Holodomor and Holocaust / "class" and "race" genocide

[phylo_roadking]

From the earlier thread referenced, the important post seems to be DXTR's...

Oleg Grigoriyev wrote:
assuming debt and weapons -is hardly the same as assuming all responsibilities – is there a legal document -that says Russia assumes it all? I have not seen one

Well upon reading Oleg's insistance at separating the USSR formally from Russia formally, I decided to do some research on the subject.

First of all there seems to be many indications that on many levels there is a continuation between the USSR and Russia. Russia celebrates a number of soviet holydays and traditions which indicates that there is a continuation at least on a traditional level between some of the Soviet traditions and celebrations and Russian traditions and celebrations such as the celebration of the victory over Nazi Germany. As I pointed out before, Russia too inherited all of the USSR' debt as well as the weaponry. She too has acknowledged that she would honour a number of treaties signed by the USSR. But does this then legally speaking make Russia the true heir to all soviet responsibilities? After reading a bit I must now admit that the answer is a bit muddy at best and therefore Olegs stand on this issue as far as I can conclude is both right and wrong.

One day prior to the 25th of December resignation of Gorbachev in 1991 as the president of the USSR, and thus marking the end of the USSR Boris Yeltsin issued the following letter to the secretary general regarding Russian obligations:

the membership of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the United Nations, including the Security Council and all other organs and organizations of the United Nations system, is being continued by the Russian Federation (RSFSR) with the support of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. In this connection, I request that the name `Russian Federation' should be used in the United Nations in place of the name `the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics'. The Russian Federation maintains full responsibility for all the rights and obligations of the USSR under the Charter of the United Nations, including the financial obligations. I request that you consider this letter as confirmation of the credentials to represent the Russian Federation in United Nations organs for all the persons currently holding the credentials of representatives of the USSR to the United Nations

So at least Yeltsin as it would seem was ready to accept all soviet responsibilities. So on the surface I have produced the legal document that oleg asked for. However, despite Yeltsins letter, legally speaking Russia’s claim as the true heir to all soviet obligations and rights is a little bit muddy at best, making Olegs original claim not without merit.

11 of the member states of the Soviet Union agreed on December 8 1991 at Alma Ata that by the break up of the soviet Union - it would cease to exist legally and formally - so by this there was no 'heir' to the soviet union - since all the new members of CIS (Commonwealth of independent States) based their independence on the formal dissolvent of the USSR.

Therefore from a legal point of view the Russian claim for the Security Council seat would not legally be more rightful than say Georgia’s claim. The original legal basis for the Security Council was that it would consist of 5 permanent states and 10 non-permanent members. The UN treaty then listed USSR by name as one of the permanent members, and with the break up of the USSR the 5th seat could not be filled by any states, since USSR ceased to exist. This leads Yehuda Z. Blum in the European Journal of International Law to conclude that Yeltsins claim to the security councils seat as being ’seriously flawed from the legal point of view'.

However the UN decided to accept Russian claim to the 5th seat, as well as the Soviet Union membership of the general assembly, but not from a legal point, but from a practical point of view. First of all Russia encompass the majority of the former Soviet territory. Secondly Russia’s nuclear as well as economic power far outweighed any of the other former soviet member states. Thirdly having a discussion over who should acquire the soviet seat could have put the council in a paralyzing crisis since this would have opened up for a procedural debate on the council as other members would have used this opportunity to press for changes in the council.

So it might be so that Russia to some practical extent was more entitled to the Security Council’s seat, but this had as I said no base in any legal text. However where does this put our debate then?

Yeltsin no doubt on behalf of Russia agreed that Russia would be the legal successor to the Soviet Union, but since the Alma Ata declaration had already declared that USSR would cease to exist, and that the UN charter did not specify that Russia would be the true heir to the Soviet Union it put us in a bit of a legal entanglement. On the one hand Russia publicly accepted all soviet obligations, on the other hand she had no legal basis for doing so. As Yehuda Blum argues

Nonetheless, there can be little doubt that for reasons of pragmatic politics and equity alike Russia was the natural candidate for the Soviet seat in the United Nations (including the permanent seat in the Security Council). The correct legal path to this end would have been for all the republics of the Soviet Union except Russia to secede from the union, thus preserving the continuity between the Soviet Union and Russia for UN membership purposes. For reasons of Soviet domestic politics such a solution was apparently not feasible. Thus resulted a practical solution which, while politically the only realistic one, remains legally suspect.

So in returning to the original claim put forward by Oleg, Russia claimed to be the heir, but legally in view of international law she was no more an heir than any other member of the Soviet Union.

I'm not 100% sure that his VERY last conclusion - "but legally in view of international law she was no more an heir than any other member of the Soviet Union" is tenable; for the important thing that DXTR missed is the TRUE import of Yelstin's statement...coming AFTER Alma Ata THAT is the point at which Yelstin took the mantle of the USSR's responsibilities upon the Federation....when it had already been agreed that the USSR "would cease to exist legally and formally". Therefore....no matter what was agreed at Alma Ata - de facto Yeltsin took those responsibilities upon the Federation...then de jure put the Russian Federation in place of the USSR by assuming the USSR's UN chair, stepping into the USSR's diplomatic liaison etc. The important thing is this happened AFTER Alma Ata...and thus superceded that in both time AND precedence; the Alma Ata agreement only dealt with ONE aspect of the whole "successor state" - the dissolution of the USSR and its replacement by the present panel of independent states; it did NOT deal with the question of the USSR's various legal obligations etc. as a unitary state that still remained...so Yelstin took that step afterwards. It's like the theoretical theological issue of what would happen tothe institutions of Heaven or Hell if either God or the Devil should die...Heaven and Hell wouldn't disappear in a puff of smoke - someone would have to fill the empty throne and fulfill the obligations and expectations

There are MANY legal precedents in international and national law for people/organisations being tried for crimes etc. after the organisation ceased to exist. Look at the number of national leaders and politicians tried for crimes they committed in their period of office AFTER they were no longer IN office, and their government no longer existed.

But most importantly of all - look at the German war crimes trials at the IMT; each and every one of those dealt with crimes perpetrated by individuals, or individuals in positions of authority and responsibility OVER people who carried them out - in a nation which no longer legally existed at that point! The IMT verdicts are not questioned, are they? So the legal precedent - one of THE most secure on earth - is there for trying indiviudals or organisations for actions carried out in a nation/under a constitution that no longer exists.

Oleg - there's one thing that is puzzling me; through this thread you've said a number of times that a trial can't happen because there is no official agreed channel on this between the Federation and the Ukraine; do you not realise that this is what courts are for? To deal with issues/greivances that DON'T have another established, agreed way of being settled?

[David Thompson]

Let's get back to the "Holodomor," please.

[phylo_roadking]

David -we haven't really left it; the last page has been over the question of why the present Russian Federation could or should be culpable for actions on the part of the former USSR - specifically the Holdomor.

And the precedent of the IMT was that people/organisations COULD be held responsible for actions under a previous system/political reality...it doesn't matter if the gap between the two political realities was days, years or decades

Another instance would be...a terrorist kills someone; leaving aside the murder aspect for moment, what makes it an act of terrorism was his membership of a recognised terrorist organisation at the time of the murder. Years later, after he's left the organisation AND that organisation has ceased to exist - is he culpable for murder if arrested down the line for that long-past killing, or murder PLUS terrorist offences? Surely what matters is the status of of the accused at the time the crime was committed?

[David Thompson]

phylo -- Don't you think the culpability needs to be clearly established first?

[phylo_roadking]

Looking at Ellman's article - cited after all by Oleg - there ARE firm grounds for a variety of charges to be laid at Stalin's feet as leader of the USSR. He manages to establish this pretty well on the way to adressing the question of whether or not any of them actually constitute full-blown "genocide" as defined by the UN. If the answer is that they don't....the the either/or default is that they were "cultural genocide"/ethnic cleansing/manslaughter

And the last time I looked - a party held to be guilty of manslaughter for example can STILL be sued for compensation! These are still all crimes meriting compensation for pain and suffering. Noone is any less dead for not being "murdered"....to go back to the dairy company analogy for a moment - a CEO doesn't need to have said "I want THAT guy THERE to die!" as opposed to "Yeah, just let the stuff go on sale" - for the person to be any less dead at the end of it.

And the legal precedent is that West Germany was regarded as culpable...or at least was under obligation to compensate for...actions carried out in the Third Reich...despite it not being legally the same entity.

[David Thompson]

phylo -- You wrote: (1)

Looking at Ellman's article - cited after all by Oleg - there ARE firm grounds for a variety of charges to be laid at Stalin's feet as leader of the USSR.

We haven't discussed Mr. Ellman's article or its conclusions yet. Assuming it is accurate, under international law, what are the obligations of a state to its subjects in the event of a natural disaster? What were the obligations of the state under Soviet law at the time the famine occurred? How does Stalin's personal culpability make the republics of the former USSR liable for anything?

(2)

And the last time I looked - a party held to be guilty of manslaughter for example can STILL be sued for compensation!

Do you have a source for that proposition as a principle of international law? How about under Soviet law, at the time of the famine?

[phylo_roadking]

How does Stalin's personal culpability make the republics of the former USSR liable for anything?

Ditto surely those individuals found guilty of various crimes at the IMT...yet compensation for their acts as individuals or their positions of individual responsibility was accepted as having devolved upon the Federal Republic of Germany as a government

EDIT: or rather...the government of the Federal Republic of Germany took it upon ITSELF....just the same as Boris Yeltsin stated that he took the obligations of the old USSR upon the Russian Federation.

what are the obligations of a state to its subjects in the event of a natural disaster?

David - if you've read the article, you'll be aware that Ellman addresses this from the different tangent of Stalin's culpability for failing to ask for international help, and for forcibly transferring grain away from the Ukraine etc.

Do you have a source for that proposition as a principle of international law?

The area of who is responsible for the establishing/paying of compensation between states under INTERNATIONAL law is not one I'm overly familiar with. I was talking there about national law. Would any possible case arising be heard at the Hague?

[David Thompson]

phylo -- You wrote:

The area of who is responsible for the establishing/paying of compensation between states under INTERNATIONAL law is not one I'm overly familiar with.

It's not a settled area of the law, and there are major questions about the retroactivity of the few issues which have been established as guiding principles. Personally, I think this question is a lot more complicated than it looks.

(2)

yet compensation for their acts as individuals or their positions of individual responsibility was accepted as having devolved upon the Federal Republic of Germany as a government

There is a distinction between an act of grace and an obligation imposed by international law. The example of Germany belongs to the former, not the latter, category.

[phylo_roadking]

There is a distinction between an act of grace and an obligation imposed by international law. The example of Germany belongs to the former, not the latter, category.

Yes, that's why I went back and added -

EDIT: or rather...the government of the Federal Republic of Germany took it upon ITSELF....just the same as Boris Yeltsin stated that he took the obligations of the old USSR upon the Russian Federation

...but still in the process managed to establish the precedent which was used against itself in the 1990s again for the later tranche of slave worker payouts

How about under Soviet law, at the time of the famine?

Don't have anything yet for the earlier period, though it's there all right under the new 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code, all of Article 32 covers compensation for various actions -

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Nx0g ... t&resnum=1

I don't have a copy in english of the earlier Code to hand at the minute.

[David Thompson]

For interested readers -- there are some texts of the earlier Soviet criminal codes (but not the one in effect in 1932-33) available on the cyber-USSR website at:

Index to RSFSR Legal Codes available at this site
http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/kodeksy-toc.html

[David Thompson]

phylo -- You wrote:

but still in the process managed to establish the precedent which was used against itself in the 1990s again for the later tranche of slave worker payouts

Keep in mind the difference between a bilateral agreement among states to enforce local judgments ("We'd really like to see you help these folks out. We also think you'll be quite pleased with the assistance package/loans/trade agreement and/or tariff revisions we have for you this year.") and an obligation imposed on a state by an international court in an adversary setting ("You've been found liable and now you have to pay up or get sanctioned.").

[michael mills]

Here is the quote from the book "Architects of Annihilation" by the German leftist historian Götz Aly I posted on another thread almost exactly six years ago, Sunday 27 July 2003, to be precise:

'Overpopulation' in the Soviet Union

In whatever terms rural overpopulation was described and explained, Oberlaender [Theodor Oberlaender: Director of the Institute of East European Eonomic Studies in Koenigsberg, and a proponent of the need to reduce overpopulation] and his colleagues basically worked on the assumption that Poland and south-east Europe neded to catch up with developments that had already taken place not only in western Europe, but also in the Soviet Union. This meant that the 'backward' agricultural industry in these countries had to be rationalised, and that a proportion of the landless rural population should be drafted into manufacturing industry. The Soviet Union had already taken this step at the beginning of the 1930s, and thereby, as Oberlaender wrote, 'caught up with the trend in western Europe to reduce the size of the rural population by undertaking a massive purge of peasant farmers in the name of collectivisation'. Enforced collectivisation under Stalin, he wrote, had amalgamated 25 million smallholdings into 250,000 collective farms, and 'within a relatively short space of time the individual smallholding' had simply disappeared. At the same time industrialisation had 'alleviated the population factor'. In the elimination of millions of Soviet peasant farmers Oberlaender saw the successful attempt 'to establish a balance between feeding capacity and population numbers'. His barely concealed admiration for Soviet strong-arm methods presumably had something to do with the fact that Stalin's agrarian policy had dealt with the problem of rural overpopulation in the Soviet Union in very short order - virtually within a decade, in fact.

Following the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks had initially reintroducd the old Russian system of land distribution, the so-called mir system, in order to strengthen their power base. Abolished a decade earlier by Stolypin's agrarian reforms, this system favoured families with large numbers of children, and at the same time put economic checks on migration from the land to the towns and cities. The result was that the land owned by the commune had to be divided up between more and more people.

In the early 1920s the Soviet government sought to accumulate capital from the agrarian sector for the development of the country's industry. To this end it kept the prices of industrial goods and taxation levels relatively high, while prices for agricultural produce remained low. But - just like capitalist Poland - the gap between industrial and agricultural prices encouraged peasant farmers to keep their produce for their own consumption rather than selling it on.

When the grain bought up by the government in 1927-8 fell well below the projected figures, despite a good harvest, the government reintroduced the compulsory delivery of agricultural produce. It had used similar tactics to incite the peasant population against the new Soviet power during the period of War Communism. In the 1920s Soviet economists shared the view that large tracts of the Soviet Union were overpopulated - although their estimates of how many people constituted 'too many' were as widely divergent as thir ideas about how to solve the problem. Together with an intensified programme of industrialisation, mass resettlement was seen as an effective method, not least because it would also open up hitherto undeveloped regions in the east of the country to economic exploitation. Initially people were encouraged to resettle in Siberia by offers of government aid. But when this failed to have the desired effect, the authorities resorted once again to forcible methods.

The year 1929 marked the beginning of the wholesale elimination of the kulaks as a class - the process described by Oberlaender as 'a massive purge of peasant farmers in the name of collectivisation'. Between then and 1932 millions of Soviet peasant families were dispossessed and divided into three groups. The first group was either summarily murdered or imprisoned, the second was deported to Siberia and the third was 'merely' banished from the district. This last group could be absorbed into a kolkhoz or collective farm after a probationary period of three to five years. The majority of kulaks belonged to the second group. In the Russian Soviet Republic alone an estimated 820,000 families - some four million people - were deported. Many of them - the exact number is not known - died in transit. To escape the terror many people fled from the countryside into the towns and cities, where they tried to find work illegally in industry.

The black-earth region of the Ukraine, the 'bread basket of the Soviet Union', was regarded as particularly 'overpopulated'. The Ukraine played an important economic role, most notably as an exporter of grain. After the population had already been severely decimated by the elimination of the kulak class, somthing like a fifth to a quarter of the population fell victim in 1932-3 to the goverment's policy of deliberate starvation. The cause of the famine was not failed harvests or natural disasters, but the abnormally high delivery quotas for grain imposed on the farmers. Until this quota had been met, keeping back even small amounts of grain for one's own use was punishable by severe penalties. The starving populace tried once more to flee the countryside and seek refuge in the cities, but special units of troops were deployed to prevent them. According to new Soviet estimates, a total of nine million pople died as a result of resettlement and famine - the consequences of a policy designed to rationalise agriculture at any price in order to create the necessary conditions for industrialisation.

Contrary to the official political line, the drive to eliminate the kulak class was directed not only against well-to-do peasant farmers who were accused of exploiting poorer villagers, but also - soon enough - against families on tiny smallholdings who barely had enough to live on themselves. So collectivisation was not the great achievement born of the class struggle that the Soviet Communist Party made out, but an attempt, as ruthless as it was successful, to eradicate rural overpopulation by various means and to accumulate capital in order to impose a modern economic structure on the country in the shortest possible time. Obrlaender was in no doubt 'that the Soviet Union has embarked on the path of industrialisation under the pressure of agrarian overpopulation, and in so doing has taken one of the paths by which agrarian overpopulation may be combatted'. Dispossession, famine, resettlement and mass murder were evidently viewed in the Soviet Union, as they later were in German-occupied Poland, as necessary and legitimate methods for 'correcting' the country's demographic make-up. In the Soviet Union this 'correction' was justified in terms of the 'laws of the class struggle', while in the German plans for a new European order it was justified by racist arguments. In their semantic parallelism the German terms 'Entkulakisierung' and 'Entjudung' ['the elimination of the kulak class' and 'the elimination of Jewish elements'] point to a certain similarity in the two programmes, while at the same time identifying their differing ideological thrust. When Oberlaender cited the Soviet Union as a model and exemplar in his study of 'Ostmitteleuropa', he put the ideological baggage to one side and reduced both programmes to a common denominator of population policy: the eradication of population groups who were classed as 'extra mouths to feed' .

[Oleg Grigoryev]

So “overpopulation” was Oberländer brainchild (that’s him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Oberl%C3%A4nder –right? ) not Aly. All in all not particularly well constructed quote in my opinion. The format of this forum makes it difficult to cite source which would be clearly welcome.

In the 1920s Soviet economists shared the view that large tracts of the Soviet Union were overpopulated - although their estimates of how many people constituted 'too many' were as widely divergent as thir ideas about how to solve the problem.

Russia peasantry. (or rather former Czarist Russia peasantry) being by far the largest social group. brunt the lion share of casualties during both WW I and Civil War I wonder what places unnamed Soviet economists considered overpopulated.

In the Russian Soviet Republic alone an estimated 820,000 families - some four million people - were deported.

Estimated by who when and how?

The black-earth region of the Ukraine, the 'bread basket of the Soviet Union', was regarded as particularly 'overpopulated'.

Balck Earth located in both Russia and Ukraine - by whom it was considered overpopulated again?

After the population had already been severely decimated by the elimination of the kulak class, somthing like a fifth to a quarter of the population fell victim in 1932-3 to the goverment's policy of deliberate starvation. The cause of the famine was not failed harvests or natural disasters, but the abnormally high delivery quotas for grain imposed on the farmers. Until this quota had been met, keeping back even small amounts of grain for one's own use was punishable by severe penalties. The starving populace tried once more to flee the countryside and seek refuge in the cities, but special units of troops were deployed to prevent them. According to new Soviet estimates, a total of nine million pople died as a result of resettlement and famine - the consequences of a policy designed to rationalise agriculture at any price in order to create the necessary conditions for industrialisation.

Plainly not true as Elman an others had shown. What is the source for the “new Soviet estimates”?
All high no opinion –low on factual content.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

. The Russian Federation maintains full responsibility for all the rights and obligations of the USSR under the Charter of the United Nations, including the financial obligations.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/
So which part of this document make RF sole hair to USSR?

Oleg - there's one thing that is puzzling me; through this thread you've said a number of times that a trial can't happen because there is no official agreed channel on this between the Federation and the Ukraine; do you not realise that this is what courts are for? To deal with issues/greivances that DON'T have another established, agreed way of being settled?

No I said that RF is no more legally responsible for what happened than any other of the 12 republics. If you like German example so much it would be the case oh I don’t know - Saxony trying to sue Brandenburg for damage ensued as a result of Nazi regime – based on the fact that Berlin happens to be located on territory of Brandenburg. Nobody stopping Ukraine to peruse individuals responsible for the deaths – I don’t really see what RF has to do we it unless some of these individuals escaped there.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

David -we haven't really left it; the last page has been over the question of why the present Russian Federation could or should be culpable for actions on the part of the former USSR - specifically the Holdomor.

And the precedent of the IMT was that people/organisations COULD be held responsible for actions under a previous system/political reality...it doesn't matter if the gap between the two political realities was days, years or decades

Another instance would be...a terrorist kills someone; leaving aside the murder aspect for moment, what makes it an act of terrorism was his membership of a recognised terrorist organisation at the time of the murder. Years later, after he's left the organisation AND that organisation has ceased to exist - is he culpable for murder if arrested down the line for that long-past killing, or murder PLUS terrorist offences? Surely what matters is the status of of the accused at the time the crime was committed?

does it say anything about administrative units or states for that matter?