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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: (micromotives & macrobehavior)
Message-ID: <28200127@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Sep-85 17:19:00 EDT
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Posted: Wed Sep 25 17:19:00 1985
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> /* Written  2:31 pm  Sep 21, 1985 by mmt@dciem in inmet:net.politics.t */

> >Do you know of any cases of famine in capitalist nations?
> >                                -- Rick.

> Not knowing how to define "capitalist", I can't say, but the Enclyclopaedia
> Britannica (1968 edition, so it's a bit out of date) lists the following
> 20th century famines:
[a list follows]

Let me provide a reference about the three listed Russian famines
and  one  unlisted (I happen to have some knowledge of that coun-
try), and hazard a guess on some others  (but  I  defer  to  more
knowledgeable people on that).

> 1905      Famine in Russia (Feudal or capitalist?)
		Half-and-half. But this famine shouldn't even be listed
		with the others. Very few, if any, people actually
		died; the reason people abroad noticed was that it 
		was the only thing of its kind in *Europe*. So it
		got into Britannica.

> 1921      Famine in USSR (Not the Stalin-induced one)
	    Right. This one has the signatures of Lenin and Trotsky.
	    Several millions died in it; cannibalism and other
	    horrors were rampant, especially in the Volga area.
	    It was produced by the simple "Ethiopian" method
	    of confiscating all the surplus grain any peasant family
	    had. The "surplus" was defined by special bands of
	    armed people, and often included seed grain; but
	    in any case the villagers, after 3 years of this,
	    took care not to produce any surplus. When the
	    draught came, there they were. To do Lenin justice,
	    he accepted foreign aid, and also changed the system
	    of taxation to a fixed amount of grain and other
	    products, to be delivered by each family according to
	    its pre-estimated capacity; and they would be allowed to 
	    sell the rest.
	    Comparative prosperity followed this capitalist measure.

> 1932-33   Famine in USSR (Ukraine, I suppose)
            Ukraine was just the worst hit area. Estimated six or 
	    seven million died there, and a few million elsewhere.
	    (Not to be confused with so-called kulaks who were deported 
	    in 1929-1931 and mostly perished). This was the direct
            result of forced collectivization. Among other features
            that set this famine apart :

	  - Grain exports were *stepped up* .
	  - No relief was organized or allowed.
	  - This includes tax relief: starving villages were
	    required to supply their full quota of grain.
	  - The districts where the situation was worst were
	    cordoned off, and anyone trying to escape was shot.
    	  - The urban population was kept largely in ignorance
	    of what was going on. Of course, individuals could not
	    help noticing a lot, but since they could not speak
	    of it, the damage was controlled. Officially,
	    prosperity was unlimited. Outside the country,
	    very little was noticed; this was the time Western
	    intellectuals started believing in the Soviet experiment.

[unlisted]
  1946   Famine in USSR. Not localized. Most (? - based on personal
         impressions of a few people) village families in central
	 Russia lost at least one member (usually a child ) that year.

	 Result of the wartime levies on the peasants, of draught,
	 and, most of all, of Stalin's tax policies in the collective
	 farms. The policies were - in a word - redistributionist.
	 I could explain more fully, if asked.
	 Unlike Lenin, Stalin refused foreign aid.

> 1916      Famine in China (Capitalist?)
	  Hardly.  Marxist historians (who like this term) call it feudal.

I am surprised nothing else is listed on China, but can't fill
in from memory. My recollection is that there were many famines;
I don't know what is needed to qualify for Britannica.
Some preceded the Communist takeover.
Then, in early fifties, there were large peasant revolts in southern
China. I remember reading with amazement an official Sinhua press
agency report of successes in combatting what they called "bandits".
In one operation two million of these "bandits" were reportedly killed.
And, of course, there was a huge famine following the
"Great Leap Forward" - but that was too recent for your edition
of Britannica to reflect.

> 1899-1901 Famine in India; 1,000,000 perished.  The government spent
>           L10,000,000 on relief, and at one time there were 4,500,000
>           people on the relief works.
> 1943      Famine in Bengal; about 1,500,000 perished (capitalist)

 We have many people from India on the net; I am sorry if what
I say turns out to be nonsense. The way I see it, most of Indian
economy was agriculture. The land was held by peasant communes
under two systems (one was called rayyatvari, the other zamindari (sp.))
The second one, involving about a third of the country, was feudal:
there was a ladder of vassal dependency from a rajah to a peasant.
The first was, in a way, "socialist" : the land belonged to the
state and was rented to the peasants.
 Bengal, I believe, belonged to this system.
 To me, all this doesn't sound capitalist. 

		Jan Wasilewsky