The policy of industrialization MAY have helped to avoid the defeat in the WWII (and a much worse fate for all of Russia and Ukraine) but the implementation of this policy was criminal and nobody in their right mind would excuse the famine of 1930's. However, in this context, it is important to understand that it happened not only in Ukraine (2/3 of victims were from other regions). This happened to the rich farmers in the Soviet Union, Ukraine (along with Kuban) was unlucky enough to have the best conditions for agriculture and the largest stockpiles of foodstuffs to expropriate.
Thus, there is no case of targeted shipments of infected blankets there, this act has been perpetrated against a cross-section of the population defined by their wealth, not by their nationality.
Do you mean, 300 years of Russian occupation didn't really have any
negative effects? They have just freed themselves from a powerful,
warmongering, authoritarian neighbour. Give them a chance, and forgive
them the urge to find new allies with some clout.
How amusing.
For the last thousand of years, Russia and Ukraine shared the same cultural space and, for the most of this time, the same central government (Kievan Rus', Golden Horde, Russian Empire, Soviet Union). With an exception of the time spent under Polish occupation, the results of which were described quite well here http://www.ukar.org/khmesubt.htm. Poland obviously enjoyed some "clout" back then, but being serfs for Polish magnates, being subjected to polonization and forced conversion to Catholicism must have been quite onerous in retrospect.
Lets consider from what did Ukraine "free" itself this time. Russian empire removed the threat of Tatar and Turkish incursions from the southern Ukraine and eventually took back Galicia from Austro-Hungary, two regions where Ukrainians were not exactly masters of their own destiny to put it mildly. The classics of Ukrainian literature were being published in St. Petersburg, the "suppression" of the Ukrainian language notwithstanding (the ban on teaching it in public schools primarily due to the fact that it was viewed as a polonized dialect spoken mainly by common folk on the right bank of Dnieper which served as an avenue for Polish attempts to create a split between the upper classes of Moscow and Kiev).
As for the Soviet Union, consider the fact that Khrushchev and Brezhnev, two of the party general secretaries, and a whole slew of lesser functionaries in the Politburo and central government actually were from Ukraine. Now, if Ukraine were to Russia a sort of what Puerto Rico is now to the United States then how feasible would that be? Khrushchev even transferred the entire Crimean peninsula, a prime area of beaches and vacation resorts, from being administered by Russia to being administered by Ukraine. How often do the reservations of "oppressed" minorities get this to happen to them? The number of books published in Ukrainian language every year during the "oppression" under Soviet Union actually exceeded the total number of books published yearly in todays Ukraine. But then again, those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it and it seems that this is what the current paymasters ordered.
"With some clout". Quit your posturing and come back when you run out of pants to sniff.
Slashdot Mirror
The policy of industrialization MAY have helped to avoid the defeat in the WWII (and a much worse fate for all of Russia and Ukraine) but the implementation of this policy was criminal and nobody in their right mind would excuse the famine of 1930's. However, in this context, it is important to understand that it happened not only in Ukraine (2/3 of victims were from other regions). This happened to the rich farmers in the Soviet Union, Ukraine (along with Kuban) was unlucky enough to have the best conditions for agriculture and the largest stockpiles of foodstuffs to expropriate.
Thus, there is no case of targeted shipments of infected blankets there, this act has been perpetrated against a cross-section of the population defined by their wealth, not by their nationality.
Do you mean, 300 years of Russian occupation didn't really have any negative effects? They have just freed themselves from a powerful, warmongering, authoritarian neighbour. Give them a chance, and forgive them the urge to find new allies with some clout.
How amusing.
For the last thousand of years, Russia and Ukraine shared the same cultural space and, for the most of this time, the same central government (Kievan Rus', Golden Horde, Russian Empire, Soviet Union). With an exception of the time spent under Polish occupation, the results of which were described quite well here http://www.ukar.org/khmesubt.htm. Poland obviously enjoyed some "clout" back then, but being serfs for Polish magnates, being subjected to polonization and forced conversion to Catholicism must have been quite onerous in retrospect.
Lets consider from what did Ukraine "free" itself this time. Russian empire removed the threat of Tatar and Turkish incursions from the southern Ukraine and eventually took back Galicia from Austro-Hungary, two regions where Ukrainians were not exactly masters of their own destiny to put it mildly. The classics of Ukrainian literature were being published in St. Petersburg, the "suppression" of the Ukrainian language notwithstanding (the ban on teaching it in public schools primarily due to the fact that it was viewed as a polonized dialect spoken mainly by common folk on the right bank of Dnieper which served as an avenue for Polish attempts to create a split between the upper classes of Moscow and Kiev).
As for the Soviet Union, consider the fact that Khrushchev and Brezhnev, two of the party general secretaries, and a whole slew of lesser functionaries in the Politburo and central government actually were from Ukraine. Now, if Ukraine were to Russia a sort of what Puerto Rico is now to the United States then how feasible would that be? Khrushchev even transferred the entire Crimean peninsula, a prime area of beaches and vacation resorts, from being administered by Russia to being administered by Ukraine. How often do the reservations of "oppressed" minorities get this to happen to them? The number of books published in Ukrainian language every year during the "oppression" under Soviet Union actually exceeded the total number of books published yearly in todays Ukraine. But then again, those who do not remember history are bound to repeat it and it seems that this is what the current paymasters ordered.
"With some clout". Quit your posturing and come back when you run out of pants to sniff.