Moscow Victory Parade 2015

This Post about *default, tagged *notag, was written by Anatoly Karlin for Russian Reaction on May 9, 2015

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Comments

Hunsdon says

May 9, 2015 at 9:28 am

Lest we forget.
Glossy says

May 9, 2015 at 12:44 pm

The foreign troop contingents that paraded through Red Square in a show of solidarity with Russia were from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, India, Mongolia, Serbia and China. That portion of the video starts at 33:20. I was surprised by the presence of the Indians. The Serbs won the uniform contest. Armenians and Azeris must have been placed next to each other on purpose, since the order was not otherwise alphabetic.
Anonymous says

May 9, 2015 at 7:40 pm

Victory Parade 2015 Moscow
K. says

May 9, 2015 at 8:46 pm

“Armenians and Azeris must have been placed next to each other on purpose.”

I’m speechless.
Aixa says

May 10, 2015 at 7:47 am

As you can see, President of China came to supervise and give new instructions to his Russian Vassal.
olivegreen says

May 10, 2015 at 11:41 am

The order was alphabetical, but in a roundabout way. First former Soviet republics in alphabetical order, then foreign countries in the same, and then, at the very end – China.
SFG says

May 10, 2015 at 1:22 pm

Looks like I’m a bit late (I rarely check this thing), but I do want to express my appreciation to the Russian people for defeating Hitler. They got most of the flak, by far.
schmenz says

May 11, 2015 at 1:51 pm

Mr Karlin,

I appreciate your articles very much, for they give a good picture of how the Russians think.

But I need to ask a question, though it may have a bit of naivete about it and a not-too-thorough understanding of all the events in that war. While appreciating the sacrifices made by the Russian people in defending their land, and the sacrifices made by the German soldiers carrying out orders, why should I celebrate the victory of one dictator, Stalin, over another dictator, Hitler? I ask this not out of disrespect, and I am very hopeful about Russia and its current leaders, but it is hard for me to find a dog in that fight.

Mr Solzhenitsyn cured me of many illusions about the Soviet experiment, hence my question to you.

Again, thank you for your thoughtful articles.
Immigrant from former USSR says

May 11, 2015 at 2:35 pm

I apologize for answering before Anatoly Karlin does.
.
Nobody, you including, Mr. schmenz, should celebrate anything one does not want to.
Personally I do not celebrate May 9. I feel sorrow about my relatives and my co-ethnics.
Your appreciation of Solzhenitsyn is very much (humbly) shared by me.

Read also Viktor Suvorov’s “Icebreaker”,
in Russian, in English, in German, or in any other multitude of languages (see Amazon)
about the aggressive policies of dictator Stalin, incl. 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty.
.
I.f.f.U.
Andrei Martyanov says

May 11, 2015 at 3:03 pm

Read also Viktor Suvorov’s “Icebreaker”,
in Russian, in English, in German, or in any other multitude of languages (see Amazon)
about the aggressive policies of dictator Stalin, incl. 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty.

Counting Solzhenitsyn or Rezun (aka Suvorov) as a “history” is about the same as using Gross Anatomy as reference in car repairing business–effect is absolutely the same. Knowing that I am wasting my here, I, however will bother with some quote:

“Within past two years, the argument emerged that in May 1941, in light of German mobilization and obvious German offensive intentions, the Soviet Union was planning to launch a “preventive war” against Hitler. Fueled by reevaluation of a 15 May 1941 proposal to that effect by Zhukov, which was published in fragmentary form in a number of Soviet journals, the Soviet emigre V.Rezun, writing under the name Victor Suvorov, has published two books categorically accusing Stalin of planning such a war. Rezun’s views have gained wide acceptance, for understandable reasons, in German historical community. They are now being accepted, primarily for political reasons, by a growing circle of Russian scholars, most of whom are reformers who accept as true anything that discredits the former regime”. (c)

When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, David Glantz, Jonathan House, page 327. ISBN 0-7006-0717-X, 1995, Kansas University Press.

Bringing either Solzhenitsyn or Rezun into the SERIOUS discussion of WW II and policies which preceded it, especially against the background of truly outstanding Anglo-Saxon WW II scholars of the scale of Glantz or Corelli Barnett (among many) is the same as bringing the knife to a gunfight. In particular, Rezun’s fantasies were designed specifically for a circle of people which, as Glantz correctly states, are ready to believe anything as long as it fits their views and who are, as IT IS THE CASE, with overwhelming majority of Russia’s “reformist” (euphemism for liars) “historians”, have no a slightest idea about fundamental issues of strategic, operational and contingency planning and, of course, a vast numbers of people completely removed from the realities of WW II or, for that matter, of any war. As per Solzhenitsyn–after revelations by Zemskov Commission there is nothing to talk about.
Immigrant from former USSR says

May 11, 2015 at 3:33 pm

Never heard about Zemskov. Wiki (Russian):

Ви́ктор Никола́евич Земско́в — российский историк, доктор исторических наук (2005 г.), научный сотрудник Института российской истории РАН. Исследователь политических репрессий в СССР в 1917—1954 гг.
[…] В 1981 г. защитил кандидатскую диссертацию «Вклад рабочего класса в укрепление материально-технической базы сельского хозяйства СССР в 1960-е годы». […]

Wiki (English):
Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov is a Russian historian, doctor (habil.) of historical sciences (2005), research associate of the Institute of Russian History. […]
[…] In 1981, he defended his candidate’s (Ph.D.) thesis “Contribution by working class to strengthening the material-technical base of agriculture in the USSR in the 1960s.”[…].
Is this really a study of “political repressions”?

Reminder to general public: Gorbachev’s “perestrojka” — 1986 and further.
Andrei Martyanov says

May 11, 2015 at 4:06 pm

Never heard about Zemskov. Wiki (Russian):

http://www.contrtv.ru/repress/778/

You obviously never heard about this too.

Here are the words of Ierey (Holy Father) Alexiy Moroz, a very famous and highly influential Russian Orthodox Church figure:

http://delorus.ru/good/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=4186

«Я не являюсь поклонником произведений Солженицына. Местами его книги вызывают не только непонимание, а даже неприятие. Потому что в ряде произведений он выставил русских перед Западом в крайне неприглядном виде. Мы знаем, что, уехав на Запад, автор стал там активно печататься, его воспринимали как “рупор правды” о России, но, к сожалению, о людях и о России хорошего он не сказал ни слова. Он описывает зверства, несчастные случаи, предательства, ложь, обман, которые, конечно, имели место в нашей истории, но в его произведениях нет ничего позитивного, как будто русские люди состоят только из воров, убийц, обманщиков, трусов и подлецов. Никаких положительных примеров мы в его работах не видим вообще. И когда западный читатель воспринимал такую информацию как правду о России в последней инстанции, то у него создавался соответствующий образ русского человека. Но это же абсолютная неправда!»

Translation: I am not a fan of Solzhenitsyn writings. In places his books create not only misunderstanding but the sense of rejection. In (some) of his books he exposed Russians to the West in the unrepresentable fashion. We know, that when he left for the West he was actively published there and was perceived there as the “bullhorn (herald) of the truth” about Russia, sadly, he said not a single good word about people and Russia. He describes atrocities, accidents, betrayal, lie, deception, which, of course, were always present in our history, but in his books there is nothing positive, as if Russian people consist only of thieves, murderers, liars, cowards and scoundrels. No positive examples are present in his books. And when western reader accepts such information as the ultimate truth about Russia, he imagines a very specific image of Russian people, but that is an absolute lie”(c)

As per notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Open seminal Corelli Barnett’s “The Collapse Of British Power” (you may try also Alexander Werth’s “Russia At War”), and I omit here truly serious Russian historians, for a reason, all those cries from the West are just same ol’ BS, the sabotage by French and British governments of Litvinov’s (USSR’s) Collective Security initiative (I omit Barnett’s qualification of Poland here, some may have aneurism reading it) is extremely well documented. If you need understanding of the difference between information and knowledge you may try my blog starting from Sand Castle Geopolitics. By admission of none other than David Glantz–the Western perception of the WW II was formed by German generals, who produced one of the most (if not the MOST) significant collection of self-serving memoirs. But, as it is always in life–once one makes decisions based on BS, not on facts–results are ALWAYS the same. As Madison wrote in Federalist #41 “Bad cause seldom fails to betray itself”(c)
Andrei Martyanov says

May 11, 2015 at 4:07 pm

Never heard about Zemskov. Wiki (Russian):

http://www.contrtv.ru/repress/778/

You obviously never heard about this too.

Here are the words of Ierey (Holy Father) Alexiy Moroz, a very famous and highly influential Russian Orthodox Church figure:

http://delorus.ru/good/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=4186

«Я не являюсь поклонником произведений Солженицына. Местами его книги вызывают не только непонимание, а даже неприятие. Потому что в ряде произведений он выставил русских перед Западом в крайне неприглядном виде. Мы знаем, что, уехав на Запад, автор стал там активно печататься, его воспринимали как “рупор правды” о России, но, к сожалению, о людях и о России хорошего он не сказал ни слова. Он описывает зверства, несчастные случаи, предательства, ложь, обман, которые, конечно, имели место в нашей истории, но в его произведениях нет ничего позитивного, как будто русские люди состоят только из воров, убийц, обманщиков, трусов и подлецов. Никаких положительных примеров мы в его работах не видим вообще. И когда западный читатель воспринимал такую информацию как правду о России в последней инстанции, то у него создавался соответствующий образ русского человека. Но это же абсолютная неправда!»

Translation: I am not a fan of Solzhenitsyn writings. In places his books create not only misunderstanding but the sense of rejection. In (some) of his books he exposed Russians to the West in the unrepresentable fashion. We know, that when he left for the West he was actively published there and was perceived there as the “bullhorn (herald) of the truth” about Russia, sadly, he said not a single good word about people and Russia. He describes atrocities, accidents, betrayal, lie, deception, which, of course, were always present in our history, but in his books there is nothing positive, as if Russian people consist only of thieves, murderers, liars, cowards and scoundrels. No positive examples are present in his books. And when western reader accepts such information as the ultimate truth about Russia, he imagines a very specific image of Russian people, but that is an absolute lie”(c)

As per notorious Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Open seminal Corelli Barnett’s “The Collapse Of British Power” (you may try also Alexander Werth’s “Russia At War”), and I omit here truly serious Russian historians, for a reason, all those cries from the West are just same ol’ BS, the sabotage by French and British governments of Litvinov’s (USSR’s) Collective Security initiative (I omit Barnett’s qualification of Poland here, some may have aneurism reading it) is extremely well documented. If you need understanding of the difference between information and knowledge you may try my blog starting from Sand Castle Geopolitics. By admission of none other than David Glantz–the Western perception of the WW II was formed by German generals, who produced one of the most (if not the MOST) significant collection of self-serving memoirs. But, as it is always in life–once one makes decisions based on BS, not on facts–results are ALWAYS the same. As Madison wrote in Federalist #41 “Bad cause seldom fails to betray itself”(c)
Immigrant from former USSR says

May 11, 2015 at 8:02 pm

No, I have not heard about Ierey (Holy Father) Alexiy Moroz either.
My attempt to learn from Wiki about him also failed.
Are you talking about this gentleman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVfOsQVKpAI ?
(Прот. Алексий Мороз о чипах, биометрических паспортах: Печать антихриста.)?
I remember pretty well very warm and respectful words of Solzhenitsyn about
father Florensky (1882 – 1937) in “Gulag Archipelago”.
Флоренский, Павел Александрович,
see Wikipedia about him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Florensky
And in “200 years together” Solzhenitsyn writes
with great love and compassion about Russian people, to give another example
(out of infinitely many.)

So, your do not like Solzhenitsyn. It reminds me
-Не нравится мне, что ты с моей женой спишь!
-Вас, Лялькиных, не поймешь. Ей – нравится, тебе не нравится.
Translation:
– I do not like that you sleep with my wife!
– I can not make sense of you two, [particular family name, nothing bad]. She likes it,
you do not like.

I am out of this thread. Your I.f.f.U.
Mark Eugenikos says

May 11, 2015 at 10:37 pm

“The Serbs won the uniform contest.”

That’s a Guard of Honor uniform, not a regular one. Sorry, no Wikipedia article.
schmenz says

May 12, 2015 at 1:51 pm

My impression of Solzhenitsyn, based on his writings, is the opposite of what you have said and quoted. After reading him I found a proud, humble Russian who loved his country deeply. His depictions of the struggle of the good Russian people under an oppressive regime was heart-breaking and beautiful. I felt nothing but love for the Russian people after reading him, and I was profoundly impressed by his obvious love of homeland.

He loved it so much that he returned there after several disillusioning years in America. I therefore cannot understand what Father Moroz was trying to say.
Andrei Martyanov says

May 12, 2015 at 2:47 pm

He loved it so much that he returned there after several disillusioning years in America. I therefore cannot understand what Father Moroz was trying to say.

Your impression of Solzhenitsyn’s writings is based, most likely, on the lack of knowledge of Russian culture and, especially, of its Soviet period. Should you have read Solzhenitsyn’s delirium of the level of his “Letter to the Chiefs of the Soviet Union”, “How we must reorganize Russia” or another “masterpiece” like “The Russian Question at the End of the 20th Century”, you would understand what I am talking about. You would also understand why he basically faded away in Russia and will remain there–a man who openly lied (it is documented well) on the whole range of Russian (Soviet) history and dared to completely pervert the history of the Great Patriotic War has very little chance of remaining a Russian “classic”. You want to read GULAG literature–read Shalamov, whose writings were stolen by Solzhenitsyn and were incorporated into GULAG Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn didn’t love Russia, he always loved himself only. I’ll give you SOME examples of his “history”:

Solzh writes about “Wehrmacht advancing 120 kilometers a day” first weeks of the WW II”(c) in his GULAG Archipelago FYI distance between Bialystok and Moscow is about 1000 kilometers, so Wehrmacht should have been at the gates of Moscow (once the invasion started 22 June 1941) in accordant to Solzh’s calculations around 1000/120=approximately 8.5 days, so around July 1st, 1941. Yet, somehow (wink, wink) Germans did not reach outskirts of Moscow till early December, 1941. Obviously any person with even rudimentary arithmetic (forget about calculus) will have, and very many DID have huge questions. I give you another example, from the same GULAG, in which Solzh states that Prague was “liberated” by the 1st ROA Division of Bunyachenko, thus committing a complete fraud, forgetting to mention that it was not Vlasov’s “troops” but the tank forces of three (!!!!) Fronts (Army Groups) 1st, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts which demolished Wehrmacht forces and specifically obliterated the Staff of the Army Group Center the night from 7th to 8th May 1945, thus immobilizing completely the control and command of the whole Army Groups Center. And how do we know all that? From Archives, namely, among many, from the Commander of those two German Army Groups Field-Marchall Shoerner. Solzh’s numbers on GULAG were absolutely preposterous. 27 million Soviet people died in WW II–every Soviet family has someone who died. Now, this guy comes with numbers such as 100 million deceased in GULAG and as a result of Soviet power. Sure, why not 5 billion Russians–wouldn’t make any difference. Even 100 million people mathematically (forget it–arithmetically) would make it impossible for Soviet people to reproduce and exist as a nation. And the list goes on and on, and on.

Repressions are a tragic and horrendous page in the history of Russian people but to state that this tragedy can not be discussed and studied with the clean hands is absolute insanity. The more the time passes, the more responsible and objective historians get archive data, the more it becomes (in Russia it is already an emerging consensus) clear that, as good ole’ Pipes noted (for many wrong reasons, though) in the article in Moscow Times–”It is difficult to envisage what kind of a Russia Solzhenitsyn wanted. He was not unhappy about Russia’s loss of its imperial possessions, yet he did not favor a state based on law and democracy. He disliked what he saw after his return to Russia in 1994, during Boris Yeltsin’s rule, but, strangely enough, he came to terms with then-President Vladimir Putin and his restrictions on both democracy and the free market. Although Solzhenitsyn vehemently rejected communism, in many ways he retained a Soviet mind-set. Anyone who disagreed with him was not merely wrong but evil. He was constitutionally incapable of tolerating dissent.”(c) What Pipes describes here has a name.

As per

what Father Moroz was trying to say

.

He was trying to say what I am writing about for years now–West in general and US in particular has a picture of Russia and its history which was formed by Russian dissidents, that is the picture which had as much common with the reality as I am the alien from planet Zoltar. What West have gotten was what it WANTED to see, not what was really happening, let alone understanding WHY it was happening. Moroz merely stated in different way what I stated even on these boards not for once (in fact it goes back at least 10-15 years)–US “Russian Studies” field is dead and Russian history was solzhenitsified to the point of being unrecognizable. Period. US simply DOESN’T know Russia because it spent decades trying to validate and confirm its own chimeras and the jury is in now and the verdict is not pretty for the US. My answer to that–they should have been reading more Tolstoy, not Solzhenitsyn or Pasternak.
Tom Welsh says

May 14, 2015 at 5:38 am

You must be American. Otherwise you would understand that people, and nations, can be friends rather than masters and slaves.
Rifleman says

May 14, 2015 at 8:41 am

You must be American. Otherwise you would understand that people, and nations, can be friends rather than masters and slaves.

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” – 1848

Noted American statesman and strategist Henry John Temple.
Immigrant from former USSR says

May 14, 2015 at 10:22 am

Similarly,
Emperor Alexander III of Russia supposedly said that
Russia has only two allies: its army and navy.

I personally feel much warmer to Alexander II of Russia,
he freed the serfs, including my great-grandmother (or may be, double great.)
Cicero says

May 14, 2015 at 5:19 pm

Strange, I thought that quote is attributed to Alexander II. He was an enlightened man, but not a soft one. At least part of the reason he abolished serfdom was so that his War Minister Milyutin could institute Western-style mass conscription in order to rebuild the Russian Army in the aftermath of the Crimean War. And he started wars in Central Asia, the Transcaucasus, and the Balkans to expand the Empire’s borders. Alexander III by comparison made it a point not to fight wars if at all possible, he was know as the ‘Peacemaker’ and annexed very little territory and that was done through diplomacy. Yet the son is often depicted as the bellicose one in popular imagination.

Strange how historical memory is so easily distorted.
Immigrant from former USSR says

May 14, 2015 at 7:14 pm

I also thought it was Alexander II, but googled it, and found at Wikipedia.

What Khrushchev did not had the time to accomplish ?
1. To connect floor with the ceiling (low height of 5-store mass concrete buildings).
2. To connect water supply pipes with waste removal pipes
(baths were made in the same rooms as water-closets, “gavanna”;
this is typical in US houses, which have several bathrooms though).
3) To honor Nicholas II by the “Hero of Soviet Union” rank,
for creation of revolutionary situation in Russia
(the criteria of “revolutionary situation” were studied in all courses of Marxism-Leninism).

I do not like Nicholas II:
either you are Czar — then take responsibility of all the Empire and its inhabitants;
or you are a tender father of an ill child, and tender husband of German-born wife.
No, he tried to be both at the same time.
Fi donc, albeit it is not energetic enough expression of my harsh feelings.
Seraphim says

May 14, 2015 at 10:49 pm

The parade started with the Minister of Defense making the sign of the Cross and ended with the march of the “Immortal Regiment”, holding the portraits of their dead suggested me an immense Panikhida, the commemoration of the ancestors, which is the basis of all patriotism.
The ideological war started by Hitler (with the tacit backing of the “West”) to eliminate Communism changed miraculously into a real patriotic war, into a war for the defense of the graves of the Fathers. Instinctively people turned to the Church, Stalin reopened the Churches and revived the Patriarchate. As in all gravest moments the miraculous icons protectrices of Russia were taken to the front line.
That was what Russia celebrated this year, not the victory of Communism. Significant also was the fact that the Mausoleum of Lenin was completely out of sight, covered by the tribunes.
andy says

May 15, 2015 at 11:13 am

I’m sympathetic for Russia’s great effort during World War II, but if we are going to say that it was only Russia that defeated the Axis, let’s not forget that Russia was fighting in only one front, while the US was fighting on two fronts, Europe and the Pacific. And that the US funded a large part of Russia’s effort through the land-lease program
Andrei Martyanov says

May 15, 2015 at 12:32 pm
let’s not forget that Russia was fighting in only one fron

Yes, and let’s also not forget the scale of this “only one front”, which demolished 80% of Nazi military machine. I will present here a hardly pro-Russian link to Eisenhower Institute at the Gettysburg College. Even though some numbers in that piece re: Wehrmacht are substantially below it, nonetheless, encapsulates really well what was the war on the Eastern Front. As one German officer noted on that after the WW II, and I quote,”The war in the West was a sports proper, on the Eastern Front–a horror”. The only thing I deleted from the list (you still can see it following the link), is the “frontal assault” thesis by this amateur of an author but that just reinforces my point–even if this hack largely got it…

http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org/about/living_history/wwii_soviet_experience.dot

Some Major Differences Between The War in the East and the West

In Europe Hitler's goal was to conquer and subjugate populations. In the USSR his written goal was annihilation of everyone suspected of being capable of resistance and depopulation of the rest by starvation. For every American soldier killed fighting the Germans, eighty Soviet soldiers died fighting them. The USSR was the only theatre of war in which Einsatzgruppen task forces were used to follow the combat troops and kill civilians. People, measured in the millions, were forced to starve because their livestock was sent to Germany and their grain was used to feed the 6.7 million horses needed to transport Wehrmacht artillery and supplies. In the west, prisoners were generally fed and housed by both sides. In the USSR both sides killed their prisoners by forced labor, malnutrition and unattended disease. Many historians, from Liddell Hart to Harrison Salisbury, have speculated that the unprecedented savagery of the war fought in the USSR between 1941 and 1945 led to the national paranoia-the "never again" mentality. </i>

Now, if you want to really get a feel of the immense scale of the war on the Eastern Front, here is a link to Colonel David Glantz giving a lecture in US Army War College precisely on this issue. And, unlike the hack from Ike’s institute, Glantz does know what he is talking about.

Generally, your post exhibits all traits of sheer ignorance on WW II, which exists in the US on a massive scale. Telling people that number of people killed at Stalingrad Battle alone surpasses all US casualties in all of US wars combined is usually simply beyond the grasp of overwhelming majority of Americans.

Lastly, Russia DID fight on two fronts and demolished 1-million strong Japanese Kwantung Army in August 1945. Ask yourself a question what influence did it have on the end of war in the Pacific and what FDR asked Stalin at Yalta?
schmenz says

May 15, 2015 at 12:40 pm

Thank you for your response, smoothie.

It doesn’t convince me of your position vis-a-vis Solzhenitsyn because when the discussion gets into a “he said, she said” dimension it doesn’t advance anywhere. Of course, even if we never had a Solzhenitsyn, we still have Kravchenko, Father d’Erbigny and too many other eye witnesses. Naturally when counting numbers and/or corpses totals can vary but I don’t see that as a reason to discount the whole narrative, nor does confusion about what and when the Wermacht did their dirty work.

My impression of Solzhenitsyn – and I could be totally mistaken – was that he was more of a monarchist than anything else, which is not a bad thing. That may be why some were asking what kind of Russia he wanted. He knew both liberal Capitalism and Communism were two sides of the same miserable coin.

Thanks again for your interesting replies.
Anonymous says

May 15, 2015 at 12:59 pm

What @SmoothieX12 says is no different from what Solzhenitsyn’s wife says and what he, himself, had put as a title – The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation i.e. it’s FICTION, not historical accord.
Roy Medvedev, another Soviet dissident, about camp myths: “IN OUR COUNTRY, where there is no freedom of the press or freedom of information, where most information circulates by certain secret channels, a multitude of rumors inevitably arise and dozens of different myths have public currency and are accepted by many as unquestionable truths. Under the conditions existing in the camps such legends, rumors, and myths-often far removed from reality-were all the more likely to find fertile ground. Natalya Reshetovskaya has recently contended that Solzhenitsyn’s book is essentially based on this camp folklore. That is certainly not so. Of course Solzhenitsyn, through no fault of his own, had no chance to check documentary evidence in order to verify much of the information he obtained from fellow inmates and from subsequent correspondents and informants.”
*Natalya Reshetovskaya (born 1920): Solzhenitsyn’s first wife; they married in 1940, were separated by the war, then by his imprisonment in 1945; she divorced him in 1950 while he was in the camps. After his release and rehabilitation (1956/57). they remarried in the late 1950s. before he won fame with Ivan Denisovich. In the late 1960s they separated again, and he established a relationship with his present wife, Natalya Svetlova…Reshetovskaya’s memoirs were published outside the Soviet Union (English edition, Sanya: My Life with Solzhenitsyn, New York, 1975).
Seraphim says

May 15, 2015 at 10:24 pm

The Victory of 1945 was not only over Fascism, but over Communism as well. The war killed Nazism and wounded mortally Communism. Don’t forget that Stalin dissolved the Comintern in 1943. It was not out of the blue, however. The old Bolshevik Guard was liquidated just before the war and it did never recover. Of course it didn’t die at once. It took still a long time (it still lingers in some quarters), but Russia after the war was no more the Trotsko-Leninist workers paradise. The ritual denounciation of “Stalinism” as “Fascism”, “National-Communism” shows that something happened to the chagrin of the diehard Cominternists who regrouped in the West (USA of all, where they become the “neo-cons”).
Solzhenitsyn was part of the process of regeneration of Russia after the terrible nightmare of Bolshevism. He advocated a return to the real roots of Russia and in the first place religion.
“It is impossible not to mention a sphere of activity that is perhaps more important than any other for the healthy life of a nation- religion. For hundreds of thousands of years it was the noblest and most powerful motive force of mankind, yet in the space of few decades we have broken with it, not because we have found something to take its place or something nobler. One can judge from the results how a nation’s soul becomes crippled, not only in your own country but also in others, from Germany to China, where the people has tried to wrench the people away from religion. The entire history of mankind consists of brutalities, but never before has violence paraded itself so brazenly, declaring itself to be the benevolent tool of history’s laws, and never before, therefore, has such a pitch of technical perfection been reached in turning man into putty in the hands of his fellowmen as in these countries in recent times…
Here, I would say, is the key to the whole question: it is the efforts applied in this sphere that will determine the life, death or resurrection of Russia. This most vital of all the fields of activity for our people will require hundreds of thousands of hands and heads (let us recall that there were three hundred thousands priests in Russia before the revolution). And it goes without saying that only people who renounce the system of values offered by our present life can work this field.” He wrote these lines in an essay called “Does Russia has a future” in the collection “From under the rubble” in 1974, which immediately put him beyond the pale of politically correct anti-“Stalinism” (not Communism, still good, just compromised by Stalin’s tyranny! cult of personality! paranoia!), a la Sakharov, Roy Medvedev, e.a. But Solzhenitsyn won in the end.
Andrei Martyanov says

May 15, 2015 at 11:51 pm

You really have to get back on you meds. I mean it.
schmenz says

May 16, 2015 at 12:39 pm

Distant Warrior: Thank you for the additional info.

Alas there is simply too much corroborating evidence available from sources other than Mr S, so that even if he never existed we would still know quite a bit about the awful things that were going on. In any event a good police investigator knows that you sift through as many sources as you can to discover the truth. With that in mind I have few doubts about Mr S’s veracity, despite what his ex-wife may have said.

Mr Putin, a man I greatly admire, also seems to be of the opinion that we can hold the accounts of Solzhenitsyn in esteem.
Seraphim says

May 16, 2015 at 6:48 pm

@SmoothieX12

Do I hear echoes of Masha Gessen, Gary Kasparov, a.o. “of the same flour”, (or flavour)?
D. K. says

May 17, 2015 at 12:30 pm

Germany and the Soviet Union fought an all-out ground war against each other in Eastern Europe for the better part of four years. The Allies invaded Sicily more than two years after the Germans had attacked the Soviets, and the former captured Rome only two days before the Normandy invasion was launched, by which point the war in Europe had well under a year left to it. It is hardly surprising which power did most of the damage to the German war machine– and also suffered a commensurate amount of damage, at the hands of the Germans. Would the outcome have been the same, between those two powers, if Germany had not been at war with the other Allied Powers, also, and if the Soviet Union had not received any aid from the other Allied Powers?
SWSpires says

May 17, 2015 at 6:01 pm

A couple of comments on Solzhenitsyn. Firstly, the cleric quoted above (Moroz) must be very unfamiliar with his work if he thinks there are “no positive examples” in it. In fact, there are plenty of positive examples: some of the characters in “The First Circle” (generally considered one of his better novels) come to mind. If anything, AS is often criticized for having an excessively idealized view of the “plain Russian people,” sort of like Dostoevsky.

Secondly, as noted, his historical writings have not held up well, in particular his very exaggerated figures for numbers of Gulag victims. And as also noted, he was himself a very dogmatic and intolerant person, convinced of his duty to save Russia. This trait has gotten him parodied in contemporary Russian writing – see for example Voinovich’s novel “Moscow 2042,” featuring a messianic writer who is an obvious parody of Solzhenitsyn.

Shalamov was mentioned. From a literary point of view, he is considered by most critics to be a vastly better writer than Solzhenitsyn. Their personal relations were rather complicated. Here’s an interesting article on the subject:

http://shalamov.ru/en/research/131/
Seraphim says

May 17, 2015 at 9:10 pm

@schmenz

Let’s face it and call a spade a spade. Solzhenitsyn is not loved by the West and was mudslinged because he was “a Russian ultra-nationalist and anti-Semite in the mold of Fyodor Dostoevsky”.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
“In a November 13, 1985 review of Solzhenitsyn’s novel August 1914 in the New York Times, Polish-American historian Richard Pipes commented: “Every culture has its own brand of anti-Semitism. In Solzhenitsyn’s case, it’s not racial. It has nothing to do with blood. He’s certainly not a racist; the question is fundamentally religious and cultural. He bears some resemblance to Dostoyevsky, who was a fervent Christian and patriot and a rabid anti-Semite. Solzhenitsyn is unquestionably in the grip of the Russian extreme right’s view of the Revolution, which is that it was the doing of the Jews”
“In 2001, however, Solzhenitsyn published a two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations (Two Hundred Years Together 2001, 2002). A bestseller in Russia, the book triggered renewed accusations of anti-Semitism.” A book almost banned in the free West!
And how many other heretical views:
” expressed disappointment that the “conflation of ‘Soviet’ and ‘Russian’, against which I spoke so often in the 1970’s, has not passed away in the West, in the ex-socialist countries, or in the former Soviet republics. The elder political generation in communist countries is not ready for repentance, while the new generation is only too happy to voice grievances and level accusations, with present-day Moscow [as] a convenient target. They behave as if they heroically liberated themselves and lead a new life now, while Moscow has remained communist. Nevertheless, I dare [to] hope that this unhealthy phase will soon be over, that all the peoples who have lived through communism will understand that communism is to blame for the bitter pages of their history.” or,
“Solzhenitsyn opined in Izvestia that 1930s famine on the Ukraine was no different from the Russian famine of 1921 as both were caused by the ruthless robbery of peasants by Bolshevik grain procurements. According to him, the lie of the Holodomor being genocide was invented decades later after the event, and Ukrainian effort to have the famine recognized as genocide is an act of historical revisionism that has now surpassed the level of Bolshevik agitprop. The writer cautioned that the genocidal claim has its chances to be accepted by the West due to the general western ignorance of Russian and Ukrainian history”
but mostly because even since 1978 in his commencement address at Harvard University:
“he called the United States spiritually weak and mired in vulgar materialism. Americans, he said, speaking in Russian through a translator, suffered from a “decline in courage” and a “lack of manliness.” Few were willing to die for their ideals, he said. He condemned both the United States government and American society for its “hasty” capitulation in the Vietnam War. He criticized the country’s music as intolerable and attacked its unfettered press, accusing it of violations of privacy. He said that the West erred in measuring other civilizations by its own model. While faulting Soviet society for denying fair legal treatment of people, he also faulted the West for being too legalistic: “A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities.”
And that was not all.
Andrei Martyanov says

May 18, 2015 at 1:54 pm

Would the outcome have been the same, between those two powers, if Germany had not been at war with the other Allied Powers, also, and if the Soviet Union had not received any aid from the other Allied Powers?

The outcome would have been the same, with the difference that the Red Army units would be in France. Different professionals, from Glantz to Isaev, give the range of 12 to 18 months more, plus, of course, more casualties. By 1944 Wehrmacht was basically spent since its creme of the crop was annihilated at the Eastern Front. Even US Army’s wonderful US Army in WW II series admits that, basically, by then Wehrmacht was a pale shadow of itself, especially in terms of personnel, and, of course, materiel. Just take a look at some facts of the US 3rd Army (Patton) campaign in Lorraine.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/CSI/CSI-Lorraine/gabel3.asp.html#German%20Counterattacks%20Against%20XII%20Corps,%2019-30%20September%201944,%20Nancy

Just one example:

“The 3 panzer divisions in Lorraine were down to 13, 7, and 4 tanks respectively, a fact that Patton was well aware of, thanks to Ultra. On paper, there were 12 German divisions facing Third Army’s 9, but in reality, the defenders possessed just 1 battalion for each 4 miles of front.”
AP says

May 19, 2015 at 12:28 am
You are absolutely correct. The USA’s contribution to the war in Europe was:
1. Saved Western Europe (other than Britain) from Communism
2. Saved the Europe’s Jews from total annihilation by causing the Germans to lose 12-18 months earlier than they would have otherwise.
(1) may have been critical for world history – would Moscow have lost the Cold War if the “Free World” no longer included Europe? Would USA/UK alone have been able to keep the Middle East, Africa, Asia out of Soviet hands? It seems quite possible that if not for the USA’s participation in the war, Communism rather than Capitalism would have become the dominant global political/economic system. This is something most people ought to be grateful for.
AP says

May 19, 2015 at 9:21 am

Hmmm…actually, come to think of it, Glantz was probably wrong about Soviet troops taking France. Theoretically they could have, but I doubt that after the fall of Berlin and much of Germany, that the Germans would have retained control of France, Netherlands etc. and have provided the Soviets with the opportunity of liberating the countries to Germany’s west. Those German occupation forces would have been further drained by going to fight for their homeland. The scant leftovers would have either surrendered to the British or handed power over to locals before the Soviets got to them.

So realistically, no USA in the war would have meant that DDR would have been all of Germany (plus Austria); I doubt the Soviets would have reached the Atlantic, however (other than the German coast). This still could have had major implications for the Cold War – with a massive Soviet-allied Germany, would there have been NATO or would France have behaved as Finland?
K. says

May 22, 2015 at 9:26 pm

Just curious, is how commonisit for Russian parents to name their boy “German”?
reiner Tor says

May 23, 2015 at 7:07 am

I think the “Ge” part is pronounced like in the word “get”. The “a” is pronounced like in “car”, only way shorter. Also the word German is something like nyemetskiy in Russian. However, the name German did have a meaning like German, but it’s like the name Francis (like the pope) or Frank originally meant Frank (the tribe) or Frenchman, but few people associate it with it now. Have you ever thought of France or Charlemagne while hearing the name Frank Sinatra?
Glossy says

May 23, 2015 at 12:43 pm

To me Герман (German) sounds like the Russian version of Hermann.

Most Russian first names are either Biblical (Greek and Hebrew) or Slavic, but Germanic names are also sometimes used. Edward, Athrur, sometimes you even see Albert and Robert. German looks like one of those – a Germanic name (Hermann) that cought on in Russia in a small way centuries ago.

For some reason the Latin H was often transliterated into Russian as Г in the past. The Г is normally transliterated by the Latin letter G. So Hitler is Gitler to Russians, Harvard is Garvard, Howard is Govard and Hermann is German. I’m guessing that in the distant past the Russian Г had a more H-like sound than it does now.
reiner Tor says

May 23, 2015 at 3:12 pm

Yes, you are right. Probably German is Hermann.
Immigrant from former USSR says

May 23, 2015 at 10:04 pm

Уж полночь близится, а Германа все нет

Из оперы «Пиковая дама» (премьера состоялась 7 декабря 1890 г.), написанной П. И. Чайковским на либретто Модеста Ильича Чайковского, брата композитора.
В основе оперы повесть «Пиковая дама» (1833) А. С. Пушкина.
Правильное написание фамилии героя — Германн, а не Герман, как часто встречается. Видимо, ошибка происходит в силу ассоциации с известным именем Герман, но у Пушкина это фамилия, а не имя.
Употребляется как иронический комментарий к ситуации, когда кто-то опаздывает, не приходит в назначенный час. Служит также для выражения досады по этому поводу.

Short story by great Russian poet and writer Pushkin
“Dame of spades”, 1833, contains a personage Герман, Herman.
I personally know an emigrant from USSR with first name “Герман”.
Dutch Boy says

May 25, 2015 at 6:10 pm

Pipes deliberately confuses anti-Semitism (the belief that Jews have bad DNA) with anti-Judaism (the belief that the Jewish religion and its cultural patrimony encourages hostile behavior against non-Jews).
Seraphim says

May 27, 2015 at 1:10 am

@Dutch Boy,

For sure, the notion of antisemitism is elastic enough to be used in any circumstances (“Every culture has its own brand of anti-Semitism”).
Let’s see how is defined in the Wikipedia. This is the sense in which is mostly used:

“Antisemitism (also spelled anti-Semitism or anti-semitism) is prejudice against, hatred of, or discrimination against Jews as a national, ethnic, religious, or racial group. A person who holds such positions is called an “antisemite”. Antisemitism is widely considered to be a form of racism.
While the conjunction of the units anti, Semite and ism indicates antisemitism as being directed against all Semitic people, the term was popularized in Germany in 1873 as a scientific-sounding term for Judenhass (“Jew-hatred”), although it had been used for at least two decades prior, and that has been its normal use since then. For the purposes of a 2005 U.S. governmental report, antisemitism was considered “hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that can be attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity.”

So, Pipes does not “confuse” anything. He clearly accuses Solzhenitsyn that he does not like Jews.
Anonymous says

June 2, 2015 at 9:21 am

Ethernal Glory to the soldiers who defeated Nazism! Long life Generalissimo Putin! Long life Mother Russia!
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