I wanted to continue this topic - and as it fits the thread about Russian economy poorly, I decided to create a new one.
If you ask what I consider a successful case of industrialization - then Bismarck's Germany comes to mind - went from a largely rural country into an industrial powerhouse of Europe in ~30 years - with no famines and mass deaths.
You have USA which had world's largest industry by 1890 and in 1941-45 managed to switch most of it's heavy industry to war production without much damage to consumer economy.
Then you got Imperial Russia - which enjoyed some of the highest rates of economic growth before WW1 - with agriculture, light and heavy industries developing ALONGSIDE each other - not antagonistically (as in USSR)
Your post is a tu quoque fallacy and a red herring - it does not even touch the subject of Stalin's economic policies - and thus, it's irrelevant.
And this proves my point just perfectly - that Stalinist/communist economies cannot achieve high levels of development in one area without cannibalizing some other part - if you have to subject sizable portions of your population to famine just to get industry, then your economic system IS NOT healthy - unless your vocabulary is upside-down.flamming_python wrote:If Stalin hadn't collectivized the grain in 1932/1933 and sold it to the West in return for industrial equipment, the USSR might have been able to avoid the worst of the famine - but would also have gotten nowhere.
If you ask what I consider a successful case of industrialization - then Bismarck's Germany comes to mind - went from a largely rural country into an industrial powerhouse of Europe in ~30 years - with no famines and mass deaths.
You have USA which had world's largest industry by 1890 and in 1941-45 managed to switch most of it's heavy industry to war production without much damage to consumer economy.
Then you got Imperial Russia - which enjoyed some of the highest rates of economic growth before WW1 - with agriculture, light and heavy industries developing ALONGSIDE each other - not antagonistically (as in USSR)
I don't know what point you're trying to make.Don't bother, he clearly thinks the West is above using forced labor, when the American and British economies financed and profiteered on the transatlantic slave trade, as well as their financial centers (Wallstreet, and the City of London) who financed and profiteered on the rise of fascism in the world
Here's a highly recommended read, it's probably the the best book on the rise of fascism that's ever been written! It's 'Facts and Fascism' by George Seldes, one of the best journalists of the last century, who had support as high up in the U.S. govt. as the vice president of the United States (Henry Wallace under FDR). It was the first book of it's kind, which documented about how the the top robber barons...err I mean business moguls in the West (US, UK, mainland Europe) financed and profiteered on the rise of fascism, including the forced labor camps. It's free online to read, when you find free time read it, it's highly enlightening:
Your post is a tu quoque fallacy and a red herring - it does not even touch the subject of Stalin's economic policies - and thus, it's irrelevant.