Changes

The Museum of [[Communism]] website declares:

The Museum of [[Communism]] website declares:

{{cquote|Slave labor camps, also known as "concentration camps," "forced labor camps," and "re-education camps," have played a vital role in Communist systems from the very beginning. Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, began to set up concentration camps in 1918; the first official admission appears to have been made by Leon Trotsky, who threatened rebellious Czech forces with confinement in concentration camps if they refused to join the Red Army...  

{{cquote|Slave labor camps, also known as "concentration camps," "forced labor camps," and "re-education camps," have played a vital role in Communist systems from the very beginning. Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, began to set up concentration camps in 1918; the first official admission appears to have been made by Leon Trotsky, who threatened rebellious Czech forces with confinement in concentration camps if they refused to join the Red Army...  

Collectivization comes about in a variety of ways, but its essence is the same: getting as much food as possible out of the peasantry while giving them as little as possible in return. During the "War Communism" period, Lenin officially assured peasants that they owned their land, but forced them to sell their entire surplus to the state at a pitifully small price. When peasants chose not to sell, government troops began seizing grain - first surplus grain, then the grain peasants needed to feed their families, and finally the seed grain needed to plant the next crop. The final result was a massive famine in which about 5 million people perished. Under Stalin's forced collectivization program, the peasantry was formally expropriated. Millions of disgruntled peasant families were sentenced to the Siberian slave labor camps. [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]'s collective farmers had to surrender enormous quantities of grain for next to nothing, frequently leading to the seizure of the entire crop. The result was yet another massive famine, made even worse than Lenin's by Stalin's refusal to authorize international relief efforts. The deaths by starvation from this famine were around 7 million; approximately equal numbers of scapegoated peasant families perished in the Siberian concentration camps. This pattern repeated itself in China when Mao collectivized agriculture, and appears at some point in the history of most Communist regimes.<ref>http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm</ref>}}  

Collectivization comes about in a variety of ways, but its essence is the same: getting as much food as possible out of the peasantry while giving them as little as possible in return. During the "War Communism" period, Lenin officially assured peasants that they owned their land, but forced them to sell their entire surplus to the state at a pitifully small price. When peasants chose not to sell, government troops began seizing grain - first surplus grain, then the grain peasants needed to feed their families, and finally the seed grain needed to plant the next crop. The final result was a massive famine in which about 5 million people perished. Under Stalin's forced collectivization program, the peasantry was formally expropriated. Millions of disgruntled peasant families were sentenced to the Siberian slave labor camps. [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]]'s collective farmers had to surrender enormous quantities of grain for next to nothing, frequently leading to the seizure of the entire crop. The result was yet another massive famine, made even worse than Lenin's by Stalin's refusal to authorize international relief efforts. The deaths by starvation from this famine were around 7 million; approximately equal numbers of scapegoated peasant families perished in the Siberian concentration camps. This pattern repeated itself in China when Mao collectivized agriculture, and appears at some point in the history of most Communist regimes.<ref>http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/comfaq.htm</ref>}}