 Izmail Oblast 94,000 Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia 78,400 Moldavia, Baltic Siberia, States, Western Kazakhstan Byelorussia, Western Ukraine, Pskov Oblast 3,000 Tajikistan Northern Kazakhstan 3,000 Moldavia Western Siberia

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union For other lists, see LJ. Otto Pohl, Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR 1937–49, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999, pp.5–8, Appendixes pp.139–141.

Ethnic Cleansing


Box 6.2: Stalin’s “final solution” to the Soviet Jewish question Neither the Soviet Jewish population nor any significant part thereof was sent to NKVD colonies or other resettlement camps. There were discussions about establishing a Jewish homeland in the Crimea during the 1920s. A Jewish National District called Birobidzhan near Khabarovsk in the Russia Far East was established in 1928, and became an Autonomous Region in 1937, but settlement was voluntary. 41,000 Soviet Jews relocated to Birobidzhan from the late 1920s to early 1930s; however, 28,000 fled by 1938, due to its inhospitable climate and poor soil. There were Jewish schools and synagogues in Birobidzhan until the 1940s, when they were closed in response to a nationwide anti-religious campaign. The doctors’ plot refers to an anti-semitic, anti-Israeli campaign launched by Stalin in the late 1940s, and the subsequent execution and imprisonment of many prominent Jewish intellectuals and medical practioners. A group of Jewish doctors was alleged to have poisoned important party officials, and planned Stalin’s murder. The tone of the campaign, rumors, and Khrushchev’s statement that Stalin was planning to send the entire Jewish community to Siberia in his secret speech to the 20th Party Congress, has generated intense speculation about a Soviet final solution to the Jewish question. But no archival evidence has been unearthed yet to corroborate Khrushchev’s allegation, let alone illuminate the fate Stalin had in mind for Soviet Jews, beyond the killing and incarceration of medical personnel and rootless cosmopolitans.

Summary •

• •

• •

The International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia have ruled that forcible deportation of ethnic minorities, an aspect of ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity in and of itself. Forced resettlement was an element of Stalin’s terror-command economic mechanism. It compelled groups, rather than individual convicts, to colonize and industrialize strategically vulnerable parts of the Soviet Union. Resettlers were employed by the state like normal workers, but denied the right to return to their home districts, or relocate. State services to forced resettlers were rudimentary. More than 6 million Soviet citizens were forcibly resettled in ethnic and religious groupings.

83

84

Red Holocaust: First Wave • • • •


• • • • • •

1 to 1.5 million died. Unlike Gulag, ethnically cleansed resettlers were assigned individually throughout the archipelago as circumstances dictated. Presumably, the NKVD regime for the spetspereselentsy was milder than in Gulag colonies, but there are no systematic studies confirming the supposition. Many of the ethnically cleansed were accused by Stalin of being a fifth column in the service of Nazis or the Japanese. But most cases of ethnic cleansing weren’t justified by the exigencies of World War II. The need for resettlers was free-standing. The Soviet Jewish population wasn’t ethnically cleansed, even though they may have been targeted for that fate just before Stalin died, as a consequence of the doctors’ plot. Jewish settlement of Birobidzhan, an autonomous Jewish region near Khabarovsk during the late 1920s and 1930s, was voluntary. The thread common to Stalin’s ethnic cleansing was perceived group opposition to his meandering policy line. Resettlement survivors were victims of the crime against humanity of ethnic cleansing. Resettlers shot, worked to death or starved were both victims of ethnic cleansing and the Red Holocaust.


7

Captive Nations

World War II transitioned almost seamlessly into the Cold War in Europe and Asia, in several phases. The rapid advance of the Red Army in the closing days of the war together with the Yalta postwar occupation agreement (February 11, 1945) gave Stalin control over eastern Germany and much of central and southeast Europe.1 The reality on the ground May 7–9, 1945 was equivocal. On one hand, war-weary Soviet troops wanted to be demobilized. On the other hand, Stalin had good reasons to linger. Denazification was a priority; he worried about returnee ideological reliability, and sought hefty reparations from Hitler’s successors. Perhaps, most importantly, opportunities abounded for expanding Moscow’s reach. This might have included territorial annexations beyond those sanctioned by the Yalta agreement, but the atom bombing of Hiroshima Monday August 6, 1945 scotched any such ambitions, if Stalin harbored them. VJ Day August 15, 1945 widened horizons to encompass Manchuria (Manchukuo), North Korea, Outer Mongolia and most of the Kuril Island chain (already secretly settled at Yalta). Stalin grabbed what he could of Axis industrial assets, and used the possibilities of selective denazification and de-Japanization to promote the formation of new communist states (including North Korea) and forge a captive socialist bloc (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania). These countries were sovereign in the modern sense and therefore not pre-modern vassals, but like vassal states of yore, they were obliged to provide military assistance to the Soviet Union (Warsaw Pact (counterpart to NATO)),2 and arguably pay indirect tribute (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA)).3 Their ideologies and foreign policies were similarly dominated by the Kremlin. They are therefore called captive nations or satellite states throughout the text, even though they did enjoy some limited national sovereignty.4 Killings, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing in the newly created Soviet sphere of control added a global dimension to Stalin’s Red Holocaust, both in Europe and Asia (principally North Korea). This chapter spotlights Stalin’s crimes against humanity inflicted while building and consolidating the Soviet postwar empire 1946–53 in central and eastern Europe, excluding Yugoslavia, which was neither a member of the Warsaw Pact nor CMEA. It


86


excludes hundreds of thousands of civilian East Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians and Romanians killed 1944–45 paving the way for postwar communist rule, because these political and economic deaths are entangled in the war process,5 even though some of these same people might have been killed anyway in the consolidation phase of communist regimebuilding.6 Killings caused by insurrections masterminded by Stalin or Mao aimed at creating new siege-mobilized terror-command states, whether or not ultimately realized, are treated in Chapter 9. The communization of Stalin’s newly acquired postwar European and Asian domain was a process started in 1944 before Yalta sanctioned occupation, and was not a singular event. It had complex political and economic aspects. The Soviets sought to implant communism by eradicating competing political institutions and factions, and establishing satellite communist command systems that advanced the USSR’s domestic economic and international security interests. Politics, not siege-mobilizing terror-command, was primary, reflecting Moscow’s priorities at the time. Stalin was happy to acquire war reparations where he could, including the use of foreign forced labor, and pressed satellite planners to dovetail production with Soviet needs (CMEA), but rapid industrialization for its own sake was accorded lower priority than it had in the USSR after 1928. Had Stalin survived another decade, he might have imposed a full fledged siege-mobilizing terrorcommand regime in his European captive states, but he didn’t get around to it before dying in 1953. Killings accordingly were much less than might have been expected, whatever allowance is made for the deficiencies of census, vital and archival statistics. The combined population of East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania was 89.7 million, roughly half the Soviet figure. If terror-command in eastern and central Europe adhered to the pattern in Stalin’s USSR 1929–53, there should have been somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000 excess deaths per annum,7 or 2 to 4 million killings in total 1946–53, but the actual carnage seems to have been only in the vicinity of 137,000 (Table 7.1). Apparently, siege-mobilized terror-command wasn’t obligatory for Stalin in his captive nations, and the Red Holocaust wasn’t going to be identical everywhere outside the Soviet Union. These figures are merely benchmarks for comparing Red Holocaust killings in different stages of command systems building, without regard for various special factors. The historical context in central and eastern Europe departed significantly from the Soviet case in 1929. European captive nations were projects under construction, not consolidated regimes. Terror-starving the peasantry would have been premature, judged from the Soviet and Chinese timetables (but not Pol Pot’s). Several satellites like Czechoslovakia were already highly industrialized, obviating the need for rapid catch-up. Moreover, shootings, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing were entangled with denazification, making it difficult to distinguish where boundaries should be drawn among occupation-related war crimes, legitimate reparations,

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Table 7.1 Postwar Soviet satellite excess deaths 1946–53 (thousands of people)


Romania, 1947–53 Bulgaria, 1947–53 Albania, 1946–53 East Germany, 1949–53 Czechoslovakia, 1948–53 Hungary, 1949–53 Poland, 1948–53 Total

71 35 8 8 9 3 3 137

Source: http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/communistbodycount.php Rudy Rummel, Death by Government, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 1994. Rudy Rummel, Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900, Charlottesville, VA: Transaction Press, 1997. Note: Rummel typically reports killings beginning in the 1940s, and ending in the 1990s. The figures displayed above have been computed from period means that were then multiplied to estimate deaths during the Stalin era. This expedient was chosen because Rummel’s underlying calculations are difficult to sort out. The full period figures he reports are: Romania 1947–89 435,000; Bulgaria 1946–90 222,000; Albania 1946–91 100,000; East Germany 1949–90 70,000; Czechoslovakia 1948–90 65,000; Hungary 1949–89 27,000; and Poland 1948–89 22,000. The grand total is 1,031,000. Rummel’s figure for Yugoslavia 1945–92 is 1,072,000.

outsourced aspects of the Soviet Red Holocaust, and laying the foundations for satellite-based siege-mobilized terror-command systems. Although it can be plausibly argued that Soviet denazification shootings, lethal deportations of prisoners of war and civilian fascist war criminals, penal forced labor in occupied eastern and central Europe,8 as well as forced transnational resettlement (ethnic cleansing), were excessive and in some significant part crimes against humanity,9 it is best to treat these killings separately. The exclusion greatly reduces the Red Holocaust death toll and indictable crimes against humanity in the new empire, especially in Soviet-occupied Germany, and it successor, the German Democratic Republic (DDR), founded October 7, 1949. Terror-command killings, narrowly defined in this way, are restricted to shootings, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing by Soviet occupiers and their proxies connected with successfully consolidating state occupational control, and using that power to spur material production. They took three principal forms: 1) political repression (class and party), 2) civic repression and 3) lethal forced labor. They were all preparatory, rather than operational components of siege-mobilized terror-command forced industrialization. The Hungarian experience provides an example of the sort of class and party repression involved in building the foundation for siege-mobilized terror-command. The Smallholders’ Party electoral victory in 1945 posed a clear and present danger to Stalin’s plans for imposing command communism on central Europe. The Kremlin-controlled government responded with standard terror tactics. In January 1947 the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the discovery of a plot against the state involving the Hungarian


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Community group. A Smallholders’ Party minister and several deputies were arrested and the alleged ringleader, Gyorgy Donath, executed. In February 1947 Bela Kovacs, the secretary general of the Smallholders’ Party, was arrested by Soviet authorities for “plotting against the security of the Red Army.” The process snowballed, and by the end of 1947 what had been the most important party in Hungary was decimated. Between 1947 and early 1949, both the Independence Party and the People’s Democratic Party were dissolved. Similar tactics compelled social democrats to merge with the Communist Party in Bulgaria and Romania.10 In Poland the communists were marginal, with grim electoral prospects. The Red Army and the Ministry of Public Security (MBP) under NKVD guidance was the Kremlin’s only option for establishing a captive state.11 The security apparatus employed a wide range of methods, from infiltration and provocation to the pacification of entire regions. It had an absolute material advantage over the partisans—more and better communications and weapons, as well as the option to call in Internal Security Corp (KBW) troops. According to the Third Department, which was responsible for combating the anti-communist resistance, 1,486 people died in conflicts in 1947, while the Communist losses were a mere 136.12 Around 8,700 opponents of the government were killed in 1945–48. Mass deportations were also employed. From April to July 1947, all Ukrainians in Poland (around 140,000 people) were deported as part of Operation Wisla (Vistula) and resettled in what had been the German territories in the west and north of the country.13 Terror tactics were similarly employed throughout central and eastern Europe to repress civic action. The Catholic Church was beaten into submission in Poland. The Sokol (Falcon) Club was harassed into oblivion in Czechoslovakia. All resistance to communist command was brutally suppressed, including killings of various sorts, but the body count was relatively slight. A few executions maintained communist authority, with the Red Army lurking in the background. The majority of Red Holocaust excess deaths in the captive nations seem to be attributable to lethal forced labor. Central and eastern Europe were no strangers to concentration camps. Gulag seamlessly replaced Hitler’s facilities after 1945. Red concentration camps replaced the Third Reich’s early on in Bulgaria, where a decree allowed the police to re-educate people through work, known as labor-educational communes (trudovo-vuzpitatchni obshchezhitiya, or TVO). Anarchists were the first victims, sent to Kutsian camp near Pernik known as “the kiss of death,” and to Bobov Dol and Bogdanov Dol, known as “the camp of shadows.”14 These humble beginnings metastasized to central and southeastern Europe in 1949–50. In Hungary and Poland the camps were located near mining areas. In Romania they were set up along the Danube–Black Sea canal and in the Danube delta. The Danube–Black Sea canal soon became known as “the canal of death,” where thousands of peasants who had opposed collectivization were sent, along with other suspect individuals. In Czechoslovakia, the


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camps were grouped mainly around the uranium mines in the Jachymov region, in Western Bohemia, and in the coalfields of Ostrava in Northern Moravia. A map of the Bulgarian Gulag prepared in 1990 shows eighty-six localities. Around 187,000 people were imprisoned in Bulgaria in the period 1944–62. According to other estimates, approximately 12,000 people were in camps between 1944 and 1953, and 5,000 between 1956 and 1962.15 In Hungary, several hundred thousand people were prosecuted in 1948–53 and, according to different estimates, between 700,000 and 800,000 were convicted. Most cases were trials for crimes against state property. In Romania, estimates for the number of people incarcerated throughout the Communist period vary between 300,000 and 1 million. The British historian Dennis Deletant estimates that approximately 180,000 people were detained in camps in Romania in the early 1950s. In Czechoslovakia, the number of political prisoners for the years 1948–54 has now been established at 200,000. There were 422 camps and prisons, for a population of 12.6 million inhabitants.16 It is difficult to compute Red Holocaust totals from this fragmentary data. However, an indication of the scale of killing can be gleaned from Rudy Rummel’s calculations, without fretting about exactitude. The striking aspect of the estimates is their low level compared with Soviet, Chinese (Chapter 9) and Cambodian (Chapter 10) benchmarks. Apparently, with the Red Army presence known to all, neither Stalin nor his agents found it necessary to kill millions to establish communist power. We will never know if the carnage would have escalated in the mid-1950s had Stalin lived. All that can be safely concluded is that siege-mobilized terror-command was a discretionary policy tool for Stalin, not a necessity, at least outside the perimeters of the Soviet Union, and that the Red Holocaust wasn’t destined to follow a single script.17

Summary • • • • •

Soviet occupation of central and eastern Europe in the 1940s provided Stalin with the opportunity to annex, or create communist satellite nations. Stalin chose the latter. There was a great deal of killing, including executions, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing during the period, but only some of it can be attributed to Stalin’s captive nations policies. Much of the killing was connected with denazification and reparations. Insofar as the actions were criminal, they were more closely associated with war crimes than the Red Holocaust. The communist nations of postwar central and eastern Europe

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•


• • • •

• • • •

are called captive nations or satellite states because their leaders were compelled to subordinate national interest to Soviet military, command economic, ideological and international policies. Red Holocaust killings in the Soviet Union’s European satellites 1945–53 are strictly defined only to include executions, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing deaths incurred building and consolidating postwar communist command regimes. Political terror used to establish and consolidate postwar captive communist nations was much more important than economic terror 1945–53. Based on the Soviet standard there should have been 2 to 4 million communist satellite killings 1945–53. The actual figure was closer to 137,000 Red Holocaust excess deaths. There are many reasons for this low figure. The Red Army allowed the Soviets to pacify central and eastern Europe without massterror consolidation. Many captive nations were industrially advanced and didn’t need a great leap forward. Forced collectivization wasn’t imperative, and terror-starvation would have been premature. Most ethnic cleansing deaths were attributable to denazification and postwar boundary adjustments. Red Holocaust killings in the captive nations was mostly attributable to political repression, civic repression and lethal forced labor. This pattern was replicated across the region. Lethal forced labor appears to have been the greatest killer, but statistics are fuzzy. The main lesson taught by the central and eastern postwar communist experience is that Stalin was capable of modifying his terror-command control strategies, tailoring them as circumstances dictated, rather than imposing siege-mobilized terror-command everywhere willy-nilly.


8

Sword and Torch

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (August 23–24, 1939),1 and the Second World War that swiftly followed on its heels, were the forces that enabled the first wave of the Red Holocaust to surge beyond Soviet banks westward into eastern and central Europe, and eastward to Mongolia, North Korea, Sakhalin and much of the Kuril Islands. Communism spread by the sword, rather than the ballot, usurpation of power, proletarian coup d’état, insurrection or civil war. It is doubtful whether Stalin would have obtained domination over these populations, and successfully established new communist captive nations, had the Third Reich and Japan transformed themselves into agents of peace under League of Nations guidelines. This wasn’t the way Marx envisioned the triumph of global communism: Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisitions of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and the means of production.

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The transformation of scattered private property, arising from individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process, incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialized production, into socialized property. In the former case, we had the expropriation of the mass of the people by a few usurpers; in the latter we have the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol.1, International Publishers: New York, 1967 (Hamburg 1867), pp.763–764 Just as outlined in the Communisto Manifesto, enlightened workers would “naturally” assume control over the means of production, using it “co-operatively” for the communal good without private property, the rule of law, or the state. Workers in the most industrially advanced nations accordingly were expected to take control, with the rest following “naturally” as soon as they became sufficiently developed. It follows that anyone who bet the sequence this way in 1917 should have picked America, Great Britain and Germany to win, place and show, with Russia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia lagging far behind. Events belied the expectation. The First World War, which Marx understandably hadn’t anticipated, proved to be a catalyst for social unrest and revolution, but it produced only one durable communist state: the Soviet Union. The German Spartakist uprising in Berlin January 5–12, 1919, both the general strike and armed fighting surrounding it, briefly seemed to vindicate Marx’s prognostication, but the moment soon passed,2 as did similar incidents in Bavaria. The same pattern was repeated in Hungary, despite Moscow’s assistance, where a Republic of Soviets came to power under the leadership of Bela Kun. The regime began 21 March 1919 and lasted 133 days.3 These failures posed profound issues about the reliability and adequacy of Marx’s dialectical materialist analysis and the proper approach to building world communism. Did the ends justify the means? Should communism be constructed wherever it could, by all means, fair and foul? Should leaders rely on education or, like Marx, just wait for the dialectic to unfold? With the benefit of hindsight, it seems reasonable to suppose that if Marx’s strategy had been retained, leaders would still be awaiting entrance to the promised land. Likewise education and fair debate would have led to social democracy in Europe, and other market systems elsewhere (including Hu Jintao-style market communism in China). Consequently, if there were to be a red tide, then it had to rely on compulsion tailored to circumstances. When Soviet power was threatened externally, foreign communists became a fifth column in defense of the Kremlin. When power projection seemed promising, Moscow assisted friendly parties abroad in acquiring levers of state governance. It fomented insurrections, fanned the flames of civil war, and whenever possible employed the Red Army.


Sword and Torch 93 The vicissitudes of the interwar years prompted Stalin to use foreign communist parties and sympathizers affiliated with the Comintern (Third Communist International) to mitigate threats from the Third Reich and Showa Japan until May 15, 1943, when it was effectively replaced by the CCPS International Department.4 Comparatively little attention was paid to assisting communist parties abroad to peacefully and democratically assume power. Insurrections were financed more lavishly where targets of opportunity promised success, but gradually it became evident that encouraging civil wars was the most promising path. By the late 1930s, through a process of elimination, a sword and torch strategy had become Stalin’s preferred approach to spreading communism and Soviet power. As was shown in Chapter 7, the sword symbolizing the Red Army proved to be a potent instrument in central and eastern Europe, as well as North Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The torch symbolizing encouragement, financial support, Soviet advisers, weapons and military personnel given to promote communists in foreign civil wars likewise was enormously successful, even though the policy failed in Spain.5 Victories in China and Indochina added approximately 575 million to communist national governmental control. The Chinese civil war (War of Liberation) between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which began with the Northern Expedition April 1927 and ended May 1950 illustrates Moscow’s decisive role in establishing the foundations for the Red Holocaust’s second wave through the torch, as distinct from the sword (Soviet Red Army occupation of North Korea). A chronological summary of key events doesn’t suggest that Mao was the Kremlin’s obedient puppet, or that Stalin always placed the interests of the Chinese communist movement above the Soviet Union’s security requirements. However, it demonstrates that Mao’s victory over Chiang Kai-shek and the subsequent triumphs of Indochinese communism would have been unthinkable without Stalin’s personal support at various historical turning points. The story of Stalin’s and Mao’s zigzag relationship on the road to Chinese communist power, derived from Jung Chang’s and Jon Halliday’s narrative, is chronicled below:6 January 1923 • Soviet Politburo uses Comintern funds to “Give full backing to the Nationalists.” The document was signed by Stalin. Chinese communists were ordered to join the Nationalist Party, and follow Moscow’s instructions for guiding Sun Yat-sen. Mao (then 29 years old) embraced Moscow’s strategy, and advanced rapidly in the CCP, but was marginalized a few years later (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.32–34).

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April 1927


• Chiang Kai-shek broke with the communists in April 1927. Stalin ordered the CCP to form its own army with the aim of conquering China. A huge secret military advice and support system was set up in Russia, and military advisers sent to train CCP guerrillas. Communist units were ordered to pull out of the Nationalist army and collect arms shipped in from Russia. Mao was promoted from the Central Committee to the Politburo, though still in a secondary capacity (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.51–52). 1928 • The Mao-Zhu Red Army is formed on Mao’s initiative, but with Stalin’s acquiescence. Mao was viewed as insubordinate, but a winner (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.64). November 1929 • Soviet troops invaded 125 kilometers into Manchuria, using its tsarist concessions (the Chinese Eastern Railway) to support communist insurgent forces. Stalin named the “regions of Mao Tse-tung” as the key area for expanding partisan warfare (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.74–75). September 1934 • Stalin trades Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chingkuo, captive in Moscow, for the survival of Mao’s forces trapped during the first phase of the Long March. But Stalin breaks his word, after the Red Army is safely past Chiang’s forces (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.142). 1935–36 • Stalin schemes with the warlord Chang Hsuehliang (“the Young Marshal”) and Mao to provoke a full-scale war between China and Japan, in order to deflect the Japanese threat away from the Soviet Far East. In August 1936 Stalin encourages the communists to join with Chiang Kai-shek to fight the Japanese (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.182–189). • After the Young Marshal kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek, Mao schemed to have Chiang killed, but Stalin personally forbade it. Mao was prepared to disobey Stalin, but the Young Marshal, realizing that Stalin was doubledealing, decided to protect his captive (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.193). 1937 • Stalin cut a deal with Chiang Kai-shek. He released his captive son and ordered the CCP to abandon its policy of trying to overthrow the


Sword and Torch 95 government, and stop confiscating land and robbing. The quid pro quo was Chiang’s assignment of some territory to the Red Army and Nationalist funding of the communist administration and army (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.197). • Stalin uses Zhang Zhizhong (ZZZ), a general in the Nationist army and communist mole, to draw the Japanese away from Russia and into China’s heartland. ZZZ was chief of the Shanghai-Nanjing garrison. He staged an incident August 9, 1937 outside the Shanghai airport that killed a Japanese marine lieutenant, but made it seem as if the Japanese fired first. On August 14, he had Chinese planes bomb the Japanese flagship Izumo, leading to a sequence of events that drew Chiang Kai-shek into an unwanted regional war (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.207–210). • Stalin immediately signed a non-aggression treaty with Nanjing on August 21, and began sending munitions. From December 1937 to the end of 1939, more than 2,000 pilots flew combat missions, downing some 1,000 Japanese planes and even bombing Japanese-occupied Taiwan (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.207–209). • As a quid pro quo, he granted the Red Army full independent control in joint operations against Japan (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.210). • Stalin wanted Mao to devote his energies entirely to fighting the Japanese, but Mao saw that the war provided a golden opportunity to advance his own interests, by conquering all China with Stalin’s sometimes grudging assistance. His plan was to let Chiang do the fighting, and then attack Chiang when his forces were depleted (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.211). • Mao builds his basis in Yenan. 1937–40 • Mao concentrates on fighting rivals and Chiang, not Japan (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.218–227). 1939–40 • The Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty August 23–24, 1939, with its secret provisions dividing Poland and parts of eastern Europe between Stalin and Hitler, raised the prospect that Stalin might enter into a similar treaty with Hirohito, allowing the USSR and Japan to annex pieces of China between them. Mao responded favorably to the prospect, seeing this as an opportunity to establish his own communist regime within Stalin’s domains (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.228–235). 1941–45 • The Third Reich’s invasion of the Soviet Union June 22, 1941 forced Stalin to concentrate his resources in the west, greatly reducing military and financial assistance to Mao.

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• Mao feared that he might be compelled to fight the Japanese if Tokyo declared war on the USSR, but the Japanese deployed their armies elsewhere. This allowed Mao to absorb himself for much of the war years building a power base through terror, purging rivals, and playing a double game with Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin. He fought with Chiang’s forces and avoided combat with the Japanese, even though Stalin urged his assistance (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.245–260).


1945–46 • The Yalta agreement February 1945 allowed the USSR to consolidate its control over Outer Mongolia, restore its control over the Chinese Eastern Railway, and two major ports in Manchuria. • It also gave Stalin the opportunity to promote Mao’s seizure of power. On February 18, Izvestiya wrote of Moscow’s desire to solve the Far Eastern problem, taking due account of the interests of the Chinese communists (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.293). • Moscow severed its neutrality pact with Tokyo April 5, 1945. On August 19, 1945, ten days after the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, 1.5 million Soviet troops swept into China, with Mao’s assistance (Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.294). • This enabled the war against Japan to smoothly transition into Stalin’s attempt to create Red China through a Soviet-sponsored civil war against the Nationalists, under the cover of a Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with Chiang (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.294–295). • Stalin turned over Japanese arms depots in Manchuria to Mao. 1946–49 • Stalin and Mao maneuvered 1946–49 to achieve communist power in China, but Soviet support remained steadfast throughout, contributing immensely to Mao’s ultimate triumph (Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.324–335). Clearly, Chinese communist power was achieved by the torch of Stalin’s orchestrated and assisted civil war, not through the action of workers peacefully assuming control over the means of production. Consequently, it was hardly an accident that Mao adhered strictly to Lenin’s program of communist economic consolidation (criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship) and then adopted siege-mobilized terror-command. The Red Holocaust’s second wave was an Asian adaptation of Stalin’s concept of state communism, not an original interpretation of Marx’s utopian vision, or communism’s optimal transition mechanism. Stalin passed the flame, which was snuffed by Deng Xiaoping in China, but is still burning more than sixty years later in North Korea.

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Summary • •


•

•

• • • • • •

The worldwide communist revolution was never peaceful, contrary to Marx’s prediction. It began with a Bolshevik insurrection and was spread by the “sword” and “torch.” Moscow created the Comintern to foster worldwide communist revolution through all means including the democratic ballot, but lackluster electoral appeal prodded the Kremlin to emphasize insurrection and conquest. The communist movement created sparks from 1917 to 1939, but was a flop including its Spanish adventure, until the Soviet Union annexed parts of Poland, Bessarabia, the Baltics and Finland, invoking secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It expanded via the sword in eastern and central Europe, and under the authority of the Yalta agreement and the sword in Outer Mongolia, North Korea, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands 1944–48. Communism’s greatest victory was achieved in China through Moscow orchestrated and assisted insurrection, and civil war begun in 1927, and concluded May 1950. The war of national liberalization strategy was also successful in Indochina. Asian communism was not an original interpretation of Marx’s utopia, or the optimal state transition mechanism before the Great Leap Forward. The second wave of the Red Holocaust thus was a natural continuation of Stalin’s siege-mobilized terror-command model. Mao and Pol Pot made significant “improvements.” Stalin’s spiritual influence didn’t fade until Deng Xiaoping’s liberalizing reforms, and is still dominant in North Korea.



Part II

The Second Wave



9

Overlapping Empires

Two Romes Beijing has been called communism’s “Second Rome,”1 an independent seat of political and doctrinal authority which, although initially subordinate to Moscow, soon became an implacable rival. The analogy with Constantinople ( 330) is apt, because it highlights China’s special place in communist history after the Second World War. Whereas central and eastern European communist states were subjugated to Stalin; China had more degrees of freedom. Europe’s captive nations were satellites with no prospects of becoming second or third forces, because of the Soviet Red Army, but Mao harbored greater ambitions. A Kremlin invasion of China was never a realistic option, although the Soviet Red Army briefly occupied Manchuria August 1945 to early 1946.2 The founding of China’s People’s Republic October 1, 1949 consequently has a double symbolism: the independent rise of Red Asia, and the beginning of the end of the Kremlin’s monolithic rule over the global communist movement. Stalin reigned in the west, both in the Soviet Union and the captive nations. Whatever good or bad happened, the buck always stopped at his door. Mao by contrast ruled his own house, and toyed with dreams of a communist Asian empire from North Korea to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Tibet. While he sympathized with and was beholden to Stalin, often publicly calling him “boss,” Mao swiftly became master of communism’s second Rome. Crimes against humanity on his watch in China and elsewhere in Asia influenced by the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution would be his responsibility, not Koba’s.3

Asia’s Red Holocaust The second wave of the Red Holocaust was primarily, but not exclusively, Mao’s show. Although it began in Kim Il Sung’s North Korea in 1948, and swiftly swept through China and Indochina, overlapping the first wave in the Soviet Union and its European satellites 1945–53, Mao became the main killer in Red Asia by 1950. The first wave of the Red Holocaust stopped when


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Stalin died. The second ended in China after Mao’s death and in Indochina after 1985, but still continues in Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. For a brief period (1948–53), Stalin, Kim, Mao and Ho ploughed their respective killing fields, guided by the logic of siege-mobilized terrorcommand, but patterns differed for historical reasons. Stalin had long since repressed the kulaks, terror-starved the peasantry, terror-purged the party and economic apparatus, and ethnically cleansed the Soviet Union’s multinational state. His crimes against humanity in the Soviet homeland 1945–53 were mature; while the stage was just being set for repeat performances in central Europe and eastern Europe. Kim’s, Mao’s and Ho’s regimes by contrast were juvenescent. They had to build their own siege-mobilized terror-command economy from scratch, guided by Stalin’s successes.4 Kim, Mao and Ho didn’t have to guess whether Stalin or Bukharin was right, or to fret that terror-starvation, terror-executions and ethnic cleansing might be counterproductive. They believed that their own utility (power) could be maximized with Stalin’s methods, and set about systematically mimicking his economic system and crimes against humanity. During the Stalin years 1949–53, the second wave gathered momentum. When Stalin died, and Moscow thawed, mass killing surged, unrestrained by western communist liberalization.

China The situation in China on the morrow of the civil war replicated Russia’s experience in 1921. Like the Bolsheviks, Mao had seized the state in the name of Marxist-Leninist principles, vanquished political rivals, and ruled on behalf of workers and peasants. Dogma required the dictatorship of the proletariat to criminalize private property, business and entrepreneurship, and substitute state command planning, but pragmatic concessions were necessary to small proprietors, lessees and the peasantry. It is one thing to appropriate the means of production, but quite another to operate it effectively enough to meet state requirements. Mao’s program (including the Three-anti/Five-anti campaigns),5 like Lenin’s at the outset of NEP, was to nationalize the economy’s commanding heights (banks, insurance, heavy industry, mass transit, communications and foreign trade), tolerating markets in light industry, small construction, retailing and agriculture, while emulating Stalin by preparing for the final assault. State planning and a ministerial economic control apparatus would be constructed, staffed with loyal cadres, including red enterprise directors. Land management would be reformed. The State Bank would be instituted to monitor and administer enterprise finance. A party control mechanism would be honed to insure economic discipline. Prices would be fixed for key goods, and a state wholesale distribution system erected. The scope of these arrangements would be gradually expanded to replace most private activity, and the peasants would be forcibly collectivized. This agenda could have been discussed democratically, and implemented


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under the rule of law. The risks associated with constructing command communism this way, as well as those intrinsic to terror-free command, however, were the same for Mao as Stalin. Mao knew that he could exploit fears of counter-revolutionary Kuomintang armies, kulak insurrection, saboteurs, imperialist and colonialist bogeymen to forge a siege-mobilized terrorcommand system that worked, and was justifiably suspicious of terror-free alternatives. This made it easy for him to follow his own despotic predilections. Mao’s initial communist project would be comprehensively Stalinist; Stalin’s dystopic concept of communist ends combined with his siegemobilized terror-command methods. The second wave of the Red Holocaust unfolded according to this script. Victory meant purge and repression. Mao acted quickly to pre-empt the emergence of rivals within the party, and an army that had lost its primary civil war mission. He used terror to cow opposition and craft a dependable command economic mechanism, while prattling about “New Democracy.” This process continued until September 1953, when Mao announced a new “general line for socialist transition” that implanted the siege-mobilized terror industrial and collectivization system.6 There were mass repression campaigns and public executions targeting Kuomintang remnants, businessmen, former employees of western companies, intellectuals and vestiges of the rural gentry.7 The U.S. State Department estimated that as many as 1.9 million people may have perished in land reform and anti-counter-revolutionary crackdowns.8 Mao himself boasted that 700,000 people were executed 1949–53;9 a far higher figure was estimated by those taking account of obligations placed on every village to execute at least one landlord.10 They put the death toll between 2 and 5 million,11 excluding an additional 1.5 million Laogai (Gulag type) lethal forced labor excess deaths.12 Rudy Rummel’s subperiod total is 8.4 million (see Table 9.1).13 Mao acknowledged a significant portion of these mass homicides,14 but rejected any allegation that they were crimes against humanity.15 Instead, he viewed them unapologetically as resolute actions essential for communist consolidation. What had taken the Soviets a decade was accomplished by Beijing in just three years, setting the stage for an assault on China’s backwardness and residual limits on the Chairman’s personal control. Like Stalin before him, Mao simultaneously inaugurated China’s first five-year plan and forcibly collectivized the peasantry. Both actions began in 1953 and were characterized benignly as technical initiatives aimed at making China industrially and agriculturally self-sufficient. They were great paper successes, creating the illusion that there were no fortresses China’s Bolsheviks couldn’t storm, while behind the scenes workers and peasants were harnessed to siege-mobilized terrorcommand. Mao not only expanded Beijing’s criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship by appropriating land and introducing price controls; he employed terror tactics to repress intellectuals, and tighten administrative, labor and peasant discipline, despite the sideshow of the Hundred Flowers Campaign.16


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However, this was only a prelude of things to come. Stalin didn’t terrorstarve the peasantry in the opening phase of collectivization. He waited until Soviet power was secure enough in the countryside to work the rural population to death in pursuit of unfulfillable plans. Stalin was Mao’s patron. He plied Beijing with foreign economic assistance, cheap credit, technical advisers, and promises of nuclear technology sharing. He was a fraternal (but not infrequently double-dealing) ally against Kuomintang, Japanese and American aggression, and domestic opposition. However, this special relationship didn’t survive Stalin’s passing. Khrushchev and his coterie, for diverse reasons, distanced themselves from Stalinism, including siege-mobilized terror-command, confronting Mao with a dilemma. He could toe the new Moscow line, or try to make China self-sufficient, while pretending to accommodate Soviet tutelage. Like any wily despot Mao temporized, until the flow of events galvanized his resolve to go it alone, retaining and improving siege-mobilized terror-command without technocratic and humanistic concessions. Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s crimes at the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956 may well have been the decisive event sparking the Sino-Soviet split. Immediately thereafter, Moscow disbanded the Cominform, tolerated limited domestic dissent, voiced the prospect of peaceful coexistence between communism and capitalism, backed away from nuclear technology-sharing, reduced development credits to China, insisted that Mao pay cash for Soviet capital durables, and began withdrawing technical advisers. Mao and Khrushchev were at loggerheads over almost everything, including Mao’s aspirations for Asian communist hegemony. The Soviets portrayed him as a Stalinist troglodyte and sought to undermine his global authority. Mao responded defiantly. He opted not just to continue aping Stalin, but to outdo his muse by perfecting siege-mobilized terror-command with a Great Leap Forward. Instead of embracing Libermanism (profit maximizing and rational micro resource allocation),17 or following Stalin’s lead by driving peasants off the farms into urban industrial employment, Mao promoted what the Soviets later called “agro-industrial complexes.” Collective farms were amalgamated into communes that combined the functions of village governance, industrial and agrarian production. Inspired with revolutionary fervor from below (guided by the second five-year plan), communes were tasked to industrialize from within, without urban outsourcing. Terror here would be applied from inside to transform peasants into industrial and public project workers, saving transfer costs, and enhancing efficiency. Mao, it was claimed, saw that the people could be trusted, something Stalin steadfastly refused to do, and thereby raised the siege-mobilized terror-command model to a higher communist plane. People’s power resonated with idealists everywhere, giving the Great Leap Forward a gloss that seemed to make Mao, not Khrushchev, the inspired progressive, but his innovation was lethal. Like Stalin, no one claims that Mao premeditated the killing of millions of peasants,18 yet the facts show that


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when push came to shove, both found it expedient to enhance their utility by pursuing policies that decimated legions. The slaughter, mischaracterized as famine deaths, was acknowledged by Hu Yaobang,19 who put the death toll at 20 million, well below Roderick Macfarquhar’s, Douglas Fairbank’s and Denis Twitchett’s more demographically plausible estimate of approximately 30 million.20 Yang Jisheng authoritatively asserts in his monumental work, Tombstone (Mu Bei), that 36 million died of hunger,21 a figure in line with Angus Maddison’s demographic statistics.22 Yang’s estimate is derived from official published census data available to Weizhi Wang, a population expert who worked at the Ministry of Public Security during the 1960s. It was calculated independently of the 1984 yearbook population series,23 and its reliability is supported by evidence throughout the Mu Bei text.24 Jung Chang and Jon Halliday25 and Rudy Rummel prefer a figure of 38 million.26 Therefore, there is no basis for doubting that Mao’s forced collectivization-cum-communalization drive culminated in a human catastrophe of Holodomor proportions, adjusted for differences in the size of Soviet and Chinese populations.27 The only crucial issue in dispute is whether the carnage was a natural calamity (famine), compounded by human error (negligent homicide) or, as in Stalin’s case, something far more sinister: terror-starvation (mass murder, or manslaughter). As in the Holodomor, most scholars until recently innocuously attributed excess peasant deaths during the Great Leap Forward to famine, even when acknowledging that Mao’s policies exacerbated the catastrophe. Chang’s and Halliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story, Yang’s Tombstone (2008) and Rummel’s reassessment seem to be shifting the consensus by emphasizing the volitional aspects of the disaster. Yang attributes it to the “Three Red Banners—The General Line, The Great Leap Forward, and the People’s Communes,” which whipped the Chinese people into a frenzy in 1958, directly causing the thirty-six-month food deficit that followed. This formulation captures the essence of Mao’s siege-mobilizing terror-starvation policy. The Great Leap Forward was intended to, and did, whip people into a frenzy that mobilized their efforts beyond what would have been possible without communes. No pain was too great for the people to bear, from the Great Helmsman’s perspective, if he gained. Their sacrifices and the resulting Great Leap Forward would prove to Khrushchev and Asia’s communists that Mao’s communal Stalinist model was better than Stalin’s Big Brother, urbanizing terror paradigm, and infinitely superior to terror-free command. Martyrdom was obligatory because siege-mobilization from below seemed to offer the possibility of Mao having it all—more industrial output, and more exportable agricultural produce than attainable with other methods. The overambitiousness of the second five year plan, and bureaucratic mistakes often suggested to explain the Great Leap Forward fiasco from this standpoint were subsidiary. Killing and waste were intrinsic aspects of terror-command, not regrettable consequences of overzealousness and poor planning. Neither the voluntary manslaughter, nor the wastefulness of backyard steel


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and mis-engineered construction projects mattered to Mao on balance. The literature suggests that he was prepared to persevere, papering over failures with endless lies, had not the calamity caused serious disaffection within party ranks,28 prompting a tactical retreat. After a 21 percent fall in GDP 1959–61 (see Table 15.7), plans were scaled back and terror curbed, while President Liu Shaoqui and Deng Xiaoping spurred revival by disbanding communes, introducing peasant household plots, and importing grain from Canada and Australia. The respite didn’t last. Just as Stalin marked time 1933–36, killing only a few hundred thousand per year (see Table 2.1), before launching the Great Terror, Mao briefly bided his time. The next upheaval began in 1967 and ended in 1969, but unofficially lingered until Mao’s demise. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, or Cultural Revolution for short, was his version of the Great Terror-Purge. Like Stalin’s variant, the principal victims were imagined and real opposition within the party, but the campaign extended throughout the entire economic administrative command structure from ministers to red directors, and workers. The usual suspects, Kuomintang diehards, gentry, rich peasants, and a cast of capitalist roaders, weren’t overlooked. However, their role was peripheral. The main objective was terrorizing party officials, intellectuals and technocrats who might oppose Mao’s will, and using the Red Guard to muster productive exertion in factories and collectives, without concern for agrarian exports. Millions were sent to Laogai or to Laojiao non-penal forced labor assignments in the countryside. Millions were killed, and lives wrecked, but the death toll was comparatively mild because terror-starvation wasn’t needed to fulfill the Cultural Revolution’s mission. Beyond the homicides, Chinese lives were blighted by a 5.1 percent fall in GDP 1966–68 (see Table 15.7). The parallels between the two Great Terror-Purges (both less lethal than their terror-starvation campaigns) are often neglected because Stalin’s was orchestrated and implemented from above with public show trials, NKVD imprisonment, lethal forced labor and executions, whereas Mao’s program featured spontaneous Red Guard action from below, tutored informally by the secret police. Many believed that the Cultural Revolution was a crusade to construct true Marxist communal communism immune to bureaucratic and capitalist corruption, concerned with human fulfillment rather than megadevelopment,29 but they were mistaken. Communal utopianism was just a cover for the Great Terror-Purge phase of Mao’s despotism. Siege-mobilized terror-command remained the guiding light, with a romantic communalist accent. The nuance is important because it highlights the plasticity of the Stalinist model, but the core mission and methods were the same, including terrorexecutions, lethal forced labor, terror-starvation and ethnic cleansing. However, statistical uncertainties in both the Soviet Union and China make it difficult to assess the comparative detail. While forced collectivization and terror-starvation clearly played similar roles in both Stalinist regimes, there

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Table 9.1 Rummel’s estimates of Mao’s Red Holocaust (millions)


1949–53 Regime consolidation 1954–58 Collectivization 1959–63 Great Leap Forward Terror-starvation Repression 1964–75 Cultural Revolution Total

8.4 7.5 48.7 38 10.7 7.7 72.3

Source: Rudy Rummel, China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, and Rummel, “Reevaluated Democide Totals for 20th Century and China,” http://www.ciolek.com/SPEC/rummel-ondemocide-2005.html.

are no publicly available Chinese archival documents and demographic records verifying official secret police executions, Laogai, Laojiao and ethnic cleansing excess deaths. Estimates exist. Chang and Halliday, for example, surmise that 27 million people died in prisons and labor camps during Mao’s rule.30 Likewise, Tibetan leaders claim that over 17 percent of Tibetans have been victims of Chinese genocide/ethnic cleansing31 killings, which JeanLouis Margolin shows were at least partly due to communalization,32 but the figure cannot be scientifically confirmed. Consequently, the best that can be done is to appreciate that Mao’s Red Holocaust destroyed something in the order of 50 million or more people (Table 9.1). Terror-starvation, as in the Soviet case was probably the largest component, with terror executions (including non-judicial shootings) and lethal forced labor accounting for significant shares of the carnage, followed by a smaller number of ethnic cleansing victims. Siege-mobilized terrorcommand model was a basic cause of all these deaths, although precise impacts varied with context, the role of the secret police, and popular actors such as the Red Guard.

China’s Communist Neighborhood The Red Holocaust elsewhere in post-World War II Asia begins with Stalin’s urbanizing siege-mobilized terror-command from above, but is modified by economic structural considerations, civil wars, convoluted Sino-Soviet relations, and the Khmer Rouge’s utopian fanaticism. Stalin is influential everywhere in Asia until his death, but power then shifts to Mao, except after 1969 in Vietnam and Laos. The process of Red Asian mass killing outside China, however, doesn’t duplicate Mao’s communalist and Cultural Revolutionary experiences, because of differences in size, location, economic structure and timing. China, like the Soviet Union, is a vast country with enormous natural resources, and a large population that allows leaders to dream of superpower. Laos is landlocked with a mixed development potential. North Korea,


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Vietnam and Cambodia are better situated, but don’t aspire to being anything more than regional powers. Moreover, communist regimes in Indochina didn’t establish complete nationhood until after the Vietnamese War (1959 to April 30, 1975), and North Korea has yet to fulfill its manifest destiny. North Korean and Indochinese siege-mobilized terror-command under these circumstances necessarily had a truncated and provisional agenda. Communist energies were concentrated on completing armed revolutions (national liberation), rather than incipient superpower industrialization. North Korea came into existence September 9, 1948 (after three years of Soviet stewardship) with a strong industrial base thanks to the Japanese, but limited agricultural possibilities, while North Vietnam (also relatively industrialized, compared with South Vietnam) was transfixed by civil war, making terror-starvation for both less attractive than it was to Stalin and Mao. Vietnam had an ample supply of peasants to terror-starve, and initiated its own Great Leap Forward,33 but displayed less lethal enthusiasm. The common feature of communist Asian siege-mobilized terror-command outside China was the obligatory criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship achieved gradually through land reform, collectivization, and the development of state industry, together with accompanying control structures. This entailed killing suspected opponents, concentration camp lethal forced labor, terror-purges, and ethnic cleansing where relevant (the Hmong, in Laos). Famine (and perhaps terror-starvation) have been part of the North Korean and North Vietnam landscape, but not to the same degree as in Mao’s China during the Great Leap Forward.

North Korea The primary goal of North Korean siege-mobilized terror-command since 1948 has been securing the communist system, strengthening productive discipline throughout the command chain in order to carry out a successful war of national liberation and unification. Consumer welfare oriented national economic development has been interminably deferred, pending the creation of a united communist Korean state. North Korea alone among communist nations has remained steadfastly Stalinist, shunning Khrushchev’s thaw and Mao’s communal and Cultural Revolutionary siege-mobilized terror-command. Kim Jong Il experimented with limited Deng Xiaoping-style reforms in the new millennium, without abandoning despotism, but otherwise the regime has resisted liberal technocratic reform and Gorbachev–Deng Xiaoping marketization. North Korea’s unique place in the communist cosmos reflects its special history, geography and economic structure. Although Korean insurrectionaries declared independence from Japan in Seoul March 1, 1919, and a government in exile was established in Shanghai later that year, Pyongyang’s ultimate liberation was the consequence of Soviet military operations against the Japanese August 1945, and a secret accord signed at Yalta giving the


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USSR administrative control over Korea north of the 38th parallel, pending settlement of the peninsula’s postwar status. Unlike central and eastern Europe, Stalin rode roughshod over the liberated territory (as distinct from a previously established independent nation with well-developed western institutions), and transformed it into a state. He had Kim Il Sung, a captain in the Soviet Red Army 1940–45 installed by Soviet troops as head of the People’s Provisional Committee, and appointed prime minister of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), after the South formally declared itself the Republic of Korea (ROK) in 1948. In a twinkling of an eye, North Korea became a one-party state, criminalized private property, business, and entrepreneurship, collectivized agriculture, pressed industrialization, was heavily armed by the Soviet Union and exhorted Stalin for support in invading the South. The situation was complicated by a strong communist movement in the ROK which became the focus of peninsula wrangling, displacing DPRK economic development as Kim’s primary concern. His priorities were repression, discipline and economic mobilization at home, and a war of national liberation against American-occupied South Korea. Siege-mobilized terror-command for him therefore was equated with mustering the nation for prolonged war, with the benefit of a Soviet protected home base. In this environment, Kim had no need to secure his regime with terror-starvation tactics, or orchestrate a cultural revolution. He could concentrate his terrorcommand on repressing political and bureaucratic opposition, worker and peasant discipline, and penal forced labor. Ethnic homogeneity made ethnic cleansing superfluous, except for religious repression, and terror-free command was never seriously entertained. The human cost of Kim Il Sung’s system during his rule has been studied by Pierre Rigoulot, relying on the sparse data obtained from official and dissident sources. He estimates that North Korea executed 90,000 party members in nine purges 1958–1994, and that 36,500 people were worked to death in labor camps since the nation’s founding on September 9, 1948.34 The cumulative totals are 100,000 executions and 1.5 million forced labor excess deaths. A figure of 500,000 famine-cum-terror-starvation fatalities is also suggested,35 bringing the cumulative death toll for North Korea’s Red Holocaust to 2.1 million, or roughly 12 percent of the 1977 population.36 Some may want to include Korean war casualties as well, given the role national liberation played in Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s siege-mobilized terror-command strategies. Rigoulot puts this figure at 1.3 million.37

Vietnam and Laos Post-World War II Vietnam and North Korea were both occupied by the Japanese and share a common Stalinist legacy, but history, geography and perhaps culture caused their communisms to evolve differently. Unlike Kim’s North Korea, the Soviet Red Army played no role in the founding of the Vietnamese Democratic Republic (DRVN), concentrated in the North,


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September 2, 1945 until the Geneva Accords partitioned the country in 1954.38 The division was supposed to be temporary pending elections in 1956, but degenerated instead into a protracted civil war, culminating in the South’s defeat and the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Chinese Communist Party, with Stalin’s connivance, assisted the DRVN before 1949, and Mao’s PRC continued thereafter until 1969, when fears of a Soviet-Vietnamese alliance induced a reversal that culminated in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war.39 For much of the Vietnamese war, China served as North Vietnam’s protector, threatening to send millions of volunteers if America invaded the north, in the same way the Soviet Union (and China) sheltered North Korea. This meant that North Vietnam and North Korea were able to construct safe harbor communist economic systems outside their respective combat zones, while making national liberation wars the centerpiece of their siege-mobilized terror-command economies. Likewise, although for different reasons, North Vietnam and North Korea were natural resource-rich and industrialized, compared with agrarian South Vietnam and South Korea. The substitution of Mao’s for Soviet influence 1953–69 diverted North Vietnam’s trajectory away from North Korea’s, but less than might be supposed. During the crucial formative phase 1953–56, Mao was an orthodox Stalinist, and although Ho Chi Minh (President of DRVN 1945–69) enthusiastically endorsed the Vietnamese version of China’s Great Leap Forward (1958–61), implementation appears to have been comparatively restrained. After reunification, Vietnam adopted a second five-year plan (1976–81), and other accoutrements of physical systems management until the conclusion of its third five-year plan (1981–85), and then Hanoi gradually embraced Deng Xiaoping-style economic and social liberalization (Doi Moi renewal program). This last phase, combining planning with freemarket incentives, private business and foreign investment, ended Vietnam’s siege-mobilized terror-command epoch. North Vietnam’s communist construction began immediately after World War II with a land reform aimed at exterminating class enemies. It is claimed that 172,000 people died during the campaign against landowners and wealthy farmers. Higher estimates, ranging from 200,000 to 900,000, including summary executions of National People’s Party members, have also been suggested.40 The complete Stalinist model was first systematically imposed after the Geneva Accords (1953–56), imitating Mao’s paradigm 1946–52.41 Private property, large-scale business and entrepreneurship were criminalized, collectivization was introduced, and a five-year plan implemented 1961–65. Collectivization failed to improve rural living conditions, or generate a quantum leap in agrarian raw materials for industry, and was perceived as a cause of hunger and economic stagnation.42 There were periodic reports of famine, but not mass deaths. Nonetheless, collectivization was retained until the late 1970s. During the 1950s poor peasants were incited to put alleged village oppressors on trial, using 4–5 percent quotas (like Mao’s 5 percent rule), killing or imprisoning victims. This repression was complemented with witch-hunts for


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phantom anti-Bolshevik counter-revolutionary elements, essentially a party purge. According to Jean-Louis Margolin, 50,000 probably were executed in the countryside, excluding combatants. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people were imprisoned; 86 percent of the party cell members were purged together with 95 percent of anti-French resistance cadres.43 These figures are small in absolute terms, but in line with counterpart population-adjusted Chinese numbers. There were roughly 10 million North Vietnamese in 1955. As in China, the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party sparked a transitory humanist movement (Nhan van), which, like the counterpart Hundred Flowers Campaign, culminated in a purge, with many sent to Mao-style camps (Laojiao).44 A Great Leap Forward then ensued, with the usual negative results, followed shortly thereafter in 1964–65 by a purge against pro-Soviet cadres inside the party. After the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 a vast number of South Vietnamese officials, soldiers, students, intellectuals, Roman Catholic bishops and priests, monks, political opponents and Viet Cong cadres who were superfluous after the fall of Saigon45 were sent to camps for re-education lasting years, and in some instances more than a decade. These internments are frequently characterized as the Vietnamese Gulag. Pham Van Dong, the prime minister at the time, admitted in 1980 that 200,000 had been re-educated in the South. Serious estimates range from 500,000 to 1 million.46 These figures and those from earlier periods can only be used to provide an impression of communist Vietnam’s indictable crimes against humanity because documentary and demographic evidence are sparse (Table 9.2). Nonetheless, the pattern of siege-mobilized terror-command is unmistakable, beginning with excessive violence against class enemies in the formative phase, followed successively by the criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship; the establishment of an apparatus for economic repression, control and disciple (including central planning and collectivization), forced labor institutions, a Great Leap Forward (with elements of terror-starvation), terror-purges and ethnic cleansing. Special features of this paradigm include what appears to have been mild use of lethal forced labor and terror-starvation before 1975; ethnic flight as a partial substitute for ethnic cleansing murders, and a Gulag-type re-education system 1975–86. Perhaps most importantly, all aspects of Vietnam’s siege-mobilized terrorcommand system seem to have been influenced, as one might expect, by Table 9.2 Rummel’s estimates of the North Korean, Vietnamese and Laotian Red Holocaust (thousands) 1948–2006 Rummel 1994 U.S. Committee 1975–2005 Rummel 1994 1975–2006 Rummel 1994

North Korea Vietnam Laos

3,163 1,670 56

Source: Rudy Rummel Death by Government, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994, Table 11.1, p.243. U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (2006). http:// www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/communistbodycount.php.


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thirty years of continuous civil war. Ho may well have been unwilling to squander as many lives as Mao on profligate schemes because he preferred victory to exorbitant despotic self-indulgence. But after reunification priorities changed, Vietnam’s leaders displayed less restraint in expanding lethal forced labor, until they abandoned Stalinism in 1986. Little needs to be said about Laos, because it only became communist after 1975. Its distinctive feature is mass population flight. Around 300,000 people (10 percent of the population) fled the country, including 30 percent of the Hmong minority and approximately 90 percent of all intellectuals, technicians and officials.47 Almost all officials of the old regime (around 30,000 people) were sent to re-education camps, where many remained for up to five years. Like Vietnam, Laotian economic and social liberalization began in the mid-1980s, ending the killing and closing the book in Indochina on the Red Holocaust’s second wave (Table 9.2).

Summary • • •

•

• •

• • •

Mao wasn’t Stalin’s puppet. China quickly became communism’s second Rome, after the People’s Republic’s founding October 1, 1949. The second wave of the Red Holocaust began in Kim Il Sung’s North Korea in 1947, and swiftly swept through China and Indochina, overlapping the first wave in the Soviet Union and its European satellites 1945–53. The first wave of the Red Holocaust stopped when Stalin died; the second is still deluging Kim Jong Il’s North Korea. The second wave of the Red Holocaust unfolded initially according to the Soviet script. There was an intense killing spree during the consolidation phase of China’s communist regime, followed by a brief and relatively tranquil period of Stalinist command economy institution building. Soon thereafter, Mao adopted siege-mobilized terror-command and the slaughter began in earnest. Stalin’s model provided a convenient starting point. Mao knew that it worked, and was free to improvise without bothering himself about the comparative merit of NEP. During the consolidation phase, Mao like his Soviet predecessors violated the eighth commandment. He criminalized private property, business and entrepreneurship, obligating his regime ipso facto to institute planning and a physical management system. He suppressed democracy and the rule of law. Mao created a party supervised, administrative control mechanism. He instituted land reform, followed soon thereafter by agricultural collectivization.

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• • • • • • •

• • • • • • •

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He launched the Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns to curb corruption. Prices of key goods were fixed. Mao’s terror-free command apparatus wasn’t as comprehensive as Stalin’s because he wisely made strategic concessions to useful members of the old order to profit from their expertise. These concessions included rent-granting. He purged the party and repressed opponents to augment his control. Mao announced a new general line for socialist transition, in September 1953. It marked the start of the siege-mobilized terrorcommand phase of the Red Holocaust’s second wave. Rudy Rummel estimates that 8.4 million people perished 1949–53 during the consolidation phase preceding siege-mobilized terrorcommand. Mao admitted a large number of killings, but wasn’t apologetic. Big Brother siege-mobilized terror-command 1953–56 was successful according to official accounts. Khrushchev’s thaw irked Mao, even though he briefly toyed with liberalization in his Hundred Flowers Campaign. Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s crimes at the 20th Communist Party Congress, February 25, 1956 and subsequent liberalizing policies pushed Mao over the edge, culminating in the Sino-Soviet split. Two Romes arose, one pursuing technocrat reform and mild social tolerance, the other committed to burnishing its credentials with a Great Leap Forward. Like Stalin, Mao pursued superindustrialization, but with a twist. Instead of driving peasants off the farms into urban industrial employment, he promoted agro-industrial complexes. Collective farms were amalgamated into communes combining village governance, industrial and agricultural production. Communes were tasked to industrialize from within, without urban outsourcing. Terror was applied from inside to transform peasants into industrial and public project workers, saving transfer costs and enhancing efficiency. Mao acted as if the people could be trusted, something Stalin steadfastly refused to do, thereby ostensibly raising the siegemobilized terror-command model to a higher communist level. Mao’s boot-straps superindustrialization received plaudits in the Third World and some western communist circles, but proved to be extraordinarily lethal.

114 • • •


• • • • • • • • •

• •

• •

The Second Wave Yang Jisheng, Jung Chiang and Jon Halliday estimate that 36–38 million people perished, a range consistent with Angus Maddison’s demographic statistics. The terror-starvation is Mao’s Holodomor. Yang shows that Mao’s slaughter was caused in considerable part by terror-starvation; that is, voluntary manslaughter (and perhaps murder) rather than innocuous famine. After a 21 percent fall in GDP 1959–61, plans were scaled back and the terror curbed. Mao, however, didn’t cool his heels long. He soon launched another catastrophic, locally orchestrated people’s crusade from below called the Cultural Revolution in 1967. This was his version of Stalin’s Great Terror-Purge. Millions of party officials, intellectuals and technocrats were rounded up by Red Guards and sent to Laogai, or Laojiao, nonpenal forced labor sites in the countryside. Millions were killed. Beyond the homicides, Chinese lives were blighted by a 5.1 percent fall in GDP 1966–68. Despite statistical uncertainties, and barred archival access, it seems probable that Mao killed 50 million people, perhaps as many as 72.3 million. These killings were caused mostly by terror-starvation, with enormous numbers also attributable to terror-executions, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing. Stalin’s siege-mobilized terror-command paradigm initially is the strongest influence in the second wave of the Red Holocaust. It has persisted unabated in North Korea, but was supplanted zigzag fashion by Maoism in Indochina, as the influence of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution waxed and waned. Variations are explained by geography, size, occupation and civil wars. Terror-repression, terror-executions, terror-starvation, terrordiscipline, terror-purges, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing were all employed in Red Asia outside of China, but patterns and intensities varied. North Korea’s contribution to Asia’s Red Holocaust is approximately 2.1 million, mostly attributed to lethal forced labor, terrorstarvation and terror-purges. Vietnam’s crimes against humanity are a tangled story. It used all terror methods, but leaders for diverse reasons appear to have exhibited more self-restraint than Mao and Kim Il Sung.


10 Killing Fields

It might have seemed reasonable, in the spring of 1975, to hope that communist crimes against humanity had run their course. Mao was a lastlegger, and America’s defeat in the Vietnam War seemed imminent. No one predicted that the Red Holocaust would climax in the Cambodian killing fields.1 Cambodia had been a constitutional monarchy from November 9, 1953 under King Norodom Sihanouk until 1970, when he was ousted in a coup d’êtat led by General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak.2 Sihanouk went into exile under Chinese protection and aligned himself with communist Khmer Rouge rebels who had roots in the Vietnamese Communist Party of the early 1950s. Hanoi intermittently assisted and fought them. After a fiveyear struggle against all and sundry, the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) wrested power in 1975, changing the country’s name to Democratic Kampuchea. Senior CPK (Communist Party of Kampuchea) Political Bureau members, tutored by the French Communist Party, considered themselves Stalinists. This should have inclined Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchean regime to mimic North Korea, Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon, April 20, 1975, or Mao’s China before the Great Leap Forward. Instead, it was Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution that were his guiding lights. The former it will be recalled was a superindustrialization scheme that sought to raise agrarian and industrial productivity by beating and terror-starving communalized peasants to over-exert themselves. Mao’s Red Guard crusade was a thinly veiled Great Terror-Purge designed to bolster the Chairman’s authority and accelerate economic development. Mao spoke the language of revolution, but was pragmatic. He pushed siege-mobilization too far from a humanist viewpoint, but invariably came out on top. Pol Pot missed the point, conflating revolutionary rhetoric with substance to his own and Cambodia’s woe. During a visit to China in the mid-1960s, he was smitten by Mao’s agro-industrial communal idealism from the Great Leap Forward period, and the anti-bureaucratic enthusiasm of the Cultural Revolution. He soon convinced himself that the Khmer Rouge could fuse


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these principles into a superlative siege-mobilized terror-command model, averting the bureaucratic degeneration of Soviet reform communism. As in Mao’s original conception, communal authorities would be assigned to mobilize productive energies under the supervision of the leader and his designated agents (including neophyte activists) for the avowed purpose of achieving phenomenal advances in agriculture and industry.3 The boundless enthusiasm of the peasants, commune leaders and zealots guided by central planning would determine everything in Pol Pot’s view; not the machinations of bureaucrats, technocrats and intellectuals. Had he been Mao, he might have used the concept for his own and the nation’s benefit. The Angkar (Khmer Rouge term for the Communist Party collectively, and an unnamed supreme commander mystically associated with rulers of ancient Angkor) would have intuited a workable path, saying one thing and doing another.4 However, Pol Pot, alone among communism’s terror-command luminaries, put revolutionary romanticism before reality. It would be his extravagantly murderous utopianism, Cambodia’s contribution to the dark art of siegemobilized terror-command epitomized by inattentiveness to implementational detail, that would prevent Democratic Kampuchea from achieving a productively viable system and cause the Khmer nightmare. The massacre Pol Pot masterminded didn’t hinge, as Jean-Louis Margolin has suggested, on the Angkar’s preference for the Great Leap Forward over the Cultural Revolution.5 Cambodia’s population would have been decimated, the Khmer Rouge defeated by Vietnamese military forces, and utopia denied, even if the balance were reversed, because Pol Pot believed that violence would overcome technical shortcomings in any productive scheme he concocted. Whereas Stalin, Mao, Kim and Ho took pains to assure that their command systems were sound enough for productive survival, the Angkar sought communist prosperity with a whisk of his magic wand in “Year Zero” (the first year of Cambodia’s new revolutionary epoch). He criminalized private property, business and entrepreneurship, repressed opponents, obliterated class and social distinctions, nominally imposed egalitarianism, ordered rural Cambodia communalized, and deported the entire urban population to forcibly labor in his vineyards, but neglected to timely erect essential institutions and indulged in counterproductive policies like the abolition of money.6 Although the scheme was unworkable as designed, Pol Pot didn’t see this, choosing instead to attribute failure to opposition, which he took as license to ratchet violence as much as necessary to ensure success, even if every man, woman and child died in the process. The model was horrendously lethal. Siege-mobilized terror-command everywhere targets large numbers for death, but inattentiveness to implementational detail, clownish four-year planning and haphazard communalization combined with mass urban deportation magnified the slaughter. The calamity began shortly after the fall of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, although the Oudong massacre in 1974, which killed 10,000, presaged the shape of things to come.7 Re-education centers, or more accurately detention


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centers, were established throughout the country, followed by an order to evacuate refugee-swollen Phnom Penh.8 Every city and town, including Battambang, Kampong Cham, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom, was depopulated soon thereafter.9 Approximately 10,000 Phnom Penh residents were killed directly and indirectly out of an urban population of two to three million. People were given twenty-four hours to leave their homes, and then marched without food or medicine, sometimes for weeks, to the communal paradises said to await them. Those identified as army officers and supervisory officials were massacred immediately en route, or in prisons afterward, by 120,000 activists, soldiers and Khmer Rouge sympathizers. The survivors turned out to be only marginally better off. “New People” (urban forced labor conscripts), called variously “75s” or “17 Aprils,” were crowded into existing villages, instead of being received and resettled in Mao-style agro-industrial communes, which existed mostly in Pol Pot’s imagination. Village resources that barely sustained one person now had to be stretched, a situation exacerbated by Khmer Rouge class hatred (forgetting that most city dwellers were urban poor), the imposition of a two-tier legal system denying New People civil rights, and the execution of lower-level civil servants and intellectuals. In the late summer and fall many New People were again deported. Several hundred thousand were sent from eastern and southeastern regions to the northwest. They often were separated from family and children. Some tilled the soil; others were consigned to lethal public works projects (reminiscent of the Belomor Canal). This was the reality behind the official rhetoric of agricultural modernization, and diversified light industry as foundation stones for subsequent heavy industrialization.10 Villagers were asked to increase production to three tons of rice per hectare,11 despite the fact that production levels had remained stable at around one ton since 1970. Rice fields in the rich northwest were tripled in size by clearing massive tracts of land, and colossal irrigation projects were unnecessarily undertaken to make the new paddies cultivatable in a country with a small population, abundant rainfall, and an annual flood. The goal was to quickly attain two, and eventually three, harvests a year. Only rice cultivation was permitted, and no studies were commissioned to assess manpower requirements. The strongest were overworked most, and often quickly perished. The work day was eleven hours, but during village competitions New People slaved 18 hour days, as they did on public works projects. New People couldn’t be formally bought and sold, because private property was abolished, and weren’t constitutionally defined as state slaves, however, this was their plight.12 The results were calamitous. In less than half a year the surface area farmed fell by 50 percent, and large parts of the countryside were desolate. Poor planning and execution turned the irrigation drive into a fiasco. Although some dikes, canals and dams continue in use today, many were swept away by the first flood. Other projects caused the water to flow in the


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wrong direction or created ponds that silted up in a matter of months. Hydraulic engineers were powerless to stop the waste. Criticism was viewed as insubordination. Occasionally, the Khmer Rouge sought advice from their technical experts, but even then the results more often than not were unsatisfactory. Dikes dividing rice fields were perversely eliminated, to make every field exactly one hectare, even when it impaired productivity. Regional agricultural calendars were regulated from Phom Penh, regardless of local ecological conditions. Rice production alone mattered, and fruit trees were frivolously felled, despite widespread starvation. These absurdities were just the tip of the iceberg. Pol Pot’s dystopic economy was a travesty of productive science. Transferring industrial labor from urban factories to villages or Maoist agro-industrial communes had a devastating impact on both industrial and agricultural productivity. Quixotic public works projects subtracted value, and forwent opportunities for alternative value-adding enterprise. Mass murder destroyed labor power and human capital. The model was an engineering catastrophe, with or without the childish Year Zero revolutionary trappings, culminating in a ghastly famine and lethal destitution. Absurd systems engineering (including endemic corruption) was the bright side. The dark essence of Pol Pot’s siege-mobilized agro-industrial communal dystopia was the colossal slaughter. The Angkar, like his communist mentors, terror-repressed, terror-massacred, terror-purged, terror-starved, terrorconscripted and ethnically cleansed to augment his utility and power, but his viciousness surpassed all bounds, and was counterproductive. He pressed lethal forced labor, and terror-discipline beyond the point of zero return, not only immiserizing the nation, but precipitating the destruction of his Democratic Kampuchean regime at the hands of the Vietnamese in January 1979. After three and a half years of hallucinatory communist siege-mobilized terror-command, Cambodia was prostrate. Few deny Cambodia’s Red Holocaust, including the Khmer Rouge, although perpetrators understate the atrocities13 and blame others for their crimes against humanity,14 especially the Vietnamese. Kaing Guek Eav, a chief Khmer Rouge torturer known as Duch, recently confessed to killing 14,000 people in the S-21 prison, indicating that the probable scale of mass murder is astonishing.15 President Lon Nol put the Khmer Rouge holocaust at 2.5 million; Pen Sovan, the former secretary general of the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea (PRPK), which assumed power January 7, 1979, cited a figure of 3.1 million victims (echoing the Vietnamese official position).16 A serious, if nonetheless restricted study by Ben Kiernan estimates 1.5 million deaths, while Michael Vickery suggests a number nearer 750,000, consistent with Angus Maddison’s population statistics.17 David Chandler favors a figure between 800,000 and 1 million. Marek Sliwinski, using demographic data, computes more than 2 million excess deaths (derived from census statistics for the late 1960s, and 1993),18 comprising 26 percent of the


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population. Natural deaths, helpful for comparing various estimates, increase the figure by 7 percent. Sliwinski found that 33.9 percent of men and 15.7 percent of women died prematurely 1975–79, suggesting that shooting and executions caused much of the killing. Thirty-four percent of young males aged 20 to 30; 40 percent of men aged 30 to 40, and 54 percent of people of both sexes over age 60 perished. Quantitative studies also indicate that the resettlement of city dwellers in villages and agro-communes caused no more than 400,000 deaths. Executions account for roughly 500,000 murders. Henri Locard puts prison killings between 400,000 and 600,000.19 Sliwinski estimates 1 million executions, and more than 900,000 terror-starvation deaths.20 Exactitude is out of the question. However, if Sliwinski’s figures are in the ballpark, the Khmer Rouge deserves to be enshrined in the Guinness Book of Records for per capita communist crimes against humanity. It would only take 1.6 million Cambodian excess deaths for the Angkar to overtake Stalin’s Holodomor terrorstarvation killings (20 percent of the Soviet Ukrainian population). Recent statistical research by Heuveline and Sharp suggest that Pol Pot deserves the crown for killing 2.1 million people, or more than 25 percent of the Khmer population.21 The extremity of his holocaust is underscored further by its impact on Democratic Kampuchea’s population. Stalin’s Soviet-wide terror-starvation campaign in 1932–33 briefly reduced the USSR’s population by approximately 3 percent.22 Mao’s Great Leap Forward terror-starvation killings probably had a similar effect.23 High fertility rates, however, allowed the USSR and China to quickly recover these losses. Cambodia by contrast may have suffered a 25 percent population decline,24 with impaired fertility preventing demographic recovery for nearly a decade.25 Moreover, population losses probably would have been even worse if the Vietnamese hadn’t deposed Pol Pot. Perhaps, the Angkar might have been the last man standing,26 giving credence to the oft-levied charge that the Khmer Rouge holocaust was genocidal.27 Such allegations, however, are misconceived. There is no evidence that Pol Pot sought to exterminate the Khmer people, or even the Cham and religious minorities.28 If every Kampuchean had been butchered, it would have been the unintended consequence of Khmer Rouge dystopicide—the no-prisoners-taken pursuit of badly implemented, poorly conceived communist utopia-building. This is a crime against humanity so unique that it still hasn’t been established in international law. Cambodia’s killing fields, like Ha Shoah, were special, even within the realm of twentieth century holocausts. The explanation for Pol Pot’s mega-holocaust is self-evident, and doesn’t include a desire to rid the world of Cambodians. The Angkar implemented his radical siege-mobilized terror-command in one fell swoop, instead of constructing his communism stone by stone.29 The first order of business for the Bolsheviks, Mao, Kim and Ho was repressing opposition to Communist Party power and establishing physical systems management (institutions of


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state ownership, planning, administration, regulation, command and control). This always occurred in stages. Repression came first, lasting several years, followed with collectivization drives, periodic purges, Gulag/Laogai forced labor and ethnic cleansing. The command mechanism was installed gradually, first criminalizing private property, business and entrepreneurship, and then crafting ministerial, planning, financial, collective, enterprise directive and regulatory institutions. Terror-mobilization, terror-discipline and lethal Gulag/Laogai forced labor (including aspects of ethnic cleansing) didn’t begin until essential infrastructure was put in place and made operational. Stalin, Mao, Kim and Ho consequently were always in a position to assess when the return to siege-mobilized terror-command from their perspectives threatened to become negative. Stalin and Mao halted their collectivization drives, terror-starvation campaigns, terror-purges when they became counterproductive and moderated lethal forced labor when benefits no longer exceeded costs. Pol Pot’s strategy can be called storming heaven because the Khmer Rouge terror-repressed, terror-purged, terror-starved, terror-disciplined, terrormassacred, employed lethal forced labor, state slave labor for New People and ethnic cleansing, while haphazardly constructing the apparatus of communist command including agro-industrial communes. The Angkar prepared nothing. There was no pre-installed agro-communal capital stock, technology, planning, directive, regulatory, supervisory or control mechanisms to replace the market. Flogging was the Khmer Rouge’s only recourse. Pol Pot never even realized that money might be useful under communism, or bothered to design a proper Frenkel-style Gulag. Forced labor was simply applied at every opportunity, except in prisons, which functioned primarily as pre-mass execution holding pens. The cart was put before the horse. There is no need to point accusatory fingers at Americans, Vietnamese, Chinese, or domestic opponents.30 If Pol Pot had conjured them all away, his dystopia still would have been a human and economic mega-catastrophe, despite freely invented communist statistics showing Democratic Kampuchean GDP growing at 6.8 percent per annum throughout the killing field era (see Chapter 15). The Angkar’s superlative siege-mobilize terrorcommand regime created a free-fall hyperdepression, misportrayed by Pol Pot as abundance, which he manically tried to reverse by intensifying Khmer Rouge mass murder. The only natural limit in his scheme was Cambodian extinction. This is ironic. The culmination of communist siege-mobilized terrorcommand from Stalin to Pol Pot appears to end in an Apocalypse. But this ignores Kim Jong Il’s North Korea and only is suggestive in a limited sense. Any rampaging revolutionary zealot could have destroyed his communist regime. The killing fields therefore are best understood as just one in a series of siege-mobilized terror-command systems that could have caused a mega Red Holocaust. Pol Pot’s model turned out to be the most lethal because it lacked a viable productive core, and the Angkar failed to set boundaries on


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mass murder. Stalin, Mao, Kim and Ho too could have exterminated 25 percent or more of their entire populations (Mao alone would have had to have killed 168.5 million peasants), if they had been equally maladroit, and bloody. It didn’t matter whether campaigns were organized from above or below, or whether terror-repression, terror-starvation, terror-purges, lethal forced labor or ethnic cleansing were primary. Victims all went to the same graveyard. What counted in the final analysis was each despot’s attentiveness to the rudiments of command economic construction, and self-discipline. Pragmatists maximizing the benefits of siege-mobilized terror-command fared best, while communism’s lone revolutionary true believer pulverized his nation.31

Summary • • •

• •

• • • • • • •

The Red Holocaust climaxed in Cambodia’s killing fields. Pol Pot came to power April 17, 1975, immediately changing Cambodia’s name to Democratic Kampuchea three days before the fall of Saigon. Pol Pot became infatuated with Mao’s agro-industrial communal idealism during the Great Leap Forward and later imbibed the poisonous elixir of Red Guardist shock-terror from the Cultural Revolution. He didn’t bother building command institutions, imagining instead that utopia could be achieved with a whisk of his magic wand. Pol Pot criminalized private property, business and entrepreneurship, repressed opponents, obliterated class and social distinctions, nominally imposed egalitarianism, ordered rural Cambodia communalized, deported the entire urban population to agrarian forced labor without preparation, and abolished money. Resistance and failure were countered by intensifying oppression and slaughter. Millions of “New People” were deprived of rights, forced to work and enslaved by the state. This was the reality behind the smokescreen of planned, agroindustrial fast track development. The results were catastrophic. Industrial and agricultural productivity plummeted. Ill-conceived public works projects subtracted value. Mass murder destroyed human capital. Pol Pot’s terror shock therapy caused a ghastly famine and lethal destitution. The killing fields in all likelihood caused more than 1.6 million excess deaths, perhaps most likely 2.1 million. The massacre set the communist record on a per capita basis,

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• •

The Second Wave surpassing Stalin’s Holodomor. More than 20 percent of the population appears to have perished. Taking account of reduced fertility, Cambodia’s population may have declined by 25 percent. These loses took nearly two decades to repair, unlike the USSR and China where demographic deficits were recovered in approximately three years. Pol Pot’s atrocities weren’t genocide. They were “dystopicide,” the unpremeditated, but nonetheless culpable consequence of blindly trying to “storm heaven.” Communism’s lone revolutionary true believer pulverized his nation.


Part III

Liberalization



11 The Sixth Commandment

The first wave of the Red Holocaust ended in the USSR, its European satellites and Mongolia in March 1953, but the slaughter in Red Asia had barely begun. The second wave swept across China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, where it finally stopped in 1985, but is still sweeping North Korea. Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot never displayed the slightest doubt about the wisdom of siege-mobilized terror-command, or expressed remorse for their crimes against humanity. The task of terminating the bloodshed fell to their liberal successors, one country at a time over the course of 32 years. Once the decision to liberalize was made (USSR 1953, China 1978, Vietnam and Laos 1985, Cambodia 1995), the mass murder abruptly stopped. It was that easy. A buzzer rang, and the Red Holocaust ceased, with no tertiary waves or eddies.1 A summary of the carnage, excluding casualties incurred from insurrections, civil wars, World War II combatants and denazification, is presented in Table 11.1. The totals are dominated by Mao’s China, but the killings in Cambodia were more ferocious. The reliability of the figures vary, as explained in prior chapters, codetermined by demographic and documentary evidence. Moreover, the slaughter is confirmed by common patterns of terror-discipline, terror-executions, terror-starvation, terror-purges, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing in Stalin’s domains, Mao’s China, Kim’s North Korea, Ho’s Vietnam, Laos and Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea. Why did the second- and third-generation successors of Stalin, Mao, Ho, and Pol Pot resurrect the Sixth Commandment (“Thou Shall Not Murder”)?2 Did they have an epiphany, or just read the handwriting on the wall? Why did they come to believe that discarding terror-command was their wisest choice? Many explanations are possible, and no doubt many factors played diverse roles in each nation. Judging by Nikita Khrushchev’s condemnation of Stalin’s crimes against party members in his secret speech to the 20th Party Congress (February 25, 1956),3 and the absence of any larger critique, his main concern was personal security. He was afraid of Stalin’s ghost. But obviously there was more to it because Khrushchev, Deng Xiaoping, Vietnamese and Laotian liberals clung tenaciously to other aspects of

Table 11.1 Red Holocaust: the death toll 1921–94, selected estimates (millions)


FIRST WAVE Soviet Union 1921–28 1929–32 1932–35 1929–38 1929–38 1939–53 1939–53 1939–53 1939–53 1941–53 Subtotal:

Regime Consolidation Collectivization Terror-Starvation Executions Forced Labor Terror-Starvation Executions Forced Labor Ethnic Cleansing Foreign War Prisoner

Soviet European Satellites 1946–53 SECOND WAVE China 1949–53 1954–58 1959–63 1964–75 Subtotal North Korea 1948–94 Cambodia 1975–79 Vietnam and Laos 1954–85 Grand total

Low

High

– 1.2 5.7 1.1 0.6 1.2 0.1 1.0 1.0 0.5 12.4

– 2.2 8.5 1.5 2.9 1.2 0.1 8.7 1.0 0.5 26.6

0.1

0.1

Regime Consolidation Collectivization Great Leap Forward Cultural Revolution

Point

72.3

72.3

8.4 7.5 48.7 7.7 72.3

2.1

2.1

2.1

1.5

2.5

1.7

1.7

91.6

105.3

Source: Red Holocaust, Chapter 2, Table 2.1; Chapter 7 (text), Table 7.1, Table 9.1, Table 9.2, Chapter 10 (text). Note: For a discussion of the reliability and meaning of the estimates in Table 11.1, see the underlying sources. Totals may include some double-counting. There is good demographic support for Soviet, Chinese and Cambodian communist state killings in the vicinity of 62 million. The approximate excess death tolls are 20, 40 and 2 million respectively. Most of the remaining 30 to 43 million estimated killings can only be valid if published Chinese natality and mortality rates and census figures are inaccurate or were falsified to conceal deficits. The Soviet experience reveals that concealment is likely, but there is insufficient documentary evidence to reliably settle the issue. Documentary confirmation of Red Holocaust victims is available primarily for the Soviet Union. Chinese, Vietnamese, and Laotian archives are closed, and the Khmer Rouge didn’t keep reliable records. NB: Communist Red Holocaust killings as defined for the purposes of this study exclude homicides connected with insurrections, civil wars (Russia/Soviet Union (1917–21), China (1928–49), North Korea (1950–2009), Vietnam (1945–75), Laos (1945–76) and Cambodia (1970–74; 1980– 95)), World War II combat deaths and postwar denazification. Also, the legal disposition of these alleged crimes against humanity is left conceptually to the International Criminal Court. Preliminary marshalling of evidence for the Court’s consideration is provided wherever possible in the text, and analyzed in Red Holocaust Part IV.


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Stalinism. They continued violating the Eighth Commandment (“Thou Shall Not Steal Private Property”). Private property, business and entrepreneurship weren’t decriminalized for the most part until the late 1980s and early 1990s. Forced labor and ethnic cleansing were retained. Authoritarianism, the secret police, huge people’s armies and civic repression were all preserved. Barracks communism held sway everywhere. It was just milder than before,4 and less profligate with human capital. Clearly, liberals of various stripes didn’t renounce dystopia, they simply concluded that honoring the Sixth Commandment and tinkering would make things better. The cause of international communism might be advanced by placing a human face on Bolshevism. It might tap individual initiative by giving state agents, and even workers and peasants, more degrees of economic liberty. Management incentives, planning and administrative oversight might become more sophisticated. Technological innovation might be enhanced, international trade expanded and economic growth accelerated. Stalin could have undertaken any of these initiatives himself, within the parameters of siege-mobilized terror-command. These concessions weren’t much. They didn’t abolish planning, or restore private property, decriminalize business and entrepreneurship, introduce democracy, fully empower civil rights or diminish Communist Party authority. Certainly the majority living under communism’s boot didn’t oppose honoring the Sixth Commandment (which was already enshrined by Stalin in his 1947 decree abolishing the death penalty).5 Nor did they oppose more humane forced labor and exile. What had Stalin to be afraid of ? Didn’t official statistics show that siege-mobilized terror-command was a stupendous economic success? Yes they did, but appearances were misleading. Beneath an Everest of statistical lies, the siege-mobilized terror-command economy had performed as abysmally as critics anticipated. Growth was subpar, given the Soviet Union’s, China’s, North Korea’s, Vietnam’s, Laos’s and Cambodia’s relative economic backwardness, and far worse, when adjusted for shoddy quality and forced substitution (see Chapter 15). Khrushchev, Deng and Indochinese liberals may not have wanted to spare the rod, but realized that they had to risk it. Their apprehensions proved to be justified. When Khrushchev and later copycat liberalizers embraced a thaw in civic,6 political, economic7 and international relations, the road was rocky. There was an East German uprising June 16–17, 1953. Soviet liberalization was a contributing cause of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. It prompted Hundred Flower Campaigns 1956–57 in China and Vietnam that were quickly reversed, spawning two Romes (see Chapter 7), and the Sino-Soviet split. Khrushchev’s policies alienated powerful segments of the party leadership, including KGB chief Vladimir Semichastny, Leonid Brezhnev and Alexander Shelepin, who ousted him in a palace coup October 13, 1964. Alexander Dubcek’s Prague Spring Czechoslovakian liberalization burgeoned January 5, 1968, only to be


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forcibly repressed eight months later by Warsaw Pact military forces on August 21. The Tiananmen Square protests flared April 15 to June 4, 1989. The Berlin Wall fell November 9, 1989. Lithuania declared its independence in 1990, and Estonia and Latvia in 1991. Clearly, as the epoch of terror-free command communism unfolded, liberalizers found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Soviet economic stagnation (1975–89), and growth retardation in communist central and eastern Europe (1965–91), as well as liberalizing Red Asia (1978–1990) created economic pressures on top of smoldering social unrest to jettison terror-free command for market communism, or an authoritarian welfare state (Hu Jintao’s Harmonious Society). There was a riot of experimentation 1956–2000 (including Cambodia after 1995), and a corresponding multitude of communisms—all terror-free! Some flourished, some languished, and Yugoslavia imploded, but liberal leaders never reverted to Stalinist mass murder. This newfound devotion to the Sixth Commandment has a profound implication. It means that Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s crimes against humanity weren’t caused by communism. They are attributable instead to a subspecies of communism adopted after 1928 by various red despots to advance their private welfare at their nations’ expense. Their brand of communism has been dubbed siege-mobilized terrorcommand. Its merit/demerit couldn’t be scientifically evaluated until track records were compiled for other conceivable twentieth century national communisms, including terror-free command and mixed market communist systems. This void now has been filled. Experience reveals that terror-free command, although everywhere inferior to democratic free enterprise, provided modestly improved living standards in the USSR 1953–89, China 1978–90, Vietnam and Laos 1985–2000, and Cambodia after 1995. Mixed market communism in China 1990–2009, and Indochina after 2000 outperformed terror-free command. Therefore, we now know not only that numerous types of modern national communist economic systems are feasible, but that communism in the widest sense both as a utopian pipe dream (Chapter 14) and as a diverse set of command and mixed market regimes dedicated to expediting the attainment of Marx’s Shangri-La cannot be blamed for the crimes against humanity perpetrated under siege-mobilized terror-command. This variant of communism chosen by Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot slaughtered 100 million souls and was completely unnecessary because other forms of communism could have served better. The decisions of Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot to adopt siege-mobilized terror-command makes them co-responsible for the Red Holocaust. Their model and those who chose to exploit its murderous potential are both to blame. It is also worth observing that, while it would have been impossible to prove that the Red Holocaust was the fault of a few red despots, without Khrushchev’s revisionism, this doesn’t mean that extensive liberal

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reform was needed to stop the mass murder. If Khrushchev and Deng had chosen only to honor the Sixth Commandment, that would have been enough.

Summary


• • • • •

• • •

• • • •

The Red Holocaust ceased abruptly, when communist rulers decided to liberalize. Liberalization wasn’t a single evident, but a process spanning 32 years in the USSR, the Soviet Union’s European satellites, Yugoslavia, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Liberalization wasn’t unidirectional in the Soviet Union, and its European satellites. There were zigs and zags. It is remarkable that liberalizers persevered, because periodic upheavals suggested that reform was jeopardizing communist power under terror-free command, rather than enhancing it. East Germany erupted in 1953, followed by the Hungarian Revolution (1956), the palace coup d’état that ousted Khrushchev in 1964, the Prague Spring (1968), Tiananmen Square protests (1989), the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), and the secession of the Baltic States from the Soviet Union shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, liberalization gradually took root in the communist world after 1953 in expanded personal freedom, and command economic reform. The first increased opportunities for personal fulfillment; the second held out hope for higher living standards. But the most important aspect of liberalization was the decision by Khrushchev, Deng Xiaoping and some of Ho Chi Minh’s Indochinese successors to honor the Sixth Commandment: “Thou Shall Not Murder.” This was enough to stop the Red Holocaust and large-scale crimes against humanity. Enhanced human rights and economic liberties weren’t essential. Once rulers decreed that “Thou Shall Not Murder”, communist nations crossed the border from siege-mobilized terror to terrorfree command. The critical importance of the Sixth Commandment is highlighted by the limited nature of communist liberalization until the mid- to late 1980s. Terror-free command economies didn’t decriminalize private property, business and entrepreneurship, for the most part. They didn’t permit multiparty elections, and repressed civil liberties. They didn’t abolish force labor, although its lethality declined, and ethnic cleansing lingered.

130 • •


•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

Liberalization Therefore, the Red Holocaust wasn’t halted because of significant progress on any of these fronts. Nikita Khrushchev appears to have terminated the first wave of the Red Holocaust and mass crimes against humanity because he was afraid of Stalin’s ghost. He believed that his own security and welfare could be improved by abandoning siege-mobilized terrorcommand. Deng Xiaoping’s motive was most likely the same. Communist liberals for diverse reasons tinkered with the terror-free command system through a series of baby steps, augmenting personal freedom in the thaw, and reforming physical systems management in the hope of improving economic productivity and efficiency. These good intentions seemed sensible, but the economic rationale was difficult to fathom. Stalin’s and Mao’s superindustrialization statistics showed spectacular results that might well have been compromised by sparing the rod. The fact that liberals persisted with a continuous series of reforms in the face of periodic upheavals suggests that rulers of communist siege-mobilized terror-command countries knew better than to believe their national statistics. Retrospective studies not only reveal that growth was lower than claimed, but less than under terror-free command. Communist liberalizers thus appear to have been pressed by the economic failure behind the statistical facade to pursue economic reform. The wretchedness of siege-mobilized terror-command’s performance cannot be precisely calibrated because the numbers are too corrupt, but Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping, and their successors, must have considered the situation grim enough to press on despite recurrent disorders. Whatever the benefits of terror-free command may have been, communist growth started to falter officially in the late 1960s. It began as growth retardation, transitioned to stagnation, before culminating in the destruction of the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. Before expiring, the USSR experimented with mixed market communism, as did some of its European satellites like Hungary earlier. At the end of the day, sufficient experience has been accumulated to deduce that there exists a host of feasible communism, which, while unsavory in many ways, nonetheless never reverted to the Red Holocaust. It follows directly that the Red Holocaust was caused by the decision of Stalin, and other communist despots to disobey the Sixth Commandment, not by some generic defect common to all states dedicated to expediting the attainment of Marx’s pipe dream or encoded in the communist ideal.

The Sixth Commandment •


•

131

Liberalization contributed to the cessation of mass murder and other crimes against humanity, but wouldn’t have sufficed if Khrushchev and Deng chose to mass murder. Had Khrushchev and Deng limited their liberalism to honoring the Sixth Commandment, that would have been enough.



Part IV




12 Siege-Mobilization

Stalin’s economics was a principal cause of the Red Holocaust. He viewed crimes against humanity (terror-executions, terror-starvation, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing) as tools for enhancing his utility and advancing communism, without being encumbered by bourgeois morality. His crimes against humanity were means, not ends. Unlike Hitler, he did not exterminate for extermination’s sake.1 He killed to augment his personal agenda and Soviet power. The economic system Stalin adopted and honed suited this purpose, not Marxist utopia. He grafted siege-mobilized terror onto Lenin’s post office model advocated in State and Revolution (1918).2 Following Engels, Lenin argued that state directive institutions were superior to markets, capable of matching people’s demands (letters) with state supplies. The post office metaphor was soon transformed into a state-planned, administratively supervised system of factor allocation, production and distribution, where everyone obeyed ruler commands. Stalin had no difficulty accepting state ownership and control, but fretted about the possibility of insubordination. He wanted Soviet planners, administrators, managers, scientists, engineers, technicians, laborers and farmers to do what they were told, and exert themselves to the utmost. Moral admonitions, mundane carrots and sticks had some value, but Stalin wanted more. He sought to rouse the nation with the specter of imminent danger, beseeching the masses to rally to communism’s defense. The Soviet Union, he claimed, was threatened by capitalist encirclement, internal class enemies and deviationists (anyone opposing Stalin’s erratic policy line), that necessitated stern discipline and extraordinary measures (which in practice included terror-executions, terror-starvation, lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing and other draconian punishments). The regime was besieged, and had to be saved. This fusion of crisis defense with central planning produced a Bolshevik siege-mobilization system (a specific type of terror-command), that differed fundamentally from textbook characterizations of the technocratic Soviet command model,3 and Mao’s cultural revolutionary paradigm (see Chapter 13). Stalin substituted defense of the realm for utopian communism as the


136


Soviet Union’s chief priority, and set about implementing it with emergency methods and top-down planning. The besiegers menacing the nation, he claimed, were both external and internal. The foreign threat initially came from “international capitalism” and capitalist states including Poland and Germany before Hitler; then later, and additionally from imperial Japan, Nazi Germany and other fascist nations. The internal enemies were hostile class elements (kulaks, bourgeois and aristocratic remnants), diversionists including Trotskyite hyper-industrializers, and Bukharinite market socialists, collaborationist and secessionist ethnic minorities, counter-revolutionaries, saboteurs, wreckers, diversionists, abettors, spies, traitors, subversives, hostile groups, noninformers, terrorists, servants of the former tsarist government, anti-Soviet agitators, and provocateurs inciting foreign states to attack the Soviet Union. Stalin responded to these dangers by mobilizing national resources, and repressing the people’s domestic enemies. He spent lavishly on military preparedness, and pressed forward with coercive planning, improved material incentives, terror-discipline, forced collectivization, superindustrialization, terror-starvation, Gulag lethal forced labor, and ethnic resettlement. Vigilance, intimidation, prosecution and terror were watchwords throughout. This siege-mobilization determined the character, structure, intensity and methods of Soviet economic development. It didn’t matter that many, perhaps most, of the threats Stalin conjured were fictitious as long as siegemobilization turbo-charged effort and strengthened Stalin’s discretionary control.4 The goal of making the USSR an impregnable superpower was real, and he believed achievable through rapid, military-focused super-industrial growth, configured to deter foreign threats with the aid of terror-command repression, including forced resettlement. The terror-command subcomponent of siege-mobilization was elective. Stalin could have striven for superpower security without terror-executions, terror-starvation, Gulag forced labor and ethnic cleansing, even if he retained siege hysteria as a motivational device. Less draconian forms of intimidation, milder penal labor regimes, and generous voluntary resettlement incentives might have sufficed. Stalin’s preference for terror among other things revealed his distrust of liberal methods in a directive economy. He suspected that citizens might shirk their socialist duty and that due process technocratic remedies might be inadequate. If he were as sagacious as he sometimes seemed, Stalin also might have intuited that Soviet-type command models were defective because planners lacked detailed information on enterprise engineering production potential, labor supply functions, optimal incentives, knowledge of Stalin’s implicit micro-preferences, and the ability to compute equilibrium assortments, volumes and distributions. Anthropologists have shown that monkeys can plan. Imagining the future isn’t difficult. But foresight and preparation are of little value when information, models, algorithms and processing capabilities are deficient. Stalin


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seems to have understood this, and recognized that terror-free command threw the doors wide open to inefficiency, waste, moral hazard, misdirection, circumvention, effort reservation, stagnation and decline. With 20/20 hindsight we now know that these perils weren’t idle speculation. All terror-free, and mild terror-command systems have underperformed their market peers. Not only have the Soviet Union, the DDR and other east and central European communist states disappeared, but North Korea has fallen abysmally behind South Korea. Stalin’s choice of terror over terrorfree command therefore wasn’t foolish. It was an attractive option, given his tastes. The nuances of this problematic can be explored further with the aid of an organization chart, outlining the structure of Soviet-type top-down command economies (Figure 12.1). Stalin was the system’s brain at the figure’s apex. He set the economy’s goals, and approved Gosplan’s draft proposals for their realization. Approved plans for approximately 125 composite goods (textiles, autos, machines, etc.), having the status of law were forwarded to the

Figure 12.1 Siege-mobilized terror-command communism 1929–53


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Council of Economic Ministers for further distribution to specific ministries, and their departments glavki, which disaggregated the composites into millions of micro-directives based on preliminary enterprise tekhpromfinplans (technical, industrial, financial plans). All these activities, other than Gosplan’s calculations, were administrative. Neither the ministries, nor their departments, reconciled unforeseen supply and demand imbalances during the process of micro-plan assignment. They were salaried personnel. The success or failure of plans were seen to depend on the State Planning Agency responsible for their formulation, and managers assigned to implement them. Only red directors, as the Soviets called enterprise managers, were materially incentivized to overfulfill production targets. Micro-plan compliance was formally the joint responsibility of enterprise red directors and wholesale distributors, assisted informally by expediters (tolkachy), and sundry outsiders, including judges, ministerial personnel, the party, military procurement officers and the secret police, who intervened whenever necessity dictated. Red directors had limited discretion to sub-optimize production assortments and volumes according to prescribed incentives and constraints. Judges, ministerial personnel, the party, military procurement officers and the secret police only improvised and muddled through. The job of enterprise managers was relatively simple. They didn’t have to negotiate wages and sales prices, market their output or invest to maximize long run profits. They only had to supplement inputs under-allocated by the state material technical supply system (Gossnab) with informal means, secure labor, and output maximize in physical terms (tons), subject to soft assortment and budgetary constraints. Soviet enterprises were supposed to operate on strict principles of economic cost accounting (khozraschyot) and to be self-financing (samo-finansirovania), but these obligations could be massaged. Red directors were required to fulfill micro-plans under the penalty of law, even though planners knew that strict compliance might be suboptimal. Managers might choose to fulfill plans exactly, when they could do better, and achieve superior results by bending input and assortment constraints. Stalin addressed these concerns by authorizing managerial bonuses for overfulfilling output plans in physical terms (tons), and by winking at product assortment violations when expedient. The more enterprises produced, the more red directors earned. This bolstered effort, including labor discipline, but often had negative consequences. For example, enterprises dependent on secure intermediate input supplies frequently were forced to underfulfill their plans because component makers found it more lucrative to produce other goods, even though this violated micro-plans. Inter-enterprise contracting and micro-material balancing by the state wholesale network mitigated, but could not eradicate the problem. These static efficiency problems were compounded by other administrative command planning defects. Stalin relied on state laboratories, design bureaus and newly dedicated state enterprises to develop science and technology,


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create new goods including better investment durables, and manufacture them for the benefit of consumers and other firms. The relationships between scientists, engineers, designers and their clients were mostly arm’s-length. Established enterprises were modernized as design bureaus and new investor durables suppliers saw fit; the preferences of red directors and consumers were ignored. This might have had some benefit, if scientists, engineers and designers had a clear understanding of Stalin’s priorities, but they didn’t. They pressed their own scientific agendas, and were paid bonuses in accordance with the volume of designs completed, rather than their effectiveness. Enormous resources were poured into science, technological development and new investment to increase productivity and spur economic growth, with lackluster results. Better outcomes might have been achievable, if red directors had been permitted to act as entrepreneurs, but the Bolsheviks considered this heresy, because it raised the possibility of managerial empire building. For similar reasons, red directors were prohibited from negotiating prices with other producers and consumers. All prices, including wages in the command system were set by the State Price Bureau on the basis of embodied labor content, as Marxist theory required. This prevented red directors from exploiting workers and consumers for their personal gain, but it also meant that prices could not inform policymakers about competitive values. In accordance with the principle of samo-finansirovania, red directors minimized input cost to maximize bonuses, but the saving was nominal because wages and rents weren’t proportional to marginal physical productivities. Likewise, under some circumstances, red directors might maximize revenue instead of the physical volume of output, but Marxist prices weren’t correlated with utilities, making it impossible to assess benefits, if any. Other institutions displayed in Figure 12.1 placed further constraints on red director discretion. Soviet enterprise managers had little if any access to cash. Sales receipts and payments for non-labor inputs were carried out in the State Bank on a clearing-house basis. This prevented embezzlement, but also hamstrung managerial initiative. Similarly, red directors could not modify product specifications. The characteristics of all products were fixed by design bureaus together with the State Bureau of Standards. Red directors were barred from adulterating, but also from improving them on their own volition. Red directors were straitjacketed in these ways to prevent planning violations, rule infringement, proletarian exploitation, and the misappropriation of state assets, while incentivizing overfull production and employment. The state agreed to purchase everything red directors produced, and rewarded them for overproducing. As a consequence, Stalin’s command economy was in a state of perpetual excess state demand disequilibrium, where microeconomic inefficiencies were partially offset by overwork. The balance of countervailing forces could not be reliably gauged either before or after command planning was established, despite safeguards against moral hazard, because cabals of various types spontaneously arose to blind Stalin, and enrich well-placed insiders. The generic terms for these


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rent-seeking mutual support networks was “family circle” (krugovaya poruka). Administrators, red directors and friends in high places had a common interest in diverting state assets, resources and products to private use. They concealed their tracks with elaborate accounting scams, and often padded results to obtain unearned bonuses, and in the case of complicitous administrators, undeserved advancement.5 Plans were fulfilled and overfulfilled on paper, but not in reality. When plan underfulfillment couldn’t be hidden, shortfalls were usually understated. Stalin may have secretly condoned some aspects of insider enrichment, but exaggerated claims of plan fulfillment were another matter. Red directors in collusion with administrations and personnel in the price-setting bureau, for example, could fake data to support claims for quality improvements that weren’t made. This was called spurious innovation. The standard joke was: “What is the difference between three and four star cognac?”, with the punch line: “The number of stars on the label.” The cognac was the same, but not the reported value-added. The fraud might seem trivial, but it was hardly innocuous. It not only allowed managers to receive unmerited bonuses, it created an illusion of material progress. Soviet GDP seemed to be making miraculous strides, but much of the advance was smoke and mirrors attributable to spurious innovation and other subterfuges. Perhaps, the point can be best appreciated by recalling that on paper, Soviet economic growth routinely surpassed the western average throughout the postwar years until 1989, even while Abel Aganbegyan and Mikhail Gorbachev were publicly bewailing intractable stagnation. The system worked.6 Schools were constructed, curricula were set by the Ministry of Education and medical services provided according to Ministry of Health protocols. Factories were built and products manufactured consistently with ministerial mission and department tasking. Engineering sufficed for all these purposes, without competitive economic fine-tuning. However, this wasn’t good enough from the Leviathan’s standpoint.7 He knew that the volumes, mixes, characteristics and distribution of goods and services could be better; that some insiders improperly enriched themselves; that disgruntled consumers might withhold their labor effort, and their grievances could lead to a palace coup d’état. Terror-free command systems in a nutshell were inefficient, subject to moral hazard, entropy and political intrigue, raising the proverbial question of chto delat? What was Stalin to do? Should he have relied on technocratic due process, or terrorized his “stalwart” comrades into restraining their misdeeds, knowing full well that the problems in the nonpenal economy would be replicated in Gulag, despite Frenkel’s best efforts? Stalin’s adoption of siege-mobilized terror-command was his executive decision. He seems to have decided, win, lose or draw, that his best hope of transforming the Soviet Union into an impregnable superpower lay in cultivating productive frenzy, raising the risks of moral hazard, adopting a policy of zero tolerance toward insubordination, and holding everyone accountable not only to the plan, but to his inscrutable intentions.


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This was the method to his madness, and illuminates why Stalin would have brushed aside conventional western arguments that terror-command was wasteful and inefficient. He wasn’t a fool. Stalin didn’t have to be told that wrongful executions and lethal forced labor squandered exploitable human assets. The cost for him, however, was justified by the increased probability of attaining his main goal and any sadistic pleasure he may have derived from mass murder. Technocratic command was a dicey option that he rejected. Outsiders counter-claiming that he miscalculated, no doubt stand on high ground. Siege-mobilized terror-command could have been implemented more efficiently. The carnage could have been reduced, which would have been to the good. Nonetheless, streamlined terror-command would still have been a killing machine culpable of high crimes against humanity, and a downscaled Red Holocaust. Siege-mobilized terror-command was intrinsically murderous, and therein lies its indelible sin. If, as Stalin appears to have believed, the only way to salvage command communism was the Red Holocaust, then the right ethical choice was to reject both and embrace market socialism.

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Stalin’s rational goals, and the economic system he crafted to realize them, were principal causes of the Red Holocaust. He sought to maximize his utility by making the USSR an impregnable, super-industrialized superpower. He accepted Lenin’s criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship, together with technocratic command planning as the foundation stones of his communist economic system. But, he worried that inefficiencies and moral hazards might thwart the realization of his ambitions. His solution was first to rouse effort by portraying the Soviet Union as a nation besieged by foreign and domestic enemies, and second to impose draconian discipline ensuring that workers’ energies were fully harnessed for the regime’s defense. Stalin’s economic system in this way became a siege-mobilized, terror-command regime. Technocratic aspects of textbook top-down economic planning, command and control were retained, and dedicated to the pursuit of Stalin’s impregnable superpower mission, with demagogic motivational, and felonious, compliance methods. This strategy and regime were primarily responsible for forced collectivization, super-industrialization, militarization, terrorstarvation, the Great Terror, lethal Gulag forced labor, ethnic cleansing and the empowerment of the secret police.

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Terror-Command Economy The terror-command component of Stalin’s strategy was elective. Its adoption reflected Stalin’s subjective assessment of the moral hazard, and inefficiency risks of terror-free technocratic command. His worries were justified, given his aspirations. The Soviet Union, DDR and other east and central European communist states have disappeared, and North Korea has abysmally underperformed South Korea. Technocratic command systems are afflicted with intractable, embedded inefficiencies and moral hazards. Soviet-type command models are defective because planners lack detailed information on enterprise engineering production potentials, labor supply functions, optimal incentives, knowledge of the Leviathan’s implicit micro-preferences, and the ability to compute equilibrium assortments, volumes and distributions. Planners cannot formulate market efficient plans, and even if they could, compliance control possibilities are inherently deficient. Cabals (family circles) were commonplace, allowing well-placed insiders to pursue private interests with state resources at the expense of Stalin’s agenda. Falsified plan fulfillment reports, and corrupt economic statistics added additional layers of distortion and uncertainty, justifying terror-command. Stalin recognized these problems, and understood that siegemobilized terror-command could not insure the achievement of all his objectives. He therefore had siege-mobilized terror-command designed as a disequilibrium system that assured overfull employment and rapid output growth at the expense of planned product assortments and worker’s desire for leisure. Stalin was willing to tolerate some insider enrichment, but ruthlessly repressed those who went too far. Siege-mobilized terror-command worked in many primitive ways. Buildings were built, courses taught, and medical services dispensed. The physical volume of output grew, and more guns were produced than butter. The economic principles ruling production in Gulag were the same as those in the non-penal universe. Lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing resettlement allowed task masters to drive workers harder, reward them less, and assign them to tasks free workers might spurn, but otherwise command was no different. Stalin knew that wrongful executions and lethal forced labor were wastefully from the standpoint of optimally functioning technocratic command.

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But he also understood that Soviet technocratic command wasn’t optimal, and seems to have believed that there was little benefit fretting about the margin. Siege-mobilizing and terror-command were needed, in his view, and demanded blood. Better safe than sorry. He killed as many as he thought necessary, with some extra for good measure. The morality of the Red Holocaust didn’t perturb him. In his mind, the ends justified the means, and he may have enjoyed mass murder. Had he subscribed to the morality of the international court of justice, given his priorities, the right choice would have been to reject planning and embrace market socialism.


13 Asian Terror-Command

All communist nations founded before 1954, and some thereafter, including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, adopted siege-mobilized terror-command systems. Almost all subsequently liberalized, switching to terror-free command, and later to market leasing, terminating the Red Holocaust everywhere except North Korea. One-party regimes still ruled by communists, as well as former communist states like Russia, continue to repress, employ forced labor, ethnically cleanse (China in Tibet) and assassinate.1 There is both continuity and change within and across the communist and postcommunist spectrum. The global common denominator of the Red Holocaust phase of communism is siege-mobilized terror-command. Stalin’s Big Brother model is the archetype. It was applied throughout Asia from Mongolia to Laos at various times, except Democratic Kampuchea with local modifications, but also was turned bottoms up in Mao’s China (after 1957), Vietnam and Cambodia. The nuances deserve careful scrutiny even though they were not always decisive in determining the scale and character of oriental communist crimes against humanity. Siege-mobilized terror-command in its Asian manifestations other than Democratic Kampuchea has been implemented in three stages following the establishment of communist state power, whether through hegemony (Soviets in Mongolia and North Korea; Vietnamese in Laos), or victory in local civil wars (China, Vietnam, Cambodia). First, with the exception of the Khmer Rouge, communist parties passed through a protracted period of consolidation in which they slaughtered and intimidated all opposition under the pretext of razing the old social order (liquidating privileged classes) to create a secure platform for communist development. Second, they erected institutions vital for terror-free command economies, and third tried to make them perform well from the leader’s perspective by adopting siege-mobilized terror methods. During the first phase, ethnic and religious minorities are ethnically cleansed, and gentry, kulaks, industrialists, commercial magnates, professionals and segments of the intelligentsia massacred. Terror-purges of the Communist Party and other power institutions are commonplace, but forced


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labor and terror-starvation are sparingly employed, even though many class enemies and others perish from hunger partly as the aftermath of civil war. Mao’s consolidation phase killed millions; Kim’s and Ho’s claimed similar numbers on a per capita basis. The carnage in Laos was less, but may have been more in Cambodia, although this is difficult to assess because Pol Pot combined the consolidation and post-consolidation phases. Repression homicides during the consolidation phase went hand in glove with the criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship, allowing Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot to kill two birds with one stone. Nationalization of the means of production, and state economic control quelled potential gentry, kulak, industrialist, merchant and financier opposition, and facilitated the second phase: the establishment of state institutions for economic command and control. The Soviet Union, Mongolia, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia devised planning, administrative, directive, managerial, financial, wholesale and retail state mechanisms, now known collectively as command economy. All relied on physical methods like requisitioning, assignment, quotas, rationing, price and wage fixing, monitoring, auditing, supervision and crisis intervention, rather than negotiated market transactions contractually enforced through the rule of law. Goods and services for the most part were designed and manufactured according to state specifications, and allocated to wholesalers and retailers as planners, and administrators prescribed. Work regimes and labor compensation were state determined (or fixed), as were prices for essential goods. This wasn’t tantamount to computopia because state agents and appointees enjoyed considerable wiggle room. Aspects of informally negotiated market exchange survived in the state sector and were tacitly sanctioned in the second economy. Nonetheless, command arrangements in the Soviet Union and Asia did prevent the wealthy from using competitive, oligopoly and monopoly markets to supersede state economic sovereignty. The Communist Party leader and those he deputized, not the rich or consumers generally, were in command. The details of consolidation and command economy institution-building varied among communist states, affected by history and local circumstances. For example, Mao didn’t immediately expropriate productive assets from wealthy Chinese firms, and foreign companies. Nonetheless, when the time came for deciding whether to employ terror as a primary motivator, the architecture of command systems east and west was more or less the same. All featured state ownership of the means of production (including land), agrarian collectives, central planning, coordinative and supervisory economic ministries, directive assignments and quotas, price and wage fixing, compulsory labor, state wholesaling, retailing, banking, finance and foreign trade. Democratic Kampuchea went even further by abolishing money.2 Minor institutional variations in the directive scope of each Asian command regime weren’t significant enough to affect the character of their Red Holocausts. However, important differences did eventually arise caused by Great Leap


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Forward shifts from agrarian collectives to communes in China, Vietnam and Cambodia; the use of Red Guards in Great Terror-Purges, geostrategic factors, civil wars, choice of terror instruments and, in the case of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot’s fatal strategy of storming heaven. Mao’s contributions to siege-mobilized terror command were the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which transformed the task of implementing terror-mobilization campaigns from Big Brother secret police (the sword and shield of the proletariat) and Communist Party command at the top to secret police, party cadres, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Red Guard activists below. Party cadres and the PLA governed agroindustrial communes; Red Guards, party cadres and secret police controlled urban and rural productive enterprise. Stalin’s terror was dispensed as tough love by an all-knowing father to motivate each of his obstreperous children. Mao did the same, but additionally encouraged peasants, workers and activists to locally mobilize themselves and the nation’s productive forces to save the revolution from domestic and foreign enemies. This gave Mao’s communist development drive the aura of a self-help, people’s crusade with mass peasant participation, attractive in the Third World (and some socialist circles in the west) as an alternative to Soviet Orwellianism. The Great Leap Forward had both positive and negative aspects.3 The amalgamation of collective farms into larger communal units was a pedestrian communist administrative reform of dubious engineering value, with an egalitarian veneer that was supposed to revolutionize productive relations.4 Economies of scale were possible, but so too were countervailing diseconomies, and the balance wasn’t discernible amid the fervid rhetoric. Earmarking light industrial investment to agrarian communes instead of more profitable options impaired aggregate growth and productivity, while the backyard steel campaign was extravagantly counterproductive.5 GDP fell 20 percent 1959–61.6 Mao’s innovation of agro-industrial communes therefore cannot be construed as a major technical advance in siege-mobilized terror-command on any of these scores. However, the human factor was an entirely different matter. Fanning the flames of agrarian zealotry (radical transformation of socio-productive relations) and communal self-surveillance may well have improved labor productivity more than Big Brother’s alternative approach, which over-emphasized pressure from above. The sky wasn’t the limit, as some claimed; nonetheless Mao’s strategy in this aspect might be judged superior if it weren’t tarnished by hyper terror-starvation. Roughly twice as many Chinese perished during the Great Leap Forward 1958–63 (mostly 1958–60) adjusted for population differentials than during Stalin’s Holodomor 1932–33.7 Obviously, incitement from below neither eradicated terror from Mao’s command model, nor diminished it. Despite Third World accolades, the Great Helmsman’s contribution to his mentor’s model proved to be a Great Leap Backward. It was deleterious and cannot be praised, unless blame for the terror-starvation is ascribed to other causes, or it is claimed that the catastrophe was an aberration.



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Those sympathetic to Mao’s professed goals, if not the carnage, usually look past the faulty productive engineering dimension of Great Leap Forward to Cultural Revolution, focusing their attention on peasant-proletarian power. Mao’s real contribution to the command model, it is said, wasn’t communal economies of scale, but lay in fusing Marx’s egalitarian communal economic self-regulation elaborated in the Communist Manifesto with state ownership and administrative command planning. The state remained essential for policing the criminalization of (large-scale) private property, business and entrepreneurship, and was capable of constructively guiding the economy with plans, regulations, administration, fiscal and monetary policy, but space in the system also was essential for popularly initiated, collectively transacted productive activities (utility-seeking behavior), as well as popularly initiated civic action disciplining wayward bureaucrats and party officials. Showcasing the new communist man wasn’t novel. Soviet literature is peppered with revolutionary labor heroes, but they were honored only on paper.8 The correspondence between such ideas and the reality of Red Guards and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) revolutionary committees may have been slight,9 but the concept exhilarated many leftists,10 who thought that Mao would succeed where Stalin had failed. Factory workers, peasants, civil servants, the Red Guard and the PLA were supposed to collectively discuss Mao’s goals, and devise solutions, while fighting self-interest by relying on red consensus-building instead of expert self-seeking. The results it was claimed were bound to surpass those attainable with Big Brother top-down regimentation. The Cultural Revolution was expected to unleash the people’s revolutionary energy, creativity and skills, combat bureaucratic and party degeneration, without sacrificing the scientific benefits of communist directive planning. In retrospect, this upsurge of popularist sentiment was communist romanticism’s swan song. The failure of one set of utopian claims based on the abolition of private property and the possibility of perfect totalitarian command was brushed aside by upping the ante. Utopia it now seemed could be salvaged with a Cultural Revolution that not only eliminated private property rights, but also transformed human nature, empowering workers and peasants to harmoniously and fully actualize communist potential. Ideas of this sort had little bearing on technical aspects of Mao’s command economy, but they did foster enthusiasms which could have accelerated growth, and communist humanism. However, the record shows that positive effects if any were marginal.11 As during the Great Leap Forward, GDP fell (this time by 5 percent 1966–68), and millions were killed. Most victims were Great Terror-Purged instead of being terror-starved, but this didn’t indicate a break in the Stalinist pattern. Soviet Great Terror deaths too were less than Holodomor terror-starvation killings. Thus, despite much-heralded differences in slogans and tactics, the results of Stalin’s and Mao’s siege-mobilized terror-command campaigns were similar.


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Elsewhere in Asia, modifications in either Stalin’s or Mao’s siegemobilized terror-command paradigms were matters of tactics rather than strategy. Kim Il Sung and Ho Chi Minh for diverse reasons chose to embark on protracted civil wars with South Korea and South Vietnam that took precedence over any aspirations they may have harbored to replicate Stalin’s and Mao’s great power superindustrializations. Both modernized and expanded their relatively substantial endowments of capital stock inherited from the Japanese and French as best they could with Soviet and Chinese assistance, but a full-scale push was deferred until their countries were united. As a consequence, Vietnam delayed applying terror-discipline, terror-starvation and Gulag/Laogai lethal forced labor to support accelerated industrial development until mid-1975. North Korea restrained its use of terror-starvation, but not terror-discipline and lethal forced labor. Crimes against humanity in Vietnam replicated Stalin’s and Mao’s pattern after the consolidation phase with a twenty-year lag, during which terror-purges of the party and power services predominated. North Vietnam’s terror-repression, terror-starvation, terror-purge, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing associated with its superindustrialization drive 1975–85 was immense, but mercifully brief, perhaps due to the ferment for communist market reform in Deng Xiaoping’s China and Gorbachev’s Soviet Union. Siege-mobilized terror-command killings by contrast have lumbered along steadily in North Korea, concentrated in terror-purges and Gulag forced labor excess deaths. The paradigm has remained the same for more than sixty years, as has the pace of crimes against humanity. Turning to Cambodia, Pol Pot’s contribution to siege-mobilized terrorcommand is consistent with prior methods, but not past pragmatic intent. Like his predecessors, the Angkar’s avowed purpose was fast-track, communist superindustrialization to defend Democratic Kampuchea from hostile class enemies at home, and imperialists abroad including America and Red Vietnam. However, and unlike his betters, Pol Pot failed to set pragmatic limits, and may have actually placed his utopian dreams above personal power, and welfare. There isn’t enough documentary evidence to assess whether he was fanatic, inept or grossly incompetent in the pursuit of his professed goals and concealed agenda. Whatever the truth may be, Democratic Kampuchea’s Angkar was an apostle of what may be called dystopic shock therapeutic siege-mobilized terrorcommand, where violence is more massively and indiscriminately applied than in Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China, on a build-as-you-go basis. He believed that the consolidation and infrastructural phases of communist construction were superfluous, and could be compressed with superindustrialization into a narrow compass by simultaneously massacring class enemies, improvising, and terror-expediting agro-industrial modernization. This formula called upon the Khmer Rouge to lash unsparingly. Cadres were incited to exterminate all class enemies, and deport the entire urban population to rural labor sites where they would be re-educated and worked to death.



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Haste and gratuitous violence compromised Pol Pot’s purpose from start to finish. The entire urban population, rich and poor, stigmatized as New People, were deported to the countryside and enslaved. Unlike Naftaly Frenkel’s Gulag, they were worked to death in vain. The peasantry was terror-starved to intensify effort, but nothing substantive was done to assist them improve productivity or harness agrarian surplus, had there been any. Terror-purges were mayhem. These refinements, inspired by Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, were so grotesque that they discredited the peasant-proletarian revolutionary model, and siege-mobilized terror-command more broadly, even though it lingered on in Vietnam and Laos until the mid-1980s, and still survives in North Korea. Red Asia’s contributions to siege-mobilized terror-command were celebrated in the Third World and some circles in the west for a quarter-century, but all they really wrought was economic ruin, crimes against humanity and more than 55 million Asian Red Holocaust victims.

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All communist nations during the twentieth century whetted their teeth on siege-mobilized terror-command. It formed the matrix of heterogeneous communisms to come. Siege-mobilized terror-command stressed destroying enemies and survival through superindustrialization, whereas terror-free command focused instead on employing superindustrialization as a vehicle for attaining full communist abundance. All communist siege-mobilized terror-command nations committed crimes against humanity and participated in the Red Holocaust. The common denominator of communism’s Red Holocaust phase is siege-mobilized terror-command. The classic Big Brother version of siege-mobilized terror-command was devised by Stalin. It stressed top-down totalitarian control. It was applied in the Soviet European satellites and Mongolia until 1953, China until 1957, North Vietnam 1954–1985, Laos 1975–85, and North Korea 1948 to the present. Mao and Pol Pot developed models that turned Stalin’s siegemobilized terror-command on its head. They innovated bottom-up siege-mobilized terror-command. Mao’s models were incorporated in his Great Leap Forward (1958– 61) and Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and applied in China, Vietnam and Laos. Pol Pot’s paradigm can be dubbed dystopic shock therapy. It was

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Terror-Command Economy adopted 1975–79. The classic Stalinist Big Brother model came into force thereafter until 1995. Siege-mobilized terror-command everywhere passed through three stages, except Pol Pot’s Cambodia, which compressed them into one. The phases were: 1) consolidation (slaughtering class enemies and political rivals), 2) command institution building (criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship; central planning), 3) terror-implementation (terror-discipline, terror-purges, lethal forced labor, and ethnic cleansing). Phase 2 featured state ownership of the means of production, including land, agrarian collectives, central planning, coordinative and supervisory economic ministries, directive assignments and quotas, price and wage fixing, compulsory labor, state wholesaling, retailing, banking, finance and foreign trade. Money was abolished only in Democratic Kampuchea. The essence of phase 2 was the imposition of communist dictator’s sovereignty in the public, household and civic sectors. Mao’s substitution of agrarian communes (jumbo administrativeproductive units) for collective farms during the Great Leap Forward in China, Vietnam and (later on) Cambodia was a distinctive institutional feature of Red Asian siege-mobilized terrorcommand. The use of Red Guards for implementing Great Terror-Purges was another Red Asian innovation. The civil wars between North and South Korea, and North and South Vietnam, also played a powerful role in the tactics, and intensity, of terror-discipline. Pol Pot’s shock terror therapy was the most lethal and destructive type of Red Asian siege-mobilized terror-command. Red Asian institutional reforms including agro-industrial communes had little or no engineering value. They didn’t transform the productive potential of siege-mobilized terror-command. Their main contributions were motivational, and administrative. Backyard steel production during the Great Leap Forward was a destructive Red Asian policy innovation. The benefits of Red Asian motivational innovations were more than offset by their higher lethality. Roughly twice as many Chinese perished per capita during the Great Leap Forward 1958–63 than during Stalin’s Holodomor 1932–33 (based on the USSR’s, not Ukraine’s population). The Great Leap Forward was really a Great Leap Backward. GDP fell 20 percent 1959–61.

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Mao’s and Pol Pot’s rhetorical emphasis on permanent revolution from below was consistent with Leninist propaganda, especially during the War Communist period, but unlike Stalin they relied more on local initiative. The Cultural Revolution was communist romanticism’s swan song. Instead of spurring growth, GDP declined by 5 percent 1966–68, and millions were killed. Marx had thought that abolishing private property was necessary and sufficient to achieve self-sustaining communism. Mao claimed this wasn’t enough. The criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship had to be buttressed with a transformation of human nature achieved through Cultural Revolution. The results of Stalin’s and Mao’s siege-mobilized terror-command campaigns were similar, despite claims that Cultural Revolution had transformed human nature. The North Vietnamese siege-mobilized terror-command model was less lethal than Mao’s, due to self-imposed restraints connected with the civil war. The mixed Stalin/Maoist united Vietnamese siege-mobilized terrorcommand model (1975–85) didn’t perform any better than its component parts. North Korea’s siege-mobilized terror-command system has displayed subpar and decelerating aggregate economic growth. GDP fell 1.1 percent in 2008 (CIA estimate). Per capita income growth has underperformed South Korea’s abysmally. Pol Pot’s shock therapeutic terror-command, stressing phantom agro-industrial communes and mass urban ethnic cleansing, was catastrophic. GDP collapsed and the population was decimated. Red Asia’s contributions to siege-mobilized terror-command were greeted ecstatically in some quarters of the Third World and the west, but they didn’t diminish its lethality in China, Vietnam and Cambodia. Pol Pot’s contribution to siege-mobilized terror-command was cataclysmic. The Angkar’s dystopia set the communist record for per capita mass murder, crimes against humanity, and economic ruin. Red Asia’s siege-mobilized terror-command reforms failed to improve the economic efficiency, or diminish the human cost of Big Brother’s classic paradigm.


14 Terror-Free Command

Command economy is usually portrayed as the socialist alternative to competitive market systems, even though directive planning could conceivably serve the goals of any sovereign, including pharaohs. The concept stresses the formal equivalence of providing households with goods determined either by negotiated or command processes, given consumers’ or planners’ preferences.1 The approach can be extended to public and civic goods by distinguishing outcomes governed by people’s democratic preferences from those set on authoritarian principles,2 but this is seldom done. Instead the literature 1) delves into the comparative possibilities of plans and markets using mathematical duality theorems and tools like production functions, input–output tables, linear and non-linear programming,3 or 2) tries to appraise the merit of communist coordinative and management institutions, and reforms.4 The first approach is ahistorical, and relies on utility optimization theory. The second is institutionally and behaviorally descriptive. Additional flesh is put on the bone by economic historians and political economists like Alexander Gerschenkron and Alec Nove, who illuminated historical, political and ideological policy factors shaping the evolution of the Soviet command system.5 All these aspects combined appear to provide a comprehensive picture of terror-free command theory and practice consistent with the judgment that, while plans and markets could be equally efficient, practical impediments make markets the better choice. Some scholars, like Ludwig von Mises, Fredrich von Hayek and Lionel Robbins, took a dimmer view of command possibilities.6 They strenuously argued that the defects of planning, including the absence of private property rights, condemned communist economies to underperform, stagnate, collapse and oppress. Hayek’s influential book, The Road to Serfdom, conveys the sentiment. He contended that optimal planning was a chimera; that planning would work poorly, inclining authorities toward despotism to cover their tracks.7 But such attitudes mostly pre-date Gregory Grossman’s seminal formulation of the command idea in “Notes for a Theory of the Command Economy.”8 Textbook treatments of command economies thereafter infrequently refer to post-Stalinist despotism, civic repression or


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catastrophic risk. They don’t deny authoritarianism, human rights abuses or systemic vulnerability, but depict such flaws as improbable, subsidiary and transitory. The command communist concept in these ways, after Khrushchev’s peaceful coexistence initiative and Brezhnev’s détente, became the archetype of a terror-free and virtuous socialist ideal marred by severe practical defects. The paradigm had numerous didactic, analytic, rhetorical and diplomatic advantages. It highlighted the importance of state ownership and control in communist economies, and the feasibility of non-market systems. It emphasized the scientific, as distinct from utopian, aspects of the socialist ideal, and demonstrated how communist philosopher kings could provide better outcomes for citizens than workable market competition. Authoritarians could, but didn’t have to be bad. The model allowed economists to probe microeconomic nuances of directive processes and optimal control, identifying strengths and vulnerabilities. It facilitated dispassionate discussion of technical issues. It enabled bureaucrats, politicians and diplomats to engage various constituencies, including communist leaders with minimal provocation, while allowing Abram Bergson and the CIA to confidently forecast that diminishing capital productivity doomed communism to fail the competitive test.9 The price for these substantial benefits was the conflation of Grossman’s archetype with the essence of terror-free communist command. Just as Hayek had cautioned amid World War II, it was misleading to characterize command collectivism by its grandiose promises, its ability to muddle through, or even its durability. These matters, important as they might be, were overshadowed by communism’s dark side. Command communism was reprehensible in Hayek’s eyes because it repressed human freedom, enserfed state workers, depressed value-adding individual initiative, impaired rational economic choicemaking by state authorities, aggravated moral hazards; prevented best product design, innovation, technology choice, factor use, goods distribution and redistribution; concealed inegalitarianism, squandered resources on defense and secret police, imposed forced consumer goods substitution (qualities and assortments), suppressed human rights, abused citizens, and was prone to degeneration, collapse, crimes against humanity, mass murder and imperialism. Terror-free command communism dispensed with crimes against humanity and honored the Sixth Commandment. This was to the good. But what remained was hardly innocuous. The USSR, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Soviet Union’s European satellites after Stalin and Mao were mostly authoritarian martial police states, with straitjacketed societies and oppressive governments. The prospects and comparative merit of terror-free command depended on these features, as well as trends in living standards and GDP growth. Leonid Brezhnev seems to have been content with both the Hayekian and Grossmanian aspects of his terror-free command system. He relished Soviet


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superpower, was unperturbed by one party rule and social repression, and was content with whatever he understood to be the nation’s economic performance. Deng Xiaoping and Gorbachev also may have been satisfied enough with terror-free command when they assumed power, but the evidence shows that they soon became disgruntled with their countries’ economic performance. They partially decriminalized private property, business and entrepreneurship and abandoned terror-free command for mixed communist market systems. Their revealed preference, given their Communist Party control sympathies, speaks volumes about the Grossmanian properties of real command regimes. Terror-free command not only failed to provide the prosperity communists promised, it wasn’t delivering the benefits implied by official growth statistics either. Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev and Abel Aganbegyan were all more or less candid about their fears of economic stagnation, irreversible economic degeneration and Soviet uncompetitiveness in high-tech arms rivalry with the west. Deng may well have shared their anxieties. Hayekian deficiencies apparently took more of a toll on the command economy than might have been expected from Grossman’s model. Why did terror-free command fail to meet its leaders’ requirements? The answers aren’t hard to find. They boil down to terror-free command inefficiencies being more destructive and intractable than theory and official data implied. The repression of human freedom and the enserfment of state workers (including collective farmers) degraded worker effort and skill. The criminalization of private property rights and entrepreneurship impaired innovation, product design, technology choice, and modernization. The monopoly of state ownership and control eliminated market self-policing and increased moral hazard. It also compelled the state to assume planning, control, administrative and managerial tasks beyond human capacity, with the result that what was called scientific command was merely forced substitution in education, training, factor acquisition, allocation, innovation, technology choice, finance, distribution and redistribution. Compensation wasn’t proportional to marginal value added, and the inegalitarianism between insiders and the common man bred resentment. Colossal waste of all kinds, such as Khrushchev’s virgin lands program, made the Soviet Union a banana republic without bananas. Excessive expenditures on defense and internal security compounded the problem, and human rights suppression prevented social entrepreneurship from ameliorating the squalor. Communist rulers denied any endemic problems, beckoning the west to switch sides, while terror-free command communism was glacially degenerating within, until the system imploded in the USSR, and was replaced nearly everywhere else. Few lament its passing. Fewer still demand its restoration. Lenin’s coup d’état was a mistake from start to finish. It began with siege-mobilized terrorcommand to counter fears about terror-free command, while pretending

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Stalin honored the Sixth Commandment. The terror-free command concept was then given a fair trial in a liberalized Soviet Union, the USSR’s European satellites, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It failed miserably, not just materially but in every dimension of political, civic and spiritual life.


Communist Economy One of the great ironies of the twentieth century was the contradiction between Marx’s ecstatic vision of communist humanist paradise and the reality of communist despotism. Communists killed tens of millions people chasing rainbows with unproven economic paradigms in the misbelief that communist economy, whatever it was, had to be best. Marx’s Communist Manifesto and the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 portrayed communism as a communal utopia where every member’s material, social and spiritual desires were sated,10 allowing all to actualize their full human potential. This sounded grand, but had two fatal flaws. First, by assuming complete abundance, Marx’s heaven ceased being economic. There was no scarcity and no utility-seeking mechanism to explain why any member who achieved bliss should make himself or herself worse off by laboring for the benefit of another. This sort of utility-diminishing behavior is Pareto dispreferred, and hence irrational from a classical perspective.11 Second, Marx failed to consider how a society organized without private property and markets could become productive enough to achieve conditions for full abundance underpinning his communist humanist idyll. Marx’s silence on these crucial matters was deafening. Engels and Lenin made some attempt to fill part of the void by devising a post office model,12 cobbled together from selected features of the Communist Manifesto and Marx’s turgid four-volume tome, Das Kapital,13 that explained how a transitional communist economy might be constructed.14 They argued that a command system was imperative because, as Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon before him observed, property was theft and the root of human discord.15 It had to go. Capitalist markets were impermissible too, because Marx claimed that labor exploitation was caused by profit-seeking (the pursuit of surplus value).16 Egalitarianism, a social safety net and secure employment were also essential. A virtuous transitional communist economic system had to have clean hands to narrow the gulf between regimes before and after the attainment of full abundance. Engels and Lenin recognized that these measures weren’t enough, because state control was the fulcrum of transitional command economies, whereas Marx insisted that there could be no role for government under utopian communism because members could not harmoniously rule themselves and submit to higher state sovereignty at the same time. No solution to the conundrum was offered, but the issue was sidestepped by distinguishing between the state as a coercive instrument of class or vanguard power, and


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administration as the same activities carried out in accordance with the people’s will. Even though Marx’s communalists had viewed communistfriendly administrators as superfluous, Engels and Lenin pretended that the conflict was apparent, not real. It was enough to claim that the state would wither away, with administrators and commune members somehow harmonizing their differences. These principles, sketchy as they were, settled matters for Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot. The command paradigm was the only ideologically acceptable transitional communist option. But there was room for dancing between raindrops. Although private property was an anathema, individual leasing of state property could be compatible with Marxist principle as an interim measure until it was displaced by communist humanist harmony in the Shangri-La of full abundance, as shown by Lenin’s advocacy of NEP, Josip Broz Tito’s worker self-managed market communism17 and Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. The same argument could be made for communist markets, either as aids to planning or communist free enterprise; ideas embraced by Mikhail Gorbachev and Hu Jintao.18 These new attitudes towards leasing and leasing compatible markets are at the forefront of contemporary communist thinking in China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Some consideration also is being given to adding aspects of freehold private property to the mix, in order to further improve productive efficiency. But no amount of improvisation can save authoritarian communism from its fundamental contradictions. First, the more communists liberalize individual economic freedom, the less justification remains for the party’s civic repression and monopoly of political power. Fully empowered democratic societies are better than authoritarian ones with the same economic mechanism. Second, there can be no Marxist communist utopia with private property and profit-seeking markets, whether or not such transitional systems are feasible. If Hu and his successors really aspire to achieve Marx’s communist utopia, they must still devise an exit strategy from their transition turnpike to nirvana. Perhaps modern communist leaders who refuse to abandon autocracy and civic repression will prefer to permanently loiter in transition limbo. Should they do so, then, just as in the last century, they will face intense pressures from free enterprise and social democratic rivals to abandon ship, or intensify discipline if they refuse to do so. The same sorts of economic pressures that pushed communists to scrap siege-mobilized terror-command for terror-free command, and then terror-free command for mixed market communism, may soon present today’s leaders with the choice whether to fight or switch; whether to return to terror, or fade silently into the night.19

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Summary • • •


• •

•

• • • • •

• • • • •

Command economy is a complete directive analog to competitive market economy. The scope and productive content of the two systems are identical. Both encompass the provision of public, household and civic goods and services. Only their mechanisms differ. Public goods in command economies typically are determined by autocrats. Household goods are governed by state plans, plan directives, ministerial oversight, and bonus schemes guiding managers and workers. Civic action is repressed. Public goods in market economies are democratically determined. Household goods are governed by market supply and demand. Civic action is co-determined by public programs and markets. Textbook command models concentrate on the household sector, and public goods (without dwelling on the authoritarian character of public choice). Textbook command models stress planning technologies, incentive controls, public administration and reform. Supplementary historical and political economic description give textbook command models a realistic luster. Most textbooks at the end of the day conclude that, while plans and markets could be equally efficient, practical impediments make markets the better choice. Many eminent scholars during the 1930s were more disparaging about the possibilities of efficient command economy, denying that state planning could effectively simulate competitive markets, and insisting that the criminalization of private property degraded managerial and entrepreneurial initiative. They also contended that the authoritarian aspect of command systems promoted repression and oppression. Fredrich von Hayek likened command economy to industrial serfdom. Gregory Grossman pioneered and popularized the concept of command economy in the west in 1963. Hayek’s misgivings are disregarded, but the concerns can be read between the lines. Grossman’s sanitized command paradigm provides a neutral basis for analyzing technical aspects of directive systems, and facilitates dispassionate discourse. These are significant benefits. Grossman’s model facilitates the study of functional dualities between markets and plans, while pointing to directive regimes’ practical shortcomings.

158 •

•


•

•

• • • • • • •

• •

Terror-Command Economy His approach dovetailed with Abram Bergson’s empirical research showing diminishing Soviet marginal capital productivity and decelerating GDP growth, which seemed to augur the long run inferiority of command economies. Although Bergson’s findings were bad news for command communism, they concealed an even grimmer reality. Communist economies were decelerating, stagnating and hurtling toward the precipice because the command systems were over capitalized, they were crumbling from within because they were oppressive, corrupt, technically inept, wasteful, and repressed individual initiative in good times, absent the Red Holocaust and crimes against humanity. They were straitjacket regimes. Authoritarian rulers viewed some of the minuses as pluses. They preferred power to democratic participation, were pleased with their nation’s military might, and were unperturbed by civic repression. Nonetheless Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping and others were disquieted by the underperformance of terror-free command vis-à-vis their market rivals. Gorbachev tarried too long, and was swept away by Yeltsin’s coup d’état. Deng Xiaoping acted in time, switching to a mixed market communist system capable of competing with the west for decades to come. Either way, the era of terror-free command concluded everywhere in the 1990s, except diehard North Korea. Terror-free command went the way of the dodo because it was materially, politically and civically inferior to democratic free enterprise and EU social democracy. One of the great ironies of the twentieth century was the contradiction between Marx’s ecstatic vision of communist humanist paradise and the reality of communist despotism. Marx’s communist utopian romance had no economic content because it was set in an isle of plenty where all goods and services were free. Individual and collective utility-seeking were superfluous because everyone automatically behaved to ensure general communist bliss. Marx also neglected to consider how transitional communist states challenged by ubiquitous scarcities should organize themselves to reach communist humanist nirvana. Engels and Lenin decided that transitional communist states should have as many utopian features as possible, including: criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship, egalitarianism, a social safety net, and secure employment,

Terror-Free Command

• • •


•

•

• •

159

provided by command economy rather than the harmoniously free actions of individual communists. They recognized that a coercive state was incompatible with Marxist utopia, but predicted that it would wither into a compatible administrative form. This suggestion wasn’t a solution. It was a dodge. Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot accepted Engels’s and Lenin’s judgment on this matter, and embraced command economy. However, other approaches were consistent with Marx’s goal. Leasing property, leasing markets and worker self-management schemes all plausibly could be employed as communist compatible temporary expedients pending the moment when crutches had to be discarded in the promised land. All communist transition models straitjacket individual utilityseeking, which presumably makes them inferior to western free enterprise before full abundance is achieved. Moreover, all real communist systems are authoritarian and civically repressive. This presents modern communist leaders with the choice of switching, or fighting to preserve their privileges. There is no viable third way, unless one believes in miracles.


15 Illusion of Progress

Most economists today believe that market economies are superior to communist command systems which criminalize private property, business and entrepreneurship, because nationalization and state control restrict, discourage and warp individual utility seeking. They recognize that communist regimes try to mitigate these distortions by replacing individual self-seeking with planning and bureaucracy, but nonetheless judge command economies to be microeconomically inefficient, and degeneration prone. Figure 15.1 illustrates why. It shows, using CIA estimates, that Soviet GDP growth steadily decelerated during the post-Stalin epoch, approaching zero 1976–85, before plummeting 1989–91. Official data indicate better performance, but not only is the downward trend the same; Soviet authorities disavowed their own statistics. Mikhail Gorbachev and Abel Aganbegyan repeatedly contended that national income ceased growing in the 1970s and never revived, despite official statistics purporting that the USSR outperformed the United States. Once upon a time, some scholars gave credence to official communist economic boasts, but for diverse reasons few still do, accepting the verdict of history that, even in the best of circumstances, command economies lose their vitality, and vanish. The problem is generic, not the fault of a single communist terror-free, or siege-mobilized terror-command model, or the foibles of any particular ruler or country. The Soviet Union imploded. During the USSR’s time of troubles (smutnoe vremya), Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia seceded. East Germany reunited with West Germany, and all Soviet satellites regained their independence. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union, as has Slovenia, once part of Yugoslavia. China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Cuba in their post-siege-mobilized terror-command phase abandoned terrorfree command for mixed market regimes. Only North Korea has stayed the course. Whatever the true numbers may be, all except North Korea have voted with their feet, fleeing communist prosperity in search of something better. Their actions speak louder than their words (statistics), although Nepal isn’t listening.1


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161

Figure 15.1 USSR: Trends in GNP and industrial and agricultural output 1950–87 Source: Measures of Soviet Gross Normal Product in 1982 Prices, Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Washington, DC, 1990, p.5

This outcome shouldn’t surprise those who paid more attention to theory than self-confident declarations of communist economic superiority (Khrushchev’s we will bury you (my vas pokhoronim)),2 or cosmetically enhanced statistics. Even the staunchest advocate of central planning should have had nagging doubts as to whether terror-free command was competitively viable, and many surely did. The Great Industrialization Debate 1924–28, properly read between the lines, reveals the deep anxieties of all participants about the possibilities of command economic malfunction.3 Stalin’s misgivings about communist economy are evident in the centrist position he adopted throughout most of the Great Industrialization Debate,4 and the importance he placed on agrarian surplus (see Chapter 18) when he terminated NEP in 1928–29. If command really were superior, it should not have mattered whether the pace of industrialization was fast or slow. The terror-free optimal path would have been easily attainable and best. But Stalin clearly knew better, because he trusted no one to self-police himself or


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herself in the new economic order. Stern discipline was always essential. The only issue was where to draw the line between punitive measures and siege-mobilized terror-command. His actions reveal his preferences. He could have chosen terror-free command and didn’t. Moreover, it can be inferred that he was satisfied with the results because he never reversed course. The same can be said for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Mao, Ho and Pol Pot shared Stalin’s judgment about the efficiency of siege-mobilized terror-command, but also thought they could do better with Great Leaps Forward, Cultural Revolutions and shock terror. Were they right? Was siege-mobilized terror-command better than terror-free command? Was terror-free command better than mixed market communism? Did siege-mobilization offer the best hope for communism ultimately passing the competitive test, even though it was ethically inferior to terror-free command? This chapter attempts to shed some statistical light on these questions from the perspective of despots unconcerned with the human consequences of the Red Holocaust and related crimes against humanity. Siege-mobilized terror-command systems belie Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s faith in the necessity of violence, if terror-mobilized performance is equal or inferior to terror-free command. If these conditions are met, then communist despots would have been better, or no worse, materially if they had shunned the Red Holocaust. While they may have enjoyed murdering and ethnic cleansing, these are further issues left for others to pursue. Belief in the superiority of planning and state economic control is belied, if terror-free communist command systems grow more slowly than comparable mixed market regimes at the same stage of development, compelling rulers to decriminalize private property, business and entrepreneurship in whole or significant part. Allowance also should be made for the possibility that despots might prefer siege-mobilized terror-command, whatever its material failings, if it prevented the Soviet Union, its satellites, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from abandoning Marxist-Leninism. Growth rates here only have to be good enough to assure party control. The tests for all these null hypotheses are straightforward, but the unreliability of communist economic statistics creates problems that cannot be definitively resolved.5 However, the preponderance of the evidence will demonstrate convincingly enough that 1) siege-mobilized terror-command was inferior to terror-free command (ruler’s preferences); 2) terror-free command could not hold its own against mixed market substitutes; 3) siege-mobilized terror-command could not have prevented most communist nations from abandoning ship because its long-term growth prospects were too poor. Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s and Ho’s intuitions were right that terror-free command couldn’t compete with western markets in the long run, but their terror solutions proved to be insufficient.



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Angus Maddison’s gross domestic product (GDP) statistics have been chosen to test these null hypotheses because his OECD data are widely considered the most reliable, even though they differ significantly from some official communist series, and fail to adequately adjust for hidden inflation, physical output padding and forced substitution. Growth rates reported for the USSR, and China are substantially lower than the official figures.6 Maddison’s statistics provide facts that can be used to compare aggregate economic growth during years of siege-mobilized terror-command with other communist benchmarks. The reference period for Stalin’s superindustrialization drive is 1921–28 (Goskomstat data); the epoch of post-War Communist recovery under the New Economic Policy (NEP). For consistency, it would be desirable to evaluate Red Asia’s performance from the same conceptual baseline, but all second wave Red Holocaust countries bypassed NEP, adopting Stalin’s terror-command system immediately on becoming nation states. The efficacy of their superindustrialization drives accordingly must be gauged by their post terror-command communist economic performance. This should suffice for our limited purposes, because all have remained communist or socialist systems. North Korea’s exceptional position in the history of communist Asia should be noted. It always has relied on siege-mobilized terror-command principles, necessitating the use of external benchmarks (like South Korea GDP growth) to evaluate economic merit. Communist GDP statistics valued in 1990 US dollars are presented in Table 15.1 for the following base years marking the start of their siegemobilized terror-command superindustrialization drives: USSR 1928, North Korea 1950, China 1953, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, 1974. They are combined with end period statistics to compute the growth rates Table 15.1 Communist gross domestic product 1928–2000 (billion 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars) Year

USSR

1928 1937 1950 1952 1957 1962 1966 1974 1976 1979 1985 2000

231.9 398.0

North Korea

China

Cambodia

Vietnam

Laos

7.3 305.7 406.2 368.0 553.4 5.0

36.7

2.4

55.5 140.5

3.4 6.5

793.1 5.6 25.3

4330.0

13.5

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Geneva: OECD, 2003, Table 3b, p.98; Table 5b, pp.174, 178.

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Table 15.2 Communist gross domestic product growth under siege-mobilized terror-command 1929–2000 (GDP growth, percent) Year

USSR

1929–1937 1951–2000 1953–1957 1957–1962 1967–1976 1975–1979 1975–1985

6.2

North Korea

China

Cambodia

Vietnam

Laos

4.0

3.0

3.0 4.9 −2.0 3.7 2.3

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD: Geneva, 2003, Table 3.b, p.98, and Table 5.b, pp.174, 178. Also see Table 14.1 above.

presented in Table 15.2. The Red Holocaust termination years are: USSR 1953, North Korea (none), China 1976, Cambodia 1979, Vietnam and Laos 1985. The performance officially claimed in all instances is superlative. The data suggest that, whether terror helped or hindered development, the net material cost of siege-mobilized terror-command was small. Maddison’s adjusted statistics, however, contradict this impression; raising the possibility that siege-mobilized terror-command was materially counterproductive. Table 15.3 sheds further light on the matter by displaying comparable growth data for each country during their terror-free episodes, under command or mixed command-market regimes. There is surprisingly little difference in some official accounts. But Maddison’s series tell a very different story. Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian GDP growth were all severely impaired by siege-mobilized terror-command. Mao’s Great Leap Forward was especially disastrous. GDP fell 14 percent in Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea 1974–75 (see Table 15.7). It follows directly that Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s faith in the superiority of siege-mobilized terror-command is controverted by the facts. Siege-mobilization fails the null hypothesis test. Aggregate growth would have been faster if communist despots had refrained from violence. It can be inferred that terror-free command also failed the competitive test, without undertaking elaborate statistical comparisons with market economies, merely by observing that the Soviet Union expired amid stagnation-hyperdepression; its European satellites and some former Soviet Republics have acceded to the European Union, and most of the rest have partly transitioned by decriminalizing aspects of business, entrepreneurship and private property.7 This only leaves the question of whether siege-mobilization could have been permanently imposed to preserve the command system, even though it generated inferior aggregate economic growth. Could communism have been saved by killing enough deviationists? We know with certainty that Kim Il


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Table 15.3 Communist gross domestic product growth Red Holocaust benchmark periods 1921–2000 (GDP growth, percent) Year

USSR

1921–1928 1978–2000 1980–2000 1985–2000

16.1

China

Cambodia

Vietnam

Laos

6.4

4.0

7.2 4.0

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Geneva: OECD, 2003, Table 5.b, pp.174, 178. Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–1982, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Moscow: Statistika, 1982, p.52. Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 60 let, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegonik, Moscow: Statistika, 1977, p.13. Note: Maddison doesn’t report Soviet growth statistics for NEP 1921–28. The figure for the USSR is derived as follows from official statistics. According to Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–82, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Soviet net material product (proxy for GDP) in 1940 was 11 times the 1922 level. Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 60 let, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Moscow: Statistika, 1977, p.13 report that Soviet NMP grew 4.5 times 1928–40. These statistics were used to compute the compound annual growth rate for the interval 1922–28. The rate displayed in the table above was cross-checked with other series and the difference was just a few tenths of 1 percent. Paul Gregory and Robert Stuart report the following figures for the Soviet Union in 1920, indexed to 1913: industry 20, agriculture 64 and transportation 22. We also know that the economy grew 1913–17. Consequently, NMP in 1920 could hardly have been much greater than 50 percent of the 1917 level, making allowance for agriculture’s high NMP share. Assuming that Soviet NMP in 1920 was half the 1917 level, implying the Soviet NMP in 1928 re-indexed to 1920, was 340 (170/.5), the compound annual growth rate 1917–28 is 16.5. Readers can adjust this estimate by assuming various sectoral weights, but in no case could the growth rate have been less than 13 percent. This figure ascribes the entire NMP to agriculture, with zero weights to all other sectors.

Sung and Kim Jong Il have proven that they were able to sustain siegemobilized terror-command longer than Stalin, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot. Perhaps, Kim Jong Il and his successors will continue doing so. However, few even in Pyongyang can really believe that the benefits warrant the repression. This is easily demonstrated by comparing the performance of North and South Korea since their national inceptions. Both had virtually the same GDPs in 1947, but the CIA now estimates that South Korea’s living standard in 2008 is more than 15 times higher than its communist rival.8 Unless the agency’s estimates are freely invented, only Kim Jong Il can believe that it is worth forcibly retaining siege-mobilized terror-command. These findings are confirmed by sectoral statistics. Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot all contended that the success of siege-mobilized terror-command hinged on superindustrialization. The official data presented in Table 15.4 and Table 15.5 demonstrate that both industrial and agrarian growth were faster during the Soviet NEP than during Stalin’s forced industrialization. Moreover, as time passed, the command industrial production system became more and more devitalized until it collapsed 1989–91. The record shows that the Soviet Union and China could have been heavy industrialized under a terror-free command regime. Nothing in the communist industrial

166


Table 15.4 Communist industrial and agricultural growth under siege-mobilized terror-command 1929–2000 (sectoral growth, percent) Years


1928–1937 1950–1976 1975–1985

USSR

China

(I)

(A)

(I)

(A)

16.9 12.2 3.9

2.2 4.6 1.6

9.7

4.5

Source: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–1982, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Moscow: Statistika, 1977, p.55. Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Moscow: Finansy i Statistika, 1987, p.9. Angus Maddison and Harry X. Wu, “China’s Economic Performance: How Fast Has GDP Grown: How Big Is It Compared with the USA?”, 2007, Table 9, p.14. Angus Maddison, Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, Paris: OECD, 1998, p.158. http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/. Note: Soviet statistical handbooks provide data on aggregate industrial and agricultural production growth for the period 1940–75, and 1940–85. Industry and agriculture grew respectively 17 and 2.3 times 1940–75. They grew 25 and 2.7 times over the extended interval 1940–85. These statistics were used to compute industrial and agricultural growth on a compound annual basis for the period 1975–85. Soviet series are valued in constant rubles; Chinese official data in yuan.

Table 15.5 Communist industrial and agricultural growth Red Holocaust benchmark periods 1921–2000 (sectoral growth, percent) Years 1922–1928 1978–2000 1985–2000

USSR

China

(I)

(A)

24.3

8.3

(I)

(A)

11.2 12.3

4.7 3.9

Source: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR 1922–1982, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Statistika, Moscow, 1982, p.52; Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 60 let, iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Moscow: Statistika, 1977, pp.12–13. Angus Maddison and Harry X. Wu, “China’s Economic Performance: How Fast Has GDP Grown: How Big Is It Compared with the USA?”, 2007, Table 9, p.14. Angus Maddison, Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, Paris: OECD, 1998, p.158. http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/. Note: Soviet industrial and agricultural output grew respectively 6.5 and 1.3 times over the interval 1922–28. These statistics were used to compute compound annual growth rates. The composite official Chinese GDP growth rates for 1978–2000, and 1985–2000 were 7.2 and 6.9 percent per annum. Soviet series are valued in constant rubles; Chinese official data in yuan. Angus Maddison and Harry X. Wu, “China’s Economic Performance: How Fast Has GDP Grown: How Big Is It Compared with the USA?”, 2007, Table 9, p.14.

production record, using official or western re-estimates justifies siegemobilized terror-command and the Red Holocaust. Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot were, but didn’t have to be bloody, bold and resolute.9 This judgment is compellingly confirmed by the correspondence between GDP and excess deaths during peak siege-mobilized terror-command surges in the USSR, China and Cambodia associated with the Holodomor, the Great



167

Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and Year Zero superindustrialization campaigns. Tables 15.6 and 15.7 reveal not only that GDP plummeted in USSR, China and Cambodia every time Stalin, Mao and Ho attempted a siege-mobilized terror-command surge, but that in every instance other than the Cultural Revolution, the population fell, allowing for natural demographic growth. It plunged absolutely during Holodomor (pre-war boundaries), the Great Leap Forward and Pol Pot’s Year Zero rampage. Stalin’s Great TerrorPurge 1937–38 didn’t murder enough people to offset natural demographic growth, but GDP growth fell to 1.8 percent 1937–40. These findings are especially powerful because the communist command experience was richly heterogeneous. They show that the material devastation of forced superindustrialization, and the human slaughter, weren’t caused by the hare-brained schemes of one man, but were the consequence of a specific communist command model that flouted the Sixth Commandment perhaps as much as 100 million times. Table 15.6 Communist population statistics periods of peak siege-mobilized terrorcommand surge Maddison’s series (millions of people) Period

Year

1931 1932 1933 1934 Great Terror 1936 1937 1938 1939 Great Leap Forward 1959 1960 1961 1962 Cultural Revolution 1966 1967 1968 1969 Year Zero 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 Holodomor

USSR Maddison

USSR Rosefielde

176.0 176.8 177.4 178.5 181.5 184.6 188.5 192.4

162.2 162.4 – 155.3 158.6 160.9 162.3 167.6

China

Cambodia

660.0 667.1 660.3 665.8 735.4 754.6 774.5 796.0 7.3 7.2 6.9 6.7 6.5 6.4 6.6

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Geneva: OECD, 2003, Table 3a, p.96, Table 5a, p.164, Table 5a, p.168. Rosefielde, Red Holocaust, Table A2.1. Note: Maddison’s population data are defined for the USSR’s postwar boundaries. Rosefielde’s statistics are official Soviet data defined for the boundaries prevailing 1931–34.

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Table 15.7 Communist superindustrialization surges Maddison’s GDP series (billion 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars) Period

Year

USSR

Holodomor

1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1966 1967 1968 1969 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979

275.2 254.4 264.9 290.9 334.8 361.3 398.0 405.2 430.3 420.1


Great Terror

Great Leap Forward

Cultural Revolution

Year Zero

China

Cambodia

464.0 448.7 368.0 368.0 403.7 553.7 537.0 525.2 574.7 5.0 4.3 4.7 5.0 5.5 5.6

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD: Geneva, 2003, Table 3b, p.98; Table 5b, pp.174, 178.

Summary •

• •

Until the Soviet Union vanished in a puff of smoke, some believed that the command economy had performed superlatively 1928–37, during WWII, and the postwar recovery 1945–53, even though it was widely recognized that growth slowed after 1968, and probably stagnated after the late 1970s. The conviction that Stalin’s siege-mobilized terror-command system yielded extraordinary growth and development buttressed claims that his crimes against humanity were somehow necessary. Such beliefs are perplexing because they suggest that Nikita Khrushchev’s and his successors’ liberalization policies were illadvised. Why did post-Stalin liberalizers abandon siege-mobilized terror-command when it had performed so well, and why wasn’t

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•

•

• •

• •

•

• •

terror-command reinstituted when Khrushchev’s, Kosygin’s and Gorbachev’s reforms failed? Many likewise believed that the siege-mobilized economies of Red Asia under Mao, Kim, Ho also shone until 1985, posing the question anew as to why Deng Xiaoping, Hu Jintao and others parted company with their betters. The universal rejection of communism by Russia, the republics of the former Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Kremlin’s European satellites strongly implies profound dissatisfaction with the past performance of their command economies. This inference is underscored by the accession of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union, as well as by the reunification of East and West Germany. The adoption of mixed market economies in China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia after 1990 further confirms global communist disillusionment with the command paradigm. The preponderance of contemporary evidence indicates that the paradoxes are ostensible, not real. The performance of siegemobilized terror-command economies was inferior to terror-free command, which in turn was inferior to mixed market systems. This claim is supported by both official and western adjusted statistics. The inferiority of all command type economies would be even more pronounced if hidden inflation, padding and forced substitution were completely cleansed from communist statistics. The rejection of communism by nearly all formerly communist states bespeaks a depth of failure that isn’t fully reflected even in western adjusted communist statistics. This finding is especially powerful because the communist command experience was richly heterogenous. Communism’s failure cannot be laid at the doorstep of a few hare-brained schemers, or a handful of unwise experiments. Everything possible was done to save the command paradigm including the application of inputoutput, linear and non-linear programming techniques to computerized central and decentralized planning. Other communist innovations like labor management, and leasing (arenda), likewise failed in the USSR and European communist regimes. Marx’s, Lenin’s, Stalin’s, Mao’s and Pol Pot’s faith in the superiority of communist economy was a grand delusion that contributed to the massacre of perhaps as much as 100 million people.



Part V




16 Corpus Delicti

Western scholars were in a position to foresee communism’s Gotterdammerung and grasp the Red Holocaust’s immensity by 1979, when communist economic performance began to visibly decline, and the Vietnamese vanquished Pol Pot, but few did. Instead, most expected communism variously to economically excel, hold its own, or moderately underperform the west. Almost no one predicted collapse, because statistical evidence of deep rot was concealed by a veil of state secrecy. On paper, communist economies were doing well enough. Likewise, researchers avoided accusing communist despots of crimes against humanity without a corpus delicti (body of a crime). Scholars demanded proof that a crime had been committed before anyone could be convicted. If there were no corpus delicti, no one could be proven guilty of the alleged crime. People cannot be convicted of stealing unless it is shown that something has been stolen. Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot could not be indicted (convicted) for perpetrating Red Holocausts, if there were no credible evidence of mass murder (unjust executions and killing), felonious manslaughter (lethal forced labor and ethnic cleaning) and inexcusable criminally negligent homicide (terror-starvation). This placed communist rulers in the driver’s seat. Archives were sealed, foreign diplomats chose not to disclose incriminating evidence,1 and eyewitness reports were dismissed as hostile propaganda. The archival revolution has finally breeched this defense, revealing a transcommunist pattern of mass murders, felonious manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The full story is still partly shrouded, but as demonstrated in Parts, II and III, the corpus delicti can no longer be reasonably doubted, and magnitudes are coming into focus (Table 2.1, Table 11.1). Nonetheless it is worth formally demonstrating not only that the suspicions gleaned from the Moscow show trials (1937–38), the “Trial of the Century” (1949),2 Illya Ehrenburg’s Thaw (Khrushchovskaya ottepel’) (1956), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) and Gulag Archipelago (1974), Conquest’s Great Terror (1968) and Alexander Nekrich’s Punished Peoples: The Deportation and fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War (1978) were broadly correct, but were corroborated by

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raw demographic data as early as 1946. The smoking gun was there, and in Chinese demographic statistics too, but most scholars refused to give this evidence sufficient weight, not only initially but at various critical moments later, when key archival demographic statistics became available. Western perceptions of communist reality and potential were far off the mark before 1991 because informed scholars preferred not to hedge their bets by endogenizing siege-mobilized terror-command into their analytic frameworks.3 Had they done so, many more would have anticipated the Soviet Union’s demise, and the trajectory of communist reform.4

Demographic Skepticism The saga of the demographic corpus delicti begins with Princeton demographer Frank Lorimer, who studied Soviet population trends for the League of Nations in 1946, using official statistics available at the time. The data were rich, but many key documents, like the 1937 census, the unpublished census board 1939 population statistic, and various annual vital statistics were suppressed.5 Two measures were available to probe the data. The first, called the population deficit, compared population projections with outcomes, showing the combined effects of unanticipated shifts in natality (birth rates) and mortality (death rates).6 It could provide a clear negative (disconfirming the possibility of foul play), if observed population change were the same or brisker than expected, but positive findings (suggesting mass killings) were inconclusive because changes in desired family size could always explain shortfalls in predicted population growth. Population deficit estimates calculated by the Soviet demographers S.A. Novosel’sky and V.V. Paevsky in 1934, and reported by Lorimer, were positive. They revealed that there were 20.8 million fewer people living January 1, 1939 than expected.7 Lorimer’s own estimate, derived from adjusted Gosplan data, reduced this deficit to 15.2 million,8 but another variant based on Ansley Coale’s adjustments supported Novosel’sky and Paevsky.9 The disparity, however, wasn’t really important (Table 16.1). The tests were all positive. Mass killings could not be ruled out. But were the positives false? The second measure, called excess deaths, eliminates the problem of expected births by comparing predicted and actual deaths for the base population, and those born between the 1926/27 census and 1 January 1939. There are no birth projections. Lorimer computed several variants utilizing a methodology which assumes that the unexplained population residual was symmetrically distributed around the mean of the intercensus time interval,10 and was compelled to interpolate some missing intercensus natality rates. His best known estimate of this type reported 5.5 million excess deaths 1927–37, but he could have just as easily justified a figure of 9.2 million relying wholly on the unadjusted raw data (Table 16.1). Either statistic, like the population deficits, should have been large enough

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Table 16.1 Population deficits 1927–39 (millions of people)

1. Novosel’sky and Paevsky 2. Gosplan/Lorimer 3. Rosefielde 4. Rosefielde 5. Lorimer Range of Uncertainty 1929–39

Effective subperiod

Population deficit

1929–39 1929–39 1929–39 1929–33 1929–39

20.6 15.2 23.8 16.5

Excess deaths

9.2 5.5

15.2–20.8

5.5–9.2

Source: Frank Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union, pp.112–113, 134. Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 35(3), 1983, pp.385–409. Mark Tolts, “The Soviet Censuses of 1937 and 1939; Some Problems of Data Evaluation.” Paper presented at the Conference on Soviet Population in the 1920s and 1930s, Toronto, January 27–29, 1995. Method: The internal records of the Soviet Census board, confirmed by Mark Tolts’s recalculations, reduce the official 1939 census figure from 170.5 million to 167.7 million. The difference, 2.8 million people, is added to the Novosel’sky and Paevsky, and Gosplan, population deficits and listed above as 3. Rosefielde, and 4. Rosefielde. The excess death estimate in 3. Rosefielde doesn’t include Tolts’s 2.8 million adjustment. Notes: The effective subperiod over which the population deficit is defined is the interval between the last year vital statistics were available and the date of the succeeding census. Residual discrepancies in other years are properly imputed to statistical error. Population statistics have all been adjusted to a January 1 base.

to raise suspicions of foul play, especially since there were no officially acknowledged natural calamities or pandemics of sufficient magnitude to explain the discrepancy. However, Lorimer preferred to suppose that the discrepancies probably were due to statistical errors and omissions, despite his awareness that there might have been a mass famine (terror-starvation) 1932–34, and a burgeoning literature on Gulag.11 In retrospect, he had little alternative. There simply wasn’t enough independent documentary evidence to confirm legitimate suspicions of criminal intent. The Soviets had concealed the smoking guns. The telltale 1933 mortality rate, the suppressed 1937 census, the accurate 1939 census, NKVD execution statistics, Gulag archival data and documentary evidence of intent weren’t available to him, and wouldn’t be published for another 45 years. There were rumors, but even the revealing Kravchenko libel trial was three years off. Moreover, the Soviet Union had been America’s ally during World War II, and the Cold War had barely begun in early 1946,12 making it unwise for him as a League of Nations consultant to accuse Stalin of mass homicide, excusable or otherwise. Lorimer’s judgment dominated the informed consensus for the next halfcentury, but its influence gradually waned as testimonial and documentary evidence of Stalin’s crimes against humanity accumulated. One important piece of this emergent body of information was the acquisition of revised and fuller Soviet vital statistics for the 1930s, which reduced some of the


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uncertainty justifying Lorimer’s fence-sitting. Boris Urlanis published the updated vital statistics displayed in Table 16.2.13 The new natality data were broadly congruent with Lorimer’s estimates, but the mortality rates were more consistent with those of another eminent demographer, Ansley Coale’s. Recalculating excess deaths with these series, utilizing Lorimer’s assumption of a symmetrically distributed residual indicates that there were 9.0 million unexplained deaths in the Soviet Union 1929–39 (Table 16.3); 3.8 million more than Lorimer originally surmised, in line with Coale’s prior data. Once again, demographic statistics flashed an early warning sign, this time stronger than the last.14 Excess death estimates computed for the post-Great Terror years 1939–53 reinforced these concerns. Demographers, including Lorimer, familiar with the horrific scale of battle fatalities and civilian killings during WWII, anticipated 20 million excess deaths.15 Therefore specialists were shocked in 1959 by Warren Eason’s discovery using Lorimer’s methods that the excess death toll (including some overestimated births) was 30.6 million; 10.5 million higher than expected.16

Table 16.2 Soviet vital statistics 1927–38, comparison of Urlanis’s and Lorimer’s Series Year

1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1937 1938



Natural increase per 1000 population

Urlanis (1)

Lorimer (2)

Urlanis (3)

Lorimer (4)

Urlanis (5)

Lorimer (6)

43.7 44.3 41.8 41.2 (32.6) 32.6 (32.6) (32.6) 31.6 34.3 37.5

45.0 43.7 (41.4) (39.2) (36.9) (34.6) (30.1) (30.1) (30.1) (33.6) 38.3

20.3 23.3 (21.4) (21.0) (20.6) (20.3) (19.8) (19.4) (19.0) (18.6) 17.5

26.0 24.2 25.1 (24.3) (23.5) (22.7) (21.8) (21.0) (20.2) (19.4) 17.8

23.4 21.0 20.4 20.2 12.0 12.4 12.8 13.2 12.6 15.7 20.0

19.0 19.5 16.3 14.9 13.4 11.9 10.6 9.1 9.9 14.2 20.5

Sources: Urlanis, “Dinamika urovnya rozhdaemosti v SSSR,” pp.11–12. Lorimer’s, Population of the Soviet Union, p.134. Naselenie, SSSR, p.9. Data: The bracketed entries in column 1 are Urlanis’s estimates; those in column 3 are the author’s interpolated arithmetically from the average values for 1927–28 and 1937–38. The bracketed entries in column 4 have been interpolated by Lorimer. The entries 1928 and 1929 are also his estimates, as are all entries in column 2. The mortality rates for 1927 pertain to census data 17 December 1926. The statistics reported by Urlanis in “Dinamika urovnya rozhdaemosti v SSSR” differ from those published earlier in Rozhdaemost’ i prodolzhitel’nost’ zhizni, 1963, p.27. The natality rate for 1932, for example, is 1.6 percent higher than the figure previously employed. Method: column 5 = columns 1–3; column 6 = columns 2–4.

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Table 16.3 Excess deaths 1927–39 (census data; published vital statistics)


Year

Population 1 January (thousands)

1927 147,135 1928 159,578 1929 153,740 1930 156,876 1931 160,045 1932 161,965 1933 163,973 Discrepancy: −8,950 1934 157,122 1935 159,196 1936 161,202 1937 163,733 1938 166,975 1939 170,315



Births (thousands)

Deaths (thousands)

43.7 44.3 41.8 41.2 (32.6) 32.6 (32.6)

20.3 23.3 (21.4) (21.0) (20.6) (20.2) (19.8)

6,430 6,671 6,426 6,463 5,217 5,280 5,346

2,987 3,508 3,290 3,294 3,297 3,272 3,247

(32.6) 31.6 34.3 38.7 37.5

(19.4) (19.0) (18.6) 18.9 17.5

5,122 5,031 5,528 6,337 6,262

3,048 3,025 2,998 3,095 2,922

Excess deaths: Expected population 166,072 Observed population 157,122 Discrepancy: −8,950 Sources: vital statistics: Table 16.2. Data: Bracketed natality rates are Urlanis’s estimates. Bracketed mortality rates have been interpolated. Method: Estimates 1934–38 are extrapolated backward according to the formula P superscript t − 1 = P superscript t/1 + a − b) where a is the birth rate and b is the death rate in year t − 1.

Worse still, as statistical gaps were filled, and data revised, the excess death tolls mounted. Estimated excess deaths calculated from these improved data for the period 1940–49, including losses incurred in the territories annexed on September 17, 1939, are presented in Table 16.4. Assuming that unexplained residual deaths are symmetrically distributed around the period mean, the Soviet Union experienced 37 million excess deaths January 1, 1939 to January 1, 1950; a figure nearly twice as large as the number officially ascribed in 1974 to war-related casualties.17 3,800,000 of these excess deaths may be attributable to births which normally would have occurred, but did not due to the distressed conditions of the time.18 Following Lorimer, another 16.2 million excess deaths can be imputed to war casualties; 11.2 million to civilian deaths, including 2.2 million children aged 0–4, and 6 million to combat fatalities officially acknowledged during the course of the war (but later revised upward by 2.9 million). Deducting these losses from the original total leaves an unexplained residual of 17 million excess deaths (Table 2.6) (before adjustment for the subsequent battle casualty increase); a figure more than

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Table 16.4 Estimated excess deaths 1940–49 (based on the pre-revision 1939 census)


Year

Population 1 January (thousands)

Births per 1000 Deaths per population 1000 population

1939 170,315 36.5 17.3 1940 173,585 Annexed Population Present Boundaries 20,492 1940 194,077 31.2 18.0 1941 196,639 (31.2) (17.2) 1942 199,392 (23.8) (16.3) 1943 200,888 (23.8) (15.5) 1944 202,555 (23.8) (14.7) 1945 204,399 Discrepancy −36,998 1945 167,401 (23.8) (13.9) 1946 169,058 23.8 (13.0) 1947 170,884 25.7 (12.2) 1948 173,190 24.1 (11.4) 1949 175,390 28.5 (10.5) 1950 178,547 26.7 9.7 Actual increase 15,530 Expected births 48,111 Expected deaths 26,643 Births minus deaths 21,468 Discrepancy −36,998

Births (thousands)

Deaths (thousands)

6,216

2,946

6,055 6,135 4,747 4,781 4,821

3,493 3,382 3,250 3,114 2,978

3,984 4,024 4,392 4,174 4,999

2,327 3,198 2,085 1,974 1,842

Sources: Naselenie SSSR, pp.9, 163, 165; Boris Urlanis, (ed.), Narodonaselenie stran mira, pp.13, and 79. Data: Bracketed vital statistics are estimates. Method: Wartime natality rates 1942–45 are assumed on average to equal 23.8 per thousand, the published figure for 1946. Seventy-five percent of these children were conceived during 1945 and thus may serve as a benchmark for estimating wartime natality rates. Most children born in 1941 were conceived before June 22, 1941. For this reason the birth rate observed in 1940 is employed as the best estimate of the natality rate in 1941. Mortality rates are linearly interpolated 1940–50, following Urlanis’s example. See Boris Urlanis, Rozhdaemost’ i prodolzhitel’nost’ zhizni v SSSR, Figure 5, p.89. Population 1940–50 has been extrapolated backwards with the formula: P superscript t−1 = P superscript t/ (1+a−b) where a is the birth rate and b is the mortality rate in year t−1.

ample to support the surmise that mass killings persisted after 1938, and that some casualties 1929–1 January 1939, were concealed in the war totals by Stalin’s falsification of the published 1939 census19 (cf. Table 5.4). If the prewar census overstated the population 17 January 1939, then the deaths hidden in this way would appear in the next period’s death tally. These 13.1 million war unrelated excess deaths, adjusted for the 2.9 million battle casualties and 1 million Jewish holocaust victims disclosed later (but unadjusted for Gulag suicide brigades),20 distributed proportionally over the


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period 1939–49 indicate 1.1 million Soviet citizens may have been killed annually by executions, lethal forced labor, starvation, and other terror associated privation. The full terror command death 1929–49 is 22 million (excluding Gulag suicide brigades), a figure more than amply supporting Conquest’s surmise that Stalin killed 20 million souls (Table 16.5). Thus, the demographic evidence before the archival revolution demonstrated that there were enough bodies for a Red Holocaust, but still didn’t resolve uncertainties regarding cause and intent, enabling most to assume that Stalin was innocent until proven guilty, and some like Anderson and Silver to cling to the hope that there had been no Soviet excess deaths whatsoever, wrongful or otherwise. Like many analysts before them, Anderson and Silver misleadingly claimed that any estimate of missing persons which included natality forecasts only reliably measured population deficits, not excess deaths, even for children born between censuses. Although technically incorrect, the authors grasped at straws, justifying their position with the claim that birth statistics were unreliable during times of turmoil. They also intermittently asserted that Lorimer’s excess death estimates were merely “consistency tests,” not measures of missing persons.21 These ploys flummoxed some, but another sleight of hand was even more successful. Anderson and Silver devised a battery of sensitivity tests that purportedly showed the unlikelihood that Lorimer’s excess death estimates pertained to missing persons. The procedure had two components. The first focused on the mortality behavior of adults recorded in the census of 1926. Since these people were alive at the beginning of the period, fertility issues were irrelevant and natural survival rates could be estimated straightforwardly from life expectancy tables according to various assumptions. Table 16.5 Summary distribution of excess deaths 1929–49 (thousands of people) A. B. C. D.

1929–38 1939–40 1941–45 1945–49

Total potential crimes against humanity (excluding Gulag suicide battalions)

8,950 2,183 5,458 5,458 22,048

Sources: Tables 16.3 and 16.4, Boris Urlanis, Wars and Population, Moscow, 1971, p.32. Method: There were approximately 14.1 million unexplained excess deaths 1939–49, after adjustment for combat deaths reported in the 1990s, and Lorimer’s estimate of war-related civilian fatalities. These homicides are distributed proportionally to categories B, C and D above. The derivation of total potential crimes against humanity are explained in the text.


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These calculations yielded estimates of pro forma excess deaths; that is, estimates which it was presumed required substantial downward revision to allow for statistical errors, and distortions unintentionally introduced through diverse adjustments, including their own corrections for an exotic phenomenon called age heaping.22 The second component involved children born between the censuses. It too relied on life expectancy tables and mortality assumptions but was augmented to encompass different fertility regimes. The end result was a contingency table providing three population deficit estimates for each assumed life expectancy yielding 12 possible outcomes. Anderson and Silver chose three life expectancies to bound their sensitivity analysis from the larger set of options provided by the Coale-Demeny East model tables. The High Mortality (low life expectancy) variant assumed a life expectancy for both sexes combined of 39.6 years, and best approximated the morality rates Lorimer thought actually prevailed in the USSR as a whole 1926–27. The official life expectancy reported for the European part of the USSR by contrast was 44 years. The high mortality assumption yielded a pro forma excess death estimate of 0.5 million 1926–39. The low mortality variant assumed a life expectancy of 48.3 years, which was close to the official expectation of life at birth for both sexes combined for 1938–39 (for the entire USSR), 47 years. Pro forma excess death estimates on this score were 5.5 million. The medium mortality variant split the difference assuming a life expectancy of 43.5 years, generating 3.2 million excess deaths. The interpretation of these estimates flows directly from the assumptions. If the high mortality, low life expectancy hypothesis is correct, then proper excess death estimates computed with Lorimer’s methodology should generate a relatively small number of potential forced collectivization, terrorstarvation, terror-execution, Gulag forced labor and ethnic cleansing killings,23 provided that the data are adjusted for age heaping, and intercensus mortality rates are held at the 1926–27 level, rather than being interpolated. These 0.5 million souls, although far less than the 4.8 million adult excess deaths Lorimer himself computed with his midpoint method, nonetheless are consistent with his interpretation of likely Stalin-era homicides and can be construed as the lower limit of the optimists’ view. Alternatively, if the mean between the medium mortality and low mortality (high life expectancy) variants is chosen, the first approximating the average mortality indicated by the initial (European USSR), and the second the end (all USSR) period official mortality rates, there are 4.4 million pro forma excess death, which is 0.4 million below Lorimer’s interpolated midpoint estimate. Apparently, the age heaping adjustment offsets the higher estimates of pro forma excess deaths that otherwise would have been forthcoming from the official data. Anderson and Silver treat this as a preferred estimate because natural mortality rates surely declined between censuses, without making it clear either that the outcome is intrinsically different than Lorimer’s because of the age heaping adjustment, or that they are speaking about pro forma excess deaths, not estimates of Stalin’s homicides.24 As a consequence, their beliefs


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about Stalin’s killings are concealed and all that can be definitively deduced is that they are skeptical of pro forma excess death estimates significantly above 4.4 million because they exceed the magnitude indicated by the age heaping adjusted interpolated official mortality mean. The analysis of potential homicides among children born between 1926 and 1939 is still more inconclusive because their estimates by design measure population deficits rather than excess deaths, although these would come to the same thing for the case where the unknown mean fertility and natural mortality rates were correctly assumed. This makes it difficult to appraise what proportion of the hypothetical gaps between the actual and expected population born during the 1930s they are prepared to impute to excess deaths. To facilitate comparison it will be assumed that a figure of 400,000 child excess deaths is in order in line with the archival information, implying a composite mean sensitivity analysis justified excess deaths 700,000 below Lorimer’s original 5.5 million estimate.25 Figures substantially above 4.8 million would agree with the high fertility assumption they oppose, and presumably are counter-indicated. The number of homicides inferable from these 4.8 composite million deaths is significantly lower in accordance with whatever scale of statistical error they presume. The archival revolution summarized in Chapter 2 not only disproved Anderson’s and Silver’s estimates, but exposed the inadequacy of their sensitivity analysis. When the smoke cleared, parsing raw data for age heaping and other counterfactual conjectures turned out to yield wrong answers, less than half the true order of magnitude. All the missing natality and natural mortality statistics that clouded the interpretation of excess deaths and justified Anderson’s and Silver’s sensitivity testing were located in the archives, including the real 1939 census results.26 As a consequence, current excess death estimates are not only more accurate than their predecessors, they are better estimators of Stalin’s homicides, only erring due to residual statistical biases of various sorts or the misidentification of other catastrophes. The data reveal that fertility during the early 1930s was drastically below interpolated values in line with Anderson’s and Silver’s conjecture;27 that natural mortality closely followed the interpolated path, except in 1933 where approximately 2.8 million people died from starvation (but even this figure proved to be 2.7 million too low),28 and that there were approximately 3 million fewer people living in 1939 than previously officially reported.29 The composite effect of this archival evidence was to support a best estimate of 9.7 million excess deaths, more than twice Anderson’s and Silver’s high range; a figure we now know corresponds to a similar number of documented siege-mobilized terror-command killing between 1929 and 1938.30 The excess death statistic is 0.75 million higher than previously calculated with the same methodology and the old data,31 reflects the offsetting effects of different influences and is virtually identical with recent estimates independently computed by Wheatcroft and Davies. The new natality statistics substantially reduce past estimates of excess deaths inflicted on


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children from 3.7 to 0.4 million in line with Lorimer’s calculation,32 but this is countervailed by an increase in adult excess deaths attributed to the 1939 census revision. Also, it should be recalled that the number of infant terrorstarvation victims could surpass the entire child excess death figure because live births were treated as stillborns even though infants lived up to a month after being born. These findings dramatically disprove Anderson’s and Silver’s contention that their life expectancy sensitivity model demonstrates that adult excess deaths cannot exceed 5.5 million. Stalin is indictable beyond a shadow of a doubt for nearly 10 million prewar crimes against humanity, plus an unknown number of infant terror-starvation killings misreported as stillbirths. The failure of scholars to adopt a probabilistic approach to modeling communist behavior tied to the corpus delicti issue impaired understanding and shielded communism’s crimes against humanity for a half-century.

Summary • • •

• • • • • • •

Western scholars by 1979 were in a position to foresee communism’s decline, if they had accepted and mastered the lessons of siege-mobilized terror-command. Instead, most predicted perpetual moderate to superior growth. Few foresaw Soviet self-dissolution. This failure was connected with their unwillingness to accept Soviet and Chinese excess death demographic data as sufficient evidence of a corpus delicti; that is, probable proof of crimes against humanity. There was ample testimonial evidence to support the demographic data. They didn’t have to claim that the demographic proof was conclusive. They only needed to reformulate their models of communist behavior to reflect the high likelihood, but didn’t. This misjudgment placed communist rulers in the driver’s seat. They could avoid communist guilt merely by sealing their archives and accusing detractors of slander. The refusal to take a probabilistic approach to communist behavior modeling can be traced to the research of Frank Lorimer. His raw data showed that there were 9.2 million Soviet excess deaths 1927–January 1, 1939, but he refused to consider that these fatalities were felonious. Lorimer made various adjustments, concluding that the census data indicated a 5.5 million statistical discrepancy. New data released in 1977 suggested that there were 9 million excess deaths, but attitudes remained unaffected.

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•

•

• •

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Warren Eason’s revelation that the Soviet sustained 30.6 million excess deaths 1939–53 momentarily caused a stir, but it wasn’t long before the catastrophe was ascribed to higher wartime casualties than previously believed. Anderson and Silver tried to blow smoke in people’s eyes by making the case that excess death estimates are only “consistency tests,” not probable indicators of wrongdoing. Using an exotic, and culturally inappropriate, technique called “age heaping,” they argued that there were only 4.8 million pro forma excess deaths 1927–January 1, 1939, 0.7 million below Lorimer’s interpolated midpoint estimate, and stressed that there might have been no victims of murder, felonious manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide. The archival revolution has finally disposed of their arguments. The best current estimate of Soviet excess deaths 1937–January 1, 1939 is 9.7 million, or a half-million higher than Lorimer’s raw data implied back in 1947. The latest excess death figures are confirmed by archival data on executions, excess deaths in Gulag, and terror-starvation. The failure of scholars to adopt a probabilistic approach to modeling communist behavior tied to the corpus delicti issue impaired understanding and shielded communism’s crimes against humanity for a half-century.


17 Presumption of Innocence

Had Red Holocaust skeptics been fully apprised of the demographic facts from the outset, acknowledging that excess deaths were killings, rather than statistical discrepancies, they still might have denied that this constituted a corpus delicti. Just because something is missing doesn’t mean that it was stolen. Even if something has been taken, rather than mislaid, it may merely have been borrowed, not pinched. Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot cannot be convicted of high crimes against humanity until it is proven that some executions were murders; some forced labor and ethnic cleansing excess deaths were felonious manslaughter, or some starvation killings were criminally negligent homicides. Moreover, it must be shown that there was malice aforethought in cases of murder, and criminal imprudence in cases of manslaughter and negligent homicide. Closed archives made it difficult to satisfy any of these requirements, allowing analysts to fall back on presumption of innocence. Western law, and the International Criminal Court, always presume that defendants are innocent until proven guilty. Consequently, skeptics here as before were fully justified in demanding a corpus delicti before convicting communism of the Red Holocaust, but they were wrong to treat this as exoneration. Terror-free command should have been presented as an interpretation of the communist system, not as the right paradigm. Judicial fastidiousness didn’t validate wishful thinking.1 The archival revolution proves not only there was a corpus delicti in all relevant senses, but that the real situation was masked by a faulty methodology which airbrushed communism’s dark side.2 A presumption of innocence misleadingly controlled perceptions for all categories of killing and derivatively the modeling of Soviet economic, legal, administrative, sociological, anthropological, political and diplomatic behavior for three-quarters of a century. Every informed scholar was acquainted with allegations of excess deaths caused by collectivization, starvation 1932–33, the Great Terror, Gulag forced labor and ethnic cleansing, but the killings were downplayed and treated exogenously within core disciplinary paradigms. Most economists concentrated on the intersection of neoclassical and planning theory; legal scholars on civil, criminal, commercial


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and treaty law; political scientists on the institutions of governance and policy, etc. All occasionally addressed Stalin’s alleged crimes against humanity, but only as special studies, which made it seem that abuses were asystemic growing pains. This is most conspicuous in economics, despite the fact that a host of eminent scholars like Alexander Gerschenkron, Simon Kuznets, Wassily Leontief and Abram Bergson were well informed about Stalin’s tactics.3 With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see how the scientific evaluation of communism should have been constructed. Specialists should have started with Gregory Grossman’s theory of command economy (which wasn’t published until 1963),4 expanded to include proletarian enthusiasm and terror. Ronald Coase’s research on the superiority of intra-firm efficiency under specific environmental conditions should have been used to deepen appreciation of command potential.5 Likely micro- and macroeconomic deficiencies should have been investigated, including forced substitution, spurious innovation and data distortions, allowing analysts to better gauge growth and welfare prospects. Planning science and computerization, together with feasible administrative reforms, should have been plumbed to fine-tune assessments of future potential. The interface between neoclassical and mathematical programming theory should have been explored to identify which aspects of communism best explained performance. Finally, scholars should have evaluated whether neoclassical methods fully captured the behavioral characteristics of communist administrative command planning. Economists needed to ascertain whether Soviet data were reliable, and if not, how they were distorted. They needed to confront the contradiction between market theory which implied that the Soviet model should have been underproductive, and an inefficient engine of technological progress, with data reporting extraordinarily rapid aggregate economic growth. And they should have thoroughly investigated the implications of an alleged Red Holocaust on Soviet economic performance fogged by padded statistics and innumerable lies. Most of these investigations were undertaken, but the process was erratic, tending throughout to exogenize siege-mobilized terror, and press positivist methods which spotlighted engineering at the expense of institutional insights bearing on adverse selection, moral hazard, forced substitution, fiat pricing and corruption. The neoclassical school, led by Bergson,6 began just before the Second World War and took shape during his tenure as Chief of the Russian Economic Subdivision of the Office of Strategic Studies. He had some field experience in Moscow during 1937, but was only 23 years old at the time. Bergson did not tackle the Soviet economic paradigm directly, backing into the problem by developing a mathematical model of competitive market welfare that could be used as a benchmark for appraising market and planned socialist schemes,7 coupled with quantitative research on Soviet wages.8 The exigencies of his wartime assignment prompted him to merge


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theoretical and quantitative interests by compiling Soviet GNP statistics from Marxist net material product (NMP) data, and assessing their reliability (accuracy) and usability (conceptual meaning given fiat Marxist price fixing).9 In the process, he mastered the emerging standardized national income conventions pioneered by Nobel Laureate Simon Kuznets,10 and then moved forward with the aid of neoclassical production function theory to argue that Soviet statistics were both reliable and meaningful as indicators of production potential.11 This was no small matter, because it allowed him to claim that his, and later the CIA’s, estimates of Soviet GDP performance provided a valid basis for evaluating the Kremlin’s accomplishments and military procurement potential. The criminalization of private ownership, business and entrepreneurship, together with what Friedrich von Hayek called “planned chaos,”12 and siege-mobilized terror henceforth only mattered to the extent they were reflected in official Soviet statistics recalculated according to Bergson’s recipe (adjusted factor costing).13 As time went by, his conviction that most of what needed to be known about the Soviet economy could be gleaned with neoclassical methods hardened with the advent of input-output economics (Wassily Leontief, 1941), linear programming (Leonid Kantorovich, 1939), neoclassical growth theory and Kuznetsian trans-systemic development concepts, as well as advances in production function theory and computerization which provided an engineering link between the assumptions of neoclassical production theory and Soviet planning practice. Bergson never devised a fully elaborated theory of command economy (including siege-mobilization, terror and the second economy), substituting instead a description of how factors were procured, outputs manufactured, and supplies distributed within the central planning mechanism.14 Although incomplete in various ways, his institutional analysis led him to infer that the Soviet system was severely technically and economically inefficient, and consequently underproductive. This posed the well-known conundrum of how the USSR could have grown so rapidly measured with Bergson’s and the CIA’s statistics, amid planned chaos. The circle was squared by invoking Gerschenkron’s and Kuznets’s theories of the advantages of relative backwardness,15 together with Soviet GDP growth retardation that emerged in the late 1960s.16 The storyline was straightfoward, and may even have been correct as far as it went, if GDP growth during Stalin’s reign actually surged ahead at the pace Bergson computed with Laspeyres and Paasche indexes (the Gerschenkron effect),17 rather than the much slower rates estimated by Warren Nutter.18 Bergson contended that Soviet economic performance 1929–89, predominantly driven by neoclassical forces, spurted during the first two five-year plans due to catch-up effects generated by rapid capital widening and agrarian labor transfers, which masked the command system’s underlying inefficiencies.19 As these advantages eroded, perhaps abetted by low elasticities of capital-labor substitution,20 growth would continuously flag, dropping below western rates with no discernible bottom (see Chapter 14). This congenial



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forecast, which altered his prior neutral stance on the comparative merit of Soviet socialism, added luster to Bergson’s approach, masking the fact that there may have been better systemic explanations for the disparities between Soviet economic performance before and after 1954 that endogenized siege-mobilized terror and cast doubt on Kremlin triumphal claims of superior economic performance. On Bergson’s neoclassical measure, terror was extraneous to Stalin’s economic successes, given the USSR’s satisfactory postwar performance 1945–89. The picture looks very different, however, from the standpoint of the archival revolution, and alternative performance data offered by Nutter, Aganbegyan and Gorbachev, which suggest in accordance with Hayek’s perspective that the Soviet system was prone to internal degeneration without the threat, or reality, of terror.21 We now know, thanks to the archival revolution and the Soviet collapse, that what passed for conventional neoclassical wisdom in 1989 is likely to have been wrong. Bergson and the CIA should have paid more attention to the inner workings of the command mechanism, been less categorical about the reliability and usability of Soviet data, and should have endogenized siege-mobilized terror from the outset. Had they done so, waiving the presumption of innocence and their ill-founded faith in the universality of the neoclassical explanatory paradigm, the modalities and risks of communism would have been transparent. The same tunnel vision marred high hopes for sci-fi planning (Egon Neuberger’s computopia), a closely related theory that also colored views about the possibilities of terror-free command.22 Markets, it was contended, didn’t form the potentials of systems. Negotiated exchange was merely a device for realizing potentials that could be duplicated with planning. The challenge was to acquire better real-time data, improve algorithms, enhance numerical processing and design compatible incentives. There is no need to exhaustively revisit why computopia was pie-in-the-sky for the purposes at hand, because national economic planning has become unfashionable. In a nutshell, Soviet planners failed to 1) build models encompassing the 25 million goods produced in the USSR, together with corresponding inputs, 2) compute requisite demand functions, 3) compute 25 million supply functions, 4) compute usable shadow prices and make them operational and 5) devise 25 million output quota and line item budgetary constraints capable of guiding managers to equilibrium with Marxist fiat prices.23 Computopia as a viable design for the future was a charming delusion, but not an innocuous one, because it encouraged a generation to conceptualize Stalin’s dystopia as a well-intended quest for communist paradise (Box 17.1). Musings in this regard and subsequent writings on the duality of market and planning systems weren’t holocaust denial, skepticism or rationalization,24 but had a similar effect. They constituted a conceit that blinded economists and some other social scientists to the horror behind the dream.

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Box 17.1: Terror-free command: the computopian benchmark The computopian conditions listed in the text shed light on Stalin’s system. In reality, Stalin knew virtually nothing about individual demand; his preferences only could shape the broad contours of supply, and enterprise technologies were heterogeneous, requiring engineers to make endless detailed input and output characteristic and assortment choices without a unique solution. Economy-wide linear programs did not exist, nor could they have been solved with the computational tools of the day, had the methodology been available. This means that Stalin could not nano-command, compelling him to delegate authority without the guidance and discipline provided by self-regulating markets. He wanted suppliers to obey, not exercise discretion, but the scale of the task made this impossible, opening Pandora’s box with three distinct dangers: economic inefficiency, technical inefficiency and moral hazard. Product designers, red directors, workers, shop foremen, departmental supervisors, ministers, NKVD, VPK and party supervisors all made decisions which influenced characteristics, assortments, factor allocation and input use. Economic efficiency was unachievable because choice wasn’t governed by infallible visible or invisible hands; that is, the volumes, assortments and characteristics produced could not and did not match Stalin’s or anyone else’s ideal. Decisionmakers could acquire some guidance about purchasers’ taste through domestic consumer sampling, and by studying foreign analogues. Shoes consequently looked like shoes, but products seldom passed the market test. The problem was least acute for weapons because they were designed to the Ministry of Defense’s specifications. It was most extreme in high value-added consumer goods, with the mean well beneath the western economic efficiency standard. Instead of Stalin’s sovereignty, forced substitution ruled, except for the economy’s main contours, where the Kremlin determined investment, NKVD, military and consumption GDP shares. Technical inefficiency added insult to injury. Stalin’s economic system not only precluded purchaser satisfaction, it lacked mechanisms for efficient factor allocation and use. This made the economy underproductive, even if goods and services had been ideally produced and distributed. Technologies were determined non-competitively in design bureaus, without knowledge of factor availabilities or other pertinent operating conditions, and weren’t competitively diffused. Factor supplies were haphazardly allocated regionally and among enterprises on a crude priority basis without detailed analysis of productivity effects, and input prices weren’t proportionate to marginal, physical or value productivities because wages and rents were set on an accounting, not an efficiency basis. In practice, red directors were rewarded for maximiz-



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ing unit production, which in multiproduct firms meant maximizing physical volumes (such as tons), a procedure which disregarded interenterprise factor allocational efficiency. Cost minimization sometimes occurred, but did nothing to systemically improve enterprise technical input efficiency because prices weren’t proportional to marginal value productivities. From a formal standpoint, Stalin’s economy operated on an inferior production feasibility frontier, producing a dis-preferred assortment, along an economically inefficient ray from the origin (Figure 17.1n). Products were substandard, mis-assorted, under-supplied and mal-distributed, and these problems couldn’t be mitigated by administrative reform because they were embedded in the command planning mechanism. The same principle applied to the anti-democratic provision of public programs and civic services, including religion.25 These poor results constituted the system’s best, assuming that Stalin’s agents dutifully complied with his desires, putting the leader’s interests above their own. Matters however were much worse from Stalin’s perspective because his subordinates were suspect. He feared that they might succumb to moral hazards and get away with sundry abuses because the self-disciplinary aspects of his command system were weak. Agents could enhance their utility at the regime’s expense by overcompensating themselves (over-grading skills, double-dipping, obtaining excess bonuses, misappropriating funds and stealing state property). They could misuse public goods, resources and services for “official” purposes and illegally engage in private production, commerce and asset exchange. And they could reserve their effort. Insofar as Stalin would have disapproved, the volume, composition and distribution of GDP (and national income) would have been better if cadres were incorruptible. Output could have been higher, concentrated more intensively in capital durables and weapons, and loyalists could have been more generously rewarded. Most importantly, growth would have been faster and the risk of economic disorder diminished. Corrupt (or lax) designers retarded economic growth by allowing personal interests to compromise engineering characteristics. They received bonuses for the number of new designs created, not their social benefit, and seldom deferred completely to Stalin’s higher priorities. Red directors compounded the problem by resisting technological diffusion for similar reasons. Installing new equipment often disrupted production, preventing the fulfillment and over-fulfillment of output plans determining managerial rewards. Red directors should have placed duty above personal interest, but often didn’t, preferring to impede technological progress to the state’s detriment. Spurious innovation also hampered results. This was a crime which injured few, but had one powerful victim: Stalin! Red directors and their family circles prospered and administrators reported spectacular results, while behind the smoke and mirrors the economy decayed, tottering on the brink of

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an abyss. A veil of deceptive GDP statistics allowed family circles to hoard resources, creating primitive sub-economies (virtual economy) that disorganized inter-industrial supply links, reduced productivity and raised the specter of hyperdepression (like 1991).26 Although this prospect was never publicly broached after the Industrialization Debate ended in 1928,27 the brutal Soviet hyperdepression 1917–21 (War Communism) should have been scorched into Stalin’s memory. He must have known that his command communism might have to cope with pandemonium.

Marxist inspired theories of Soviet planned economy weren’t any better. Maurice Dobb and those he influenced not only uncritically accepted the reliability and usability of official Kremlin statistics, but ignored siegemobilized terror when they could, and minimized its significance in the breech.28 The secret of Stalin’s economic miracle for them was precisely the criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship, together with Stalin’s inspirational leadership, proletarian enthusiasm, scientific planning and Marx’s strategy stressing investment in machines to ceaselessly reproduce new and better machines, all at variance with the neoclassical narrative (Box 17.2). Robert Davies, Stephen Wheatcroft, Alec Nove and many other European scholars adhered to Dobb’s characterization of Soviet industrialization, without necessarily embracing all his theories. Throughout the postwar Soviet era, they claimed that official series were no less credible than Bergson’s, allowing those who saw fit to argue that Stalin’s oppressive methods were diversely justified by the imperatives of superindustrialization. The presumption of innocence which legitimated Bergson’s, Neuberger’s and Dobb’s economic modeling in the first place thus was turned on its head, serving as evidence that Stalin probably didn’t commit crimes against humanity because there was no economic reason for him to do so.

Box 17.2: Command planning: the political economic view Marxist political economists, and others influenced by them, portray the terror-free Soviet command system as a colossal mobilization exercise where the communist vanguard, having nationalized the means of production and criminalized private business, combines scientific planning and revolutionary enthusiasm to storm the future. Communist construction employs both carrots and sticks. The masses were urged to become communist zealots. Party activists and NKVD troops were instilled with a sense of duty. Planners were exhorted to devise better methods (including material balances,29 input-output, linear and nonlinear programming), and to improve computational capabilities. Sys-



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tems directors were urged to establish basic obligations and construct controls like anti-parasite laws requiring able-bodied citizens to work, limitations on bank credit, bank oversight of enterprise transactions (account clearing), guaranteed state purchase, and compulsory state distribution (gossnabsybyt). Bureaucrats were enthralled with notions of Weberian administration.30 Managers were inspired by Taylorism,31 and laborers were enticed with piecework bonuses, and worker selfmanagement (state union discipline). And since none of these devices could guarantee positive results, they were buttressed with discipline campaigns, public humiliations, re-education and punishments. This scientific socialism was said to meld the engineering aspects of western general competitive theory with Bolshevik motivation; preserving the good, discarding the dross. The claim was that the flaws and perils of command communism could be reduced to manageable proportions if the leadership were inspired by Marxist-Leninism, and crafted directives and statute precisely enough for Weberian administrators to effectively implement them. Administrators were responsible for transforming macro- into micro-directives, and supervising compliance, with details left to red directors trained in Taylorist principles. Factory managers were duty bound to discover enterprise potential with time in motion studies that revealed the best multi-product workshop configuration. They supervised the implementation of state set worker piecework norms, organized Stakhanovite campaigns,32 enforced labor discipline to fulfill their plans. This meant strict compliance wherever possible, and rule-governed adaptation, including plan overfulfillment. And if reason and duty failed, party activists, the NKVD and military industrial inspectors were empowered to step into the breech, using whatever measures were required to get the job done. Scientific planning, Bolshevik systems architecture, Weberian administration, Taylorism and party vigilance sufficed for some purposes. Effort could be mobilized through agitprop appeals to ideals, duty, guilt and shame, supplemented with material rewards, intimidation, fines and punishments.33 Protocols and law could enhance rational administration and regulation, and experimental management could bolster technical efficiency. However, none of these mechanisms altered the fundamental incoherence of the command system. No one knew what should be micro-produced, or how best to manufacture and distribute. Nor could moral hazard have been kept within desirable limits without self-regulating processes that informed loyal participants how best to optimally fulfill their duty. The Kremlin could repress private ownership, business and entrepreneurship, muddle through and satisfice with directive planning, but never optimize. Public programs, the household sector and civic action were subject to planned chaos, peppered with repression.34

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Summary •


• • • •

•

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•

•

Prior to the archival revolution, a presumption of innocence made it difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stalin was guilty of crimes against humanity stemming from collectivization, terror-starvation, the Great Terror, lethal Gulag forced labor and ethnic cleansing. This presumption influenced Sovietological disciplinary developments in economics, political science, sociology, diplomacy, law and history. All disciplines treated Stalin’s terror as an exogenous, rather than an endogenous, phenomenon. All disciplines treated the post-Stalin USSR as terror-free. As a consequence, sight was lost of the integral role terror played in all fields of endeavor during Stalin’s reign. Also, the nature of change in pre- and post-Stalin era systems has been inadequately appreciated. Economists influenced by the presumption of innocence adopted an eclectic approach to ascertaining how the Soviet economic system worked. They took account of socialist ideological claims, including the possibilities of central planning. They transformed Soviet Marxist national income data into western GDP, assessing its reliability. They adjusted prices to a factor cost basis and made unwarranted claims about the usability of these corrected statistics. They applied neoclassical economic theories to appraise Soviet performance. But Abram Bergson and other neoclassical economists never endogenized siege-mobilized terror into quantitative assessments of Soviet behavior before or after the Stalin era. Consequently, neoclassical economists tacitly assumed that there was nothing aberrant about economies that criminalized private ownership, business and entrepreneurship, ignoring the fact that Stalin perpetrated crimes against humanity to further his superpower aspirations. This attitude was bolstered by developments in mathematical planning theory, input-output economics, linear programming and production function theory which stress the importance of engineering in determining economic performance. The duality theorem claimed that planned and market economies were the same, except for the quantitative methods of computing equilibrium quantities and prices. Hence, the neoclassical position that performance was determined by production functions, technologies and inputs rather than other special aspects of socialist systems seemed plausible.

Presumption of Innocence •


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The computer revolution raised the possibility of computopia. This corollary to the neoclassical position also helped conceal the significance of siege-mobilized terror, and other special features of real communist economic systems. Marxists, and filial political economic theories similarly failed to endogenize siege-mobilized terror, emphasizing sanitized models that stressed Bolshevik ardor, the benefits of criminalizing private property, business and entrepreneurship, and central planning. They saw no reason to adjust Soviet data to neoclassical standards, and generally accepted official statistics at face value. This made the Soviet Union seem miraculous. Economic growth was extraordinary, despite a host of micro-economic problems bedeviling the system. The neoclassical approach suffered from the same malady, but adjustments to Soviet data reduced the disparity between expectations and results. The presumption of innocence which legitimated the economic modeling in the first place, ironically was thus turned on its head to excuse Stalin’s crimes against humanity. Presumption prevented western scholars from endogenizing siegemobilized terror-command into their general models of communist behavior, and forthrightly confronting the reality of the Stalin’s Red Holocaust in all its complex dimensions.


18 Justifiable Homicide

Presumption of innocence is a broad concept, requiring that jurors give defendants the benefit of the doubt until guilt is firmly proven. A guilty verdict means that there was a crime and the accused committed it. Jews were exterminated and Hitler ordered the gassing. However, not all murders and felonious manslaughters are inexcusable crimes. A Nazi court might find that genocide was pardonable for the Aryan greater good, and a Soviet jury might consider Great Terror executions acts of self-defense. Both examples illustrate the concept of justifiable homicide, a common line of defense employed by Red Holocaust deniers, skeptics and rationalizers.1 Three interesting claims for excusing communist crimes against humanity are frequently advanced: 1

2 3

collectivization, excess deaths, terror-starvation, the Great Terror, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing were essential for fending off communist economic collapse; these actions were necessary for attaining the greater good of superindustrialization; or to protect the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan.

These contentions apply regardless of the productivity of terror-free command, but obviously the justification for terror is inversely correlated with Soviet central planning’s effectiveness. The better the system worked, the less the need for siege-mobilized terror, and vice versa. No communist supporter has ever justified Stalin’s crimes against humanity by arguing that the system could only have been saved by bludgeoning millions to death, but some seemed to have implied as much by characterizing Stalinism as a lesser evil. Communist crimes against humanity, it was intimated, were bad, but fascism, capitalism and Japanese colonialism were worse. The reluctance of those inclined toward this view to explicitly argue the case is understandable. The International Criminal Court and public opinion surely would reject the claim that a communist system predicated on perpetual mass murder was better than any feasible alternative, including the New Economic Policy (NEP).


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The second justification is often advanced by Marxists and others who view superindustrialization as a greater good, worthy enough to forgive various transgressions, even if some killings were premeditated. Superindustrialization, it is contended, was a noble cause, and the end justified the means. The International Criminal Court might hear a plea that selected killings were indispensable for superindustrialization, which in turn was indispensable for Soviet survival, especially if tied to assertions of imminent danger. Defense attorneys would have to prove that each death was vital for national survival. Blanket claims about the indepensability of lethal forced labor and other killings would be too vague, except perhaps as the basis for a clemency plea. The crux of the matter, assuming that judges agreed that superindustrialization was a greater good, or crucial to the ultimate good of national survival, lay with the possibilities for Soviet economic development. In what ways was terror critical to the success of superindustrialization? This matter can be addressed with various modernization concepts, including neoclassical growth theory. The dominant approach has featured two filial Marxist principles, primitive socialist accumulation and agrarian surplus, emphasizing the necessity of imposing the financial burden of development on the peasantry’s shoulders. Both concepts can be integrated with neoclassical, and even Austrian, economic growth paradigms, allowing us to simplify our analysis by considering the matter primarily in terms of agrarian surplus theory, the touchstone of the Bolshevik forced collectivization and superindustrialization strategies.2 The idea was simplicity itself. For mankind to move from a peasant to an industrial society, farmers must be able to devote some of their productive time to manufactures. If they can do so, there is an agrarian surplus. The larger it is, the greater the time and raw materials available for producing consumer manufactures and investor durables. The more agrarian surplus is dedicated to producing industrial capital goods (machinery and equipment, plant, infrastructure and so forth), the faster the rate of industrial advance, because capital widening (increased supply of machines), and capital deepening (improved embodied technology) accelerate productivity growth. Moreover, agrarian surplus can facilitate industrial modernization by supporting health, education, training, science, innovation, technology transfer, planning and administration. In the Soviet case, this offered policymakers a wide range of choice in allocating resources for superindustrialization, taking advantage of tsarist industrial achievements. The USSR may have been relatively backward because its industrial sector was smaller than European peers,3 but it also had pockets of modernity. Russia’s blast furnaces before the war were second in scale only to America’s, and its engineering sector was advanced. Agrarian surplus also permits labor transfers from rural to urban occupations. As industrial hands multiply, manufacturing grows, with agricultural


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activity contracting, unless there are compensatory increases in agrarian capital and technological progress. Bolshevik development strategists had other advantages too. Policymakers weren’t fettered by market demand to the same extent as western economies. They had to be mindful of peasant, urban and foreign purchasing power, but the state could direct agrarian surplus into munitions production and collective services without concern about faltering demand. Moreover, the leadership was in a position to exhort worker effort, and employ siegemobilized terror tactics if it chose. These possibilities weren’t hypothetical. A multitude of nations in positions similar to Stalin’s Soviet Union, including China, India, Thailand and South Korea, have found ways to use agrarian surplus and derivative neoclassical policy levers at their disposal to achieve sustained industrial modernization. Stalin could have and did heavily tax the peasantry (agrarian surplus transfers), using revenues to modernize through multiple channels, including the purchase of foreign capital durables and technologies. Consequently, there should have been no significant barrier to superindustrialization, other than the deficiencies of the command system itself. Agricultural production could have been transferred to support industry in all the ways listed above, and peasants could have been shifted to industrial occupations. The sole question on the table therefore with regard to justifiable homicide is whether there was a threshold level of agrarian surplus transfer decisive for achieving and sustaining superindustrialization that could only have been generated with lethal coercion. Attorneys for the defense will be hard pressed to identify this critical level, and show that siege-mobilized terror was essential because the official record indicates that the USSR was in the process of superindustrializing 1921–28 without resorting to mass killing (see Chapter 15).4 Even if NEP statistics and results for the first two five-year plans are greatly exaggerated, physical evidence on new plant construction, output and industrial employment suggest that the USSR was rapidly modernizing manufacturing before, during and after forced collectivization. If terror were indispensable, it could only be so because 1) NEP momentum would have been lost without it, or 2) some of Stalin’s objectives required forced labor to complete special projects. The first contingency is entirely conjectural because there is no statistical evidence indicating flagging industrial momentum in 1929 and the early 1930s. Judges in the International Criminal Court at the very least would require tangible evidence that superindustrialization was decelerating, before considering whether killing was indispensable for sustaining development momentum. The second condition may be valid. It probably would have been difficult to entice Gulag forced laborers and spetspereselentsy to toil in the permafrost solely on the basis of higher wages. But these special projects were hardly critical for the sustainability of superindustrialization. Perhaps slave labor augmented the supplies of some critical materials, but there are almost



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always substitutes. At worst, Stalin might have had to make do with a little less. If special projects had any significant exculpatory force, it could only have been for some other purpose such as national defense, which will be considered separately. It follows directly, from a juridical viewpoint, that superindustrialization doesn’t provide a credible defense for Stalin’s crimes against humanity, even though this long has been an article of faith for many, unless it is argued that terror-free command with or without agrarian transfers wasn’t up to the task. As previously observed, this is a case that none of Stalin’s supporters have been prepared to make, and is statistically disproven in Chapter 15. This summary assessment is bolstered by James Millar’s well-known, but narrow finding that agrarian surplus transfers to industry 1929–32 were offset by counter-transfers of capital to agriculture. While peasant flight from the countryside to cities nearly doubled the industrial labor force during the early 1930s,5 spurring industrialization; economists had long accepted Stalin’s claim that agrarian tribute was the sine qua non of rapid modernization.6 The discovery and subsequent confirmation by others that agrarian transfers (tribute) at best were marginally helpful,7 pulls the legs out from under any assertion that Stalin’s collectivization and terror-starvation killings were indispensable to superindustrialization, or in this aspect Soviet national defense.8

Box 18.1: The Millar-Barsov agrarian surplus test James Millar tested the hypothesis that superindustrialization was financed by what Stalin called tribute (dan’); that is, agrarian surplus transfers. At the April 1929 Central Committee plenum, Stalin declared that “We cannot get by without a certain redistribution of resources from agriculture to industry in order to preserve the development of industry.”9 The consensus at the time was that collectivization expedited the rate of industrial investment by driving down peasant consumption, and augmenting agricultural deliveries to manufacturing. Maurice Dobb considered the decline in peasant living stardards regretable but necessary, a view echoing V.M. Molotov’s statement at the April 1929 Central Committee plenum: “How are we going to maintain ourselves after we have driven out the capitalists and land owners? We cannot count on increasing profits from private capital in the city and village. These people have outlived their lives, they are dying out, and we are driving them to their graves. On whom can we count? We can count only on ourselves, on the workers and peasant. They are the ones to bring us tribute.”10 Alec Nove challenged Dobb’s stance, without actually refuting it, by raising the question: “Was Stalin necessary?”11 Millar went further, compiling evidence that collectivization (Stalin) wasn’t indispensable to


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superindustrialization and relatedly the USSR’s ultimate victory over Hitler’s forces. He used A.A. Barsov’s intersectoral flows of products data between agriculture and industry during the first five-year plan to calculate the size and change in the net surplus during the collectivization years.12 The calculations were made using diverse prices, and confirmed by others.13 The upshot was that, while the balance could be positive or negative, depending on prices, the effect of net agrarian transfers on investment was slight initially and over the course of collectivization. It was no less in 1928 at the end of NEP than it was during the collectivization drive. If the peasants didn’t provide the primitive socialist accumulation financing superindustrialization, who did? Paul Gregory suggests that the burden was shared by the peasants and workers. But this is a Marxist way of looking at the matter. No one’s living standard had to decline because growth could have been self-financed by technology transfer, technological progress, capital widening, capital deepening and enhanced labor skills. The value-added created by modernization could have supported superindustrialization and rising living standards across all segments of the population, just as it does now in China. Agrarian coercion of any type, including forced collectivization, therefore wasn’t essential for Soviet superindustrialization, and of course Stalin’s crimes against humanity from this perspective were wholly unjustified, whether or not Stalin really believed that tribute or the socialization of agriculture were indispensable.

Stalin’s defenders, however, still have another arrow in their quiver. Japan’s colonization of Manchuria and Hitler’s rise in the 1930s posed actual threats to the Soviet Union’s security. Might siege-mobilized terror have been imperative for national survival before, during or after collectivization? The International Criminal Court might consider such a plea, but only for 1931–41 after forced collectivization was completed, and before Hitler’s and Hirohito’s defeats. The Japanese didn’t launch an undeclared war against China by invading Manchuria until 1931, creating Manchukuo as an independent state in 1932. Hitler didn’t violate the Versailles Treaty by remilitarizing the Rhineland until 1936. Abram Bergson’s estimates of Soviet defense spending bolster this assessment.14 Table 18.1 shows that Stalin didn’t take his own rhetoric about fascist and Japanese enemies seriously enough to start rearming until 1935 (although Peter Vigor argues that rearmament began earlier). If there is a case for justifiable homicide based on imminent military threat, it only applies to terror-starvation 1932–33, Great Terror, Gulag and ethnic cleansing victims. Terror-starvation deaths can be excluded because it had little direct positive bearing on war preparedness. The pool of potentially excusable crimes against humanity on grounds of national defense is 1–3


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Table 18.1 Bergson’s munition estimates: Soviet defense burden 1928–90, ratio of defense spending to GNP (percent)


Bergson 1928 1937 1940 1944 1950 1951 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 2000

CIA

1.0 6.2 13.8 38.8 10.3 10.2

24.2 19.5 14.5 16.0 15.4 15.5 15.3 14.9 13.8 13.2

Sources: Abram Bergson, The Real National Income of the Soviet Union Since 1928, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961, Table 3, p.46, Table 4, p.48, pp.61, 364. Noel Firth and James Noren, Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950–1990, Texas: A&M University, College Station, 1998, Table 5.10, pp.129–130. Table 6.4, this volume. Note: Bergson’s estimates are derived from the official Soviet defense budget, and are valued in established 1937 ruble prices. The CIA’s numbers are valued in established 1982 ruble prices. The estimate for 2000 was computed by Rosefielde in 2000 dollars, using CIA methods.

million souls (see Table 2.1, panel II) killed from the onset of the Moscow show trials to the outbreak of the Second World War. Relatively few Great Terror deaths can be linked to agrarian tax collections and other aspects of agrarian surplus transfers. Most Great Terror victims weren’t peasants,15 although Gulag forced laborers and the spetspereselentsy were engaged significantly in mining and other munitions related activities. Moreover, it can be plausibly argued that some punished peoples were national security risks. Therefore, let us assume that the International Criminal Court might find half of Stalin’s victims 1936–41 justifiable homicides because war preparations, or fifth column threats, necessitated their these killings. This would still leave Stalin culpable of millions or tens of millions of crimes against humanity. Millions more justifiable homicides also are possible if the Gulag population were larger than the archival data indicate, but Stalin’s defense team for obvious reasons would shun this line of justification, as it would the admission that communist command economies might not survive in the long

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run without siege-mobilized terror. There is no exit. Communism cannot elude conviction for high crimes against humanity by pleading justifiable homicide.

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Stalin’s killings, even if premeditated, might not be criminal, if his attorneys prove that they were justified. Attorneys can plead that his actions were lesser evils, greater goods or kto kovo (kill or be killed) self-defense. However, it must be shown that the death of each person killed was indispensable for achieving lesser evils, greater goods or selfdefense. Killing innocent members of enemy groups, whether or not groups are precisely defined, is an inadmissible defense in the eyes of the International Court of Justice, as is wanton killing for noble causes. Class struggle doesn’t excuse murder any more than Hitler’s claims for racial purification. The Bolshevik belief in bogeymen isn’t exculpatory. Communists don’t explicitly defend Stalin’s killings as lesser evils (less than capitalist and fascist evils), because they prefer not to consider the possibility that command communist would have failed without siege-mobilized terror (as it did in 1991). Maurice Dobb, among others, however, justified Stalin’s excesses (but not his Red Holocaust) on the claim that superindustrialization was a greater good. His argument, and those of his disciples, following the official Communist Party line is that an agrarian surplus (primitive socialist accumulation) had to be extracted as tribute from the peasantry to finance superindustrialization. The concept of agrarian surplus can be combined with neoclassical and even Austrian growth theory to show how agrarian transfers of material and labor can assist rapid modernization. Agrarian transfers could have expedited superindustrialization. However, industrial growth rates during NEP and the period of the first two five-year plans were nearly identical. There is no evidence to support the claim that agrarian transfers to industry through forced collectivization, terror-starvation and lethal Gulag forced labor had a decisive impact on superindustrialization. This finding is consistent with neoclassical growth theory which stresses that technological progress in its various forms is the primary source of sustainable superindustrialization, not agrarian resource transfers. Peasant labor was transferred to industry and did facilitate


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industrial growth, but this could have been accomplished with non-lethal methods. Gulag forced labor helped Stalin achieve some specific industrial objectives, and may have been essential for some military purposes, but didn’t have a noticeably positive impact on the rate and sustainability of Soviet superindustrialization. No economic theorist has ever cogently explained why forced collectivization, and mass killing, were theoretically indispensable for superindustrialization because it cannot be done. James Millar, using intersectoral balance data complied by A.A. Barsov, moreover, has shown that agricultural transfers to industry where counterbalanced by industrial capital and materials transfers to agriculture. Michael Ellman and others with various minor qualifications have confirmed Millar’s results. This means that there was no net agrarian tribute to industry, and that the only substantial contribution the peasantry made to superindustrialization was leaving the countryside for the cities. Thus, Stalin’s homicides were criminal, not justified. The Japanese and German military threat doesn’t justify forced collectivization, or terror-starvation, because Manchukuo wasn’t created until 1932, Hitler didn’t remilitarize the Rhineland until 1935, and the data show that Stalin didn’t begin his arms build-up in earnest until the end of the second five-year plan. Also, the suggestion that Stalin’s terror-starvation was essential to defeating Hitler or deterring Hirohito is without merit, because Soviet manpower was sacrificed without compensatory benefit. Some Great Terror, Gulag lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing deaths could be justified as national defense measures against the German and Japanese menaces, but this still leaves millions, perhaps tens of millions, of other unjustified crimes against humanity. The Red Holocaust cannot be excused as justifiable homicide.


19 Beyond Good and Evil

Many scholars of Ha Shoah and communist killings, both those who condone and condemn these crimes, caution against judging Hitler, Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot too harshly, or exaggerating the significance of the Nazi and Red Holocausts. They contend that there is a higher court, beyond what Friedrich Nietzsche called good and evil, where the rules set by the International Criminal Court (established July 1, 2002) governing ordinary mortals don’t fully apply, and relatedly that crimes against humanity aren’t the whole story, or even the most important part of the larger scheme.1 As David Hoffmann contends: “history cannot be reduced to a prosecutorial indictment,”2 or more broadly, as Nietzsche conceived it, there is no universal human morality. “The time for petty politics is past: the very next century will bring with it the struggle for mastery over the whole earth.”3 Did Hitler, Stalin and Mao have free will? Were they beguiled? Were they enthralled? Were they possessed? Were they psychotic? Were they misinformed? Were their subordinates to blame? Were they prisoners of circumstance? Were they darlings of destiny? Were they Hegelian world historical figures? Were they forces of nature? Did they have compensating virtues? Did they provide worthy service to the nation? Were their crimes against humanity the centerpiece or a lesser aspect of their epochs? What really matters in the larger scheme of things? Should Nietzsche’s “beyond good and evil” be taken seriously, or is it just a late nineteenth century romantic conceit?4 These questions are important for our purposes because they bear on some of the diverse ways partisans have evaded fully coming to terms with communist dystopia and the Red Holocaust endogenized in siege-mobilized terror-command. Each is legitimate, but none justify acquitting, condoning, diminishing or exogenizing Stalin’s, Kim’s, Mao’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s crimes against humanity. The Nietzschean claim is a complex amalgam of determinism, free will, ethical iconoclasm, constructed values and stereotyping, including the supreme virtue of unabridged power that transcends personal failings. Supermen, (Übermenschen) paradoxically bend immovable forces of nature (determinism) to their wills (free will) to achieve mastery over the entire earth. If they transgress, err, or are purblind, these wrongs are inextricable parts of


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the process, not tragic flaws. Only the meek obey the International Criminal Court. Supermen (and by historical extension), the “master race” and “master class” are beyond good and evil. Nonetheless, Nietzsche, and those under his thrall, often treat history as providential, even though it need not be, and their supermen deliberately slaughter innocents who stand in their way, or kill them for advantage. They contend that Übermenschen, the master race or master class, create better futures, regardless of the conventional moral balance. If superman wins, the future is sky blue, just like a Hollywood action adventure movie. This posture partially explains why some scholars spotlight Stalin’s and Mao’s will to power, ideological rantings and vain triumphalism, while backlighting their crimes against humanity. The shadings vary from analyst to analyst. Some melodramatize the hero’s struggle for power (echoing the bathos of Hitler’s Mein Kampf ), some stress the master class’s cause, and others phantom miracles. But regardless of the mix, adolescent passion trumps reason and the fundamental canon of Judeo-Christian morality. Stalin’s alleged heroic qualities reflected in his ideological good intentions, superindustrialization, victory over Hitler, and sundry lesser evils are enough to absolve him of what “last men” deem his sins.5 It doesn’t matter from this perspective whether Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s judgment were impaired by difficult childhoods, or they were swept away by the communist movement, participated in civil wars, were duped by Marxist sophistries, were embroiled in political struggles, suffered from paranoid delusions and didn’t fully control their subordinates. Supermen are above such banalities, have no need to plead their case before the International Criminal Court which embodies the letzte Mensch’s inferior ethics. It is western justice that is inadequate, not the Nietzschean claim that supermen are beyond good and evil and deserve to be treated with awe and reverence. Is this right? Do Nietzsche’s insights into the selective ethical premises of western law, humanism and the Enlightenment provide adequate grounds for acquitting, condoning, diminishing or exogenizing communist crimes against humanity? Although Nietzsche’s aphoristic philosophy is subject to multiple interpretations, and many features of his iconclasm are correct, he fails to explain why trans-moral historical forces are intrinsically virtuous (artistry and creativity often are only in the eyes of beholder), or how the act of rejecting humanist and Enlightenment ethical ideas embedded in western jurisprudence forms positive values meritorious enough to justify heroic license, including mass murder. This is a double failure. Condemning western ethical parochialism (bourgeois morality), isn’t the same thing as discovering the true universal. Nor does it validate Nietzsche’s notion of the supreme good.6 Why should scholars accept Cesare Borgia’s,7 Stalin’s or Mao’s superiority over established norms of virtue? As a matter of taste, Stalin may seem more colorful than the “last man,” but this hardly excuses his crimes. Why should


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communist dystopia be conflated with a better reality against the facts, just because leaders can be misportrayed as supermen? Nietzsche is better at describing what virtue is not than what it is. He tells us, in Ecce Homo, that supermen’s virtues cannot be equated with western religious, democratic or humanitarian ideals, but avoids defining heroic norms precisely enough to judge whether Hitler, Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot qualify. Thus, at the end of the day, we don’t know why communists guilty of crimes against humanity are above the law. George Bernard Shaw’s satire of the Nietzschean license in Man and Superman is on the mark.8 Blemished as they may be, western law, humanist and Enlightenment values are more compelling bases for judging communist crimes against humanity, than counterclaims that make the ends justify the means, appeal to notions of lesser evil, or sanction slaughters as forces of nature. The same line of argument applies to those who reformulate Nietzschean killing by substituting saviors for supermen. Stalin’s, Kim’s, Mao’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s terror in this version is motivated by superior socialist humanist and Enlightenment ideals that extenuate the evil they do.9 The position cannot be sustained. It doesn’t suffice to assert socialist humanist virtues, and then disregard the International Criminal Court. The overall shape of any verdict the court might render on the Red Holocaust is easily foreseen, given the evidence presented Chapters 2–15. It cannot be reversed within the western legal tradition by unsubstantiatable claims to the higher imperative of Bolshevism. Likewise, the literature is strewn with the suggestion that Stalin and his tribe didn’t know the legal difference between right and wrong, implying that this mitigates or excuses their crimes against humanity. Maybe so, but given the evidence, the International Criminal Court is unlikely to see it this way. Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot weren’t insane. They were just evil,10 rationally maximizing their utility without the usual ethical constraints. If they were beguiled by Marxist rhetoric or were carried away by nationalist concerns, they also had a legal obligation to rethink their positions at the moment they contemplated mass murder. If their subordinates exceeded their authority, they were obliged to ferret this out when the killings were called to their attention. The tenuousness of the case for rosy interpretations of siege-mobilized terror-command communism should have been evident three-quarters of a century ago, and certainly not later than the archival revolution. Although change should not be expected soon because the cult of revolution still controls grand interpretation, and the forest continues to be hidden by the trees, a more forthright picture is emerging as partisan attachment to Stalinism and anti-colonialism fade, and the archival revolution permeates economics and history. Eventually, everyone will grasp that the defining attribute of Bolshevism was the Red Holocaust, just as Nazism’s hallmark was Hitler’s Holocaust. The rest is just the anatomy of failed civilizations.

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Crimes against humanity can be defended in mock trials by minimizing their importance relative to a greater good, or a sum of benefits. Accordingly, some claim that the Red Holocaust was just an aspect of communist history and shouldn’t be conflated with that greater good, or that Stalin’s, Kim’s, Mao’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s murders should be excused because of compensating accomplishments. Nietzsche’s idea that heroes like Stalin are beyond good and evil is an extreme manifestation of this viewpoint. Nietzsche’s Übermenschen may be above the law because the changes they bring are glorious in some mysterious, yet profound sense, or promote a highest good like communism that justifies mundane transgressions. The arguments appeal to Sturm und drang sentimentalities. Heroic posturing is not an adequate defense against mass violations of the Sixth Commandment codified in national and international law. Nor does the cult of revolution shrink the magnitude of communism’s crime against humanity. Although communism had many faces, the Red Holocaust was its defining manifestation.


20 Clemency and Retribution

Communism committed inexcusable high crimes against humanity judged from the standards of contemporary international law. Some state killings may have been excusable on various grounds. The International Criminal Court might find that specific homicides were self-defense, greater goods, or even beyond good and evil, but not enough to avert a guilty verdict on the Red Holocaust. Nonetheless, many may still feel that communist despots and communism more broadly deserve sympathetic treatment, or even that their high crimes against humanity are forgivable. Defense attorneys anticipating an adverse judgment on the narrow issue of guilt can be expected to include pleas for clemency in their closing arguments, and post-trial appeals. Victims, and those speaking on their behalf, are likely to enter countervailing pleas for retribution (an eye for an eye), including compensation for aggravating factors like torture.1 Clemency advocates, assuming a guilty finding on millions of counts of murder, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, must stress that while Stalin, Kim, Mao, Ho and Pol Pot were sane enough to distinguish right from wrong when their crimes were committed, their judgments were blurred by extraordinary circumstances. They were confronted by what they thought were do-or-die kto kovo choices, impairing their ability to dispassionately assess international legal duty. This factor didn’t rise to the standard of exoneration, but may be taken into account again in sentencing. Victims’ rights advocates must rebut these pleadings and introduce evidence of aggravated crimes involving sadism, torture, mutilation, cannibalism, terror, cruelty, oppression, and deprivation of political and civil rights to support claims for stern sentences and reparations. They must paint the siegemobilized terror-command universe as dystopic, rather than a tragically flawed endeavor to reach the promised land.

Superman’s Burden Extraordinary people are often seen as being above the law in special situations. If they murder, manslaughter, negligently kill, rape, torture, mutilate and oppress in ordinary times, they will be condemned for crimes against


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humanity. However, the same atrocities committed in the heat of battle during tumultuous epochs, where precise accounting may be impossible, frequently are pardoned as collateral damage. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot perceived themselves in this way. Stalin lauded Ivan Grozny’s situational ruthlessness, and Mao boasted that he was a hundred times bloodier than Qin Shi Huangdi.2 Communism’s fate proves that Stalin, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s bold deeds did not have the compensating benefits anticipated. It cannot be claimed, as is often done, that communism, and its despots, were really necessary 3 for the achievement of any substantial good. Nonetheless, communist rulers may have thought so when they authorized the Red Holocaust, and may plead for mercy because their intentions were virtuous. Such pleas boil down to whether Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot really believed that their decisions were time urgent, leaving them no time to meticulously distinguish friend from foe; assuming that the International Criminal Court agreed that they were well intended. There is no evidence that Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, or Pol Pot’s killing fields were driven by time urgent exigencies. They simply indulged themselves. Neither deserves clemency for falsely claiming that their judgment was clouded by what they thought were justifiable fears in dangerous times. They could have, but did not exercise due diligence in assessing collateral damage. And of course, insofar as their motives were ignoble, grounds for clemency would be correspondingly diminished. Stalin’s case is more complex. He seems to have felt threatened by enemies his entire life. If he weren’t clinically paranoid, the literature indicates that he was borderline. Also, Stalin and the Bolsheviks had enemies at home and abroad. Japan and Germany weren’t manifest threats when he launched forced collectivization and the Holodomor, but they certainly imperiled the USSR not long after the Moscow show trials began in 1937.4 Perhaps, Stalin’s personal demons and occasional misperceptions of the present danger did sometimes mislead him into emulating Ivan Grozny’s killings. However, Koba’s actions persistently deviated from the suggested pattern. He had ample time during NEP to plan his attack on the peasantry, and there was no plausible menace to justify Holodomor. Similarly, the first wave of the Red Holocaust abated as the Third Reich and Showa Japan threats increased after 1938, and Stalin never stopped killing after WWII when the immediate danger had passed. Therefore, the International Criminal Court is unlikely to find that he was incapacitated by the light of the revolution, or the crush of events. He was sufficiently in control of his faculties to minimize collateral damage, and displayed little restraint. The same judgment applies to less plausible claims that he, Mao and Pol Pot criminally killed because they were traumatized by World War I, civil wars and other relevant acts of insurrectionary violence.

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Damage Limitation Some authors note that communist despots occasionally did try to contain unnecessary killings. Van den Berg contends that the Soviet penal system was more correctional than an engine of lethal forced labor, and suggests that politicals, rather than ordinary convicts, bore the brunt of Stalin’s excesses. Stephen Barnes asserts that conditions in Gulag were generally better and terms shorter than might be supposed.5 No one denies forced labor killings, or inexplicably high mortality rates in ethnically cleansed populations, but judges might feel that a modicum of clemency is justified insofar as Stalin’s humanitarianism was motivated by something more than economic efficiency. However, the same claims cannot be made for Pol Pot, or Mao’s, treatment of Tibetans. There isn’t enough documentary evidence to evaluate his forced labor policies.

Psychiatric Disorder There are sound reasons for believing that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were psychiatrically disordered, but not sufficiently so to be diagnosed as psychotic. Hence, although guilty verdicts mean that they were legally sane,6 judges might be asked for clemency because they were in a volatile emotional state when they chose to kill. The task of constructing such a plea which might include non-psychotic paranoia is best left to their advocates, but it should be noted that a thorough vetting of psychological issues is not apt to favorably impress the International Criminal Court. Erich Fromm, for example, describes Stalin clinically as a “nonsexual sadist,” a psychiatric disorder that falls short of psychosis.7 He writes: One of the outstanding historical examples of both mental and physical sadism was Stalin. His behavior is a textbook description of nonsexual, as de Sade’s novels are of sexual sadism. It was he who was the first to order the torture of political prisoners since the beginning of the revolution, a measure that up to the time of his giving this order had been shunned by the Russian revolutions (R.A. Medvedev, 1971). Under Stalin the methods of torture used by the NKVD surpassed in refinement and cruelty anything that the czarist police had thought of. Sometimes he personally gave orders about what kind of torture was to be used on a prisoner. He mainly practiced mental sadism, of which I want to give a few illustrations. One particular form Stalin enjoyed was to assure people that they were safe, only to arrest them a day or two later. Of course, the arrest hit the victim all the more severely because he had felt especially safe: besides that, Stalin could enjoy the sadistic pleasure of knowing the man’s real fate at the same time that he was assuring him of his favor.8 A particularly refined form of sadism was Stalin’s habit of arresting wives—and sometimes children—of some of the highest Soviet or Party


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functionaries and keeping them in a labor camp, while their husbands had to do their jobs and bow and scrape before Stalin without daring even to ask for their releases.9 Jung Chang characterizes Mao similarly, and accuses him of other depravities.10 The Khmer Rouge “tortured in a barbaric fashion” before killing prisoners,11 and sometimes indulged in genital mutilation and lethal sexual sadism; behavior that is considered psychiatrically disordered because it violates victims’ wills and causes “marked distress and interpersonal difficulty.”12 The vicious nature of these mental disorders would seem to outweigh neuroses said to deserve judicial solicitude.13

Public Welfare Similar arguments have been adduced regarding communist beneficence. Although Soviet communism was an economic failure, Sheila Fitzpatrick and others have tried to show that Stalin’s regime facilitated progressive social processes that improved the lot of ordinary people, provided significant educational, public health and housing benefits, promoted gender and racial equality, eliminated disparities of income and welfare, provided full employment, and heightened communist consciousness and humanitarianism.14 Many of these claims cannot withstand serious scrutiny,15 especially in comparative perspective, but even if there were a net systemic benefit, it could hardly be enough to significantly mitigate Stalin’s high crimes against humanity. Needless to say Pol Pot has nothing whatsoever to show for his assault on heaven, and Mao’s record isn’t substantially better. It always can be claimed that, although communist welfare measures were unimpressive, their goals were laudable, but no seasoned judge who has heard gratuitous praise before is likely to be impressed. Nor would he be swayed by the claim that ridding the world of everyone with the wrong class background was a positive good.

Calling the Kettle Black Claims that communism’s crimes aren’t any blacker than those perpetrated by capitalism and imperialism likewise will fall on deaf ears. This suggestion is frequently voiced in academic forums, but is at best tangential to any plea that holocaust-scale murder, felonious manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide merit clemency. Two wrongs don’t make one right. Moreover, the claim itself is invalid. There are no examples of democratic capitalist state holocausts. As will be shown in Chapter 21, it can be argued that communists weren’t the only totalitarians to mass murder, but no scholar has been prepared to argue that Stalin deserves clemency solely because he may have been less murderous than Hitler.

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Henchmen It has become fashionable to ameliorate Stalin’s responsibility for the first wave of the Red Holocaust by spreading the blame. Wheatcroft shifts the guilt partially from Stalin’s shoulder to Evdokimov and team Stalin.16 J. Arch Getty emphasizes individual actors like Yezhov inside the NKVD,17 and Wendy Goldman the role of popular participation in the Great Terror.18 Flawed institutions can also be faulted instead of communism for the Soviet Union’s, North Korea’s, China’s, Vietnam’s, Laos’s and Cambodia’s high crimes against humanity. As in any mock trial of Hitler, responsibility can and should be diffused, but there is sufficient evidence of Stalin’s, Mao’s and Pol Pot’s direct participation in the Red Holocaust to temper any clemency granted on this ground. Also, blaming other communist participants hardly mitigates the criminality of Soviet, Chinese, Kampuchean, North Korean and Laotian communism.

Retribution The weight accorded to clemency pleas depends partly on cogency, and partly on counterclaims for retribution. Judges must make a net assessment in sentencing. The retributive side of the account involves pleas that convicted killers be punished as fully as possible within the limits of statute for their crimes.19 The eye for an eye principle, other things equal, means that communist despots should be executed millions, perhaps tens of millions, of times for violating the Sixth Commandment, and can be construed further to necessitate reparations for material losses, as well as pain and suffering. The fact that one killed many precludes any possibility of strict retributive justice. Even if the case for clemency were powerful, the number of murders, manslaughters and criminally negligent homicides will incline judges to order defendants’ execution, or the sternest alternative permitted under the law. The retributive settlement of material claims in principle is a matter of accounting. Properties stolen and the computation of lost wages are straightfoward issues. However, compensation for pain and suffering is more complex, because the anguish arises both from the manner of killing, and from a series of lesser state crimes preceding wrongful deaths. Torture, starvation and excruciating labor directly connected with execution, malnutrition, homicides and lethal forced labor exemplify the first category of pain and suffering. Pol Pot tortured every detainee in Phnom Penh’s S-21 prison before killing them, some with sadistic sexual mutilation.20 Holodomor starvation deaths weren’t quick or painless, and testimonial evidence from Stalin’s Gulag and Pol Pot’s agro-communes indicated that people worked to death suffered acutely. Millions moreover were tortured long before they died, in initial interrogations, pre-trial incarceration, post-trial imprisonment and transport. Some of



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the torture was physical, including lethal sexual sadism, and as Fromm reports, nonsexual psychological sadism also was employed. Moreover, and more broadly, the entire spectrum of torture, sadism, mutilation, cannibalism,21 terror, cruelty, oppression, and deprivation of political, economic and civil rights at one time or another added to the pain and suffering of those consumed in the Red Holocaust. The agony incurred is incalculable, but the immensity nonetheless is obvious, countervailing any imaginable clemency claim.22 Communist despots cannot hope to evade the severest punishments for their high crimes against humanity, and communism cannot avoid the sternest condemnation.

Moving Forward No trial, real or mock, is curative. Perpetrators and those who supported them often are powerfully motivated to hold their ground, and some neoStalinists, like neo-Nazis in the German case, remain in the wings awaiting their chance. Surviving victims of various descriptions frequently have little alternative to coexisting. Sane voices urge letting bygones be bygones, and moving on. The same pragmatic considerations, however, also necessitate safeguarding accurate memory and understanding. Accommodating for the greater good doesn’t mean acceding to perpetrators’ visions of historical significance, or selective amnesia that facilitates a third wave of the Red Holocaust. While there was more to the communist experience than high crimes against humanity, it is a mistake to allow this truism to conceal the fact that communism everywhere has been a failure, and that its most distinctive and important aspect is the Red Holocaust. Yes, economic development, social modernization and World War II were interesting, but what differentiated them from the rest of Russian history was the Red Holocaust. This is its defining attribute, just as Ha Shoah is the Third Reich’s, and epitomizes a latent potential that warrants careful monitoring, guided by accurate memory. Also, it has been shown that much of western scholarship on communism has for diverse reasons had the effect of marginalizing siege-mobilized terror-command and other unpleasant aspects of communism’s utopian vision and practice. The process is gaining rather than losing momentum, with fading interest in central planning, and the current focus on transition, raising the risk of another red tragedy. This tendency must be resisted as part of a larger effort to deter future holocausts of any sort. Just as it is essential to constantly remember Ha Shoah and Japanese Asian holocaust while moving forward toward reconciliation, and the construction of a better global order, so too the Red Holocaust cannot be forgotten, lest we inadvertently abet a third wave.

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The finding that communism committed high crimes against humanity means that those responsible were sane, and cannot be exonerated on grounds of self-defense, greater goods or being above the law. Nonetheless, many of these same grounds can be invoked in pleas for clement sentences. Victims’ rights advocates may use similar arguments to support harsh sentences. They may introduce evidence of sadism, torture, mutilation, cannibalism, terror, cruelty, oppression and deprivation of political and civil rights. Extraordinary people often claim that they had to make decisions which wrongfully killed because the press of events didn’t permit them the luxury of distinguishing life-threatening enemies from ordinary citizens. They admit collateral damage, but insist that it was unavoidable. Stalin in this way admired Ivan the Terrible, and Mao Qin Shi Huangdi. Communism’s failure proves that this collateral damage was unnecessary, but it can be argued that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot acted in good faith when they made their decisions. Mao and Pol Pot cannot plead this excuse because neither was menaced by sufficient perils when they launched their mass terror campaigns. A stronger case can be composed for Stalin, but his actions don’t fit the pattern. He was most ruthless when perils were small, and least murderous when they were large. Claims that World War I, civil wars and insurrectionary violence are responsible for Stalin’s, Mao’s and Pol Pot’s trigger happiness aren’t persuasive. Stalin can be credited with sometimes doing too little, too late, to contain the harm that he did, but Pol Pot and Mao in critical instances failed to display the slightest human compassion. Psychiatrically based clemency appeals are slippery because they require sane people to show that they were unduly influenced by lesser mental disorders like neuroses. Perhaps they were paranoid, but not psychotically so. The evidence, however, indicates that benign neuroses that clouded their judgment were dominated by vicious mental disorders like lethal sexual sadism and non-sexual sadism.

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Many scholars contend that communism’s accomplishments are inadequately appreciated. Improved living standards for ordinary people are said to compensate for other despotic shortcomings. These benefits include education, public health, public housing, race and gender empowerment, egalitarianism, full employment and enhanced communist consciousness. These achievements, however, were not prodigious, and performance was inferior compared with the west. It is sometimes suggested that exterminating all members of exploiting classes is a good in itself, but judges are unlikely to agree. Some contend that capitalism and imperialism were worse than communism, but the claim is false and hardly forms compelling grounds for clemency. Responsibility for communist high crimes against humanity also can be shifted from individual despots to their subordinates, the people, or even flawed institutions. The claims have some validity, but Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot have enough blood on their hands to make clemency appeals on this ground insignificant. Retributive justice cannot be attained in cases where one kills many because perpetrators can only die once. Also, the magnitude of victims’ material losses, as well as pain and suffering caused by the Red Holocaust, are incalculable. Pain and suffering are incurred by victims from the act of killing and a long sequence of preceding events. Torture, sadism, mutilation, cannibalism, terror, cruelty, oppression, and deprivation of political, economic and human rights are all contributing causes. The asymmetry between perpetrators’ and victims’ rights is so stark that communist despots cannot hope to evade the severest punishments for their high crimes against humanity, and communism cannot avoid the sternest condemnation. A compelling case can be made for letting bygones be bygones, but not at the expense of selective amnesia that increases the risk of holocaust recurrence. Even while seeking reconciliation, the Red Holocuast cannot be belittled or forgotten as a deterrent to a third wave. The three great twentieth century totalitarian holocausts, the ongoing high crimes against humanity in North Korea and the Hutus’ ethnic holocaust against the Tutsis must be collectively acknowledged and remembered, to deter future holocausts of all descriptions.



Part VI




21 Genocide and Lethal Labor Exploitation

The Red Holocaust, Ha Shoah and Japan’s Asian holocaust have common roots in the industrial revolution and Enlightenment; both positive and negative aspects. The industrial revolution drastically altered the global economic and military power balances, destabilizing political orders among winners and losers alike. The Enlightenment spawned democratization, liberalism, socialism, communism and national liberation movements; but the backlash and the industrial revolution fanned the fires of nationalism, chauvinism, colonialism, imperialism, fascism and other despotic forms of modernization. Economics was a core element in all these movements because material productivity conditioned success, and survival often was said to depend on the control of raw materials. Left, right and center, leaders embraced this or that system, and chose predatory or liberal international economic strategies. Imperialists and anti-imperialists could be found in all camps, but attitudes towards economic systems were polarized. Communists hitched their stars to command planning; everyone else to competitive or regulated markets. Authoritarian states like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Showa Japan which emerged from this cauldron after the First World War displayed strong militarist and repressive proclivities. The Enlightenment, industrial revolution and miseries of WWI destroyed the old orders in Russia and Germany, paving the way for a new kind of authoritarian demagoguery often described as totalitarianism.1 Stalin and Hitler personified the archetype. Both rejected the Sixth and Eighth Commandments,2 and other aspects of civilized behavior that made their regimes more vicious than those they replaced. Showa Japan moved along the same repressive trajectory compared with the Taisho era, but its repression, militarism and imperialism were driven by ultra-nationalist factions in the military and government, rather than by the emperor’s totalitarian inclinations.3 Japan’s Asian holocaust was attributable more to the brutality of the times, and racist opportunism, than a radical break in social, political and economic continuity with the past.4 These commonalities have led some scholars to attribute Soviet, German and Japanese crimes against humanity to totalitarianism loosely construed, while others stress unique features.5 Those who blame totalitarianism spotlight domestic repression, militarism and imperialism; dissenters highlight


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racism, anti-communism, Stalinism, the brutality of WWI and subsequent civil strife,6 the Great Depression and diverse cultural disorders. Both are illuminating, and contain important truths, but broadening the conceptual frame to include the post-Stalin communist terror-free command epoch radically alters received wisdom. The cessation of the Red Holocaust in Khrushchev’s, Deng’s and Indochina’s terror-free command regimes after 1985 convincingly demonstrates that siege-mobilized terror-command, not red totalitarianism or Stalin’s bloodlust, was responsible for communism’s mass slaughter, including the use of lethal forced labor. Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot were totalitarian and mass murderous; their totalitarian successors were merely tyrannical. Khrushchev’s, Deng’s and Indochina’s societies were totalitarian. The media was controlled, the economy was state-dominated, civil rights were repressed, and society was militarized, but their violations of the Sixth and Eight Commandments were comparatively mild (Table 5.3), confirming that it was siege-mobilization that sealed the fate of a hundred million communist victims, not totalitarian social organization. The same principle holds for Japan and the Third Reich. They weren’t always mass murderous. Relatively few were slaughtered before 1937, with the carnage only mounting when both decided to conquer their corners of the world, and act on their racist rhetoric. These manias were their surrogates for siege-mobilized terror-command. They allowed Hitler and Japan’s ultranationalists to inflame passions against communism, and garner regime support without having to attack private property and markets, despite the Great Depression. The brotherhood of mass murder, however, didn’t mean that the Red Holocaust, Ha Shoah and Japan’s Asian holocaust were the same. Communists, Hitler and Japan’s ultra-nationalists crossed the threshold from low to high totalitarian killing for different reasons, with correspondingly dissimilar results, dominated by each leader’s peculiar aspirations. Karl Marx had a dream of a world without private property, free of human exploitation, where everyone actualized his or her full potential. Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung devised economic systems to realize the dream, and implemented them with mixed motives. The rest, including the Red Holocaust, is history. Adolf Hitler had a dream of a different sort; a world cleansed of inferior races. It was easier to implement. Extermination to extinction was enough. Hideki Tojo had a dream of serving his Showa emperor by conquering China, buttressing Japan’s colonial dominion over Korea, and building a glorious Asian empire. Neither he nor the emperor desired to impose the idea of Japan on their victims (Nihonize them), or other gaijin, with the possible exception of Korea, which was viewed as a territorial annexation rather than a colony. Killing for the cause and subjugation sufficed,7 including millions of civilian Chinese, Filipino, Indochinese and Pacific Islanders. Each dream ended in a holocaust and crimes against humanity, but differing


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in intent. They also differed fundamentally in scope, focus and duration. The Red Holocaust had the widest geographical reach, targeted the largest segment of the population, and still persists 92 years after the Bolshevik coup d’état. It has lasted long enough to provide deep insight not only into communist mass murder, but the possibilities of communist economic systems. Hitler’s and Hirohito’s holocausts by contrast were geographically circumscribed, temporally compressed (war years 1937–45), narrowly targeted, and ended with Germany’s and Japan’s defeat. While there are similarities between communism and postwar nationalist authoritarian regimes in Asia and Latin America, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan were too heterogeneous to speak seriously of a global racist-imperialist totalitarian holocaust and attendant crimes against humanity,8 analogous to the Red Holocaust. Hitler did not have his Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot to continue exterminating Untermenschen after he was gone, and even during the 1930s neither Mussolini nor Franco shared Hitler’s program of Jewish extermination.9 The parallel between siege-mobilized terror-command communism and the Japanese ultra-nationalist movement is more tenuous. Japanese imperialism was for Japan only, and didn’t produce postwar clones. The Red Holocaust was a transnational phenomenon; Hitler’s and Hirohito’s holocausts were parochial. Contempt for the Sixth and Eighth Commandments was a common denominator, but, aside from a shared willingness to employ lethal conscript and/or penal forced labor in peacetime, extended to POWs during the war, little in their holocaust experiences is really the same. Most Red Holocaust killings occurred during periods free of foreign wars, civil wars (excluding North Vietnam), or when an armistice was in force (North Korea). They were mainly targeted against Soviet, Chinese, North Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian citizens. By contrast, Hitler’s murders were focused on Jews and Roma everywhere, with secondary attention given to exterminating communist and other opposition, with most of the killings occurring during the war. The slaughter of other groups was comparatively minor, except for Slavic and other civilians pressed into lethal forced labor after 1938, and POWs during World War II. Had Nazi Germany prevailed, Hitler might have continued running amok enslaving and massacring non-Aryans, but fortunately we will never know whether he would have persisted. Hitler’s systematic extermination of Jews and Roma was genocidal in the highest degree. He sought their total, not partial, extinction. Stalin’s policies arguably were genocidal to a lesser degree. If he intended to liquidate Ukrainians during Holodomor, there is no evidence that he wanted to destroy the entire population (see Chapter 3). Likewise, while Pol Pot may have adopted genocidal tactics against some minorities on a limited scale, it is a misuse of the term “genocide” to suggest that he intended to annihilate the Khmer people (see Chapter 10). Hirohito’s military administration savagely brutalized millions of Chinese,10 and may have had an unspoken genocidal agenda to reduce their numbers, but complete extinction doesn’t seem to have been


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contemplated. Hitler’s Ha Shoah, as Wheatcroft stresses, has no parallel, even in an epoch of state-condoned – orchestrated and – implemented mass murder. Hirohito refrained from slaughtering Japanese citizens of all races in Showa Japan, but was morally guilty of crimes against humanity by pressing other Asian civilians into lethal forced labor (including Korean comfort women), especially in his colonies, starting with the Second Sino-Japanese War.11 Ultra-nationalists are also morally culpable for the 1937 Nanjing massacre, excluded here as a war crime.12 Had Showa Japan won the Pacific War, it might have continued the wartime lethal forced labor regime, but Japan’s prior history,13 and colonial record in Korea after 1910, suggests that softer forms of exploitation would have prevailed (see Table 21.4). Neither Hitler nor Hirohito used terror-discipline, terror-starvation and terror-purges as part of their economic regimes; although the Fuehrer did employ ethnic cleansing with economic ramifications to racially segregate Germans from inferior populations, and Hirohito was prepared to accept the starvation deaths of millions of Japanese civilians to end World War II on favorable terms.14 Only communism in its siege-mobilized terror-command phase demonstrated the capability of mass murdering nearly everyone except the last man standing, if this advanced the ruler’s interests without jeopardizing his power. These nuances can be driven home by comparing the new understanding of Soviet, German and Japanese crimes against humanity 1930–45 assessed from a Red Holocaust perspective, with standard comparison of Stalin’s and Hitler’s holocausts. Stephen Wheatcroft has concisely outlined the basics. German scholars tend to argue that Hitler killed fewer people (Jews, Roma, Slavs, opposition German communists, and POWs) than Stalin. This is accomplished by accepting Robert Conquest’s estimate that Stalin slaughtered 20 million people, ignoring archival evidence of a lower death toll, conflating negligent famine homicides with murder, and failing to adjust for population asymmetries. German scholars accept that Jews were Hitler’s principal victims, but the numbers show that the Fuehrer also killed 1.5 million German and foreign civilians, excluding 3 million Soviet military POWs (Table 21.1) (official Soviet sources put this figure at 1.2 million).15 These statistics imply that Nazi totalitarianism was intentionalist, that is, crimes against humanity were encoded in the system, but also that most of the killing, including Hitler’s genocide, was confined to wartime madness. Indeed, genocide and war aside, the Germans only butchered several hundred thousand concentration camp prisoners convicted of political and other sundry crimes (Table 21.1).16 Wheatcroft accepts much of the German analysis, caveated for statistical inconsistencies blurring the scale and pattern of Hitler’s totalitarian carnage, and objects to any characterization of the facts that diminishes the singularity of Ha Shoah. These, however, are only details. He contends that the essence of the matter lies in the misrepresentation of Stalin’s excess deaths, and failure to evaluate them on a per capita basis. First, and foremost, he insists



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that Stalin didn’t kill 20 million civilians. The archives reveal that the Soviets executed 791,570 people 1921–45,17 and purposive excess deaths in Gulag, and among exiles adds another 208,430 victims, rounding to 1 million.18 These deaths, and these deaths alone, Wheatcroft contends, are comparable with Hitler’s murders in Auschwitz, ordinary concentration camps, in other places of detention (including ghettos) and murders by the Einsatzgruppen (paramilitary forces formed by Heinrich Himmler and operated by the Schutz Staffel SS, tasked to annihilate Jews, gypsies and Soviet commissars) (7,121,135 million total).19 Hitler on this score was more than seven times more murderous than Stalin (Table 21.1). Table 21.1 Nazi civilian executions and lethal forced labor killings 1933–45 Concentration camps 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Subtotal Extermination camps 1. Auschwitz 2. Other death camps 3. Other including ghettos Total: All Concentration Camps Murder by Einsatzgruppen and friends Death marches, 1945 Soviet POWs Jews only

6,250 7,313 7,898 8,539 9,212 33,162 92,853 129,995 155,944 224,631 222,759 340,821 381,780 1,621,135 3,500,000 to 4,500,000 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 500,000 7,121,135 700,000 233,333 3,000,000 5,820,960

Source: Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.48, No.8, 1996, 1319–1353. Table 1, pp.1324–1325. The underlying sources for the concentration camp and extermination camp killings is E. Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell, New York: Berkley, 1981. In German as Der SS Stadt (1946). The figures for Einsatzgruppen murders, death marches, 1945 and Soviet POWs are taken from J. Tuchel (1995). Jewish deaths are provided in Jacob Robinson, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972. Note: As with all numbers of these sorts, many disparate estimates exist. Wheatcroft’s paper provides a good review of sources. His summary assessment is that Kogon’s concentration camp and Auschwitz figures are too high, but that his total is in the ballpark. Raul Hilberg estimates that the Einsatzgruppen killed 1.3 million Jews. See Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Also, Christopher Browning and Jurgen Matthaus, The Origins of the Final Solution, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, and Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death, New York: Alfred Knopf, 2002.


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Hitler’s and Hirohito’s Holocausts Hitler caused the murder of at least 5 million innocent people, largely it would appear, because he did not like Jews and communists. Stalin by contrast can be charged with causing the purposive death of something in the order of a million people. Furthermore the purposive deaths caused by Hitler fit more closely into the category of “murder”, while those caused by Stalin fit more closely the category of “execution”. Stalin undoubtedly caused many innocent people to be executed, but it seems likely that he thought many of them guilty of crimes against the state and felt that the execution of others would act as a deterrent to the guilty. He signed the papers and insisted on documentation. Hitler, by contrast, wanted to be rid of the Jews and communists simply because they were Jews and communists. He was not concerned about making any pretence at legality. He was careful not to sign anything on this matter and was equally insistent on no documentation.20

Wheatcroft readily admits that this isn’t the whole story, because the comparison excludes non-declared famines of 1931–33, and war losses.21 He doesn’t provide figures for either, and is chary about including war losses, but nonetheless concedes that even if war losses are disregarded, Stalin probably “caused more people to die” than Hitler when homicide is broadly defined. Since Wheatcroft acknowledges that Hitler slaughtered approximately 7.1 million non-combatants, this implies that he believes Stalin caused 6 million or more people to die from collectivization linked terror-starvation (famine) (cf. Table 2.1 and Chapter 3). The negligent homicides as he portrays them are less heinous than mass murders, and Stalin’s wickedness is further diminished when comparisons are adjusted for relative population size. Wheatcroft asserts that there were approximately three Soviets for every German, so that on a per capita basis Soviet wrongful deaths (terror-starvation) shrink from 6 to 2 million, and Stalin’s murders fall to a mere 333,000. Soviet population adjusted murders and negligent homicides sum to 2.3 million, which is less than a third of Hitler’s total (2.3/7.1). Wheatcroft’s treble population rule of thumb is too high (cf. Table 15.6, and Table 21.4). The ratio is 2.4 in 1937, yielding a revised ratio of 41 percent, or 2.9 million Soviet equivalent killings.22 Beyond the numbers, Wheatcroft also believes that Stalin’s communist totalitarian excesses were a temporary aberration that diminished after WWII to minor levels, and that Khrushchev’s communism and that of his successors made positive contributions to the proletarian cause. He doesn’t offer any opinion about how Nazi Germany might have fared if Hitler had won the war, but his acknowledgment that the totalitarian paradigm fits the Third Reich suggests that he is prepared to infer that terror would not have vanished of its own accord. No basis exists for guessing whether he might anticipate postwar Nazism or communism to be the more lethal. The findings summarized in Chapter 2 of this volume (Table 2.1) and the analysis in Chapters 3–6 differ significantly from Wheatcroft’s statistical and



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interpretative judgments. WWII battle casualties and POW excess deaths aside, our estimates indicate that Stalin’s executions, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing 1929–53 exceeded Hitler’s 7.1 million total (but perhaps not if, as Wheatcroft failed to consider, the Germans exterminated (shot, gassed, burned, tortured) 6.4 or 11.3 million Soviet civilians during the war, as officially claimed by A.A. Shevyakov).23 Stalin, moreover, even appears to have been more murderous on a population-adjusted basis, again disregarding casualties of war. Ceteris paribus, assuming path dependence, communist totalitarianism was poised to continue being more murderous than Nazism as the Red Holocaust swept through post-Pacific War Asia, unless Hitler chose to extend his Auschwitz racial annihilation to other non-Aryans when he ran out of Jews and Roma. This asymmetry is the key to understanding the real difference between communist and non-communist holocausts. Both slew opponents, but only communist mass murder was endogenized in the siege-mobilized terrorcommand economic system. Opponents aside, Hitler’s slaughter was primarily genocidal and might have swiftly dwindled in peacetime once the Jews were extinct, even if the Third Reich and ultra-nationalist Japan retained totalitarianism.24 The Nazi economic system was harmed, not strengthened by Hitler’s annihilating racism, and didn’t require fresh victims for industrialization or sustainable economic growth. Likewise, Japanese peacetime economic prosperity wasn’t contingent on Chinese, Indochinese and other Asian lethal forced labor. Tojo accelerated the depreciation of this human capital stock to win the Pacific War, but he surely would have grasped that even if forced labor were retained afterwards, it was in Japan’s interest to optimize the present discounted value of conscripts, not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. This judgment is supported by population growth in South Korea during the subperiod of Japanese occupation 1933–45, which eclipsed Japan, China and Germany (Table 21.4). The exogeneity of Ha Shoah and the Asian holocaust from the Third Reich and Showa Japan’s war-economic systems doesn’t imply that either would have lasted. Hitler’s and Tojo’s GDP growth weren’t extraordinary, and certainly no better than communist siege-mobilized terror-command. Tables 21.2 and 21.3 reveal that Nazi and Showa Japanese economic growth were in line with the performance of the USSR, Chinese, North Korean, Vietnamese and Cambodian counterpart regimes (cf. Table 15.2). The quality of lethal totalitarian growth was inferior everywhere, both due to crimes against humanity and the priority accorded to guns over margarine. Murderfree German and Japanese totalitarian regimes might have grown more rapidly after the war, had they been victorious, but as in the communist world they would have been prone to degeneration. It follows directly that, while totalitarian regimes of various stripes had much in common, nonetheless communism’s claim to being the twentieth century’s supreme killing machine is well-founded (Table 21.5). Stalin’s,

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Table 21.2 Germany, Japan, South Korea gross domestic product 1928–45 (billion 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars) Year

Weimar Republic

1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

263,367 262,284 258,602 238,893 220,916

Third Reich

Japan

South Korea

234,778 256,220 275,496 299,753 317,783 342,351 374,577 377,284 401,174 406,582 414,696 425,041 302,457 143,381

124,346 128,116 118,801 119,804 129,835 142,589 142,876 146,817 147,493 165,017 176,051 203,781 209,728 212,594 211,448 214,457 205,214 102,607 111,492

14,171 13,902 14,179 13,980 14,570 16,670 16,488 18,648 19,915 22,614 22,440 20,115 22,536 22,848 22,718 23,048 22,050 11,029 11,984

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD: Geneva, 2003, Table 1b, p.50, Table 5b, p.172. Note: Boundaries. The estimates here refer to German borders as of 1936. The 1946 figure is based on postwar boundaries. Japan and South Korea are postwar boundaries.

Table 21.3 Germany, Japan and South Korea gross domestic product growth during the Third Reich and Imperial Japanese economic systems 1920–45 (GDP growth, percent) Year

Weimar Republic

1920–32 1933–44 1933–45

2.7

Third Reich

Japan

South Korea

5.6 2.1

1.8 3.9 −1.8

0.6 3.5 −2.2

Source: Anguss Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD: Geneva, 2003, Table 1b, p.50. Note: Growth 1920–32 computed for 14 years, treating 1919 as end year GDP. Growth 1933–44 computed for 12 years, treating 1932 as end year GDP.

Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s devotion to proving that an inferior command economy could work well enough to fulfill their aspirations, even if tens of millions had to die in the process, launched a peacetime killing spree that the Third Reich and Imperial Japan did not rival in ferocity and duration. They alone found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Although they could have tested the waters, time has shown that terror-free


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Table 21.4 German, Japanese and South Korean population statistics, periods of peak holocaust surge, Maddison’s series (millions of people)


Period

Year

Nazi Germany Showa Japan South Korea China

1933 1934 1935 1936

66.0 66.4 66.9 67.3

67.2 68.1 69.2 70.2

14.6 14.8 15.0 15.1

500.0 502.6 505.3 508.0

Sino-Japanese War 1937

67.8

71.3

15.3

510.6

1938 1939 1940

68.6 69.3 69.8

71.9 72.4 73.0

15.4 15.5 15.6

513.3 516.0 518.8

1941

70.2

74.0

15.9

521.5

1942 1943 1944 1945

70.8 70.4 69.9 67.0

75.0 76.0 77.2 76.2

16.1 16.3 16.6 17.9

524.3 527.0 529.8 532.6

Ha Shoah

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD, Geneva: 2003, Table 3a, p.38, Table 5a, p.162.

command wasn’t a viable option, and crossing the Rubicon to market communism doesn’t appear promising from a communist perspective. If communists had 20–20 foresight, their choices might well have differed, but in all instances, the Third Reich and Imperial Japan had more degrees of freedom, because their ideologies didn’t preclude significant market liberalization. Resurrecting the Sixth and Eighth Commandments in all likelihood would have increased their economic performance, and sustained the improvement longer than did terror-free command, until other contradictions, including colonial resistance, took their toll. Few scholars see that the Red Holocaust cannot be justified on any ground because communism was doomed to fail from the start, because many cling to the Bolshevik premise that communist economy could (would) be superior if leaders had found the way (while no one argues the same today for the Third Reich or Showa Japan). Their faith is unfounded. The Red Holocaust was a mistake from start to finish. The facts are wholly against those who suppose that communist economy could (will) one day prove its mettle. The Red Holocaust arose out of the contradiction between utopian zealotry and communist economic possibilities, and it cannot be ascribed to poor twentieth century implementation until the world generates a convincing example of competitively sustainable communist success. Once this is recognized, then it is obvious that Lenin’s, Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s crimes against humanity were in vain, and that the Red Holocaust which may have killed ten times more non-combatants than Ha Shoah, or

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Table 21.5 Red and Racial Holocausts: the death toll 1921–94, selected estimates (millions) RED HOLOCAUST

Low

High

Soviet Union 1929–53

12.4

26.6

0.1

0.1

72.3

72.3

72.3

2.1

2.1

2.1

1.5

2.5

1.7 91.6

1.7 105.3


Soviet European Satellites 1946–53 China 1949–75 North Korea 1948–94 Cambodia 1975–79 Vietnam and Laos 1954–85 Red total RACIST HOLOCAUSTS Germany 1933–45 Japan 1932–45 Racist total

Point

7.8 3.9 11.7

Source: Red Holocaust, Table 11.1 and Table 21.1. Ruddy Rummel, China’s Bloody Century, Table 6.1.

Japan’s Asian holocaust combined, was at least as heinous, given the singularity of Hitler’s genocide.25 Likewise, it should be noted that, while it is fashionable to mitigate the Red Holocaust by observing that capitalism killed millions of colonials in the twentieth century, primarily through man-made famines, no inventory of such felonious negligent homicides comes close to the Red Holocaust total.26 It is also sometimes suggested that everything that happened there could have happened here; democracies could have mass murdered as many as the totalitarians. Perhaps so, but there is no escaping the fact that it was the totalitarians, and only the totalitarians, that committed the three great twentieth century holocausts.

Summary •

Authoritarian states like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Showa Japan displayed strong militarist and repressive proclivities in response to the traumatic changes wrought by the Enlightenment, industrial revolution and the miseries of WWI.

Genocide and Lethal Labor Exploitation • •


•

• • •

•

• • •

• •

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These demagogic regimes often are described as totalitarian, to emphasize the quantum jump achieved in social control by twentieth century autocrats compared with nineteenth century norms. The term “totalitarian” also conveyed the idea that twentieth century despots surpassed their predecessors by their propensity to steal private property, commit crimes against humanity, mass murder and engage in repression, militarism and imperialism. There were important differences among totalitarians. The Soviet Union was more internationalist than the Third Reich and Imperial Japan. Social change was more pronounced in the USSR, and Germany more than Japan. The Germans and Japanese were more racist than the Soviets. Scholars are divided about the usefulness of the totalitarian concept as an explanation of Soviet, Nazi and ultra-nationalist Japanese behavior 1928–45. Totalitarianism seems more helpful when confined to Europe and Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, than from a longer term perspective. The post-Stalin history of communist totalitarian command reveals that totalitarian dissimilarities outweigh the commonalities, and are more important for explaining individual twentieth century authoritarian behavior. The Red Holocaust is best explained by siege-mobilized terrorcommand rather than totalitarianism broadly; a concept compatible both with regimes violating and honoring the Sixth and Eighth Commandments. The Red Holocaust was primarily driven by economic motives, whereas racism and imperialism were the main causes of Ha Shoah and Japan’s Asian holocaust. Racism and imperialism facilitated Hitler’s and Hirohito’s political power without their having to curry favor by attacking private property and business. The roots of the Red Holocaust lay in the fundamental contradiction between Marx’s utopianism, and the practical systems required to satisfy his utopian conditions. Essentially, Marx sought to abolish economics by banning private property, business and entrepreneurship, pressuring his followers to build transitional systems which adhered to the same principles. Although this was impossible, they refused to be denied even if they had to beat everyone to death trying. Ha Shoah is explained primarily by Hitler’s racist insanity. Japan’s Asian holocaust is explained by unbounded imperialist ambitions, war-bred ruthless and the malign influence of racism on colonial administration after 1936.

228 • •


• • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • •

Hitler’s and Hirohito’s Holocausts The Red Holocaust was more extensive and more murderous than Ha Shoah, and Japan’s Asian holocaust, and still persists in North Korea. Ha Shoah and Japan’s Asian holocausts were parochial, and cannot be attributed to some common ultra-nationalist totalitarianism. The Red Holocaust by contrast is international, and ascribable to communism in its siege-mobilized terror-command phase. Most Red Holocaust killings occurred during peacetime. Most Third Reich and Showa Japan killing occurred during wartime 1937–45. Communists primarily killed their own citizens. Hitler killed German nationals who were communist, Jews or other inferior races at home, and wherever he could find them abroad. Hirohito killed few Japanese, confining himself for the most part to killing Chinese, other Asians and whites in Asia (outside Japan). There were genocidal aspects to Stalin’s and Pol Pot’s killings but not extermination to extinction. Hitler alone sought the genocidal extinction of races or groups, primarily Jews and Roma. It seems unlikely that Hirohito would have continued lethal forced labor if Japan had won the Pacific War. It is unclear whether Hitler would have continued his genocide after Jews and Roma became extinct, had he won WWII. Neither Hitler nor Hirohito used terror-discipline, terror-starvation or terror-purges as part of their economic regimes. Only communism in its siege-mobilized terror-command phase demonstrated the capability of mass murdering nearly everyone except the last man standing. German scholars take the position that Stalin was a greater mass murderer than Hitler. Wheatcroft claims that they accomplish this by improperly treating negligent famine (terror-starvation) deaths as genocidal extermination, accepting Conquest’s 20 million Soviet excess death estimate 1928–53, and failing to normalize for population size differences. Hitler is estimated to have killed 7.1 million civilians. German sources estimate that Hitler killed 3 million Soviet POWs (Table 21.1), but Soviet sources indicated that he killed 1.2 million. Wheatcroft puts Stalin’s equivalent murders at 1 million civilians, including lethal forced labor, making Hitler’s murders seven times greater than Stalin’s. Wheatcroft concedes that if Stalin’s negligent homicides (terrorstarvation) are included Soviet and German murders equalize, but insists that Soviet numbers should be normalized on a per capita basis.

Genocide and Lethal Labor Exploitation • •


• • • • •

• •

• •

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The adjustment restores Hitler’s status as the greater mass murderer by ratios of 7.1/2.3 or 7.1/2.9. Wheatcroft, however, fails to take adequate account of Soviet demographic excess deaths 1945–53 (see Chapter 2). Stalin displaces Hitler on this fuller account as king of the mass killing, absolutely, and on a normalized basis. His superiority in this regard is enhanced, if Soviet civilian excess deaths blamed on German “shooting, gassing, burning and torturing” is grossly exaggerated as suggested by German archival data. The sequencing of Stalin’s killing and the second wave of the Red Holocaust demonstrate that communist mass murder was apt to be more durable than Hirohito’s racial killings. Communism’s siege-mobilized terror-command economic motive had a greater international reach and was more powerful than Hirohito’s racism. Hitler’s and Hirohito’s economic prospects didn’t depend fundamentally on racism and imperialism because their managed markets were workable. The economic performance of the Third Reich and Showa Japan was about on a par with communist siege-mobilized terrorcommand. All totalitarian systems would have been better off without mass murder. The Red Holocaust in the final analysis was utterly in vain because communist economy was doomed to fail. Few appreciate this because many cling to the baseless notion that Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot could have found an acceptable communist economic mechanism if they had tried harder, or been lucky. This faith must be rejected until the world produces one successful and durable example of communist economy. A hundred and fifty years of empty promises no longer suffices. Some scholars try to escape this harsh conclusion, claiming that capitalism killed millions of colonials in the twentieth century, but they haven’t done their arithmetic.



Part VII




22 Prospects

The second wave of the Red Holocaust crested in Kampuchea and is still washing over North Korea. Will the bloodletting soon be complete? Are there any prospects for a third wave, if Marxist communism survives? The internal contradictions of Marx’s utopian model and communist transition systems make them susceptible to repeated waves of mass killing. The Red Holocaust was never necessary, but was an option more readily at hand in communist than democratic societies because the mission seemed sacred enough to many to warrant authoritarian terror. Marxist communism was trigger happy. However, the carnage has noticeably abated as most surviving communist states gradually liberalize their economies, politics and civil societies without the economic cataclysms exhibited by post-communist transition states traumatized by shock therapy.1 The risk of resurgent mass killing in these regimes lies in inter-factional struggles within the Communist Party and between reds and upstarts. Party membership in China, Vietnam and Laos doesn’t just assure secure jobs and privileges, but it is a high road to fortune for rent-seekers and leasehold proprietorships. As the stakes rise, factional intrigue could intensify to lethal levels, a phenomenon that might be aggravated by the legalization of freehold property. Liberalization moreover is being accompanied by widening inequalities of income and wealth between party haves and non-party have-nots, fomenting discontent in societies claiming to provide superior social justice. There is ample room for agitators, putschists and demagogues to employ mass violence for offensive or defensive reasons. The same principles apply to North Korea. There could be a spate of mass killings generated by post-Kim succession struggles, on top of the ongoing annual slaughter produced by Kim’s siege-mobilized terror-command. Perhaps the second wave of the Red Holocaust will cease of its own accord; however, for the moment this is merely wishful thinking. For the sake of completeness it should be noted that communists could legally come to power through the ballot in various countries, and launch reigns of terror from positions of strength, following Hitler’s Nazi model, but neither scenario seems likely even during the current global depression.


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This leaves only one other possibility. Third World nations could follow Lenin’s, Mao’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s footsteps with insurrectionary power seizures and civil wars. The Maoist November 2006 victory in Nepal illustrates the possibility of a third wave. However, Nepal is the only successful insurrectionary case since Pol Pot, and its communist leaders decided to rule democratically in coalition with other parties, instead of through a Maoist dictatorship.2 Perhaps Nepal’s Maoists, and other would-be communist insurrectionaries, have finally realized that communist economy is too uncertain to warrant mass murder for the people’s own good. If the age of the Red Jihad and siege-mobilized terror-command is nearly past, successive waves of Red Holocausts should be relatively mild. It could even be the case that communist mass killings have run their course.

Communism Karl Marx never conceded that his communist vision was utopian. Like Hegel he believed that it was possible to discern the end of history from properly formulated dialectical processes.3 There was no room for misjudgment, chaos theory, dynamic adaptive evolutionary economics, and loosely coupled internet-scale thinking,4 driving contemporary economic development. Communism was in the stars. Dialectical materialism was deterministic and human destiny could not be denied. This news was doubly good. It not only meant that the world would soon be harmonious, prosperous, exploitation free and just, but that all these virtues would be attained with little or no violence.5 The age of human empowerment was nigh. No one should have found Marx’s hypothesis menacing. Que sera, sera: whatever will be, will be. If he were right, every individual would actualize his and her potential, today and ever more. If he were wrong, the outcome would be different. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot, however, were not fatalists. They took the position that Marx’s ends were best even if others disagreed; that they knew how to build a turnpike transition regime, resolutely mass murdering if there were no better alternative. These attitudes almost certainly were self-serving, but the results would have been the same if they had been purehearted zealots. This is how Marx’s vision of communist human empowerment was twisted into dystopia. Had Marx and his disciples really been scientific social engineers instead of dreamers and demagogues, as the old Soviet era joke goes, they would have followed Pavlov and experimented first on dogs.6 They should have formulated their ideas derived from Marx’s scripture as testable hypotheses. Free individuals should have been encouraged to organize themselves into competing stateless societies, some with and some without private property. The results would then be compiled and analyzed. Lessons could have been learned and adaptations made until the people themselves determined which


Prospects 235 system or systems they preferred. Dialectic, and the best forms of social organization in this way would have been discovered through controlled experimentation, with everyone eventually becoming as well off as they could, regardless of whether they chose Marx’s or other paradigms. Empowerment after the dust settled would mean enabling people to enhance their utility as they saw fit, even if Marxists considered their tastes repugnant. Lenin and his disciples brushed these fundamentals aside, but the importance of empowerment as people themselves perceive it wasn’t lost on the international community. The lesson still gradually being learned is that democracy, private property, rule of law and civil rights are essential ingredients of human empowerment; not barriers to proletarian betterment as twentieth and twenty-first century communist despots would have it. The western approach isn’t a panacea. Popular democracy isn’t always just, and doesn’t assure that public programs respond to people’s demands. Private property allows some to wield power, and fosters inegalitarianism. The rule of law doesn’t prevent insiders from writing the laws, and civil rights accorded some often restrict those of others. Communists who argue that social democracy and democratic free enterprise don’t adequately empower the disempowered may not be wrong, but even being right doesn’t mean that authoritarianism and command planning are superior. The empowerment strategy that appears to work best is a context-sensitive, flexible combination of equitable, rule-based free utility seeking, and strong civil protection, both fairly administrated. It concedes some inegalitarianism and intrusive control to reap the benefits of democratic engagement, economic efficiency and civic choice. It doesn’t match up to Marx’s exploitation-free, harmonious paradise where the human potential of all members is fully actualized and everyone’s desires are fully satisfied, but is better than anything communists have achieved. Siege-mobilized terror-command was communism’s worst manifestation. Terror and dystopia went hand in hand. The more people were terror-repressed, terror-disciplined, terror-executed, terror-starved, consigned to lethal forced labor and ethnically cleansed on the turnpike to utopia, the more dystopic reality became, whether people were true believers or cynics. Freedom became oppression, empowerment became subjugation, harmony became repression, prosperity became destitution, virtue became vice. Marx would have been apoplectic if he had lived long enough to see what his theories had wrought. Dystopia peaked with siege-mobilized terror-command, weakening with liberalization as people gradually accepted that there would be no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; that command economy was a dead end. Life ceased being murderous. Instead, it became a squalid, Kafkaesque containment camps where inmates were consoled with nationalism and superpower until communist ideology lost is credibility. While the communist parties of China, North Korea, Vietnam and Laos continue to rule, without yet succumbing to a legitimization crisis, few believe the dream.7 Twentieth century communism in retrospect was a melange of inconsistent


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elements. It was classless, but governed in the name of workers and peasants by an authoritarian party mostly in its own interest. The party was restricted by ideological principles like the criminalization of private property and business, but gradually shed the constraint. In doing so, it jettisoned any pretense of being a classless society. It tirelessly claimed to be egalitarian, championing full empowerment and social justice, but never did. This was disguised by requiring everyone except the privileged to work for a pittance (full employment and wage equality), but even this has given way in China to wide dispersions in wages, incomes and wealth. Although the substance of communism everywhere, and in every epoch, has been contradictory and mutable, governments calling themselves communist, ruled by parties called communist, have found it prudent to characterize their systems as vanguard proletarian transitionary regimes or true communists, stressing this or that aspect of the Marxist ideal. They have worn many masks and will continue doing so. North Korea could remain a living vestige of postwar Stalinism, complete with terror-discipline, terror-execution, terror-starvation and lethal forced labor, masquerading as a classless workers’ state founded on a worker peasant alliance, committed to fighting class enemies and American–South Korean colonialism. The reality behind the social romantic conceit will be an authoritarian martial police state where emperor Kims combine planning, rent-granting and despotism to exploit almost everyone (including South Korean and Japanese tribute payers) for the “dear leader’s” benefit. The regime will have some defenders in Asia, including Russia, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, but will mostly be an embarrassment. China, Vietnam and perhaps Laos and Cambodia are likely to evolve gradually toward American-style service economies with large middle classes, private leasing and business peppered with some freehold property, and a rudimentary rule of law. Democracy is improbable, but civil society may continue liberalizing. Following Hu Jintao, the party will distinguish its brand of communism by stressing “harmony” and “prosperity” concepts that appeal both to Chinese cultural and utopian Marxist sensibilities.8 This mask will be used to conceal the disempowerment and exploitation of society by both private and state elements. People will be encouraged to accept that Communist Party orchestrated harmony and prosperity counteract all the system’s negatives including the decriminalization of private leasing, business and entrepreneurship, class stratification, authoritarian rent-granting, democratic and civic repression, and severe disparities of income and wealth. Marxist scholars and Maoists will be displeased, but China’s and Indochina’s communist parties may be able to sustain the mirage and their stranglehold on political power for the foreseeable future because a large segment of their populations dreads revolutionary mayhem. Maoists may make headway, too, in Nepal, shorn of its authoritarianism, state ownership and management of the means of production. Egalitarian democracy will be its trade mark, with an as-yet-obscure parallel economic agenda. Other democratic communisms in Europe and Latin America also


Prospects 237 are conceivable, but notably absent throughout is any serious possibility of constructing Marxist utopia. Insofar as one or more communist tendencies survives, leaders and sympathizers throughout the globe will cultivate the dark arts of disassociation and selective amnesia. Recollections of the Red Holocaust will be discouraged, and memories edited.9 The killings will be partly acknowledged, but extenuated on various grounds, and most importantly will be quarantined by ascribing them to outdated paradigms and circumstances. The new generation will be absolved from the sins of its predecessors, and the timeless truth of the communist idea affirmed even though the verities will remain elusive. These are the devices that allowed Stalin, Khrushchev, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot, Deng, Gorbachev and Hu to pose as Marxist visionaries, while flagrantly disregarding inconvenient aspects of the founder’s writ. The gambit worked before and could succeed again, at least locally. The gospel of global proletarian revolution of some universal type, however, is probably moribund, without any prospect of resurrection. Communism today sputters forward helterskelter in a post-industrial, post-modernist era precisely because its brand identity no longer has universal appeal, compelling it to operate as a niche player. It hasn’t expired, but has been marginalized to a point approaching irrelevance, even if it adopts the latest advances in management science.10

Summary • • • • • • • • •

Marx’s dialectical material analysis made him certain that communism would peacefully arise from the class struggle. Insurrectionary seizure of proletarian power against majority rule violated Marx’s principles. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim,, Ho and Pol Pot favored insurrection as a means of shortening the birthpangs of communism. They also believed that they knew how to construct an effective transitionary mechanism guiding society from insurrection to utopia. Had they been scientists, they would have tested their communist engineering theories on dogs before trying it on humans. They would have learned that their ideas were ill-founded, and that democratic empowerment was a more certain path forward. Lenin’s state seizure was autocratic. Repression was required to maintain power, and quickly lead to dystopic communist despotism. This didn’t necessitate the Red Holocaust, but made it probable. Communist economic systems engineering was the root of the Red Holocaust.

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After the Second Wave Ha Shoah and Hirohito’s Asian holocausts, by contrast, were primarily due to racial cleansing and labor exploitation. Terror and dystopia were complements. A third wave of the Red Holocaust, if it occurs, is apt to be mild because few today believe deeply enough to kill for their convictions.


Conclusion

Marxist communism was just another social romantic response to the Enlightment and industrial revolution until it was coupled with dialectical materialism, the class struggle and proletarian state seizure. These accretions gave it a clear brand identity essential for contesting rival socialist parties and ultimately in its Bolshevik manifestation a rationale for trigger happy insurrection and mass killing. Marxist violence took two basic forms: the suppression of enemies, and coerced productive effort. The first was essential for grabbing and holding state power because Marxism’s electoral appeal was always limited. The second was the discretionary, but highly probable consequence of socially engineering Marxist transitional systems into command economies. The combination of trigger happy culture, power lust, ruthless self-righteousness and a flawed productive system proved extravagantly lethal. The dystopia mocked communism’s utopian pretentions because it was the antithesis of Marx’s pacifist humanism. The consolidation of communist political power, particularly the repression of political rivals, including class enemies, was bloody everywhere, but blanched in comparison with terror-command economy. First generation communist leaders beginning with Stalin didn’t believe that terrorless command systems could deliver the results they desired. Accordingly, Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot, after killing millions installing the command mechanism, then proceeded to slaughter tens of millions more to make it work to their satisfaction with terror-discipline, terror-execution, terrorstarvation, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing. This siege-mobilized terror-command was employed throughout the communist world, but characteristics varied with context. It was least lethal in Soviet-occupied central and eastern Europe (perhaps because Stalin died before the apparatus was harnessed for superindustrialization), and most murderous in Pol Pot’s Kampuchea. The killings persisted for decades, ceasing only when new leaders decided to change course, wagering that terrorless command would function better, except in Cambodia, where the Vietnamese army halted the carnage against Pol Pot’s will. The decision to desist when it was taken therefore wasn’t the result of successful industrialization, as often


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suggested. Communist development didn’t always mean a return to sanity, as Kim Jong Il’s despotism amply testifies.1 Terror-free command communism, to the surprise of many, also proved to be transitory. With the exception of Fidel Castro, its leaders ditched the orthodox communist command transition model for various types of market communism. This swiftly destroyed Soviet power, and communism in central, eastern and southeastern Europe, but has preserved Communist Party rule in China, Vietnam and Laos. The correlation between Marx’s communist principles and Asian communist political economy became exceedingly tenuous in the process; nonetheless parties calling themselves communist continue to reign. Eventually mass killings ceased everywhere except North Korea, but the cumulative sacrifice achieved nothing that couldn’t have been accomplished better with non-communist means. Terror-command, terrorless command, Deng’s authoritarian leasing markets didn’t hasten development more swiftly than the Singaporean nationalist alternative, with Marx’s communist utopia nowhere in sight. All communist promises since 1928 have been sound and fury signifying nothing, a testament both to a flawed vision, the perils of communist social engineering and political hijacking of social romantic sentiment for despotic ends.2 The Red Holocaust is best interpreted in this light as the bitter fruit of an utopian gambit that was socially misengineered into a dystopic nightmare by despots in humanitarian disguise. Its political and economic causes have little in common with those of the Third Reich and Showa Japan. Neither Hitler nor Hirohito sought to criminalize private property, business and entrepreneurship, or eradicate the business community and its supporters. Nor did they employ terror domestically as an instrument of economic mobilization. Hitler didn’t try to scare Jews and Roma to work harder. He simply exploited them as viciously as he could until the day of their extermination. Communists were dealt with in a similar way. Stalin’s, Mao’s, Kim’s, Ho’s and Pol Pot’s approach after politically repressing class enemies was the opposite. They didn’t seek racial eradication. Terror-discipline, terror-execution, terror-starvation, lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing instead were all primarily employed to maximize command effort. Had scientific command planning really been superior, as claimed, siege-mobilized terror-command would have been both superfluous and counterproductive, but central planning was severely inefficient. It misdesigned goods, adversely selected technologies, misallocated and misremunerated factors of production, encouraged work to rule, underproduced, misdistributed outputs and was subject to a myriad of moral hazards. No one could have reliably forecast just how ineffective communist socially engineered terror-free command might be. Stalin and his followers may have intuited what Gorbachev later discovered the hard way that it would eventually lead to stagnation and collapse. Whatever their hopes and fears might have been, however, actions spoke louder than words. They beat, rather than


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spared the rod. Some attention was paid to efficient resource allocation, even in Gulag. However, this detail and countless others strewn throughout the literature were subsidiary. The Red Holocaust above all else was driven by a desperate desire to make a flawed communist economy work to the leader’s satisfaction, whatever the human price. This motive and no other was necessary and sufficient to explain the mass killings across time and space. The rest is just situational particularity. The passage of nearly eighty years has brought a semblance of closure to disputes about the scale of Red Holocaust killings. Serious estimates of Soviet excess deaths before the Russian archival revolution ranged from 1 to 20 million. We now know that 13 million is a sensible lower bound, and that 20 million non-combatant fatalities is demographically feasible 1928–53. Mao killed something on the order of 50+ million people, and more than 20 percent of the Soviet Ukrainian and Cambodian populations were slaughtered during Holodomor and Pol Pot’s killing fields. Holodomor doesn’t eclipse Hitler’s genocide, but regardless of Stalin’s precise purpose, comes disturbingly close in scale and consequence. The grand Red Holocaust death toll dwarfs the Third Reich’s and ultranationalist Showa Japan’s, although Hitler’s murders, as distinct from lesser forms of criminal homicide, probably exceed the communists’ on a per capita basis. It also should be noted that the Red Holocaust started earlier and is continuing in North Korea. The preponderance of Red Holocaust killings occurred in peacetime, while rival totalitarians confined much of their carnage to the war years 1937–45. Again, the systemic differences are striking, but they can be roughly commensurated for comparative purposes through the filter of international law. Archival records combined with census based demographic statistics prove that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot are indictable for crimes against humanity including mass murder (terror-executions), felonious manslaughter (lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing) and criminally negligent homicide (terrorstarvation). The International Criminal Court would have to determine exact numbers because some executions might have been justified, and some manslaughters and negligent homicides might have been non-criminal or excusable. Nonetheless, communist guilt for millions of murders and other crimes against humanity is proven by the evidence beyond any reasonable doubt, and pleas for clemency that might seem plausible not only are countervailed from the victims’ perspective by the sheer magnitudes, but also by the pain and suffering inflicted through torture, sadism, mutilation, cannibalism, terror, cruelty, oppression and the deprivation of political, economic and human rights. The intertemporal and interspacial pattern of killings moreover proves that communism’s high crimes against humanity aren’t attributable to a particular despot being poorly informed. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot all knew that millions were dying from their terror-starvation policies,


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and all responded inadequately, if at all, to alleviate the killings. It might be possible, as Wheatcroft and Davies have argued, that Soviet famine deaths were mostly unintentional, but the repetition under diverse circumstances shows that inexcusable felonious terror-starvation homicide was part and parcel of the communist terror-command mobilization modus operandi. The same applies to lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing. The millions, perhaps tens of millions, killed in these ways were unpardonable. From moral and legal standpoints, they were closer to atrocities than reckless endangerment. The trans-communist perspective likewise belies the claim that Stalin’s crimes against humanity were growing pains which ceased after 1939. Communist mass murders weren’t a momentary disorder or temporary insanity. Siege-mobilized terror-command only was grudgingly abandoned when Khrushchev sought protection from Stalin’s ghost, Deng outmaneuvered Hua Guofeng, and the Vietnamese army vanquished Pol Pot. Kim Jong Il still hasn’t relaxed his trigger finger. Communism has proven to be a durable vehicle for demagogues who have yet to shed authoritarianism anywhere for democracy. It misappropriated the rhetoric of liberation and empowerment to repress and subjugate for leaders’ purposes, although China, Vietnam and Laos are liberalizing their economies and civil societies. The Red Holocaust was the highly probable consequence of this authoritarian capture. Communist leaders not only exploited nineteenth and twentieth century social romantic aspirations; they gulled billions into believing that transgressing the Sixth and Eighth Commandments was a moral imperative, and intimidated most who tried to resist. Future communist authoritarians may resort to the same tactics. Prospects for their success have been greatly diminished by the broken promises of the past. Nonetheless, a third wave remains thinkable, while North Korea’s crimes against humanity sometimes seem as if they may never end. Perhaps, the next generation will be savvier, acknowledging communism’s slaughter, atoning for its forbears’ sins, and resolving never again to harken to dystopia’s siren call. Postwar anti-racist consciousness-building, driven by the catastrophes of Ha Shoah and Japan’s Asian holocaust, have positively transformed attitudes worldwide, and stigmatizing communist high crimes against humanity should have a similarly beneficial effect.3 There is no foolproof formula, but accurate memory, acceptance, contrition, atonement and vigilance are essential for success.4

Summary •

Marxist communism is distinguished from competing socialist movements by its claim to be destiny’s child deduced from

Conclusion

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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dialectical materialism and the class struggle, and by its contradictory advocacy of armed proletarian state seizure. These attributes contributed to its trigger happiness and mass killing. Communist violence primarily involved suppression of enemies and coerced labor effort. Communist insurrectionaries were minority parties everywhere. They suppressed opponents because they could not gain and maintain power democratically. Terror-command, however, proved bloodier than political suppression. The internal contradictions of communism and faulty systems engineering prompted terror-discipline, terror-execution, terrorstarvation, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing. Communism didn’t outgrow mass killing naturally through industrialization. Where killings stopped, economic failure, political expediency and foreign military intervention were the main causes. Terror-free command proved to be inferior to terror-command as an engine of economic growth. The disparity in per capita GDP between North and South Korea is the most telling indicator of terror-command’s economic inferiority. When terror-free command failed, communist rulers experimented with market communism. The exercise destroyed the Soviet Union. Chinese, Vietnamese and Laotian market communism fared better, but lost its communist substance in the process. Kim Jong Il still refuses to abandon mass killing. The economic performance of communist states would have been better if they had employed non-communist markets. Killings, if any, would have been less in non-communist market economies. The Red Holocaust is the bitter fruit of a utopian gambit that was socially misengineered into a dystopic nightmare by despots in humanitarian disguise. Terror-discipline, terror-execution, terror-starvation, lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing were employed to make the command system productive enough to satisfy communist leaders’ desires. Third Reich and Showa Japanese holocausts, by contrast, were caused by racial cleansing and imperial labor exploitation. They weren’t systemically endogenized in Germany and Japan. The Red Holocaust above all else was driven by a desperate desire to make a flawed communist economy work whatever the human cost.

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• • • • • • • • •

Red Holocaust This motive, and no other, was necessary and sufficient. The grand Red Holocaust death toll dwarfs the Third Reich’s and ultra-nationalist Showa Japan’s, although Hitler’s probably exceeds communist murders on a per capita basis. Ha Shoah and Japan’s Asian holocaust were brief, mostly compressed into the wartime period 1937–45. The Red Holocaust started earlier and is continuing. The trans-communist perspective reveals that, despite attempts to treat communist killings as famine deaths, and negligent homicides, most were atrocities. Communism has been a durable vehicle for demagogues misappropriating the rhetoric of liberation and empowerment. The Red Holocaust was the highly probable consequence of this despotic capture. Broken promises reduce the risk of a third wave. It almost seems as if the killing in North Korea’s second Red Holocaust Asian wave will never stop. Postwar anti-racist consciousness-building has altered the attitudes which facilitated Hitler’s and Hirohito’s holocausts. Stigmatizing the Red Holocaust should have a similarly beneficial effect. Memory, acceptance, contrition, atonement and vigilance are essential.


Glossary

adverse selection An inferior choice caused by moral hazard. aggravated high crime against humanity Felonious killings of a particularly heinous character. agitprop Soviet propaganda disseminated by the otdel agitatsii i propagandy (Department of Agitation and Propaganda). agrarian surplus Food and raw materials production available for sale or transfer to non-agrarian productive entities above the subsistence level, that can be used to foster aggregate economic growth and development. agro-industrial complex Mao’s strategy of joint forced agricultural and industrial development within communes, first adopted during the Great Leap Forward, and later radicalized by Pol Pot. angkar Khmer Rouge term for the Communist Party and unnamed leaders mystically associated with the rulers of ancient Angkor. Bolshevik coup d’état The coup d’état that brought Lenin’s Bolshevik Party to power in 1917. Bolshevik Party The minority faction of the Marxist Russian DemocraticLabor Party that called itself the majority (Bol’shinstvo), and seized the Russian government in a coup d’état on November 7, 1917 under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. Bolshevik Revolution A misnomer erroneously suggesting that Lenin’s coup d’état was a legitimate mass popular uprising in the name of the proletariat. chekist A member of the Cheka (first Soviet secret police). civil sovereignty A state where civic groups determine their activities themselves without outside control. collectivization A Soviet policy introduced in the late 1920s under Stalin’s direction of consolidating land and labor into Communist Party controlled cooperatives designed to compel peasants to produce for the state, killing those who resisted and exiling agrarian class enemies or kulaks to farm the tundra. command economy An economy that criminalizes private property, business and entrepreneurship, and replaces the market with directive economic mechanisms.


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Glossary

computopia An ideal planned economy achieved through perfect computation. The term was coined by Egon Neuberger. consumer sovereignty A state where private individual consumer preferences (demand) determine the characteristics, assortments and volumes of goods and services supplied. Ideal consumer sovereignty is efficient. corrective labor penal labor intended to eradicate convict criminal propensities. counter-revolutionary sabotage non-execution or deliberately careless execution of duties, aimed at weakening government power and the functioning of the state apparatus, and punishable by death. crimes against humanity Mass murder, terror-starvation, lethal forced labor, slavery, expulsion, deportation, repression, imprisonment and other crimes directed against racial, ethnic and other groups, as defined by the International Criminal Court. Cultural Revolution Mao’s policy of fostering grass roots economic mobilization and red guard denunciation of reprobate officials (1967–69). dialectical materialism Marx’s concept of history as a secular dialectical process (thesis, antithesis and synthesis) driven by the class struggle, culminating in communism. dictatorship of the proletariat Custodial communist dictatorship in the name of the proletariat which Lenin and his successors claimed was an essential short-term expedient to forestall counter-revolution and expedite modernization. diversions Acts of physical destruction of state property. Doctors’ Plot An alleged plot by Jewish doctors in the late 1940s and early 1950s to kill Soviet leaders, that seemed to prepare the way for Stalin’s version of the Final Solution. dystopia The antithesis of utopia. A hellish state brought about by attempts to construct unrealizable ideal systems. economic efficiency Supplies that are responsive to demand and maximize purchaser’s utility. Under general competition, there is only one true economically efficient point, where aggregate demand equals supply. ethnic cleansing Repression, imprisonment, expulsion and killing of ethnic minorities. excess deaths The number of people dying above the actuarially predicted figure from all causes, including disease, catastrophes, accidents and killings. The term is synonymous with “premature deaths”. family circle Colloquial term for an enterprise mutual support network (krugovaya poruka). forced substitution Anti-competitive restrictions that compel people to consume goods they disprefer. In the Soviet case, forced substitution was considered an irremediable defect of its economy of shortage. genocide The felonious killing of racial and ethnic groups with the intention of substantial, or complete, extermination. Some seek to widen the concept to include groups like social classes.


Glossary 247 glavk A main department of VSNKh, and later of Soviet ministries. Gosplan Soviet State Planning Agency (Gosudarstvennyi Komitet po Planirovaniyu) created February 22, 1921 by decree of the Sovnarkhom of the RSFSR under the name RSFSR State Planning Commission. It began compiling annual plans (kontrol’nye tsifry) in 1925, and five-year plans in 1928. Gossnabsbyt State Committee for Material-Technical Supply (Gossnab for short), the wholesaling arm of the Soviet procurement system responsible for inter-enterprise supply and the distribution of final goods to state retail outlets. Great Leap Forward Mao’s version of Stalin’s forced industrialization, where communes were designed to produce both agricultural and industrial products (1958–63). Great Terror Stalin’s campaign against enemies of the people within the Communist Party and elsewhere following the Moscow show trials of 1936–38, culminating in more than a million executions and lethal forced labor deaths. The phenomenon is also referred to as the Great Purge (Bol’shaya Chistka). Gulag Glavnoe Upravlenie Ispravitel’no Trudovykh Lagerei i Kolonii (Chief Directorate of Corrective Labor Camp Administration), a complex of World War I-type concentration camps with tsarist antecedents for imprisoning and rehabilitating criminals and those deemed enemies of the people, through forced labor. They served as killing fields during much of the Stalin period, and as a vast pool of cheap labor for state projects. The legal basis for the system was established June 17, 1929, with corrective labor camps (Ispravitel’no-trudovye Lageria) placed under the control of the OGPU. Gulag was officially liquidated by the MVD on January 25, 1960, but continues under other names. Ha Shoah Hitler’s genocide against the Jews. harmonious society Hu Jintao’s concept of market communist utopia. harmonism A belief that there exists an ideal state where all human conflicts are reconcilable (like Marx’s full communism). hidden inflation Inflation concealed either by statistical misreporting, or by falsification from below. Many Sovietologists consider spurious innovation to have been the principal source of hidden inflation during the Soviet era. high crimes against humanity Mass murder, and lethal forced labor against individuals or groups, including racial and ethnic minorities. holocaust Major crimes against humanity including mass murder, lethal forced labor and terror-starvation which rise to the scale of Ha Shoah, including racial, ethnic and economic mass killings. holocaust denial The willful denial of any holocaust for partisan purposes. Holocaust rationalizers try to justify mass murders, while skeptics question the cogency of available evidence.


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Glossary

Holomodor Stalin’s alleged genocidal terror-starvation (famine) of Ukrainians living in the Soviet Union, particularly the Soviet Ukraine. Hundred Flowers Campaign Mao’s token promotion of Chinese liberalization of the arts and sciences (1956), used as a device to identify enemies of the people. idea of the west The Enlightenment idea that democratic free enterprise, or social democracy, is the most rational, and therefore the best, way to organize society. Industrial Party trial Trial of Soviet scientists and engineers accused of forming an anti-Soviet industrial party (prompartiya) to wreck industry and transport (1930). input-output A planning tool for mapping the flow of primary and intermediate inputs into final goods, assuming fixed coefficients (nonsubstitutability). invisible hand Unobserved actions of markets which allocate factors, produce outputs, and distribute goods and services. Khmer Rouge Communist Party of Kampuchea (Cambodia). khozraschyot Economic cost accounting. More specifically, the requirement that Soviet enterprises carry out their functions cost-effectively, without relying unduly on state subsidies. Killing Fields Pol Pot’s mass murder in villages and elsewhere 1975–79. kolkhoz State collective farm where peasant income was a share of net sales (dividend), instead of a fixed wage. Common land was owned by the state. Peasants were permitted small private plots. The institution was imposed on the peasantry and managed by Communist Party appointees. kulak Literally, tight fisted, referring historically to moderately better off Russian peasants. In Soviet times, a tiny segment of the peasantry classified as class enemies because they were suspected of conspiring to become large property-owning capitalist farmers. Laogai Chinese version of Gulag camps. Laojiao Non-penal Chinese forced labor camps analogous to Gulag colonies. Libermanism Khrushchev-era economic liberalization scheme devised by Evsei Liberman stressing enterprise profit maximization and microeconomic efficiency. linear programming Mathematical technique for formulating and solving complex factor allocation, production and distribution problems where technology exhibits constant (linear) returns to scale. manslaughter Killing without specific intent, but under circumstances that create the possibility of death. Inadvertently knocking someone in front of a car is accidental, non-criminal manslaughter. Deliberately doing so is murder. Lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing are criminal manslaughter because Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot knew that many would die prematurely under conditions they imposed, even if they didn’t intend to needlessly kill anyone in particular.


Glossary 249 market communism A stateless economy with community ownership that creates asset usage rights permitting utility-seeking factor allocation, production and distribution. The concept was advocated by Mikhail Gorbachev, and adopted by Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao. mass murder Felonious state executions, and mass shootings of people without bona fide due process. material balances Rudimentary Soviet planning technique akin to inputoutput planning, where a list of materials (factors, raw materials, intermediate inputs) is compiled on a sector-by-sector basis, and then allocated to alternative use in a manner which tries to assure that intermediate input requirements can actually be met. The technique is derived from War Communist requisitioning and rationing. modernization Process enabling less developed nations to acquire the technologies of advanced countries. Since technology is separable from culture, societies can modernize without westernizing. moral hazard Danger that economic self-interest will impel people to place their own material welfare above moral, professional and legal obligations. natural economy Economic activities calibrated and executed in physical terms without the intermediation of money, including factor allocation, production and barter distribution. negligent homicide Collateral killings that may be either misdemeanors or criminal depending on the perpetrators degree of negligence. Holodomor, for example, should be classified as a misdemeanor if Stalin couldn’t reasonably anticipate that his policies would cause starvation (famine), but as felonious negligent homicide if he knew many would die. Criminal manslaughter implies that killers could and should have been more aware of the lethal consequences of their actions than in cases classified as negligent homicide. New Economic Policy Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika (NEP). The state administrative and leasing strategies chosen by Lenin to replace War Communism, sometimes called market socialism. It permitted leased private business in state industry and the agrarian sector. The policy began in 1921 and ended in 1929. new people Resettled urban Cambodians impressed into forced labor by Pol Pot. NKVD troikas Fast track, three-member commission (vnesudebnaya rasprava) created under Stalin to expedite the process of revolutionary justice against anti-Soviet elements. Peaceful Coexistence Mirnoe sosuchestvovanie. Policy introduced by Nikita Khrushchev repudiating the necessity of communist victory through violent class struggle. perestroika Gorbachev’s policy of radical economic reform. planned chaos Concept devised by Friedrich von Hayek stressing the detachment of optimal planning from individual utilities and real market


250

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values. Planners, he asserted, may have desired to simulate economic optimality, and often pretended that they maximized social welfare, but their efforts were chaotic and futile. Politburo The central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The party was superior to the state government. popular sovereignty A state where people’s choices determine the characteristics, assortments and levels of public programs provided by the state. population deficit Shortfall between predicted and actual future populations attributable to variations in natality and mortality. Where concern is for excess mortality alone, the appropriate measure is premature deaths. premature deaths Deaths occurring before their actuarially expected date. The concept provides a benchmark for assessing whether discontinuities in mortality trends are attributable to natural or political causes. It is synonymous with excess deaths. primitive socialist capital accumulation Concept advanced by Evgeny Preobrazhensky in 1920 suggesting that a Bolshevik socialist economy could not be constructed without creating an initial capital accumulation from the surplus value of the peasantry. The proposal was controversial because it implied violating Lenin’s worker–peasant alliance. The notion of primitive (initial) capital accumulation was borrowed from the first volume of Das Kapital where Marx tries to explain the origins of capitalism in terms of pre-capitalist plunder. The term “primitive socialist” was coined by V.M. Smirnov. punished people Alexander Nekrich’s term for ethnically cleansed minorities under Stalin rule. red director The state appointed head of Soviet enterprises tasked to implement plans with no discretionary authority, as distinct from managers assigned to maximize goals like output volumes, or profitability. Red Holocaust Transcommunist aggravated high crimes against humanity 1928–present, including terror-executions, terror-purges, lethal forced labor, terror-starvation and ethnic cleansing that claimed 60 million lives and perhaps tens of millions more. The bulk of these atrocities were committed under the siege-mobilized terror-command variant of communism. rule of law In economics, the notion that a just society empowers individuals to maximize utility restricted only by voluntarily negotiated, and state-enforced contracts instead of having outcomes dictated by nondemocratic authorities (the rule of men). Courts under the rule of law must be impartial, not instruments of authoritarian administration. rule of men In economics, the principle of dictate by the powerful, as distinct from voluntarily negotiated transactions enforced by the rule of law. samofinansirovania Self-financing. The requirement that enterprises operate within their revenues, instead of expenses being covered out of the state budget.


Glossary 251 satisfice Principle that the outcome attained suffices so that there is no need to pursue the best even if search costs are low. Profit and utility equilibria consequently are found at multiple points in a fuzzy set. second economy The informal, parallel Soviet economy where unauthorized goods were produced and traded in the state sector, as well as unreported private services in varying degrees of illegality. Second Rome Constantine I built Constantinople as Rome’s eastern second capital in  330. Beijing is sometimes considered communism’s Second Rome. Shakhty trial The first important show trial in the Soviet Union (1928) after the Social Revolutionaries trial of 1922. Engineers were accused of conspiring with former coal mine owners. siege-mobilized terror-command A version of command economy which rouses productive energies by instilling the population with fears of domestic and foreign attack, coupled with terror tactics to discipline work effort. social democracy A variant of the idea of the west in which a socially concerned state manages an otherwise free economy through democratic means to promote social justice. The model is often referred to as democratic socialism, or the welfare state. socialism A loose concept encompassing a wide variety of political and institutional arrangements where the state claims to restrict free enterprise in society’s interest, with special attention paid to the welfare of workers and the poor. socialist humanism A socialist variant of renaissance humanism where individuals and society conduct themselves in accordance with the altruistic principles advocated in Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. The concept was fashionable for several decades in Western intellectual circles after Stalin’s death. sovkhoz Soviet state farm where land is state owned and farmers are viewed as agrarian workers paid wages instead of sharing net income. spetspereselentsy Ethnically cleansed, special settlers in the USSR during the 1930s and 1940s. spurious innovation Development of products and processes that have new or altered characteristics and are assigned higher prices without commensurate increases in value. Spurious innovation is a source of hidden inflation because price increases have no utilitarian justification. Stakhanovite campaign An effort-mobilization movement started by the heroic norm-breaking example of Aleksei Stakhanov in 1935, applauded by Stalin. Stakhanovites were portrayed as shock pacesetters who roused ordinary workers to actualize their full potential. structural militarization A term used to describe a productive system with a large embedded military-industrial sector capable of persuading government leaders to provide sufficient resources to deal with worst-case security threats.


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systems director Term coined by Abram Bergson to describe the high authorities directing the Soviet administrative command planning apparatus. Taylorism Scientific enterprise efficiency management techniques devised by the American Fredrick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s, adopted and promoted by Lenin. technical efficiency Cost-efficiently produced goods that nonetheless fail to maximize consumer utility. The concept applies to all counterfactual equilibria along the production possibilities frontier. tekhpromfinplan Technical, industrial and financial plan compiled by the main departments of Soviet industrial ministries from aggregate Gosplans, assigned to enterprises for micro-implementation. terror-command A command economy based on terror. terror-executions Unjust executions intended to cow opposition. terror-free command A command economy without terror. terror-starvation A policy of group starvation intended to cow opposition. thaw Title from a novel by Ilya Ehrenburg about the prospects of postStalin Soviet liberalization which symbolized the possibilities of peaceful coexistence during the Khrushchev era. Three-anti/Five-anti campaigns Mao’s campaigns to eliminate corruption, waste and bureaucratic officiousness (Three-anti) and bribery, theft of state property, tax evasion, government contracting fraud and theft of state economic information (Five-anti). time of troubles The interregnum between the death of last Russian Tsar Feodor Ivanovich of the Rurik dynasty in 1598 and the establishment of the Romanov dynasty in 1613 (smutnoe vremya). This was a period of mayhem, and has come to symbolize a tendency in Russian history for repeated catastrophic breakdowns. tolkach Literally a pusher; that is, someone assigned by a Soviet enterprise to barter for inputs anywhere within the Soviet system. Tolkachi collectively functioned as an informal wholesale network parallel to Gossnab. totalitarian A typology used by political scientists to describe modern states that regulate (control) nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. The distinction between regulation and control is crucial. There are no examples of totalitarian nano-controlled systems, including Stalin’s Russia; only societies that attempt to control nearly every aspect of individual activity. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini are often characterized as totalitarians. Hirohito’s Showa Japan is usually grouped with this trio, but the fit is inexact. vanguard of the proletariat Progressive elements self-tasked with leading the working class in its march to full communism. Lenin claimed that his Bolshevik Party was anointed by history to play this role in the Soviet Union. virtual economy Term coined by Clifford Gaddy and Barry Ickes to convey the idea that physical productive management remains the predominant


Glossary 253 principle governing Russian economic activity after the demise of planning, despite the emergence of subsistence and exclusionary markets. vrag naroda Enemy of the people. A term used to stigmatize any person or group that disagreed with the Bolsheviks. Even the mere suspicion of being hostile made people vulnerable to persecution, judicial action, terror and extermination. War Communism A period of Russian civil war between forces loyal to the tsar and the Bolsheviks, as well as a series of utopian and expedient attempts to construct a communist society. Weberian administration Concept of rational public administration based on incorruptible performance of clearly defined administrative procedures devised by Max Weber, a German economist, in Economy and Society, 1922. westernization The adoption of ideas of the west including economic liberty, democracy, social justice, tolerance, diversity and conflict avoidance by developing and transitioning economies. Westernization is a more demanding concept than modernization, which only entails adopting Western technologies. wrecking The Soviet crime of undermining plans, projects and organizations by deliberately issuing wrong commands.


Notes

Introduction 1 Steven Rosefielde, “The Riddle of Postwar Russian Economic Growth: Statistics Lied and Were Misconstrued,” Europe-Asia Studies, 55, No. 3 (2003): 469–81. 2 Marx claimed that capitalism’s internal contradictions would bring about its selfdestruction, whereas communism, being contradiction-free, would flourish for ever. 3 Individuals like Stalin, Mao, Kim, Ho and Pol Pot also are blameworthy, and diverse political, cultural, historical and institutional forces were contributory. 4 Orlando Figes, The Whisperers: Private Lives in Stalin’s Russia, Picador: London, 2008. Ibid. Malia contends that, “. . . There never was a benign, initial phase of Communism before some mythical ‘wrong turn’ threw it off track.” Malia implies that communism has always been malign. This is true with respect to political and civil repression, but not to high crimes against humanity. Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlaine employed terror predation as part of their economies of plunder. Simon Sebag Montefiore contends that Stalin “believed absolutely—as they all did—that you had to kill a lot of people in order to create a perfect, deferred paradise further down the road. His personality fused perfectly with the Bolshevik system. So, you had a pretty disgusting system and a pretty disgusting man, who happened also to be a superb politician and quite an intellectual.” See Jim Gilchrist, “Murder of a Monster,” The Scotsman, March 11, 2005 reprinted in Johnson’s Russia List, No.9087, Article 27, March 10, 2005. Angus Reid Consultants, “Stalin A Positive Figure for Russians,” Johnson’s Russia List, No.9087, Article 26, March 10, 2005. According to a poll by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 50 percent of respondents regard the role Josef Stalin played in the life of their country as positive. 42 percent of respondents believe a politician like Stalin is necessary in the current stage of Russia’s political life, reflecting the enduring influence of Muscovite culture. Montefiore attributes his enduring popularity to prestige, security, victory and empire. “The Russians have this amazing ability to separate out memory so they have Two Stalins—the one who made what they call excessive mistakes and the one who was a war leader and statesman. They know he was ruthless, and he was open about that and proud of it.” Montefiore believes that Stalin will become more and more popular as Russians become further distanced from the awful reality. Stalin once declared that one death was a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic. Montefiore contends that it would have been easier to equate genocide with the brutal, peasant caricature, “But he wasn’t that, not by a long shot. And the more human and educated he turned out to be, the more disgusting I found him.” Cf. Roy Medvedev, “Learning to Love Stalin, the War Hero,” Johnson’s Russia List, No. 9109, Article 19, April 4, 2005. 5 Stalin, Kim, Mao, and perhaps Pol Pot, weren’t psychopaths. They fully grasped

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what they were doing, and acted rationally to enhance their utility as they perceived it. For example, denazification aside, Stalin killed few in Soviet-occupied postwar central and eastern Europe (see Table 7.1). He also might have believed that his actions were socially best, given Marxism’s long-term goals. Dittmar Dahlmann and Gerhard Hirschfeld, eds., Lager, Zwangsarbeit, Vertreibung und Deportation: Dimensionen der Massenverbrechen in der Sowjetunion und Deutschland 1933 bis 1945, Klartext Verlag: Essen, 1999. Warren Eason, “Soviet Population Today,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 4, July 1959. Michael Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited,” Europe-Asia Studies, 59 (4), June 2007, pp.663–693. Ibid, “I agree with Davies and Wheatcroft that in 1929–30 when Stalin initiated the collectivization policy, he certainly did not intend to implement a starvation policy.” Barbara Anderson and Brian Silver, “Tautologies in the Study of Excess Mortality in the USSR in the 1930s,” Slavic Review, 45 (2), 1986, pp.307–313. Winston Churchill, The World in Crisis, Vol. 4: The Aftermath, New York, 1923, p.158, “As for the Turkish atrocities . . . helpless Armenians were blotted out in one administrative holocaust. . . .” Holocaust (holos (completely), kaustos (burned)) is a term that has become almost synonymous with Hitler’s genocidal attempt to incinerate the Jews. Most scholars still use “holocaust” (Ha Shoah) exclusively in this sense, disregarding Nazi killings of millions of noncombatant Roma, Slavs and Soviet prisoners of war. (Bohdan Wytwycky (Vitvitsky), The Other Holocaust: Many Circles of Hell: A Brief Account of 9–10 Million Persons Who Died with the 6 Million Jews Under Nazi Racism, Washington, D.C.: Novak Report on the New Ethnicity, 1980.) However, other scholars increasingly are interpreting Nazi democide as a multiracial genocidal phenomenon, and Asian scholars have widened the concept to include Japan’s mass killing of noncombatant Chinese, Koreans, Indochinese and Indonesians 1937–45, even though race (as distinct from ethnic animosity) may not have played a critical role in the slaughter. (Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, London: Routledge, 2006). These precedents make it possible to re-conceptualize Stalin’s Nazi-scale democide and the mass killings of his disciples in other nations as a Red Holocaust, even though genocide wasn’t a principal component of the slaughter, without detracting from Ha-Shoah’s special significance. The symbolism of Hitler’s Jewish-centric racial extermination project remains, but is paired with other diversely motivated conflagrations to emphasize their common scale, conjunctural similarities and heinousness. Broadening the term “holocaust” in this way provides a powerful concept for classifying and calibrating mass murders, and distinguishing the nature and extent of their genocidal content if any. The clarification is essential for dispassionately assessing twentieth century Ha Shoah scale crimes against humanity. Some may reject this expanded definition because it tarnishes communism with a fascist brush. It may be claimed that Stalinist homicides everywhere were justified acts of self-defense, just as Hitler contended that gassing Jews was imperative to preserve Aryan virtue. Communist defenders often assert that Stalin and Mao were compelled to defend the revolution from the onslaughts of class enemies, opportunists, imperialists and foreign invaders. Stalin and Mao in this view perceived themselves challenged by a series of do or die (kto kovo) crises that forced them to butcher. Perhaps they over-reacted, but in the fog of war it is difficult to distinguish friend from foe, and consequently Stalin’s and Mao’s democide should not be equated with Hitler’s. Ha Shoah was criminal; Stalinist killings weren’t. There was a Nazi holocaust, but allegations of a Red Holocaust are


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misplaced. This treatise rejects these forms of Red Holocaust denial (rationalization), because communist mass killings can be shown to be major crimes against humanity under contemporary international law, not excusable murder, manslaughter and/or negligent homicide. Stalin’s reign accordingly no longer should be benignly construed as the triumph of scientific socialism, or as machine-age social romanticism that momentarily ran amok. It is more fruitfully reconceptualized as a slow motion, half-century terror-driven dystopic holocaust that began with forced collectivization and symbolically ended with Stalin’s planned final solution for the Jews (Louis Rapoport, Stalin’s War Against the Jews the Doctor’s Plot and the Soviet Solution, Toronto: Free Press, 1990), metastasizing in China, North Korea, Indochina and other corners of the globe. Michael Ellman, “The Political Economy of Stalinism in the Light of the Archival Revolution,” Journal of Institutional Economics, 4 (1), 2008, 99–125. The standard literature on Soviet repression fixates on “politicals,” broadly understood as enemies of Stalin’s regime and communism. The concept is not only nebulous, but was indiscriminately applied, diverting attention from terror-command which victimized anyone suspected of opposing Stalin’s will. For example, there were 256,000 non-political executions in the USSR 1940–June 1955. See Michael Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies, 54 (7), 2002, p.1169. A crime against humanity under the Rome Statute is an act of persecution or any large scale atrocities against a body of people, and is the highest level of criminal offense. Crimes against humanity are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy like terror-command, or are tacitly condoned. Ha Shoah, by contrast, throughout the text means the attempted mass extermination of Jewish victims. Michael Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine 1932–33,” p.682. “Team-Stalin’s behavior in 1930–34 clearly constitutes a crime against humanity (or a series of crimes against humanity) as that is defined in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court article 7, subsection 1(d) and (h) and, if the argument of the previous section of this article on national criminal law is accepted, then also subsection 1(a) of the Statute would apply.” p.681. Cf. Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48(8), p.1320. Stalin’s Red Holocaust is sometimes likened to the French Revolution’s reign of terror against the ancien régime and factional rivals, but the analogy is incomplete because it excludes lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing and terror-starvation. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine 1932–33,” p.681. Adam Jones, Genocide, A Comprehensive Introduction, London: Routledge, 2006; William Schabas, Genocide in International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. This treatise adduces sufficient evidence to indict Stalin for crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court article 7, subsections 1(a), 1(d) and 1(h). It is alleged that he killed more than 10 million Soviet and foreign citizens. It will be argued that he is guilty of inexcusable Ha Shoah scale holocaustic murder, manslaughter and/or negligent homicide. Evidence will also be presented supporting the additional charge of genocide, and it will be shown that guilt depends primarily on whether a strict or liberal legal construction is applied. The same bill of indictment is brought against Stalin’s Asian emulators. Moreover, Stalin and some Asian imitators are indictable for ethnic cleansing, particularly forced resettlement, a filial, but separate crime against humanity. Should Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others ever be found guilty in international court, the issues of punishment and reparations would arise. Foreign claims could be settled along the lines of the reparations agreement between Israel and West Germany September 10, 1952, including apologies, and payments for persecution, wrongful

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deaths, slave labor and stolen assets. Domestic victims and their descendants could be treated similarly. 18 Countries in the European Union generally do not prohibit Holocaust (Ha Shoah) denial outright, although Austria, Germany and Romania do officially ban Holocaust denial and three-year optional prison sentences are available for “denying or grossly trivializing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” 19 Ernest Becker, The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man, George Brazilier: New York, 1968. Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Holt McDougal: New York, 1992. Cf. Kristian Gerner and Klas-Göran Karlsson, Folkmordens historia, Atlantis bokforlag, 2005. 1 Dystopia 1

Democracy here means popular sovereignty, but not balloting, which would be superfluous in the land of harmonious consensus. 2 Full abundance is interpreted here to include no excess effort; that is, satiation is attained efficiently. 3 John Stuart Mill first coined the term in 1868 in a parliamentary speech. The concept underlies George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. 4 Some people managed to lead conventional lives during the Red Holocaust, and some preferred their communist dystopia to what they imagined was the capitalist alternative. Reality, as always, was partly in the eyes of the beholder. 3 Collectivization and Its Aftermath 1 Alexander V. Chayanov, The Theory of Peasant Economy, Homewood, Illinois: Irwin, 1966. 2 Also, see Robert Davies, The Socialist Offensive: The Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture, 1929–30, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. Moshe Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968. The economic cornerstone of Bolshevik communism was the criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship. 3 Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, 1917–1991, London: Penguin, 1992. Steven Rosefielde, The Russian Economy: From Lenin to Putin, London: Blackwell, 2007. 4 Nove, An Economic History of the USSR. Various motives have been suggested for Stalin’s action, including subduing nationalities to construct a unified, centralized imperial state. Mark von Hagen, “The Ukrainian Famine Genocide and Confronting Stalinism in the Ukraine and Russia, “Conference of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide: Reflections after 75 years,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, September 12, 2008. Modernization, development, ideology, politics and personal despotism are other possibilities, and all may have been contributory. 5 Michael Ellman characterizes the same phenomenon as the “tribute model.” Michael Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited,” EuropeAsia Studies, 59, 4, June 2007, p.678. Alternatively, he describes Stalin’s approach as “the coercive model” of the role of agriculture in Soviet industrialization. The concept is broader, encompassing all economic activities including state governance and civic action. See Michael Ellman, Socialist Economic Planning, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1989, pp.96–98, 104–110. The role of coercion has also been stressed by Mark Harrison, “Coercion, Compliance, and the Collapse of the Soviet Economy,” Economic History Review, 55, 3, August 2002; Vladimir Kontorovich, “Discipline and Growth in the Soviet Economy,” Problems of Communism, XXXIV, 6, November–December 1985, and


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Kontorovich, “Lessons of the 1965 Soviet Economic Reform,” Soviet Studies, XL, 2, April, 1988, pp.308–316. Citing Stalin’s article “The Year of the Great Turning Point,” Pravda, November 7, 1929, Taras Hunczak finds that the purpose of collectivization was peasant subjugation to the Kremlin’s economic authority. He wanted: “1. Obtain absolute control over grain procurement and 2, establish complete control over farmers who displayed a high level of independence and resisted collectivization which they considered serfdom of modern times.” Prepared text of speech delivered September 15, 2008 at the Conference on “The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide: Reflections After 75 Years,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 6 The rate of collectivization was faster in the Ukraine, 62.9 percent of all households joined collectives by March 1, 1930. See Roman Serbyn, “The Ukrainian Famine 1932–1933 and the United Nations Convention on Genocide,” in Taras Hunczak and Roman Serbyn, eds, Famine in the Ukraine: 1932–1933: Genocide by Other Means, New York: Shevchenko Scientific Society in the US, 2007, pp.55–56. Also see Joseph Stalin, “Dizzy with Success: Concerning Questions of the Collective-Farm Movement,” Pravda, No. 60, March 2, 1930, where Stalin calls for consolidation, before advancing further with collectivization. 7 Ibid., p.664. The Ukrainian government recently requested the UN to recognize Stalin’s actions as genocide. Despite official denial, the French, Italian and German governments were well informed about Stalin’s starvation tactics 1932–33. See Stephane Courtois, et. al, The Black Book of Communism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, chapter 8, p.169. One can debate whether Stalin’s agrarian assault, and slow-motion mass killings, constitute inexcusable murder, or felonious manslaughter, and acknowledge that weather was a contributory cause, but whatever judgment is reached, and regardless of the further genocide allegation, starvation, deportation deaths and shootings weren’t exculpable negligence. Stalin acted out of malice, failed to take adequate steps to contain the carnage and therefore is ipso facto indictable for crimes against humanity under postwar international law. George Liber, “Ukraine and Three Twentieth-Century Cataclysms,” paper presented at the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide conference, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, September 12, 2008. “The government employed fines, threats, physical abuse, confiscation, exile, and even executions to persuade peasants with individual holding to join collective farms. Once the peasants entered the collective farms, the government organs imposed unrealistic grain quotas, and party activists upped the ante. By the end of 1931, famine broke out in the Ukrainian country side.” 8 Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s,” Soviet Studies, 42 (2) 1990, pp.1319–1354, puts collectivization deaths other than those computed directly for the famine year 1933 between 1,225,000 and 2,225,000. These figures can be compared with the summary estimate reported in J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Post War Years. A First Approach Base on Archival Evidence, American Historical Review, October 1993, pp.1017–1049, of 964,411, comprised of 437,825 known exile deaths, and 526,576 estimated peasant deaths that are neither documented by the NKVD, nor attributable to starvation. Wheatcroft also discovered 500,000 more potential collectivization victims in the NKVD material, but is inclined to interpret the discrepancy as a reporting irregularity. The data in question suggest that almost 500,000 people (over two-thirds) of the Gulag population either died or ran away from camps in 1931. According to Zemskov 486,320 people vanished from the kulak exile population. Wheatcroft suggests that they were transferred to Gulag, citing a report dated July 13, 1931 from Fushman (deputy chairman of TsVKh) to Molotov stating that GUITU, OGPU transferred 625,000 special exiles to Soyuzlesprom. But

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their return to exile is not documented and Fushman’s figure does not match the 427,5000 missing from the Gulag Conjuncture Reports for 1931 that Wheatcroft recognizes suggests they were killed. Steven Rosefielde, “Documented Homicides and Excess Deaths: New Insights into the Scale of Killing in the USSR During the 1930s,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 30, 3, 1997, Table 2, p.329. Higher killing estimates were once thought possible, based on AntonovOvseenko’s 1937 population claim of 156,000,000. Combining this figure with Wheatcroft’s official vital statistics yields 11,646,000 excess deaths for the extended period 1929–37 (Table A3.2). But it turned out that Antonov-Ovseenko’s population figure omitted military and NKVD contingents. See Michael Ellman, “On Sources: A Note,” Soviet Studies, 44(5), 1992, pp.913–915. Cf. Alec Nove, The Soviet System in Retrospect: An Obituary Notice, New York: Harriman Institute, Columbia University, 1993. Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–1933 (Basingstoke, 2004), p.415. Official Soviet demographic data, prior to Wheatcroft’s acquisition of revised archival estimates, supported 5.8 million excess collectivization deaths. The current collectivization estimate, given their new famine statistic must be substantially higher. On Wheatcroft’s prior estimate, see note 8. Also, see Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Collectivization Deaths 1929–33: New Demographic Evidence,” Slavic Review, 43, 1, Spring 1984, Table 1, p.84. Davies and Wheatcroft prefer to characterize the terror-starvation component of these slayings as famine deaths, but this is misleading, because it connotes a non-felonious natural event in normal usage. There was a famine (widespread health-impairing food shortage) 1932–33 caused by two bad harvests in 1931 and 1932 attributable partly to collectivization and partly to weather (although Kondrashin and Penner contest the explanation), but it didn’t cause the killings. Grain supplies were sufficient to sustain everyone if properly distributed. People died mostly of terror-starvation (excess grain exports, seizure of edibles from the starving, state refusal to provide emergency relief, bans on outmigration, and forced deportation to food-deficit locales), not poor harvests and routine administrative bungling. (Davies and Wheatcroft misconstrue their excess death estimate primarily as excusable, negligent homicide.) V. Kondrashin and D. Penner, Golod: 1932–1933 gody v sovetskoi derevne (na materialiakh Povolzh’ya, Dona i Kubani) (Samara-Penza, 2002), p.424). Cf. Ellman, “The Role of Leadership Perceptions and Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931–34,” Europe-Asia Studies, 57(6), footnote 5, pp.836–837. Cf. Robert Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. According to Mark von Hagen, “The Resolution of the CC (December 14,1932) was immediately implemented—police and party activists went from house to house and requisitioned not only grain, but any food they could find. Starving farmers, those who still could walk, tried to save themselves and their families by going into neighboring Russia or Belarus hoping to buy some bread. Stalin, however, issued a Secret Directive on January 22, 1933 ordering to stop the exodus of all starving people from Ukraine and Northern Caucasus. All those who were caught trying to purchase bread by crossing the borders of Russia or Belarus were either arrested, executed or returned to their villages. In other words, they were condemned to death—and they did die—by the millions.” Text of Speech delivered September 15, 2008 to the Conference on “The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide: Reflections After 75 Years,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Oleh Wolowyna confirms that this unusual definition of stillborns remains Ukrainian practice. Email September 15, 2008. E. M. Andreev, L. E. Darskii and T. L. Khar’kova Istoriia naselenia SSSR 1920–1959gg., Ekspress-Informatsiia,

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21

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Seriia Istoriia Statistiki, Issue 3–4, Part 1990; Andreev, Darskii and Khar’kova, Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1922–1991, Moscow Nauka, 1993. Oleh Wolowyna, “The Famine-Genocide of 1932–33. Estimation of Losses and Demographic Impact,” paper presented at “The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide Conference, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, September 12, 2008. The total birth deficit in the Ukraine due to the misclassification of stillborns, excess natural abortions, starvation-induced fertility decline and other related abnormal factors 1932–34 is approximately one million. See Jacques Vallin, France Mesle, Serguei Adamets and Serhyi Pyrozhkov, “A New Estimate of Ukrainian Losses During the Crises of the 1930s and 1940s,” Population Studies, 56, 3, 2002, pp.249–264, and E. Libanova, N. M. Levchuk, N. O. Ryhacz, O. P. Rudnyckyj and S. A. Poniakina, Smertnisty Naselennja Ukrajiny y Trudoaktyvnomu Vici (Mortality of the Ukrainian Working Age Population). Institute for Demography and Social Studies, Kiev, 2007. Barbara Anderson and Brian Silver, “Tautologies in the Study of Excess Mortality in the USSR in the 1930s,” Slavic Review, 45 (2), 1986, pp.307–313. Anderson and Silver, “Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR,” Slavic Review, 44 (3), 1985, pp.317–336. Cf. Frank Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects, Geneva: League of Nations, 1946. See also Steven Rosefielde, “Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR: A Rejoinder to Barbara Anderson and Brian Silver, Slavic Review, 45, 2 (Summer 1986), pp.300–306. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.665: “I agree with Davies and Wheatcroft that in 1929–30 when Stalin initiated the collectivization policy he certainly did not intend to implement a starvation policy.” Davies and Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–33. Stephen Wheatcroft, “From Team-Stalin to Degenerate Tyranny,” in E.A. Rees, (ed.), The Nature of Stalin’s Dictatorship (Basingstoke, Palgrave), 2004. Pianciola argues that Kazakh starvation also was unintentional. See N. Pianciola, “Famine in the Steppe,” Cahiers du monde russe, 45, 2004, 1–2. “The Russian sociologist Pitirim Sorokin asserted that when ‘physiological starvation is absolute, after the first few days . . . his prevailing mood is one of depression and apathy.’ ” The time and energy spent in food-seeking activities increases, while that devoted to other activities decreases. Liber, “Ukraine and Twentieth Century Cataclysms.” Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.664. Cf. Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements, New York; Oxford University Press, 2007. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.665. Mikhail Sholokov’s famous letter to Stalin, and Stalin’s reply also demonstrate that the General Secretary was well informed about the Ukrainian starvation. Presidential Archives of the Russian Federation, Moscow, 45/1/827/7–22. Also see Stephane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999, pp.165–166, and Michael Ellman, “The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1934,” Europe-Asia Studies, 57(6), 2005, p.824. Cf. V.P. Danilov and I.E. Zelenin, “Organizovannyi golod. K 70—letiyu obshchekrest’yanskoi tragedii,” Otechestvennaya istoriya, 2004. Cf. Liber, “Ukraine and Three Twentieth-Century Cataclsyms.” “In response to the peasant resistance the party leaders encountered, they passed a ‘Decree on the Protection of State property’ (August 7, 1932). This law allowed an individual’s execution and confiscation of individual’s entire property if he or she stole property, even a few specks of grain, belonging to collective farms and cooperative societies.” “Team-Stalin” was coined by Wheatcroft. See Stephen Wheatcroft, “From Team-

Notes

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24 25 26 27

28 29

30 31 32

33

261

Stalin to Degenerate Tyranny,” A. E. Rees, ed., The Nature of Stalin’s Dictatorship: The Politburo 1924–1953, Palgrave: London, 2004. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” pp.665–666. Davies and Wheatcroft counter-argue that reductions in the planned scale of deportations during 1933 showed the administration’s flexibility; however, Ellman shows that cost, not compassion, was primary, and that Stalin was fully in command, arresting 1 million to 2.8 million people more in 1929–33 than the previous norm. Ibid., pp.666–667. The law promulgated on this date was formally directed against the theft of state property, which was subsequently construed to include grain withheld by peasants from their own production. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.668. Ibid., pp.669–671. Ellman estimates that 1.5 million excess deaths could have been prevented by low cost grain imports from abroad, and that the grain exports 1932–33 were enough to feed more than 5 million people for one year. Ibid., p.679. Ellman acknowledges that these estimates are crude, but nonetheless are plausible. Also see Michael Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 224, 5, September 2000, p.610, footnote 3. Per capita food production was higher 1931–33 on average than in 1945–46, when starvation deaths were avoided. See Table 1, p.605 and cf. D. Gale Johnson, “Agricultural Production,” in Abram Bergson and Simon Kuznets, (eds.), Economic Trends in the Soviet Union, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, Table V.4, p.210. Cf. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” pp.673–675. Ibid., p.676. See Robert Argenbright, “Red Tsaritsyn: Precusor of Stalinist Terror,” Revolutionary Russia, 4(2), December, 1991, pp.157–183. Many scholars have suggested that the viciousness of the First World War, and the civil war 1917–21, predisposed the Bolsheviks to violence. See Sheila Fitzpatrick, “The Civil War as a Formative Experience,” and David Joravsky, “Cultural Revolution and the Fortress Mentality,” in Abbot Gleason, Peter Kenez and Richard Stites, (eds.), Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985, pp.57–76, 93–113. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, London: Oxford University Press, 1984, without reference to the pre-Soviet experience, suggests that Stalin and other totalitarians like him used terror and war as means for securing popular loyalty. Neither, postwar traumatic syndrome, nor rational economy played any part in Orwell’s explanation of twentieth century terror. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Knopf, New York, 2004. Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2005. V.N. Khaustov, V.P. Naumov and N.S. Plotnikova (comps), Lubyanka, Stalin i NKVD -NKGB-GUKR “Smersh” (Moscow, MFD), 2006, p.318. Joseph Stalin, “Zapis besedy s S.M. Eizenshteinem i N.K. Cherkasovym po povodu filma ‘Ivan Grozny’ Sochineniya 18 (Tver’, Soyuz)”. (Originally spoken in 1947. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.676). Mao Tse-tung made a similar observation about the murderous founder of the Chinese state in 221BC, Qin Shi Huangdi. “He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive . . . You (intellectuals) revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold.” Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.681. Ellman’s stance here is less conciliatory than in Ellman, “The Role of Leadership Perceptions and Intent in the Soviet Famine 1931–34,” pp.834–835. Cf. Roman Serbyn, “The Ukrainian Famine of 1932–1933 and the United Nations Convention on Genocide,” in Taras Hunczak

262

34 35


36 37

38

39 40 41

42

43 44

Notes

and Roman Serbyn (eds), Famine in Ukraine: 1932–1933: Genocide by Other Means, New York: Shevchenko Scientific Society in the US, 2007. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine.” Ibid., p.682. William Schabas, Genocide in International Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp.116–120. Schabas, Genocide in International Law, pp.226–228. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.682, footnote 30. According to Ellman, Davies and Wheatcroft put the total number of famine victims at 5.7 million (56% of Kul’chits’kii’s Ukrainian famine death figure of 3.2 million). David Marcus, “Famine Crimes in International Law,” The American Journal of International Law, 97, 2, p.252 asserts: “In one year, between five and eleven million Ukrainians died of hunger or famine-related maladies . . .” Ellman contends that this is a huge exaggeration of specifically Ukrainian ethnic deaths. He is probably right, but see this treatise Table A3.2. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.682. S.V. Kul’chits’kii, Golod 1932–33 gg. v Ukraine kak genotsid (Kyiv, Institute of Ukrainian History, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences), 2005, p.196. Cf. Andrew Gregorovich, “Black Famine in Ukraine 1932–33,” http:www.infoukes.com/history/famine/gregorovich/. Vallin, Mesle, Adamets and Pyrozhkov, “A New Estimate of Ukrainian Population Losses During the Crises of the 1930s and 1940s,” Population Studies, 56 (3), 2002, 249–264. Libanova, Levchak, Ryhacz, Rudnyckyj and Poniakina, Smertnisty Naselennja Ukrajiny, 2007. Liber, “Ukraine and Three Twentieth-Century Cataclysms,” concurs. Taras Hunczak documents the Communist Party’s campaign August 1932 to November 1933 against the “petliurites, nationalists, bourgeois nationalist, nationalist deviationists, counter-revolutionaries and Ukrainization,” and then points to the show-trial of March 1930 against leading Ukrainian intellectuals. He insists that famine conditions and the starvation policy were different in the Ukraine than the rest of the Soviet Union, despite V.P. Kozlov and V.V. Kondrashin’s issuance of instructions to Russian archival officials that documents about the famine should be selected in such a way as to make clear that the famine was a tragedy of the entire Soviet peasantry, without accent on the Ukraine. Text for a speech at the Conference on “The Ukrainian Genocide-Famine: Reflections After 75 Years,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, September 15, 2008. Cf. Leon Aron, “The Politics of Memory,” Russian Outlook, AEI online, September 8, 2008. Aron, “The Problematic Pages,” New Republic, September 24, 2008. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.682. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Judgment, Prosecutor v Radislav Krstic, Case no. IT98-33-5, August 2, 2001, p.208, available at: http://www.un.org/icty. With regard to intent, William Schabas, Genocide in International Law, p.305 has pointed out that “genocide requires the prosecution to establish the highest level of specific intent.” “The specific intent necessary for a conviction of genocide is even more demanding than that required of murder.” p.222. This means that sufficient intent required to qualify as (mass) murder may not be sufficient as specific intent to qualify as genocide. Von Hagen, “The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide.” Tamas Hunczak quotes Mendel Khataievich statement that “A ruthless struggle is going on between the farmers and our regime. It’s a struggle to the death. This year was a test of our strength and their endurance. It took a famine to show them who is the master here. It has cost millions of lives, but the collective farm system is here to say. We have won the war.” He then concludes, “The famine, therefore, was an instrument of genocide by other means.” Text for speech delivered at

Notes

45


46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

54 55

56 57

263

the Conference on “The Ukrainian Genocide-Terror: Reflections After 75 Years,” University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, September 15, 2008. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.683. Ellman points out that Kuban Ukrainian genocide, if upheld, wouldn’t be attributable solely to starvation, but this qualification is unimportant because it doesn’t alter the charge of genocide. Schabas, Genocide in International Law, pp.178–201. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.686. N.V. Petrov and A.B. Roginiskii, “The Polish Operation of the NKVD, 1937–38,” in Mcloughlin, B. and McDermott, K. (eds), Stalin’s Terror, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.687. Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, London: Routledge, 2006. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine,” p.688. von Hagen, “The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide.” Ibid. Appendix Table A3.3, plus Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression,” 1990. Also see Table A2.1. Robert Allen believes that per capita food consumption standards in 1932–33 were higher than under Nikolas I, painting a rosy picture of Stalin’s across the board success. If he were right (he is certainly wrong), then the case against Stalin would be wholly a matter of inexcusable murder. Allen gulls himself by uncritically accepting official Soviet statistics. See Robert Allen, Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. Cf. Michael Ellman, “Soviet Industrialization: A Remarkable Success?” Slavic Review, 3 (2), 2004, pp.841–849. D. Gale Johnson, “Agricultural Production,” in Abram Bergson and Simon Kuznets (eds.), Economic Trends in the Soviet Union, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, Table V.4, p.210. Michael Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines,” pp.603–630. Ellman reports that “there were widespread deaths from starvation or food deficiency diseases among the free population of the unoccupied areas.” (Appendix 1: The Third Soviet Famine), p.626. V.F. Zima, “O smertnosti sel’skogo naseleniya v sovetskom tylu (po arkhivnym svodkam 1941–1945 gg),” in Lyudskie poteri v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine, St Petersburg, Russko-Baltiiskii informatsionnyi tsentr BLITS, 1995 estimates that nonLeningrad wartime deaths from starvation and related disease among the free population in the unoccupied areas totaled 1.5 million. The situation was worse among the Soviet detainees (about a million Soviet prisoners died in the camps and colonies and in prison in 1941–45), especially among prisoners of war. Cf. Viktor Zemskov, “Smertnykh zaklyuchennykh v 1941–1945 gg,” in Lyudskie poteri v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine, St Peterburg, Russko-Baltiiskii informatsionnyi tsentr BLTS, 1995. William Moskoff, The Bread of Affliction: The Food Supply in the USSR during World War II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 estimates that famine deaths in occupied Kharkiv in 1941–43 (mainly in 1942) at 10 percent of the population. Alex Nove, An Economic History of the USSR 1917–1991, 3rd edition, London: Penguin, 1992. Cf. William Taubman, Sergei Khrushchev and Abbott Gleason (eds.), Nikita Khrushchev, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, pp.33, 642. Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine.” Other scholars contributing to archival research on this theme include V.P. Popov, Golod i gosudarstvennaya politika, Otechestvennye archivy, no.6, Popov, Eshche raz o poslevoennom golode, Otechestvennye arkhivy, no.4, O. M. Veselova and P. P. Panchenko, “Shche odna tragichna storinka istorii Ukrainy, 1995–6,” “Veselova and Panchenko,” “Golod v Ukraini 1946–1947 rokiv,” Ukrains’kyi istorichnyi zhurnal, 1995, no.6, 1995–6. Cf. Igor Casu, “Terror Against ‘Anti-Soviet’ Elements in Moldavian SSR, 1940–41,

264


58

59

60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68

Notes

1944–53,” in Kevin McDermott (ed.), Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe, Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2009. Ibid. Sovietologists weren’t the only ones essentially unaware that more than a million Soviets perished from starvation in 1947. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen doesn’t mention it in his famine writings, although Martin Ravallion provides some high estimates. See Martin Ravallion, “Famines and Economics,” Journal of Economic Literature, 35 (3), 1997, pp.1205–1242. Robert Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow, London: Hutchinson, p.335 mentions the famine, but offers no excess death estimate. Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, pp.258–264 conservatively estimate that there were at least 500,000 victims. Other treatments of the topic during the 1990s include John Channon, “Stalin and the Peasantry: Reassessing the Postwar Years, 1945–53,” in J. Channon, (ed.), Politics, Society and Stalinism in the USSR, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, pp.200–204; Robert Davies, Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.64; Elena Zubkova, Russia After the War, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. The entitlement approach was pioneered by Amartya Sen. See Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine,” p.623. “The section on famine victims in the USSR in 1946–48 can be understood in terms of the entitlement approach. Those who died were those who in the Soviet system had no entitlement to food (such as rural dependants). Those who did have an entitlement to food (the beneficiaries—mostly urban state employees—of the rationing system) usually survived. The famine deaths were not a direct impact of a natural disaster, but were mediated both by Soviet economic policy and by the Soviet entitlement system. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited.” Ellman, “The 1947 Famine,” Table 1, p.605. Cf. Johnson, “Agricultural Production,” Table V.4, p.210. The percentage decline in the harvest remaining at the disposal of the farms and rural population was greater than the percentage decline in state procurements. Ellman, “The 1947 Famine,” Table 1, note b. See V.P. Popov, “Ekonomicheskoe i sotsial’noe polozhenie sovetskogo obshchestva v 40-e gg (na primere rossiskoi derevni),” unpublished Doctor of Historical Sciences Thesis, Moscow Pedagogical State University, 1996, p.61. Ellman, “The 1947 Famine,” p.607. Ibid., Tables 3 and 4, pp.608–609. Ibid., p.618. Ibid., p.612. Ibid., p.622.

4 The Great Terror 1 On the other hand, good official economic news didn’t stay Stalin’s hand on collectivization: Table 4.1n Industrial and agrarian growth during the post-civil war recovery (1917 = 100)

Industry Agriculture

1920

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

22 67

51 90

73 112

98 118

111 121

131 124

Source: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 Let, Iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik, Finansy i Statistika, Moscow, 1987.


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2 Chistka in Russian parlance means “house cleaning,” or clearing out the dead wood from the Communist Party ranks. The term used in either sense was only menacing to the careers of those expelled from party ranks. 400,000 party members, for example, were dismissed without widespread lethal repercussions in 1933. However, from 1936 to 1953, the connotation of purge changed, with party expulsion becoming synonymous with subsequent arrest, imprisonment and execution. 3 Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin, Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p.300. Alan Wood, Stalin and Stalinism, London: Routledge, 1990, p.37. Leon Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. 4 Robert Conquest, The Great Terror, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, p.485. “Executed: approximately 1 million. This would be the result for the USSR as a whole for those shot by Troikas alone, if figures now given for Uzbekistan are taken as typical. Figures from Irkutsk imply over 1.5 million. Michael Ellman claims that the best execution estimate during these two years is 950,000 to 1.2 million. Memorial society reports that on the cases investigated by the State Security Department of NKVD (GUGB NKVD): at least 1,710,000 people were arrested; at least 1,440,000 people were sentenced, and at least 724,000 executed. 5 Article 58–14 defines counter-revolutionary sabotage as the non-execution or deliberately careless execution of defined duties, aimed at the weakening of the power of the government and the functioning of the state apparatus. The punishment is at least one year deprivation of freedom and, under especially aggravating circumstances, up to the highest measure of social protection: execution by shooting with confiscation of property. 6 The Sovnarkom USSR and Central Committee of the VPK issued a joint decree on arrests, prosecutorial supervision and the course of investigations November 17, 1938, cancelling most NKVD orders on systematic repression, and suspended the implementation of death sentences (which in practice never ceased). Lavrenty Beria, who subsequently replaced Yezhov on November 25, 1938, signed the implementing NKVD order terminating the Great Terror. Yezhov was shot in 1940. Various motives have been suggested for Stalin’s termination of the Great Terror including preserving manpower for a potential war with Germany, and/or avoiding further harm to the economy. 7 In 1926, Zinoviev allied himself with Trotsky, and their alliance became known as the United Opposition. He and Trotsky were expelled from the Communist Party November 12, 1927 after organizing a suppressed demonstration commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. Zinoviev was reinstated in the CP, expelled again in 1932 for failing to inform on the Ryutin affair, and then readmitted December 1933. After the murder of Sergei Kirov on December 31, 1934, Zinoviev was expelled and arrested. He was tried in January 1935, receiving a ten-year prison sentence for moral complicity in Kirov’s assassination. The August 1936 Moscow show trial tried him again for the same crimes for which he was convicted in 1935. 8 Lev Kamenev was a close associate of Zinoviev, and their fate was intertwined after the Ryutin affair. Kamenev was only sentenced to five years in prison in 1935 for moral complicity in Kirov’s assassination, but received an additional ten-year term in connection with the Kremlin case, also in 1935. 9 Kamenev’s second son was executed January 30, 1938 at the age of 17. His oldest son was executed July 15, 1939 at the age of 33. His first wife Olga (Trotsky’s sister) was shot September 11, 1941 on Stalin’s orders, together with 160 other prominent political figures. The 14 other defendants were G.E. Evdokimov, I.N. Smirnov, I.P. Bakayev, V.A. Ter-Vaganyan, S.V. Mrachkovsky, E.A. Dreitzer, E.S. Holtzman, I.I. Reingol, R.V. Pickel, V.P. Olberg, K.B. Berman-Yurin, Fritz David, M. Lurye and N. Lurye.


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Notes

10 Sergo Ordzhonikidze, a Politburo member rumored to be planning to denounce Stalin at the February 19, 1937 Party plenum, committed suicide the preceding evening. He was not indicted at the Moscow show trials. Another trial, held after the Moscow show trials of 1936, involved an active Politburo member, Janis Rudzutaks. He was arrested May 24, 1937, accused of Trotskyism and espionage for Nazi Germany, swiftly convicted and shot. In 1956, he was exonerated and his Communist Party membership posthumously restored. Nikolai Yezhov became a Politburo candidate member October 12, 1937, and was shot in 1940. Nikolai Eikhe was arrested April 29, 1938, and shot February 4, 1940. On May 3, 1938 Stanislav Kosior was arrested, and shot February 26, 1939. Vlas Chubar was arrested June 16, 1938, and shot February 26, 1939. On March 7, 1949 Nikolai Voznesensky was relieved of his duties, arrested and was probably shot in 1950. 11 Humiliating old foes is a commonplace in Russian culture, which may be traceable to the Tatar occupational legacy. 12 The Shakhty Trial of 1928 was the first important show trial in the Soviet Union after the Social Revolutionaries trial of 1922. Police arrested a group of engineers in the North Caucasus town of Shakhty and accused them of conspiring with former owners of coal mines to sabotage the Soviet economy. Joseph Stalin mentioned in April 1928 that the Shakhty arrests proved that class struggle was intensifying as the Soviet Union moved closer to socialism. Five of the fifty-three defendants were executed, and forty-four sent to prison for the crime of wrecking, under Article 58 of the RSFSR penal code. Stephen Wheatcroft has shown that Efim Evdokimov, a Chekist, concocted cases against thousands of specialists and engineers who were all accused of wrecking, and got Stalin’s ear on the matter. See Stephen Wheatcroft, “Agency and Terror: Evdokimov and Mass Killing in Stalin’s Great Terror,” Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53(1), 2007, pp.20–43. The Industrial Party Trial (November 25–December 7, 1930) involved the indictment of several Soviet scientists and economists for plotting a coup against the government. They were also accused of forming an anti-Soviet Union of Engineers organization (Prompartiya), and of having attempted to wreck Soviet industry and transport 1926–30. The presiding judge was Andrei Vyshinsky, who later became the prosecutor at the Moscow Trials 1936–1938. The defendants were tortured, and publicly confessed to their alleged crimes. Nikolai Krylenko, the state prosecutor, was subsequently arrested and shot in 1938. 13 Wrecking (vreditel’stogo) in Soviet legal parlance meant undermining state plans, projects and organizations by deliberating issuing wrong commands. It is distinguished from sabotage, construed to mean disobedience, or failure to properly fulfill specific assignments. Diversions were acts of physical destruction of state property. 14 This included military leaders. Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Marshal of the Soviet Union was arrested May 22, 1937, charged with participating in the militaryTrotskyist conspiracy and spying for Nazi Germany. He was tried in the Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, tortured into confession, convicted, and executed together with eight other military commanders on June 12, 1937. On January 31, 1957, Tukhachevsky was exonerated and rehabilitated by Soviet authorities. 15 Conquest, The Great Terror, p.211. Marshals of the Soviet Union, the Japanese emperor and Nazi Imperial Marshals, in the standardized international scale of ranks, are Supreme (six-star generals). 16 Courtois et.al, The Black Book of Communism, p.198. 17 Stalin’s stalwarts were Anastas Mikoyan (a member of the Caucasian Clique, together with Stalin and Sergo Orzhonikidze), Kliment Voroshilov, Lazar

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20 21

22

23

24

25

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Kaganovich, Vyacheslav Molotov, Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrenty Beria, Georgy Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin, Alexei Kosygin. Courtois et.al, The Black Book of Communism, pp.364–367. J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence,” American Historical Review, October 1993, pp.1017–1049. “According to a press release of the KGB, 786,098 persons were sentenced to death ‘for counterrevolutionary and state crimes’ by various courts and extrajudicial bodies between 1930 and 1953 (Pravda (February 14, 1990):2). It seems that 681,692 people, or 86.7 percent of the number for this 23-year -period were shot in 1937–38 (compared to 1,118 persons in 1936) (Pravda (June 22, 1989):3).” V.A. Isupov, Demograficheskie katastrofy i krizisy v Rossii v pervoi polovine XX veka, Novosibirsk, 2000, p.118. Michael Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments, Europe-Asia Studies, 54(7), 2002, pp.1151–1172. The lower bound of this range takes the NKVD data and categories literally. The number of excess deaths is 682,000 (the number reported as shot) + 150,000 registered deaths in detention (the SANO/URO average) + 2,000 excess non-article 58 shootings = 834,000. Since there is reason to think that the Pavlov report (1956 repression review commission) excludes some NKVD killings (executions), that the data for registered deaths in detention understate actual deaths in detention, and that some of those released in 1937–38 died in 1937–38 as a result of their treatment in the Gulag, then a reasonable minimum estimate is 950,000. The upper bound number of NKVD killings, 850,000; the actual number of deaths in detention 1937–38, 200,000; the actual number of excess non-article 58 deaths, 5,000; and treating all those recorded as released from the Gulag in 1937–38 (644,000) as having died by 31 December 1938 as a result of their treatment in the Gulag. This produces an upper bound of 1,699,000. The figure however is much too high. If one assumes that three-quarters of those recorded as released in 1937–38 were still alive on 31 December 1938, then that would reduce the upper bound to 1,216,000 or rounded to the nearest 50,000, 1.2 million. See Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics,” pp.1154–1155. Conquest, The Great Terror, p.485. Ellman, notes that Conquest, following Volkogonov, interprets the word ubyl’ (losses) to be synonymous with killing when it also covers Gulag prisoners leaving the institution for other reasons. This leads Conquest to overestimate those killed in Gulag, and therefore doesn’t count as a valid criticism of Wheatcroft’s defense of the NKVD homicide statistics. Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics,” p.1159. The NKVD contain internal discrepancies, and may be incomplete. See Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics,” p.1154. Also see Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization, 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 25(3), July 1983, p.393. My estimate is 1,075,000. The overwhelming majority of Gulag prisoners were criminals. Gulag statistics for 1 January 1939 indicate that counter-revolutionary offenders comprised only 34.4 percent of Gulag inmates, but the same source classifies 21.7 percent as socially harmful elements and socially dangerous elements. See Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics,” p.1156. Stephen Wheatcroft, “Agency and Terror: Evdokimov and Mass Killing in Stalin’s Great Terror.” Wheatcroft attributes the scale of executions, especially its extrajudicial component, to the influence of secret police agent Efim Georgievich Evdokimov, after a brief period July 1931–36 when an attempt was made to increase the judicial aspect of political-economic executions. If it weren’t for Evdokimov preserving the murderous Civil War tradition, it is implied that there

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26 27

28 29 30 31

32

33

Notes

wouldn’t have been a Great Terror. “Evdokimov and his team were probably responsible for more executions than anyone else in the Civil War” (pp.23–24). E.F. Evdokimov is unrelated to Grigorii Eremeevich Evdokimov, a Trotskyist shot together with Zinoviev and Kamenev after their August 1936 trial. Vladimir Khaustov and Lennart Samuelson, Stalin, NKVD i Repressii 1936–1938gg, Moscow: Rosspen, 2009. Joseph E. Davies, Mission to Moscow, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1941. Some counterclaim that the exonerations were unjustified, politically motivated by Stalin’s foes (especially Nikita Khrushchev). The commissions may have been biased, but no one has found archival records showing that the documents the commissions relied on were fake, or misrepresentative. Stephen Wheatcroft and Robert Davies, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1919–1945, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p.77. Wheatcroft, “Agency and Terror.” Stephen Wheatcroft and Robert Davies, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture 1931–1933, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p.415. Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings 1930–45, Europe-Asia Studies, 48(8), 1996, pp.1319–1353. The underlying sources are Vestnik Arkhiva Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1, 1995, Istochnik, 1, 1995, p.120. The table was prepared by Col. Pavlov of 1st Special Department of the MVD, dated 11/12/1953 and sent by General Kruglovoi (head of MVD) to Malenkov and Khrushchev on 5/1/1954. Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics,” note 66, p.1169 reports that “According to a December 1955 report to the USSR Ministry of Justice, in addition to those shot prior to 1940, in 1940–June 1955 approximately 256,000 people were sentenced by courts to be shot (168,000 of them in 1941–42). How many of them were condemned for political offences is not clear, but it seems likely that the overwhelming majority of these victims were condemned for political or military offences. In addition, in 1940–June 1955 there were shootings by order of the Military Collegiums of the Supreme Court and by order of the Osoboe soveshchanie of the MGB-MVD which are not included in these figures. See A. Kokurin and Yu. Morukov, “Gulag: strukture i kadry,” Svobodnaya Mysl’, XXI, 2001, 12, pp.98–99. Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics,” note 28, p.1167. He cites Robert Davies, Soviet History in the Yeltsin Era, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, pp.169–170.

5 Gulag 1 Collectivization excess deaths (non-famine) 1,225,000 to 2,225,000. Source: Stephen Wheatcroft, “More Light on the Scale of Repression and Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union in the 1930s,” Soviet Studies, 42(2), pp.1319–54. There are some Gulag camp and colony forced labor excess deaths in these totals. Terror-starvation excess deaths 5,700,000 to 8,500,000. Source: Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1932–1933, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p.415. See Table A3.3, this volume. Great Terror-Executions 792,570 to 1,500,000. Source: Vestnik Arkhiva Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1, 1995. See Table 4.3. Robert Conquest, The Great Terror, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, p.485. “Execute: approximately 1 million.” This would be the result for the USSR as a whole for those shot by Troikas alone, if figures now given for Uzbekistan are taken as typical. Figures from Irkutsk imply over 1.5 million.” Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 25(3), July 1983, p.393. My figure is 1,075,000.


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Michael Ellman estimates that there were 950,000 to 1,200,000 shootings, but some of these are also Gulag excess deaths. See Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies, 54(7), 2002, pp.1154– 1155. Terror-Starvation 1947 1,000,000 to 1,500,000. Source: Michael Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 224(5), September 2000, pp.603–630. Grand Totals: 8,717,570 to 13,725,000, Mean: 11,221,284. The 13 million figure is demographically supportable. 2 Ger Pieter van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice: Figures and Policy, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985. 3 There were two dominant schools of Soviet planning theory during the 1920s; teleologists and geneticists. The first stressed existence of a single maximum (teleological purpose compatible with Marxist historical dialectic) and a need for general equilibrium planning; the second, the usefulness of the interplay between indicative planning and markets. The main teleologists were Stanislav Strumilin, G.L. Pyatakov, V.V. Kuibyshev, and P.A. Feldman. The geneticists included N.D. Kondratiev, V.Z. Bazarov and V.G. Groman, all well-known economists. Many were later sent to Gulag, where most died. Pekka Sutela observes that Stalin, pressing class struggle concepts dismissed the geneticists, and demoted the teleologists, replacing them with planners stressing breakneck mobilization. These pragmatists had little or no regard for equilibrium, emphasizing aspiration instead. Nikolai Alexanderovich Vosnesenskii, a technocratically inclined Gosplan chief was shot in 1949. Aspirational, class struggle based planning was a central ingredient of terror-command. See Pekka Sutela, Economic Thought and Economic Reform in the Soviet Union, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Also see Edward Hallett Carr and Robert Davies, Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926–1929, vols. 1–2, London: Macmillan, 1969, Nicolas, Spulber, Soviet Strategy for Economic Growth, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964. Alec Nove, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R., Baltimore: Allen Lane, 1969, p.132. Nove interprets teleological planning differently, emphasizing maximizing growth and development. 4 A new category of forced labor was established by decree of VTsIK and SNK (RSFSR) on January 10, 1930. It combined exile with compulsory labor, and was originally administered by GUITU and N K Yust until Gulag OGPU took over in July 1931. Conflicting sources indicate that there were either 1,317,022 or 1,803,392 million peasant exiles (“kulaks”) 1930–31. Wheatcroft reports their numbers as of January 1 for the 1930s as: 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935

1,803,392 1,317,022 1,142,084 1,072,546 973,693

1936 1937 1938 1939 1940

1,017,133 916,787 877,651 938,522 997,513

See Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48(8), 1996, p.1340, and Victor Zemskov, “Spetspereselentsy,” Sotsial’noe issledovanie, 1990, 11, p.6. The spetspereselentsy exiles were separate from the mixed populations of Gulag colonies, even though both were administered by the NKVD. For a comparison of numerical magnitudes, see Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Table 2, p.1328.


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5 Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps, London: Penguin Books, 2004, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, New York, 1973, Vol. 2, p.76. Naftaly Frenkel is credited with having devised an efficient, selffinancing concentration camp forced labor system in the mid-1920s, sometimes called the “you-eat-as-you-work system,” while a prisoner at Solovetsky, part of the “northern camps of special significance” (Severnye lagerya osobogo naznacheniya (SLON)). The concept, fully compatible with Leninist Taylorism, Stalin’s precept that only he who works shall eat, and the late NEP adoption of samo-finansirovania (enterprise self-financing), came to the attention of Genrikh Yagoda (later NKVD head). Frenkel met Stalin after his early release from Solovetsky, at which time it is believed that they discussed prospects for applying penal labor in the construction of large projects like the Belomor Canal, where he was assigned as Chekist chief of construction. Frenkel is notable for having outlived Stalin and for dying of natural causes. He was made head of BAMlag (Baikal Amur Mainline railway camp) in 1937. Later in the same year, Frenkel was appointed head of the Chief Directorate of Railroad Construction (GUZHDS), was thrice the recipient of the Order of Lenin and held the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. It is reasonable to assume that Frenkel’s methods applied in Gulag colonies as well as camps, but the spetspereselentsy (exile) situation is murkier. 6 Applebaum, Gulag. 7 Van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice, Table XXXIV, p.115. His Gulag camp inmate estimates, derived from sentencing data, are: 1925–29 1930–34 1935–39 1940–44 1945–49 1950–54

350,000 760,000 1,580,000 2,000,000 2,210,000 2,260,000

1955–59 1960–64 1965–69 1970–74 1975–79 1980–82

1,590,000 1,300,000 1,060,000 1,040,000 1,100,000 960,000

Cf. Table 5.1. 8 N. Struchkov, The Correction of the Convicted: Law, Theory, Practice, Imported Publications, 1982. Harold Berman, Justice in Russia, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950. Steven Barnes, “All for the Front, All for Victory! The Mobilization of Forced Labor in the Soviet Union during World War Two,” International Labor and Working-Class History, No.58, Fall 2000, pp.239–260. 9 J. Arch Getty, Gabor Rittersporn and Viktor Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence,” American Historical Review, October 1993, pp.1017–1049. 10 Ibid., p.1024. “We know that, between 1934 and 1953, 1,053,829 persons died in camps of the Gulag. We have data to the effect that some 86,582 people perished in prisons between 1939–51. (We do not yet know exactly how many died in labor colonies).” 11 Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Europe-Asia Studies, 48 (8), 1996, Table 11, p.1347. 12 Colonial fatalities were as follows: 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937

76,560 20,000 — 10,056 8,261

1943 1944 1945 1946 1947

8,504 8,776 12,668 16,256 15,517

Notes 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942


1933–46 1933–53

6,508 6,039 5,364 7,296 6,145

1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953

271

18,555 13,684 13,741 12,933 9,520 8,887

204,753 285,270

13 See Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Table 11, p.1347. Ellman and Maksudov convert military deaths to excess deaths using aged mortality rates that imply a 10 percent discount. The 15 percent discount employed here may be too conservative. See Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46(8), 1994, p.676. 14 Table 5.1. Also see Steven Barnes, “All for the Front, All for Victory!” p.242: “From January 1, 1941, through January 1, 145, Gulag authorities documented 822,418 deaths in camps and colonies.” 15 The average Gulag camp mortality rate computed by dividing deaths by total inmates is 59 per 1,000; the colony/prison rate is 28 per 1,000. 16 Viktor Zemskov, “Deportatsii naseleniya. Spetsposelentsy i ssyl’nye. Zaklyuchennye,” chapter IX in Naselenie Rossii . . . tom. 2 (Moscow, 2001), p.179. See Michael Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies, 54 (7), 2002, note 60, pp.1168–1169. 17 Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, “Victims of the Soviet Penal System,” p.1024. 18 Robert Davies, “Closing the Bergson Gap: New Data on a Problem in Soviet Statistics,” Comparative Economic Studies, 47(2), 2005, pp.274–288. The census count is compatible with a top secret memo prepared by Sautin for Voznesenskii (Deputy head of Gosplan), August 6, 1940. 19 Steven Rosefielde, “An Assessment of the Sources and Uses of Gulag Forced Labour 1929–56,” Soviet Studies, 33(1), 1981, pp.51–87. 20 Van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice, p.109. 21 Steven Rosefielde, “Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.48, No.6, 1996, Table 4, p.972. 22 Stephen Wheatcroft and Robert Davies, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1929–1945, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p.77. 23 Deaths are discounted 15 percent to estimate excess deaths, just as they were with the archival figures. 0.85 (3,399,100) = 2,889,235. 24 Wheatcroft and Davies, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, p.77. “In summary, the total number of excess deaths in 1927–38 may have amounted to 10 million persons, 8.5 million excess death 1927–36 and 1–1.5 million 1937– 38.” 25 Wheatcroft and Davies best estimate of famine deaths is 5.7 million (Table A3.3). Their Great Terror estimate (including some lethal forced labor fatalities) is 1–1.5 million. This leaves room approximately for between 3.3 and 2.8 million Gulag camp excess fatalities, presumably in their collectivization estimate. 26 9,819,000 (0.85) = 8,346,150. 27 The heading for Table 5.4 refers to the years 1940–49. This reflects the post-1939 territorial boundaries and the construction of the excess deaths estimates. The vital statistics for 1939, 1950 and the years following are all official, which by assumption are accurate. This arithmetically compresses the excess death period,

272


28

29 30

31

32 33

34 35

Notes

but of course, in fact if the mortality rates are understated (as was the case in 1933), then excess could occur in these years too. The issue of net emigration is controversial. According to Ellman and Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War,” note 9, pp.678–679: “It seems to us likely that there is a net emigration balance of about 2.7 million which may be reflected in the statistics (Table A5.3 this volume) by an artificial reduction in the estimated population of the newly annexed territories. The figure of 2.7 million comprises 2.3 million people transferred to Poland, 0.4 million Germans from the Baltic states transferred to the Third Reich, 0.5 million emigrants from the USSR including the Baltic states to the West, and 0.3 million Jews emigrating to Israel via Poland, less than 0.1 million Russian immigrants from Europe and Manchuria, and 0.1 million Armenian immigrants and 0.6 million Ukrainian and Belorussian immigrants from Poland.” Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War,” pp.671–680. Ibid., p.676: “In the glasnost period, a committee of the USSR Academy of Sciences was established to determine the magnitude of Soviet war losses. It was headed by corresponding member of the Academy Y.A. Polyakov. It relied heavily on the unpublished data of the Extraordinary State Commission which had estimated war deaths shortly after the end of the war. According to one of its members, A.A. Shevyakov, “the loss of civilian population as a result of German actions (including emigrants to the West) was about 20 million . . . The figures imply a very convenient result, namely that there were no excess deaths during the war in Soviet-held territory and that all the excess deaths among the civilian population were caused by the Germans.” Ellman and Maksudov fail to adjust Shevyakov’s death numbers to excess death statistics, leading them to wrongly claim that there is virtually no room for Gulag excess fatalities, and the deaths among Soviet citizens fighting in anti-Soviet military formations. See pp.676–677. The required adjustments have been made to Table A5.3. Also, there are problems with the official data. See Ellman and Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War,” including notes. Michael Haynes has raised some philosophical questions about how best to counterfactually evaluate excess deaths, arguing for a larger number of Soviet war related fatalities, upwards of 42 million. His concept doesn’t affect our Red Holocaust estimate. See Michael Haynes, “Counting Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 55(2), 2003, pp.303–309. Cf. Mark Harrison, “Counting Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: Comment,” Europe-Asia Studies, 55(6), 2003, pp.939–944. Van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice, Figure IV, p.116. According to Zemskov the number of people deported (spetspereselentsy) in 1930–53 was “not less than six million.” Viktor Zemskov, “Deportatsii naseleniya. Spetsposelentsy i ssyl’nye. Zakluchennye,” chapter IX in Naselenie Rossii . . . tom 2 (Moscow, 2001). It was officially recorded that 390,000 deportees died 1932–40. More died in transport. See Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies, 54(7), 2002, note 60, p.1169. An additional half-million deportees died 1940–52. “This suggests that among the ‘not less than six million’ deportees, deaths were in the range of 1–1.5 million.” The figure excludes “kulaks.” The other archival data are: new vital statistics, population data, Ellman’s 1947 famine documents and Zemskov’s spetspereselentsy information. Steven Rosefielde, Russia in the 21st Century: Prodigal Superpower, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Notes

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6 Ethnic Cleansing 1 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (http://222.un.org/law/icc/ statute/99_corr/2.htm), Article 7; Updated Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (http://www.un.org/icty/legaldoc-e/index. htm), Article 5. 2 Alexander Nekrich, The Punished Peoples: The Deportation and Fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War, New York: Norton, 1978. 3 There was considerable enterprise labor turnover in Stalin’s Soviet Union and, although people were assigned to remote duty kommandirovka, this probably would have been infeasible for Gulag and exile-scale compulsory labor deployments in a terror-free context. 4 Dominique Moran, “Exile in the Soviet Forest: ‘Special Settlers’ in the Northern Perm’ Oblast,” Journal of Historical Geography, Vol.30, No.2, April 2004, pp.395–413. 5 This is the figure for January 1, 1953. See Forced Settlements in the Soviet Union, Wikipedia. Cf. Dmitri Volkogonov, who cites an MVD document January 1, 1950 reporting 2,572,829 deportees. Also see Viktor Zemskov, “Inmates, Special Settlers, Exiled Settlers, Exiles and Evicted (Statistical-Geographic Aspect),” in History of the USSR, 1991, No.5, pp.151–165. Zemskov, “Deportatsii naseleniya. Spetsposelentsy i ssyl’nye. Zaklyuchennye,” chapter IX in Naselenie Rossii . . . tom 2 (Moscow, 2001), p.179. See Michael Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies, 54 (7), 2002, note 60, pp.1168–1169. Lynne Viola, The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements, Oxford University Press, 2007. 6 According to Viktor Zemskov, the number of people departed, spetspereselentsy, in 1930–53 was “not less than six million.” Zakluchenny, chapter IX in Naselenie Rossii . . . tom 2 (Moscow, 2001). It has officially recorded that 390,000 deportees died 1932–40. More died in transport. See Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments,” Europe-Asia Studies, 54(7), 2002, note 60, p.1169. An additional half-million deportees died 1940–52. “This suggests that among the ‘not less than six million’ deportees, deaths were in the range of 1–1.5 million.” The figure excludes kulaks. There were 3,266,340 deportees 1941–48. N.F. Bugai, ed., Iosif Stalin-Laverentiiu Berii: “Ikh nado deportirova”: dokumenty, fakty, kommentarii, Moscow: Druzhba narodov, 1993, doc.48, p.264. 7 For a discussion of the deportation of Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, and Meskhetian Turks by the Soviet Union to Central Asia and Siberia, 1943–44, see “60 Years After: For Victims of Stalin’s Deportations, and War Lives,” http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/05/ 1350f216–420a-4a90-b423-b59fefee8e5.html. 8 Soviet ethnic minority resettlement was restricted to the territory of the USSR. The mass deportation of Ukrainian-speaking ethnic minorities from the territory of Poland after World War II culminated in 1947 with the start of Operation Wisla. Millions of Poles were simultaneously deported from the eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union into western territories, which the Soviets transferred from Germany to Poland. 9 J. Otto Pohl, Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937–1949, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999, p.2. 10 Stefane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism, chapter 14, pp.242–49 (http:// concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9362892/Doctors’-Plot). Pavel Sudoplatov, Anatoli Sudoplatov, Jerrold Schecter and Leona Schecter, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster, Boston: Little Brown, 1994, p.308. 11 Stephen Blank, The Sorceror as Apprentice: Stalin as Commissar of Nationalities, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. “Russification,” Wikipedia.


274

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12 The legal basis for Korean deportation was joint decree No.1428–326cc of the USSR Sovnarkom and VKP (b) Central Committee of August 31, 1937, “O vyselenii koreiskogo naseleniya iz pogranichnykh raionov Dal’nevostochnogo kraya,” undersigned by Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov. The justification was “to suppress the penetration of the Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern krai.” Genrikh Lyushkov, chief of the Far Eastern Krai NKVD was charged with resettling Soviet Koreans to the Kazakh and Uzbek SSRs. See Li U He and Kim Yeon Un, The White Book about Deportations of Korean Population in Russia in 30–40s (Belaya) kniga o deportatsii koreiskogo naseleniya Rossii v 30–40-x godakh, Moscow, 1991 (vol.1), 1997 (vol.2). 13 Pohl, Ethnic Cleansing, pp.2–3. 14 After 1944 until 1948, between 13.5 and 16.5 million Germans were expelled, evacuated or fled from central and eastern Europe, making this the largest single instance of ethnic cleansing in recorded history. The number of those who died in the process is being debated by historians and is estimated between 500,000 and 3,000,000. See “The Expulsion of ‘German’ Communities from Eastern Europe at the End of the Second World War” (http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/ bitstream/1914/2599/1/HEC04–01.pdf), European University Institute, Florence. EUI Working Paper HEC No.3004/1, Edited by Steffen Prauser and Arfon Rees, p.4. 7 Captive Nations 1 The agreements reached at the Yalta Conference February 4–11, 1945 contained secret protocols regarding postwar territorial changes, and spheres of influence in Europe and Asia. American congressmen and senators weren’t briefed on these accords, nor were any aspects formalized in a congressionally ratified Yalta treaty. 2 The Warsaw Pact was founded May 14, 1955. Its founding members were Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the USSR. East Germany joined in 1956. 3 Horst Mendershausen, “Terms of Trade Between the Soviet Union and Smaller Communist Countries,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XLI (May 1959), pp.106–118. Mendershausen, “The Terms of Soviet–Satellite Trade: A broadened Analysis,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XLII (May 1960), pp.153–163. Franklyn Holzman, “Soviet Foreign Trade Pricing and the Question of Discrimination: A ‘Customs Union’ Approach,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XLIV (May 1962), pp.134–147. Holzman, “More on Soviet Bloc Trade Discrimination,” Soviet Studies, XVII (July 1965), pp.44–65. Michael Dohan and Edward Hewett, “Two Studies in Soviet Terms of Trade, 1918–1970,” Studies in Eastern European and Soviet Planning, Development and Trade, No.21, November 1973. 4 The terms “captive nations” and “satellite states” are sometimes considered contentious or partisan because they imply a subordination to Moscow that is claimed either not to have existed, or to be exaggerated. It is assumed here that the central and east European states occupied by the USSR, and later participating in the Warsaw Pact and CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) were part of an integrated command economic and political system dominated by the Kremlin. The notion that they were independent democracies, free to discard the communist command system, is rejected. The Warsaw Pact, CMEA, the command economy and central and eastern European international policies were independent in very limited degree. The CMEA (often called Comecon) was founded in January 1949. Its initial membership includes Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the USSR. Albania joined in February 1949; East Germany in 1950. 5 Archival data in Hungary and Russia indicate that the Soviets deported hundreds of thousands of people 1944–46. More than 600,000 people were deported from


Notes

6

7

8

9

10 11 12 13

14 15 16

275

Hungary (out of a population of 9 million in 1944) to camps in Braso, Timisoara, Sighet Marmatiel, Moldavia, Bessarabia and Sambor. Two-thirds subsequently were sent to forced-labor camps and one third to prison camps. Roughly 200,000 never returned. A savage purge in Bulgaria early 1945 killed 30,000 to 40,000 people, mainly local nobility, mayors, teachers, Orthodox priests and shopkeepers, despite the fact the Bulgaria never sent troops to fight the Soviet Union. More than 6.3 million Germans were forced to leave their homes in the territories of Silesia and Pomerania. Some 3 million Germans were thrown out of Czechoslovakia, 200,000 from Hungary, and more than 100,000 from Yugoslavia. Karel Bartosek, “Central and Southeastern Europe,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, pp.395–456. Communist regime-building exhibited three distinct types. The War Communism consolidation model, which applied in the Soviet Union, China and Kampuchea is the most familiar. Here communist leaders (Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot) established their own nation states and violently repressed opposition, real and imagined. The second paradigm is very different. Communist control was imposed by Stalin through the combined force of the Red Army and Soviet controlled local secret police. The communist economic agenda in this instance is governed by the imperial authority, rather than the independent aspirations of sovereign communist nations. The last model is a twist on the second, where external civil war alters the hegemon’s agenda (Stalin and Mao) by prioritizing war-winning. North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam exemplify this variant. The populations of the former eastern Europe (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania) and the then USSR in 1950 respectively were 89.7 and 179.6 million. See Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Series, OECD, Paris, 2003, Table 3a, pp.97 and 109, and www.populstat.info/Europe/germanep.htm. The population of the DDR in 1950 was 18.4 million. The Yugoslav population, excluded here, was 16.3 million. In Soviet-occupied East Germany, the NKVD/MVD rounded up a total of 122,671 suspected Nazis and anti-Soviet elements (particularly young people, members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and former POWs) and deposited them in special camps where as many as 43,889 perished. See Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995, p.376. Terror-starvation wasn’t a factor in the satellite siege-mobilization terrorcommand model. The Soviet benchmark consequently may be overstated. Expected killings fall by roughly a third, if it is assumed that terror-starvation wasn’t a viable alternative in Europe. Bartosek, “Central and Southeastern Europe,” pp.399–401. Andrzej Paczkowski, “Poland, the ‘Enemy Nation’,” in Courtois et al, The Black Book of Communism, p.374. Paczkowski, “Poland, the ‘Enemy Nation’,” p.376. The number of Germans expelled from eastern, southeastern and central Europe 1945–50 (not all under Soviet occupation) was estimated at 13.5–16.5 million people, including those that were evacuated by German authorities, fled or were killed during the war, or migrated later to western occupation zones and Austria. Recent research has led some historians to reduce the estimated deaths from flight and expulsions to a range between 500,000 and 1.1 million. The earlier higher figures, up to 3.2 million, covered all war-related deaths of ethnic Germans between 1939 and 1945, including those who served in the German armed forces. Richard Overy, The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich, p.111. Bartosek, “Central and Southeastern Europe,” pp.417–419. Bartosek, “Central and Southeastern Europe,” p.418. The latest information is consistent with the statistics reported in The Black Book

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of Communism. See http://aplikace.mvcr.cz/archiv2008/policie/udv/popraveni/ obeti/index.html. 17 Bartosek, “Central and Southeastern Europe,” p.419. 8 Sword and Torch


1

2

3 4

5

6

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on the surface was a non-aggression agreement. Hitler and Stalin vowed not to wage war on each other. However, this was eye wash. Secret protocols established mutually recognized spheres of influence that permitted the Third Reich and the Soviet Union in short order to invade, occupy and involuntarily annex nations wholly or in part that were nominally under their protection. The victims were Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and Romania. The USSR was supposed to receive all of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, and a large section of Poland. It eventually obtained Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, Finnish Karelia, and a small chunk of Poland. This is why it is best to date the use of the Red Army as the primary vehicle for spreading communism to 1939, instead of 1941. The pact properly should be conceived as a premeditated aggression pact against third parties. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht led the action. The Social Democratic government quelled the uprising and executed Luxemburg and Liebknecht on January 15, 1919. Stephane Courtois, Jean-Louis Panne and Remi Kauffer, “World Revolution, Civil War, and Terror,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, p.272. Courtois, Panne and Kauffer, “World Revolution, Civil War, and Terror,” pp.273–275. The Communist International was founded March 1919 in Moscow as a rival organization to the International of Socialist Workers (Second International established in 1889). The new organization, referred to variously as the Third International or the Comintern, eventually became the foreign arm of the Soviet Communist Party. Its rhetorical objective was to fight “by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an International Soviet Republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state.” In 1928 it had 583,105 members. It was dissolved May 15, 1943, probably because Stalin wanted to reassure Roosevelt that the Soviet Union would not stab its allies in the back. The International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union served at the surrogate for the Comintern until September 1947 when the Cominform was created as a loose alternative. See Courtois, Panne and Kauffer, “World Revolution, Civil War, and Terror,” p.275. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comintern. The Spanish civil war began on July 17, 1936, when the military in Spanish Morocco, under the leadership of General Francisco Franco, revolted against the Republican Government led by the Popular Front (but excluding anarchists (FAI) with a party membership of 1.6 million. Sensing opportunity, Stalin dispatched 2,044 military advisers (including future marshals Ivan Konev and Georgi Zhukov) to assist the Popular Front. The communists were only a small minority of the electorate, but succeeded in advancing their cause with unscrupulous methods, but to no ultimate avail. Franco defeated his opponents by April 1, 1939. Stefane Courtois and Jean-Louis Panne, “The Shadow of the NKVD in Spain,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, p.336. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story, London: Jonathan Cape, 2005.

Notes

277


9 Overlapping Empires 1 Jean-Louis Margolin, “China: A Long March into Night,” in Stephane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, p.464. The Emperor Constantine I built Constantinople as Rome’s eastern capital in  330. It soon developed into a political and religious doctrinal rival. 2 The Soviets had two potential invasion routes, one deploying its Transbaikal forces (650,000 soldiers) through Mongolia, and the other deploying its Far Eastern forces (900,000 soldiers) south from Vladivostok. Soviet troops were withdrawn from Manchuria in May 1946 (John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: W.W. Norton Company, 2003, p.326). According to the Yalta agreements, Stalin was entitled to bases in Manchuria, but he abstained, using the Soviet presence to aid Mao against Chiang Kai-shek. However, it should be noted that Soviet forces dismantled large portions of the industrial base around Shenyang when they left, exporting these assets to the Russian Far East, without official public explanation. 3 Koba was one of Stalin’s noms de guerre. The name was taken from the hero (a Caucasian bandit akin to Robin Hood) of Alexander Kazbegi’s 1883 novel The Patricide. 4 Mao’s grasp of Stalin’s siege-mobilized terror-command model in 1949 was more intuitive than studied, but the essence wasn’t difficult for him to grasp. Later, in the mid-1950s under the influence of his growing disgruntlement with Nikita Khrushchev, Mao and his economic advisers began systematically investigating the intricacies of Stalin’s model. See Roderick MacFarquhar, John Fairbank and Denis Twitchett, The Cambridge History of China, Chapter 8, “The Chinese Economy Under Stress, 1958–65,” p.252. 5 The Three-anti campaign sought to eradicate: 1) corruption, 2) waste and 3) bureaucratic officiousness. It was inaugurated in at the end of 1951 in Manchuria. The Five-anti campaign targeted: 1) bribery, 2) theft of state property, 3) tax evasion, 4) government contracting fraud, 5) theft of state economic information. Anti-capitalist activists went door-to-door, intimidating small and great businessmen alike. 6 Hua-yu Li, Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948–1953 (Harvard Cold War Studies Book), New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006. 7 Steven Mosher, China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality, Lexington, MA: Basic Books, 1992. 8 Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, Deaths in China Due to Communism, Arizona State University: Center for Asian Studies, 1984, p.24. 9 Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story, p.337. “Mao claimed that the total number executed was 700,000, but this did not include those beaten or tortured to death in the post-1949 land reform, which would at the very least be as many again. Then there were suicides, which, based on several local inquiries, were very probably about equal to the number of those killed.” 10 MacFarquhar, Fairbank and Twitchett, The Cambridge History of China. 11 Courtois, The Black Book of Communism, p.479. Rudolf Rummel, China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. 12 Philip Short, Mao: A Life. Laogai is an abbreviation for Laodong Gaizao. It means “reform through labor,” and is a euphemism for prison labor and prison farms in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It has been estimated that 50 million people have been sent to Laogai camps. Laogai is distinct from Laojiao, or re-education through labor; non-penal administrative detention. Laojiao detainees are lodged in facilities outside the Laogai prison system. For contrasting views on Laogai, see Hongda Harry Wu, Laogai—The Chinese Gulag, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992; Wu, Troublemaker, Crown, 1996, James Seymour and

278

13

14 15


16

17

18 19 20

21

Notes

Richard Anderson, New Ghosts, Old Ghosts, Prison and Labor Reform Camps in China, M.E.Sharp, 1998. Rudy Rummel, China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, Transaction Publishers, 1991. Cf. Rummel, “Reevaluated Democide Totals for 20th Century and China,” http://www.ciolek.com/SPEC/rummel-on-democide2005.html. Changyu Li, Mao’s “Killing Quotas.” Jeremy Brown, Terrible Honeymoon: Struggling with the Problem of Terror in Early 1950s China. The Hundred Flowers Campaign (sometimes called the Hundred Flowers Movement) promoted token Chinese liberalization in the arts and sciences. Like Nikita Khrushchev’s thaw, it was launched after the Soviet Union’s 20th Party Congress, February 25, 1956 denouncing Stalin’s excesses, and seemed to be a harbinger of terror-free communism and socialist humanism. Zhou Enlai headed the initial campaign which encouraged non-communist officials in local bureaucracies to criticize and debate communist policies in the Spring 1956. Mao took over from Zhou in the summer. A similar movement briefly emerged 1956–57 in parts of Vietnam controlled by Ho Chi Minh. It is possible that Mao was merely following Moscow’s new line, and later grew alarmed by the open dissent, but the prevailing contemporary view espoused by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday is that the Great Helmsman was merely setting a trap to expose those opposed to Stalinist siege-mobilized terrorcommand. Either way, the Hundred Flowers Campaign exposed 550,000 “rightists” who were humiliated, demoted, fired, imprisoned, dispatched to Laogai, tortured or killed. After this episode, Mao never again toyed with liberalization. Evsei Liberman was a professor of economics at Kharkov University who advocated rewarding enterprise managers for maximizing “profitability.” The use of the term “profit” sparked an ideological row, but Liberman’s views weren’t about back-door capitalism. His aim was to supplement planning targets with micro rules incentivizing red directors to mimic western microeconomic decisionmaking. See Evsei Liberman, Means to Raise the Profitability of Socialist Enterprises, 1956. Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.438–439. “Although slaughter was not his purpose with the Leap, he was more than ready for myriad deaths to result, and hinted to his top echelon that they should not be too shocked if they happened.” Philip Short, Mao: A Life, New York: Henry Holt, 2001, p.761. MacFarquhar, Fairbank and Twichett, The Cambridge History of China. Cf. Judith Banister, China’s Changing Population, Stanford University Press, 1987 (30 million dead); Jasper Becker, Hungary Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine, London: John Murray, 1996, cites Wang Wei Zhi, Contemporary Chinese Population, 1988 (19.5 million victims). Cf. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Geneva: OECD, 2003, Table 5a, p.164. Maddison reports the Chinese population in 1960 at 667 million, and 660.3 million in 1961. The natural rate of population growth 1955–60 was 1.9 percent per annum, putting the expected population in 1961 at 679, and the deficit at 19 million. Extending the arithmetic to 1962 adds another 13.8 million, for a grand total of 32.8 million. Yang Jisheng, Tombstone (Mu Bei—Zhong Guo Liu Shi Nian Dai Da Ji Huang Ji Shi), Hong Kong: Cosmos Books (Tian Di Tu Shu), 2008. Yang was deputy editor of Xinhua News Agency. Beginning in the early 1990s, he began interviewing people and collecting records of the Great Famine of 1959–61, eventually accumulating 10 million words of records. “No one, whether in Sichuan’s land of abundance or the breadbasket of Jilin, or in Hebei or Shandong, was free from the immense calamity of starved corpses strewn about.” (Zhou Hua, “Revere the Truth, Resist Forgetting,” http:wwww.danwei.org/magazines/south_window_on _tombstome.php.) He puts the death toll at 36 million, in line with Chang and Halliday. Yang contends that the starvation wasn’t a natural disaster, nor was it


Notes

279

explained by the Sino-Soviet split. It was caused by “The General Line, the Great Leap Forward, and the People’s Communes” collectively called the “three red banners.” These banners whipped the Chinese people into frenzy in 1958. Also see Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of the China, Anchor, 1992. 22 Yang Jisheng’s 36 million terror-starvation death estimate (which subsumes other categories of terror killing) is an adjusted figure derived for the most part from calculations made by Weizhi Wang using 1964 census data from the Ministry of Public Security and statistics for earlier years from the China Statistical Yearbook, 1984. Wang estimates that there were 33–35 million excess deaths 1959–61. Yang’s supplements these terror-starvation fatalities by extending his coverage to include Great Leap Forward excess deaths occurring at the end of 1958, and beginning of 1962. Angus Maddison’s statistics imply killings just below the lower limit of Wang’s range (see note 20), but the population statistics Maddison, Wang and the China Statistical Yearbook, 1984 report are very different (Table 9.1n). This is understandable in Wang’s case because he uses 1964 census data. However, Maddison’s series should be official population data, presumably revised after 1984. Table 9.1n China’s population 1959–61, Yearbook 1984, Wang Weizhi’s and Angus Maddison’s “official series” (millions of people) Population

1959 1960 1961

Yearbook 1984

Wang

Maddison

672 662 659

666.7 651.7 645.1

660 667 660.3

Sources: Yang, Jisheng, Mubei, Cosmos Books: Hong Kong, 2008, p.901. The underlying source for the 1984 series is: National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook, 1984, China Statistics Press, 1984, p.83. Wang’s series is based on the preceding source, plus census data published in 1964. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Geneva: OECD, Table 5a, p.164.

Readers therefore should be aware that, while Wang’s census data and his and Yang’s adjustments are sound in principle, they may be obviated by revised official series, should Maddison’s official data be better than theirs. Yang’s estimates are based on the research of Weizhi Wang, who studied demographic statistics at the Moscow College of Economic Statistics 1955–59, and later worked as a demographer in the Ministry of Public Security after 1959. Wang verified demographic data in several provinces during the 1960s and acquainted himself with local realities. This makes it possible to claim that the 1964 census data he employs reflect his expert professional judgment, and give credence to his estimate that 33 and 35 million people died of starvation 1959–61. Wang proceeded as follows. He found that 1964 census data belied the population figure reported for 1961 in the official 1984 Yearbook (Table 9.1n, column 2). His population figure for 1961 based on the 1964 data is 645.1 million (Table 9.1n, column 3); 13.9 million less than what he believed to be the padded figure for the same year reported in the China Statistical Yearbook, 1984. He then made a revised estimate for 1959 based on the natural rate of growth 1958–59, allowing him to compute deaths and excess deaths during the interval 1959–61, and interpolate the population in 1960. Wang on this basis found that the population fell 21.7 million, enabling him to compute total excess deaths as the absolute decline, plus the expected net population increment (births minus natural deaths).

280

Notes

There were 16.474 million births in 1959 (undistorted by the one child per family policy adopted later), 13.893 million in 1960, and 11.899 million in 1961 according to natality statistics published by the China Ministry of Public Security (Wang’s workplace). Natural deaths were estimated by using the 1958 figure (7.18 million) as a proxy for succeeding years. Excess deaths therefore were calculated as the population decline plus births minus 3 (7.18) (normal annual deaths) to arrive at 33.883 million unnatural fatalities.


57.313 − 23.43 = 33.883 Yang modified this finding by using average mortality 1956–58 (7.249 million) as his own proxy for natural deaths instead of Wang’s choice of the single year figure for 1958. He then fine-tuned his estimate by making small allowances for excess deaths in the winter of 1958 (1.82 million) and spring of 1962 (0.42 million), yielding a range between 35–37 million, with 36 million as the mean. The adjustment for 1958 was based on official provincial data acquired on site by Yang. The fulcrum of both Wang’s and Yang’s estimates is the census data published in 1964. His birth statistics are official, and should be reliable. Yang’s provincial excess death data for 1958 and 1962 have a credible pedigree, and both Wang’s and Yang’s arithmetic is straightforward. Hsi-chu Bolick (The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, China Division Head Librarian) and her assistants Lina Huang, Tianying Yu located and translated the relevant passages of Yang Jinsheng’s Mubei discussed in this footnote. 23 Yang calculated six different numbers based on Jiang Zhenghua’s three different groups of birth/death rates, using two different methods. The results Yang got vary from 14.78 million to 39.41 million (14.78, 21.89, 22.09, 23.37, 27.60, 39.41 million respectively). The result Jiang published is 17 million. On page 896, however, Yang wrote: “all the results calculated from the ‘data’ are much larger than Jiang’s 17 million.” The term “data” refers to Jiang’s birth/death rates. Resources used in Chapter 23 China Population Loss During the Great Chinese Famine. Table 9.2n Adjusted birth rates and death rates from several demographers Year

1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963

Birth Rate (%)

Death Rate (%)

J.Bannister’s

Ansley Coale’s

G. J.Bannister’s Ansley G. Calot’s Coale’s Calot’s

43.44 43.04 39.89 43.25 37.76 28.53 26.76 22.43 41.02 49.79

44.4 41.3 40.02 41.1 37.7 28.3 25.2 22.3 40.9 47.3

41.91 41.37 38.28 41.45 36.22 27.24 25.65 21.70 39.79 48.69

24.20 22.33 20.11 18.12 20.65 22.06 44.60 23.01 14.02 13.81

29.1 22.4 20.8 19.0 20.4 23.3 38.8 20.5 13.7 13.0

19.96 22.31 16.85 13.24 15.98 19.20 40.76 27.03 18.28 21.22

Notes 1964 1965 1966

40.29 38.98 39.83

40.7 39.7 38.3

39.82 38.77 39.52

12.45 11.61 11.12

13.5 11.1 10.4

281

20.82 10.26 12.27

Source: Li, Chengrui. “Population Change Caused by ‘Great Leap Forward’.” Study of C.P.C. History 2 (1997);


Coale, Ansley J. Rapid population Change in China, 1952–1982. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1984.

Author’s way of calculation: use the average number of 1955–1957 as the starting point, and use the average of 1964–1966 as another point. If the Great Chinese Famine didn’t happen, the birth rates and death rates would be continuous, which means the normal birth rate and death rate of 1959–1961 should appear on the line between the two points. To simplify, use the average of the two points as the normal death rate and birth rate. Subtract normal death rate from the annual death rates provided by J. Bannister to get the annual abnormal death rates. Time the abnormal death rates with annual average population to get the number of annual abnormal death. Table 9.3n Calculated Population Change Based on Adjusted Data (Million People) Year Abnormal Death

J.Bannister

1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 Total

Less Born Population

1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 Total

Total population loss

Ansley Coale

3.001 3.968 18.335 4.567

2.710 4.632 14.689 (2.7769)

29.871

24.81

1.997 8.034 9.213 11.951

1.613 7.763 9.749 11.558

31.195 61.066

30.683 55.493

G. Calot 1.303 2.140 16.328 7.214 152.4 28.509 2.378 8.345 9.362 11.841 0.0525 31.979 60.488

All the research results that the author referred to (million): J. Bannister Ansley G. Jiang Zhenghua Ding Jin Coale Calot Shu Hui 1986 1987 1986 Abnor- 29.87 mal Death Less 31.19 Born Population Total 61.07 Population Loss

39.41 14.78 27.6

44

Cao Wang Official Shuji Weizhi

24.81

28.50

27.91 32.46 35.47

16.19

30.68

31.97

31.50

55.49

60.48

47.70

282

Notes Jiang Zhenghua published three groups of adjusted birth rates and death rates. Author used two ways to calculate the abnormal death. The three numbers I put in the table above were calculated through the same method that author applied to Bannister, Coale, Calot and official birth/death rates.


24 “Insisting on carrying out a number of serious mistakes” (Mu Bei, chapter 20, pp.750–756): Signs of starvation first appeared in the winter of 1958. By spring of 1959, starvation death toll increased. That is to say that by spring of 1959, starvation had spread more widely. The government, instead of taking immediate actions to relieve the problem, continued the policy to collect food from farmers and exported food to foreign countries. In April of 1959, a series of reports on starvation that the State Dept. submitted to Chairman Mao covered nearly 20 provinces. The April 9th, 1959 report covered 15 provinces, reporting that 25.17 millions of people were under starvation. On April 17, Mao instructed two measures be taken: 1) print 30 copies of these two reports. 15 of them sent to the local party Secretary of those 15 provinces, asking them to take immediate actions; 2) print another 15 copies to be sent to 15 congressional representatives from these 15 provinces who are in Beijing for the People’s Congress. Mao’s [reactions] reflected that he considered the reports simply a two-month temporary crisis. Facing such a wide spread crisis, Mao did not adopt comprehensive/systematic measures but considered this was a local issue and passed it on to the local to deal with the issue, especially on food supply issues. In 1960, during the period between January 7 to 17th, when Mao was in Shanghai presiding a Political Bureau conference, the death toll from starvation in countryside spread in large volumes. Facing increasing death toll reports, Mao continued to advocate work on Great Leap. He said in that meeting, “The result of the Lu Mountain meeting was good. [After that meeting] productivity increases each month. I believe the productivity this year will not be weaker than last year. Perhaps it will be even better. We plan to develop the country to be strong and people to be strong in several stages.” In this conference, it passed the National Planning Committee’s 1960 report on national economic planning, which outlined a 3-year and 8-year blue prints. It was agreed in the meeting that 1960 would still be a great year for Great Leap, possibly greater than 1959. It set the production goal for steel at 18.40 million tons, agricultural production, 6,000 billion kilos. [The goals] in 8 years would be to realize basic 4 modernizations, a complete industrial system, and a collective system towards Socialism that is owned and for all people. The meeting also advocated building more mass dining halls, experiment and expand building of communes. The one month long meeting in Shanghai was carried out completely under the tone to continue promoting Great Leap. After the meeting, local officials began to setup country industries, expanding work on mess dining halls building and [setup] pig farms. Some infrastructure development plans that were ranked as non-urgent/nonessential in the past was given a new status to enact immediately. The Communist party “5-winds” problem was once again resurfaced. Mao continued to receive untrue reports from his staff. “The Interior Dept. report on the improvement of starvation in local areas” (April 23, 1959) said starvation in Henan and Hebei provinces was completely disappeared. [The report said] although famine still existed in some areas, the loss of peasant population in Shandong province to its neighboring provinces stopped. Starvation related illness also decreased. In reality, it was exactly the opposite.


Notes

283

[Therefore] during the time when famine was fast spreading, Mao [continued] to instruct “plant more vegetables, sensible about eating, eat frugally, eat less when not working, eat more only when working.” On Oct. 26, 1960, Mao read the investigation report on the Xinyang area submitted by the Central Communist Party organization. The report said that in the Xinyang area, more than 10 thousands people died from hunger. It also described the serious famine condition in the village. After reading this report, Mao lightly commented in 10 words, “let Liu & Zhou read the report today. This afternoon, we will talk about it.” Mao dealt with the Xinyang case as a separate local case, as one of the routines. He didn’t make any concession to lighten the food collection policy. Regarding the issue of collecting agricultural products from farmers and returning food to farmers, in 1958–59, the government collected 1,125.44 billion kilo, 22.32% more than a year before. While the great starvation appeared in 1959, food collection from farmers not only didn’t reduce but increased more than 88.85 billion kilo, an increase of 7.89%. According to food production statistics, the quantity of food collection in 1959 was higher than that in 1958 by 103.18 billion kilo, a 9.45% increase. [Whereas] the quantity of food returned to farmers, only in the year of 1959–60, was higher by 21.29 billion kilo than the year before. This is to say that when the large scale starvation broke out in 1959–60, the government not only did not take relief measures but took away 67.56 billion kilo of food from farmers [See table 9.4n, 9.5n]. Table 9.4n Amount of Governmental Collecting and Returning Agricultural Products during Starvation (billion kilo) 1957–1958 1958–1959 1959–1960 1960–1961 1961–1962 Collect from Farmers Return to Farmers

920.11

1125.44

1214.29

780.84

679.14

419.66

505.19

526.48

362.08

268.45

Source: “Summary of Food Resource from Chinese State Administration of Grain”, August 25, 1962

Table 9.5n Annual production of governmental grain collecting (billion jin) Year

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

Amount

875.8

1092.02

1195.20

852.67

682.48

Source: The same as Table 9.4n

In January 1960, when large scale of farmers died of starvation, Chinese Communist government not only didn’t consider opening up food reserves for disaster relief, but increased food collection [to increase] national reserves. One report from the Chinese Communist Food Bureau said, “Food collection in 1959, from the beginning of the summer season to Dec. of 1959, reached 1,142 billion jin, a 6% increase than the Central government’s plan of 1075.8 billion jin. Based on food growing seasons, statistics showed that 1,016 billion jin were collected as of 12/25/1959, account for 94% of the [‘collecting] plan. If adding new summer crop that produced during May and June of 1960, we are


284

Notes confident that not only can we meet the food collection plan but top the goal. We predict that within the 1959–1960 food year, we are fully capable of reaching the goal to collect 1,200 billion jin of agricultural crops [food].” In response to this report, the central [government] wrote, “. . . based on the Great Leap principle for food production, it is not only necessary to increase national food reserve, but it is possible [that we can do so]” In 1960, when death of starvation was most serious, the government accumulated hundred billions jin of food in reserve, but it did not have systematic plan to use the food reserve for disaster relief. Table 9.6n shows the national food reserves at the time. [We can see from the table] that millions of deaths occurred at the time when billions of jin of food reserves were available. In the year from Apr. 1959–Apr. 1960, the death toll from starvation was the highest. During this time, national food reserve reached 887.03 billion jin [as of early Nov. of 1959]. Even in May of 1959, the Table 9.6n Amount of grain storage during the year of starvation (billion jin)

July August September October November December January February March April May June

57–58

58–59

59–60

60–61

61–62

354.85 401.90 486.31 560.21 690.66 756.91 725.08 676.75 601.66 507.62 404.53 384.41

388.94 398.71 417.23 418.12 658.02 748.43 714.42 654.56 556.01 433.5 319.00 343.28

338.79 395.84 503.15 655.21 887.03 848.98 764.15 673.19 544.54 403.51 286.22 297.06

265.88 289.11 341.02 386.93 540.08 572.11 510.35 444.50 359.83 267.89 190.86 171.71

157.46 191.30 234.81 304.95 460.57 490.02 438.79 394.88 328.86 257.98 200.92 189.28

Source: “Summary of Food Resource from Chinese State Administration of Grain”, August 25, 1962

food reserve had at least 286.32 billion jin. Famine was most serious in Apr. of 1960 but at the time the national food reserve was at 403.51 billion jin. This number was made to export. If calculating according to the original collection amount, the number should be 482 billion jin. This amount could feed about 1.4 billion people at that time. Even if using half of such food reserve for famine relief, no one should have died from starvation! Anyone can see [from this] how rigid the system has been! [The last paragraph of p.753] said that a separate stats from the Food Bureau the total national food reserve as of June 30, 1960 was 301.48 billion jin, similar to that showed in Table 9.6n, 297.71 billion jin. A break down stats by provinces was listed. From these figures one can see that when about 1 million people died of starvation in Xinyang area, Henan Province which Xinyang belongs to, had at least 25.07 billions jin of food in reserve. Xinyang’s neighboring province Hebei had at least 13.22 billion jin of food in reserve. If just use the food reserves from these two provinces, each of 800 millions people in Xinyang could receive more than 50 jin of food, and there was not likely to have people die from starvation. The government [simply] carried out all strategies to

265.12 3.85 35.04 2.13 54.46 12.23 10.72 838 4525

Grain Peanut oil Peanut Egg Pig Pork Cattle Poultry Frozen poultry Rabbit meat Aquatic product Apple Orange Canned pork Canned fruit Canned vegetables Beer Walnut Walnut kernel Auricular Jujube Mushroom Chestnut Honey

209.26 1.93 23.93 3.08 50.60 5.41 8.76 1222 5890 221 5.78 6.67 7.11 1.01 1.88 0.69 8.27 0.46 0.54 491 1158 224 0.46 0.17

1957 288.34 2.86 6.80 3.84 79.14 11.81 13.50 1455 9569 802 8.85 9.24 8.82 3.20 3.81 1.28 4.22 0.39 0.26 475 1186 371 0.32 0.41

1958 415.75 4.24 6.44 1.34 71.87 10.96 11.55 612 4204 650 8.62 10.11 7.69 2.88 3.40 1.30 10.25 0.45 0.55 414 1318 224 0.46 0.44

1959 272.04 2.66 3.45 1.31 78.75 7.43 9.48 824 2755 926 9.46 10.74 6.32 1.41 1.96 0.62 7.38 0.39 0.45 331 1147 179 0.34 0.45

1960 135.50 0.62 0.05 1.11 87.92 0.93 1.12 492 3055 643 4.23 4.99 3.41 0.89 1.92 0.63 7.91 0.39 0.20 128 875 27 0.27 0.22

1961 103.09 0.42 0.39 2.08 81.79 0.34 1.64 659 2175 2304 4.60 6.35 2.97 0.57 1.83 0.81 7.99 0.24 0.17 184 994 34 0.67 0.26

1962 149.01 0.81 0.33 2.99 130.19 1.54 2.46 1044 2963 3620 5.94 6.02 3.36 1.38 2.62 1.06 15.03 0.26 0.28 269 806 58 0.63 0.40

1963 182.08 0.98 2.66 3.19 164.67 6.21 4.98 1658 3860 2431 9.25 7.53 3.75 3.26 2.75 1.15 29.46 0.31 0.43 396 1057 128 0.88 0.75

1964

241.65 1.19 5.83 3.76 171.86 14.25 9.33 2141 4013 2680 12.00 8.06 3.72 3.51 2.52 1.08 41.82 0.41 0.51 469 1393 204 1.29 1.29

1965

Note: Table 9.7n The Food Products Export from China, 1956–1965. The categories of the table are names of food that exported, etc, “Grain, Peanut oil, Peanut core . . .”

Source: “China Economy Yearbook” 1981 VIII47—VIII50; “China Economics Yearbook”, 1982, oversea edition, the amount of peanut export is larger than mainland China edition.

4.49 4.76 7.00 0.96 1.46 0.32 3.47 0.35 0.55 502 1266 526 0.23 0.39

1956

categories

Table 9.7n The Food Products Export from China, 1956–1965 Unit: animal (ten thousand) · jujube · mushroom (ton) · beer (ten thousand boxes) · others (million tons)



286

Notes accumulate food for reserve. Where did it want to use it? Why not use it to relief starving people? [The government’s act] is truly incomprehensible. One thing that is even harder to stand was that when farmers died from starvation in great scale, food export to foreign countries continued in large quantity. Output of food production, based on production seasons in the year, decreased 25 million tons compared to 1957. Nevertheless quantity used for exporting in 1959 increased, reaching 41.575 million tons. This amount is more than double the export quantity in 1957, which was 20.926 million tons (see Table 9.7n). 41.575 million tons of food used for exporting in this year [1959] was record high in Chinese history. [It’s worthy of noting] that the above figures were based on “commercial food”, meaning that each ton of commercial food is equivalent to 1.2 ton of “original [un-processed for commercial use] food”. Thus, 41.575 million tons of commercial food equals about 50 million tons of original food. Food allocation that farmers received was base on original food, among which the majority were potatoes. Due to potatoes are called differently in different localities and citations in this book are based on resources/data from local archives, readers will find names of potatoes appear differently in different chapters. In 1959–1961, the average food consumption in farming country-sides was 164 kilo jin per person. In 1957, that number was 204.5 kilo jin. Base on the 1957 standard, 500 million tons of food could feed 24.50 million people for a year. But in 1960 when starvation was most serious, there were 27.204 million tons of food exported. In 1959 there was hardly any food imported, so as in 1960. It was not until the 3rd year after the Great Starvation, a small amount of food, including brown sugar began importing. However, all imported food went to cities only (see Table 9.8n). In this period, exported food included not only basic grains but more luxurious items, such as oils, eggs, meat, fruits and others. On April 9th, 1959, Li Xiannian spoke on four issues in the Congressional National Telephone Convention. One of which was “the issue of exporting pork and eggs”. At that time, death from starvation was widely spreading. Hardly was there anything available to feed pigs. Many pigs were sold prematurely only weigh a few jin. Li said, “This year our goal is to export 260 thousands tons of pig. This goal cannot be met by the current productivity, which barely reaches 100 thousands tons. This is unacceptable. I want to ask all of you, provincial representatives, to make efforts to mix persuasions and use of your authorities to improve productivity. Li criticized, “[our] pigs didn’t look like pigs more like dogs. Hong Kong protested that they had to burn our pigs because they were sick and asked why we sold them pigs that weigh only 30–40 jin? The Czech prime minister wrote a letter to Primer Zhou protesting, 1) failure to meet food shipment time, 2) inferior food quality. Speaking on eggs, Li complained that exporting goals can not be met. He demanded the commercial system to come up with an ambush on collective food purchase “. . . We need to take bold measurements to solve exporting problems.” In order to squeeze food “from farmers’ mouth”, wide spread use of violence to collect food occurred. [For example] In April 1960, in Sichuan province, the Beetle production team of the Lion commune in Bishan county, went out to collect chicken and eggs not based on how many chickens and eggs were actually available but by bureaucratic orders regardless whether farmers had chickens, or whether chickens could produce eggs. Commune farmers received punishment if not meeting the collection goals. Those who didn’t submit food from their farms were denied meals at the mess dining hall. Ke Zhengguo, a member of the Six production team did not have eggs to

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submit, meals for his 7-member family were taken away. The family finally received meals after Ke’s mother borrowed 6 eggs from neighbors. In addition to denying daily meals, those who didn’t meet egg submission quota were also prohibited from access to daily necessity such as buying salt, kerosene, cigarette, etc. In order to meet orders, some local officials even went to members’ house to get chickens without individual’s consent. Such acts took place mostly in midnights, causing tremendous disturbance to animals (chickens flying and dogs barking) and fears to residents.


Table 9.8n 1956–1965 China food products import (ten thousand tons raw grain) Year

1956

1957

1958

1959 1960

total 14.92 16.68 22.35 0.2 grain wheat 2.62 4.99 14.83 sugar 17.61 11.93 20.91 2.6

1961

6.63 580.97

1962 492.3

1963

1964

1965

595.2 657.01

640.52

3.87 338.17 353.56 558.77 536.87 23.38 118.66 99.56 49.69 59.88

607.27 70.79

Source: The same as table 9.7n

The Commerce Dept. record showed that exporting for meat, eggs and fruits in 1959 was at 3030 million yuan [Chinese dollars], accounted for 11.8% of the yearly export goal. Compared to that of 1958, it increased 28.9%. Export of pork at 2.33 million tons was the largest amount since 1949. Frozen beef and lamb at .2 million tons, accounting for 125% of the exporting plan; fresh eggs, more than 52 million tons, frozen eggs, 6,208 tons; live domestic poultry 9.54 millions, frozen poultry, 7,022 tons, furthermore, apples 1.02 million tons, citrons, .9 million tons. Table 9.7n shows food export quantity during the period of 1959–1960 when starvation related death widely spread in the nation. How many lives could have been saved from these foods?! Yet, government leaders at the time never thought of these hungry people but only foreign exchanges and machine imports. Why ignored helping hunger people but focused on machine imports? The only explanation is that it [the government] wanted to continue uphold the Great Leap ideology. Because any policy adjustment for problem solving cannot violate the “three treasures” [literary: three red flags] principle, the Great Leap ideology continued to be active in the period of developing national economy and was one major guiding principle for economic developments up to 1960. Originally, the production target for steel for 1960 was 18 million tons. But in July the target was readjusted to 2 million tons. In addition to steel, other industrial production targets moved only upwards, never downwards. In 1960, investment for non-movable assets was as high as 416.58 billion [yuan]. Not only the number was higher than 1959, but also 49% higher than the Great Leap year, 1958. Among the non-movable investments, 93% were for building infrastructure, which led to construction projects everywhere in the nation. But by 1961, many of those projects were half-done and abandoned.

288

Notes Table 9.9n 1956–1964 investment in fixed assets by national owned companies (billion) Year

1956

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

Total 16.084 15.123 27.906 36.802 41,658 15.606 8.726 11.666 16.589 Investment in 15.528 14.332 26.900 34.372 38.869 12.742 71.26 98.16 14.412 infrastructure


Source: “China Economy Yearbook”, 1988, XI-73

In retrospect, among all measures adopted to help reverse crisis only private lands, free market, and “responsibility farmland” worked. However, these were measures that the Communist Party reluctantly agreed due to no other choices available. Also deals on owing private lands were mostly made with local officials without central government’s knowledge. Central and provincial government did not know the wide spread deal practices on private lands. The 1958’s aggressive policy was somewhat softened due to the circumstances. But the change was only to prevent the [political] situation from worsening. During this period, all the Communist party had done was to upstage the anti-rightist movement, which made the starvation disaster even worse. To the Communist party’s inertia reversing the crisis, Luo Longji made an excellent comment, “They know they encountered problems. But they don’t know where the problems are. No reviews and corrections actually dealt with basic issues and core problems. Measures that were adopted only created more problems The Community Party likes to talk about materialism but in reality they talked mostly idealism. It says it likes to promote law and objectivity but in reality it disrespects law and objectivity. They used the 1848’s Capitalism to solve the 1958’s problems. What kind of system do we have? Frankly, if I want to be responsible for the human kind, I absolutely cannot agree with this system.” Luo also said, “That the problem of supply shortage of goods and materials is not temporary but long lasting is caused by the social system.” Luo made this statement privately, but it was reported to Mao. Mao took it as a reactionary statement. On July 19, 1959, Mao handed out materials to participants at the Lu Mountain Conference encountering Luo’s reactionary statements. Luo also said, “Our current serious supply shortage is a trouble unseen in our history and unprecedented around the world. In my opinion, since 1956 things had been messed up, reform of private sector had been problematic. Big factories could only help big problems. Problems related to daily lives need to depend on small factories to help solving. Right now, we only have big factories but no small factories. After reforming private sector, anti-rightist movement followed. After the antirightist movement, the Great Leap, People’s communes led political movements.” All these reactionary statements from Luo after half a century, we now know, are wise and true. Translated by His-Chu Bolick. 25 Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.456. “This figure is based on the following calculation. Chinese demographers have concluded that death rates in the four years 1958–61 were 1.2 percent, 1.45 percent, 4.34 percent and 2.83 percent, respectively. The average death rate in the three years immediately before and after the famine was 1.03 percent—1957; 1.08 percent, 1962: 1 percent and 1963: 1 percent. The death rates over and above this average could only have been caused by starvation and overwork during the famine. The ‘extra’ death

Notes

26


27

28

29

30

31 32 33

34 35 36 37

38

289

figure comes to 37.67 million, based on population figures of 646.53, 666.71, and 651.71 million for 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960. The official statistics published in 1983 are recognized as partly defective because local policemen understate the number of deaths in the years 1959–61 after some were purged for ‘over-reporting deaths’.” Rummel, China’s Bloody Century, and Rummel, “Reevaluated Democide Totals for 20th Century and China.” Roughly 20 percent of the Soviet Ukrainian population died of terror-starvation in the 1930s. This percentage vastly surpasses Mao’s Great Leap Forward peasant killings. If Yang’s estimate of 36 million is accepted, Mao only starved 5.4 percent of the population to death, using the 1960 population figure (660 million) as a benchmark. Soviet starvation deaths 1932–33 constituted appropriately 3 percent of the Soviet population. State President Liu Shaoqi denounced the Great Leap Forward for producing widespread famine at a Communist Party conference (“Conference of the Seven Thousand”) in Beijing, January 1962. Chang and Halliday, Mao, pp.568 and 579. Defense Minister Lin Biao defended Mao. Mao’s attitude echoes the Chinese proverb that it is wise to “kill chickens as a warning to the dogs.” Another variant urges “killing one to warn a hundred.” The practice is said to originate with the Zhou Dynasty minister Jiang Zija. The attribution was provided by Yu Tianying. Edward Wheelwright and Bruce McFarlane, The Chinese Road to Socialism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. Cf. Steven Rosefiele, and Henry Latane, “Decentralized Economic Control in the Soviet Union and Maoist China: OneMan Rule Versus Collective Self Management,” in Rosefielde (ed.), World Communism at the Crossroads, Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980, pp.273–304. Chang and Halliday, Mao, p.338. “By the general estimate China’s prison and labor camp population was roughly 10 million in any one year under Mao. Descriptions of camp life by inmates, which point to high mortality rates, indicate a probable annual death rate of at least 10 percent.” Consul B. John Zavrel, “Tibet: Give Us Liberty and Peace,” http://www. meaus.com/Tibet_-_Give_Us_Liberty.html. Jean-Louis Margolin, “China: A Long March into Night,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, pp.542–546. Jean-Louis Margolin, “Vietnam and Laos: The Impasse of War Communism,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, Chapter 23, p.571. The Vietnamese Great Leap Forward in agriculture was supported by enthusiastic articles by Ho Chi Minh in October 1958. The combination of massive irrigation projects and a long period of drought led, as it did in China, to a fall in production, followed by a serious famine with an unknown number of victims. Georges Boudarel, Cent fleurs éclores dans la nuit du Vietnam: Communisme et dissidence 1954–1956, Paris: Jacques Bertoin, 1991, p.150. Gerard Togas, Jai vecu dan l’enfer communiste au Nord Vietnam, Paris: Nouvelles Edition Debresse, 1960, pp.231–232. Pierre Rigoulout, “Crimes, Terror, and Secrecy in North Korea,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, pp.552–3, 558, 564. Rigoulout, “Crimes, Terror and Secrecy in North Korea,” p.564. http://countrystudies.us/north-korea/24.htm. Rigoulot, “Crimes, Terror and Secrecy in North Korea,” p.564. also see Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, Basic Books, 2005. Vaclav Havel and Kjell Magne Bondevk, “North Korea: Forget not their Abominations,” International Herald Tribune, September 19, 2008. The French proclaimed a quasi-independent state in the South, with Emperor Bai

290


39

40

41 42

43

44 45

46 47

Notes

Dai as Chief of State in late 1946. During the early 1950s, the Chinese pressured Truong Chinh, first secretary of Ho’s Vietnamese Communist Party, to purge feudal and bourgeis elements in the Viet Minh. Email, Peter Pham, February 19, 2009. See Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. The military and economic history of Vietnam has recently been revised by Illya Gaiduk, Chen Jian and Robert Brigham with the aid of Russian, Chinese and Vietnamese archival materials. Qiang Zhai shows that, while Mao desired to ease the French out of Indochina without provoking American intervention, working with the Soviet Union at the 1954 Geneva Conference to force the Vietnamese to accept the country’s interim division, he later became an avid supporter of Ho’s struggle to establish his credentials as being more progressive than Stalin’s Soviet successors. At the apogee of Sino-Vietnamese cooperation 1962–68, Mao steadily increased assistance across the board, from weapons to rice. The volume was so great, it clogged Hanoi’s transport system. His statistics reveal that Chinese assistance to North Vietnam far exceed the estimates of Western policymakers. More than 320,000 Chinese troops served in North Vietnam between June 1965 and March 1968, peaking in 1967, when 170,000 Chinese were present. Qiang revisionist view is supported by Bob Seals, “Chinese Support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War: The Decisive Edge,” htt://www. militaryhistoryonline.com/20thCentury/articles/chinesesupport.aspx. 9/23/2008. “50 Years On, Vietnamese Remember Land Reform Terror,” http://www.rfa.org/ english/news/vietnam_landreform-20060608.html Lam Thanh Liem, “Ho Chi Minh’s Land Reform: Mistake or Crime” (from Lam Than Liem, “Chinh sach cai cach ruong dat cua Ho Chi Minh: sai lam hay toi ac?” in Jean-François Revel et al., Ho Chi Minh: Su that ve Than the & Su nghiep, Paris: Nam A, 1990, pp.179–214). http://222.paulbogdanor.com/left/vietnam/landreform.html. Jean-Louis Margolin, “Vietnam and Laos: The Impasse of War Communism,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, Chapter 23, p.568. Chad Raymond, “Effect of Agricultural Privatization on Communist Political Legitimacy in Vietnam,” Journal of World Studies, http://findarticles.com/ p/articles/mi_qa3821/is_200304/ai_n9173464/print?tag=artBody’coll Andrew Vickerman, The Fate of the Peasantry; Benedict and Tria Kerkvliet, “Village-State Relations in Vietnam,” Ngo Vinh Long, “Reform and Rural Development: Impact on Class, Sectoral and Regional Inequalities,” in William Turley and Mark Seiden (eds.), Reinventing Vietnamese Socialism: Doi Moi in Comparative Perspective, Boulder: Westview Press, 1993. Margolin, “Vietnam and Laos,” pp.569–570. Cf. “The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam, Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Washington DC, 1972. Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: The Dragon Embattled; Hoang Van Chi, From Colonialism to Communism; Bernard Fall, The Two Vietnams. Margolin, “Vietnam and Laos,” pp.570–571. Doan Van Toai, Vietnamese Gulag, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986 (former vice president of the VC student union). Peter Pham attributes his purge and Truong Nhu’s to the North’s distrust of Southerners. Pham, email, February 14, 2009. Margolin, “Vietnam and Laos,” p.572. Doan Van Toai, The Vietnamese Gulag, Simon and Schuster: New York, 1986. Stephen Morris, “Glasnost and the Gulag: The Numbers Game,” Vietnam Commentary, No.2, May–June 1988. Margolin, “Vietnam and Laos,” p.575.

10 Killing Fields 1 Dirth Pran and Kim DePaul (eds.), Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields:

Notes


2

3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14

291

Memoirs by Survivors, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999; Haing Ngor, Survival in the Killing Fields, New York: Basic Books, 2003; Susan Cook, Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda Transaction: New Brunswick, NJ, 2005. Sihanouk succeeded his maternal grandfather, Sisowath Monivong, as king in April 1941 (legally Cambodia was, at that time, a French protectorate within French Indochina, while Sihanouk, like his ancestors, was a vassal king of the Vietnamese emperor, when they weren’t vassals of the Thai king. Cambodia became independent on November 9, 1953, with Sihanouk as king. In March 1955, he abdicated in favor of his father, Norodom Suramarit, and became prime minister a few months later. When his father died in 1960, he staged an election for head of state, which he won. In 1963, he changed the constitution to make the position of head of state a lifelong one and, a few months later, began styling himself as a “prince” once again. He was deposed by Lon Nol in 1970. While Sihanouk’s position after his father’s death was not unlike his position as king between 1953 and 1955, it isn’t completely accurate to call Cambodia a monarchy, because of the strange manner in which Sihanouk arranged things. Information provided by Peter Pham, email, February 14, 2009. Jean-Louis Margolin, “Cambodia: The Country of Disconcerting Crimes,” in Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism, pp.599, and 626–627. Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.599. The mystique here was based on the old mythology about the state of Angkor: “Because we are the race that built Angkor, we can do anything,” said Pol Pot in a long speech on September 27, 1977, in which he also announced that the Angkar was really the Communist Party of Kampuchea. “His other justification for this belief in the Khmer Rouge was the ‘glorious 17 April,’ which had demonstrated the superiority of the poor peasants of Cambodia over the world’s greatest imperial power.” Although Margolin’s observation has some merit, the scale of Pol Pot’s killings were affected by an anti-intellectualism reminiscent of Jiang Qing. Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.801, note 19. Money had become worthless during the Soviet civil war, but Lenin and Asia’s communist leaders refrained from abolishing it, until Pol Pot decreed money illegal. Margolin, “Cambodia,” pp.581–582. Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.801. “The measure apparently was decided in January 1975, at the same time as the abolition of money directly after the printing of a new currency. The only leader to oppose the move, the influential Hou Youn, a former minister in the Sihanouk regime and a founding member of the KCP, disappeared in the following months in the first series of high-level purges.” Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.581. American bombing along the Ho Chi Minh trail and other refugees in flight from civil war 1970–75 crowded Democratic Kampuchea’s cities, amplifying the magnitude of Pol Pot’s forced evacuation. David Chandler, Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot, Boulder: Westview Press, 1992; Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.599. This was the same figure announced by the deputy prime minister of China Hua Guofeng, at the National Conference on the Example of Dazhai, in 1975. Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.599. Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.599. New People also were unpaid workers. They didn’t receive wages in money or kind. Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.589. Pol Pot claimed December 1979 that “only a few thousand Cambodians have died as a result of the application of our policy of bringing abundance to the people.” Chandler, Brother Number One, pp.171–172, summarizes a speech delivered by Pol Pot on this matter in 1981 as follows: “He said he knows that many people in the country hate him and believe he is responsible for the killings. He said he knows that many people died. When he said this he nearly broke down and cried. He said

292


15

16 17

18 19 20 21

22

Notes

he must accept responsibility because his policies were too far to the left, and because he did not keep proper track of what was going on. He said he was like the master in a house who did not know what the kids were up to, and that he trusted people too much . . . They would tell him things that were not true, that everything was fine, but that this or that person was a traitor. In the end they were the real traitors. The major problem had been cadres formed by the Vietnamese.” The citation is transcribed from Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.630. Khieu Samphan, in an official 1987 pamphlet alleged that invading Vietnamese killed approximately 1.5 million Cambodians. See Margolin, ibid., p.589, who interprets that statement as an admission of the scale of Khmer Rouge killing. Reuters, March 31, 2009. “I am responsible for the crimes committed at S-21, especially the torture and execution of the people there,” Duch told a UN– Cambodian court where he is charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Duch, a born-again Christian whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, said he would “like to express regret and my heartfelt sorrow for all the crimes committed” during the 1975–79 Reign of Terror in which 1.7 million people died in Cambodia. Duch is expected to be a key witness in the future trials of those also deemed “most responsible” by the tribunal for one of the darkest chapters in the twentieth century. The other four—“Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, the regime’s ex-president, Khieu Samphan, and Ieng Sary, its foreign minister, and his wife—have denied knowledge of any atrocities. Margolin, “Cambodia,” p.589. Vietnamese force invaded Cambodia and captured Phnom Penh January 7, 1979, but the Khmer Rouge didn’t vanish. Pol Pot continued waging guerrilla war until his death in 1998. Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1979, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, pp.456–460. Vickery, Cambodia, 1975–1978, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000. Maroglin believes that Vickery seriously underestimates the size of the 1975 Cambodian population. Kiernan’s figure is an extrapolation from several micro-studies of different sectors of the population: 25 percent losses in families of refugees; 35 percent, 41 percent and 53 percent losses in three villages; 42 percent in one neighborhood in Phnom Penh (of whom only 25 percent died of hunger or disease); and 36 percent losses, almost all by assassination, in a group of 35 inhabitants in the eastern zone. See Margolin, “Cambodia,” note 52, p.803. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD: Paris, 2003, Table 5a, p.168. Maddison reports that Cambodia’s population was 7.3 million in 1974. It fell to 6.4 million in 1980, for a decline of 13 percent. The natural rate population growth 1970–74 was 1 percent per annum. Marek Sliwinski, Le Genocide Khmer rouge: Une analyse demographique, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995, pp.49–67. Henri Locard, Le Goulag Khmer rouge (University of Lyon II, Department of Languages, 1995), p.10; reprinted in Communisme, nos.47–48 (1996), pp.127–161. Sliwinski, Le Genoicide Khmer rouge, p.82. Patrick Heuveline, “The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: the Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979, in Force Migration and Mortality,” National Academic Press, 2001. Patrick Heuveline and Bunnak Poch, “Mortality and Fertility Changes: Cambodia before, during and after the Khmer Rouges,” Population Research Center, NORC and the University of Chicago, 2002. Craig Etcheson, “The Number: Quantifying Crimes Against Humanity in Cambodia,” http: www.mekong.net/Cambodia/deaths/toll.htm. Bruce Sharp, “Counting Hell,” http: www.mekong.net/Cambodia/deaths.htm. See Table A2.1. Cf. Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Table 3a, p.96. Maddison’s population series is smoothed and in accordance with official Soviet statistics conceals the Holodomor.


Notes

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23 China’s population was roughly 660 million during the Great Leap Forward. A natural population growth rate of 1 percent would have added nearly 20 million people over a three-year span, that is nearly half the 38 million loss estimated by Chang and Halliday (see Table 9.1). This yields a net 2.7 percent population decline. Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Table 5a, p.168. 24 Maddison, The World Economy, Table 5a, p.168 supports a population decline 1975–79 of 13.3 percent, which works out to roughly 19 percent taking account of the natural rate of population increase. Maddison’s data aren’t census based for the years 1975–79. The annual figures are interpolated, smoothed and disputable. 25 Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Table 5a, p.168. Cambodia’s population was 7.3 million in 1974. It didn’t recover this level until 1983. However, his statistics are fraught with uncertainty, and demographic recovery probably took much longer. 26 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, New York: Random House, 1954. 27 See http://www.yale/edu/cgp/ for the homepage of the Yale Cambodian Genocide Program. 28 Margolin, “Cambodia,” pp.594–5. The Cham are a Muslim Cambodian tribal minority that was subjected to numerous massacres by the Khmer Rouge, crimes that might well be indictable as ethnic cleansing. 29 Zhou Enlai warned Sihanouk, Samphan and Khieu Thirith against trying to achieve communism in a single step in 1975, but Khieu Samphan and Son Sen later boasted that “we will be the first nation to create a completely communist society without wasting time on intermediate steps.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Cambodia_under_Pol_Pot. 30 Philip Short, Pol Pot: An Anatomy of a Nightmare, New York: Henry Holt, 2005. 31 In 1979, after the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam, Pol Pot fled into the jungles of southwest Cambodia. The Vietnamese pursued, forcing him to flee to Thailand in December 1984, where he lived for the next six years, except for a two-year hiatus in China where he was treated for cancer. When the Vietnamese withdrew from Cambodia in 1989, Pol Pot resumed his guerrilla war against the government installed by Hanoi. On June 10, 1997 he ordered the execution of his life-long comrade Son Sen (together with eleven family members) for attempting to forge a settlement with Phnom Penh. He was arrested by Khmer Rouge military Chief Ta Mok, placed on a show trial for these killings and sentenced to life-long house arrest. He is said to have died in his bed April 15, 1998 after learning that the Khmer Rouge had agreed to turn him over to an international tribunal. His death may have been a suicide. He was 70 years old. 11 The Sixth Commandment 1 There were numerous Gulag excess deaths after 1953: no doubt citizens were wrongly executed and killed. But no one claims that the state mass-murdered, or that the lethality of forced labor approached the siege-mobilized terror-command norm. Cuba, Mozambique and Angola are mixed cases. Their leaders weren’t ever under Stalin’s or Mao’s control, and came to power in the mixed period of Khrushchev’s liberalism and Mao’s Great Leap Forward siege-mobilized terrorcommand. Their regimes reflected the blend. They were less lethal from the outset, and their liberalizations were ambiguous. 2 There are ten prime biblical commands, known as the Decalogue in the JudeoChristian tradition, given by God on Mount Sinai to Moses (Exodus, chapter 20, 12). The Sixth Commandment, according to Jewish, Anglican and Orthodox authorities, is “Thou Shall Not Murder,” which the Roman Catholic religion reformulates as “Thou Shall Not Kill.” Roman Catholics and Lutherans list this

294

3 4


5

6

7

Notes

Commandment as number five. The Jewish, Anglican and Orthodox Decalogues use the word “murder” rather than ”kill.” Their translation is adopted here. Speech to 20th Congress of the CPSU, delivered February 14–15, 1956. The speech denounced Stalin’s crimes and the cult of personality. http:// www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/1956/02/24.htm. Alexander Yakovlev, A Century of Violence in Russia, Yale University Press: New Haven, 2004. Mikhail Tsypkin, “Soviet Human Rights Under Gorbachev,” February 10, 1987, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Russiand Eurasia/bg652.cfm. Vedemosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, 1947, No.17; reprinted in Ministerstvo Yustitsii RSFSR, Ugolovnyi Kodeks RSFSR: Ofitsial’nyi tekst s izmeneneniyami na 1 iyulia 1950g, i s prilozheneiem postateino-sistematizirovannykh materialov, Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Yuridicheskoi Literatury, Moskva, 1950, pp.140–141. The death penalty was abolished by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, May 26, 1947, “On the Abolition of the Death Penalty.” It abolished in time of peace 1) the death penalty, prescribed for crimes by current laws of the USSR, 2) crimes punishable by current laws with the death penalty, revised to imprisonment in a corrective-labor camp for a term of 25 years; 3) for sentences to death, but not carried out before the publication of this Decree, commute in accordance with (2). “Khrushchovskaya Ottepel,” refers to the period 1956–64 when repression and censorship were partly reversed. Millions were released from Gulag, Stalin’s cult of personality was debunked and a peaceful coexistence initiative was launched. The term was coined by Ilya Ehrenburg, and was the title of his 1954 novel Ottepel’ (The Thaw). The economic thaw shifted the burden of productive management from terrordiscipline to optimal incentives. Khrushchev introduced a Sovnarkhozy planadministrative reform, and pressed for the substitution of profitability instead of gross output as the main determinant of enterprise managers’ performance bonuses.

12 Siege-Mobilization 1

Some who knew Hitler personally asserted that his racism was politically expedient, that he only planned to oppress the Jews, not annihilate them. The gas chambers prove that they were mistaken. 2 Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution: The Marxist Theory of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution, 1918. 3 Gregory Grossman, “Notes for a Theory of the Command Economy,” Soviet Studies, 15(2), 1963, pp.103–123. Steven Rosefielde, Russian Economy: From Lenin to Putin, London: Blackwell, 2007. 4 Viktor Suvorov, for example, contends that Stalin schemed to initiate WWII because he saw global conflagration as a spark to ignite worldwide communist revolution. See Viktor Suvorov, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Naval Institute Press: Anapolis, MD, 2008. 5 Oliver Williamson calls this “self-interest seeking with guile.” “Selective or distorted information disclosure, or self-disbelieved promises regarding future conduct,” in Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies Analysis and Antitrust Implications, New York: The Free Press, p.26. 6 The workability of command systems is a special case of what economists call hierarchy. The theoretical issue is why non-market structures survive, even in competitive markets, first broached formally by Ronald Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica, vol.4, no.16, 1937. The core of the argument lies in the need to combine human and environmental factors. Hierarchy and command in some circumstances not only work, but are better than markets in solving certain tasks. See Stefan Hedlund, “A Hollow Success Story: A Reality Check on the Russian


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Economy,” paper presented to the 40th National Convention of the AAASS, Philadelphia, November 20–23, 2008. “. . . the introduction of command economy was tantamount to the creation of a monolithic hierarchy. The main implication is that the role of the market as a regulator, influencing Williamson’s ‘comparative institutional choice,’ was suppressed. Locked into this monolith, actors were faced with a reality where non-market decision making replaced voluntary horizontal exchange, and where it became necessary to evolve strategies aimed at playing games within a system that offered no exit or alternative.” David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor, New York: Norton, 1999. David Landes, “Culture Makes Almost all the Difference,” in Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington (eds.), Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, New York: Basic Books, 2000. Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Mancur Olson, Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships, New York: Basic Books, 2000. Douglass North and Robert Thomas, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Avner Greif, “Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies,” Journal of Political Economy, vol.102, no.5. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies, 1975. 7 Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical or Civil, 1651. 13 Asian Terror-Command 1 Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a former Deputy Head of the 7th Section of the FSB, assassinated November 2006, poisoned with radioactive polonium 210. He wrote two books, Blowing Up Russia: Terrorism from Within and Liubyanka Criminal Group while in exile, having fled prosecution in Russia. Litvinenko accused Russia’s President Vladimir Putin of his murder in a deathbed letter released after he died. The Russian government denies any involvement, but many consider Putin the prime suspect. 2 The hyper-inflation during War Communism made the ruble worthless, but Lenin never formally abolished money. 3 Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in a speech in Nanning, January 1958, aimed at using China’s abundant peasant labor as a catalyst for rapid modernization. 4 People’s communes 1958 to 1982–85 were the highest of three rural administrative units. Communes were divided into production brigades and production teams, and were vested with governmental, political and economic functions. They were comprised of between 4,000 and 20,000 households. They were given an egalitarian aspect by transferring household assets to the collectives, including private animals and stored grain. Private kitchens were abolished; communal dining and nurseries established. Facilities for disabled and aged were sometimes installed, but euthanasia doubled as an alternative. See Yang, Dali, Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Forward, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996. 5 Mao declared August 1958 that China would overtake British steel production in fifteen years, triggering a campaign to immediately double production. New steel plants couldn’t be constructed rapidly enough to attain the goal, so peasants were encouraged to smelt wares into scrap iron. They complied, but the quality was too low, and the venture proved futile. 6 Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, OECD: Paris, 2003, Table 5b, p.174. Angus Maddison and Harry X. Wu, “China’s Economic

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Performance: How Fast Has GDP Grown: How Big Is It Compared With the USA?”, 2007, Figure 2, p.12. Cf. Thomas Rawski, China’s Great Economic Transformation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Gregory Chow, China’s Economic Transformation, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Holodomor claimed 3.2–4 million excess deaths (Chapter 3). The Soviet population in 1932 should have been around 160 million (Table A2.1). Soviet excess deaths from Holodomor therefore constituted 2.0–2.5 percent of the population. The counterpart figure for Mao’s Great Leap Forward is 5.7 percent using Yang Yisheng’s excess death estimate (Chapter 9). However, the lethality of Holodomor surpassed Mao’s Great Leap Forward if the target population is Ukrainian nationals rather than the Soviet people in their entirety. Richard Pipes, Communism: A History, New York: Modern Library, 2001, pp.68–69. Roderick MacFarquhar, The Politics of China: 1949–89, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp.222–223. Cf. Edward Wheelwright and Bruce McFarlane, The Chinese Road to Socialism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. The best known advocates of Mao’s doctrinal efforts to meld the command model with popularist self-regulation were Charles Bettelheim, Louis Althusser, Paul Sweezy, Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Edward Wheelwright and Bruce McFarlane. See Charles Bettelheim, Planification et croissance acceleree, Maspero, 1965; Bettelheim, La Transition vers l’économie socialiste, Maspero, 1968; Bettelheim, Révolution culturelle et organisation industrielle en Chine, Maspero, 1973; Les Luttes des classes en URSS—Première période, 1917–1923, Seuil/ Maspero, 1974; Bettelheim, Les Luttes de classes en URSS—Deuxième période, 1923–1930, Seuil/Maspero, 1977; Bettelheim, Questions sur la Chine, après la mort de Mao Tse-toung, Maspero, 1978, and Les Luttes de classes en URSS—Troisième période, 1930–1941. Tome I: Les Domines, tome II: Les Dominants, Seuil/Maspero, 1982. Bettelheim took the position that Bolshevik economies right from the start are ripe for counter-revolution from careerists who capture the party, transforming a socialist initiative into state capitalism. Communist victory not only required the criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship, but a cultural enlightenment enabling workers and peasants to discipline themselves and exterminate the anti-socialist infestation. As in Karl Marx’s utopia, he advocated abolishing arbitrary boundaries between manual and intellectual labor, so that everyone could become a communist renaissance man or woman, empowered by a harmonious society. Moreover, the Cultural Revolution would not be contained. It would spread across the globe, liberating mankind everywhere. See Angus Maddison, The World Economy, Table 5b, p.174. Angus Maddison and Harry X. Wu, “China’s Economic Performance: How Fast Has GDP Grown; How Big Is It Compared With the USA?,” 2007, Figure 2, p.12. http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/.

14 Terror-Free Command 1 Abram Bergson, “A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 52(1), 1938, pp.310–334; Bergson, “Socialist Economics,” in H. Ellis (ed.), A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, 1948, pp.412–448; and Bergson, “The Concept of Social Welfare,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 68,2, 1954, pp.233–253. Steven Rosefielde, The Russian Economy from Lenin to Putin, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. 2 Democratic provision of public and civic goods are complicated by Arrow’s paradox. Autocrats sidestep the problem. See Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values, New York: Wiley, 2nd edn, 1963. 3 Rosefielde, The Russian Economy, Chapter 5, pp.59–88.


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4 Abram Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964. 5 Alexander Gerschenkron, “Russia: Patterns and Problems of Economic Development, 1861–1958,” in Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962, pp.119–151. Alec Nove, The Soviet Economic System, George Allen and Unwin: London, 1977. 6 Fredrich von Hayek, Collectivist Economic Planning, London, 1935; von Hayek, “Socialist Calculation: The Competitive Solution,” Economica, May 1940; Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, London, 1936; Lionel Robbins, Nature and Significance of Economic Science, London, 1935. David Engerman, Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009; Engerman, Modernization from the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. 7 Fredrich von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 50th Anniversary Edition, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 8 Gregory Grossman, “Notes for a Theory of the Command Economy,” Soviet Studies, 15(2), 1963, pp.103–123. 9 Steven Rosefielde, “Tea Leaves and Productivity,” Comparative Economic Studies, 47(2), 2005, pp.259–273. 10 Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, New York: International Publishers, 1964; Marx, and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1971. 11 Marx contended that members not only attended to their own needs, but altruistically exerted themselves further so that others could actualize their full human potentials. Altruism happens, but not to the extent implied by Marxian communist humanism. 12 Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution (written August–September 1917). See Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.25, pp.281–492. 13 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1–3, New York: International Publishers, 1967. 14 The fourth volume was incomplete. 15 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Qu’est-ce que la propriété? 1840. In English, What is Property?, Cosimo Classics, 2007. 16 Marx insisted that labor and labor alone created value. Income obtained by capitalists accordingly was construed as robbery because it could not be their own value created. 17 Jaroslav Vanek, The Participatory Economy: An Evolutionary Hypothesis and Strategy for Development: Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971. 18 Hu Jintao is promoting a vision of a harmonious Chinese communist society complete with leasing markets and full human self-actualization. 19 The history of communism is rich. Marx’s model is just one of many schemes. The term “communism” was coined by Etienne Cabet in his famous communist utopia, Voyage et adventures de Lord William Carisdall en Icarie, 1840, eight years before the publication of Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Unlike Marx, Cabet preserved individual family households inside the communal structure. Marx rejected all trammels on human freedom (except prohibitions against private property and markets). Elected government in Cabet’s colony was assigned the task of resolving member conflict in lieu of Marx’s communist humanist harmonism. Cabet went from France to Texas and Iowa with his followers in the 1850s. He established various communes, but none survived beyond 1898. This has been the fate of all communist experiments, even though there are no legal barriers in the west preventing those who desire from trying. Egalitarian worker self-management has been another visible strand in communism’s tangled evolution. The concept was extremely popular among idealists in the 1970s and 1980s. See, for example, Steven

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Rosefielde and R. W. Pfouts, “The Firm in Illyria: Market Syndicalism Revisited,” Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol.10, No.2, June 1986, pp.160–170.


15 Illusion of Progress 1 Maoist and Stalinist communists formed a ruling coalition in Nepal, July 23, 2008. 2 Paraphrased statement made by Nikita Khrushchev November 18, 1956 to western ambassadors at a Polish embassy reception. On August 24, 1963 Khrushchev clarified his claim, stating that western proletariats would bury capitalism when everyone came to appreciate communism’s economic superiority. The Soviet Union would not impose communism on the west militarily. 3 Alexander Erlich, The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924–28, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960. 4 Steven Rosefielde, The Russian Economy, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007, pp.46–47. 5 Steven Rosefielde, “The Riddle of Postwar Russian Economic Growth: Statistics Lied and Were Misconstrued,” Europe-Asia Studies, 55(3), pp.469–481. Rosefielde, “Tea Leaves and Productivity,” Comparative Economic Studies, 47(2), pp.259–273. The literature on Stalin-era Soviet economic growth statistics is immense. Readers can begin with Abram Bergson, “The Reliability and Usability of Soviet Statistics: A Summary Appraisal,” American Statistician, 7, 3, pp.13–16; Bergson, The Real National Income of Soviet Russia Since 1928, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961. 6 For example, the official Soviet NMP compound annual growth rate 1928–37 is 14.6 percent. Maddison’s GNP statistics put the growth 1928–37 at 6.2 percent per annum. See Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Geneva: OECD, 2003, Table 3b, p.98. Cf. Abram Bergson, The Real National Income of Soviet Russia Since 1928, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961. See Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, Moscow: Finansy i Statistika, 1987, p.41. Angus Maddison, Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, Paris: OECD, 1998, out of print. Available on: www.ggdc.net/Maddison/. The official statistics reported in this chapter for the years 1952–78 were obtained from State Statistical Bureau (SSP/Beijing)-Hitotsubashi University Institute of Economic Research, Historical National Accounts of the People’s Republic of China 1952–1995, 1997. Later years were computed by Maddison and Wu using the SNA GDP methodology obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (new name for SSB) Yearbook, 2006. Although the volume movement in each of the six sectors Maddison and Wu report in their Table 9 is the same as in SSB-Hitotsubashi, the latter’s GDP index showed faster growth than Maddison’s and Wu’s estimates in 1987 prices. This is due to the fact that the official GDP index was constructed in linked segments. NBS does not explain what weights it uses to arrive at its total GDP index for 1978–2003; however, it shows a volume movement identical with that in Table 9, where 1987 weights are used. Both show an average annual growth of 9.59 percent. See Angus Maddison and Harry X. Wu, “China’s Economic Performance: How Fast Has GDP Grown; How Big Is It Compared with the USA?”, 2007, p.12. 7 Comparisons of East and West Germany confirm the inferiority of terror-free command. 8 CIA World Factbook: North Korea, per capita income (PPP) $1,800 (2008). CIA World Factbook: South Korea, per capita income (PPP) $27,100 (2008). 9 Shakespeare, Macbeth. “Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born will harm Macbeth.”

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16 Corpus Delicti 1 Stephen Courtois et al, The Black Book of Communism, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, Chapter 8, p.169. “Nonetheless a number of high-ranking politicians in Germany and Italy had remarkably precise information about the scale of the catastrophe facing the Soviet Union. Reports from Italian diplomats posted in Kharkiv, Odessa, and Novorossiisk, recently discovered and published by the Italian historian Andrea Graziosi, show that Mussolini read such texts extremely carefully and was fully aware of the situation but did not use it in his anti-Communist propaganda.” The failure of insiders and opponents alike to foresee the Red Holocaust, even after it had begun applies to the Nazi Holocaust too. Few if any in Germany supported Jewish extermination until Hitler adopted the Final Solution at the beginning of WWII. 2 Victor Kravchenko, a Soviet defector wrote I Chose Freedom, detailing Stalin’s terror, starvation and lethal Gulag forced labor. He had worked in the Don Basin region during the terror famine 1932–33 and personally witnessed the mass starvation. The French Communist weekly Les Lettres françaises accused him of lying and of being a western spy. A sensational public libel trial ensued in 1949 that included witnesses like Margrete Buber-Neumann, the widow of the purged German Communist leader Heinz Neumann, and Kravchenko’s ex-wife. The jury found Les Lettres françaises guilty of libel. The trial made the western public aware of aspects of the Red Holocaust, but it also polarized attitudes, with socialists and communists siding with Stalin. 3 The deep aversion to accepting the trigger-happiness of siege-mobilized terrorcommand persists. Bruce Cumings, for example, never tires of airbrushing North Korea’s crimes against humanity. See Bruce Cumings, North Korea: Another Country, New Press, 2003. Cf. Paul Hollander, “Pariah Lies,” National Review, February 9, 2004. Cumings even likens North Korea to Thomas More’s Utopia. See B.R. Myers, “Mother of all Mothers,” The Atlantic, September 2004. 4 One will search in vain for any discussion of siege-mobilized terror-command in Abram Bergson’s, Alec Nove’s and Gregory and Stuart’s textbooks on the Soviet economic system, or similar works on China. 5 Frank Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects, New York: League of Nations, 1946. Lorimer worked at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research with a large staff. The book was one in a series of Princeton population studies, and took a historical approach. As of 2006, it still hadn’t been translated into Russian (Demoskop Weekly, No.267, November 27– December 10, 2006). 6 For a thorough analysis of Soviet statistical repression, deceit and manipulation, see Mark Tolts, “The Failure of Demographic Statistics: A Soviet Response to Population Troubles,” paper presented at the IUSSP XXIVth General Population Conference, Salvador-Bahia, Brazil (August 18–24, 2001) http://www.iussp.org/ Brazil2001/s00/S07_02tolts.pdf. Also, Tolts, “Ethnic Composition of Kazakhstan on the Eve of the Second World War: Re-Evaluation of the 1939 Soviet Census Results,” Central Asian Survey (March–June 2006), 25(1–2), pp.143–148. 7 S.A. Novosel’sky and V.V. Paevsky, O svodnykh kharakeristikakh vosproizvodstva i perspekivnykh ischisleniyakh naseleniya, French résumé. Leningrad, Akademiya Nauk, SSSR, Trudy Demograficheskogo Instituta, 1934, Vol.I, p.16. Lorimer implies that Novosel’sky’s and Paevsky’s estimate was computed with vital statistics for 1926 in his analysis of their calculations. Recomputation using a natality rate of 45 per thousand and a mortality rate of 20.5, however, produces a projected population of 196.7 million in 1939 instead of 191.1. A much closer correspondence is achieved with the 1929 birth rate of 41.8 per thousand and a death rate of 20 per thousand: 191,007,000 (see Table A1), a figure that

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fortuitously corresponds with their age–fertility adjusted estimate for 1926–27. See p.15. See Lorimer, pp.113 and 134. Population forecasts for the period 1927–39 were also developed by other Soviet demographers including Strumilin, Babynin and Sabsovich. For a discussion of these estimates and those of Novosel’sky and Paevsky, see B. Urlanis, Problemy dinamiki naselenie SSSR, Moscow, 1974, pp.307–322. See Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, 35(3), 1983, p.386. Lorimer assumed that the 1926 death rate was 27 percent higher than the official figure with the statistical discrepancy diminishing to zero by 1938. Coale’s mean mortality adjustment is ((21.8/20.5–1)/2) (20.537) = 1.29 million people. The corrected Novosel’sky and Paevsky estimate thus is 20.6 − 1.3 < or = 19.3 million excess deaths. Instead of calculating the expected population by continuously multiplying the population at hand at the beginning of the year with appropriate vital statistics and adding the net increase to obtain the estimated population in year t + 1, Lorimer employed his procedure for the first half of the sequence, and then reversed the technique for the second half, multiplying vital statistics by the observed population in 1939 to calculate the population in 1938, etc. Because the observed 1939 population was lower than the projected population, Lorimer’s method necessarily produced a lower estimate of net births than the usual alternative which implicitly loads all excess deaths at the end of the period. Cf. Urlanis, Problemy dinamiki naselenie SSSR, pp.232–225. It should also be noted that Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft mischaracterize Lorimer’s excess death estimates as population deficits because some of the annual natality rates employed in the calculation had to be interpolated. Readers can easily confirm that the population deficits they ascribe to Lorimer are a small fraction of the properly defined population deficits reported by Novosel’sky and Paevsky, Gosplan and Lorimer himself. See Robert Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, “Population,” in Robert Davies, Mark Harrison and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp.73–74. Dallin, The Real Soviet Russia, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944, pp.186–213. Winston Churchill’s “iron curtain speech,” which often is used to symbolize the start of the Cold War, was delivered in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946. Boris Urlanis, “Dinamika urovnya rozhdaemosti v SSSR za gody Sovetskoi vlasti,” in A.G. Vishnevsky, (ed.), Brachnost’, rozhdaemost’, smertnost’ v Rossii i v SSSR, Moscow: 1977, pp.11–12. These findings were published in Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization 1928–1949,” Soviet Studies, 35(3), pp.385–409. The Soviet Union officially estimated that 20 million citizens perished during World War II in 1974. See Naselenie SSSR, p.8. This figure was raised to 28 million after the archival revolution. Warren Eason, “Soviet Population Today,” Foreign Affairs, 37(4), 1959. Eason estimates that Soviet forces may have sustained as many as 10 million male direct and indirect combat deaths during the war. This figure which is derived from “several partial sources” is twice the figure officially released on June 22, 1944 by Soviet authorities, and seems far less plausible in the light of subsequent adult male excess deaths estimates. The additional 5.5 million combat deaths appeared to explain the male excess death residual estimated in Eason’s “Soviet Population Today,” but cannot serve this function in light of Table 16.4. See Eason, “Soviet

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19 20 21

22

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26

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Population Today,” p.601. Other early official Soviet combat loss estimates can be found in Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union, p.181. Cf., Boris Urlanis, Voiny i narodonaselenie Evropy: Iyudskie poteri vooruzhennykh sil Evropeiskikh stran v voinakh xvii–xx vv., Moscow, 1960, pp.223–226, and Urlanis, Wars and Population, 1971, p.132. Marshal of the Soviet Union, I.S. Konev announced April 30, 1965 that “the total number of Soviet soldiers and officers who perished in the war, including those who died from wounds or in captivity, was 10 million.” Eason implicitly estimates 2.8 million. The births refer to deviations from interpolated birth rates and are not projections. Mark Tolts later reported in 1995 that the 1939 census population used in Table 2.4 (170,315,000) was 2,758,000 people higher than the true figure (167,557), which in effect shifted killings 1929–38 into the next period. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties. Barbara Anderson and Brian Silver, “Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR,” Slavic Review, 44, 1985, pp.517–536. Anderson and Silver, “Tautologies in the Study of Excess Mortality in the USSR in the 1930s,” Slavic Review, 45(2), pp.307–313. Respondents to a census or other surveys sometimes inaccurately report their or other household members’ age or date of birth. The United Nations recommends using the Whipple Index to correct the suspected problem. Age heaping is culturally sensitive, and has proven to be unreliable for this reason in many instances. See A. J. Jowett and Y. Li, “Age-heaping: Contrasting Patterns From China,” GeoJournal 28 (December 1992), pp.427–442; Barbara Anderson and Brian Silver, “Ethnicity and Mortality in China,” in 1990 Population Census of China: Proceedings of an International Seminar (Beijing: State Statistical Bureau, 1994, pp.752–772, and Anderson and Silver, “Problems in Measuring Ethnic Differences in Mortality in Northern China,” PSC Research Report No.93–277, Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, April 1993. Anderson and Silver, “Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR,” p.523. Ibid., p.529. Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Indusrialization 1929–1949,” Soviet Studies, XXV(2), Table 11, p.400 computes 3,790,000 excess child excess deaths. Estimated births 1927–39 in ibid., Table 3 using the old vital statistics were 70,114,000. Births based on the new vital statistics shown in Rosefielde, “Stalinism in Postcommunist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labor, and Economic Necessity,” Europe–Asia Studies, 48(6), Table 4 are 66,625,000. The difference is 3,489,000 and implies only 301,000 child excess deaths on the assumption that natural mortality rates are broadly similar. The new mortality rates, however, are lower. Adjusting the old child excess death figure upward for this factor yields a new figure of ((1,0358 × 3,790,000) − 3,489,000 =) 436,766. Lorimer estimated that there were 4.8 million adult and 0.7 million child excess deaths. Ellman, “Note on the Number of Famine Victims,” Soviet Studies, 43(20), however, claims higher rates of child mortality, based on Andreev’s, Darskii’s and Khar’kova’s demographic estimates. Stephen Wheatcroft and Robert Davies, “Population,” in R.W. Davies, M. Harrison and S.G. Wheatcroft (eds.), Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union 1913–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 point out that if births were under-registered as contended, excess deaths 1927–36 could reach 12.5 million. Mark Tolts, “The Soviet Censuses of 1937 and 1939: Some Problems of Data Evaluation.” Paper presented at the Conference on Soviet Population in the 1920s and 1930s, Toronto, January 27–29, 1995.


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27 Anderson and Silver, “Demographic Analysis and Population Catastrophes in the USSR,” p.524. 28 See Chapter 2 for the 2.8 million estimate, and an explanation of its upward revision. 29 Steven Rosefielde, “Systemic Disorder and Stalinism: The Economic Foundations and Functions of Terror, Gulag Forced Labor, Mass Homicide and Militarism in Post Communist Perspective,” in Lager, Zwangsarbeit, Vertreibung un Deportation: Dimensionen der Massenvernichtung in der Sowjetunion und Deutschland 1933–1945, Table A9. 30 Rosefielde, “Stalinism in Postcommunist Perspective,” Table 4. 31 Steven Rosefielde, “Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequence of Forced Industrialization 1929–49,” Soviet Studies, XXXV(2), Table 3, p.388. 32 Wheatcroft and Davies, “Population,” pp.76–77. 17 Presumption of Innocence 1 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition, New York: Crossroad, 1989. Gadamer was a well-known exponent of hermeneutic analysis even when some aspects might otherwise be excluded on procedural or methodological grounds. 2 Romano Harre and P.F. Secord, The Explanation of Social Behavior, Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adam, 1973. Romano Harre, Varieties of Realism: A Rationale for the Natural Sciences, New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Roy Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science, Leeds: Leeds Books, 1975. 3 Wassily Leontief was detained several times in his youth by the Cheka. Gerschenkron lived in Russia until 1920. Kuznets was born in Pinsk, and educated in the Ukraine, emigrating to America in 1922. Bergson visited Moscow during the Great Terror as a graduate student. All had a clear understanding of the seamy side of Soviet reality. For example, Gerschenkron wrote: “It is doubtful that a consumption economy can be established in Russia. A decentralized economic system geared to a steady rise in levels of consumption would leave the Soviet dictatorship without a social function without a justification for its existence. It is much more likely that the dictatorship will continue the policy of willfully provoking one international crisis after the other and of maintaining a high rate of investment as the economic pendant to such a policy. Then a renewed curtailment of such managerial freedoms as have been granted since Stalin’s death, followed by a general reversal of the decentralization policy, should be only a matter of time, and enterprise and management in Russia should once more return to the normalcy of Soviet mercantilism, concealed beneath a generous veneer of socialist phraseology.” Alexander Gerschenkron, “Industrial Enterprise in Russia,” in Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp.270–279. 4 Gregory Grossman, “Notes for a Theory of the Command Economy,” Soviet Studies, 15(2), 1963, pp.103–123. 5 Ronald Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica, Vol.4, No.16, November 1937, pp.386–405. Also see Oliver Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications, New York: The Free Press, 1975. David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor, New York: Norton, 1999. Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 6 Paul Samuelson, Bergson’s classmate and lifelong friend is usually credited with founding neoclassical economics. See Samuelson, Foundations of Economic

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Analysis, Harvard University Press: Enlarged Edition 1983 (original publication date, 1947). Samuelson worked closely with Bergson on his pioneering neoclassical formulation of economic welfare theory. David Engerman and Corinna Unger, “Towards a Global History of Modernization,” Diplomatic History, 33(3), 2009, pp.375–385. David Engerman, “Ideology and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917– 1962,” in Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds.), Cambridge History of the Cold War, 2009. Engerman, “The Cold War,” in Abbott Gleason, (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Russian and Soviet History, 2009. Engerman (co-ed.), Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003. Abram Bergson, “Socialist Economics,” in H. Ellis (ed.), A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, 1948, pp.412–448. Bergson, “Socialist Economics,” in Bergson, Essays in Normative Economics, Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1965, pp.234–236. Bergson, “Socialist Calculation: A Further Word,” in Bergson, Essays in Normative Economics, pp.237–242. Bergson, “Market Socialism Revisited,” Journal of Political Economy, 75(4), 1967, pp.655–673. Abram Bergson, “A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Theory,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 52(1), February 1938, pp.310–334. Bergson, The Structure of Soviet Wages: A Study in Socialist Economics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1944. Bergson, Soviet National Income and Product in 1937, 1950. Soviet value statistics have no obvious interpretation because prices were set by the State Price Committee on the basis of embodied labor content, without reference to demand or equilibrium. Goods manufactured with large amounts of labor and capital, given state fixed wages were high nominal value; those using little labor and capital were low nominal value even though these relatives didn’t correspond with utilities. Bergson, however, claimed that average (not marginal) adjusted factor cost prices could be used to measure production potential (physical growth, without concern for consumer utility), if it were assumed that Soviet technologies were Cobb-Douglas. The assertion was correct if factors were optimally allocated, but this could not have been the case, and hence his factor cost adjustment didn’t really save the day. See Steven Rosefielde and R.W. Pfouts, “The Misspecification of Soviet Production Potential,” in Rosefielde (ed.), Efficiency and Russia’s Economic Recovery Potential to the Year 2000 and Beyond, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp.11–32. Rosefielde and Pfouts, “Neoclassical Norms and the Valuation of National Product in the Soviet Union and Its Postcommunist Successor States,” Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol.21, No.3, December 1995, pp.375–389. Abram Bergson, “Neoclassical Norms and the Valuation of National Product in the Soviet Union and Its Post-communist Successor States: Comment,” Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol.21, No.3, December 1995, pp.390–393. Simon Kuznets, L. Epstein and E. Jenks, National Income and its Composition 1919–1938, Princeton: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1941. Bergson, “The Reliability and Usability of Soviet Statistics: A Summary Appraisal,” American Statistician, Vol.7, No.3 (June–July 1953), pp.13–16. Steven Rosefielde, “Tea Leaves and Productivity: Bergsonian Norms for Gauging the Soviet Future, Comparative Economic Studies, 47, 2005, pp.259–273. Rosefielde, “The Riddle of Postwar Russian Economic Growth: Statistics Lied and Were Misconstrued, Europe-Asia Studies, 53(3), 2003, pp.469–481. Bergson acknowledged that Soviet statistics were suspect. “Contrary to a common supposition, the Russians seem generally not to resort to falsification in the sense of free invention and double book-keeping. I have explained that there is falsification of a local sort. I am now concerned primarily with falsification of a


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comprehensive character at the center. This distinction, I fear, is a fine one. Almost all the deficiencies that have been discovered lead to unduly favorable impressions of the Soviet economy. If the Russians do not willfully introduce such deficiencies to create such impressions, they are at least notably tolerant of them” (Bergson, “The Reliability and Usability of Soviet Statistics,” p.15). Published data often weren’t adequately defined, with many series mutually inconsistent. Aggregate consumer good production routinely grew briskly, with no support from underlying micro-component series. Nonetheless, Bergson claimed that there was no evidence that the state statistical agency kept two sets of books, and insisted that planning necessitated accurate statistics. Despite this summary judgment, however, he was always uneasy about the reliability and usability of Soviet data, particularly in the 1980s when the CIA claimed that half Soviet machine building and metalworking growth was distorted by hidden inflation. The agency contended that cunning red directors obtained permission to produce superficially improved products, and new goods at inflated prices, which overstated real value-added. This fraud, called spurious innovation, increased nominal real output, creating the illusion of rapid growth that pleased supervisors, augmented red director production bonuses, both easily accomplished by padding unit factor cost statistics. See Steven Rosefielde, “Paradox of Soviet Economic Success: Systems Destroying Superior GDP Growth,” draft 2008. Friedrich von Hayek, Collectivist Economic Planning, London, 1935; “Socialist Calculation: The Competitive Solution,” Economica, May 1940. Lionel Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, London: Macmillan, 1935. Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, London: J. Cape, 1936. Bergson, Soviet National Income and Product in 1937, New York: Columbia University Press, 1953; Bergson. The Real National Income of Soviet Russia since 1928, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961. Soviet ruble prices were constructed according to Marxist labor-value theory by calculating average unit labor cost (wage bill divided by total unit output) plus variable capital consumed (dead labor) and raw materials. Mark-ups were added (turnover tax and profit) and subsidies subtracted to compute retail prices. Bergson claimed that although non-negotiated unit cost prices couldn’t reflect equilibrium consumer demand, they could capture the factor cost of Soviet production (goods q, and q2) at point E” (Figure 17.1n), which he mis-equated with opportunity costs (tangency of price relatives at E" on a production feasibility frontier), by stripping official ruble prices of turnover tax, profits and subsidies, and adding back a uniform capital service charge. He called this adjusted factor costing. The term “ruble factor cost” was employed when capital services weren’t reestimated. Abram Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964. Also see Bergson, “Socialist Economics,” The New York Review of Books 5(12), 1966, p.20. Peter Wiles, “Rationalizing the Russians,” New York Review of Books, October 28, 5(6), 1965, pp.37–38; Wiles, “Soviet Economics,” New York Review of Books, January 20, 5(12), 1966, pp.30–31. Alexander Gerschenkron, “Russia: Patterns and Problems of Economic Development 1861–1958,” in Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962, pp.119–151. Simon Kuznets, “A Comparative Appraisal,” in Bergson and Kuznets (eds), Economic Trends in the Soviet Union, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp.333–382. David Engerman, “Ideology and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917–1962,” in Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds.), Cambridge History of the Cold War, 2009. Engerman, “The Cold War,” in Abbott Gleason, (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Russian and Soviet History, 2009. Engerman (co-ed.), Staging


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Figure 17.1n Pareto efficiency possibilities. Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003. 16 CIA, Measures of Soviet Gross National Product in 1982 Prices, Washington, DC: Joint Economic Committee of Congress, November 1991. James Noren and Lorie Kurtzweg, “The Soviet Economy Unravels: 1985–1991,” Washington, DC: Joint Economic Committee of Congress, 1993, pp.8–33. Bergson, The Real National Income of Soviet Russia since 1928; Bergson, “National Income,” in Bergson and Simon Kuznets, (co-eds.), Economic Trends in the Soviet Union, 1963, pp.1–37; Bergson, Planning and Productivity under Soviet Socialism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1968; “Comparative National Income in the USSR and the United States,” in J.D. Daly (ed.), International Comparisons of Prices and Output, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol.37, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1972, pp.145–185; Bergson, “Productivity under Two Systems: USSR versus the West,” in Jan Tinbergen, Abram Bergson, Fritz Machlup and Oskar Morgenstern (eds.), Optimal Social Welfare and Productivity: Comparative View, New York: Barnes and Noble, 1972; “Soviet Economic Perspectives: Toward a New Growth Model,” Problems of Communism, Vol.32, No.2 (March–April), 1973 pp.1–10; Bergson, Postwar Economic Development, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1974; Bergson, Productivity and the Social System—The USSR and the West, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978; Bergson, “The Soviet Economic Slowdown,” Challenge Magazine, Vol.20, No.6 (January–February), 1978, pp.22–33; Bergson, “Technological Progress,” in Bergson and Herbert Levine (eds.), The Soviet Economy Toward the Year 2000, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983, pp.34–78; Bergson, Planning and Performance in Socialist Economies London: Unwin & Hyman, 1989; Bergson, “The Communist Efficiency Gap: Alternative Measures,” Comparative Economic Studies, Vol. XXXVI, No.1, Spring, 1994, pp.1–12. 17 Gerschenkron, “The Soviet Indices of Industrial Production,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 34, pp.217–226. Richard Moorsteen provided a plausible explanation of the Gerschenkron index number relativity effect, but doubt has been cast upon it by the phenomenon’s disappearance in the post-Soviet era. See Richard Moorsteen, “On Measuring Productive Potential and Relative

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Efficiency,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. LXXV, No.3, August 1961, pp.451–467. Soviet GNP growth 1928–37 computed by Bergson at ruble factor cost was 10.6 percent per annum using a Laspeyres index (1928 prices), and 5.4 percent with a Paasche index (1937 prices). The official NMP rate, by comparison, for the same period was 23.4 percent per annum. Cf. Robert Allen, “A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution,” Comparative Economic Studies, 47, 2005, pp.315–332. David Engerman and Corinna Unger, “Towards a Global History of Modernization,” Diplomatic History, 33(3), 2009, pp.375–385. Warren Nutter, Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union, Princeton NJ: NBER, 1962. Abram Bergson, “The Great Economic Race,” Challenge Magazine, Vol.11, No.6 (March 1963), pp.4–6. Martin Weitzman, “Soviet Postwar Economic Growth and Capital-Labor Substitution,” American Economic Review, 60(4) 1970, pp.676–692. Abram Bergson, “National Income,” 1963; Bergson, “Notes on the Production Function in Soviet Post-war Industrial Growth,” Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol.3, No.2 (June), 1979, pp.116–126. “. . . I should at least express my opinion that, in view of the experience with socialism to date, the critics of this system have turned out to be nearer the mark than its proponents. At any rate, if we may judge from the experience of the USSR, there are reasons to doubt that socialism is especially efficient economically” (Bergson, “Socialist Calculation: A Further Word,” in Essays in Normative Economics, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966, pp.237–238). Also, “Lately, however, growth has slowed, and even rapid growth could be especially indicative of economic efficiency only if that desideratum is seen in a novel way, with material alternatives valued in terms of planners’ preferences.” With valuation in terms of the more conventional standard of “consumers’ preferences,” the rapid growth arguably must in some degree indicate economic waste. It must do so precisely to the degree that, in respect of the volume of savings, consumers’ preferences are violated. Moreover, even in terms of such planners’ preferences, economic efficiency must turn not simply on the rate of growth but on how near this rate is to what it might have been, and beyond this, on the effectiveness of resource use generally. Even to the casual observer, it must be evident that socialism in the USSR must often leave something to be desired from this standpoint, and more systematic inquiry seems only to confirm this impression. Even in the form that has lately become familiar where reference is to the output of labor and capital together, factor productivity is not the same thing as economic efficiency, but if it is at all indicative of the latter, economic waste in the USSR probably much exceeds any recent experience in the United States. Factor productivity in the USSR has been calculated to be far below that in the USA (Bergson, “Socialist Calculation: A Further Word,” 1966, p.238). Abel Aganbegyan, The Economic Challenge of Perestroika, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988. Steven Rosefielde, “The Riddle of Postwar Russian Economic Growth: Statistics Lied and Were Misconstrued,” Europe-Asia Studies, 53(3), 2003, pp.469–481. Rosefielde, “Postwar Russian Economic Growth: Not a Riddle—A Reply. Europe-Asia Studies, May 56(3), 2004, pp.463–466. Abram Bergson, “The USSR Before the Fall: How Poor and Why?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, No.5, Fall, 1991, pp.29–44. Egon Neuberger, “Libermanism, Computopia and Visible Hand: The Question of Informational Efficiency,” American Economic Review, 56, 1966, pp.131–144. Edward Ames, Soviet Economic Processes, Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1965. Published estimates of the number of products in the Soviet nomenclature vary between 25 and 30 million. Vladimir Popov informed the author that 25 million is the correct figure, and this number is accepted here. Also see Vladimir Popov and

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Nikolai Shmelev, The Turning Point: Revitalizing the Soviet Economy, New York: Doubleday, 1989. Cf. Rosefielde, Russian Economy: From Lenin to Putin, New York: Wiley, 2007. Steven Rosefielde, Knox Lovell, V.I. Danilin and Ivan S. Materov, “Measuring and Improving Enterprise Efficiency in the Soviet Union,” Economica, Vol.52, No.206, May 1985, pp.225–234. Steven Rosefielde, Soviet International Trade in Hecksher-Ohlin Perspective, Lexington, MA: Heath-Lexington, 1973. Martin Weitzman, “Prices versus Quantities,” Review of Economic Studies, 41, 1974, pp.477–491. Robert Dorfman, Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow, Linear Programming and Economic Analysis, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958. Leonid Kantorovich, The Best Use of Resources, New York: Macmillan, 1968, and Tjalling Koopmans and Michael Montias, “On the Description and Comparison of Economic Systems,” in A Eckstein (ed.), Comparison of Economic Systems, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971. Rosefielde and Pfouts, “The Misspecification of Soviet Production Potential.” Rosefielde and Pfouts, “Neoclassical Norms and the Valuation of National Product in the Soviet Union and Its Postcommunist Successor States.” See Clifford Gaddy and Barry Ickes, “Russia’s Virtual Economy,” Foreign Affairs, 77(5), 1998, pp.52–67. Gaddy and Ickes, Russia’s Virtual Economy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002. Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund, Russia Since 1980: Wrestling with Westernization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Alexander Erlich, The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924–1928, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1960. Maurice Dobb, Soviet Economic Development Since 1917, New York: International Publishers, 1949. Alec Nove, The Soviet Economic System, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1977. R.W. Davies, Mark Harrison and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Material balances were a rudimentary Soviet planning technique akin to input-output programming, where a list of materials (factors, raw materials, intermediate inputs) was compiled on a sector by sector basis, and then allocated to alternative uses in a manner which tried to assure that estimated intermediate inputs were actually produced. The technique is derived from War Communist requisitioning and rationing, and provided a formal method for developing alternative production programs. Max Weber (1864–1920) was the apostle of rational bureaucratic administration which replaced charismatic domination and traditional domination with efficiency protocols stressing duty, function and appropriate action within the parameters of an integrated supervisory hierarchy. Officials in this scheme are accountable for the use of resources at their disposal, and must not use their office to further their private business interests. Official business is carried out on a professional basis with documents, instructions and regulations. Administrators serve as staff to rulers, implementing instructions rather than participating in policymaking. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) was an American mechanical engineer associated with the Efficiency Movement, mass production and later Technocracy, who analyzed and synthesized workflow processes aimed at improving labor productivity. He pioneered time-in-motion studies, matching skills with assignments, and designing piecework labor incentives to bolster worker motivation. Like Weber, he sought to replace traditional practices with scientific, rational assessment. Stakhanovism was an effort mobilization movement started by the heroic norm-breaking example of Aleksei Stakhanov in 1935, applauded by Stalin.

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Stakhanovites were portrayed as shock pacesetters who roused ordinary workers to actualize their full potential. 33 Otdel agitatsii i propagandy (Department of Agitation and Propaganda later renamed the Ideological Department). “Agitprop” is a contraction of “agitation” and “propaganda,” and a shortened form of otdel agitatsii i propagandy, under the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Its function was to disseminate communist ideas and indoctrinate. 34 Cf. Mark Harrison, “The Fundamental Problem of Command: Plan and Compliance in a Partially Centralize Economy,” Comparative Economic Studies, 47, 2005, pp.296–314. 18 Justifiable Homicide 1 Paul Gregory, Terror by Quota: State Security from Lenin to Stalin (An Archival Study), New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009, pp.106–139. Many commonly voiced justifications for Stalin’s crimes are too vague to be admissible in the International Criminal Court. Killing strawmen labeled enemies of the people by quota without evidence of specific crimes (“former persons,” independent thinkers, kulaks, marginals, family members, Bukharinites, Trotskyites, etc.) falls under this broad heading because, while historians may be interested in ideological motives, judges would consider generic villainy of amorphous groupings an inadmissible defense, without evidence of each individual’s criminal intent. Purple prose about class struggle 1928–53 isn’t any more exculpatory than Hitler’s claims for the necessity of racial extermination, even though many Bolsheviks may have believed in bogeymen. Arguments alleging that killings weren’t felonious because perpetrators did not know, and could not have been reasonably expected to know, that their actions might have lethal consequences have been dealt with in earlier chapters and won’t be re-examined. Stalin clearly knew that collectivization, Gulag forced labor, the Great Terror and ethnic cleansing killed millions of innocents. The only debatable issue is whether he understood the plight of Ukrainian and Russian peasants in 1932–33, and here Ellman’s evidence of his guilt seems compelling. 2 Paul Gregory, “The Soviet Agricultural Surplus: A Retrospective”, (unpublished draft, Fall 2008). 3 Alexander Gerschenkron, “Russia: Patterns and Problems of Economic Development 1861–1958,” in Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962, pp.119–151. 4 Robert Allen, “A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution,” Comparative Economic Studies, 47, 2005, pp.315–332. Cf. Michael Ellman, “Soviet Industrialization: A Remarkable Success?” Slavic Review 63(4), Winter 2004, pp.641–649. Steven Rosefielde, “The First ‘Great Leap Forward’ Reconsidered: Lessons of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago,” Slavic Review, 39(4), December 1980, Table 1, p.563. Rosefielde, The Russian Economy: From Lenin to Putin, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007, Table 4.1, p.48. Rosefielde, “Excess Deaths and Industrialization: A Realist Theory of Stalinist Economic Development in the Thirties,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 23, July 1988, pp.277–289. 5 Steven Rosefielde, “The First ‘Great Leap Forward,’ ” Table 4, columns 4 and 5, p.582. 6 Forced collectivization and rapid industrialization were adopted at the November 1929 Central Committee Plenum, and initiated shortly thereafter with Stalin’s January 5, 1930 ukaz, to “liquidate the kulak as a class.” (Gregory, “The Soviet Agricultural Surplus”). Their actions were central to Stalin’s “Great Break” (veliki perelom). Stalin often spoke of tribute, using it as a synonym for agrarian transfer. 7 James Millar, “Soviet Rapid Growth and the Agricultural Surplus Hypothesis,”

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Soviet Studies, 22(1), July 1970, pp.77–93; Millar, “A Note on Primitive Accumulation in Marx and Preobrazhensky,” Soviet Studies, 20(3), July 1978, pp.384–393; Millar, “Mass Collectivization and the Contribution of Soviet Agriculture to the First Five-Year Plan,” Slavic Review, 33(4), December 1974, pp.750–766. Robert Allen, Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. A.A. Barsov, Balans stoimostnykh obmenov mezhdu gorodom i dereveni, Moscow, 1969. Holland Hunter and Janusz Szyrmer, Faulty Foundations: Soviet Economic Policies, 1928–40, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Millar, “Soviet Rapid Growth and the Agricultural Surplus Hypothesis;” Millar, “A Note on Primitive Accumulation in Marx and Preobrazhensky;” Millar, “Mass Collectivization and the Contribution of Soviet Agriculture to the First Five-Year Plan.” Alec Nove, “The Agricultural Surplus Hypothesis: A Comment on James Millar’s Article,” Soviet Studies, 22(3), January 1971, pp.394–401; Nove, Was Stalin Really Necessary?, London: Routledge, 1964. Paul Gregory, “The Soviet Agricultural Surplus: A Retrospective.” R.W. Davies and Stephen Wheatcroft, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–1933, Houndmills: Palgrave, 2004. Michael Ellman, “Did Agriculture Provide the Resources for the Increase in Investment in the USSR During the First Five Year Plan?”, The Economic Journal, vol.85, no.340 (December 1975), pp.844–863. Paul Gregory, The Political Economy of Stalinism, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Paul Gregory and M. Mokhatari, “Grain Collections and Collectivization,” Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 30, 1992. Mark Harrison, “The Peasantry and Industrialization,” in R.W. Davies (ed.), From Tsarism to the New Economic Policy, Houndsmills: Macmillan, pp.109–117; Harrison, “Prices in the Politburo, 1927: Market Equilibrium versus the Use of Force,” in Paul Gregory and Norman Naimark (eds.), The Lost Transcripts of the Politburo, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Evgeny Preobrazhensky, The New Economics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964. Arvyn Vyas, “Primary Accumulation in the USSR Revisited,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol.3, no.2, 1979, pp.119–130. Gregory, “The Soviet Agricultural Surplus.” Ibid. Alec Nove, “Was Stalin Really Necessary?” A. A. Barsov, Balans stoimostnykh obmenov mezhdu gorodom i dereveni. Michael Ellman, “Did Agriculture Provide the Resources for the Increase in Investment in the USSR During the First Five Year Plan?” Abram Bergson, The Real National Income of the Soviet Union Since 1928, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961. Cf. Lennart Sameulson, Plans for Stalin’s War Machine: Tukhachevskii and Military-Economic Planning, 1925–41, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000. Gregory, Terror by Quota.

19 Beyond Good and Evil 1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Jenseits von Gut und Bose: Vorspiel einer Philosphie der Zukunft)), New York: Random House, 1966. Nietzsche’s classic treatise, first published in 1886, provides philosophical grounds for disputing the International Court of Justice’s authority. He contends that traditional western values are contaminated by an old philosophic tradition of “self-consciousness,” “knowledge,” “truth” and “free will,” which underlie Roman law, and that free thinkers should replace them with imagination, self-assertion, danger, originality and the “creation of values.” Although, he doesn’t appreciate it, ideas of this sort have always been part of western “shadow culture,” subliminal norms used to guide and justify behavior

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when conventional morality is too restrictive, or people are compelled to cope with forces of nature outside the possibility of human control. David Hoffmann, “The Conceptual Origins of Stalinist State Violence: Social Categorization and Social Excision,” Paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Soviet Studies conference, Philadelphia, November 20–23, 2008. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, No.208. Nineteenth century romantics erroneously believed that they could transcend paradox and mystery by some bold gesture that freed them from mundane entanglements, including culpability for mass murder. The last man (der letzte Mensch) was conceived by Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra as the antithesis of the Übermensch. He is weak-willed, risk-averse, world-weary and hedonistic; the effete byproduct of socialism, democracy and egalitarianism. Also see Alec Nove, Was Stalin Really Necessary?, London: Routledge, 1964. Also J.V. Stalin: The Discussion with Sergei Eisenstein on the Film Ivan the Terrible, http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n21ivant.htm. Paul Gregory, “Was Stalin Really Necessary?”, Paper presented to the International Conference on Stalinism, Moscow, December 5, 2008. Rudiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, New York: W.W. Norton, 2002. The root problem, as understood at least since Plato, is deep ontological and epistemological paradoxes which preclude the identification of a demonstrably supreme moral system. This leaves contemporaries with three basic options: 1) view all behavior as equally virtuous and vicious; 2) accept established international ethics as a second best, subject to higher claims of individual conscience, 3) construct a counter-second best using Nietzschean or other iconoclastic principles. For a discussion of conflicts between international law and personal conscience, see Abram Bergson, “Social Choice Under Representative Government,” Journal of Public Economics, 6(3), 1976, pp.171–190. Cf. Bergson, “A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 52(1), pp.210–234, and Bergson, “The Concept of Social Welfare,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 68(2), pp.233–253. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, Why I write Such Good Books, 1. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Problem, Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Barrington Moore, Terror and Progress in the USSR, New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Robert Paul Wolff, Herbert Marcuse and Barrington Moore, Critique of Pure Tolerance, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965 (especially Marcause’s Repressive Tolerance). These authors don’t grasp the dimensions of the Red Holocaust, but take positions that justify terrorist violence for lofty causes. Ernst Becker, The Structure of Evil: An Essay on the Unification of the Science of Man, New York: George Braziller, 1968, p.369. Erich Fromn, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973, especially “Joseph Stalin: A Clinical Case of Nonsexual Sadism,” pp.285–288, and “Hitler’s Destructiveness,” pp.396–403.

20 Clemency and Retribution 1 Retribution in legal theory is considered a form of justice where punishments are proportionate to crimes: an eye for an eye. Immanuel Kant claimed that “Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but instead it must in all cases be imposed on him only on the ground that he has committed a crime.” If the guilty are not

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punished appropriately, justice is not done. Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Justice. See Jacqueline Martin, The English Legal System, London: Hodder Arnold, 2005. Victims’ rights advocates therefore would demand the death penalty, or where this is proscribed, harsher punishments than average. They may also demand compensation for material losses, and pain and suffering associated with wrongful killings. Retribution is central to modern jurisprudence, but is opposed by those who believe that two wrongs don’t make one right, and parallel theories that pay attention to issues of deterrence, reform and social benefit. J.V. Stalin: The Discussion with Sergei Eisenstein on the Film Ivan the Terrible. http://222.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/ivant.htm: Stalin: “Ivan the Terrible was extremely cruel. It is possible to show why he had to be cruel. One of the mistakes of Ivan the Terrible was that he did not completely finish off the five big feudal families. If he had destroyed these five families then there would not have been a Time of Troubles. If Ivan the Terrible executed someone then he repented and prayed for a long time. God disturbed him on these matters . . . It was necessary to be decisive.” Mao Tse-tung wrote, “He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive . . . You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold.” Mao Zedon sixiang wan sui! (1969), p.105. Reference in Kenneth Liberthal, Governing China (2004). Alec Nove, Was Stalin Really Necessary?, London: Routledge, 1964. Paul Gregory, “Was Stalin Really Necessary?” paper presented to the International Conference on Stalinism, Moscow, December 5, 2008. Robert Gellately, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe, New York: Alfred Knopf, 2007. Ger Pieter van den Berg, The Soviet System of Justice: Figures and Policy, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985. Steven Barnes, “All for the Front, All for Victory! The Mobilization of Forced Labor in the Soviet Union During World War Two,” International Labor and Working-Class History, No.58, Fall 2000. Richard Redding, “Mental Disorders and the Law,” http://papers.ssrn.com/so13/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=789766. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/sadism_and_masochosadism_as_medical_terms. The American Psychiatric Association rendered this opinion in 1994. Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973, p.285. Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, p.286. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story, London: Jonathan Cape, 2005, p.41. Jean-Louis Margolin, “Cambodia: The Country of Disconcerting Crimes,” in The Black Book of Communism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999, p.586. Peter Maguire, Facing Death in Cambodia, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, pp.99–100. “One of the S-21 interrogators recorded this account of his ‘questioning’ of a returnee: ‘I questioned this bitch who came back from France; my activity was that I set fire to her ass until it became a burnt-out mess and then beat her to the point where she was so turned around that I couldn’t get anything out of her; the enemy then croaked, ending her answers.’ The French Khmer women seemed to be singled out for acts of sexual sadism. Another interrogator wrote: ‘Separately, I had interrogated the woman returned from France by burning deeply into her vagina until she died without giving any answer.’ Another administered similar treatment: ‘I tortured two women who came from France until they were undressed. In the same way I burned their vaginas.’ ” DSM-IT-TR: Sexual Sadism, Diagnostic Criteria for 302.84, Sexual Sadism, “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” American Psychiatric Association, 2000.

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Voluntary sadomasochism since 1994 is no longer listed by the American Psychiatric Association as “abnormal.” Kim Jong Il’s regime has been accused of similar atrocities including trampling babies born in Gulag to death and lethally gassing inmates. See Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, The Perseus Press, 2000. David Hwak, The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps, Washington, DC: US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2001. Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment. Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, 1917–21, London: Oxford University Press, 1970; Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–31, Urbana: Indiana University Press, 1978; Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921–1932, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979; The Russian Revolution, London: Oxford University Press, 1982; The Cultural Front. Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992; Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; Fitzpatrick (ed.), Stalinism: New Directions, London: Routledge, 2000. Murray Feshbach and Alfred Friendly, Jr., Ecocide in the USSR: Health and Nature Under Siege, New York: Basic Books, 1992. Stephen Wheatcroft, “From Team-Stalin to Degenerate Tyranny,” in A.E. Rees (ed.), The Nature of Stalin’s Dictatorship: The Politburo 1928–53, London: Palgrave, 2003; “Agency and Terror: Evdokimov and Mass Killing in Stalin’s Great Terror,” Australian Journal of Politics and History, 53(1), 2007, pp.20–43. J. Arch Getty, Yezhov: The Rise of Stalin’s “Iron Fist,” New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008; The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932–1939, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999; Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933–1938, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Getty and Robert Manning (eds.), Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Wendy Goldman, Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Repression, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. For example, capital punishment may be prohibited. Maguire, Facing Death in Cambodia. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao, p.456, 556. Paul Hollander, From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006. Nicolas Werth and Steven Rendall, Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag (Human Rights and Crimes Against Humanity), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Hiroaki Kuromiya, The Voices of the Dead: Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust, New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1987.

21 Genocide and Lethal Labor Exploitation 1 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1958. Karl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinki, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, 1967. Abbott Gleason, Totalitarianism: The Inner History of the Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War, 1944. Leonard Shapiro, Totalitarianism, London: The Pall Mall Press, 1972. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, Latin America and PostCommunist Europe, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. 2 The Eighth Commandment is Thou Shall Not Steal. Hitler confiscated (stole) Jewish properties, and the property of other racial minorities and opponents.


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3 Edward Behr, Hirohito: Behind the Myth, New York: Villard, 1989. Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, New York: HarperCollins, 2000. 4 Ken Ishida, “Racisms Compared: Fascist Italy and Ultra-Nationalist Japan,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 7(3) 2002, pp.380–391. Hirohito’s Japan used racism to proclaim Japanese racial superiority, to justify its imperial conquests in China (helping inferior Chinese survive; providing Japanese with living space), protection of colored races from white supremacists (the rest of Asia and Ethiopia), and a device for mobilizing support for the emperor without attacking private ownership and capitalism, or embracing communist goals. 5 Stephen Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–15,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.48, No.8, 1996, pp.1319–1353. Wheatcroft describes the totalitarian school as intentionalist, meaning that ideology determined the murderous outcome. He himself favors a more flexible historical approach that allows for holocaustic and less lethal authoritarian types. See p.1330. 6 Not all holocausts associated with the turmoil initiated by the industrial revolution, Enlightenment and World War I can be ascribed to totalitarianism. According to a long-hidden document that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from the official population records 1915 through 1916. See Murat Bardakci, The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha. Sabrina Tavernise, “Nearly a million Armenians, veiled by amnesia,” International Herald Tribune, March 10, 2009. The Turkish history society has condemned Bardakci’s scholarship, claiming that it was irresponsible to infer that missing persons were killed. 7 Tojo was appointed commander of the Imperial Japanese Army 24th Brigade August 1934, and became commander of the Kempeitai of the Kwangtung Army in Manchuria. He was promoted to Chief of Staff of the Kwangtung Army in 1936 responsible for Japanese penetration into Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. After the Marco Polo Bridge incident (near Beijing, 7–9 July 1937), starting the Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937–September 9, 1945), Tojo ordered his forces to move against Hopei (northern China). He served as Prime Minister (October 18, 1941–July 22, 1944), involved both in the process leading to Pacific War and its prosecution. After Japan was defeated, Tojo was tried and found guilty of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. These included 54 counts of ordering, authorizing and permitting inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others. He apologized for the atrocities by the Japanese military. Tojo is often considered responsible for authorizing the murder of millions of civilians in China, the Philippines, Indochina and other Pacific island nations, as well as tens of thousands of Allied POWs. He is also implicated in government-sanctioned experiments on POWs and Chinese civilians (crimes against humanity). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Tojo. John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945, New York: Random House. Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Harper Collins, 2001. 8 Ishida, “Racisms Compared: Fascist Italy and Ultra-nationalist Japan.” Ishida contends that, while Japanese ultra-nationalists during the 1930s harbored racial animosities against the Chinese, and whites, and proclaimed the Japanese race supreme, these attitudes concealed ambivalences and supported Japan’s international ambitions. Ultra-nationalists, while resentful of Hitler’s aryan supremacism, nonetheless saw racism as a convenient tool for asserting Japanese demands for living space, hegemony over Asia and protector of colored races abused by whites. Ultra-nationalists asserted what amounted to the “Japanese burden” to save lesser humanity from itself and the white peril, providing a pretext for imperial expansion. Ishida believes, moreover, that ultimately ultra-nationalists fell

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victim to their own rhetoric, becoming excessively cruel, as in the case of the Nanjing massacre. However, ultra-nationalists never contemplated exterminating inferior races. Ishida, “Racisms Compared: Fascist Italy and Ultra-nationalist Japan.” Mussolini adopted anti-Semitc legislation in 1938 to show solidarity with Nazi Germany, but dragged his heels in deporting Italian Jews to Nazi death camps. Even though the Jewish Expulsion Law of 1492 was still in effect, Franco tacitly provided a safe haven for European Jews fleeing the Nazis. “The Sephardi Perspective: The Irony of Spain’s Holocaust Record,” Jerusalem Post, April 28, 2008. Ruddy Rummel, China’s Bloody Century, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publisher, 1991, Table 6.1. Rummel put Japanese mass murder in China at 3.9 million. The figure refers mostly to non-combatant civilian deaths 1937–45. He estimates another 10.2 million combat fatalities during the same period. Some contemporary Japanese argue that many of the deaths Rummel ascribes to mass murder were combat deaths inflicted on guerrilla forces, including some of those killed in Nanjing. Nationalists are blamed for some scorched earth famine deaths. The Japanese military used millions of civilians and prisoners of war as forced labor on projects like the Burma Railway. According to a joint study by historians including Zhifen Ju, Mitsyoshi Himeta, Toru Kubo and Mark Peattie, more than 10 million Chinese civilians were mobilized by the Koa-in (East Asia Development Board) for forced labor. Zhifen Ju, “Japan’s Atrocities of Conscripting and Abusing North China Draftees after the Outbreak of the Pacific War,” Joint study of the Sino-Japanese war, 2002, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/ sino-japanese/minutes_2002.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Japan. According to the Japanese military’s own record, nearly 25 percent of 140,000 Allied POWs died while interned in Japanese prison camps where they were forced to work. More than 100,000 civilians and POWs died in the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway. The US Library of Congress estimates that, in Java, between 4 and 10 million romusha were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in Southeast Asia. Only 52,000 were repatriated to Java, meaning that there was a death rate of 80 percent. Approximately 5,400,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labor from 1939 to 1945. About 670,000 of them were taken to Japan, where 60,000 died between 1939 and 1945 due mostly to exhaustion or poor working conditions. The total deaths of Korean forced laborers in Korea and Manchuria for those years is estimated to be 270,000 and 810,000. Rudy Rummel, Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1990, Charlottesville, VA: Transaction, 1997. As many as 200,000 comfort women, mostly from Korea and China, and some other countries, such as the Philippines, Taiwan, Burma, Dutch East Indies, Netherlands and Australia, were forced into sexual slavery during World War II. Ishida, “Racisms Compared: Fascist Italy and Ultra-nationalist Japan.” There may well have been an unstated racist dimension to this atrocity. Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, New York: Basic Books, 1997. Emperor Mutsuhito (posthumously Emperor Meiji) reigned for the period 1868–1912. The Meiji state enacted three major legislations in its incipiency. The constitution (proclaimed in 1889), the imperial re-script to students also in 1889, and the imperial re-script proffered earlier to the army and navy in 1882. The education re-script was intended to indoctrinate the students with Confucian and statist virtues so that, when the chips were down, the government authorities could make them willingly enlist in the military and readily sacrifice their lives to uphold the everlasting fortune of the Imperial Family. The purpose of the military re-script was to remind the armed services that


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the emperor was their commander in chief, demand from them the absolute obedience and devotion to him, and emphasize that loyalty, courtesy, bravery, faithfulness, and frugality ought to be their attributes. The Meiji Constitution and its modus operandi had several flaws. Most notably, article 11 of the constitution stated that the emperor commanded the army and navy. Since the emperor had no expertise on military matters, the military officers had to act as his surrogate. The prime minister, the diet (a bicameral body consisting of the House of Commons and the House of Peers) could not control the military operation, because the constitution article 11 stated that the emperor’s right to command was independent of the executive and legislative branches of the government. They could influence only through the military budget, since it was drafted by the cabinet and submitted to the diet for a vote. Should the diet reject the military budget, however, the armed services claimed that this would infringe the emperor’s right of command and thus constitute committing a lèse-majesty. Later in 1936, when Hirota Koki was the prime minister, the government enacted a law that the Ministers of Army and Navy ought to be officers of active duty. This legislation gave the armed services a veto to the appointment of the prime minister, and accelerated the shift to militarism. There were instances in the 1930s, in which the army refused to recommend an officer to the post of the Minister of Army, and thus a prime minister designate gave up forming a cabinet. The original constitution did not grant the voting right to all citizens. The election law of House of Commons limited the right to men above 25 years old who paid tax of more than 15 yen annually. The newly formed political parties fought hard throughout Meiji and Taisho eras for general suffrage. A law in 1925 extended suffrage to all men above 20 years old regardless of their income and wealth. Women achieved their suffrage as late as 1945. Members of the House of Peers were aristocrats (prince, marquis, count, viscount, and baron), former bureaucrats and professors of Imperial Universities. They were either appointed by the government or elected by their peers. Together with the Privy Council, they formed a bulwark of conservatism. Business enterprises in sectors like banking, cotton spinning and coal mining formed cartels, trusts and syndicates. They grouped across the sectors. Those horizontally integrated conglomerates such as Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, etc.were called zaibatsu. They tied up with the political parties through donations and privileges. They were sources of corruption and the targets of hatred and assault. The heads of those zaibatsu families were made barons through donations. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries an increasing number of peasants sold their land and entered into tenancy agreements. As a result absentee land ownership grew in number and acreage. The business boom during the First World War turned to a bust when the war ended in 1918. The price of rice rose sharply in 1918. In protest the housewives in Toyama Prefecture and other regions started a riot, and it spread to all over the country. The severe earthquake that hit Tokyo and Yokohama areas in 1923 further aggravated the plight. The bankruptcy of Taiwan Bank, Watanabe Bank and other banks led the government to announce a moratorium in 1926. The financial crisis thus started two years earlier in Japan than in the United States. For the first time in the modern period, university graduates found no jobs. Not only did the heavily indebted peasants sell their land, they also sold their daughters to brothels, migrated to the cities and the newly acquired overseas colonies. The yen exchange rate was fixed for a long time. In 1930 the Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke decided to float the exchange rate. The overvalued yen plummeted, there was a flight of Japan’s gold reserve, and the balance of payment turned to a deficit. Inoue had to back


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Notes down and rescinded his previous decision to make the yen exportable. It was in this background that the grass-root right wingers and military officers gained ground and started to take direct action. The reductions of the armed service personnel and the size of fleet negotiated and agreed on in the London Treaty (1930) and Washington Treaty (1921) also outraged the military officers. The former Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke and the chairman of Mitsui Conglomerate Baron Dan Takuma were assassinated. A group called Ketsumei-dan (the membership was pledged with signatory written by one’s own blood) claimed responsibility. This group was headed by a Nichiren-sect Buddhist priest Inoue Nissho who called for one man one kill, and destruction the great mercy. On Sunday May 15 two navy officers, sub-lieutenants Mikami Takashi and Koga Seishi, stormed the Prime Minister’s residence and asked the Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi for an interview. Counter to his staff’s advice not to grant an interview, Inukai invited them to his study to talk. Fearful of the Prime Minister’s debating skills and the eloquence, the officers retorted, shouting “No Q&A necessary.” They drew pistols and shot him. Japan’s Kwantung Army mined a railway near Shenyang on September 18, 1931 and quickly occupied the major parts of China’s three northeastern provinces. It brought the last Ching Emperor, Pu-yi, from seclusion in Beijing and let him mount throne of Manchukuo in the following year. This Manchuria Incident, together with May Fifteenth Incident in 1932, were milestones of Japan’s shift from Taisho Democracy to Showa militarism (the Taisho Era ended and Showa Era started in 1926; thus the change in era and the change in system do not exactly coincide.) A skirmish near Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing’s suburbs on July 7, 1936 brought war to the south of Great Wall. How the war expanded from there is now history. Concerning the barbarity of Japanese soldiers, I went through the Yomiuri daily reportage in 1894 and 1895 when China (Ching dynasty) and Japan waged a major war. I saw only one case where Japanese soldiers and laborers were court-martialed on the charge that they killed and injured the Korean villagers who obstructed their work. A much more serious abuse was the killing of Queen Bin of Korea in 1895. As a result of three country intervention (Russia, France and Germany) after Sino-Japanese War, the Russian influence was on the rise. Queen Bin was a key to the Pro-Russian group in the Royal Court. Japanese Ambassador Miura Goro wanted to counteract. He led several Japanese army officers and civilians, killed her, and burned the corpse. Russian and British advisors in the court witnessed it. Miura and assassins were brought to a court-martial in Japan, but were released on the ground of insufficient evidence. No question, it was a sham trial. To my knowledge, however, nobody in Japan and outside raised a voice against it. In the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 Japan joined the eight countries of Europe and the United States, and sent its troops. No atrocities were reported. On the contrary, disciplined Japanese behaviors were praised. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) the US and European armies sent the observers to the battle grounds. They did not express critical views on the troops’ conduct. Japan’s action during WWI was limited to the army’s assault to Chintao in Shangdon Peninsula and the naval operation in Pacific and Mediterranean. I had a family friend who was a retired Army Colonel. He directed a German prisoners’ camp and fondly recalled his rapport with the captives. Then the question arises why the officers and soldiers in WWII were so atrocious. I think that the main reason is their education.

Email, May 2008. Yasushi Toda, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Florida.


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14 Many Japanese civilians might have considered this reasonable. See Richard Frank, Downfall: The End of Imperial Japanese Empire, New York: Random House, 1999; and Frank, “Ending the Pacific War: Harry Truman’s Decision to Drop the Bomb,” Foreign Policy Research Institute Newsletter, Vol.14, No.4, May 2009. 15 According to Michael Ellman and Sergei Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, 46(4), 1994, pp.675, 1.2 million military who died in German captivity. Cf. Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” p.1327. “And it arguably applies to the deaths in the ghettos and the POW camps for Soviet prisoners (3.5–4 million).” 16 M. Broszat (1965), in H. Krausnick and M. Broszat, Anatomy of the SS State (1970), reports concentration camp populations 1933-1940 much lower than Kogon’s figures displayed in Table 21.1. Other things equal, Brozat’s numbers suggest roughly 150,000 lethal excess deaths in Third Reich concentration camps 1933–40. See Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Table 1, p.1324. 17 Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Table 4, p.1336. 18 Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” p.1348. “Stalin by contrast can be charged with causing the purposive death of something in the order of a million people.” 19 Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” Table 1. The figures are taken from E. Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell, New York: Berkeley, 1981, pp.253–254. In German as Der SS Stadt (1946). Wheatcroft provides other more recent statistics on this matter, but accepts Kogon’s numbers as being the right order of magnitude. Kogon’s Auschwitz figures are too high, but he excludes the Einsatzgruppen and death march, 1945 data. Wheatcroft believes that these errors and omissions are offsetting. 20 Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” p.1348. 21 Wheatcroft, “The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45,” p.1348, and note 74, p.1353. 22 See text reference to Stalin probably killing more than people than Hitler (7.1 million) inclusive of excess famine deaths. 23 Ellman and Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War,” Table 3, p.676. The underlying sources are A.A. Shevyakov, “Gitlerovskii genotsid na territoriyakh SSSR,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 12, 1991; Shevyakov, “Zhertvy sredi mirnogo naseleniya v gody otechestvennoi voiny,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 11, 1992. The discrepancy here is a revealing example of how the Soviets have ascribed excess deaths that occurred 1945–53 to WWII. Clearly, Nazi records don’t support the Soviet claim that 6.4 or 11.3 million civilian MIAs were shot by the Germans. 24 My position here is based on his wartime actions. He rounded up Jews outside of Germany for complete extermination, but did not apply this policy to civilian Slavs as a group in eastern Europe or Russia. I infer from this that Hitler would have placed “inferior” racial groups in servile positions after he was victorious, but would not have exterminated them to extinction. 25 The Hutu-led government of Rwanda instigated the mass ethnic murder of between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsi within a hundred days after the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, April 1994. His plane was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali. The assailants were never identified, but the incident sparked genocide, often perpetrated by village neighbors. The Hutus, who comprised 84 percent of the population, slaughtered an estimated two-thirds of the


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Tutsi population, surpassing Ha Shoah and Holodomor on a percentage basis. The Rwandan holocaust wasn’t a war crime because it occurred during peacetime. It was ethnic, rather than racial in nature, like the Armenian holocaust. The United Nations established an International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The Arusha tribunal thus far has convicted 20 people. See Christina Fisanick, Rwanda Genocide, The Greenhaven Press, 2004. 26 Michael Ellman, “The 1947 Soviet Famine and the Entitlement Approach to Famines,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 224(5), September 2000, pp.603–630. Ellman, “Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33 Revisited, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.59, No.4, pp.663–693. Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Martin Ravallion, “Famines and Economics,” Journal of Economic Literature, 35(3), 1997, pp.1205–1242. 22 Prospects 1 Few died during the USSR’s break-up or the assault on the White House in 1993. But 3.4 million perished from economic hardships 1990–98, a figure approximately a third the death toll wrought by Stalin’s collectivization, terror-starvation, terror-executions, lethal forced labor and ethnic cleansing 1930–38. Steven Rosefielde, “Premature Deaths: Russia’s Radical Economic Transition in Soviet Perspective,” Europe-Asia Studies, 53, no.8 (2001): 1159–1176. Cf. Anders Aslund, How Russia Was Built: The Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 2 Nepal’s Constituent Assembly established a federal democratic republic and abolished the monarchy May 2008. The Maoists who received a plurality of votes in the Constituent Assembly election April 2008, formed a coalition government in August 2008. It currently holds 220 of the assembly’s 601 seats. It is allied with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist). The government promises breakneck industrialization and a 20 percent rate of annual GDP growth. Deepesh Shrestha, “Nepal in Crisis as Maoist PM Quits,” Yahoo!News, May 4, 2009. Nepal’s Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda resigned, plunging the country into a major political crisis triggered by a stand-off between his ex-rebels and the army chief. In a televised address to the nation, Prachanda said he was stepping down in response to an “unconstitutional and undemocratic” move by Nepal’s president to stop the elected Maoist government from sacking the army chief. 3 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977. 4 Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, New York: Freeman, 1977. Douglas Kiel and Euel Elliot, Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. Bela Banathy, Guided Evolution of Society: A Systems View, Springer, 2000. Jamshid Gharajedaghi, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity—A Platform for Designing Business Architecture, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005. Lars Skyttner, General Systems Theory: Problems, Perspective, Practice, World Scientific, 2006. Twentieth century Marxist science was an awkward combination of historicist dialectical materialism and Newtonian mechanics. The first was the foundation stone of communism’s manifest destiny, the second the basis of communist economic planning, including the teleological and genetic approaches (centralized, decentralized, two-level and 1980s-style market assisted communist planning). Communist planning science had, and continues to have, no appreciation for chaos theory, dynamic adaptive evolutionary economics, and loosely coupled internet-scale thinking driving contemporary economic development. The Newtonian model was an inferior approach to systems engineering given twentieth century productive technologies, and has become more so in the information and nanotechnology age. Communism today from a

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long term perspective is less competitive than it was before the new millennium, despite partial marketization. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol.1, New York: International Publishers, 1967, pp.763–764. The reference is to the experimental methods of Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist and Nobel Laureate praised by Stalin for his work on human conditioning; the social engineering of communist man. Martin Malia developed a similar analysis for the Soviet case stressing the decisive role of ideology. The trans-communist perspective employed in this treaty reduces the importance of ideology and emphasizes the deeper internal contradictions of communist economic systems, dystopian and scientific. Martin Malia, The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917–1991, New York: The Free Press, 1994. Cf. Hans Melberg, “Logical Logic? After a Period of Rain the Sun Will Shine,” http://www.geocities.com/hmelberg/papers/960405.htm?200930. W.T. Woo, “The Real Challenges to China’s High Growth: Institutions, Poverty, Inequality, Environment and Fiscal Balance,” Comparative Economic Studies, December 2007. The harmonious society is the core of Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Development Concept.” The concept was first proposed during the 2005 National People’s Congress. Johnson’s Russia List No.228, article 32, 17 December 2008: Russia rewriting Josef Stalin’s legacy Archives on dictator seized from human-rights group Memorial By Alex Rodriguez Tribune correspondent ST. PETERSBURG, Russia At first, the purpose behind the midday raid at a human-rights group’s office here was murky. Police, some clad in masks and camouflage, cut the electricity to Memorial’s offices and demanded to know if any drugs or guns were kept on the premises. Five hours later, after police had opened every computer and walked out with 11 hard drives, the reason for their visit became clear to Memorial Director Irina Flige. On the hard drives, a trove of scanned images and documents memorialized Josef Stalin’s murderous reign of terror. Diagrams scrawled out by survivors detailed layouts of labor camps. There were photos of Russians executed by Stalin’s secret police, wrenching accounts of survival from Gulag inmates and maps showing the locations of mass graves. “They knew what they were taking,” Flige said. “Today, the state tries to reconstruct history to make it appear like a long chain of victories. And they want these victories to be seen as justifying Stalin’s repressions.”

10 Chaos theory, dynamic adaptive evolutionary economics and loosely coupled internet-scale thinking all make private property based market search and innovation processes core elements of contemporary economic systems; phenomena incompatible with the static character of Marx’s exploitation-free harmony. Conclusion 1 Mark Harrison, “Coercion, Compliance, and the Collapse of the Soviet Command Economy,” Economic History Review, LV, 3 (2002), pp.397–433. 2 Raymond Aron, The Great Debate and the Opium of the Intellectuals, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 2001. François Furet, The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Richard Pipes, Communism: A History, New York: Modern Library, 2003. 3 There are still many who remain indifferent to holocausts, or even consider them


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“good starts.” The controversy over Franklin Roosevelt’s attitude remains intense. See Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart and Severin Hochberg (eds), Refugees and Rescues: the Diaries and Papers of James McDonald, 1935–45, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009. Richard Breitman, Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew, New York: Macmillan, 1999. David Wyman and Rafael Medoff, A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust, New York: New Press, 2004, Henry Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust 1938–1945, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970. 4 A general awareness is insufficient. Mao and the rest of the world knew about Stalin’s Red Holocaust from Khrushchev’s 1956 secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, but this didn’t prevent 36 million Great Leap Forward terrorstarvation excess deaths shortly thereafter. Raymond Aron, The Great Debate and the Opium of the Intellectuals, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 2001. François Furet, The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Richard Pipes, Communism: A History, New York: Modern Library, 2003.


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Index

Aganbegyan, Abel 140, 154, 160, 187 agrarian coercive model 3–4, 258 agrarian surplus 149, 161, 195–197, 199–200 agricultural performance 1938–53 (Soviet) 45 agro-industrial complexes 104, 113 agro-industrial communes 117, 118, 120, 146 Alexander III, famine relief 42 Allen, Robert 264, 306, 309 Althusser, Louis 296 Amin, Samir 296 Anderson, Barbara and Brian Silver 4, 25, 29, 40, 179–183, 256, 261, 301–302 Andreev, Darskii and Khar’kova 260 Andropov, Yuri 154 Antonov Ovseenko, Anton 260 archival revolution 4, 17, 19, 20, 33, 37, 40, 57, 65, 72, 173, 179, 181, 183, 184, 187, 192, 204, 241, 257, 301 deception 67 disconfirms presumption of innocence 184, 190, 192–194 proof of corpus delicti 19, 173–174, 182, 184 sealed to conceal Red Holocaust 173 arrest quotas 56 Arrow, Kenneth 297 Arrow’s Paradox 297 Article 58–14 (RSFSR penal code) 54, 56, 266 Babynin 300 Bai Dai (Emperor of Vietnam) 290 Bakayev, I.P. 266 BAM 64

BAMlag 271 Bardakci, Murat 313 Barnes, Steven 60, 208, 271, 312 Barsov, A.A 198, 201, 309–310 Battle of Stalingrad 59 Bazarov, V.Z. 270 Belomor Canal 64, 117, 271 Bergson, Abram 153, 158, 185–187, 190, 192, 198, 199, 262, 264, 297–300, 303–307, 310–311 Beria, Lavrenti 59, 266–267 Berman-Yurin 266 Bettleheim, Charles 296–297 Bolshevik coup d’état (putsch) 35, 56, 211 Bolshevik Revolution 41, 266 Borgia, Cesare 203 Brezhnev, Leonid 127, 153 Brozat, M 317 Buber-Neumann, Margrete 299 Bukharin, Nikolai 15, 55, 61, 102, 136 Bulganin, Nikolai, 4.8n 267 Cabet, Etienne 298 captive nations 35, 85–86, 88–91, 101, 275 Bulgarian Gulag map 89 civic repression 87 ethnic cleansing 87 executions 88 killings 85–88 lethal forces labor 85–88 political repression 87 Red Army 88 terror-starvation 78, 90, 102, 105–109, 119, 276 Castro, Fidel 240 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 153, 160, 165, 186, 187, 199


344

Index

Chandler, David 279–281 Chang, Jun and Halliday, Jon 93, 105, 209, 277–279, 289, 290, 293, 312, 313 Chea, Nuon (Brother Number Two) 292 Chiang Kai-shek 93–96, 277 Chinese civil war (War of Liberation 1927–50) 93 Chinese communist party (CCP) 93 Chingkuo (son) 94 chistka (purge) 54, 265 chto delat’? (what is to be done?) 140 Chubar, Vlas 267 Churchill, Winston 256, 301 CMEA [Council for Mutual Economic Assistance] (Comecon) 85, 86, 275 Coale, Ansley 174, 176, 281, 300 Coase, Ronald 185 cold war 85 collectivization 35–36, 45 dizzy with success 35, 259 killings (Soviet) 18–19 Mao version 103–104 Vietnamese and Laotian versions 109 Cominform 104, 277 Comintern (Communist International) 55, 93, 97, 277 CCPS International Department (successor 1943) 93 International of Socialist Workers (Second International 1889), 8.4n 277 command economy (hierarchy) 296 communism, agricultural growth 166 Asian (varieties) 106–107, 120, 128 Cabet 298 Cambodia (killing fields model) 115–129 Cambodia after 1995, 128 communist systems 128, 159 versus democratic free enterprise 235 countries, global share 2 crimes against humanity 1 death toll, I.5, 11.3 (Table 11.1) 126 democracy 1 Deng Xiaoping (leasing) 125 despotism 155 dystopia 187, 202, 204, 234–235 economic inferiority 143 external threats (Third Reich, Showa Japan) 93

forced industrialization 268–269, 300–302 Hu Jintao (Harmonious Society) 128, 156, 236, 298, 319 human rights 1 industrial growth 165, 166 inferiority, East versus West Germany 299 North versus South Korea 243, 299 internal contradictions of 2, 233, 243, 319 intrinsically malign 254 lost cause 7–8 Marxist utopia 135, 159, 237 merit 1 Nepal 160, 234, 236, 298, 318, 319 North Korean 108, 111, 219, 223, 290 perceptions of 65, 73, 77, 174 performance 1–2, 6–9, 13, 86, 115–120 Pol Pot (see Pol Pot) propagation 92–93 prospects 233–242 Red Holocaust (see Red Holocaust) 1 Vietnamese and Laotian 2, 111, 125, 126 anti-colonialism 13, 204 Doi Moi variant 110, 291 ethnic cleansing 111, 121, 125, 127, 135, 148, 162, 180 Great Leap Forward 207 Hundred Flowers Campaign 103, 111, 278, 279 killing quota 278 Mao-style Laojiao 111, 117 socialist humanism (Nhan van) 111, 279 social engineering 240, 319 summary judgment 304 sword (Red Army) 93–94, terror command 96, 102–111, 116, 118–121, 125, 127–128, 135, 137 torch (Moscow/Beijing sponsored insurrection, and civil war) 93, 96 transition strategy 92–93 prospects 1 trigger happy 233, 239 Communist Party 2 computopia, 145, 187, 188 (Box 17.1) Conquest, Robert 26, 28–30, 48, 56, 68, 70, 72, 173, 179, 220, 255, 260, 265–269, 313


Index consumer sovereignty 14 corpus delicti 19, 173, 174, 182, 184 Council of Economic Ministers (Soviet Ministrov SSSR) 138 Council of People’s Commissars (Soviet Narodnykh Komissarov SSSR) counter-revolutionary sabotage, 54, 56, 266 crimes against humanity 1, 57–59, 73, 80, 85, 87, 101, 103, 111, 115, 118–119 accusation of communist crimes against humanity 194 beyond good and evil 202, 203, 206, 310 bygones be bygones 2, 211 calling the kettle black 209 clemency, 2, 6, 7, 195, 206–211, 241 conceptual boundaries 3 damage limitation 208 henchmen 210 manslaughter (lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing) 3, 5, 6, 17, 19, 45, 46, 105, 173, 184, 194, 209–210, 241, 256–259 Mao 202–210, 218–219, 224–225, 234, 237, 239, 240, 241, 254–258, 276–279, 283, 289 means, not ends (Stalin) 135 memory and deterrence 3 murder (terror-executions) 3, 5 negligent homicide (terror-starvation), 3, 5, 6, 17, 19, 20, 45, 46, 105, 173, 184, 206, corpus delicti 173–174, 182 ethnic cleansing (spetspereselentsy, resetters, exiles) 78 high crimes 5–6, 184 Holodomor 6, 105, 119, 146, 166–167, 210, 219, 241, 293, 296, 318 versus Great Leap Forward 279 versus Pol Pot 119 incriminating evidence 173 International Criminal Court 6, 42, 78, 184, 194–196, 198–199, 202–204 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia 78 justifiable homicide, 194, 196, 198, economic survival 195 national defense, 197, 198

345

superindustrialization, essential for, 115, 136, 148, 163, 165, 167, 190, 194–196, 198, 203 kto kovo (do or die) defense 206 North Korea 107–108 Pol Pot 116–120 presumption of innocence 184, 190, 194 psychiatric disorder 208 public welfare 209 reparations 6, 85–86 retribution 206, 210, 311 Rome Statute 6, 7, 42, 46, 257, 273 superman’s burden 206 terror famine 1947, 73 testimonial evidence, 17, 18, 73, 210, torture, 1–2, 57, 118, 206, 208–211, 241 victims’ rights 206 Vietnam and Laos, 107, 109, 125, 128, 149, 233–235, 240, 242 criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship 53, 96, 103, 108, 111, 145, 154, 190, 236, 258, 297 Cuba 160, 294 cult of personality (Stalin) 294 Cultural Revolution 101, 106–109, 116, 135, 146, 147, 167, 207, 297, 312 Cumings, Bruce 299 Danube–Black Sea canal (canal of death) 88 David, Fritz 266 Davies, Joseph 268 Davies, Robert 269, 270, 272, 301, 302 Davies and Wheatcroft 24, 27, 40, 42, 256, 260, 261, 263 Deletant, Dennis 89 denazification 85–87, 125, 126, 255 Deng Xiaoping 53, 96, 106, 108, 110, 125, 148, 154, 156 diversions 63, 65 dizzy with success 35, 259 Dobb, Maurice 190, 197, 308 Doctors’ Plot 80, 83 Donath, Georgy 88 Dreitzer, E.A. 266 duality theorem 152 Dubcek, Alexander 127 dystopia 8, 14, 17, 44, 80, 118, 120, 127, 187, 202, 204, 234, 235, 239, 242, 258


346

Index

Eason, Warren 256, 301 economic growth agricultural (communist) 164–166 industrial growth (communist), 164, 166 (Table 15.4), performance 53–54, 128, 160–168 siege mobilized terror-command 86, 87, 89, 96, 102, 104 Soviet 161–162 terror-free command 105, 109, 128 economic systems abolition of money (Kampuchea) 116, 292 Asian adaptation pattern 141, 148 besieged by internal and external enemies 135 choice of 137, 146 comparative merit of communist systems 161–168 Council of Economic Ministers 138 criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship 53, 96, 108, 111, 145, 154, 190, 236 democratic communism (Nepal) 161, 298 design bureaus 138, 139, 188 diminishing capital productivity 153 discipline 136, 139 distrust of liberal methods 136 efficiency 162 ethnic resettlement 136 extraordinary measures 135 forced collectivization 180, 195, 196, 198, 207 glavk 138 Gulag forced labor 5, 18–20, 71, 73, 120, 136, 148, 180, 184 Hu Jintao (Harmonious Society) 92, 128, 156, 236, 298 Mao’s Cultural Revolutionary paradigm 135, 147, 296 agro-industrial communes 117, 118, 120, 146 communes 146, 147 communist humanism 41, 147 egalitarianism 116, 153–155, 235, 310 Great Leap Forward 101, 104, 108, 111, 115, 116, 146, 147, 149, 164, 167, 207, 255, 279, 281, 289–290, 293, 296, 309 impregnable superpower 136, 140

interenterprise contracting 138 khozraschyot 138 labor value prices 139 managerial incentives 138 material incentives 136 military preparedness 136 moral hazard, 139 140, 153, 154, 180, 189, 191, 240 new economic man 147 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 146, 147 performance 146–147 Red Guards 146, 147 market communism 8, 92, 128, 156, 162, 240, 255 decriminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship 154 Marxist utopian communism 155–156 mobilization planning (geneticists, teleologists, pragmatists) 63, 270 performance 146–147 planning, coercive 136 expediters 138 fulfillment 140, 189 Gosbank 139 Goskomtsen 139 Gosplan 137, 138, 174 Gossnab 138 Gostandart 139 monkey business 136 top-down 135–137 Pol Pot killing field model 148 dystopic shock therapy 148 red director 106, 138–140, 188–189, 191 Road to Serfdom 152 samo-finansirovania 138–139 siege mobilized terror-command 2, 4, 17, 21, 86, 87, 89, 96, 102, 104, 106–111, 116, 118–121, 125, 127–128, 137, 140, 141, 144, 146, 148, 149, 156, 160, 162–167, 174, 181, 202, 204, 211, 218–220, 223, 233–235 spetspereselentsy 18, 63, 64, 67, 71, 79, 199 fifth column rationale 79 spurious innovation 140 Stalin Big Brother model 144, 146 superindustrialization 115, 190, 194–198


Index sustainability (North Korea) 164 terror 136 terror-free command 2, 8, 64, 73, 79, 103, 105, 109, 128, 137, 144 versus siege mobilization and market communism 161–162 Vietnamese Doi Moi 110 worker self management 298 terror-free communism 2, 8, 79, 107, 125–131, 135, 136, 184–190 adopt market communism 145 Asian adaptation pattern 141, 148 choose terror-free command 145 collapse 153 computopia 187–188 control 135 criminalization of private property, business, and entrepreneurship 53, 96, 108, 111, 145, 154, 190, 236 degeneration 147, 153 design bureaus 138, 139, 188 discipline 156, 162, 188, 191 economic performance 154 entrepreneurship 154, 160, 162, 164, 186, 190, 191, 236 eradicate old order 138 family circle (krugovaya poruka) 140 forced substitution 15, 127, 154, 163, 185, 188 glavk 138 growth retardation 56, 128, 186 Gulag excess deaths 269, 294 inegalitarianism 153, 154 input-output 152, 186, 190 install command institutions 145 inter-enterprise contracting 138 khozraschyot 138 labor value prices 139 linear programming 152, 186, 190 managerial incentives 138 monopoly of state ownership 154 moral hazard, 56, 137, 139, 140, 153, 154, 185, 188, 189, 191, 240, performance 102, 154, 160, 162–166, 173, 185–187, 223, 225 planned chaos 186, 191 planning 135 Council of Economic Ministers 138 expediters 138 fulfillment 140 Gosbank 139

347

Goskomtsen 139 Gosplan 137, 138 Gossnab 138 Gosstandart 139 material balances 190, 308 monkey business 136 tekhpromfinplan 138 top-down 136, 137, 147 samo-finansirovania revert to terror-free command 145 switch to siege-mobilized terror-command 145 spurious innovation 140, 185 squalor 154 stagnation 110, 128, 137, 140, 154, 164 State Price Bureau 139 suppression of human rights and civil liberties 153 technocratic command 141 terror 136 terror-repression 121, 148 terror-starvation 136, 145–148, 173, 175, 182, 194, 197, 198, 220, 222, 223 tolkach 138 vigilance 136 Ehrenburg, Illya (Khrushchovskaya ottepel’) 173 Eighth Command (Thou Shall Not Steal Private Property), 127, 217, 225, 242, 313 Eikhe, Nikolai 267 Ellman, Michael 20, 22–25, 27–29, 40–46, 56, 60, 71, 72, 74, 256, 257, 258, 260–266, 268, 269, 272–274, 302, 309, 310, 317, 318 Engels, Friedrich 135, 155, 156, 218 Communist Manifesto 147, 155, 298 Post office model 155 Engerman, David 297, 303, 305, 306 ethnic cleansing 3–7, 17–20, 35, 44, 54, 58, 64, 65, 73, 78, 80, 85, 87, 102, 106–109, 111, 120, 121, 125, 127, 135, 136, 148, 162, 180, 184, 194, 198, 220, 223, 239–241, 309, 318 forced resettlement (spetspereselentsy, exiles) 64, 78 suppression of the Polish catholic church 88


348

Index

Evdokimov, Efim Georgievich 28, 57, 210, 267, 268, 312 Evdokimov, Grigorii Eremeevich 266 excess deaths (premature deaths, missing persons) 220, 223, 241 age heaping (Anderson and Silver) 29, 180, 181, 301 Cambodia 3, 5, 6, 92, 101, 108, 115, 116, 118 Coale-Demeny East model tables 180 collectivization 120, 136, 180, 184, 194–198 confirmed by NKVD archival killing statistics 268 consistency tests (Anderson and Silver) 179 criteria of statistical reliability 18 famine 1947, 24, 27, 28, 45, 46 Great Leap Forward 101, 104, 105, 108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 119, 146, 147, 149, 164, 167, 207, 255, 279, 281, 289, 290, 293, 294, 296, 309, 320 Great Terror 5, 13, 17, 20, 22, 23, 28, 46, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61 infant/concealed as stillborns 40, 182 lethal Gulag forced labor 73, 299 post-Soviet 4, 37, 306 predictor of Stalin’s killings 17 spetspereselentsy 18, 63, 64, 67, 71, 79, 199, 270, 271, 273 Stalin era excess deaths 1929–49, 179 Stalin’s Russia 1929–38, 17–23, 70, 179, 301 Stalin’s Russia 1939–53, 17, 19, 20–23, 58, 59, 70, 72, 176 statistical deception, overcount of 1939 census 178, 181, 301 suppression of 1933 Soviet mortality rate 4 suppression of 1937 Soviet census 4, 175 terror-starvation 4–6, 17–21, 35, 37, 40, 41, 44, 57, 63, 65, 67, 71, 73, 78, 102, 105–109, 111 World War II, mis-attribution of Soviet excess deaths 175, 178 executions 4–7, 17, 184, 194, 223, 241 exile (spetspereselentsy) compulsory labor 63, 64, 67 FAD2 famine 45 Chinese 1959–61, 106–146 Soviet 1921–22, 35

Soviet 1947, 45 siege of Leningrad 45 versus terror-starvation debate 42, 45, 57, 259 WWII 59, 60, 71 FAI (Spanish anarchist party) 277 family circle (krugovaya poruka) 140, 189 famine see FAD2 famine Feldman, P.A. 270 final solution Hitler 40 Stalin 40 Fitzpatrick, Sheila 209 forced labor lethal 19 forced substitution 15 Franco, General Francisco 219, 277, 314 Frank, Andre Gunder 296 French reign of terror, E2 257 Frenkel, Naftaly Aronovich 64, 65, 149, 270, 271 Fromm, Erich 208, 211, 258, 312 full abundance 14 Fushman 259 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 302 Gaiduk, Illya, Chen Jian and Robert Brigham 290 gap (excess deaths minus documented killings) 19–20 Geneva Accords (1953–56) 110 genocide 37, 40, 42–44 Atlantic slave trade 44 clergy, genocide of 44 cultural genocide 44 French Criminal Code (liberal approach) 44 Ha Shoah 44, 119, 202, 211, 217, 218, 220, 223 International Criminal Court for Rwanda 44 International Criminal Court for Yugoslavia 43 Irish famine 44 liquidation of the kulaks 44 liquidation of capitalists, landlords and specialists 44 Nazi (Jews, Roma) 70, 71, 136, 256, 267, 276, 300, 314, 318 negligent genocide 43 Polish operation 44 Pol Pot 115–120 Stalin’s nationalities policy 80 Tibet, by Mao 101


Index Ukrainian Holodomor 6, 105, 119, 146, 147, 166, 167, 207, 210, 219, 241, 293, 296, 318 United Nations General Assembly (1946) 43 Whipple Index 301 German expulsion from eastern, southeastern and central Europe 88 Gerschenkron, Alexander 152, 185, 186, 297, 303, 305, 306, 309 Getty, J. Arch 210 Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 67, 68, 272 glavk 138 Gorbachev, Mikhail 73, 108, 140, 148, 154, 156, 160, 187, 237, 240 Gosbank (Gosudarstvennyi Bank SSSR) 139 Goskomstat 163 Gosplan 137 Gossnabsybyt (Gossnab) 138, 191 Gosstandart 139 Graziosi, Andrea 299 Great Famine (China 1959–61) 278 Great Industrialization Debate 1924–28, 161, 190 Great Leap Forward 6, 101, 104, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 119, 146, 147, 149, 207, 255, 279, 281, 289, 290, 293, 294, 296, 309, 320 Vietnamese version 110 Great Patriotic War (World War II) Great Purge (chistka) 54, 55, 57, 70, 313 comparison with Mao’s Cultural Revolution 288 Great Terror (strakh) 5, 13, 17, 20, 22, 23, 28, 46, 54, 55, 57, 59, 65, 67, 303, 309 Gregory, Paul 165, 198, 308–310 Gregory, Paul and Robert Stuart 165 Groman, V.G. 270 Grossman, Gregory 152, 185, 295, 297, 303 Gulag (Glavnoe Upravlenie Ispravitel’noTrudovykh Lagerei i Kolonii) 196, 198, 199, 208, 210, 221, 241, 255, 259, 261, 268–274, 278, 290, 291, 294, 295, 299, 302, 309, 312 camp size 65 collectivization 45, 57, 65, 73

349

colonies 63, 65, 67, 271 corrective labor mobilization 64 economic control system 63 economic motive 64 economic optimization 152 enserfment of labor 154 forced suicide brigades (WWII) 59 German and Japanese POWs 219, 220, 276, 314, 315 Great Terror 57 growth 272 justice 271, 312 killings 1, 3–5, 8, 13, 17–23, 26, 271, 272, 276, 279, 289, 292, 294 mortality rates 27–29, 39, 65–67, 75, 126, 176, 180, 181, 208 population 1, 5, 18, 19, 20, 23, 27–32, 37–40, 43, 46, 47, 55, 59, 60, 65–75, 80, 86, 89, 91, 104, 105, 107, 109, 111, 112, 116–119, 272–276, 279–283, 289 prisoner leasing 64 rehabilitation 64 sentences 67 spetspereselentsy (resetters, exiles) 63, 64, 67, 71, 79, 81 suicide brigades 20, 59, 73, 178, 179 testimonial evidence 17, 18, 73 World War II captured Russian soldiers 20, 65, 73 Ha Shoah 5, 42, 44, 119, 202, 211, 217, 218, 220, 223, 226, 242, 255–257, 318 compared with Pol Pot’s killing fields 119 singularity 3, 220, 226 Hagen, Mark von 43 Harmonious Society 8, 13, 128, 297, 319 harmonism 298 Harre, Romano 302 Harrison, Mark 26, 258, 273, 295, 301, 302, 308, 309, 310, 320 Hayek, Friedrich von 152–154, 186–187, 297, 298, 304 planned chaos 186, 191 Haynes, Michael 273 Hedlund, Stefan 295, 307 Hegel, Friedrich 234, 319 world historical figure 202 Heuveline, Patrick 119, 293 hidden inflation 163, 202 Himmler, Heinrich 221


350

Index

Hirohito, Emperor 55, 95, 198, 219, 220, 240, 313, 314 Asian Holocaust 211, 217, 218, 223, 226, 242 Hiroshima, atomic bombing of 85 Hitler, Adolf 3–5, 40, 55, 59, 88, 95, 135, 136, 194, 198, 202–204, 240, 241, 256, 276, 295, 300, 308, 311–314, 318 dream 235 Eighth Commandment 313 final solution 40, 83, 257, 300 genocide 4, 6 Mein Kampf 203 Ho Chi Minh 1, 13, 110, 148, 279, 290, 291, 292 Hoffman, David 202, 310 holocausts, causes of, economic (siege mobilized terror command) 4, 6 versus totalitarian explanation 217–219 ethnic (Rwanda) 317 fascism 194, 217 didn’t employ terror-starvation and purges for economic reasons 316 economic viability 223 genocide (Jews, Roma, Ukrainian, Armenians, Tutsi) 4, 220, 313, 317 heterogeneity 219 Hirohito’s holocaust 1937–1945, 219–221 Hitler’s holocaust 1937–1945, 219–221 race (Hirohito’s Japan, Hitler’s Germany) 3–4, 6–8, 218 versus totalitarian explanation 219 Red Holocaust 1929–present 219 totalitarianism (political) 218–219, 313 comparison, Stalin versus Hitler 220–230 democracy, holocaust-free 225 denial 256 duration 219 economic cost benefit 223–224 famine/terror-starvation 222 murders (Auschwitz/Great Terror) 221, 222 per capita bias 222, 224 prewar usage 4

siege mobilized terror-command perpetual killing machine 225 temporary aberration (Stalin) 223–224 war losses 222 definition, contemporary concept, aggravated (genocide, torture) 6 first degree (inexcusable mass murder) 17, 44, 57 homicide) 5 second degree (inexcusable felonious manslaughter and negligent homicide) 5, 6 terminology 5 third degree (criminally negligent shock and awe principal twentieth century cases (peacetime), Communist (see Red Holocaust) Hirohito’s (Showa Japan, Asian) 217–218, 220–221 Hitler’s (Nazi, Third Reich) 217, 218, 220–225 Einsatzgruppen 221 intentionalist 220 Rwanda 44, 220, 291, 318 reparations 6, 85, 86, 199, 206, 257 Holodomor 6, 105, 119, 146, 147, 167, 168, 207, 210, 219, 241, 296, 318 Holtzman, E.S. 266 Hu Jintao 92, 128, 156, 236, 298, 319 Hu, Yaobang 105 Hua Guofeng 242, 292 Hunczak, Taras 43, 258, 259, 262, 263 Hundred Flowers Campaign 103, 111, 278, 279 Hungarian Community Group 87–88 hyperdepression 120, 164, 190 illusion of progress 298 Industrial Party (Prompartiya) 56, 267 input-output 152, 186, 190 International Criminal Court 6, 42, 78, 184, 194–196, 198–199, 202–204 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia 78 International Military Tribunal for the Far East 314

Index Isupov, V.S. 56 Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozny), too soft 42, 310, 311


Jasny, Naum 68 Jiang Qing 292 Jiang Zija 290 Johnson, Gale 262, 264, 265 Ju Zhifen 314 Kaganovich, Lazar 267 Kamenev, Lev 55, 266, 268 Kant, Immanuel 311 Kantorovich, Leonid 186, 307 KBW (Polish Internal Security Corp) 88 Khmer Rouge torture 118 khozraschyot (enterprise cost accounting) 138 Khrushchev, Nikita 4, 18, 28, 45, 58, 70, 80, 83, 104, 105, 108, 125, 127, 128, 153, 154, 161, 218, 222, 237, 242, 264, 265, 267, 269, 278, 294, 295, 298, 320 famine 1947, 24, 27 liberalization 5, 102, 110, 112, 127, 225, 233, 235, 278, 279, 294 peaceful coexistence 104, 153, 295 revisionism 128 secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress 80, 320 thaw 108, 127, 173, 278, 295 virgin lands program 154 “we will bury you” 161 Kiang Guek Eav (Duch) 118, 292 Kiernan, Ben 118, 293 Kim Il Sung 1, 7, 8, 13, 101, 108, 109, 116, 119, 120, 121, 125, 128, 145, 148, 156, 162, 164, 165, 166, 173, 184, 202–204, 206, 207, 218, 219, 224, 225, 233, 234, 236, 237, 239, 240, 242, 254, 255, 274, 291, 312 Kim Jong Il 2, 8, 13, 102, 108, 109, 120, 162, 165, 240, 242, 312 Kirov, Sergei 55, 266 assassination of 318 Kogon, E. 221, 317, 318 kolkhoz (collective farm) 36 kommandirovka 273 Kondratiev, N.D. 270 Konev, Ivan (Marshal) 277, 301 Korean comfort women 220 Korean War 109 Kosior, Stanislav 267

351

Kosygin, Alexei 267 Kovacs, Bela 88 Kozlov, V.P and Kondrashin, V.V. 263 Kravchenko, Viktor 175, 299 Krestinsky, Nikolai 55 Krylenko, Nikolai 267 Kuibyshev, V.V. 78, 270 kulak 3, 4, 36, 37, 44, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 79, 80, 82, 102, 103, 136, 144, 145, 259, 270, 273, 274, 308, 309 exile forced labor 270 Kul’chits’kii, S.V. 43 Kun, Bela (Hungarian Republic of Soviets 1919) 92 Kuomintang (KMT) 93, 103, 104, 106 Kuznets, Simon 78, 185, 186, 303–306 Lenin, Vladimir 276 coup d’état 35, 56, 91, 115, 140, 154, 219 dictatorship of proletariat (suppressed democracy) 14, 102 post office model 155 State and Revolution 295, 298 vanguard of the proletariat 155 Leningrad, siege of 45 Leontief, Wassily 185, 186, 303 Libanova, Leochuk, Ryhaz, Rudnykyj and Poniakina 261 Liber, George 259, 261 liberalization 5, 102, 110, 112, 127, 225, 233, 235, 278, 279, 294 Asia 155 East German Uprising (1953) 127 Estonian and Latvian Independence (1991) 128 Fall of Berlin Wall (1989) 128 Hundred Flowers Campaigns (China and Vietnam) 127 Hungarian Revolution (1956) 127 Lithuanian Independence (1989) 128 Prague Spring (1968) 127 Tianamen Square protest (1989) 128 Liberman, Evgeny 279 Liberman reform 278 Liebknecht, Karl 277 life has become more joyous 53 Lin, Biao 289 linear programming 186 liquidation (as a class) Liu Shaoqi 289 Locard, Henri 119, 293

352

Index


Lorimer, Frank 23, 25, 26, 28–30, 39, 46, 49, 70, 174–177, 179–182, 261, 300–302 Lurye, M. 266 Lurye, N. 266 Luxemburg, Rosa 277 Macfarquhar, Roderick, Fairbank, Douglas and Denis Twichett 278 Maddison, Angus 105, 118, 163, 164–168, 279, 280, 293, 296, 297, 299 Maddison, and Wu, Harry 278 Maksudov, Sergei 22, 23, 27, 60, 72, 74, 75, 272–274, 317, 318 Malenkov, Georgy 267 Malia, Martin 254, 319 Mao Tse-tung 1, 2, 7, 8, 13, 53, 86, 93–95, 101, 104, 105, 110, 115–116, 119, 125, 128, 144, 156, 162–167, 173, 184, 202–204, 206–210, 218–219, 223, 254–256, 262, 276, 278, 279, 297, 311 agro-industrial communes 117 backyard steel 105, 117, 146 Chinese Eastern Railway 94 collectivization 103–108, 110, 111, 120 colonialist bogeymen 103 command planning 102 commanding heights 102 commune model 146, 210 communist consolidation 103 criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship 102–104 Cultural Revolution, 106–109, 115, 146, 147, 167, 207, 262, 297 death toll, 107 (Table 9.1) depression 1966–68, 288 despotism 106, 108, 152 dictatorship of the proletariat 102 ethnic cleaning 173 excess deaths 166, 174–182, 184, 194, 220, 221, 223, 241, 255, 259–260, 262, 268–269, 272–273, 279–281, 294, 296, 300–302, 309, 317, 318, 320 execution quota 103 famine 105, 279 five year plan (Chinese) 103–104 genocide (Tibet) 107

Great Leap Forward 101, 104, 108, 111, 115, 116, 146, 147, 149, 164, 167, 207, 255, 279, 281, 289–290, 293, 296, 309 Ho Chi Minh 148, 279, 290, 291 Hundred Flowers Campaign 103, 111, 278, 279 independence from Stalin 101 killings 103, 105 Khrushchev, 105, 108, 278, Laogai (Chinese Gulag) 103, 106, 107, 120, 148 Laojiao (Chinese labor colonies) 106, 107, 111, 278 Long March 94, 277, 290 Marxist-Leninism 162, 191 mass repression 103 Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty 95 Nagasaki atomic bomb 96 New Democracy 103 party control mechanism 102 performance 154 price fixing 186 Red Guard 106, 107, 115, 146, 147 regions of Mao Tse-tung 94 siege mobilized terror-command 102–105, 278, 288, 294 Sino-Soviet split 104 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship 96 Soviet assistance 104 Stalin as boss 101 Stalinism 104, 112 terror, internalization of 104 terror-free command 103 terror-starvation 105–109, 111, 119–121, 125, 135, 220, 236, 255, 257, 260, 269, 276, 279, 289, 318 thaw (post-Stalin liberalization) 102, 108, 127, 278, 295 The Young Marshal (Chang Hsuehliang) 94 Three and five anti compaigns 102, 278 trust the people 104 Vietnam, intervention in 108–109, 290 Yalta agreement 85, 96 Zhang Zhizhong (ZZZ) 95 Mao-Zhu Red Army 94 Margolin, Jean-Louis 107, 111, 116, 277, 290–293, 312 Marx, Karl 8, 13–15, 91, 92, 96, 155, 218, 234, 235, 254, 298, 309, 319


Index capitalism’s internal contradictions 254 communist economy 155, 161 Communist Manifesto 92, 147, 155, 298 Das Kapital (peaceful transition to communism) 14, 92, 155, 298, 319 dialectical materialism 8, 234, 239, 319 versus chaos theory and adaptive evolutionary economics 234, 236, 319 dictatorship of the proletariat 102 empowerment 234–236 dystopia 234–235, 239 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, 155 egalitarianism 116, 155 falsified ineluctability of communism 14, 92 free enterprise Marxist system? 156–157 harmony 156 harmony (no internal contradictions) 14 humanism 147, 203, 239, 279, 298 labor theory of value 297 labor value prices 139 lost cause 7–8 private property 92 property is theft 155 scientific (faux) 234, 240 self-regulation 14 statelessness 155 surplus value 155 utopia 2, 13, 14, 96, 116, 119, 135, 147, 155, 156, 211, 225, 235, 237, 240, 297, 298, 300 withering away of state 156 McFarlane, Bruce 290, 296 Medvedev, Roy 70, 73, 208, 254 Memorial 56 Mikoyan, Anastas 267 Mill, John Stuart 14, 258 Millar, James 197, 309 Millar-Barsov agrarian surplus test, 197 (Box 18.1) Mises, Ludwig von 152, 297, 305 Mok, Ta 294 Molotov, Vyacheslav 197, 259, 267, 274 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 59, 91, 95, 276 Montefiore, Simon Sebag 254, 262

353

Moorsteen, Richard 306 moral hazard 153, 154 Mrachkovsky, S.V. 266 Mussolini, Benito 219, 299, 314 Nanjing massacre 220, 314 natality lost births (excess natural abortions) 261 nationalization of the means of production 145 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 85 Nekrich, Alexander 173, 273 NEP (Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika) 2, 15, 35, 36, 41, 55, 56, 64, 102, 156, 161, 163, 165, 194, 196, 198, 207, 255, 270 Nepal 160, 234, 236, 298, 318, 319 Neuberger, Egon (computopia) 187, 190 Neumann, Heinz 299 Nietzsche, Friedrich 202–204, 293, 310, 311 beyond good and evil 202, 203 Ecce Homo 204, 311 last man (letzte Mensch) 203, 310 Übermenschen (supermen, master race) 202, 203 NKVD [People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs] (ChK, GPU, OGPU, MVD) 17–21, 208, 210, 259, 260, 262, 264 archival data (documents) 1, 17, 20, 37, 57, 58, 65, 67, 68, 70, 73, 175, 199, 273, 275 incompleteness 17, 67–68, 73 dvoikas 57 Great Terror 54, 55, 57, 59, 61 Gulag 65–75 Moscow show trials 55, 56, 173, 199 spetspereselentsy (kulak exiles) 63, 64, 79, 199, 270, 271, 273, 274 troikas 28, 54, 56, 57, 266, 269 Nol, Lon 115, 118, 291 North Expedition (1927) 93 Nove, Alec 27–29, 152, 190, 197, 270, 297, 300, 308, 309, 310, 311 Novosel’sky, S.A., and V.V. Paevsky 174, 175, 300, 301 Nutter, Warren 186, 187, 306 OGPU 41 Olberg, V.P. 266 Operation Barbarossa 59

354

Index


Operation Wisla (Vistula) 88, 274 Ordzhonikidze, Sergo 266 Orwell, George 258, 262 Orwellian future 162 Pavlov, Ivan 234 Pavlov Report 268 Per Sovan 118 Pham, Peter 290, 291 Pham Van Dong 111 Pianciola, N. 261 Piatakov, Yuri 55 Pickel, R.V. 266 politicals 4, 6, 70, 208, 257 Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) 1, 2, 6–8, 13, 86, 115–120, 125, 128, 145, 146, 148, 149, 156, 162, 164–167, 173, 184, 202–204, 206–210, 218, 219, 224, 276, 292–294 abolition of money 116 agro-industrial communalism 115–118, 120, 210 Angkar 116, 118–120, 148, 292 anti-intellectualism 292 criminalization of private property, business and entrepreneurship 116 Cultural Revolution (Mao’s influence) 115, 116 dystopia 116, 118 dystopic shock therapy 148 dystopicide 119 egalitarianism 116 forced labor (universal) 117 genocide 119 Great Leap Forward (Mao’s influence) 115–116 Great Terror-Purge (Mao style) 115 Holodomor, comparison with 119 hyperdepression 120, 164, 190 Kampuchea 119 Khmer Rouge 119 killings 6, 117 New People 117, 120 Phnom Penh S-21 prison 210 planning 116, 120, 149 public works 117 reeducation 117 revolutionary romanticism 116 17 Aprils (75s) 117 siege mobilized terror-command 116 slavery (defacto) 117, 292 storming heaven 120, 146 superindustrialization 148

terror-starvation 119 torture 118, 292 utopia 116 Vietnamese intervention 116, 118, 119 Year Zero (start of Cambodian revolutionary epoch) 116, 118, 167 Polyakov, Y.A. 273 Popov, Vladimir 307 Popular Front (Spanish government aided by Stalin) 277 population deficit 174 positivism private ownership 63 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 155 Pyatakov, G.L. 270 Qiang Zhai 290 Qin Shi Huangdi 207, 262 Radek, Karl 55 Rakovsky, Christian 55 rationalism red director 106, 138–140 Red Guard 106, 107, 115, 146, 147 Red Holocaust 1, 3, 6–8, 13, 15, 17, 19–21, 35, 42, 44, 57, 63, 67, 85–89, 194, 202, 204, 206, 207, 210, 211, 217–220, 223, 225, 226, 233, 234, 237, 240–242, 255–258, 273, 299, 311, 320 Asian pattern 145 embrace siege mobilized terrorcommand 145 eradicate old order 145 install command institution (consolidation) 145 killings 148–149 beyond good and evil 202, 203, 206, 310 blame 27, 42, 118, 128, 254 calling the kettle black 209 captive nations 85–86, 88 clemency 2, 6, 7, 195, 209–211 comparisons with other holocausts (see holocausts), conceptual boundaries 3 damage limitation 208 death toll 3, 6, 54, 65, 67, 87, 103, 105, 106, 109, 126, 176, 177, 220, 241, 279, 282–284, 318 demographic evidence 4 denazification 85 denial 7, 187, 256, 257, 259


Index documents 18, 20, 21 doomed to fail 225 economic merit 163 error 4 excusable manslaughter (inadvertent lethal and ethnic cleansing deaths) 4 excusable murder (only guilty executed) 7 excusable negligent homicide [famine, not terror-starvation] 19 genocide, Gulag 254, 67, 70–72 Holodomor 43–44, 80, 219 justifiable homicide 194–200 economic survival 194–195 kto kovo (do or die) defense 206 national defense 194–195, 198–199 Pol Pot 119, 220, 239–242 versus Mao’s Great Leap Forward 146, 148, 279, 296 versus Pol Pot’s killing fields 118–119 superindustrialization, essential for 194–195, 197–198 greater good 41 growth effects 166 henchmen 210 insanity 242 justifiable homicide, Mao, consolidation phase (1950–53) 103 Cultural Revolution 106, 108–109 death toll, 107 (Table 9.1) ethnic cleansing 107–109, 111 genocide (Tibet) 107 Great Leap Forward, 101, 104, 105, 108, 110, 111, 278, 279, 281, 289, 290, 293 146–147 Laogai 120, 148 terror-starvation 120 mock trial 7 North Korea 107, 108 Pol Pot 254, 115–120 blame Americans 120 blame Vietnamese 118 body count 88 excess deaths 119 executions (killing fields) 6, 115, 119–120 holocaust denial 118, 292 lethal forced labor 118, 120 mega-holocaust 119 Oudong massacre (1974) 116

355

rural deportation 116–117 siege mobilized terror-command 116, 119–120 terror-starvation 119–120 Year Zero (repression, consolidation, Great Leap Forward) 118, 167 presumption of innocence 184, 190, 194, 302 terror-free command 184 prevention 242 proof 7, 43 propagation 92–93 First Wave (1929–53) 13, 91, 125 potential causes, catastrophic liberalization 233 factional strife 233 new regimes (democratic and insurrectionary) 233, 236 North Korea 233 Second Wave (1948-present) 13, 93, 96, 101, 103, 125 Third Wave 211, 233, 234, 242 psychiatric disorder 208 public welfare 209 rationalization 4, 7, 42, 57, 187, 256 reparations 6, 85, 86, 199, 206, 257 retribution 206, 210, 311 scope 44, 54, 60, 80, 102, 145 self-defense 4, 7 manslaughter (lethal forced labor, ethnic cleansing) 3, 5, 6 murder (terror-executions) 3–7 negligent homicide (terrorstarvation) 3, 5, 6, 17 peacetime state killings 3, 218–219 singularity (economical systems driven) 3 skepticism 7, 174, 187 Soviet killings 1928–53, 24, 17, 66 spetspereselentsy 67, 71, 79, 199 summary judgment 240–242 superman’s burden 206 termination (Sixth Commandment) 125–128 testimonial evidence 210 Torch (Chinese civil war, Vietnamese War) 93, 96 torture 208–211 victim’s rights 206, 211 Vietnamese and Laotian 111–112 re-enserfment 36, 41 Reingol 266 repression 54


356

Index

Rigoulot, Pierre 109, 290, 312 Robbins, Lord Lionel 152, 297, 304 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1998, Article 7, 6, 42, 257, 273 Roosevelt, Franklin 55, 277, 320 Rudzutaks, Janis 266 rule of law 92, 103 Rummel, Rudy 87, 103, 105, 278, 289, 314, 315 Russian Jews, Nazi murder of 20 Rykov, Alexei 55 Ryutin Affair 266 Sabsovich 300 samo-finansirovanie (enterprise selffinancing) 138, 139 Gulag 270 Samphan, Khieu 292–294 Samuelson, Paul 303, 307 Sary, Ieng 293 Schabas, William 257, 262, 263 Second Rome 101, 127, 277–278 Semichastny, Vladimir 127 Sen, Son 294 sexual sadism 312 Shakhty Trial 56, 267 Trial of the Twenty-One 55 Shaw, George Bernard 204, 311 Man and Superman 204, 311 Shelepin, Alexander 127 Shevyakov, A.A. 223, 273, 318 Shlykov, Vitaly shock therapy 233 Sholokov, Mikhail, letter to Stalin 261 shortened “birth pangs” of communism 13 show trials 54–56, 173, 199, 289 Industrial Party Trial 56, 267 Moscow 55–57, 173, 185, 266 siege mobilized terror-command 35–36, 41, 46, 65, 78, 86, 101–102, 108, 278 Cultural Revolutionary variant 107 Sihanouk, Norodom (King of Cambodia) 115, 291, 292 Sino-Soviet split 104, 127 Sino-Vietnamese War (1979) 110 Sisowath Monivong (King) 291 Sisowath Sirik Matak (Prince) 115 Sixth Commandment (Thou Shall Not Kill) 126–128, 153–155, 167, 210, 217–219, 222, 294 Sliwinski, Marek 118–119, 293

Smallholders’ Party 87–88 Smirnov, I.N. 266 socialist humanism 279 Sokol (Falcon Club) 88 Sokolnikov, Grigory 55 Solovetsky (SLON) 270–271 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 70, 173, 270, 309 Soviet censuses, 1937 suppressed 19 1939 falsified 19 Soviet defense statistics, falsification of 74–75 Soviet holocaust 54 sovkhoz 36 Sovnarkhozy 294–295 Sovnarkom USSR, cancellation of Great Purge 266 Spanish civil war (1936–39) 277 Spartakist Uprising (Berlin 1919) 92 spetspereselentsy (ethnically cleansed exiles [resettlers]) 18, 63, 64, 67, 71, 79, 199, 270 spurious innovation 140 Stakhanov, Aleksei 308 Stakhanovism 53, 308 Stalin, Joseph 210, 217–220, 311 abolition of death penalty (1947) 127, 294 bank robber 42 blame 57 captive nations 85–86 killings 86 Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization 267 clergy, genocide of 44 collectivization 45, 57 culpability 6, 20–21 despotic background 41 disciplinary executions (military) 42 doctors’ plot 80 economic performance 154 economic triumph 53–54 ethnic cleansing homicides 18–20, 42, 44–45 executions 3, 5–7, 17–19, 34, 57 fabrications (Cheka, NKVD) 57 forced grain collection 1932–33, 42 forced resettlement (deportation, spetspereselentsy) 64, 78, 136 genocide 37, 40, 42–44, 87, 107 ghost 125 Great Terror 17, 20, 46, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61, 69, 167


Index Gulag excess deaths 67 indictable high crimes against humanity 17, 54–57 killings confirming excess deaths 57–58, 71, 73, 254 kulak collectivization killings 57 kulak operation (1936–38) 56 kulak threat 55 lethal forced labor homicides 18–20, 44, 70–72 Manchuria, industrial reparations 277 monster 254 Moscow Show Trial 55–57 national operations 56, 80–83 national security 41, 46, 86 nonsexual sadist 208 Polish operation (POV) 44, 264 politicals 70, 208 premeditated murder 40 proscription list 42 siege mobilized terror command, choice of 162 spetspereselentsy excess deaths 79 stalwarts 56, 267 structure of killings 17–19 suicide brigages 58–59 superindustrialization 55, 163 terror, extraneous to economic success (Bergson) 187 terror-execution 3–6, 19, 20, 35, 42, 44, 59 terror-free command 86 terror-starvation 1932–33, 18–20, 40–42, 57 terror-starvation 1947, 45–47 terror-starvation, absence of in captive nations 86 time profile of killings 18, 73 transition to terror free command after 1945, 18 Trotskyite-Zinovievite plot to kill Stalin 56 Tsaritsyn terror 1918, 42 was Stalin necessary? 197 World War II 58 Strumilin, Stanislav 270, 300 Sun, Yat-sen 93 Suramarit, Norodom 291 Sutela, Pekka 270 Suvorov, Viktor 295 Sweezy, Paul 296 sword (Red Army) and torch (insurrectionary and civil war incitement) 93

357

Tartar legacy 190, 266 Taylor, Frederick Winslow 308 Taylorism 270 Team-Stalin 41, 257, 261, 312 tekhpromfinplan 138 terror command 86, 105 terror-free command 125 Cuba, Mozambique, Angola 294 Gulag excess deaths 294 terror starvation, Holomodor versus Great Leap Forward 279 terror tactics in captive nations 88 TerVaganya, V.A. 266 testimonial literature 18, 71–72 the thaw (Khrushchovskaya Ottepel) 173, 194, 281, 298 Third International 55, 277 Thirith, Khieu 294 Tito, Josip Broz 156 Toda, Yasushi 317 Tojo, Hideki 218, 223, 314 tolkach 138 Tolts, Mark 175, 300–302 torture 57, 206, 208, 210, 241 totalitarianism, Orwellians 67 transition 312 Trial of the Century 173 tribute model 258 Trotsky, Leon 266 Trotsky, Olga (Kamenev’s wife) 266 Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre 55 Truong Chinh 290 Truong Nhu 291 Tukhachevsky, Mikhail 56, 267 Twentieth Communist Party Congress 104 United Opposition 266 Urlanis, Boris 27, 176, 300, 301 utopia of Thomas More 300 Utopian Communalism (Mao) 105, 135, 155, 279 Utopian fanaticism (Khmer Rouge) 107 Vallin, Mesle, Adamets and Pryozhokov 261 Van den Berg, Ger Pieter 28, 208 Vickery, Michael 118 Vietnam War 108, 110, 115, 290 Vigor, Peter 198

358

Index


vital statistics mortality rates 40–41 natality rates 40 Volga-Don Canal 78 Volkogonov, Dmitri 268, 274 Voznesensky, Nikolai Alexanderovich 267 VSNKh (vysshii Sovet Narodnogo Khoziaistva) 55 Vyshinsky, Andrei 267 Wang, Weizhi 105, 279–282 War Communism 3, 36, 190, 276, 290 war crimes 292, 314 Warsaw Pact 85, 128, 275 was Stalin necessary? 197 Weber, Max 308 administrative efficiency norms 54, 185–186 Wheatcroft, Stephen 20, 23, 25, 38–42, 57, 58, 65, 67, 71, 181, 190, 210, 220–223, 243, 259–260, 2630–264 Wheelwright, Edward 290

Williamson, Oliver 295 Wolowyna, Oleh 260 World War II civilian casualties 20 German-Soviet archival discrepancy 19 Soviets fighting for Nazis 71 wrecking (vreditel’stvogo) 42, 63 Yagoda, Genrikh 55, 271 Yakovlev, Alexander 294 Yalta Agreement 85, 96, 277 Yang, Jisheng 105, 279, 281, 289, 296 Mu Bei (Tombstone) 105, 279, 282 Three Red Banners-General Line 105 Yeltsin, Boris 158 Yezhov, Nikolai 55, 210, 266, 312 Zemskov, Viktor 37, 67, 79, 259, 264, 267, 270–274 Zhou Enlai 279, 294 Zinoviev, Grigory 55, 266

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