Interview, Fireside Chat
Norman Naimark: Genocide, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Absolute Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #248
- Historical contingency and the specific consolidation of bureaucratic power by Stalin in the late 1920s and early 1930s led to mass killings, with the terror escalation becoming most severe after 1932-33.
- The famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine resulted from specific state policies, including grain seizure laws, restrictions on village movement, and the refusal of foreign relief, driven by a calculation to suppress national identity and a perception of disloyalty among the peasantry.
- Genocide definitions currently under consideration by the UN include the 1948 emphasis on ethnic, national, racial, or religious groups, with proposals to expand the scope to encompass social and political groups.
- Future risks include the continued capacity for human evil demonstrated in current conflicts such as those in Mexico, ISIS, and Syria, alongside the potential for ideology to facilitate mass violence, contrasting with historical trends of declining homicide and rape rates.
- Major man-made famines are projected or observed in historical contexts, including the death toll of 15 million to 40 million people during China's Great Leap Forward, which was linked to political rivalries with the Soviet Union and specific economic reforms.
- The "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, adopted unanimously by the UN in 2005, establishes military intervention as the final measure in a hierarchy of responses, with expectations that the international community may increase pressure short of war.
- Technology is expected to remain neutral and potentially create new problems while solving others, though it may also be utilized to bypass government control of money via cryptocurrency.
- Material expectations for the future suggest that young people possess humane values and that human capacity for good, love, and integrity may outweigh the capacity for evil, despite ongoing poverty and tragedy.