# Mandlestam, can you not follow a thread? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 4, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547 "2003-04-04T20:27:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/41 "2003-04-06T05:20:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by samclem \* > \*\ ***Rick Jay** > > Is this _Milton Friedman_ we’re talking about? > > What branch of Science is he affiliated with? \*\* Yes, yes, I know. He’s an economist. Is it a science? We’ve had this debate before, although it’s been a long time, so you may want to start it up again in GD, but… economics IS a science, like it or not. It is a relatively new science, being as it is sort of a branch of psychology, and I know people will now say “but psychology isn’t a science, either.” Well, it is; psychology, and economics, are the study of behavior. It’s a hard science to get firm answers to, but hey, all sciences start out that way. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/42 "2003-04-06T05:22:16Z")
But since I’m in a Googling mood… [ArtUkraine](http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/openwound.htm), quoting The Genocide of German Ethnic Minorities in Russia And The Soviet Union (including Ukraine), 1915-1949–And Beyound Der Genozid An Russlanddeutschen 1915-1949 By Samuel D. Sinner North Dakota State University Libraries > [@](#): > > CHAPTER THREE---------------------------------------Page 35 Enforced Starvation, 1920-1925 > > …Indeed, in order to stress the terror of the famine of 1932-1933, some authors claim that nature was responsible for the 1921 famine. In the light of available evidence, however, this argument is untenable. Thus, Donald Raleigh correctly criticizes V. V. Kondrashin for naively emphasizing failed harvest and droughts as the main causes of the 1921 famine. Any arguments for an unqualified exclusiveness with regard to the “man-made” famine of 1932-1933, be it in Ukraine or in the Volga-German ASSR, are shown to be untenable in light of the above testimonies stemming from an entire decade earlier. (page 40) > > The requisition of 1917-1921 also gave rise to a crisis threatening the very existence of the Ukrainian-German villages. In Kandel, 450 were starved to death. In GroBliebental, 16 to 20 died every day and were buried in mass graves. In Franzfeld, 45 perished from starvation. Another 151 died in Josephtal. In Landua, over 350 died from starvation. > > During this mass starvation, approximately 10,000 Volga-German children were forcibly taken from their parents and transferred to Slavic families in Ukraine. The parents were told that conditions were better in “brotreich” Ukraine. The government was fully aware, however, that conditions were even worse in some areas in Ukraine than in the Volga region. (Page 40) From [_THE CAUSES AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAMINES IN SOVIET UKRAINE_](http://www.faminegenocide.com/causes.html) by Roman Serbyn. Professor of History, University of Quebec at Montreal: > [@](#): > > In 1921, “war communism”, **which was ruining agriculture with its unbridled requisitions** , was replaced with the more liberal “new economic policy” (NEP). But **the change came too late to prevent the severe food shortage** which gripped the Russian part of the Soviet Empire. At the same time, two years of drought and harvest failures gripped the Volga region, the northern Caucasus and southern Ukraine. **Several million people died in Russia and over one million in Ukraine. And yet, there was no need for anyone to die in Ukraine** ; there were still some reserves in the south and **there were normal harvests in the north. There was enough food to feed all of Ukraine’s population, had the Soviet authorities not confiscated foodstuffs** , not only from the northern provinces but also from the starving south. While Ukrainians starved, Ukrainian grain went to feed the Russian cities and the Volga region; during the second year of the famine it was even exported to Western Europe. Moscow asked for and received famine relief from the West but prevented Ukraine from getting any for the first eight months of the famine. In a typical colonialist gesture, Moscow deliberately sacrificed Ukrainian lives to save the Russian population. BTW, there were also no droughts during the great famine of 1933 under Stalin, either. Harvests that year were pretty much normal. The famine happened because the food was deliberately shipped out of the Ukraine, leaving the population to starve. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/43 "2003-04-06T06:14:16Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m a woman btw. Oops. um . . . I mean, yeah. I knew that. I just meant that, like, your one of the guys, you know. You fit right in, scrathc yourself in public, overthrow all the right borgeoise institutions. Suff like 'dat. Yeah. [sub]Think she bought it? Nah. Probably not. Sorry. I must have been thinking of some other Mandelstam. Greggory Mandelstam, or Howie. You mean you aren’t Howie Mandelstam? My bad.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/44 "2003-04-06T06:22:47Z")
By the way, there is a website devoted to making long range bets about societally or scientifically meaningful predictions. The loser gives a minimum of $200 to charity. (Registering a bet costs $50.) [http://www.longbets.org/](http://www.longbets.org/) (Today’ featured prediction is, “As of March 7th, 2005, Osama bin Laden is dead.” ) The minimum time horizon is 2 years. There is no maximum period for a bet. The negotiations involved in specifying these bets can get quite protracted. I would submit that Rickjay’s specification needs more work. To me 5 examples from 3 universities would not demonstrate that, “a great number of people in the United States… will be apologists for [Saddam Hussein].” However, if Mandelstam doesn’t want to spend the time on this, and Rickjay is interested in reworking his prediction further, I trust that there will be some takers at that website. ---
**Author:** ![Mandelstam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mandelstam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandelstam)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/45 "2003-04-06T14:42:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Spiritus Mundi \* > \*\*I just meant that, like, your one of the guys, you know. You fit right in, scrathc yourself in public, overthrow all the right borgeoise institutions. Suff like 'dat. Yeah. > > [sub]Think she bought it? Nah. Probably not. Sorry. I must have been thinking of some other Mandelstam. Greggory Mandelstam, or Howie. You mean you aren’t Howie Mandelstam? My bad.[/sub] \*\* Not to worry **Spiritus**. Thing is I _do_ scratch myself in public. But since I’m getting close to 8 months’ pregnant right now, it just doesn’t convince anyone any more… **flow** : You’re more the long-range gambling sort than I am. Some of us campus leftists have enough of a hard time figuring out what to do with our retirement accounts. 😉 [sub]That said, is anyone really giving any kind of odds on the Osama by 2005 bet?[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/46 "2003-04-06T16:45:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Thus, Donald Raleigh correctly criticizes V. V. Kondrashin for naively emphasizing failed harvest and droughts as the main causes of the 1921 famine. **Sam** You actually found a good cite. I just this morning read Dr. Raleigh’s opinion, and he indeed has done scholarship in the last 10 years which indicates that the drought factor was _less important_ than the social policy. I stand corrected. At least about the 1921 famine. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2003, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/47 "2003-04-06T22:02:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mandelstam \* > \*\* > Beagle: _“Forgive me, an outsider, for thinking that socialism has a funny connection with murder.”_ > > When you try to remake the world overnight, that’s what happens, alas. That is the lesson of the failed Marxist revolutions. \*\* Admirers have been prone to expressing this as “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” ---
**Author:** ![Mandelstam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mandelstam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandelstam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2003, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/48 "2003-04-07T05:47:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \* > \*\*Admirers have been prone to expressing this as “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” \*\* I’m sure such people exist, **Jack** , but I can honestly say that I’ve never come across any. Of the people I know who still value a socialist ideal, none of them wants to see that ideal come about via violent revolution. Similarly, the sort of person who admires Lenin despite his lapse into brutality admires him for the good ends that he sought (and especially the things that he wrote) but without justifying the brutality. There is a difference, though, between apologizing for revolutionary and post-revolutionary brutality, and grasping the full historical picture of those events. It would be wrong to forgive brutality in a communist regime, no matter how visionary the leaders or good the original intentions. But it’s also wrong to shut one’s eyes to similar brutality from other quarters. The lives of most Russians under the czars were pretty darn bad. And in countries such as England during the industrial revolution about 1/3 of the population lived at a subsistence level, often working 15-hour days just to survive. There was child labor, there was a repressive penal system. It was no picnic. England avoided revolution b/c it gradually became democratized, and the worst excesses of capitalism were reformed; eventually many socialist ideas were introduced in a non-violent democratic fashion. ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547/49 "2003-04-08T23:00:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamia \* > Uh, so how do you figure you’re indebted to Mandelstam for something I said? > > I gets no respect! Madam, you have undone me ! I am speechless at my own insensitivity and beg your forgiveness. I can only hope you will feel able to accept this small country estate and 5,000 acres of lush Shire as the merest token of my genuine appreciation of you and your ability to sniff out anal matters in a thrice ! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mandlestam-can-you-not-follow-a-thread/166547.md?page=2)