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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
The one good thing that came out of World War II in terms of world peace was the commitment to sovereignty. I can’t find it now, but George P. Shultz wrote a truly profound op-ed about this in, I think, the late nineties.
Sovereignty is something the family of independent nations can wrap their head around and support.
It’s not everything. But it is something.
The Russian Empire were masters at it. Required Jews to live in the Pale, excluded from almost all of Russia proper. Use them as a distraction for the local serfs, working for their Russian masters, and provoking conflict between the groups, with the Imperial Cossacks thrown in as their version of the SS.
Not when you understand who and what were in the US State department, particularly the China Bureau.
Think Whitaker Chambers.
Thank you. The Holodomor was a deliberate humanitarian atrocity committed by the Soviets for purely political ends. The Soviets were obsessed with collectivizing their agriculture, and the Ukrainian farmers were resisting the process. So the Soviets used violence, mass deporrations, murder, and finally, outright mass starvation to break the Ukrainian peasants. In about a year, they murdered about 4.5-5 million people, and set about a campaign to wipe out the Ukrainian language and culture.
The kulaks were not a specific class, they were basically any farmers who had or did a little bit more than their neighbors. Eventually, just as the Cambodian Communists decided that anyone with glasses was a member of the “intellectual class”, a kulak was anybody they thought was standing in their way.
And the Ukraine is some breathtakingly beautiful, black-earth farmland, I can tell you. You could put a stick in the ground and it would grow. To starve people there was nothing short of obscene.
Dude, seriously. History is like so five minutes ago.
The thing about genocide is whether opposition is cognitively convenient. We could get far more exercised about ugly overt racism in apartheid South Africa than we do about actual genocide in Tibet, southwestern western China or even Rwanda. Key questions: Do the oppressors pose any threat to us? Do we really want to intervene? What kind of uncomplicated moral self-congratulations does opposition/condemnation offer. We had folk songs like “Marching to Pretoria” but no folk songs about far worse human rights abuses around the world.
And condemning the many Soviet rights abuses (Holodomor being at the top of the list) runs the danger of making one aligned with primitive pro-American, pro-western values rather than the pose of an enlightened sophisticate who remembers slavery and Wounded Knee whenever Stalin is mentioned thus demonstrating transcendent wisdom and immunity from the stultifying clutches of mere patriotism.
I used to do a lot of fundraising for music education on Cape Cod. It was an uphill battle every day. At one point there was a massive fire in an apartment building in one of the towns. I watched Cape Cod raise two million dollars in a week’s time. Breathtaking. :-)
I thought a lot about the difference. Prevention is boring. Crisis is exciting. For sure. But on a deeper level where I tend to respect my fellow human beings every once in a while, you’ve got to put the fire out and worry about what caused it later. It’s something I admire unendingly about doctors. Yes, they hate suffering. They work hard to prevent it. But when push comes to shove, they will work to save a life and worry about what caused the problem later. Sometimes in world affairs, that’s how we need to operate, no pun intended. :-)
I think that’s what I’m seeing now in the world’s reaction to Putin’s aggression into Ukraine. I am very hopeful that we are a little closer to understanding that we need to, and we have the ability to, put out today’s fire and learn from it at our leisure later. :-)
Yes, but it is Russia that just can’t let go of communism and wants to force it on its neighbors.
I did see a video of an invading Russian armored column and one of the vehicles was flying the Red Rag ( aka Hammer and Sickle).
Soviet nostalgia is a real thing in Russia. Lots of “Stalin was a great man.” I even ran across it in Berlin in 2016. Took a tour of the city and in the East Berlin tour portion the narration was all nostalgic for the good old days of the GDR.
You can find that here in America, too. There are Americans who really do think that Stalin and Mao did nothing wrong–or, if they did, it was merely innocent errors of over-enthusiasm in a totally righteous cause. You know, “they were just liberals in a hurry”. But you haven’t lived until a “progressive” friend lets the mask slip and says that the Tienanmen Square Massacre was a Good Thing.
Yeah. Local liquor store has “Hammer and Sickle Vodka”.
One day I asked them if they had Swastika Schnapps. I got a puzzled look. I said to “someones family who lived in the USSR that vodka label is just as offensive.”
Or the little twits with their “edgy” Che Guevara t shirts. I asked a couple of them if they knew who he was. I pointed out he was a racist, homosexual murdering psychopath.
YIKES. Glad they dodged that mess.
Went to some organic, fair-trade coffee joint several years back and the man-bun barista said, “would you like a scone with that Americano?” I replied, “did the guy in a Che shirt just try to upsell me?” His eyes were the spinning wheels you get when your webpage is updating. I didn’t return.
Me too.
I feel like communism is more of a presence in American government than Russian. I think Russia uses the kleptocracy form of government. The distinction between fascist, autocrat, communist, and kleptocrat is unimportant.
You remind me of taking my Lithuanian grandmother to vote in Australia many years ago. We were handed various pamphlets for the various Parties in the election. My grandmother emigrated to Australia in her 50’s and had little English. She passed me the pamphlets and asked me “which one is the Communists?”. I was young and said there aren’t any Communists in Australia. She smiled and said: “There are always Communists. They just call themselves something else.”
THAT IS SO HOT.
Australia might be currently run by their communists.
I must be missing something because I totally do not understand what that chart is representing. There are no labels on the columns.
It was a very different place in the 1970’s. I don’t even want to visit there anymore.
I hope that the Ukrainians are using bottles like that to make Molotov Cocktails!
I read that a brewery has switched over to making Molotov cocktails in bottles with Putin’s face on them…
Sure there are. In the line above. But not formatted right. Some assembly required.
Ah, la Vida Data!
Which party did you tell her?
Those titles are not clear either. What is PartyParty? What is Constituency? What are ppSeats? What are SeatSeats? And to which columns do they belong? What does New even mean instead of a number?
Oh, the Labor Party, of course. That was the last time I voted for the equivalent of the Democrat Party. I was 18 and voting for the first time. Worst vote I ever cast.
Best I can do with the limited ducks around here.
That’s what we need around here. More ducks.
I am all out of ducks to give.
Could have done worse Julia, at least it wasn’t Socialist Alternative or the Nationals. (Country Party then?)
Missiles were put in Cuba by a communist country and a leader who openly stated their intent to destroy the US. Ukraine would join a western alliance for defensive reasons, not to take part in a war against Russia. Alliances are formed all the time and do not share a moral equivalence.