this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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reminder rule (lemmy.cafe)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by spujb@lemmy.cafe to c/196@lemmy.blahaj.zone
 

edit: GUYS fuck stalin and fuck tankies, period. i understand that this community is more sensitive than most to pro-stalinist vibes, and i apologize for unintentionally twinging that nerve, but you need stop calling each other (and me) slurs

good heavens, happy new year, fuck incarceration and murder in all forms

(mods pls also do your job and help with the slurs thing)

edit2: big thank u 2 da mods for helping with the slurs thing u guys rock 😎 💕

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[–] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fair.

To be even more fair, though, extreme poverty and shortages of (nutritious) food are as severe if not worse in present day US and the richest 1% are hoarding much more than the party fat cats were too.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

extreme poverty and shortages of (nutritious) food are as severe if not worse in present day US

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921%E2%80%931922

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933

Your comparison is straight-up deranged, I have no softer words.

[–] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Multiply how many people die of starvation or malnutrition a year by 29 (the length of Stalin's reign) and you'll see that I'm right.

Just because the two Soviet famines were faster and got more press doesn't mean they killed more people over a 29 year period than the US "food is for profits and poor people are for exploiting" politics.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I find it very, very hard to believe that there could be two catastrophic famines in the SSSR, and yet that there were no deaths or food issues outside of those two periods (there absolutely were). I only used them as examples, not as a list of all food issues in the Union, while you're implying the latter.

Multiply how many people die of starvation or malnutrition a year by 29 (the length of Stalin’s reign) and you’ll see that I’m right.

I take it you mean in the US? Ok, let's see.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-04-13/deaths-from-malnutrition-have-more-than-doubled-in-the-u-s

The same trend occurred nationwide, with malnutrition deaths more than doubling, from about 9,300 deaths in 2018 to roughly 20,500 in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Let's take the second, significantly bigger number, for the sake of the argument. If the number of malnutrition deaths is multiplied by Stalin's reign, it gets us 595k deaths. At the time, SSSR had (very roughly) half the population of current USA, so to keep the numbers proportional and meaningful to compare, we should halve the US deaths: 300k. Stalin did not actually rule during the first famine I linked, only the second one. The second famine killed at least 5.7 million people (again, taking the lower number, in favour of your position).

300k is clearly a smaller number than 5.7 mil. Since the numbers are only relative, we should judge by the ratio: the 1930-1933 famine was 19 times worse death-wise than the current food issues in the USA.

If you have some different, better numbers (though I tried to pick those that are in favour in your claim), or if I miscalculated something, let me know.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

TIL Stalin was slightly worse than Biden

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago

Forgive me for the rather mechanical, utilitarianist formulation, but do you honestly think killing 19 people is merely "slightly worse" than killing 1 person?