
Britain's 'concentration camp' in Russia - antigizmo
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41271418
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jgamman
Britains' Gulag is a tough read about the British colonisation of Kenya in the
50s (?60s?).

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RachelF
Britain had concentration camps for Boers (Dutch settlers) in South Africa
during the Boer War 1899-1902. Around 30,000 died of disease in these camps.

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vkou
The involvement of Western powers in the Russian Civil war (Temporary
occupation of the Far East, aid to the Whites in the West) was a large
contributing factor to the USSR's wretched relationship with the West - long
after 'Communism in all countries' was forgotten.

As it turns out, backing the losing side in a civil war does not ingratiate
you with the winner.

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pm90
There is a reason why the Western powers (especially France) supported the
White Russians. The Bolsheviks had indicated the possibility of not paying
back foreign loans that were taken out by the Russian Empire (they followed
through on that promise and defaulted on all foreign loans; USSR was basically
cutoff from the Western Financial system until WW2). France had provided most
of these, but the other powers were involved as well. This was probably the
most important reason for their opposition: if they let the Bolsheviks get
away with not paying loans, not only would their bankers lose a shit ton of
money, but what was to stop other foreign powers (possibly communist ones)
from doing the same?

Most foreign wars have surprisingly banal reasons for taking place...

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Synaesthesia
A few more reasons occur: Bolsheviks nationalized all foreign possessions in
Russia (which were very substantial - foreigners owned 90% of the railways for
instance).

Also they appealed to the proletariat in the world and showed the potential of
revolution to be real.

Lastly they simply weren’t integrated with the western global financial and
economic system. Really the source of the friction, more so than ideological
reasons. For centuries before Russia was a virtual colony of the West, sort of
like the third world today.

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gumby
Interesting that this _B_ BC article doesn't mention that the concentration
camp was arguably a British invention in the first place -- certainly this
Russian camp followed the model developed by the Bitish in the Boer war.

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NittLion78
As I've understood things the more I read, the vast majority of mass
deportation and mass executions enacted by the USSR and Nazis were largely
inspired by the actions taken in the US vs the large native populations.

How those two entities went about pursuing those goals varied, but both were
needlessly and mindlessly brutal, just like the act that inspired them.

It can be amazing how awful the acts you commit look when you see another
entity perform them on another.

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cryptonector
Not to detract from what the U.S. govt did to natives, but a more likely
explanation is that concentration camps are... the obvious thing to build if
you want to isolate a population. I don't think the internment camps in the
U.S. during WWII were modeled after Nazi concentration camps, and certainly
they weren't in that there were no extermination facilities in the internment
camps, thank goodness. A "camp" is just too obvious to suppose it's modeled on
some past "invention" of the camp.

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user982
"Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of
genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States
history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the
Indians in the wild West; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency
of America's extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages
who could not be tamed by captivity." \- John Toland, _Adolf Hitler: The
Definitive Biography_ [1]

[1]:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzBkAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1096&dq=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzBkAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT1096&dq=%22Hitler%27s+concept+of+concentration+camps%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUjfrAnYrXAhUENI8KHcFaBx8Q6AEIQzAF#v=onepage&q=%22Hitler%27s%20concept%20of%20concentration%20camps%22&f=false)

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cryptonector
That's not a quote, and there's no footnote or reference of any kind there.
Got a better source?

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PatientTrades
> Lenin had come to power promising supporters not only bread to eat and a
> share of the aristocrats' land

Timeless lesson. Always beware of a politician coming to power promising free
stuff. It never works out in the best long term interest of the
people/country. There are no magic tricks in this world, things have to be
earned and paid for. Hopefully citizens of the west learn this sooner rather
than later

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smcl
That's the lesson you took from this!? This is an article demonstrating the
brutality of Britain's colonialism and how we backed the losing side in
another country's civil war and your take-away was "Socialism is bad"?

