Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror, by Oleg V. Khlevniuk. 2004. Yale University Press, New Haven & London

Soviet Archives Unreliable: Gulag Statistics Falsified. Communist “Rehabilitation” a Farce

This scholarly book covers a lot of topics. I focus on items of greatest relevance. The entire subject of Communist criminality is especially timely because Holocaust supremacists would have us subordinate the crimes of Communism to the Holocaust, and because few young people appreciate Communist criminality. In addition, leftist academics have created a new public policy of spelling Communism with a small “c” in professional publications. This itself is an Orwellian minimization of Communism and its crimes.

GULAG STATISTICS FALSIFIED: THE SOVIET RECORD-KEEPERS WERE IN NO SENSE DISPASSIONATE

Russian historian Oleg Khlevniuk warns against straightforward acceptance of Soviet archival data, “A historian working with internal documents requires good organization and a large grain of salt. Soviet bureaucrats writing official documents and letters almost always had their own agendas. In the documents of the Stalinist repressive apparatus one can find not only inaccuracies but outright falsifications made with criminal intent.” (p. 7).

Khlevniuk, however, also contends that historians can often figure out which archives are more reliable than others. Perhaps so, but this consideration does not explain why many historians have so uncritically believed the Soviet archival claim of only 400,000 Polish deportees (in 1939-1941) and correspondingly discounted the old scholarly Polish claims of 1.0-1.5 million Polish deportees.

GULAG STATISTICS FALSIFIED. ARCHIVAL DATA, EVEN WHEN “HONEST”, IS NOT SELF-EVIDENT

Archives are not sacred repositories of truth, and in no sense does archival information automatically trump all other information. As a matter of fact, Khlevniuk warns, “Contrary to expectations, Soviet archives do not contain systematic, complete, ready-to-use information on the number of those convicted and imprisoned.” (p. 287).

The author adds, “When consulting these documents, it is important to remember the following. First, they reflect a significant part, but not the entire scope, of the Stalinist repressions. Second, we do not know the logic behind the compilations of some of these reports nor the nature of the sources. Even a perfunctory review shows the incompleteness of some of these figures.” (p. 292).

There are myriads of ways that Soviet archival data can, even in the absence of outright falsification, be incomplete, distorted, or manipulated. To begin with, many archives, notably those dealing with the gulags, were destroyed. (pp. 5-6, 287). Falsifications and exaggerations (called tufta, from criminal jargon, and found in even official reports), were an inherent part of the forced-labor Soviet economy. (p. 338).

Gulag death records omitted those who died en route to the camps. (p. 77). Early release of disabled and chronically ill prisoners created an artificially low gulag death toll. (p. 78). So did the transfer of children, old people, and disabled. (p. 327). Dead gulag prisoners were often listed as “escaped”. (p. 81). Other excluded categories of gulag deaths will come to light in the face of future research. (p. 78, 327).

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THE COMMUNISTS WERE IN NO SENSE THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WORKING CLASS

Khlevniuk comments, “The Stalinist leadership did not hesitate to use draconian measures to subdue the countryside and make millions of peasants work for nothing…Mass terror was the key method used in creating the kolkhozes…” (p. 10).

GULAG STATISTICS FALSIFIED: COMMUNIST TERROR WAS INDISCRIMINATE

The author remarks, “It was difficult to distinguish ordinary criminals among the victims of Stalinist punitive system because of its extreme brutality and injustice, especially in the periods of mass terror.” (p. 168). So much for the myth that Communists merely targeted well-defined enemies.

NAZI VS. COMMUNIST “REHABILITATION”

Holocaust supremacists argue that Nazism was worse than Communism because a Jew could never be rehabilitated under Nazism, while Communist “class enemies” could be rehabilitated. This is dubious on both counts.

Some full-blooded Jews were in fact “rehabilitated” under Nazism by being reclassified as Mischlinge or as Honorary Aryans. In addition, “rehabilitation” under Communism was more theory than policy, and more propaganda than fact. Khlevniuk comments,

“The adoption of a new constitution in December 1936 had a profound impact on the mood of those in labor exile. The Constitution proclaimed an automatic restoration of civil rights for all categories of the population previously disenfranchised, including former kulaks. The 25 January 1935 law that had prohibited special settlers who were former kulaks to leave exile, despite the restoration of civil rights, contravened the Constitution. But the authorities had no intention of adjusting the law to accord with the Constitution, which was essentially an exercise in pure propaganda.” (p. 258. Emphasis added).

Moreover, even when it was not pure rhetoric, Communist “rehabilitation” was ephemeral.  Khlevniuk writes, “Soon the NKVD bosses rejected the principle of reeducation and tightened the regimen for juveniles by expanding the network of guarded special-regimen colonies.” (p. 129).

He expands this consideration, “Children of those repressed were always the first victims of the Great Terror. The principle ‘the son is not responsible for his father,’ proclaimed about two years before the Great Terror but never truly implemented in practice, was replaced by another principle: isolation of and discrimination against all close relatives of the arrested.” (p. 169. Emphasis added). In other words, the characteristic permanent guilt, group guilt, and inherited guilt were all retained by the Communists, just like for the Jews under Nazism.

For more on the farcical character of Communist “rehabilitation”, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2024/06/24/ruthless-communism-not-exterminatory-pioneering-forced-labor-happened/

GULAG STATISTICS FALSIFIED: THE 1939-1941 DEPORTATION OF POLES WAS AN UNSPEAKABLE EVIL

Ironic to those leftists and Holocaust supremacists that trivialize and dismiss Polish suffering as “just a train ride”, and otherwise no big deal, a Soviet document cites a Russian man whose thoughtcrime consisted of recognizing the magnitude of the injustice done to Poles. Khlevniuk cites him, “‘Relocation of the Poles is barbaric. They ruined hundreds of families and deprived them of everything. Our Russia was and remains a barbaric country.'” (p. 286).

Well said!