Talk:Dekulakization

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

"...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)[reply]