Imaging Mao's Famine

A historian wonders: Where is the photographic evidence of Mao's disaster?  In the Great Leap Forward (Into the Abyss), at least 45 million people died of starvation and oppression over some 4 years of absolute hell on earth, but visual documentation is largely lacking.  Honestly, how does it look that the some officials in the Soviet Union was more forthcoming about the murderous famine that Stalin created in Ukraine?

One wonders, though, whether if we ever saw the Chinese photos, we would be thoroughly sickened.  The end of the article details the only photo of the famine that the author ever saw, and the description is horrifying.  

UPDATE: No photos of the Great Famine, but you can still get an eyeful of the Communist propaganda posters from the same period.  Surreal.

Book Review: New Biography of Mao

This one focuses on Mao's ties with Stalin. The bloodiest bromance of the 20th century?

Totalitarian Communism Loses Another Useful Idiot

My opinion of historian and unrepentant Communist cheerleader and apologist Eric Hobsbawm is a matter of public record here.  Two weeks ago he shuffled off this mortal coil, and I didn't bother saying good riddance.  Still, here's an interesting little piece wondering whether you can be both a good historian and a Stalinist.  I think the real issue is how so many people didn't think that Hobsbawm's Communist totalitarian sympathies mattered.  Imagine, if you will, if he were an unrepentant Nazi apologist or Holocaust denier.  Nobody respectable in his august academic circles would dream of giving him the time of day ... well, almost nobody.

History Lesson: 100 Years in 10 Minutes

This is an interesting compilation, though I do take issue with the fact that the selection is often desultory and that it focuses too much on the negative and does not include enough mention of humanitarian, scientific, medical, artistic, and other forms of achievements.  (No, mentioning the founding of Greenpeace does not count.)   It's so pessimistic, complete with the depressingly doom-tastic soundtrack.  I also found it a little odd that the founding of Israel in 1948 was not included, even though this moment in history is hugely important both to supporters and opponents.  Well, still, whoever made this took the time and effort to do this, so props to them.  Maybe I should make my own video.

Well, It Wasn' t Another Che Guevara T-Shirt

I've ranted before about college-aged morons wearing shirts printed with the ugly mugs of Che Guevara and Mao.  This time, it was different.  No Che.  Nope, this time it was an oblivious undergraduate girl wearing a picture of Stalin.  STALIN!  *facepalm*  Little idiot probably had no idea what kind of murderous monster he actually was. Hell, it's like wearing a picture of Hitler.

Nerd Analysis: Prof. Ferguson on Un-American Revolutions

Professor Niall Ferguson (whom I most recently linked here for his critique of US foreign policy on Egypt) now has a few gloomy thoughts about political revolutions.  

This sounds familiar, and not because of Ferguson.  Haven't I babbled on before about how most modern revolutions end in chaos and tyranny with the notable exception of the American Revolution?  (OK, and also sort of England's Glorious Revolution of 1688.)  Just look at what happened after the French Revolution ... or the overthrow of the Romanovs in Russia ... or the upheavals in China since the end of the Qing Dynasty.  Ferguson is gloomy, but that doesn't mean his point isn't valid.

Quote of the Day: "Marxists. I Hate These Guys."

Read the whole thing.  It's really not about hating Marxists in general, but about a particularly virulent and nasty subspecies: the shameless apologist for totalitarian Communism, that blood-soaked and evil creed.

A History of Stalin's and Mao's Useful Idiots

Take a listen to this 2-part documentary from the BBC World Service.  Hurry, though, as it won't be available online for too much longer.  You can download it as an mp3 and listen to it later.  But do listen.  The "useful idiots" phenomenon is not confined to those murderous monsters Stalin and Mao.  Here's the blurb from the BBC:

The phrase 'useful idiots', supposedly Lenin’s, refers to Westerners duped into saying good things about bad regimes.

In political jargon it was used to describe Soviet sympathisers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them.

Useful idiots, in a broader sense, refers to Western journalists, travellers and intellectuals who gave their blessing – often with evangelistic fervour – to tyrannies and tyrants, thereby convincing politicians and public that utopias rather than Belsens thrived.

In part one John Sweeney looks at Stalin's Western apologists.

In part two he explores how present day stories of human rights abuses across the world are still rewritten. [Note: Part two also mentions Mao. You know how I feel about him! -- MM.]

RELATED POSTS: 

• Intellectuals and the Really, Really Bad Ideas They Often Support.
• The Ukrainian Famine Under Stalin (and the intrepid Welsh journalist Gareth Jones)

History: The Ukrainian Famine Under Stalin

Via Ninme comes this news link both to a reminder of the horrific misery caused by Stalin and to the courage of a British journalist who documented it. Journalist Gareth Jones' diaries went on display at the University of Cambridge on November 13. He had illegally sneaked into Ukraine from Russia in 1933. The estimated number of Ukrainians who died in the famine of the 1930s is 4 million.

Here is one scholar's assessment of the Jones diaries:

Rory Finnin, lecturer in Ukranian studies at Cambridge, said that Jones’s diaries finally give a voice to the peasants who died as a result of Stalin’s collectivisation policies. Grain was requisitioned for urban areas and for export to countries including Britain.

Historians continue to debate whether Stalin was deliberately punishing Ukranian nationalists, but it is clear that he allowed the famine to occur. He sealed the border between Russia and Ukraine and punished peasants accused of “hoarding grain”.

Mr Finnin said: “There were a smattering of stories here and there [but] but I don’t know if Western historians gave [the famine] the serious attention that it receives today.”

Alas, the Ukrainian famine is largely forgotten history here. On a related matter, you'll recall how many millions, largely peasants, starved in China because of Mao's policies.