I think you have some good points, just want to fill in some details.
The internal deportations were one thing (bad), but victims of collectivization? What the fuck is that even supposed to mean? No, the mere act of handing ownership of farms from landlords to peasants did not kill people. And refering to “victims of famine” makes it clear that this guy is pushing the “Holodomor” narrative which is very much not the academic historical consensus. Even the answers in the r/askhistorians FAQ attest to this.
The kindest interpretation is they mean people who through the ineptitude of the policy died (which is the consensus). Some ways this happened included young party members ransacking small farms, and other misdeeds done during the forced process, or demanding more resources than the kolkhozes had. Real violent malice did occur and get into the popular consciousness of party members carrying out the collectivization which made it worse than it had to be (I'm reminded of a diary project from the late 90s of a historian who collected party member diaries from the Stalin period, one member was still alive, and when interviewed said that Gorbachev's ancestors were kulaks and that's why he destroyed the union, and the only mistake Stalin did make was not executing them all).
I.e., “yeah, he’s right, but, uh, the article he cites is a few years older than the book”.
The bigger implication here is that Parenti is misrepresenting Getty by selectively citing what he wants to, and then not dealing with how to resolve that contradiction (and is true).
Heaven forbid the USSR executed tens of thousands of people during the war years. Not even being ironic: they didn’t kill enough Nazis. There were more than a million of those pieces of shit left after the war, not even including the fascists everywhere else in Europe. They weren’t thorough enough in their executions. But both the OP and Getty take for granted the liberal assumption that all killing is equally bad, even if the “victims” are fascists and fascist collaborators.
The inmates referred to here are not ww2 prisoners I think, Getty et al had the NKVD data showing who was a POW, and their analysis stops in 1941 in the paper referenced. I also want to say that Parenti incredibly undersells the living conditions of the camps even for people in there for things like theft. The original paper by Getty et al. is a good read, available here for free, and shows how overblown the old estimates were but also does not discount the suffering and the mass chaos the party and society was in.
Yeah, you kind of do actually have to do that to defend a massive socialist country when basically the entire rest of the world is out to get you.
That's the thing, the world was out to get them, and with that they also let their paranoia go crazy. The party was tearing itself apart in the violence, member accusing member. So many good revolutionaries were shot for no reason other than what was effectively a top down directed mass panic, and significantly contributed to the dooming of the union.
Therefore, what, there was no aggression from the west against the Eastern Bloc? The fact that there was trade between the countries doesn’t contradict Parenti’s point; there was and continues to be all kinds of aggression including economic warfare constantly directed against socialist states.
This is true, but it's also more complicated and varied across different time periods. Relations during the 1930s were not especially destructive, while post ww2 to the 1970s were incredibly so, and then there was détente until 1980, Reagan's bullshit, and then the sudden collapse (which really was sudden, the US thought even if the cold war was over, the union would not dissolve)
The kindest interpretation is they mean people who through the ineptitude of the policy died (which is the consensus).
Among other factors, yeah, but describing them as victims alongside those who were internally deported and with no elaboration makes me assume they meant otherwise.
(I’m reminded of a diary project from the late 90s of a historian who collected party member diaries from the Stalin period, one member was still alive, and when interviewed said that Gorbachev’s ancestors were kulaks and that’s why he destroyed the union, and the only mistake Stalin did make was not executing them all).
lol I guess I can't blame him for feeling that way after everything that happened.
The bigger implication here is that Parenti is misrepresenting Getty by selectively citing what he wants to, and then not dealing with how to resolve that contradiction (and is true).
Just pointing out how the bit about the essay being old doesn't make any sense as a criticism when the book is nearly as old.
Although Parenti's broader point about the USSR being unfairly maligned as one giant concentration camp, that its oppressiveness was greatly exaggerated and its accomplishments all but ignored, still stand up even with the excesses of its prison system and its early agricultural failures considered. If the point is to moderate the common view of the USSR, without wholly denying that it had plenty of flaws (which Parenti freely admits), I don't really think it matters all that much that he only cited the conclusions from Getty that substantiate that, given that they aren't even wrong.
The inmates referred to here are not ww2 prisoners I think, Getty et al had the NKVD data showing who was a POW, and their analysis stops in 1941 in the paper referenced.
So were POWs or collaborators ever put in the Gulag?
This is true, but it’s also more complicated and varied across different time periods. Relations during the 1930s were not especially destructive, while post ww2 to the 1970s were incredibly so, and then there was détente until 1980, Reagan’s bullshit, and then the sudden collapse (which really was sudden, the US thought even if the cold war was over, the union would not dissolve)
Denying the existence of capitalist siege, or the role it played in the fall of socialism in the Eastern Bloc, however, still isn't true. The USSR was molded and constrained by these external pressures for its entire existence, same as every other socialist country, and no analysis of it and its decline can ignore that, which is what the OP is suggesting. And I highly doubt the US wasn't interfering with the USSR at all in the 30s and 70s, even if things were considerably cooler then - on the level of espionage, at the very least.
On the POWs, they were in camps called GUPVI, roughly Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees, not the GULAG. The executions referred to are GULAG executions made as soviet troops retreated and some camps were going to be left outside of soviet controlled territory.
I agree, don't mean to ignore it just note that the relationship is more complicated than capitalist pressure alone (and complicated ideologically to boot, just look at IIASA). The US was interfering at all times of course but the forms of interference were significantly different, and driven by different processes. The 30s for instance is a decade driven by the hope of selling huge industrial contracts to the USSR, and is in a world where the US and USSR were both not seen and did not conceive of themselves as principle world powers and antagonists (not that the USSR ever viewed the US in that way, it's complicated), and the USSRs comitern project is collapsing, it's internal paranoia is raging, all while the US is also in crisis and of course fascism.
I think you have some good points, just want to fill in some details.
The kindest interpretation is they mean people who through the ineptitude of the policy died (which is the consensus). Some ways this happened included young party members ransacking small farms, and other misdeeds done during the forced process, or demanding more resources than the kolkhozes had. Real violent malice did occur and get into the popular consciousness of party members carrying out the collectivization which made it worse than it had to be (I'm reminded of a diary project from the late 90s of a historian who collected party member diaries from the Stalin period, one member was still alive, and when interviewed said that Gorbachev's ancestors were kulaks and that's why he destroyed the union, and the only mistake Stalin did make was not executing them all).
The bigger implication here is that Parenti is misrepresenting Getty by selectively citing what he wants to, and then not dealing with how to resolve that contradiction (and is true).
The inmates referred to here are not ww2 prisoners I think, Getty et al had the NKVD data showing who was a POW, and their analysis stops in 1941 in the paper referenced. I also want to say that Parenti incredibly undersells the living conditions of the camps even for people in there for things like theft. The original paper by Getty et al. is a good read, available here for free, and shows how overblown the old estimates were but also does not discount the suffering and the mass chaos the party and society was in.
That's the thing, the world was out to get them, and with that they also let their paranoia go crazy. The party was tearing itself apart in the violence, member accusing member. So many good revolutionaries were shot for no reason other than what was effectively a top down directed mass panic, and significantly contributed to the dooming of the union.
This is true, but it's also more complicated and varied across different time periods. Relations during the 1930s were not especially destructive, while post ww2 to the 1970s were incredibly so, and then there was détente until 1980, Reagan's bullshit, and then the sudden collapse (which really was sudden, the US thought even if the cold war was over, the union would not dissolve)
Among other factors, yeah, but describing them as victims alongside those who were internally deported and with no elaboration makes me assume they meant otherwise.
lol I guess I can't blame him for feeling that way after everything that happened.
Just pointing out how the bit about the essay being old doesn't make any sense as a criticism when the book is nearly as old.
Although Parenti's broader point about the USSR being unfairly maligned as one giant concentration camp, that its oppressiveness was greatly exaggerated and its accomplishments all but ignored, still stand up even with the excesses of its prison system and its early agricultural failures considered. If the point is to moderate the common view of the USSR, without wholly denying that it had plenty of flaws (which Parenti freely admits), I don't really think it matters all that much that he only cited the conclusions from Getty that substantiate that, given that they aren't even wrong.
So were POWs or collaborators ever put in the Gulag?
Denying the existence of capitalist siege, or the role it played in the fall of socialism in the Eastern Bloc, however, still isn't true. The USSR was molded and constrained by these external pressures for its entire existence, same as every other socialist country, and no analysis of it and its decline can ignore that, which is what the OP is suggesting. And I highly doubt the US wasn't interfering with the USSR at all in the 30s and 70s, even if things were considerably cooler then - on the level of espionage, at the very least.
On the POWs, they were in camps called GUPVI, roughly Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees, not the GULAG. The executions referred to are GULAG executions made as soviet troops retreated and some camps were going to be left outside of soviet controlled territory.
I agree, don't mean to ignore it just note that the relationship is more complicated than capitalist pressure alone (and complicated ideologically to boot, just look at IIASA). The US was interfering at all times of course but the forms of interference were significantly different, and driven by different processes. The 30s for instance is a decade driven by the hope of selling huge industrial contracts to the USSR, and is in a world where the US and USSR were both not seen and did not conceive of themselves as principle world powers and antagonists (not that the USSR ever viewed the US in that way, it's complicated), and the USSRs comitern project is collapsing, it's internal paranoia is raging, all while the US is also in crisis and of course fascism.