[BRIEF NOTE] Kazakhstan and Communism

[rfmcdonald]

J. Otto Pohl writes about the cost of Communism in Kazakhstan, concluding that it was heavy indeed.

Those not killed often died from lack of shelter, food and water in the new collective farms. Some 90% of Kazakhstan's livestock perished during the 1930s. Cattle declined from 6,509,000 animals to 965,000 and sheep likewise fell from 18,569,000 to a mere 1,386,000. This destruction of Kazakhstan's herds resulted in mass starvation for the native Kazakhs. Between the 1926 and 1939 Soviet censuses their population decreased by 1,321,000 (36.7%). Much of this decline can be attributed to flight out of Kazakhstan to other parts of the USSR, China, Mongolia, Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey to avoid starvation. Nevertheless the loss of human life among the Kazakhs due to this man made famine certainly exceeded a million people, over a quarter of their population.

I think of the fact that there is not one, but two Communist parties running candidates in my riding, and I feel ashamed. Why Communism and not Naziism?