"""
On the subject of famine it is also important to have some perspective regarding the incredible pressures the communist countries were subjected to, and the desperate programs of industrialization they were forced to adopt. From the outset, the west was intensely hostile to communism and placed it under perpetual threat of military defeat. This was true from the early invasion of the newly declared USSR by WWI allied governments, to the runup to and ultimate defeat of Nazism by the Soviet Union, to the Cold war, to the western backing of the Nationalist government in China, to Eisenhower's threats of catastrophic nuclear retaliation against China during the 1950s. In every case, it was absolutely imperative that the communist governments industrialize as rapidly and as thoroughly as possible, costs be damned. In the USSR, the wisdom of the industrialization policy was proven by the defeat of fascism in 1945; but throwing every possible hour of labor into industrialization meant that other aspects of the economy were neglected and catastrophic mistakes like the famine in Ukraine could occur. The exact same motivation and consequence were what caused the Great Leap Forward and the famine associated with it."""
Note that this is very different than the famines we know about that were actually engineered by a government, such as, to pick just one example, the Bengal Famine of 1943 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943)
I was under the impression that once the Russian Civil War was over, Western governments lost interest in the kind of regime in place in the USSR. On the other hand, Stalin had no qualms helping the Nazis prior to WWII. As for the Ukrainian famine, its causes are far from being as clear-cut as you present them, IMHO.
People like Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot had evidently very little regard for human life. This doesn't mean that all communist regimes should be put in the same bag (eg, Castro, as far as I know, didn't genocide anybody, and I don't think his suppression of political opponents was particularly worse than what Batista's secret police did).
Trying to excuse Pinochet's crimes "because Stalin" or "because Mao" is as bizarre as trying to pretend that Stalin or Mao were not mass murderers. Where I can sympathize is that Western-engineered massacres are rarely mentioned in comparison.
""" On the subject of famine it is also important to have some perspective regarding the incredible pressures the communist countries were subjected to, and the desperate programs of industrialization they were forced to adopt. From the outset, the west was intensely hostile to communism and placed it under perpetual threat of military defeat. This was true from the early invasion of the newly declared USSR by WWI allied governments, to the runup to and ultimate defeat of Nazism by the Soviet Union, to the Cold war, to the western backing of the Nationalist government in China, to Eisenhower's threats of catastrophic nuclear retaliation against China during the 1950s. In every case, it was absolutely imperative that the communist governments industrialize as rapidly and as thoroughly as possible, costs be damned. In the USSR, the wisdom of the industrialization policy was proven by the defeat of fascism in 1945; but throwing every possible hour of labor into industrialization meant that other aspects of the economy were neglected and catastrophic mistakes like the famine in Ukraine could occur. The exact same motivation and consequence were what caused the Great Leap Forward and the famine associated with it."""
Note that this is very different than the famines we know about that were actually engineered by a government, such as, to pick just one example, the Bengal Famine of 1943 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943)