Comments on: Silver Lining

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:16:42 +0000

Don’t care to argue your main point, but I do think it should be added that the Soviet Union did enter WWII rather woefully and unnecessarily unprepared, the latter being in large measure thanks to the “Tsar” in charge at the time. Weapons quality adequate, even excellent in some cases, but qualified leaders dead or imprisoned, defenses too close to border and reaction time too slow. It is true that USSR contribution to downfall of Hitler was indispensable, but only at the cost of enormous casualties, etc. But I’m sure none of this is news to anyone.

By: Venik

Venik — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 08:02:37 +0000

I apologize for finding it difficult to drop this subject. I did not read everything Solzhenitsyn ever wrote, but I did read most of it. Like Asimov with his endless stories about robots, Solzhenitsyn’s gets a bit tedious and repetitive after a while. Perhaps its not his writing style that I find difficult to digest, but the fact that he attempts to pass a work of fiction for historical research. You are either a novelist or a historian. I don’t know a single author who could combine these two skills successfully. It’s always either a good read but detached from reality, or statistically accurate and very dry.

But here are some basic facts to support what I said earlier. According to the official census from the late 1880s (I think it was 1887, but I may be wrong), over 70% Russian males and 90% females were illiterate. This is not how you want your country to enter the age of the industrial revolution.

During the First World War there were over 3.5 million Russian POWs, which was more than British, German and French numbers put together. The Austrian-Hungarian POW numbers came close at 2.2 million but still far below the Russian numbers. Not exactly an indication of flourishing patriotism. One should also remember that the Bolshevik revolution succeeded primarily due to overwhelming support from the military.

As to second-rate boomsticks, the 1877 Russian-Turkish war is a good example. Russian troops were armed with cheap bolt-action “Baranovki” and “Berdanki”, while the Turkish army had the far more effective 11- or 15-shot Winchester carbines responsible for the vast majority of Russian losses. Another example would be the 1904 war with Japan, when the Russian Navy found itself badly outgunned by the supposedly backward Japanese and left most of its fleet at the bottom of the Tsushima Strait. Luckily, cruiser Aurora managed to escape the slaughter

By: vineyardsaker

vineyardsaker — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:12:02 +0000

Hmm, looks like I will disagree with almost every single word you wrote here. Except one thing: you are right, I did read a lot of Solzhenitsyn. All in all I must have read every single thing he ever wrote, at least twice

Judging by your views of pre-1917 Russia as a backward hellhole I won’t bother with trying to despute your statements one by one. If Solzhenitsyn did not convince you (you have read him, right?) nothing I say will make any difference.

Besides, the real Russia is dead by now – the internationalist thugs who took power in 1917 succeeded in that main goal of theirs – and nothing we say about it will make one bit of a difference to this fact.

You and I can now both stand looking at the grave in which Russia is buried and choose for ourselves whether we want to weep over it, or spit on it.

Kind regards,

The Saker

By: Venik

Venik — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:40:02 +0000

This is where we disagree. I believe Bolshevik ideology is what pulled Russia out of mental and systemic stagnation that would have inevitably led to its demise as a nation. Revolutions don’t happen without a reason. They certainly don’t succeed unless there is overwhelming public support for the cause.

Russia’s last czar dragged the country into two devastating major wars that could have been avoided but ended up costing Russia millions of lives. By the end of the First World War more Russian soldiers surrendered to the enemy than did British, German, and French soldiers combined. This should give you an idea of the mental state of the Russian military and the Russian public in general at that time. There is no doubt in my mind that, had the czarist regime lasted another three decades, Russia’s national symbol would have been the swastika.

Aside from a few islands of art and science, the vast majority of Russians on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution were illiterate. What art, science or technology can we possibly be talking about? And without science, technology and industry the Russian army would have galloped into the Second World War on horseback armed with some second-rate imported boomsticks. In just forty years what you call Bolshevik ideology propelled Russia from illiteracy to space exploration. As to 80 million dead you mentioned, I hope you haven’t been reading too much Solzhenitsyn. The man was writing novels, you know.

By: vineyardsaker

vineyardsaker — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:11:52 +0000

You are right: the new star sucks. Still, I wish they finally got rid of the damn star along with all the rest of the Soviet symbols (starting with the Mausoleum). The Bolshevik ideology has costs Russia something in the range of 80’000’000 people, it has crushed and almost destroyed entire classes of Russian society and it has submitted the country to the bloody and barbaric rule of a mix of terrorists and petty criminals. I am rather baffled that it would take so long for Russia to stop humiliating and ridiculing itself by sticking to these symbols. Can you imagine the Israelis proudly wearing Swastikas or Armenians displaying moon crescents?!
Lastly, there is nothing *Russian* in these intentionally internationalist symblos. The Russian Navy lead the way by putting the Cross of Saint Andrew on its flags and I wish the rest of the military (and civil society) did likewise.