Talk:Eduard Berzin

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the author writes "After fighting on the front with the Red Army in the First World War"

CORRECTION: the Red Army did not fight in the 1st WW. Russian army did. Red Army did fight against the White Army in the Russian Civil War which started in 1918 72.190.90.116 16:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genocidaire?

Cautious added the category [[Category:Genocide perpetrators]] to this article. I removed it, as there are not sources listed to back up the assertion that he committed genocide. Like it or not, being a GULAG boss meant committing atrocious crimes against humanity, but did not automatically make one a genocidaire. If there are sources that can directly link him to policies designed to destroy a particular ethnic, religious or national group (e.g. Volga Germans, Crimean Greeks, Koreans in the USSR, Jews, etc.) then please add some information backed up by reputable, scholarly sources before this category is added again. Thanks! — Zalktis 08:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any doubts that the guy that ruled Kolyma GULAGS is not muss murderer?? Here is the source [1] if you can read Polish, but it is also available in English [2]. The formal prove is like follows: Berzin ruled Dalstroj from Nov 11, 1931 to Dec 1, 1938. In this time Dalstroy was used to exterminate Ukrainians Kulaks, the one that survived Hlodomor. Since it is listed in wikipedia as an example of genocide that guy who ruled was perpetrator. Cautious 13:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

From the opening to Wikipedia's article on the Holodomor:

While historians continue to disagree whether the policies which led to the famine fall under the legal definition of genocide, the parliament of Ukraine and the governments of several other countries recognized the famine to be such.

Thus, there is no universal agreement amongst historians (or genocide scholars, for that matter) as to whether the Holodomor fits the definition of a genocide. However, politicians have no compunction about marshaling scholarly or legal terminology for their own purposes, as can be seen in this issue, or in others, such as the case of the Armenian genocide.

The argument of Cautious is typical for the layman, who tends to thinks that more or less all mass murder is genocide. Such a usage of the term genocide will eventually rob it of any content and vigour, as every victim group will want to have its own "genocide" to beat their opponents with: e.g. Lithuanians couldn't possibly have been amongst the perpetrators of the Holocaust, as they were in fact themselves the victims of Soviet genocide (victims by definition can't be perpetrators!).

Furthermore, if the Ukrainians sent to Berzin's GULAGs were sent there as kulaks, a class-based category, then under the definition enshrined in the UN Convention, they are not victims of genocide. Democide — yes; politicide — sure; ethnocide — quite possibly; but not genocide. That being said, some countries (Latvia, France, and others) have adopted definitions of genocide in their national laws that include political groups amongst the potential victim categories for genocide; this however, is not enshrined in international law.

Scholars like Israel Charny have been working tirelessly to have just about every incidence of mass violence recognised as a genocide. At the other end of the spectrum are the those (like Steven T. Katz) who argue that the only true genocide so far was the Holocaust. The variety of positions in between can be seen here: Genocide definitions. All major definitions, however, require documented proof of the intent to destroy a particular group in whole, or at least to some substantial degree.

To sum up: the GULAG was evil; Berzin was a perpetrator of mass crimes against humanity. Nevertheless, one would need more than Ryszard Kapuściński's Imperium (which is not a scholarly discussion of why the Holodomor was or was not a genocide) to classify Berzin as a genocidaire in the case of Ukrainians that perished in Kolyma. In fact, the recent research by Nicolas Werth (no apologist for Stalinism, he!) on the dekulakisation campaigns and the "national operations" during the Great Terror suggests that these shouldn't be viewed as genocides. — Zalktis 07:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)