With an Old Acquaintance about the Famine in the USSR (22.12.2021)
A friendly conversation between Vitaliy Dribnytsya and an old acquaintance about the famine in the USSR: an examination of the denialist video by Klim Zhukov and “Goblin” (Dmitry Puchkov), which reduces all the victims of the Holodomor to ~900,000 of “excess mortality by church books and the ZAGS”; the key contrast between the famine of 1921–23, which the Bolsheviks openly acknowledged and over which they appealed for international aid, and the concealed famine of 1932–33; an illustration through Soviet children’s literature (Lev Kassil, “Konduit and Shvambrania”) and the mechanism by which the grain-procurement crisis matured through the NEP “price scissors.”
Key moments
- 00:24 The denialist argument of Klim Zhukov / 'Goblin' (Puchkov)
- 00:49 '900,000 by church books and the ZAGS' as supposedly all the victims
- 01:44 The official estimate of 3–4 million against the understated figure
- 16:54 Kazakhstan: up to half of the population
- 17:26 Soviet children's literature about the famine: Lev Kassil, 'Konduit and Shvambrania'
- 18:20 The Bolsheviks acknowledged the 1921–23 famine and asked the world for aid
- 18:40 The 1932–33 famine was concealed
- 18:59 The collective-farm system provoked the famine
- 19:14 Peasants reducing their sowing from 1924
- 19:57 The NEP 'price scissors' and low state procurement prices
- 20:29 Stalin: take the grain by force (the Tsaritsyn experience)