Talk:Lazar Kaganovich/Archive 1

Famine-Genocide Deniers

On the Internet, there exists Famine-Genocide Deniers Web Pages. It appears the goal of these Famine-Genocide Deniers Web Pages is to downplay and minimize the significance of this tragic event in Ukrainian History. They also glorify Joseph Stalin as a hero of the people. These pages also state how Joseph Stalin's reputation is allegedly malligned by anti-communist Ukrainians who allegedly have pro-Nazi leanings.

The purpose of this post is to expose people to this re-writing of Ukrainian History. Rastishka

As for revisionist attempts to portray genocidal "famine" as a "mistake" or whatever- http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm#part5 I cant believe such a despicable agitprop -or, its loudspeakers, have the temerity to spew their bile here by distorting the truth. Mir Harven 15:21, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On "Stalin (or Hitler) thought well, but.."

There is no need to pretend that Dallin (accomplished Soviet propagandist, as seen in his story on Russia in WW2) oe Alec Nove (a minor figure) are motivated by anything else than a cover-up of Stalin and his policies. As for Lewin, his motives spring principally from Jewish concerns (rather than ideological), because forced collectivization is not infrequently portrayed as some sort of Jewish genocide over Ukrainians (by the way- there is no reason this discussion is going here, on the page on Kaganovich, since he was only Stalin's lapdog. The entire thing was decided and organized by Stalin, and not any of his puppets (Molotov, Kaganovich, Kalinin, ..). As far as one can see- all authorities on Soviet history and Communism (Pipes, Conquest, Medvedev, Kolakowski, Landauer, ...) agree on the following points: a) the collectivization was an act aimed at eradication of the entire class ("kulaks", but it was essentially peasants). If not confined completely to one ethnic group or nation, is is neverthless, upon examining its course, a democide (better word than just a genocide). b) its crucial element (and not a side effect) was genocidal policy towards Ukrainians, since Russian-populated rural areas were not nearly hit as those inhabited by other nations, especially Ukrainians and Kazakhs. More, Russians had been settled in various countries cleansed form Kazakhs and Ukrainians by famine (villages and hamlets whose Ukrainian inhabitants were starved to death), therefore changing ethnic structure in the way that benefitted Russian ethno-territorial expansion. Many formerly Ukrainian districts and counties became ethnically Russian-a not a single distric or strip of the land changed its ethnic composition the other way around (Russian to Ukrainian).

The role of Jewish party members is a matter of dispute. While they did not engineer the policy, their zeal in pursuing it, complete absence of dissent during the event and later efforts of cover-up beg some unpleasant questions on the degree of Russian Jewish complicity in this affair (although the champions who fought for truth later included prominent figures of Jewish extraction, like Vassily Grossman and Pipes). As it is now, complex question of the scope and profile of Russian (and Ukrainian, Lithuanian,..) Jewish involvement in Communist terrorist activities is still not resolved.

Be as it may, the issue of Holodomor is downplayed mostly by Soviet apologists and, interestingly enough, a part of Jewish political analysts who try, somehow, to minimize ethnic/national dimension of the mass murder. Therefore incessant drumming about Ukrainian participation in the Holocaust- and simultneous efforts that aim both at downplaying the scope and horror of the Holodomor, as well as the scope of Jewish participation in it- which can be interpreted as Jewish chauvinist quasi-revenge attack on Ukrainians (historically, one can go as far back as the 17th century and Bogdan Khmelnitzky massacres). The "doubt" about collectivization aims is virtually the same as the revisionist questioning of Hitler's genocidal plans agains Jews and various Slavs. Some Jewish chauvinists (of various affiliations- they include not only Communist sympathizers but also media moguls who are bound with Holodomor deniers in anti-Ukrainian bias) are shamefully involved in this nefarious propagandist warfare. The tactic is simple- portray others as exclusive perpertators and yourself as pure and untainted victim. Well- life is, unfortuantely, a more complex affair.

Anyway- it's better to put the Holodomor issue at Stalin's doorstep since Kaganovich was only a zealous executor. Mir Harven 08:52, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, your personal views on the matter notwithstanding, differing opinions on historically controversial matters such as this must be represented. Everyking 11:32, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, but with "appropriate" statistical weight, so to speak. Mir Harven 13:53, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bunch of crap, Everyking. Try expressing a differing opinion on aspartame or fluoridation — even if it's a prevalent opinion in Europe. Try pointing out the embarassing parts of Nazi history, like backing by well-known Americans. Try pointing out the lack of evidence of a Serb-run genocide in Kosovo. Try pointing out an instance of how the US fakes crimes by l'ennemi du jour. Look at the treatment Germany Must Perish! got.

WP enforces as much fashionable bias on the hard stuff as everyplace place. Kwantus 03:43, 2005 Jan 17 (UTC)

"The role of Jewish party members is a matter of dispute. While they did not engineer the policy, their zeal in pursuing it, complete absence of dissent during the event and later efforts of cover-up beg some unpleasant questions on the degree of Russian Jewish complicity in this affair "

Take this POV nonsense elsewhere, please. This is not a place to promote the "Jewish communists killed Ukrainian peasants" propaganda now prevalent in Russia and Ukraine. The zeal of Jewish Communist party members was neither greater nor less than the zeal of Russian Communists like Voroshilov or Molotov, Georgians like Stalin, Ordzhonikidze or Beria, or Ukrainians like Khrushev. They all gave up their ethnic identity and religious backgrounds in order to become "true communists". And the actions leading to the famine were carried out by thousands of smaller party members, officers, soldiers etc. vast majority if whom were Russians and Ukrainians. It's time to stop using Wikipedia as a mean to promote one's own bigoted views.

Kaganovich and Holodomor

Kaganovich was the first secretary of Communist Party of Ukraine in 1925-1928. Since 1928 he was the first secretary of Moscow Obcom.

The collectivization started in 1929, Holodomor was in 1930-1932. Kaganovich at that time was busy with the Moscow problems and have no day-to-day control over Ukraine. For one week in 1930 he went to Kiev (together with Molotov) and participated in the All-Ukrainian conference of the Communist Party. They made their speeches encouraging the murderous politics of collectivization (who did not). He is certainly guilty (as all these Polibyuro members), but I do not see why he should be singled out as the person engineering the Holodomor. Stalin is certainly qualified, Kosyor and Postyshev probably too. I do not see why Kaganovich qualifies. In all the long Conquest's book (Russian text on http://www.fictionbook.ru/author/konkvest_robert/jatva_skorbi/konkvest_jatva_skorbi.html) Kaganovich is mentioned 7 times. If he was the person responsible he would be mentioned much more.

The number of victims of Holodomor was discussed on Holodomor article. The demographic data show 4-6.5 mlns of population loss (including unborn children), the official registration of deaths data show 1.5 mln excess deaths but the data is certainly under-reported. All data is for the whole Soviet Union (including Kazakhstan, Cuban, Volga region, then Russian Crimea). Thus, we can safely say millions of victims. It is a colossal tragedy by itself, no need to exaggerate it. If you have other sources showing other info please argue it o Holodomor first, no need to argue it in mutiple places. abakharev 00:59, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Once again the exact numbers for the Holodomor victims are hotly debated, but 7-10 millions in the Ukraine seems to be on a higher side. All the info before the Soviet archives were opened (i.e. 1990ies) is a wild guess. Estimations of serious people give the following:

• Stephen Wheatcroft and R.W Davies, The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933 6..6.5 mln over the whole Soviet Union,
• Stanislav Kulchytsky, "How many of us perished in Holodomor in 1933" 5..6 mln on Ukraine
• "Demographic catastrophes of the 20th century", a chapter from Demographic Modernization in Russia 1900–2000, ed. A. G. Vishnevsky, 2006 4..5 mln over whole SU

etc.

Neither of these researchers are stalinist apologists. The stalinists of course deny the catastrophical famine entirely or put the numbers in thousands, not millions, explaining it by natural weather conditions, etc. If you have better and more reliable references, please put them and argue them on the Holodomor article. So far I propose to just say millions without stating the concrete number as a fact.

The same way intentions to kill the self-sufficient peasantry is not a fact but a speculation. The self-sufficiency was broken by the collectivization. Stalin did not need to kill his own serfs and if he wanted he had an elaborate system of labor camps to do the job for him. abakharev 04:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the image, Rastishka. It nicely settles our dispute. Please check that the correct copyright tag is provided (if in doubt please contact me, I will try to invent something). abakharev 07:31, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Rastishka, stop changing the article to that silly biased version. Again, these claims are debatable and are not facts:

• The famine killed 7-10 million Ukrainians.
• The famine was an intentional act of genocide.
• That Kaganovich was personally responsible for intentionally killing millions and so "was one of the worst mass murderers in history" (this quote is directly copy and pasted from such anti-Semetic sites as jewwatch.com).

You have to be neutral here and if you continue changing it, I will report you. YMB29

Everybody, especially Rastishka. Please do not create a WP:POVFORK here of the Holodomor article. If you argue the factual information about this catastrophe there, not here. Here we only discuss the biography of a second-rate (after 1939 a third-rate and after 1956 - nobody) Soviet politician. abakharev 01:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Alex Bakharev my communist friend, you would not dare say these things on the holocaust page, you would be banished in seconds... yet you feel free here to spew your genocide denial on the little known Ukrainian holocaust, yet there is more proof of it happening than any other holocausts in history.

Yours,

Rastishka

This comment kind of proves my earlier opinion on Rastishka. YMB29

I'm reverting the edits made by User:Rastishka. The way it was before is a more neutral interpretation. These edits seem to be based more on a personal grievance and bitterness than a desire to educate.

Nice one, you can't refute the message so you refute the messenger.

Yours,

Rastishka

Lets have this straight, you did not provided a single validation document confirming your edits (see WP:V) and violated half a dozen of policies of Wikipedia. Until you either provide source for your edits and as well as convince the other editors that their sources are flawed or find a compromise, your edits will be reverted as violating WP:V and WP:NPOV policies. If you would not obey the rules of Wikipedia, you will be blocked for progressively longer periods of time. I am sorry about it, but so is life abakharev 10:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

OH, I am sorry... Please tell me how do I make validation off my brain and/or A Level in history? Well if a communist apologist edit can not be seen as flawed all is useless. But anyways enjoy throwing your weight around.

Yours,

Rastishka

Rastishka, I'm perfectly willing to believe that the famine was a deliberate act of genocide if the evidence (which you say there is a great deal of) is provided. Reference a book, a website, SOMETHING that tells us that the Holodomor was a deliberate act rather than an enormous and catastrophic case of mismanagement and bad planning. We want to work with you, but meet us halfway. Nobody is going to accept such strong statements with no substantive evidence. Would you? User:Sebbeng 15:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You validate your information by citing your references (as I mentioned above), which is a skill we all learned as teenagers in school. Come on. You're just being difficult.

Great references you got... some Russian language page which even has his date of death wrong. I made most of this Lazar Kogan page, you should cite your references before you change it with communist apologist views.

Yours,

Rastishka

1) Which is better? A reference that lists an incorrect date of death or making biased, unsubstantiated claims with NO references?

2) You're full of it when you say you created most of this article. It has existed since 2003, and I don't begin to see your name until last March.

3) How do you know his birth name was Kogan? The only websites I can find that say this are right-wing propaganda and Jewish world conspiracy sites. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places. If so, please point me in the right direction.

4) People tire of your ad hominem attacks, calling everyone who disagrees with you "communist apologist". Do you think anyone will want to listen to you when you respond to a debate with childish name-calling?

I think this is his source: http://www.jewwatch.com/jew-leaders-kaganovich.html#kaganovichbio1 YMB29

1) incorrect date of death is just one of many errors if you could even read Russian. It's a bit of an oxymoron you say i have NO references, yet many times like here you say my reference is jewwatch.

2) Yes I created most of this article.

3) How do I know his birth name was Kogan? Anyone with basic knowledge of Russian history knows Russian Jews changed their names in communism aka Bronstein became Trotski, Goldstein became Voldarski, Solomon became Sverdlov, Rosenfeld became Kamenev, need i go on?

4) Check your history you been doing your fair share of your ad hominem attacks. Do you think anyone will want to listen to you when you respond to a debate with childish name-calling?

Yours,

Rastishka

You're just trying to goad people into flame wars. Do as you will, it's nothing to me and I'm through trying to communicate with you.

No. Not at all. I'm trying to show people the truth, be it politically incorrect or not.

Yours,

Rastishka

Lazar Moiseivich Kaganovich's last name was always Kaganovich, as that was his father's last name, and it was never Kogan.

"[B]ordering with the genocide"?

Can someone explain the meaning of the following passage:

Where he was one of the leaders of fighting against the local Muslim rebels (basmaches) and the following punitive expeditions bordering with the genocide of the local populations.

It seems to be recent. Thanks. --TJive 04:45, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Marriage of Svetlana and Mikhail Kaganovich

• The story seems strange, usually the biographers of Svetlana Alliluyeva (including her own memoirs) include only three marriages to Grigory Morozov (and before the famous affair with the film director Alexei Kapler), to Yury Zhdanov (son of Andrei Zhdanov) and the Indian Brajesh Singh. Never hered about this 2.5th marriage before abakharev 07:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that's what I thought, but it is Time magazine. Unless it's an online misprint/mistake, or it was some kind of unexplained Stalin political ploy that never followed through, it's hard to refute such a credible source.

TIME Magazine is 100% wrong. There was no marriage between Kaganovich's son and Stalin's daughter. Further, the son was named Joseph, not Mikhail. The article also calls Stalin Kaganovich's brother in law, and that is also entirely incorrect.

Edit wars

This person editing under the IP address 82.33.32.160 is probably just User:Rastishka perpetuating his "evil communist Jews" nonsense. I also think that User:JohnHustings is a sockpuppet of User:Rastishka, or vice versa. Rastishka backed up John Hustings on an uploaded image with no citation, and then actually signed his name as John Hustings before quickly editing it to just say "Rastishka".

Nice theory you got going there but anyways... to answer your last question and copy and pasted and simply forgot to change both names

Yours

User:Rastishka

I am reporting you for deliberately cross-linking my user page with your signature.

• hides in fear* oops wait, I stopped being afraid of cry babies years ago

Yours,

Rastishka

I had a look at this JohnHustings you was talking(obessing)about and I seen you been stalking him too, I will report you now

Yours,

Rastishka

Actually, I'm right. I see that your IP address IS 82.33.32.160

Rastishka/Saintrotter has, thankfuly, now been blocked.--Far of tip of the town. 08:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Last name: Kaganovich vs Kogan

The source provided only states that Ashkenazi people may be related to Sehpardic Jews. It doesn't mean that Kaganovich's last name was Kogan.

biography of Lazar Kaganovich

a Nice read from a fascinating book for those who deny Kaganovich is one of the worst mass murderers in history and edit it my post defending him. Maybe some information can be added to the page?

Lazar Kaganovich, one of the bloodiest of the communist butchers during the 1930s and 1940s and the number-two man in the Kremlin for many years.

The book is The Wolf of the Kremlin, and it was written by Stuart Kahan, an American Jew who is Kaganovich's nephew. Kahan went to the Soviet Union in 1981 and interviewed his uncle extensively -- in Yiddish -- to write this biography, and it is a goldmine of revelations.

To sum it up, Lazar Kaganovich was a Jew raised in the Jewish tradition, a yeshiva boy taught to guide himself on the basis of doing always what is best for the Jews, and this precept actually is cited explicitly several times in the book. He attended his first Communist Party meeting in 1911, when he was 18, to hear the Jewish communist Trotsky give a speech in a synagogue in Kiev; that's right: in a synagogue. He rose rapidly in the inner circle of the Communist Party. His success was due primarily to his aggressiveness and his ruthlessness. In his communist activity he held back from nothing, no matter how brutal or bloody. He even killed his fellow Jews when they got in his way. He was a gangster among gangsters.

In 1930 Kaganovich organized a special department of the Soviet secret police, with himself as the head. It was referred to as the department of "wet affairs," with "wet" meaning "bloody." That is, it handled clandestine mass executions, of the sort carried out later at Vinnitsa in Ukraine and at Katyn in Russia and at a thousand other places throughout the Soviet Union over the next two decades. Kaganovich became the commissar in charge of mass murder. Yet when the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, it was Kaganovich who was the savior of the Jews: he arranged for the evacuation of all Jews from the frontier areas and their resettlement far to the east, where they would be safe from the Germans. Let the Ukrainians and the Russians bear the brunt of the German invasion, but protect the Jews from hardship and danger at any cost.

When the Gentile communist Nikita Khruschev accused Kaganovich in 1957 at a Soviet Party Congress of having murdered 20 million Russians during his career, Kaganovich didn't even deny it. He only accused Khruschev of being a murderer too. "Your hands are blood-stained too," Kaganovich told him. Khruschev pointed out that the difference was that he, Khruschev, had merely followed Kaganovich's orders, while it had been Kaganovich who had formulated the policies of mass murder and had given the orders for carrying out those policies.

As I said, it's a fascinating book, this biography of Lazar Kaganovich, and if you really want to gain some insight into his mentality, you should read it for yourself.

Kaganovich wants to boast about the power he once held, and at the same time he wants to evade responsibility for his crimes, and one can see this ambivalent attitude throughout the book.

Yours,

Rastishka

• Read also Statement of the Kaganovich's family. The book is a fiction written by a guy who never met Lazar. Tomorrow I will proclaim myself to be a nephew of Trotsky or Hess and will sell even more facinated manuscripts "dictated" by my "uncle".

OH yes the "close relatives of the late Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich" are right, this Angelic man (Lazar) was nothing like what Stuart Kahan wrote. I am sorry.

Yours,

Rastishka

The Stuart Kahan penned "biography" is universally considered by any legitimate historian to be a complete fiction. Kaganovich spoke no English, Kahan spoke no Russian, and neither one of them spoke Yiddish or any other language, so how did they communicate with each other? This is just one of the ways that Kahan was shown to be a fraud. Your "sources" haven't improved over the anti-semitic websites you were using before.

Just because the names Kaganovich and Kogan are considered to be related at some point in the past does NOT mean that L.M.K's last name was KOGAN, any more than it was Kahan or Cohen or ELVIS PRESLEY for that matter. You can't provide any evidence that the famine was a deliberate genocidal act rather than simple mismanagement and poor planning. You CAN'T PROVE that Kaganovich was "ethnically" Jewish. Just because the man "looks like he's Azkenazi" (which may or may not be related to Sephardic Jews) doesn't meake him so. Yet you continue to edit war with these biased, unsubstantiated versions.

P.S. I think the comment copied and pasted from above says it best: "Take this POV nonsense elsewhere, please. This is not a place to promote the "Jewish communists killed Ukrainian peasants" propaganda now prevalent in Russia and Ukraine. The zeal of Jewish Communist party members was neither greater nor less than the zeal of Russian Communists like Voroshilov or Molotov, Georgians like Stalin, Ordzhonikidze or Beria, or Ukrainians like Khrushev. They all gave up their ethnic identity and religious backgrounds in order to become "true communists". And the actions leading to the famine were carried out by thousands of smaller party members, officers, soldiers etc. vast majority if whom were Russians and Ukrainians. It's time to stop using Wikipedia as a mean to promote one's own bigoted views."

"It's time to stop using Wikipedia as a mean to promote one's own bigoted views" But where will you communist apologists hang out? You're nice and safe here in your power and numbers

Yours,

Rastishka

Poll on wording on Responsibility for Holodomor

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was use version 2.

We seems to have a problem with the better wording for the Responsibility for Holodomor section:

Version 1:

[Image:Famine16.jpg|frame|Famine poster. November 20, 1999 Memorial service in New York City honoring "the memory of those who perished in the genocide-famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine"]] Kaganovich took part in the All-Ukrainian Party Conference of 1930 and actively encouraged the politics of collectivization there that led to the catastrophical 1932-33 Ukrainian famine or Holodomor in which 7 to 10 million Ukrainians died. The main goal of this artificial famine was to break the spirit of the Ukrainian farmer/peasant and to force them into collectivization. The famine was also used as an effective tool to break the renaissance of Ukrainian culture that was occuring under approval of the communist government in Ukraine. Moscow perceived this as a threat to a Russo-Centric Soviet rule and therefore acted to crush this cultural renaissance in a most brutal manner. On any analysis, Kaganovich, was one of the worst mass murderers in history. In his book The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine Robert Conquest named Kaganovich together with Vyacheslav Molotov, Pavel Postyshev and other Stalin's lieutenants as having personal responsibilities for the famine.

Version 2':

[[Image:Famine16.jpg|frame|Poster accusing Kaganovich of genocide. November 20, 1999 memorial service in New York City honoring "the memory of those who perished in the [[Holodomor|genocide-famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine]]". The exact number of deaths is hotly argued. See [[Holodomor]] article for details]]

Kaganovich (together with Vyacheslav Molotov) took part in the All-Ukrainian Party Conference of 1930 and actively encouraged the policies of collectivization there that led to the catastrophic 1932-33 Ukrainian famine or Holodomor in which millions of Ukrainians died. Similar policies also inflicted enormous suffering on the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, Kuban region, Crimea, lower Volga region, and in other parts of the Soviet Union. As an emissary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Kaganovich traveled to the Ukraine, Central region of Russia, Northern Caucasus, and Siberia demanding the acceleration of collectivization and repressions against the kulaks (who were generally used as scapegoats for the slow progress of collectivization) and their supporters. E.g. he pressed the Northern Caucasian leadership to completely deport the entire populations of three Kuban stanitsas: Poltavskaya, Medvedkovskaya, and Urupskaya (45 thousand people in total). In his book, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine, Robert Conquest named Kaganovich together with Molotov, Pavel Postyshev and other lieutenants of Stalin as having personal responsibilities for the famines.

The difference between the versions is that the first states the number of deaths and the reasons for famine different from the ones stated in the main page of Holodomor, while the other just says that the victims were in millions and refer for the details to the Holodomor article. The matter were intensively discussed but no agreement was reached. Please have a Poll. The Poll will be closed in a week Thu, 20 July 2006 01:05 UTC. abakharev 01:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Support Version 1

Support Version 2

1. Support. We should not create a WP:POVFORK of Holodomor with inflated numbers contradicted by the most of scholarly works. Lets say here in millions. If you want to challenge the Holodomor article - please do it there (you may want a better source than the jewwatch.com for this). The purposed reasons of the catastrophe are seems to be highly POVed and not universally agreed. Please argue them on Holodomor not here. abakharev 01:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
2. Support I support this version as it uses more general language to describe the event, rather than to declare it as an act of "deliberate genocide", which is NOT proven.
3. Support But it needs correction: it is not a fact that the famine was a result of collectivization, but just an opinion. There were regular famines during tsarist era with millions dead without any collectivization. Also there were famines in 1920s and in 1950s which also could not be connected to the collectivization. Also "leutenants of Stalin" should be reworded as "stalinist leaders of the USSR" or something.--Nixer 05:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
4. Support as per Alex. The Holodomor article uses a lot of sources with different estimates and so on, and this one uses just one source of quesitonable origin. That's not NPOV.-- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 09:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
5. Support. Disputable things must be covered only in the most relevant article. We cannot have one and the same dispute on the very same topic in dozens of articles:"Stalin", "History of Ukraine", "Molotov", "Famines in Russia", &c.,&c. The "Holodomor" article must cover all POVs, the rest of wikipedia must give only neutral summary (unless the article is about particular POV). `'mikka (t) 17:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
6. Support. This should be resolved within the Holodomor articles. No need for the forks which created contradictions within WP. --Irpen 05:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
7. Support for reasons stated above. PatGallacher 19:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
8. Support Version 2 is acceptable as written except that the word "stanitsas" will be unfamiliar to many readers so it should be internally linked to the respective article.--Riurik 18:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
9. Support The other version is very biased and uses an anti-Jewish source that only wants to make it look like a Jew murdered millions of Christians. -YMB29
10. Support V.1 looks like written by "new ukrainians" brain-frozens. --jno 15:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Comments, discussions

Please also note my comments above re: Kaganovich vs Kogan and re: Jewish vs "ethnically" Jewish.

and I quote from "YMB29 (Talk | contribs) m (reverted, Judaism is a religion, but there is also a Jewish ethnicity)"

This is comming from a user that disagrees with me on everything else, can you say pwn3d? I pity YMB29 you will probably start stalking him now

Yours,

Rastishka

So? On this we agree. Someone being Jewish does not only mean the person is of the Jewish faith. -YMB29

AHHH nice bias wording :) Afraid my real view would win without your spin? Maybe you should also say version 1 is neo-nazi/racist/anti-semitic too, it may help you

Yours,

Rastishka

• Rastishka, since you were the only registered user supporting Version 1, you would better endorse it (and provide some arguments, if you feel like it). You better login before voting as comments of unregistered users may be disregarded. If you feel that my formulation of the discussion is biased or incorrectly formulated, please provide your version. abakharev 01:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

since you were the only registered user supporting Version 1???? wow after this so called poll being open for less an hour where it is now night time in Europe. You love your spin. Funny thing is under the wording of the picture in Version 1, it is your own words. Also Kogan is not well known as the likes of Hitler and Stalin. When one regards the number of his victims, he surely deserves to be placed in their company as among the worst mass-murderers in history But anyways... enjoy your bias poll, it is a pity I lack your communist propaganda writing style

Yours,

Rastishka

• I meant that among the registered editors working on the article you were the only one reverting to the version 1. Thus, you are expected to bring some arguments supporting the version. Obviously, I do not have a crystal ball and do not know what the results of the present poll would be. abakharev 04:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Statement of the Kaganovich Family

Doing some research I have found the 'Statement of the Kaganovich Family' to be on many pro-communist and communist apologist sites, aka http://www.geocities.com/redcomrades/kagan.html

Yours,

Rastishka

It also appeared in Nedelya, a Russian newspaper. Is that also "communist apologist"? You're engaging in edit wars again. Continuing to do so after you've been proven wrong only makes you lose what little credibility you still have. I encourage you to be a man about it, accept that you've lost the argument and quit trying to nit pick. YES, Stuart Kahan is Jewish. Congratulations on being correct on one point.

Removed voted-out edits

I reverted Lazar Kaganovich to delete edits that were voted-out by consensus, and then re-added by a user. The religion of someone who wrote a book about a Soviet bureaucrat is irrelevant to the topic.

Development of Moscow

His role in the development of Moscow is not hilighted.--Nixer 12:09, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Sentence makes no sense

"E.g. he pressed the Northern Caucasian leadership to completely deport the entire populations of three Kuban stanitsas: Poltavskaya, Medvedkovskaya, and Urupskaya (45 thousand people in total)."

Huh? What does the N.C. leadership have to do with deportations our of the Ukraine? - crz crztalk 22:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

That is strange. Is it referenced? If not, maybe it should be amended or someone should research it more thoroughly. TheQuandry 23:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Kuban is not located in Ukraine, it is in southern Russia close to the North Caucasus. Historically it is in fact Caucasus, it is an area where the locals were expelled and it was settled by Russian speaking groups. 76.24.104.52 (talk) 20:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Obviously referred to North Caucasus Krai, a short-lived administrative unit of RSFSR. --Schlackfax (talk) 13:02, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Mikhail's suicide

"On June 1, 1941 after a phone call from Lazar, Mikhail committed suicide."

What is implied here? That Lazar is somehow responsible? This should either be clarified or amended to remove the phone call - crz crztalk 22:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. TheQuandry 23:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. According to Montefiore's well-researched book, Mikhail actually committed suicide during a meeting with some of Stalin's henchmen when his fate became clear. Lazar was a degenerate but didn't want his brother to perish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.108.14.151 (talk) 09:58, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Mark Tauger

The "artificial famine" hoax has been thoroughly debunked by Mark Tauger:

http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/soviet.htm

This Wiki piece just rehashes Robert Conquest's older Cold War propaganda. The famine was real and was caused by rustic plant disease. Plant rust caused the grain stocks to have much fewer grains than would be normal. Because the stalks themselves grew (while lacking the expected number of grains per stalk) this set off a rumor among the peasants that the grain was missing because the government had taken it away. The government officials were most of them not qualified agronomists either, hence they bought into the rumor that the missing grain was accounted for by a conspiracy, but attributed it to kulaks, rich peasants, as they knew that they had not taken away sufficient grain to cause the famine. Because of the failure to realize that the famine was caused principally by a failure in grain production caused by plant rust and other forms of natural disaster, the government failed to import grain from abroad and so did not relieve the crisis as well as might have been done if a call for emergency aid had been issued to grain-holders abroad. But the famine was not artifical in the sense suggested by hoaxers like James Mace and Robert Conquest who allege that crop production was sufficient to feed the majority of the populace. Nor was it caused by collectivization per se. In fact, Tauger points out very clearly that collectivization did improve Soviet grain production. The famine was caused by natural disaster, especially plant rust as a disease within the crop, and then aggravated by lack of human understanding, as occurs commonly in famines. Repeating the "artificial famine" story just stands Soviet propaganda on its head. Stalin was convinced that kulaks had hidden the grain because he was certain that the famine was artificial. He just knew that he wasn't the one who created the "artificial famine" and so kulaks were the natural explanatory focus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.139.160 (talk) 11:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, yes, that was not artificial at all. And my granmother is lying. Nice! Would you like to eat your childen to "improve Soviet grain production"? And who is guilty? "rustic plant disease"? No, that was Russian Bolshevik disease! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.59.135.192 (talk) 23:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

That's not entirely true. Agriculture was disorganized as a result of forced collectivization; compensation to the peasantry was grossly inadequate, leading to a flight of young and able peasants to the cities. Fields were improperly planted and left to weeds. (See: Victor Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, etc.) Then came drought in the south. Grain procurement quotas were rigidly enforced (at gunpoint in many cases), leaving the millions of peasants to starve. The Ukrainian population resisted collectivization the most vigorously and bore the brunt of the suffering, which lead to later charges that the whole thing was a mass act of premeditated genocide — this ballyhooed by nationalist politicians during the post-soviet period. Archival documents and the actual scope of the catastrophe do not bear up this simplistic reading. There you have it. Carrite (talk) 18:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

”thoroughly debunked” by Tauger? That’s rubbish. There is one historian who says it wasn’t man made. Tauger. Boscaswell talk 06:16, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Another brother?

An Abram Kagonovich son of Moses of Kabany was born 1901 and killed 1941 at Babi Yar Massacre —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.129 (talk) 12:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Holodomor is a loaded term

The term "Holodomor" (based on the Ukrainian word "Holod," hunger) is a loaded phrase that has come into use over the last 15 or so years by Ukrainian nationalists, who charge that the 1932-33 famine was a conscious act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. It is not a neutral term and should be used sparingly. Current scholarship does not indicate that the 1932-33 catastrophe was such a conscious act of genocide although a bad harvest from drought was absolutely exacerbated by callous central decision-making. The 1932-33 famine is politically charged and a matter of hot debate. The neutral term is "1932-33 famine," as "Holodomor" implies the conscious targeting of the Ukrainian population. In actual fact around a million Kazakhs and countless Russians also died. Carrite (talk) 18:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

This was definitely a conscious act of genocide. It was perpetrated by Jewish Bolsheviks to put fear into the minds of other Ukrainians should any of them had wished to stray from Stalin's collectivization policies. In that respect, it directly targeted Ukrainians and should be viewed as genocide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.109.254.105 (talk) 10:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think unsigned allegations on important historical contentions have any value at all. Don't these halfwits have the money for a spray can of paint to go desecrate a subway with?

The precise mixture of incompetence, ill-will, and determined malice that goes into any particular holocaust is an important question. If you define a holocaust on the WWII Jewish model, as the killing of a third of an identifiable populace, then there was a holocaust somewhere on Earth every few years in the twentieth century, and that definition wouldn't even include the 32~45 million victims of China's Great Leap Forward.

Mass murder is a threat as ordinary as the common cold, so we need to understand it better. I have no position on the Soviet, or Stalinist, or Ukrainian tragedy, but I had never heard this plant disease argument until today.

It reminds me of the Irish Potato Famine. The potatoes were killed by a virus, but the starvation was caused by the capitalist economic system. With an assist from Conservative politics.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 15:54, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

No one apart from you mentioned plant disease. The important question is intention. The genocide of the Jews was intentional. Was the famine in Ukraine? I don't think so.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:59, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

If you were to read the Holodomor genocide question article you would maybe agree with the many historians whose views are detailed there, that the Holodomor was intentional. It was intended to wipe out Ukrainian folk history. Stalin used famine, the Chinese use re-education camps and put the Uyghurs to work as slave labour. Their intention is the same. The Soviet communists weren’t concerned about human life. That could always be sacrificed for “the greater good”. One of their leaders wrote in the early days of the revolution about shooting 10% of the Russians (if they disagreed with the Bolsheviks) as if it was merely a necessary thing to do. The unsigned comment above saying that the Holodomor was perpetrated by Jewish Bolsheviks does hold some merit. Solzhenitsyn’s meticulously researched master work Two hundred years together tells of the majority of the NKVD in Kiev being Jewish, and of course it would have been the NKVD who oversaw the theft of grain. Boscaswell talk 06:30, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The issue with referring to "Jewish Bolsheviks" is that it implies collectivization was a "Jewish" policy imposed in order to punish gentiles, rather than a policy carried out by avowed communists of varying backgrounds based primarily on a combination of their interpretation of Marxism, their view of the interests of the Soviet state, and/or their own political interests as associates of (or otherwise functionaries under) Stalin. Security organs like the NKVD (it was still the OGPU at that point) were instructed to carry out grain requisition, they didn't originate the policy. --Ismail (talk) 12:18, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

I am not sure why we are even addressing the "Jewish Bolshevik" comment. It is clearly an unsourced statement made by someone pushing anti-Semitism and conflating "Jew" with "Bolshevik." It is racist at it's core when attempting to shoehorn a group of people (whether they be jews, bolsheviks or some other unwanted segment of the population) into a single coherent group upon whom these accusations can be made. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.125.143.178 (talk) 15:25, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

A devoted grandfather - Really ? Now that changes my opinion of the mass murderer of nine million human beings

Lazar Kaganovich is described as a devoted grandfather. That may also be true for all mass murderers. I also read he liked working with Soviet homeless children. Of the seven to ten million Ukranians he sent to their graves, what little ones, and their grandfathers, he did not kill I'm sure he left a few hundred thousand as orphans and homeless kiddos. The man deserves no sympathy or the showering of an tender moments he may have had with his grandkids. The last time I had the misfortune to read such a description of someone so evil, I had to use a boot scraper to rid myself of it.

98.244.68.181 (talk) 14:09, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a denunciation.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:42, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Family myths

According to Western Media, Stalin married Lazar's sister Rosa, and Stalin's daughter Svetlana married his son Mikhail, but apparently these people never existed. I think we should straighten this out. Is it anti-Jewish myth-making?--Jack Upland (talk) 09:02, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

In a nutshell.--Galassi (talk) 13:51, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Apparently the rumors of Stalin marrying a sister of Kaganovich named "Rosa" originated among Soviet citizens in the 1930s (according to Anna Kirziuk in Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe: Tropes and Trends.) According to that author it was apparently part of a wider pattern of blaming "bad" decisions by Soviet statesmen on the supposed interference of wives. --Ismail (talk) 12:18, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Not just wives but Jews in general. And the rumors worked. As can be seen throughout this talk page a certain portion of commentators feel that the Jews have not been blamed enough for the Holodomor, purges, or any other crime against humanity committed by the soviet regime. To be sure, individuals born into the Jewish culture (although very much not into to Jewish faith) were certainly integral in these crimes, but it is the undue focus and blame on ALL Jews that makes the anti-Semitism so palpable. 208.125.143.178 (talk) 15:30, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

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Reference to The New Order

@Lute88 and I disagree as to the reference to The New Order (a mod for the video game Hearts of Iron 4}. Initially he questioned the reference's verifiability; when I added supplemental references, he reverted again with angry claim that it was "unencyclopedic."

I could argue that "unencyclopedic" is no longer considered a good rationale for excluding content from Wikipedia. But instead, I'll focus on the reasons The New Order reference does add usefulness to the article

The New Order is an extremely popular and widely-respected game in its own right. It depicts an alternate history in which The Axis Powers won World War II. Kaganovich is just one of many historical persons who are struggling for power in a warped version of 1962. Unless you refuse to accept video games as a valid form of storytelling, it has as much right to be mentioned as any other fictional depiction of Kaganovich.

Alternate history is a favorite genre of mine. Reading it requires you to think about actual history, and gets you into interesting discussions of how history might have turned out differently. If The New Order were a novel instead of a video game (I suck at video games) I would absolutely want to read it. This kind of relevance makes the reference to the game important enough to include. —Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 19:35, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:ILIKEIT.--Aristophile (talk) 00:19, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

On the same page: WP:VAGUEWAVE. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 00:35, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

@Lute88: Come on guy. You were the one that said, "take it to the talk page." If you can't defend your revert, it doesn't stand. It's that simple. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE, WP:WEIGHT, WP:TRIVIA.--Aristophile (talk) 20:05, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

@Lute88: More WP:VAGUEWAVES. The first two, you obviously haven't even read — they're about WP:NPOV, which obviously doesn't apply here. As for WP:TRIVIA I just made an argument that the reference is not trivia. Do you have a counterargument? If so, please share it. Otherwise, please just admit that you're doing WP:IDONTLIKEIT and get on with your life. Isaac Rabinovitch (talk) 00:50, 13 December 2021 (UTC)