Why Russia is shrinking?

[Jaga]

This was actually more interesting that I expected, although not deep enough to analyze multiple aspects. OF course everybody knows that the Russia's population is shrinking and there is a negative growth due to a rough change from communism with its benefits for daycare and work safety, but I did not realize that only 20% of Russian boys born in 1923 survived until 1946.
Of course the loss of human life during WW II was enormous. It was unnecessary to such a degree since Soviets did not equip their boys properly, still it is a terrible loss. Soviet Union lacked men and it is still lacking due to premature deaths because of alcoholism, long military service and crime.

Here is the video:

[kaima]

As a history buff I am aware of many aspects presented, but even so, the sum total of the loss and the consequences today are astounding. It is hard to imagine that this dying country has a dictator who is so effective at so strongly influencing the much larger and stronger USA, and presenting such formidable challenges to our republican traditions through his agent Trump.

[pieter]

Folks,

Part of the loss of lives and seize is the stupity of the purges.

Purges of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union (Russian: "Чистка партийных рядов", chistka partiynykh ryadov, "cleansing of the party ranks") was a Soviet ritual, especially during the 1920s, in which periodic reviews of members of the Communist Party were conducted by other members and the security organs to get rid of "undesirables". Such reviews would start with a short autobiography from the reviewed person and then an interrogation of him or her by the purge commission, as well as by the attending audience. Although many people were victims of the purge throughout this decade, the general Russian public was not aware of the purge until 1937.

Although the term "purge" is largely associated with Stalinism because the greatest of the purges happened during Stalin's rule, the Bolsheviks carried out their first major purge of the party ranks as early as 1921. Approximately 220,000 members were purged or left the party. The Bolsheviks stated as justification the need to get rid of the members who had joined the party simply to be on the winning side. The major criteria were social origins (members of working classes were normally accepted without question) and contributions to the revolutionary cause.

The first Party purge of the Joseph Stalin era took place in 1929–1930 in accordance with a resolution of the XVI Party Conference. Purges became deadly under Stalin. More than 10 percent of the party members were purged. At the same time, a significant number of new industrial workers joined the Party. Additionally, Stalin ordered "Case Spring" [ru; uk; ba; tr] - the repression and/or execution of officers of the Red Army who had served previously in the Russian Imperial Army, of civilians who had been sympathetic to the White movement, or of other subversives rounded up by the OGPU. Historians estimate that over 3,000 people were executed and that tens of thousands lost their positions and privileges.

Stalin ordered the next systematic party purge in the Soviet Union in December 1932, to be performed during 1933. During this period, new memberships were suspended. A joint resolution of the Party Central Committee and Central Revision Committee specified the criteria for purging and called for setting up special Purge Commissions, to which every communist had to report. Furthermore, this purge concerned members of the Central Committee and of the Central Revision Committee, who previously had been immune to purges, because they were elected at Party Congresses. In particular, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Ivanovich Rykov, and Mikhail Tomsky were asked to defend themselves during this purge. As the purges unfolded, it became increasingly apparent that what had begun as an attempt to cleanse the party of unequipped and defecting members would culminate in nothing less than a cleansing of integral party members of all ranks. This included many prominent leading party members that had ruled the regime for over a decade. At this time, of 1.9 million members, approximately 18 percent were purged.

Until 1933 those purged (totaling 800,000) were not usually arrested. (The few that were became the first waves of the Gulag Archipelago system.) But from 1934 onwards, during the Great Purge, the connotations of the term changed, because being expelled from the party came to mean almost certain arrest, with long imprisonment or execution following. The Party Central Committee would later state that the careless methodology used resulted in serious errors and perversions which hindered the work of cleansing the party from its real enemies.

The Central Committee Plenum passed a resolution in 1935 declaring an end to the purges of 1933. Sergey Kirov, leader of the Leningrad section of the Communist party, was murdered in 1934. In response, Stalin's Great Purge saw one third of the Communist party executed or sentenced to work in labor camps. The most prolific period of executions occurred during the Great Purge, from 1936-1938. An estimated 4 million people were executed and millions more were sent to prisons. Stalin induced terror among his own party and justified it with Marxist principles. Victims of the Great Purge were placed in a losing scenario regardless of what view they took. They were required to confess their transgressions towards the party and name accomplices. Although most were innocent, many chose to name accomplices either in hopes of gaining freedom or just to stop their torture by interrogators, which was ubiquitous at the time. The prisoner most often was still punished the same whether they denied their crimes, admitted them and provided no accomplices, or admitted them and provided accomplices. It made little difference as to their fate. This can be described as a one-shot, n-person prisoner's dilemma. The punishment remained the same regardless of the terms of confession.

The Great Purge was no less perilous for those few foreigners who attempted to assimilate into Soviet culture. In one piece of literature the author recalls a Soviet general describing the Great Purges as "difficult years to understand" for citizens and foreigners alike. These foreigners were treated much the same as Soviet ethnic minorities and they were thought to be potential threats in the impending war. Germans, Poles, Finns, and other westerners were shown the same fate the bourgeoisie had been dealt following the end of NEP. Punishments ranged from eviction and relocation to summary execution.

Following Stalin's death in 1953 purges as systematic campaigns of expulsion from the party ended; thereafter, the center's political control was exerted instead mainly through loss of party membership and its attendant nomenklatura privileges, which effectively downgraded one's opportunities in society – see Trade unions in the Soviet Union#Role in the Soviet class system, chekism, and party rule. Recalcitrant cases could be reduced to nonpersons via involuntary commitment to a psychiatric institution.

Comment Pieter: Due to the fact that Stalin with the Great purge murdered a lot of capable Sovjet Red army officers, generals, air force people and other military employees. This weekend the SovjetUnion at the start of the Operation Barbarossa in the Summer of 1941.

[Jaga]

Pieter, Kai and all,

Pieter is right that the aspect of the purges was missing from the video. Stalin started its own killing of his own people. It was targeted mainly into "the enemies of the people" who were usually men with some position in the government, minorities (crimea tartars) and farmers (kulaks), but the system was chaotic and many people died for no reason whatsoever.

Putin is also a crook, I agree, a big one and he would persecute anybody who would challenge him.

What is going on around the world is really sad. It seems that we reached a new bottom.

[karl]

Our world is indeed changing as Jaga has brought out, rather it is good or bad, non the less changing. But, is this unusual? For every thing changes around us, which is normal, for to stay static, would be our demise and for sure. With this, it is not to change with change, but to accommodate it to fit our needs.

And yes, my belief in mans {species not gender} instinct to survive is very strong, for we are not as of the other creatures on this known earth, for man is a special design to accommodate and change our surroundings for our survival.

But to the subject we are speaking of, that is a question of Russia shrinking.

It is our loss that Eric is not here for his better description of Russian events, for that would be much more accurate then a third hand view of such events as we are witness to.

Russian is such a vast land of difference in land, people and language. With such large cities as other advanced states, Russia is little different. But, it is much different out side the metropolitan areas such in rural areas. For these small townships and villages are very drab with many buildings not painted but simply left to weather in natural state. With this, employment is dear and monthly salaries just as dear. It is of little wonder for this all to be very poor in mind set for those that live this in this manner. So,, it is to the cheer of a bottle of vodka or home distilled simular strong drink to share with friends of simular mind set.

So, what is a women to do for a good man? And where to find a good man? Certainly not a city drunk or bum or a man with little manners and unemployed most of time or of little means.. If so found a good man by the women, she is very fortunant and most certainly protect her home to then raise her children with this good man.

But then, we should not place all Russian people in the same basket, but view as a whole what we see. Russia is a vast land and as so, populated with a vast number of people, most all have the same hopes as the most of us and are what they are, people of Russia.

www.thoughtco.com/population-decline-in-russia-1435266

Karl

[pieter]

The Soviet famine of 1932–33 was a major famine that killed millions of people in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region and Kazakhstan, the South Urals, and West Siberia. The Holodomor in Ukraine and Kazakh famine of 1932–33 have been seen as genocide committed by Joseph Stalin's government. It has been estimated that between 3.3 and 3.9 million died in Ukraine and 2 million (40% of all Kazakhs) died in Kazakhstan.