this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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That death toll also includes China who also used Lysenko's fake farming techniques. Russia didn't want to admit their plan wasn't working and China didn't want to admit they were failing using the method that supposedly worked so well in Russia. Farmers reporting low crop yields in both countries were blamed and accused of hiding food for themselves. The deaths definitely fall on a lot of shoulders, but at its heart was Lyselko convincing the government to use his plan with false data and continuing that lie even after he knew it wasn't working.
That's interesting, I didn't know that Lysenkoism bled into China, but your number is still nonsense because
. . . applies even more to China. I'm no expert, but I've read a lot of people complaining about the GLF and its agricultural practices and that just never came up. I'm sure it's a bad way to farm plants, but I think what you're trying to depict is the product of anti-communists making mountains out of molehills wrt Lysenko. Lysenko is an incredibly convenient communist boogeyman who seems to verify every tired stereotype about communists, so saying it was this specific guy having an unfathomable level of influence [and thereby communism expressing itself to the fullest] that directly lead to a trillion people dead is an excellent bedtime story for those anti-communists so they have an easier time sleeping on the mountains of corpses butchered by their liberal states.
All I can say is that the host of behind the bastards is an excellent journalist who does thorough research before each episode. I don't have any expertise in this topic, but in other episodes where I am knowledgeable his research has been accurate.
I mean, my suggestion is to look at any other histories of the two famines, including ones by rabid anti-communists, and you will see that there were many other factors (not that I expect a rabid anticommunist to talk about crop blights or kulak sabotage, but still).