This action was irrational and caused a famine to be worse. Gulag deserved.
The point was that 60 million couldn't have been the number. Yes, people died, but not as many as is said.
The middle class doesn't exist. Either you own the means or don't.
Including all criminals. Labour camps are not a soviet only thing though.
No, the assertion is that a loss of life is impossible when there is a net gain or population growth. It literally makes up a statistic of 60 million (even though the true death toll can't be known until all state documents are released, or those that have been destroyed are revealed), appeals to improbability, then says that people couldn't die in the time period. Using the image's own logic, the positive population growth can also be used to disprove the deaths during the world wars. China's population was also a net gain, the population growth was also positive: doesn't mean that loss of life cannot occur.
I guess the press printing mean stories about the government makes them criminals now. That's the beauty of law: you can redefine it at your will.
The action was expected. Answer the hypothetical I raised: if I show up and tell you to give me the computer or phone you're using to connect to the internet because lots of other people, globally, cannot access the internet and we need to make sure they get their "fair" share, your destruction of the phone or computer is an example of resistance to my tyranny. It is only expected. If you try and rape a woman and she kills herself to resist your crime, you are to blame for causing her to kill herself. The kulaks weren't going to randomly destroy their crops or livestock if the government didn't try to steal it from them.
I agree.
en.wikipedia.org
Does in the US, and in other nations like Canada, Australia, France, the UK, etc.
False dichotomy. That's not what a class means.
>britannica.com
The middle class qualifies as a class by the literary definition.
Sorry, I don't believe in immoral class-based persecution of peasants. That's just my moral framework, yours can differ.
I agree. Doesn't make theirs any less horrendous. Class-based persecution is still immoral according to my moral framework.
...
A computer is very different to food. You need food no matter what. Computers you don't need as such but they're useful to have.
Anyway
If I had loads of computers or the means to produce many computers then I would happily give away those computers. If you came to me and said "gimme gimmie" then I wouldn't destroy my computer, that's fucking retarded. I would say "No, go ask someone who has many computers or has the means to produce many computers." If you kept trying to take my computer I would call the police and ask them to stop you.
I think the term you're looking for might be labour aristocracy. This is a leftist board so the marxist idea of class is generally the only one used. Socioeconomic class is ambiguous and can change in relation to a region whereas the marxist idea of class is the same no matter where one is situated.
Also semantics battle.
Then you must agree that using gulags as a main point in arguing against the SU is pointless?
No, I'm sure there were criminals. If you read my post, you'd see the context includes counter-revolutionaries. Sorry, I find it hypocritical of revolutionaries who create a state to then ban revolutionaries, or whoever decides to speak negatively about them. I don't believe there was freedom of the press, there wasn't much to do with freedom of speech if you were critical of state policies.
Do you have a citation for that? Like, a prison sampling to see that the majority were criminals like rapists or thieves?
The entry on Wikipedia makes the same claim I am, but I can't find anything that says that the majority were 'ordinary criminals': en.wikipedia.org
It assassinates them instead lol
Such as?
Sorry, I don't support putting any percentage of people in jail for thought crimes or "counter-revolutionary" activity, especially if my regime gained power BY revolting against authority. It is a grand hypocrisy and a denial of human rights.
Your own source also shows that, in the year of 1942-1943, which seems to have the greatest black bar, close to a third of a million people were killed in the gulags (if you count 1942 as around 200k and 1943 as around 150k). That's figure D.
Not to mention, in table 7, there are some other startling offences that are penalized that just reek of immoral justification. "Socially harmful", "economic crimes", "theft/crimes against property" (interestingly, theft of "public property", which is ironic coming from the state who steals private property, dropped from 18.3 in 1934 and 14.2 in 1936 to 1.9 in 1940: seems like the people started to get the message). These kinds of 'crimes' don't exist in civilized societies that respect freedom of speech or basic human rights.