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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5636 thread views

Quality Contributions Report for December 2022

This is the Quality Contributions Roundup. It showcases interesting and well-written comments and posts from the period covered. If you want to get an idea of what this community is about or how we want you to participate, look no further (except the rules maybe--those might be important too).

As a reminder, you can nominate Quality Contributions by hitting the report button and selecting the "Actually A Quality Contribution!" option. Additionally, links to all of the roundups can be found in the wiki of /r/theThread which can be found here. For a list of other great community content, see here.

A few comments from the editor: first, sorry this is a little late, but you know--holidays and all. Furthermore, the number of quality contribution nominations seems to have grown a fair bit since moving to the new site. In fact, as I write this on January 5, there are already 37 distinct nominations in the hopper for January 2023. While we do occasionally get obviously insincere or "super upvote" nominations, the clear majority of these are all plausible AAQCs, and often quite a lot of text to sift through.

Second, this month we have special AAQC recognition for @drmanhattan16. This readthrough of Paul Gottfried’s Fascism: Career of a Concept began in the Old Country, and has continued to garner AAQC nominations here. It is a great example of the kind of effort and thoughtfulness we like to see. Also judging by reports and upvotes, a great many of us are junkies for good book reviews. The final analysis was actually posted in January, but it contains links to all the previous entries as well, so that's what I'll put here:

Now: on with the show!

Quality Contributions Outside the CW Thread

@Tollund_Man4:

@naraburns:

@Bernd:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@RandomRanger:

@Iconochasm:

Contributions for the week of December 5, 2022

@zeke5123:

@ymeskhout:

@FiveHourMarathon:

@gattsuru:

@Southkraut:

@Bernd:

@problem_redditor:

@FCfromSSC:

@urquan:

@gemmaem:

Sexulation

@RococoBasilica:

@problem_redditor:

Holocaustianity

@johnfabian:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

@SecureSignals:

Coloniazism

@gaygroyper100pct:

@screye:

@urquan:

@georgioz:

Contributions for the week of December 12, 2022

@SecureSignals:

@Titus_1_16:

@Dean:

@cjet79:

@JarJarJedi:

@gattsuru:

@YE_GUILTY:

@aqouta:

@HlynkaCG:

Contributions for the week of December 19, 2022

@MathiasTRex:

@To_Mandalay:

Robophobia

@gattsuru:

@IGI-111:

@NexusGlow:

Contributions for the week of December 26, 2022

@FCfromSSC:

@gattsuru:

@LacklustreFriend:

@DaseindustriesLtd:

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I've read the discussions on the Holocaust. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention, but it seems nobody anywhere mentioned the various Holocaust memoirs and the role they play in the entire narrative. I find that odd.

One of the most memorable and influential works on the Soviet Gulag camp system is a literal "Gulag memoir" (well, partly, at least) - "The Gulag Archipelago" by Solzhenitzyn. While important as a literary work, it's not a scientific study, and the estimates within of total gulag deaths, for example, are generally considered by modern studies utilizing actual Soviet records to be vastly exagerrated. Solzhenitzyn's ex-wife said that "Solzhenitsyn’s descriptions of the camps that the information he received from prisoners and exiles “bore a folkloric and frequently a mythical character.”"

Nevertheless, people who refer to the unreliability of the Holocaust memoirs as an argument for Holocaust revisionism generally don't consider the claimed unreliability of undoubtedly the main Gulag camp narrative - still the main source of Gulag camps for many Westerners - to form a similar case for revisionism of Stalinist times. (Perhaps you might find people who are both Holocaust and Gulag revisionists in Russia?)

(Perhaps you might find people who are both Holocaust and Gulag revisionists in Russia?)

Well, maybe. I won’t speak for Holocaust revisionists, but their main argument regarding survivor memoirs does not appear to be that they’re just all unreliable/false and that’s that, it’s that even memoirs that contain more than obvious falsehoods, exaggerations etc. are given legitimacy and even get used as source material for TV series etc., and that the mainstream media is very reluctant to call their authors out, or even to discuss them.

But, now that you mentioned it, I’m reminded that yes, Gulag revisionists do exist, as should be pointed out here, although (as far as I know) almost all of them work in Russia, and their works are only rarely translated or even publicized in any way outside Russia. I’ve seen examples of their research, and most if it seems to be much more mundane stuff, like the following: someone claims their grandpa was arrested and baselessly charged with political crimes, and sent to the GULAG -> researcher goes to the archives and looks at the documents; it actually turns out that grandpa was arrested for robbery/burglary/theft/embezzlement etc.

There are other crucial differences, I’d say. With respect to the GULAG, one cannot claim that there are no written explicit orders or no clear evidence of death tolls, because undoubtedly there is, and it has been accessible for decades. Also, this whole issue has become completely politicized and interpreted in terms of Moskal imperialism and criminality, which hasn’t happened to the Holocaust in the same way.

There are Western tankies who are generally revisionist about Stalin's era, like Grover Furr. Furr has concentrated more on issues like Trotsky and other purged Old Bolsheviks being actually guilty of the accused crimes or Katyn not being done by Soviets, but discusses the camps here.

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