Historical Misconceptions - Where is "popular" history completely wrong?

[Phaing]

I am not supporting anyone, this is a topic about history and black book of communism is bulshit history. that is my whole point. not interested in political discussion atm, or in this topic.

Okay, but when you try to excuse their bad behavior by pointing out dubious examples of bad behavior by the West it makes my assumption an easy one to make.

What I am trying to do here is set the record straight, something few College Professors do anymore, about that ideology and the results of its applications.

Part V

Soviet authorities asked for not outside help, and even denied the Famine of 1932-33. This human tragedy is so immense that it is almost impossible to describe. The reasons for it were not solely bad harvests, but the requisitioning ratios. In 1930, the rates of collection were as follows;

Ukraine; 30%

North Caucasus; 38%

Kazakhstan; 33%

In 1931, when the harvest was considerably smaller-

Ukraine; 41.5 %

North Caucasus; 47 %

Kazakhstan; 39.5 %

Peasants were obliged to steal back confiscated food in order to survive… and many did not survive regardless of what they did.

The following are excerpts from a report to the Central Executive Committee, on conditions in the lower Volga.

“This year, 12% of all Farmers have been tried already, and this does not include the deported Kulaks… the prisons are full to the bursting point. Balachevo prison contains more than 5 times as many people as it was originally designed to hold. Over the last month, Balachevo has sent back 78 prisoners, 48 of them of them were less than ten years old. Twenty-one were immediately released.

One example of how peasants are being victimized; in Morsty, one peasant, who had actually fulfilled his quota, came to see Comrade Fomichev, the President of the District Executive Committee, and ASKED to be deported North, because, he explained, “No one can live under these conditions.”

(sourced to; N. A. Ivnitskii, The Collectivism and dekulakization (Mosco: Izd-vo Magistr, 1996) pp. 192-193)

He was not the only one. At the beginning of March in 1933, a report from the GPU stated that they had intercepted in one month 219,460 starving peasants fleeing to the cities. 186,588 were escorted back to their place of origin, while the rest were arrested and sentenced. No mention was made of the fate of those sent back to the countryside.

The death rate was highest in the summer of 1933. That year, the Soviet Government continued to export grain, shipping out 180 million hundredweight abroad “in the interests of industrialization.”

Of the 14,000 riots recorded by the GPU in 1930, 85% occurred in regions “punished” by the famine of 1932-33. Resistance to collectivization promptly collapsed.

[Maltaran]

(Copernicus, working a century earlier, was much more cautious, and dedicated his work to the current Pope. Oddly enough, he didn't end up under house arrest).

It's kind of hard to be arrested when you publish posthumously.

[The Marquis de Leech]

It's kind of hard to be arrested when you publish posthumously.

His ideas were spread prior to publication. Pope Clement VII heard a lecture on it in 1533, and was actually quite interested.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The death rate was highest in the summer of 1933. That year, the Soviet Government continued to export grain, shipping out 180 million hundredweight abroad “in the interests of industrialization.”

And British-ruled Ireland was exporting grain at the height of the Potato Famine in the mid-nineteenth century, while simultaneously closing down soup kitchens on the grounds that they didn't want people becoming dependent on government handouts.

As such, I await your Black Book of Capitalism with great interest.

[str8 outta Old Town]

And British-ruled Ireland was exporting grain at the height of the Potato Famine in the mid-nineteenth century, while simultaneously closing down soup kitchens on the grounds that they didn't want people becoming dependent on government handouts.

As such, I await your Black Book of Capitalism with great interest.

Don't forget the Bengal famines directly linked to Britain's attempts to integrate India into the capitalist mode of production, the Belgian Congo (worst atrocity of the 20th century, with possible exception of Cambodia) and the dirty war against the people of Latin america which killed millions.

[Antonius Pius]

Myth: the Crusades were an attempt to stop the growth of Islam, or to prevent an Islamic attack on the West. This is a fallacy that gained credence after the attacks on 9/11. Evidence: sources speak of liberating the Holy Land, not stopping aggression by Muslims.

Another fallacy is the idea that the Crusades were intended as a large-scale landgrab; some of the leaders of the First Crusade were definitely eager to win land in the East, but the overwhelming majority went to the East on a pilgrimage (the sources almost always call the crusaders pilgrims), and most of the pilgrims that reached the Holy Land, went back quite soon after visiting Jerusalem. Others stayed because the trip was incredibly arduous, especially for people without means (lots of the poorest pilgrims died en route), or because they had no home to return to, having sold it all off to finance the crusade. Church records have lots of examples of lesser nobles and propertied freedmen giving their property in keeping to the church, with a proviso that the church/abbey/etc. becomes owner if crusader doesn't return by date so and so.

It's kind of hard to be arrested when you publish posthumously.

But your corpse can be dug up and put on trial - this happened several times in cases of (suspected) heresy in the Middle Ages. Don't expect much from allocution, though.

[sToNED_CAT]

That people acted patriotically in the medieval period. There were no nations in Europe until the 15th century, where the end of the 100 years war created something resembling national identity in England and France (such as it was). Personal loyalty and oath ties were far more important than cultural identity, and most battles which are cast by modern patriots as nationalist struggles were actually simply power struggles between differing elite factions, with ethnicity rarely even being considered unless in conjunction with religion.

There definitely was patriotism in medieval age. I won't mention such obvious examples as Joan of Arc or Wallace, but there was almost always huge opposition when monarch of different nationality than his subjects tried to take the throne, even if it was rightfully his by inheritance. Or when some kings brought foreign advisors/courtiers with them it was opposed by "native" nobility. Hell even Queens were unpopular when their entourages were populated by foreigners.

Effectiveness of bow and arrow, especially longbowmen or horse archers. On its own bow and arrow has been an ineffective and extremely inefficient weapon. Most of the famous examples of effectiveness of bow in ancient and medieval warfare are actually examples of superiority of combined arms or just some tactical cleverness or pure luck by the winner.

Longbowmen won primarily because of combined arms tactics, yes. But the horse archers were extremely effective as a weapon. In fact until the discovery of gunpowder traditional armies were regularly defeated by lightly armed horsemen. Of course those highly mobile armies had some heavy cavalry and infantry component too, but horsemen archers were dominant.

Even in Biblical times it seems that you could reasonably expect to live for 70 or 80 years, barring violence and disease.

People in ancient era had better healthcare and ate healthier food than people in medieval era. Even today Mediterranean diet is considered one of the best. And of course slaves in ancient era (huge part of population) died much sooner.

I find it hard to believe that any state in antiquity could have marshalled an army of hundreds of thousands let alone 2.6 million.

It's not that hard to believe. Persia was HUGE superpower, that was waging no other war at the time. They knew that their army especially infantry was inferior to Greeks so they decided to bring overwhelming force with them. Their army was so huge that they were not able to properly supply it - that was the reason, why they retired to Asia after Salamis. Their army was so huge, that half of the Greece gave up without fighting - they thought there was no chance to win so the difference in numbers must have been extreme. Ad that brings me to second point - at least half of Greece (Thessaly, Beotia/Thebes, Macedon,all Asian Greeks) fought on Persian side. According to sources "free" Greece marshaled 70 000 men for Plataea battle plus they sent the fleet against Persian Navy. So Greek "collaborators" must have numbered at least 100 000 men prior to Thermopylae - that's just Greeks. Persians had also their own forces, Medes, Syrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, etc...

"Cleopatra was black". How you get black from generations of Greeks inbreeding in brother-sister marriages is beyond me. Source: Not Out of Africa:How "Afrocentrism" Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History by Mary Lefkowitz 1997 New Republic

Exactly. Not only she wasn't black, she wasn't even dark. According to some sources she was an redhead, so she probably looked more Irish, than Liz Taylor like.

Myth: the Crusades were an attempt to stop the growth of Islam, or to prevent an Islamic attack on the West. This is a fallacy that gained credence after the attacks on 9/11. Evidence: sources speak of liberating the Holy Land, not stopping aggression by Muslims.

Crusaders originally started because Byzantine empire asked for help against Turks, so yes, one of the reasons was to check the spread of Islam.

My myths :

Wild West gunfights were fair with opponents facing each other and then drawing. In fact mostly men were shot from behind without warning

Indians were generally peaceful people whose land was stolen by evil whites. In fact most of the tribes were engaged in constant tribal warfare and regularly employed genocidal tactics. Iroquois ethnically cleansed whole North East of US during the Beaver wars. Natives often attacked whites, even when unprovoked just to plunder and commited horrible atrocities on their own. Of course later when Euro powers/Americans became dominant, Natives started to be afraid and the wars were generally started by whites.

[Istakhr]

Longbowmen won primarily because of combined arms tactics, yes. But the horse archers were extremely effective as a weapon. In fact until the discovery of gunpowder traditional armies were regularly defeated by lightly armed horsemen. Of course those highly mobile armies had some heavy cavalry and infantry component too, but horsemen archers were dominant.

Not really, both different steppe people (Huns, Mongols, etc) and Persians used horse archery to disrupt the discipline of enemy forces or move the battlefield to a more advantageous position before engaging in hand to hand combat.

Mongols and Persians almost always used heavy cavalry as part of a combined arms approach.

[Alester Florent]

There definitely was patriotism in medieval age. I won't mention such obvious examples as Joan of Arc or Wallace, but there was almost always huge opposition when monarch of different nationality than his subjects tried to take the throne, even if it was rightfully his by inheritance. Or when some kings brought foreign advisors/courtiers with them it was opposed by "native" nobility. Hell even Queens were unpopular when their entourages were populated by foreigners.

Well, yes and no. You have a point, but then there are almost always alternative explanations for the phenomenon you identify. A large group of powerful foreigners arriving at court would be resented not (just) because they were foreign but because they formed a rival political faction to the "native" nobility. That was certainly the case, for instance, with Henry III's court - both the English and French nobility spoke French as a first language, many of the new French arrivals held English titles already, and one of the Frenchies (de Montfort) ended up as the leader of the English noble faction anyway.

That said, inasmuch as patriotism can be called a sort of civic pride in the state, it almost certainly did exist, it's just that the polity tended to be considered on a much smaller level than we might imagine. It's quite difficult to wrap our heads around pre-Westphalian political structures, but the idea of a "state" in which one can take pride is difficult to pin down before the early modern era. The majority of people in France almost certainly wouldn't have considered themselves French; if they felt any sense of civic identity beyond the immediate it would probably be on a provincial level - to Normandy, Brittany, Gascony, etc. but not to France itself. So there'd be nothing to stop a Gascon fighting just as proudly and fiercely under the banner of the king of England as the king of France (as indeed many of them did for centuries). 'Course, the smaller the entity the easier it is to take pride in it, so patriotism was easier to foster in England (relatively centralised government, small population) than in a sprawling feudal patchwork like France or Germany.

[Penguin king]

Snip

You ever stop to think that maybe history isn't a game of top trumps, and you can't compare ideologies based soley on the death tolls of extremist dictators? That there might be reasons why a dictator in china is able to kill many more people than a dictator in another country with a fraction of the population?

Just take a brief look at China's history:

30 million dead in wars and rebellions around the transition from the Yuan Dynasty to Ming Dynasty,

Between 20 and 100 million dead in the Taiping rebellion,

13 to 36 million dead in the An Lushan Rebellion

8 to 12 million dead in the Dungan revolt

China is no stranger to death on a enormous scale, and Mao was following a path emperors, conquers and rebels had lain down before him over three and a half millennia. It doesn't matter what ideology a dictator cloaks himself in. Whether he claims to be working for the good of the people, or the purity of his race, the strength of his military or the mandate of heaven, ultimately he's a law unto himself and the death and destruction he can bring is determined only by the size of his population, the size of his ego, the level of his technology, and how little remains of his sense of empathy and humanity.

[Clueless Northman]

If we go with Roman history, we can mention the usual trope that Nero was a megalomaniac sadistic who burned Rome and killed many people. Except that he actually put a huge amount of money to help people who suffered through the fires, rebuilt the city. And after his death, there were several cases of "fake Neros" appearing here and there - the kind of fake you only do if the guy has some popular support in the area and if the guys who are now in charge appear to be worse than you were.

Not that he wasn't a brutal ruler and murdered scores of people. Every single Emperor did it - but later historians decided to back some and to blame othes, depending on the faction they supported in the Empire (hint: most Imperial historians were from the upper families in the Senate, not from the commoners).

While you can argue that it didn't inspire the later Greek victory (very subjective even if you lived during the time of the battle), it's hard to argue it wasn't a victory. A smaller Greek force did delay the much larger Persian force while inflicting more casualties.

It wasn't a victory.

Leonidas actually expected to hold the ground and really stop the Persians. Then got betrayed and lost.

Whatever, when the invaders beat you, exterminate you and manage to go further - actually burning Athens later on -, that's definitely a defeat and every Greek knew it was one. It's just a very inspirational one, as some other cases of last stands.

The Black Book of Communism is the epitome of shoddy scholarship, and mangles history in order to get a nice round number of 100 million. Fact is, we literally don't know how many people Stalin killed to the nearest ten million.

(And leaving the war dead out of the Nazi figures rather overlooks that the Nazis started the bloody thing).

Besides, this debate about how communists were actually worse is stupid because it doesn't take into account the fact that USSR was here for 70 years and communism ruled nearly half the world for 40 years, while the nazis ruled Germany for 12 years and most of Europe for a handful of years.

Basically, we know how bad Stalinists can get. We know exactly how bad they are - they kill tens of millions in a few decades. We don't know how bad Nazis can be, because their massacres happened during wartime, and we thankfully couldn't see them butchering tens of millions of Eastern Europeans in the decades after their victory in WWII. They started the holocaust at full speed after Stalingrad because it was one of their main goals and they still wanted to get the job done - but the original plan was to first win the war, then carry on the extermination. We can't be sure which other populations they actually planned to exterminate, but Slavs and Blacks were obviously on the list, and giving control of hald the world to Hitler would obviously end with far more than 100 mio deaths.

[The Marquis de Leech]

You ever stop to think that maybe history isn't a game of top trumps, and you can't compare ideologies based soley on the death tolls of extremist dictators?

Ah, but for the likes of The Exorcist, it isn't about the death tolls of extremist dictators. It's really about using it as a stick to whack over the heads of the opposition in discussions of contemporary politics - he has this image of latte-drinking university liberals, which he then tries to connect to Stalin and company. In essence, the argument is "you're left-wing. Stalin was left-wing. Therefore you are guilty of being on his team, and thus you're evil and trying to cover up crimes." It's a sort of Red Godwin's Law thing going on.

[thecryptile]

(And leaving the war dead out of the Nazi figures rather overlooks that the Nazis started the bloody thing).

You're ignoring the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. WWII started when Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia invaded Poland. Remember the Katyn massacre.

As such, I await your Black Book of Capitalism with great interest.

Two wrongs don't make a right. This is similar to the Nazi apologists who try to excuse the Holocaust by pointing out that the US government massacred Native Americans. Moral equivalence can not justify acts of evil.

Besides, this debate about how communists were actually worse is stupid because it doesn't take into account the fact that USSR was here for 70 years and communism ruled nearly half the world for 40 years, while the nazis ruled Germany for 12 years and most of Europe for a handful of years.

It's not a matter of better or worse, both philosophies reject freedom of thought and exp<b></b>ression. Both murdered opponents and selected minority groups. Neither Fascism nor Communism can be thought of as morally right, good or even neutral.

It doesn't matter what ideology a dictator cloaks himself in. Whether he claims to be working for the good of the people, or the purity of his race, the strength of his military or the mandate of heaven, ultimately he's a law unto himself and the death and destruction he can bring is determined only by the size of his population, the size of his ego, the level of his technology, and how little remains of his sense of empathy and humanity.

Agreed! This is the point I was trying to make, only phrased more succinctly.

[Antonius Pius]

Crusaders originally started because Byzantine empire asked for help against Turks, so yes, one of the reasons was to check the spread of Islam.

The pope received a request for aid from the Byzantine Emperor, but the crusade was solely preached as an effort to liberate the Holy Land. Aiding Greeks wouldn't nearly be able to draw such responses among a generally xenophobic Medieval populace. From what we know from the sources, it doesn't factor into the crusaders motivation.

[The Marquis de Leech]

You're ignoring the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. WWII started when Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia invaded Poland. Remember the Katyn massacre.

Oh, for goodness sake. WWII was started by Hitler's territorial ambitions, and his dreams of a wider lebensraum in Eastern Europe. He was always going to attack Poland, thereby precipitating declarations of war from the UK and friends. The Non-Aggression Pact and Stalin's adventures into Eastern Europe reflect a desire on the part of Moscow to (1) buy time, and (2) create a buffer zone against Hitler's ambitions. The USSR had previously tried (and failed) to form an anti-fascist alliance well before the war broke out.

Two wrongs don't make a right. This is similar to the Nazi apologists who try to excuse the Holocaust by pointing out that the US government massacred Native Americans. Moral equivalence can not justify acts of evil.

The problem is that if you count letting people starve whilst selling the grain on the international market (which both Stalin and the 19th Century UK did), then use that to calculate some daft figure of "Victims of Communism" - pinning every last death on the political ideology of the government - then the ludicrous nature of the calculation may be amply demonstrated by counting the starving people of Ireland, Congo, etc, and producing a similarly daft figure of "Victims of Capitalism." The criticism is one of the Black Book's choice of model, and hence the uselessness of its scholarship and figures, not a justification of Stalin's monstrosities.

[The Marquis de Leech]

To put it another way, if the Black Book's model is applied objectively, Capitalism and Communism are both swimming in blood, and are thus evil, and most certainly not to be promoted. But I rather doubt that was the author's intent.

[thecryptile]

Oh, for goodness sake. WWII was started by Hitler's territorial ambitions, and his dreams of a wider lebensraum in Eastern Europe. He was always going to attack Poland, thereby precipitating declarations of war from the UK and friends. The Non-Aggression Pact and Stalin's adventures into Eastern Europe reflect a desire on the part of Moscow to (1) buy time, and (2) create a buffer zone against Hitler's ambitions. The USSR had previously tried (and failed) to form an anti-fascist alliance well before the war broke out.

Stalin had territorial ambitions of his own, the same goals that motivated the Tsars, i.e. claiming a warm water sea-port.

The problem is that if you count letting people starve whilst selling the grain on the international market (which both Stalin and the 19th Century UK did), then use that to calculate some daft figure of "Victims of Communism" - pinning every last death on the political ideology of the government - then the ludicrous nature of the calculation may be amply demonstrated by counting the starving people of Ireland, Congo, etc, and producing a similarly daft figure of "Victims of Capitalism." The criticism is one of the Black Book's choice of model, and hence the uselessness of its scholarship and figures, not a justification of Stalin's monstrosities.

O, OK. I apologize then. I misunderstood your point. Criticism of methodology is very different from justification. My bad.

To put it another way, if the Black Book's model is applied objectively, Capitalism and Communism are both swimming in blood, and are thus evil, and most certainly not to be promoted. But I rather doubt that was the author's intent.

No argument there. Capitalism, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, had a great number of evils associated with it. Slavery, child labor, persecution of unions etc.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

RBPL,

Are you really attempting apologetics for the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland and the massacre of Polish officers by the Red Army?

[The Marquis de Leech]

Stalin had territorial ambitions of his own, the same goals that motivated the Tsars, i.e. claiming a warm water sea-port.

Yes, but Stalin's ambitions didn't extend to starting an actual World War, He was a bully of small countries, and would certainly like to extend the boundaries of control, but he lacked Hitler's sheer foreign policy megalomania.

[MinDonner]

Is it really apologetics to point out that "deaths caused by territorial ambitions" might not really count as "deaths caused by communism"?