The persecution of Christians in the USSR and the others communist regimes was recognized as Genocide

[Gnomepilled]

Russia between the 1880s and the Bolshevik coup actually industrialized rapidly, experiencing what today we would call an "economic miracle", developing economically the fastest in the world, and according to Western experts, while maintaining these rates of development, as according to the assessment of the American economist Paul Gregory, after the First World War could have been accelerated, in the 1930s it could have become the richest country in the world. (link:https://sputnikipogrom.com/history/empire-economics/86685/ee-1/) Suffice it to say that only Russia experienced economic growth in the early years of the First World War despite the occupation of rich territories such as Poland and part of the Baltic countries and despite the fact that as a result of the Civil War, War Communism and the loss of rich territories such as Poland, Finland and The Baltic countries Russia loses six-sevenths of its industrial production, it has returned economically by some indicators nearly 200 years ago, the hyperinflation towards the end of the 10s - the beginning of the 20s is lighter than that of Weimar Germany, which suffered less economically since the war, even taking reparations into account, industrial production per worker towards the end of Czarist Russia grew more than under Stalin, at that in completely natural ways and mainly in civil rather than military production. So, unfortunately, Bolshevism did not bring Russia anything good, unless you're a bigoted atheist, extreme feminist, or non-Russian ultranationalist - and not for all, because now there would be an Armenian majority in Atzrah, in Nakhchivan at worst they would be a significant minority, as well as in Baku, Sumgait and other Azeri and Transcaucasian cities. Also, the Baltic countries - Lithuania and Latvia, and to a lesser extent - Estonia, would not fall into a demographic catastrophe after 91, as the population of the first 2 countries decreases by more than a percent per year in peacetime according to CIA data, as in Latvia, even in the capital Riga, the population dropped from about a million to 600 thousand - while in the capital of my native Bulgaria, Sofia, despite the disastrous demographic situation of the country, the population of the capital is higher than in 1989, when communism fell. And in the Russian Empire, Riga would have been a city of a million, and the Baltic region would have been what the Basque Country and Catalonia are in today's Spain - some of the richest and most culturally liberal parts of the country. Let's not forget the small Russian peoples who began to die out under communism, and those in the national republics of the USSR, who began to melt them into titular ethnic groups - the Latgalians in Latvia, the Talish and Lezgins in Azerbaijan, and others.

Isn't the population decline generally blamed on Soviet abortion laws. I remember reading that 90% of pregnancies were terminated.

 

[Derek Pullem]

What is this thread supposed to be all about?

OP seems to have gone wildly off topic?

 

[Crueldwarf]

Russia between the 1880s and the Bolshevik coup actually industrialized rapidly, experiencing what today we would call an "economic miracle", developing economically the fastest in the world,

One could only wonder how such a prosperous and rapidly modernizing country could lost two wars in succession, have its ruling dynasty be overthrown by a bunch of socialists who had quite literally zero opposition from anyone supposedly benefiting from the dynasty wise rule and general prosperity. And then undergo yet another revolution by a bunch of nobodies with almost nonexistent prior support among the general population.

Clearly that was an international plot aimed to deny Russia its great destiny or something. No other explanation is possible.

Isn't the population decline generally blamed on Soviet abortion laws. I remember reading that 90% of pregnancies were terminated.

Nah, decline of population growth rate had exactly the same reason as everywhere. General raise in standards of living and healthcare in combination with urbanization and industrialization. And expansion of women rights had its effect tool. It often comes as a surprise for a certain kind of people but women in general do not appreciate of being reduced to baby factories.

 

[Ijon Tichy]

Stalin banned abortion - high rates of abortion in the USSR is something I associate with Brezhnev-era stagnation. By that point, the game was already up.

 

[Bellacinos]

Thanks for the recommendations. Like I said I'm more acquainted with the Brezhnev Era.
What's the best work on the Russian Civil War by the way? It's too romanticized in my opinion so I have no idea what's historical fantasy and what actually happened.

Beevors new book called “Russia” wasn’t bad.

 

[Gnomepilled]

One could only wonder how such a prosperous and rapidly modernizing country could lost two wars in succession, have its ruling dynasty be overthrown by a bunch of socialists who had quite literally zero opposition from anyone supposedly benefiting from the dynasty wise rule and general prosperity. And then undergo yet another revolution by a bunch of nobodies with almost nonexistent prior support among the general population.

Clearly that was an international plot aimed to deny Russia its great destiny or something. No other explanation is possible.


Nah, decline of population growth rate had exactly the same reason as everywhere. General raise in standards of living and healthcare in combination with urbanization and industrialization. And expansion of women rights had its effect tool. It often comes as a surprise for a certain kind of people but women in general do not appreciate of being reduced to baby factories.

Stalin banned abortion - high rates of abortion in the USSR is something I associate with Brezhnev-era stagnation. By that point, the game was already up.

But isn't a 90% abortion rate a bit high. For reference about 50% of black pregnancies in the US are terminated. The black population has stayed relatively the same since the 1900s. It's estimated that if it wasn't for abortion the United States would be black majority by now.
A 90% abortion rate is astronomically high.
If the black population in the US has stayed about 10-13% of the population because of abortion then the Russian population is actually collapsing.
Sure secularism may have it's effects but a 90% abortion rate is not sustainable.

What is this thread supposed to be all about?

OP seems to have gone wildly off topic?

OP didn't go off topic he just started a thread requesting the mods to ban antichristian threads and to be classified as genocide denial. It's the wrong board for that.

 

[Crueldwarf]

But isn't a 90% abortion rate a bit high. For reference about 50% of black pregnancies in the US are terminated. The black population has stayed relatively the same since the 1900s. It's estimated that if it wasn't for abortion the United States would be black majority by now.
A 90% abortion rate is astronomically high.
If the black population in the US has stayed about 10-13% of the population because of abortion then the Russian population is actually collapsing.
Sure secularism may have it's effects but a 90% abortion rate is not sustainable.

It really depends on where you get than number from and what it actually means. Because I could promise you with surety that at no point in USSR or in modern Russia there was an actual 90% abortion rate on anyone, Russian or not.

Soviet state and its Russian successor spends quite considerable (if inefficient) effort on discouraging abortion at all levels. And it was so since Stalin outright ban on abortions.

Religious conservatives could wring their hands about their pseudo-moral stance on abortion but the truth is very simple: women pursue abortions because raising children in modern economic environment is not sustainable for the vast majority of the population and it was so for decades. Childbirth and child-rearing is quite literally a people doing stuff not only for free but at considerable expense to themselves. And while it remains so, the abortion rates would remain high. No conspiracy is needed.

 

[Fleurs de Merde]

Thanks for the recommendations. Like I said I'm more acquainted with the Brezhnev Era.
What's the best work on the Russian Civil War by the way? It's too romanticized in my opinion so I have no idea what's historical fantasy and what actually happened.

Bunch of good stuff out there - China Mieville's October is a very carefully-researched text about the revolution itself - but again I cannot recommend Figes enough. His subsequent misadventures don't make A People's Tragedy any less of a banger. He's got an exceptional capacity for both capturing broad sweeps and drilling down into the documents to get telling details, and his character portraits are both sympathetic and balanced. It's a great mixture of being good history and readable. Strong recommend.

But isn't a 90% abortion rate a bit high. For reference about 50% of black pregnancies in the US are terminated. The black population has stayed relatively the same since the 1900s. It's estimated that if it wasn't for abortion the United States would be black majority by now.
A 90% abortion rate is astronomically high.

Just to add to the above, in more economically complex societies the amount of time and resources you need to invest into a child for that child to have a successful life are higher. The requirements in time, money, and social capital for raising a child to get a masters' degree and a career with a pension are way higher than they were for your child to be an agricultural labourer. It's one of the many reasons why China's birth rate is dropping, for example - getting into good schools and on a career track is so competitive that you actually have to invest your whole family's resources into one child. And while the USSR didn't have the same financial requirements for success, you still are more likely to end up doing well if you're concentrating on less children.

There are a lot of other factors that might have gone into lower Soviet birthrates - later-era economic stagnation and anomie, for example, or alcoholism - but there's a general trend. It is worth noting that despite Russia's hardline "re-traditionalization", birthrates are - if anything - lower, IIRC, than they were in the Soviet period. This suggests to me that OP continues to be On One.

 

[Polish Eagle]

But isn't a 90% abortion rate a bit high. For reference about 50% of black pregnancies in the US are terminated. The black population has stayed relatively the same since the 1900s. It's estimated that if it wasn't for abortion the United States would be black majority by now.
A 90% abortion rate is astronomically high.
If the black population in the US has stayed about 10-13% of the population because of abortion then the Russian population is actually collapsing.
Sure secularism may have it's effects but a 90% abortion rate is not sustainable.

OP didn't go off topic he just started a thread requesting the mods to ban antichristian threads and to be classified as genocide denial. It's the wrong board for that.

There's a cultural difference between the West and the Eastern Bloc on this topic. The USSR legalized abortion broadly in the 1920s, and despite Stalin trying to roll it back, this created a cultural norm of abortion as first-line birth control. Don't bother with a condom (which might not be available anyway); just scoop the fetus out. This cultural norm was well-entrenched by the time hormonal contraceptives were available (which was often not until the 1990s anyway).

In the West, the reverse happened; hormonal contraception became available and legal before the decriminalization or legalization of abortion, creating a cultural norm of abortion as last resort after contraceptives fail.

With all that said, the Soviet abortion rate in 1988 was 118 abortions per 100 births on average (so if I read that right, about 54% of all pregnancies?). This varied by locality, of course--Dagestan had a rate of 45.6 abortions per 100 births, while rural areas near Moscow had a whopping 770 abortions per 100 births (which might be the 90% figure that's been cited).

Family planning in the USSR. Sky-high abortion rates reflect dire lack of choice - PubMed

Family planning in the USSR. Sky-high abortion rates reflect dire lack of choice

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Also, the Baltic countries - Lithuania and Latvia, and to a lesser extent - Estonia, would not fall into a demographic catastrophe after 91, as the population of the first 2 countries decreases by more than a percent per year in peacetime according to CIA data, as in Latvia, even in the capital Riga, the population dropped from about a million to 600 thousand - while in the capital of my native Bulgaria, Sofia, despite the disastrous demographic situation of the country, the population of the capital is higher than in 1989, when communism fell. And in the Russian Empire, Riga would have been a city of a million, and the Baltic region would have been what the Basque Country and Catalonia are in today's Spain - some of the richest and most culturally liberal parts of the country. Let's not forget the small Russian peoples who began to die out under communism, and those in the national republics of the USSR, who began to melt them into titular ethnic groups - the Latgalians in Latvia, the Talish and Lezgins in Azerbaijan, and others.

I'm not sure the Latvians or Estonians or Lithuanians would be particularly enthused about being minorities in their own capital cities. One big reason for Riga's population drop is the exodus of Russophone occupiers after 1991. Being the richest and most liberal part of a tyrannical, bloodthirsty dictatorship is still being subjugated to a tyrannical, bloodthirsty dictatorship--as Poles know from experience. Nobody wants a return to the days when the Tsar tried to ban the use of Polish in Warsaw itself.

Everytime I learn something new the about the USSR I hate them more. The only positive thing i ever heard about them was the industrialization of Russia (which requided genocide). There must have been something positive about the state at very least.

They shot the Tsar. Good riddance.

They put Gagarin into orbit. Chad move.

They advanced vaccination. Good move.

 

[Bellacinos]

The only time I ever heard of an abortion rate being 90% or higher was in Berlin 1945 after the Soviet’s took it.

 

[Bulgarian Lion]

They put Gagarin into orbit. Chad move.

They advanced vaccination. Good move.

Gagarin narrowly beat out the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, and some believe that this was due to the better use of the rocket technology of a defeated Nazi Germany. Vaccination is carried out and carried out by many non-communist countries.

 

[Garrison]

Gagarin narrowly beat out the first American astronaut, Alan Shepard, and some believe that this was due to the better use of the rocket technology of a defeated Nazi Germany. Vaccination is carried out and carried out by many non-communist countries.

Some may believe that, but its nonsense. The Americans had far better access to German technology and engineers. The entire point of this thread seems to be rabid anti-communism. If you have evidence of a Christian genocide in the USSR, rather than large scale deaths among ethnic populations that contained a lot Christians, please present it.

 

[Gnomepilled]

Some may believe that, but its nonsense. The Americans had far better access to German technology and engineers. The entire point of this thread seems to be rabid anti-communism. If you have evidence of a Christian genocide in the USSR, rather than large scale deaths among ethnic populations that contained a lot Christians, please present it.

That's why it's been suggested to move this thread to chat

There's a cultural difference between the West and the Eastern Bloc on this topic. The USSR legalized abortion broadly in the 1920s, and despite Stalin trying to roll it back, this created a cultural norm of abortion as first-line birth control. Don't bother with a condom (which might not be available anyway); just scoop the fetus out. This cultural norm was well-entrenched by the time hormonal contraceptives were available (which was often not until the 1990s anyway).

In the West, the reverse happened; hormonal contraception became available and legal before the decriminalization or legalization of abortion, creating a cultural norm of abortion as last resort after contraceptives fail.

With all that said, the Soviet abortion rate in 1988 was 118 abortions per 100 births on average (so if I read that right, about 54% of all pregnancies?). This varied by locality, of course--Dagestan had a rate of 45.6 abortions per 100 births, while rural areas near Moscow had a whopping 770 abortions per 100 births (which might be the 90% figure that's been cited).

Family planning in the USSR. Sky-high abortion rates reflect dire lack of choice - PubMed

Family planning in the USSR. Sky-high abortion rates reflect dire lack of choice

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I'm not sure the Latvians or Estonians or Lithuanians would be particularly enthused about being minorities in their own capital cities. One big reason for Riga's population drop is the exodus of Russophone occupiers after 1991. Being the richest and most liberal part of a tyrannical, bloodthirsty dictatorship is still being subjugated to a tyrannical, bloodthirsty dictatorship--as Poles know from experience. Nobody wants a return to the days when the Tsar tried to ban the use of Polish in Warsaw itself.

They shot the Tsar. Good riddance.

They put Gagarin into orbit. Chad move.

They advanced vaccination. Good move.

That's the statistic I remember citing. I didn't remember if it was all of the USSR or only the urban parts.
It's just that in the Western world population decline is associated with the collapse of services. White flight is the most infamous example.
When rich people leave or die they take their money with them which leaves the city with less taxes to work with.
Crime increases and destroys the city.
Also weird cults and poor people reproduce faster which worsens society as well.
I know that Eastern Europe is poorer than the west in general (generally blamed on that fact that ancaps took over in the 90s) but isn't the main cause of abortion just lack of sex ed.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

Actually the definition of Genocide (opposed to "Crimes Against Humanity" which came along later) was specifically edited by Molotov (at Stalin's personal instruction) to ensure that nothing the USSR had done from it founding until the Genocide article was approved could be legally applied to the USSR. In fact it was shaped in such a way that the only government of the first half of the 20th Century that was qualified as the 3rd Reich.

If you are a bad actor, it is always useful to get a chance to help write all the rules.

I remember reading that the Soviet judge at the Tokyo war crimes trials also managed to somehow write the 'law' about aggressive war that excluded the USSR's invasion of the Baltic states, but included Japanese invasions of China.

 

[Polish Eagle]

That's why it's been suggested to move this thread to chat

That's the statistic I remember citing. I didn't remember if it was all of the USSR or only the urban parts.
It's just that in the Western world population decline is associated with the collapse of services. White flight is the most infamous example.
When rich people leave or die they take their money with them which leaves the city with less taxes to work with.
Crime increases and destroys the city.
Also weird cults and poor people reproduce faster which worsens society as well.
I know that Eastern Europe is poorer than the west in general (generally blamed on that fact that ancaps took over in the 90s) but isn't the main cause of abortion just lack of sex ed.

What's interesting, though, is that the cited area with the highest abortion rate isn't the urban area per se--it's the rural area around the urban area. The rural areas of Moscow, Smolensk, Kostroma, Kaluga, etc. had much higher abortion rates than the cities themselves, often by a factor of 5.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1966450?seq=5

(which is why I made the point about contraceptive availability--contraceptives were actually very hard to get in large parts of the USSR, even compared to the rest of the Warsaw Pact; they were hard enough to find in Moscow, where the central planning apparatus did not procure a sufficient number to meet demand; imagine in a random Kolhoz!)

Even wealth or poverty doesn't explain it well--the RSFSR had the absolute highest rate of all the republics, by a large margin, despite sucking up wealth from its subjects.

The USSR had such a high abortion rate, and its successor state continues to have such a high rate, simply because that was easier for people to do than to find a condom.

 

[Whiteshore]

Actually the definition of Genocide (opposed to "Crimes Against Humanity" which came along later) was specifically edited by Molotov (at Stalin's personal instruction) to ensure that nothing the USSR had done from it founding until the Genocide article was approved could be legally applied to the USSR. In fact it was shaped in such a way that the only government of the first half of the 20th Century that was qualified as the 3rd Reich.

If you are a bad actor, it is always useful to get a chance to help write all the rules.

Care to expand on this and how the concept of “genocide” excluded the Ottoman Empire under the Committee of Union and Progress?

 

[Gnomepilled]

Care to expand on this and how the concept of “genocide” excluded the Ottoman Empire under the Committee of Union and Progress?

Massacres and Genocides are legally different crimes. A Genocide can be a massacre but a massacre is not always a genocide.
The Armenian genocide for example is legally a massacre caused by Kurdish bandits. This makes sense because historically Kurdish bandit groups were essentially vassals of the Ottoman Empire and frequently terrorized the Christians of the empire and stole their land. That was not an uncommon issue of the era.
The Rwandan Genocide is recognized as both a genocide and a massacre, while the Holocaust was only a genocide.

 

[RedSword12]

Massacres and Genocides are legally different crimes. A Genocide can be a massacre but a massacre is not always a genocide.
The Armenian genocide for example is legally a massacre caused by Kurdish bandits. This makes sense because historically Kurdish bandit groups were essentially vassals of the Ottoman Empire and frequently terrorized the Christians of the empire and stole their land. That was not an uncommon issue of the era.
The Rwandan Genocide is recognized as both a genocide and a massacre, while the Holocaust was only a genocide.

Uh... What? What? Documents prove that the Young Turks ordered the killings, and played a major role in carrying them out. It wasn't "Kurdish bandits." It was a thorough genocide of the Armenian and Assyrian minorities orchestrated all the way from the top, in order to transform the multiethnic empire into a Turkish nation-state for Turks (policies like these being the foundation of many of the world's nation-states). There is no denying that the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides were genocides. Far from being spontaneous massacres, they were caused by government policy.

 

[Gnomepilled]

Uh... What? What? Documents prove that the Young Turks ordered the killings, and played a major role in carrying them out. It wasn't "Kurdish bandits." It was a thorough genocide of the Armenian and Assyrian minorities orchestrated all the way from the top, in order to transform the multiethnic empire into a Turkish nation-state for Turks. There is no denying that the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides were genocides. Far from being spontaneous massacres, they were caused by government policy.

Note the word legally.
Officially it was only a massacre but in reality it was a genocide.

 

[RedSword12]

Note the word legally.

The Armenian and Assyrian genocides fit the legal UN definition of genocide hand-in-glove. Why are you taking this absurd position that they don't?