Chon Bash for Two Days

The rest of the full time faulty in the ICP department were away today and yesterday so I got to be Chon Bash (Kyrgyz for Big Head). Fortunately, nothing beyond the means of my meagre administrative skills popped up. The most difficult decision I had to deal with was where to eat lunch.

More News Stories on Suprun and Dudarev

The following links have some more information on the ongoing attempt by the Russian government to suppress the research of Mikhail Suprun into the repression of Russian-Germans by Stalin during the 1940s.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jfpRI3pTnVJalXXbhQcyQmmOx5Kg

http://barentsobserver.com/-take-action-in-the-suprun-case.4643640-16180.html

http://yourfreedomandours.blogspot.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/15/russia-gulag-historian-arrested

Another Good Sign: Berlin Takes Action Regarding Suprun

The German government has now officially complained to Russian President Medvedev about the political persecution of Suprun and Dudarev. The Russian government is seeking to imprison Suprun for up to four years for his research and writing on Stalin's repression of ethnic Germans in the USSR during the 1940s. The article below from The Moscow Times has more information on the case and the recent actions by the German government.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/news/article/387359.html

A Small Important Victory in Reclaiming History

The attempt by the grandson of Joseph Stalin to sue Novaya Gazeta for libel after they correctly characterized the late Soviet dictator as a "bloodthirsty cannibal" has failed. This is a very important victory for human rights activists and others seeking to prevent Russia and other post-Soviet states from sliding back into absolute dictatorships. The New York Times has a good article on the trial with lots of great links at the url below.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/stalins-grandson-loses-defamation-suit/?hp

The False Charges of Treason Against the Deported Peoples Part II

Several years ago Karachai demographer D.M. Ediev pointed to a solid piece of evidence that the charges of wholesale treason against the Balkars came after the decision to deport them had already been made. On page 27 of his book, Demograficheskie poteri deportirovannykh narodov SSSR (Stavropol': StGAU "AGRUS", 2003) he quotes from telegram No. 6160 sent by Beria to Stalin on 25 February 1944. The archival citation for the telegram is GARF "Special File" of Stalin. Fond R-9401 s/ch. Opis 2. Delo 64. 1944: List 163. This document had been reproduced earlier by N.F. Bugai in a redacted form that did not indicate that the deportation had been decided upon before Beria began looking for "evidence" that the Balkars had collectively "betrayed the motherland."

Redacted Bugai version:

"I familiarized myself with the material on the conduct of the Balkars at the time of the offensive by the German-Fascist military in the Caucasus, and after their expulsion..." (Ediev, p. 26).

Full version reproduced by Ediev:

"In connection with the proposed exile of the Balkars from the North Caucasus, I familiarized myself with the material about their conduct during the time of the offensive by the German-Fascist military in the Caucasus, and after their expulsion..." (Ediev, p. 27). [Note that the italics were added by Ediev for emphasis.]

Source: D.M. Ediev, Demograficheskie poteri deportirovannykh narodov SSSR (Stavropol': StGAU "AGRUS", 2003).

The Current Status of Students from Turkmenistan

The few Turkmen students still here will probably all finish out this academic year at AUCA. This means that a large number of them will graduate. However, it looks like the Turkmen government will continue to ban those AUCA students still in Turkmenistan from coming to Kyrgyzstan to complete their educations. This ban appears at this point to be indefinite. It also appears very likely that no further Turkmen students will be allowed to leave their country to attend AUCA in the foreseeable future. I find this most unfortunate. Some of my best students have come from Turkmenistan. Their absence will make AUCA a less intellectually diverse place.

Jonathan Brent on the Rehabilitation of Stalin

The article by Jonathan Brent linked below provides a good background to the recent moves towards rehabilitating Stalin in the Russian Federation.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/117239.html

Links on the Suprun Affair

Here are a list of news articles on the Russian government's political persecution of Professor Mikhail Suprun and Col. Dudarev. The first article is in English, the second one in Russian and the third one in German.

http://www.cdi.org/russia/Johnson/2009-186-25.cfm

http://www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2009/109/02.html

http://www.ornis-press.de/staatsfeindlich-forschung-zu-russlanddeutschen-schicksalen.1184.0.html

FSB Arrests Historian of Stalinist Repression Against Russian-Germans

On 13 September 2009, the FSB arrested and interrogated Mikhail Suprun of Pomorsky State University of Arkhangelsk in connection with his research on Stalin era repression of Russian-Germans. They seized his computers and databases as well as a large number of books and documents. He was working on creating a memory book for the Russian-German victims of the Gulag's labor camps and special settlements in Arkhangelsk. Assisting him in this endeavor was Aleksandr Dudarev, the Head of the Information Center of the Arkhangelsk MVD, who provided Suprun with access to the relevant archives. The Russian government intends to prosecute both Professor Suprun and Col. Dudarev for their research into Stalinist repression. The official charges against Suprun are "divulging personal information" that is collecting the names and other biographical data of individual Russian-Germans repressed by Stalin for publication. He is also charged with urging Dudarev to abuse his authority by granting him access to the Arkhangelsk MVD archives. For more information see the links below.

http://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1254770164

http://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1254517948

Walt Richmond on the False Charges of Treason Against the Deported Peoples

My colleague Dr. Walt Richmond left the following comment on my last post, but its detail and importance certainly merit it having a more prominent place on this blog. I will post later on some additional evidence that the decision to deport the Balkars was made by the Stalin regime before they formulated the false charges of treason against the entire nationality. But, in the meantime please read Dr. Richmond's piece. The italicized part of this post is from Dr. Richmond.

There was also a lot of disinformation concerning the Balkars' deportation. From the original draft of my book, which unfortunately I had to significantly edit:It had long been assumed that the notion of deporting the Balkars was first proposed in January 1944. Additionally, in his memoirs Z. Kumekhov, First Party Secretary of Kabardino-Balkaria, asserted that he vehemently opposed the deportation, which he only learned of on 25 February. However, Balkar historian Khadzhi-Murat Sabanchiev has recently illuminated the process through which the decision to deport the Balkars was made. On 20 February NKVD Chief Lavrenty Beria arrived in Grozny to supervise the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush. At the same time two documents were prepared in Nalchik. The first described the location and numbers of the Balkar population. The second stated that despite the all the efforts made by the Communist Party to help the Balkars a portion remained hostile to Soviet power, and that agents had informed the Party of a counter-revolutionary movement among Balkar nationalists. Therefore, the note concluded, it was necessary to deport the entire Balkar nation. The notes were signed by Kumekhov, local NKVD Chief K. P. Bziava and local NKGB chief S. I. Filatov. Beria signed the second note on 24 February, and on the same day reported to Stalin that during the occupation “the Balkars were negotiating with the Karachays about the unification of Balkaria and Karachay,” 1227 “bandits” had been arrested, and that “362 people fled from Balkaria with the Germans.” It should be remembered first that 1227 represented three percent of the 1939 population of Balkaria (assuming all the arrestees were Balkars) and 362 was less than two percent of the entire number of people who fled the North Caucasus with the Nazis. It seems that Beria had already decided to have the Balkars deported and was merely looking for “a suitable cause,” as Stalin had phrased it a quarter century earlier prior to the deportation of the Cossacks. These three “facts” apparently suited Beria as sufficient, for in the same telegram he recommended the deportation of the Balkar nation as soon as the deportation of the Chechens and Ingush was completed. Stalin replied affirmatively the next day. On 26 February Beria issued Prikaz (Order) 00186 entitled “On Measures to Resettle the Balkar Population from the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR.” In the order he recommended transferring one raion to North Ossetia instead of Kabarda. This proposal was rejected; Elbrus and Prielbrus raions were transferred to Georgia and the remainder to Kabarda, which was renamed the Kabardin ASSR.

References:

Bugai, Nikolai. "Deportatsiia: Beriia dokladivayut Stalinu," Kommunist 3 (1991), pp. 101-12.

Pohl, J. Otto. Ethnic Cleansing in The USSR, 1937-1949. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Sabanchiev, Khadzhi-Murat. “Vyselenie Balkarskogo Naroda v Gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny: Prichiny i Posledstviia,” Murad Esenov, ed. Tsentral’naia Asiia i Kavkaz. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.ca-c.org/datarus/sabanch.shtml (Accessed 10 April 2006).

The False Charges of Treason Against the Deported Peoples Part I

Most scholars as opposed to Stalinist hacks have long maintained that the decision to deport the Kalmyks, Karachais, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars and Crimean Tatars had very little to do with the official Soviet claim that these people were guilty of mass treason and collaboration with the Nazis. Even the exaggerated and unsubstantiated charges made by Beria only accused 10% of the Crimean Tatars of serving in German units. A report from Kobulov and Serov to Beria on 22 April 1944 claims that 20,000 Crimean Tatars deserted from the 51st army in 1941. A direct translation of their message reads, "20 thousand Crimean Tatars deserted in 1941 from the 51st army as it retreated from Crimea." (Bugai 1992, doc. 2, p. 131). This claim was made despite the fact that the NKVD's own Section for the Struggle Against Banditism had only verified 479 cases of desertion and shirking of military service from the Red Army in Crimea for all nationalities versus 1,666,891 for the Soviet Union as whole for the years 1941 to 1944. (Bugai 1992, p. 286). Beria then repeated the claims of Kobulov and Serov in a message to Stalin with some alterations on 10 May 1944. His report states, "From sections of the Red Army in 1944 deserted more than 20 thousand Tatars who betrayed the Motherland, and went over to serve the Germans with arms in their hands and fought against the Red Army..." (Bugai 1991, p. 107). It is probable that Beria meant 1941 rather than 1944 since the information appears to have come directly from the earlier communication by Kobulov and Serov. The source for the 20,000 figure is unknown, but is probably an exaggeration. Soviet intelligence reported a total of 15,000 Crimean Tatars serving in eight German organized battalions in April 1942. (Bugai 2002, doc. 30, p. 62) In contrast the German enlistment records for these battalions show only 9,255 Crimean Tatars serving in them. (T.S. Kulbaev and A. Iu. Khegai, pp. 206-207). A number of these men died during the war and and others retreated to Germany with the Wehrmacht and avoided forced repatriation to the USSR. Which means that over 90% of the Crimean Tatars deported by the NKVD on 18-20 May 1944 were completely innocent. Since the vast majority of the deportees, more than 80% were women and children, this is not surprising. (Williams, p. 336) The condemnation of nearly 150,000 innocent women and children to eternal exile in Uzbekistan and the Urals as special settlers for the alleged crimes of 20,000 men represents one of the most disproportionate collective punishments ever carried out. Despite its immense brutality this crime still has a great many defenders among Russians and others seeking to rehabilitate the Stalin regime today.

Sources:

N.F. Bugai, ed., "Deportatsiia: Beriia dokladyvaet Stalinu..," Kommunist, no. 1, 1991.

N.F. Bugai, ed., Iosif Stalin - Lavrentiiu Berii: "Ikh nado deportirovat'": Dokumenty, fakty, kommentarii. Moscow: "Druzhba narodov", 1992).

N.F. Bugai, ed., Deportatsiia narodov kryma: Dokumenty, fakty kommentarii (Moscow, Insan, 2002).

T.S. Kulbaev and A. Iu. Khegai, Deportatsiia (Almaty: Deneker, 2000).

Alexander Statiev, "The Nature of Anti-Soviet Armed Resistance, 1942-1944: The North Caucasus, the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic, and Crimea," Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, vol. 6, no. 2, Spring 2005.

Brian Glyn Williams, "The Hidden Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims in the Soviet Union: The Exile and Repatriation of the Crimean Tatars," Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 37, no. 3 (July 2002).

Blogger Again Available

For some reason the university blocked all blogger related web pages between Thursday and today. But, now they seem to work again without any problem. I am not sure what the deal was.

Survey Reports that the Majority of Central Asian Youth are Pro-Stalin

Vechernii Bishkek had an interesting article this Friday. It seems that a group called "Evraziiskii Monitor" did a survey of 20 to 35 year old respondents throughout the former Soviet Union and the Baltic States on their opinions of various historical figures. A full 61% of the youth in Kyrgyzstan had a favorable opinion of Stalin versus only 35% in Russia. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan fell in between Kyrgyzstan and Russia with 53% of young people having a positive view of Stalin. In contrast to the young peoples' enthusiastic support of Stalin only 27% of the youth in Kyrgyzstan had a favorable opinion of Andrei Sakharov. So much for inculcating a democratic political culture in Kyrgyzstan.

Source:

Vechernii Bishkek 25 September 2009, p. 15.

Genocide and Intent

The issue of genocide is one that has suffered from a severe narrowing of Raphael Lemkin’s original conceptions and constricted interpretations of the already watered down and politically deformed Genocide Treaty. At the heart of the matter is the claim that instances where deliberate state actions which directly lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of people belonging to racialized ethnic groups are not genocide because the element of “intent” is missing. In the case of the USSR this has led to Arseny Roginsky one of the founders of Memorial in Moscow to remark with regards to Stalinist terror that there are only victims and no crimes. The mass deaths caused by Stalin's deportation of whole nationalities are thus portrayed as purely accidental with no moral or legal responsibility accruing to the Soviet government for causing what were the inevitable consequences of their deliberate actions. Of course intent in such cases is always interpreted in an extremely narrow manner which makes it a synonym for motive or goal. That is the primary purpose of an action must be the extermination of a targeted group and that actions which inevitably have the effect of killing off large portions of specific nationalities undertaken for other reasons thus do not constitute genocide. This interpretation of the word intent is very different from the meaning of the word in Anglo-American common law. Under this definition it is not necessary for death to be the sole object of an action for it to be intentional. Rather it is only necessary for death to be the foreseeable consequence of a voluntary action for it to legally count as intentional. It is quite obvious that moving an entire national population numbering hundreds of thousands of people and consisting mostly of children, the elderly and the disabled in the middle of war time to desolate deserts and frozen taiga will result in a large percentage of them dying. This is exactly what happened during World War Two with the various nationalities deported by Stalin.

The defense that the deportation orders called for the local Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Siberian and Uzbek authorities to provide food, housing and other necessities for the deportees does not morally or legally absolve the Stalin regime of these deaths. The regime knew on the basis of previous deportations that the local authorities in Siberia and Central Asia did not have sufficient resources to provide enough housing, food, clothing and medicine to the deportees to prevent a large minority of them from dying. Rather these provisions appear to have been put in the deportation orders as a way of deflecting responsibility for any problems arising due to the deportations such as the spread of contagious diseases, housing shortages, and unemployment from the central government in Moscow to the regional authorities. Indeed in every single case the local authorities repeatedly reported a severe lack of food, housing, clothing, shoes, soap and medicine and consequently mass deaths due to malnutrition and disease among the deportees shortly after the first trainloads arrived.

FLG also has a post on his blog to which I have posted a comment. If anybody else picks up this discussion and links to me please let me know in the comments.

New Publication in Journal of Genocide Research

The new special topic issue (Volume 11 issue 2 and 3) of the Journal of Genocide Research dealing with New Perspectives on Soviet Mass Violence is now out. It includes the article I co-wrote with Eric J. Schmaltz and Ronald J. Vossler, "'In our hearts we felt the sentence of death': Ethnic German recollections of mass violence in the USSR, 1928-1948," pp. 323-354. The abstract of the article is reproduced below.

Abstract:

This article seeks to examine the mass violence unleashed by Joseph Stalin and his regime against the USSR's ethnic Germans. It endeavors to comprehend how Soviet policies of repression progressed and intensified to the extreme detriment of this nationality group. It covers the tumultuous period between 1928 and 1948, when Soviet policies overall coarsened considerably, from the implementation of Stalin's First Five-Year Plan to the government decree banishing several Soviet peoples in their virtual entirety, including the ethnic Germans, to “eternal” exile east of the Urals. This process shifted from class-based reasons to ethnic ones as the 1930s progressed. The increasingly racialized nature of Soviet mass violence targeted the ethnic Germans as a large diaspora community ethnically linked to Nazi Germany, a country perceived as an ideological and military threat. During Stalin's war against the Soviet countryside in the early 1930s, ethnic German villagers at times felt compelled to conduct mass protests and even revolts against the authorities. Meanwhile, both an emerging ethnic German elite and ordinary German farmers and workers wrote about worsening conditions under Stalin. Besides petitioning the Soviet government, they delivered letters and various writings to friends and relatives by way of a vast underground network at home and abroad, and their relatives sometimes answered in return. A growing body of Soviet archival records and academic literature treating the Stalinist period has generally validated and expanded upon what the ethnic group as early as the 1920s and 1930s had exposed about mass terror under Stalin's regime.

Very Cool Movie Credits

If you want to see something supremely cool go to the credits of Under Jakob's Ladder and scroll down until you reach the position of Historical Consultants. Then scroll down to the part where it says, "The Producers Gratefully Acknowledge..." I am listed not once, but twice in the credits of a movie that is sure to become a cult classic.

New Trailer for Under Jakob's Ladder

The Moon Brothers have just finished their new trailer for their soon to be released movie Under Jakob's Ladder. For those who have not been paying attention it is a movie that revolves around the religious persecution of ethnic Germans in Ukraine during the Stalin era. This is a topic Hollywood has steadfastly avoided. So I urge everybody to spread the word about this new film.

Dying really revived Michael Jackson's Career

Since Michael Jackson's untimely death I have heard his music play all over Bishkek including on my girlfriend's radio. Before he died I never heard his music played here. It is a good thing Madonna is still in good health.

Fall is here

Well it has finally cooled down somewhat in Bishkek. I hope with the colder weather that the insects that have devoured my hands and arms go someplace other than my apartment. I count eight insect bites on my right hand alone.

Weekend

Well, I did not see anything resembling a Graffiti Festival this weekend. I did see lots of police, but I managed to avoid them. I also saw lots of weddings about town, but nobody invited me to any of them. But, mostly like every other weekend I prepared for class and did other work related activities.