Michel Foucault was a French social theorist and philosopher. He wrote about types of control through power and knowledge. Foucault’s five points on power are that one person has would be self-reproducing and permanent. The power would be situational and contextual, you can’t just take it with you, but it’s based on where you are and the network of relationships you have that gave you that control. It can be present in multiple situations, where that power isn’t just concentrated into one person but multiple power. Power is not reducible to domination and his last point, that it is exercised through network like organizations of relations.
In the reading History of Sexuality, Foucault talked about the power of life and death and gave example of sovereign power such as kings. He described sovereign power of life which was deductive and destructive while also having indirect power of life and death such as a king sending his people to war. While the king isn’t directly sending his people to death, the result of death through war is indirectly controlled by him. Foucault talked about sovereign power giving way to biopower, which is population control. It gives someone the control to foster life or disallow it. They can allow services to administer life or not. In class we discussed regulatory power and disciplinary power. Regulatory power is the sovereign power that is controlled by domination. While sovereign power is what kings had, we still have that type of power through other political figures. I want to use Foucault’s concept of regulatory, or sovereign power, to argue that the Holomodor, the genocide during the Stalin era, dictated the life and death of people in the Ukraine and how it was established through regulatory power.
The Holomodor was a man-made famine in the Ukraine during 1932-1933. Around 30,000 Ukrainians died of starvation daily. Around four million death were caused due to the famine in the Ukraine, which was part of Soviet Union then. It started when Stalin created a program where farmers would have to give up their private land and join state owned production. He would use their land and crops to sell grain to other countries for money. Many of the Ukrainian farmers known as the kurkuls refused to join and were then labeled as the enemy by Stalin. In class, we discussed how regulatory power is gained by regulating spaces and the time of people by direct force or control. When the kurkuls refused Stalin’s plans, he used forced to attain their land. He had troops and secret police confiscate their land and livestock. The farmers and their families were shipped to Siberia without food and water. Stalin and his allies used direct force to control the farmers, it was clear that he had domination. Their forced departure was a containment of the enemies, a type of quarantine. Anyone that was against his rule was seen as the enemy and the only way to control the spread of people that were resistant was to separate them from everyone else, that is why he sent them to uninhabited land in Siberia.
When thinking about Foucault’s concept of biopower, the population control that was allowed to foster or disallow life, it is evident that Stalin had this control. When I mentioned indirect power of life and death, the deportation of the Ukrainian farmer’s is a good example. Stalin and his troops weren’t directly killing the farmers and their families but he was sending them to a place with a lack of food and water. To gain as much monetary value from the land, Stalin had to make sure that he met production quotas. By doing that, he would make sure that all grain and production was accounted for. In 1932, he created a rule which stated that anyone who was caught taking any type of grain, for any reason, was punishable by death. This rule included children that were caught stealing. The military created blockades near Ukrainian villages which stopped any type of transportation of food there. The rural Ukrainian villages also had any grain they had confiscated, ensuring the lacked any type of means to survive, a direct control of life and death by the Soviet Union. By the end of 1933, close to four million Ukrainians died of starvation due to a number of reasons such as deportation, the lack of food in Siberia and the rural Ukraine as well as executions. Stalin went so far as to deny that Soviet Ukraine was dealing with a famine while still exporting the grains and crops from the farmers rather than letting them produce food for themselves and others that were malnourished. These reasons were directly or indirectly attributed to Stalin and his allies through regulatory domination.
The examples of control that Stalin over the Ukrainian population is a good example of regulatory power. The farmers and ordinary people that disagreed with Stalin’s proposal faced the threat of violence. It was visible and apparent when we take a look at the number of people that died because of the Holodomor.
Source: http://holodomorct.org/history.html
In the reading History of Sexuality, Foucault talked about the power of life and death and gave example of sovereign power such as kings. He described sovereign power of life which was deductive and destructive while also having indirect power of life and death such as a king sending his people to war. While the king isn’t directly sending his people to death, the result of death through war is indirectly controlled by him. Foucault talked about sovereign power giving way to biopower, which is population control. It gives someone the control to foster life or disallow it. They can allow services to administer life or not. In class we discussed regulatory power and disciplinary power. Regulatory power is the sovereign power that is controlled by domination. While sovereign power is what kings had, we still have that type of power through other political figures. I want to use Foucault’s concept of regulatory, or sovereign power, to argue that the Holomodor, the genocide during the Stalin era, dictated the life and death of people in the Ukraine and how it was established through regulatory power.
The Holomodor was a man-made famine in the Ukraine during 1932-1933. Around 30,000 Ukrainians died of starvation daily. Around four million death were caused due to the famine in the Ukraine, which was part of Soviet Union then. It started when Stalin created a program where farmers would have to give up their private land and join state owned production. He would use their land and crops to sell grain to other countries for money. Many of the Ukrainian farmers known as the kurkuls refused to join and were then labeled as the enemy by Stalin. In class, we discussed how regulatory power is gained by regulating spaces and the time of people by direct force or control. When the kurkuls refused Stalin’s plans, he used forced to attain their land. He had troops and secret police confiscate their land and livestock. The farmers and their families were shipped to Siberia without food and water. Stalin and his allies used direct force to control the farmers, it was clear that he had domination. Their forced departure was a containment of the enemies, a type of quarantine. Anyone that was against his rule was seen as the enemy and the only way to control the spread of people that were resistant was to separate them from everyone else, that is why he sent them to uninhabited land in Siberia.
When thinking about Foucault’s concept of biopower, the population control that was allowed to foster or disallow life, it is evident that Stalin had this control. When I mentioned indirect power of life and death, the deportation of the Ukrainian farmer’s is a good example. Stalin and his troops weren’t directly killing the farmers and their families but he was sending them to a place with a lack of food and water. To gain as much monetary value from the land, Stalin had to make sure that he met production quotas. By doing that, he would make sure that all grain and production was accounted for. In 1932, he created a rule which stated that anyone who was caught taking any type of grain, for any reason, was punishable by death. This rule included children that were caught stealing. The military created blockades near Ukrainian villages which stopped any type of transportation of food there. The rural Ukrainian villages also had any grain they had confiscated, ensuring the lacked any type of means to survive, a direct control of life and death by the Soviet Union. By the end of 1933, close to four million Ukrainians died of starvation due to a number of reasons such as deportation, the lack of food in Siberia and the rural Ukraine as well as executions. Stalin went so far as to deny that Soviet Ukraine was dealing with a famine while still exporting the grains and crops from the farmers rather than letting them produce food for themselves and others that were malnourished. These reasons were directly or indirectly attributed to Stalin and his allies through regulatory domination.
The examples of control that Stalin over the Ukrainian population is a good example of regulatory power. The farmers and ordinary people that disagreed with Stalin’s proposal faced the threat of violence. It was visible and apparent when we take a look at the number of people that died because of the Holodomor.
Source: http://holodomorct.org/history.html