• Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
    2·
    23 hours ago

    I didn’t say anything about Soviet voluminous military output or the prowess of determined command planning under Stalin at rapid industrialization. I was talking about their human statistics, their mortality statistics.

    https://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/polka/gold_fund08.html is Soviet academia rehosted on Demoscope, a neutral website on the publications in demography—not democracy.

    I’ve read that part of that book. On the topic of prison mortality, it just repeated the historical consensus of 799,455 official executions between 1921 and 1953, and 1.5–1.7 million additional deaths in the Gulag out of the 18 million that passed through between 1930 and 1953. 1.5 million ÷ 18 million is over 8%. Meanwhile, the review article “‘A Dark Cloud Will Go Over’: Pain, Death, and Silence in Texas Prisons in the 1930s” lambastes the suffering of state prisoners, weeps over “the prison population swelled from 5,000 prisoners in 1930 (itself cause for much concern in prison Annual Reports) to crisis levels of 7,177 in April 1939, making the Texas Prison System one of the largest in the country” and denounces the 68 deaths per year. ( 68 + 21 lynching deaths ) ÷ 5,000 is 0.178%.

    • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      8·
      17 hours ago

      Damn, I wonder what events occurred betwen 1930 and 1953 that would have caused a spike in both occupancy of Soviet prisons, and the death rate in them.

      1942, I wonder what was happening in that year?

      Anyway, nice cherry-picked comparison, let’s take a look at the actual mortality statistics:

      Well would you look at that, as soon as the genocidal Nazi threat against the Soviet people was destroyed, their life expectancy almost instantly doubled from pre-communist times. I believe neutral demographs would call that the second highest rate of increase in life expectancy in human history.

      So a prison system in the incredibly wealthy imperial core, where the denizens can raise themselves up on the plundered blood and gold of South America and later the entire third world, has a lesser need for incarceration than a nation under siege from an entire planet of enemies who would stop at nothing to sabotage and destroy their state, and then enslave and murder their people. And the US has absolutely zero external threats on its entire continent - how did that happen again?

      And how’s the US prison system going now?

      (It’s the highest incarceration rate in the world, and by a looooooong way.)

      And why are we only focusing on one communist state? Let’s take a look at another one:

      It’s China, with the first highest rate of increase of life expectancy in human history. As a bonus, here’s a comparison with India’s historical life expectancy - almost the perfect experiment, as it gained independence around the same time as the PRC was established, had a similar climate and demographics, but did not have the benefit of communist central planning:

      Simply taking the integral between these two curves and multiplying up by their populations means that the Chinese people were collectively afforded literally tens of billions more years of human lifespan - thanks entirely to the communist party and the communist people who supported it - making Mao Zedong the greatest humanitarian of all time.

      • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
        1·
        10 hours ago

        surely you know that prisoners in wartime go instead to the frontline? gulag occupancy in fact decreased during the great patriotic war despite an initial increase from including petty criminals.

        let’s compare 1942. 157,514 total prisoners. 111 executed, 912 dead otherwise. that’s 0.65%. for 1944, 130,805, 63, 756, 0.63%.

        their life expectancy almost instantly doubled from pre-communist times

        that’s a LOW bar. pre-communist times are a very low bar. nobody here argued that russian life was better before the sfsr

        has a lesser need for incarceration

        when were we comparing that? when were we justifying the US?

        (It’s the highest incarceration rate in the world, and by a looooooong way.)

        among colonizing countries definitely, but among the rest of the world no. El Salvador has nearly triple that of the US, and surprisingly Cuba is second. and I definitely prefer the Cuban state over the US (though not to live there due to the sanctions).

        what are we even arguing over? i sense we have a different conception of the topic at hand due to how much seemingly irrelevant stuff you bring up

        but did not have the benefit of communist central planning

        again what are you talking to? where’d your series of questions about the purging of the statisticians go? if what you want is to expand the argument, that chart looks quite similar to that of south korea

        • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          2·
          3 hours ago

          I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to say in the first part

          that’s a LOW bar. pre-communist times are a very low bar. nobody here argued that russian life was better before the sfsr

          The literal entire argument is that Russian life didn’t improve enough under the USSR as compared to a fictional anarchist alternative, such that communists are indistinguishable from fascists. That is the entire crux of the argument in this 400+ comment section. If it’s a low bar, then how come no non-communist third world country ever had even close to that kind of explosive increase in life expectancy and quality?

          when were we comparing that? when were we justifying the US?

          I don’t understand what you don’t understand. You brought up Texas incarceration and death rates, and their contemporary characterization as horrific, and then compared them to USSR imprisonment rates as some kind of gotcha that the communists were unusally inhumane in their prison system even compared to the barbaric US, so I pointed out that as a beneficiary of imperialism the US doesn’t need as brutal punishment in its own territory, it can reserve its oppressive violence for all its vassal fiefdoms in South America - such as, for instance, El Salvador.

          where’d your series of questions about the purging of the statisticians go?

          Huh??? I asked those questions and you just didn’t respond to them or provide any evidence for your assertion, you just moved the conversation on to different points and I followed along. You and the other guy have a habit of just ignoring questions you can’t answer so I just let it slide. But again, what are you talking about purging statisticians? You know that word has a specific meaning of being expelled from the communist party, right? It’s not just a synonym for ‘being killed’, so what statisticians are you talking about that were in the communist party and got expelled for, I’m guessing, “showing statistics that Stalin didn’t like”?

          • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
            1·
            47 minutes ago

            im gonna try and any% speedrun this response

            I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to say in the first part

            atl you understood the second paragraph, right? i was stating the US prison statistics from the similar period you asked for

            The literal entire argument is that Russian life didn’t improve enough under the USSR as compared to a fictional anarchist alternative, such that communists are indistinguishable from fascists.

            firstly no it’s that it still went into many of the governance horrors capitalist states are criticized for

            secondly how does “oh look at that it was so much worse before” manage to give you anything to prove that

            imprisonment rates

            i never compared or even gave you an imprisonment rate. that’s amount of prisoners divided by population. i gave the prison excess mortality rate, deaths divded by prison population. that’s very different

            as a beneficiary of imperialism the US doesn’t need as brutal punishment in its own territory

            i don’t understand this logic. what makes brutal punishment necessary when you don’t do imperialism?

            you just didn’t respond to them or provide any evidence for your assertion

            yes i did did you even click on the link what did you think it was talking about