I don't remember exactly which claim was made where so I won't attempt to make it up now. I have provided some examples of his manipulations in another sub-thread.
Oh come on Jared, please just one little itty bitty fact to back up your claim? Otherwise I have to put you down as some kind of butt-hurt shill who wants to stick a needle in his back from the shadows. Now it’s done! Bombs away again!
He did use the 65 million number which was an estimate from one source. Others have it between 30-35 so he used high end estimates. Not saying 65 million didn't die but anyone claiming accuracy across a 3 decade period which included a devastating world war is just plain wrong.
Just be aware that all sources have sources that we need to verify. Believe nothing from noone. Paranoia is a good thing :)
There’s a lot of disinformation about Solzhenitsyn floating around out there (KGB, anyone?). He’s imperfect, certainly, like everyone else, but few individuals in history have articulated more potent lessons regarding the hazards of totalitarianism than Solzhenitsyn. I’ve heard some claim he said there were 66 million in the gulags, but anyone who reads “The Gulag Archipelago” will encounter the following on p. iv of Volume 1:
“How many there actually were in the Archipelago one cannot know for certain. We can assume that at any one time there were not more than twelve million in the camps[1],” with the footnote reading, “According to the researches of the Social Democrats Nicolaevsky and Dallin, there were from fifteen to twenty million prisoners in the camps.”
I don’t have time to debunk all the Solzhenitsyn debunkers, but that is but one example easily disproven by the text itself.
Nice! As if it is about the number of millions instead of the actual issue of organized genocide anyway.
One story about Solzhenitsyn I found very moving was his description of being called for interrogation after he was a renowned author living comfortably in his house when he was fighting the system. He did not know, when they came to his house, if he would be coming back. His whole life could very well be forfeit. So, with only a moment to prepare to possibly go back to the gulag, he picks up a bar of soap in his bathroom, figuring that he will at least have the small luxury of a bar of soap for a few days after he is back in a camp. That really blew my mind, resolutely going from a millionaire to someone whose wealth is now a piece of soap in one minute’s time because you are standing for the truth.
I want to read his banned book, “Two Hundred Years Together” which I hear is about the Jews in Russia. It must be really good! Also, I want to see the movie “The Greatest Story Never Told.” I just love censorship! It shows you right where the juicy stuff is!
I started reading the introduction, and seeing errors like “Nobel Price winning” doesn’t give me the greatest confidence in the quality of the translation ;-) I don’t know much about Solzhenitsyn’s supposed anti-semitic beliefs and will neither defend nor accuse him without having an opportunity to delve into his writings on that topic, which honestly I have to back-burner because I’m harnessing all of my time, effort, and energy to focus on arresting the global democide and Great Totalitarian Reset ;-)
I fully acknowledge that people who have written works I respect and appreciate likely held beliefs I disagree with, especially given their historical context, and it is myopic to attempt to retroactively apply contemporary values to earlier times (especially wokified contortions). Being half-Jewish myself, I wouldn’t automatically dismiss everything else someone has written because they have posited anti-semitic stances. I try to examine their words in context and understand great thinkers are also human and susceptible to cultural influences, prejudices, and cognitive biases like everyone else.
I too would like to delve into his writings, but somebody is seeing fit to censor them to prevent that, aren’t they? I see a clue already! I see a parallel also…”anti-vaxxer”/“holocaust-denier”—-two boogeyman terms all well-conditioned people are studiously trying to avoid getting tagged with. Can’t discuss it. Too scary. Too loaded. What about the Holdomor. Few people know what is was. How many movies about it? How many movies about the holocaust? Why so many about one and you don’t hear boo about the other? Is this a clue?
And yes, Hollywood’s obsession with the Third Reich as a special sort of evil to the exclusion of all other genocidal regimes is oddly convenient for the Red side of the equation …
Regarding Holdomor, I just quoted Solzhenistyn’s chapter (“The Peasant Plague,” “The Gulag Archipelago,” Chapter 2 of vol. 3) on that in a recent comment somewhere:
“This chapter will deal with a small matter. Fifteen million souls. Fifteen million lives.…
“But about the silent, treacherous Plague which starved fifteen million of our peasants to death, choosing its victims carefully and destroying the backbone and mainstay of the Russian people—about that Plague there are no books. No bugles bid our hearts beat faster for them. Not even the traditional three stones mark the crossroads where they went in creaking carts to their doom. Our finest humanists, so sensitive to today’s injustices, in those years only nodded approvingly: Quite right, too! Just what they deserve!
“It was all kept so dark, every stain so carefully scratched out, every whisper so swiftly choked, that whereas I now have to refuse kind offers of material on the camps—‘No more, my friends, I have masses of such stories, I don’t know where to put them!’—nobody brings me a thing about the deported peasants. Who is the person that could tell us about them? Where is he? …
“The plan, however, remained in their heads, and all through the twenties they bullied and prodded and taunted: ‘Kulak! Kulak! Kulak!’ The thought that it was impossible to live in the same world as the kulak was gradually built up in the minds of townspeople.
“The devastating peasant Plague began, as far as we can judge, in 1929—the compilation of murder lists, the confiscations, the deportations. But only at the beginning of 1930 (after rehearsals were complete, and necessary adjustments made) was the public allowed to learn what was happening—in the decision of the Central Committee of the Party dated January 5. (The Party is ‘justified in shifting from a policy of restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks to a policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class.’ And the admission of kulaks to the kolkhoz was immediately … prohibited. Would anyone like to attempt a coherent explanation?)
“The dutifully concurring Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and the Council of People’s Commissars were not far behind the Central Committee, and on February 1, 1930, they gave legislative form to the will of the Party. Provincial Executive Committees were required to ‘use all necessary methods in the struggle with the kulaks, up to and including [in reality no other method was used] complete confiscation of the property of kulaks and their removal to points beyond the boundaries of certain regions and provinces.’”
Debunking Solzhenitsyn debunkers while quoting Solzhenitsyn? (CIA anyone?) In USSR life was so bad that the only two times drop in population was recorded - during Civil War and Second World War. While during USSR population grew, after its collapse population is consistently declining. People tend to have less kids when life sucks, obviously it wasn't the case during USSR times, but for some reason in "free" Russia population is shrinking. Do you imply that commissars forced Soviet citizens to reproduce at the barrel of a gun?
Okay, Jared, I see you are having difficulty following logic, so I’ll try to make this simple for you. The Solzhenitsyn debunkers were claiming he said 66 million were in the gulags, so I simply quoted him directly to demonstrate he himself said “one cannot know for certain” and “there were not more than twelve million in the camps.”
You are using high population/reproduction rates as an indicator that a populace is not oppressed? Seriously? I take it you are an avid fan of the great and wondrously free republic of China, then?
You set up a straw man argument and then claim it is evidence for your faulty premise. Please.
Have you lived in Russia/the USSR yourself, or are you just fabricating conclusions based on KGB propaganda and your own ideological fantasies? Because I suggest you talk to someone whose family actually grew up under and suffered the tyrannical brutality behind the Iron Curtain—Tessa Fights Robots (https://tessa.substack.com/p/totalitarianism), for example.
I’m sorry I don’t have the time to engage with you on this further but hope you will open your mind and stop serving as an apologist for a regime responsible for massacring, imprisoning, torturing, and terrorizing millions of human beings for decades upon decades.
Yes, I grew up and lived in USSR and I know a lot of stories of real people. I haven't heard a single story of oppression in my family. And none have been members of the communist party. So I call bs on what Solzhenitsyn wrote. The only story where I've heard that person complained of oppression was a gang member who murdered people. He was a grandfather of one my friends. So don't lecture me about how it was in USSR.
Thanks for clarifying that you lived in the USSR. Just because you didn’t personally witness the oppression doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening, however—just like ordinary Germans didn’t believe the Jews were being gassed, or Covidians don’t believe thousands of people are dying and millions have been injured by the injections. The likelihood that you were immersed in Soviet propaganda painting an alternative reality for you to inhabit makes the parallels to what’s occurring now even stronger. Just like now, those who comply with autocracy can go about their lives thinking everything is peachy, whereas those who dissent suffer the brunt of the brutality in the shadowy corners of the regime, which everyday people don’t see, hear, or think about because it doesn’t affect them directly.
I’m way past my bedtime so am saying farewell for now but would be interested to see what others who grew up under the Soviet government and personally experienced the oppression would say in response to your statements.
Have you considered possibility that you have been immersed in anti Soviet propaganda? Entertain this thought. I was able to free myself from anti American propaganda, though I see where it is coming from. I am tired of people who judge how life was by the news, fake celebrities and academics who write books being afraid to step out of line or to get social approval. Yes, life in Soviet Union wasn't perfect, but is it in America? Soviet Union collapsed because people got too comfortable with their lives. Same thing, in my opinion, is happening in America nowadays. A lot of Americans don't know (or realize) hardships that previous generations went through and are now spitting on their graves. That's how it was in USSR before collapse. I don't know what will be USA's fate, but I share deeply it's values of freedom. They do not work exactly like they are advertised, but at least that's an ideal for which people can strive for and many countries should take example from them. I won't be silent though when people are spitting on the country I was born in. It wasn't perfect, but I see a lot of outrageous lies which aren't supported a) by my experience, b) by statistics, c) by historical documents.
I always consider the possibility that whatever information I examine is propaganda of one flavor or another :-) And yes, I am more than fully aware of American propaganda, which honestly is embarrassingly transparent and rather easy to spot, as is most all propaganda once you know the telltale markers.
I would say 98% of my understanding of Soviet life, history, tyranny, and crimes against humanity comes directly from Russian sources—dozens of books by dozens of different authors, direct testimonies from people who experienced or witnessed the suffering themselves, scientific evidence of mass graves, and government officials like ex-Soviet spies.
I would never spit on Russia as I have tremendous respect for the people of your country, and I am a zealous fan of Russian literature. It is the despotic, oppressive government of the Bolshevik Revolution and USSR I condemn, just as I condemn every other totalitarian regime around the world throughout history.
Actually there are claims that Soviet system killed 110 million, it's hard to find proper source in English, but here is one of the links - https://cisindus.org/2021/02/22/is-the-west-living-in-denial-a-warning-to-the-west-3/. Now compare this against USSR population and do the math. Solzhenisyn used this number as well, saying about "110 mln of our best sons" or something like this. All Russian Empire was around 125 mln according to census of 1897. Even 30 mln looks outlandish in these conditions. Given that a lot of blood was spilled during Civil War and Second World War how is even low estimate even possible?
Another way to verify these numbers are censuses. Soviet population grew rapidly, how do you explain that during genocide? Anyway one believes what one wants to believe. Part of my family is from the Soviet block and even though some have been sceptical of the government and thought negatively about it no one was imprisoned or saw death. Except for one distant member who killed a person during gang initiation. So I call bs on genocide story. It's just a cold war propaganda. It's the same as calling USA a country of systemic racism which it is not. It doesn't prevent tens and tens of millions of people in USA believe it. If you can see through propaganda in one case but not another means you can't really get rid of your biases.
I think it may have been in the movie F IS FOR FAKE I saw an interview with a great art forger. He LOVED duping experts.
But don’t worry about my sources, I get all my facts from Snopes. When it comes to media, as long as I have a kosher intermediary delivering the reports, I know I am “staying safe.”
Snopes and Main Stream Media? Impecible I say. Completely unbiased and 100% accurate all the time. /sarc
Dr Zelenko has some choice words for those "kosher intermediary" media types. Has relatives in Israel and their media/internet control make China jealous apparently.
If you are genuinely interested dig into subject, read conflicting opinions, apply logic. I am not defending bloodshed that happened in Russia during Civil War and years after that that have been caused by animosity in Russian society. However putting a novelist on pedestal and blindly trusting what he wrote without asking questions is weird unless you support the conclusions regardless of facts. What is special about him that he got such great PR in the West? He was just a literator, not a scientist. He took some number out of a magic hat and presented it as fact. A lot of Russian historians who could go and look into actual documents in the archives proved him to be a liar. For majority of Russian people he is a traitor who spread lies about their country. Some Russian people support him. But hey, some Russian people regret that Hitler hasn't won.
You mean like 200 Years Together or what?
I don't remember exactly which claim was made where so I won't attempt to make it up now. I have provided some examples of his manipulations in another sub-thread.
Oh come on Jared, please just one little itty bitty fact to back up your claim? Otherwise I have to put you down as some kind of butt-hurt shill who wants to stick a needle in his back from the shadows. Now it’s done! Bombs away again!
He did use the 65 million number which was an estimate from one source. Others have it between 30-35 so he used high end estimates. Not saying 65 million didn't die but anyone claiming accuracy across a 3 decade period which included a devastating world war is just plain wrong.
Just be aware that all sources have sources that we need to verify. Believe nothing from noone. Paranoia is a good thing :)
There’s a lot of disinformation about Solzhenitsyn floating around out there (KGB, anyone?). He’s imperfect, certainly, like everyone else, but few individuals in history have articulated more potent lessons regarding the hazards of totalitarianism than Solzhenitsyn. I’ve heard some claim he said there were 66 million in the gulags, but anyone who reads “The Gulag Archipelago” will encounter the following on p. iv of Volume 1:
“How many there actually were in the Archipelago one cannot know for certain. We can assume that at any one time there were not more than twelve million in the camps[1],” with the footnote reading, “According to the researches of the Social Democrats Nicolaevsky and Dallin, there were from fifteen to twenty million prisoners in the camps.”
I don’t have time to debunk all the Solzhenitsyn debunkers, but that is but one example easily disproven by the text itself.
Nice! As if it is about the number of millions instead of the actual issue of organized genocide anyway.
One story about Solzhenitsyn I found very moving was his description of being called for interrogation after he was a renowned author living comfortably in his house when he was fighting the system. He did not know, when they came to his house, if he would be coming back. His whole life could very well be forfeit. So, with only a moment to prepare to possibly go back to the gulag, he picks up a bar of soap in his bathroom, figuring that he will at least have the small luxury of a bar of soap for a few days after he is back in a camp. That really blew my mind, resolutely going from a millionaire to someone whose wealth is now a piece of soap in one minute’s time because you are standing for the truth.
I want to read his banned book, “Two Hundred Years Together” which I hear is about the Jews in Russia. It must be really good! Also, I want to see the movie “The Greatest Story Never Told.” I just love censorship! It shows you right where the juicy stuff is!
A self-admitted Holocaust denier recommended “200 Years Together” in the comments of my last post (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-an-agree-to-disagree-relative/). I didn’t know anything about the content but found it at archive.org: https://ia803108.us.archive.org/2/items/200YearsTogether/200%20Years%20Together.pdf
I started reading the introduction, and seeing errors like “Nobel Price winning” doesn’t give me the greatest confidence in the quality of the translation ;-) I don’t know much about Solzhenitsyn’s supposed anti-semitic beliefs and will neither defend nor accuse him without having an opportunity to delve into his writings on that topic, which honestly I have to back-burner because I’m harnessing all of my time, effort, and energy to focus on arresting the global democide and Great Totalitarian Reset ;-)
I fully acknowledge that people who have written works I respect and appreciate likely held beliefs I disagree with, especially given their historical context, and it is myopic to attempt to retroactively apply contemporary values to earlier times (especially wokified contortions). Being half-Jewish myself, I wouldn’t automatically dismiss everything else someone has written because they have posited anti-semitic stances. I try to examine their words in context and understand great thinkers are also human and susceptible to cultural influences, prejudices, and cognitive biases like everyone else.
I too would like to delve into his writings, but somebody is seeing fit to censor them to prevent that, aren’t they? I see a clue already! I see a parallel also…”anti-vaxxer”/“holocaust-denier”—-two boogeyman terms all well-conditioned people are studiously trying to avoid getting tagged with. Can’t discuss it. Too scary. Too loaded. What about the Holdomor. Few people know what is was. How many movies about it? How many movies about the holocaust? Why so many about one and you don’t hear boo about the other? Is this a clue?
Interestingly, I flipped the term around to mean the opposite of what you’re saying in my “Letter to a Holocaust Denier” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-a-holocaust-denier) to really get under the pro-vaxxers’ skin (or should I say needle them ;-)
And yes, Hollywood’s obsession with the Third Reich as a special sort of evil to the exclusion of all other genocidal regimes is oddly convenient for the Red side of the equation …
Regarding Holdomor, I just quoted Solzhenistyn’s chapter (“The Peasant Plague,” “The Gulag Archipelago,” Chapter 2 of vol. 3) on that in a recent comment somewhere:
“This chapter will deal with a small matter. Fifteen million souls. Fifteen million lives.…
“But about the silent, treacherous Plague which starved fifteen million of our peasants to death, choosing its victims carefully and destroying the backbone and mainstay of the Russian people—about that Plague there are no books. No bugles bid our hearts beat faster for them. Not even the traditional three stones mark the crossroads where they went in creaking carts to their doom. Our finest humanists, so sensitive to today’s injustices, in those years only nodded approvingly: Quite right, too! Just what they deserve!
“It was all kept so dark, every stain so carefully scratched out, every whisper so swiftly choked, that whereas I now have to refuse kind offers of material on the camps—‘No more, my friends, I have masses of such stories, I don’t know where to put them!’—nobody brings me a thing about the deported peasants. Who is the person that could tell us about them? Where is he? …
“The plan, however, remained in their heads, and all through the twenties they bullied and prodded and taunted: ‘Kulak! Kulak! Kulak!’ The thought that it was impossible to live in the same world as the kulak was gradually built up in the minds of townspeople.
“The devastating peasant Plague began, as far as we can judge, in 1929—the compilation of murder lists, the confiscations, the deportations. But only at the beginning of 1930 (after rehearsals were complete, and necessary adjustments made) was the public allowed to learn what was happening—in the decision of the Central Committee of the Party dated January 5. (The Party is ‘justified in shifting from a policy of restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks to a policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class.’ And the admission of kulaks to the kolkhoz was immediately … prohibited. Would anyone like to attempt a coherent explanation?)
“The dutifully concurring Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and the Council of People’s Commissars were not far behind the Central Committee, and on February 1, 1930, they gave legislative form to the will of the Party. Provincial Executive Committees were required to ‘use all necessary methods in the struggle with the kulaks, up to and including [in reality no other method was used] complete confiscation of the property of kulaks and their removal to points beyond the boundaries of certain regions and provinces.’”
Debunking Solzhenitsyn debunkers while quoting Solzhenitsyn? (CIA anyone?) In USSR life was so bad that the only two times drop in population was recorded - during Civil War and Second World War. While during USSR population grew, after its collapse population is consistently declining. People tend to have less kids when life sucks, obviously it wasn't the case during USSR times, but for some reason in "free" Russia population is shrinking. Do you imply that commissars forced Soviet citizens to reproduce at the barrel of a gun?
Okay, Jared, I see you are having difficulty following logic, so I’ll try to make this simple for you. The Solzhenitsyn debunkers were claiming he said 66 million were in the gulags, so I simply quoted him directly to demonstrate he himself said “one cannot know for certain” and “there were not more than twelve million in the camps.”
You are using high population/reproduction rates as an indicator that a populace is not oppressed? Seriously? I take it you are an avid fan of the great and wondrously free republic of China, then?
You set up a straw man argument and then claim it is evidence for your faulty premise. Please.
Have you lived in Russia/the USSR yourself, or are you just fabricating conclusions based on KGB propaganda and your own ideological fantasies? Because I suggest you talk to someone whose family actually grew up under and suffered the tyrannical brutality behind the Iron Curtain—Tessa Fights Robots (https://tessa.substack.com/p/totalitarianism), for example.
I’m sorry I don’t have the time to engage with you on this further but hope you will open your mind and stop serving as an apologist for a regime responsible for massacring, imprisoning, torturing, and terrorizing millions of human beings for decades upon decades.
Yes, I grew up and lived in USSR and I know a lot of stories of real people. I haven't heard a single story of oppression in my family. And none have been members of the communist party. So I call bs on what Solzhenitsyn wrote. The only story where I've heard that person complained of oppression was a gang member who murdered people. He was a grandfather of one my friends. So don't lecture me about how it was in USSR.
Thanks for clarifying that you lived in the USSR. Just because you didn’t personally witness the oppression doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening, however—just like ordinary Germans didn’t believe the Jews were being gassed, or Covidians don’t believe thousands of people are dying and millions have been injured by the injections. The likelihood that you were immersed in Soviet propaganda painting an alternative reality for you to inhabit makes the parallels to what’s occurring now even stronger. Just like now, those who comply with autocracy can go about their lives thinking everything is peachy, whereas those who dissent suffer the brunt of the brutality in the shadowy corners of the regime, which everyday people don’t see, hear, or think about because it doesn’t affect them directly.
I’m way past my bedtime so am saying farewell for now but would be interested to see what others who grew up under the Soviet government and personally experienced the oppression would say in response to your statements.
Have you considered possibility that you have been immersed in anti Soviet propaganda? Entertain this thought. I was able to free myself from anti American propaganda, though I see where it is coming from. I am tired of people who judge how life was by the news, fake celebrities and academics who write books being afraid to step out of line or to get social approval. Yes, life in Soviet Union wasn't perfect, but is it in America? Soviet Union collapsed because people got too comfortable with their lives. Same thing, in my opinion, is happening in America nowadays. A lot of Americans don't know (or realize) hardships that previous generations went through and are now spitting on their graves. That's how it was in USSR before collapse. I don't know what will be USA's fate, but I share deeply it's values of freedom. They do not work exactly like they are advertised, but at least that's an ideal for which people can strive for and many countries should take example from them. I won't be silent though when people are spitting on the country I was born in. It wasn't perfect, but I see a lot of outrageous lies which aren't supported a) by my experience, b) by statistics, c) by historical documents.
I always consider the possibility that whatever information I examine is propaganda of one flavor or another :-) And yes, I am more than fully aware of American propaganda, which honestly is embarrassingly transparent and rather easy to spot, as is most all propaganda once you know the telltale markers.
I applaud you for being able to free yourself from anti-American propaganda, especially considering how effective the KGB was at the art of disinformation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQN4c3uN_tA and https://smile.amazon.com/Disinformation-audiobook/dp/B00IA9T0EA/).
I would say 98% of my understanding of Soviet life, history, tyranny, and crimes against humanity comes directly from Russian sources—dozens of books by dozens of different authors, direct testimonies from people who experienced or witnessed the suffering themselves, scientific evidence of mass graves, and government officials like ex-Soviet spies.
I would never spit on Russia as I have tremendous respect for the people of your country, and I am a zealous fan of Russian literature. It is the despotic, oppressive government of the Bolshevik Revolution and USSR I condemn, just as I condemn every other totalitarian regime around the world throughout history.
Actually there are claims that Soviet system killed 110 million, it's hard to find proper source in English, but here is one of the links - https://cisindus.org/2021/02/22/is-the-west-living-in-denial-a-warning-to-the-west-3/. Now compare this against USSR population and do the math. Solzhenisyn used this number as well, saying about "110 mln of our best sons" or something like this. All Russian Empire was around 125 mln according to census of 1897. Even 30 mln looks outlandish in these conditions. Given that a lot of blood was spilled during Civil War and Second World War how is even low estimate even possible?
When you are talking 30 million dead being the floor it is very much a genocide no matter which way you look at it. It could be much higher.
Another way to verify these numbers are censuses. Soviet population grew rapidly, how do you explain that during genocide? Anyway one believes what one wants to believe. Part of my family is from the Soviet block and even though some have been sceptical of the government and thought negatively about it no one was imprisoned or saw death. Except for one distant member who killed a person during gang initiation. So I call bs on genocide story. It's just a cold war propaganda. It's the same as calling USA a country of systemic racism which it is not. It doesn't prevent tens and tens of millions of people in USA believe it. If you can see through propaganda in one case but not another means you can't really get rid of your biases.
I think it may have been in the movie F IS FOR FAKE I saw an interview with a great art forger. He LOVED duping experts.
But don’t worry about my sources, I get all my facts from Snopes. When it comes to media, as long as I have a kosher intermediary delivering the reports, I know I am “staying safe.”
Snopes and Main Stream Media? Impecible I say. Completely unbiased and 100% accurate all the time. /sarc
Dr Zelenko has some choice words for those "kosher intermediary" media types. Has relatives in Israel and their media/internet control make China jealous apparently.
Stop. Starts to get ego-driven.
If you are genuinely interested dig into subject, read conflicting opinions, apply logic. I am not defending bloodshed that happened in Russia during Civil War and years after that that have been caused by animosity in Russian society. However putting a novelist on pedestal and blindly trusting what he wrote without asking questions is weird unless you support the conclusions regardless of facts. What is special about him that he got such great PR in the West? He was just a literator, not a scientist. He took some number out of a magic hat and presented it as fact. A lot of Russian historians who could go and look into actual documents in the archives proved him to be a liar. For majority of Russian people he is a traitor who spread lies about their country. Some Russian people support him. But hey, some Russian people regret that Hitler hasn't won.