Vladislav Pravdin – GREAT STALIN (1949). It is our joy that during the hard years of the war the Red Army and the Soviet people were led by the wise and experienced leader of the Soviet Union – the GREAT STALIN.
Translator’s Foreword (Fluctuarius Argenteus)
And now for something completely different. Instead of snippets from larger works, here’s Egor Kholmogorov’s two-part takedown of the notion of “Stalin as a Russia national hero” merged into a single text.
The relationship of Russian nationalism and Neo-Stalinism is a torturous one. Modern Neo-Stalinism emerged in the early 2000s as one aspect of an anti-Yeltsinist and anti-Liberal consensus, an attempt to reconcile the Imperial and Soviet past under the banner of a broadly defined Russian patriotism and do away with the kind of historical nihilism that painted Stalin as the ultimate expression of a “millennium-old Russian yearning for slavery”. Many, including the author of the article and its translator, paid lip service to this movement in their younger years.
By approximately 2005, the movement had gone mainstream, and by 2012, it completely morphed into a cancerous outgrowth. The nerve of early Neo-Stalinist rhetoric was the belief that Stalin had made a U-turn from (((Old Bolshevik cosmopolitanism))), legalised some forms of Russian national consciousness, and generally put Russian history back on track (i.e., was not true Marxism, and it was good). The Neo-Stalinism of The New Tens is virulently hostile towards the slightest hint of Russian patriotism and a positive appraisal of pre-1917 Russia, going as far as to condemn liking Alexander Nevsky and Peter the Great (both lionised under Stalin) as “Vlasovism” (oh the sweet irony).
Needless to say, this text provoked some gnashing of teeth in the Neo-Stalinist camp.
AK’s Foreword
After my takedown of Lenin, some people suggested that I extend it to Stalin. But what point is there when we have Kholmogorov? I agree with this 90%, down to the biographical details of my own modest (if still regrettable) quasi-Stalinophile sentiments a decade ago.
This is something that afflicted many Russian patriots of that time, being part of a general rejection of the Russophobic narratives of the liberal elites. Support for Stalin became intensely tribal, and a means to troll those people. However, it has now gone on for far too long. That particular culture war is no longer relevant, and lingering Stalinophilia now only serves to distort Russian history and Russia’s self-image of itself. It is time to put that mustachioed, medals-bedecked Halloween costume back into the cupboard.
Although we may quibble with some details – I had quite a few myself as I edited this – this piece may be considered to be as close to a Russian nationalist statement on Stalin as any.
If you appreciate these translatinos, please feel free to give Kholmogorov a tip here: https://akarlin.com/donations-kholmogorov/
Part I: Pharaoh of the Plow and Atom
Original: https://tsargrad.tv/articles/faraon-sohi-i-reaktora_71311
38% of Russian citizens polled by Levada Center put Joseph Stalin at #1 among the greatest heroes of Russian and world history. He is followed by Putin, Pushkin, Lenin, Peter I, Gagarin, Leo Tolstoy, Georgy Zhukov, Catherine II, Lermontov, Lomonosov, Mendeleev, and even Brezhnev and Gorbachev. The only non-Russians who made it to the top are Napoleon, Newton, and Einstein.
Well well well… This is an obvious disgrace. If trustworthy, it reveals than the average Russian doesn’t have the vaguest idea about the course of Russian and world history and the true importance of historical figures. To be fair, sociologists aren’t that far from the masses, mixing in the same poll politicians, generals, writers, and scientist, whose relative importance just can’t be measured by the scale. Essentially, this a list of the best-advertised personalities.
The absolute disaster here is that, in 2017, almost a good half our citizens are confident enough to place Stalin at #1 in Russian and world history. Of course, the Generalissimo here is playing the part of an epic or even mythological hero; the details and real achievements do not matter. For our people, Stalin is a byword for “a strong Russia to be reckoned with in the global arena”. And this strength acts as an acceptable rationale for everything else: millions of murdered Russians, from great scientists to common villagers, demolished churches and martyred priests, a completely fleeced countryside… Everything is pardoned and justified, following Isaac Deutscher’s formula: “He found Russia working with wooden plows and left her equipped with atomic piles” (which is frequently misattributed to Winston Churchill instead of this obscure Trotskyite and has “atomic piles” replaced with the “atomic bomb”).
In other words, Stalin is seen by the Russian consciousness as the architect of our incredible grandeur, which was enabled by the tremendous industrial leap forward and Victory in the Great Patriotic War. This grandeur is enough to excuse his transformation of Russia into a hellish bloodbath of terror.
If we put mythological and epical thinking aside and deal with historical facts, is Stalin’s #1 place among the greatest personalities in world history, afforded by our compatriots and sociologists, in any way justified?
I have never been into anti-Stalinist hysterics. I even published multiple articles calling to refrain from cartoonish nihilism while evaluating Stalin’s contribution to our country’s Victory in the Great Patriotic War. I am an even stauncher opponent of identifying Russia with Stalin, of using Stalin’s horrifying atrocities as a pretext to erase our national heroism and demand “reparations”, “territorial concessions”, and other vile nonsense. I couldn’t care less about Stalin being distasteful to other countries and nations – the Russians are blameless before them.
What really concerns me is Stalin’s place in the history of the Russian people. And it is in this domain, no thanks to meddlesome “National Stalinists” who go as far as to put Stalin on icons, where the role of this historical figure is inflated to infinity and beyond. It now turns out that it wasn’t Stalin’s good fortune that the Russians stayed loyal to him during the military debacle of 1941, as he claimed himself in his famous Victory Toast. No, it was a great honor and mercy for the Russians on Stalin’s part, because he condescended to rule them, shoot them, exile them where they could plow permafrost, let them get slaughtered in Nazi encirclements, and starve them with famines. It turns out that we Russians are allegedly unworthy of Stalin, our Messiah.
This boundless and hypertrophied propaganda poisoning the minds of our countrymen is sometimes even more obscene than the cult of the Great Leader as it existed in his lifetime. To heighten Stalin’s pedestal, they keep placing more and more falsehood at its base, be it myths of a pathetic backward Tsarist Russia or new slander against victims of the regime, long rehabilitated by state security and never held in contempt by the nation or history. Even the greatest of victims, such as Nikolai Vavilov, are now dragged through the mud, and the most despicable of rogues, such as Trofim Lysenko, are now lionized, for the sole purpose of keeping Stalin’s halo intact.
That is why we have to return to the question of Stalin the historical figure and not Stalin the myth, and enquire into the degree and character of his greatness.
The first foundation stone of Stalin’s pedestal is the Industrialization. Allegedly, the very Russia that languished in backwardness under the pathetically incompetent Tsars made a huge industrial leap under Stalin, storming into global industrial leadership, beating Hitler, and becoming a superpower.
This claim is false in several respects. First, Tsarist Russia wasn’t backward either in industry or in military technology. The country was developing dynamically, and there is no reason to suggest she would have reached a lower level of industrial progress than the one attained by the USSR in 1939. When we were little kids, Soviet textbooks hypnotized us with diagrams of industrial development compared to “Russia in 1913”. And no one would pose the question: “Wait, if the revolution hadn’t happened, Russia would have simply frozen at 1913 levels forever?”. And here’s another naïve question no one came to ask Soviet history teachers: “If Tsarist Russia was so industrially backward, where did her working class come from, with the Bolshevik Party as its self-proclaimed leadership?”
Russian industrialization began in the 1890s mostly thanks to the efforts of Count Sergei Witte, who was a follower of the great German economist Friedrich List, the theorist of the forces of production (a term later plagiarized by Karl Marx) and protectionism. An active ally of Witte’s was Dmitry Mendeleev, not only a famous chemist but also an economist who organised the Russian oil industry and also followed List’s principles of economic protectionism.
Enjoying the complete support of Emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II, Witte achieved an impressive surge in industrial development. However, he was often criticised for overstraining the Russian peasantry to achieve said surge, which backfired with the unrest of 1905-06 that coincided with a cyclic crisis in world economy. In 1909, Russia saw the start of a new economic boom and a new wave of industrialization overseen by Peter Stolypin.
Stolypin’s approach was much more merciful to the peasantry than Witte’s. The countryside stopped being an economic donor and became a full-fledged partner, reaping the benefits of industrialization together with urban areas. The Great War, despite extreme conditions, gave an even greater boost to Russia’s military and industrial development. It was was the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as the ensuing “War Communism” and Civil War, which caused the terrible desolation that almost plunged the country into a new Stone Age. As a member of the Bolshevik leadership, Stalin was directly responsible for that.
Evidently, to endure as a Great Power (and, consequently, protect the Bolshevik dictatorship from being deposed by a foreign invasion), Russia couldn’t stay at the rock bottom where Bolshevism had flung her. Hence the idea of resuming industrialization, now under a new Communist management and based on Communist ideas. Stalinism didn’t attempt anything new here, because industrialization had already been running for a quarter of a century under the Tsars and was in any case supported by all rival Communist factions. Stalin’s contribution to industrialization is limited to inventing a new method, not based on strong-arming the countryside (as with Witte) or robbing it blind (as proposed by Trotsky and Pyatakov).
Stalin’s industrialization was powered by the physical eradication of the Russian countryside via forced collectivization, punitive expeditions, mass exile, famine, and terror. Yes, this method of industrialization had been previously unknown to the wider world and could be perfectly dispensed with, as demonstrated by Tsarist Russia. But can the invention of cannibalism be considered a contribution to the culinary arts? Probably not.
To Stalin’s credit, he was very successful in simultaneously bleeding the country dry to gain funds for industrialization with exploiting the vicissitudes of the global market. The Great Depression engulfed the entire world, flooding the market with cheap imported machinery and tractors, as well as jobless American engineers. In this respect, Stalin’s industrialization turned out to be cheaper for the USSR than if it had happened at the peak of the global business cycle. But let’s not forget that Russian bread and Russian exports also became cheaper cheaper. To turn a profit, Soviet industrialization needed not just cheap labor, but a slave-like one, spurred by a famine stemming from Stalin’s 1930-31 attempts at monopolizing global grain exports. As grain prices kept falling during the Great Depression, the Soviet Union was forced to increase export volume and thus physically decimate its own citizenry with starvation and terror.
In 1929, the Soviets exported 1.3 million metric tons of grain worth $68 a ton, earning $88 million. In 1930, the exports amounted to 4.8 million tons worth $45 to $60 a ton, netting a marvelous $288 million in profits. However, in October 1930, grain prices on the world market collapsed. After completely fleecing the peasantry and exporting 5.2 million tons, Stalin earned a paltry $72 million. At the same time, a mass urban exodus from the countryside required greater grain procurements for the domestic market as well. Combined with plummeting grain harvests in 1931-32, this would lead to a terrible famine, now appropriated by Ukrainian nationalists under the name of “Holodomor” and “genocide” (in reality, the Kuban and Volga regions didn’t suffer any less).
Stalin’s great contribution to industrialization consisted in employing slave labor not in a Bronze Age or plantation economy, but in an economy of the Industrial Age, a feat hitherto unknown to human history. Stalin surpassed the kings of Egypt because the Pharaohs used slave labor to build the Pyramids only in Soviet textbooks. In reality, the work teams of peasants that took part in those colossal construction projects were well remunerated and had decent working conditions by Ancient Egyptian standards. Stalin demonstrated that Southern slave owners could compete with the industry of the Union if only they had abandoned their paternalistic views of their slaves and sent them, overseen by cruel taskmasters, to build factories, roads, and mines…
Low labor costs, achieved through extreme coercion and terror, did make the USSR capable of undertaking projects that hadn’t been considered economically viable in Tsarist Russia, such as the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, dependent on both Kuznetsk coal and Urals ore. When capital was the main factor of production, such projects wouldn’t have made a profit. The historical Russian model of industrialization was capital-intensive: the Morozovs, Ryabushinkys, Tereschenkos, Putilovs, Konovalovs and other tycoons invested in costly machinery, often more advanced than in neighboring Germany. Based on this trend, the Russian-American economist Alexander Gerschenkron wrote of the advantages of “economic backwardness”, that is, a belated industrialization.
The Bolsheviks blew the old Russian industry to smithereens. However, the Great Leader and the Great Teacher successfully triumphed over the laws of economics. The leading economic factor in Soviet industrial projects, in Soviet circumpolar canal-digging and railroad construction, was labor. Slave labor. The profitability of most industrial projects soared, as a train full of Gulag convicts acted as a replacement for costly machinery, which was doubly economical: money was saved on both expensive equipment and maintenance for the workers themselves.
Stalin sought to apply the same principle of making labor the main industrial factor while lowering the importance of capital everywhere, including science. Sharashkas and threats of arrest turned out to be a better stimulus for scientific progress, in the short run at least, than German sausages and American mansions with swimming pools. Alas, biology is different from mechanics: Vavilov couldn’t get wheat chromosomes to vernalize even at gunpoint, which ended in his elimination and the rise of Lysenko, who promised to impose Stalinist labor discipline even on plant life…
Is enriching global economic thought with the principle of forced labor superiority to the capital enough to make Stalin the greatest person in history? I don’t think so. Russia used to have its own model of industrialization, which had produced excellent results and created an industrially developed economy integrated into the global economic system. Of course, it wasn’t without its failings, and had patent elements of financial dependence. But didn’t the USSR have the same kind of dependence on foreign credit, both during and after the industrialization, though only working harder to conceal it? Professor Katasonov’s calculations reveal that all profits from Soviet exports, all the gold pillaged from the Church and the general populace, all the money made from art sales couldn’t pay for the equipment imported by the USSR. This meant that the Soviets were systematically dependent on foreign loans, which Stalin himself acknowledged on multiple occasions in his correspondence. In this respect, the Great Leader merely differed from the Tsar in hiding his debts from the masses.
World War II caught Stalin’s Soviet Union in the midst of an incomplete industrialization, dependent on foreign imports in many types of machinery, up to the eyes in debt, with a part of the populace – oftentimes the intellectually and economically superior one – exterminated or jailed, and with a unique slave-labor driven industrial economy. Any organic path of Russia’s development, especially Stolypin’s, would have given Russia much better historical prospects.
But perhaps the Stalinist Soviet Union developed some kind of unique technology that was beyond the powers of old Russia? Nope. Stalin did bequeath us the proverbial atomic piles, using slave labor and nuclear espionage to save the billions of dollars spent by the USA on the Manhattan Project, which the Soviets simply didn’t have. God forbid me from chastising Stalin for that act of espionage – actually, it was one of his greatest and most innocent achievements that cost only two human lives (the Rosenbergs) and saved millions of them.
However, Stalin kept dreaming of Soviet battleships for the entirety of reign, but the USSR never managed to complete its large warships program. The naval contribution to the defense of Leningrad in WWII consisted of Gangut and Petropavlovsk, two Tsarist battleships built by Admiral Grigorovich and paid for by a Duma browbeaten into submission by Stolypin. Soviet aircraft carriers at that time were also a complete impossibility.
The story of Stalin’s fighter planes turned into a tale of endless anguish for engineers, constructors, and pilots, which the Great Leader himself confirmed by mass imprisonment of the apparatchiks responsible for the wartime aircraft production (the so-called “Aviation Affair”). The same thing happened with bombers: It would suffice to mention that the Soviet Tu-4 was a reverse-engineered copy of the American B-29.
These examples have nothing to do with the myth of Russia’s backwardness. Quite to the contrary: Russia, by virtue of NOT being a backward country and having amassed a huge intellectual and technological potential, could survive the emigration and mass murder of scientists and engineers and the savagery of the slave labor system, and advance to new technological horizons. However, almost all of these new horizons were revealed to us by “old-schoolers”. The most prominent of the Soviet scientists involved in the nuclear and missile projects came almost exclusively from the ranks of the “enemy class” of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia, receiving their education either before the Revolution or in the 1920s, when the old foundations of education hadn’t been completely ruined. Without these human resources, Stalin wouldn’t have had a shot at leaving Russia with atomic piles. The same atomic piles, however, could well have be developed by the same date by a Tsar Alexey Nikolayevich or Mikhail Alexandrovich…
By the way, about those plows that Stalin “found Russia” with. Indeed, Stalin took Russia with wooden plows… from Lenin. And Lenin had grabbed Russia by the neck after she had lost her Tsar, under whose rule she had been a country with automobiles, armored cars, Sikorsky airplanes, early aircraft carriers, battleships and tank blueprints. And the truth is that Stalin took Russia from Lenin with plows and left her with the same implements. The plow was in use in 1953 just as in 1924, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (the sokha, the Russian light wooden plow, is better suited to certain soil types than heavier plows). All in all, measuring the trajectory of Stalinism in terms of plows and atomic piles is a gross oversimplification.
However, let us not lapse into slander and calumny by claiming that all Stalin’s achievements came only as a result of cannibalism and mass destruction of his own citizens. After the war, many residential and industrial objects in the Soviet Union were erected by German POWs, following the same slave labor model. Some select citizens of the USSR whirled around Moscow in an Opels (rechristened Moskvitch) while sporting nice Carl Zeiss glasses. Stalinist industrialization got a new a material and moral resource: Victory. And that Cictory is what our compatriots deservedly count as one of Stalin’s greatest achievements.
Can the victor in the greatest war in history not be named the greatest man in history? This is a story for our next article.
***
Part II: Stalin’s Toxic Gifts
Original: https://tsargrad.tv/articles/otravlennye-podarki-stalina_71529
So, let’s go back to Stalin as the “greatest person in Russian and world history”. This reputation – to the degree that it actually exists among the populace and wasn’t engineered by sociologists – dwells mostly upon the Soviet Victory in the Great Patriotic War. World War II being the greatest war ever waged by mankind, it seems reasonable and justified to hail the victor in this war as the greatest man ever.
There can be a lot of objections to this. First, the Great Patriotic War was just one part of World War II, won fair and square by the United States. The Americans, having lost the least amount of people by dint of replacing them with guns and dollars, using the Russians to do the bloody work, and stealing the thunder of their British allies, went on to become the masters of the postwar world order.
Even during the Cold War, the USSR was, for a long time, a mere challenger to American supremacy and not an equal contender. And we all know how this war ended for us. The US victory in WWII under President Roosevelt is undisputed. He died when their victory was a fait accompli, and President Truman took no new decisions of his own (Roosevelt would have probably nuked Hiroshima, too). But is Roosevelt the greatest person in history? Not quite! He keeps getting flak from the left and the right, even for his New Deal, even for his meagre concessions to the Soviets in Tehran and Yalta. Even in the US proper, his ranking among top US presidents never rises above #2, and usually he occupies the #3 spot.
Regarding Russia, her greatest pre-1941 war was the Patriotic War of 1812, greatest by the stature of the enemy (Napoleon, one of the greatest characters in history), by the size and the power of his Army of the Twelve Nations, the tragedy of the fall of the Russian capital, the charity and sacrifice of the nobility, the merchant class, and the peasantry, the complete destruction of the adversary – in all these respects, the “thunder of 1812” was historically unparalleled. Who won this war? Alexander I the Blessed. To quote Pushkin’s lines, “he conquered Paris, he founded the Lyceum”.
But is this Emperor counted among the all-time greats of Russian history, according to Levada or whatever other poll? No. He is half-forgotten, his reputation destroyed by ignominious military settlements (still less outrageous than the Gulag), the infamy of Arakcheevschina (still not quite the Yezhovschina), the sin of patricide [1] (is it worse than Patria-cide?), the ridicule of other, much less flattering Pushkin poems [2]. And if it is ever to be proven that he was already been canonised by the Orthodox Church as a saint and revered by the common folk under the name of Feodor Kuzmich [3], this glory and grace would only be bestowed upon his second life, granted to expiate the sins of the first.
Stalin founded no Lyceum, he created the sharashkas, and, to paraphrase Saltykov-Schedrin’s History of a Town, “torched public schools and abolished (some of) the sciences”. He didn’t reach Paris but quite definitely conquered Berlin, a feat unseen since the days of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, God bless her memory. He lucked out with his enemy – Hitler wasn’t as great as Napoleon, but he was extraordinary vile towards the Russians and brought Russia untold of devastation. Before the invasion, his generals fulminated with very clear instructions: “war crimes in the East are not to be considered as such”, “any cultural assets in the East do not matter”. Anyone who would stand between Hitler and the Russians and organize resistance was deserving of great praise.
Stalin is deserving of such praise, too. He managed to collect himself and lead the struggle, distributing his forces so that Hitler’s onslaught got bogged down in Russia’s expanse and failing to reach any Russian capital except Kiev. He evacuated and thus preserve the bulk of Soviet industrial production. The army that he assumed supreme command of experienced almost no defeats after November 1942 and led an unstoppable march to the Elbe. Stalin was prudent enough to make peace with the Russian people and unfurl the banner of Russian patriotism – quickly furled back up after the war but not as completely, since no one dared to derogate the Russians as brazenly as in the 1920s and 1930s. Stalin was shrewd enough while dealing with the Alleis that the USSR ended the war with large, even somewhat excessive gains. It is historically disingenuous to deny Stalin these achievements, and it would be nothing but a parallel falsehood to the rising tide of diehard Stalinist lies, which provoked this essay in the first place.
If we are to speak of Stalin’s greatness in world history and Russian history, his halo needs to be knocked down a couple of notches. Who is to blame but the country’s political and military leader for allowing the claws of the German eagle to sink so deep into the chest of our eagle-turned-red-star? Who is to answer for the unthinkable casualties sustained by our army in the 1941 encirclements?
Of course, these losses can’t be deemed “excessive”. Modern calculations place Soviet and German irrevocable military losses at 11.5 million vs. 8.6 million, a ratio of 1:3 to 1. But what are these 3 million “surplus” dead if not the price paid for the chaos and incompetence reigning in 1941, especially in September and October, when the tide of the Blitzkrieg seemed to have been stemmed?
Yes, June 22, 1941 was a case of the Wehrmacht’s military luck, intensified by a vile sneak attack. Luck has its place in warfare. But the encirclements near Kiev and Vyazma, the siege of Leningrad, to say nothing of the crushing 1942 defeats, were less a case of German good luck than our own failures.
The more one reads documents and memoirs, the clearer it is that Stalin’s interference in warfare was incompetent, arbitrary, and short-sighted. He was intelligent, driven, obstinate, obsessive about details, and despotic, all great qualities for a general, but his mind was corrupted by Bolshevism, a belief that applying enough pressure is all it takes to achieve a result, and a resulting utopian mindset. His meticulousness often turned into nitpicking, and he would obsess over trivial details. In spite of the Neo-Stalinist mythology, his views were ideologically blinkered in many important questions. Given the conditions of a hyper-centralized system of military management, all of the Commander-in-Chief’s foibles, all of his idiosyncrasies and fantasies took their greatly magnified toll on the real command of warfare. Yes, Stalin was smarter than Hitler, but setting the bar for greatness so low would be embarrassing even for the Generalissimo himself.
“It is all well and good”, some might say, “and a lot of what you say might be true – but don’t forget, the winner takes it all.”
Perhaps a winner does take it all, but it doesn’t make him immune to criticism for misusing his spoils of victory. An untold loss of life, devastation, suffering, the horror of POW camps, occupation, and terror should have given the Russian a right to sizeable reparations. Did Stalin give its due to the nation he called “great” in his Victory Toast? Let’s give an objective rundown of military gains and talk about Stalin’s diplomacy.
When you hear any talk of Stalinism as an era when Russia was a Great Power to be reckoned with, you should realize that World War II started, and started the way it did, only because the pre-war Stalinist USSR was a pariah state, a rogue state written off by everyone. Through Foreign Affairs Commissar Maksim Litvinov, Stalin kept proclaiming a policy of collective defense, trying to cobble together anti-Fascist coalitions. He waged a “proxy war” with the Nazis in Spain, which was such an ideological trash fire that many past Republican sympathizers had to admit that Franco, a rational nationalist with a strong vision of unity, was better than bloodthirsty Red psychos. Nothing revealed the truth about Red methods for the European Liberal Left and pitted former fellow travelers against the Soviet Union quite like the Spanish Civil War.
When, in 1938, an agreement regarding the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia was reached in Munich, no one bothered to ask the opinion of the USSR, an alleged “Great Power”. This pushed Stalin towards a reasonable and prudent idea: if you can’t side with hyenas against a wolf, you pit the wolf against the hyenas. In his 1939 pact with Hitler, Stalin attempted, without a major war or sometimes without a single shot fired, to restore the territorial losses of 1918: the Baltics, Western Ukraine and Belarus, and Bessarabia. He bungled with Finland but at least got Vyborg back. He also grabbed what hadn’t belonged to Russia but should have: Galicia and Bukovina (the latter would be cited by Hitler as a pretext for the invasion on June 22, 1941).
Was this return to imperial borders justified? It was. Did Stalin do well by this? Probably yes. Did those returned territories do any good for the Russians? Not at all. Stalin fixed the crimes and mistakes of Lenin, a fellow Bolshevik. He pushed the balance of Russian history from “in the red” to “zero”. Doesn’t sound much for a “great leader”.
But what happened to the regathered lands? They were turned into ethnic republics that easily “de-occupied” themselves in 1991. Only tiny tracts of borderlands were annexed to the Pskov oblast. A once heavily Russified Vilna, recaptured from Poland, was given to the Lithuanian SSR. A Moldovan Republic was merged from Bessarabia and Transnistria, which is now on its way to fusing with Romania and dragging the Transnistrian Russians with it. However, Stalin’s most toxic and jinxed gift of all was Galicia. The entirety of Ukrainiznig potential accumulated there over the course of Austrian and Polish dominance engulfed Soviet Ukraine and dragged it into the abyss of “anti-Moskalism”. Stalin could fight the Banderites however he wanted, but, in the national absence of a Russian idea in the USSR, with Ukrainism propped up by all means possible, it became inevitable that Ukrainian identity would crystallize according to Galician precepts. Petro Poroshenko owes an enormous debt to Stalin, who enabled the Ukrainization of Ukrainizers.
All of these toxic gifts came with a terrible price, paid for by our people during the war. This price gave the Russians the right to expect even greater gifts, now destined only for the Russian people and no one else.
So what happened in reality? Pechenga, once the scene of St. Tryphon of Pechenga’s ascetic devotion, became Russian once again. Another restoration of what had been ours before. Carpathian Ruthenia, however, despite the pleas of Rusyn delegates to incorporate their land into the RSFSR, was not united with Russia and sacrificed on the altar of Ukrainization.
The rest was a gift to Poland, that backstabber who managed to reap three harvests from the same field. In exchange for restoring to Russia what Lenin had given away with the Riga peace treaty, they occupied, with Stalin’s consent, all of Eastern Germany, and expelled its ethnic German population, and gained highly developed industrial regions, and received the lion’s share of East Prussia, and got the Augustów district back from the USSR, and kept running around the world for 80 years complaining about the “Russian occupation” and demanding Lvov and Grodno back. Talk about stuffing the goose! And who kept feeding that pocket monster as a ploy to appease the British? Stalin, that’s who.
If there’s ever a World War III, it will start with a NATO blockade of Kaliningrad. And Stalin would be to blame for that, because he stripped the Augustów district from Belarus and carved up East Prussia in such a way that our communications with Kaliningrad stretch through Lithuania, always eager to block them entirely. Another toxic gift, because Stalin didn’t even believe that Prussia would not stay with the Russians forever. He wanted to trade it in exchange for German neutrality, which is why the first wave of Russian settlement there mainly consisted of exiles. As a result, it wasn’t really Stalin’s gift to the Russians but Adenauer’s: the West German Chancellor wasn’t swayed by the prospect of neutrality.
The same happened in the Far East. Stalin did the barest minimum of what every government of nationalist Russia would have done in a military grudge match against Japan: restoring the losses of the Russo-Japanese War and grabbing the Kuril Islands “for the trouble”. However, even those gains were left in a suspended and toxic state. Instead of strong-arming Japan into accepting the totality of our gains without further delay, the peace treaty question was dragged out until it blossomed into the mythical problem of the so-called Northern Territories. Toxic gifts, here we go again.
Let’s not forget the assets in Manchuria sacrificed in the name of solidarity with Red China – the Chinese Eastern Railway and Dalniy/Dalian, all the more frustrating because Manchuria’s specificities made it possible to give it a sui generis status profitable to the Soviets.
What could have been: Map of the “Future Europe” (not like Wilhelm II would have liked it!)
For the USSR, WWII resulted in lesser territorial gains that would have been plausibly claimed by Russia at the end of the Great War, which was “surrendered” by the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk. Almost everywhere he would go, Stalin only picked up what had been squandered by Lenin. He failed to gain from a crushing German defeat even a half of what could have and would have been acquired by the Tsar. Under the Tsar, Galicia would have been incorporated into Russia under a Russian banner (to say nothing of the Turkish Straits). The few acquisitions of the Soviet Empire actually beneficial for the Russians, such as Kaliningrad, turned out to be this way almost by pure happenstance.
As part of a package deal involving these gains, the Russians got a bunch of freeloaders that had to be schooled in the ways of Communism and kept in line at gunpoint (East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia). And they had to be fed, fed, and fed once again. Exhausting the Russians under the burden of hangers-on in an incomprehensible Communist experiment is hardly a solid basis for greatness.
If we calculate the war losses of our nation and our more than modest gains, our victory was indeed Pyrrhic – as great as it was unprofitable. If it was indeed a historical comeback, it remedied not the historical faults of Tsarist Russia but those of Stalin’s mentor Lenin, who had wrecked historical Russia both morally and territorially.
Let’s give Stalin his due. He knew very well that he had started the war and had been rubbish at managing it. The Russians had every reason to give him the boot. He explicitly mentioned this in the Victory Toast: “A different people could have said to the Government: “You have failed to justify our expectations. Go away. We shall install another government which will conclude peace with Germany and assure us a quiet life.”
However, Stalin also considered the Russians’ understanding that “running away” from a world war, failing to complete it for a second time would be tantamount to ending our history as a great nation. This was evident to both people of intelligence and the national instinct of the masses. Even such a fervent anti-Communist as Ivan Ilyin wrote that a desertion similar to the one of 1917 was impossible, that one had to fight on and win. Stalin harnessed this resource of Russian prudence and patience to reap the laurels of victory. However, he failed to repay most of his “debts” to the Russians.
The war was barely over, but Marxist historians wasted no time in trampling all over the academic defenders of Russian Imperial legacy led by Academician Tarle. By Stalin’s and Zhdanov’s decree, the term “Russian nation-state” was almost completely purged from the historical idiom. Orthodox hierarchs were still needed for reasons of international diplomatic representation, but the persecution of the Church would make a comeback, including the closure of churches (bear in mind that most of the churches “opened under Stalin” were churches that reopened by themselves under German occupation, and churches reopened in Stalin-held territories were a drop in the ocean). Barely four years after the victory, state security boss Viktor Abakumov would torture those few Soviet apparatchiks who dared to have but a smidgen of Russian identity. Stalin would destroy his incredibly talented assistant Nikolay Voznesenskiy, ruining all chances of the USSR being led by an intellectually developed Russian person. In the USSR, a prison of the Russian people designed by Lenin and built by Stalin, they briefly opened a fresh-air shutter and then slammed it shut.
We, Russians, cannot elevate this man to the rank of the greatest genius in history while keeping a straight face. We cannot sell our memory – mutilated national livelihood, demolished churches, massacred priests and murdered scientists, engineers, and poets, our forefathers exiled to Siberia for refusing to give their last horse to Red activists – for a minute of Stalin’s “Victory Toast”.
Yes, we should be fair in our historical judgement and shouldn’t defame Stalin with the fantasies of the “children of the Arbat” [4]. But we also should, with even greater force and rage, be fair in the opposite respect: never cutting Stalin any slack for his horrifying sins, mistakes, cruelties, and injustices, never forgetting just how many eggs he broke to make his omelet.
[1] Alexander I is widely accepted to have been complicit in the palace coup that led to the death of his father Paul I.
[2] For instance, in the so-called Chapter X of Eugene Onegin Pushkin described Alexander I as “a feeble and conniving ruler, a bald fop, the enemy of all work, crowned with glory by happenstance”.
[3] Legend has it that Alexander I, remorseful of his past misdeeds and faced with a profound religious crisis, feigned his own death in 1825 and fled to Siberia, where he lived as a starets (mystic hermit) under the name of Feodor Kuzmich (died 1864). The Orthodox Church officially canonized Feodor Kuzmich as a saint in 1984 but rejects his identification with the Emperor.
[4] Reference to Anatoly Rybakov’s 1987 novel Children of the Arbat (referring to a central Moscow street populated by high-ranking “Old Bolsheviks” after the revolution), a hallmark of Perestroika anti-Stalinism, where Stalin was portrayed as a one-dimensionally diabolical and sadistic figure.
Boring and stupid propaganda, where the right reasons drown in lies and manipulation
What is Egor talking about?
What was offered was the new eastern Germany, not the old one.
How trustworthy is it? Volgograd hasn’t been renamed Stalingrad. The still popular in Russia Putin has spoken out against Stalin era oppression. By and large, the May 9 Victory Day honors the Russian people, without emphasizing Stalin.
Any polling support of this? At last glance, Moldovan support for becoming a part of Romania is closer to 15% than 33%. Either way, there’s no majority. In addition, the Gagauz have a legit basis to break from Moldova, were it to merge with Romania. Never mind trying to get Pridnestrovie (Transnistria) to go along with such a move.
Pridnestrovie is ethnically pretty evenly distributed among Russiasn, Ukrainians and Moldovans, while having a pro-Russian outlook.
Upon further review, I came across this reference to a poll on Moldovan support for becoming a part of Romania:
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201803141062503935-moldova-romania-nato-unification-poll/
Still a clear minority, with a noticeably strong opposition in Gagauzia (under the control of Moldova) and the disputed territory of Pridnestrovie (which has essentially been separate from Moldova since the Soviet breakup).
Lies, lies, lies! This is the type of total BS that modern Russian nationalist ideology is built upon, and yes, let me say it one more time it’s just ‘lies, lies and more lies’. The Ukrainian national idea first started in Eastern and Central Ukraine in the 1830’s and got into full swing there in the 1860’s culminating in the early teens of the 20th century. Galicia derived its brand of Ukrainianism from the Ukrainian nationalist writers in Kharkiv, Kyiv and Poltava. In fact the most malevelant form of Ukrainian nationalism was forged by Dmitri Dontsov, a Ukrainian from southern Ukraine that became the blueprint for Banderite nationalism in Galicia in the 1930’s. The Bolsheviks, including Stalin, had already encountered a very vibrant outpouring of Ukrainian nationalism on the streets of Kyiv in 1919, as can be seen by these very interesting and telling photos (Petliura was no Galician!) :
http://www.istpravda.com.ua/artefacts/2011/01/22/17352/#18
BTW, another false Russian meme is that the commies continually helped foster the sense of Ukrainianization, when in reality ‘koronizatsiya’ ended in the early 1930’s to be substituted for an ubiquitous brand of Russification. Read your history books more thoroughly and completely!
I agree with your comment, but it may be more extreme exaggeration than outright lies.
Without Galicia, the Ukrainian SSR would have been a more nationalistic but not much more so version of Belarus. The national idea was historically present, but not “hot”, in central Ukraine. So for example, prior to Bolshevism, over 70% of Ukrainians in the Russian-owned parts of Ukraine voted for Ukrainian nationalist parties. It is a myth that the Bolsheviks created Ukrainian idea or made it popular. But during the Revolution, only about 100,000 of these Ukrainians fought in the various not very well organized nationalist militias (there was basically zero support for Russian nationalists of course, with no substantial number of Ukrainians from Russian-ruled Ukraine joining the Whites) with another 40,000 at peak fighting for the anarchist Makhno. Most, like my central Ukrainian great-grandfather, simply stayed home after having deserted from the collapsing Russian army. In contrast, little Galicia, 1/5 of the population of Russian-ruled Ukraine, managed to mobilize 100,000 troops. Poland, of similar population to Ukraine, had about 800,000 soldiers.
If Galicia were never annexed by Stalin, Ukraine like Belarus would have become independent anyways but Kiev would be outnumbered and the Party of Regions or something like it would easily win all elections. Such a Ukraine would still have been more non-Russian than Belarus (Kuchma was no Lukashenko) but nevertheless would have joined the Eurasian Customs Union.
lol, so Kholmogorov’s only complaint about Stalinist annexations is that they weren’t used for a programme Russian nationalists like himself would approve of. Morally obtuse and autistic in the extreme.
Yes, it was about the GDR, no chance East Prussia would have been given back by the 1950s.
That’s quite an impressive figure. It must include reservists too? The Polish national movement, although it had run into some serious bumps in the road, stood on much more solid ground than did the Ukrainian one. 100,000 Ukrainian troops in my estimation is still a good solid figure. Also,the idea of Ukraine without Galicia is non sequitur. It was, is and will remain an integral part of the Ukrainian picture.
Please elaborate. Also, Kuchma’s family tree started somewhere in Russia, at least that’s what I remember reading somewhere. His return to Ukraine from a vacation, when Russia was up to something near Kerch (?), was classic. Remember his photo, plastered all over the blogosphere, of him peering at the untrustworthy Russkies through a pair of binoculars? 🙂
Really? ‘Slave labor‘ was never used to build Industry? This is just silly, and borders on its own nihilism. From pre-Victorian Britain to US company towns and China’s recent out-sourcing paradise, the quasi-slave methods have always been used to build industry. There was nothing all that extra-ordinary about 1930’s Soviet Union, other than sheer size. That’s how stuff gets built.
And the belated, romantic look at the builders of the Pyramids is neither here, nor there. We don’t know, but I suspect the day to day conditions were not that great and probably approximated what peasants building endless dams in Soviet Union experienced.
Stalin was a Bolshevik and Bolshevism was a revenge, not an economic ideology.
True, but why is there no mention of why tens of millions were ready for the revenge on the system? The life before Bolsheviks wasn’t that great and WWI bloody mess was the last straw; the Bolshie nihilism came out of enormous suffering.
I often hear that it was ‘about to get better’, ‘look at European welfare states’ or New Deal. I wouldn’t be so sure. After hundreds of years of not caring why would the elites voluntarily change the systems to be more broadly-based and spread the wealth? What makes people think that the 20th century enormous egalitarian progress was about to happen without the threat of Bolshevism, socialism of all kinds, Maoism, even fascism in its more populist forms?
We can see that right after the ‘revenge’ systems collapsed in the late 20th century, the elites immediately went back to restoring the wonderful neo-liberal systems from the early 20th century. There is no fear any more, so why not? Why not have it all? We are living in a transition era before the real consequences hit again. Beginnings are often fun, the neo-liberalism is a pyramid system with its asset privatisation and appreciation, there are lost of winners in the first few decades. But we are heading towards the same paralysis that spawned Bolshevism and other basically revenge philosophies. I would worry about that a lot more than about ‘Lithuania’ blocking the Augustow pass to Kaliningrad (Russia has planes and ships, don’t they?).
I wasn’t even aware that Stalin had any connection to that idea. The way I had heard it, it was Beria who was favorable to German re-unification – but Khrushchev won the power struggle.
You are really this clueless?
Tens of millions out of hundreds of millions isn’t much. Bolsheviks ruled by terror, not choice.
100,000 was not many for a place as big as Russian-ruled Ukraine. Poland had a comparable population and produced 800,000 soldiers. With these it was able to stop the Soviet invasion.
I was wrong when I wr0te Galica had 1/5 the population. It had about 3.2 million ethnic Ukrainians compared to about 27 million ethnic Ukrainians in the Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire. So about 1/7 the population. So with 1/7 the population Galicia mobilized about as many soldiers as did Russian-ruled Ukraine.
The issue was – was adding Galicia to the Ukrainian SSR a good idea from a Russian nationalist POV. Clearly it was not.
He much more ambivalent, playing the West and Russia off against each other, whereas Lukashenko was more solidly pro-Russian. That having been said, Kuchma was no pro-Westerner either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_Note
How is it obtuse and autistic?
It is perfectly understandable and normal to seek to benefit from wars, most especially ones that are forced on you and that you end up winning anyway.
Romania used WW1 to win back two of the lost three provinces of Greater Romania (one of which was only half Romanian). Reasonable success.
Had Germany won WW1 (not going into WW2), it most certainly would have rearranged borders further to its liking. Reasonable failure.
Stalin used WW2 to win a fraction of what the Russian Empire would have won had it won in WW1, and reinforced the foundations for its eventual complete collapse. Epic failure.
Anyhow, I won’t speak for Kholmogorov. Personally I have no issues with his assessment. It’s really a take it or leave sort of thing.
What it is, is genuine domestic Russian nationalism. Not aimed for Westerners, and which is all but inaccessible for non-Russophone foreigners. Westerners don’t have to like it. We don’t overly care.
That means nothing, do you have a point? Would you like to be an English coal-miner in the early 19th century? Or a peasant on Polish latifundias in Galicia? Or work 12 hours a day for Foxconn in Shenzhen today?
Ok, I can go with hundreds of millions seeking revenge on the system towards the end of WWI. They were clearly either a majority or close to it.
But the two situations were not completely comparable, as I’ve already pointed out. The modern Polish national ideal was further along in its development. Also, the figure of 800,000 sounds a bit over the top? How many were regular army formations, and how many were reservists including grandpa and great grandpa too?
Interesting. Do you think it was genuine, or some sort of ploy?
I see one of the later notes had something about equal representation among East and West in any election commission, seems a bit dodgey.
Russia had no choice but to fight to the end in WWII. Win or lose. If they lost they would be largely gone today, physically gone. And so would Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians and a few other ethnic groups.
Surviving is not an ‘epic failure‘, it is better that the alternative. The post-WWII settlement was about the best Russia could had done, small adjustments here and there, but they basically got it right. The issue was that they didn’t know how to disengage and withdraw. By 1960’s they should had let go. On their own terms. And that wasn’t Stalin’s fault, but his successors.
That is tricky because one cannot really define Greater Romania or most other states in that region. There are no natural borders, the population was mixed. E.g. who does Silesia ‘naturally’ belong to? The shift of Poland westward was quite unnatural, but probably the best of all available options. I agree that adding Galicia to Ukraine was a disaster, but what was an alternative? You couldn’t reunite 5-10 million Ukrainians with Poland. And they were not viable as a separate state at that time.
Kholmogorov’s only standard seems to be “Is is good for Russians?”, almost like a parody of the sentiment often attributed to Jews on Unz review. He doesn’t even mention that the 1939/40 annexations resulted in significant Stalinist terror against the non-Russian populations of those areas (leading to resentment against Russia lasting until today), all he cares about is his Russian victim narrative. Sure, that’s a position one can take as a nationalist, but it seems rather short-sighted to me. And I still don’t get how Kholmogorov intends to reconcile his extremely ethnocentric positions with all his talk about Christian civilization, spiritual values etc.
No idea really. Obviously there were good reasons not to trust Stalin. On the other hand, I think one should at least have seriously explored the possibilities.
Hey Karlin,
this map (Truth Magazin, 1890), showed the actual “future of europe”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_(British_periodical)#/media/File:Thruth-1890-12.jpg
Whats your opinion on that?
Although this was the plan, who knows how things would have turned out. The USSR, after all, was not forever a Stalinist nightmare. We can reasonably assume short-term results (completed mass murder of Jewish people, several million more dead Slavs) but not the long-term one.
.
Something could be both an epic failure and better than the alternative.
Allowing a small nation with 40% of your population to kill tens of millions of your people and nearly topple your regime is an epic failure, yet better than the alternative of losing.
Not much more nor less viable than Balts, Finns, Slovaks or other historically stateless people.
If no state, a western Ukraine separated from the rest of Ukraine could have been added to the already bizarrely shaped Czechoslovakia.
Separate SSRs.
So in your world these situations were really comparable to the Stalinist nightmare. Good to know. And keep in mind we are discussing the 20th century. You actually compared an American 20th century factory town to the 1930s USSR. Here, for example, is a company town built for miners in early 20th century Michigan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwinn,_Michigan#/media/File:Gwinn_Model_Town_Historic_District_2009c.jpg
And one in Virginia:
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/row0fhouses.jpg
While Russians under Stalin were slave labor, this was going on in the USA:
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/housing/company-towns-1890s-to-1935/
Characteristic of coal towns was the influence of the company. Companies built hospitals, hotels, recreation halls, schools, and stores for miners and their families. They paid for medical personnel and teachers. The companies sponsored garden awards and gave chocolate and fruit to children at Christmas. Coal companies encouraged sports, and camp rivalries were intense. Miners at Roda (built in 1902) formed a band, and Stonega Coke & Coal Company sponsored an African American quartet. Coal companies also made land available for both Catholic and Protestant church structures. Company commissaries carried necessities and amenities such as washing machines, radios, and refrigerators, available for purchase on credit. To make ends meet, families often tended gardens in order to can goods and women sold butter and eggs. Miners and their families enjoyed their leisure times by visiting neighbors, going to the movies, having card parties, and picnicking.
The earliest coal camps often consisted of boarding houses for the mostly unmarried male miners; duplexes and single-family houses were more common after the 1910s when companies actively recruited a more stable workforce of married men with families. Squeezed between mountains and stretched out along creeks, the camps often were divided along class, ethnic, and racial lines. Mining town sections carried names such as “Pink Town” (native white), Colored Hill” (African American), Hunk Town” (Eastern European), and Quality Hill” (company officials). Even after the establishment of permanent housing, coal towns often lacked adequate sewerage and water facilities.
Company towns exist across the country; however, the southern coalfield company towns are distinctly West Virginian. When the railroads arrived, southern West Virginia primarily was a mountain wilderness, with a smattering of small towns such as Beckley, Madison and Aracoma (later renamed Logan). Coal companies had to build towns and houses for their miners in some of the most isolated areas of the region. By 1922, nearly 80 percent of West Virginia miners lived in company houses.
Coal companies stripped down the forests to erect simply designed houses, schools and churches, all within close proximity of the mines. The towns followed the branch lines of the C&O, N&W and Virginian railroads. To cut costs, almost all miners’ houses were built identically, often of cheap materials. Since most towns, such as Mohegan, were built in isolated areas, miners and their families were totally dependent on the companies for all services. Some companies took much better care of miners and their families by building swimming pools, movie theaters and parks. Houses in these model towns included indoor plumbing, electricity and sewer systems.
All life in company towns revolved around the company-owned store. Since these towns were located in isolated areas, the company store offered the only option for buying groceries, mining tools and other goods. Most company stores also contained the local post office and payroll office. As the only store in town, companies were not threatened by competition. They often charged exorbitant prices compared to what people in cities paid for the same items. Company stores could provide anything a miner and his family might need, ranging from washing machines to shoes to medicine. Most miners eventually earned enough to buy cars, which allowed them to visit local service towns such as Welch, Beckley, Bluefield, Logan, Madison, Mullens or Williamson.
:::::::::::::::::
So in the early 20th century coal miners in poor West Virginia lived much better and more luxurious lives than did the slave laborers of the industrialized Soviet world.
:::::::::::::::::
And btw, some of us actually had family members whom they knew who knew what life was like in the countryside of the USSR in the 1930s.
I think almost by definition nationalists are most concerned about their own people.
Just FWIW, there will not be many defenders of Stalin’s deportations, ethnic operations, and so forth. One of the leading luminaries of 20th century Russian nationalism, Ivan Ilyin, does that repeatedly. But that topic has been covered exhaustively, most of all by their intelligentsias, while applying the same sort of analytical framework to Russians is rare and indeed even, to an extent, politically incorrect in the West.
Kholmogorov has answered that succinctly:
If Galicia wasn’t ‘viable’ as a separate state, and there really wasn’t another ‘alternative’, why was this a ‘disaster’? You seem to be contradicting your own logical conclusion here?
So he’s basically an imperialist.
I realize discussion of this is probably pointless, but I still want to state my opinion that all this talk about territorial annexations, areas that should have been Russified etc. is deeply unsettling even to namy people in Europe who would be interested in better relations with Russia. Now you probably don’t care about that since you think “The West is always going to hate and despise us anyway”, and to some extent that view is understandable given the anti-Russian hysterics in Western media and I won’t argue with you about it. I can’t regard Kholmogorov’s vision as positive or constructive though, and it also doesn’t seem very realistic to me.
Obviously Galicia is a sparsely populated and financially irrelevant shithole in Ukraine. It’s political relevance is massively overrated ( plus many have left there to go to Russia or Poland)….the big problem is American money or organisations over there, not the political power of the individuals there.
Obviously it’s to do with American money because the “nationalism” of the fuckedup fake sytate of Ukraine makes even less sense if propagated by idiots from Galicia ( so does the fantasism about the Golodomor, for a region never touched by it)
The Soros/State Department for the orange revolution and other elections either side of it then criminally exaggeratd the number of people living there, and then under-exaggerated massively the amount of people in the most populous areas of Ukraine (Novorossiya 5 out of 7)…hence why we had all these retarded lies about “120% turnout in Donetsk)
It would be fun watching Beckow telling Hans Ullrich Rudel that Silesia to Poland ist the “probably best of all available options”
Laughably stupid fantasist garbage of a retard
This might have made the anti-UPA struggle more difficult. Also the excuse for removing it from Poland was because it was Ukrainian, not Galician.
One of my relatives was the guy who flew to Moscow and met personally with Stalin, asking him to join Galicia to Ukraine 🙂
Guy was a conservative clerical-nationalist who led a Christian Social party, not a commie (nor Banderist); he was playing a long game. It worked.
Lol you would not be a great fan of the tsargrad.tv project.
Really? Just where exactly does my narrative break down? Karlin seems to give it a green light and doesn’t try to contradict me? 🙂
Stalin tried to bring the Uniates back into the Orthodox fold, so can he really be considered a friend of Galician-driven Ukrainian nationalism? The author is reaching
I am not familiar with Herr Rudel, but let me try to explain:
Keeping Silesia as part of Germany after WWII was untenable – most Germans were expelled, or about to be driven out. Poles were very, very angry, and the resulting geography would threaten both shrunken Poland (Galicia was gone) and Czechoslovakia. Silesia reaches out quite far eastward.
Making it a part of East Germany would make E Germany too big for the Western allies. That could be reshuffled, but went against ‘let’s keep divided Germany as small as possible’ attitude at Potsdam.
The option of having an independent Silesia, with ‘Silesian’ ethnicity (it does exist), was economically not viable: land-locked, surrounded, destroyed.
So what would be a better option than (re-)uniting it with Poland and allowing millions of Poles from the Galician east to move there? It has been relatively stable.
You should cut it out, you are being irrelevant. I am talking ‘industrialisation’, that has happened in different countries at different times. I can find ‘company towns’ in US (Colorado mines…) that were brutally exploitative. And you can find huge relatively nice areas of Russia’s industrialisation. Picking up the worst examples in one, and the best in another is not serious.
The 5-year old miners in England in 1840’s were not better off than most peasants in Russia sent to build a big dam. It was all sh..t, thus the revenge I mentioned… today check out some working conditions in Asia, is Stalin responsible for that?
The Harlan County War in the coal company fields of eastern Kentucky ended in a kind of victory for the union strikers.
In the Soviet Union, the miners would have been shot before they sang the first verse of Which Side Are You On?
You, sir, are a damned fool.
So what? The Ukrainization had already wrought tremendous changes by 1932 when it was scaled back. And it seems obvious that Galicians would shift their attention east as they sought to break free of Poland and weren’t powerful enough to stand on their own.
Well, it’s encouraging to see that you got Karlin to agree with an important point, that most Russian nationalists hold near and dear to their hearts:
Also, I don’t think that emphasizing that 70% of Ukrainians voting for Ukrainian parties prior to the Bolsheviks intrusions into Ukraine is reflective of a population where the Ukrainian national ideal wasn’t ‘hot’. Couple this with your observation that there was virtually no support for Russian nationalism in Ukraine, and what you have is a large area where in fact it appears that the Ukrainian national idea was quite popular. Mind you, this was an era of few if any Ukrainian language periodicals, no Ukrainian TV, radio, journals etc; etc;
If your argument is that the “average” Stalinist experience for the working person was not any worse than the “average” experience in an industralizing country like America or Britain, then you are truly a comical, damned fool.
The whole point of what made the Soviet Union so bad was that the average was nasty, poor, and brutal beyond any other country in modern history.
For example. Digging a canal is always hard work. When the Erie Canal was built in New York State in the early 1800s, somewhere between 500 and 1,000 workers died during the process – virtually all of them during a malaria epidemic when working in a swampy area. A small pox epidemic is said to have killed about 1,200 Chinese coolies building the Transcontinental Railroad in America, and a few more may have died due to Indian attacks in the Nevada wilderness.
By contrast, death estimates for the Moscow-Volga canal alone range from as low as 30,000 (!) to around a million (!). So around a hundred years after less than a thousand Americans died on a big canal project, Stalin and his minions managed to exceed their death total by several tens of thousands. Why is this? With all of the technology developed by the 20th century, it still takes many more thousands of deaths to accomplish a big task? Couldn’t great Comrade Stalin – friend of Russian people – do better than those awful western capitalist bosses?
Perhaps because capitalists in Britain and America actually fed their employees? Whereas Stalinist laborers could not eat?
On the other hand, sometimes Stalin could be quite, uh, paternalistic towards his beloved industrial slaves. For example, one P.I. Shcherbakov reports the following story from the building of the Moscow-Volga Canal: “On July, 4, 1934, Joseph Stalin himself had visited the construction site. Observing the foundation pit, he noticed that the inmates were working barefoot. Even if it was in summer, the weather was not very warm. Stalin immediately interrogated his retinue – the directors of the project – why the workers have no footwear. They stalled, saying that they had to bring too many workers on the site, and that the footwear was on the way. The Leader ordered abruptly the footwear to be delivered within two hours, and several men in charge for the provision to be shot. They were shot right away near the ditch.”
I’m not aware of any huge influx of Galicians into Central, Eastern or Southern Ukraine during the 1930’s? What are you talking about?
It looks to me that his underlying spiritual values have fallen upon deaf ears (you). Your total infatuation with transhumanism clashes directly with one of his most important core values, making you somewhat of an anomaly within your chosen profession of a ‘Russian nationalist’.
http://akarlin.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/starkes-herz.jpg
Bethmann-Hollweg put forth Germany’s demands with the Septemberprogramm.
They were:
Sounds a lot like the European Union.
Noteworthy that the German reparations’ demand is about thirteen times smaller than Versailles imposed on the Germans (granted, the war was only a month old at the time). Land over money apparently.
Not listed here, but the Germans also intended to continue their Drang nach Osten by settling veterans in the east. Nothing like Generalplan Ost of course.
After the collapse of Russia, Germany started realizing some of these aims by setting up a network of puppet states in Eastern Europe ruled by German princes.
Sounds like Russia’s version of Nazism. So, you’ve reincarnated into a skinhead now? Tattoos, high boots and all…why not cash in and be the first to market real, historical blackshirts too? The height of fashion (in some circles). 🙂
This reminds me of an amusing, but tragic, fact from the Bolivarian paradise of Venezuela.
Lately Venezuelan oil output has been falling in part because Venezuelan roughnecks and roustabouts are now too hungry to work hard.
Well, a million is just nonsense. It’s possible that 30,000 is also nonsense. In addition to the Erie canal there are unfortunately other examples
“A cruel tax and trade-usurious exploitation of the peasantry (in India) had caused widespread hunger . If 1825-1850. the famine twice struck the country and claimed 0.4 million human lives, in 1850-1875 famine killed 5 million, in 1875-1900. — 26 million.”
(ИСТОРИЯ ВОСТОКА IV Восток в новое время (конец XVIII — начало XX в.) Книга 2)
The industrialization of Western Europe was accompanied by the murder (direct or indirect) of tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people. And America was part of the same system (the transatlantic slave trade was measured in numbers with six zeros)
In terms of national aspirations, they started to desire to be part of an expanded Ukraine.
Here is a problem I see with what you are doing (this applies to Kholmogorov as well): you are tearing down an idol without offering anything in its place. Stalin for Russians is more than a war-time leader, he is a religious figure, a moustached Russian Jesus. Ukrainians, who reject Stalin are expected to worship Stepan Bandera, but what will Russians believe in? People in this part of the world have a need for some idols in their lifes.
https://i2.wp.com/defence-line.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0-111.jpg
https://politikus.ru/uploads/posts/2014-04/1398166319_bl0jn7ccaaextug.jpg
It’s also not only in India, but industrialization in the UK was not following very ‘ethical labour’ inside the UK itself.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/revealed-industrial-revolution-was-powered-by-child-slaves-2041227.html
So the much more industrially developed USSR killed about as high a percentage of its own people in famines as foreign colonizers killed Indians.
Not sure that is the comparison I would be making to defend Stalinism.
It wild nonsense . Of course it is interesting to look at photos of madmen with Stalin’s icon , but madmen are not the norm.
https://eatliver.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/blessed4.jpg
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/na-korable-polden.jpg
“We are 50-100 years behind the advanced countries. We must bridge that gap in ten years. Otherwise we will be destroyed” Stalin February 4, 1931
1931+10=1941
The British oligarchy (which killed many more people in British Empire) has no such excuse.
There’s no shortage of Russian heroes to choose from.
Seems like the state and its propaganda apparatus could simply emphasize other Russian heroes.
Best policy to Stalin is probably benign neglect. People don’t respond well to having their idols destroyed, even if the idol is false.
And isn’t this what Putin is doing anyway?
For this purpose it is necessary to exterminate as rats the Russian liberal intelligentsia. Until this is done – Stalin will be a hero.
You’re big on giving personal anecdotes. I’ve heard from folks knowing the Whites in Ukraine, that Ukrainian was spoken among those with Russian Empire roots (not Galician) fighting on the side of the Whites. That recollection is quite believable given the actual circumstances.
Petliura’s support was limited and his forces were unable to successfully defeat the Whites. Petliura’s weakness explains his willingness to become Pilsudski’s puppet in a move that saw Petliura recognizing all of Galicia going to Poland. In turn, the Galician Ukrainian Army en masse came under the command of the Russian Whites.
You provide a classical straw man diversion, so common among ‘educated’ in the West. No, my argument is that industrialization, then and now, in 19th century or in the 1930’s, is often a painful, violent, unpleasant process. I specifically mentioned China’s today outsourced factories where people work 12 hours, jump from roofs, and live pretty close to a slave life. That was very common in 19th century England where 5-year olds were dropped to ‘mine for coal’.
Your method is predictably faulty: pick a worst examples, worst place, worst time (1930’s) in Russia, exaggerate or quote ‘some people say that maybe a 1 million died..‘ and compare it to heavily ‘explained‘ case in Britain or US, with allusions to ‘malaria’, etc.. and that gives you a self-satisfied feeling that, of course, the sh..t in Britain-US doesn’t stink, and never did. Forget slavery, Victorian child labor, koolies, forget all of that and just focus razor-sharp on that ‘Volga-canal’.
And you are surprised nobody takes you seriously? Fighting straw men is the true fools’s errand…
It was a disaster because it created a dysfunctional Ukraine with populations quite different and attitudes that are hard to reconcile. But it took a few generations, in 1945 I still think it was the best among the available bad options.
If you ask me to start from scratch (that was not possible in 1945 with all the emotions), I would say that Galicia existence as a province of a larger ‘Habsburg-lite’ country might had worked the best. It would fit the pro-Western orientation of Galicians, keep them in ‘Europe’, and allow the east to rationally develop on its own. That was not an option in 1945, so we got the mess that we have today. It will get much worse before this is settled.
Russians and Ukrainians have better alternatives than Stalin and Bandera to look to with pride.
Why should the British oligarchy care about the plight of Indians?
Whom should it provide those excuses to, anyway?
It would only be comparable if the “British oligarchy” had starved a couple of million Englishmen to death (the English being the state-making people of Britain). However, as I recall, the last famine affecting ENGLAND occurred prior to the Black Death (!).
Stalin’s heavy handedness in Galicia didn’t help things from a Soviet and to a certain degree Russian viewpoint.
The Galician Ukrainians were generally not happy with being ruled by Poland. Having Russian speaking Soviets (including some Ukrainians) being brutal following Molotov-Ribbentrop and before the Nazi attack on the USSR, nurtured a convoluted image among those with a pro-Bandera/Captive Nations Committee sentiment.
But Galicians have by and large been content to develop within a Ukrainian state. They often refer to themselves as the ‘Piedmont of Ukraine’ and relish their role of being in the vanguard of Ukraine’s national revival. In fact, I know of no Galician of any stature that has advocated Galicia apart from the rest of Ukraine – the Western Ukrainian Republic was an anomaly that lasted for a short time and was only to be a temporary solution for Ukraine’s larger development.
To provide context doesn’t men defending something. Isolated thoughts often become just empty sloganeering. I have seen an estimate by an Indian historian that claimed that British Empire caused the death of 200 million people. From India to Africa, from America to Ireland.
Probably true, or maybe exaggerated, maybe it was only 100 million. People die for all kinds of reasons. French and Spanish (even Italians) can also be counted on causing millions and millions to die. The two objections that I hear is that it was long time ago and that it was ‘not their own people’. Both are partially true, but not really relevant – Masais were being killed by Britain in 1950’s and Irish are kind of part of the family.
Context matters, but I disagree with ‘hero Stalin’ arguments – I generally dislike heroes of all kinds. And Stalin was a twerp, murderer and in many ways a failure. To defend him out of spite is silly. Let history take care of what happened. (I am also puzzled by Pushkin at #3, what gives? he was shot because he was inept in social situations, a hero? I suspect low level autism…)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
Sure, it didn’t help. Also Hitler’s, Bandera’s, Polish, and even Habsburg heavy handedness didn’t help. Look around, most of history are stupid heavy-handed over-reaching acts…
I’m skeptical of any attempt to blame England for Indian famine. India was Malthusian society located thousands of miles away from England. The claims that there was never any famine there until the British came are obvious BS. It is estimated that over 14 million people died of famine in China from 1840–1911 and 2 million in floods.
Indians seem to want to play up the famine-angle to continue their invasion into white countries, but the idea that they were somehow genocided by Europeans is laughable. Counting Pakistan and Bangladesh, there will be over 2.2 billion subcons in the subcontinent by 2050. That is greater than the estimates of sub-Saharan Africans by 2050. Indeed, right now about 1 in 5 in the world are subcons.
Ok, but would you agree that Ukraine has had a few contradicting tendencies? Galicians are 10-15% of Ukraine and are totally Western-oriented. Donbass is not, no matter how you spin it. And Odessa, Kiev or Kharkov are also not quite in the ‘West-is-best, and there can be nothing else‘ camp. Thus today’s difficulties in Ukraine.
The economic integration of the eastern 2/3 of Ukraine with Russia is real and hard to change without major living standards disruption. That says that a compromise, or some degree of decentralisation are required. Galicians and their allies don’t want a compromise – they want it all. It will not work. It it will cause a lot of tears and regrets.
This is a joke? The English common people of the times of James Watt, worked fifteen hours a day for a bowl of soup for the family. Children were chained to carts to carry coal and ore through narrow passages in the mines. Throughout England, concentration camps (work houses) were established. A little earlier White British were traded as cattle-raids were carried out in port cities to replenish the number of slaves on sugar cane plantations. But white slaves in the tropical climate died very quickly, so they were replaced by Negroes. British slave owners сonducted (as far as I know) even breeding work: white female slaves crossed with black slaves , to obtain the optimal breed.
Grigory Potemkin was going to buy several tens of thousands of Englishmen for the settlement of the Crimea and Novorossiya. Count Vorontsov (Russian Ambassador to England) managed to destroy this deal, otherwise in the Crimea would speak English.
In England there was no short-term mass famine (similar to the famine in Ireland in 1848-49) but monstrous living conditions killed the British monotonously and daily.
What a dumb comment. Most Russians have favorable opinions of Stalin, they are all madmen?
Much as I love the idea of enslaving the English, all of this is something out of a parallel universe.
If my grandma had different genitalia, I would have called her a grandpa. I would have also grown up a very confused kid: Why do I of all kids have a transgendered grandma and is this a sign of the things to come?
Anyhow, my favorite theory about history is this: The most optimal history, with the best case scenario circumstances is the one that already happened. There is only one history and we can’t improve on it based on our superior knowledge now.
Sure Russia could have benefited from having a less homicidal maniac as a leader, but you can’t improve some parts of the equations that you don’t like, without effecting the rest. Thank God that Russia was communist in WW2 and that Hitler used that as an excuse as to why he hated the Slavs – because of communism – yeah right.
Russia is not communist since 1991, why do they still hate them? Russia will be hated by the west no matter what kind of political system they have. It’s called jealousy. By having communism it provided Hitler for an excuse to declare that to be the primary reason why the Russians have to be annihilated.
If the political system in Russia in WW2 was “democracy” – that might have lulled them into believing that when the going got tough, a “deal” could have been made with the Nazis (even Stalin tried to sue for peace with Hitler), or the west or whomever they might have ended up fighting in the revised version of history of WW2. By not having those delusional options that they – the Russians as a democracy can make a deal with the west which will save them – they might have avoided committing a national suicide.
England and Ireland were the same country (under the union – the United Kingdom), ruled from London – until 1922. (Part of Ireland – Northern Ireland – is still with the United Kingdom).
So there was a mass famine, in which 25% of the population fell in one republic of the United Kingdom, under the rule of London.
In central Ukraine the Ukrainian idea was popular. An overwhelming majority of the people voted for Ukrainian parties, and they clearly had a Ukrainian self-identity. But unlike Galicians, or Poles, or Finns, they were less likely to fight and die for their national idea in 1917-1920. To be sure, this spirit was not absent – 100,000 volunteers isn’t nothing. But it wasn’t much either.
To put it in perspective – the two Donbas oblasts had 6.5 million people in 2013, compared to 27 or so million ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian-ruled parts of Ukraine. So about 1/4 the population. Donbas militias have about 40,000 troops. That would be equivalent to 160,000 troops in 1917 Ukraine. Now, there are numerous caveats – Russia lavishly supplies the Donbas militias, Ukrainian ones were on their own, and there are some pro-Kiev volunteers from Donbas whereas there were virtually no pro-Russian ones among Russian Empire Russians.
Of course, to repeat myself, there was basically zero sentiment among these people to fight for Russia. There were some Kadets from among ethnic Russians in Kiev but no pro-White military units of Ukrainians/Little Russians from Russian-ruled Ukraine. Even Makhno, already losing, murdered Wrangel’s emissary’s rather than join forces with him.
At 2:10 in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRp8vUesbbE
Name any military units from Russian Ukraine who fought on the side of the Whites. There were not.
Zero. Some Ukrainian-speaking Cossacks from the Kuban did, but Kuban isn’t in Ukraine.
It’s telling that only the Galicians (briefly) placed themselves under White command but no ethnic Ukrainian forces from Russian Ukraine ever did. Galicians did it after they became stateless (Petlura signed Galicia over to Poland in exchange for help against the Soviets) during a typhoid epidemic and received much-needed medicine from the Entente that the Whites had access to. I don’t think they ever fought a battle for the Whites, although I may be mistaken on that point. The Whites disintegrated before the Galicians could get healthy.
Under similar circumstances some Galicians ended up fighting in the Red Army against Poland. One of the Red Galician commanders, Alfred Bizanz (an ethnic German), eventually made his way west and 20 years later become a commander of the Galician SS Division.
@AP: Out of curiosity–had Ukraine been smaller (no Galicia, Volhynia, Subcarpathian Ruthenia, Bessarabia, and northern Bukovina–for instance, had Hitler never become to power in Germany and there would have thus been no German-Soviet partition of Poland), and had Ukraine would have joined the Eurasian Economic Union after the collapse of the Soviet Union (if it would have still occurred in this scenario, that is), what do you think that the long(er)-term future of the Eurasian Economic Union would have looked like in this scenario?
Also, as a side note, it’s interesting that, with the exception of Yekaterinoslav Guberniya, Ukrainian parties don’t appear to have done very well in “Novorossiya” in the 1917 elections. Indeed, they failed to win in the Kharkiv Guberniya, in the Taurida Guberniya, and in the Kherson Guberniya. In turn, this makes me wonder–had an independent Ukrainian state limited to central and western Ukraine been created, how viable would it have been? After all, this state would have been landlocked (I can’t see Russia agreeing to give up Yekaterinoslav Guberniya considering that it would cut off the Taurida Guberniya, the Kherson Guberniya, and the Bessarabian Guberniya from the rest of Russia) and would have thus had to rely on Russia, Poland, or Romania for sea access.
Finally, off-topic, but as a side question–why exactly were Ukrainians outside of Galicia unwilling to fight en masse for the Ukrainian national cause in 1917-1920?
Read Mein Kampf. The H-man didn’t use communism as an “excuse”. He openly planned to eliminate Russians because they stood in the way of his dream of a continental German Empire, and he considered slavs to be racially inferior (a view he reneged on at the end of his life for obvious reasons).
The idea that the West is “naturally” hostile to Russia is completely bogus. The American Empire has been mostly hostile to Russia since 1945, and yes for America communism was mostly (though not completely) an excuse. The “wise men” who formulated the doctrine of Containment admitted as much.
Prior to 1945 Russia was part of the normal European state system. Depending on the state of the times Russia could be friendly, isolated, allied, at war, etc. with any number of European states. Where was the implacable Western hatred of Russia exactly?
Germany fought two wars with Russia in the 20th century, but in the 19th century it was a German statesman (vom Stein) who convinced Tsar Alexander to join with Prussia in forming the Sixth Coalition to finally beat Napoleon. Only the year before one out of three soldiers in Napoleon’s Grand Army had in fact been German!
Likewise Napoleon invaded Russia, but a century later France was Russia’s greatest ally.
Anatoly, did you finally give up on ‘singing the body electric’ and come back to your true Russian roots including the Orthodox faith? Is that you I see in the first photo leading the procession of Orthodox faithful into the promised land of photo #2? The only problem though is that the use of nuclear missiles as presented in photo #1 would result in Russia looking something like this:
http://f1.media.brightcove.com/4/77374810001/77374810001_1318707206001_Video-of-largest-bomb-ever-dropped–the-50-MT-Tsar-nuclear-bomb.mp4?pubId=77374810001&videoId=1318659315001
Do you think that if a ‘Tsar’ bomb were dropped on Kyiv, that Moscow or even St. Petersburg would be safe from the radioactivity? You wouldn’t even have enough time to get on a plane and go back to California.
Awhile back, I had earlier presented those in the officer ranks of the White Russians with ties to Ukraine. You pooh poohed that by noting their ties to Russia proper (for lack of a better term) – which BTW was part of the same entity as much of what’s now known as Ukraine.
That the White leadership was top heavy with folks from outside Ukraine doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a noticeable degree of rank and file White participation among people from the territory of what became the Ukrainian SSR – including individuals who’d qualify as being ethnic Ukrainian. Hence the previously noted recollection of Ukrainian being spoken among the Whites. I also know someone whose family joined the Whites after serving under Skoropadsky. That person’s family has direct roots to Ukraine and has what’s considered a typical Ukrainian surname. He has played a lead role in patriotic Russian anti-Communist emigre circles. Know some others with a similar background as well.
The Whites started their anti-Bolshevik opposition outside the territory of what became modern day Ukraine. The Russian Civil War era elections in Kiev didn’t include a large segment of the overall population of what became the Ukrainian SSR and is therefore not so conclusive in determining public opinion at the time there. Hence, it’s within reason to say (as has been previously stated by others) that a good number of folks on the territory of what became the Ukrainian SSR weren’t so motivated to support any of the lead Russian Civil War era combatants.
Meantime, it’s clear that Petliura lacked support on the territory he sought to represent. He was militarily no match for either the Whites or Reds. The latter two had support within what became the Ukrainian SSR. Despite their differences, the Whites and Reds each supported some form of Russo-Ukrainian togetherness which brings to mind Skoropadsky’s edict for an All-Russian Federation, inclusive of Russia and Ukraine:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22052011-pavlo-skoropadsky-and-the-course-of-russian-ukrainian-relations-analysis/
Due to the dominating German presence, Skoropadsky and the Whites had problems connecting. In addition, the Germans restricted the amount of weapons to Skoropadsky’s forces – which was to greatly assist those who overthrew Skoropadsky as WW I came to an end.
On another matter you recently brought up, Makhno fought Petliura’s forces. Makhno, was arguably more of an anarchist than a Ukrainian nationalist.
My emotional reaction to the two images.
The first is embarrassing. Because it is based not on strong religious belief, but on lack of religious belief – they are some fake losers dressing in robes walking next to a missile complex.
In addition, the disjunction between the technology and the priests is embarrassing. Because they probably have no interest in the basic physics that allows the technology to operate. To me it highlights over-division of labour, alienation, and lack of education in society, that has developed since the time of buildings the pyramids.
–
As for the second image, it is the starting point. Still nice job if you made the image yourself… But it is generic, not ‘local’ enough, too much within the boundaries of common imagination.
But do they possess the Promethean imagination, spiritual inspiration and transcendent national consciousness? …
Although perhaps already some, at least among the highest educated members of our generation, can already catch briefly glimpses in vague daydreams of ancestral visions the past and future greatness of their people…
https://i.imgur.com/59vhV1z.jpg
Let’s drop the ‘naturally’ qualifier, since we wouldn’t agree on how to define it. That leaves a question: has West been hostile to Russia? Yes, in the last 10-15 years, no sane person could deny it. Maybe there are reasons for it, but the hostility is undeniable – and it covers Brits, Americans, French, German, Spanish, and even Italians. Dutch, Swedes and Danish have also been hostile.
West claims that they would not be hostile if Russia ‘would change its ways‘. Interesting, by that standard we could all be friends. I always tell people ‘if you do 100% what I want, and agree with me 100%, I will be your best friend’. To ask others to change is to admit that you dislike them as they are, thus logically, you simply dislike them.
The second weasel excuse is that West likes Russian people, just dislikes their government (for some strange reason always personalised as ‘Putin’). We hear this less and less because it is so absurd – Russians have chosen the government, they agree with most main policies. Let’s call spade a spade: West doesn’t like Russia as it is.
How long has this been going on before 2000? Putting aside the communist era, one can find very strong anti-Russian sentiments in all main Western countries at least since late 18th century, with Britain being the outstanding hater. There were occasional opportunistic thaws when some country needed an ally, or needed something, but in general West was always quite hostile towards Russia. It is too big, it is Orthodox, it has its own vibe. From Napoleon, to Crimean War (West invaded to side with Ottoman Moslems to keep Russia from gaining influence in the Balkans), to Hitler’s coalition…
European Christian civilization will not prosper divided. West gleefully destroyed and abandoned Byzantium 500 years ago. They are making the same mistake today.
So, the russians invaded, looted and destroyed our countries and kept us imprisoned by force for 50 years in their dystopia and now they call us freeloaders that needed to be fed? Fuck you!
With people who think like this Russia will always be a blight on herself and on her neighbours.
Herr Rudel was the “Stuka Pilot,” the most highly decorated WW II German.
Arguably? He and Nikiforova were strongly antinationalist, like good anarchists
Maybe no-one here knows or cares, but I would be interested to know about the impact of the war with Germany on Marxist-Leninist ideology in Russia. It seems like the original Marxist conception was that the workers’ revolution would just happen and spread until it was universal. Then fascism was supposed to be a last-ditch defense of the system by the capitalists. So after an enormous war in which fascism was actually defeated – did they think that now the tide had turned? And with the disintegration of the European maritime empires, and with many of the newly independent countries turning towards socialism, an optimistic attitude (towards the eventual global victory of socialism) must have been possible for many decades… Maybe I should read something by Suslov, I’ve heard that he was the ideological chief in the Brezhnev era.
I asked a specific question:
Name the ethnic Ukrainian units or military formations from Russian ruled Ukraine that fought on the side of the Whites in 1917-1920.
You failed to do so.
Because there were none.
There was no widescale or even smallscale support for Russia among ethnic Ukrainians in Russian-ruled Ukraine. Only, perhaps, some individuals out of the millions. But you failed to provide even names of those so it must have been a small number indeed.
Saying you know someone or heard of someone doesn’t count.
Meanwhile, around 100,000 ethnic Ukrainians from Russian-ruled Ukraine did fight for various Ukrainian nationalist leaders from Russian-ruled Ukraine, such as Symon Petliura, or Danylo Zeleny (30,000 troops at peak). Not much from a territory of 27 million people, but more than the virtually zero who took up arms for Russia.
FYI, Cyrano is a dumb Balkan who usually gloats about German women being raped by Soviet soldiers.
Makhno’s wife was a Ukrainian-language teacher. His forces were basically neutral towards those of the Ukrainian nationalist Petliura while being bitterly opposed to the Whites; Makhno contributed to Denikin’s defeat, and even when he was about to be defeated by the Bolsheviks he killed Wrangel’s envoys rather than cooperate with the Whites.
And FYI, AP is an Ukrainian scum, whose women didn’t even have to be raped by the Germans. They volunteered their services.
What’s a Galician?
Very rude.
The hot to trot Ukrainian women on the web charge for their services.
Check and checkmate.
Levada doesn’t explicitly say ‘heroes’, just ‘great personalities’, so Pushkin would be considered due to his cultural contributions.
The polls are often based on the public’s knowledge of historical figures, their perception of who is good and current societal moods (which is why Putin is a joint second place).
Interestingly, it appears Stalin had his own role in making Pushkin a great figure: https://www.rbth.com/arts/literature/2017/02/14/pushkin-soviet-god_701618
Oh really?
“Both in England and in France used all means in order to gain the right immigrants (slaves)……In Bristol simply abducted men, women and children… Under Cromwell held mass sending Scottish and Irish prisoners. From 1717 to 1779 Britain sent to the colonies 50 thousand exiles (as slaves), and in 1732 the humane Evangelist John Ogtrop founded a new colony in Georgia wanting to gather many prisoners for debt
Consequently, there was widespread and long-lasting white slavery…it disappeared…for economic reasons, not for racial ones.”
Fernand Braudel.— Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle
There are many similar examples in this book. Here’s another (not going to translate into English, as I don’t have time):
«Задержанного бродягу пороли плетьми «прикованного палачом к задку телеги». Ему выбривали голову, его клеймили каленым железом; в случае рецидива его грозили повесить без суда и следствия или отправить на галеры – и запросто отправляли…В 1547 г. английский парламент постановил, что бродяги будут не более не менее обращаться в рабство (эта мера была два года спустя отменена, так как не удалось решить вопрос с использованием этих рабов)… идея витала в воздухе. Ожье Бузбек (представитель испанского короля при турецком султане) полагал что «ежели бы рабство…применялось справедливо или мягче, как того требуют римские законы, не было бы необходимости вешать и карать всех тех, кои ничего не имея ничего кроме свободы и жизни становится преступником от нужды». И в конечном счете это решение возобладает в 17 веке ибо разве заключение в тюрьму и на каторжные работы это разве не рабство? Повсюду бродяг сажают под замок: в Италии в приюты для бедных, в Англии в работные дома (workhouse), в Женеве в исправительную тюрьму (Discipline), в Германии в исправительные дома (Zuhthauser), в Париже – в смирительные дома (maison de forse): в Гранд Опиталь созданный ради заключения там бедняков в 1662, в Бастилию, Венсенский замок, Сен-Лазар, Бисетр, Шарнтон, Мадлен, Сен-Пелажи. На помощь властям приходили также болезни и смерть…И однако же ни неутомимая труженица-смерть, ни свирепые тюрьмы не искоренили зло… Не взирая на экономический подьем, пауперизм усилился в 18 веке из за демографического роста…Тысячи крестьян оказались выброшенными на дороги – наподобие того, как задолго до этого времени происходило в Англии с началом огораживаний. В 18 веке эта человеческая грязь от которой никому не удавалось избавится поглощала все: вдов, сирот, калек, беглых подмастерьев, священников без церковных доходов, стариков, погорельцев, жертв войн, обрюхаченных служанок, девиц матерей ото всюду прогоняемых и детей посылаемых за хлебом или на воровство…Порядочные люди старались не думать о этих «подонках общества, отбросах городов, биче республик, материале для виселиц. Их столько и повсюду, что было бы довольно трудно их счесть, а годны они…лишь на то, чтобы отправить их на галеры или повесить, чтобы служили примером»
Did this really happen? Do you have some source?
Come again?
It seems as if the (uncontested) crimes of the Nazis are becoming worse with every passing decade.
The fact that the red army lost significantly more soldiers than the Wehrmacht in in any single battle, victorious or not, even in the very last days of the war, when the Wehrmacht was completely outmaneuvered and outgunned cannot solely be blamed at the murderous spirit of the Wehrmacht.
Brusilov’s tactics led to the revolution of 1917, the Stalinist miracle seems to me that the same tactics did not destroy Russia’s coherence the second time around.
And there are more radical statements
https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1417983427i/2455819._UY400_SS400_.jpg
However, I did not read this book, perhaps the author of a falsifier like Solzhenitsyn. But the story about the failed purchase of two-legged cattle (“free” British) for the settlement of the Crimea – true. And this is the end of the 18th century.
Closer than NAFTA and closer than the EU, but not total annexation. Like if the EU consisted only of similar countries on the same page politically-economically, like the Scandinavian ones. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan would be like this. The others would be more alien but are smaller and would basically serve as a source for migrants.
The results for the Ukrainian Guberniyas in terms of votes for Ukrainian nationalist parties was:
Kiev: 77%
Volynia: 70% (this was because lots of Poles lived here)
Chernihiv: 60%
Poltava: 60%
Katerynoslav (Dnipropetrovsk): 52%
Tavria: 33%
About of Tavria was Crimea, the other half was southern Ukrainian areas north of Crimea. Assuming few Ukrainian votes in Crimea, about 55% of Ukrainian part of Tavria voted for Ukrainian nationalist parties.
So a Ukrainian majority in the territory of modern Ukraine, down to the Azov sea.
In Kherson (Odessa) and Kharkiv guberniyas, the Ukrainian SRs combined with the Russian SRs; they were given 25% and 12% of the slots respectively but it’s hard to guess what % of votes they would have received had they appeared on the ballot. Kharkiv guberniya included a lot of territory that is now part of Russia. Kherson guberniya included Russian-populated Odessa which at the time was Ukraine’s largest city. It is likely that the northern parts of that guberniya voted like Yekaterynoslav (that is, 52% Ukrainian nationalist).
Bessarabia guberniya is Moldova and the northern part of Tauridia voted pro-Ukrainian. This would just leave Kherson guberniya – specifically, the area around the city of Odessa (and Crimea) cut off from the rest of Russia.
Only ex negativo
https://medium.com/@Limerick1914/the-racist-myth-within-a-racist-myth-8eac2c890e92
Authors are filmmakers or something. Actual historians were not impressed. Sorry, you believe nonsense.
LOL, so in your world Georgia was originally a white slave colony.
Let me guess – Australians are mostly descended from white slaves too?
In articles devoted to the white slaves (Irish) is a decree of the British crown, which prohibits forced interbreeding Irish women slaves with black slaves. But maybe this decree is a fake created by Irish nationalists
Fascinating phenomenon.
Bordering on the autistic.
I find present western politics against Russia immoral and wrong, but I start to understand why Eastern Europeans have such a strong dislike towards them.
Bullshit.
Please stop using ‘we’. You are a decent blogger and all that, but I can say without one drop of Russian blood in my veins I can say my outlook is more ‘Russian’ than yours.
Your personal anecdotes haven’t been shown to be more legit than the ones I’ve provided.
Militarily, Petliura’s forces did nothing of significance against the Whites and Reds for the reasons I mentioned.
You fail to grasp the fact that people on what became Ukrainian territory fought on the White side. Such folks were typically never with Petliura – which is understandable given how many never supported him.
There’s some difference on the actual number of Petliura’s forces. Lehovich notes that just prior to Petliura’s break with the Galician Ukrainians, he commanded a force of 35,000, of which 20,000 were Galician.
People from the western-most part of the Ukraine, often noted for having a very strong Ukrainian national consciousness.
Makhno fought against Petliura’s forces. In exile, he associated with Russian anarchists.
There may have been some minor skirmishes.
List battles please.
Or is your evidence, “Someone told me once.”
Wikipedia and other sources make note that Makhno fought Petliura’s forces.
Upon Petliura’s break with the Galician Ukrainian Army, the Whites severely beat his forces in the areas of Uman, Gaisin and Birsula. Thereafter, Petliura’s forces retreated behind Polish lines.
Irrelevant to the point discussed.
He had a few tens of thousands of troops. Other nationalist warlords had thousands, or tens of thousands, also (there were dozens of them). The total was about 100,000.
Here is an article about the Ukrainian nationalist army from the former Russian Empire:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_People%27s_Army
On the other hand, there was no army of Ukrainians fighting for Russia or the Whites. There wasn’t even any military unit of Ukrainians from the Russian Empire Ukraine fighting for the Whites.
So again – list the ethnic Ukrainian military units from Russian Empire Ukraine who fought for Russia or the Whites.
You still can’t.
Everything else you write is handwaving and excuses to avoid admitting the truth.
That was towards the end of the war. He had earlier had about 40,000 of his own soldiers. And Petliura wasn’t the only nationalist warlord. Danylo Zeleny who fought against Petliura had about 30,000 troops at the height of his power:
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pic%5CZ%5CE%5CZeleny%20Danylo%20with%20aids.jpg
I asked you to list battles. You failed to do so. There were probably some minor skirmishes, nothing like his all-out war against the Whites.
Wikipedia states: “While the bulk of Makhno’s forces consisted of ethnic Ukrainian peasants, he did not consider himself to be a Ukrainian nationalist, but rather an anarchist. His movement did put out a Ukrainian-language version of their newspaper and his wife Halyna Kuzmenko was a nationally conscious Ukrainian. In emigration, Makhno came to believe that anarchists would only have a future in Ukraine if they Ukrainianized and he stated that he regretted that he was writing his memoirs in Russian and not in Ukrainian.[32] Makhno viewed the revolution as an opportunity for ordinary Ukrainians – particularly rural peasants – to rid themselves of the overweening power of the central state through self-governing and autonomous peasant committees, protected by a people’s army dedicated to anarchist principles of self-rule..”
At any rate, he clearly hated Russian natonalists more than he disliked Ukrainian ones.
Well, I pulled out my old calculator and ran some numbers for comparison, and surprisingly this is what I found out. For comparison, I took the military and population figures of the US in 2017, the most powerful military system in the world today, and also the same figures that you’ve provided for Ukraine during the revolutionary war period, roughly 1919. The results are actually quite astounding and very comparable. With a population of 27,000,000 and a fighting force of 100,000, this translates into .37% of the population. Add in another 30,000 Zeleny fighters and now you’re up to .48%. What if you added in the strength size of the WUR?
Now in 2017, the population of the US was approximately 326,000,000. Active military troops were 1,281,000, or .39% of the population. This is comparing the mightiest military force in the world today that spends countless millions recruiting soldiers with all manner of scholarships, training, and retirement benefits against a people that didn’t even have a state of their own at that time! Looking back, I think that we can be proud of the presence of Ukrainians that volunteered for service during a hectic war period! What do you think?
You’re irrelevantly boorish, with an autistic trait by not acknowledging the obvious about folks ethnically akin to the territory of what became the Ukrainian SSR, who fought on the White side, without having previously been associated with Petliura, who lacked a good deal of popular support.
Their looting aside, what great battles did Zeleny’s forces win? In comparison, Makhno had military significance in a way that Petliura and Zeleny didn’t. Onc e again noting that Makhno was more of an anarchist than Ukrainian nationalist. The academically written works on the Russian Civil War give little comparative mention to Zeleny.
I included Zeleny’s forces in the 100,000. Petliura himself probably had about 40,000-50,000 non-Galician troops at most. When Zeleny and Petliura were allied they may have reached closer to 100,000. Because of the disorganized and chaotic nature of the Russian Empire Ukrainian forces a specific number is hard to pin down.
Good point. OTOH Ukraine was under attack. Presumably if the USA was engaged in a battle against invading forces the national guards, reserves would get activated, there would be a rush of volunteers, etc. During the Polish-Soviet war Poland recruited 800,000 soldiers. Galicia mobilized 100,000 out of a population of only 3.2 million ethnic Ukrainians.
I asked a specific question and will once again repeat it:
Name the ethnic Ukrainian units or military formations from Russian ruled Ukraine that fought on the side of the Whites in 1917-1920.
You failed to do so.
Because there were none.
There was no widescale or even smallscale support for Russia among ethnic Ukrainians in Russian-ruled Ukraine. Only, perhaps, some individuals out of the millions. But you failed to provide even names of those so it must have been a small number indeed.
Saying you know someone or heard of someone doesn’t count.
Repeating a question you refuse to answer is not “autistic.”
It is a demonstration of how wrong you are.
Success of these people is irrelevant.
Makhno lumped Denikin and Petliura together as negative forces to what he preferred.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/makhno-nestor/works/1928/12/national-question.htm
From Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Makhno
Denikin was militarily stronger than Petliura. That aspect motivated Makhno to concentrate more of his efforts against Denikin than Petliura.
correct!
Also a native Silesian
List battles.
An autistic trait is the inability to not grasp a valid point that conflicts with a rehashed mantra. You’ve exhibited such much unlike myself.
Once again noting that folks ethnically akin to what became the former Ukrainian SSR fought on the White side, without having necessarily been associated with Petliura’s forces or any other committed to a complete Ukrainian separatism from Russia – thereby explaining the accounts of Ukrainian being spoken among some Whites. Quite believable given Petliura’s limited popularity.
Fernand Braudel is not a bad/unreliable source – an academic historian from France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Braudel
Very good point but it won’t be accepted.
Your point being what? Makhno clearly didn’t support Petliura, with yourself saying that some skirmishes between the two might’ve been evident.
It’s unfair to compare Central and Eastern Ukraine to the US, Poland or even to Galicia. Each country/area stood on much more developed state structures that could help promote a feeling of solidarity and need to protect the homeland. Even Galicia, being a part of the Hapsburg Empire had a presence in the parliament and was able to promote its own citizens within civic society. Also, its local church was in a better position to promote the Ukrainian position. Central Ukraine was in the throes of a war, unprepared and only just beginning to formulate a state structure of its own. Even at 100,000 troops divided between different warlords, I still find this an impressive gesture in the right direction.
The British government sent British children as slaves (for “hard labour”) in their empire into the 1960s.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/24/child-migrant-programme-slavery
https://www.google.ru/search?newwindow=1&ei=UXAbW9WGLMLMwAKPqavIBQ&q=%22betrayed+children+sold+into+slavery+-+the+Australian%22&oq=%22betrayed+children+sold+into+slavery+-+the+Australian%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3…19052.32821.0.33000.60.55.4.0.0.0.328.7411.0j34j8j2.44.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..13.17.2257…0j0i67k1j0i10k1j0i22i30k1j33i160k1j0i22i10i30k1j0i8i13i30k1j0i13i30k1.0.XAL40lUpC78
Thanks for posting the video.
Your dirt poor countries joined up with Hitler. Your fag troops died like cowards. All of you deserved all of your suffering and more besides. More of you should have been killed.
The ‘victims of communism’ had it coming and it is a pleasure to piss on your ancestors’ graves.
“I doubt the holocaust happened” isn’t exactly a mainstream view amongst Russians (Western anti-Russian propaganda regardless).
See the problem with your approach?
Anyhow, I never claimed that my views are “Russian” (whatever that is supposed to mean). They are however largely in sync with those of Russian nationalists, so my statement is absolutely correct.
I glanced at some reviews and they were OK. Obviously Blacks did not like the book and some Irish complained that Irish slaves are called British in the book. Also somebody complains that Whites want to become Israelites like Jews in Egypt. Anyway, I would like to read his book.
Also this book was praised for research
even though the author is a well known racist.
The USSR exported oil, gas, and other raw materials to COMECON members and got inferior, overpriced manufactured goods in return.
The RSFSR was likewise one of only two net donors to the USSR.
Moreover, in 1946-47, “conquered” East Germans were literally fed at the expense of starving Russians.
Consequently, Kholmogorov is perfectly correct.
So your real objection is “tone” or similar crap. This makes you the East European edition of an SJW.
Standard in the 18th century:
Press-ganging into the Royal Navy – Perhaps closer to “white slavery”, but then again, you could look at it as a sort of roughhouse conscription. And they got paid once in service.
All of the rest was either (1) not slavery, or (2) much have been small-scale and untypical.
You have no valid point.
I ask for facts. Can you provide them, yes or no? A simple question. If yes, do so.
We are discussing Ukrainians in Ukraine. You made a claim without evidence. “I heard someone say..” or “accounts I heard..” is not evidence.
For evidence, name the ethnic Ukrainian units or military formations from Russian ruled Ukraine that fought on the side of the Whites in 1917-1920.
You fail to do so. Again and again.
Because there were none.
There was no widescale or even smallscale support for Russia among ethnic Ukrainians in Russian-ruled Ukraine. Only, perhaps, some individuals out of the millions. But you failed to provide even names of those so it must have been a small number indeed.
Point being Makhno hated Russian nationalist Whites but didn’t care much about Ukrainian nationalists.
Name major battles or conflicts between him and Petliura.
I agree with what you write. There were reason for that. My point was simply that for the reasons you mentioned, nationalism while widespread in Ukraine in 1917 wasn’t “hot” enough to inspire mass activity (vs. massive passive support, by voting).
He wasn’t one of the authors of that book.
1930s was typical and peak Stalinism, it was no cherry-picking or strawman.
First off, we’re talking about a replacement religion for the bozos who march around with Stalin icons.
But I’ll defend them anyway.
First image has a powerful aesthetic that evokes the techpriests of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the Imperium of Man. Praise be to the Omnissiah!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c9/a6/d3/c9a6d325d453234bded21bcb61893635.jpg
This is also in line with Kholmogorov’s vision of Atomic Orthodoxy, whereby our permanent nuclear stalemate leads to the primacy of ideological struggle. Psykers awake!
Second image is the book cover to a sci-fi novel by Alexander Zorich, which is a collective pen-name for a male and female writer from Kharkov. Their series takes place in the 27th century where Russia and Ukraine are united, and constitute a space empire.
Press-ganging was doubtless unpleasant for those experiencing it, but was minor compared to the full-scale conscription present in every other European state.
Sending rebels and other criminals to America was obviously much more humane than the alternative of execution or mutilation. Georgia was actually founded by philanthropists to try and reform criminals, but failed like most such projects. There was of course nothing unique about this, the French attempt to try and populate Louisiana with prostitutes, among other criminals, is well-known.
Once again a double standard is applied to Britain.
You could have at least posted Ilya Repin, or a futurist with a bit more subtlety and taste, Aleksandr Blok, hell even Mayakovsky. Whenever someone asks you seriously on this question, you always dodge the question with a snark or something like this:
https://imgur.com/gallery/d5Z4tEh
Did you ever play Empire Earth?
You completely flopped in trying to disprove the historically obvious:
If his vision was so popular, the Whites and Reds would’ve had a difficult time with him, which wasn’t the case – partly on account of the Reds and Whites each finding support on the territory that became the Ukrainian SSR. As noted earlier, there was also the matter of many on the territory of what became the Ukrainian SSR, not being so supportive of any of the armed groups.
Yesssss… it all makes sense now. The epic of Grigor II led to Akarlin’s spiritual awakening.
The only good thing about that game was the campaigns, it was a sprawling mess otherwise.
https://www.google.com/search?q=empire+earth+russians&num=20&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj46urarMbbAhXDybwKHajHCpUQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=606#imgrc=lEv7VpG4LvvRXM:
https://www.google.com/search?q=empire+earth+russians&num=20&client=firefox-b-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj46urarMbbAhXDybwKHajHCpUQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=606#imgdii=mQwrvKN842DzrM:&imgrc=lEv7VpG4LvvRXM:
Stalin——-> Kebab
Putin ——-> Mongol
Pushkin —> Ethiop
Lenin ——-> Kalmuk
Peter I ——> Kebab
There has never been a ‘European Christian civilization’. Western Europe has always been Gnostic, with a small but sharp underdog Christian current among the elites.
Today, of course, Europe is 100% Gnostic from top to bottom. It’s historically inevitable and just the natural state of your society.
Galicia is the North-Western part of the modern Ukrainian state. It was always part of Poland throughout history. They’re distantly related to people in Ukraine proper, and were annexed to the Ukrainian SSR by Stalin in 1939.
They’re the political and cultural driver behind a ‘Western’ orientation for Ukraine. Which is not surprising: they’re just wanting to rejoin a historical greater Poland.
Which will happen sooner or later, one way or the other. Outright annexation is probably unfeasible today, so Poland as a ‘plan B’ is right now in the process of giving Galicians Polish citizenship.
They don’t want to be Russian, or Ukrainian, but Polish?
There is definitely something a little bit off with Slavs.
These people (in very many cases) were not volunteers (read the quote carefully). Temporary slavery (7 years) on sugar cane plantations (where white people have been dying for 2 years) is an evil joke. There was (along with temporary) and permanent white slavery. And if you like the British Empire slavery, I have absolutely no idea what you’re up against Stalin. Stalin’s concentration camps were no worse than the British plantations. And of course, in both cases, the victims were “criminals”.
Bliss ——> Madman
Just face it, Africans are to the rest of humanity what cows are to McDonald’s.
I don’t think that’s the motivation in this case, it’s rather an attempt to claim that whites were subject to slavery just as blacks (which isn’t true, indentured servitude was limited in time). Part of the debate who’s had it worse in American history, blacks or “white trash”.
An excellent program that should immediately be revived, in other words.
Single mothers are parasites and a plague on society.
If a single mother is unable or refuses to marry prior to giving birth to her child, by law the child should be immediately confiscated from her and placed for adoption (alternatively, raised by the state as a janissary).
No abortion unless the child is mixed race or genetically unfit, as we want to inflict maximal emotional trauma on these whores rather than provide them with an easy way out.
No, they want to be Galician, but as a part of Poland. (The ethnicity they’re closest to historically and culturally.)
Even if that’s true, the “freeloader” accusation is still grotesque, since those countries would have been economically much better off and enjoyed a higher standard of living outside the Soviet orbit. At the very least, it would be nice to acknowledge that the Soviet system was bad for everyone involved and Russians hardly its only victims.
Kholmogorov really comes across as incredibly autistic on these matters. Ok, he’s writing for a Russian audience which likes that kind of narrative, I get that. But hard to see what’s the point then of translating him into English, unless one wants to confirm the worst suspicions about Russian nationalists.
Part of the debate who’s had it worse in American history, blacks or “white trash”.
Without exception, white trash will pooh-pooh claims of mistreatment of blacks by referencing how much worse was the treatment of American Indians.
I didn’t claim Petliura did not have limited support. In fact, I insisted that not many Ukrainians in Russian-ruled Ukraine were willing to lay down their lives for Ukraine by fighting for it (even though the majority supported it by voting for it).
I stated correctly that the Russian idea had virtually no support.
Stop trying to change the subject.
Petliura was able to command up to 50,000 men from Russian-ruled Ukraine willing to fight for him. Another 50,000 or so fought for other Ukrainian nationalist warlords (otomans).
In contrast, there were zero military units and virtually no Ukrainians from Russian-ruled Ukraine fighting for the Whites.
I’m still waiting for you to prove otherwise. It will be a long wait 🙂
Thorfinnsson its you in the foreground, fighting parasites?
https://www.factinate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/James_Ives_Viking_Raiders_7-1024×617.jpg
Last time they were forcibly part of Poland they murdered up to 100,000 ethnic Poles.
You are such a moron. You don’t even know where Galicia is in Ukraine yet you write about it.
Absolutely correct. But Kholmogorov is a very marginal figure in Russia.
Forgive my shallowness, but when I see my aunts piling into a Church in Central Europe, I foolishly assume that it is what it looks like: Christians in Europe. How naive of me that I don’t see what is really going on…
(More seriously, isn’t Gnosticism an elite thing? we commoners can’t even pronounce it.)
I know, and tbh I’m glad about that. I don’t understand what Karlin sees in this guy.
That clarifies it. But if you ask people about ‘greatness’, their answers are based on notoriety for some, admiration for others, sympathy, etc…
I recently saw Pushkin on a list of African contributors to civilisation due to his partial Abyssinian ancestry. His story has always puzzled me.
Not all Anglophones reading this are cucks who are scared of other people asserting themselves.
You’re German. Other than some unhinged HIAG fanatics (are any left?), without exception even German nationalists are so traumatized by WW2 and the postwar denazification that none of you dare to assert yourselves. I see it as increasingly likely that we’ll be forced to liberate you. Though perhaps you’ll yet find your Stresemann.
Russians, and many other nationalities, aren’t like that.
That said I’ll agree that Russian nationalists in general (not just Kholmogorov) could use a better tone on certain subjects. They’re particularly unhinged about the Baltic states, even people of mild temperament like Dmitri.
The loser countries between Germany and Russia of course object to this assertiveness. Boo-hoo. Try not being losers instead. The Poles to their credit do try.
I am not sure people put that much thought into it. If they did, the Whites were socially very unsympathetic for most people. The uniforms, rituals, pomposity. A friend of mine is a descendant of a White Russian officer, he says he wouldn’t fight with the Whites either, too snotty and you had to polish your boots.
Out of curiosity, how many people in Ukraine fought for the Reds? Since they won, there had to be a few. Or were they mostly Latvian riflemen with angry lapsed Jews as officers?
It’s got to be his strong Christian Orthodox message. Don’t forget, Kholmogorov stated that:
Don’t forget, in the Russian nationalist parallel universe (for internal consumption only! 🙂 Stalin was the father of the Ukrainian nation. I can’t wait to get my hands on Karlin’s magnum opus ‘Putler, the Dark Lord of the Kremlin’, where it will finally be revealed to whom exactly Putler owes his fortunes to. Is it just a coincidence that both Putler and Porkoshenko were implicated in the ‘Panama papers’ scandal, where both civic patriots, in their own right, were implicated in international money laundering projects? Seems like its been all quieted down since when it first surfaced in 2015?…
No thanks, Americans “liberating” us is one of the main reasons for the mess we’re in (interesting though that even Trump supporters have this messianic impulse to tell other peoples what to do, that seems to be an unchanging constant of the American character).
Look, I get how those “might is right” power fantasies are great fun on internet message boards, but they’re not a sound basis for constructive and mutually beneficial European-Russian relations which is still what I want. It’s not my business to tell Russians how to run their country or how to deal with their history, but I just don’t see how a vision as one-sided as Kholmogorov’s will do much good. I’m all for nationalism in the sense of rejecting mass immigration, multiculturalism etc., but do I want a return to pre-1914 nationalisms with all their national antagonisms? Given how it ended last time, certainly not.
Russians have the same problem that Germans had: they are visibly impatient with smaller nationalities. Americans are like that too. It eventually backfires.
You miss the longer historical picture if you dismiss us as ‘loser countries’. In the last 100 years, by any standard, the big winners have been the smaller countries between Germany and Russia (or West and Russia). Politically, demographically, economically they have prospered beyond anything one would guess in 1900. This includes the endlessly demonised post-WWII period. They also probably have a better future than their western and southern neighbours. All we need is peace and well managed borders, and for the Western meddlers to mind their business.
Why do the German people continue to elect politicians and political parties that encourage the immigration patterns of third world refugees? Or are the results different than in France, where its plainly obvious that the country is descending into the sewers?…(for some reason, one doesn’t expect more from the French).
Basically, like all western Europeans you’re against anything “great”. Any grand ambitions.
You prefer the small-minded, the petty, the dull, the boring, the safe. The dull comfortable life.
Anatoly, being a religious person, still has grand ambitions – transhumanism, grand ambitions for Russia, etc.
It’s interesting to watch this divide play out.
Basically, the only people with any vitality left are Russians, Muslims, Jews, and Asians.
It wasn’t as obviously bad as in France or Britain before 2015. Bad enough, but the biggest non-European immigrant group are Turks who are problematic, but not on the same level as Arabs or Pakistanis.
And due to the Nazi past there’s a huge taboo against voting for anything even vaguely nationalist, with right-wingers being demonized by the entire establishment and facing physical assaults by Antifa thugs. That taboo is steadily getting eroded though, given the actions of the Merkel government which is unwilling to close the borders. A right-wing party like the AfD not only being present in almost all state parliaments, but getting almost 13% in the federal elections is completely unprecedented in the history of post-war Germany.
You have to realize that Kholmogorov argues here with Stalinists. What kind of argument is likely to get through to them? Certainly not any of the regular anti-Stalin bromides that have currency in the West.
This whole thing is so out of context, I don’t know why it was translated in the first place.
Actually, Russians are generally not like that. Or at least they weren’t in the past. What you are seeing is a natural reaction to the messages the Russians were getting from the Eastern Europe in the past 30 years.
What context? Although I find most of Kholmogorov’s ideas to be infantile and unbelievable, I applaud Karlin for bringing it up here, outside of the ghetto that it was intended for. It’s good to see just what sorts of idiotic ideas and concerns are circulating today in the parallel universe of the Russian nationalists. Keep doing it Anatoly!
Complaining that Russians didn’t get enough out of WW2 in territorial annexations is a really weird argument imo (Kholmogorov even complains about the loss of Russian influence in Manchuria…does anybody in Russia care about this?).
The part about collectivization and industrialization is more relevant imo given the damage Stalinist methods caused to Russia itself (I know many Russian commenters here will disagree about that, and I’m not going to argue with them since that’s an internal Russian debate as far as I’m concerned).
What’s weird about it?
What the hell is the point of conquering Berlin and not getting anything out of it other than Konigsberg?
The Russians might as well have made a separate peace after 1943.
Instead they quite literally wasted millions more men in order to impose communism in Eastern Europe, and proceeded even to impose yet another famine on their own people in order to shore up the ridiculous East German regime.
If the Germans had won instead you can bet your country would’ve gotten something out of it.
That’s interesting, thanks. Haven’t had time to read it yet but here is an article by the author cited above (Jane Humphries), from the Economic History Review, on the same subject, based on her book
http://pseweb.eu/ydepot/semin/texte1112/JAN2012CHI.pdf
Everythng you wrote in this post is correct.
This supports the idea that, really, the Russian people for the Bolsheviks weren’t “their own people.” Bolsheviks had merely hijacked Russia and used it for their ends (including imposing their system in eastern and central Europe). Working those people as slaves was no big deal to them. Starving them to prop up their Commie friends in Germany wasn’t either. That some of those people being used, and their descendents, support and defend that system is very pathetic.
Well, what exactly should Russia have annexed then? And what would have been done to the non-Russian population already in place there? Forced population transfers like in East Prussia or former East Poland? If they had been left in place, that would obviously conflict with Russian nationalism in the narrow sense and be more in the tradition of multiethnic imperialism.
The Reds had a lot of ethnic Russian troops from cities like Kharkiv. There were a few ethnic Ukrainians fighting for the Reds (perhaps the most significant was Semyon Timoshenko, from Odessa region) but mostly it was a matter of anarchists or nationalists making temporary alliances with the Reds and placing themselves under Red command in order to keep the Whites out. Even some of the Galicians temporarily joined the Reds, in order to fight against Poland:
http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CR%5CE%5CRedUkrainianGalicianArmy.htm
One of the commanders of these Red Galicians would later be a commander in the 14th Waffen SS Divison Galicia.
Ireland’s population (North & South) is substantially (25%) lower than it was in 1840 — I’m not aware of any other country in the world where this is the case. In 1840, the Irish population was a bit more than half that of England & Wales (today slightly more than 10%).
Sure.
Which strengthens further the point of Karlin and Kholmogorov that Stalin shouldn’t be feted as some kind of Russian hero.
He ought only to be hero to “anti-revisionist Marxist-Lenininsts” (lol).
Likewise it’s improper for Ukrainian nationalists to consider the Holodomor a Russian attack on the Ukraine.
Kholmogorov apparently thinks the Tsarist WW1 war aims were good.
I’m not Russian, and I suggest that Karlin propose his own hypothetical war aims.
Had I been in Stalin’s shoes, I would’ve concluded a separate peace with Germany as soon as practical. Russia is not a country which needs more territory, resources, and population. The blood letting from 1943-1945 were not worth anything which could have been obtained.
Essential aims would have been independent and neutral Central European buffer states, resumption of German-Russian trade, and German technological assistance.
If you want me to discuss “maximalist” objectives, I would’ve annexed everything up to the Elbe. Cities would be depopulated of unreliable nationalities and overtime replaced with East Slavs and other reliable groups. Peasants, farmers, etc. would continue to work their lands but for Russian barons. No peasant would be admitted to a city unless with Russian fluency and sincere profession of the Orthodox faith. Catholic and Protestant Churchs would be turned into Orthodox churchs. German technicians, scientists, machinists, and other skilled technical workers would be employed in Russian service under good conditions.
Stalin couldn’t really have concluded a separate peace with Hitler in 1943 (or anytime later).
1) The Western powers might’ve made a peace with Hitler themselves after this. Then Hitler would’ve destroyed the USSR, and Stalin would’ve made a fool of himself.
2) Hitler might’ve won the war in the West, and then turned once more on the USSR. You know the story from here on.
3) The Western allies might’ve defeated Hitler anyway, but would’ve been way more hostile to the USSR (which then would immediately be seen as a treacherous power willing to prop up Hitler despite having been attacked by him), the USSR would’ve received way less assistance from them (the bulk of it came 1943-45), would’ve been unable to steal the nuclear secrets (the Britons wouldn’t have sold the designs of their jet engine, by the way), and so would’ve been much weaker relative to the victorious and way more hostile West.
As a bonus point, how would you sell the separate peace to your own population, which by that point in time properly hated the Germans, and with good reasons?
That would indeed be interesting, and I’d also like to see specific statements about how one should have dealt with non-Russian populations in those areas.
In general, I find AK’s stance on those issues somewhat contradictory. To me it seems like he’s clearly a Russian ethnic nationalist. But then he lauds the multiethnic Tsarist empire with all its troublesome national minorities, and makes insinuations about lost chances for territorial annexations (as if Russia weren’t a huge country even today) that would have brought even more non-Russians into that empire.
This basically comes down to the thesis that Hitler was demonic and would return to finish off the USSR no matter what.
I’m highly skeptical of this thesis.
The Western allies had proven already in 1940 that they were completely unwilling to negotiate with Hitler. Granted, who knows what the reaction to a separate peace would have been.
There is one simple criteria when truing to evaluate a ruler or a statesman. Just compare the country before and after him/her. In this sense Stalin is as great as Peter the Great, just not in name. No amount of “what if”, “alternative history” or “cost and effect” analysis can change that.
Of the topic (or precisely on the topic) both Russian Empire and more recently Soviet Union collapsed, and there must have been a perfectly mundane reasons for that.
It’s a duty of current generations to learn the good and bad from both, avoid pitfalls and continue forward. There was plenty that the empire left to the SU that it could build upon, just as there is quite a bit of legacy left by the Soviet Union that modern RF can rely on.
But, as someone here already mentioned here, and I agree, that is what Putin has been doing.
I agree the Makhnovists fought mainly against the Whites, who were the biggest threat for them, but neutrality and occassional collaboration with the Petliurists was purely tactical.
This isn’t as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be. The trouble is that people like us have created a mental anchor by settling on the term “nationalism”.
A Russian ethnic nation-state is not necessarily more desirable than a Russian-dominated multiethnic empire, nor vice-a-versa. It depends on the particular circumstances and conditions.
Or to move over to your country, would a federal Europe be a bad thing if it was led by people with ideas more like yours or the Magyar Miracle rather than Jean Claude Juncker?
Steve Sailer likes to harp on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and points out that because “continentalism” isn’t a political concept no one ever thinks of this. Hence the patriotic resistance in Europe gets itself into traps like Marine Le Pen campaigning for the abolition of the Euro.
Correct. It was, however, a consequence of being ruled by Moscow, something for Ukrainians to avoid.
Authors are filmmakers or something. Actual historians were not impressed. Sorry, you believe nonsense.
I’m afraid in this case your sense of nonsense is misplaced. I read the book a couple of years ago, and while it had its flaws I found it pretty convincing.
The fact that “actual historians” don’t like it says nothing, since it is obviously an anti-PC book that could not possibly be embraced by the guardians of our past. However, before the “conventional wisdom” had coalesced to relegate it to the rubbish bin, an early review in the New York Times was far more favorable:
By the way, one of the authors that you so belittle last year published a very well-received book entitled The King’s City: London under Charles II: A city that transformed a nation – and created modern Britain — the third volume in his trilogy about Charles II (the first two written jointly in collaboration with the second author of White Cargo).
Not demonic, just driven by an ideology. He believed in his own mission to create the great Thousand Year Reich up to the Ural (and beyond, actually), and would’ve thought such a stroke of luck as a sign from Providence that he needs to press ahead with his plans. In any event, Hitler was unwilling to even seriously negotiate with Stalin, because he also didn’t (and couldn’t) trust Stalin, a man he’d already betrayed before. So the issue was mutual. Hitler was (must’ve been) afraid that Stalin would stab him in the back later. While Stalin was (must’ve been) afraid that Hitler would stab him in the back later, as he’d already done once.
But what did exactly the US or the UK gotten out of their victory? The US got some satellite states (just as the USSR), but because it was richer to begin with and didn’t have an insane economic system, it could at least keep them after 1990. But those satellites were actually still unreliable from a US viewpoint. It’s questionable if they will keep them another seven decades, I highly doubt it. In the meantime they opened up their borders to prove the world that they are not racists. They also opened up their markets to Japan and Germany and South Korea etc. to prop those countries up.
It seems to me that long term, the US got just as little from its victory as Russia. It might actually be totally destroyed ethnically, while Russia at least plausibly could stay Russian long term. If you compare ethnically Russian areas 1939 and 2018, they are almost the same. But ethnically white American areas 1939 vs. 2018, and it seems like the Americans were even bigger losers.
Makhnovists were mostly ethnic Ukrainians and supported stuff like Ukrainian-language schools (Makhno’s wife was a Ukrainian-language schoolteacher!) but were opposed to a Ukrainian nationalist state. They mostly had a deal with the Petliurists – you stay away from the areas we control, and we won’t fight you. They really hated the Whites. IIRC Makhno writing in exile at some point suggested he should have cooperated with them more, because they weren’t as bad to him as the Whites and Reds were.
People change their beliefs. Hitler for instance no longer consider slavs to be inferior at the end of his life. Supposing you’re correct then we have my maximalist vision of a Russian Empire reaching the Elbe, ideally with a port on the North Sea as well if the army could’ve gotten there in time (plausible with a different offensive strategy in 1944-45).
I have complained bitterly about this before. American foreign policy took a permanently fatal wrong turn with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Previously American foreign policy had oscillated between isolationism and expansionism, but always with a clear pursuit of American self-interest. This was firmly established already in the 1790s, when George Washington flatly rejected airheaded nonsense about aiding revolutionary France b/c muh liberty.
After FDR American foreign policy pursued idealistic, errant nonsense. The only significant departures from that have been Nixon and Trump.
This started when FDR placed sanctions on Italy for the “crime” of invading Ethiopia. Willingly giving up commercial exports during the Great Depression.
The outrages continued with FDR’s refusal to punish Mexico from expropriating American oil interests in 1938.
Our fate was sealed with the adoption of the Atlantic Charter (airheaded rubbish) and the passing of the Lend-Lease Program, where we gave weapons to countries fighting the Axis in exchange for…nothing (other than a 99 year lease of some British bases). Why not instead demand Bermuda and the British West Indies?
The appropriate strategy in dealing with the Axis would’ve been either hemispheric defense (as proposed by the American First Committee) or joining them to dismember the British Empire.
I’m surprised you have such a PC view of American history. As multiple sources make clear, the information presented in White Cargo is correct — large numbers of (white) people were effectively involuntarily “enslaved” in colonial America, in conditions that were no better (and often worse) than enslaved Africans.
Where do you think the word kidnap comes from?
Surely his views and outlook are a little distinctive, in every country, not just Russia (or America). But it doesn’t make them less entertaining/interesting/funny, etc.
From the perspective of a blog, if the viewpoint of the blogger is more frequently found in the public , then they would be easier to find, less rare – and there would be less reason for audience to visit the blog. If all the blogger’s views are ‘typical’ – then why would anyone visit the blog? They could read the main news sites and encounter the identical content.
More generally, the more thinking or thoughtful people, will usually have more unusual and unpredictable combinations of views, which cannot be categorized into simple groups.
If you encounter that your views can ‘map’ predictably onto any political movement, common ideology, or political party in your country -then you need to question your views (and the influence of conformism in the predictability).
Thanks. How does an anarchist-nationalist temporarily allied with the Reds look like in person? I am always amused by the ability of certain eastern European types to push the boundary of coherent thought. There is too much of something there, or maybe something missing. Many just want a gun to take a revenge on the crappy world.
It is not different today: there are Pan-Slavic nationalists who hate anything Russian (or even Polish), are fanatically pro-Western, loudly admire Israel and more quietly the Nazis, their economic policy is quasi-communist and social views are to the right of a 19th century pope. Quite a mess.
I’m curious, just how exactly you envision the ‘depopulation’ of the indigenous nationalities to have taken place? Do you feel that a rather war weary Russia was really in any position to follow through on any such violent and crazy proposals? As far as ‘reliable East Slav groups’ we can see today how that ha turned out in Ukraine. As many others here have pointed out, did Russia really need extra territories? I can’t figure out what motivates such malicious and incoherent ideas? Me thinks that Thorfinnsson should stick to the calculation of P/E ratios and not to international relations? 🙂
Both Reds and anarchists were opposed to the landlords and capitalists, so they had common cause against the Whites and could cooperate against them in order to prevent White victory. Similarly, both Reds and non-Russian nationalists were opposed to the Whites who were Russian nationalists. In the Galicians’ case, it was opposition to the Poles who had just conquered their country.
In reality cooperation between Reds and nationalists wasn’t as substantial as between anarchists and Reds.
It wasn’t the product of ideological twisting, it was simply a matter of – we hate them more than each other, so let’s cooperate against them, for now.
Possibly, although I would say that messages have been mixed. I have argued with my comprador friends that full devotion to the Atlanticist West limits one’s options, that it is the worst game strategy, and that burning bridges is a often a bad idea. But rationality is in short supply when salmon buffets call and that umpteenth trip to a DC 3- star hotel for ‘training’ is dangled in front of them.
To be fair, Russians for most of the last 25 years were not that different, and would probably do it again. Human weakness has few boundaries.
OT
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/the-rights-human-capital-problem/#comment-2353265
what exactly was the wrong way you were doing it? gradually turning the temp down then plateauing at ~20° when it becomes uncomfortable?
No, it was the peak, but it was not typical. ‘Typical’ is defined as ‘faithfully representing’. 1930’s were an extreme, the 1917-1991 period as a whole was very different. So yes, you are cherry-picking.
How about them 5-year olds in the British mines? Ok, with that?
Well, the USSR practiced wholesale, semi-genocidal deportations of entire peoples within its borders before and into the war (e.g. the Chechens).
It was also done in Koenigsberg after the German neutrality gambit failed. (Incidentally, I consider that Kaliningrad should be remained to it proper name.)
So why not. That said, it might have been best to wait until the USSR had a serious nuclear deterrent (that is, post-1955) before going ahead with it.
This is what I would have done if I didn’t have any pretensions to morality, etc. but only naked self-interest in mind.
The war-weary Russian population would have been in need of vast reconstruction. And also the non-Russian populations of Europe. The workers of these conquered cities would’ve been very useful for that.
Depopulation isn’t a euphemism here for execution or even necessarily deportations. Unlike Hitler and his gang I don’t have fantasies of wiping people out.
Look instead at something like, say, the history of England and the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The preceding Brittonic and Romano-British populations weren’t eliminated at all. The ruling classes were replaced, the cities transformed, and overtime the countryside itself.
If Canute the Great had established a real dynasty then today there wouldn’t even be an England, but not because demonic vikings had some demented plot to butcher every Englishman.
As far as I can tell Ukrainians were generally reliable in Tsarist and Soviet times.
And no, Russia didn’t need extra territory. I said that myself. But I figured German_reader was curious about a maximalist proposal.
on topic, Stalin kinda sucked, what with the random arrests, the Doctors’ Affair,… the random arrests, but with all the degeneracy and decivilization going on – rap battles, corruption, gopniks, RSP-shki, “kowtowing to the West” – you sometimes wish he was back.
I am sure it sounds weird to you, but what Kholmogorov is doing here, is telling the Stalinists that even by their own criteria their hero is a failure. What they say are his greatest achievements are not so great after all, even from the Imperial Stalinist POV.
Another way Kholmogorov likes to troll Stalinists is to take a Soviet accomplishment (like going into space) and credit Nicholas II.
You are getting warmer, it is about unbounded hatred. Any enemy will do. Did they have flow-charts mapping out the complexity? Or does this kind of well-calculated hatred come to them intuitively?
My intuition tells me that when you mess with people repeatedly, and they end up living worse and worse, at some point the ‘kill them all‘ mentality takes over. It happened in Ukraine in 1917-20, in WWII and after. I hope we can avoid it from happening again. But if Ukraine lives as today in 2020-25 (lousy living standards), if there are guns everywhere, something could spark the downward spiral again.
Korolevets?
But wait Karlin, you generally seem to take the position of being opposed to the sinister and most pernicious acts of the Soviet Union. What pretensions to morality do you hold that keep you from embracing this sort of a ‘final solution’ for Eastern Europe, anyway? Regardless, the whole idea is nonsense and not analogous to what went on within the Soviet Union’s own backyard. East European countries had a long history of being in close proximity with Western Europe and could not be treated like the Chechens, Tatars, Ukrainians etc; The whole idea is nonsense and isn’t even worth considering.
Many errors.
1) hyperventilating while under the cold water
2) doing it at night right before going to sleep
3) also doing it right after workouts (not recommended, to my knowledge)
4) changing back and forth several times
5) often taking cold baths only (I don’t think it’s bad in itself, but it’s more difficult to properly clean yourself without warm water, plus all the above problems)
6) no methods or regularity, for example I swam in 3 Celsius water after having missed a few weeks during my Christmas vacation, and then I felt a little too cold, so I decided I could miss another few days, then plunged into the 3 degree water again, and so on; it’s like a guy missing workouts and then trying to make up for it by suddenly lifting several times larger weights than his normal workout weights; it probably worsened my chronic hyperventilation problem (which is a problem for most people, by the way)
Things like that.
Atomic Orthodoxy doesn’t fit to this dream of future religion though. It’s just kind of tacky, inharmonious disjunction of unrelated, pre-fabricated words, which reflect embarrassingly on each other.
No offense to Kholmogorov, but it feels the reflection of weak, 1990s, inauthentic, post-modern mentality, like ‘Swedish Goths’ pretending to be Satanist pirates or something. And then it also has some aspect of being put together as a way of ass kissing to the government.
–
This dream of future religions is something beautiful though.
But can you imagine this conjunction Atomic Orthodox as something real, except after some kind of nuclear apocalypse?
E.g. All copies of the Bible are somehow lost in the atomic fire, but a half-burnt second year graduate textbook of physics discovered, along with a file containing various unrelated problem sets in advanced calculus. In the survivors’ confused imagination, figures of Einstein and Jesus somehow become combined (along with “the apostles” – Heisenberg, Landau, Fermi, etc)…. In worship to the atomic fires, priests recite incantations to the ‘holy texts’ of calculus from morning to night. Etc.
Ok… now we have real Atomic Orthodoxy
By the way in Volgodonsk there is already the peaceful monument to the atom which can be used as a pilgrimage site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d68BDmHUXU0
If talking about WW1 war aims, they are pretty much in line with the Imperial government’s thinking at the start of 1917 (some of the below are real plans, some are my conjectures about what they planned to do – any corrections based on actual evidence of policy are welcome).
The latter would not be a problem – the Czechs were highly Russophilic at the start of the century, even demanding the teaching of the Russian language in Czech schools (obviously this request was not granted by AH).
The Poles would be more of a problem but with the prestige gained by the Russian brand after victory no doubt quite doable.
Turks are the big losers, getting bottled up into Anatolia. Greeks and Armenians are the two pincers of Russian control of the Mediterranean.
Speaking of WW2, in retrospect, making peace with the Germans in 1943 may have indeed been the best move. Letting them do what they will with Poland would have been particularly amusing. However, it was not politically realistic, even for a totalitarian system such as the USSR.
LOL, but no. And not for exactly “humanitarian” reasons.
Koenigsberg would make it the war trophy that it is, not an accolade to a Soviet apparatchik. Germans will be reminded of it every time they look at a map of Europe.
thank you so much!
“Koenigsberg would make it the war trophy that it is, not an accolade to a Soviet apparatchik. Germans will be reminded of it every time they look at a map of Europe.”
Well, no. Every time they look at a map of Europe, Germans will be reminded that they need to rectify that.
They are welcome to try.
https://eatliver.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/blessed4.jpg
The populations of Russia and Eastern Europe had already been depopulated severely due to the savagery of the war. The returning Soviet soldiers, including the remnant of the remaining population, had their hands full with rebuilding of what was left of their own settlements, not in a position to ‘repopulate’ nor rebuild Eastern Europe without the direct participation of its own indigenous populations. A prolonging of the war at the expense of millions of more lives, either resettled (to where?) or exterminated, would not have been in the cards. Besides, what makes you think that Eastern Europe would have fared any better than it did, with a new race of Russian ubermensch calling all of the shots anyway? History has shown us that they did a rather lousy job of things in their own country and in those that it did end up controlling.
Ethnonationalism in its purest version – evacuation of compromised territories, good ports, etc. – is just counterproduce. Cucked, even.
Ergo for civic nationalism. I assume we all agree on that.
It seems obvious that the ideal combination is both. And the late Russian Empire was in fact just that.
Take the conquered women as polygamous wives. Rapid repopulation follows.
Hence why I suggested making peace in 1943.
Did I say it would’ve fared better?
My point was that the whole point of winning a war is to get something out of it. Something that everyone aside from the Axis apparently did not understand.
I suppose the French did try to get something out of it, but their demands were ignored by the real victors.
I think that you assume that things have to make a lot more sense than they have to. The Adeptus Mechanicus is honestly not a terrible response to overwhelming complexity – which is pretty likely if we ever get to the point where we have code creating code creating code.
They’re dealing with machines they don’t fully understand, realize that it has very real “demons” within(viruses), and the safest way to handle it has just been to keep doing whatever works. Thus the stories of prayers ending with hitting the “on” switch: the functionality is still there, it has just been couched in ritual.
At some point, the only realistic way of handling it is ritual – which is very human anyway. I’ve been involved in a lot of pretty high tech stuff for awhile and while its not quite religious, the tendency toward some form of ritual really does gradually take over, even if we tend to call them procedures or “best practices.” There’s a lot of weirdness, cultishness and bubble insanity in SV, and this isn’t even considering the more fringe things like transhumanism or immortality organizations.
Seems like a possible outcome of this proposed peace is a future war against Britain and Japan at the same time. Oddly, Russia might be able to gain America as an ally in such a conflict.
Of what nature?
These war aims are so extreme that Brest-Litovsk looks reasonable by comparison. Also pretty ridiculous given Tsarist Russia’s actual performance in the war (yes, yes, I know, you think Russia would have “won” WW1 if not for the Bolshevik coup…because the Americans had entered the war, certainly eager to die for dreams of a greater Russian empire, lol).
Compared with that the Soviet Union with its friendship of peoples actually doesn’t look so bad, at least they paid lip service to denouncing imperialism.
Unrealistically long time horizons. The US did of course unambiguously win the war – it accounted for something like 50% of world manufacturing production by 1945. It dominated all the markets. In the late 1940s-early 1950s, if it had really wanted to, it could have conquered the entire world and/or instituted a one world government. (The Soviet nuclear deterrent was not credible until 1955 or so).
To develop Thorfinnsson’s idea of a 1943 Nazi-Soviet peace further (with the caveat that I do not consider it politically realistic even for the USSR):
First off, I do not think the Allies would have made a separate peace with the Nazis. Public opinion there mattered more, for obvious reasons (democracy), and it’s not even clear that the Russians hated the Germans more (there are accounts of German POWs being treated generously – disgracefully – well, by elderly babushkas with low national consciousness).
With the Wehrmacht having its hands untied in the East, D-Day would no longer be feasible. However, the Manhattan Project would not be going away, with the result that a campaign of democidal atomic attrition against the German population would begin from 1945.
The Nazis are not limp-wristed like the Kaiser or even Hindenburg/Ludendorff and will hold onto power as German city after city gets wiped off the Earth.
At some point, Germany will be sufficiently weak for an Allied invasion to be possible, especially considering that there would have been years to prepare for it. Obviously, at this point, the USSR could use the opportunity to scavenge. Even the East Europeans will be less of a problem at this point, having been subjected to 2-3x the degree of democide by the Nazis as they were historically. There will at a basic level be much fewer of them. And they’d hate the Germans even more.
The USSR could have used the armistice with Germany to refocus on science spending and turbocharge the nuclear program, developing it earlier and having a credible deterrent by 1950 instead of 1955. So no Operation Unthinkable in principle (IRL, the USSR in reality seriously lucked out on that score!!).
So what was Russia supposedly to ‘get’ from the war that it didn’t already get? A more homogenized Russian population throughout Eastern Europe. controlling the undermensh? Sounds like more sicko nationalist stuff bordering on facism that I’m not ready to embrace. BTW, where do you live, in Germany, Sweden the US? What actual nationality do you personally ascribe to? For your information, I’m an American, born and bred here, of Ukrainian descent (no secret there!).
I already did, with your not being able to provide a valid counter. No need to repeat what has been clearly explained.
The aforementioned voting wasn’t complete in a way that can be considered as being clearly indicative indicative to what the majority on the land that became the Ukrainian SSR had actually thought at the time. In point of fact, there was a noticeable advocacy for seeking an autonomous Ukraine that was affiliated with Russia, in one former or the other.
There’s also the matter of likely number trumping the actual support. You brought up a relatively obscure warlord saying he commanded 70,000. With that number, he should’ve been much more significant. Instead, the recollection of him notes looting with no significant battle victories.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EXcMuYt8TWw/TihifSxMk6I/AAAAAAAAAE0/db9lfQRHIN4/s1600/vae_victis.jpg
50/50= truths/myths. East Germans, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians have similar stories. They always blamed shortages on the so-called ‘exports’ to USSR. There were no noticeable Soviet products in stores there but plenty of Eastern Block products in Soviet Union.
How anybody can determine what was overpriced or underpriced in the system of exchange they had? Eastern European products often were inferior with respect to the West but superior to what was being produced in the USSR. Muscovites were going crazy when shoes from Czechoslovakia or DDR were sold in few stores. Anybody lined up for Soviet products in Hungary or Poland. Perhaps for Sovetskoye Shampanskoye before the New Year’s Eve
Buses and pharmaceuticals form Hungary, high-tech optical and electronics equipment from DDR, ship industry in Poland mainly functioning for USSR, more that 50% sulphuric acid used in the USSR was from Poland, CSFR motor vehicles, for example, passenger cars, trams, motorcycles , lathes, pumps , compressors. (10 min of googling).
Russian nationalist want empire but they do not know how they are going to run it. Actually they did not know in the past. They have never managed to culturally dominate people they subjugated except for some Siberian tribal people. One thing is true, the emotional prerequisite for Russians is to be loved and appreciated by the people they subjugated. When they see all the evidence to the contrary they display the spurned lover syndrome and show hurt ego how much they sacrificed for the subjugated and so on. You even detect it in Uber-rational A. Karlin. Americans have it too but to much lesser extent because they are much more secure in their beliefs. They do not have to support them by myths only. It suffices to look around and see how America is powerful and dominant. But the megalomania and some sense of missions are very similar among Russians and Americans. People from ‘lesser’ countries are fed up with it. Now they may sympathize with Russia in hope that counterbalancing of American power would be good but when they hear the nationalist imperial spiel like that of Kholmogorov they pause and have a second thought and may consider that beefing up Ukraine might be a very good thing after all and opening border with Mexico and turning the US into a Latin America might be a good thing after all from the point of view of small countries that want to have more sovereignty whether to create the ethno-state state or gay utopia or both.
Germany was not doing well at the start of 1917. AH and Turkey were doing catastrophically.
There is a difference between the degree of hurt you can expect if you sign an armistice when you’re losing (applies to both Russia and Germany in 1918), and if you capitulate and/or are conquered (France in 1940 lost the bulk of its core territory, for instance).
Well a good enough number did fight on the White side, thereby explaining why they never lost to Petliura’s forces, which were representative of a completely separatist Ukraine, until Petliura sold out to Pilsudski – in a move which saw the Galician Ukrainian Army en masse come under the command of the Whites.
iirc about 90% of the Germans taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1941-1943 didn’t survive the war; it’s also clear that German prisoners were frequently tortured and killed.
Not that I’m comlaining, Germans started the war and if anything behaved worse. But you can’t seriously believe that Russians felt less hatred for Germans than the British, let alone the Americans did. That’s completely implausible.
Another one of your gross understatements. Also keeping in mind that a number of folks from the territory of Russian Empire Ukraine could qualify as ethnic Ukrainian, but identified differently.
“Actual historians were not impressed.”
To paraphrase Mandy Rice Davies; They wouldn’t be would they?
Why should Britain and France have supported the realization of such extreme war aims to the benefit of Russia? Their alliance with Russia was purely one of convenience, liberal opinion in the West despised Tsarism. And once the US had entered the war, the whole war was changed into a “crusade for democracy” anyway, which made such imperialist annexations even more unlikely.
Your idea of Tsarist Russia being unjustly robbed of great territorial gains is fantasy imo. The Bolshevik takeover was deplorable for many reasons, but not because Russia failed to gobble up even more land.
Atomic physics is a field already near theology.
The idea of future religions integrating such scientific concepts is something beautiful (and there was already something this in the Soviet Union).
There has to be some actual integration though.
You can’t take current priests (low IQ, superstitious people who usually fail maths in school), and put them next to an abstract scientific concept like the word ‘atom’ – without making both sides look ridiculous.
It is like the arrangement most designed to turn them into an object for ridicule from educated people.
(Likewise photos of priests near to specific technology which was entirely created by Soviet trained people).
It is just like seeing the scene of primitive monkeys from the 2001 film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEaGQb6dJk
When and where did he actually say such? That’s something that svidos would tap dance on if actually true. As stated, should be viewed with suspicion.
What were they going to do about it? Go to war over it?
Also:
Note that I posit a Cold War emerging between France/UK and Russia after the war.
Being robbed of territorial gains is just one of many legitimate Russian peeves against the Bolsheviks. However, the great bulk of them relate to economic and political ones inherent to Communism (e.g. central planning; using your own population as disposable bodies; the sheer stupidity and aesthetic ugliness of sovok culture in general).
So great were those latter factors that I would in fact have much preferred the victory of the Germans in WW1 and the extermination of the Bolsheviks to what actually happened.
Name them. And/or name the units of ethnic Ukrainians from Russian Ukraine who fought for the Whites.
We are still waiting for you to back up your claims.
Don’t change the subject form Russian Empire Ukrainians.
“It seems obvious that the ideal combination is both. And the late Russian Empire was in fact just that.”
I agree with you that ideal combination would indeed be “both”.
I am not sure that “late” Russian Empire was just that, though.
Perhaps, I am much too influenced by later Bolshevik propaganda, winners, after all, get the privilege to write the (hi)story.
But, most likely, the Russian Empire’s fate is just another case of that famous “too little too late”.
Russians, having the first hand experience of these, epic, failures of both the Empire and Soviet Union, have both the necessary perspective and hindsight to move on in much better future. We have to see if they have acquired the wisdom, too. Again, in this respect, and in my opinion, Putin has been doing a “hell of a job” so far.
Russia was also crumbling even without the Bolsheviks. The Kerensky offensive was a catastrophe. Military discipline had completely evaporated.
Assuming the Russians had hung in long enough to participate at Versailles, I doubt they would’ve gained much. Britain and America would both oppose most of Russia’s war aims. Certainly the idea that President Wilson and David Lloyd George would agree to transfer Constantinople to Russia is a fantasy.
Probably Russia would’ve gotten some more sullen Poles to administer, Galicia, and the rest of Armenia. And of course the reparations which the Germans would largely fail to pay.
Dismemberment of Germany like France and Russia wanted was never going to be tolerated by Britain or America.
Where does your counterfactual depart from the OTL?
How many was that? You can’t seem to substantiate any of your allegations with any numbers? If you don’t know, then don’t flood this thread with your monotonously boring conjectures (fantasies). 🙁
Still waiting for you to back up your claim that there were more than very rare ethnic Ukrainian individuals form Russian ruled Ukraine fighting for the Whites. “I heard” and “someone told me” isn’t evidence.
You see, you have demonstrated that you are a liar and everything you claim should be viewed with a grain of salt.
Until you provide names of people and of military units we know what your claims are worth.
Absent nuclear weapons, why exactly would that have stayed a Cold war in the 1920s/1930s and not become a hot one? Russia was seen as a potential rival to British imperial interests well before 1914 and would have been seen as an even greater threat in your scenario.
Obviously I agree about the defects of communism, but the insinuation that it would be ok to treat other populations as “disposable bodies” really irritates me…what exactly would be your problem with the Nazis then, apart from the fact that they targeted Russians as a population to be disposed of? The general vibe I get from this thread is that any moral considerations would be for losers and cucks anyway.
Have to say, these insights into the views of Russian nationalists make me think it’s probably better they’re still fairly marginal in Russia and not looked kindly upon by the state.
Yes, when you win a war so decisively that the enemy surrenders unconditionally with your troops occupying his capital it is only proper to help yourself.
The “sicko nationalist stuff bordering on fascism” is how statecraft was practiced from the Bronze Age to Bismarck.
My background is comparable to yours. I have some German relatives, but personally don’t have any German origins more recent than five centuries.
No February Revolution.
The Provisional Government could have (and demonstrated so) that it could at least hold out to the end of the war. It did not advance but did not lose territory either.
Territorial gains would have obv. been much more limited, though they would have occurred (even they soon dropped their early extremist positions against annexations).
Would have probably been voted out in a conservative-nationalist counter-reaction after the end of the war.
So, still a vastly better result than what happened. My assessment is that Imperial Russia > PG >> Bolsheviks.
Russia was in a Cold War with Britain for most of the 19th century.
I would also add:
Russia would be much stronger than it was in OTL (no lost decade of industrial development, saner economic policy, Sikorsky would be in Russia, Great Naval Program would be resumed post-war).
Obviously, treating nobody as disposable bodies > treating others as disposable bodies [i.e., frankly, what everyone has been doing for 99% of history] > treating your own as disposable bodies [in fairness, also historically common, but went out of fashion after the advent of mass nationalism].
How is this even controversial on a redpilled discussion forum.
But our numbers are growing anyway (in fairness, so are those of the liberals). Will make the ensuing Russian Spring all the more fun.
Germans in the Great War were more civilized than Germans under Nazis.
Didn’t Keverich already make that clear? It’s why Ukraine wants to stay away. They may not be in power now, but there’s a chance they will be. Imagine if Ukraine was in some sort of union with Russia when they came to power in Russia.
Perhaps if the Tsar had listened to his cousin and sent his crazy wife to the Crimea and dismissed Protopopov.
No you didn’t, liar.
You claimed there was a significant number of Ukrainians from Russian Empire Ukraine fuighting for the Whites.
I asked for names of them, or names of units of them.
You provided neither.
So, you failed. And now you lie.
It’s what you do – fail and lie.
Thank goodness for the Revolution
They make you realise how benevolent the British Empire (and Americans) were
It could then rest assured that its people will not be treated as disposable bodies. For instance, like how the neo-Marxist UK regime treats its girls wrt Pakistani grooming gangs.
Hehe….
As for “worst suspicions” I’d change that to “simple facts”.
If I understand you correctly, you’re actually an American, and therefore I find it amusing that you subscribe to such ‘tribal’ worldviews. For all of its faults, ‘American exceptionalism’ which acts a an underlying motivator for American imperialism, does not include components of ethnic or national superiority (imperialism without the ‘pure blood’ racial component) that I think is a step in the right direction. For all of the criticism of the inclusion of different ethnicities in the make-up of American society (and I’m not a proponent of open borders, etc;), I think that a strong case can be made that one of the strengths of the vibrant, US nation, is its inclusion of all ethnicities. Although it’s getting harder and harder, immigrants are still adding to the overall good of American society. US multiculturalism should not be a blueprint for all societies throughout the world, but it certainly will continue to slowly influence how many of the advanced countries of the world model their own societies. I strongly suspect that your own genetic make-up was formed through the melding of more than just your own German heritage that began over 5 centuries ago? Even Karlin’s ethnic pedigree is far from ‘pure’ Russian, and the both of you don’t seem to be any worse for the resulting cocktail? 🙂
Ah….The CONUNDRUM.
Well…maybe the later is the price for the former.
I am sure that a lot of guys here will offer a solution.
All you need is to trust them. I mean, not exactly them but people who would execute (pun intended) those …ahm…”solutions”.
Good thing having all those nukes around, sometimes.
Keverich expressed satisfaction with the idea of culling a few thousand if not 10,0000s nationalists every year, for example.
Here’s the exact quotation, taken from Makhno’s three volume autobiography:
You owe me a pair of tap dancing shoes, Mickey! 🙂
This thread is indeed rather eye-opening.
Russia behaving like any normal European country one century ago with respect to war aims – note that Germany would have created a continental empire:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g94p-4QOuFs/UbcgBfGs1gI/AAAAAAAAAHw/7aMF7QOZs94/s1600/ww1German+annexationplans.jpg
… and here is the French version:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/FR-WW1-1915-French-plans.png
= Bolsheviks were great after all for slaughtering those Russian subhumans for their delusions that they are also white people.
This further reinforces my suspicions that Russia should not have any sentimental illusions about Europeans, even European nationalists.
But how many Germans or Frenchmen are still going on about this as if it were relevant today? French and German nationalists have rather different concerns now, all this talk about territorial annexations and imperialism looks like out of another universe.
The problem isn’t that Russian imperial elites a century ago had extreme ambitions (which backfired horrendously on them), the problem is that one can get the impression that Kholmogorov and others like him think like that even today.
Self-fulfilling prophecy…”They’ll hate us anyway, so why not give them a reason?”. Hardly a constructive sentiment.
It wasn’t though. The borders of France, for example, barely changed for centuries, despite being the most powerful nation in Europe. Louis XIV’s attempt to acquire just Belgium and some German cities united all of Europe against him. Of course even those conquests which were made were within the framework of multi-national empires (which often disadvantaged the dominant ethnicity, if anything), rather than Assyrian-style subjugation.
Events like the Polish Partitions were unique and regarded as horrible.
I suppose this is the American educational system at work.
I notice you missed out the Anglo peace plans, which didn’t involve creating any gigantic empires subjugating other Europeans
Americans were mostly white supremacists and frequently Anglo-Saxon supremacists as well for more than three centuries.
The unforced error of admitting millions upon millions of non-Anglos from the 1840s through WW1 diluted the original American identity beyond the possibility of restoration, but mid-century experiences (Great Depression, WW2, mass media, space race, etc.) managed to forge a composite American nation.
But then America’s elite threw it all in the trash by deciding that white supremacy was getting in the way of winning the ever important HEARTS AND MINDS of shithole countries like Upper Volta.
America isn’t a blueprint for anyone, other than wreckers who want to break nations. It’s a warning.
Too bad for Eurocucks that they’re our vassal states and thus instead following us like lemmings off the cliff.
That’s not to say that a focus on purity is necessarily desirable. Obviously such a focus in Russia or America today is ridiculous and counterproductive. But in a country like Sweden or Japan it isn’t.
My family’s genealogy is pretty well done, but no doubt if you go far enough back you’d be likely to find something more “exotic” than a German. Danes and Norwegians certainly; and possibly Scots, Dutchmen, and Walloons. Finns and Slavs less likely but who knows.
They were high but 90% sounds unlikely though it would be good if someone looked the figures up (though I dimly recall that might have been the case in the singular aftermath of Stalingrad).
Anyhow, the two situations are not comparable not even on account of the Nazis having been the ones who attacked as by the fact that the USSR faced a food crisis of its own. A few million died of food shortages within the USSR during 1941-43; IIRC, around half of all Gulag deaths ever also occurred during that period. It was undergoing a low-key famine of its own then (unlike Germany, which was well fed until late 1944). I mean yes, sovcucks will sovcuck, but I suppose even they draw the line at privileging captured enemy combatants over their “own” people.
I think it was in Beevor’s Stalingrad there was some account of a German POW Wehrmacht doctor getting fed and clothed by Russian peasants to supplement his low rations. Certainly there was very little of that happening wrt Russian POWs in Germany.
The French themselves developed a concept known as the NATURAL BORDERS OF FRANCE, and the “natural” eastern border was the Rhine. And the Rhineland was completely German.
Napoleon succeeded in making that the eastern French border, but we know how that turned out.
What’s unique about the Polish Partitions at all?
This thread is about Joseph Stalin and thus involves the discussion of history.
No doubt French and German nationalists have views on the two World Wars as well.
Russia has territorial concerns France and Germany do not for the simple reason that the USSR collapsed and stranded millions of Russians outside Russia’s borders. Russia’s late historical development also means we have oddities like two pseudo-Russian nations on its border. The only comparable thing to this in France or Germany is, what, Corsica?
The situation of Russia today is comparable to that of Germany after 1919, not Germany after 1990.
How many other states of early modern Europe were gobbled up by their neighbors? It was quite exceptional.
The French made hardly any progress towards accomplishing that between Richelieu and Napoleon. Louis XIV only got Alsace and Louis XV Lorraine (part of a negotiated swap) and Corsica , over a span of almost 200 years. They couldn’t even add the Spanish/Austrian Netherlands despite occupying them many times.
The revolutionary policy of annexation was obviously new (and not repeated in the 19th century) and ended in complete failure, with France being restored to pre-Revolutionary borders.
Frederick II’s annexation of Silesia was also regarded as exceptional and shocking.
All of this is despite Europe being more at war (and on a large scale) than not during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Nothing like it was repeated (barring the very minor and ultimately irrelevant division of Venice). Austria and Russia couldn’t even ever finish off the Ottoman Empire, despite having the idea since Potemkin and Catherine the Great.
Stalingrad is well known, only about 6000 of the Germans captured there survived; but iirc the same was true for Germans taken prisoner in 1941/1942 (the numbers weren’t that high by WW2 standards, somewhat above 100 000, unfortunately I can’t find a reference right now). Anyway, it could of course hardly be expected that the Soviet Union in 1941/42 would give much priority to caring for German pows, and in any case the policy changed during the later years of war; I also don’t doubt that something like with the elderly Russian women you mentioned did happen. It just seems implausible to me that Russians could have felt less hatred for Germans than the western allies, when the entire character of the war in the east was different (mostly conventional war in the west vs. highly ideological war in the east that was waged as a war of extermination and conquest by the Germans).
It is a concern in a historic context.
I mean, the entire point of the second half of EK’s article is that Stalinists say Stalin is good because he returned the Russian Empire to its older borders; EK points out that it was merely a rectification of Lenin’s sabotage, came at a huge cost, and in the end turned out to be a toxic gift anyway.
What, exactly, is controversial about any of that?
Modern Russian nationalists are quite open about having imperial ambitions on Belorussia, Novorossiya, and to a lesser extent, Northern Kazakhstan (fast becoming demographically unfeasible) and Malorossiya/Central Ukraine (has become politically unfeasible since 2014).
You are of course free not to like that, but, whatever. Romanian nationalists have imperial ambitions on their lost province of Moldova:
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1005417712875696128
(Incidentally, Russian nationalists don’t, aside from Transnistria; even though more Moldovans would vote to join Russia than join Romania).
I think that we’re pretty much in agreement here. My own pedigree is primarly of a ‘purebred’ variety, except that one of my grandparents was an ethnic Pole, all three of the others were Ukrainian. My mother insisted that way back when, a Greek entered into the picture too. What happens if you discover that the mysterious Slav in your own background turns out to be a Ukrainian? 🙂
Where do you get the Central Powers’ war aims? In Austria-Hungary, the Hungarian prime minister demanded and was promised a no annexations policy, meaning only minor, militarily important (and preferably uninhabited) areas to be annexed. The Hungarian political classes were unanimously opposed to large-scale annexations, because Hungarians were barely a majority in Hungary, and they didn’t want to diminish it, nor did they want to diminish the weight of Hungary within the Monarchy. The common sentiment among the Hungarian elites was expressed already at the time of the annexation of Bosnia: “Who needs another two million Slavs?”
Besides, Germany did conquer most of the areas shown as to be annexed, and they created nominally independent states, roughly along ethnic lines. I think for example they proposed a Poland under a Hohenzollern king. It’s very likely that they couldn’t have kept it half a century after their victory. (You were complaining about Russia losing the satellite states 45 years after the end of the war.)
The issue is not the 1914 or 1916 war aims. The issue is that apparently you still are bitter about those war aims not being fulfilled. I would’ve thought that by the 21st century, with the benefit of hindsight, we’d actually recognize that those were excessive war aims.
By the way the French did indeed win the war. They couldn’t fulfill their extreme ideas. Why do you think Russia could have done so?
Also, can you see here a French nationalist still bitter about not being able to dismember Germany? If such an idiotic French nationalist did appear here, do you think we’d all nod approvingly, and that we only criticize you because we all hate Russians?
Can you see German nationalists here bitter about not being able to annex Ukraine or the Ural? Do you think, should such an idiotic German nationalist appear here, we’d refrain from criticizing him, because we only hate Russians?
Are you aware that the Russian ethnic majority of your own country (which, actually, is still the biggest country on the planet) is far from assured a century from now? Is it not totally idiotic to fantasize about annexations of ethnically non-Russian areas under such circumstances?
Why not just say, “yeah, those were the war aims, they were kinda normal back then, but of course it was kinda excessive.”
The true meaning of Eurasianism is to make Central Asia Indo-European again and permanently expel the Turkic interlopers. This is where Jorjani succeeds and Duginites fail. Russia, as the leading the r1a power, should not shirk its holy duty to restore the steppes to their proper order.
Anglo peace plans promised European territories to their allies instead, who had the advantage of being actually in Europe.
Balance of power is heart of Anglo strategy wrt to Europe, so I wouldn’t write that in as a virtue – just a fact of life.
Your borders are defined by your islands (issue was settled during the 100 Years War). European countries do not have the luxury of sea-secured borders.
It’s ‘pseudo’only in your own mind. Why do you persist in presenting the opposite of what the vast majority of Ukrainians feel is their true nationality? Being stubbornly wrong doesn’t change the facts, as polls show in 2017:
https://www.unian.info/society/2208576-over-92-of-ukrainian-citizens-consider-themselves-ethnic-ukrainians-survey.html
Well, Karlin as I understand him is defending the moral legitimacy of Russian claims from the viewpoint of the time, which seems reasonable, rather than their desirability, which seems dubious.
Limiting the scope of comparison to 1453-1789 in Europe only is certainly convenient for considering the partitions of Poland exceptional.
This still leaves Brittany, Burgundy (not technically sovereign, but functionally so), Corsica, Foix, Mantua, numerous ex-Golden Horde khanates, the Cossack Hetmantate, Zeta, Serbia, Bosnia, Georgia, Navarre, and Granada.
There’s also the numerous states the Hapsburgs acquired which nominally still existed on paper but were administered directly from Vienna.
Luxembourg also quite nearly suffered Poland’s fate almost exactly (gobbled up by three neighbors in a series of partitions), but managed to maintain a tiny amount of territory.
I don’t think Russia was eviler than any other greater power. Tsarist Russia was not a very bad country. Germany and France also had excessive war aims. Austria-Hungary was excessive as it was, without annexations. It’s a bad thing that it was dismembered, but its very existence and structure were against human nature.
If the only question is whether Russian war aims were evil, no. But they were not desirable, I think not even for Russia.
Then there’s the fact that Britain helped itself to Germany’s colonies and intellectual property, along with portions of the Ottoman Empire and intended to take more.
And already in 1914 controlled one-quarter of the Earth’s surface.
Minor details, of course. England was the moral superpower of World War One.
It was (correctly) sincerely believed by most British people and politicians to be best for both Britain and for Europe since at least 1688. Saying that it is not more virtuous is like saying that a person growing up with good genetics, a stable family etc. who acts morally is equally virtuous as someone from the underclass who is an attempted murderer and thief.
All of those war aims go far beyond anything that can be justified in terms of borders. Independent buffer states do not require massive annexation and probably lead to more stable peace in any case.
I would really only be upset to discover the following:
-Jewish blood
-Gypsy blood
-Non-white blood of any kind
-Balkan blood other than Greek
I don’t have a problem with Ukrainians, after all Ukrainian women are renowned for their beauty. Who knows, perhaps such a woman was a camp follower and accompanied Karl’s beaten army home.
My issue is just Ukrainianism, owing to my taste for greatness. And Ukrainianism isn’t a problem for America (or Sweden, for which Ukrainianism is obviously an advantage). This is however Karlin’s blog, hence various attacks I’ve made.
Annexing Tanzania, Namibia and some Pacific Islands (not like either side had a great moral claim to them anyway) vs. subjugating all of Eastern and much of Central Europe. Who can say which is worse?
Virtually none of which was taken from European inhabitants and most of which was empty, inhabited by savages and/or improved by British rule.
I thought they did collaborate at times? He collaborated more with the Bolsheviks though, which was a huge mistake in hindsight.
Britain did her best to restrain France’s attempt to annex and destroy Germany
Are you proposing a moral distinction between annexing European and non-European populations?
I don’t have a problem with that distinction to be clear.
This still gets back to the fact that Britain was a thalassocracy, whereas Russia was a continental empire. What would a victorious Russia have done with some indefensible African colonies?
Now whether or not Tsarist Russia’s war aims were wise is a different question. In light of Russia’s internal instability at the time, I’m inclined to agree with the Magyar Miracle. But I don’t like the idea of thinking conquest is wrong.
If Ukraine is lost, then probably not just Moldova, but even Pridnestrovie is surely lost in the long-term too – from a simple problem of landlocked geography it now becomes impossible to supply the territory if it was annexed. From the sea, from Sevastopol, there is no way to supply the landlocked territory.
–
The strategic value and motivation for a future conflict over this territory should be mentioned.
It can be recalled that they have a wine production. Of course, wine is uninteresting – until you remember that wine can be distilled into the drinkable substance: cognac.
And that perhaps with foreboding for the future it is noted, that this fact has recently reached the American ‘radar’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMNPvn3g3TQ
Navarre is the only kingdom in that list, and iirc it became part of Spain through dynastic union. Much of the rest of that list is peripheral territories, often ones connected in some way with Muslims/Ottomans (therefore not really part of the European state system), or in the case of Burgundy and Brittany two territories that had always been part of the French kingdom, even if often de facto independent or on an abortive way to statehood.
The dismemberment of Poland, formerly a great European power, was really without parallel.
Looks like I wasn’t entirely correct about Navarre…but that exception isn’t that important imo.
What’s the matter with the vineyards in the Krasnodar region? Some of the greatest ‘cognacs’ are still made in Armenia (Ararat), that I think is still willing to supply Russia with enough of its aromatic product? Georgia too…are you guys still banning Georgian wines? Your loss is our benefit! 🙂
France made no attempt to annex Germany, that borders on the delusional.
They supported separatism in the Rhineland. Even after WW2 they would have liked to grab the Saarland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saar_Protectorate
It is very simple. Conquest is right when it is done by England or somehow related entities. It is wrong when it is done by anyone else.
(yes, okay, tongue in cheek)
I’d go for:
This further reinforces my strong belief that Russia should not have any sentimental illusions about Europeans, even European nationalists.
I mean, nationalism…….
Here I go.
I am quite aware of the sentiments re nationalism in alt-right sites, this in particular.
Most of them noble. At least on the surface.
I am also quite aware that nationalism appears to be the only viable counter to this globalization thing.
Sounds reasonable. Again, on the surface.
Now…..globalization was a rather good idea, and here we are now.
Nationalism was/is a rather good idea. Now, we do already know where it got us, several times, before.
Yes, yes…but this time it will be different.
Sounds as socialism will be different this time. Or communism. Or theocracy. Or…pick any.
Well, people can believe whatever they want. Free will.
I believe that nationalism will, most definitely, bring war in Europe.
How big, who, when, where, I don’t know. Have some suspicions but will leave them out for now.
But it will be bloody.
No problem, as long it doesn’t get nuclear.
My take anyway.
It’s a mater of historical record. I don’t have the full roster, which doesn’t make that reality untrue. There’s enough historical accounts and evidence, which explains why you continuously fail to disprove.
Ukrainians fighting on all sides during the Russian Civil War, is a fact that was stated some years back on the Ukrainian nationalist TV show Kontakt, aired in North America.
Somewhat reminded of the inaccurate notion that the present day Donbass rebels are pretty much exclusively ethnic Russian – adding that there’re those who qualify as being called Ukrainian, who choose differently.
Sure, but “separatism in the Rhineland” is a big step from “annexing Germany”. “Annexing Germany” in the manner of the partitions of Poland would have made no sense at all.
There are two things I’m always reminded of when someone mentions cognac.
The first is a joke from communist Hungary (I guess like most communist jokes it was originally a Soviet/Russian joke?): “Cognac is a drink of the toiling masses, which they drink through their elected representatives.”
The other is a company dinner, where I drank some truly expensive cognac (I can’t remember the price, but it was like you could get drunk several times at home from the price of the 2cl shot), and it tasted really good, but not as good as a less obscenely pricey one which I drank at the same place. Anyway, it’s a great drink. I mostly prefer wine for the occasion I drink. (Rarely.)
Don’t be so pedantic, DFH clearly meant “annex some parts of Germany and dismember the rest into little statelets”.
You don’t get Thorfinnsson.
You’re attaching all kinds of conditions in order to make the dismemberment of Poland seem more unique than it was.
The fact is that states have been getting dismembered for as long as there have been states.
Poland is exceptional here in that it was the largest and most powerful state to be dismembered in this historical time period in this part of the world.
The Russian Empire had a pretty decent run. It lasted longer than the USSR. The two headed eagle and tricolor have been readopted in place of Soviet symbols. The names of a number of Soviet towns/cities have been renamed to their pre-Soviet designations.
The popular in Russia Putin, has sought to mesh the best aspects of the Russian pre-Soviet and Soviet periods to conform with modern ideals. He has been involved with articulating a more positive view of the Russian Civil War era Whites – especially when compared to Soviet propaganda.
You’ve yet to prove differently, in line with your dull nationalist delivery, which ducks historical reality.
Not entirely, no, but I get enough. I’m getting at the difference between him and DFH. The latter would be okay with Thorfinnsson’s white surfer paradise, but only an Anglo surfer paradise– no Frogs allowed. Otherwise he’d start in about
(t. still in c.)
Stalins worst sin was exiling the Chechens within the USSR instead of expelling or exterminating them
You’re the one carrying on like a lying troll here by skirting around what has been factually presented.
The Whites had established units which gained additional personnel among those with ethnic roots to the territory which became the Ukrainian SSR.
On the matter of being factual, what’s the basis to conclusively claim that the obscure warlord you mention had a force of 70,000? With that actual number, he should’ve a more significant historical role in the Russian Civil War era fighting on the territory which became the Ukrainian SSR. Instead, he typically gets vaguer mention as a looter.
Reminded of the 57 number claim of subversives in the Manchurian Candidate movie.
Yes I did, oh dimwitted flunky liar, who provides rehashed BS.
The latter was never practical, and the former means “occupation of a small though industrially important part of Germany”. It’s fair to question the phrase “annex Germany” for that, with some of the more dire fates of other European nationalities in mind.
Anyway, it’s hard for me to see any evidence that the Brits opposed territorial gains for Italy, France, Russia, or Romania in Europe before 1918; maybe I missed it, I’m not a scholar of the period.
That’s not what I was contesting. Your reading comprehension sucks.
Well, at least my pedigree still remains honorable! 🙂
Well, I don’t know about that, but I’m positive that more than one of Karl’s soldiers left an indelible addition to the genetic heritage of Ukraine. A blonde and blue eyed Ukrainian friend of mine, from Cherkassy, who is the real deal Ukrainian cossack, often harkens back to his ‘viking ancestors’.
Did you know that one of the last real hetmans from the Hetmanate period of Ukrainian history was originally of Swedish ancestry – Philip Orlik, Mazepa’s most trusted confidant and a scion of Swedish aristocracy that even had large estates in France and Bohemia? His story is quite colorful and patriotic. He loved his adopted homeland and was the author of the famous ‘Orlik Constitution’? Quite the progressive document for its time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Pylyp_Orlyk
In his history of Salonica Mark Mazower says
After years fighting against the Muscovite tsars, Orlyk fled first to Sweden, and then passed through central Europe to the relative safety of the Ottoman lands. On 2 November 1722… the fifty-year-old Orlyk was ordered by the Porte to Salonica. There this cultivated and warm-hearted man spent no less than twelve years in exile, watching the twists and turns of European politics from the sidelines while his impoverished wife remained in Cracow and his eight children were dispersed throughout Europe. Only in March 1734 was he released, thanks to French intervention, and allowed to move north; still trying to organize an uprising in the Ukraine, he died in poverty nine years later. Orlyk’s misfortune has proved to be the historian’s gain, for from the day of his arrival he kept a diary which offers a unique insight into the eighteenth-century city… His urgent scrawl gives access not only to his voluminous political correspondence, most of which – in Latin, French, Polish and Ukrainian — was duly copied into his journals, but also to the rigours of daily life in his place of exile. The misbehaviour of his loutish servants, the local fare, his bag after a day’s shooting in the plains, stories told him by tailors, interpreters and bodyguards enliven its pages. Jesuits, consuls, doctors, spies and the Turkish judges and governors who ran the city all encountered the busy exile. Most of the time, he lived well, considering his predicament…[5]
You’re right for once! I initially relied on my memory (which sometimes sucks) of what I thought AP had printed. You desired proof that Makhno actually regretted not working closer with the national forces later in life. Perhaps, AP can help you with that one.
The only cognac I ever once bought a bottle of was Hennessy. No Remy Martin.
Result of years of brainwashing by Tupac.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edaBh-VNTBQ
A way to pre-empt NATO plans – the construction of an undersea pipeline from the KVINT factory to the Black Sea, along the sea floor, onwards to Sevastopol.
From there the precious alcoholic beverages could be pumped, transported onto lorries and carried overland on the Crimean Bridge, which now has a purpose finally worthy of it.
Of course, Tiraspol would have to be constantly re-enforced by paratroopers from the air. And the Black Sea Fleet on watchful patrol.
“Incidentally, Russian nationalists don’t, aside from Transnistria; even though more Moldovans would vote to join Russia than join Romania”
That is not entirely true. This retarded map you posted has Moldova and the Baltic states as part of greater Russia. I don’t know why Russian nationalists of any type would want the Baltics back except for “Muh recovered territories” reasoning.
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/sputnik-i-pogrom-big-russia.jpg
Nobody believes those numbers, identity doesn’t change overnight. It would be like surveying people before WWII in Germany on whether they are German or Jewish, with no validation. Counting people in Ukraine who use Russian language – and prefer to use it – is a better indicator. There are a lot more of those, possibly 1/3 to 1/2.
The British welfare state started to take shape in 1908. It was in response to Prussia/Germany, not the USSR.
19C coal mining or factory work in Shenzhen were both superior to the alternative as the massive rise in working class living standards in both cases demonstrated.
The 5 year olds were going down with their families. Mining in those days involved a team, usually brothers or cousins working together on piecework.
You don’t have any roster, you provided no names of significant people nor names of units. Saying you read somewhere or saw something on some TV show isn’t evidence.
You claimed there was significant White support among Russian Empire Ukrainians from Ukraine, prove it by providing the pro-White ethnic Ukrainian troops from Russian Ukraine.
Try not to change the subject from your lies to Donbas now.
You presented no facts. I ask for them and you accuse me of autism.
To repeat:
You claimed there was a significant number of Ukrainians from Russian Empire Ukraine fighting for the Whites.
I asked for names of them, or names of units of them.
You provided neither.
I didn’t mention 70,000 but do not change the subject.
Again:
You claimed there was a significant number of Ukrainians from Russian Empire Ukraine fighting for the Whites.
I asked for names of them, or names of units of them.
No, you did not. As is seenhere.
Again:
You claimed there was a significant number of Ukrainians from Russian Empire Ukraine fighting for the Whites.
I asked for names of them, or names of units of them.
You provided neither, and still don’t.
Not true. Unless you consider ‘family’ their 7 year old brothers or cousins. The children were used because they were small – they could fit where adults couldn’t. Why do you lie about this? A black mark on British industrialisation?
Working class standards increased in Russia too, workers in 1960’s lived better than in 1930’s or 1910. If the suffering was worth it in Britain or is in Shenzhen, why are you so obsessed with Russia’ suffering during industrialisation?
The British welfare state was formed after WWII – largely in response to the threat posed by communist-socialist alternatives. In 1908 there was some Fabian socialist talk, minimal and irrelevant. There was no welfare state before 1945.
Why lie about it?
I have read books saying that thousands of ethnic Russian coalminers in the Donbass volunteeredmfor the Whites (but not the steel workers or townspeople except in Gorlivka).
And yet British workers enjoyed the highest living standards for the poor in the history of the world. The abolitionists told many lies and exaggerations to end slavery. The same people then went on to campaign, from the top down, to regulate the presence of women and children in predominately male working environments. The records they left are not always accurate.
Calling indentured labourers and transported conbicts “slaves” is an inaccuracy. They were not property without rights. Their service ended, typically after 7 years depending on the crime.
The lying likes of yourself strikes again with pretty much the same recycled deceit.
Once again, the Whites had established units before making the territory that became the Ukrainian SSR as their main base. Folks from that land were incorporated into these units.
You’ve failed to disprove otherwise. As the not so pro-White Kenez wrote about the swift defeat of the Russian Civil War era Ukrainian nationalist forces:
Nationalism was the primary concern only for a group of intellectuals and semi intellectuals, such as village teachers, minor bureaucrats and journalists. He goes onto to say: the peasants did not care enough to defend a Ukrainian government in Kiev.
A system of National Insurance for medical expenses, unemployment payments and pensions measured iced in 1908.
You’re quite a demagogic fraud. You gave a Wiki link to a warlord that you describe as a Ukrainian nationalist opposed to Petliura. That link claims he had a troop count of 70,000.
In turn , I very reasonably questioned that number which is high, given the attributed numbers to other Russian Civil War era forces. If this chap had such a number, it stands to reason that he would’ve been more militarily significant. Instead, he’s viewed as a peripheral figure, noted for looting.
I more than once directly answered your other point.
Rehashed BS deceit on your part.
Name the units of ethnic Ukrainians from Russian-Empire Ukraine you claim the Whites had established. Otherwise you are just making things up, i.e. lying as usual.
Thanks for confirming what I had already stated several times.
Now try to not change the subject and instead find evidence for your claim – or should I say lie?
Again, I asked a specific question:
Name the ethnic Ukrainian units or military formations from Russian ruled Ukraine that fought on the side of the Whites in 1917-1920.
You failed to do so.
Because there were none.
There was no widescale or even smallscale support for Russia among ethnic Ukrainians in Russian-ruled Ukraine. Only, perhaps, some individuals out of the millions. But you failed to provide even names of those so it must have been a small number indeed.
Saying you know someone or heard of someone doesn’t count.
Another lie. The evidence is right here.
You refused to answer my point and instead accused me of autism, remember:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/stalin-is-not-great/#comment-2366206
So once again, it’s a very simple question and one that would be very easy to answer if you were correct and honest:
Name the ethnic Ukrainian units or military formations from Russian ruled Ukraine that fought on the side of the Whites in 1917-1920.
You failed to do so.
Because there were none.
There was no widescale or even smallscale support for Russia among ethnic Ukrainians in Russian-ruled Ukraine. Only, perhaps, some individuals out of the millions. But you failed to provide even names of those so it must have been a small number indeed.
Saying you know someone or heard of someone doesn’t count.
Still didn’t answer the question.
As I’ve previously noted, it can be a fine line in determining what’s ethnic Ukrainian and ethnic Russian.
The US based academic establishment historian Peter Kenez uses the term Russianized Ukrainians, which refers to pro-Russian Ukrainians, who typically prefer speaking Russian.
Your comment relates to my point on the folks on the territory of what became the Ukrainian SSR had sided with the Whites or Reds. These individuals including people who qualify as ethnic Ukrainian. Despite their differences, the Whites and Reds supported some form of Russo-Ukrainian togetherness. There was also the matter of those who didn’t have a firm view either way (Ukrainian separatist or having some association with Russia).
Al this is said without contradicting the furthering development of a separate Ukrainian identity. Notwithstanding, I quite correctly reject the inaccurate accounting of the past.
You lie again, with a cherry picked reference, as opposed to my complete unedited comments on the matter.
Not really. Here are the ethnic policies of the West Ukrainian National Republic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Ukrainian_People%27s_Republic#Policies_towards_national_minorities_and_inter-ethnic_relations
Many of these are hardcore Russian nationalists. Azov battalion is largely Russian-speakers from Kharkiv.
That’s not a welfare state…and you know it. That happened after WWII.
Nah, small potatoes, Dima. Your boy Putler had bigger objectives in mind than transporting more ‘cognac’ to titillate the tastebuds of Russian sovoks. The new bridge will be used as a testing ground for the ‘little green men’ to battle ‘Banderites’ and ‘Nazis’ that will try to sabotage it (false flag operations), to keep the Crimeans on board for the grand ‘Ruskij Mir’ project. Hopefully the new bridge will help accomodate the hoards of Russian tourists?
https://youtu.be/6I6TXVqAyDU
I agree, just when anyone uses the royal ‘we’ when describing their own beliefs is more than a little pretentious, its as if one is embarrassed to admit their opinion is highly idiosyncratic. Kholmogorov is on the same level as Dugin or the Saker imo. Starikov looks like Karmazinov in comparison.
I don’t think you could buy these two at the restaurant. They only sold expensive and truly special cognacs.
Family to family is great. E.g. My father went into a countryside Red Terror camp begging for food 99 years ago. Walked away with a rifle. Smartly tied to his dog’s leash-collar to evoke dindu effect. Rifle rode his shoulder to Amerika in 1921.
Scholarly dross about poor miners, sourced from an upscale social-library-edu, SUCKS.
Heaven may be a place on Earth, after all.
You appear to have a negative opinion of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
It’s easy to laugh at religion and call them stupid. Although ultimately who are the ones laughing from the back of the S-Class, from the palace, and from the yacht off Monaco- and who are the stupid cattle sitting in the office all day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIMkvd8ZuyQ
Certainly the aboriginal mongoloid populations of Greater Siberia (around 1/3 of the planet’s land mass) remain the biggest victims of the Great European Land Grab that began in 1492.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/dna-traces-native-americans-ancestry-siberia
DNA analysis of the boy confirmed the child was a relative of ancient Siberian and East Asian people, concludes a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. Their analysis also showed that the child shares DNA with 80 percent of all modern Native American tribes, revealing that he is part of a direct ancestral line to Native Americans living today.
This discovery confirms archeologists’ idea that native people of North and South America descended from people who crossed a land bridge over the Bering Strait from East Asia and Siberia. But while there were archaeological signs to suggest that was the case, there was no DNA evidence until now.
There was quite a good Romanian film on this topic, actually. About the actual process of passing Orthodox seminary schools (and no, kiddy fiddling is not featured).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/21/One_Step_Behind_the_Seraphim_poster.jpg
Well, there were three or four migrations, so this boy’s people could have been grabbers themselves.
But the mistreatment that began in 1492 was what I was referencing. Not only that, it is debatable, when considering the norms at the time, if mistreatment is the correct description.
Blacks had positive market value while Indian’s value was negative, so they ended up dead. The white trash just states facts as they see them. The middle class relies more on the sense of hearing through which they instructions about propriety are received.
Good comment.
Don’t know the source, had it on my hard drive and reverse searched a copy on the Internet. Thanks for the details of AH’s policy. However, it was a German map, and seems to reflect the Septemberprogramm adequately. Presumably they just extrapolated AH’s and Bulgaria’s aims based on their own ideas for German territorial aggrandizement.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Ww1_germany_goals.GIF
Poland would be under a Romanov king. So that’s a direct analogue of Russian aims.
Why not? Soviet collapse took place substantially as a result of the total collapse of its soft power, especially amongst its elites.
That in turn was driven by economic problems that are specific to central planning.
Obviously, some sort of distancing would have likely occurred, since democratic transitions would not have gone away. However, it would be unlikely to take the form of an outright defection into a hostile bloc.
Dismembering Germany partially or in whole is one of the points on which I only speculate that. I don’t know what the concrete plans were in that respect (as opposed to installation of Romanovs in the newly independent kingdoms of East Central Europe, and the Turkey plans). So ascribing bitter on that score is simply wrong.
What remains a fact is that Communists fucked up Russia’s geopolitical position almost as comprehensively as they fucked up its economy and demographics. And they continue to dare to strut around my country as it they should have any right to a political voice after all that.
Well, his idea is marginal.
My extremely powerful idea is having them duke it out (with non-lethal weapons, and with medical services close at hand) with the sovoks for the fate of the Lenin monuments in Russia.
Sovoks win – they stay. Svidomy win – they get to pull it down. Rinse and repeat for every town and city. Make it a weekly, televised event.
It will let them have a sort of voice and investment into Russia’s direction, blow off necessary steam, and inject some necessary Bronze Age vitality into the body politic.
Well, you & Kholmogorov were complaining about Russia losing the spoils of war… 45 years later. And you were also complaining about Russia not annexing much. What did the USA annex back then?
Its potential GDP was by far the biggest in 1938 already, it was artificially depressed by the so-called Depression. The destruction of the rest of the world was temporary only.
The domination of the markets was something the USSR also won. Why do you think the Budapest metro used Soviet cars instead of more modern western models? Why do you think the best car available to Hungarian customers in the 1980s was… the Lada 2107?
Delivering nukes is not so easy. It needs to be escorted by lots of fighters (or even bombers to make it look like a conventional attack). The plane might be shot down. Remember, under such a hypothetical situation, the Luftwaffe received the bulk of the war production, and the land army would be demobilized, leading to a higher production level, so a much stronger air force and air defense. If just one B-29 was shot down without the bomb detonating, it could be reverse engineered.
It’s also well known that Hitler was unaware of German chemical superiority, which made him opposed to the usage of chemical weapons (except in mass murder). His calculations might have changed. He might then have realized that he had a chemical advantage. I know chemical weapons are not that effective, but they could still have made life in the UK quite difficult. Or life in New York. Or elsewhere, depending on advances in delivery technology.
How much earlier? Spying would have suddenly become extremely difficult. Without an American blueprint it might have taken longer.
There are all sorts of different maps. (This one in particular doesn’t actually include Moldova, if you look closely)
The reality is:
* Firm support – Belorussia, Novorossiya + Transnistria (that is even shared by many old school commies)
* Some support – Malorossiya (central Ukraine)
* Little support – Baltics (because NATO), Moldova (because too poor and Romanian), West Ukraine (because will be too much of a headache)
* Close to zero support – South Caucasus, non-Russian Central Asia
However, NATO does eventually have to be cajoled out of the Baltics. Its presence there is a standing insult to Russia.
The bulk of Soviet exports were also manufactured goods. For example the various Lada models. Or Zaporozhets, or Moskvich. (The latter two, especially Zaporozhets, with horrible reputations.) Soviet consumer goods did exist, and had very bad reputations in general (except Lada). (East German cars were more reliable, but were extremely noisy and with a horrible smell, due to the two-stroke engines.) You don’t know how much those were overpriced. And Hungary (and I think Czechoslovakia, too) for a long while exported uranium ore to the USSR. Was uranium ore correctly priced?
Another issue is that a lot of nominally Hungarian spending was there to further Soviet aims. E.g. the Hungarian People’s Army bought Scuds from the USSR. We didn’t need them, because we didn’t have tactical nuclear warheads. The Soviets would’ve given the warheads to us, if during a crisis similar to Cuba they’d blundered into a war with the West. So we bought them from the USSR, but they were for all practical purposes Soviet weapons, paid for and manned by Hungary. Hungary also had to spend vast sums on subsidizing Cuba (we imported sugar which we could also produce for a fraction of the price), and various “revolutionary movements” around the world. East Germany sent troops to Angola, while obviously there were no East German national interests served there.
I have seen some academic literature on Hungary being subsidized or not, and probably for most of the Soviet occupation it was not.
A very large fraction (a third perhaps?) of the USSR budget was spent on the military. So it could be that the RFSR and Belarus were paying for the military, while the rest didn’t.
Then there’s the question of building stuff with Russians. For example the USSR built an aircraft manufacturer in Tashkent. The engineers and directors were I guess mostly Russians. The apartments built for them were, obviously, used by them. But on paper even their salaries look like a Russian subsidy to Uzbekistan. When Uzbeks didn’t much benefit from it.
The apartment buildings built for the Russian settlers in the Baltic states benefited the Russians who moved there. Yet on paper they looked like Russian subsidies to Estonians or Latvians, when it had hugely negative value for them, creating a huge ethnic minority there.
And finally, even if it turned out that for example the empire was a net cost to Russia (as it probably was to Britain), you cannot call the subject peoples “freeloaders.” It’s absurd. You cannot call Kenyans or Nigerians “freeloaders” of the British Empire.
Anatoly take care with you new Russian clique of friends. They seem to be of the romatic-nationalist type and being a romantic always leads to unreasonable expectations in life. More Russian futurism and less Russian Empire larping.
Romania was an ally of the Central Powers. But already by 1914 it was clear that if it entered the war, it’d do so on the side of the Allies. And so it was.
Similarly, Italy was a founding member of the so-called “Triple Alliance” with A-H and Germany (until it expired in 1915; Romania actually joined this very same alliance), but then joined the Allies and attacked the Central Powers.
I don’t think either Germany or your hypothetical victorious Russia could have kept its allies indefinitely. Even the US will be unable to do so. But Russian soft power would have been weaker, because Russia would have been a poorer country than the area it tried to dominate.
And yet British workers enjoyed the highest living standards for the poor in the history of the world.
That’s interesting, I’ll have to go back and read my Dickens, or perhaps that is all propaganda as well?
You need to compare to the living standards prevalent elsewhere. Or earlier.
Living standards in Malthusian societies were horrible. Much better after the start of industrialization. The child workers work was horrible, but they could feed themselves well, and could often provide for their families.
The extreme myopia and autism manifested by nationalists of petty Eastern European statelets here in the comments section has impelled this Kekistani commenter to explain everything in a simple sentence than even a man-child with the mental faculties of a toddler can comprehend:
The Russians got ALL of the flak normally associated with being the purported “master race” of a purported Empire
while reaping NONE or even NEGATIVE benefits and perks normally associated with said status.
Projecting your historical anal pain by claiming that Estonia in the USSR was the same as Kenya in the British Empire is so laughable my warted green skinis gonna burst.
Because..? Estonians are a civilized people whose elites were half destroyed or forced into exile by a horrible totalitarian regime, and their country settled with Russians equivalent to maybe half or two thirds of the original population. As opposed to Kenyans, who consist of tribes of savages.
What are those benefits and perks supposed to be? What benefits did Britons reap from being the master race in India or their African empire? They got the chance to settle in Africa (same for Russians around the USSR), but then were kicked out or at least had to leave on their own after they were forced to give it all up. Britons didn’t get to settle India in significant numbers. They could only settle uninhabited or near uninhabited lands like Canada or Australia, same as Siberia for Russians.
From an ethnic genetic interests viewpoint Russian living space expanded in Kaliningrad, Karelia (it was actually better than if it had stayed in the Russian Empire all along, because Russians got to ethnically cleanse the area conquered in 1940/45), the Baltic countries (they went from 5-10% to 25-30% of the population, at least in Estonia and Latvia), Crimea, and perhaps some other areas within Russia itself. These were not huge benefits, but not negative.
The only negative “benefit” was the famine of 1946. Not a small issue, but it was a result of Soviet agricultural policy, and could have been avoided even with the agricultural exports (which were unnecessary in any event; in the case of East Germany starvation was largely the result of a too fast ethnic cleansing of Germans from the former eastern provinces.
The whole point of anti-interventionist nationalism is that empire is bad for the core ethnicity. It only serves the elites or the growth of the military bureaucracy and the MIC and state security apparatuses.
Austrians were proposing a Hapsburg king for Poland, and another one for Ukraine. As one of the Bushes in the USA has married Mexicans and produced Mexican Bushes, there were Polish and Ukrainian Hapsburgs ready to play the role. The Polish one ended up in a Nazi concentration camp as a Polish patriot, the Ukrainian one was even estranged from his Polish brother:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Wilhelm_of_Austria
Russians trade Transnistria to the Ukraine and Kaliningrad to Germany. Russia gets recognition of the Donbass, Crimea and those bits of Georgia. Everyone is happy.
But isn’t the next heir apparent, Ilarion, unassailable? I see that he has the good sense to hide his rolex’s before any photo opps.
However, NATO does eventually have to be cajoled out of the Baltics. Its presence there is a standing insult to Russia.
The Baltic states will never leave NATO and NATO will never abandon the Baltics. So why doesn’t Russia join NATO instead? As the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ’em join ’em; when life hands you lemons, make lemonade; and [insert additional vapid bromide here].
It’s not an original idea as Putin himself has suggested joining NATO on more than one occasion. It would immediately secure Russia’s western and northern frontiers, while allowing it to concentrate its forces against Russia’s true long term enemies, China and the Muslim world.
Of course Russia might prefer to be the big fish in the little pond that is the CSTO rather than playing second fiddle to the US in NATO, but the reality is that Russia is already number #2 in NATO’s only real rival, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and will eventually be bumped into third place by SCO member India.
And why would the Russian people want to permanently align themselves with a bunch of racial, religious and cultural aliens against not only America, Britain, France etc, but also their Slavic and Orthodox brethren in Eastern Europe? Maybe I’m wrong but I’d imagine that given the choice a solid majority of Russians would choose Europe over Asia every time.
Russia is in no position to join NATO or rejoin the G-8 (great idea by Trump BTW) any time soon. First it needs to come to a modus vivendi with Ukraine over Donetsk, Luhansk, and above all Crimea. This is not an insurmountable problem though, and if handled properly Russia’s annexation of Crimea could be recognized by the international community, including Ukraine.
Now fast-forward to Russia actually joining NATO, along with Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. All of a sudden you’d have a Franco-German-Russian continental bloc able to stand up to the Anglo-American bloc that has dominated the alliance since its inception.
Russia, though on its own much weaker economically and militarily than the US, could leverage its influence over continental nations (especially France, with its traditional distrust of les Anglo-Saxons) to reach essential parity with the US within NATO. But they need to be fully inside the tent to use this leverage.
And who knows, once Russia has joined NATO maybe they could also join the EU as first among equals in a Lisbon-to-Vladivostok bloc with a combined economy as large or larger than that of the US or China. Would that not be preferable than free trade and open borders with economic dynamos like Kyrgyzstan in the piddling Eurasian Union?
To Eurasianists and certain Russian nationalists this will come across as an unhinged screed by a capitulationist, a Westernizer, and, God forbid, an Atlanticist. So be it. But it’s my belief that Russia belongs to the White Christian world in general, and the Slavic and Orthodox world in particular. It would be a tragedy beyond belief if Russia chooses China and the Muslim world instead.
Good old Vasyl Vishivanij. I’ve often thought of picking up Timothy Snyder’s ‘The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke’, but with several scores of unread books lying on my library shelves, just haven’t gotten around to it. I was wondering if you’ve read it (I know that you’ve read some other books by Snyder). Also, I know that there is at least one other newer book written about him in Ukrainian, and was wondering the same?
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/timothy-snyder/the-red-prince/
Once that may have been plausible, when the Russian people loved America. However, America has scorned Russia again and again so even if Russia would agree to such a geopolitical policy America would make sure that it could never work.
Regarding Russia joining NATO:
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/16/opinion/l-nato-still-divides-780898.html
Russia has understandably lost a good deal of interest in joining NATO.
Russia has its own course, which seeks good relations with the West and China. Your G7/G8 point brings to mind the Western mass media BS reply to what Trump said on that subject this past Friday:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/08/donald-trump-shows-no-sign-compromise-flies-in-g7-summit
Predictable BS that as an example was top heavy on Chris Hayes’ June 7 MSNBC show. Russia is understandably not so interested in rejoining a “club” that has behaved like hypocritically sanctimonious EuroAtlantic blowhards, who interfere in the affairs of others (including Ukraine, prior to Yanukovych’s overthrow), in addition to militarily seeking to change the boundary of a nation (Serbia) – while piously lecturing Russia on proper behavior.
The world is much more than the G7. As Trump visits Quebec for a G7 meeting, Putin is in Beijing. The likes of Russia, China, India and South Korea aren’t in the G7. G7 advocacy has included an outdated notion of geopolitical significance.
Unable to successfully cajole Ukraine into joining it within its Eurasian dream projects with a big enough carrot, Russia has decided to try and beat Ukraine with a stick into submission, for four years now not any closer than before. Ukraine should have been one of Russia’s main partners in such a union, but alas it’s not to be. So your proposition makes practical sense, however, unfortunately wont play out well to Russian nationalists or imperialists, who remember believe that Moscow is still to become the ‘Third Rome’. Russia is still to remain a playground for unbridled oligarchic avarice, let’s see what Karlin has to say…
Trump might make it work.
Putin is in Beijing kowtowing to his new geopolitical masters. If Russia has to play second banana, it would be better to do so in the West rather than the East.
If Russia and Ukraine are ever to be friends and allies again, it will be in a European context, not a Eurasian one.
Yeah right. If those figures had been presented in the opposite configuration you wouldn’t be blabbering such nonsense. As far as identity adherence goes, the notion of a modern Ukrainian nationality has been circulating since the 1830’s, a pre-modern formulation since the autonomous Hetmanate state in 1648, and a medieval one since the capital city of Rus, Kyiv, was centered in Ukraine. So what ‘overnight changes’ do you have in mind?
Then what about the next president? Considering how even Trump’s moderate rapprochement attempts towards Russia has been resisted internally in America, I find the chance of a stable long-term relationship unlikely.
Hyper-ethnocentrism always leads to a nasty backlash against hyper-ethnocentric peoples such as the Spartans, the Germans under Nazi leadership, and diaspora Jews – for example, the repeated expulsions of the Jews from various countries, the world rising up in wrath against Nazi iniquity, Epaminondas crushing Sparta, etc.
More importantly, Christian morality and Aristotlean reason both demand that we eschew the sinful vices of ethno-masochism on the one hand and hyper-ethnocentrism on the other, in favor of the holy virtue of ethnic-self-respect.
In his critique of Stalin, Kholmogorov presents a very different ideal than that espoused by Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn advocated for a Russian ethno-state consisting of the current territories of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Belarus, and the majority-Slav northern districts of Kazakhstan. Kholmogorov seems to prefer an empire including all territory which was at any time controlled by the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, and then some, even though minorities (Finns, Balts, Poles, Romanians, Caucasians, and Central Asians) would outnumber East Slavs in such an empire.
While he does successfully expose the contradictions of neo-Stalinism, he seems to concede the validity of imperial and Stalinist conceptions of “greatness”, abandoning the ethno-nationalist ideal in the process.
It is the imperialism (which might have been a consequence of ethnocentrism in certain, but is hardly a necessary one, nor caused by it in the vast majority of its instances) that causes backlash, apart from the Jews who are an unusual case in having been a diaspora. Apart from their imperialist phase in the 20th (and 17th) century, Japanese hyper-ethnocentrism has never in itself caused a backlash.
It’s true that much of the American (((ruling class))) despise Russia, but I don’t believe that’s so among the general population. I think most Americans are closer to Trump’s views vis-a-vis Russia than, say, John McCain’s views. And thankfully McCain will be joining Anthony Bourdain in Hell real soon now 😉
There was no need to kill them; just don’t let the Vainakh return from Uzbekistan.
Probably a lot of problems could have been prevented if the Kremlin had just gradually relocated a lot of troublesome nationalities to Central Asia instead of doing these brutal and ultimately half-assed actions that made Russians look very bad but didn’t actually solve the problem in the long term.
But as long as the same figures are in charge of the US, America’s policy towards Russia will continue being hostile regardless of the desires of ordinary American people.
While some things can be enacted against the will of the ruling class (e.g. I don’t think the elite likes Trump’s tariffs or his ‘undermining of the international system’) others are much are harder to change and more subject to inertia (support for Israel and the KSA, anti-Russian policies).
Why are you condemning Bourdain’s spirit to hell? Was he any worse than the other candy-ass travel show cooks that fill the airwaives today? Do you prefer Rudy Maxa, who acts more like a business executive than the pleb Bourdain tried to portray?
99% of Germans don’t care about East Prussia at all, and nobody wants it back. It’s a total non-issue (apart from some people with personal connections to East Prussia, most notably AfD politician Björn Höcke, and I very much doubt even he would want it back). Anybody who thinks otherwise (or entertains frankly childish ideas like renaming Kaliningrad back to Königsberg to “offend” Germans) has absolutely no idea how the lost former Eastern territories are viewed in Germany today.
All we can do is hope that Trump continues driving foreign policy in a pro-Russian direction, and keeps the warmongering neocons on the sidelines. Italy’s new government is pro-Russian as well, so the anti-Russians in the Western alliance are now on the backfoot, where they belong.
Meh, Bourdain was just another anti-white media hack. If he was murdered or died of some chronic disease he might deserve some sympathy. But committing suicide and leaving behind an 11-year old daughter … fuck him.
No idea who Rudy Maxa is.
He actually has empowered them, how else to view the fact that John Bolton and associates have managed to play a prominent role in his administration. We’ll have to see what that means for relations with Russia, but the idea that Trump could stand for a more restrained foreign policy is obsolete imo.
I don’t know…I’ve watched a fair share of his shows and don’t recall any overtly ‘anti-white’ hysteria? Maybe I missed the one where he advocated torching the klu klux klan?…
https://youtu.be/dgxhvNWi3jI
Could it be that Trump has converted Bolton from neoconnery to Trumpism? Bolton’s negative influence certainly didn’t stop Trump calling for Russia’s readmission to the G-8, a pretty radical proposal when you think about it.
https://www.papercitymag.com/restaurants/anthony-bourdain-bans-white-people-houston-show-parts-unknown-cnn/#74488
tbh I don’t even know what “Trumpism” is supposed to mean, it’s not like Trump has ever formulated a coherent set of policies as far as I can tell. Maybe he’d really like to have better relations with Russia (perhaps not least with the idea of a war against Iran in mind), but I don’t get the impression he would be willing to make concessions or meaningful trust-building measures to achieve that.
This a typical Trump vs. Dweeb State issue. The last President meaningfully able to exercise control over the Dweeb State was probably Eisenhower, and it certainly helped that he was a retired 5-star general (field marshal) and was present for its birth. And even Eisenhower had serious troubles with it and once had to threaten to use an airborne division to invade an air force base. Kennedy and Nixon attempted to reign in the Dweeb State, and we may never know what role the Dweeb State played in their respective removals.
Two specific examples with respect to Russia:
The provision of “lethal aid” to the Ukraine (obsolete ATGMs and .50 caliber anti-materiel rifles) was something Trump opposed (he had it removed from the Republican Party’s 2016 campaign). In typical Trump style he asked bluntly why the Ukraine is America’s problem and said Germany should deal with it, and he remarked he wanted peace. He reluctantly agreed after his subordinates said the lethal aid would help preserve peace by “deterring” Russia.
More notable was the theatrical expulsion of Russian diplomats after the contrived Skripal Affair. Trump was opposed to expelling diplomats, considering it a European issue. He agree to “match” Europe’s expulsions. Then the next day it turned out European expulsions were quite small, but America expelled 60 or so diplomats. Trump was outraged.
I don’t say this to defend Trump of course, because it’s the leaders’ job to surround himself with the right subordinates which Trump hasn’t done. He had only to invite Pat Buchanan to the White House for instance.
We’ll see what comes out of Singapore. Trump has repeatedly said he doesn’t understand why America needs to have troops in South Korea. Obviously the Dweeb State desperately wants to keep those vacation properties, and they’ll probably outlast him even if they fail to remove him.
Since you’re an anti-interventionist as I understand, this sort of political science problem is a good reason to oppose interventionism and imperialism in general. Easily leads to vast, unaccountable security forces which exercise unchecked control over the state apparatus.
With all due respect Jeppo, you’re really stretching things here. With close to 20 years of TV programming, including 100’s of cooking/travel shows, I’d guess that 90% of his shows included great white chefs. His fondness for 5 star French cooking was legendary. Most of his friends and cooking buddies were white. So, for one episode he wanted to strictly narrow his focus on Asian, Latino, African and Indian cooking within the communities where such cuisines are home cooking:
Can you remember at school, when sometimes there is a drama, and your classmates put on costumes and – some annoying kid runs around saying “I am a wizard now!”.
Well e.g. Kirill, is one of annoying classmates at school, but now still doing this behaviour as an adult – and amusingly, unlike us as children when we laughed at this behaviours, the adults take it seriously, and donate money to him.
It’s not only that is it implausible that priests are necessarily more spiritual than the girl who is working in a supermarket, or the car mechanic, or the construction worker. But, more, that dressing up in the costume and acting so far above ordinary people, is itself counter in its essence to holiness.
Sure probably a lot are jolly fellows to get drunk together. But the really holy people will be not be dressing in costumes or trying to boast about their holiness.
That is why we have to return to the question of Stalin the historical figure and not Stalin the myth, and enquire into the degree and character of his greatness.
Inquire
Czechoslovakia was de facto state of the Czechs. Why would they want to dilute their dominant position? They just kicked out ethnic Germans, why to bring the problem back? Subcarpathian Ruthenia was let go almost without anyone noticing.
That’s a terrible idea. Russia is in a position of strength vis China and China is a reliable partner in a way only autocracies can be. The West behaves in random illogical ways on the other hand and has a new wave of insanity every 5 or 2.5 years.
Imagine Bourdain purposely ignoring the contributions of blacks to Jamaican cuisine, or of Chinese to Hong Kong cuisine, or of Arabs to Beirut cuisine. Ridiculous, right? So why should he get a pass when he racistly ignores the contributions of Texans (aka white people) to Houston cuisine?
Or how about the time he commiserated with some German cuck about the ONLY solution (Bourdain’s words) to the refugee problem in Germany being that in 70 years the Germans and the invaders would be completely mixed together in a “cappuccino-coloured” whole?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eJqXEoUU3U
Sounds kinda anti-white to me. Or his belittling of the Afrikaners in the South Africa episode, where at one point he referred to Boer heroes as “ugly.” What, compared to the Bantus?!?! LOL
I’m sure there are all kinds of other examples of his casual anti-white bigotry out there, but I couldn’t be bothered to find any more. No doubt Bourdain’s honky-hatred came with his (((mother’s))) milk, only to be reinforced later at the Chosenite News Network.
Maybe you’ll miss the guy, but I sure won’t.
This must win a prize for being one of the most deluded comments in the history of The Unz Review.
You are essentially saying that Russia should be so grateful for the opportunity to fight China for the privilege of licking the white man’s boots.
Russian response: Get bent.
This was already ridiculous enough when neocons (and the Russian liberal fifth column) was daydreaming about this in the 2000s but it is all the more absurd when we are moving towards a de facto alliance with China.
Russia’s only “true” enemies were, are, and will remain the the Kraut, the Jew, and Turk, and above all, the Eternal Anglo.
Conversely, let’s be very clear on this point: It is you, not us, who has a problem with China.
China’s vector of advance is maritime and points to the south and east (Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca). Russia is its strategic rear. It is you who will have to”concentrate forces” against it – assuming the US elites will continue to insist on meddling in China’s rightful sphere of influence – not us.
The Muslims might be problematic for Russia… and Europe, and China, and even the US and Israel, when they’re not using them as their useful idiots. But hardly relevant. Their only threat to Russia is demographic, and the best counter for that is just more racism and xenophobia. But that is something that we nationalists are working on by default. Otherwise, they are too stupid, dysfunctional, and disunited to pose any sort of realistic threat to serious Great Powers.
Russia accounts for 2% of world population and 3% of world product. It will be secondary within any power bloc it joins.
To date, China offers by far the best conditions and the least restrictions.
Russia approval rate of the US and the EU is around 25% and the sentiments are mutual.
Russian approval of China is around 70% and this sentiment is also mutual.
We have no interest in aligning ourselves with people who hate and despise us and plainly only want to use us as disposable bodies against China.
It is my hope that if the Russian people have learned one thing from the 20th century, it’s that you shouldn’t cuck for foreign ideologies.
The evidence suggests that they have. Your only allies in Russia on this score are the liberals, the ideological and often literal descendants of the Red scum.
Sorry, not interested in aligning with eurofags against the AngloZionists either… The Saker is that way.
First, it is unbecoming of a civilization of our stature, the Third and Last Rome, to jockey for second place.
Second, the Franks are no less neocon than the Anglos these days anyway, probably more.
Third, the entire thought experiment is pointless either. If the US showed no interest in allowing Russia to join NATO in the 1990s, when Russia for all intents and purposes was licking its boots, then it will never happen. That is because NATO’s mission is to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.
Correct (and I am the further thing from a Eurasianist).
The White Christian world – or rather brown neo-Communist world, to update it for current realities – that has been launching crusades against Russia since the 13th century and has killed tens of millions of them in the past century alone.
Or the Chinese world that has historically stuck to its domains, demanding only small symbolic tribute from vassal states, which has never launched any substantial wars of aggression against Russia, which does not threaten Russia but can instead shield it to some extent from Western hostility, which is progressing forwards even as Western civilization continues to degrade into an increasingly dysfunctional dystopia.
Good additional illustration of why dialogue with Atlanticists is impossible, be they old school neocons or this new variety of White Nationalists.
What you view as kowtowing to masters we consider a dialogue of equals… quite unlike how the US speaks to Russia and most of the rest of the world.
We will be the judges of that.
Russia is also more similar culturally to China.
Orthodox Christianity is far more similar to Taoism and Buddhism than it is to most forms of Western Christianity.
Its no accident Russia was always seen as half Oriental.
If Russia became closer to the West, it would merely lose what vitality it has now.
I think the rest of of the world should create a cordon sanitaire around the West and detach from it until it either dies or mutates into something different.
We can pity it from afar but we cannot help it.
Why would it be desirable to integrated into some single amalgamation with the West? The idea is a horror, and would be the death as an independent civilization.
There’s a point somewhere between war and peace, which is the ideal point for maintaining individual civilizations – although where this is exactly, is not clear.
Some degree of tension and conflict between countries though, can be positive for both sides (a sign of internal health).
Certainly, on the cultural level, there is also great advantage from cross-pollination and interaction with other great civilizations (i.e. importation of cultural goods).
The influence of French and above all, the English civilization, has been the essential for Russian cultural development. But only as the imported goods could be studied and reworked in private, and with sufficient insulation to create a different point of view.
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The future of Russian-Chinese relations are surely going to be very positive in the future. At the moment there is obviously too much linguistic isolation for any cultural cross-pollination, but even with all linguistic barriers* and some potential border issues, the rapport between countries is extremely warm already nowadays.
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https://rg.ru/2017/11/07/reg-sibfo/v-rossijskih-shkolah-nachalis-ekzameny-po-kitajskomu-iazyku.html
Best comment on this thread.
Russia’s problem has always been too LITTLE ethnocentrism, not too much – that went for the earlier Russian Empire (Danilevsky wrote at length about it), and for the USSR it goes without saying.
It only ever reached a golden mean during the late Russian Empire.
In any case, the possession of one of the world’s two most potent nuclear arsenals renders this entire point. The nuclear shield allows its wearer to be as absolutely ethnocentric as it wants.
No, he doesn’t. To repeat a point I have repeatedly made here – this article reflects the mental framework of the 1930s-40s. It is NOT a to-do list for 2018.
Not sure if Russia can be considered in a “position of strength” when its population and GDP are only one-ninth that of China. No wait, I am sure. It can’t.
Not denying that the West behaves in random, illogical ways though. It sure does. Part of the reason I’d like to see Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe fully integrated with the West is that the relatively based nature of those nations would help balance the totally pozzed nature of ours.
I see it as a win-win for both sides: a First World economy and the rule of law for the East, and a more nationalist and traditionalist ideology for the West.
The culture which can produce Tupac, Nike Air Max 90, and “Crawfish boil” (with the potatoes and newspaper on the table, etc) – well America still has some marks of a great civilization.
All this is at the latest from the 1990s though.
I actually wonder if in recent years American culture suffered from too much cultural amalgamation with Europe – due to the internet and travel patterns.
Justin Bieber is evil, but he is not even American. And this One Direction shit is coming from England. Sometimes America is the victim.
For postmodernists, yes. In the real world, however, the closest thing to Catholicism has always been Orthodoxy. Though of course now catholicism is transforming into some kind of liberation theology cult, which is a heresy, under the heretic pope francis.
Lol. You might want to reconsider.
Nike is producing some amazing sneakers lately. I just bought a pair of Nike Free Fkyknit, super lightweight with mesh for the humid New York summer and this amazing foam sole that I can’t get enough of.
I side with you on the Anatoly/Dmitry debate over sneaker cost.
We will need to set up smuggling routes to get these highly coveted American products past the cordon sanitaire, once established.
Russia doesn’t have a nationalist, traditionalist ideology. I’m not sure it even has any ideology at all, and its alleged traditionalism is merely the social attitudes of the 1970s with a very modest revival of Christianity.
Nationalist ideology has been very well developed by dissident intellectuals in the West, and the only traditionalist ideology you’ll find anywhere these days is Saudi Arabia (and, sadly, they’re giving up on that too).
I have long been a proponent of partnership with Russia, but 25 years of poking the bear with a stick in the eye has caused that ship to sail. The last chance was immediately after the election of Trump, but the ongoing coup d’etat effort against him by the Dweeb State and its allies in the press has made that obviously impossible.
At this point in time we should ask ourselves honestly whether or not we have more to gain from containing China or from appeasing them (for a price).
And of course this all seems like so much fooling around anyway. Of what relevance are things like the Nine Dash Line or the Crimea when we don’t even know if we’re still going to exist a century from now?
Its a position of strength because Russia is really quite good at waging war. The Chinese suck at it, frankly.
And because its funny, I use will PUA analogy instead to respond:
If Russia develops one-titis for the West, which it has before, it will be permanently in the friendzone or worse. It would much improve its position by keeping solid options open and indeed, its really only possible for her to keep its “soul” by doing so, rather than through continued economic and cultural subjugation to the West. The truth is that Russians do have a substantial Asiastic character to its culture , for better or worse, including less individuality and many more pretty intentionally indistinct social rules of behavior. Losing those aspects would basically be a kind of soul death, and given how pozzed the West is, its hardly seems like a good long-term plan.
Being added as a low-value member of the West’s cock carousal would not improve the amount of respect that it gets. Being in the SCO bloc, on the other hand, it commands respect because it is pretty necessary and so far, the Chinese at least haven’t displayed too many symptoms of chronic backstabbing disorder.
So really, even if Russia wanted better quality attention from the West, its best game plan is still to freeze out the West and wait until the West comes to beg for help.
Well, the distinction between revelation by mysticism(Orthodoxy) and revelation by rationality(Catholicism) has gradually built a pretty significant gap over time, in my opinion.
I think that Catholicism’s need to reconcile with the notion that knowledge of God comes from knowledge of God’s creation(the world, and thus science) and thus allowing its legitimacy to come from a kind of third party gave it a substantial advantage in the kind of clergy it would attract, but also has a built-in weakness.
Catholicism today is very far from orthodoxy.
But the two were never very close. Catholicism always had an ambivalent relationship to its mystics, and Meister Eckhardt was declared a heretic, while mysticism is at the very center of Orthodoxy.
At some point, Catholicism embraced its strain of Aristotelian rationality and lost touch with its mystical side, which is why it died.
There is s very nice book written by an Orthodox monk called Christ The Eternal Tao, about the striking similarities between the two traditions.
I simply can’t imagine any mainstream Catholic after the year 1500 expressing that kind of sympathy for Taoism.
And today I am told by most Westerners that they have nothing to learn from other traditions, but must double down.
Reiner Tor, as a Hungarian Catholic you will be firmly on the Western side of the cordon sanitaire. Don’t you dare try and escape !
Well, at the very least it appears that you found the guy interesting and watched more than a handful of his shows. His manner of conducting a cooking show was different and his disdain for snobbery was refreshing. That’s not to say that he didn’t appreciate 5-star French cooking, and often shared his experiences at upscale cookeries, definitely appreciating the bounty placed in front of him. But he also was a devotee of great street food too, and liked to mix it up there as well. I felt sorry for him during his alcoholic binges (which were often taped) as I do for many people with subtance abuse issues. Suicide is easy to criticize, but not easy to do…:-( RIP Bourdain.
Addendum:
If there’s a moral to his story, it’s that fame, fortune and the good life aren’t really enough to sustain us as we go through this life.
Luke: 4:4
I’m an atheist catholic, but at least not a postmodernist.
With the advent of postmodernism, anything goes. Before that, there were the Jesuits. I’d be surprised if no Jesuit ever wrote a book about how great Taoism was.
You, as a postmodernist, like all this, since you don’t believe in anything, except “spirituality” itself.
And calling me a postmodernist because I support a return to pre-Enlightenment traditional European culture is pretty silly I’m afraid.
It is true that postmodernism may superficially share some features with mysticism and pre-Enlightenment ways of thinking, in that both do not privilege logic and are keenly aware of the illosury nature of much that we think is solid, but only someone with a weak grasp of intellectual history and a mind trained to think in simple essentialist categories – likely through too heavy a diet of Aristotelian rationalism, which demolishes the ability to perceive complexity – would fail to grasp the enormous differences between the two.
Now, back to your side of the cordon sanitaire!
I think the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy was small relative to the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism.
Anyway, obviously culturally Protestants and Catholics come from the same or culturally similar countries, so in that sense one can speak of “Western Christianity,” but it’s all irrelevant now.
As a modern Westerner, your mind has atrophied to the point where you cannot distinguish between post-modern and pre-modern ways of thought.
It is not your fault. Western rationalism has led to a catastrophic loss of the ability to perceive complexity and nuance, and suffers from an irresistible compulsions to think of everything in terms of simple essentialist categories – witness the low intellectual level of the debate on IQ.
Please understand I am not calling you stupid. You are actually quite intelligent. You have merely been traumatized by catastrophic cultural collapse.
Pre-Enlightenment you’d be killed, if unlucky, by burning at the stake. I agree that a return to those values would have its benefits.
Lol.
In a traditional society, I would pay my respects to the reigning orthodoxy, and join some order of mystics.
I would be quite happy. I believe the reality we see with our senses is an illusion – I’m not likely to get myself killed over some dispute over the precise nature of an illusion.
Wouldn’t the spendthrift second son of lord just nod randomly to anything he says and then ask for a loan from the ghetto synagogue, which he promises that he will pay back this time?
The recent ‘changes’ in identity numbers. I would say exactly the same thing, if the numbers suddenly switched the other way. It will take a generation or two and completely non-Russian education for the Russian minority and Russian speakers to assimilate. Do you think Kiev will get that long?
You are also off on the Euroasia customs union: it has not been primarily Russia that has been hostile, it was the post-Maidan rump Ukraine that went out of its way to antagonize Russia. Kiev’s argument seems to be that since ‘moving to EU’ is very expensive and disruptive to the economy, Russia has an obligation to pay for it with subsidies, trade, workers in Russia, etc… That is absurd, no country would do that. Post-Maidan Ukraine should had immediately reaffirmed its trade and other relationships with Russia – and do nothing about the Russian speaking minority. They did the opposite and now they are paying a price for that stupidity. But I guess it felt good at that time. So does a bottle of Courvoisier at 4 am.
Before 1400, there were 2 people ever burnt at the stake in England. Even in places where they were keen on it, I think that most of the people burnt were Jews anyway.
I find this comment rather ironic, since from what I have seen of your other comments, it is you who never talks in specifics and only in very broad, vague categories. I don’t recall you ever mentioning any unit of analysis in your discussions of intellectual history smaller than ‘the Enlightenment’.
That’s quite a bit lucky for us, don’t you think?
Well, I have tried multiple times to describe the complex way logic is appropriate and should be used, and how the multiple levels of reality make logic both valid and invalid.
Whereas the Enlightenment for instance is about destroying these nuances and enthroning logic as the sole means of knowing all reality. Period.
Unless you live in the jungle or something, there is no escape from modern knowledge and perspectives.
However, there are distinctions in how people confront this knowledge, as between people who confront honestly with objectivity, interest in facts and rationality, or those who run away into fantasy, activism, emotional views, etc. I think maybe it would be fair to use word ‘post-modernist’ for the latter category.
People like Kholmogorov are a little post-modernist in this sense, and for them religion seems some kind of ‘posing’, or way to dress up in costumes, or to support their political activism.
I’ll respect actual “god-fearing” people, but find very discordant the political activism using religious dress, and so on,
At the same time, kind of activist (post-modern) attitude to truth – is something feels morally weak, but “adaptively weak” (it’s not bad if you want to survive in life).The whole 20th century was full of these kinds of attitudes (and the honest and strong/truthful people were often first to be in the labour camp).
They certainly burned Cathars and other heretics (real or suspected) in northern Italy and southern France though.
In Germany there was also the bizarre case of the inquisitor Konrad of Marburg who in the early 1230s claimed to have uncovered a network of Satan-worshippers and had numerous people burnt (until some nobles felt he was going too far and killed him).
So such things did happen, even though they weren’t a universal occurrence in Christendom at all times and in all places.
This must win a prize for being one of the most deluded comments in the history of The Unz Review.
I didn’t even think it was one of the most deluded comments in this thread. But at least there’s a prize!
You are essentially saying that Russia should be so grateful for the opportunity to fight China for the privilege of licking the white man’s boots.
Nobody wants to fight China. But as I pointed out to Daniel Chieh, Russia’s population and GDP are only one-ninth that of China. It’s not exactly a relationship of equals, unless you consider, say, the Canadian-American relationship one of equals.
Russia’s only “true” enemies were, are, and will remain the the Kraut, the Jew, and Turk, and above all, the Eternal Anglo.
And the Ukrainian, and the Pole, and the Balt, and the Finn, and the Swede, and the etc. Nations don’t have permanent enemies, only permanent interests (h/t Lord Palmerston). Why presume an eternal hostility between Russia and the West? Trump doesn’t presume this, neither does new Italian PM Conte, nor do the vast majority of ordinary Europeans or Americans. It doesn’t have to be this way.
China’s vector of advance is maritime and points to the south and east (Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca). Russia is its strategic rear. It is you who will have to”concentrate forces” against it – assuming the US elites will continue to insist on meddling in China’s rightful sphere of influence – not us.
China’s thousands of miles away from North America and Europe but it shares a very long border with Russia, so you might want to reconsider who will have to concentrate forces against whom. Not only that but there are 110 million land-hungry people in Manchuria alone butting up against only 6 million in the entire Russian Far East. But I’m sure China’s “vector of advance” is only to the south and east, definitely not to the north and west.
Russia accounts for 2% of world population and 3% of world product. It will be secondary within any power bloc it joins.
Agreed, but Russia could project more power through a group of like-minded allies within any given power bloc. Russia is isolated as the only European Christian nation among all the Asiatic Muslim, Hindu and Confucianist nations in the SCO, while NATO, apart from Turkey, is entirely European and Christian in character. And 11 NATO nations are Orthodox Christian, Russia’s little brothers in faith. Clearly NATO is a much better cultural and geopolitical fit for Russia than the SCO is.
Russia approval rate of the US and the EU is around 25% and the sentiments are mutual.
It’s unfortunate that the West is so unpopular in Russia, but the sentiments are not mutual. Maybe Western elites are hostile to Russia but the ordinary people aren’t, and we can always get new elites. Sentiments can change, and hopefully will change. Again, there is no reason why the current hostility needs to be permanent, and we should all work towards mending fences with one another.
Sorry, not interested in aligning with eurofags against the AngloZionists either… The Saker is that way.
Nobody cares what the Saker thinks but even a stopped clock is occasionally correct. Move in and conquer the Eurofags and convert them to good, old-fashioned Russian homophobia. Heaven knows they deserve it, and post-Brexit they’re practically begging for new leadership. So, provide it.
First, it is unbecoming of a civilization of our stature, the Third and Last Rome, to jockey for second place.
Once you conquer the continental Eurofags through shrewd diplomacy and a much-needed nationalist and traditionalist ideology, then you can stand eye-to-eye with the US, tied for first. Or you can settle for bronze in the SCO behind gold China and silver India. Seems like an easy choice to me.
That is because NATO’s mission is to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.
That was NATO’s Cold War mission. The Cold War’s over. These things are not set in stone, so why not take the opportunity to change things in Russia’s favour? America will not be able to block Russia’s entry into NATO if France, Germany and a bunch of other continental nations are supportive of it. Otherwise the Eurofags might make a separate deal with Russia that excludes the Americans, and they definitely don’t want that.
Or the Chinese world that has historically stuck to its domains, demanding only small symbolic tribute from vassal states, which has never launched any substantial wars of aggression against Russia, which does not threaten Russia but can instead shield it to some extent from Western hostility, which is progressing forwards even as Western civilization continues to degrade into an increasingly dysfunctional dystopia.
Really? So your best-case scenario is Russia as a vassal state of China, hopefully paying “only” a small symbolic tribute to your new yellow masters. Doesn’t seem all that ambitious for the Third Rome. Why not take over the European continent instead? Post-Brexit, they’re practically begging you to do it.
We will be the judges of that.
Yes you will. And I hope that Trump and Conte will be joined by many more pro-Russian Western statesmen who will help you make the right choice: West, not East
“And 11 NATO nations are Orthodox Christian”
Brainfart. Five Orthodox nations are in NATO and/or the EU, along with an additional 7 Balto-Slavic nations.
See, when sufficiently provoked you’re quite capable of pre-Enlightenment thinking 🙂
The banana guy retired last year after failing to successfully rank the bananas for his masters. That ship has sailed. We are in a post-banana world where all fruits are equal. Macron – and even Justin, the Western village idiot – just gave some serious lip to the T-man. The external expansion has stalled, so they are starting to fight over scraps. All gangs act that way, they turn on each other once they are cooped up and cannot grow.
What now? Russia holds the resources that make anyone allied with it more powerful in the global ranking competition. Anglo globalists attempted to wrestle these resources for free, and failed. That became obvious by 2014, so they took their toys are retreated home. Their franko-german ‘allies’ are trying to sit on the fence, but heavily leaning West. They are neither independent nor powerful enough to be much more than a tool. As all disposable tools, their fate will be rather grim. China has patience and time on its side, so they opt for stability. India doesn’t mater – it is the ultimate sh..hole, a post-civilisation overrun by natives with few resources or prospects.
Russia has gone from being close to collapse and disappearance 20 years ago to a solid, unmovable, resources-rich monolith. These trends are not about to reverse, trends always go on a lot longer than impatient strategists expect. This will continue for a few more decades: shrinking anglo world, growing China, noisy, but irrelevant Europe. And Russia on its own, they might even grow their own bananas with the ‘climate change’ and all.
(By the way, check out who holds most of the global fresh-water resources. Yes, them again.)
The healthier position for Russia is a little (mild) separateness and tension with other civilizations. This is one area the government is not completely incompetent and understands it needs to be independent.
You are writing about what is good for the West, but what kind of policy will preserve a somewhat independent Russia over the 21st century.
The question how much tension and separateness is needed, is something debatable.
This doesn’t say at all that there shouldn’t be importation of foreign culture, technologies, or school exchanges, interchange of workers, admiration of the many areas where Western methodology is more efficient and successful, etc.
At the same time, there should be the creation of independent achievements, that can be admired.
It’s relevant the history of Meiji Japan in this area. (The Japanese were very aware of their weakness and where they were less successful to the West, and used importation to improve in many areas.)
As for Trump. I believe he feels intuitively something similar for America – he’s often trying to create a little tension with Europe, after Obama had seemed to be almost agreeing in each area with leading European politicians.
This is a map of Chinese population. As you can see, it is concentrated on urban coastlines, it is also warmer lands with more rainfall. In terms of cold arid lands with poor soil quality, China has quite enough and doesn’t need to go further north for great adventures with permafrost especially with a declining population.
http://www.china-food-security.org/images/maps/pop/pop_2_h.jpg
India is probably not going to accomplish very much. Inside the SCO, Russia probably will be the main security guarantor which gives them something beyond “second place.”
Shouldn’t they first drop the sanctions? Not to much, its not like the continental nations have anything akin to a coordinated policy, and its unlikely that the EU will exist as a coherent bloc in even a decade.
So unless this conquest is done literally with tanks, I doubt anything is going to come out from it. Besides, the Western European governments essentially act as if they are superior to the Russians(and to some extent, you encapsulate that attitude), while the Chinese have gone well out of their way to treat the Russians as equals.
As I noted before, its basically to the Russian advantage to wait for individual Western nations to beg for concessions, rather than be the one begging for concessions.
Funny you didn’t include Poles on that list
Back in 2016 AK thought anti-Russian attitudes in Poland were due to German influence:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/fourth-reich-vs-fake-news/
So I guess he sees Poland merely as a minor Kraut adjunct 🙂
Can you? That is the trillion dollar question at the heart of today’s Western world. I don’t know the answer. To most objective observers it looks like the globo-homo-anglo dominance is not about to end. Conte, Salvini, Syriza, Farage, Kurz…they come and go, but the system seems impregnable and even seems in an escalating phase. A lot of things common in the West today – open censorship, people in jail for YouTube videos, migrants in 5-star hotels, multi-gender mania, invading Syria or Mali – many of those things would had been unthinkable 10 years ago. The ‘elites’ seem in charge, they just fight with each more than few years back. That happens as resources dry up.
By the way, I like the rest of your post. And regarding delusional prizes, I have always thought that I have the inner lane, but there is a lot of competition lately. We need to try harder…
Most conflict I see these days between Russia and China are quite trivial all things considered: the most serious probably were arms deals to which Russia and China often are trying to sell similar things. But until the cyberpunkization of the world manages to turn both in megacorps, that’s probably never going to be a cause for armed conflict.
Recreating East Prussia would be for the benefit of history buffs like me, it would have to be forced on the modern German leadership. Kaliningrad is just an absurdity that should not exist.
That makes sense, after all, what other reason could Poles possibly have for being anti-Russian?
I’m getting worried that AK has decided that Belarussians and the Ukraine are not enough, and that Poles too are really just Russians in denial.
I think you’ll enjoy parts of Russia very much. There are parts of its culture which can seem so alien to the modern world that it is amazing to remember that it can actually exist.
My one of my favorite recollections was being at this banya with a few friends, and laughing pretty hard but also acknowledge this entire notion that you’re not a man until you’re mostly naked with other men, utterly drunk, roasted alive and some huge tattooed guy with a huge beard comes in. frowns disapprovingly and randomly remarks that all men have become fags for not beating each other with venik branches. Exit stage left.
I think it was a little while after that when I realized that I lost track of time, the outside world, and I didn’t care. Most of the time in the modern world, you’re always aware of the time, of what one should be doing, of what’s coming up, of a million little worries, but not then. Its just each other, awful lot of drinking, and weird embarrassing rambles.
Its easy to see how in social things like that, its a natural hotspot for potential corruption or “rule by man” instead of “rule by law.” But its also hard not to find something beautiful in it all.
Re-enacting the old posters.
https://rossaprimavera.ru/static/files/206f7d25.jpg
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http://cdn2.gbtimes.com/cdn/farfuture/LcWadntDEmxACpXmv4dZYB_dcSPfPdb8pMuXcW_MEzw/mtime:1484056376/sites/default/files/styles/768_wide/public/2017/01/10/china-russia.jpg?itok=JjFAgqUk
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3.
Forever friends.
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/3b/c2/9d/3bc29d6ff70e310e811e277b5c561592.jpg
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyjp36pzwEo
That has become almost impossible, ‘EU consensus‘ is sacred. Country after country has come out and said they don’t support the sanctions, but will not ‘jeopardise EU unity’. Greece, Hungary, Austria, now Italy, and a few others. They are stuck, and there is no current process that could officially drop the sanctions.
Paris and Berlin have tried a different approach, forever suggesting to Russia to give in publicly on something big so they could then quietly – and gradually – drop the sanctions. I don’t see any reason why Russia would agree to that.
I talked to an EU guy and he said that the sanctions were meant like a traffic fine. The idea was that Russia broke a rule (‘Crimea’), and EU – the traffic policeman – gave them a penalty. It was not meant to destroy Russia’s economy, so those who say that the sanctions didn’t work miss the point. It was a simple reaction to breaking of rules.
We can hopefully see the incredible idiocy built into that way of thinking. Brussels started with a false analogy (geo-politics is not traffic enforcement), a common enough error. Then they did something that was neither effective nor manageable, and that didn’t work as described. It was not a one-time thing (like a traffic fine), but an ongoing status change. There was also no thought given to the next steps, how to escalate or drop the sanctions. As with all f..ck-ups by the elites, the most likely solution will be a quiet – very quiet – abandonment over time. There will be no announcement and no negotiation, and definitely no deal. It will just be slowly forgotten.
(Thank you for the China population map, it says it all. One point: Siberia is cold, but nor arid. It actually has too much water.)
The new Leningrad music clip was going that direction.
(Some fucked anti-advertising song for Peugeot cars though.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-GQDCtt1Vk
A few years later Soviet and Chinese troops shot at each other at the border.
But maybe it turns out different this time, at least the Chinese leadership isn’t as crazy as during Mao’s time.
I hope Stalin and Mao are playing chess in Hell now. They so richly deserve each other.
Pretty good animation. Gopniks of the future seem to lift more.
That really does sound like a great experience 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
These moments free from all care, when time disappears – they are precious, and what’s so great about travel. Its like achieving unity with the cosmos and no longer being a detached fragment. I find such moments hard to come by in America – because one is never supposed to be free of care, never supposed to transcend everyday concerns here. And that frowning bearded man – that’s the kind of zany thing that loosens the grip of mundane reality and helps transport you to another place.
You’re so making me want to visit Russia! My father, who was Jewish (but not Russian), studied at university in Moscow and never had a bad word to say about Russians. I have since learned that’s highly unusual among Jews. As a stupid young American I thought the Russians were “inferior” – my father would have none of it. Always praised their intelligence and had fond memories of the place.
I see your point about this kind of atmosphere being less conducive to law and more conducive to rule by charismatic men – because it’s a less logical and more sensuous place. But is beauty worth reading for efficiency in this fallen world of ours where nothing will be perfect anyways? I don’t think so.
Relying simply on continued good intergovernmental relations is too unreliable. It’s now important to build up not just economic relations, but also some cultural understanding. The promotion of each other’s languages should be a priority (in Russia, momentum for the study of Chinese (Mandarin) growing in the school system but kind of slowly).
His show became more PC when it went to CNN. The one he did on Russia was stereotypical BS. In comparison, he was much more sympathetic to Iran and Vietnam, which is in line with CNN’s PC slant.
Westies prone to highlighting past Sino-Russo/Sino-Soviet differences as being very contentious to the point of questioning good long term ties between the two, typically don’t mention events like the Boxer Rebellion (involving Western powers, along with Russia) and Korean War (very much involving the US). Times can and have changed.
He was personal friends with Nemtsov so he was sure to include bitching about Putin in any segment where he got in the neighborhood.
More accurately put, a good number of Jews (not all) expressing such in a high profile mass media propping, unlike others. Related:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/12/12/countering-anti-russian-propaganda.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/10/11/slanting-against-russia-us-establishment-pastime.html
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/09/21/getting-russia-wrong-again.html
Keeping in mind that The NYT has for a number of years had two people of White Russian background on their staff. How often and well have they actually explained mainstream Russian gripes? It’s easy to get subconsciously duped by the otherwise faulty mass media imagery.
Or was it more a case of Bourdain getting introduced to Nemtsov, without having a valid counter offered to the latter?
Well, Russia was part of the imperialists carving up China then (and as I noted earlier, Kholmogorov also whines about how Russia didn’t get to keep its influence in Manchuria), so that doesn’t exactly contradict scepticism about Russian-Chinese ties.
Soviet-Sino relations in the 1950s were of course very important, with the Soviet Union aiding China massively (if ever there were “ungrateful freeloaders” on Russian largesse Mao’s Chinese have a rather better claim to that title than Balts or Poles). But that didn’t turn out well in the end.
Personally, I have no opinion on how Russian-Chinese relations are going to develop, and don’t care much tbh.
What I said in full:
The British fought two wars against the Americans and sympathized with the US Civil War era Confederacy – stances different from Russia. In turn, the US sympathized with Russia when the latter fought the Brits, French and Turks during the Crimean War. The point being that things like alliances can and have changed.
You can also tell that to Ak when he writes sentences like
which seem to be based on the assumption that Nazi Germany = all of Western Christendom during the last millennium, no rapprochement ever possible.
Anyway, I didn’t even question that some kind of Russian-Chinese alliance makes a lot of sense today given US pretensions to global hegemony. How it will turn out for Russia when or if China becomes as powerful as is often predicted, remains to be seen though.
What was true during the Qing Empire (a Malthusian society ruled over by a foreign elite), the Republic, and under Mao is no longer necessarily true today.
In the tank biathlon competitions, China consistently places second after Russia, which might be more invested in it anyway since it hosts them. Chinese spec forces dominate international competitions.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/military-spending-in-2017/#comment-2315638
Also as the complexity of war continues to increase, it will become more and more g loaded.
Russia’s security guarantee vs. China is, ofc, ultimately its nukes.
Laughable. Too small league for that.
As a worthy civilization, Russia only acknowledges worthy adversaries: The Kraut, the Jew, the Turk, and the Eternal Anglo.
More nonsense as per Daniel Chieh’s comment.
And my own texts: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russia-china-no-war/
I will not ruin you fantasies. But they are just that: Fantasies.
On that note, Russia gets on splendidly with India.
We helped deter American aggression against them in 1971 and they still appreciate that.
Russia must abandon its Asian connections to suck up to the West… why?
The SCO doesn’t do league tables… that’s the whole point.
And Russia will most certainly not be “silver” in NATO. It will be at the very back of the cue, atoning and paying reparations for its evil repressions against ukrs and homos for eternity.
Well the opinion polls flatly say otherwise.
Russia can certainly cooperate with individual Western states and it does and will continue to do so, but only from a position of distance and guarded neutrality.
Considering the number of times its been burned, it would be retarded to do otherwise.
While you are in general an excellent commentator, you have a habit of zeroing in on some interpretation you have and not letting go in the face of more and more evidence. E.g., that discussion about Kirkegaard and the smears about him. And now the consistent failure to acknowledge that Kholmogorov is speaking of the 1930s-40s by the ethical standards and geopolitical prerogatives of those times, not today. Which I would imagine is incredibly clear from the text, I just don’t get how so many people no this thread are not getting it.
Incidentally, China is probably the one country that I feel slightly sorry about Russia having exploited, since it really was a genuinely one-sided affair. It is one of the extremely few countries on which Russia inflicted far more damage than the other way round, but unlike those Eastern European losers they’re not whining about it, which makes one respect them all the more.
It’s quite an important topic, probably the world’s third most important relationship (the US-China and US-Russia relationship benig #1 and #2, respectively).
There are three main problems or blindspots that Russian nationalists have.
Blank slatism/IQ denialism. Less of a problem now vs. 2 years ago, in part – I am happy to say – thanks to my own efforts. We may well be now more “enlightened” no this topic than our European identitarian colleagues who are still obsessed with their Evolas and Dugins.
Disregard for transformational technology (gene editing, AI). Prosvirnin was a lone voice in the wilderness on that point, Kholmogorov more resistant on account of his conservative Orthodox beliefs. However, Prosvirnin’s religious views are those of an annoying Atheist neckbeard. Real solution we should strive for is that of the Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov, of the Imperium of Man techno-theocracy.
Ignorance, dismissal of China. In particularly affects the muh european Prosvirnin/Sputnik & Pogrom crowd. This is not such a big issue now because this is one of the things that the Putin government is handling surprisingly well. However, this could be a potential problem if Russian nationalists were to get more power. China cannot be alienated. I will need to focus more on this topic.
The navy was pretty unpleasant – probably worse than the army. You could get scurvy. Being on an old ship is much worse than being in barracks. It could be pretty hard to keep dry, when it rained. Many got rheumatism.
Some of the people sent abroad were literally “Kidnapped.” The RLS book was (very loosely) inspired by one case.
Milton Hershey was a man born at the right time – when railroads made it possible to create national brands. He made a rare fortune, and, since he had no children, he bequested almost the entirety to a school for “orphan” boys (many the children of single mothers.) He did this because it was well understood at that time that boys without fathers posed a danger to civilization.
Of course, the government came in and subsidized the single mothers and the resulting cost of the new scale of the thing to society would be unpayable by a million Milton Hersheys.
If so many people aren’t getting it (unlike the Kierkegaard issue which was indeed probably my own fault), maybe it’s because it isn’t really clear? You may not like it, but a lot of people in Europe are apprehensive about the potential for a resurgence of Russian imperialism due to historical reasons. And that has mostly nothing to do with any racial hatred of the Russian people or whatever you might like to imagine. What do you think would happen if I somehow got Ron Unz to publish an article of mine in which I went on at great length about how the criminals of November ’18 (probably mostly Jews anyway) robbed Germany of the fruits of its victory, how bitter I am about that, how unimportant little states like Belgium should be annexed to a more powerful civilization anyway, how Germany was unjustly blocked from fulfilling its historical imperial destiny etc.? Do you think the reactions to such a piece would be positive, and in case they weren’t, that this could be attributed merely to completely irrational Germanophobia?
At the very least I find the type of reasoning in Kholomogorov’s article highly insensitive, and you shouldn’t be surprised if the echo among an international audience (I know, not the audience Kholmogorov had in mind) is rather negative.
I know, but I’m sitting in a region of the world that is likely to be increasingly marginalized and sidelined and can’t really affect any of those developments, so I probably shouldn’t care that much.
Objectively a far more important topic, than sometimes irrelevant about what will happen with small countries in the West.
A couple of uncertainties.
Current intergovernmental relations with China are smooth. But at the deeper level (cultural/human), the relations have not especially “strongly rooted”.
So, Chinese languages are finally, entering the school curriculum, slowly.
But higher urgency : e.g. school exchanges, massive promotion of Russian language in China, creation of a tax free zone for Chinese investments in Russia, etc.
For example, what is happening with MSU in Shenzhen project. Well they are building the campus, but they started with just a few hundred students.
In the intervening time other countries are moving probably faster – Israel has already built a state of the art university in China (Guangdong Technion) with thousands of students. And the Americans are already opened NYU Shanghai. (In addition, the Americans are receiving vast numbers of Chinese foreign students into American universities).
Germany – is it not becoming more powerful in some ways each year, not just in simple economic power – but in bureaucratic subjugation over Europe?
I find your reasoning about this rather strange, whatever Tsarist Russia may have done to China, the Soviet Union in the 1950s spent massive amounts on aid to China (iirc it may have been one of the biggest development programmes in all of history). And then crazy Mao decided a genius like him shouldn’t be lectured by Russians (who were already lacking in revolutionary fervor anyway), burnt the entire relationship to the ground, and a few years later had his troops kill Russian border guards. That’s actually genuine ingratitude imo (even if obviously now irrelevant history).
The basic problem here is that you and many other Europeans have morally “evolved” and think that it’s wrong to settle disputes within Europe by force. Russians no doubt would point out hypocritically, citing Serbia (and various color revolutions, even if those are American enterprises).
Russians clearly don’t think that way. You can’t change how people think, and in any case the fact that other people think differently is not a problem so long as you are aware of this. The problem is Russians are white and thus everyone is shocked, shocked when they don’t think like other white people. There’s no such bad blood in evaluating the Chinese for that reason.
Europe (or should I say “Europe”) is far more powerful than Russia and thus has nothing to fear provided it properly organizes its defenses. Russians can make all the noises they want about exterminating Baltic statelets, but so what? There’s a Finnish commenter here who’s quite good and notes that that’s just how Russians talk and if Finns were alarmed by it by now they’d all have died of heart attacks.
Just because Russian nationalists say naughty things doesn’t mean they can’t be reasoned or negotiated with.
My reaction to this piece would be very positive. 🙂
And incidentally the situations here are in many ways comparable, which is not intended as a smear against Germany or Russia. Post-1919 Germany was in many ways quite similar to post-1991 Russia. A diminished but still great power with many unresolved territorial and ethnic problems, as well as a widespread feeling of having been cheated.
Putin isn’t Hitler (or is he…?!), but the failure of Britain to accept that Germany hadn’t “evolved” morally ended up leading to a general European war.
Would be more accurate to say that it’s becoming more hated every year; imo it will all end in disaster. When the whole euro project fails, the economic consequences for Germany will be ugly…and then there’s the matter with all those foreign guests Merkel invited. Fun times ahead!
Don’t say.
I guess, then, all they need to do is to ally with:
and go from there.
In practical terms, NATO.
All set.
What could go wrong there? Rhetorical question.
Middle-income trap is a myth created by HBD-ignorant economists. The classic examples are Brazil and South Africa. What a mystery…
Even if the theory is accepted as having validity, China’s internal market is so vast that it doesn’t need to be particularly competitive in high value-added goods and services. Witness how China has developed a successful “tech” sector with massive economies of scale simply by banning foreign IT companies.
That’s a perceptive comment, and you’re probably right that one just has to accept that values are different, which shouldn’t preclude understandings in areas of common interest though.
Not just Brazil. Also many EU countries are in there (despite all the EU wealth transfers to them), Russia has definitely entered it (despite all the oil and gas).
The explanations might be more plausible or implausible – but is a quite common pattern that a formerly rapid economic growth slows down once a country develops from low income to the middle income zone.
Hopefully China will surge through it, like Japan or South Korea.
Why don’t you ask your romanian hosts about Sovroms?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SovRom
My objection to Kholmogorov is that he is an idiot. West Germany looked pretty prosperous, I wonder why East Germany had to wall its people in?
Eastern Europe was ruined by communist incompetence brought on and imposed on us by russian tanks and Kholmogorov complains that the ruins were unprofitable.
You know what? Now that I think about it, Stalin was not so bad. Sure he fucked up my country, but he also killed lots of russians and that counts for something. The georgian psychopath is still not as great as Batu khan though.
And don’t call me a SJW, you curry-eater. Only the most moronic brits still think that eating that indian diarrhea makes them the vanguard of globalist cool. We’re not in the 90’s anymore, so find something else to signal your cosmopolitan credentials.
(BTW this exchange shows why the right always loses as I would rather have my country under the limp, 50-shades-of-grey whip of western cucks than under the knout of russian batshit crazy nationalists)
Incidentally, I was once friends with another expat, a Russian ex-Priest who reached a fairly high position, before falling into disgrace for reasons he never disclosed. He was a profligate womaniser, drinker and gambler (at the time he had just left from practicing as a Catholic-unionate, who he claimed ‘didn’t count’ because it wasn’t Orthodox), who people enjoyed being around and women liked, but he eventually managed to alienate everyone around him by leaving huge debts (including to myself), engaging in idiotic business ventures (he opened 3 failed business), and his unpredictable and childish behavior.
I think he’s an uber driver now.
Now that’s an interesting position.
Even more interesting would be to see how many of those living in European ex-communist countries feel the same way.
I’d say…..enough, making a majority to, in any confrontation West-East, have those countries side against East.
Upon quick glance, he could’ve been mistaken as Filaret.
More diplomatically put, the Russia watching commentary is flawed by some of what does and doesn’t get propped.
There’s a good deal of phony, crony, baloney handshakeable BS out there.
Bah – you are talking about Mal’ta Boy. He was an Ancient North Eurasian. Long vanished by 1492, and Europeans are descended from Ancient North Eurasians – that’s where blond hair is thought to come from.
Native Americans were not the original inhabitants of Americas – they killed them off. See Luzia woman. Indians in the Amazon basin have trace amounts of Andamanese-like DNA, which supports the interpretation of the bones.
I am pretty sure that majority of Eastern Europeans with the exception of Bulgarians and Serbians do not harbor any illusions about Russia. They err on the too negative perception of Russia. For instance Philip Giraldi’s article “Hating Russia Is a Full-Time Job” will not get much traction there, while it should. The Eastern Europeans do not need to read Kholmogorov to know about Russia’s dark side. On the other hand the English translation of Kholmogorov’s article may cancel the effect of Giraldi among the audiences who did not yet experience all the blessings of Soviet or Russian liberation and the subsequent occupation. The notion of ingratitude of the liberated and the occupied and the subsequent resentment on the part of Russian nationalists for it is so ludicrous that one may wonder whether we are dealing with people in grips of a full blown psychosis.
If Ukrainians could improve their PR if they publicized Kholmogorov’s writing and some of Karlin’s comments that appeared here. They should let their enemies speak and expose themselves instead of inventing lies about them but they seem to be too stupid for it. Fortunately for them Karlin is doing it.
Agree.
True.
That’s an interesting point.
Problem with nationalists in general, I think, is simply too much emotion and too little thought. It’s love thing, I guess. Hate is the other side of the same coin.
All or nothing sort of thing.
And, takes two there. At one side Russians and the other side all those.
A rational, tiny minority approach would be, sort of (no intention to go there HERE), Russians brought something good there and plenty of bad. Good at the very beginning, while chasing Nazis out, bad, in increasing percentage, as years passed on. From Hungary ’56 onwards.
The problem is, in rational world (nobody cares about, of course), that neither party in that……”conversation” is willing to concede anything.
I’ve spent quite some time discussing things with true nationalists, from Japanese to Americans.
It’s an interesting exercise. One just knows that sooner or later he will hit the wall. Just a wall. No way passing that wall. Something…which creates an emotional response no rational thought can penetrate or go around/over/below.
I have a friend, a true nationalist. We have plenty in common; we can talk about guns for hours, for example. And then, bang, a statement, a position, which simply blows me out of my chair. Takes several seconds to recover. Utter conviction in something which I can’t just fathom.
You want to hear the catch in all this rambling?
I don’t think I am right and my friend and the nationalists are wrong.
I think it’s the other way around. Human nature, numbers, majority, you name it. They are majority, my types are minority.
I’ve never watched Kardashians. It’s, apparently, the most popular show in USA.
Nationalism, in Europe, shall always create a war of sort.
I’ve been in one and wasn’t, much, emotional about it, then. But I remember it quite well. Some episodes only too well.
The catch?
I knew/know people who were absolutely emotional about all that. And……they don’t remember much of it now.
I think there is…something…there probably, worth thinking about, related to that “psychosis” thing. Love/hate/resentment, whatever. Or emotion/thinking.
I am not quite sure I make sense..hehe……
Quite sure, though, that true nationalists don’t make much sense to me, either.
At least in one element, one only.
“You do all that, no prob, free will and all that. You accept, though, that it will be blood.” One comes with another. Iron law there.
The problem with nationalists, in general, they want their cake and to eat it.
Can’t happen.
That…..pushing it hard core and unwilling to accept the inevitable price is what is, sort, of interesting.
Especially with nukes.
As Thorfinnsson points out, I would find it to be an interesting perspective.
However, the situations wouldn’t be near the same. Germany really was losing in November 1918, so that would make it a pure alt history. (How exactly would Germany be able to deal with the 100,000 new American soldiers arriving on the front with each passing month? I’f you could solve that challenge, you’d certainly deserve some more clay).
In contrast, the USSR completely won in 1945, at least on paper, so obviously the discussion there will start from different premises.
PS. Belgium DOES need to be done away with. Its existence is a cartographic eyesore. It should be partitioned between France and the Netherlands.
Are you triggered?
LOL. Anyhow, you do realize that communist incompetence – which I have written about extensively and gotten shunned for it by sovoks – was “brought on” by Germans and “imposed on” Russia by Latvian rifles? Go squeal to them, SJW.
You do also realize that Romania supported Nazi Germany with troops in its invasion of the USSR? (I assume you’re Romanian, based on your offer to meet up with me in Bucharest, which I had fortunately forgotten about and not followed up on). Understandable, of course, given that the USSR had annexed Bessarabia; even so, expecting gibsmedats instead of reparations after your DEFEAT really would constitute some new peak of presumption even by Butthurt Belt standards. In any case you have less to complain of than almost anyone else, with Romania having gone de facto independent of the USSR in the 1960s.
PS. The Indian culinary arts, to which there is far more than curries, are, needless to say, at a much higher level than that of Romania, which has its charms, but must be one of the simpler cuisines on the planet. For you of all people to make this claim constitutes deranged svidomism of the highest order.
I see that autism keeps intensifying. From what I can surmise from the screeching in the comment, many here sincerely believe that the USSR was a system of Russian racial supremacy where all republics and satellite states were fleeced to feed the Eternal Moskal and Russian overlords sat drinking chai at plantations while cracking whips at their Estonian slaves and all nice builduings had a sign saying “No dogs and Armenians allowed”.
TOP KEK
What is ‘great’ ?
Alexander the Great, Sargon the Assyrian king, FDR, Churchill, great in causing loss of life.
Churchill also in loss of empire.
The Dutch socialist Troelstra did not become great, in 1918 he could have started a revolution, he decided not to, to make gradual improvement possible.
My biography of Stalin, already as a teenager enjoying cruelty, breaking all legs of a calf when walking with friends along a river.
His greatest joy in later life was, one reads, causing increasing fear with someone, then having him killed.
Chrustjow was to be the next victim, he conspired to have Stalin murdered, is the assertion, with jewish help.
Stalin seems to have had plans to force the west to attack by expulsion of all jews from the USSR.
The theory about psychopaths is that just in power they feel at ease.
Erdogan is, in my opinion, the best present example.
Kim, possibly the same.
Edward Radinsky, ‘Stalin’, 1996, London, Amsterdam
We do not want the Flemish part of Belgium
” Nationalism, in Europe, shall always create a war of sort. ”
The old fairy tale again, GB, the empire, caused WWI, GB, again, the empire, and USA, the second one.
A lot of people, including me, see Putin as in fact the only man in the world preventing the whole world to fall under the USA yoke.
My reaction (not SWJ-ism) was triggered by this type of nonsense. How the hell did the german enemies brought on communism in Russia and how did tiny latvia imposed it on giant Russia? Nothing is ever russia’s fault.
Lol. We never expect gifts from the steppe people. The point was that the soviets looted and mismanaged Romania and other Eastern European countries, so complaining about these countries being poor after you ruined them is idiotic.
I have no problem with Romania fighting for the Axis. It was a just war and it’s a shame we lost it.
Nonsense. Romania was still part of the Warsaw Treaty and COMECON, even if a mostly passive one, and was still under the threat of the Brezhnev Doctrine that explicitly rejected any move away from communism in any communist country.
The simplicity of current romanian cuisine is another result of the poverty of communism (something you said about russia as well) Other closely related post-ottoman cuisines like greek, turkish and lebanese fared much better as they escaped 50 years of food rationing.
Whatever. Your point about the right having low human capital is correct, so I normally avoid meeting anyone from this crowd in meat space anyway.
But you seem under the impression that I’m a SJW out to get you, and that’s just your paranoia speaking. I’ve been reading Sailer for at least 10 years and I even posted some of your stuff in the r/SSC Culture War thread.
What you call neo-liberalism was under way in the Anglosphere – certainly the British parts – by the mid 70s intellectually and in the early 80s practically so your thesis is radically undermined by factual error.
It is just obvious, that Nazis (the Germans) occupied Poland and Czechia, discriminated their population vs. Germans (forbad intermarriages, political leadership), moved millions of e.g. Polish population to Germany for slave labor, and owned all major local industries.
USSR – the Russians – have liberated Poles and Czechs from Nazis and installed local governments. There were no general-governorates or direct Soviet rule. USSR stationed it troops, but in closed garrisons. It did not moved millions of Poles to work in Siberia or owned Skoda and Gdansk shipbuilding, or discriminated Poles and Czechs vs. USSR citizens. No Soviet officer could walk by the street and beat e.g. a Pole, or harrass Polish women. There were no ghettos and death camps. You still cry about ‘occupation’ and there is no ingratitude to Russians or no gratitude may have a reason to be expected. If you feel like slave when you are treated as friend, that’s your own problem, not your friend’s.
What about today? NATO stations its troops as well as USSR, even in the same locations. NATO military treats the locals as inferiors, especially in the Baltics, and in Czech republic Prague is considered a place for Western sex tourism. Millions of Poles migrate to the West for almost the same occupations that their ancestors performed under Nazis (Polish plumbers and chambermaids, Rumanian seasoned peasants etc.). There are NATO concentration camps and US secret prisons in Poland and Lithuania. On top of that, all major industries e.g. Skoda now do not belong to Poles and Czechs, but to the Western corporations. And you still feel so much gratitude to the West, and cry of another occupation that wasn’t.
For the benefit of history, Prussia (Po-Russia, think of Borussia – latin) means near-Russia. These are non-German lands, as well as many non-Germanic lands colonized by feudals and germanized. For another benefit of history, all those who dream about Russian lands, may finally settle in Siberia. In other places of Russia, we offer only 2 sq meters below the surface.
You forget us Russians. We would not be happy. You may leave yourself your recognition. If England leaves Scotland and North Ireland go, we may recognize Folkland islands as theirs.
You recite the Estonian theme park version of history. Estonian cities were founded not by Estonians, yet by Russians and Germans, to the lesser extent by Danes and Swedes. There were no Estonian elites higher than wealthy farmers and village policemen. Almost all doctors were non-Estonians. Schools were forcefully installed by tzars. Tartu university was a place of German spirit and menzur-duelling etc. All major infrastructure was built by Russians e.g. Tallin (Revel) port, railway, and later by Soviet Russians. There is no cultural developments of Estonian origin.
Any proof?
After WW2, there were no more Jews or Germans in Estonia. Germans were purged by Estonians themselves in 1920s, and then fled in 1944. Jews were purged by… Estonians who ran the local deathcamps. Very few Estonian Nazi collaborators and maradeurs were displaced by USSR.
Who is Kholmogorov anyway? Any practical achievements to criticize man who took Soviet Russia from totally destroyed and sorry state similar to many African states and turned it into scientific, military and cultural superpower which provided decent living standards to her people relying only on he own resources and that after being destroyed few times by the way. The state of the moral of the population was also unbelievably high considering people went through such ordeal and won and rebuilt the country within short period . This is incomparable evidence of genius. Naive Soviet people were looking at the Western glamour not realizing that the West was plundering the whole world to create those life standards while Russia could rely only on her own resources and people. From plow to atomic bomb and space ships. Give an opportunity to drive the machine of Russian state to such “балаболам” like Kholmogorov and Russian state will go the way of the mammoths.
Mister Karlin off course you conveniently choose to forgot that URSS atack Roumania and occupy Basarabia in iune 1940 one full year before Roumania+Germania atack Rusia in Operation Barbarossa.
URSS atack unprovoked Finland, Poland, Roumania, Iran etc. because Stalin was competing with Hitler to STOLE as much land as he could from other small nations before the real showdown between them.
Rusia fantasied that if can put on paper some ilogical and lawless reasons for their land theft then KABOOOOM they are the good guy.
In Kremlin archvies are documents from general Zhukov where he spoke about war bounty he took from Basarabia in iune 1940.
Imagine that. In iune 1940 rusians enjoy war bounty loted from seized Basarabia after they shot roumanian soldiers and 1 year later the rusians scream that Roumania atack them unprovoked.
I am o roumanian and proud of it.
I am going to shock you again. I am on Rusia side in his struggle with America. An I have probably 75% slavic DNA but because I am an ortodox true beliver in God and Jesus Christ I am allways o the side of truth. And the truth is that evil URSS atack Roumania and stole Basarabia.
Mister Karlin, please, read a history book. I promise it will enlightening for you.
Karlin’s recent deplorabilia and few smart observations. Must be the Rumanian food.
‘righteous atomic annihilations of the Japs’
‘Belgium DOES need to be done away with’
‘As a worthy civilization, Russia only acknowledges worthy adversaries: The Kraut, the Jew, the Turk, and the Eternal Anglo.’
‘The nuclear shield allows its wearer to be as absolutely ethnocentric as it wants.’
‘The Muslims might be problematic for Russia… and Europe, and China, and even the US and Israel, when they’re not using them as their useful idiots.’
I have never understood the general hatred for Belgium. It is one of the few countries in Western Europe that originated in a national revolution.
In fairness, it should be said the Soviet performance in WW II was much better than the Russian performance in WW I. In WW I the Germans were facing pressure from huge French and English armies on the western Front. In WW II, however, the Germans were able to concentrate almost their entire strength against the USSR in 1941. And they enjoyed all the benefits of a surprise attack into the bargain. Nonetheless, historian David Stahel argues that Barbarossa was already failing by September 1941. And by December the Germans took a huge defeat in front of Moscow.
So at least Stalin must get some credit for the improved performance in WW II.
Bessarabia was a Russian land before, was ceded to Russian Empire from Turkey by treaties of 1812, 1829 and 1879. Whole Rumania is a creation of Russian Empire, that liberated it from Turks. It was up to Russians to decide what is Romania, and what is something else. Multi-national Bessarabia, inhabited by many Germans and Jews, was occupied by Romanians during Russian civil war, so it was only a matter of time for its return back to Russia (USSR). There were uprisings againsts short Romanian rule. Germans left in 1940s, Jews and Gypsies met their fate when Bessarabia was occupied in 1941.
You may not be so proud learning of genocide of Jews and Gypsies burnt alive by Romanians during WW2 (in Odessa). During WW1, Romanians were called ‘allies being worst than enemies’ and paid their Russian sponsors by treason and stealing Bessarabia. Today, fate of Romanians are asparagus fields in Germany and growing oranges for Sicilians. There are stories of slavery and sexual enslavement of Romanian women working in EU.
Do you think the reactions to such a piece would be positive
Just an oversight on your part, GR, but most of the commenters here would be (are) enthusiastic about a 4th Reich that would finish “the job”.
Hatred for Belgium is hatred for the UK, which you can’t comprehend as a Brit just like some Russians can’t comprehend the blessings they bestowed on the conquered are not appreciated but resented by the recipients of their selfless generosity.
In 1917-early 1918 the Russian people were collectively passive and a small, determined and ruthless minority had room to achieve “great” things. In the case of the Bolsheviks, their victory at certain crucial points early on would not have been possible if not for the Latvian riflemen (how many were there – 20,000?), who were more disciplined and better soldiers than were the Reds’ enemies. It is generally accepted that if not for the Red Riflemen the Bolsheviks would have failed to keep Moscow which revolted against them. Limited to St. Petersburg, the Revolution would have failed.
To the extent that Russia bears some responsibility – it was perhaps too passive to resist the Bolshevik minority. But this is like, for example, blaming the passengers on the hijacked planes on 9-11 because they did not overpower the small number of hijackers armed with box-cutters.
Correct with regard to the Eastern European countries that did not attack the USSR. Though Romania was taking back Moldova (OTOH Bukovyna was not populated by mostly Romanians).
Agree with first paragraph.
Not sure about second. Poland was also under communism, yet pre-Communist culinary traditions have been revived; there are excellent restaurants in Poland that serve delicacies according to old recipes. Once can find excellent Hungarian food. And Lviv has some of the best pastries and desserts anywhere. There should be such in Romania if such a tradition had been strong pre-Communism, although perhaps AK did not find them?
Russia was undergoing rapid improvement in the decades prior to World War I. So further improvement did not depend on Stalin. Indeed, the disruptions of the Revolution and Civil War caused by the Bolsheviks probably set Russia back 10 years.
Two reasons may help:
1) Belgian colonialism, atrocities and genocide in Africa
2) Being NATO headquarters and a nuking magnet for all neighbors.
Belgians are, in some aspects, artificial nation. They have their own XIX-century-constructed national mythology, e.g. Charles de Coster rewriting of German Ulenspiegel and other artificial ‘national’ legends. It is one of the exclaves of international usury, human trafficking and covert politics, almost a capital of Anti-Christianity since ‘Gueux’ ‘rebellion’.
Soviets imposed the Bolshevik regime on Poland, killed/deported 100,000s of Poles, and made sure that for about 50 years Poland did what Moscow wanted. And this occurred only after the Germans had attacked the Soviets first, and the Soviets had to march through Poland to defeat the Germans.
Yes, this is better than what the Nazis had planned for Poland. But so what?
An analogy: a sadistic murderer attacks another sadistic murderer. The latter fights him off, chases him to his lair and kills him. In the lair he finds a victim tied up and ready for slaughter. He doesn’t kill the victim. But rather than set him free, he just beats him, keeps him tied up and uses him as a personal slave for a few decades. Eventually the victim escapes. By your (and Russian nationalist) logic, victim should be forever grateful to the guy who beat him and enslaved him simply because he is alive.
I told him recently to open up a factory where he could produce up to date blackshirts to sell to his fan base. Why not make a few bucks off of ones crazy ideas? 🙂
Yeah, but they make great chocolate and the best beer on the planet!
Just whom do you call steppe people? Ethnic Romanians are outperformed by Russians in most IQ, maths and school tests. There are no well-known Romanian scientific and cultural developments. Most famous Romanian in history is count Dracula. Back in Soviet times, Romanian movies were considered most stupid. Internationally, their Daci movie is an example.
The Soviets could not loot and mismanage Romania – a true Ruritania then and now – and half-Gypsy land. There were no USSR forces stationed there after ww2. The current ‘shithole’ state of Romania producing nothing other than cheap labor force is a direct result of Romanian relative independence in Eastern Bloc. They tried to manage on their own, play unalignment like Yugoslavia, and got only infamy. Their luck no bombs and partitions yet, but playing NATO games makes nothing predictable.
Belgium is a functionary’s dream and an abomination for everybody else, and unlike Luxembourg doesn’t even have a quaint feudal historical reason for existing.
That’s what Switzerland and Germany respectively are for.
Don’t know what you mean by this, the reasons people hate Belgium which I see are because of its alleged artificiality, very different from the reasons people hate Britain. It is Britain which tried to avoid Belgium’s existence by giving it to the Dutch.
I understand why an Irish person or maybe even an Indian might hate Britain and I don’t really begrudge them doing so, I don’t understand yanks rambling on about judaizing wasps or perfidious Albion
More likely Kyrill:
http://rocorhistory.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-patriarch-kyrill-was-called-tobacco.html
Mostly made up, exaggerated or committed by other Africans despite the attempts of the Belgians.
http://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/07/24/mythologies-about-leopolds-congo-free-state/
They are much less artificial than is often suggested, having been a distinct entity since the 16th century, a common religion distinct from atheistic France and Protestant Holland and having actually been created through a national revolution.
Are you getting mixed up with Holland or is this some sort of esoteric anti-Catholicism I don’t understand?
Romania had about 30% of Russia’s per capita GDP after Communism ended but now has about 60% of Russia’s per capita GDP (in PPP terms), so it is doing something right.
This is total BS spread by anti-christians. How about the Roman Pope owning islands in South Pacific and running the pedophile network?
There was no Communism yet – since under Communism, money is extinct. Western corporations own most industries in modern Romania. Depopulation due to labor force ouflow adds to the GDP growth, but commercial sex and drug trade – all add to GDP in Western world.
So who’s defending the Roman Pope?? 🙂
Yes it was only the Industrial Revolution which made it possible for Malthusian conditions to end but, paradoxically, first supporting a hugely rapid rise in population. Obviously welfare states give people the confidence to reduce the fertility rate, one of the main factors limiting the drive for Lebensraum.
Interesting piece of history. “Vanished Kingdoms” by British academic Norman Davies provides a very readable study of how European ethnic groups arise (and disappear!). We learn that the Prussians aren’t Prussians and the Russians aren’t Russians! We Europeans are all in some way “mongrels”!“The only non-Russians who made it to the top [of the greatest heroes of Russian and world history] are Napoleon, Newton, and Einstein”. Well, not quite! Stalin was a Georgian, Catherine II was a German and Brezhnev was Ukrainian.
I became pretty suspicious of the whole Leopold narrative, after I heard the Belgians blamed for the Rwandan genocides.
Please provide any statistic. With 1oo00o deported, there should be whole regions in Russia inhabited by Poles, and this is not true. There was no Bolshevik party in Poland, and USSR never declared a state of war, nor killed such masses of Poles (even POWs). All native Poles interned in 1939 were returned from Belarussia and Ukraine to the Polish proper. All Polish citizens proscribed by USSR in 1940-s were treated in the same way as Russian native citizens of USSR. We were equal in our limited human rights, unlike you under Nazis.
Poland itself was no less sadistic murder, a brute and agressor in 1920s, a vulture in 1938, a scheming villain in 1939, a coward and henchman until 1944, and the keeper of the loot in 1945. Portraying USSR an equal villain with Third Reich is a typical Polish myth. Slaves are not provided equal rights with their masters, and all product of the slave’s work goes to master. The product of Polish works went to Nazis under Hitler, stayed in Poland being a member of Eastern Bloc, and goes back to Germany and the West today. And yes, you are again free to serve the coffee and clean toilets in EU.
Another treatise from British scientists. Kurt Vonnegut wrote, that all Europeans descend from Charles the Great. There are also Ukrainian scientists claiming that Ukrainians were first Europeans and they dug out the Black Sea.
The USSR lost the Cold War didn’t it? In any case the point isn’t the facts on the ground, but how people feel about it.
There was a French commander, I don’t recall his name now, who was opposed to the armistice as he believed Germany needed to be completely beaten.
On the other hand David Lloyd George told Hitler in the 1930s that they’d been on the verge of throwing in the towel in November 1918 once it was clear the 100 Days Offensive wouldn’t break into Germany (or even eject the Germans from Belgium). Haig advised George that allies had exhausted all their reserves and that offensive operations would not be able to resume until 1919.
Ludendorff, once he recovered his nerve, believed that a stubborn defense would be effective.
Of course if the allies had determined to press on for total victory they would’ve been able to do so owing to American reinforcements and all of Germany’s allies collapsing.
Looking at your comment history, among other things you appear to be very fixated on this point.
Let’s not overlook Xi.
AP is not Polish, he is an American of Ukrainian descent.
The religion question is too mixed up, and images of ‘total atheism’ in France with strong communities and still functioning millenia-old monasteries or Holland where churches are turned to brothels and vineries are imposed on us my MSM. In Russia, there is of course, esotheric anti-Catholicism. We have a history of Roman heresy with ‘impeccable’ megalomaniacal popes, a Polish neighbors spoiled by Catholicism (not their fault), and a concept of Russia the eternal THIRD ROME and the Keeper of humanity.
Self-identification of being Ukrainian is a prerequisite for Polonism, since the entity of Ukraine is a Polish construct. Literally, it means the borderland (of Poland). In Russia, it is called Small Russia, and the dialect is a spoiled (polonized) Russian.
Nonsense about the British oligarchs killing millions in the British Empire. Initially the complaint was that the Indians weren’t being involved in the Industrial Revolution but that local family spinners and weavers were losing out to British factory production. And by the 1930s Indian manufacturers were putting native Brits out of work. The Indian population grew enormously under British rule btw.
True in the anglo world. It coincided with the gradual collapse of socialism and its completely non-threatening character by the mid-70’s. Neo-liberalism was also very mild in its first decades and front-loaded with benefits: entrepreneurship, privatising (giving) housing to a boomer generation in UK, cheap travel, cutting bureaucracy. Only after socialism fully collapsed, the real goodies started to pop-up: the cheapest possible unregulated labor, open borders, paid education, unlimited incomes at the top, etc… Until the 90’s there was still a check on the oligarchs (the Western ones, because that’s who they are).
It is not black and white, but my general description fits what happened.
Lies. The People of Rus are descended from an ancient Ice Age Empire of steampunk mammoths.
I believe that AP is an immigrant to the US working as a medical doctor or a radiologist. We have about 5 young Ukrainian families going to our church in Arizona. They’re all professionals working as computer systems analysts, programmers, banking managers too. The ones that aren’t inclined to work in these sorts of professions end up running their own restaurants or working as carpenters and handymen.
Well I was thinking more about the statement ‘And yes, you are again free to serve the coffee and clean toilets in EU.‘, which applies more to Poles than Ukrainians, given that Poles have free movement in the EU and Ukrainians do not.
Although if the greater economic integration that Maidan was supposedly about is carried out large scale then there will probably be a lot of Ukrainian gastarbeiters not just in Poland but in the wider EU as well ‘serving coffee and cleaning toilets’.
Anatoly,
You have sure stirred up a hornet’s nest here.
Maybe the record for Unz site comments on a comment that does nnt have a Jewish angle (except for Stalin slowly disempowering tiem). I am sure not going to read through the almost 500, and you will probably not reading this.
You are wrong re. the Kuriles. There was a settlement between the USSR and Japan.
The snuthernmost two to revert to Japan, the northern two to remain Russian.
At the time, IIRC, Dulles visited Japan, and, while the US army was at the time administering Ryuukyuu (Okinawa) as a separate territory from Japan, which anybody with knowledge of history is knowing to be correct, except that it was under occupation, but many in the US Army brass, they have many knowledgable people, but they supported independece for the Ryuukyuu people.
The line that Dulles was pushing was that our govt. must not move on the agreement with USSR, and the USA would restore Okinawa to Japan’s control, illegally taken in the first place, and Okinamans still refer to main island people of Japan as foreign. Ten or so years ago, a woman opposed to using the place as a US military base very nearly won the goveroate. The factor to preventing her win, the many outsiders from Japan living there (fun in the Sun) now.
So, despite the US armies good intentions (and bad, I am pretty sure that an independent Ryuukyuu would likely have still have had some USA miliit. presence, but nothing like under the Japan-USA systtem of now, where they are bearing the heaviest load of psycho U.S.A. servicemen amd women..
Disagree, being alive and surviving is a big deal, for individuals, peoples and nation states.
Interesting if you are making a comparison between the laissez-faire policies which allowed food to be exported from Ireland in the 1840s and Stalin’s starving of Soviet citizens by forcing them to export increasing quantities of grain from 1929 to 1932.
The final triumph of inefficiency: even bad policies are simply forgotten and become unenforced.
Hooray for entropy.
No, but which empire was ever a system of racial supremacy which was actually good for the core ethnicity? It was very rare. The Assyrian Empire, for example, didn’t manage to spread Assyrian genes, not even the Assyrian language.
Our brand of nationalism learned the lessons well: imperialism is bad for the core ethnicity. If Russians want to play that game, then they shouldn’t complain when the empire will be bad for them. Moreover, it’s not like it was entirely bad for them: they reaped a somewhat increased Lebensraum from it, like Kaliningrad or Karelia or Northern Kazakhstan. They couldn’t keep all of it, Northern Kazakhstan is probably going to get lost. The Baltic states were partially added to Russian Lebensraum (went up from 5% to over 35% in Latvia and Estonia, and from 5% to 10% in Lithuania), and it looks like they will only partially be rolled back, so the countries with very little Russian minorities now have a big Russian minority as a permanent fixture. There were Russians everywhere, like Martyanov in Azerbaijan, but these were mostly rolled back.
Russians could’ve enjoyed more, if Russia was fully ethnonationalistic like National Socialist Germany, but maybe then it couldn’t have won the war. It’s no accident that fully ethnonationalistic states like late Imperial Japan found it more difficult to find allies.
It’s a universal. Look at how whiney and ungrateful most of these European commenters here are with regard to the USA, in spite of the fact that we pulled their chestnuts out of the fire, not once, but twice.
if not for the Red Riflemen the Bolsheviks would have failed to keep Moscow which revolted against them.
Maybe the reason AK demands control of the Baltics for his Russian Empire is to extract revenge on the Latvians. Sort of like sewer pond scum Romney running for Senator so that he will be in a better position to punish and extract revenge on the American people for rejecting his Presidential bid.
I see your knowledge is being questioned but fwiw let me point out that it has been noted on this thread that the ethnic Poles from Galicia were encouraged/forced to move to Silesia after WW2. Have you taken account of that?
Also I understand that the Galician orientation to the West derives at least as much from its being part of Austria-Hungary as from bring part of Poland.
6 stars in a 5 star rating
Even a lot of Belgians don’t seem to like Belgium though and would like to see it dissolved.
I thought you liked the American imperium? Or, is it because you are a Jew so you don’t care?
That’s a bizarre statement even by your standards. Unz review certainly has many antisemitic commenters, but I very much doubt “most” commenters are eliminationist antisemites. And antisemitism doesn’t equal support for a greater Germany. If I collected all the anti-German statements I’ve read here over the years, it would be quite a long list.
One of your most interesting and perceptive comments on UR if I may say so.
Yes, among other things, it is pretty bad for everyone involved. Russians had a demographic limit, Kaliningrad, Kuriles and Karelia were about the extent of what they could acquire.
Ruling over other ethnicities is the single dumbest policy any nation can undertake (unless they are capable of exterminating them as Anglos and a few others have done). Assimilation only works when the ethnicities have a lot in common.
Russia’s problem is not land. Their problem has always been lands around them used to attack them. If you look at Russia’s expansion it mostly followed a reactive mode: attack after attack before Russians counter-attacked and then over-extended themselves. Their key to success would be to adhere to rational self-constraint. And to convince their elites’ young to see Russia as a home.
By the way, Hungarians have gone through the same expansion with over-extension and then imposed constraints in the last few hundred years. And so have Germans. In both cases one could argue that they could use more land. There just was none easily available. Geography can be cruel.
Indeed, as the descendant of convicts sent to Australia in 1796, 1798 and 1820 [this one pardoned but he stayed on] I find it hard to believe that those previously sent to North America to serve sentences or as indentured labour can sensibly be called slaves.
Amazing a Communist should look down on carpenters and handymen.
It’s arguably a bad idea for other Euros to import Polish labour, but it’s a vastly worse idea to import non-Euro labour. And Poles don’t usually leave Poland to go on welfare, so that’s a point to them too.
Stalin’s place, in the western “intellectual” circles, at least, seems to be as the ‘It wasn’t real socialism’ scapegoat.
Stalin, to my understanding, seems to have been a full commie, but with a slightly pragmatic and homespun twist.
The Trotskyite establishment spins this idiosyncratic twist completely out of proportion, to paint Stalin as not a commie at all, even to the extent of being a facist (Hayek and the other supposed anti-commie Austrian school chime in to help with this-probably because libertarianism and communism are essentially the same anarchist utopian fantasy).
Reading Trotsky and his completely psychotic notions of the ‘continuing revolution’, perhaps the one due that Stalin should receive is that he had the pragmatic sense to take control of things and at least plan out the murders, rather than letting them happen randomly (organically?), in accord with the anarchic utopian insanity that the Trotskyite camp preferred.
Indeed, he also conveniently forgets all the E. European white collar workers, professionaals and business owners in the EU.
You seem to think that using different words to describe essentially the same thing you are making a rational point. You are not. Words, or terms you choose to assign, are just words. In the real world, starvation is starvation.
You might as well argue that the Irish die ‘differently‘, or that a 5-year child digging for coal is not what it looks like. Why? It just ‘isn’t‘, because you have been told that again and again by your oh-so-free media. Because it is you versus them, right? So you use different words: regime not a government, businessmen and not an oligarch, democracy ‘promotion’ and not meddling.
My congratulations on your tribalism, it takes a lot of effort to be so loyal.
Oversight on my part, I should have used many instead of most.
That’s a bizarre statement even by your standards. LOL
The problem here is with your thinking.
2 mln of Poles work outside Poland in EU’s non-lucrative jobs. I witnessed Polish chambermaids in many European Hotels. They were first to become modern indentured servants. Baltic states are bleeding dry with labor force fleeing to the West, with only grannies and some kids remaining.
Babushkas showing compassion towards POWs just as they did towards prisoners and exiles to Siberia by leaving bread outside or giving shelter is the manifestation of the true Christian soul of Russia that also can be found in great Russian literature, including that by by the hated here Solzhenitsyn. The unfortunate and mad Russian nationalists abhor this literature, they may even hate their babushkas because neither the literature of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoyevsky nor the babushkas are as hateful as they are. They do not understand that the true soft power of Russia are their babushkas and their literature. They should shut the f. up and let their literature and babushkas do the talking. Idiots.
You write too many trollish low-value comments, please try to improve the quality of your comments.
Maintaining an empire is a service to humanity. Some nations exist as rural arcadias, where local hobbits or munchkins enjoy their original delicacies and drinks, and always prefer to be a victim or observer when the epoch challenges. They do rarely produce arts and science, and their history is mostly nothing to learn about. Doing such service is a sacrifice. Empires take Carthage to build Colosseum, Paris to write War and Peace, and Berlin to send a human to space. All this has a price for best performing ethnicity.
Do you ever witness all the Russian prostitutes and “refugees” who have been swarming around the West since the 1990s? Often pimped out by their own men. The Czech women are visited, but the Russian women actually travel abroad to provide their services.
I agree, if anything such stories show that at least some Russians were more humane than their enemies. It’s a bit sad that AK regards this as a weakness instead of a positive quality that could even be to Russia’s advantage in terms of soft power.
It’s a legitimate comparison. What it shows is that Stalin’s government viewed Russians and Ukrainians as foreigners, the way the British government viewed the Irish in the 1840s.
What distinguishes the two cases is the lack of even the halfhearted attempts made by the British government to help, and the lack of the incredible amount of private charity the Brits allowed to reach the starving Irish.
Ok, babushkas and matryoshkas and the great Russian literature.
Speaking of literature, ALL famous Russian writers – Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoyevski, Gogol – always somehow despised Polish nationals. Describing the times when Polish national state existed – Poles were portrayed as milites gloriosi, the boastful and coward drunkards pretending to be knights. E.g. in War and Peace, masses of Polish cavalry drown in river just for amusement of Napoleon (allusion to the posessed Biblical pigs jumping to the sea). In works of Dostoevsky, Chechov and his contemporaries there is always a Polish manager of some Russian landowner that robs him and the peasants, or a Polish professional cheater in card games (the Russian term shuler is of Polish origin – szuler). In works of Gogol, Poles are like kids playing with matter of the state.
But let us not go that far, and take the Polish original writer, Senkiewich. In his series that base modern national mythology, theres are ‘three Polish musketeers’ – namely, Volodyevski, Kmititz and Zagloba. The true Polish (non Western Russian/Lithuanian/Ukrainian) name among them is only Zagloba – the obese drunkard and joker, not the epic or romantic hero like others.
Oh, yea? Who do you think built Norilsk, you silly little bitch? And guess which language everyone was forced to speak? Why did our men have to serve in the Soviet army? They didn’t want to. Men were sent to Afghanistan without knowing where they’d be sent.
Americans (Westerners) who weren’t there, don’t understand what it meant and did nothing to help, have no moral right to lecture us, Eastern Europeans, about anything.
You know, you can go to Moscow and suck their cock all day long if that’s what you want or have a lovefest somewhere in Kamchatka, but you’re going to leave us, Eastern Europeans, out of it. The opposite of love is not hatred but indifference. And most of us do not care about Russia all that much, frankly.
So the country turned itself to brothel? There are women of ex-USSR (like Lithuanian or Moldovian) that travel abroad and settle in Europe. We do not consider such few emigres true Russians, and most of them only speak Russian (as lingua franca in ex-USSR), but are not the citizens. ‘Refugees’ are of non-Russian minorities pretending to be opressed by Russian majority.
Funny. I am not a fan of Stalin at all. However, I know that both of his “co-victors”, Churchill and Roosevelt, are also guilty of many crimes against humanity. The year today is 2018, over 65 years after Stalin’s death (March 5, 1953). The post about Stalin collected more than 500 comments. I want to ask commenters whether they think that 65 years from now a post about Karlin or Kholmogorov is likely to arouse as much interest. My guess is that if someone writes about either of these personages in 65 years, the only question would be “who the heck is that person?” In science there is a term “peer review”. I think that we should be interested in the opinions of peers about people like Stalin, rather than the opinions of their inferiors.
Oh, please, do not pretend that ethnic Russian women haven’t been doing this for years. And, yes, ethnic Russians do emigrate to the US on a refugee visa (!!) – pathetic.
Resentment of a free people
If Ukrainians claim themselves dug out the Black Sea, and the Poles – took Berlin with little help of Red Army, than we can believe that Estonians have built Norilsk. There was certainly a problem of finding Estonian engineer, or even a construction manager.
You are as Eastern European as Russians or Chuvashians or Kalmyks. There are Eastern Europeans who advance science and culture. There are also Eastern Europeans like Latvians the Nazi henchmen, that keep their aparteid state today and during WW2 hosted and maintained Salaspils deathcamp where human experiments with children were performed (like pumping out their blood for the wounded German soldiers). Wikipedia point out, that each day 150 children died from that, 15 km from the Latvian capital of Riga. Who has the moral right to lecture you on that?
Tell you what, your feelings are amazingly reciprocated by ~90% of Russian citizens. They are happy to be rid of parasites. Their view of the “success” of Eastern European countries (including post-Soviet republics) is best described by a German word “schadenfreude”.
So do many other ethnic women. If we take the ratio of migrating prostitutes towards a nation size, some European nations would easily beat Russia.
Good. It’s a pity this 90% doesn’t comment on UR boards and is swamped by the “Why don’t you love us, you ungrateful bastards” brigade. Separation is the only possible foundation for eventual mutual respect.
I don’t care.
“Modern calculations place Soviet and German irrevocable military losses at 11.5 million vs. 8.6 million, a ratio of 1:3 to 1.”
Where does this number come from?
So, the 8.6 million lost is the conservative number. It’s been put in doubt since – at least 2 million or more higher. And some say there was systematic under-reporting as well, at least articles about Stalingrad mentioned this in the past years.
This is the KIA number – including a very conservative estimate of millions of non-resolved MIA. Where have they gone? Other estimates come in higher.
German KIA losses seem to total in somewhere between 5-6 million. Not all of those vs the USSR. I see a ratio here, but the inverse one…
Unless somebody tells me “irrevocable military losses” means something entirely else.
Have to disagree on several points.
Poles always despised Ukrainians and treated them as inferior. They do so now: Ukrainian laborers in Poland today are on the lowest rung of the social ladder.
There is such a thing as Ukrainian language. The first literary work written in it appeared in 1798 – Eneide by Kotlyarevsky (BTW, he was an officer in the Imperial Russian army). There is a huge difference, though, between proper literary Ukrainian (the language of Poltava region) that Shevchenko wrote his poems in (he wrote prose in Russian) and several Western Ukrainian dialects that are pushed by today’s Kiev government as Ukrainian. Also, these dialects are not all Polonized, some are Germanized, they all sound harsh and unpleasant, in contrast to quite melodious Ukrainian.
Flanders should be independent. Walloons seem to lack confidence so they should probably just join France.
Simple reason is that most of them don’t speak English, just like the majority of Germans, or French, or Italians and Spaniards, for that matter. BTW, “why don’t you love us, you ungrateful bastards” brigade includes fewer than 5% of current Russian population. It has very low support in the populace, essentially as pathetic as Navalny and similar nonentities.
There is no such thing as ‘humanity’, there are humans, families, tribes and nations. If you go above that, you are playing in a lala land of lazy thinking and absurdity.
Humanity is an abstraction with no actionable content. One cannot ‘service humanity’. The real victims among us are those who try.
‘Eneide’ was a mockery intended to ridiculize the Small Russian dialect. It was treated as such to the extent that speaking of Virgil was considered an offense by nobility of Southern (Small Russian or Ukrainian) origin – like mentioning together watermelons, basketball and KFC in modern USA.
It was the same as if today someone retells Pushkin’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ in obscene words or memes.
Literary Ukrainian is a fresh artificial construct. Some words originate from Polish including germanisms, some – from Serbian because of the Serbian settlers brought in by Catherine the Great, and something is nomadic. All this may be traced back to XIX century, and Ukraine relative to Russia is akin to Bavaria relative to Germany.
Our civilization is also an abstraction beyond tribalism, sticks and stones. Sacrifice is in the nature of humans and Christians.
LOL, that was in times of Imperial Russia when neither free Poland existed nor ‘democracy’ was available elsewhere in monarchies of Europe.
For the benefit of history, Prussia (Po-Russia, think of Borussia – latin) means near-Russia. These are non-German lands
A bit of folk etymology here, although you are correct that these are non-German lands, as the original (“Old”) Prussians were Balts, and the word Prussia itself is of Baltic origin. In medieval times it was Latinized as Borussia, due to a (mistaken) belief that it had something to do with Russia.
Interestingly, perhaps, a spruce tree is literally a Prussian tree. “Prussian” in English was original Pruce, later Spruce, so that one has frequent references to Spruce-land and Spruce fir (tree), subsequently shortened to spruce.
Not quite: Ukrainian is a language, although grossly underdeveloped: there is no Ukrainian vocabulary for science and technology, they invent ridiculous words in these areas. A lot of people in Russia now deny the existence of the Ukrainian language because of primeval tribal policies of current Kiev government. This resentment is understandable, but it does not change the reality. Current “leaders” in Kiev are no more than traitors, ruining Ukraine on orders of their puppet-masters. Russia had that kind of “leaders” not too long ago: remember Yeltsin?
BTW, in contrast to Russia, where a person easily understands the language of locals on a huge territory, “official” German (hochdeutsch) is often used to help people understand each other. I collaborate with Germans a lot and visit Germany often. At first I was surprised to hear the people in Bavaria proudly say “I don’t speak Saxish”, and people in Saxony being proud that they don’t speak Bayerish. Now I just accept it, like weather.
It is only a hypothesis. There is German and Polish Pomerania (Pomoryania – like Russia’s North Pomorye) – means near the sea, hence we hear ‘near Russians’ in Po-Russia. There is no consensus on who the original Rus themselves were – Balts, Swedes, Danes or Slavs.
This appeared on some Ukrainian comedy show making fun of super-patriots, was repeated somewhere on some Russian blog or tv show as an example of what they teach in Ukraine, and gullible Russian nationalists actually believe it.
What’s really ridiculous are your attempts to sound like you know what you’re talking about:
Stick to eating watermelons and KFC you peasant! 🙂
You can claim your ancestors were slaves and get “victim points” or whatever, given that victimhood is now one of the greatest virtues in the modern West. I suspect this is what motivates some people to make such claims.
Germany by sending Lenin back in the sealed train and funding him to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars (in modern conversion). Not that it wasn’t a legitimate wartime tactic – and a successful one, as it turned out. But he would have (literally) gone nowhere without German help.
Red Latvian Riflemen formed the hard core of the Bolshevik armed forces, playing a key role in the initial seizures of power and suppressing (ethnic Russian) revolts against them. http://www.unz.com/akarlin/centenary-of-the-bolshevik-usurpation/
Latvians of the Governorate of Livonia also voted for the Bolsheviks more than any other province of the Russian Empire, giving them a solid majority. In contrast, the Bolsheviks got 24% in the Russian Empire as a whole.
Says the person who belongs to an ethnicity that epitomizes Le 56% Face meme.
Congratulations on reaching entirely new, previously thought impossible, levels of presumption and chutzpah.
Just to be clear, you support an aggressive war of extermination against Russians, then whine that the results of that misadventure prevented you from reaching your rightful level of prosperity for a few decades (that is, around Turkey’s level, since your people aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed).
You also have an exceedingly inflated sense of your own importance. You are indeed an SJW, I couldn’t care less whether or not you think you are “out” to “get me.”
Prior to World War II Stalin killed about 110,000 Poles who had been stranded in the USSR. though number may be higher:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD#Killing_process_and_death_toll
During World War II about 320,000 Poles were deported (my mother-in-law ended up in the Urals as a little kid) and 150,000 murdered:
https://www.expatica.com/de/news/country-news/Polish-experts-lower-nations-WWII-death-toll_164804.html
I don’t have time to look up the numbers for the post-war purges and arrests.
Poland did not kill a million or two people as Lenin did.
I didn’t write equal. USSR “merely” brutalized enslaved Poland, but did not kill it as Nazi Germany would likely have done.
My friend, I have this ‘Eneid’ (luxury edition by Russian VitaNova) at home and also have and read memoires of Kotlyarevskiy contemporaries. You have only Wiki edited by some Pro-Ukrainians and try to lecture me. During reign of Paul (1796-1801), son of Catherine the Great, many Southern Russians (of dubious nobility yet claiming to be Zaporisian cossacks) were promoted for serving in Paul’s Gatchina house guard, modelled from Prussian Potsdam Guards. That service was despised by real Russian nobility serving in real Imperial Guard during Catherine, and rivalled by new ‘Gatchina officers’. Hence the resentment of all things’proto-Ukrainian’ as manifistation of lacking manners, posing as cavalleria rusticana and upstart officers speaking improper Russian and no French at all. Today, ‘Ukrainians’ pretend the joke was their own national masterpiece. The ‘gangsta rap’ becomes Iliad?
Well, no. Sacrificing for an abstract concept (like humanity or ‘civilization’, whatever that means) is deeply unnatural and has led to a lot of suffering. The inane concept of sacrifice is also the Achilles heel of Christianity. Stick closer to home.
Sounds like your stay in Romania wasn’t very enjoyable, if maybe at least anthropologically interesting.
I’m looking forward to the full report.
Not my problem you can’t handle my sizzlingly hot takes.
Again, citing Polish version of wiki.
Lenin is personally guilty of killing millions to the lesser extent than Poles killing millions of Jews in their deathcaps. 20 million Poles could easily liberate at least one of them in 1942-1944.
Enslaved means granting PRP large chunks of Germany, and brutalizing, as I presume, is supplying with gas, oil and keeping the industry and employment up and running. E.g. outsorcing luxurios industries to Poland e.g. ES computers, Mi-2 helicopters, shipbuilding, and offering all possible trade preferences?
It was very enjoyable, and I have positive impressions of the people.
However, people such as Pseudonymic Handle are going to get a more “tailored” response.
Languages are constructed to large extent. The history of Czech language and its construction in 19 century is fascinating. Or look at the modern Hebrew. There is nothing unusual in the fact that Ukrainians are constructing their language as they go. Look up Russian etymology of Russified scientific terminology how it was created and specifically by whom if it was decided to reject Greek, Latin or Western words and replace them with ‘invented’ Russian sounding words. Why for instance искусство and искусственный share the same root?
Well, I can understand that his defense of Antonescu’s regime and its role in WW2 angered you, that was indeed a bit much.
Reading is apparently not your strong suite:
You might as well stop worrying about shipbuilding in Poland. Thanks to EU “liberators” Gdansk shipbuilding plant, founded, developed, and supplied with orders by the “occupiers”, is now dead. That same plant where the “Solidarity” arose. Some see is a poetic justice.
So, where within all of your ‘erudite’ commentary can we conclude that Kotlyarevsky wrote his ‘Eneida’ in order to ‘to ridiculize the Small Russian dialect’? On the contrary, he took the common language of the local folk and elevated it with an impetus to become a great literary language that underwent finishing school at the pen of Taras Shevchenko.
There were Latvians in the Kolchak’s army, too.
It was, in fact, a satire of mores in contemporary south Russian (Ukrainian) village life. E.g. Olympic gods all the way eating salo (pig fat), drinking horilka (vodka) with hangovers, bragging and all sorts of rustic debauchery. It is far less a crossover mockery of Eneid itself than, say, Offenbachs Belle Helene mocking Iliad. Most words of this mock epic are Russian – since almost no ‘true Ukrainian’ words ever existed.
That’s an Ukrainian myth. Ukrainian is no great literary language, it is a lame excuse of a language. The pen of Taras Shevchenko was trembling because of chronic alcoholism of its owner. A mediocre poet and scenery artist, Shevchenko drank away the money collected for emansipation of his family from indentured peasantry. Only in Ukrainian Universe, where exists Globe of Ukraine, he is considered a true Bard.
Latvia is succeeding now economically, and (it does not need to be said) deserves a right to self-determination and independence, as any nationality that desires this.
Obviously many Latvians are badly treated, even exiled, in the Soviet Union – who is arguing this.
At the same time, actions now to stop a Russian population of Latvia from teaching their language to their children in bilingual schools, appear as a needless discrimination. And official attempts to rehabilitate in history Nazis is something which is also not easy to understand.
When in Prague, go visit the oldest Cathedral to find inscriptions in old Slavonic. Original Slavic language was supressed by Germans for centuries. Yet we have great Czech culture and no great Ukrainian culture.
St. Cyril and Mephodius modelled the structure of church Slavonic (prototype of Russian) from Latin and Greek. Many linguistic constructs run in parallel (like ars – iskusstvo), and in many aspects the Russian language expresses emotions and abstractions better than other languages that depart from Latin. For instance, shakespearean works are massively despised in Russia for being rather primitive and epigonous.
Since Russians invented many things from periodic table to laser and satellites, they have any reason to propose their own terms in many fields of science.
Antonescu was doing whatever he thought was good for Rumania. He did exactly what some Rumanian Karlinescu would be advocating. Once you abandon moral codes that are universal you spiral down to the tribal ethic: ‘It’s bad if you do it to me but it’s good if I do it to you.’ I guess there is plenty of room for getting angry within this system but there is no solace in justice to be expected and it sucks to be a loser in this system., yet losers are the ones who often resort to this tribal stance.
If some Rumanian expresses regrets for not winning while being on the side of Hitler there is absolutely no justification for getting upset unless the winner expects a moral justification but this is inconsistent because moral justification does not exist in this system.
You know darn well what I was talking about. My beloved Ukies were there too, together with us.
You don’t get to define that.
Well, do you want to talk about this topic every year on a certain time for the next, I don’t know, 70 years? Btw, we just remodeled Salaspils. With this one – it is not the responsibility of my state, but I personally believe that, since Belarus is not aggressive towards us, we should send a non-verbal apology gesture to them (like, a beautiful performance, visual art, build a park, or something like that) to apologize for the Winterzauber (and, btw, those were some Latgalian guys whose relatives had been murdered by the Soviets, led by a half-German). But this is purely between us and them, and since you’re probably not Belarusian, there is nothing more to share with you or anyone else on that topic. (Btw, we just found another 140 Soviet soldiers in the Western part of Latvia (died at the Kurland pocket), one of them had a what looked like a non-Orthodox (Catholic?) cross, it might have been someone from Ukraine, either way I hope they take good care of your boys – they will be reburied not too far from where I spent summers as a kid, there is a German cemetery there as well and that was financed by Germany).
Look, I don’t have anything against you, I just find all these comparisons between former USSR republics laughable – the truth is, we’re all kind of in the same boat (you may not agree, and that’s fine), and the developments / problems are, on average, quite similar. There has been tremendous improvement in living standards in both Russia and the former satellite states. E.Europeans have probably never lived this well (and in the Baltics we’re approaching the living standards comparable to the first republics). Why ruin that (and be poor and challenged over and over again while the rest of the world marches on)? So to me these comparisons just seem petty.
Not to mention the half truths (like what you posted above about NATO as well as the ridiculous comparisons such as equating a few hundred NATO soldiers in the Baltics, mostly from neighboring countries, to the Soviet army deployments – Latvia alone had about 200 000 Russian troops, tons of hardware, etc, not to even mention the nukes you had stationed in Poland all the way up until the mid 1980s – that level of militarization simply cannot be compared to what we have now).
Thanks, Dima, I’ll ponder on your words.
Modern Latvia depends on:
1) Donations from EU
2) Re-export and transit of Russian goods
3) Washing out the criminal Russian money
4) Russian tourism – to lesser extent.
Anti-Russian stance of Latvia makes Russians shut pp. 2-4. Latvia cannot employ its citizens domestically. There is no industry left, all built in Soviet times is scrapped and sold. And their agricultural production is now banned in Russia.
Very interesting!
That said, though, would Moldova have actually wanted to secede from Russia in this scenario? After all, its lower average IQ and lack of natural resources suggests that it might benefit from continued Russian rule (assuming that its population wouldn’t be oppressed, that is).
Also, what’s interesting is that an independence vote in northern Kherson Guberniya, northern Taurida Guerbiya, and Yekaterinoslav Guberniya might have very well been extremely close in 1917 (assuming that very few of the people who voted against Ukrainian parties would have voted for Ukrainian independence in 1917). Indeed, a lot might have depended on turnout. Of course, a split decision would have been possible.
The suppression of Russian language, apartheid (Russians living in Latvia, even those who lived there for many generations, did not get citizenship), and glorification of Nazis, including two Latvian Waffen SS divisions that fought on Hitler’s side in WWII, all have the same root: severe inferiority complex. Any psychiatrist can tell you that mental disorders are incurable. So, none of this will change.
You’re right, that is a problem with some elements of the right. I have nationalist tendencies myself and I still think I’m justified in that, but nationalism needs to be tempered by at least some moral constraints.
Regarding Antonescu: He was really quite extreme as far as I know, one of the more enthusiastic allies of the Germans, not just in regard to the Jews (the Romanians killed a few hundred thousand on their own iirc), but also concerning a “final reckoning” with Slavs.
Regarding your point #1 – EU has decided to redirect subsidies from Eastern Europe to Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Apparently, EU realized that they are making the same mistake as the USSR. Considering how fast Baltic statelets are losing population, in 20 years there would be lots of free land for “refugees”.
As to the “successful” economic development of Latvia, it’s a myth. Their per capita GDP by PPP is lower than that of Russia ($27,291 vs $27,890; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita). Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia aren’t doing much better, either, even with current EU subsidies.
Reminds me of a saying “be careful what you ask for, your with might be granted”.
You are no more European than any nation or ethnicity that occupies land between Atlantics and Urals.
That’s you who claimed no reasons for ‘lecturing’. Until Latvians repent their crimes against humanity, de-glorify their local Nazi veterans and provide equal rights to the Russian-speakers of modern Latvia, their fate is to be punished.
We are not on the same boat. Your boat is either Western Titanic or Nazi Naglfar, ours is the Righteous and Proverbial Ark.
With the commendable exception of AfD voters, Germans are pussies and of course do not want any of their lands back. And why would Russia return land to a country that doesn’t have children, hates itself, and offers its girls and women to be abused, harassed, groped, and raped by hostile foreigners — a country that has no future and no ability to project serious power against Russia or anyone else significant.
Sorry, but the living standards are rising. There are successful startups. The population outflow in Estonia stopped a couple of years ago, with some Estonians returning, along with some Western Euros. LV may or may not follow Estonia in a few years. Yes, the situation is not ideal, but you also have to consider that the number of children has slightly increased recently.
It was pretty backward so I suspect the people didn’t care either way about nationalistic things.
Correct.
Did I say that? I said you don’t get to define who is truly Eastern European or not. Then for some reason you brought up the Kalmyks.
Cool description. What I meant was, that we were in the same boat in 1991 – 2007 or so.
Btw, I don’t mind that the Russian speakers stick around, but you’re free to have them. Can you take good enough care of them?
No more than any other language. And it is considerably less artificial than Russian. It is closer to the traditional actual vernacular speech of the people in Ukraine than is literary Russian was to actual Russian.
I’ll quote something written by someone else:
Latvia has no oil and according to you it has lost its industry, yet is still manages to have about the same per capita GDP PPP as Russia. Good for Latvia, clever people.
I’m not sure what you have against EU subsidies. Is it less honorable or somehow worse than the advantage of happening to have oil under one’s ground? Eastern European countries got EU subsidies whole avoiding taking migrants – good for them.
Really? Shakespeare was epigynous with respect to whom?
That’s true except Russian language did no participate in this discovery. He used Roman alphabet even in his notebooks and it was Julius Lothar Meyer who published before Mendeleev who published later and also in German. Mendellev did not contribute to Russian language. He for instance predicted germanium but he called it eka-silicon where ‘Eka’ is from Sanskrit.
Ukrainian can make the same claims to Slavonic language as Czechs though Czechs I do not think care about the issue. Unlike Czechs who were in 19 century under relatively benevolent Habsburg monarchy Ukrainians being under Tsar and the USSR could not engage in construction of their language to similar extent.
In regards to Moldova, it is worth noting that, if I recall correctly, the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries won the 1917 elections there. I don’t know if there was a Romanian nationalistic party on the ballot in Moldova in 1917, though.
In any case, though, if Russia gets to keep Moldova and Odessa, I still don’t think that it would be very happy about the fact that these territories would be cut off from Russia. Still, this should be manageable if Russia and Ukraine would have agreed to free passage for Russians to and from these territories.
As for your last point here, I wonder if this could have motivated Russia to try getting more ethnic Russians to settle in these territories. After all, as the ethnic Russian percentage will increase in these territories, support for independence will probably decrease in these territories.
Also, as a side note, had Russia permanently been able to keep Novorossiya and Bessarabia, do you think that these territories–along with Central Asia–would have eventually become Russia’s version of the Sun Belt? Indeed, here in the U.S., the states in the Sun Belt (southern U.S.) experienced extremely massive growth over the last 70 years whereas most of the other U.S. states didn’t grow anywhere near as fast. In turn, I am wondering if Russians could have likewise flocked en masse to sunny areas throughout the 20th and 21st centuries had Russia avoided going Bolshevik in 1917.
Sorry for interrupting, but I have a question for you (if you have time).
I’ve been reading Yuri Lipa lately and he keeps calling Ukrainians the “Dinaric race”. I notice some interesting looking brunettes, however, they do not look entirely Mediterranean. They are not in the majority, of course. But they are there and look distinct. Why are Ukrainians called “Dinaric” then?
Btw, Mr Hack mentioned something about Varyags, but I gotta say that the Ukrainian blondes don’t really look facially Nordic (they have Slavic features, although some could pass).
DFH:
Utu:
Utu’s remark is especially ironic, once one learns the fuller story.
I suggest here with some nice cherries that hatred for Belgium stems from lingering WWII propaganda, where King Leopold and the Belgians were vilified unmercifully in the English and French press for surrendering to the Germans after covering the ignominious withdrawal and evacuation of the BEF, and the French, both of whom had been thrashed by the Germans, and both of whom had abandoned the Belgium Army to its fate.
Perfidious Albion has learned well from certain someones how to lie, and even accuse one’s own benefactors. For the French, it must come naturally.
https://longreads.com/2017/08/07/whose-fault-was-dunkirk/
The new law in Poland may get you in trouble though I doubt they would prosecute fearing that you would walk free on the insanity defense.
Tell me, oh enlightened Baltic Übermensch, were ethnic Russians exempt from being sent to the Gulag, building cities in permafrost, or removing kebab in Afghanistan?
Was this a fate reserved only for non-Russians?
Did the meatgrinder of Communism miraculously avoid them? Yes or no?
Also, here’s a linguistic truth bomb for you:
Before 1991, you were a part of a 250-million multiethnic federation where you had to learn one extra language to stay competitive.
Since 2004, you are a part of a 500-million multiethnic confederation where you have to learn several extra languages just to stay competitive.
Or do you seriously believe in a parallel universe of pixie dust and unicorn tears where Latvian would be any less irrelevant and you would be able to preserve your virgin village culture untouched by the wider world?
TOP KEK
You previously said that Germany should have a moral duty to give subsidies to countries such as Poland without any conditions on these other countries’ part due to Germany’s legacy of destruction in regards to these countries, correct?
If so, it appears to make sense (though it is worth noting that the idea of reacquiring the Polish Corridor was not exclusively a Nazi idea; indeed, mainstream German politicians such as Gustav Stresemann also subscribed to it in the Weimar era). After all, importing large numbers of Muslims (as in, not high-IQ Muslims) into countries such as Poland is almost certainly going to create a permanent underclass there similar to how, say, many Blacks are in the U.S.
Also, you appear to have previously made a point that Eastern Europeans have a stronger sense of national self-preservation than Western Europeans have due to the fact that they have endured tyranny for a longer time period (for instance, compare 2-4 years of Nazi occupation in France to 6 years of Nazi and 45 years of Communist occupation in Poland). I certainly think that there is a lot of truth in that statement.
Literary Russian was invented by an octaroon foot fetishist to please Petersburg thots
Yes, but how bad he was is irrelevant in this discussion. Isn’t that some Russian nationalists reproach Stalin for not being radical enough in many of his “final reckoning[s]?” Wouldn’t they like hm more if there were no Estonians or Latvians left after the WWII?
LOL. True statement, actually.
The very ESSENCE of European nationalism (or any nationalism, in fact).
What’s funny, almost pathetic, about it is simple unwilingness to accept, as a part of the package, troubles coming from it.
Even for a top dog there will be blood, tragedy, pain and sacrifice.
Weaker the party is, in that game, that unpleasant part of the package simply gets bigger. And, interestingly enough, in sort of morbid way, is that, usually, weaker/smaller the party is, more nationalistic it is.
I guess there are some psychological benefits in having such attitude. I just don’t seem to get it, yet.
Working on it.
Kind of like you being a ‘lame excuse’ for a human being? Save your Ukrainophobic nonsense for those that don’t know any better. No need to reply, however, I was wondering if he was truly such a second rate writer why all of these great Russian literary luminaries showed up to his funeral (a rhetorical question)?:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/russian-and-eastern-european-literature-biographies/taras-grigoryevich
Numbers are referenced to other sources.
So 100,000s Poles murders and deported by Soviets. You think Poles should be grateful to the Soviets because it was not millions as the Nazis had done.
Lenin had more connection to the Soviet state and its organs who killed those people than Poles did to the Nazi state that killed people on Polish soil.
African American slaves were also fed and given houses to live in. I guess they should be grateful? But at least in the end, their descendants live better than their brothers in Africa. Soviet rule, in contrast, resulted in relative impoverishment. Hungary and Czechoslovakia had once been almost the same as Austria. Poland had been about the same as Finland, and a lot richer than Portugal. What did Soviet misrule lead to? Here you go:
https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2018
In 1929 GDP PPP in 2011 dollars:
Poland :$4,119
Czechoslovakia: $5,704
Hungary: $6,024
Portugal: $2,786
Finland: $4,398
Austria: $6,413
In 1991 GDP PPP in 2011 dollars:
Poland: $9,218
Czechoslovakia: $13,947
Hungary: $ $13,847
Portugal: $19,411
Finland: $25,551
Austria: $29,999
True, I’ll try to do better.
The difference is that they did it on my ancestral soil.
I don’t mind languages, I’m learning Ukrainian now.
Before genetics people looked to phenotype to classify peoples. IIRC “Dynaric” was a combination of northern and southern types, often seen in the Balkans. Ukrainians do tend to be darker than either Poles or Russians, and they do actually have a little bit of Balkan ancestry.
Very few Ukrainians including blonde ones actually look Nordic. Varangian decent is not that common, though it exists.
Well, I think I made clear that my impression of Russian nationalists isn’t that positive, I agree with much of your criticism. Probably not a good idea though to react to their views with a generalized hatred of Russians or positive sentiment about a war criminal like Antonescu.
Yea, I know they’re darker (although there is a lot of variety, with even some redheads or some red in the beard, it’s a big population). Some of those Dinaric types look interesting, because they don’t look entirely Balkan. The blondes look very much “boy/girl next door”, similar to Belarusians.
Russia was in the process of continued economic advancement, with or without Communism.
Stalin had hindsight to learn from the past.
In WW I, Russia attacked into Germany earlier on in that war, at a time when it wasn’t properly prepared to launch such an operation. It has been reasonably observed that this move greatly hindered the overall Russian WW I performance. It has also been reasonably assessed that had WW I started in 1916, the outcome for Russia would’ve likely been much better.
In WW I, Russia did well against the forces of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary.
Children playing with fire and then being upset when they got burnt and getting into righteous indignation: How could you burn me?
The stuff you cite is BS.
Filaret has a well deserved bad reputation among a good number of folks. His past and troubling present is sidestepped by some.
Put mildly, it’s quite debatable to say that Brezhnev was an ethnic Ukrainian.
Catherine saw herself as a Russian and was accepted as such. One of many examples of how Russia has been an overall tolerant place.
Epigonous to Italian renaissance novels from Romeo and Juliet to Otello and Merchant of Venice. He (or the entity working in his name) was a mediocre playwrite adaptor and translator.
Apart from invention of Ukrainian language by Polish dissidents and Austrian intelligence, USSR was the main sponsor of Ukrainisation and their invented literacy.
Bullshit.
One case in point being that the modern Ukrainian alphabet is a relatively new development which involved Soviet and former Habsburg Empire Ukrainian collaboration.
The modern day standard Ukrainian language was motivated to take words that weren’t Russian. That explains why Rusyn has some words that are Russian and not Ukrainian. The Rusyns have been described as people who never accepted Ukrainian as their identity.
Russia’s population is almost as small relative to the West/NATO (one-sixth), so relative size isn’t a very good reason to prefer alignment with the West over China. And the Canadian-American relationship would be somewhat different if Canada had thousands of nukes and America a few hundred.
He was their fellow literator, a collegue at last. They would attend any such funeral regardless of the talent and morals.
As they say now, Russian is not a nationality, it’s a state of mind. Best expressed by the former commander of Gorlovka in Donetsk People’s Republic Bezler: “My father is German, my mother – Ukrainian. So, who am I? Russian!”
Russians are such intolerant schmukos eh?
I know someone who knows the family which had Shevchenko as a serf. In addition to assisting Shevchenko with his educational development, that family arranged for his freedom, with at least one of that family’s descendants regularly invited to Shevchenko commemorations in Ukraine.
Prefer Gogol.
Deported where exactly? There were no Polish citizens in USSR, only Soviet citizens of Polish descent. They were displaced on par with Russians and any other nationals. No ethnic Poles from Poland were exiled to Siberia etc. (if not being outright war criminals and renowned Nazi henchmen).
You mean, industries built under Imperial Russia, Austria and Prussia, expropriated by nationalist Polish republic? Counting western GDP is counting credit i.e. usury, not manufacturing or real goods production. It depends on population density also.
We could take even better care of yourselves. There are enough railway cars and we still need Norilsk-22 and Magadan-37.
You speak neither Ukrainian nor Russian and repeat things others have fed you.
Modern Russian alphabet was set after the Revolution.
Your comments about Shevchenko’s alleged mediocrity can now be understood in full context.
Well, of course Gogol is way above Shevchenko as a writer. But the context of Russian literature is very unflattering for a middling talent (Dostoyevsky in his novel “Demons” put it brutally well). However, Shevchenko isn’t bad. Somewhere in the Baltics he’d be the top dog. His poetry is pretty good, and that’s the only part of his writings that is in Ukrainian: he wrote his prose in Russian. I have the collection of his best poems (Kobzar) and sometimes re-read some of them.
The reform of the alphabet was prepared under the tsar, it was only implemented by the Bolsheviks after the revolution.
There are a lot of great Russians, just look at the list that I’ve included that showed up at Shevchnko’s funeral, but unfortunately, you’re not one of them. 🙂
You spout BS (some of which is brought up by others), in addition to bringing up matters that don’t successfully deal with the specific issues at hand.
As far as performance of the army goes, WW1 belongs to the Serbs as the best soldiers of that war, and WW2 belongs to the Russians – being the best soldiers of WW2. The Serbs were punching well above their weight class in the 1st WW, while the Russians were pretty much fighting in their right weight class – heavyweight, for the 2nd installment of WW’s.
In your opinion Serbs and Russkies #1 and # 2.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
When considering the kind of stooges evident throughout history, ethnicity isn’t always a good determining factor.
Russian patriots prefer pro-Russian/non-Russian and part-Russian advocates over those thinking like Maria Snegovaya.
Looking at exchange ratios, that isn’t true.
Germans in both world World Wars, with Finns exceeding even Germans in WW2 despite lesser equipment and no grand military tradition (Finland-Swedish officers I suppose had something a tradition).
Unless your metric is simply bravery in which case you might be right. The Germans highly praised both the WW1 Serbs and the WW2 Russians on this front. von Mackensen even proposed building a statue to the Serbian defenders after overcoming their country in 1915.
What issues do you have in mind? You first brought up the topic of ‘Russian intolerant schmukos’ whereas I previously quoted the presence of many gifted Russians that paid tribute to the great Taras Shevchenko at his funeral. You seem to have reading comprehension problems – why would you make such a flippant statement in response to my generous assessment of Russians anyway? What gives, Big Papushka? 🙂
Agree. Two donkeys licking dead lion.
So, 20th century.
To me what the Serbs did in WW1 is equally awe inspiring as what the Russians did in WW2. They repelled 3 attacks by AH empire – which was 10 times their size. Now in all fairness, high percentage of AH population were Slavs and their heart wasn’t in it – to fight fellow Slavs. But still, the Serbs repelled 3 offensives by AH, and finally Germany had to intervene in order to defeat them. The defeated Serbian army evacuated Serbia, spent almost 3 years on a desolate Greek island (Corfu) and came back to fight another day, Stuff of legends.
Who better to pay tribute to their brothers – the Serbs, than a Russian Cossack choir. Now, I am not a Serb, I don’t even agree with everything that they have done in their history, but when I hear this song, it touches a nerve. It is written from a perspective of a Serb soldier on Corfu. BTW, they played this song at Nikola Tesla’s funeral in New York in 1943 – on his specific requests.
https://youtu.be/a883c47yy5E
Soviet troops left Romania in 1964 or 1965.
A master stroke of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.
USSR almost lost a war to a country with 40% of its population, that was also fighting the British, also busy occupying Europe, and was then fighting the Americns and getting bombed by them.
Awe-inspiring in terms of how shambolic the victory was.
AH empire was also at war with Russia, and indeed was broken by Russia – a country with about 4 times AH’s population.
According to wiki, in 1914 370,000 AH troops went to war against 250,000 Serbian troops and 50,000 Montenegrin allies.
That the Serbs repelled the AH despite being more poorly armed is a credit to them (and to some stupid decisions by AH’s generals) but don’t pretend it’s something spectacular against 10x as many troops.
Agree. Two donkeys kicking dead lion.
I have absolutely no doubt that the Soviets could have performed much better in World War II. That said, though, a better measure of comparison would probably be total industrial might. In 1938, Germany’s industrial potential was 214 (relative to 100 for the U.K. in 1900) whereas the Soviet Union’s was 152:
http://www.beaconschool.org/~bfaithfu/greatdivergencecharts.pdf
True, the Soviet Union had Britain and the U.S. as allies, but the bulk of the fighting was done by the Soviet Union–especially before 1944. Plus, this is not to mention that Germany had the opportunity to loot the parts of Europe that it controlled–thus allowing Germany to acquire more tanks, et cetera.
Thus, looking purely at population data is misleading. Rather, one should look at total industrial potential since industrial might often determines one’s potential military might–which explains why Britain and the U.S. were able to build such powerful militaries in both World Wars.
Great idea. I could set up a Compo for Convicts group to run interference for the 0.1 per cent who are always in severe danger of being victimised if they don’t stick together and spend up on good tax lawyers. Actually my Chinese friends tell me Oz would be mad to give up its comparative advantage in having no immediate inheritance tax (capital gains tax can catch up with you though I can give tips for postponing it if you are rich enough for 100 years or so without even a corporate structure).
You don’t get the concept of a rhetorical presentation, which is in line with some of the poor reading comprehension skills that you’ve exhibited.
EXCELLENT!
On a point that raise: with the upmost respect for fraternal Serbia, it didn’t attack into German territory like Russia in WW I.
Well yes, they are just an internet blogger and a publicist – not the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Neither have ordered anyone to be killed, just writing a few words for entertainment – so this is probably a good kind of lack of famousness since they will have less troubles with Karma in the next life.
You have your thoughts in a bit of a straightjacket as evidenced incidentally by your “tribalism”. My first Australian ancestor was an Irish Catholic rebel convict!
I think you should read the much better, subtler, answer to me by Anon [298].
Indifference and limited assistance is rather different to deliberate ruthless knowing causation. And the civilised world’s standards had risen between the 1840s and 1930s, an irrelevance I suppose to those who hark back to the Battles of Kosovo, Bannockburn, Hastings or Jericho as though they were key to what should be done today.
The blondes who “could pass” as Nordic are “aryans”, therefore the “Master Race”. The ones who have “Slavic features” are subhumans, therefore they must be killed. Right, Nazi?
This is the true reality of the european whitopia the alt-right in America fantasizes about. The stupid ones never learn from history.
As you mentioned, through Lend Lease the Soviets enjoyed some of the USA’s industrial potential. I’m not sure if it was enough to cover the difference. So Soviets had their manpower plus Lend Lease.
Also, I wonder of Soviet population was younger due to larger family sizes which would magnify the population advantage.
Thanks. See my next reply to Beckow.
By the 1840s the English and Irish populations had been growing for about 100 years at rates which make it easier to understand the current African exodus to Europe (Live Aid will have to gear up mightily if it is not only going to keep African children alive but provide them with sustenance as adults). It was understandably still somewhat bewildering for the approximately Christian ruling classes who may or may not have found help in the works of the Reverend Thomas Malthus. I suspect that class was almost as big a factor in the bad aspects of English dominance of Ireland as religion or ethnicity. As in England there was a wide range of attitudes to and care for the poor amongst the landowning and new commercial/industrial classes. In the end Ireland had to suffer in the case of serious problems from the fact that, quoting Churchill from memory, “Ireland’s tragedy was that it was economically unimportant to England but strategically vital”. The Falkland Islands multiplied by 50 as a neglected Falkland islander may have noted when the Argies invaded.
Interesting to consider how differently popular (including quite well educated) opinion relates to how they think historical events should count for current policies and decisions and how practical we used to be and mostly still are in establishing and maintaining limitation periods on legal claims. I sometimes wonder whether the reasons behind statutes of limitations – and the equitable doctrine of laches – can be applied to Israel/Palestine. Unfortunately there seem to be numerous problems even when one concedes that (a) the acts of recognition in the 1940s by the UN and nations can be treated as vitiated by bad faith, conflicts of interest or whatever, (b) the dispossessed have maintained continuous claims to the best of their ability since 1948. As my one rabbi friend says, it appears to be hopeless.
And what otherwise is the relevance of a 70 year old grievance? The Israelis keep it alive to the extent that they deny the ethnic cleansing which was responsible for the original refugees’ plight. It would be like the English in 1920 denying all responsibility for the disastrous consequences of the Irish Famine.
Not necessarily my last thoughts. I will try harder and aim for perfect precision of fact and reasoning when my appointment comes through and I firm up the judgment I have to hand down. (At present I am negotiating to have an army and police adequate for enforcement before I accept appointment. I am not encouraged by the presidential Tweet reported as “if anyone is going to get US boys into the blood and muck of killing it will be me”).
Regarding ‘causation’: the hardest thing to determine are people’s motivations because people lie. Including the British (and probably also the Irish). You try to establish a ‘difference’ based on what you assign to others as motivation. I think that’s foolish. All we have to go on is what we know happened: British government (a regime?) starved a few million Irish to death and exile while exporting food from Ireland. That is all we know for sure.
You have also never coherently addressed the 5-year English miners, that is not an outrage in your world?
You may not have read the Suvarov based discussion started by Ron Unz. It seems that Stalin had effectively geared up Soviet industry to produce military hardware very substantially, especially from 1939 onward. Still I haven’t seen any figures for the cost in production of having to shift industry out of harms way after the Germans invaded. On the other hand I have seen no follow up on statements that Hitler allowed some demobilization in 1940. Or the effect of Hitler’s failure to mobilize domestic production and manpower – especially womanpower – for war in the way the UK did almost from the word go. Of course Hitler had the productive resources of the occupied territories to allow him to keep his own population cushioned until 1942.
What actually prompted me to reply to you was your reference to family sizes and a possible age advantage. Perhaps someone can fill us in on comparative demographics. I often start by pointing out to people that there were 2 million Germans and 5 million Russians born in 1913 so Hitler and Stalin could ignore WW1 losses: they both had enough bodies to play with. But you are probably right about bigger Russian family sizes – maybe offsetting the Holomodor?? – because Protestant Germany at least would have been well on the way to emulating Britain in its smaller family sizes as birth control became accepted. Mind you I worked when very young with an 81 year old who was one of 8 boys and 4 girls in an English family when he went off to Mons as a hussar in 1914!
Had it ever occurred to you that people become something for a reason? Say, there were millions of communists in Russia at the time, yet they did not become general secretaries. Or say, Germany attacked France and Russia. France simply surrendered under Petain (with De Gaulle radio broadcasting from London), whereas Russia beat Germany to a pulp (to give you a sense of scale, Germany lost more solders trying to capture “Pavlov’s house” in Stalingrad than conquering the whole France). So, karma has many facets, even if you believe in reincarnation. Some lead, some follow, all for a reason.
{USSR almost lost a war to a country with 40% of its population, that was also fighting the British, also busy occupying Europe, and was then fighting the Americns and getting bombed by them.}
‘Almost’ is as good as nonsense: you don’t ‘almost’ win a medal, do example.
You either win or lose.
Nazi Germany lost and USSR won.
You can say ‘almost’ this or that about anything.
Nazi Germany conquered pretty much all of Europe in a matter of months.
The British expeditionary force was chased ignominiously to the Channel in tatters.
According to war records of Germans themselves, Wehrmacht lost about 80% of their men and materiel on the Eastern front. Their best and toughest units were sent to the Eastern front, because that was the main reason for starting the war for Hitler: annihilation of USSR and extermination of Slavic peoples.
The number of German KIA and WIA on the Eastern front vs the rest of theaters is proof as to who was doing the lion’s share of destroying the Nazi war machine.
Yeah, Nazi Germany ‘almost’ won: sure they did.
The same way Napoleon’s Grand Grande Armée ‘almost’ won.
Napoleon’s tactics and strategy was as revolutionary for his time as was Wehrmacht’s Blitzkrieg that vanquished France in less than two months. French army at the time had more and better tanks, more artillery pieces and the same number of divisions as Nazi Germany.
Oh, btw: unlike Hitler, Napoleon managed to invade and occupy Moscow. Yet his Grande Armée of ~700,000 was still ground down to ~30,000 by the time the pitiful remnants escaped Russia.
Wehrmacht would have been similarly ground to dust with or without England or US.
It would have taken maybe 1-2 years longer, but the result would have been the same.
After Stalingrad (1942 to early 1943), the Wehrmacht was broken*, but USSR war production was ramping up, and SU had practically an exhaustible supply of fighting age men.
No. France did not “almost” defeat Germany in that war.
They ran out of room. Soviets did not.
Which doesn’t contradict what I wrote.
Germany came close to defeating the USSR. An indictment of the pathetic performance of the Soviet state.
Reality is hard for some people. Sorry.
Wehrmacht was broken after Kursk in summer 1943. In early 1943 the Germans retook Kharkiv in a battle that saw 10 Soviets killed for every German killed. Their generals wanted to continue such tactics, that would have eventually bled the Soviets dry, but Hitler overruled them due to his obsession with holding ground at all cost, which effectively crushed the German war effort.
Looks like reading comprehension s not your strong suite either.
I am not criticizing PH for liking Antonescu (in fact, many Romanians do). I am pointing out his sheer presumption in liking Antonescu and supporting the Axis in WW2 (which went well beyond Romania’s understandable nationalist aims in getting back Bessarabia) and then WHINING about muh Russian oppression when that particular project failed.
Refresh my memory. Where did I, or Kholmogorov, say that?
Latest release of Maddison has quite a few strange figures.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/latest-release-of-maddison-project-was-russia-richer-than-previously-thought/
I think it is impossible that Poland (equivalent to Russia’s richer provinces) and Finland (industrialization since the 1860s, IIRC nearly fully literate by 1914) were close to each other in 1929.
That said, obviously the relative positive of ECE was closer to that of Western Europe then, than in 1991.
According to Mark Harrison’s calculations, LL accounted for the equivalent of 5% of Soviet industrial production in 1941, and 10% in 1942-43, declining thereafter.
Although small, the precarious position of the USSR in 1941-42 means that it may well have made a crucial difference.
Probably not; as a society only beginning its demographic transition, the bulk of that youth would have been concentrated in the youngest age brackets.
That is the issue. If Ukraine is nation, and Ukrainian – the language, then Shevchenkos will do – for the Baltics, or some Balkan country. That is a misery of any Ruritania. Or Shakespeare that does for feudal island of Britain, but neither for UK or British Empire or Anglo-Saxon wolrd. Bardolatry is akin to Star Wars fandom, it is not a cultural win for humanity. Yet artificially created Ukrainians denying they are Russians – automatically deprive themselves from much prolific Russian culture, that is by any standards great.
I love the fact that I am under attack both from Stalinist retrogrades and Western Russophobes.
It means that I am doing something, maybe many things, right.
It is close to comparing Imperial Russia and France in 1812, and counting their population.
In 1812, Russia was fighting with Napoleon and his horde of ‘twelve nations’ from all continental Europe from Poland to Spain.
In 1941, USSR was again fighting with most continental Europe serving Hitler, including not only direct Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, Romanian allies, but even volunteer divisions from Spain and SS divisions from France and Scandinavia. Those not involved were producing weapons, vehicles, ammo, rations, maintaining deathcamps (Poland), providing raw materials (Sweden) and entertaining Nazi that got tired from killing – just everywhere. Take this together.
That’s why today defending Hitler is defending all his henchmen, collaborators and benevolent sponsors in Europe, all cowardly grandpas and slutty grandmas that either served Nazis or were content and afraid, pretendig they were just following orders. It is defending the West in general, where Hitler was created and raised for his Drang Nah Osten and crushing the non-Western system of USSR, the living alternative to the West, beacon of social equality and a feared undertaker of capitalism and usury. Attacking Stalin is, in most aspects, attacking Russia that still stands. All this fits in the modern ideology of EU, conceived by Hitler and commanded by modern Germans.
In Russia, there is an Immortal Regiment movement, where people parade with portraits of their grandpas – war heroes and veterans of WW2. I can only imagine, what uniforms and decorations may appear if somewhere in EU such parade to be conducted. Or just what proportion of EU population may present their ancestors being veterans and heroes. Somehow, all of us have to live with all this. People and peoples do mistakes, go to jail and still can cooperate and even be saved.
Wrong. Wrong in a way that a serious scholar of history would not be. The fact that you are unaware of the vast literature, including letters and diaries touching on the things you have expressed opinions ab0ut doesn’t mean that motivations or “causation” are mysterious. We are not after all discussing events of 1845BC.
As to the 5 year old children who may have been (rather uselessly) in coal mines you are again neglecting sources of knowledge available to you.
One commenter has already pointed out that any 5 year olds would not be employed by big coal mine owners but merely accompanying a family which was doing some kind of coal mining – maybe independently a bit like miners panning for gold in streams owned by no private person.
As with the much bigger real problem of working hours and conditions which gave rise to so much legislation in Britain and its self governing colonies in the 19th century one needs to remember that it was all part of something new for which there had never been laws or government regulation anywhere (though I invite some scholar to tell me of aristocratic British – or German or French – classicists who discussed some ancient precedents which might help justify the state’s interference in trade and industry).
Any student of Britain’s ruling classes could tell you how, before the new class of businessmen were let into politics by the 1832 reforms – and after! – old landed aristocrats like the Duke of Wellington looked down on the tough horny handed moneymakers and it was as often the old aristocracy who led the way, like any good lord of the manor locally, in protecting the working classes’ conditions of work.
I am not sure what the law said at any particular stage about the employment of children of certain ages. I do recall I think that education for all children became compulsory in 1870 and I doubt that parents were even then prohibited from exploiting their own children’s labour whether picking up lumps of coal or sewing.
I recall reading the question and answer in a committee of the Parliament of the then self governing Colony of Victoria in the 19th century when a very respectable biscuit manufacturer was questioned about allegedly having 12 year old children employed in his factory. His answer – apart from the fact that he couldn’t be sure of their ages for sure was that a lot of parents were keen to have their children where they would be supervised, safe, warm and fed.
Whatever you recall reading about 5 year olds may inspire what you might think, in retrospect, overly simplistic thoughts. But maybe you are really a 19th century Labour History scholar and you will point out my errors.
How are you connecting Shakespeare with the “feudal [sic] island of Britain”? Do you know what “feudal” means? I don’t suppose you are hanging anything on the continuation into our times of such artefacts of the law as a “fee simple absolute in possession” or even anachronistically the “fee tail”.
As to “Bardolatry” I recall a very distinguished Jewish Ivy League professor telling me that he marked the beginning of his way out of the Chicago slums from the time he was introduced to Shakespeare at the age of 10. I’m not sure if that was what you mean when you use “Bardolatry”.
It means that I am doing something, maybe many things, right.
It could mean that you are wrong for more than one reason, a variety if you will, allowing opponents to choose their cause.
The tale of good shepherd? Thats what they want you to believe, the official British myth. In such fake universe, Francis Drake is a national hero who obliterated the Great Armada, Shakespeare is world-class genius of drama, Guy Fawkes is an ultimate criminal, and queen Victoria a benevolent monarch. British aristocracy robbed the land from peasants, traded slaves, sponsored piracy, pillaged India and imported opium to China like mafia family with royal bosses and power inheritance. And there is always a plenty of British professors writing history books that promote impeccable England and its landowners. Human trafficking was always ok in UK – from slaves to indentured servants, or jailing for poverty and hanging for begging or using child labor. Charles Dickens writings on victorian childhood is only a portion of truth. If British aristocracy treated their own soldiers like scum, they had no reason for mercy to underpaid scum offsprings.
British aristocracy made friend with Hitler. Info on Hess flight to England in 1941 is still classified by UK.
It is still feudal, with monarch in command, no written constitution, ‘house of lords’, unelected governing structures, feudal titles, ceremonies and addressing, ‘chivalry’ orders, and importantly – major lands in posession of nobility. You may watch their house of commons to see the staged show pretending to be parliamentarism.
Shakesperean cycle consists of historic plays (praising the monarchs and keeping the official narrative e.g. ‘Agincourt is a great victory’ and ‘Richard III is bad’ – Tudor propaganda. Besides that we have comedies that are not funny, and tragedies that mostly recite the Italian novels of a time. That was a time when Italian capital (Venetian-Jewish, Florentian and Genovese) invested in British trade, since Turks closed the Mediterranean. Backwards British society copied the more developed culture from Italians, and for centuries the mediocre adaptations of ‘Shakespeare’ are forced by British Empire and UK.
Britain was fighting against Germany when Soviet Union was de facto a German ally under Molotov-Ribbentropp and busy butchering elites in eastern Poland/the Baltic states and trying to oppress Finland.
Your fairytale version of history (“Polish death camps”?) is beyond ridiculous.
What is the nature of Mark Harrison’s calculations? Cost basis?
What I find noteworthy about lend-lease isn’t the actual weapons the USSR received (which other than the P-39 Airacobra they generally didn’t like and relegated to secondary fronts), but the fact that it essentially freed the country from the need to produce capital goods.
The population advantage was somewhat countered by the vast amount of territory the Germans occupied. Pre-Barbarossa population I believe was 200 million, down to 126 million afterwards allegedly. Still larger than Germany, but the Germans also had allies.
Poland’s poorest and most backward parts were the ones that had been part of the Russian Empire. However it also included Silesia and Galicia. Silesia was rich coal country (like Donbas in Ukraine) and Galicia while poor by Austrian standards was richer than the Russian average (Galicia 1890 income $1,947 in 2010 dollars, compared to $1,550 for Russia that year), having achieved full literacy of students (not not population) by 1910.
Even now, the former Russian parts of Poland, other than Warsaw for obvious reasons, have a reputation as being the poorest parts.
Thus the Polish state overall would have been wealthier than just its Russian parts; it does not seem odd that the average of the poorer post-Russian parts combined with the richer Silesian and Galician parts would be about equal to Finland in the 1920s.
But if you like, you can ignore Poland and just compare Austria to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. All three were about the same in 1929, and diverged markedly in 1991. That’s the effect of Soviet rule and being “fed” by the USSR.
And Edward VIII the Nazi sympathizer visited Hitler just to handshake him in 1938, a year before the war. You re-start the cycle spreading BS of how USSR ‘allied’ with Hitler and ‘butchered’ ‘elites’ in former lands of Russian Empire (petty Nazi henchmen).
Look on the map to see locations of major camps.
Sherman medium battle tanks were deployed with Guards units. I think they must’ve liked them more than the T-34/85.
Hungary sent one corps in 1941, which was withdrawn by November. Then one army (with roughly 200,000 troops) in 1942. It was poorly led and trained (Hungary was under a much stricter armament restrictions regime than Germany, because the country was smaller and secret armament programs much harder to hide, it was also poorer, and the restrictions only ended in 1938), and was destroyed by a numerically not superior Soviet force in January 1943.
After that, until the summer of 1944, several hundred thousands served as occupying troops in the East. They were usually quite brutal to the population, but also ineffective against armed partisans, so kinda the worst of both worlds.
Hungarian troops were also used in Poland, and they weren’t brutal there, in fact, they were fraternizing with the population and the Armia Krajowa, and actually gave weapons and ammunition to the latter. Some Hungarian troops were also sent to suppress the Warsaw Uprising, but the idea of fighting the Poles was highly unpopular. The troops refused to shoot at the Polish soldiers/insurgents, and instead occasionally shot at the Germans. The Hungarian high command sent them strict orders prohibiting them to shoot at the Germans or provide weapons or ammunition to the Poles, ordering them to actually fight the Poles seemed unrealistic even to the collaborationist high command in Budapest.
Anyway, I’d guess Hungary was worth something to Hitler. But not nearly as much as a similar sized (population 14 million) chunk of the USSR to Stalin.
Romania allocated more resources to the front (I think more than half of their troops were fighting the Soviets until August 1944), but even they kept a third of their troops on the Hungarian border (half the Hungarian army was opposed to it), and of course their troops were probably worse in terms of quality or equipment than Soviet troops. Definitely not worth as much as a similarly sized part of the USSR.
Then there was Finland, which was poorer than Germany, but its troops were great. But it was very small.
Bulgaria didn’t fight the USSR. Other countries at most sent one division (maybe Slovakia two divisions?), those were basically rounding errors.
The armament industry in France ground to a standstill after 1940, and they effectively sabotaged production.
In my opinion he’s quite optimistic regarding whether lend-lease could’ve been replaced, but perhaps it would’ve been possible (at the price of starving to death a large portion of the population). But the big problem would’ve been not lend-lease, but the tens of thousands of 88mm (8,8 cm in then German terminology) tubes and thousands of aircraft etc. appearing on the Eastern Front. Not to mention that some troops could’ve been demobilized (and sent to the armaments industry) or sent to the Eastern Front, etc.
Excuse me, what?
There were no Russian ‘parts’ of Poland, whole future independent Poland from Lodz to Warsaw was Russian with major industries and railways constructed by Imperial Russia. Poland was more densely populated and multi-national, and under Russian Empire the relatively small lands of ‘near-Vistula region’ were divided in surprisingly many governances (gubernias). Many Jews lived there before the war, and those millions were mostly slaughtered in local deathcamps. E.g. famous factories of Lodz were founded and managed by Jews. The same is true for Cracow with major Jewish district completely depopulated in ww2. Poles expelled Germans in 1919, then together they ‘finally solved the Jewish issue’, and then Poles again expelled Germans from Western Poland, and settled in parts of Eastern Prussia. Needles to say, in former Imperial German and Austrian regions of Polish republic, industries were founded by Germans and Jews. So one may conclude that
inhabited by Poles themselves (rural areas).
Look at a map before commenting.
Mostly German officials and family members. They weren’t really expelled, just lost their jobs and so left on their own accord.
I don’t have the same detailed knowledge of WW2 as you do, but a few months ago I read the German version of Rolf-Dieter Müller’s Unknown eastern front: The Wehrmacht and Hitler’s foreign soldiers. His assessment was that Hungarian and Romanian troops were important for German operations in 1941/42, though this was under-appreciated by Hitler. Maybe worth a look if you haven’t already read it.
Apart from the Finns (who fought their own, somewhat separate war) and the Italians the other European contingents weren’t really important and of mostly symbolic value.
Firstly, the Germans seem to have had a significant initial numerical superiority which they maintained for most of 1941(see my previous posts).
Also the Germans were able to concentrate almost their entire strength against the USSR in 1941. Britain was essentially not a factor in the war on land at that point. And America was neutral. While the USSR had to keep many troops in Siberia to face the Japanese.
The Germans had suffered few casualties in their adventures in Poland and France, while German generals and lower officers had gained massive experience in conducting modern mobile warfare. So the Wehrmacht was at an absolute peak of effectiveness. And German allies added significant numbers of extra soldiers.
Despite the advantages, some modern historical researchers,e.g. David Stahel, argue that Operation Barbarossa was already facing failure by August 1941. In other words, the Germans could not achieve their objectives at any point after that date.
The Wehrmacht was an awesomely effective army, but if it is true that Barbarossa was facing failure just two months after its beginning, then we must change our perspective on the war in the East.
By 1910 all Galician kids were literate. Overall literacy was in the 60s %. Galicia was more literate than ethnic Russia.
You didn’t know that? 🙂
Consult a map.
Most of whom were Polonized, particularly the Germans.
The Germans were outnumbered at the start of Barbarossa but had local superiority everywhere they attacked.
It’s possible they may have had outright numerical superiority, or at least superiority in trained units, by late summer owing to the vast encirclements that destroyed so many Soviet divisions.
Hungarians were also a source of weapons for UPA.
I think Italy was important for its Mediterranean fleet, as well as for allowing the Anschluss. Probably not much else though.
Wow…just wow…you know Jane Austen was also very noble, and Mr. Darcy quite a gentleman, none of the filthy business for them. Britain is simply pure like fresh snow. Only the Neanderthals further east (the horror!!!) intentionally industrialised in the most brutal way they could think off. Damn savages, and they wrote about it all in their ‘letters and diaries‘. The always scrupulously objective British historians know. No comparisons allowed.
Then it is ok, absolutely, the proper Britishers ‘looked down’ on those practises, so it must be ok. And my foolish thoughts that what actually happened – 5-year olds dropped to mines to get to the small crevices and dying premature, miserable deaths for about 150-200 years – all that is not ‘serious history’. We should know that what is serious is what the British have concocted in a convoluted, apologetic way, with proper assigning of ‘motivations’. Simple rule: we English always mean well, they (mostly the damn Russkies, or before that Germans or French) always plotting evil.
I see why this is going nowhere. You ‘anglos’ are simply incapable of rational and objective reflection. The DNA has been damaged, even before whatever it is that you did to the poor Skripals. When Sharapova takes Melodonin she is an ‘evil Russian witch taking drugs’, when British cyclists (and pretty much the whole Olympic team) take drugs it is ‘ they had a paper from the team doctor, you see, they are actually sick, so it is by the rules‘. The same level of my-sh..t-never-stinks logic is applied to everything. And it seems the crap has been successfully exported to Australia. (Are you still hunting the natives, or are they all dead?)
There were no Galician kids. There were German ruling class kids, Jewish kids going to heder, Rusin intelligentia kids going to their church schools to learn Russian, and the local peasantry learning whatever church basic education was.
You can list Russian governancies yourself. Lodz, being industrially developed by Imperial Russia, was one of the primary targets of German invasion, and even temporarily capital of postwar Poland. There were Russian railroad, German shipbuilding, Jewish textile factories – islands in the sea of Polish villages.
Polonized to be betrayed, gassed and burned in 1942-1944.
USSR had to allocate major forces on eastern (Japan) border all the long AD 1941 (until Pearl Harbor?). My grandpa was stationed in Far East and their elite artillery division was deployed to fight Germans only in 1942.
Parts of USSR troops (several armies) were allocated vs. Turkey and Iran. Any advancing force has to outnumber the defender, e.g. Germans in Barbarossa, Red Army in 1944-45 offensives.
Today, German grandpas visit Silezia etc. in huge numbers to visit their former houses built by Germans, their churches etc. – whole cities of German culture (e.g. Breslau – Wroclaw). These could not be erected by tiny fraction of ‘officials’.
Breslau beame Polish after WW2, not in 1919.
You’re really uninformed.
It is always the craziest who are attracted to anti-Angloism
OK, take Poznan (Pozen). Same rathaus, churches, German streets and buildings, nostalgic grandpas. Go visit it yourself to see. It is quite amusing that in German Breslau Poles placed ‘Raclawitska panorama’, a fantasy painting of how Kostiuzsko defeated the Russians. Running and crying bearded cossacks, surrendered Russians officers, picturesque manly Poles are in abundance. All this fantasy was sponsored by Austrian intelligence in Lvov circa 1894 (as preparation to WW1), center of vile anti-Russian polonism and ukrainism. The results are Ukro-Polish divide and UPA atrocities with Polish exodus from Western Ukraine.
Anglophilia and Anglophobia are irrational conditions.
Well, Stalin was/is evil and killed millions of Soviet citizens. But, as it was said before, who were the people who wrote 5 million reports against their fellow citizens?
No, You’re definitely mistaken about this one. Go back and reread the commentary and recalculate your missteps. 🙁
Did you say something about reading comprehension before? Read my comment to German_reader again. I said some Russian. Does it include you? I do not know. Tell us ‘if there were no Estonians or Latvians left after the WWII’ would you consider it a good thing for Russia 70 years later?
By 1910, there were about 2,000 Ukrainian-language elementary schools in Galicia, in addition to reading rooms and church schools. School attendance in Galicia increased from 15.5% in 1855 to 71% in 1900 to basically full attendance by 1910. Literacy of the adult population improved from 17.3% of men and 10.3% of women in 1880 to 44% in 1900 and 59% in 1910; it was most likely in the low 60s by the start of World War I. Ukrainians were about 40% of Galicia’s population but about 50% of the new schools built in the early 20th century were Ukrainian-language schools.
And you can see that the Poland of the 1920s was not limited to those.
Strange argument from a Russian. Remind me who started Donetsk? How about famous Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg? All those Baltic Germans and their outsized role? Guess who started the Russian oil industry, in Baku?
One of my friends comes from an originally German industrialist family in Poland. He has the German surname but the family married into Polish nobility on the 19th century, were fully Polonized, and indeed were patriotic Poles, fighting against the Germans.
How everyone imagines England:
http://newrezume.org/_nw/143/78788821.png
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/87/26/df/8726df751e18ee4e0ba3b6d9172da87e.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/18/7c/af/187cafed4085d39f6550b5a4aa336974–madonna-vogue-madonna-photos.jpg
https://static.skyeng.ru/image/4ff808741aea22f4f936a64107308377.jpg
And how, sometimes reality is not always matching our dreams.
https://farm3.static.flickr.com/2335/2125843908_3ba897565b_b.jpg
http://voprosik.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%84%D1%84-7.jpg
In 1910 Poznan was 57% Polish.
Your cluelessness is endless, apparently.
This writer seems to be a peddler of hate ideology and absolutely ignorant about the noble ideology and ideals of socialism, communism, etc. He is of the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist racist variety who thinks that slave labour is useful and productive and Stalin achieved more by using it and forgets/hides the voluntary participation of millions of Soviet people in building their society and industries. That Stalin committed some egregious mistakes too nobody in thoughtful socialist/communist circles denies now but would not place him on par with tyrants or fascists or even American imperialist genocides. Persons of his ilk could as well say against US that all its development was only due to slave labour, trade of death weapons, and downright plunder and loot in imperialist aggression and invasions. We are witnessing the most ruthless imperialists of history now who have eliminated millions of innocent people in Middle East, Afghanistan, South East Asia, Africa, many parts of Asia, etc. and glory in it and this dirty fellow is but a sold out hack for those.
Good question. These were the same scum who served as German polizei during occupation, holier-then-thou communists afterwards, played victims of the communist regime after 1991 while looting what they could get their hands on, and who now play “opposition” to get the US and European grants.
In Russian culture sneaks, snitches, and informers of all stripes are deeply despised along with traitors. Just like traitors, on the moral scale informers are considered maybe a notch above child molesters.
Actually about 2,500. This doesn’t include church schools, reading rooms, etc.
That means, Austrian monarchy had deliberatly constructed artificial Ukrainian language medium for future war with Russian empire. This played well in Russian civil war and beyond. Polish emigres from 1863-5 rebellion were instrumental in growing future Ukrainians de novo. They have paid dearly for their seeds of discord (massacre of 1944).
Actually, Russian Don Cossacks and then count Vorontsov. It was built with Russian money by Russians for Russian Empire, as well as railroad in Poland or ports in Danzig or Eastern Prussia – not for independent Poland or sole Polish use.
The same may be said of German officers with Polish surname, or Red Army officers and NKVD. All inhabitants of Russian Imperial Poland were somehow polonized, and enjoyed Polish culture as we do today.
I doubt althouth that Jews in Lodz were Polonized: the local officials spoke Russsian, engineers and trade patners – either Russians or neighboring Germans. Patriotic Poles in Red Army fought with 2nd Polish republic and in Soviet courts they sentenced persons of Polish origins. They were serving the state or their ideals.
Major infrastructure like ports and railroads were all built by either Russian Empire or USSR. Neither Balts nor local German landlords were incapable of such major developments.
It was venture capitalism with many parts involved. Сommercial oil cracking was invented and patented by Russian engineer Shukhov in 1891.
Yet it started from you mentioning Polish GDP as a national product created by Poles themselves through history. I have shown you that it is not so. We do not know, how developed Poland could be today or during interbellum if it had preserved its kingdom in 1974, or be a part of Napoleonic Empire, USSR, 3rd Reich etc.
Nice to hear it. But who made more affluent strata, owned buildings and industries?
Maybe, the Industrial Revolution happened too early and we needed a few more hundred years of downward mobility.
Still, I think there is something to be said for the poorer classes in England once having a certain self-respect. The question is, what destroyed it?
May be they are despised, but it looks that they are also part of the Russian culture, too big numbers. Is it part of the Russian culture to blame the failures on a single person, too?
He was talking about 1939-40. The Nazi henchmen weren’t there at the time (the one real national socialist or rather Italian style fascist Latvian was in fact in exile). “Former lands of Russian Empire” is irrelevant here from the legal point of you. The only way it may be relevant is that, when the henchmen did appear (later, after the first wave of Soviet atrocities had been completed), some of them turned out to be former officers of Russian empire (among them quite remarkably a general who had previously fought for the Whites — and had in fact worn the ribbon of St George, I mean, do you expect a guy like that to be friendly towards the Bolsheviks?).
Btw, there was a big wave of this “Brits have always conspired with the Nazis” rhetoric on Russian TV right after the Skripal case. That’s what all their TV shows were talking about (including Harry’s armband, lol).
Wow, you just pulled that out of your heiney, just like that.
If you weren’t an overly emotional antifa, you’d realize pretty quickly that the Slavic look is in fact my favorite (Balto-Slavic rather… followed by Celtic/Atlantic, and only then the classic Nordic – in that order!).
I brought it up because Hack in one of his comments above mentioned something about Varyags in Ukraine – and I wanted to stress that that’s not really who they are and that the Slavic look is distinct from the Nordic look. And wanted to know where the Adriatic look in Ukraine comes from. That’s all. But you antifas don’t care about the truth, instead you’re always on the lookout for a “Nazi” on whom you can project your unhealthy, negative emotions.
This aspect speaks lot about the culture. It is common among cultures that do have rough relations with the state and the power structure which they consider to be hostile and alien. In the above quote you could replace ‘Russian’ with ‘Afro-American’ and the statement would remain true.
What is on the other end of the spectrum? Switzerland with population of empowered citizens who consider informing authorities to be their civic duty? Is it from fear, envy or mean spiritedness? Perhaps sometimes, but chiefly it is from the sense of responsibility for a common good which is their country and their state. The state is not an alien entity like it is for Russians or Afro-Americans. The state is really weak and that’s why it is brutal and people are brutal to each other if small problems and conflicts can’t be resolved in a civil manner by officials of the state. Powerlessness debilitates and creates pathological behaviors and also leads to indolence and fatalism.
Austrians only funded the schools. Work, from standardizing the language teaching in the schools, was done by Ukrainians.
Same thing as Russians funding Latvian schools, in order to limit the power of German barons in the Baltics. Russian monarchy didn’t “artificially create” Latvian language.
I see you have much to learn.
Donetsk industry was started by a Welshman, Hughes. Donetsk was originally named after him, Yuzivka.
https://www.rbth.com/business/326217-black-gold-how-russian-oil
Oil has been extracted since ancient times, primarily for construction and medical purposes. As for the modern petroleum industry, it was born in the Russian Empire: the world’s first oil well was drilled on the Absheron Peninsula near Baku way back in 1846.
Baku Region attracted leading petroleum companies from around the world. Here, enterprises run by the Rothschild family and the Nobel brothers vied ruthlessly with each other for supremacy. Winston Churchill once said that “if oil is a queen, Baku is her throne.”
In the early 20th century, the Russian Empire was one of the globe’s top oil producers, occupying 30% of the market. The Revolution of 1917, Civil War and nationalization of the oil companies hit the industry hard. Still, the foreign capital didn’t leave Russia. The Rothschilds and Nobels were replaced with Standard Oil of New York and Vacuum (later known as Mobil).
:::::::::::::::
Nothing wrong with that. But it prove how silly you are when you point out German or Jewish families in Poland and try to say that Poles were mostly just peasants. As if Russians weren’t, either.
You’re interacting with someone who is arguably the most anti-Russian commenter at these threads.
Warsaw was a part of which empire? The latter was supposedly so backwards that the former is the capital – long regarded as Poland’s primary city.
Every nation has its fair share of scoundrels. 5 million in a ~150 million population comes to ~3%, a realistic fraction of scum in any population. Are you writing from Heaven, where this fraction is supposed to be lower?
Goes in the oh and so category of svido talking points. Galicia did such as part of a non non-Ukrainian ruled empire. Russia being a much larger area.
Yesterday, I came across a stat saying that Russia now has a higher literacy rate than the US.
Concerning the present, Galicia seems to have a greater per capita number of crackpot nationalists than ethnic Russia, as evidenced by the number of commemorations to Bandera.
Pre-Soviet Russia has a rich literary tradition, which includes having nurtured such great technically inclined individuals like the Kiev born Russian Igor Sikorsky.
When reality doesn’t match their self-image people often become bipolar. The pretty British pictures, scrubbed history, myth-making, lies and evasion – that is how they medicate themselves. Good, at least they try to control it…
Soviet Russia also generated a lot of talent. Bulgakov, Blok, Mandelsham, Sholokhov, and many others in literature, Kapitsa and Landau in physics, Shostakovitch and Khachaturyan in music immediately come to mind. To the best of my knowledge post-Soviet Russia so far did not produce anything comparable (I can name only one high-class writer, Prilepin).
Goes in the oh and so category of svido talking points. Galicia did such as part of a non-Ukrainian ruled empire, with Russia being a much larger area. It’s has been universally observed that on a number of issues, larger areas with a greater population can be more difficult to advance/manage.
Yesterday, I came across a stat saying that Russia now has a higher literacy rate than the US.
Concerning the present, Galicia seems to have a greater per capita number of crackpot nationalists than ethnic Russia, as evidenced by the number of commemorations to Bandera.
Pre-Soviet Russia has a rich literary tradition, which includes having nurtured such great technically inclined individuals like the Kiev born Russian Igor Sikorsky.
Then again, post-Soviet Russia has existed for a short period of time.
From your blog:
Socialism is for LOSERS.
How does it feel to be a LOSER?
Not only a loser, but Indian as well.
Post-Soviet Russia – 27 years (1991-2018), Soviet Russia (eventually USSR) – 74 years (1917-91). A difference, but not that huge. Out of 74 Soviet years 4 years was Civil war (1917-21) and 4 years WWII (1941-45), both pretty devastating. Although I’ve read somewhere a German who said that when they heard Shostakovich symphony played via loudspeakers from blockaded Leningrad, he realized that Germany lost the war.
The most virulent nationalism is in the East. In Kharkiv.
But Bulgakov was inspired by the unbearable horrors of Bolshevism, and Sholokhov by those of the civil war.
I meant, the most resistant, since it’s surrounded by pro-Russians, unlike Lviv.
@AP: Could you please respond to my question in the last paragraph of post #619?
Indeed, I’ll repost this question right here:
“Also, as a side note, had Russia permanently been able to keep Novorossiya and Bessarabia, do you think that these territories–along with Central Asia–would have eventually become Russia’s version of the Sun Belt? Indeed, here in the U.S., the states in the Sun Belt (southern U.S.) experienced extremely massive growth over the last 70 years whereas most of the other U.S. states didn’t grow anywhere near as fast. In turn, I am wondering if Russians could have likewise flocked en masse to sunny areas throughout the 20th and 21st centuries had Russia avoided going Bolshevik in 1917.”
Mikhail,
The Slavic, Greek-catholic population in my shteytl in Bukowina, Romania were known to me as “Goyim” in Yiddish, Ruthener in German or “Rusnake” (rusnaci) in Romanian.
Does the word Rusyn refer to this same population?
They’d say: “Me hovorem po ruskyi” In contradistinction they called the Russian language”Rosiiskyi”, a distinct language.
Then a teacher from the Soviet Union, Professor Klimenko from Harkov, arrived in town and taught them that their nationality is Ukrainian, and also, what she thought was their correct language, that is Ukrainian.
Further up in the mountains lived a colorful Slavic population called Hutzuli in Romanian or themselves Hutzulye. Are they the Rusyns?
Mr. Idealodus, you conviniently chose to forgot that USSR gave to Romania part of Bulgaria – North Dobrudja in exchange for Bessarabia.
I am talking about talent, rather than inspiration. BTW, both were quite successful in Stalin’s Russia, although the best Bulgakov’s novel, “The Master and Margarita”, was published only after Stalin’s death. The funniest thing is that Uki Nazis hate Bulgakov, as he described their ideological predecessors brutally honestly with his characteristic humor in “The White Guard”.
I am writing from the Reality. It is true, every nation has its fair share…
Some have more, and it translates in more civil wars, more poverty, more self destruction.
Yes, they are quite deranged, more than in Lviv (Lwow in Polish, Lvov in Russian), but Ukrainian nationalists in Kharkov constitute a small fraction of the population. Even one ideological Uki Nazi publicly complained that he heard conversations in Kharkov about what to do when “ours” come, correctly surmising that “ours” in Kharkov means Russians. Reminds me of a modern Ukrainian joke: “they told us that Putin will come and that would be an utter disaster. Well, it’s utter disaster, but where is Putin?!”
They still call it “російська мова” (“russka mova” probably doesn’t exist in their language).
Without interruption by the scumbag Americans, Socialism would have greatly improved Africa in the INITIAL stage after the end of colonialism.
Socialism has made India a much more stable, ‘prosperous” is too strong a word but certainly gradually moving the right direction…..compared to where Pakistan is
Indian culture is great….I’ve not quite adapted by ears to the style and different scale used in their music…but everything else is great
It is the “Kharkiv Hunta”. 🙂
And Homer was inspired by unbearable horrors of Doric invasion, as well as Servantes by Inquisition, Tolstoy by Crimean War etc. etc. Epic events give birth and scene to personal dramas that make literature.
It is unfortunate though, that such unbearable horrors made no contemporaries equal to Bulgakov in Poland, Finland, Baltics, Romania and other regions that today cry victims of Bolshevism and Russia. Maybe, the horrors were somehow bearable?
Bulgakov was generated by pre-Soviet Russia and was persecuted by Sovok. Actually the Soviets largely killed what had been the finest literary tradition in the world.
That socialism is for losers is American ideology of success, imposed by Hollywood and dehumanizing mass culture. Even most depraved, poor and exploited still think of personal advancement only but never of equal and just society. Such ideology helps to exploit the masses, wage wars and drink the blood of the poor.
When Ilf and Petrov (authors of ’12 chairs’ and ‘Golden calf’) visited USA in 1936, they met an old man, true ‘loser’ in American terminology, a poor guy with no future. When asked about social fairness, he proposed to strip the rich off their wealth, leaving only 5 mln dollars for each. That’s because he still planned to become rich, despite obvious incapacity – due to American dream imposed on him.
As a matter of fact, Bulgakov was never persecuted. He knew what can and cannot be published, though, so he kept “The Master and Margarita” in the table, so to speak. He started writing before Bolsheviks (Doctor’s tales), but his talent blossomed after 1917 (that does not mean that it blossomed due to 1917). In fact, Bolshevik/Soviet regime failed to kill the literary tradition in Russia, whereas after 1991 the field is essentially barren. Go figure.
Bulgakov, a Russian nationalist, was somehow oppressed by Comintern-aligned left wing (may qualify as trotskysts). Yet, even before being supported personally by Stalin, Bulgakov met his success in USSR, his plays were staged, and many books published. He wrote ‘White guards’, opposed bolshevism in Civil War and had two brothers in emigration – still no jail no execution.
Soviet system gave birth to Soviet, Czech and Polish cinema – part of Socialist heritage and cultural pearls in general. Nothing close exists today.
How so?
Plenty of folks there to the contrary, with no Bandera monuments – at least the level of Galicia.
Africa is completely hopeless because it is populated by Africans. Nothing can improve it other than colonial rule.
Anyhow the main purpose my comment was simply belligerence, as the commenter’s attitude (complaining about “hate”) is most unwelcome.
I’m generally known here as a friend of Indians but screw that guy.
Why would a just society be equal?
Justice means getting what you deserve. As men different in talents and effort, an equal society is necessarily unjust.
What exactly is fair of stripping the rich of their wealth?
Seems like the Rusyns.
Likely blended with others, with some relationship to the Rusyns, who consist of varying blends as is true with other Slavs.
Bulgakov had periods of success and he avoided being executed by Stalin liked his works, but he was also censored and his works banned at times, and he was generally made miserable by the Soviets.
Heart of a Dog is the best novel about the Soviet experience ever, even better than Animal Farm. Sovoks are all Sharikov, of course.
You are just demonstrating your cluelessness. Kharkiv is the home of neo-Nazi (actual ones) like Azov battalion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
The Azov Battalion has its roots in a group of Ultras of FC Metalist Kharkiv named “Sect 82” (1982 is the year of the founding of the group).[18] “Sect 82” was (at least until September 2013) allied with FC Spartak Moscow Ultras.[18] Late February 2014, during the 2014 Ukrainian crisis when a separatist movement was active in Kharkiv, “Sect 82” occupied the Kharkiv Oblast regional administration building in Kharkiv and served as a local “self-defense”-force.[18] Soon, on the basis of “Sect 82” there was formed a volunteer militia called “Eastern Corps”.[18]
And his works were also banned, and he was also banned from participating in the theater, a torture for him. He was also prevented from seeing his brothers despite begging to do so.
It seems you know as little about Russian culture as you do about Ukraine, Poland, etc.
Or perhaps your sense of morality is so twisted, that you believe that not getting arrested and executed means he was treated well and should have been grateful? You are Sharikov?
Bulgakov was personally protected by Stalin. Even the worst people have their redeeming points. He wrote more than “Heart of a Dog”, his “The fatal Eggs” are just as revealing, although “The Master and Margarita” is more balanced.
BTW, Animal farm is pro-Trotskyite, if you take it literally. But in reality it is much more than that. Better than “1984”, if you ask me, although “newspeak” and comrade Ogilvy story describes current US propaganda better than anything.
What exactly is fair of stripping the rich of their wealth?
As a generality, wealth is acquired within a framework of rules. Usually those rules are made for and by the wealthy. Those rules are biased, unfair. The guillotine institutes new rules, rules that are more fair.
Not all. I’m perfectly aware of what your bring up. Notwithstanding, in proportionate terms, Kharkov isn’t as svido as Galicia.
Nothing has changed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5835419/More-half-Millennials-expect-millionaires-someday-according-new-study.html
More than half of Millennials expect to be millionaires someday, according to a new study
His works were censored and he was banned from participating in the theater. He asked o be allowed to move West but was prevented from doing so.
I suppose in Sovok-world not getting executed or sent to the gulag qualifies as not being persecuted.
He started writing before the Soviets, was persecuted by him, did not like them, and you somehow use him as an example of Soviet literature or literary tradition.
I wrote largely killed – not completely. Even they couldn’t manage to do that. The literary product of the Soviet union was a pale shadow of pre-Commie Golden and Silver ages of Russian literature.
Bykov or Pelevin aren’t worse than Soviet-era literature.
Agreed. He was still persecuted by the system, Stalin intervened to keep him alive.
Yes, which is why I like Heart of a Dog more. I read Master and Margarita in my late teens, that book and Dostoyevsky helped me to regain my faith.
I generally agree with this also.
Could you please respond to my question in the last paragraph of post #619?
Indeed, I’ll repost this question right here:
“Also, as a side note, had Russia permanently been able to keep Novorossiya and Bessarabia, do you think that these territories–along with Central Asia–would have eventually become Russia’s version of the Sun Belt? Indeed, here in the U.S., the states in the Sun Belt (southern U.S.) experienced extremely massive growth over the last 70 years whereas most of the other U.S. states didn’t grow anywhere near as fast. In turn, I am wondering if Russians could have likewise flocked en masse to sunny areas throughout the 20th and 21st centuries had Russia avoided going Bolshevik in 1917.”
In my book, Bykov and Pelevin are midgets next to Prilepin. Next to Bulgakov or Sholokhov (or whoever wrote “And quiet flows the Don”) they would be invisible microbes. Even Chkhartishvili (Akunin) writes better prose (although by Belinski’s classification it is belletristik, rather than literature).
Dear, I am a bearer of this culture and live here in the midst of it, like my ancestors. Despite ‘horrors of bolshevism’ they somehow enjoyed their life, won the war and gave life to me and many decent people. So did Bulgakov, Gagarin, Korolev – their lives were not easy living, yet few of them would prefer another one. We don’t cry victims and blame somebody else. When compared with other nations of Europe, we have almost no nation-wide sins to repent. Please stop using wikipedia to parry the obvious things we try to communicate.
Bulgakov made money under Socialism, just for staging his plays, had three beautiful wives, drank and played cards and pool with Mayakovsky and all the leftist writers who pretended to oppose him. Enjoy your current life and do not blame us Russians, the benefactors of Poland and savers of humanity. For we always come back 🙂
Each of these countries produced writers in 1920s-30s that can equal Bulgakov. That you do not know of them it does not mean that they did not exit. That Russian language writers had much easier entry on the stage of the so called world literature than some writers of Rumanian, Polish or Hungarian languages should be pretty obvious to you yet you forwarded this nonsensical argument about Bulgakov uber alles. Look at Jaroslav Hasek. His translations were so awful that he had no chance of being recognized in the West. Only after the excellent 1980’s English translation he became recognized in the West.
I am reading your comments and clearly you appear to be some kind of provincial erudite. Perhaps you are even known in your oblast for your erudition. The question I have is why are you using so rhetorically primitive arguments that only the lowest of the low Sovoks would not be ashamed to use. Is this from the sense of inferiority? Hurt ego? Grave injustice that you and your Soviet Union was subjected to? You are a caricature of the Soviet man one could find in the anti-Soviet jokes only. And in the case somebody is paying you for it they are not motivated by the well being of Russia. It is a counter-PR you are engaging in. Most like you are playing to the cheap seats of other Sovoks here. What an unnecessary ballast you and your buddies are for the modern Russia?
Let’s get some specifics–which rules are unfair?
And while I shouldn’t have to state this, it’s not my position that our society is fair or just.
Equalicucks however are just a bunch of losers in general.
Or worse, they’re ambitious intellectuals who want more “quality” as a means of increasing their social status and power over the bourgeoisie. Britain’s Fabian socialist fags being a classic example.
While half of millennial will not become millionaires, nearly anyone can become a millionaire.
$10,000 invested annually in $SPY over a thirty period will result in a net worth well over one million dollars.
Maybe. Although the distances from these places to the industrial and established commercial zones may have been too great. The Carolinas are still only a days drive from New York City, after all.
Let’s get some specifics–which rules are unfair?
All of them.
But I will give a clear example. The distinction between civil law and criminal law is artificial and to the benefit of the wealthy and powerful.
A contract is a civil matter exempt exceptions are made for fraud. A check is a promise to pay, a contract. If Joe Smuck writes a bad check, criminal law comes crashing down on his ass, or his bank charges him 1,500% interest for the “loan” to cover his check, or both. If you fail to deliver on a contract, that is, you fail to “pay” your obligation in the contract then the other business will have to proceed in civil court in order to make you pay. Why is a check not a commercial code vehicle among payer, payee and banking institution? Why does the criminal police power involve itself with a promise to pay? But only Joe Smuck’s, not yours.
The distances between New York and Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California didn’t prevent all of these states from experiencing massive population growth in the 20th and early 21st centuries, though.
And while I shouldn’t have to state this, it’s not my position that our society is fair or just
Obviously.
It is my position that we could, and should, be more fair and just.
This is pretty insightful.
In non-common law countries sometimes terms & conditions for quotations and purchase orders are regulated by the law and not subject to negotiation, and thus failure to deliver is a criminal matter.
In Anglo-Saxon countries checks are defined by law, but contracts are not and subject to negotiation. There are instruments similar to checks which are not defined in law and thus are a civil matter. Options are a good example.
Laws against check bouncing also hardly prevent Joe Schmuck from getting rich.
Joe Schmuck can also purchase something with a credit card and fail to pay his credit card bill. No criminal penalties for that.
As to why check bouncing is a criminal matter, I assume it was once a major problem (along with check kiting) so people (yes, the rich) lobbied to make it criminal.
Wikipedia has this to say:
A person who knowingly enters into a commercial contract on a fraudulent basis can also end up facing criminal charges.
And “all of them”…really???
Sure. But more fair and more just does not mean equality. In some areas it could even mean more inequality. As an example blacks get far more than they deserve.
But yes, in many areas it would result in more equality. Executive compensation for instance has completely departed from reality and is currently just a form of looting stockholders. Of course most stocks are owned by the rich, but there’s a lot of money in pension plans owned by common people.
hahaha- the main divergence between the two has been AFTER the fall of communism you retarded prick.
Even then the only big difference in wealth, living standards happened around about after 1975 you dumb twat- from this period to 1991 is when the problems started to develop, until then from 1945- the 1970’s then it was one big gigantic glorious leap in living standards and prosperity thanks to Stalin and others. Czechoslavakia had had their industry totally destroyed by Hitler and Austria was probably always ahead of Hungary in terms of wealth for the 200 years preceding this you dipshit freak.
Again , retarded fantasist garbage.
One thing amusing about shithole Galicia, still after all these years entirely reliant on Russians and Russian money:_ it had the ignominy of all the teams in the Euro 2012 football tournament REFUSING to base themselves there. France very willingly enjoyed staying at their base in the high-class facility and city of Donetsk, absolutely NONE of the teams stayed in Western Ukraine , Lvov.
Quite unheard of in a football tournament for there to be an empty city/region like that.
So, France stayed in Donetsk, Ukraine I supposed, reluctantly had to base themselves in Ukraine…..and Sweden were the only other team that stayed in Ukraine ( Kiev)…and that was because they had unusually been drawn to play all their matches in Kiev, I suspect if this had not been the case ( 1 match in Kiev and 2 in Lvov), then they would have just stayed in poland, or thought about flying from Stockholm for each match
This humiliation of Galician retards at a prestigious event ( one of the few opportunities to boost tourism, that of course failed to materialise there) is like a flower shop that doesn’t sell any flowers on Valentines Day or a pub not selling any Guinness in Ireland or New York on Saint Patrick’s Day
And “all of them”…really???
Okay, almost all.
But more fair and more just does not mean equality.
Of course not, it should just mean that everyone gets a rice bowl without being humiliated.
A person who knowingly enters into a commercial contract on a fraudulent basis can also end up facing criminal charges.
Yes, but the fraud must be established and proven. ISF checks are treated with the presumption that it is fraud. Even if you are stupid and can’t balance your account you can still be charged with a misdemeanor and the DA will prosecute you on behalf of the payee.
Wouldn’t you like the DA’s help in collecting money owed to you?
I provided numbers for 1991, Sharikov. Again:
In 1991 GDP PPP in 2011 dollars:
Austria: $29,999
Czechoslovakia: $13,947
Hungary: $ $13,847
LOL no, Sharikov.
1975, in 2010 dollars:
Austria: $20,193
Czechoslovakia: $14,306
Hungary: $14,125
Remember that all three were about the same prior to Communism:
In 1929 GDP PPP in 2011 dollars:
Austria: $6,413
Czechoslovakia: $5,704
Hungary: $6,024
It’s just a story of ongoing degradation under Communism.
You are getting very desperate now, it’s quite funny 🙂
In Sweden the state runs a collection agency which also enforces private debts. It is completely merciless.
Certainly I would like the state’s assistance in debt collection, but it’s not that big of a deal. I can sue any deadbeat customer in my (rural) county and win. Then the judgment is exported to the customer’s state and the Sheriff goes out to collect. 🙂
In Sweden the state runs a collection agency which also enforces private debts. It is completely merciless.
How about we get one of these at the federal level to collect child support.
Fuck that. Child support should be illegal. No mercy for sluts.
LOL even with your moronic lies and misdirection and timewasting garbage you still manage to inadvertently prove exactly what I said in my post you cretin!
The usual projection from a freak who somehow wrote about 20 spambot algorithm non-life posts in the hour after I post one to Thorfinsson ( and the 200 you did on this thread before then—each more insidious and braindead that the previous one)
I would think a whole failed, lunatic area of a country being effectively boycotted for one of the worlds most prestigious tournaments is actually a serious matter you cunt
But there’s billions of more things that could be said, but wasted on a sack of faeces freak as you…..like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G82mQeFKak
how even in Rivne it’s near impossible to find somebody who actually wants to speak Ukrainian. That’s just one popular video randomly linked to me on Youtube suggestions today…but I could talk from experience, and people I know………you’re a messed up freak who could “talk” from fantasy…..and of course Wikipedia, the Motyl-retard section
I assume the comments to the video are also about 80%+Russian, with the “Ukrainian” posts still done in the most Russian style possible.
A simple thing but only the tip of the iceberg and perfect microcosm of Ukraine.
What about mercy for the babies?
Bolshoe Spasibo (Russian)
Ghekuyu Faino (Rusyn)
sf
Sovok can’t’ do simple math. Or read. don’t worry, I’ll teach you, Sharikov.
Your post:
“main divergence between the two has been AFTER the fall of communism”
1991 was soon after Communism ended and before any supposed divergence.
In 1991 GDP PPP in 2011 dollars:
Austria: $29,999
Czechoslovakia: $13,947
Hungary: $ $13,847
So, already diverged.
You then wrote:
“the only big difference in wealth, living standards happened around about after 1975”
Already diverged in 1975:
1975 per capita GDP PPP, in 2010 dollars:
Austria: $20,193
Czechoslovakia: $14,306
Hungary: $14,125
Before Communism, 1929:
Austria: $6,413
Czechoslovakia: $5,704
Hungary: $6,024
So before Communism, Hungary had 94% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
In 1975 Hungary had only had 70% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
Before Communism Czechoslovakia had 89% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
In 1975 Czechoslovakia had only 71% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
Of course, the longer the Communism, the bigger the divergence.
Understand now, Sharikov?
Poor Sovok is triggered 🙂
Do you need a safe space?
“Rusyn” you demonstrate is simply the Galician dialect, spoken in villages in Lviv region. The cities speak standard Ukrainian, based on the speech in Poltava in central-eastern Ukraine.
Everyone in the video in Rivne speaks Ukrainian. You failed again, Sharikov.
Is this more video that’s supposed to prove that Ukrainians forsake their own language for Russian?
It’s all 100% in Ukrainian! I’m afraid that if you heard something in Russian you might think that it’s in Ukrainian? Admit it, languages are not your forte.
Looks like you can add ‘ethnologist’ to the long list of specialties on your resume, Mikey. You’re amazing, such quick and penetrating intelligence, from just a few descriptive words you’re able to discern somebody’s ethnicity without even seeing a photo of them or hearing them yourself (your abilities as a linguist are already legendary). Karlin should be paying you for all of the useful information that you provide! 🙂
You didn’t say whether I was (in your opinion) right or wrong.
Prove me wrong on my primary areas of interest, pertaining to foreign policy, historical, media and sports issues.
Never said I was a linguist. To my knowledge, Alexander Mercouris, David Johnson, Michael Weiss and John Mearsheimer, (among others) aren’t linguists.
Interesting how some languages somewhat similarly (albeit with key differences) develop over time. I knew a Jewish woman who was taking Yiddish at Columbia. She said there has been an effort to standardize it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish
As suggested above, the aforementioned Eastern Yiddish has two variants.
Like I said, you’re amazing. Always right on every single issue, never wrong. And such a broad range of interests too – a real 21st century renaissance man. A modern day Leonardo Da Vinci!
Keep heckling like the loudmouths in the upper deck.
The other thing is that places like Moldova are hardly a “sunbelt.” In January Chisinau’s average high temperature is only 33.4 degrees F, it’s average low is 24 degrees. In Odessa it is 36 and 27 degrees, respectively. In Sevastopol – 41 and 29 degrees, respectively. Sevastopol is about the same as Washington DC in winter (indeed, slightly colder), which is no Sun Belt.
While this is much warmer than Moscow, it is no Florida and California.
Central Asia isn’t much better. Tashkent has a high of 44.4 and low of 29.3 in winter. And in summer average highs are in the mid 90s.
The only true “Sun Belt” in Russia or on Slavic areas was in a narrow strip of land around Sochi.
Only relevant Russians here would be Kholmogorov (OP), or myself or the translator (his supporters)… or failing that, reliable opinion polls.
You have not produced evidence from either apart from “some Russians” which means precisely nothing.
The article: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789814583343_0004
It’s the GNP plus net imports.
https://i.imgur.com/JvkUzXa.png
Incidentally, I made a mistake: LL actually accounted for about almost 0% of Soviet GDP in 1941, rising to 5% in 1942 and 10% in 1943 and 1944.
One further note: Since the USSR had what you might call a “narrow” economy – huge steel production, but much less, say, copper wire production – LL may have been worth even more than what it was on paper. Obviously the tanks, etc. were of marginal benefit, but copper wire, aviation gasoline, etc. generated by the much more capitalist, and much more diversified and developed US economy, were highly important in plugging gaps in Soviet production.
There might also have been a real famine (as opposed to chronic dearth) without US food supplies.
Hey, look on the map – he was not from the countries I mentioned, and Czapek with Kafka too. Please name at least one from these.
That’s you who dwell in periphery, on the sidelines of history. Many cultural things simply cannot be comprehended from your point. Our nation is creating culture and making history, you just use it and make the background. Please do it wise and enjoy 🙂
Here’s a communist joke about Lenin. I heard it in Hungarian, but I assume it originated in the USSR, like most such jokes.
Libertarian idiots. I tell you, whatever these Millennials believe, there will be no hyperinflation!
I first read Master and Margarita in my parents’ 1970s first Hungarian edition. My brother told me that the last sentence in the book was “the cruel fifth Procurator of Judea, the rider Pontius Pilate,” and I checked, but it was an epilogue written by a Hungarian literature professor, and the last sentence was something like “Bulgakov is considered one of the greatest figures of Soviet literature.” I couldn’t stop laughing.
But already in 1941 they were very important, and yes, the tanks were also important. From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease?wprov=sfti1
The Sherman tanks later were not so important, but they mostly served with the more elite Guards troops, so were probably considered better than the T-34/85s.
Sorry, the quote doesn’t belong here.
That’s a very simplistic and probably unwise view. At least with the Kraut and the Eternal Anglo, you were allied a lot (with both during the Napoleonic Wars, with the latter against the former during both world wars, though other combinations did exist during both periods), in fact, you owe your very existence to the Eternal Anglo. Maybe those Russian nationalists who are whining about the ingratitude of Poland might show some gratitude towards the Eternal Anglo who provided 30-40% of medium and heavy tanks at the height of the Battle of Moscow.
Though I agree that for Russia to pursue any kind of alliance with the West would be foolish at this time period, it’s not very smart for leaders to go into full-on hatred against any temporary opponents. There might be times when it will be wiser to change allies. Currently China is a better ally than the US could be (the latter demands total subordination and even so might stay hostile – so it’s impossible to become allied to it), but circumstances might change.
hahahahaha you dumb prick…….you didn’t listen ( or rather, can’t understand Ukrainian or Russian) to the video, did you you dumb POS?
Conclusive ( and about a billion other things on top of that) proof of Russian as dominant language in an “Ukrainian” heartland
Do you want the Yushchenko video’s posted again also?
Of course it is, and does you cretin!Pretty comprehensively I must add. Just like with the Yushchenko video you are too thick to understand what is said……fortunately Larisa Muzika and the rest ( v Turtsi & everything else in the video, like ‘vremya’, ‘xinka’ is about the only Ukrainian thing you idiot) set the record straight ( well it didn’t need to be set as only braindead vermin spawn losers of Banderatards living in North America promoting this obvious nonsense)
Not like those are hard to make more of.
I get the feeling LL was worth more than its nominal value.
Germany produced something like three times as much steel during the war as the USSR did.
But the USSR mostly produced more weapons than Germany.
Its not like Germany’s steel was wasted.
The USSR didn’t have to produce a single locomotive or railway wagon during the war, and it even received rolled steel directly from Pennsylvania. Supposedly the US furnished something like half of all the steel the USSR used during the war. The nominal value of this would not look impression in national accounts, but obviously steel was extremely critical during the war.
It seems like a lot of intermediate industrial inputs and capital goods were shipped to the USSR as part of LL, and this was far more important than shipments of obsolete weapons the US and Britain were no longer willing to use themselves.
Even if we look strictly at military goods the Battle of Stalingrad would not have been won without Dodge and Studebaker trucks. Or at least, not won the way it was fought.
No, I listened and it was in Ukrainian. Maybe Sovok didn’t post the right video?
The one where you tried to prove that Polish, Russian and Ukrainian are the same language? Very funny, Sharikov.
You do it little credit.
Did you know some people even survived concentration camps?
Bulgakov despised Sovok and tried to leave but was denied.
You don’t blame the West for what your Sovok elite did to its and your country in the 1990s?
Hasek was used as an example of a great writer largely unknown outside his country due to translation issues, not as an example of a Polish or Romanian writer. You should read more carefully.
It’s just nonsense ( table of production of locomotives and railway wagons)
http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/StatSbornikVOV/StSbVOV07.html#t6
deliveries of American locomotives to the USSR began in late 1943, so their role was relatively modest.
Whenever have I whined about the ingratitude of Poland?
That’s what sovoks do, not Russian nationalists.
LL was purely self-interested, and we had to pay it off anyway. I see no reason whatsoever to be thankful for the Anglo for it.
West has literally pushed Russia and China together in the last 10 years. 2014 was a tipping point when China refused to join West in its sanctions and did the opposite: pipelines, summits, military cooperation. Another key event was the failed coup in Turkey in 2016 and the resulting failure to reliably line up Turkey in the anti-Russia camp. Those two acts look foolish, why did West do it?
I assume that the main world powers have put some thought into it. With all the hoopla and noise, Russia is in a stronger strategic position today than around the time of Maidan. West got Ukraine, but allies are only valuable if they are stable and don’t cost more in support than what they provide. Ukraine offers strategic reach, but the main issue is how to keep it from another collapse. Acquiring costly and unstable allies is not a smart strategy.
The goals in Ukraine in 2013 were obvious: get Kiev into Nato, get Russia out of its naval bases in Crimea, and continue with colour revolutions in Belarus, Kazkhastan, and eventually Russia. It failed. Instead we have a stronger Russia-China alliance, pissed off Turkey, economic cracks in Ukraine and Europe, and no way forward. When the strategy failed the only defense was to claim that what West did was dictated by its ‘values’, strategy be damned. That is infantile. Enter Poland, Sweden, Harvard professors and other eternal children of the world geopolitics; they are throwing a temper-tantrum because the ice-cream shop shut down and nobody told them that there is no Plan B.
Most likely true. The Rusnake families arrived (were brought) from Galizien to my Bukowina town, somewhere between 1750 and 1800. How far south of Lemberg (Lviv) were their villages of origin, I do not know.
Another straightforward lie…..that rather shameless you keep this up as befits a spambot troll f**tard ( that OK Anatoly?)
Quite shameful
AK: At least AP is capable of writing in a civilized manner that doesn’t repel anybody who reads him. Perhaps you could take the hint? Then I won’t have to trim your comments.
Again ,fantasist drivel.
Maybe you can be useful though for once in your POS non-existence…..do you know if there was an outbreak of beubonic plague, or something like that, which made all foreign teams refuse to be based in Lvov for Euro 2012? in a quite exceedingly embarassing circumstance for the people of Lvov and “Ukraine”
I agree there’s no reason to be grateful in either case. All parties were self-interested, until recently. Unfortunately recently the western elites were captured by Russophobes (why doesn’t iOS learn this word?), but it won’t last forever. In any event, no need to get overly ideological about this as if this hostility lasted longer than 73 years.
You write about yourself now. You posted a video that is in the Ukrainian language and claim it is not. Very funny 🙂
You know anyone can just scroll up and see it for themselves.
LOL, here is the link to how you tried to stupidly prove that Ukrainian, Polish and Russian are the same language:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/netanyahu-was-in-moscow-so-what/#comment-2334356
You had previously written “Yushchenko though doing something useful for once and proving that Ukrainian can’t seriously be considered a language but merely a dialect of Russian”
Yushchenko’s speech:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-43611547/viktor-yushchenko-ukraine-s-ex-president-on-being-poisoned
First sentence:
Ukrainian (Yushchenko) – “Koly ya pishov do domu, potsiluvavsya z druzhynoyu*..”
Russian would be”Kogda ya paishol domoy, potseloval zhenu”
Polish would be “Kiedy poszedłem do domu, pocałowałem żonę”
Every single word in this phrase is the same in Polish as in Russian. It is merely pronounced differently.
By your “logic”, Polish must be a dialect of Russian too!
This video is the one you have spammed on the comment section to “prove” that Ukrainian is a dialect of Russian.
Pathetic and funny. 🙂
*Yushchenko could have used the word zhinkoyu instead. Which would make the phrase use all the same words in all three languages.
::::::::
By the way Sharikov, why have you not responded to the comment where it was shown to you that by 1975 Communist Czechoslovakia and Hungary had already slipped far behind non-Communist Austria? 🙂
The comment is here:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/stalin-is-not-great/#comment-2371632
Why are you afraid, Sovok?
:::::::
Same one that prevented them from being based in Kharkiv?
My Yiddish is that Southeastern (Ukrainian–Romanian) version.
It is also affected by my native tongue: Austrian German (Österreichisches Deutsch).
The official Yiddish (the YIVO Yiddish) differs, in my opinion, mainly in vowel pronunciation.
Here I go: Even my Yiddish, is not “Hoch Deutsch”. Still a country bumpkin.
I know a few commenters did bring up the issue, I cannot remember of which ideological persuasion. Anon 411 is definitely Sovok, for example.
lol…Bizarre, retard argument.
Russia has independently started and built plenty of it’s own industries/cities you idiot. All your cretinism shows is that any westernisation Ukraine has had was because of either Russian impulses or Russian money from Saint Peterburg.
All those projects you list were done from RUSSIAN MONEY you cretin, same as all of Ukraine has either Russians or Russian money to thank, as was the case in the first bridge of the river Dnieper which was built by the Irish and British, with payment witheld because just after finishing the Bridge the Crimean war started. So Russian money, not straightforward parasitism ,as was the case of in Poland/Latvia/Estonia ,where all it’s infrastructure was because of CONQUERING powers, not their own initiative you idiot.
Now compare the great Russian engineers, scientists ,classical music composers, artists, novelists ( is there even such a thing as Polish “literature”), architects, performance artists….now compare all these spheres of intellectual achievement from Russia….and compare it to the pitifully inept and low tally from Poland, way out of disproportion to its population you thick POS.
Chopin and Curie got by most of their live pretending they were French, so the list of Polish ability at intellectualism is practically nil.
Correct, the region was sparsely settled and under Austria there was a large wave of Galician immigration. In 1775 Bukovyna had only about 75,000 people, 80% of whom were Romanians. In 1880 it was 580,000 people and only 33.4% Romanian, vs. 42.2% Rusnak/Ukrainian.
That’s what happens when hubris replaces strategy. In the US today only MIC has a strategy: produce any fakes necessary to keep the gravy train rolling. The leadership of the country is wholly owned by MIC and allied forces (AIPAC is one of those) and mostly resembles biblical blind lead by the blind. Hence the fiascoes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, etc. Hence the publicity stunts like Trump meeting with Un in Singapore: much ado about nothing. Hence blind rage towards anyone who is not toeing the line, like Iran and Venezuela (I’d love to see the usual anti-Israel crowd find Israeli interest behind totally incoherent and impotent US policy towards Venezuela, far away from the ME). Hence hysterical posturing towards ascending powers, China and Russia. Overall, the US actions on the world stage lately look more like death throws than policy.
So Sharikov understands that Russia was independent and Poland was not.
It’s good that you at least know something. This may be the first correct thing you have written.
Although you screwed it up by using the word parasite. A parasite prospers from its relationship. but as we have seen, Soviet rule caused places ruled by Soviets to fall behind:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/stalin-is-not-great/#comment-2371632
975 per capita GDP PPP, in 2010 dollars:
Austria: $20,193
Czechoslovakia: $14,306
Hungary: $14,125
Before Communism, 1929:
Austria: $6,413
Czechoslovakia: $5,704
Hungary: $6,024
So before Communism, Hungary had 94% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
In 1975 Hungary had only had 70% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
Before Communism Czechoslovakia had 89% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
In 1975 Czechoslovakia had only 71% of Austria’s GDP PPP per capita.
::::::::::::::::::::
Before Communism, Galicia was wealthier than Russia. After Communism, it was much poorer than Russia.
So clearly, Sovok, you were the parasite.
……for any non-lunatic….in other words you invented the part where you claimed I said Polish was a dialect of Russian……
You also stupidly don’t go past the first sentence, again I made this point at the time.
AK: Note where I started trimming your comment. Not where you attack the argument by calling it stupid (it’s a very poor argument, but legitimate), but where you begin the personal attacks.
Whole sentences in this video are Russian you useless POS ( even more so on the Sky video I linked)
So what?…one of the worlds most prestigious teams were based in Donetsk you twat……..absolute zilch decided to soil themselves in the shithole Lvov……..must be because they could smell the rubbish tip from their prospective hotel.
For more of Ukraine being Russia watch this… https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44141852 ……in it’s short time from the virulently russophobic pricks of the BBC, it shows the rich cultural heritage of Russia and the Soviet Union…the beautiful art, music, architecture, science that intertwines Tsarist and Soviet era’s…utterly beautiful
now on the other side of things compare the woeful intro by the same people, the BBC, and also ITV for the Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTq9Jo9GEXw. Obviously it cant give a full history but it should be able to encapsulate something about a countries culture/history etcetera…they’re paid millions to be able to do so. The only thing they can do is show the hideous Nazi-like Tryzub….at a stretch maybe that’s supposed to be the Carpathian mountains…but I doubt it.
Now compare these two intro’s – Maybe they could have “branched out” with some dickhead showing off a Khokhol cut or one of the “Cyborgs” getting annihilated as they defended an Airport ( by destroying it’s 400 million value) that wasn’t part of their territory in the first Minsk Agreement, as part of Ukrainian “culture”….but as you can see ,it’s a pitifully low amount they show as “Ukrainian”.
Why is this? Because to do a pure Ukrainian video would be one involving art, people, singing, landmarks identical to Russia , from Tsarist and Soviet time you clowning POS cretin! That’s because Ukraine is Russia you spambot sewerrat lowlife.
Got all of Akunin on my Kindle. Downloaded from flibusta.is
There is a touch of hysteria in the air in the West. They are also lashing out at each other more. The ‘f..k Trump’-and-Russia-read my emails’ crowd is visibly unhinged, even in some very previously respectable institutions.
I would prefer to think that there is a strategy, that they have thought it through, that there is more than what we see. But there is probably less. They are setting up fall guys all over for the coming failures, Trump prominently among them, as if they have no faith that they can pull this off. Who cares afterwards who is responsible? Names are just names, they don’t matter. West has made its own situation dramatically worse by inability to police its elites and to understand physical constraints. Those two are basic prerequisites for a successful civilisation. The hubris we see are out-of-control elites refusing to accept reality. They won’t have any more luck with it than the previous fools in human history.
Sorry for touching you emigre feelings, inciting a burst of resentment and jealosy for us Russians. I recommend you reading Korolenko’s ‘Without tongue’ about Western Russia’s immigrants in New York. Their gnashing of teeth is almost the same as 100 years ago – but today with Soviet myths battling with Western myths in the same brain.
Losing your own identity is indeed a tragedy. As we stay in ‘Sovok’, we still enjoy many things free, low taxation, lands and condos granted by the state, paid 28-36 days leave, maternity 1,5-3 year leave, free communal transportation, zero vehicle tax and parking, and many other discounts, tax deductions and money bonuses for having 3 kids, and for every kid – free kindergartens, schools, vocational activities, ternary education. Elders enjoy lowest retirement age, free transportation, holiday trips etc. etc. etc. We let you enjoy the benefits of Free World and free enterprize in the West yet with no jealosy and resentment at all.
Dck-measuring contest
No reason to project. I could have lived in Moscow, where my wife owns properties in the city center, but chose not to. I can still move any time, but I like my career more. It’s a wonderful place to visit, beautiful, excellent theater, nice shopping.
You are no longer in Sovok. Actually I would never have even considered moving until at least 10 years after Sovok was finished. No normal person would have done so. What an ugly and shabby place your ilk had made of Russia, by the 1980s.
But yes, 25 years after the failed Soviet experiment came crashing down, Russia has become a very nice place. Despite Sovok attitudes of many people.
Well, I’ll admit I haven’t read through this massive 80,000 word comment thread. But I did generally agree with the analysis in the column itself. However, there’s one huge exception I should point out.
If as I generally suspect the Suvorov Hypothesis I’ve discussed elsewhere is largely correct, then Stalin actually came within a hairsbreadth of gaining control of all of Europe, and probably afterward the overwhelming majority of the entire Eurasian landmass.
If so, then surely he would be ranked not only far “greater” than Napoleon, but pretty clearly the “greatest” political leader in all of human history…
Either narrow-mindness or Western propaganda prevents connecting modern state of Russian society and economics to developments of USSR. By 1950s, Russia have repelled direct Western agression. By 1980s, it have built a nuclear shield and since that all conventional forces and wast lands were kept only by inertia, they had certain probability of departing away, including Warsaw Pact. By 1990s, the carbon export industy was completed, and all people got their basic housing (a condo and a small piece of land). Soviet project had fulfilled its task – the large, diverse and cold territory was finally protected, inhabited and supplied by energy.
What you call Sovok attitude is only morals of society reflecting the epoch and its challenges. It is ways better than Western aggressive individualism and self-imposed belief of supremacy that caused WW2, gave rise to Hitler and killed millions. Without ‘Sovok’, many people including yourself, may never exist.
Shambling Sovok state allowed a country with 40% its population to kill 30 million or so Sovoks…after killing 9 million of its own people itself.
Somehow other countries did so without the general population living in poverty and ugliness. Middle class Sovoks were living, materially, about as badly as blacks in American housing projects. The top 1% were living, perhaps, as well as an average run-of-the-mill American physician. Though not even.
Is that what you tell yourself to feel better about 70 years of failure? Sad.
It makes more sense to postulate this of Stalin than of Hitler (because a Communist party existed in various numbers everywhere that could serve as occupation troops), but it makes not a lot of sense to suppose that Stalin’s postulated offensive aimed at sweeping to the Atlantic would have been successful, given that it wouldn’t be Germany alone or with a few unenthusiastic allies he was facing.
Also, if the Mannerheim Line was so vastly successful at increasing Soviet and reducing Finnish casualties, wouldn’t the Ostwall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festungsfront_Oder-Warthe-Bogen) have been equally successful?
Returned to the start? Most of continental Europe vs. USSR => overwhelming manpower, resources and industry combined from the West.
Somehow other countries robbed other nations off their resources and human potential. Somehow USSR citizens received better education and healthcare with all basic needs supplied by the system since 1930s. They had no coca-cola and Star wars, or some top-notch home appliances, living in much colder climate. An average American physician lived in a wooden panel house paying mortgage, returning education loan to work and car loan just to reach his clinic. For an average Soviet physician USSR provided free education and granted him monolith or concrete condo (with almost free electricity, gas and heating), and built a new clinic next to his door, or he got almost free public transportation. The same was provided FOR ALL, e.g. like in USA it would be provided for Hispanics, Afro-Americans, White Trash, fresh immigrants etc. even regardless of their working performance.
Like defeating Europe and sending human to space?
“Suvorov Hypothesis” is definitely not correct. The book of Suvorov is made from lies and manipulation (in Russian it has long been investigated http://militera.lib.ru/research/isaev_av1/index.html ). As for Stalin’s hypothetical attack in 1941-as the archives have shown is a groundless fantasy. Stalin wanted to avoid war and prepared for defense.
“Soviet project had fulfilled its task – the large, diverse and cold territory was finally protected, inhabited and supplied by energy.”
Excellent summary of the legacy that SU left to contemporary Russia.
Many think this is a trivial thing to do and could have been accomplished at a fraction of the cost or much faster. Given the Russian/Soviet harsh geographic, climate, demographic and geo-political realities, I don’t think they have a clue what they are talking about.
You serious?
Agree.
Finland, Alaska, etc. must be a figment of our collective imagination.
Reality is of course the exact inverse: The Soviets overpopulated the Far North well beyond economically rational levels.
Yes. That’s called revealed preferences. The Soviets gave the Shermans to elite Guards formations.
Stalin had no intention of ever taking over Europe in the name of the “evil” communism. Stalin was resigned to the idea of Socialism in one country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_One_Country
What we see today – and in all the days since WW2 – in the form of the US rampage around the world is because the opposite is not true. US can’t resign itself to the idea of “Capitalism in one country” – because they know that the idea would not be sustainable. Hence, the global crusade to spread and thus save capitalism – or as they like to call it – “democracy”.
So, Sherman tanks were given to Guards formations, hence Sherman tank was better than T-34/85 on Eastern front, or Soviet leadership believed that Sherman tank was better than T-34/85 on Eastern front.
I see…..
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2015/03/article-on-soviet-t-34-tank.html
Sherman tank was superior to the T-34 owing to superior reliability, optics, ergonomics, fire control, shells, transmission, and manufacturing quality.
See the article I linked.
How about this:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/top-10-tanks-of-all-time.html
T34 is not only better than Sherman – it’s the best tank of all times. It won WW2 for the Russians.
Likely on the basis that the superior military grouping could better work with an inferior tank. How much substantive Red Army fighting was the Sherman involved in? Never minding the general consensus that the T34 is the better tank.
He was committed to that on the practical premise of why biting off more than you can chew?
The end of WW II Austrian, Greek and Finnish situations serve as examples. In Korea, there’s historical overview suggesting that the Chinese were acting more on their own than doing as told by the USSR.
Not answering direction your question, but a couple of more serious writing on the disjunction in the pictures (which was a bit joking).
The British economic level is not bad, but neither is close to as high (in per capita sense) as a country like Switzerland (the external image we have of Switzerland correlates more strongly with experience of actually exploring Switzerland, partly because they are so rich they can afford to build a country which matches their image).
Exploring England, there are plenty of little places which are matching even the most over-top fantasy image of England – but sometimes go to the next town, or even the outlying area of the same town, and the reality is just completely the opposite.
Really, there are places like London, or Oxford and Cambridge University, which are satisfying any of the most idealized image of English civilization, in my experience of exploring them. It’s enchanted places like a fairy tale. But then to visit e.g. a poor part of London, and all this is almost the opposite.
Again, Western fondness in comparing techs.
The USSR asked for and was provided with different tanks (Stuart, Sherman, Valentine etv.) mostly for testing grounds, to compare them with Soviet and German models for design purposes. And in the times of urgent need when Soviet production was halted and less predictable (lost Kharkov and almost losing Stalingrad and Leningrad with their major tank plants). Western tanks were used in small quantities. Personnel had to be trained for their use, hence Guards like testing pilots. BTW Red Army could name Guards any unit for any reason, not because of elite training or war record only.
The only working logic here is: if Shermans were considered superior by Red Army, USSR would not hesitate copying them like they reverse-engineered really superior bomber.
This topic, as AK-47/M-16, apparently, creates certain debates/discussions.
I’ll pass.
So, let’s agree to disagree and just move on.
I didn’t mean to disparage western technology as inferior. In fact, the T-34 had American designed suspension – Christie suspension. For some reason the Americans never used it on their tanks. It was mostly used on lighter weight tanks, T-34 was probably one of the heaviest tanks that had Christie suspension. Apparently it gave them greater mobility over rough terrain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie_suspension
You are still at it. I wrote this:
You could have answered that (1) I was wrong because that there are no Russian nationalists that… or (2) There are some but you were not one of them and/or Kholmogorov is not one of them.
Now look at Kholmogorov. He approves of Stalin ‘anschlussing’ of the Baltic states:
and immediately regrets that Stalin turned them into the ethnic states:
because in it lead in 1991 to Russia losing control over these sates. What possibly could prevent the de-occupation? What would make Kholmogorov happy? Wouldn’t creating conditions for a permanent irreversible Anschluss make Stalin a great leader because it would not be just a move form “in the red” to “zero” but “to the black”? It would be a gain over the status from before the Revolution. Stalin would have done what Tsars did not.
Wasn’t my rhetorical question justified? What Stalin could have done to make the Anschluss permanent and irreversible? You do not have to approve of the means but would you be glad of the result? You have an opportunity to answer it. You are not shy. You like your ‘sizzlingly hot takes.’
I know.
Had related courses/lectures/exercises during my service, held by experts in the field. During those had a pleasure to sit and play a bit in both models.
This very topic would always pop up.
Not once I heard those guys preferring Sherman to T-34/85 for that particular theater. Quite the opposite, always.
This topic (as AK/M-16) has some fascination for some people.
I’d suggest skipping that here.
Wikipedia is a disgusting dump, it’s not worth using
“For the first time lend-lease equipment entered the combat units shortly before the counteroffensive near Moscow. Only a small part of the 145 Matilda, 216 Valentine and 330 Universal Carrier delivered to the Soviet Union managed to take part in the battle….” (after that, a list of lend-lease tanks involved in the battle of Moscow – a few dozen tanks)
http://www.rulit.me/books/tanki-lend-liza-v-krasnoj-armii-read-310840-9.html
The T-34 was in many respects a superior design to the Sherman. That much is obviously simply by looking at the two tanks.
The superior design features of the T-34 are of course the hull design (first tank with all-around sloped and rounded armor), the engine (diesel instead of gasoline), the track width, and the suspension.
The Christie suspension was obsolete at the time of the T-34’s introduction. The Soviets themselves intended to replace the T-34 with the T-34M (or T-44) which had a torsion bar suspension (and a three-man turret), which was first introduced by the Tiger.
The main focus of the Sherman design was reliability and ease of use, rather than particular combat characteristics. US Army doctrine at the time was that the combat role of tanks was to break through and wreak havoc in the enemy rear. Other tanks were to be engaged by dedicated tank destroyer units.
I say the Sherman was superior to the T-34 owing to its reliability, ergonomics, transmission, optics, visibility (i.e. view from inside the tank), and fire control.
There was a case of a particularly dedicated PzKw III firing 23 shots at a T-34 in a single engagement. No doubt the T-34 crew was not well trained, but that tells you something about the T-34 design.
Also worth pointing out that an internal 1943 Red Army study found the PzKw IV to be superior to the T-34.
The ArmaLite AR-15 was superior to the AK-47.
After Army dweebs “improved” the gun into the M-16, it was plainly inferior to the AK-47.
This is what the link you posted has to say on the topic:
“From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold is a book written by Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, two political scientists and fellows of the Brookings Institution in 2003.
In the book they propose the thesis that Siberia, while one of the most resource-abundant regions in the world, is too big and harsh to be populated and industrialized on an economically rational basis. Consequently, since the collapse of the USSR, which planned and subsidized Siberian towns, a westward exodus to the urban European part of Russia is occurring. The large territory, they state, is not one of the greatest sources of strength of Russia, but one of its greatest weaknesses.”
So, Siberia is a source of weakness for Russia.
And you believe two American political scientists from Brooking Institute?
Hey, I have an easy solution for you. Why don’t you sell Siberia, like you did Alaska?
Well…..you appear to be a dedicated poster here so I’ll bite, a bit.
You approach the issue from a technical point of view.
That’s fine, could be correct, and doesn’t mean much.
Try…..to approach the issue from a commanding officer point of view, there and then.
Say, a Colonel, CO of a tank battalion, then and there.
Which tank you’d use, then and there, as a Soviet C.O ?
Same, for rifle, for any war since/including Vietnam, for any force not having US logistical train.
Just try, as a mental exercise.
You’ll find, maybe, that what’s better in design, production, tests before delivery, even tests in peace is NOT the same for combat in certain particular theater.
There is a prevalent belief that approach, technical, is what really hampered Nazi war effort.
Superior design and overall quality of production, yes…..MAINTENANCE and use by not well trained troops tend to make that irrelevant.
Soviets had that right.
Simplicity and robustness.
It’s one thing to use a weapon in exercise.
Totally different to use it in a real war, with minimum/no maintenance and with dead tired, hastily trained troops.
Bottom line, you are probably correct.
And wrong at the same time.
Depends on who’s making a call.
So a country with only 40% of USSR’s population was busy occupying much of Europe, fighting Britain, and still killed 30 million Soviet people. Even more pathetic.
And Sovoks robbed their own people.
Whom did Austria rob after World War II, while Hungry and Czechoslovakia (largely equal to Austria prior to Soviet rule) got progressively poorer and shabbier under Soviet rule.
As Karlin has pointed out, Soviet life expectancy declined under Soviets. Somuch for better healthcare. Education is a plus, I will give you that. Lots of education people in Sovok living materially like American blacks in housing projects.
LOL, Sovok thinks physician in USSR had it better than one in USA. Did you know poor people in USA also get free healthcare, free housing, free utilities and free transportation?
That’s true. In Sovok all (or nearly all) lived like poor Americans. But it was more or less equal.
This is a myth.
The T-34 was in fact a highly unreliable tank. During the Great Patriotic War the average T-34 not destroyed in combat suffered mechanical failure after just 200km. Red Army leadership considered this acceptable because the average T-34 only lasted 66km before getting destroyed by the Germans.
The air filter was of such a bad design (allowed in far too much particulate matter into the engine, resulting in engine destruction) that American evaluators at Aberdeen considered it to be a work of sabotage.
Stalin, per usual, assumed that mechanical breakdown was in fact stealthy desertion and issued this order in 1942:
Mechanical unreliability nearly cost the Soviets the Battle of Kursk. The 5th Guards Tank Army lost nearly a third of its tanks to mechanical breakdown on its road march to Prokhorovka.
So yes, as a Soviet C.O., I would prefer the Sherman. Assuming good supplies of spare parts, shells, and fuel were available.
That German tanks (and weapons in general) were “high tech” and unreliable is another myth. Over 60% of Panthers at the front were operational for its entire service life, and this includes late war deterioration owing to the collapse of Germany’s industry and logistics train.
German weapons did have a problem in requiring too much machining, welding, etc. reflecting Germany’s vast stock of machine tools and skilled labor, but this is something that they improved on throughout the war. MG-42 vs. the MG-34 being a classic example.
Likewise the Panther, despite weighing 20 tons more than the PzKw IV and being a much more sophisticated and powerful tank, barely cost more at all than the PzKw IV–which in turn cost about the same as a T-34.
You deliberately misplace the facts and numbers. Nazi Germany had allies that invaded USSR, and together their forces outnumbered Red Army (about twice). Population of Nazi Germany + only allied Austria-Italy-Romania-Hungary-Finland was about 80% of USSR population. And with willing collaborators from Poland to Spain – 200% of USSR population. GDP of Germany + Allies + Collaborators was at least 3 times larger than of USSR.
Please grow up from your petty Russophobia. Either you or your ancestors chose to leave our land. Enjoy and keep what you have. You have no need to blame us and find any reason why you stay there.
O.K.
If you are going to add those countries than add the population of the allied British Empire and later the USA.
Germany had to use resources to occupy those countries. This makes Sovok poor performance even worse.
Russophobia is to equate the disgusting Sovok monstrosity with beautiful Russia. That is what you do.
The USSR suffered more casualties during Operation Barbarossa than the size of the entire German Army. Wrap your head around that for a second.
The Axis had superiority in manpower during the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa, something which was not to occur again for the rest of the war. And they were outnumbered in tanks and aircraft, though admittedly most of the Soviet tanks and aircraft in 1941 were obsolete.
In 1942 the Germans launched Operation Blue with numerical inferiority.
Germany’s allies on the Eastern Front other than Finland weren’t worth much either–generally all inferior to Soviet units. Some of the foreign Waffen SS units were excellent however, such as the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking.
I don’t mean to disparage the USSR or Russians in saying this either. Fighting the German Army is serious business, as Konstantin Rokossovsky said.
errrmmmm……British and American forces didn’t step foot in the USSR you laughably retarded lowlife….Italians and Romanians did…with huge armies……much larger than the armies of Italy and Germany encountered by the British in the North African desert…..you insidious retarded attentionwhore POS . Sheesh you are dumb as well as being a nutjob loser
Actually the Soviet performance was the most beautiful and miraculous comeback in miliary history…..your cowardly, fuckedup Nazi grandfather idiot was probably destroyed because of the brilliance of Stalin and the red army….no suprise a sick freak as you has to make 1000s of posts each day on here to try and pathetically disinform on here
The Germans lost about as much men and materiel in Tunisia as they did at Stalingrad.
Albert Speer stated that by 1943 there was an effective second front in Europe as a result of the Allied combined bombing offensive. As an example over a million Germans had to man flak cannons in the Reich.
In 1944 half the motorized and armored units of the German Army were stationed in France to counter Operation Overlord.
Then there’s the fact that the British and especially the Americans supplied the USSR not only with weapons but also industrial products. Half the rolled steel and nearly all of the high octane aviation fuel used by the USSR during the war came from America for instance, as did almost every single locomotive.
I realize Westerners (especially Americans) tend to discount the Eastern Front, but Russians have the opposite problem.
The Italians and Romanians on the Eastern Front are mainly noteworthy for getting wiped out at Stalingrad. You’re better off citing the Finns, who were truly formidable soldiers and pilots.
And yes, the Soviet comeback was impressive. German officers generally highly praise the Soviet performance in their memoirs.
You make me proud to be a co-poster on this tread. I think that when it comes to dishing “compliments” to that Ukro-retard, you are one of the few people who has managed to beat me in that category
errrr…..that is the same for every country on the planet you idiot….not least America where the actual repression would classify as real and much worse than the fantasist “repression” in the USSR.
A country that hadn’ t lost million in WW2 was banning , arresting, blacklisting, blackmailing pretty much all the great negro jazz musicians, singers (look at Paul Robeson), numerous successful film directors, actors, and civil rights activists you idiot
Bulgakov was a great Soviet writer you cretin with numerous successes during the Soviet time ( and the achievements of Russian classical music when much further into the 20th century than any other country….Russian Popular music itself was fantastic, for the time, during the Stalin era….a million miles superior to British ,germany,Italian and french popular music….only second to America’s)
By that measure every single black American jazz musician, numerous famous Hollywood film directors and musicians…..and singers were persecuted
Wow…Charles Dickens wrote about the abusive industrialist-capitalist system and it’s effect on society……..does that disqualify him from being classified as a great Victorian writer you thick POS?
Steinbeck wrote critically of the exploitative forms of capitalist America that lead to the Great Depression in his book “Grapes of Wrath”…by your retarded idiot reasoning that disqualifies him from being classified as a great 20th century American writer
The Soviet Union itself probably contributed more to human rights than any country ever
As we said, not only Germans invaded USSR (having twofold superiority together), and in major Red Army offensives of 1944-1945 the millons-sized German forces obliterated or taken POW were no less substantial than in German offensive of 1941 with Red Army never having twofold superiority in manpower in any operation (e.g. Ten Stalin’s Blows). Such is the dynamics of war. Considering losses, German professional army was obliterated in summer of 1941 by defending Red Army. Germans lost their capacity to win the war even before Moscow offensive.
That’s another propaganda cliche. Red Army fans may say as well conscripts from Ukrainian and Belorussian republics in 1941 were less worthy, since their homes were near, so they could easily desert or surrender explaining higher casualties around Minsk and Kiev. There were many local and dubious reasons for events of every year 1941-1945, yet finaly Red Army outperformed Germans, and USSR won the war against the rest of continental Europe largely on its own.
The Germans lost about as much men and materiel in Tunisia as they did at Stalingrad.
Albert Speer stated that by 1943 there was an effective second front in Europe as a result of the Allied combined bombing offensive. As an example over a million Germans had to man flak cannons in the Reich.
In 1944 half the motorized and armored units of the German Army were stationed in France to counter Operation Overlord.
Well written, not disputing any of that pal. But I think Russians do take an interest in the North African campaign, know the British navy were intensely involved from 1939 onwards, respect the role of the British intelligence services in deciphering German messages, sabotage and of course locating and discovering the V-2 rocket launch sites and facilities…but tend to occasionally underestimate the scale and difficulties of the allies retaking Italy and France in different offensives, because they focus more on the timings, which they regard as being done to stop the Red Army retake Europe and not necessarily because of anti-Nazi impulses.
Thanks Cyrano!
The freak has it’s uncomfortable PMT phase everytime this video is shown… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G82mQeFKak …effectively showing Rivne as a second Russian exclave after Kaliningrad
Not that facts have any relevance to the freak…it just messes up the spam algorithm for the POS.
Video is in Ukrainian, incompetent Sovok.
LOL, Sovok makes the classic Soviet “but you lynch Negros” argument:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
Persecution of blacks in America is not linked to persecution of Bulgakov in Russia.
But I guess because for Soviets living materially the same as poor blacks in housing projects is normal and acceptable, they probably think the treating Bulgakov like a black jazz musician in 1930s America is also normal and acceptable. He was actually treated worse, because his works were banned for a time. Black jazz musicians were only banned from certain clubs.
Just because you are a Sharikov does not mean that everyone else stuck in the Sovok nightmare was one too.
It might disqualify him from being an American capitalist writer.
Bulgakov was a Russian writer, not a Soviet one. Sovoks want everyone to be a Sovok. Sorry, Sharikov, Bulgakov was not one of yours. He despised your kind, and rightly so.
So if it was strictly Germany vs. USSR, no Brits, no Italians and Romanians, no American suppliers, Germany devotes 100% of its military to the war – likely Germany wins.
I would say that fighting the Russian army is even more serious business, since the Germans lost, and I bet the Red army did manage to enjoy few laughs in Berlin (among other things – those who know my history of postings here, know what I am talking about).
As someone else put it:
Gerard is mentioning about a history of persecution of black musicians in America.
This is an interesting topic. I can remember (from memory) one or two examples of this. In these ones, it may seem more from a context of causal actions, than related to a higher government decision.
For example, Miles Davis was attacked by police in 1959 (the same time Kind of Blue is recorded), but this seems in a random way.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwnS0wSIUAEXMY9.jpg
–
Noting the date – the beating happened one week exactly after Miles Davis has released “Kind of Blue” (the most famous jazz record).
Do you seriously believe it? Poland is perhaps the only country where no real collaboration ever existed on a significant scale. The Blue Police occasionally participated in the roundup of Jews, but even that was rare.
Actually it seems a random/unlucky attack by drunk police (with the police probably not knowing he was a famous musician).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcQP0ruGw6M
True, except for National Socialist Germany and Democratic Kampuchea.
Repeating again? In a 30-mln Poland, there were located the major Nazi deathcamps, none of them being liberated by local ‘Resistance’ or ‘partisans’ or any permanent escape mechanism elaborated by locals. Who supplied deathcamps with firewood and coal, food and other supplies? Hosting a 6-mln death industry is a serious business.As well as providing Nazi with war material and maintaining the long communications network on Eastern Front.
And US has contributed more to fighting terrorism than Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan combined, but all that would have been virtually impossible without you casting your vote and making a vital contribution to the process of democracy. Keep up the good work.
Massive bombings started in August 1943, after Kursk – when German defeat on Eastern front was assured already by Red Army alone.
Even more Russians had to man the flak, VNOS points, civil defense, firefighting brigades etc. in remaining European USSR since 1941 – they could not direct this manpower to industry or outsource to collaborators and occupied other countries like Nazi did. USSR had Siberia to relocate major industries destroyed or occupied in European part of USSR. Nazi Siberian-like (yet not ad hoc, but elaborate and long-existing) safeplaces were France, Czechia, Denmark etc. where millions produced war materiel until 1944 – when Red Army fought alone.
Combined German-Italian forces in Tunisia were only about 350000. From Wikipedia, Axis losses in Stalingrad were between 647,300–768,374 with only German over 300000.
Being a Millennial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00FDR1E0zvE
Their argument is that the Soviets pushed far too many people into the Far North than was economically rational.
What industries are viable there, anyway?
So, what the US has in Alaska, approximately. None of these sectors needs huge amounts of manpower.
The Russian climatic equivalents of Alaska had an order of magnitude more people than Alaska, necessitating huge subsidies. After the USSR collapse, these places started to rapidly depopulate, because few people want to live in a frigid wasteland unless they are getting paid $$$ for it.
Selling Siberia is your strawman. Have fun with it.
I agree with you on almost everything.
However, more specifically, Soviet LE peaked in the mid-60s, then slowly declined; peaked again at about the same level in the late 80s (Gorby’s anti-alcohol campaign), then collapsed in the 1990s.
Middle-aged mortality, especially male, deteriorated hugely after the mid-1960s. This was primarily a function of the late USSR’s alcoholization crisis, not the medical system (it is more accurate to say that it stagnated than declined). Meanwhile, Western medicine saw huge progress during the period and Westerners adopted healthier habits, with the result that Russia went from having near equal LE with the West in the 60s, to severely lagging by the 80s (to say nothing of the 90s).
PeterAUS, you are a smart commenter, but you are making an error of judgment here.
Yes, generally speaking, Soviet/Russian designs had worse supply and logistics in mind than American/Western designs.
However, general rules aren’t always true. The T-64 was for example less reliable and way more expensive than other Soviet designs. The T-80 (basically an improved gas-turbine powered version of the T-64) was also less reliable and difficult to supply. While the T-72 and T-90 are cheaper and easier to supply.
The T-34 wasn’t much cheaper to produce than the Sherman, for example its aluminum engine was highly sophisticated, but not very simple to produce, nor very robust.
A huge portion of German tanks were also obsolete, only PzKpfw III and IV were considered modern.
As an aside point, it’s interesting that a lot of Soviet fanboys (not only here, I noticed it elsewhere, for example on Hungarian language forums, too) are making an emotional issue out of the T-34 being good or bad.
First, as you also mentioned, the T-34M/T-44 design was already almost ready for mass production in 1941 when war broke out, and they had to put it on hold, because they couldn’t afford the several months (possibly half a year or more) delay that would’ve come with introducing the new design. This means that saying that the T-34 wasn’t that good doesn’t mean that Soviet/Russian designers were shit, it just means that it wasn’t a very good design (not nearly as good as the hype would tell you).
Second, if it really had been so good, than that only makes Soviet/Russian soldiers look worse. I mean, if it was the undisputedly best tank of the war, and already 1,000 was available (at a time when the German had maybe 3-4,000 battle tanks, including PzKpfw 38(t) and PzKpfw II and even some pieces of the PzKpfw I. So by saying that the T-34 wasn’t that good, all we’re saying is that the Soviet/Russian soldiers weren’t that bad. Logical, isn’t it?
Third, a lot of the T-34 were produced, which speaks highly of Soviet/Russian industrial management and organization skills, something not normally associated with the USSR or Russia. It has jack shit to do with worth of the T-34 as a design. So saying that “they only won because they had more tanks” is like saying “they only won because they managed to get their shit together and organize a successful crack war production effort in the Ural under extremely difficult circumstances.” Is it a bad thing? I don’t think so.
So, I don’t think one needs to emotionally invest in it that much. Reality is what it is.
They must have liked it.
Russian Pilots who flew the Bell Airacobra
Pilot — Total Victories — P-39 [lend-lease airacobra] Victories — % victories in P-39
Aleksandr I. Pokryshkin — 59 — 48 — 81%
Nikolay Gulaev — 57 — 41 — 72%
Grigori A. Rechkalov — 56 — 50 — 89%
Dimitriy B. Glinka — 50 — 41 — 82%
Aleksey Smirnov — 34 — 30 — 88%
Ivan I. Babak — 33 — 32 — 97%
Mikhail S. Komelkov — 32 — 32 — 100%
A. Klubov — 31 — 27 — 87%
Boris B. Glinka — 31 — 31 — 100%
If you take theater of war many times more vast, less inhabited and with less road infrastructure, that supply and logistics will do. When tank designs became obsolete quickly and each tank was intended to have short battle life, T34 was just perfect. Soviet tanks took cities, traversed swamps and forests in Europe and crossed the mountains in China. Many Soviet weapons were assembled by women and teenagers in ad-hoc factories in the middle of nowhere. I recommend you to watch ‘4 tankists and a dog’ Polish TV classic series – Soviets could take a Pole, a Georgian or Kazakh with only basic literacy, and make them elite tank crew. No sophisticated designs, Zeiss optics and Maybach engines, or centuries-long family craftsmanship with engineer diplomas when manufacturing, or learned SS pure Aryans manning the tank. That’s how WW2 was won.
The US planes were paid with gold and blood, so they were provided for best pilots, as tokens of recognition too, and for testing also.
Why wealthy Americans prefer BMW and Mercedes? Imported means luxury in some aspect.
I loved it as a child at age 7, but by age 10 I was no longer convinced it was a documentary.
901! Onwards to 1,000!
Regarding Lend Lease and its importance to the Soviet war effort read the Journal of Slavic Military Studies article: ‘The role of lend-lease in Soviet military efforts, 1941-1945’ by Boris V. Sokolov.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518049408430160
I had a question for you in #446 in the #45 Open Thread. Can you look at it and reply?
The article was of 1994 (3 years after dissolution of USSR). Before Perestroyka (1985-1990) the lend-lease importance was officially underestimated, after Perestroyka – largely overestimated, all due to politics. Anti-Sovietists tried to diminish the performance of Soviet system in the same way as ex-USSR renegades in this thread always try to find drawbacks in Soviet past. They do it for the sake of their broken identity, like remnants of any extinct Empire. Yet in ‘Slavic studies’ such articles and professors may be just funded by Western NCOs.
I recommend you watching Red Square V-day parades of 1985, 1990 and 1995 to feel the wind of changes.
lol
Man. I certainly didn’t expect you (whom, for other commenters, I do not know at all–I just read his blog) to comment.
Thank you.
Historian Christer Bergstrom claims the Axis had a large numerical superiority at the start of Barbarossa and maintained this superiority throughout 1941.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/operation-barbarossa-9-popular-myths-busted/
The Red Army had 2:1 superiority for Operation Blue and more than two to one for Operation Citadel. For Operation Bagration the superiority was 4:1 initially, falling to 2.5:1 as the battle matured.
The Germans did not have 2:1 superiority for Barbarossa (perhaps at the local points of attack), actual figures were 3.3m to 2.7m.
Whether or not Little Russian and White Russian conscripts were worse than Great Russians I do not know. But I do know that Italians, Rumanians, and Hungarians were worse than Soviet formations.
The Red Army outperformed the Germans in that it won, but just as with every other army the Germans engaged from 1914-1945 it suffered more casualties than it inflicted.
That is my position on the matter, but it is not certain.
For some reason Russians consider this an insult.
Maybe.
I wouldn’t want to tangle with either of those tigers.
Well, in contrast to Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine, there were no Polish Waffen SS divisions. Then again, there were volunteers serving in Hitler’s army. Donald Tusk’s grandfather was one of those: he tried to deny it and finally gave up.
These estimates as well as others you present vary significantly even in Russian and English wikipedias. The German wiki estimates for Bagration are 0,85 vs. 1,4 mln.
For Barbarossa, Germans + Allies deployed had exactly no less than 2-fold superiority.
As well as Wehrmacht after 1941 since all cadre, elite troops were almost annihilated like in ww1 during Barbarossa. German manpower was exhausted in 1944. So did Red Army deployed vs. Germans, and both sides gained experience during the war. Both sides could also maneuvre with their elite formations and place them against major goals. Germans also replaced their troops with other ethnic waffen SS.
Comparative estimates of casualities are the sacred cow of any side in the war.
Agree.
Most people in West who analyze Soviet war effort (including Stalin contribution to it) have, say, difficulties, in understanding the theater.
From the land itself, through people inhabiting that land up to that tool. The Tool.
The starting point wasn’t even which tank was better. It was that Sherman was seen as better for that theater by Soviet crews.
Weird guys those Russkies, then.
Hehe…I often have a feel that not many guys here would be good G-2s regardless of accumulated, bookish, knowledge. Often just because of that.
What’s the expression: he has all the facts and is still clueless.
And, of course, always that undercurrent of disdain and disrespect.
The Eastern Front, land war, was a vale tudo heavyweight championship; Western, amateur boxing middleweight, for a challenger.
Or, Western, rapier duel; Eastern Medieval melee combat.
Soviet people fighting there weren’t fighting against the same enemy as American people. The aim of war was different. Quite different.
The Soviet crews weren’t as American crews…haha…did I just say that? Imagine a path of a Soviet man from civilian life to a (tank) battle against Germans and then his counterpart in US Army. Funny.
Etc.
That’s why I mention “put yourself into Soviet Colonel’s place”.
Doesn’t work, most of the time, in Western forums.
Well, to be honest, doesn’t work the other way in Eastern forums either when you think about it.
“The Germans lost about as much men and materiel in Tunisia as they did at Stalingrad.”
I think that statement is simply not true. If I recall from reading Anthony Beevor, the Germans lost 20 complete divisions in the Stalingrad pocket. In addition there were Romanian divisions lost also. Also consider German and allied losses from the failed rescue attempt in Stalingrad. And the losses to the Italian 8thArmy along the Don river, and the losses of the Hungarian 2nd Army.
On top of that, reading it like ‘in Tunisia campaign only the Germans lost…’ can not be a display of simple campaign loss in a series of campaigns. Tunisia was the end of entire Nazi African adventure, where all remaining German and Italian forces surrendered. It is like saying ‘in Berlin campaign only the Germans lost…’
The entire German AfrikaKorps was… only 140-thousand strong, being just minuscle relative to Eastern Front with million-strong opposing army groups and fronts.
Basic point about Tunisia is that the Axis inflicted a completely unnecessary own goal on themselves by sacrificing all of Army Group Africa for no gain at all. Hence the term “Tunisgrad”.
The sacrifice of the 6th Army prevented Army Group A from being pocketed and destroyed.
As for specific casualty figures and force levels, when in doubt defer to Glantz.
You say “It’s also well known that Hitler was unaware of German chemical superiority, which made him opposed to the usage of chemical weapons (except in mass murder).” Is this what they call “Doublethink?”
“Liberal Opinion” in the West, was manufactured by unseen people in back rooms. That is what the Balfour agreement was all about. There is a book by Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, entitled “Propaganda.” You may find it enlightening. Your opinion today, is also manufactured for you by someone else. Very few people are in control of their own minds. Someone else is. Especially in a “Democracy.”
And the Germans under the Nazis were more civilized than anyone else.
Russia has no friends. Never did, never will. Look at them: Freedom loving people all. the British, the French, the Germans, the Americans. Whose friends are they?
Countries usually don’t have friends. Except the US has Israel.
No. Hitler didn’t want to use chemical weapons because he found them abhorrent and feared retaliation in kind. He didn’t fear camp inmates retaliating in kind.
He didn’t know that neither the Soviets nor the Anglos could retaliate in kind. (I.e. they didn’t have nerve gases like tabun or sarin.)
Józef Tusk spent time in a German concentration camp as a “dangerous, fanatical Polish nationalist,” but was released later during the war. In 1944, as Germany was getting desperate, he was conscripted to the Wehrmacht, because he was Kahsubian, and they were considered “Polonized Germans” by the Nazis. After a few months, he surrendered to the Western Allies. It’s unclear if he joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West, or if he was just put into a POW camp. The circumstances of his capture are also unclear, whether it was desertion, just a lack of resolve (at that time the Allies captured very few Germans, so statistically speaking, it was quite an unlikely event), or bad (good?) luck.
So, he wasn’t a collaborator, he wasn’t a volunteer, he wasn’t exactly Polish, but you got at least one fact correct here (that he did serve in the Wehrmacht), even if his service was probably a net negative for the Germans, and if refusal to serve would’ve been considered desertion and so punishment both for himself and especially for his family.
Probably the H-man’s antagonists would have figured out quite quickly how to make nerve gas.
That said nerve gas perhaps could’ve been used as a war winner during Operation Barbarossa.
In which case you and I would presumably have different things to complain about.
Not sacrificing yourself to save others is far from being an “accomplice.” Soviets didn’t save anyone before 1941, when the Germans already started cramping Jews into ghettos, instead they kept supplying them with raw materials necessary for the war.
That’s what I call chutzpah. The USSR assisted Germany when it attacked Poland, then stabbed Poland in the back by attacking it after its armed forces had been destroyed by the Germans, killing tens of thousands and deporting hundreds of thousands, supplying Germany with raw materials for another two years, and now Sovoks are accusing Poles of being accomplices in the crimes which the Germans did while also murdering Poles by the millions.
But how much worse would it be to get your cities gassed if they were also getting nuked anyway?
I think getting the nuke above German cities might still have been a considerable difficulty in case they had won Barbarossa. And the Germans would’ve had a lot of resources to devote to nuclear development themselves. They’d also have worked overtime to just move their industries and populations (especially the children) inland, far away from the nukes. Nukes are not very effective against dispersed troops, so they could still control the territory.
So I’m actually unconvinced if the US could’ve won the war solely by using nukes.
It starts at least with cowardice and looks despicable without any other facts, just for being a Hitler’s b*tch. Yet you keep omitting the fact that deathcamps in Poland were not surrounded by vacuum, ostracized, or any rebellion or at least one local strike took place. Polish deathcams were fully supplyed locally with anything from firewood to burn millions of Jewish victims to Polish flesh for entertaining their custodians.
The Soviets saved many Jews in Western Ukraine and Belarus, liberating them from Polish occupation. If Germans occupied that lands in 1939, absolutely all Jews woud go to deathcamps. USSR gave them chance to evacuate, and many managed to flee to the East. Moreover, many were provided with means of evacuation, e.g. children.
Besides Polish incantations of victimhood and betrayal, you have no statistics of how ‘Soviets murdered millions of Poles’ – that’s deliberate lie. The population gap in pre- and postwar Poland is about 6 mln – that is so close for Jewish victims that were at least left to die by Poles. Many modern Poles live in houses built and owned by Jews, occupying them right after the previous family were taken away by Gestapo. Someone had to report them, qui bono.
The Jewish population of Poland was roughly 3 million. That means at least 3 million deaths were Poles.
You need to let go of the memory of the USSR. I can understand your emotional attachment to the Soviet Union – I myself have many family members who sympathised with Communism and had connections to former Eastern Bloc countries so I understand the feeling of loyalty towards the dead union.
But, at this point Russia cannot move forward without coming to an honest conclusion to overcoming the past.
That does not mean that the Soviet Union’s flaws should be exaggerated and its achievements erased from history. Rather Russians must come to terms with the bad parts of the Soviet and Imperial legacy and celebrate the good parts.
But that cannot happen without letting go of this emotional rendering of the past.
3 mln is a number of ethnic Germans expelled from Poland in 1945-1950. Having a nation acting so despicably during the war, Polish officials and nationalists try to exaggerate their losses today, buidling their victimhood myth.
It started from claims that USSR killed millions of Poles in ww2. In reality, USSR build 0,44 mln strong Polish army. We believe there is no ‘dead union’ or ‘bad legacy’ of Imperial Russia or USSR, only a glorious history and culture that any other nation may only dream of.
I hold generally positive feelings about the Tsarist era but to deny that nothing negative ever happened in Russia’s past doesn’t seem all that healthy, when it means that those who mistreated the Russian people (as well as other peoples) are allowed to escape their culpability.
Acknowledging the past doesn’t have to be something perverted by liberasts and fifth-columnists.
I wonder if you have any reflections on what one should do when meeting extreme trolls like the entity #411. He feeds off you and keeps escalating. He is unconstrained by logic and reality. My first position is to ignore. Polite discussion based on facts will not mitigate him. One could try escalation and hitting where it might really hurt him (Russians and Soviets have some very soft spots) but then you lower yourself to his level. Besides you would not want to do it on the blog run by a Russian blogger with many Russian commentators who seem to be decent people.
The best Main Battle Tank of the war in terms of operation in the field rather than specs was the British Comet but it saw only months of service. It became the base for the Centurion, a huge export best seller for decades. The Matilda at the beginning of the war was better than the German tanks (more lethal) but was badly deployed-infantey support- and numbers were small.
The Red Army never fought alone. That was the British Empire . Not only the British Army but the RAF broke the Luftwaffe in 1940 and the navy blockaded Germany, other than the rubber, oil, grain and steel supplied by the USSR.
The Luftwaffe was broken by the 8th air force in 1944. Even if the Battle of Britain was a serious setback with significant losses, the Luftwaffe was still capable of offensive operations early on in Barbarossa (one just has to remember the many Soviet planes destroyed on the ground by Luftwaffe attacks) and then later of fighting a war of defense against the allied bomber offensive that caused very significant losses to the allies until the last months of the war.
I didn’t write that, though maybe it was possible to attribute that meaning to what I wrote. I meant that the Germans murdered millions of Poles, as is obvious to anyone familiar with the issue. The Soviets themselves murdered a lot of Poles, though maybe only in the tens of thousands, and not in the millions.
Anyway, you are impervious to reason. If any other commenter wishes to get an answer to any part of this comment #927 (or any other comment by Anon #411), then please let me know. Otherwise I’ll just ignore anything else he wrote.
In other words, I shouldn’t have fed the troll for so long. I agree, so I’ll just ignore him from now on.
” our country’s Victory in the Great Patriotic War.”
What was your victory? You were slaves before the war and you were slaves after it. You should have joined the Germans. You still would’ve been slaves, but they would have treated you far better.
The myth of glorious Stalin isn’t going to die until the larger myth of WW2 being some crusade against evil dies.