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Millions of Dead Ukrainians Suggest That Ignoring History Is Dangerous
In reading about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I’ve come across sources that mention Russia’s economy, Putin’s historical revisionism, Zelenskyy’s background as an actor, Russian military tactics, oil pipelines, Finland’s military might, and the complex history between Russia and Ukraine. But I am amazed that there is one name that I have not seen mentioned anywhere: Lazar Kaganovich.
In a strange twist of fate, I am friends (not close friends, but friends) with Mr. Kaganovich’s grandson. Sort of a long story. I’ve considered writing about that. But not today. Regardless, as most of you know, Mr. Kaganovich was born to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish family in what is now Ukraine, became one of Joseph Stalin’s most trusted friends, and ended up being the leader of the Ukrainian genocide (the Holodomor famine) which killed 3-4 million Ukrainians under absolutely brutal conditions. He is remembered as one of Stalin’s most vicious henchmen. Although my friend remembers him as a kind, doting grandfather. Wow. Anyway…
Ten years ago, I befriended a woman who moved to Tennessee from Ukraine with her junior high school daughter (who was in my daughter’s class – they became best friends). I mentioned that I knew Kaganovich’s grandson, and my friend was shocked, but her daughter had no idea who he was. She went to school in Ukraine until age 14, and had never heard of Kaganovich, who was responsible for the deaths of many in her family. I wonder how many Ukrainians are unaware of this period of their history? It was 90 years ago, so no one alive was there at the time. But is it possible that no one remembers it at all?
Granted, Ukraine’s oppression under Soviet rule from WWII to 1991 was no picnic, either. And perhaps it is the combination of these two events which is motivating Ukraine’s spirited defense of their homeland against Russian invaders. They appear to have a much more clear understanding of what Russia represents than, say, President Biden. And honestly, they should.
While we seem to be minimizing the evil of Russian leadership, that in itself may be proof of just how consistently evil they are. For example:
Imagine if 70 years ago, Germany had killed millions of Jews (which, of course, they did). And then imagine that Germany invaded Israel today. Can you imagine the press coverage? Every Western news channel would run endless loops of Hitler speeches and Jews in concentration camps. As they should.
But yet, here we are, with Russia invading Ukraine. Again. And there has been little to no discussion of Ukrainian suffering under Soviet occupation from 1956-1991, and no mention whatsoever of the butcher of the Holodomor, Lazar Kaganovich. There are no screaming headlines of the evil of Putin, comparing him to Kaganovich (as the media would have compared Germany’s invasion of Israel to the Nazis).
No – It’s Russia. I mean, c’mon. This is just what they do, right?
Perhaps the media doesn’t bring up Kaganovich because they don’t have to. The vicious tactics of Russia aren’t excused, exactly. They’re just presumed. After all, it’s Russia that we’re talking about here, right? Perhaps. But I really don’t think so.
I would feel better if we paid more attention to history. Instead of reading story after story about how Putin feels about his progress in Ukraine this afternoon, perhaps we should be looking at this invasion as just a small part of a big picture. This isn’t a shocking aberration. It’s just another brick in the wall.
Putin may be unpredictable. But Russia is not. They even cheat in figure skating, for Pete’s sake. Even when everybody knows they’re cheating, and they’ve already been suspended. They lie, and they cheat. After all, it’s Russia we’re talking about here, right? Even Jimmy Carter figured this out. Eventually.
But because so many in our media and our ruling class share Russia’s affinity for socialism, bureaucratic power, and other centralized control systems, they are hesitant to criticize Russia too harshly. When your beliefs don’t make any sense, then hypocrisy becomes a cardinal sin. Dissenting viewpoints become heresy when you know you’re on shaky ethical ground. So criticism of Russia must be done gently.
Focus on the omelets, not the eggs. Call Putin unpredictable. But don’t call Russia a dangerous, dishonest, oppressive, imperialist power based on centralized control systems. That just wouldn’t do.
This is just an understandable disagreement between some white dudes in Europe. This is not evidence of the horrors of government power that American Democrats covet so openly. Heavens no. Golly, that Putin guy is so unpredictable.
Right.
Let’s fund Russia’s military by buying petroleum from them! Great idea! That way, we can pretend to believe in climate change, with no consequences! Awesome! Why not? Russia’s just some other country, like Sweden or whatever, right? What’s the worst that could happen? Don’t listen to all those dead Ukrainians. There’s fund-raising to do!
Understanding history can make seemingly complex decisions become more straightforward.
Many tyrants have openly acknowledged that you can’t control a country’s future without first controlling its history. Islamists seek to control countries by destroying any ancient artifacts which don’t fit with Islam. Putin just gave a speech claiming that his Russian ‘peacekeeping forces’ were merely attempting to free Ukraine from Nazi control (Ukraine’s Prime Minister is Jewish). American leftists have been tearing down statues and renaming schools on a wholesale level. All for the same reason.
You can’t control a country’s future without controlling its history.
And people wonder why those who love freedom are so upset about the historical revisionism of the left. We should remember history. Even the bad parts of it.
Especially the bad parts of it.
Our lives may depend on it. Many, many, many other lives may depend on it, too. Just ask a dead Ukrainian.
Published in General
Exactly so.
Question for you @kozak, since you know the people well, is it possible that Ukraine can be a better more prosperous country by letting the eastern 25% of the oblasts become “independent”? I feel like the ongoing civil war in the east has hurt capital investment and general prosperity. The territorial dispute prevents them joining NATO, which would provide them long-term security. Stability might also allow for cracking down on corruption, so the peoples money stays in Ukraine instead of piling up in some London bank account. Is 75% of a stable Ukraine better for the people than 100% of an unstable Ukraine? Belarus is voting on whether to allow Russian nuclear missile deployments this week.
I think there is a cultural thing about cheating in Russia that is not fully comprehended by people who live in the West.
I have a good friend who is a well-known Russian Chess Grandmaster who immigrated to the U.S. shortly after the collapse of Communism in the USSR. I won’t use his real name. Let’s just call him Igor. One night during a formal chess lecture he was giving to me and a number of my chess-playing friends, he related the following story:
Back in the old Soviet Union he had been studying with former World Chess Champion Mikhail Tal. They studied a particular opening variation with a number of complex moves which were difficult to memorize. Tal was due to compete in a team championship against the young Gary Kasparov who had not yet become World Champion, but was nonetheless the fastest rising Soviet chess grandmaster. Igor attended the event that was played in a vast hall with spectator seats around the central floor where team members played their games, kind of like a hockey or basketball arena.
Tal’s game progressed with Kasparov along the exact lines of the opening variation he had been studying with Igor. At some point, a messenger frantically approached Igor who was sitting up in the stands and said “Tal needs you. Come quickly.” He went to meet Tal, who had left his board onstage while awaiting Kasparov’s next move, at a secret location. Tal blurted to Igor “I can’t remember what I’m supposed to play if Kasparov finds the key move!” Igor refreshed his memory of the tricky variation and Tal ran back to the board and finished the game, which eventually ended in a draw.
This of course is highly unethical and would get you a suspension if not an outright ban from the International Chess Federation if discovered. My friend Igor treated it as if it was just business as usual in the Soviet Union. I read an account by Victor Korchnoy, another Soviet Grandmaster, who watched the wife of yet another ex-Soviet World Champion, give secret advice from her husband to an obscure Yugoslavian player during a game in order to beat Bobby Fisher in a notoriously famous game. Stories abound like this in the chess world of the old Soviet Union.
My former landlord and his family fortunately left on the last train out of Dresden before the bombing started. He was five years old at the time and they were there by way of Lithuania.
Exactly. Holodomor didn’t happen because of a widespread drought. It happened because the Ukrainians resisted collectivization, and the Soviets confiscated their grain supplies.
Mayor John Tory, of Toronto, marched in a pro-Ukraine demonstration in Toronto. A very large one. Yes, the very same Toronto. Toronto, Canada.
Remember the phony story that Russians were paying the Taliban for bounties on US soldiers?
Lots of marionette strings in plain sight.
Everyone needs to set their BS detectors on full alert for the coming storm. It is not “anti-American” or “anti-liberty” to exercise critical thinking. But you’ll be demonized by all sides if you do.
Keep telling yourself that you’re a realist.
Perhaps the salient point is that the Ukrainians believe they are, and prefer sovereignty to subjugation and absorption.
Leaving aside debate about that particular assertion, consider this: the famine is part of the Ukrainian historical psyche, and therefore as valid a motiving force as all the various psychodramas people cite to explain, and frequently justify, Russian behavior.
To me at least, pragmatism seems in weirdly short supply on this thread.
(Not realism, however defined — pragmatism.)
So here you go…:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ukraines-deadly-gamble
Lazar Kaganovich almost certainly considered himself a Russian Communist, not a Ukrainian Jew.
Stalin didn’t know the future. For all he knew, he was going to be facing a revolutionary tribunal in six months. For this reason, according to Arkady Vaksberg in Stalin Against the Jews, Stalin liked to assign “Jews” to carry out his worst atrocities, in case he ever needed scapegoats to blame.
Of course Communism leads to invasions, atrocities, and mass murder; but let’s remember that Russia was invading and oppressing its neighbors — Ukraine, Poland, Finland, and several countries in Central Asia — for centuries before the Communists took over. Russia literally learned its politics and foreign policy during generations of Mongol rule.
#70 @taras
“Russia literally learned its politics and foreign policy during generations of Mongol rule.”
That’s as may be.
But Russia, Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, heck even the Swedes who had the Baltics wrested away from them by Russia in the early 1700s — all of them displayed a remarkable self-sufficiency in learning and honing their respective capacities and appetites for mass murder and oppression of their Jews. Who themselves were never even remotely invaders or oppressors.
Existential legitimacy — even under the oppressive yokes of all these countries/peoples — was denied at almost every turn. Viewed through this lens, various instances of post-Warsaw-Pact clamoring for political sovereignty look like luxury.
And to the extent that there’s never been any accountability exacted for this that isn’t a sad joke, there’s yet to be (and probably never will be) anything approaching historical closure for the surviving remnant.
[…]
NATO was always designed to cripple Russia. We can argue the specifics, but there is no arguing that NATO is a Russian enemy. Saying things like NATO has “an open door policy for any nation” is ridiculously provocative. And we’ve had leaders saying things like that going back to the Clinton administration.
This is Russia’s Cuban Missile Crisis. If China installed a pro-China government in Mexico and started putting missiles there, wouldn’t that scare the ever living redacted out of us?
[…]
Putin has been warning everyone about this for at least ten years. This gets lost on Americans – Putin is an actual man. He means what he says. […] When a real man speaks we need to listen. This isn’t Trudeau or Macron we’re dealing with.
[…]
NATO is the “entangling alliance” that the founders warned us about. It’s also nothing new, Europe has been bouncing around globalist government ideas since Westphalia. Engangling alliances started the current war. It’s not “Russian nationalism” or any other boogeyman. Media says things like this because global progressivism is their Virgin Mary and it can never be criticized.
Russia wants nothing to do with this. And our founders understood that Europe was a mess we needed to avoid. This also gets lost under progressive revisionism.
I hope that two years from now, India isn’t threatening Turkmenistan with nukes in the name of Ukrainian democracy.
******Salerno ends*******
“NATO was always designed to cripple Russia.” Only in the fantasy world of Russian propaganda.
With the Soviets occupying half of Europe already, after the war the Soviets helped Hitler start, NATO was a desperate ploy to deter the Soviets from occupying the other half as well. Without the US and its allies standing in the way, there was no way to stop the Soviets from completing the dream of their forefathers, the Mongols, and marching all the way to the Atlantic.
“This is Russia’s Cuban Missile Crisis.” I am unaware that any nuclear missiles were installed in Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine handed over its nuclear weapons to Russia in 1994, in return for absolute assurances from Russia and the US that its borders would be respected. To paraphrase Animal House, “Ukraine screwed up: they trusted us!”
”Putin is an actual man. … When a real man speaks we need to listen.” Those of us who are not turned on by Putin’s bare chest recognize that he’s a man, but a man who lies all the time. (See Minsk Accords.)
“Entangling alliances started the current war.” Rather, if Ukraine had been admitted to NATO sooner, there would be no war. What we are seeing now is that, when NATO isn’t on his border, Putin moves up his border until it is.
And then he declares that NATO on his border is a threat, so he has to keep going…
In Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals, there’s a long chapter about “middleman minorities” — Jews in Europe, Armenians in the Turkish Empire, Indians in East Africa, and many others — whose untraditional way of making a living, as well as their relative success, often leave less-skilled majority populations believing the minority is cheating them somehow. (Note black attacks on Asians in urban areas.)
This sort of thing has often led to persecution. But let’s always remember that the Holocaust didn’t start in various European countries until the Nazis arrived.
Also, Stalin’s predilection to make Jews scapegoats for his dirty work, as I’ve described elsewhere, didn’t help. For example, it was where the wounds were most raw, in the Baltic states, that indigenous support for the Holocaust was highest, of all Nazi-occupied countries. The Soviet occupation and rape of the Baltic states lasted less than a year before the Nazis swept in.
Why not 1000 B.C. and give it to… Israel.
They were between a rock and a hard place.
Let’s compare.
The Soviet theft of grain from Ukrainian farmers, for hard cash to support their tyrannical endeavors, thus causing mass starvation.
Recent tactics of lawfare, sanctions, debanking, censorship, deplatforming and mandates lobbed at dissidents worldwide.
Aren’t these a continuation of the same tactics, applied across geographical borders, to anyone who won’t submit to the prevailing flavor of tyranny, in any given neighborhood?
These evils are not limited to Soviets, Russians, Iranians, to name a few. These are also present in our USA, and Canadian homelands.
Tyranny, is always encroaching, worldwide, Putin in Ukraine is just one more brick in the wall.
I saw no mention of the Khazars, Alexander Nevsky, the conquering of the Siberian Khanate, or Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim” in this awesome discussion.
I think there should be.
It is a historically common practice for tyrants to use minorities in such ways.
Outstanding analysis by Lee Smith.
My uncles and grandparents were settled in Canada. I spent every summer in Windsor ” Canada’s sun porch”, also referred to as “America’s back porch”. When I was growing up, Ukrainians were the 3rd most populous demographic in Canada. Lots of Ukrainians who couldn’t get visa’s to the US went to Canada. Along with the UK, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.
My parents originally couldn’t get a US sponsor ( you needed one to get into the US at that time). So they were scheduled to emigrate from Austria to Algeria. Man what a turn my life would have taken in that case….
My parents were in the Romanian part of Bucovina. When the Ribbentrop pact was signed they were suddenly part of the USSR. My dad was a Ukrainian nationalist, and said ” well I hate the Communists, but we are at least part of Ukraine now.” He was an engineer. Was assigned to design an electric motor. When given the specifications he told them, ” it’s impossible to make a motor to these specifications. Can’t be done.” He was denounced and labeled a “wrecker”, and expected to be sent to Siberia or killed at any day. Fortunately, ( funny huh?) Hitler invaded the USSR and my parents ended up in Germany for the rest of the war. They were in the East, and spent the rest of the war avoiding “liberation” by the Red Army.
Most Americans can have no idea of what Ukraine, and Ukrainians have been through in the last century or so.
Starting with the First World War with 4 years of fighting much of it on Ukrainian soil.
Brief independence. Followed by reconquest during the Civil War by the Red Army. Famine in the 1920’s.
Collectivization and the Holodomor in the 1930’s along with Stalins Great Purge.
World War Two and invasion and destruction as the Germans advanced and the Soviets executed a scorched earth policy in retreat. The reconquest by the Red Army with the Germans destroying anything that was left as they retreated.
More purges and 40 years of soul crushing Soviet Communism.
Including Chernobyl and the poisoning of large tracts of Ukraine and its people.
Finally the collapse of the Evil Empire and finally Independence.
And still there’s the damn Russian Bear, over their shoulder, interfering in their nation and nibbling away since 2014 at killing thousands, and now trying to snuff out their moment of freedom.
All they want is some peace and a chance for their children not to suffer as they, their parents and grandparents have suffered.
If Russia stops fighting, the war will end.
If Ukraine stops fighting Ukraine will end.
When my parents were fleeing the East they traveled through Slovakia. The locals said, “why are going with the Germans when the Russians are coming to free us!” My parents told them, “you have no idea what is coming your way.”
Where does this stop? First it was Crimea. Then Donbas and Luhansk. Both areas rich in industry and natural resources, and still full of Ukrainians who don’t want to be part of a Russian puppet state. You will note that as of now no major Ukrainian city, (Kharkov way East in Donbas is the second largest city), are still in Ukrainian hands. Next it will be Odessa and the Black Sea coast. No. If the separatists want to live in Russia, they just need to walk East.
Oh yeah. And Baltic nations take note. The Soviet Union intentionally mixed nationalities and moved borders to create these exact problems. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have sizable Russian ethnic minorities. Putin has already made noises about not “mistreating them”.
Ultimately, realistically, it may come to that, with Ukraine making territorial concessions. But one can hope at this point it won’t come to that. Hopefully Saint Javelin will help save Ukraine.
Yes. This was the experience of my Hungarian friend.
“Unprovoked”? I’ll assume that this gets massaged later in the thread…
Sold!
The Canaanite delegation objects…
The USSR’s behavior immediately after World War II was all anyone would ever need to see to realize that it had gotten cocky and belligerent. Only a fool would have ignored it. The U.S. Democrats saw it but didn’t care.
The “victims of Yalta” is a truly horrifying story:
The behavior of the allies after World War II is stupefying. What they did to the fourth ally, Chiang Kai-shek, is impossible to understand. We blame Mao for the millions and millions of people who died under the Chinese communists, but some of that is the allies’ fault. The allies promised Chiang Kai-shek that they would help him defeat Mao after the war. but instead they walked away.
And we never learn. We just broke our promises again, this time to the Afghan people.
There is something wrong with our geopolitical systems that we need to fix.