Talk:Dekulakization

"Attack Type" and distribution of victims

This article has some confusing phrasing, particularly the infobox template used is Template:Infobox_civilian_attack which I know is used fairly effectively on pages like The Holocaust, but I'm not sure it fits here. It lists an "Attack Type" of "Mass murder, deportation, starvation", but that phrasing is bizarre and implies either that the Soviet famine itself was an attack, or that intentional starvation was used against those labelled as "kulaks". The number of deaths listed in the infobox clashes with the same source in the third paragraph "Hunger, disease, and mass executions during dekulakization led to approximately 390,000 or 530,000–600,000 deaths from 1929 to 1933." I can't read German so don't have a good way to confirm what the original source says, but I think we should separate out these values if we can. Mainly I don't think "starvation" should be listed under "attack", but I can't remove it without implying that all those deaths were executions.

Additionally the lede contains: "political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kulaks (prosperous peasants) and their families." It's unclear what "millions" is referring to here, I assume it's a synergy of the 1.8 million cited for deportation and the "390,000 or 530,000-600,000" for above for deaths. Unless we have a clearer source that seems irresponsible, as it's unclear how many of the deaths cited are were executions and how many were disease or famine.

Overall unless someone has a more fitting template or some idea of how to better format the infobox I'm in favour of removing the civilian attack template and shifting the soviet mass repression template up to the top of the page. As well just removing "millions of" from the lede, and focusing on the more specific values in the rest of the intro. MVHVTMV (talk) 08:10, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Number of deaths

The number of people who died in the famine is a point of contest. The number is enormous, but not necessarily 14m. The article could do a better job of reflecting the ongoing debate over this period in Soviet history as well as the lack of solid information about it.

The use of the word 'crony' at the end of the second paragraph is unnecessarily emotive; a word such as 'administrator' or 'bureaucrat' would be more conducive to a balanced discussion of a difficult topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.167.174.196 (talk) 14:30, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree. There is a book by (I believe) Adam Ulam called "A History of Soviet Russia". It pulls no punches with respect to Stalin, but at the same time it makes judicious use of resources and gives a pretty objective view of the whole situation. For example, nowhere in this article is the fact mentioned that many of the Kulaks were burning their own fields - heedless of the mass starvation they knew would occur - in order to (essentially) secure a better price for their grain. Also, this article is more like a large stub than an actual article. I call foul as to its objectivity.

Black Book

The "Black Book of Communism" should not be used as a source, as it has, on multiple occasions, proven to be a piece of historical fiction. It was so bad that a retraction was printed.

The actual statistics of people executed by the Soviet Union is even said to be as low as 800,000. Further research is required for a definite statistic on the repression under Stalin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.222.12.234 (talk) 12:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

The Black Book of Communism does indeed contain a few inaccuracies, but at over 800 pages that's hardly surprising, and yet, most things labelled as "inaccurate" on the wiki page are still subject to debate. That's why the book was printed, and others have followed generally substantiating the research undertaken, especially those in countries formerly brutalised by the Soviet Union. The two former contributors that printed a retraction "argued that, based on the results of their studies one can estimate the total number of the victims of the Communist abuse in between 65 and 93 million", as in, not the ridiculous 800,000 you speak of. To point out how ridiculously low your quotation is, even the low number for civilian casualties during the Soviet War in Afghanistan is 850,000 with much of it through mass civilian reprisals mass civilian reprisals. Stalin alone killed more of his people than the Nazis ever did. So yes, the Black Book is a flawed, but an also laudable work of historical research, one that curiously had not been fully researched, and if & when more research is done it might fall between 65,000,000 and 93,000,000 but still an insanely high number. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Willa wonky (talk • contribs) 16:18, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

"Redistribution of farmland started in 1917 and lasted until 1933, but was most active in the 1929–1932 period of the first five-year plan" This is an incorrect statement, since there was no single campaign for the distribution of farmland in 1917-1933, because at that time there were very different programs in Soviet economic policy, such as food requisitioning and war communism, and the NEP with limited freedom of private property, and only in 1929 -1933 – a brutal campaign of forcible division of farmland and deportation 37.54.230.242 (talk) 00:42, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

"...does indeed contain a few inaccuracies, but at over 800 pages that's hardly surprising..." Many historical works go as long or longer without as many inaccuracies. I find it suspect. 2601:87:4400:AF2:84D7:679C:1DA0:C7F6 (talk) 07:48, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Redundant

Why is there a there a category for "Liquidation of Kulaks as a Class?" It is excessively redundant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:2A20:EC70:BD86:2639:FF21:B9A7 (talk) 09:22, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

My editing intentions

I am proposing to add a section on the economic implications of dekulakization. The 1.8 million kulaks that were deported were primarily sent to be forced laborers in underpopulated parts of the Soviet Union. The work of these forced laborers gave the Soviet Union natural resources necessary for industrialization. My main source is Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History. Applebaum is a respected historian and writes for the Washington Post. She went to Yale and got a history degree and she has a masters in economics. My additions would be less than 100 words. If anyone wants to comment on these changes, please let me know on this Talk Page or on my Talk Page. Chapmanstudent00 (talk) 19:45, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Bias

Well, here we have another fine example of Wikipedia's absolutely disgusting bias towards the extreme left, which it refuses to remedy, and even seems to deliberately make worse in response to outside criticism.

• The notion that the repressed peasants were "kulaks" is uncritically accepted, despite it being well documented that the Soviets A) expanded the definition of "kulak" far beyond anything that had been traditional B) did not even apply their own definition consistently, simply targeting peasants for repression on whatever grounds and retroactively labeling them "kulaks" because they had been targeted.

• The repression is presented as driven by the lower peasantry itself, with incredible lines like "Committees of the Poor were created to represent poor peasants" (em mine) and "the government increasingly noticed an open and resolute protest among the poor against the well-to-do middle peasants." The murders are blamed on "local leaders" who were misinterpreting good and noble Stalin's instructions. ("The official goal of kulak liquidation came without precise instructions, and encouraged local leaders to take radical action, which resulted in physical elimination"). This despite the fact that earlier in the article it's correctly noted that Stalin and the Politburo explicitly ordered executions! Note also the use of Stalinesque euphemisms like "liquidation" and "physical elimination" in the encyclopedia's own voice.

• The "Right Opposition" is presented as a real thing, when it was just a Stalinist term invented to portray various critics and potential rivals as some kind of "rightist" conspiracy.

I don't expect this to be fixed, but might as well note it for the record. 74.12.138.195 (talk) 09:47, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

74.12.138.195 I'm not sure how an article that details a campaign that resulted in ~500K deaths is biased "towards the extreme left", unless you think that leftists somehow celebrate mass deaths. Regardless, if you see a problem, fix it. You are hereby authorized to edit this and any other article as you see fit, making sure to cite your contributions to reliable sources. —howcheng {chat} 05:59, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

"Redistribution of farmland started in 1917 and lasted until 1933, but was most active in the 1929–1932 period of the first five-year plan" This is an incorrect statement, since there was no single campaign for the distribution of farmland in 1917-1933, because at that time there were very different programs in Soviet economic policy, such as food requisitioning and war communism, and the NEP with limited freedom of private property, and only in 1929 -1933 – a brutal campaign of forcible division of farmland and deportation 37.54.230.242 (talk) 00:42, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that dekulakization was just an aspect of the broader redistribution program within the Soviet Union. I don't have a problem focusing on this aspect in this article, as it's defining and explaining a particular word. That is to say, this is a description of the lived experience of kulaks, which is a subset of the broader phenomenon. I don't see the problem here. Icowrich (talk) 18:31, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIS 347

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2023 and 27 April 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alipetrone (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Gnando, Surferr03, Hfg2023.

— Assignment last updated by Surferr03 (talk) 05:25, 21 March 2023 (UTC)