November 7, 2009

Today in history: November 7, 1917

One of the most seismic events of the 20th century: The Russian Revolution.

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Look at that gathering of rogues.

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I love the grainy old photographs of all of them - they always look so twinkly and jolly, don't they? It's such a dichotomy because honestly a more humorless and nasty bunch has never existed. Stalin's face always seems to be twinkling, as though he is Santa Claus on his day off. And the "social realism" paintings of the guy are so idealized it makes me want to puke. Standing surrounded by children, glimmering and twinkling benevolently. But they ALL look like that to me. Like they are chortling from on high. I say "I love the grainy old photographs" not because it does my heart good to see Trotsky smiling - but because I find them VERY interesting. Especially, as I mentioned, the collective twinkle in the eye. It's propaganda. Very very effective propaganda. Myth-making.

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On this day in 1917, the Bolsheviks seized the government buildings and put out a proclamation declaring the new government. There had been a spontaneous uprising in February of the same year, and much upheaval led up to the October Revolution. The Czar had abdicated (unbelievable) - a Provisional Government had been set up (with a mix of the old guard and the new ... well, THAT didn't last long) ... the Bolsheviks, in their power-grab, put out a notice saying that the Provisional Government was no longer.

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There was almost no resistance, although a civil war followed.


The Russian Revolution is, along with Cary Grant and the early career of Ralph Macchio, one of my enduring fascinations.

Many reasons why.

First of all: I love politics and history - and whatever the outcome, you would be hard pressed to find a more important moment of political upheaval in the entire 20th century than the Russian Revolution. It changed the world.

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Second of all: because it was SUCH a bad idea.

This is the secret in the secret book in 1984 (excerpt here). This is what nobody told you: The point was NEVER equality. The point was ALWAYS power - and controlling power into the hands of a very few. But the theories and ideals surrounding this secret were compelling to so many ... many still refuse to believe that there is no secret. That the smokescreen of equality was STILL the real point.

Thirdly: I am fascinated in the Russian Revolution because of the world-wide repercussions of it - and also because I vividly remember the entire edifice cracking apart in the late 80s. I couldn't believe it. I am in that generation that still grew up being afraid of Russia. Come on, I saw Red Dawn and it was real enough at the time for me to tremble at the thought of such a thing actually happening. We were the last generation to grow up with that fear. We have OTHER fears now - but not that one. I grew up during the dying gasps of the Cold War. So - to learn about the BEGINNINGS of such a political movement - something that would be entrenched for the better part of a century - has always been important to me.

And lastly,: cults fascinate me. How do you not only control what people DO but how they THINK? It all comes down to language.

In the early heady days of the Bolshevik takeover - there was something in their twinkly assurance that they could re-make the world through LANGUAGE itself. Imposing a mindset, a correct way of thinking, on a country of millions.

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Victor Klemperer, a German Jew who lived in Dresden Germany and witnessed the rise of Nazi power, eventually wrote a book (after WWII and the fall of the Nazis) called The Language of the Third Reich and it is an obsessive documentation of how the language was co-opted by the Nazis. He has saved newspaper clippings, obituaries, regular classifieds - to show how the language had filtered down into even the most mundane level. It became a code. It had no life in it. It atomized - from top to bottom. It is chilling - a brilliant book, I highly recommend it (not to mention his published journals of the Nazi years - NOT to be missed: I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 and I Will Bear Witness 1942-1945: A Diary of the Nazi Years. Invaluable historical documents. An example of his notes about "the language of the third reich" here)

John Reed's 10 days that Shook the World is a brilliant and intense piece of propaganda . It's so vivid that you can see the clouds of people's breath in the freezing air as they stomp in the packed ice outside the Winter Palace. You smell the cigar smoke, all of that. A first-hand account of the October Revolution, it was the book that "sold" the Revolution to the outside world. I used to have a way-more condescending readership than I do now - this was in the early days of my site - and most of those guys have moved on to greener friendlier pastures. I got in fights on almost a daily basis with readers who couldn't seem to stop visiting me every day, but who just couldn't stand how I wrote. It wasn't clear enough for them. They thought they were visiting, oh, Little Green Footballs or something, and then were shocked when I wasn't, you know, batshit crazy like them, and they found it baffling and enraging. It was very strange. I date most of this from a flattering mention I got in a Wall Street Journal article, with a link to my site. A nice feather in my cap, but the response was like being attacked by Mongol hordes all of a sudden (although, to be fair, many lovely articulate people ALSO found me from that mention in the WSJ - but it was hard to sort it all out at the time). I realize I can't control everything, and that people all come to me for different reasons - and that's cool - but once you're here? I encourage a certain KIND of commentary, because it, to me, is the most satisfying and civilized. But some people couldn't hack it. They OOZED with condescension towards me. These were all conservatives. I'm pretty conservative myself, but I'm not like THESE bozos, thank Christ. They all sounded the same. They all used the same words. They couldn't understand why I, who shared some of their views, used, uhm, different words. The first time I wrote about John Reed and had the GALL to praise his writing, I was condescended to within an inch of my life by idiots who can't see the difference between art and ideology. "You CAN'T praise his writing!! You just CAN'T!" I was called "just plain stupid" on a prominent conservative website. hahahahaha Sorry, that cracks me up. These worried little readers gave me long lists of things I 'NEEDED' to read (all of which I had already read) in order to counteract Reed's propaganda. Huh? These readers seemed truly nervous to be in the presence of an independent thinker who could say things like, "John Reed's a fine writer" and still have her brain intact. This became the main issue in the old days with my site: those who could not talk about art without talking about ideology. Not to mention the fact too that 100% of these people sneered, and I mean sneered, at serious conversations about film and acting. They hate actors. They hate "Hollywood", and it became an impossible situation. To these people, John Wayne was a good actor because he voted like they did, and Sean Penn was a bad actor because he voted opposite them. I just find such conversations truly tiresome, and I felt like the hostess at a really abysmal dinner party that was made up of bores and prigs. But it all worked out in the end. Most of them got sick of harassing me and moved on.

Now this is all rather interesting, in retrospect, because it shows the totalitarian mindset actually at work (albeit in a small benign way). The need to control how another person speaks is one of the cornerstones of a totalitarian gameplan. And so if people use different words, words that do not have the stamp of approval from some Bigwig on a Podium - or if they use the "right" words but put them in the "wrong" order it is seen as deeply disturbing. "Wait ... wait ... what is she SAYING?" It was truly interesting. So I would lead off not with a condemnation, but with words of praise for the writing, and people would read NO FARTHER, and jump all over me. "No no no, you have to LEAD OFF with your condemnation of the ideas - you can't just start a post with the words 'John Reed was a good writer' - because THEN what will people think??" Ah, but those are the words of an ideologue, and I am not an ideologue. I'd write a post about the control of language in Communist society, and these dudes would race in, trying to control my language. But these guys considered themselves to be defenders of democracy. It was rich!!

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(twinkle, twinkle, glimmer, glimmer, look at our serious comradely rural conversation about serious ideas, we are in accord, we are dear brothers of the spirit. Yeah, right.)

Back to the topic at hand - John Reed: I love first-person accounts of any historical event. I like to feel like I am THERE. What did you smell, see, touch? One of his contemporaries has said, about Reed's writing and journalism, "He couldn't be touched", and he really can't, not in terms of reportage, as well as giving you a sweeping sense that you are there.

Reed prints all of the Bolshevik pamphlets, fliers, announcements - word for word, in facsimile sometimes, so that you can see what it actually looked like - and all of it is in that LANGUAGE of Communism, that deadening blunted-edge language - with no poetry, no humanity in it. It is FROM a collective and TO a collective. I start to drone out into some gray foggy area as I read that stuff, losing my critical mind.

To control a population: you MUST control their language. You MUST show them the "correct" way to speak. There is only ONE meaning of the word "state". There can only be ONE meaning of the word "freedom". So the leaders of the Revolution set out immediately to co-opt the language. Watch any developing revolution anywhere in the world and watch how they start by controlling the language. Look at the group of peole today who want to control the words "marriage", "family", "values". Their desire is to co-opt MEANING, make no mistake about it. Their desire is EXclusive - to shut others out, they want to "own" a word. They are not to be trusted.

George Orwell knew this, of course, and that's where the whole Newspeak thing comes from, in 1984.

I find it interesting, and ironic in a horrifying way, that Lenin would say: "While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State."

Look at that language. The language of diametrically opposed clarity. This is not the language of humanity. It is an abstraction. I am not entirely convinced that any of these people truly believed in the Utopia, although it's not always easy to know someone's motivations or beliefs - as people are notoriously unreliable witnesses about themselves. Some of them did - and the gradations were much subtler back then, of socialism, communism, capitalism. Orwell is eloquent on all of this, as are many of the other "converts" - Arthur Koestler is another one. The belief in socialism is also a difficult thing to talk about with those who have entrenched prejudices, but again: I'm talking about history here on the ground-level - NOT the filtered-down present day version where the sides are clearly drawn. In the early days, there was much belief, there was also not a lot of information coming out of Russia, and there was a smokescreen thrown up - for decades - about what was actually happening. Many were duped. I think many were WILLINGLY duped. They went and witnessed the "show trials" of the 1930s and bought the piece of theatre as the truth. "Yes, it's awful, but these people all actually CONFESSED ... so of course they were guilty - otherwise why would they confess?" This is the pampered Western mind at work, and we should be grateful, actually, that we do have a level of incomprehension about that kind of pressure and insanity. But before that - in the teens and twenties - things were not at all as clear as they soon became.

So Lenin makes that statement about the state - but then of course what happened in Russia? The State became everything.

I refuse to just blame this on Stalin's evil - although I do think he was evil - and missing whatever piece it is that makes most of us human. I don't think he was the way he was because his Mummah didn't love him enough, or because he was short. I think there was something in him - a deadly mixture of patience and violence (rare rare rare - most dictators have the violent thing down, but what most of them lack is PATIENCE - Stalin knew how to wait ... sometimes for decades ... to get what he wanted). But I don't think Stalin took an essentially good idea and made it bad. I think it was a terrible idea to begin with.

Check out the picture below - of junkers lounging around in the Winter Palace in the fall of 1917:

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From John Reed's 10 days that Shook the World - one of his descriptions of the events of Nov. 7, 1917 - marvelous writer, marvelous first-hand reportage, although my modern-day self rolls my eyes at his naivete:

By this time, in the light that streamed out of all the Winter Palace windows, I could see that the first two or three hundred men were Red Guards, with only a few scattered soldiers. Over the barricade of firewood we clambered, and leaping down inside gave a triumphant shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown down by the yunkers who had stood there. On both sides of the main gateway the doors stood wide open, light streamed out, and from the huge pile came not the slightest sound.

Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and stair-cases. A number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon these the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously, battering them open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware ... One man went strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich feathers which he stuck in his hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, "Comrades! Don't touch anything! Don't take anything! This is the property of the People!" Immediately twenty voices were crying, "Stop! Put everything back! Don't take anything! Property of the People!" Many hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were snatched from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the bronze clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, "Revolutionary discipline! Property of the People ...."

Here's all the crap I have written about Stalin over the years, if you're interested.

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(portraits of the Romanovs ripped off the walls of the Palace and other official buildings)

Robert K. Massie's highwater-mark book Nicholas and Alexandra (excerpt here) describes the October Revolution from the perspective of the Czar and his family, already incarcerated (for their "protection"):

In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority within the Petrograd Soviet. From Finland, Lenin urged an immediate lunge for supreme power: "History will not forgive us if we do not take power now ... to delay is a crime." On October 23, Lenin, in disguise, slipped back into Petrograd to attend a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee, which voted 10 to 1 that "insurrection is inevitable and the time fully ripe."

On November 6, the Bolsheviks struck. That day, the cruiser Aurora, flying the red flag, anchored in the Neva opposite the Winter Palace. Armed Bolshevik squads occupied the railway stations, bridges, banks, telephone exchanges, post office and other public buildings. There was no bloodshed. The next morning, November 7, Kerensky left the Winter Palace in an open Pierce-Arrow touring car accompanied by another car flying the American flag. Passing unmolested through the streets filled with Bolshevik soldiers, he drove south to try to raise help from the army. The remaining ministers of the Provisional Government remained in the Malachite Hall of the Winter Palace, protected by a women's battalion and a troop of cadets. Sitting around a green baize table, filling the ashtrays with cigarette butts, the ministers covered their scratch pads with abstract doodles and drafts of pathetic last-minute proclamations: "The Provisional Government appeals to all classes to support the Provisional Government --" At nine p.m., the Aurora fired a blank shell, and at ten, the women's battalion surrendered. At eleven, another thirty or forty shells whistled across the river from the batteries in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. Only two shells hit the palace, slightly damaging the plaster. Nevertheless, at 2:10 a.m. on November 8, the ministers gave up.

This skirmish was the Bolshevik November Revolution, later magnified in Communist mythology into an epic of struggle and heroism. In fact, life in the capital was largely undisturbed. Restaurants, stores and cinemas on the Nevsky Prospect remained open. Streetcards moved as usual through most of the city, and the ballet performed at the Maryinsky Theatre. On the afternoon of the 7th, Sir George Buchanan walked in the vicinity of the Winter Palace and found "the aspect of the quay was more or less normal." Nevertheless, this flick of Lenin's finger was all that was necessary to finish Kerensky. Unsuccessful in raising help, Kerensky never returned to Petrograd. In May, after months in hiding, he appeared secretly in Moscow, where Bruce Lockhart issued him a false visa identifying him as a Siberian soldier being repatriated home. Three days later, Kerensky left Murmansk to begin fifty years of restless exile. Trotsky later, in exile himself, scornfully wrote Kerensky's political epitaph: "Kerensky was not a revolutionist; he merely hung around the revolution ... He had no theoretical preparation, no political schooling, no ability to think, no political will. The place of these qualities was occupied by a nimble susceptibility, an inflammable temperament, and that kind of eloquence which operates neither upon mind or will but upon the nerves." Nevertheless, when Kerensky left, he carried with him the vanishing dream of a humane, liberal, democratic Russia.

From distant Tobolsk, Nicholas followed these events with keen interest. He blamed Kerensky for the collapse of the army in the July offensive and for not accepting Kornilov's help in routing the Bolsheviks. At first, he could not believe that Lenin and Trotsky were as formidable as they seemed; to him, they appeared as outright German agents sent to Russia to corrupt the army and overthrow the government. When these two men whom he regarded as unsavory blackguards and traitors became the rulers of Russia, he was gravely shocked. "I then for the first time heard the Tsar regret his abdication," said Gilliard. "It now gave him pain to see that his renunciation had been in vain and that by his departure in the interests of his country, he had in reality done her an ill turn. This idea was to haunt him more and more."

At first, the Bolshevik Revolution had little practical effect on faroff Tobolsk. Officials appointed by the Provisional Government - including Pankratov, Nikolsky and Kobylinsky - remained in office; the banks and lawcourts remained open doing business as before. Inside the governor's house, the Imperial family had settled into a routine which, although restricted, was almost cozy.

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Haunting. I know it's me projecting, but it's almost like I can see their terrible fate in their eyes, even in the expressions of the little ones.

From Edvard Radzinsky's book The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II (a wonderful book, I love all of Radzinsky's books - he also wrote a book on Stalin (some of my thoughts on the book here), and a book on Rasputin (intemperate words from me on that book here) - he's terrific - In this book, with the opening of the archives following glasnost and perestroika, he tries to put together - through the existing documentation - the decision to murder the tsar and his family):

In his diary, Trotsky, back from the forest, described his conversation with Sverdlov:

" 'The tsar is where?'
" 'Shot, of course.' [Imagine Sverdlov's cool triumph when he told Lev to his face that they had torn his favorite bone right out of his mouth; there would be no trial.]
" 'And the family is where?'
" 'The family as well.'
" 'All of them?'
" 'Yes. What about it?' [Again Sverdlov's invisible grin between the lines: "Does the fiery revolutionary Trotsky pity them?"]
" 'Who decided this?' [Fury: he wants to know who dared not consult with him, and so on.]
" 'We all did. Ilich [Lenin] felt we could not leave them a living banner, especially given our trying conditions.' "
Yet when his anger had passed, Trotsky, who during the terrible days of the revolution had said, "We will leave, but we will slam the door so hard the world will shudder," could not have helped but admire this superrevolutionary decision.

"In essence this decision was inevitable. The execution of the tsar and his family was necessary not simply to scare, horrify, and deprive the enemy of hope, but also to shake up our own ranks, show them that there was no going back. Ahead lay total victory or utter ruin ... The masses of workers and soldiers would not have understood or accepted any other decision. Lenin had a good sense of this," Trotsky wrote.

So, according to Trotsky, it was all decided in Moscow. That was what Goloshchekin negotiated in Moscow!

This is only Trotsky's testimony, however. History recognizes documents - and I foun done. First a clue, from a letter of O.N. Kolotov in Leningrad:

"I can tell you an interesting detail about the topic of interest to you: my grandfather often told me that Zinoviev took part in the decision to execute the tsar and that the tsar was executed on the basis of a telegram sent to Ekaterinburg from the center. My grandfather can be trusted; by virtue of his work he knew a great deal. He said that he himself took part in the shootings. He called the execution a 'kick in the ass', asserting that this was in the literal sense: they turned the condemned to the wall, then brought a pistol up to the back of their head, and when they pulled the trigger they simultaneously gave them a kick in the ass to keep the blood from spattering their uniforms."

There was a telegram! I found it! Even though they were supposed to destroy it. The blood cries out!

Here it is lying before me. One stifling July afternoon I was sitting in the Archives of the October Revolution and looking at this telegram, sent seventy-two years before. I had run across it in an archive file with the boring label "Telegrams About the Organization and Activities of the Judicial Organs and the Cheka," begun on January 21, 1918, and ended on October 31, of the same 1918. Behind this label and these dates lie the Red Terror. Among the terrifying telegrams - semiliterate texts on dirty paper - my attention was struck by a two-headed eagle. The tsarist seal!

This was it. On a blank left over from the tsarist telegraph service and decorated with the two-headed eagle was this telegram: a report on the impending execution of the tsar's family. The irony of history.

At the very top of this telegram, on a piece of telegraph ribbon, is the address "To Moscow Lenin."

Below, a note in pencil: "Received July 16, 1918, 21:22." From Petrograd. And the number of the telegram: 14228.

So, on July 16, at 21:22, that is, before the Romanov's execution, this telegram arrived in Moscow.

The telegram was a long time in getting there, having been sent from Ekaterinburg to "Sverdlov, copy to Lenin". But it was sent through Zinoviev, the master of the second capital, Petrograd - Lenin's closest comrade-in-arms at the time. Zinoviev had sent the telegram on from Petrograd to Lenin.

The individuals who sent this telegram from Ekaterinburg were Goloshechekin and Safrov, another leader of the Ural Soviet.

Here is its text:

"To Moscow, the Kremlin, Sverdlov, copy to Lenin. From Ekaterinburg transmit the following directly: inform Moscow that the trial agreed upon with Filipp due to military circumstances cannot bear delay, we cannot wait. If your opinion is contrary inform immediately. Goloshchekin, Safarov. On this subject contact Ekaterinburg yourself.

And the signature: Zinoviev.

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Nov. 7, 1917 NY Times front page article:

Bolsheviki Seize State Buildings, Defying Kerensky

Premier Posts Troops in Capital and Declares Workmen's Council Illegal
NORTHERN ARMY OFFERS AID
And Preliminary Parliament, Forced by Rebels to Leave Palace, Supports Him
WOMEN SOLDIERS ON GUARD
Petrograd Conditions Generally Normal Save for Outrages by So-Called Apaches
Bolsheviki Seize State Buildings

Nov. 7, Petrograd - An armed naval detachment, under orders of the Maximalist Revolutionary Committee, has occupied the offices of the official Petrograd Telegraph Agency. The Maximalists also occupied the Central Telegraph office, the State Bank and Marin Palace, where the Preliminary Parliament had suspended its proceedings in view of the situation.

Numerous precautions have been taken by Premier Kerensky to thwart the threatened outbreak. The Workmen's and Soldiers' Committee has been decreed an illegal organization. The soldiers guarding the Government buildings have been replaced by men from the officers' training schools. Small guards have been placed at the Embassies. The women's battalion is drawn up in the square in front of the Winter Palace.

The commander of the northern front has informed the Premier that his troops are against any demonstration and are ready to come to Petrograd to quell a rebellion if necessary.

No disorders are yet reported, with the exception of some outrages by Apaches. The general life of the city remains normal and street traffic has not been interrupted.

Leon Trotzky, President of the Central Executive Committee of the Petrograd Council of Workmen's Soldiers' Delegates, has informed members of the Town Duma that he has given strict orders against outlawry and has threatened with death any persons attempting to carry out pogroms.

Trotzky added that it was not the intention of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates to seize power, but to represent to a Congress of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, to be called shortly, that the body take over control of the capital, for which all necessary arrangements had been perfected.

In the early hours of the morning a delegation of Cossacks appeared at the Winter Palace and told Premier Kerensky that they were disposed to carry out the Government's orders concerning the guarding of the capital, but they insisted that if hostilities began it would be necessary for their forces to be supplemented by infantry units. They further demanded that the Premier define the Government's attitude toward the Bolsheviki, citing the release from custody of some of those who had been arrested for participation in the July disturbances. The Cossacks virtually made a demand that the Government proclaim the Bolsheviki outlaws.

The Premier replied:

"I find it difficult to declare the Bolsheviki outlaws. The attitude of the Government toward the present Bolsheviki activities is known."

The Premier explained that those who had been released were on bail, and that any of them found participating in new offenses against peace would be severely dealt with.

The Revolutionary Military Committee of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates demanded the right to control all orders of the General Staff in the Petrograd district, which was refused. Thereupon the committee announced that it had appointed special commissioners to undertake the direction of the military, and invited the troops to observe only orders signed by the committee. Machine gun detachments moved to the Workmen's and Soldiers' headquarters.

In addressing the Preliminary Parliament yesterday Premier Kerensky charged the Military Committee of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates with having distributed arms and ammunition to workmen.

"That is why I consider part of the population of Petrograd in a state of revolt," he said, "and have ordered an immediate inquiry and such arrests as are necessary. The Government will perish rather than cease to defend the honor, security, and independence of the State."

The Preliminary Parliament, in response to the Premier's appeal for a vote of confidence, voted to "work in contact with the Government." The resolution, which originated with the Left, was carried by a vote of 123 to 102, with 26 members abstaining from voting. A resolution offered by the Centre calling for the suppression of the Bolshevikis and a full vote of confidence failed to reach a vote. The Cabinet, however, considers the resolution adopted as expressive of the Parliament's support.

The reported resignation of Admiral Verdervski, Minister of Marine, was denied after the Cabinet meeting. It was stated that all the ministers had agreed to retain their portfolios.

The Bolshevik Chairman of the Petrograd Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, realizing that there are more ways than one of acquiring real authority, not only attempted its capture by armed force but also by a far more ingenuous plan, which was disclosed today. He formed a so-called Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, and informed the Headquarters Staff of the Petrograd military district that only orders sanctioned by the Military Revolutionary Committee would be executed.

On Sunday night the committee appeared at the staff offices and demanded the right of entry, control and veto. Receiving a natural and emphatic refusal, the military revolutionaries wired everywhere to the general effect that the Petrograd district headquarters were opposed to the wishes of the revolutionary garrison, and were becoming a counter revolutionary centre. This bid for the loyalty of the garrison has so far yielded no definite results, but obviously is extremely dangerous, especially in view of the fact that in the Petrograd garrison discipline is extremely lax.

It is said the Provisional Government intends to prosecute the Military Revolutionary Committee. It should be noted that the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets is backing the Provisional Government. There is a general feeling of reaction against the Bolshevik-ridden Soviets, a feeling completely loyal to the revolution but impatient of disorders.

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Speaking of Russia, I am sure by now most of you have heard the Siren's exciting news. TCM, in January, will have a month-long series of films under the banner "Shadows of Russia". Congrats to the Siren, what a wonderful project!

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August 4, 2008

RIP Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts.

-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago


I don't even know what to say. He's one of my heroes. A true giant has walked the earth. A giant.

NY Times obit here. Here's the obit in The Irish Times. Here is the text of the famous speech he gave at Harvard in 1978 (a choice quote: "But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening."

Let's not simplify the man, or make him less complex. He was a posterboy for no one. Infuriating, independent, beat of his own drummer, fearless. God.

Here's a lengthy article in Time.

And I've been waiting for the inevitable: Christopher Hitchens' piece, which opens with:

Every now and then it happens. The state or the system encounters an individual who, bafflingly, maddeningly, absurdly, cannot be broken. Should they manage to survive, such heroes have a good chance of outliving the state or the system that so grossly underestimated them. Examples are rather precious and relatively few, and they include Nelson Mandela refusing an offer to be released from jail (unless and until all other political detainees were also freed) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn having to be deported from his country of birth against his will, even though he had become—and had been before—a prisoner there.

More:

But it seems that Solzhenitsyn did have a worry or a dread, not that he himself would be harmed but that none of his work would ever see print. Nonetheless—and this is the point to which I call your attention—he kept on writing. The Communist Party's goons could have torn it up or confiscated or burned it—as they did sometimes—but he continued putting it down on paper and keeping a bottom drawer filled for posterity. This is a kind of fortitude for which we do not have any facile name. The simplest way of phrasing it is to say that Solzhenitsyn lived "as if." Barely deigning to notice the sniggering, pick-nose bullies who followed him and harassed him, he carried on "as if" he were a free citizen, "as if" he had the right to study his own country's history, "as if" there were such a thing as human dignity.

The Vaclav Havel rule of living in a totalitarian society. Just live "as if" you were free.


I just happened to be up now - late for me - when the news came in. I have no words. A truly great man. (I've been adding links to this post since I heard the news at around 1 am this morning).

Here's an excerpt from his Gulag Archipelago, one of the most important books of the 20th century.

Shaking my head. Strange. How it feels like a personal loss.

The world was a better place, a more honorable place, a place where bravery was possible, and where truth was always louder than lies ... because he was in it.

He won the Nobel Prize in 1970, and did not attend the ceremony for fear that the Russians would retaliate by depriving him of his Russian citizenship. As much as he despised the totalitarian regime in Russia, he didn't want to be cut off to that degree. He had family in Russia, a wife, a child on the way. So he did not attend the ceremony. Instead he sent a speech that was read at the banquet. Here is the full text. He closes with:

And I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the members of the Swedish Academy for the enormous support their choice in 1970 has given my works as a writer. I venture to thank them on behalf of that vast unofficial Russia which is prohibited from expressing itself aloud, which is persecuted both for writing books and even for reading them. The Academy have heard for this decision of theirs many reproaches implying that such a prize has served political interests. But these are the shouts of raucous loudmouths who know of no other interests. We all know that an artist's work cannot be contained within the wretched dimension of politics. For this dimension cannot hold the whole of our life and we must not restrain our social consciousness within its bounds.

aleksandrs.jpg

Photo of Solzhenitsyn in 1946 in the gulag.

Rest in peace. No more words.

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July 16, 2008

Master and Margarita as graphic novel

Fantastic idea - and take a glimpse at the artwork by Andrzej Klimowski. WOW. Beautiful!

Here's my favorite image from that slideshow.

MargaritaBehemoth.jpg

Just looking at it gives me the creeps, remembering that awful cat in the book and how much I wanted to kick him under the streetcar.

Some of my thoughts on this great great book here - but I definitely need to check out the graphic novel. I am intrigued.

(via Book Slut)


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April 27, 2008

The Books: "1984" (George Orwell)

Orwell1984.gifNext book on my adult fiction shelves:

1984, by George Orwell. I covered much of my thoughts about this book in my post yesterday about Animal Farm.





A bit more about Orwell the man (there's so much there): Orwell himself wrote about his youth:

I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.

His entire life can be seen as a process of "facing" (something that Christopher Hitchens goes into in depth in his book Why Orwell Matters). What does it mean to "face"? To really face? Not just unpleasant facts about outer reality - but unpleasant facts about how you think about things, and where you might be wrong - or just too rigid? I mean, how many people do that? As in: Okay, I can feel I have a bias against such and such ... it's a strong bias ... Can I look at that bias and see where it might be really coming from? Is it just from "the way things are" and I am convinced I am right ... or am I missing something? Am I afraid of something? Am I wrong? Orwell's whole life was about asking such questions about himself. It is truly remarkable. He questioned Empire, racism, Stalinism, Communism, misogyny, anti-Semitism ... he recognized his biases in all of these areas. Some could not be overcome, some were not meant to be overcome, but ALL were "faced" ... and he did it through his writing. A straining questioning curious ruthless sensibility he had. No wonder he intimidates. No wonder he is seen as an enemy by many. Not just for his views (or, I don't think it's just because of his views) ... but because he shames those who refuse to question themselves. He shames the "people of the lie" - those who absolutely refuse to examine themselves, refuse. People have blinders on. People insist that SUCH AND SUCH IS TRUE ... you ask me why it is true? Well, that should be obvious - because I FEEL SO STRONGLY ABOUT IT. Strong feelings are not enough for Orwell. They are just the jumping-off point to ask the tough questions. He is not above having "strong feelings" ... but instead he wonders: Maybe such and such is NOT true ... you ask me why it is not true? Well, that should be obvious ... BECAUSE I feel so strongly about it ... I'm thinking of the raging (loud) homophobic folks - preachers, politicians, whatever - who inevitably are discovered paying some gigolo for gay sex and having a wide stance in a bathroom stall in the midwest somewhere. These people (as far as I know, I don't know them obviously) ... are not questioning themselves. They are not saying: "I have a violent reaction to homosexuals. Where is that coming from? Is it because I REALLY believe that it is wrong? Or is something else going on?" If you really believe it's wrong, that's one thing - I don't respect your position, but I see that it's a sincere belief. But these loudly homophobic anti-gay guys have been revealed, time and time again, as closet cases ... you know, an example of "he doth protest too much". Orwell had his blind-spots, just like everybody else on the planet. He worked at himself. He looked, he examined ... he was not afraid to break with the pack, and he was not afraid to show himself as in process - which I think many people find VERY threatening. I have found it in small doses on my blog - when I write a post that is mainly about questioning or contemplating, or NOT being positional ... overwhelmingly, people show up to tell me what to think, how to react, whatever. The very fact of NOT taking a position, or questioning one's own motives or thoughts ... is seen as contemptible by many. Or - not contemptible. I'm going to stay with the word "threatening". When I see these what seem to be kneejerk reactions to me being in process ... it always makes me think - I don't know ... people get threatened by that. They can't stand it. It makes them nuts.

Sometimes a violent anti-reaction to something is indicative of deeper issues. That's been my experience anyway. Not just in observing others but in observing myself. There have been times in my life (and I'm sure we've all experienced stuff like this) - where I will have a really bad reaction to somebody - like they just rub me the wrong way, they push my buttons ... I find it uncomfortable to be around them, etc. And usually I suffer through the situation, getting annoyed, ranting about it to my friends, writing in my journal, whatever ... But it's happened a couple of times that eventually I have a breakthrough in my thinking about this person. It happened with a woman in an acting class I was in a couple of years ago. She was what I could call an "emotional vampire" ... she was very talented, but her self-deprecating manner was overwhelming and eventually annoying. She would almost bow in front of me, like, "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy" ... and it made it impossible to have a conversation with her. She latched onto me. She would glance at me during the notes given to her during a scene, seeing how I would respond. It made me so uncomfortable. I could feel she was giving me WAY too much power. Listen, babe, I'm struggling just like you, I'm in the shit just like you ... focus on your own damn self!! She took up a lot of brain space. Like - I thought about her a lot. I bitched about her. I was in a state of unconsciousness - I was just reacting. And I'm not sure what it was that snapped ... but eventually, after all of this, I finally asked myself the question, "Sheila. What is going on with YOU right now? Forget about her - what is happening with YOU?" It was not a comfortable moment. I was so certain that I was "right" in my opinion, I felt harassed by her - she hovered by my side, she over-complimented me, whatever - I felt "right". So to take a step back from that and say, "Wait a second ... why am I so invested in being RIGHT here? What is going on with you??" And I made some realizations. I saw myself in her. (Of course). It's not a part of myself that I am particularly proud of, and it is a part of myself that I work to suppress. The openly insecure person, the one who doesn't feel worthy to be in the same room with tremendously talented successful people, the one who is unable to take a compliment without brushing it off, the one who is so talented - but can't ever own it. Blah blah blah, the list goes on. My anti-reaction to this person was a reaction to those parts of myself that I am ashamed of. That she was just wearing on her sleeve. Jung talks about shadow sides ... the darker side of you, the things you can't admit or won't admit ... This woman was my shadow side. I'm suddenly moved. I'm not sure why. And as I made these realizations, all of my annoyance at her dissolved ... immediately. Never to return again, actually. I was so far removed from being all righteous and annoyed that it was like I was a different person. My birthday was that week, and I was having a huge party at a club in New York. Dear friends, family members, etc. And impulsively - without stopping to examine it - I called her - using the number on the class roster I had in my address book. She answered. When she heard it was me, she did this big "oh my god I can't believe you're calling me" thing - which would have driven me up the freakin' wall a week before - but now, I felt kind towards her. And in being kind towards her, I was being kind to myself. Forgiving of myself. I know that "Oh my God I can't believe you're calling me" feeling. And I invited her and her husband to come to my party. She had three grade-school age kids - so I knew it would be a long-shot that she could come out on a weeknight - but she was so thrilled to be asked - it made me want to cry. I had been withholding something from her, something that was good and kind and soft ... and I was so rewarded when I let go. She basically just wanted to be my friend, for God's sake! She and her husband got a babysitter and came to my party, and they were totally awesome, and we all had the best time. She was terrific! We played ridiculous games. For example, someone had brought a pack of Bubblicious - you know, the kind that has a fortune in the wrapper. And we would do dramatic readings of the fortunes ... or turn them into songs ... we were acting like total retards, and laughing so hard we were crying. It was an awesome night. She and her husband had a BALL. It wasn't the "beginning of a beautiful friendship" - she eventually left that class, and I never saw her again ... but it was a real learning moment for me. The "power of facing unpleasant facts" - not focusing on what was wrong with her, but focusing on what was it in me that was having such a strong negative reaction to her?? And maybe I was a bit "off"? That I was "off" BECAUSE I had such a strong negative reaction to her!

I have strayed far from my topic, but that felt really good to write. And it is relevant, in its way. I have written before about my problem with those who "relish their rightness" and I hope I was clear in my post - that one of my biggest problems with those kinds of people is that it reveals to me my OWN "relishing" of my OWN rightness - and it's a button I don't want pushed ... and I have a hard enough time NOT relishing my rightness ... so I have to actively avoid such people. It's my choice. I do not set myself above or beyond them. It is that I am in process ... and I am trying to NOT be that way anymore. I can certainly go there, and it doesn't mean not having strong opinions ... but there's a huge difference between having a strong opinion and relishing your own rightness. It's a line I walk, and those who do not question their own rightness, who are incapable of seeing that maybe THEY have a little bit of work to do ... I experience them as toxic. Actually toxic.

And so this is one of the main reasons why I find Orwell so, not just refreshing, but exhilarating. He shows me the way. He really does. Bless him!

Hitchens writes about this whole "facing unpleasant facts" thing:

A commissar who realizes that his five-year-plan is off-target and that the people detest him or laugh at him may be said, in a base manner, to be confronting an unpleasant fact. So, for that matter, may a priest with 'doubts'. The reaction of such people to unpleasant facts is rarely self-critical; they do not have the 'power of facing'. Their confrontation with the fact takes the form of evasion; the reaction to the unpleasant discovery is a redoubling of efforts to overcome the obvious. The 'unpleasant facts' that Orwell faced were usually the ones that put his own position or preference to the test.

And that's really the jist of it.

It's an interesting point. Stalinist tyranny required of the Party members to be "self-critical" - meaning: to examine their own thought processes and admit where they were "incorrect". Self-criticisms. But we can see how bogus that really is - that what that brand of "self-criticism" represents is a whittling away of independent thought. And not just independent thought but man's ability to know that he even does think independently. Mikhail Bulgakov has some amazing scenes in The Master and Margarita - where someone realizes, through coercion, double-think, double-speak, and intense psychological pressure, that what they REALLY saw (a huge black cat riding the streetcar, holding onto the rails as though he was a human being) was NOT what they really saw ... they were mistaken. Even though, in their hearts, they KNOW what they saw. (An excerpt from that great book illustrating this point here.) Stalinism required human beings to split themselves. And so with all the damage Stalin wrought - the aftermath of which we still live in today - the psychological damage was the most shattering.

And that's what Orwell addresses so brilliantly in 1984. I have so many favorite sections of this book - but I figured I'd go with the "newspeak" section because it is so chilling. (And highly relevant still.)

Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz (my post about him here) who grew up in Poland - suffering under the Nazis and then under increasingly Stalinist Communism, wrote this about 1984 in 1953:

A few have become acquainted with Orwell's 1984; because it is both difficult to obtain and dangerous to possess, it is known only to certain members of the Inner Party. Orwell fascinates them through his insight into details they know well, and through his use of Swiftian satire. Such a form of writing is forbidden by the New Faith because allegory, by nature manifold in meaning, would trespass beyond the prescriptions of socialist realism and the demands of the censor. Even those who know Orwell only by hearsay are amazed that a writer who never lived in Russia should have so keen a perception into its life.

What a compliment.

EXCERPT FROM 1984, by George Orwell.

"How is the dictionary getting on?" said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.

"Slowly," said Syme. "I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating."

He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.

"The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition," he said. "We're getting the language into its final shape - the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words - scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050."

He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take 'good', for instance. If you have a word like 'good', what need is there for a word like 'bad'? 'Ungood' will do just as well - better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of 'good', what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like 'excellent' and 'splendid' and all the rest of them? 'Plusgood' covers the meaning, or 'doubleplusgood' if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words - in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course," he added as an afterthought.

A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.

"You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston," he said almost sadly. "Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useful shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?"

Winston did know that, of course. He smiled sympathetically, he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-colored bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak," he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. "Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050-, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?"

"Except --" began Winston doubtfully, and then stopped.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to say "Except the proles," but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.

"The proles are not human beings," he said carelessly. "By 2050 - earlier, probably - all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron - they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like 'freedom is slavery' when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.


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April 26, 2008

The Books: "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" (George Orwell)

51WKWV3RHNL.jpgNext book on my adult fiction shelves:

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story , by George Orwell.

Nothing like starting off the weekend with a little Orwell. And I am of the mind that we should never forget why Orwell matters ... to borrow a phrase. (That's a wonderful book, by the way. We actually just brought it up yesterday in a conversation over at Jonathan's place. It's one of my favorite kind of blog conversations: it starts out at one place, someone brings something else up, a couple respond to that point, someone chimes in on the original point ... and how did we get from Armond White to Orwell? Who knows. But it's awesome.

Do they still have kids read Animal Farm in 8th grade? That's when I read it first. It's simply told, and if you don't get the allegory - which I probably didn't as an 8th grader - it doesn't really matter - because the story is clear, and tyranny is a concept that at least can be comprehended by an 8th grader. The Iran hostage situation was one of the formative events of my early adolescence - that and the hunger strikes in Belfast (well, and of course the miracle on ice too ... which seemed to encapsulate the entire WORLD at that time) - The hostages and the hunger strikes were the first couple of times that I was really aware of the news as something I could understand and was invested in. I prayed for the hostages. And I prayed for Bobby Sands. I know it sounds stupid, but I did. We were actually in Ireland while the hunger strikes were going on - so it made it even more palpable to me. It made it real. So in junior high I was beginning to understand that much of reality basically sucks for most of the people on the planet, and things happened that were unfair and totally not cool. A sort of elementary revelation to make - but whatever, I was 11. So I'm not saying I read Animal Farm and thought of the Ayatollah Khomeini - I didn't - but my understanding of world events was such that I do remember reading the book and knowing that "the fairy story" part of the title was extremely cynical ... this was no "fairy story" I had ever heard. Animal Farm is SCARY and I knew enough to be scared of it when I read it the first time.

I re-read the book in 2000 ... for the first time since I was an adolescent. This is different from Orwell's other book 1984 which we had to read in 11th grade - and it immediately hooked me in - it was one of those books I had to read that I loved immediately - like The Catcher in the Rye, A Tale of Two Cities (excerpt here), The Great Gatsby (excerpt here). Some of the books we were forced to read (Tess of the D'Urbervilles (excerpt here), Moby-Dick (excerpt here) I hated and saw the reading list as a kind of purgatory. But there were gems that got through - and 1984 was one of them. Also, the book was called 1984 and I read it in 1984 - so there was this whole creepy aspect to it - but also, I remember feeling relieved, like, "Well, Orwell was wrong - we've still got a COUPLE years to go before we have THAT kind of society ..." My American girl response. Because of course that society existed in many nations across the world at that time ... but it didn't exist in MY world, and it was 1984! Phew! Dodged a bullet!

Animal Farm languished on my shelves, however, for decades before I picked it up again. By 2000 I was already into my obsession with Stalin - and so a whole other level of the book revealed itself to me. It almost didn't read as allegory anymore - it almost just felt like journalism. Ha. I know that Trotsky was not, in actuality, a pig like Wilbur ... but all of the events of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath are laid out in no uncertain terms in Animal Farm. It's A to B. The overturning of the old guard. The looting of the farm (like the Bolsheviks looting the Winter Palace). The manifesto released. The intellectual insistence on accuracy of thought. No, you can't think THIS way anymore ... THIS is the correct way to think ... The workings of the farm - and how to pick up where the humans left off. And naturally, there is great waste. The cows are milked by the pigs - and the milk lies in the bucket, and is not distributed and then later when someone goes to get the milk - it's gone, it's been pilfered. Total anarchy.

The system doesn't work at first. And so by sheer force of will Napoleon and Snowball - the two main pigs - begin to re-educate all of the animals. If it doesn't fit with reality, then let's just change the words we say. For example, they come out with commandments at the beginning of the revolution - one of the commandments is: No animal shall sleep in a bed. Later in the book, when the pigs take over the farmhouse - naturally they want to sleep in the beds. But ... oops ... the manifesto - that THEY WROTE - says that No animal shall sleep in a bed. So how to deal with the PAST when it doesn't align with the present? Well, you just change the past then, and you convince everyone that your version of the past is the correct one. "No, no, the commandment said that No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets." A couple of the animals know that that was not really what was said ... but eventually it is agreed upon that it is okay to sleep in a bed as long as it doesn't have sheets.

So there's that kind of obliteration of the past - one of the main weapons in tyranny's arsenal. If you can dominate the past, if you can convince a large group of people to accept your version of the past (and even if they don't accept it - they are afraid to say so) - then you win. You are the alpha dog. Then of course there is Snowball's disappearance - and how he takes on mythical aspects to those left behind. Everything that goes wrong on the farm is blamed on Snowball. A convenient scapegoat, like Trotsky was. If things don't work then Snowball is to blame! He's a saboteur! How convenient, isn't it ... it's almost like it was scripted. If Trotsky hadn't existed, they would have had to invent him. And, essentially, they did. He was a real man, but he was re-invented as Enemy Number One, an omnipresent source of mischief and disaster ... trains crashed. Trotsky was behind it. Not enough grain. Trotsky sabotaged the harvest (even though he wasn't even in Russia at the time. He pulled the strings from abroad). In a way, without Trotsky - it is debatable how successful all of this would have been, at least in terms of dominating and terrorizing the population at large. They NEEDED him. Because for the first 10 years after the Revolution, all hell broke loose. Millions of people died. Millions upon millions. Famine, terror, gulags, exile -

And this is something I've said time and time again in response to those who want to excuse all of this (these are the same people who would NEVER excuse Hitler's actions) because they like the idea of Socialism and so they take the stance of "It was a good idea and who knows what would have happened if Stalin hadn't messed it all up!" (Then, of course, there were those in the West who loved Stalin and were swayed by him - Stalin called them "the useful idiots" - the Beatrice and Stanley Webbs of the world ... bought the lie. Funny thing - in the "witness" sections of the movie Reds, Rebecca West, in her big googly-eyed glasses, said, "You know who was an idiot? Beatrice Webb. She didn't know a thing." Ha! Go, Dame Rebecca!). But to the "it was a good idea messed up by Stalin" folks, I say: No. It's not that it was good idea messed up by Stalin. It was that it was a bad idea in the first place. And actually, I'm not even convinced that there were any "ideas" going on at all in the Russian Revolution - that all of that talk and theory wasn't just a smokescreen for a giant power grab. And Stalin won. That was always the point. (I am thinking now of the "secret book" in 1984 which basically admits that "secret": that it was never about equality, or workers paradise ... it was always about creating an atomized society where one man ruled supreme) You can only think that it was all a good idea if you believe that man himself can change his spots - that he can obliterate his own greed and selfishness. I happen to not believe this. And so I don't think any of that stuff is a good idea, because it doesn't factor in, you know, human nature - which has been in evidence since Eve ate the apple and Cain killed his brother for a totally asinine reason. People are selfish, curious, mischievous, and self-involved. This is and always shall be. (This is my beef, too, with the people who use nostalgia as a political weapon. The people who seem to believe that there was a Golden Age in the past - when everything was BETTER. Yeah, it was better if you were a white straight middle-class male - of course it was ... come on, peeps! Get a grip! Learn your history! There is no mythical perfect past. Maybe things were simpler - yes - but "simpler" often means that much of the ugliness and prejudice and unfairness which does exist was actively repressed. The definitions were "simpler" and sure that might have been comforting - but only if you were in the dominant group. And so no, I am not down with saying that such a time was BETTER. Sorry. You can count me out of your delusion. Thanks. I know this is a post full of links to my own blog but whatever, that is just evidence that I am self-involved and all is right with the world ... It occurs to me that I wrote a bit on this whole "nostalgia" question in my two competing movie reviews: of Pleasantville and Blast From the Past - the two sides of nostalgia, which is not, in and of itself a bad thing - it is when one group wants THEIR version of nostalgia to dominate: OUR version of the good-ness in the past is what everyone should accept! ) So you can blather about "wouldn't it be great if ..." all you want ... it still doesn't change the fact that there is going to be some MORON in your utopia who says, "I don't WANT my house to look like everyone else's ... I want it to be a little bit taller." A benign example, but that's the start of it. (Stephen King shows this in The Stand - excerpt here - with the "new society" created in Colorado ... but ... but ... not everybody cooperates with the rules ... not everybody is on board with the utopia ... and so what is to be done with THOSE folks? Brilliant.)

In the excerpt below, poor little Mollie - the mare - shows us that problem with the mindset, when applied to individuals. She is mainly concerned with the fact that there might be no sugar after the Revolution, and she also doesn't want to have to give up her pretty ribbons in her mane. I mean, she is painted as a ridiculous individual - they're trying to talk about upheaval and social change, and she worries about her sweet tooth. BUT THAT'S THE THING. That's human nature. If you can somehow create a human race who will never say, "But I like sugar - I want to have sugar as a treat every day ..." ... then maybe you can have your perfect society. You can count me out of it, though ... because I'm with Mollie. There are things I WANT, that have nothing to do with the "greater good" ... they are my interests, my individuality expressing itself. Yes, we clump up into packs - human beings are wired that way ... but the individual cannot be crushed. Greed, or ... just the experience of wanting more ... seems to be wired into us. Lots of people just don't LIKE that about the human race and say stuff like, "Wouldn't it be great if people were just satisfied with what they had and didn't want more?" Yeah, well, I think it would be great if I could have a pet centaur - and I would take him on walks past Alexander Hamilton's bust ... and then I would leap on his back and we could fly over the Manhattan skyline singing "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay" ... but I know that I can't. I don't waste too much time being sad about the fact that centaurs don't exist, and therefore I can't "have" one - because if I did - I think I would have a problem with, you know, reality. And reality is tough enough for me to accept and deal with ... without adding my own fantasy disappointments on top of it. Regardless, this is my view, and it's very hard for some to admit that - people who devoted their lives to defending the Soviet Union - at all costs ... because they believed in the idea. And you can turn yourself inside out, saying: that it was a bastardization of true socialism (which obviously is the case - just talking in terms of the stated ideas now - Orwell makes that point in Animal Farm, with the sort of give and take the animals have with the truth and with their original goals).

In the tyranny of Stalin, what eventually became clear (and Robert Conquest makes the point again and again in his books on Stalin, that the men surrounding Stalin - while brutes and murderers themselves - were not as beyond the pale as Stalin, in terms of conventional morality ... Conquest says, like a refrain: "They didn't understand Stalin yet"), was that the point was not to bring about Socialism. The point, for Stalin, was to never relax the terror ... or, perhaps he would allow it to relax for a couple of years, after big purges - but that would only be a lull, to make people lower their guards - so that he could then re-assert the terror. This kept people on edge. Psychologically, it was devastating. After everyone was dead, all of his comrades, the only guys left around him were the toadies, the sycophantic imbeciles, illiterates - who were brutal enough to do what was necessary and not question why. Kirov is a prime example of one of the higher-ups in the Party who had an independent mind. He and Stalin were good friends and they went way back. But Kirov headed up the Party apparatus in St. Petersburg and Stalin became convinced that it was a kind of fifth column ... and Kirov ... Kirov began to haunt Stalin, haunt his every thought. Kirov was a big deal. A big wig. But he must be made to disappear. And he was. To quote Robert Conquest (from his great book The Great Terror):

This killing [the murder of Kirov] has every right to be called the crime of the century. Over the next four years, hundreds of Soviet citizens, including the most prominent political leaders of the Revolution, were shot for direct responsibility for the assassination, and literally millions of others went to their deaths for complicity in one or another part of the vast conspiracy which allegedly lay behind it. Kirov's death, in fact, was the keystone of the entire edifice of terror and suffering by which Stalin secured his grip on the Soviet peoples.

This is the crazy-making world portrayed in Animal Farm. Orwell is brutal, with no sentimentality. He goes for the jugular. If you go back, back to the world of the 1930s ... the comfortable political labels that we throw around have no meaning. Orwell was a Communist, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side - he despised imperialism (his experience as a policeman in Burma, under the flag of the British Empire, convinced him of imperialims being a grave sin against humanity) - he believed in freedom of speech, in the artist being able to say what he wanted to say. He believed in democracy. He felt that democracy was the only way to ensure liberty. His word for his beliefs were "Democratic Socialism". Again, there are folks out there today who have such a biased view of the word "Socialism" that they are unable to see the more complex historical realities at work - in the hot and chaotic decade of the 1930s. They write it off. They say stupid things. They are hardened in their understanding of the labels. Things would morph - yet again - after World War II - with the descent of the "Iron Curtain" - but in the 1930s, all of this was up for grabs. It was philosophical in nature - and yet there were those (like Orwell) who were fighting for their "side". Partisans, yes. But Orwell broke with the pack with his anti-Stalinism - Stalin went against everything he believed in, everything he had worked his life for ... If turning a blind eye to Stalin was required of the "Left" (and again, that word has been so changed in its meaning as to be nearly unrecognizable - especially when said by retards like Sean Hannity) ... then Orwell would have no part of it. There were many many awesome writers and thinkers who were in the same boat. Arthur Koestler. Rebecca West. These are giants of the 20th century. Orwell, because of 1984 ... well, it's stupid, but there's a feeling out there that Orwell's book was an endorsement of that kind of tyranny. I mean, people who think such things are nuts, as far as I'm concerned - did they even read the book?? But Orwell is a tough case, man - he's elusive. If you think you have him pinned down, you are wrong. So people get up in arms about him. They love him for his Socialism but then feel betrayed by his anti-Stalinism. They love him for his love of democracy, but then can't stand that he was a Communist. Whatever ... he is indicative of the upheavals of the 1930s, in general.

Here's an excerpt from early on in Animal Farm, a nice little fairy story of the tyranny of the 20th century.

I prefer 1984 to Animal Farm - I think it's a deeper book, more haunting, more of a clearer warning ... it leaves the specific spectre of Stalinism behind (which Animal Farm describes very literally - there is no question of who all the main characters are supposed to be- they each have their correlation in the Russian Revolution story) ... but 1984 goes for a more universal story, and therefore more terrifying. I'm a big Orwell fan. A couple years ago I read a collection of his essays - which range from memories of boarding school life, his time in Burma, a fantastic in-depth 50 page analysis of Charles Dickens (not to be missed!), and his possibly most famous essay about politics and the English language - an eclectic collection. I love the essays.

EXCERPT FROM Animal Farm: A Fairy Story , by George Orwell.

Three nights later old Major died peacefully in his sleep. His body was buried at the foot of the orchard.

This was early in March. During the next three months there was much secret activity. Major's speech had given to the more intelligent animals on the farm a completely new outlook on life. They did not know when the Rebellion predicted by Major would take place, they had no reason for thinking that it would be within their own lifetime, but they saw clearly that it was their duty to prepare for it. The work of teaching and organising the others fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognised as being the cleverest of the animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs were two young boars named Snowball and Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones was breeding up for sale. Napoleon was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way. Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character. All the other male pigs on the farm were porkers. The best known among them was a small fat pig named Squealer, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble movements, and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.

These three had elaborated old Major's teachings into a complete system of thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism. Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others. At the beginning they met with much stupidity and apathy. Some of the animals talked of the duty of loyalty to Mr. Jones, whom they referred to as "Master," or made elementary remarks such as "Mr. Jones feeds us. If he were gone, we would starve to death." Others asked such questions as "Why should we care what happens after we are dead?" or "If this Rebellion is to happen anyway, what difference does it make whether we work for it or not?", and the pigs had great difficulty in making them see that this was contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The stupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare. The very first question she asked Snowball was: "Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion?"

"No," said Snowball firmly. "We have no means of making sugar on this farm. Besides, you do not need sugar. You will have all the oats and hay you want."

"And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?" asked Mollie.

"Comrade," said Snowball, "those ribbons that you are so devoted to are the badge of slavery. Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than ribbons?"

Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.

The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones' especial pet, was a spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was situated somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew on the hedges. The animals hated Moses because he told tales and did no work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Mountain, and the pigs had to argue very hard to persuade them that there was no such place.

Their most faithful disciples were the two carthorses, Boxer and Clover. These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for themselves, but having one accepted the pigs as their teachers, they absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other animals by simple arguments. They were unfailing in their attendance at the secret meetings in the barn, and led the singing of Beasts of England, with which the meetings always ended.

Now, as it turned out, the Rebellion was achieved much earlier and more easily than anyone had expected. In past years Mr. Jones, although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had fallen on evil days. He had become much disheartened after losing money in a lawsuit, and had taken to drinking more than was good for him. For whole days at a time he would lounge in his Windsor chair in the kitchen, reading the newspapers, drinking, and occasionally feeding Moses on crusts of bread soaked in beer. His men were idle and dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing, the hedges were neglected, and the animals were underfed.

June came and the hay was almost ready for cutting. On Midsummer's Eve, which was a Saturday, Mr. Jones went into Willingdon and got so drunk at the Red Lion that he did not come back till midday on Sunday. The men had milked the cows in the early morning and then had gone out rabbiting, without bothering to feed the animals. When Mr. Jones got back he immediately went to sleep on the drawing-room sofa with the News of the World over his face, so that when evening came, the animals were still unfed. At last they could stand it no longer. One of the cows broke in the door of the store-shed with her horn and all the animals began to help themselves from the bins. It was just then that Mr. Jones woke up. The next moment he and his four men were in the store-shed with whips in their hands, lashing out in all directions. This was more than the hungry animals could bear. With one accord, though nothing of the kind had been planned beforehand, they flung themselves upon their tormentors. Jones and his men suddenly found themselves being butted and kicked from all sides. The situation was quite out of their control. They had never seen animals behave like this before, and this sudden uprising of creatures whom they were used to thrashing and maltreating just as they chose, frightened them almost out of their wits. After only a moment or two they gave up trying to defend themselves and took to their heels. A minute later all five of them were in full flight down the cart-track that led to the main road, with the animals pursuing them in triumph.

Mrs. Jones looked out of the bedroom window, saw what was happening, hurriedly flung a few possessions into a carpet bag, and slipped out of the farm by another way. Moses sprang off his perch and flapped after her, croaking loudly. Meanwhile the animals had chased Jones and his men out on to the road and slammed the five-barred gate behind them. And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the Rebellion had been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs.

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February 26, 2008

"I Told You So, You Fucking Fools"

or ... that's what Robert Conquest reportedly wanted to call the new edition of his book The Great Terror when it came out with updated information - information which basically not only vindicated Conquest (who had been pilloried for years), but MORE than proved his case. In almost every situation, he had actually underestimated the number of millions killed by Stalin. Here's one of my posts on The Great Terror (and an excerpt from the book) - it's one of the most important books of the 20th century. And man, can that dude write!! He's a poet, too. Seriously, Robert Conquest is one of my intellectual idols.

Anyway, here's a lengthy awesome piece in The New Criterion about The Great Terror - great stuff.

I would totally pick up a book called I Told You So, You Fucking Fools.

Here's all my stuff on Stalin, for those of you so inclined.

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February 3, 2008

The Books: "Darkness at Noon" (Arthur Koestler)

Next book on my adult fiction shelves:

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

41S8QJPJ7NL._AA240_.jpgDarkness at Noon is one of the most important books of the 20th century. I came to it late - and it was basically Emily who BEGGED me to read it. I don't know how I missed it, but that's neither here nor there. The book is, as the New Statesman aptly described it: "One of the few books written in this epoch which will survive it." Read it alongside Master and Margarita (post here). Follow it up with 1984. And keep The Gulag Archipelago (post here) and The Great Terror (post here) nearby, to cross-reference. That's its status, its importance. I would even argue that it would be difficult to understand the convulsions of the 20th century without reading this book. You want to understand a totalitarian society? You want to understand how the "show trials" in the USSR under Stalin's reign really worked? Well, you need to read Gulag Archipelago, you need to read The Great Terror - but you also need to read Darkness at Noon. It's an extraordinary document, a record not just of WHAT they did, but even more importantly, how. One of the reasons the West was so summarily duped in the 1930s by the show trials of big-wigs like Zinoviev and Kamenev, is that it is difficult to understand how such a thing could come to be. Why would these guys confess? If they were "innocent"? It makes no sense. And the parade of confessors in the block, excoriating themselves relentlessly for "incorrect" thinking and "sabotage" - it was quite convincing. In this case, of course, what you saw is NOT what you got. It was a performance. The verdicts drawn up beforehand - then it was just a matter of getting these people to confess. Now by the 30s, of course - there really weren't any more real enemies of the state. Stalin had taken care of that. So the people in the block were not "victims" - they were the stars of the revolution, the big-wigs who had made it all happen. It must have been fantastic! I don't mean that word like "great", I mean it like: beyond belief. The stories of those show trials (detailed step by step in Robert Conquest's great The Great Terror) are unreal. UNREAL. Darkness at Noon is about one of those show trials. Rubashov is an old revolutionary - maybe like a Bukharin type. He devoted his life to the party. And now the party is turning in on its own. He is jailed. The book details the series of interrogations he goes through, psychological torture and pressure ... and how disorienting that kind of thing is. You begin to doubt yourself. What is true? Am I guilty? Did I sabotage? Even just in my thoughts?? And this is how "the party' gets you, in the end. By getting inside your head. There IS no innocence inside your head. If you ever had even the slightest thought that things weren't going well, that maybe things should change ... then that constitutes guilt in such a society. Correctness must go down into your bone marrow. It is the party's way or no way. ("He loved Big Brother.") Bulgakov is so so brilliant about this in Master and Margarita (excerpt here). It's hard to picture HOW that happens if you have never been pressured to such a degree, or if you live in a society that is free - where all different sides can be heard. The disorientation of living in a one-party state doesn't just limit what men and women can DO, it has as its goal a limit on what you are allowed to THINK. And to a huge degree, it succeeded. It's thought control they are after. George Orwell really goes after that, with the whole "newspeak" thing ... how language is distorted, blunted. When you control what can be said, you can control what people think. It's that fucking simple.

Arthur Koestler was a really interesting guy. Born in Hungary, emigrated to England, was a devoted Communist - as were many folks in those days. At the time, the Communists were on the front-lines against Fascism (never mind that their results ended up being the same - that's another conversation - I'm talking about the early 30s - you have to get in the perspective of that time, and not do your "we know the end" judgment of this, because that's stupid, frankly.) Koestler, though, began to see the "great terror" happening in Russia - and it caused him to, famously, break with the Communist Party. Darkness at Noon is his book, basically, about WHY. It is a brave book. It was an unpopular statement at that time, where most intellectuals were apologists for Stalin, because they still believed in the Socialist dream. The roll-call of names of authors who saw what was really going on and then wrote about it - and were, consequently, pilloried - is long. And illustrious. Orwell. Robert Conquest. These people were not fooled by the show trials. They 'saw' - even though there was no information at the time. The full archives of the Politburo were not available until the early 1990s. Conquest realized, when he got to take a look at the archives finally, that he had underestimated the extent of the terror. Of course. Here's some interesting biographical information on Koestler. Fascinating guy. Here's the post I wrote after I finished the book. I read it in 2 days. Could not put it down. It's terrible. Terrible. One of the most enraging books I have ever read. And the scary thing is: it works on the reader in the same way that it works on Rubashov, our hero. You begin to doubt ... that what you know is true. You start to ask yourself: could I withstand that pressure? Could I tie myself in knots to justify my actions intellectually (which was what "the party" was all about)? What is true? How can we really know?


Here's an excerpt. Rubashov is being interrogated by Ivanov. The interrogation goes on for the entire book; it has different stages - but, essentially it's the same conversation. The point is to grind Rubashov down to powder. That is what totalitarian societies do. It is, in the end, their main goal. Oh, and Stalin is never named, although he is omnipresent. He is referred to as "No. 1".


Darkness at Noon is a must-read. In it lies the entire 20th century.

EXCERPT FROM Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Ivanov paused and poured himself another glass of brandy. Rubashov walked up and down in front of the window. After a while he said:

"Why did you execute Bogrov?"

"Why? Because of the submarine question," said Ivanov. "It concerned the problem of tonnage - an old quarrel, the beginnings of which must be familiar to you.

"Bogrov advocated the construction of submarines of large tonnage and a long range of action. The Party is in favour of small submarines with a short range. You can build three times as many small submarines for your money as big ones. Both parties had valid technical arguments. The experts made a big display of technical sketches and algebraic formulae; but the actual problem lay in quite a different sphere. Big submarines mean: a policy of aggression, to further world revolution. Small submarines mean: coastal defense - that is, self-defense and postponement of world revolution. The latter is the point of view of No. 1, and the Party.

"Bogrov had a strong following in the Admiralty and amongst the officers of the old guard. It would not have been enough to put him out of the way; he also had to be discredited. A trial was projected to unmask the partisans of big tonnage as saboteurs and traitors. We had already brought several little engineers to the point of being willing to confess publicly to whatever we liked. But Bogrov wouldn't play the game. He declaimed up to the very end of big tonnage and world revolution. He was two decades behind the times. He would not understand that the times are against us, that Europe is passing a wave and must wait until we are lifted by the next. In a public trial he would only have created confusion amongst the people. There was no other way possible than to liquidate him administratively. Would not you have done the same thing in our position?"

Rubashov did not answer. He stopped walking, and again remained leaning against the wall of No. 406, next to the bucket. A cloud of sickening stench rose from it. He took off his pince-nez and looked at Ivanov out of red-rimmed hunted eyes.

"You did not hear him whimpering," he said.

Ivanov lit a new cigarette on the stump of the old one; he too found the stench of the bucket rather overpowering.

"No," he said. "I did not hear it. But I have heard and seen similar things. What of it?"

Rubashov was silent. It was no use to try and explain it. The whimpering and the muffled drumming again penetrated his ears, like an echo. One could not express that. Nor the curve of Arlova's breast with its warm, steep point. One could express nothing. "Die in silence," had been written on the message given him by the barber.

"What of it?" repeated Ivanov. He stretched out his leg and waited. As no answer came, he went on speaking:

"If I had a spark of pity for you," he said, "I would now leave you alone. But I have not a spark of pity. I drink; for a time, as you know, I drugged myself; but the vice of pity I have up till now managed to avoid. The smallest dose of it, and you are lost. Weeping over humanity and bewailing oneself - you know our race's pathological leaning to it. Our greatest poets destroyed themselves by this poison. Up to forty, fifty, they were revolutionaries - then they became consumed by pity and the world pronounced them holy. You appear to have the same ambition, and to believe it to be an individual process, personal to you, something unprecedented ..." He spoke rather louder and puffed out a cloud of smoke. "Beware of these ecstasies," he said: "Every bottle of spirits contains a measurable amount of ecstasy. Unfortunately, only few people, particularly amongst our fellow countrymen, ever realize that the ecstasies of humility and suffering are as cheap as those induced chemically. The time when I woke from the anesthetic, and found that my body stopped at the left knee, I also experienced a kind of absolute ecstasy of unhappiness. Do you remember the lectures you gave me at the time?" He poured out another glass and emptied it.

"My point is this," he said; "one may not regard the world as a sort of metaphysical brothel for emotions. That is the first commandment for us. Sympathy, conscience, disgust, despair, repentance, and atonement are for us repellent debauchery. To sit down and let oneself be hypnotized by one's own navel, to turn up one's eyes and humbly offer the back of one's neck to Gletkin's revolver - that is an easy solution. The greatest temptation for the like of us is: to renounce violence, to repent, to make peace with oneself. Most great revolutionaries fell before this temptation, from Spartacus to Danton to Dostoevsky; they are the classical form of betrayal of the cause. The temptations of God were always more dangerous for mankind than those of Satan. As long as chaos dominates the world, God is an anachronism; and every compromise with one's own conscience is perfidy. When the accursed inner voice speaks to you, hold your hands over your ears ..."

He felt for the bottle behind him and poured out another glass. Rubashov noticed that the bottle was already half empty. You also could do with a little solace, he thought.

"The greatest criminals in history," Ivanov went on, "are not of the type Nero and Fouche, but of the type Gandhi and Tolstoy. Gandhi's inner voice has done more to prevent the liberation of India than the British guns. To sell oneself for thirty pieces of silver is an honest transaction; but to sell oneself to one's own conscience is to abandon mankind. History is a priori amoral; it has no conscience. To want to conduct history according to the maxims of the Sunday school means to leave everything as it is. You know that as well as I do. You know the stakes in this game, and here you come talking about Bogrov's whimpering ..."

He emptied his glass and added:

"Or with conscience pricks because of your fat Arlova."

Rubashov knew from before that Ivanov could hold a lot; one did not notice any change in his behaviour, beyond a slightly more emphatic way of speaking than usual. You do need consolation, thought Rubashov again, perhaps more than I do. He sat down on the narrow stool opposite Ivanov and listened. All this was not new to him; he had defended the same point of view for years, with the same or similar words. The difference was that at that time he had known those inner processes of which Ivanov spoke so contemptuously, merely as an abstraction; but since then he had experienced the "grammatical fiction" as a physical reality in his own body. But had these irrational processes become more admissible merely because he had a personal acquaintance with them now? Was it any the less necessary to fight the "mystical intoxication" merely because one had oneself become intoxicated by it? When a year ago he had sent Arlova to her death, he had not had enough imagination to picture the details of an execution. Would he now behave differently merely because he now knew some of its aspects? Either it was right - or it was wrong to sacrifice Richard, Arlova and Little Loewy. But what had Richard's stutter, the shape of Arlova's breast or Bogrov's whimpering to do with the objective rightness or wrongness of the measure itself?

Rubashov began again to walk up and down his cell. He felt that everything he had experienced since his imprisonment had been only a prelude; that his cogitations had led him to a dead end - on to the threshold of what Ivanov called the "metaphysical brothel" - and that he must begin again from the beginning. But how much time was there left? He stopped, took the glass out of Ivanov's hand and drained it. Ivanov watched him.

"That's better," he said with a fleeting smile. "Monologues in the form of a dialogue are a useful institution. I hope I reproduced the voice of the tempter effectively. A pity that the opposite party is not represented. But that is part of its tricks, that it never lets itself be drawn into a rational discussion. It always attacks a man in defenseless moments, when he is alone an din some effective mise en scene: from burning thorn-bushes or cloud-covered mountain tops - and with a special preference for a sleeping victim. The methods of the great moralist are pretty unfair and theatrical ..."

Rubashov was no longer listening. Walking up and down, he was wondering whether to-day, if Arlova was still alive he would sacrifice her again. This problem fascinated him; it seemed to contain the answer to all other questions ... He stopped in front of Ivanov and asked him:

"Do you remember 'Raskolnikov'?"

Ivanov smiled at him with irony. "It was to be expected that you would sooner or later come to that. Crime and Punishment ... You are really becoming childish or senile ..."

"Wait a bit. Wait a bit," said Rubashov, walking up and down agitatedly. "All this is just talk, but now we are getting nearer the point. As far as I remember, the problem is, whether the student Raskolnikov has the right to kill the old woman? He is young and talented; he has as it were an unredeemed pledge on life in his pocket; she is old and utterly useless to the world. But the equation does not stand. In the first place, circumstances oblige him to murder a second person; that is the unforeseeable and illogical consequence of an apparently simple and logical action. Secondly, the equation collapses in any case, because Raskolnikov discovers that twice two are not four when the mathematical units are human beings ..."

"Really," said Ivanov. "If you want to hear my opinion, every copy of the book should be burnt. Consider a moment what this humanitarian fog-philosophy would lead to, if we were to take it literally; if we were to stick to the precept that the individual is sacrosanct, and that we must not treat human lives according to the rules of arithmetic. That would mean that a battalion commander may not sacrifice a patrolling party to save the regiment. That we may not sacrifice fools like Bogrov, and must risk our coastal towns being shot to pieces in a couple of years ..."

Rubashov shook his head:

"Your examples are all drawn from war - that is, from abnormal circumstances."

"Since the invention of the steam engine," replied Ivanov, "the world has been permanently in an abnormal state; the wars and revolutions are just the visible expressions of this state. Your Raskolnikov is, however, a fool and a criminal; not because he behaves logically in killing the old woman, but because he is doing it in his personal interest. The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains only the rule of political ethics; anything else is just vague chatter and melts away between one's fingers... If Raskolnikov had bumped off the old woman at the command of the Party - for example, to increase strike funds or to instal an illegal Press - then the equation would stand, and the novel with its misleading problem would never have been written, and so much the better for humanity."

Rubashov did not answer. He was still fascinated by the problem as to whether to-day, after the experiences of the last few months and days, he would again send Arlova to her death. He did not know. Logically, Ivanov was right in everything he said; the invisible opponent was silent, and only indicated its existence by a dull feeling of uneasiness. And in that, too, Ivanov was right, that this behaviour of the "invisible opponent", in never exposing itself to argument and only attacking people in defenceless moments, showed it in a very dubious light ...

"I don't approve of mixing ideologies," Ivanov continued. "There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community - which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions in practice, it is impossible. Whoever is burdened with power and responsibility finds out on the first occasion that he has to choose; and he is fatally driven to the second alternative. Do you know, since the establishment of Christianity as a state religion, a single example of a state which really followed a Christian policy? You can't point out one. In times of need - and politics are chronically in a time of need - the rulers were always able to evoke 'exceptional circumstances', which demanded exceptional measures of defence. Since the existence of nations and classes, they live in a permanent state of mutual self-defence, which forces them to defer to another time the putting into practice of humanism ..."

Rubashov looked through the window. The melted snow had again frozen and sparkled, an irregular surface of yellow-white crystals. The sentinel on the wall marched up and down with shouldered rifle. The sky was clear but moonless; above the machine-gun turret shimmered the Milky Way.

Rubashov shrugged his shoulders. "Admit," he said, "that humanism and politics, respect for the individual and social progress, are incompatible. Admit that Gandhi is a catastrophe for India; that chasteness in the choice of means leads to political impotence. In negatives we agree. But look where the other alternative has led us ..."

"Well," asked Ivanov. "Where?"

Rubashov rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve, and looked at him shortsightedly. "What a mess," he said, "what a mess we have made of our golden age."

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January 9, 2008

Special Ops goes to bed with Stalin

Last night Special Ops fell asleep holding her biography of Stalin open in her hand, with her pen poised over the page.

Special Ops woke up at 3 a.m. and found herself in this odd statue-esque pose, as though at any moment, even in her sleep, she might feel the need to write down some notes on the Mensheviks, or underline some great Robert Conquest sentence to add to her Special Ops files ... and it's better to be always ready for such an emergency. Falling asleep while reading a novel, or a book of poetry is one thing. But falling asleep clutching a biography of Stalin is strictly Special Ops territory.

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May 17, 2007

The Books: "The Master and Margarita" (Mikhail Bulgakov)

Next up in my Daily Book Excerpt ... Adult fiction shelves:

masterM.jpgThe Master and Margarita - by Mikhail Bulgakov.

I finally read this great great novel last fall as part of a blog-reading challenge - I wrote a big thing about it here.

The book terrifies. The devil comes to Moscow in the 1930s. He is more of a shit-disturber than anything else. A practical joker. But what happens when the devil appears in a city that doesn't believe in God? Or the devil, for that matter? The book is, of course, an extended metaphor about life under Stalin - this book was not allowed to be published in Russia at the time. Bulgakov felt it was too dangerous to even have the manuscript lying around so he destroyed it ... and later re-created it from memory. Unbelievable.

The book opens with the devil appearing to two men (two writers) on a hot day in Moscow. Stalin's name is never mentioned, communism is never mentioned, socialism - but the sense of the ominous-ness of this culture is palpable. Who is this gentleman talking to them? Is he a foreigner? Pontius Pilate comes up (he's a very important theme throughout the book) ... and at the end of the third chapter a tragedy occurs. A tragedy with decidedly occult overtones. It seems that "devilry" is afoot - and also ... a huge black cat has been seen, walking on its hind legs (shiver - that freakin' cat) ... and now ... someone's head has been severed. Ivan - the poet - who witnesses all of this - tries to tell people what has happened. Naturally, he is not believed. He gets more and more frantic. Something is not right. Something evil has arrived in Moscow! He is finally put into a mental institution. That's the excerpt below. He is asked to write down everything that happened that day ... and watch what happens. The chapter is called "Ivan is Split In Two". If you remember the culture, and the year, and what was going on in Russia in the 30s ... this chapter takes on decidedly terrifying meaning. How people themselves must always be 'split in two' in a totalitarian society. What you see is NOT really what you see ... and you cannot EVER have an opinion on what you see .... you must keep your mouth shut ... even if you DO see a massive cat riding the streetcar ... Nope. You didn't really see that. You didn't really see that. In order to survive this .... one must split in two. Ivan was near hysteria when he was brought to the hospital. Things were urgent. The devil himself was loose! We must act quickly! Why won't anyone listen to me?? And slowly .... his attitude changes ...

This chapter scared me. There are times in life when confusion, hysteria, grappling with an issue openly - rather than coming to a concrete decision, emotion, response, reaction ... are appropriate and not to be feared. Certain people (and certain cultures) want to cut all that off. The ideal is an obedient populace. A populace who will swallow ANYthing, even the devil walking around a pond in a public park. And so anyone who says, "You know what? This isn't right!" is seen as a threat, or as just flat out stupid or crazy. The doctor comes in - and Ivan is hysterical - and rightly so ... but the doctor gives him a shot ... and says, as though this is the highest good - that "all will be forgotten".

You want to scream at Ivan - "No! Don't let them make you forget! Don't let them give you that shot! Remember! Remember!"

But the society as a whole has a vested interest in shutting Ivan and his loud-mouth down.

This chapter is phenomenal in describing that process. And watch ... watch how eventually Ivan has internalized the voices of others. This is the split. He begins to doubt himself. He begins to doubt that he saw what he really saw.

Once that happens - the culture has won. It has made him obedient.

The book is a masterpiece, one of the greatest books of the 20th century.

Excerpt from The Master and Margarita - by Mikhail Bulgakov.

The poet's attempts to compose a report on the terrible consultant had come to nothing. As soon as he received a pencil stub and some paper from the stout nurse, whose name was Praskovya Fyodorovna, he had rubbed his hands together in a businesslike fashion and hastily set to work at the bedside table. He had dashed off a smart beginning, "To the police. From Ivan Nikolayevich Bezdomny, member of MASSOLIT. Report. Yesterday evening I arrived at Petrarch's Ponds with the deceased Berlioz ..."

And the poet immediately became confused, largely due to the word "deceased". It made everything sound absurd from the start: how could he have arrived somewhere with the deceased? Dead men don't walk! They really will think I'm a madman!

Such thoughts made him start revising. The second version came out as follows, "... with Berlioz, later deceased ..." That didn't satisfy the author either. He had to write a third version, and that came out even worse than the other two, " ... with Berlioz, who fell under a streetcar ..." What was irksome here was the obscure composer who was Berlioz's namesake; he felt compelled to add, "... not the composer ..."

Tormented by these two Berliozes, Ivan crossed everything out and decided to begin with a strong opening that would immediately get the reader's attention. He began with a description of the cat boarding the streetcar, and then went back to the episode of the severed head. The head and the consultant's prediction made him think of Pontius Pilate, and in order to make the report more convincing, he decided to include the whole story about the procurator, starting with the moment when he came out onto the colonnade of Herod's palace dressed in a white robe with a blood-red lining.

Ivan worked hard, crossing out what he had written and adding new words. He even tried to do drawings of Pontius Pilate, and of the cat on its hind legs. But the drawings didn't help either, and the more the poet worked, the more confused and incomprehensible his report became.

By the time an ominous stormcloud with smoking edges had appeared from the distance and enveloped the woods, and the wind had blown the papers off the table, Ivan felt drained of energy and unable to cope with the report. Making no effort at all to pick up the scattered pages, he burst into silent and bitter tears.

The kind-hearted nurse, Praskovya Fyodorovna, came by to check on Ivan during the storm and was upset to see him crying. She closed the blinds so that the lightning would not frighten him, picked up the papers from the floor, and ran off with them to get the doctor.

The doctor appeared, gave Ivan an injection in his arm and assured him that he would stop crying, that now everything would pass, everything would change and all would be forgotten.

The doctor turned out to be right. The wood across the river started to look as it had before. It stood out sharply, down to the last tree, beneath the sky which had been restored to its former perfect blueness, and the river grew calm. Ivan's anguish began to diminish right after the injection, and now the poet lay peacefully, gazing at the rainbow spread across the sky.

Things stayed this way until evening, and he never even noticed when the rainbow evaporated, the sky faded and grew sad, and the world turned black.

Ivan drank some hot milk, lay down again, and was himself surprised at how his thoughts had changed. The image of the demonic, accursed cat had somehow softened in his memory, the severed head no longer frightened him, and when Ivan stopped thinking about the head, he began to reflect on how the clinic wasn't so bad, everything considered, and how Stravinsky was a clever fellow and a celebrity and extremely pleasant to have dealings with. And, besides, the evening air was sweet and fresh after the storm.

The asylum was falling asleep. The frosted white lights in the quiet corridors went out, and in accordance with regulations, the faint blue night-lights came on, and the cautious steps of the nurses were heard less frequently on the rubber matting in the corridor outside the door.

Now Ivan lay in a state of sweet lethargy, gazing now at the shaded lamp, which cast a mellow light down from the ceiling, now at the moon, which was emerging from the black wood. He was talking to himself.

"Why did I get so upset over Berlioz falling under a streetcar?" the poet reasoned. "In the final analysis, let him rot! What am I to him, anyway, kith or kin? If we examine the question properly, it turns out that I, esentially, didn't really know the deceased. What did I actually know about him? Nothing, except that he was bald and horribly eloquent. And so, citizen," continued Ivan, addressing an invisible audience, "let us examine the following: explain, if you will, why I got so furious at that mysterious consultant, magician, and professor with the black, vacant eye? What was the point of that whole absurd chase, with me in my underwear, carrying a candle? And what about that grotesque scene in the restaurant?"

"But, but, but ..." said the old Ivan to the new Ivan, addressing him in a stern voice from somewhere inside his head or behind his ear, "but didn't he know in advance that Berlioz's head would be cut off? How could you not get upset?"

"What is there to discuss, comrades!" retorted the new Ivan to the broken-down old Ivan. "Even a child can see that there is something sinister about all this. He is, no doubt about it, a mysterious and exceptional personality. But that's what makes it so interesting! The fellow was personally acquainted with Pontius Pilate, what could be more interesting than that? And instead of making that ridiculous scene at Petrarch's Ponds, wouldn't it have been better to have asked him politely about what happened next to Pilate and the prisoner Ha-Notsri? But instead, I got obsessed with the devil knows what! Is it such an earth-shattering event - that an editor got run over! Does it mean the magazie will have to close down? So, what can you do? Man is mortal and, as was said so fittingly, sometimes suddenly so. Well, God rest his soul! There'll be a new editor, and maybe he'll be even more eloquent than the last one."

After dozing off for awhile, the new Ivan asked the old Ivan spitefully, "So how do I look in all this?"

"Like a fool!" a bass voice pronounced distinctly, a voice which did not come from either one of the Ivans and was amazingly reminiscent of the consultant's bass.

For some reason Ivan did not take offense at the word "fool", but was pleasantly surprised by it, smiled, and fell into a half-sleep. Sleep was creeping up on Ivan, and he could already see a palm tree on an elephantlike trunk, and a cat went by - not a fearsome one, but a jolly one, and, in short, sleep was about to engulf him when suddenly the window grille moved aside noiselessly, and a mysterious figure, who was trying to hide from the moonlight, appeared on the balcony, and shook a warning finger at Ivan.

Not feeling the least bit afraid, Ivan raised himself in bed and saw that there was a man on the balcony. And this man pressed his finger to his lips and whispered, "Shh!"

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December 1, 2006

Today in History: Dec. 1, 1934

Stalin-Kirov.jpg


Josef Stalin and Sergei Kirov

Since I'm reading this book right now - I'll finish it tonight - it's only 150 pages long, not even ... I thought it would be appropriate to note that Today in History, 1934 - Sergei Kirov was murdered. (More here.)

The murder was the excuse ... the excuse to launch the terror that would grip the country for a decade after until any opposition was either killed, imprisoned, or completely pacified. (The word "pacification" always gives me a chill - in this context.) Robert Conquest, in his introduction to this book, writes:

This century has seen horrible crimes on a mass scale, culminating in the Jewish Holocaust. No comparison with these can be sustained. But as an individual murder, there is, for various reasons, none to match the Kirov murder.

Single events - even accidental ones - have often turned the path of history. The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, just over twenty years previously, brought on a perhaps otherwise avoidable Great War. At any rate, that is the only individual crime (or dual crime, since the Archduke's morganatic wife was also killed) with which the Kirov murder can remotely be compared. But even the assassination of the Archduke had no further intrinsic result beyond the crisis leading to war. There was no mystery about the responsibility. No long-lasting politicies were based on any theoretical view of it.

The Kirov murder, however, was made the central justification for the whole theory of Stalinism and the necessity for endless terror.

Of course - Conquest had first published most of his books before the Soviet Union had opened up, before perestroika, glasnost, and all the rest, and he had to pretty much guess at a lot of this stuff. The reports of the "trials", the credulous Western witnesses (Beatrice and Sidney Webb, for example - but there were many other useful idiots), the lack of any reliable documentation ... at least not available to us. Conquest's accomplishment is even that much more astonishing - since he was working almost blind.

As Conquest wrote many years later, in his Great Terror: A Reassessment:

This killing has every right to be called the crime of the century. Over the next four years, hundreds of Soviet citizens, including the most prominent political leaders of the Revolution, were shot for direct responsibility for the assassination, and literally millions of others went to their deaths for complicity in one or another part of the vast conspiracy which allegedly lay behind it. Kirov's death, in fact, was the keystone of the entire edifice of terror and suffering by which Stalin secured his grip on the Soviet peoples.

Chapter 1 of the book I am now reading is entitled "The Murder".

Here's an excerpt:

The Smolny, a handsome structure with a classical front of pillars and pediment, set in its own park facing eastward up the Neva, was where Kirov had his offices. Seventeen years earlier the former aristocratic girls' school had been the headquarters from which Lenin directed the seizure of power. Since the transfer of the capital to Moscow, it had been the center from which not only Leningrad city and province, but the whole Soviet Northwest, was controlled. Kirov's offices and those of other local leaders were on the third floor (i.e., the British second floor).

Kirov had returned on 29 November from a plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Moscow. The other Leningrad members of that Committee had accompanied him: in particular his number two, and most trusted colleague, the "shockheaded" Mikhail Chudov, Second Secretary of the Leningrad Provincial Committee of the Party; and his other "closest collaborators," as an official biography puts it, the "elegant" I.F. Kodatsky, head of the city's government as Chairman of its Executive Committee; P.A. Alekseyev, Chairman of the Leningrad Trade Unions; A.I. Ugarov, Secretary of the City Committee; P.I. Struppe, Chairman of the Provincial Executive Committee; and B.P. Pozern and P.I. Smorodin, Secretaries of the City Committee, Kirov, Chudov, Kodatsky, and Alekseyev were full members, and the others candidate members of the Central Committee.

They had already reported to the Leningrad Committees, and on the evening of 1 December the whole of the active membership - the aktiv - of the city's party were to assemble for a more public report at the Tavride Palace. Soon after 4 p.m. Kirov arrived at the Smolny to confer with Chudov and others on the text of the report. It was already dark and there was snow on the ground.

According to one official Soviet biography "his personal guard" had accompanied him in his car but did not follow him upstairs into the Smolny. This man, a veteran called Borisov, is described as devoted to Kirov. He had been detained by men of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), and is next heard of at Leningrad NKVD headquarters. He had two days to live.

Kirov went up to his office without him, perhaps not noticing that the usual guards on each floor were also absent.

All accounts agree that the assassin had entered the Smolny without difficulty, and gone up to the third floor. He had earlier worked there, and had a good knowledge of the building. He seems to have hidden in a lavatory, from which he watched the arrival of Kirov's car.

Kirov first conferred briefly with Chudov and others. There is some divergence even in official accounts, and more in others, about which room this meeting took place in, but this is of no great significance. In any case, it seems that he left Chudov's office, or more probably his own reception room, and walked along the corridor to his 'working office'. To reach it, he had to make a left turn, which allowed the assassin, emerging from his retreat, to shoot him in the back of the neck.

The next divergence in the accounts is of more significance. In most, only one shot is mentioned or assumed, but some speak of two shots, the second fired by the assassin in a suicide attempt, but missing him and hitting the ceiling. One report has a different explanation for this second shot.

In any case, the assassin fainted and fell beside his victim. Chudov and the others hurried out into the corridor. Kirov was carried bleeding and unconscious into his office and, when the doctors came, was given adrenalin, ether, camphor, and caffeine, but he soon died. The autopsy gives in great detail the path of the bullet and its effects. It was also established that a Nagan revolver was used, and that this was what was found near the assassin. Meanwhile, NKVD men arrested the unconscious killer, and Chudov telephoned the news to Moscow.

The murder was not done on impulse. The assassin had been preparing his act since the summer. But after various setbacks, his final written plan of the campaign is dated 1 November 1934, in the interrogation records.

It will be seen that there were already some suspicious circumstances. The mere fact of an assassin seeking to kill Kirov is easily enough understood (though his precise motives remained to be established). The question was, how did he get the opportunity? Why were the Smolny guards absent? Where was Kirov's own bodyguard?

Or, to put it another way, who gave him his chance, and why?

Photo of Kirov's funeral procession. Note the presence of Stalin behind the casket. Unbelievable.

kirovsfuneral.gif

In the first days when Leningrad was orphaned, Stalin rushed there. He went to the place where the crime against our country was committed. The enemy did not fire at Kirov personally. No! He fired at the proletarian revolution.

�Pravda, 5 December 1934

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November 28, 2006

You know you are an irredeemable geek when ...

... you squeal with sincere delight when you open a package from a second-hand bookseller - to see that you have finally received the book you ordered: Stalin and the Kirov Murder, by Robert Conquest.

I squeal with delight over the Kirov murder.

Repeatedly.

Not the fact that it happened ... but the fact that I can never read enough about this one particular event. And here's a whole book about that one thing.

Squeeeee!



More of my ramblings about Kirov here (that was in response to beginning Conquest's book The Great Terror).

And ... here.


I've already been flipping through it. I can't start it just yet ... there are a couple books ahead of it on "the list" - but I am itching to just tear through it.

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April 13, 2006

The Books: "The Great Terror: A Reassessment" (Robert Conquest)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

175px-The_Great_Terror.JPGNext book on the shelf is The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest

One of the most important non-fiction books of the 20th century. It was first published in 1968 - and then was re-written by Conquest, a generation later, in order to add back-up documentation, and archival information which was now available to him (crackup of the USSR, perestroika and all that). He found confirmation that he had actually UNDER-estimated the level of Stalin's terror. Conquest's work is highly regarded in some circles and completely ignored in other circles. Certain circles still cling to the utopian dream of socialism, and Robert Conquest does not play well with others, in this regard. The Great Terror is a relentless book - there is almost nothing pleasant about the reading experience - He explains the mindset so well, I think. Because that's another thing that is so frightening: the whole thing makes SENSE. It's a horrific sense, it's a looking-glass-world sense - but once you get down to brass tacks, you can see that Stalin never made a move for nothing. He always knew what he was doing, and every move he made had some logic to it.

I wrote about my response to the book here. And here too.

Essential reading. (Not my posts about the book, obviously - but the book itself). Here's an excerpt about the confessions. I always found the spectacle of the forced confessions one of the most hypnotic and awful parts about the whole thing. Like I've said time and time again, I can't help but put myself in those people's shoes ... and I try to imagine what the hell would have to happen to me, psychologically, to make me confess to something I didn't do, and to denounce my family and friends publicly. It's so incomprehensible - to me, on this side of the fence ... living as I do, never having to face those challenges ...

Conquest talks a lot about the confessions, and why they were SO important to Stalin's plan.

EXCERPT FROM The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest

The question naturally arises, not only why the accused made the confessions, but also why the prosecution wanted them. In the public trials, as Radek pointed out in the dock, there was no other evidence. A case in which there was no evidence against the accused, who denied the charges, would clearly be rather a weak one by any standards.

In fact, confession is the logical thing to go for when the accused are not guilty and there is no genuine evidence. For in these circumstances, it is difficult to make people appear guilty unless they themselves admit it. And it is easier to stage-manage a trial of this sort if one can be sure that no awkward defendant is going to speak up at unpredictable intervals.

In general, moreover, in the public trials of Zinoviev and the others, the confession method can be easily accounted for. Stalin wanted not merely to kill his old opponents, but to destroy them morally and politically. It would have been difficult simply to announce the secret execution of Zinoviev. It would have been equally difficult to try him publicly, without any evidence, on charges which he could vigorously and effectively deny.

Even if confessions seem highly implausible, they may have some effect on skeptics, on the principles that there is no smoke without fire and that mud sticks. Even if the confession is disbelieved, a defendant who humbly confesses and admits that his opponents were right is to some extent discredited politically -- certainly more than if, publicly, he had put up a stout fight. Even if the confession is disbelieved, it is striking demonstration of the power of the State over its opponents. It is more in accordance with totalitarian ideologies that a defendant should confess, even under duress: it is better discipline and a good example to the ranks. (Those who would not confess properly in court were sometimes provided with posthumous confessions, to keep up the standards, as with the Bulgarian Kostov in 1949.)

These are rational considerations. But it is also clear that the principle of confession in all cases, even from ordinary victims tried in secret, was insisted on. In fact, the major effort of the whole vast police organization throughout the country went into obtaining such confessions. When we read, in cases of no particular importance, and ones never to be made public, of the use of the "conveyor" system tying down team after team of police investigators for days on end, the impression one gets is not simply of vicious cruelty, but of insane preoccupation with a pointless formality. The accused could perfectly well, it seems, have been shot or sentenced without this frightful rigamarole.

But the extraordinary, contorted legalism of the whole operation remained to the end. It would have been possible simply to have deported thousands or millions of people on suspicion. Yet perhaps 100,000 examiners and other officials spent months interrogating and guarding prisoners who did not, during that time, even provide the State with any labor. One explanation advanced in the prisons was that, apart from a hypocritical wish to preserve the facade, the absence of confessions would have made it much more difficult to find fresh inculpations.

It is also clear that the confession system, involving one single type of evidence, was easier to stereotype down the whole line of investigators than were more substantial methods of faking. When evidence of actual objects was involved, there was often trouble. In the Ukraine, a group of Socialist Revolutionaries confessed to having a secret arms cache, at the instance of an inexperienced interrogator. The first "conspirator" confessed to having put it in charge of another man. The second man, under torture, said that he had passed the weapons on to another member. They went through eleven hands until, after a discussion in his cell, the last consignee was urged to think of someone who had died whom he knew well. He could only remember his former geography master, a completely nonpolitical character who had just died, but maintained that the examiner would never believe him to have been a conspirator. He was finally persuaded that all the examiner wanted was to get rid of the arms somehow, so he made the confession as suggested, and the examiner was so delighted that he gave him a good meal and some tobacco.

We mayt also feel that with the establishment of the confession principle in the public trials, its abandonment with lesser accused might have been taken in NKVD usage as an implied criticism of the trials. The principle had become established that a confession was the best result obtainable. Those who could obtain it were to be considered successful operatives, and poor NKVD operative had a short life expectancy. Beyond all this, one forms the impression of a determination to break the idea of the truth, to impose on everyone the acceptance of official falsehood. In fact, over and above the rational motives for the extraction of confessions, one seems to sense an almost metaphysical preference for it.

As early as 1918, Dzerzhinsky had remarked, of enemies of the Soviet Government, "When confronted with evidence, criminals in almost every case confess; and what argument can have greater weight than a criminal's own confession?" Vyshinsky was the great theorist of confession. He regarded a confession, however obtained, as "in itself grounds for a conviction," and recommended prosecutors and investigators to make a practice of getting the defendant's testimony in his own handwriting, as looking more voluntary. He added, "I personally prefer a half confession in the defendant's own handwriting to a full confession in the investigator's writing," thereby, as a recent Soviet legal commentator remarks, "creating the appearance of the 'voluntary nature' of this testimony." (One prisoner reports that after several days of bullying and beating to make him sign a confession which he had not read, with the interrogator showing especial rage at his obstinacy, he found himself unable to speak or use his hand, whereupon the interrogator put a pen in his fingers and signed it thus.)

Vyshinsky's remark is interesting, as showing some awareness on the part of Stalin's entourage of the basic incredibility likely to attach to confessions. But as to their general desirability, we can note that Vyshinsky was not a man likely to intrude his own prejudices in a matter in which Stalin was deeply concerned. We can take it that basically the idea must have been Stalin's own. It involved endless thousands of men and women in days and months of mental and physical torment.

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April 9, 2006

Peter Belov

Okay, so I owe this entire post to John. NONE of what I share here has ANYTHING to do with me, or my own research abilities (well, I do go off on a tangent about set design - and that's all me - but everything else is from John).

Thankfully, I have these blog-friends out there who just ... supply me with links and interesting factoids and jpegs and translated articles - stuff they think I would be interested in (whether it be Seamus Heaney, Elron Hubman's evil empire, Tara Reid's lushy boob-exposing exploits, or Stalin) - Uhm, how's THAT for a bizarre list of interests - but anyway, it's all very cool. One of my favorite by-products of blogging.

John sent me a couple of links to the work of the artist Peter Belov - a dude I'd never heard of. I opened up the first one and literally gasped when I saw the image (click below - it's the first painting below). I won't presume to even say why I think it is a good and powerful painting - let's just say I cannot stop looking at it. The subject matter itself, of course, endlessly fascinates me ... but to see it, uhm, poeticized, dramatized like that ... There's such horror in it. The horror of the 20th century. It's astonishing.

The second image John sent me is also below the fold - the context is very important to get what the hell is going on in that one, although any Russian would understand immediately. The box all the little people are walking into is a box of White Sea Canal cigarettes. The building of the White Sea Canal was one of Stalin's enormous "public works" projects - built entirely by forced labor from the massive prison system. 150,000 convicts worked on that canal and it is estimated that 100,000 of them died under the harsh working conditions. 100,000. It's hard to even comprehend. Belov, obviously, comprehends.

His work immediately moved me. I want to see more. I want a whole book of his work.

Who is this guy? I've Googled him but there's nothing there.

So then John sent me an article about Belov which he translated for me. Thanks, John!!

Check it out (I've put the translation below.). Personally, I love it that he was a set designer - I realize I am totally biased but when I found out this little fact that he was in the theatre it didn't surprise me at all. Based on the two pieces of art I've seen. There's something deeply theatrical (and by that I mean - mythic - archetypal - grandiose ) in those two images. He's dramatizing something - which obviously is what so much of theatre (and set designing, let's not forget) is about. Sets are rarely just literal representations. They are meant to enlarge the theme of the director, they are meant to show underlying emotions or struggles. Even the most literal of sets - a kitchen, a living room - are carefully planned so as to illuminate the underlying messages, themes, etc.

A director will say to a set designer in the first production meeting: "I really want to go for the feeling of being trapped. I want the audience to feel how suffocated these characters are."

That's what the set designer is told. The director will talk in emotions, will not say: "I want a sink here, a lamp there ..." That kind of detail usually comes later. The FIRST thing the director says is: "here is the FEELING I am going for" and it is up to the set designer to take that feeling and manifest it into some kind of a set.

Think of the transparent screens written into Glass Menagerie, where slides can show, but where you can also see through to the next rooms. The set is obviously supposed to be where the family LIVES - but it's more than that. It's supposed to also represent the poetic themes Tennesee Williams was going for.

Sorry to go on and on like that - but those two dramatized images of Belov's work show this sort of duality that you see in so many really good set designs. They are literal paintings, obviously - you can recognize things, objects are clear, the paintings are not impressionist, or abstract. But it's also showing a story, and Belov's feeling about the story.

And the feeling came right across to me. I feel the horror in those paintings. They are clear, cold images ... with a world of horror beneath them.

It also amazed me that these paintings were basically just stacked up in his studio for years - he obviously couldn't show them, or share them. But he HAD to paint them anyway.

Here's the article about this man:

The Time Through Which We've Come The Paintings and Sketches of Peter Belov.

Evg. Vasilev

Thirty-five of the fifty eight years of his life, Peter Belov devoted to the theater. After graduating in 1953 from the school / studio MAAT, he was the chief artist for a series of Moscow and other theaters. His last 14 years he spent at the Central Soviet Army Theater, where he worked on over 150 shows. The exhibition of Peter Belov's paintings and sketches 'The Time Through Which We've Come', opening in the Literary Museum on Trubinkovsky street, is presenting pieces of his set decorations for the plays of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Rasputin [no, not that one - John], Virty, Visnevsky, Zorin, Ginsburg...

But these works constitute only a small part, and likely not the main part, of the exposition. Peter Belov was a remarkable painter and artist overall, and judging from the exhibition, it is precisely his non-theatrical paintings and drawings that were his focus. It is obvious that his paintings and drawings were not a secondary pastime, some sort of exercise for his brush technique he undertook in his spare time. The fact that the products of his easel were the most soulful, agonizing, and moral of his works is immediately apparent.

It is precisely through these works that the artist wished to describe himself, his times, and his relationship to them - stern, honest, imbued with pain and bitterness. Of course his works were never entered into the portfolio of official art, which they sharply contradicted, and therefore it is most likely that these were seldom seen during the life of the artist. They were stored in his studio, and only recently have seen by the wider world.

The works of Peter Belov shock with his strength, internal tension, visual expression and totally modern syle. The themes? They are at the core sharply social, dramatic, tragic, even when he paints "The Shroud of Nerl", "Eternal Rest", "Candle", "Pasternak", "The Consecration of Mikhail Bulgakov", "Dandelions" , "Pleshcheev Lake", "My Entire Life: an Auto-portrait". Hard, confusing, and bitter was the life which he and his generation led. Even the autumn scenery seems sinister, dark, watchful.

Most particularly, this cruel, pitiless time is symbolized by several poster-like anti-Stalinist works - "Komendant of the Special Detail", "1941", "White Sea Canal", "The Crows Have Come, or the April Plenum". He did not paint Stalin -- remarks Anatoly Smelyansky -- but himself, his youth, all of us. The paintings of Peter Belov suddenly burst into the air of today's culture, dissolving into it. "White Sea Canal", or "1941"; have become divorced from the artist for many, as is befitting a beautiful poster or a folk song.

The exhibition is showing photographs, painting and printing materials -- items of Peter Belov's -- from his family's collection. They show the artist as a strong, deeply thinking, and shining personage, who, in the words of Sergei Yursky "was one of those phenomena whose existence made Perestroika and Glasnost inevitable."

Two paintings below ....

belov1.jpg

belov2.jpg

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April 7, 2006

The Books: "In Siberia" (Colin Thubron)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

15146402.JPGNext book on the shelf is the last of the "Russian trilogy" - and it's called In Siberia, by Colin Thubron.

Thubron took the train across Siberia in the mid-1990s - following the collapse of Communism. He writes:

I was trying to find a core to Siberia, where there seemed none; or at least for a moment to witness its passage through the wreckage of Communism -- to glimpse that old, unappeasable desire to believe, as it fractured into confused channels, flowed under other names.

It's a haunting book - I highly recommend it (as I recommend all of Thubron's stuff).

Here's an excerpt of his trip to Komsomolsk.

From In Siberia, by Colin Thubron.

It was almost November, and the Baikal-Amur Railway had carried me north along the river valley to within a hundred and fifty miles of the Pacific, to Komsomolsk-na-Amur. Hooded and quilted against the cold, I tramped down streets carved out for the heavy traffic of a future which never came. Komsomolsk was Stalin's "City of the Dawn", founded by young Communist pioneers in 1932 far from the Trans-Siberian and the eyes of foreigners: a galaxy of warplane factories, submarine yards and concentration camps, cradled in xenophobia.

I had expected a place of worn ugliness. Instead, austere streets lined by facades of dull gold radiated away in a faintly forbidding classicism. The replication of their stuccoed brick lent them a muted theatre. In their stately shabbiness, they looked older than they were. The snow was falling along their avenues in wet, heavy flakes so that little infidelities of style (gauche friezes, useless colonettes), the crumbling corbels and collapsing balconies, faded down long vistas of puritan uniformity, almost beautiful.

On the banks of the Amur, swollen a mile wide, a granite boulder marked the landfall of the first Komsomol volunteers. They had arrived on two steamers, the Columbus and the Comintern, in May 1932, and began to build their city in virgin taiga, spending the first winter in tents. The Soviet press turned them into a legend of young heroism, and the local museum was still reverent with their leftover mess-tins and paraffin-lamps, while diaries and letters recorded the hardships of dwindling supplies or an early scurvy victim ("the first grave in our future city").

The town's buildings are still blazoned with old pieties: cornsheafs and banners and Lenin heads, and with the city's motif of a Komsomol cadet rising from the sea. The First Builders Avenue runs for seeming miles towards a sheaf of defunct smokestacks, and a monument raised to these pioneers portrays them climbing ashore in a windblown vanguard beside the Amur. Yet they march out of another moral world, whose paeans to metallurgical plants and blast furnaces, always on the brink of overtaking America, evoke easy cynicism. It has so quickly, cruelly, gone. When I inspected the memorial I saw -- instead of the stock musclemen of Socialist Realism -- a rather incompetent-looking and naive gang of youths. Beyond them, for hundreds of yards, the start of the First Builders Avenue had disintegrated to a track of weed-sown concrete dribbling through scrubland.

For it went through an old concentration camp. In fact the whole city was haunted by these sites. The 'First Builders' had barely formed a bridgehead before 100,000 political and criminal prisoners were herded in to build, and were soon to be followed by thousands of Japanese prisoners-of-war. Unnmarked mass graves still scatter the city, with Japanese memorials to their dead. Komsomolsk's older inhabitants say their home town was not built by Komsomols at all, but by convict labour.

And now the city was emptying, its rationale faded. Its secretive distance from any industrial center turned it illogical. Some of its arms factories were closing down, or exporting their submarines to India, or flying-boats to China, or converting to the manufacture of gliders, trawlers, and yachts. All the same, I was not sure if I was permitted here. Nothing near Komsomolsk was on my visa. But the women managing my hotel, immured in one of the blocks built by Japanese prisoners, explored my passport in fascination, and did not register me. I settled in a room with a splintered door-lock, a communal basin and some stained blankets. But the stout radiators blazed with heat, and for three nights I slept in the silence of the deepening snow outside.

During the day I wandered the city in the anonymity of falling whiteness, hoping for something to happen. A waning populace of rough-faced men and boisterous women in vinyl coats and bobble hats made muffled processions over the pavements. I was back in Brezhnev's Russia. Every cafe I tried was closed or in desultory repair. The clerks, the shop-assistants, the restaurant waitresses seemed trapped in Soviet cliche: unsmiling, gross, bawling, dyed blonde or ginger. My arrival was always a hostile intrusion. Shops existed for those who worked in them: customers chanced along afterwards, like bad luck.

On my city map the once-secret industrial suburbs were whited out. I walked down alleys whose dinosaur factories were sloughing tiles and glass. Some had been abandoned in dereliction, their overhead railcars ground to a blackened sleep, their compounds splashed with murals glorifying work or a long-past anniversary. But most still panted smoke and steam, and the air stank of lead and coal tar. I stopped in the pouring snow to re-examine my airbrushed map. In this congested power-house it showed only a furniture factory and a center for "experimental mechanics".

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April 6, 2006

The Books: "The Lost Heart of Asia" (Colin Thubron)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

CAS07.jpgNext book on the shelf is the second in the "Russian trilogy" - and it's called The Lost Heart of Asia , by Colin Thubron.

Uhm ... I love this book? Like ... totally? Like ... please read it? Like ... it's so awesome??

Don't even know what to say about it except that. It's my favorite of the trilogy. Thubron started his trilogy with his book about driving and camping through western Russia in 1980 - when Communism was still around, the monolith still existing - yet visibly cracking up. The second book in the trilogy is Thubron driving around through Central Asia in 1990, 1991 - after everything had fallen apart. It's just ... it's such a mysterious book, in a way - because those countries (or ... regions, really) are so impenetrable in many ways. Their histories are so long, so checkered ... In the deserts of Central Asia are ruins of civilizations that are barely remembered today. Or not remembered at all. So much there is lost history - because of how conquered or forgotten the entire region was ... for hundreds of years. Once the sea route to India was discovered and utilized, Central Asia - once the highway of the world - dropped off the map, and dropped out of history. I mean ... that entire period of history is so fascinating to me, so ... argh. I have no words. Poetic? Evocative? Tragic? What was it like? How suddenly did the Silk Road "dry up"? Did they realize what was happening as it was happening?

Thubron drives through all the 'stans - talks to people, gets local guides, sees things, he sets out to find the remaining Russians, too - the people whose grandparents had been deported there by Stalin - to see what THEIR plans are, now that Communism has ended. Where will they go? What will they do?

Great book. Love it to death.

I couldn't pick an excerpt ... there are so many great anecdotes - so I decided to go with one of the more historical sections. Even though you can get this information anywhere, there's just something about how Thubron writes that really draws you in.

From The Lost Heart of Asia , by Colin Thubron.

For two thousand years Central Asia was the womb of terror, where an implacable queue of barbarian races waited to impel one another into history. Whatever spurred their grim waves -- the deepening erosion of their pasturelands or their seasons of fleeting unity -- they bore the same stamp of phantom mobility and mercilessness.

Two and a half millenian ago the shadowy Scythians of Herodotus -- Aryan savages whose country was the horse -- simmered just beyond the reach of civilization, like a ghastly protoplasm of all that was to come. Then the Huns flooded over the shattered Roman Empire in a ravening swarm -- fetid men clothed in whatever they had slaughtered, even the sewn skins of fieldmice -- and they did not stop until they had reached Orleans, and their rude king Attila had died in unseasonable bridebed, and their kingdom flew to pieces. But the Avars followed them -- long-haired centaurs who rocked Constantinople and were eventually obliterated by Charlemagne at the dawn of the ninth century. Soon afterwards an enfeebled Byzantium let in the Magyars, and the fearsome Pechenegs rushed in after -- Turanian peoples, all of them, who evaporated at last in the gloomy European forests, or settled to become Christian on the Great Hungarian Plain.

Then, at the start of the thirteenth century, as Christian Europe ripened and Islamic Asia flourished, the dread steppeland unleashed its last holocaust in the Mongols. This was not the random flood of popular imagination, but the assault of a disciplined war-machine perfected by the genius of Genghiz Khan. Unpredictable as a dust-storm, its atrocious cavalry -- neckless warriors with dangling moustaches -- could advance at seventy miles a day, enduring any hardship. Only their stench, it was said, gave warning of their coming. In extremes, they drank from the jugulars of their horses and ate the flesh of wolves or humans. Yet they were armoured in habergeons of iron or laminiated leather scales, and they could fire their steel-tipped arrows with magic accuracy over more than two hundred yards at full gallop. Consummate tacticians and scouts, they soon carried in their wake siege-engines and flame-throwers, and around their nucleus of ethnic Mongols rode a formidable mass of Turkic auxiliaries.

By Genghiz Khan's death their empire unfurled from Poland to the China Sea. Within a few years his sons and grandsons came within sight of Vienna, laid waste Burma and Korea, and sailed, disastrously, for Japan. Meanwhile, in their Central Asian heartland, the Pax Mongolica was instilling administrative discipline, commercial recovery, and a frightened peace.

Tamerlane, the Earth-Shaker, was the last, and perhaps most awesome, of these world predators. Born in 1336 fifty miles south of Samarkand, he was the son of a petty chief in a settled Mongol clan. He acquired th ename "Timur-i-Leng" or "Timur the Lame" after arrows maimed his right leg and arm, and passed as Tamerlane into the fearful imagination of the Weset. By his early thirties, after years of fighting over the splintered heritage of Genghiz Khan, he had become lord of Mavarannah, the "land Beyond the River", with his capital at Samarkand, and had turned his cold eyes to the conquest of the world.

From the accounts that are left of him, he emerges not only as the culmination of his pitiless forerunners, but as the distant ancestor of the art-loving Moghals of India. Over the terrified servants and awed ambassadors at his court, his eyes seemed to burn without brilliance, and never winced with either humour or sadness. But a passion for practical truth fed his unlettered intelligence. He planned his campaigns in scrupulous detail, and unlike Genghiz Khan he led them in person. He clothed his every move with the sanctions of the Islamic faith, but astrology and omens, shamanism and public prayers, were all invoked to serve his needs. An angel, it was rumoured, told him men's hidden thoughts. Yet he assaulted Moslems as violently as he did Christians and Hindus. Perhaps he confused himself with God.

No flicker of compassion marred his progress. His butchery surpassed that of any before him. The towers and pyramids of skulls he left behind -- ninety thousand in the ruins of Baghdad alone -- were calculated warnings. After overrunning Persia and despoiling the Caucasus, he hacked back the remnants of the Golden Horde to Moscow, then launched a precipitate attack on India, winching his horses over the snowbound ravines of the Hindu Kush, where 20,000 Mongols froze to death. On the Ganges plain before Delhi, the Indian sultan's squadrons of mailed elephants, their tusks lashed with poisoned blades, sent a momentary tremor through the Mongol ranks; but the great beasts were routed, and the city and all its inhabitants levelled with the earth. A year later the Mongols were wending back over the mountains, leading 10,000 pack-mules sagging with gold and jewels. They left behind a land which would not recover for a century, and five million Indian dead.

Now Tamerland turned his attention west again. Baghdad, Aleppo, Damascus fell. In 1402, on the field of Ankara, at the summit of his pwoer, he decimated the army of the Ottoman sultan Beyazid, and inadvertently delayed the fall of Constantinople by another half century.

Between these monotonous acts of devastation, the conqueror returned to the Samarkand he cherished. At his direction a procession of captured scholars, theologians, musicans and craftsmen arrived in the capital with their books and tools and families -- so many that they were forced to inhabit caves and orchards in the suburbs. Under their hands the mud city bloomed into faience life. Architects, painters and calligraphers from Persia; Syrian silk-weavers, armourers and glass-blowers; Indian jewellers and workers in stucco and metal; gunsmiths and artillery engineers from asia Minor: all labored to raise titanic mosques and academies, arsenals, libraries, vaulted and fountained bazaars, even an observatory and a menagerie. The captured elephants lugged into place the marble of Tabriz and the Caucausus, while rival emirs -- sometimes Tamerlane himself -- drove on the work with the parvenu impatience of shepherd-princes. The whole city, it seems, was to be an act of imperial power. Villages were built around it named Cairo, Baghdad, Shiraz or Damascus (a ghostly Paris survives) in token of their insignificance. It was the "Mirror of the World," and the premier city of Asia.

Tamerlane himself confounds simple assessment. He kept a private art collection, whose exquisitely illuminated manuscripts he loved but could not read. His speech, it seems, was puritan in its decorum. He was an ingenious and addicted chess-player, who elaborated the game by doubling its pieces -- with two giraffes, two war-engines, a vizier and others -- over a board of 110 squares. A craving for knowledge plunged him into hard, questing debates with scholars and scientists, whom he took with him even on campaign, and his quick grasp and powerful memory gave him a working knowledge of history, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy.

Yet at heart he was a nomad. He moved between summer and winter pastures with his whole court and horde. Even at Samarkand he usually pavilioned in the outskirts, or in one of the sixteen gardens he spread round the city: watered parks with ringing names. Each garden was different. In one stood a porcelain Chinese palace; another glowed with the saga of his reign in lifelike frescoes, all long vanished; yet another was so vast that when a workman lost his horse there it grazed unfound for six months.

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April 5, 2006

The Books: "Among the Russians: From the Baltic to the Caucasus" (Colin Thubron)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

4117REDG4DL._AA240_.jpgNo more Paul Theroux! Say buh-bye, Mr. Theroux! Next book on the shelf is the first of what is known as the "Russian Trilogy" - and it's called Among the Russians , by Colin Thubron. Argh, just flipping through the book made me remember how much I absolutely ATE this book up ... and made it very hard to even decide upon an excerpt. Here's the deal with the whole trilogy, and honestly, I can't recommend it highly enough: Colin Thubron's a writer. He took three separate trips to Russia - (only one when it was the USSR) - and each book is the chronicle of one particular trip. I don't know WHY these books are so good - but I know that a lot of it has to do with his extraordinary skill as a writer. Second of all, he's quite good on the whole historical side of storytelling as well - similar to Robert Kaplan is. Like ... you travel to a town, and the town has a storied history, or a checkered past ... and through the gift of the writing, you get to see the entire scope of what this one tiny particular town MEANS. Thubron is fantastic at that. But he's also amazing at giving you the FEEL of each particular trip.

Among the Russians is the first of the trilogy (actually, there's a fourth book - about China ... Thubron meant the 4 books to go together - but the China book is now not lumped in with the 3 Russian books. If you go to your History bookshelf at Barnes & Noble, you'll probably see only three books, in a row.) Anyway, Among the Russians was published in the early 80s. The first sentence of the book is: "I had been afraid of Russia ever since I could remember." He decides to confront that fear, and drives a car through Western Russia - stopping at Moscow, not going further into the country. But he travels up to Leningrad (ahem) - goes to Estonia, Latvia ... drives down to Kiev, Rostov-on-Don ... etc. The book was recently re-released in paperback, and in his little introduction (setting up the whole trilogy), Thubron writes:

Later journeys took me deeper into these lands I had been brought up to fear, and a further three books charted them: Behind the Wall on China still shadowed by the Cultural Revolution; The Lost Heart of Asia on the Islamic republics emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Union; and In Siberia on Russia's eastern wilderness. Among the Russians is the first of this quartet, and perhaps the most innocent: a lone Westerner traveling into a Soviet world which still seemed impregnable.

Wonderful books. WONDERFUL. My favorite is The Lost Heart of Asia (of course - because it's a journey through all the 'stans!!) - but they're ALL good.

Among the Russians is interesting because Thubron is traveling through the country during the dying gasps of Communism. He gets a tour at some museum or something - and the guy giving the tour is still totally brainwashed by the Communist ideal ... Thubron searches, in vain, for any cynicism in the guy, he wonders: "How can he still actually believe that crap??" Thubron is also followed by the KGB throughout his trip. His notes are confiscated at the border. He is dogged by "guides" who want to travel with him ... The thought of this random British person just DRIVING HIS CAR??? THROUGH RUSSIA??? And ... camping?? Setting up his tent and camping? What? And forming his own opinion about stuff?? All of this was very threatening. Obviously, the authorities assumed this dude was up to no good. Thubron was wily, though ... cunning, and persistent. He had grown up being afraid of Russia. Once he got there, once he met people (some great scenes of him camping at campsites and the people he meets there - the vodka-soaked parties, the dancing ... but also the insights into where the country is at, how people outside of the bureaucracy feel about Communism, etc.) - anyway, once he started to meet people, and travel, he lost his fear. He refused to submit to the control. There was no reason why he couldn't drive wherever he wanted to. So off he went.

I love, too, how he meets someone - either an interpreter, or a guide, or someone like that - who starts to go on and on about his nostalgia for Stalin. The second there's a pause, Thubron states, "Stalin was a monster." And the guide stumbles a bit, and says, "We need that strength again ..."

Thubron, having grown up TERRIFIED of Russia, came to the country with his guard up. He, of course, was angry at having been terrified. He actively despises Communism, and makes no bones about how stupid he thinks the whole thing is when he talks to people. And beautifully: once he starts getting invited into people's private homes, once the vodka starts flowing at the campsites - 99% of the people, of course, have no belief in Communism - they just want to lead good lives, and have food on the table. The cynicism about it is incredible. But Thubron finds it so refreshing. After all of the bureaucratic zealotry, and talking-points, and posturing ... cynicism starts to seem like evidence of truly independent thinking. He loved it.

Marvelous book. I recommend them all.

I really waffled on this one - but I decided upon the following excerpt. Thubron reaches Rostov-on-Don.

From Among the Russians , by Colin Thubron.

So I came to Rostov-on-Don. This, too, might symbolize the march of industry over the steppes -- the triumph of the new Russia over the old Cossack anarchy. It is the gateway to the Caucasus and the eatern shores of the Black Sea. Its citizens are proud of it, and the campsite authorities alighted on me -- a rare, lone Westerner -- with a language student as a guide.

"This is Yury," they said. "He's a Cossack."

I looked into a near-featureless face, its gaze as grey and unfocused as his native wilderness. I remembered my experience at Minsk, but I had not the heart to send him away. I was his first "real Englishman," he said.

For two days he showed me round the official attractions of Rostov. He recited his facts dutifully -- good and bad -- in a throaty, smothered voice. He showed none of the hectic evangelism of Alexander Intourist. One skyscraper, he said, had already taken fifteen years to build -- he was a child when it had been started -- and nobody knew when it would be finished. It was a half-standing joke. And the huge Gorky Theatre, built in the shape of a tractor -- a last shout of Constructivism from the early thirties -- only faintly stirred him.

Yet Yury was touchy. And he understood nothing of the West at all; he could scarcely focus his imagination for a coherent question about it. Around him the Soviet Union was so vast and hermetic that it comprised all the conceivable world.

One thing I remember with peculiar clarity. This was when I told Yury that we in the West were afraid of Russia. For an instant he stared at me open-mouthed, then burst into disbelieving laughter. It was the only time I heard him laugh, so preposterous to him, so manifestly silly, was the idea of his country's dangerousness. This disbelief had already been echoed by other Russians along my route. Twice Yury asked me if I were not joking, then gazed at me for long moments, astonished at the depth of my delusion.

And I, in turn, became mesmerized by his enclosedness. Rostov to him was the measure of all things. He took me to the gates of the mammoth Rostelmash factory, the country's biggest producer of agricultural machinery, which had won the Order of Lenin, he said, and the Order of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. He chanted the orders like a liturgy. Then we went to a People's Palace of Culture. We peered into music and ballet rooms, filming and sculpture studios. They were heavy with control. Yury sensed my distaste, but he could not gauge its cause. He grew disconsolate, and redoubled his efforts. He took me to leisure compounds run by trade unions on the south bank of the Don. They were compounds of tin-roofed huts, decorated by plants set in rubber tyres. Everything was violently painted. People came here in summer to escape their apartments, Yury said; the best compound had been visited by Gagarin, and displayed a commemorative fountain, which was falling to bits. No breath of proletarian jollity fired these camps. They were almost deserted. In three different compounds I saw only one netball pitch, a split table-tennis board and a billiard table whose pockets had rotted to shreds. It was the nightmare of some Marxist Butlin.

But Yury felt none of this. He liked the trees, and the sense of the river nearby. Living in a city, he was yet a countryman. He took the steppeland into the streets with him. It lumbered in his walk and filled his inarticulate gaze and hands. He typified, perhaps, the Russian whom Westerners underestimate: decent, conscientious, enduring.

His ancestry was as remote and glamourous to him as it was to me. We spent a morning at Novocherkassk, the Cossack capital -- a town like any other now, he said. But two triumphal arches celebrated the entry of Platov's Cossacks into Napoleon's Paris, and the crypt of the forbidding cathedral was filled with the tombs of wild atamans. There were still a few old Cossack families living in the town, Yury said, but they kept to themselves and he did not know them. So we wandered around the Don Cossack museum, gazing at a booty of velvet, glass, carpets.

The Cossacks refuse any ideological mould. Refugees from serfdom or revolution, flamboyantly whiskered men and braided women, prodigal of life, roisterous, drunken, free -- this seemingly indestructible people, coalesced into unruly democracies on the frontiers of empire, pushing it forward but half independent of it, and became in turn the martyrs of peasant revolution and the brutal instruments of imperial repression. The later tsars elevated them to an elite military caste, until they formed the hardest and most reactionary regiments of the army.

All this -- royalist or revolutionary -- was splashed about the museum in a tempestuous duality. But their later history had been reconvened into ghostly, half-recognisable shapes. Their role in supporting the Whtie armies had tactfully dwindled; so had those who fought for Germany in the Second World War and who were betrayed by the Treaty of Yalta; and so had Stalin's collectivization of the kulaks, the richer farmers, which went ahead in a welter of violence and family feuds, to end in mass arrests and mass exile.

But the drift to the town was destroying Cossackdom more surely, and less painfully. "You can't be a Cossack and live in a city," Yury said, as we swallowed fish soup and beef pancakes in a self-consciously Cossack restaurant on the Don. "You have to stay in the village, the stanitsa. An urban Cossack's a contradiction."

We stared out at the river. Between its unequal banks -- the northern high and tree-crowned, the southern low and merging into steppe -- it flowed, rife with history, to the Sea of Azov. Over its surface a light, troubling ripple played all afternoon, but left its depths untouched, as if the great waters were scarcely moving. Upriver, said Yury, it no longer skirted the wattle-palisaded stanitsas of old, but emerged from a land of collectivized hamlets and forestation schemes.

"The whole society's dying," he said. "It's happening very fast. When I think of my grandfather, who rode with the Red cavalry in the Civil War!" And in a rare moment of evocation, he conjured this ancient warrior before my eyes: a lean, choleric, sickle-whiskered barbarian, whose hair exploded in hoary thickets from under his sheepskin cap and whose gorilla arms were laced with burns. He had died of drink.

"But what happened to him in the thirties?"

Yury kept his eyes on the grey river and announced without emotion: "My grandparents were considered kulak because they owned a horse, a plough, and a patch of land. They were deported to Siberia. Before they went they placed my mother -- she was a girl then -- with one of my aunts. Those were bad years: famine. My mother's still physically small. She came from deep Cossack country -- a hundred miles north of here." He gestured upriver. "But she doesn't want to go back. She says they're very bitter in those villages. They wouldn't offer a stranger so much as a glass of water. And of course they hate the memory of Stalin. Three-quarters of our people loathe Stalin."

Southward, a feeling of timelessness descends. In the west the Azov and Black Seas, where the great rivers spill, merge invisibly with the Mediterranean world. To the east stretch the cloudy steppes of the Caspian and Asia, ancient mother of half the earth's peoples, whom it has loosed in a staunchless flood since before record. Scythians, Huns, Avars, Tartars, Parthians, Magyars -- a myriad barbarians grew in this fearsome womb and flung themselves west and south and east, in spasm after spasm, towards the civilizing sea.

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March 29, 2006

Hitler and Stalin: The roots of evil

Watching it now on the History Channel. Thoughts to come. I'm sure you're THRILLED!!

-- Stalin had a 'warfare psychology' ... an 'enemy complex'

-- a lot of the experts are people who try to retrospectively psychoanalyze these people. I have some doubts about this ... for many reasons ... but there's no doubt that it is an interesting speculation. Not to use it as an 'abuse excuse' - let us NEVER go down that road ... but I think to NOT ask these questions is a huge mistake. It means that we localize evil people like Hitler and Stalin as anomalies ... just crazy anomalies ... and I think we ignore their psychology at our peril

-- Cliche, yes, but Hitler and Stalin were both short, and were BUMMED about it.

-- Stalin was only five foot four. He wore platform shoes. I forget this about him.

-- Hitler was a bad student.

-- Both were on the road to be priests.

-- Both had artistic dreams ... painting and poetry (Hitler and Stalin, respectively). It was a self-pitying impulse in them, however ... and also a way to rebel against their parents. Stalin's poetry: starting out as floridly romantic and lush ... and descending towards nihilistic narcissistic claptrap. Hitler, the same with his art. No validation anywhere. No validation for their art. How did they internalize these rejections?

-- No love from parents.

-- Again: I'm just liveblogging. But also: i want to make clear that just by typing this I am not saying "Oh, Stalin's father beat him ... poor Stalin!" Anyone who knows me should know that I would never say that, but it's hard to tell ... people have poor reading comprehension and also a kneejerk know-it-all response to stuff like this.

-- What is it that creates a serial killer? Not that they should be EXCUSED for thier actions ... but what are the factors that go towards creating a Charlie Manson? Or a Ted Bundy? Are there any similarities? What can we glean from their beginnings?

-- I happen to believe that the more we understand, the better off we are.

-- Through observation it has been shown that many serial killers start off by killing animals, when they are children. This is USEFUL information, in terms of perhaps helping a child who is screaming for help. There are patterns ... maybe a serial killer could be stopped in his infancy, if it is noticed by his parents, or a teacher, or a neighbor, that he is compulsively torturing cats ...

-- I have abhorrence towards applying this philosophy towards genocidal dictators ... but I do see the point of it. I really do.

-- Stalin was "a loner, a very bitter and unpleasant person" - says Prof. Ted Friegurt. "He never took part in social activities. He was always apart, and bitter, and nasty."

-- Stalin caught Lenin's eye ... He wanted to rise to the top of this new communist party.

-- Hitler still searching for himself, trying to be a painter. (Reminds me of Eddie Izzard's re-enactment of this: "I ... can't get the flowers right in this painting ... I must now kill EVERYONE IN THE WORLD ...")


-- Hitler only painted landscapes. Never people. Hmmmm. Rejected to go to some academy of art in Vienna ... because of this whole can't-paint-people thing. So bitter by rejection that he blamed it on the Jews on the board of the acadmy.

-- He was destroyed by his mother's death. Lost the ability to function.

-- World War I ... "In his army service, Hitler was the happiest of any time he was in his life ... Sanctioned killing gave him an outlet to his murderous rage ..." said by some expert.

-- Hitler began to feel that he was 'chosen' for some great role in history.

-- Stalin loved humiliating his sons. Contempt. (I've seen some of the letters he wrote about his sons ... no love there. Total coldness.)

-- The mysterious death of Stalin's second wife Nadya. Nobody agrees how she kicked the bucket. Either she killed herself, or Stalin himself killed her. Or one of his minions did.

-- Omigod, little home movie of Eva Braun in a dirndl skirt and little apron, swinging around a pole. Never seen her in action before. She was a plump milk-fed girl. Hitler thought she was "the ideal German woman: cuddly, cute, and naive."

-- "I am the mistress of the greatest man in Germany" ... excerpt from Eva Braun's diary.

-- "Anyone who read Mein Kampf should have known where this all would read ..." So says the son of Hitler's personal aide ... sorry, didn't catch his name.

-- Live footage of Stalin. Jeez, amazing.

-- Oh man. Footage of Kirov giving a speech. Kirov. Stalin's beloved friend. But he was too popular. The murder of Kirov ascribed to Stalin's enemies in the party ... BUT it was engineered by Stalin. It was used as an excuse to begin the Great Terror. Think of the coldness. The calculation. There's some footage of Stalin at Kirov's coffin. Holy shit. The murder of Kirov used as an excuse to kill literally millions. There's Stalin, being all sad at Kirov's coffin. I am gobsmacked.

-- Members of Stalin's Politburo were so afraid of him that everyone was afraid to stop clapping for him ... the ovations went on and on and on (famous anecdotes about this) ... Finally, they figured out that they would ring a BELL to signal to people "stop clapping" so that no one would EVER be the first one to stop applauding.

-- The re-touching of photos ... Photo historian David King has assembled the largest collection of photos from the Soviet era - he studies the photos - and studies the re-touching - what he calls "a second death" - a total elimination of a human being - as though he never existed. Let's get HIM out of the photo. He was never there!!

-- King noticed that some of the re-touchings were more violent than others. Some people were just splashed wtih India ink in photos - others had their faces hacked at with razor blades. King speculates, "I think that the more violent of the re-touchings were a way to prove that you were a good Stalinist." Chilling.

-- Hitler's destruction of the village of Dollershem ... used the village as a shooting range ... Ruined churches, hollow walls ... Apparently, the hospital there had the birth certificate of his father in the archives. Evidence of his possible Jewish blood. An entire town destroyed, people killed ... to avoid the reality of his past. Surrounded by enemies ... he chose to be a predator.

-- Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa. Invasion of Russia. Footage of surrendering Russian troops. Hands in the air.


-- Stalin kind of flails about for a couple of weeks ... as though he can't believe this has happened. Finally, he "pulls himself together".

-- Now the showdown in Stalingrad.

-- If a soldier retreated from Stalingrad ... he would be shot ... and his family (of course) would be subject to retribution. Catastrophe, all around.

-- Defeat at Stalingrad. Hitler became dependent on amphetamines. Showed signs of drug toxicity - leading to more paranoia. Symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Interview with Hitler's damn BUTLER about his tremors. whoo boy!

-- In the famed bunker: the charred bodies of Eva and Hitler ... and on a desk a folder of Hitler's paintings of pastoral Austria. The Russians, when they burst in, found it.

-- Stalin paraded German prisoners of war through Red Square, to whip up the public rage.

-- The whole "accused doctor" trials in Russia. Which was mainly anti-Semitism, cloaked in some bullshit. Jewish people moved, en masse, out into Siberia.

-- Stalin's dying moment as described by his daughter. Right before he went ... he raised his stumpy left arm, with a pointed finger ... as though he was accusing and damning all those he left behind.

-- evil, cruelty, the murder of millions ... Hitler and Stalin: demonic twins of history!!


And so there you have it. My liveblog of the History Channel special on Hitler and Stalin!

Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (17)

March 28, 2006

The Books: "The Gulag Archipelago" (Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

515906VVK1L._OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpgNext book on the shelf is The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Not much I can say - it's a little bit overwhelming. Here's some background on Solzhenitsyn. Imprisoned in Stalin's gulag - the "gulag archipelago" - from 1945 to 1953. This is his book about how the "gulag" worked - but not just the camps themselves - the whole system. He explains, painstakingly, how the interrogations worked - how it was that people confessed in droves to things they did not do - why it was seen as an honor to turn in your family and friends - There are a couple of separate chapters on all of the sensational show-trials and what each one MEANT. Because, of course, the trials were not real. They were completely orchestrated, nothing unplanned about them at all - so we can look at them as symbolic of certain things. Solzhenitsyn's writing is extremely readable - very personable, almost like a diary. This book is HORRIBLE. He goes to the heart of the lunacy, and stays there. Not only does he stay there, but he explains it. He lived it. Russia denounced him for years. His international fame grew to the point that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970. Russia denounced the Nobel Prize. Of course. Typical. He never said what Russia wanted him to say. He still doesn't, come to think of it. A complicated man, someone I admire very much ... I think that The Gulag Archipelago is one of the most important books not only of the 20th century, but ever. It goes a long long way towards explaining the WHYS - and he does it in a way that really resonates with me. It's not just about political policies, or party politics, or power struggles - He talks a lot about psychology. The psychological pressure of the interrogations (which is immortalized so terrifyingly in Arthur Koestler's novel Darkness at Noon) - I always put myself in the positions of these people, I can't help myself. Maybe it's just natural curiosity, or maybe that's the part of me that's an actress, that doesn't just want to know facts - but wants to enter into the experience of others. And I can't help but try to imagine myself in those interrogation rooms, being questioned - and ... what on EARTH would have to happen in there to make me betray my friends? My boyfriend? My family? I can't IMAGINE. It's painful to think about, and yet somehow I can't help it. I try to imagine what circumstances would have to exist in order for this to occur. You get my point. That's the way my mind goes. It's horrible to contemplate, of course - it's not a pleasant daydream - but psychologically, it is one of the main things that interests me about this whole period in Russian history. The fabricated confessions. PILES of them. Glorifying that little shit who turned in his parents as kulaks. People rushing to betray their friends. Again, like I've said before - a looking-glass world. Betrayal became a virtue. It became a civic duty. How did that occur? Books like Darkness at Noon, The Great Terror by Robert Conquest, and Gulag Archipelago make great strides in answering that question.

Solzhenitsyn wrote about his own imprisonment - and what it was like - in the holding cells, and then in the forced labor camps. But he also describes the lead-up, the mass arrests, the rounds of show trials through the years, the insane year of 1937 - I'll excerpt a bit from the section on the trials.

Hard to find an excerpt. This one will do. If you haven't read this book - I can't recommend it highly enough. I went into it thinking it was going to be dry and informative ... I have no idea why I thought that. This book is the OPPOSITE of dry. You'll see in the excerpt below. He has a couple of parenthetical snarky comments - he makes fun of what's happening - you'll see how he does it. It's very very readable. All parentheticals are his. All italics are his. He even puts exclamation points in parentheses, to show how ... gobsmackingly AMAZING it all was - amazing as in 'audacious'. I love his observations on the word "Center".

From The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The Case of the "Tactical Center" -- August 16-20, 1920

In this case there were twenty-eight defendants present, plus additional defendants who were being tried in absentia because they weren't around.

At the very beginning of his impassioned speech, in a voice not yet grown hoarse and in phrases illumined by class analysis, the supreme accuser informs us that in addition to the landowners and the capitalists "there existed and there continues to exist one additional social stratum, the social characteristics of which have long since been under consideration by the representatives of revolutionary socialism. [In other words: to be or not to be?] This stratum is the so-called 'intelligentsia. In this trial, we shall be concerned with the judgment of history on the activity of the Russian intelligentsia" and with the verdict of the Revolution on it.

The narrow limits of our investigation prevent our comprehending exactly the particular manner in which the representatives of revolutionary socialism were taking under consideration the fate of the so-called intelligentsia and what specifically they were planning for it. However, we take comfort in the fact that these materials have been published, that they are accessible to everyone, and that they can be assembled in any required detail. Therefore, solely to understand the over-all atmosphere of the Republic, we shall recall the opinion of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commisars in the years when all these tribunal sessions were going on.

In a letter to Gorky on September 15, 1919 -- which we have already cited - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin replied to Gorky's attempts to intercede in the arrests of members of the intelligentsia, among them, evidently, some of the defendants in this trial, and, commenting on the bulk of the Russian intelligentsia of those years (the "close-to-the-Cadets-intelligentsia"), he wrote: "In actual fact they are not [the nation's] brains, but shit." On another occasion he said to Gorky: "If we break too many pots, it will be its [the intelligentsia's] fault." If the intelligentsia wants justice, why doesn't it come over to us? "I've gotten one bullet from the intelligentsia myself." (In other words, from Kaplan.)

On the basis of these feelings, he expressed his mistrust and hostility toward the intelligentsia: rotten-liberal; "pious"; "the slovenliness so customary among 'educated' people"; he believed the intelligentsia was always shortsighted, that it had betrayed the cause of the workers. (But when had the intelligentsia ever sworn loyalty to the cause of the workers, the dictatorship of the workers?)

This mockery of the intelligentsia, this contempt for the intelligentsia, was subsequently adopted with enthusiasm by the publicists and newspapers of the twenties and was absorbed into the current of day-to-day life. And in the end, the members of the intelligentsia accepted it too, cursing their eternal thoughtlessness, their eternal duality, their eternal spinelessness, and their hopeless lagging behind the times.

And this was just! The voice of the accusing power, echoed and re-echoed beneath the vaults of the Verkhtrib, returning us to the defendants' bench.

"This social stratum ... has, during recent years, undergone the trial of universal re-evaluation." Yes, yes, re-evaluation, as was so often said at the time. And how did that re-evaluation occur? Here's how: "The Russian intelligentsia which entered the crucible of the Revolution with slogans of power for the people [so it had something to it after all!] emerged from it an ally of the black [not even White!] generals, and a hired [!] and obedient agent of European imperialism. The intelligentsia trampled on its own banners [as in the army, yes?] and covered them with mud."

How, indeed, can we not cry out our hearts in repentance? How can we not lacerate our chests with our fingernails?

And the only reason why "there is no need to deal out the death blow to its individual representatives" is that "this social group has outlived its time."

Here, at the start of the twentieth century! What power of foresight! Oh, scientific revolutionaries! (However, the intelligentsia had to be finished off anyway. Throughout the twenties they kept finishing them off and finishing them off.)

We examine with hostility the twenty-eight individual allies of the black generals, the hirelings of European imperialism. And we are especially aroused by the stench of the word Center. Now we see a Tactical Center, now a National Center, and now a Right Center. (And in our recollection of the trials of two decades, Centers keep creeping in all the time, Centers and Centers, Engineers' Centers, Menshevik Centers, Trotskyite-Zinovievite Centers, Rightist-Bukharinite Centers, but all of them are crushed, all crushed, and that is the only reason you and I are still alive.) Wherever there is a Center, of course, the hand of imperialism can be found.

True, we feel a measure of relief when we learn that the Tactical Center on this occasion was not an organization; that it did not have (1) statutes; (2) a program; (3) membership dues. So, what did it have? Here's what: They used to meet! (Goose-pimples up and down the back!) And when they met, they undertook to familiarize themselves with one another's point of view! (Icy chills!)

The charges were extremely serious and were supported by the evidence. There were two (2) pieces of evidence to corroborate the charges against twenty-eight accused individuals. These were two letters from people who were not present in court because they were abroad: Myakotin and Fyodorov. They were absent, but until the October Revolution they had been members of the same committee as those who were present, a circumstance that gavde us the right to equate those who were absent with those who were present. And their letters dealt with their disagreements with Denikin on certain trivial questions: the peasant question (we are not told what these differences were, but they were evidently advising Denikin to give the land to the peasants); the Jewish question (they were evidently advising him not to return to the previous restrictions); the federated nationalities questoin (enough said: clear); the question of the structure of the government (democracy rather than dictatorship); and similar matters. And what conclusion did this evidence suggest? Very simple. It proved the fact of correspondence, and it also proved the agreement, the unanimity, of those present with Denikin! (Grrr! Grrrr!)

But there were also direct accusations against those present: that they had exchanged information with acquaintances who lived in outlying areas (Kiev, for example) which were not under the control of the central Soviet authorities! In other words, this used to be Russia, let's say, but then in the interests of world revolution we ceded this one piece to Germany. And people continued to exchange letters. How are you doing there, Ivan Ivanich? Here's how things are going with us. N.M. Kishkin, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadets, was so brazen as to try to justify himself right fromt he defendants' bench. "A man doesn't want to be blind. He tries to find out everything he can about what's going on everywhere."

To find out everything about what's going on everywhere? He doesn't want to be blind? Well, all one can say is that the accused correctly described their actions as treason, treason to Soviet power!

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March 24, 2006

Stalin: Taming the Intelligentsia

Note from me: I will probably continue to edit and add to this post - I dashed it off in a FEVER! I am continuing to pick at it - so if it continues to change as you look at it, that's why. Sorry - normally I don't post this way, but whatevs.

So I have now moved into "cannot put it down" mode with Stalin. It's like approaching a dark hypnotic evil mirror - I swear, that's how I experience this guy. Not a mirror as in: I am just like him, or I see my own reflection there (Sheesh, I hope not!) ... but a mirror as in: opposites, inversion, everything backwards. I cannot cop out and say: "THE MAN WAS NOT HUMAN" because you know what? He was. He was a human being ... and he cannot be written off as a "lunatic" - which is why I find him so scary. And interesting. I yearn to understand the motivations of someone so hidden, so calculating, so ... so ... ruthless.

And here's the deal - for me, what is interesting here is the contemplation itself. I don't need to come up with an answer - a label. To me, first of all, that diminishes the subject itself - which is rather enormous, and many-tentacled. To narrow the whole horror down to: A-HA! His mother beat him! And THAT is why he was so inhuman!! would be ridiculous. But a lot of people seem to want to talk about Stalin in that way. (Nobody here, by the way - I really get a lot out of the conversations we all have about Stalin.)

His unexplainability (??) is frightening. I get that. But to search for one label, a label that would make him small, explain-able, understand-able to people like you or me, cut him down to size, I think would be missing the point. Or at least, it can't be the WHOLE story.

It's almost like - well, here's a guess:

Lenin and his Old Bolshevik pals had a lot of grand ideas. They thought they knew what they wanted. And who knows, maybe a lot of them DID want that. Maybe it wasn't just a cynical power-grab - I am sure many of them were true believers. In a very short time, of course, all of that changed - and they literally just had to believe whatever Stalin told them to believe - (there's that famous quote by some dude saying, "You must be willing to change your opinion in 24 hours notice if the Party tells you to ..." woah.) They thought that it would be good to have a society based on certain principles, and they really wanted it to exist. Perhaps they didn't think about the HOWS of it ... like: HOW to destroy the peasants, HOW to get everyone on collective farms ... I don't know. The whole thing seems like such a crappy idea to me anyway that it feels like you would just have to be unbeLIEVably naive and abstract and - er - privileged - to EVER think that it would work ... at least without massive bloodshed. It's hard to get into their mindset. But from how I see it, their mindset was very abstract, lofty, and they probably used the word "should" a lot.

"And once that happens ... then such and such should follow ..."

All naive assumptions embodied in that "should". Anyone who believes in a utopia (in the past or the future) probably uses the word "should" a lot. You know why? Cause they don't understand human nature. They wish that pesky human nature would just ... behave itself, goldurnit!!! Why can't everyone behave the way they SHOULD behave??

Back to our Old Bolsheviks and their lofty ideas: Again, I am really not sure how much of them truly BELIEVED this shit, but here's my guess: They thought that after a certain point, the peasant would just somehow ... gradually ... disappear ... and the farmers would ... somehow ... gradually ... move onto the kholkhozes ... as they "should" ... and the proletariat would rise ... as Marx had predicted ... and ... somehow ... this would all happen in the proper order ... because that's the way it "should" happen, according to socialist theory - which was dogma!

When push came to shove, the only one who had the guts - the only one who literally had the STOMACH to do what needed to be done - to actually carry out these theories to their logical conclusions was Stalin. ("Okay - you want to destroy the peasant and the Russian village? How 'bout a big ol' honkin' FAMINE? How 'bout that?? How 'bout we starve millions and millions of people to death - and then watch how gratefully they scurry into the kholkhozes - how 'bout THAT?") - Now I'm not sure about that - and these guys were all pretty much cruel people, and ruthless in their minds towards "class enemies" - but being "ruthless in your mind" is different from actually have the GUTS to DO it.

To stand firm and strong while millions of people die? Literally begging for their lives? Entire populations of people starving, screaming for help? To stand firm. To refuse to bend. To stick to the plan.

That takes GUTS. That takes ... well, it's almost like it requires that you not HAVE something (like guts) but LACK something (like compassion). In order to not only allow a famine to occur, but to organize it and make SURE it occurs ... you really have to be seriously lacking in certain emotional departments.

But perhaps Stalin was so untouchable - not just because of the Party apparatus that he created - but because psychologically he had the upper hand and he knew it. What he did with collectivization and industrialization was ACTUALLY what all of those intellectuals had been bickering about and chatting about for years on end. His actions were the end result of all their intellectual blithering. He didn't TALK. He DID. Perhaps this, along with the terror of being killed, silenced many people because they realized, way too late, that what they had been chatting about naively for so many years, was, in actuality, the worst kind of totalitarianism. I don't know ... I don't know how many of them had the presence of mind to even look at it that way. It seems that most of them, by that point, were pretty craven-souled opportunistic fellows - the idealists being run out of the country. Stalin surrounded himself with groveling Yes-Men who would do whatever they had to do to save their own hides. Even if it meant killing millions of people in the Ukraine.

I wanted to post yet another long excerpt from the book - the excerpt actually has nothing to do with the famine - I got sidetracked, as I so often do with the dark mirror that is Stalin ... I found this FASCINATING, and also terrifying.

Stalin turned his attention to Russian artists.

Check this out - especially the anecdote about Mikhail Bulgakov. It's kinda terrifying. But I do love the image of all of these persecuted intellectuals bascially crank calling each other. I love Radzinsky's writing style. Again, he's a playwright - and I can tell. He goes right straight to the psychological horror at work here.

From "Stalin"

All this time, from 1929 on, a campaign against "ideological distortions" proceeded in parallel with the trials of wreckers. The intelligentsia was being taught caution in its use of the printed word. The slightest departure from the official view risked an accusation of perverting Marxism-Leninism, or worse.

Biologists, philosophers, educationists, and economists were all assailed. All branches of learning reported the discovery of "distortions". The "pseudo-academics", as they were now called, obediently did penance at public meetings.

Stalin was gradually eliminating shame. Fear is stronger than shame.

The cruel years that had gone before now looked like a reign of freedom. Quite recently, in 1926, the Moscow Arts Theatre had been allowed to put on Mikhail Bulgakov's Days of the Turbins. It was a fantastic success. Spectators watched in amazement a play which portrayed White officers (the enemy) not as the usual monsters but as likable, decent people. The production infuriated writers who were members of the Party. But the play proved to have one seemingly inexplicable devotee and defender. The Boss went to see it time and time again. Was this really odd? Not at all. The play dramatized the wreckage of the old empire. And Stalin, as he settled accounts with the leaders of October, could already see the empire of the future.

Still, he did not believe in playing favorites. In 1929, while he was taming the intelligentsia, the Arts Theatre accepted a new play from Bulgakov. Flight was about the end of the White army and its exodus from Russia. The heroes were the same, the ideas were the same as those of Days of the Turbins. But times had changed. The Boss had the play discussed in the Politburo. The body which governed the whole state was called on to examine a play which had not yet been shown. In his empire that sort of thing would be the norm. He knew that nothing was more important than ideology. He had taken to heart Lenin's dictum "the slightest relaxation in ideology will lead to loss of power by the Party." The Politburo accepted the recommendation of the commission it had set up that "staging of this play be deemed inexpedient". The verdict of P. Kerzhentsev, director of the Central Committee's Department of Agitation and Propaganda, is appended to the minutes: "The author's bias is quite clear: he is making excuses for people who are our enemies." As if at a word of command, the newspapers, each and every one, set about destroying Bulgakov. Agitprop did its job, and The Days of the Turbins was taken off. The experienced Kerzhentsev obviously intended to seek out the rightists in the arts.

The Boss, however, had other plans for Bulgakov.

My father was friends with Yuri Karlovich Olesha. They had both attended the Richelieu High School in Odessa. In the twenties and thirties Olesha was one of the most fashionable writers. But after that ... well, he was never imprisoned; they merely stopped publishing him. He spent his time jotting down mundane aphorisms, drinking heavily, and, when truly drunk, throwing his scraps of paper into the wastebasket. In the fifties the whole street would turn round to look at the man with the disheveled mane of grey hair, the dirty scarf around his neck, and the aquiline nose.

He often visited my father to ask him for money, and they would talk for hours. On one such occasion he told my father how Bulgakov, driven into a corner, decided to write a letter to Stalin. The idea was put into his head by a dubious character widely believed to be an informer. Bulgakov had no money at all, and had tried in vain to find work with the Arts Theatre. He nerved himself to write a desperate letter asking Stalin to let him go abroad. This was suicide when so many intellectuals were standing trial. As Olesha told the story: "It all happened in April. It was April 1 and we all played April fool jokes on each other. I knew about this letter, so I rang him up and said, with some sort of accent, 'Comrade Stalin wishes to speak to you.' He recognized my voice, told me to go to hell, and lay down (he always had a nap after dinner). But then the phone rang again. A voice at the other end said, 'Comrade Stalin will speak to you now.' He swore and hung up, thinking that I just wouldn't leave him alone. The phone rang again immediately, and he heard Stalin's secretary say sternly, 'Don't hang up. I hope you understand me.' Another voice, with a Georgian accent, cut in. 'What's the matter, are we getting on your nerves?' After Bulgakov had got over his embarrassment and greetings had been exchanged, Stalin said, 'I hear you're asking to be sent abroad.' Bulgakov, of course, answered as expected, that 'a Russian writer cannot work outside his Motherland,' and so on. 'You are right. I also believe that you want to work for the Arts Theatre?' 'I should like to, yes, but ... they've turned me down.' 'I think they'll agree.' With that he hung up. And almost immediately there was a call from the theatre asking Bulgakov to start work there."

So Bulgakov wrote Moliere, a play about a king who was Moliere's only protector against a spiteful court camarilla. Kerzhentsev -- who else? -- instantly denounced the author to the Central Committee. "What is the author's political intention? Bulgakov ... sets out to show the fate of a writer whose ideology is at odds with the political order, and whose plays are banned. Only the king stands up for Moliere and defends him against his persecutors ... Moliere has such lines as 'all my life I've been licking his (the king's) spurs with only one thought: don't trample on nme. Maybe I haven't flattered you enough, maybe I haven't crawled enough?' The scene concludes with Moliere's exclaiming, 'I hate arbitrary tyranny' (we amended 'arbitrary' to 'the king's'). The idea around which the author builds his play is sufficiently clear."

The Boss agreed with Kerzhentsev's recommendation to take the play out of the repertoire. But he remembered that only the king had helped Moliere and took note of Moliere's readiness, much as he hated tyranny, to serve his only protector, the king.

In 1936 the old Bolshevik Kerzhentsev would be shot. But Bulgakov survived.

Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (17)

March 22, 2006

The Books: "10 Days That Shook the World" (John Reed)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

51DZQH1CRSL._OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpgNext book on the shelf is 10 Days That Shook the World by John Reed.

Before I get to this rollicking effective fabulously-written piece of propaganda, I have to get something out of the way:

You know how some bloggers are always arguing with an imaginary confrontational audience? In the posts? Their writing goes like this:

"Now I realize that most of you will find this offensive ..." "I am willing to bet that 90% of you will be angry at what I'm about to say ..." Everything must be prefaced, or couched, or framed ... They are overly aware of the readers' response. Or they even flat-out get INTO it with the imaginary audience: "Don't tell me that there isn't a such and such for the so and so ... I am fully aware of all of the implications, thank you very much." Like - they start up an argument, and then keep arguing - even though no one's there. This is not along the lines of someone taking a point and defending it, or expressing why they are angry about this or that - this is being overly conscious of the readership. I honestly try not to do that. It's bad writing. I mean, you learn that in high school English. Pick a point and argue it. Imagine putting all of that stuff into a high school term paper. "I know that you, my teacher, may find my argument immature, but you just need to sit back and listen to where I'm coming from when I say that the green light across Gatsby's bay symbolizes the lost hopes of the Jazz Age. I know it's controversial, and I know you probably don't agree, but just hear me out." Uhm - horrible. You'd get an F. In my view - argue about that stuff in the COMMENTS - but I try to keep it out of the post itself. Because this is about me expressing myself - and all of that apologetic stuff or defensive stuff weakens the writing. It's hard not to succumb to it - but sometimes I cave - because I just KNOW that someone's gonna say THIS, and I need to address that BEFORE they say it - etc. Beth once pointed it out to me - in a very very nice private email - saying she thought it was a shame when I did that, I should just write what I want to write, and not preface everything with some argument with an imaginary reader. I really appreciated her email, I really did. Now if I find myself going that way, I edit it out. As much as I can. Because she's right. I find bloggers who do that habitually kinda unreadable ... I like the bloggers who just flat out say what they want to say, and just share their opinions wihtout hemming and hawing to their "readers".

Anyway, all of this DOES have a point!!

And in another post about the Russian Revolution - where John Reed's book came up - I argued with imaginary readers - and it makes my point, so what the hell, I'll quote myself:

I've read John Reed's 10 Days that shook the world, and it's a brilliant piece of propaganda - one of the best. It is, of course, propaganda - and you can argue that it's a dangerous piece of work, whatever - that argument bores me, frankly. I want to read anything I can get my hands on - and that is a first-hand account of the October Revolution. He was the one who "sold" the Revolution to the outside world. Whatever you think of his beliefs (and again - I find myself rolling my eyes when I read it - the enthusiasm! The belief that the whole world would rise up in a red wave! Etc.) - the dude can write. Don't bitch about me about what I should or should not read. That's another form of totalitarianism. I recognize Reed's work as propaganda for the cause. I read it anyway. So don't foam at the mouth, mkay? I love first-person accounts of any historical event - biased or no. I like to feel like I am THERE.

That "don't bitch to me" and "so don't foam at the mouth, mkay?" is what I'm talking about. It's a struggle to not put comments like that in - but like I said - Beth was right. My point is well made in the above paragraph without the "don't foam at the mouth". I mean, I know that I have readers who WOULD foam at the mouth - but - er - why is that my problem? There are going to be people who just think I'm an idiot - and who read me in order to CORRECT me. I despise those people, but again: why is that my problem? I am not going to address my posts TO those people. hahahaha It's so weird, when I step back from it. This has only occurred in the last year or so when I've gotten so many more readers than I had before. So - it's been a balancing act, and kind of a fun challenge.

I didn't set down to write all this this morning, but I do know that when I saw the next book on the shelf, I felt a bit apprehensive - like: Oh God. As though people would be mad at me for even having it on my shelf. How was I going to FRAME this?

Good Lord. Who cares?? I ain't gonna frame SHIT.

So. John Reed. Who, strangely enough, did NOT look like Warren Beatty (hahaha) was a journalist. Here's some good information about him. A fascinating life. The value of his book is, for me, the first-person account of the events of those "10 days" - his writing is phenomenal. He was swept away by the enthusiasm of what was happening, so obviously he was duped - as many were duped - but his writing!! The descriptions!! You get the smells, the sights, the brief personality portraits, the "foul blue cigarette smoke" in the air, the smell of unwashed people, the frigid wind ... Fabulous.

Here is an excerpt from his description of November 7, 1917. The bulletin that Kameniev hands to John Reed is stunning, I think. Good Lord. They stated their intentions up front and ... God. You just know that MILLIONS died carrying the plan out. "transform into a state monopoly" ... wow, guys!! Great idea!! Good luck with that! (It's funny that this book came up a day after I wrote this.)

Oh, and one thing: John Reed uses ellipses a lot. I've not taken anything out in the excerpt below - the ellipses are already in the text.

From 10 Days That Shook the World by John Reed.

The massive facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in the gloom. Automobiiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous elephant-coloured armored automobile, with two red flags flying from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bonfire. At the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and down. The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their breeches. A dun herd of armoured cars stood under the trees in the court-yard, engines going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder of feet, calling, shouting ... There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders, soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur shapki pinched flat, a leader or so -- Lunatcharsky, Kameniev -- hurrying along in the centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces, and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev -- a quick-moving little man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders. Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution just passed:

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldier's Deputies, saluting the victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison, particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so well.

The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers' and Peasants' Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will be created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country can be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.

The new Workers' and Peasants' Government will propose immediately a just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.

It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen's control over production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set up a general control over the banks, which it will transform into a state monopoly.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldier's Deputies calls upon the workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their energy and all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet expresses its conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor peasants, will assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable to the victory of Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the proletariat of the countries of Western Europe will aid us in conducting the cause of Socialism to a real and lasting victory.

"You consider it won then?"

He lifted his shoulders. "There is much to do. Horribly much. It is just beginning ..."

On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions, looking black and biting his grey beard. "It's insane! Insane!" he shouted. "The European working-class won't move! All Russia --" He waved his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had both opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin's terrible tongue ...

It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee Trotsky had declared that the Provisional Government no longer existed.

"The characteristic of bourgeois government," he said, "is to deceive the people. We, the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in history; we are going to found a power which will have no other aim but to satisfy the needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants."

Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying world-wide Social Revolution ... And Zinoviev crying, "This day we have paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a terrible blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the imperialists and particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner ..."

Then Trotsky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing the victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said to be marching against Petrograd -- a delegation must be sent to tell them the truth.

Cries, "You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets!"

Trotsky, colly, "The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets has been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and soldiers!"

So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the clamourous mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers, packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the representatives of the workesr and soldiers of all Russia waited in anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the chairman's bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of unwashed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass and hung in the thick air. Occasionally some one in authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke; then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry "Don't smoke, comrades!" and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist delegate from the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him. Unshaven and filthy, he was reeling from three nights' sleepless work on the Military Revolutionary Committee.

On the platform sat the leaders of the old Tsay-ee-kah -- for the last time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled from the first days, and which were now risen against them. It was the end of the first period of the Russian revolution, which these men had attempted to guide in careful ways ... The three greatest of them were not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country towns all doubtfully heaving up; Teheidze, the old eagle, who had contemptuously retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to sicken with consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also mortally stricken, who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his beautiful eloquence for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber, Bogdanov, Broido, Fillipovsky, -- white-faced, hollow-eyed and indignant. Below them the second siezd of the All-Russian Soviets boiled and swirled, and over their heads the Military Revolutionary Committee functioned white-hot, holding in its hands the threads of insurrection and striking with a long arm ... It was 10:40 P.M.

Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon's uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken by the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door ...

"We have the power in our hands," he began sadly, stopped for a moment, and then went on in a low voice. "Comrades! The Congress of Soviets is meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an extraordinary moment that you will understand why the Tsay-ee-kah considers it unnecessary to address you with a political speech. This will become much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am a memeber of the Tsay-ee-kah, and that at this very moment our party comrades are in the Winter Palace under bombardment, sacrificing themselves to execute the duty put on them by the Tsay-ee-kah." (Confused uproar.)

"I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies open!"

The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about. Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolskeviki, Left Socialist Revolutionaries and Menshiviki Internationalists, it was decided to base the presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki leaped to their feet protesting. A bearded solider shouted at them, "Remember what you did to us Bolsheviki when we were the minority!" Result -- 14 Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and 1 Internationalist (Gorky's group). Hendelmann, for the right and centre Socialist Revolutionaries siad that they refused to take part in the presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki; and from the Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification of certain circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium. Scattering applause and hoots. One voice, "Renegades, you call yourselves Socialists!" A representative of the Ukrainian delegates demanded, and received, a place. Then the old Tsay-ee-kah stepped down, and in their places appeared Trotsky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky, Madame Kollentai, Nogin ... The hall rose, thundering. How far they had soared, these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect leses than four months ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia in full tide of insurrection!

The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organization of Power; second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly. Lozovsky, rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureaus of all factions, it was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the Petrograd Soviet, then to give the floor to members of the Tsay-ee-kah and the different parties, and finally to pass to the order of the day.

But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of the crowd, persistent, disquieting -- the dull shock of guns. People looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely, "The civil war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a peaceful settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political standpoint we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war. Our brothers are being shot down in the streets! At this moment, when before the opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of Power is being settled by means of a military plot organized by one of the revolutionary parties--" for a moment he could not make himself heard above the noise, "All of the revolutionary parties must face the fact! The first vopros (question) before the Congress is the question of Power, and this question is already being settled by force of arms in the streets! ... We must create a power which will be recognized by the whole democracy. If the Congress wishes to be the voice of the revolutionary democracy it must not sit with folded hands before the developing civil war, the result of which may be a dangerous outburst of counter-revolution ... The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in the formation of a united democratic authority ... We must elect a delegation to negotiate with the other Socialist parties and organizations ..."

Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows, and the delegates, screaming at each other ... So, with the crash of artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new Russia was being born.

Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (9)

March 21, 2006

Fungus in Red Square

Member this whole story?

lenindead.jpg

About Lenin sprouting fungus in the middle of Red Square? The whole embalmed leader thing has always fascinated me on a very abstract level. It's so creepy, and - so labor-intensive - like - people's entire JOBS had to do with keeping that body from decaying - I am creeped out by it, and yet I kind of can't look away. It somehow dovetails with my whole cult-fascination thing. The turning of a man into a god. But not really a god. It's more of an empty SYMBOL. A symbol that got emptier and emptier with every passing year. And yet still - the charade was kept up. Embalming him like that did not turn him into a god - it turned him into an OBJECT. There's something very openly cynical about the whole thing - or so it has always seemed to me.

In this book I'm reading now - Stalin - the entire event of Lenin's death - and the power struggle that went on then - and Lenin's dying gasps of breath - and his warnings about Stalin's "rudeness" - and all of that - is painted in GRAPHIC detail. It's terrifying. Lenin had helped to consolidate Stalin's power. Or ... "Koba", as he was known then. And Lenin realized (too late) that it was not good for one man to have so much control. YA THINK??? Dipshit. I can't stand all those guys, I really can't. hahahaha But again: Lenin's deathbed realization came too late.

The whole back and forth between the dying Lenin and the strategizing Stalin is absolutely gripping - It's been told a gazillion times before, and nobody told it better than Robert Conquest - but still: different writers bring different talents to oft-told stories, and Radzinsky is a wonderful writer. He, like Conquest, tries to go into the mystery of it - the mystery of Stalin.

Both come to the same conclusion - but I'll use an excerpt from Radzinsky's book which I have right here. This is a quote from one of Radzinsky's anonymous informants - which kind of just sums it all up:

"Bolshevik documents are peculiar in that wherever they say 'peaceful demonstration' they most probably mean 'armed uprising.' The general rule is that 'yes' almost invariably means 'no'. Somebody has called this an 'in-depth' language - a false-bottomed language, in which words have two or three meanings. Add to this that Stalin was a grand master. To understand the reasons for his moves you must look at the result. Only then will certain things become clear."

Think about that: To understand the reasons for his moves you must look at the result.

Conquest had been saying that for years. And scoffed at, scorned, ridiculed - we all know of his vindication now.

But think about that. To understand the reasons for his moves you must look at the result.

It is only in the RESULTS that we can even begin to "grok" Stalin. There aren't too many people (especially leaders) you can say that about. Most people have more egotistical or narcissistic personalities - and so therefore must leave behind evidence of what they see as their genius. They write letters, they leave behind journals, they jabber to their friends, they make big speeches, they make huge glaring errors, they flail about publicly - we can think of many leaders who behave this way. Their egos are over-involved, they are openly power-hungry, and they have a need (which often leads to their downfall) to have any "result" be attributed to them. They want people to be able to point to a result and say: "THAT. THAT happened because of HIM." You get that? It has to do with wanting glory. Whether we agree with the morality of the result or not is irrelevant. We're talking here about a personality type. Stalin had the opposite thing going on. He never wanted people to be able to point to anything and say, "THAT. THAT happened because of HIM." Never. He wanted to be invisible, ubiquitous, everywhere, omnipresent, and yet in a position where he could deny everything. In his early days in the Party, people who met him never could really get a line on him - he seemed to make the OPPOSITE of an impression. People would say he seemed like a "blob", or like a "lump" ... He inverted. He became anti-matter. He was NOT THERE. But behind the scenes? Look out. You could not see his fingerprints on anything. You just need to look at the results.

Now this, to me, is one of those unending mysteries - and which is why I have 10 books about Stalin on my shelf, and why I will continue to buy up books about this time period.

Because of the eternal fascination of this sentence: To understand the reasons for his moves you must look at the result.

Radzinsky and Conquest use some of the same overriding language - Conquest, in his masterpiece The Great Terror - says over and over again, about Trotsky, or Zinoviev, or even Lenin: "He did not understand Stalin yet." It is as though these "colleagues" of Stalin had all the signs - but they misinterpreted them. Or ... such cold calculatedness is actually very difficult for normal people to grasp. You think: There HAS to be something else going on here! Or ... it was put off as just Stalin being "rude". If he just had better manners, maybe he would be a more effective leader. I mean, honestly - this is the looking glass world of nutso-land that these people were living in. Stalin was rude??? Uhm. Yeah. I'll say. But again: it took most people a while to "understand" Stalin. In the begining, the Bolsheviks valued others for their cruelty and their ability to focus ruthlessly on one goal. They were revolutionaries. They thought Robespierre was to be emulated. They knew blood would be shed. They felt that blood HAD to be shed. Stalin was valued for his cruelty ... and his "dedication" - but again, like the excerpt above from the informant ... all of these words kind of lose their meaning when you talk about Stalin in any serious way. It's quite incredible. You start to get close to the guy - and everything begins to invert. George Orwell knew what the hell he was talking about. Lunacy.

And yet - NOT. Lunatics eventually lose control. They eventually show their hand. Why? Because they yearn for glory! Or booty! Or riches! Or whatever. They are fallible, they are susceptible to temptation. Not so Stalin.

What frightens me most about him is how much SENSE it all makes - if you look at it through his eyes. Lots of insane things make a lot of sense. It's just that very very few of us have the willpower to go about and make everybody else do what we want them to do. Most of us have a little thing called COMPASSION, most of us have a little thing called a CONSCIENCE ... which stops us from imposing our will on everyone around us. We actually have something called BRAKES. Most people do. Most people say, "Uhm ... no. Not gonna go there ... even though I want to so much!!" Stalin did not have those brakes. And when I say his mindset makes "sense" - I am not endorsing it, so don't say I did. I am saying that from his perspective, his behavior was literally the only way to go - and - if you look at the results - you can see that he was 100% correct. He got what he wanted. A totally paralyzed and atomized society where he was the only person who really mattered.

THAT is the fascination, for me. It's terrifying. I suppose you could say what really interests me then is the psychology. The psychology of Stalin. I know that I "do not understand Stalin yet", and perhaps I never will ... but the questions will continue to pester at me.

How to "grok" Stalin. Hmmmmm.

So back to Lenin's death - and the eventual result of the dude sprouting fungus in public 80 years later.

Here is Radzinsky writing on Stalin's creation of the Lenin Personality Cult (which is amazing - because by the end of his life, Lenin had turned on Stalin - or at least had serious second thoughts about him) ... but Stalin knew he had to turn the "Party" into a religion. And every religion needs a God. His cynicism about religion in general - his revelation during his seminary years that "there is no God" - did not mean that he discounted the need for religion. On the contrary. He understood that need intuitively - and he set about creating a religion - in a land that was supposed to be now full of atheists.

Did Stalin set about, cynically and calculatedly, to create this cult of Lenin so that he would be in the shadows? That any ultimate blame for this experiment failing would never rest solely on his shoulders?

See, that's the thing: He didn't set about creating a cult for HIMSELF. That happened over time, yes - but Lenin was ALWAYS present. Leningrade, Lenin Squares, yadda yadda - all decreed by Stalin. A narcissistic egotist would insist on all the glory.

Nope. Stalin was smarter than that. Greater glory means greater blame when things go wrong. I can only guess but it seems that his entire life's goal was to stay in power. And staying in power was IT for him. No glory? Fine. As long as he was still in power.

I'm trying to look to the results, I really am.

Anyway: Here's the excerpt from the book about Lenin's death, and Stalin's creation of the personality cult, and embalming the dude and putting him on display.

FROM "Stalin" by Edvard Radzinsky

By October the previous year Lenin had given up the struggle and was rapidly sinking. The Leader who had once been such a brilliant seminarist devised an unprecedented propaganda campaign which might have been called "Departure of the Messiah". Stalin had taken the measure of his country long ago. Under the Romanovs, during the Revolution, in the past and in the future, it was forever looking for a god and tsar. (We shall hear his own formulation of this idea later.) He decided to present it with a new god, in place of the one overthrown by the Bolsheviks. An atheist Messiah, the God Lenin.

In the autumn months he was already planning the "Ascension". He sent delegations to Nizhny Novgorod. Ritual farewells to the Messiah were instituted: representatives of the toiling masses vowed to the departing God that they would continue his immortal work. Representatives of the heroic Red army made their farewells. Lenin was enrolled for all eternity as an honorary Red army man, and presented with a bundle containing his uniform. In November the half-dead Lenin had to receive the proletariat as represented by a delegation from the Glukhov factory. An old workman delivered greetings which were also an epitaph: "I am a blacksmith ... We shall forge all that you have designed."

Lenin still had several months to live when the Gensek first spoke about his funeral in the Politbuor. "I learn that this question is also a matter of great concern to some of our provincial comrades." He went on to report a surprising request made by those comrades. "Do not bury Vladimir Ilyich. It is essential that Ilyich remains physically with us." Trotsky, who was present, realized that Stalin intended to transform the atheist Ulyanov into a sacred relic to be worshiped by the faithful. Molotov recalls that "Krupskaya was against it, but we did it by decision of the Central Committee. Stalin insisted." He had his way and produced an imperishable Marxist god.

He had thought of everything. When the death of the God was imminent, doctors advised the ailing Trotsky to take a cure at Sukhumi. After Lev's departure Stalin saw to it that none of the remaining leaders visited Lenin, in case one of them turned up at the Messiah's bedside at the very moment when he began withdrawing into eternity, and turned the dying man's mumblings into "last words" to suit himself.

But it happened just as he feared. Bukharin, who was receiving medical treatment right there in Nizhny Novgorod, appeared at Lenin's bedside. He described that "when I rushed into Ilyich's room ... he heaved one last sigh. His head fell backward, his face was terribly pale, I could hear a hoarse gurgle, his arms went slack."

Stalin corrected Bukharin's mistake, simply wiped him out of the deathbed scene, transferred him from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow. As a result, Zinoviev was shortly writing in an article that "Ilyich had died ... An hour later we were on our way to Nizhny Novgorod where Ilyich was already lying dead -- Bukharin, Tomsky, Kalinin, Stalin, Kamenev, and I."

Trotsky would later speak of "Stalin's poison". But this is irrelevant. Professor V. Shklovsky, son of the eminent physician M. Shklovsky, found in his father's records the testimony (originally meant to be destroyed) of V. Osipov, one of the senior doctors attending Lenin, and the speech therapist S. Dobrogayev. We read in particular that "the final diagnosis dismisses the stories of the syphilitic character of Lenin's disease, or of arsenic poisoning. It was atherosclerosis, mainly affecting the cerebral blood vessels. The calcium deposit was so thick that during dissection the tweezers made a noise as if they were rapping on stone. Lenin's parents also died of the disease." But the story that Lenin had been poisoned would never die. Stalin killed too many others for anyone to believe that he had not also sent his most dangerous enemy to the grave.

While preparations were being made for Lenin's funeral, a telegram was sent to Trotsky: "Funeral takes place on Saturday, you cannot get here in time. The Politburo thinks that the state of your health makes it essential for you to go to Sukhumi. Stalin."

In fact the funeral had been postponed until Sunday. But Stalin was not simply lying. Where there is a god there are loyal and disloyal disciples. The disloyal, who have insulted the Messiah in his lifetime, must not be present at his obsequies.

Stalin devised a grandiose plan for the God's funeral. The arrival of the Body by train was a solemn ceremony in itself (the compartment which held the sacred remains and the locomotive which pulled it would be stationed forever in a building clad in granite and marble). The loyal disciples devotedly bore the precious Body from the station across Moscow to the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Few of those helping to carry the Lord's coffin would survive.

At 7:00 pm the public were admitted to the Hall of Columns. The God Lenin lay there in his khaki tunic. And Stalin, also wearing a tunic, kept vigil over him. People filed past all night long. The frost was incredible, and bonfires were lit. There was a frozen mist; people were wreathed in the steam of their own breath.

The Body had been embalmed on the morning of January 22. It was a temporary job, done so that the Messiah could lie in state in the Hall of Columns for several days. But Stalin had thought up a fantastic scheme: he would show that the Bolsheviks could conquer even deateh. The God would be imperishable. Thousands of telegrams from workers called for postponement of the funeral. In response to the wishes of them and millions of others, the Kremlin announced: "It has been decided to preserve the coffin with Lenin's body in a special Mausoleum on Red Square near the Kremlin wall." Simultaneously, "at the request of the workers of Petrograd" the capital of the Romanov empire was renamed Leningrad.

By the end of January a wooden mausoleum designed by A. Shchusev had been erected over the coffin. Stalin meanwhile was working out the details of the new cult. "Red corners" in honor of Lenin would be set up all over the country. At one time the "red corner" was where the icons were hung in a peasant hut. Now portraits of the God Lenin would hang there.

Behind the closed doors of the Mausoleum Stalin's unprecedented idea was already being realized. When experts declared that contemporary science lacked the means of preserving a body for any considerable length of time, other experts were found. The anatomist Vladimir Vorobyov and the young biochemist Boris Zbarsky undertook to embalm the body as required.

The scientists worked day and night, and Stalin himself went down into the Mausoleum several times. He obtained a result in time for the Thirteenth Congress in May. Kamenev, presiding, announced on the second day that after the morning session delegates would be able to see Lenin in his new immortal guise. They were stunned. Asked by Zbarsky whether "the likeness has been preserved," Lenin's brother said, "I can't say anything, I'm overcome. He's lying there looking just as he did when I saw him after he died." Thus, Stalin's present to the first Congress held without Lenin was -- Lenin.

When he had created an empire, he would rebuild the wretched little wooden Mausoleum in marble, porphyry, and labradorite, with columns of different kinds of granite. Such would be made the dwelling place of the imperishable God, his holiest shrine in the atheist empire. Krupskaya, when she lived in the Kremlin complex, often went down into the Mausoleum. Zbarsky tells us that "six months or so before she died she visited the Mausoleum. She stared for a long time, and then said 'he's just the same, and I'm getting so old.'"

In the West, not everybody believed in the "ever-living" Lenin. They alleged that the figure lying in the Mausoleum was a wax doll. So Stalin arranged in the thirties for a group of Western journalists to be shown the relics worshipped by the Bolsheviks. Lenin's biographer, Louis Fischer, was one of their number. He has described how "Zbarsky opened the glass case containing the remains, and pinched Lenin's nose. Then he turned his head to right and left. That was no wax doll. It was Lenin. The iconoclast had become a relic."

Stalin had given them their imperishable God. Next he must give them a tsar.

Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (23)

March 17, 2006

Kinda scattered

Okay, so I haven't finished a book in ... 4 weeks?? 5 weeks?? The last book I finished was, I think, At Swim-two-birds by Flann O'Brien. After that, I started a couple of different books (I have different needs ... commute books are different from LEISURE books - also, my Hamilton biography is hardcover and weighs 20 pounds - I won't lug that around) I haven't been able to finish anything - mainly because 90% of my brain space was taken up with getting ready for (or procrastinating getting ready for) my show. I just couldn't focus. Then along came the iPod and along came the daily exercise, and boom - I seem to not be reading anymore. I wonder if I could get my sleep-needs down to 3 hours a night?? Then I could have more reading time. Probably not. I'm pushing it as it is.

Here are the books I'm kinda sorta working on in a half-assed way - and the last one has definitely got a hold on me - I might finish that one first.

I just looked at this list of books and just have to laugh.

The Autobiography of Ben Franklin - this is taking me shamefully long to get thru. It's actually quite short, and very fun to read. It should be way done by now. But ... can't finish. Too scattered.

Ron Chernow's Hamilton - at the rate I'm going, I'll finish this book in the year 2016. It's fantastic. But I can only focus on it for 2 or 3 pages at a time.

Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood (haunting. She's so feckin' good. Her writing scares me.) But again: I got 5 chapters in, and now have lost the thread. She was my commute book.

Judy Blume's Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret - whoo-hoo! It arrived. It's just as good as I remember. But in a normal Sheila time, I'd read this thing in a couple of hours. Just can't do that now.

Gene Wilder's autobiography Kiss Me Like a Stranger - I love him - have been wanting to read this for a long time ... but I am going at a SNAIL'S PACE.

And here's the last book I'm working on - and this one has actually taken a hold on me - I look forward to the free half hour or so when I get home where I can sit down and just read it. I'll be posting more on it"

Stalin by Edvard Radzinsky - I honestly don't know why I haven't read this before. It's kinda blowing me away. Radzinsky is a Russian playwright - and ... well, I need to post on it a bit. You know. When I'm not so scattered. But it's terrific. Gripping - out of the all the books i'm juggling, this is the one I can't put down. I stand in line at the bank, or at the deli, and read it. It's THAT kind of book.

But still. Kinda scattered.

Simone, the cross-dressing palm-reading astrologist who we met the other night said that I was focusing on domestic stuff, making my house into a home. She kept saying that. "You're making your house into a home ... all good things will follow, once you create that home space ..." Which is pretty spot on. She expressed what's been going on for a couple months now. So I got the bookcases. I got the framed pictures. I have bought more plants. I am having guests over this weekend. It's vulnerable for me to do that. I'm a hermet. My home is mine. A private space. No one ever comes over. I need to change that. I do believe that miracles will occur if I change my relationship to my house. My house, as of now, is CLOSED. No one comes over. It is a private dream space. Only I am allowed to go there. But ... well. Only an idiot would not see the metaphor at work here. This has been going on for some months now - my commitment to changing my relationship to my house ... and Simone, with her scarf on her head, and her red glittery lipstick, nailed it. Thanks, Simone!

So. It's okay that I'm not reading too much right now. At least I got another bookcase to add to my domestic delights!

And there's something about Stalin ... It doesn't surprise me that that is the only book I can focus on right now. It's like he emanates a dark light of fascination from beyond the grave. I'm serious. I don't need to WORK to be interested in Stalin. Honestly - I don't. I'm on the part right now where the Bolsheviks and SRs begin their fight - but there are all these other parties involved - Whites, and invading Germands, etc. etc. Trotsky still in the picutre - but Stalin has already narrowed his sights. Trotsky is now "Enemy". Soon Trotsky will be the Imaginary Friend everyone blames everything for. Oh, we can't feed our own country? It's saboteurs, organized by Stalin! No electricity? No railways? Trotsky did it! Trotsky did it! At this point in the book I'm reading - Stalin knows he will get rid of Trotsky sooner or later - but it can't look like he was the one who orchestrated it. Stalin just needs to sit back ... play chess with human lives ... stay in the shadows ... and wait ...

The mixture of patience and ruthless cruelty seems very rare. Most dictators are impatient. But the ability to just hang back ... hang back ... Stalin had that in spades. Some Soviet official who worked with Stalin said, when it was all over, that Stalin had the deadliest of combinations in his personality: Laziness and capriciousness. If you think about it - that really is rare - and with someone who lacks human compassion - or lacks a conscience, it can be very very dangerous. Also: Stalin to me seems notable because he appeared to lack greed. At least for material things. Many dictators are undone by their own greed. They yearn for BOOTY. They want to live like a king!! They want cars, money, palaces ... they will starve their own countries so that they can own a gazillion Mercedes Benzes. But Stalin didn't care about any of that. He was impervious to money. He had no greed for THINGS.

So ... to be patient ... to be cruel ... and to be impervious to monetary temptation ... At the moment I can't think of another dictator who had all of these qualities at the same time. Castro, maybe? Regardless, it seems to me that this is why Stalin was so terrifyingly effective, and why he lasted so FUCKING LONG.

Like I said.

I'm scattered.

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March 7, 2006

The Books: "The Spirit of Prague" (Ivan Klima)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

My history bookshelf. Onward.

71K58A945ML._OU01_AA240_SH20_.gif.jpegNext book on the shelf is a collection of essays by Czech writer Ivan Klima - it's called The Spirit of Prague . Klima has seen it all - he was in Terezin concentration camp as a child, he went though the Stalinist totalitarianism afterwards in his home country - he's a novelist - (his book Judge on Trial is what turned me on to him) and lived through YEARS of repression of even being able to work. Because you know who are most frightening to totalitarian despots? The writers. Nothing more dangerous than the printed word. Nothing more dangerous than a well-timed book, or painting, or film that cuts straight through all the bullshit propaganda. No, no, no, we can't have THAT! Klima was the editor of Czechoslovakia's most prominent literary magazine - his experience of the "Prague Spring" was, like most of his countrymen, shattering. Devastating. Most of these essays were written in the 1989-1991 period - during and following "the Velvet Revolution" (I love that they called it that) - it was a time of great hope, but also - great sadness and uncertainty. Vaclav Havel's "moral contamination" speech in early 1990 captures that vibe perfectly. Yes, whoo-hoo, they were now "free" - but they had to deal with all they had lost, through the repression, and also how they the citizens were partly responsible for all of it. (Havel's speech, to me, is one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century. Never heard anything like it before in MY life!! Amazing.)

I'm going to post a bit from Klima's essay called "Culture vs. Totalitarianism". In it, he describes the cultural opposition to the regime in Czechoslovakia. This is one of the reasons why I am so, shall we say, 'touchy' towards those who wish that artists would just shut up about things outside of their realm, don't try to be important, or relevant ... just juggle over in the corner and entertain me. I'm touchy about it not just for my own personal reasons and my own life-choices, but because in my mind I'm thinking: Careful what you wish for. Careful what you wish for.

I love Czech writers - and Havel is one of my idols - so it was an easy leap over to Klima. I checked out his novel first and then moved on to his non-fiction. He's fantastic - if you haven't read him, I hope you give him a try.

From The Spirit of Prague .

Totalitarianism correctly understood the threat this cultural resistance posed, but the nature of that power ruled out any accommodation or compromise. It continued to battle against literature. It raided private flats and detained people who had gathered there to listen to lectures or the reading of a play or something as innocent as lyric poetry. It confiscated manuscripts from poets, prose writers and philosophers, both local and translated works, just as it did documents from Charter 77. From time to time it held trials in which judgement was passed on those who copied texts or organized other kinds of cultural activitiy. Because these people were clearly innocent, even according to the laws in force, the outcome of these trials were the opposite of what the authorities intended. They were meant to intimidate, but they succeeded only in unmasking power, in revealing it for the unprincipled, prejudiced and philistine force it was. This merely stiffened people's resistance. Early samizdat publications came out in tiny editions of tens of copies; by the eighties, books were being reproduced in many workshops, the technology of reproduction was modernized, and the number of titles mushroomed. (The literary samizdat enterprise Padlock Editions published three hundred titles.) In the seventies, there were practically no samizdat cultural journals; by the eighties, there were more than a hundred unofficial magazines. (At the same time, there were only five official magazines dealing with culture.)

Sasmizdat literature was only one of the ways in which the repressed culture expressed itself. There were seminars in philosophy, and lecture series were held on different areas of the humanities. Young people frequently tried to distance themselves entirely from the pseudo-culture offered to them by the authorities. They founded small theatres, and from the seventies on, the most authentic expression of their relationship to the ruling system was the protest song. Singers who were closest to them in age and attitude became their idols. The authorities reacted predictably, and one generation of protest singers was essentially driven into exile, but as usual, the results were the opposite of what was intended.

By the late eighties, the international situation was undoubtedly influential. Those who represented power and those who represented culture were clearly squared off against each other. Several events also sharpened the conflict between the authorities and those who were trying to extricate themselves from their toils. The authorities frequently used police brutality to break up memorial assemblies to commemorate the country's national holiday or the memory of Jan Palach, a student who had set fire to himself, and died, in protest against the Soviet invasion. Those who came to pay their respects to a person who symbolized the possibility of individual protest taken to its furthest extreme became the object of a violent attack by special units who used truncheons, water-cannons, and tear-gas. People, mostly the young, decided not to give way to violence. For five consecutive days the peaceful assemblies were repeated, and on four occasions the police used violence to break them up. Several people were arrested, Vaclav Havel among them. During these events, which aroused the emotions of the whole country, the cruel truth about power was publicly revealed for the first time. At this critical juncture, the government could not find a single person with sufficient authority to address the nation. No one was willing to give public support to the regime, but many could be found to protest against police brutality, against imprisoning the innocent. Among the protestors were actors, filmmakers, and writers who, until then, the regime had believed to be "on its side".

In this critical situation, the authorities -- and it is hard to say whether this was out of stupidity or desperation or arrogance, or the awareness that they were indeed indelibly tarnished -- refused all invitations by the cultural opposition to take part in a dialogue. The deep chasm between totalitarian power and all the "shaken", to use Patocka's term, became unbridgeable. It was clear that any further error, any further act of arrogance, might be fatal.

What happened in November 1989 is well known. As an eyewitness and a participant, I wish to emphasize that this revolution, which really was the outcome of a clash between culture and pwoer, was the most non-violent revolution imaginable. In the mass meetings attended by up to three-quarters of a million people, no one was hurt, not a window was broken, not a car damaged. Many of the tens of thousands of pamphlets that flooded Prague and other cities and towns urged people to peaceful, tolerant action; not one called for violence. For those who still believe in the power of culture, the power of words, of good and of love, and their dominance over violence, who believe that neither the poet nor Archimedes, in their struggle against the man in uniform, are beaten before they begin, the Prague revolution must have been an inspiration.

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March 6, 2006

The Books: "Imperium" (Ryszard Kapuscinski)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

My history bookshelf. Onward.

51QZBN26TBL._OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpgNext book on this shelf is the last Ryszard Kapuscinski book I have - actually, I think that's it for Ryzsard - at least in English translation - To anyone who is interested in Communism (the rise and fall of), totalitarian regimes and how they work, the Caucasus, Central Asia - (meaning all the things I'm interested in!!) then I can't recommend this book highly enough. I absolutely LOVE it. It's called Imperium - I'm sure I've posted excerpts from it before. The structure of the book is really interesting. Kapuscinski starts with a description of the Russians rolling into his Polish town in 1939 and what that was like - he was 8 or something like that. This was his first encounter with "the Imperium". In 1958, as a journalist, he takes the Trans-Siberian Express - and that's the second section of the book - his confrontation with the true vastness of the Imperium. In 1967 he traveled down through the Caucasus (called "the South") and that's the third section of the book. The last section is the longest one in the book - and it is reporting from the years 1989 to 1991. Kapuscinski tried to be literally everywhere at once - because events were happening so quickly, revolutions breaking out, things falling apart - it was hard to tell where the center was.

Anyway - it's a wonderful book and might be my favorite of Kapuscinski's. I know I've FORCED a couple of people to read it - hahahaha - but I knew they'd like it!

I knew immediately what excerpt I wanted to put here. The one about Armenia.

From Imperium

In Matenadaran one can see the ancient books of the Armenians. To me they are doubly inaccessible: they lie in cabinets behind glass, and I do not know how to read them. I ask Vanik if he understands them. Yes and no, for he can read the letters but cannot discern the meaning. The alphabet has remained the same for fifteen centuries, but the language has changed. The Armenian walks into Matenadaran like a Muslim into Mecca. It is the end of his pilgrimage; he is moved, overwhelmed. In Armenian history, the book was the national relic. The comrade who is our guide (so beautiful!) says in a hushed voice that many of the manuscripts that we see were saved at the cost of human life. There are pages stained with blood here. There are books that for years lay hidden in the ground, in the crevices of rocks. Armenians buried them in the same way defeated armies bury their banners. They were recovered without difficulty: information about their hiding places had been handed down from generation to generation.

A nation that does not have a state seeks salvation in symbols. The protection of the symbol is as important to it as the protection of borders is to other states. The cult of the symbol is an act of patriotism. Not that the Armenians never had a state. They had one, but it was destroyed in antiquity. It was then reborn in the ninth century, and after 160 years it perished -- in that earlier form -- forever. It is not just a question of statehood. For at least two thousand years Armenians were in danger of complete extermination. They were sitll threatened with it as recently as this century, right up until 1920.

The history of Armenians is measured in millennia. We are in that part of the world that is customarily called the cradle of civilization. We are moving among the oldest traces of man's existence. In the valley of the Razdan River, near Yerevan, stone tools from half a million years ago have been unearthed. The first mention of Armenia is four thousand years old, but by then, as the stone inscription proclaims, there had already existed on Armenian territory "sixty empires" and "hundreds of cities". Armenia therefore is the contemporary of the world's oldest civilizations. Babylon and Assyria were its neighbors. The biblical rivers Tigris and Euphrates have their sources within its borders.

Armenians have a measure of time different from ours. They experienced their first partition 1,500 years ago. Their renaissance occurred in the fourth century of our era. They accepted Christianity seven centuries earlier than we. Ten centuries before us they started to write in their own language. But Armenia shared with ancient Egypt, Sumer, and Byzantium a drama typical of this part of the world -- its essence was a lack of historical continuity, that sudden appearance of empty chapters in the history book of one's own state.

A magnificent ascent, and then a dispiriting fall.

Gradually, the nations living in this cradle of mankind, having created great, monumental civilizations, as if exhausted by the superhuman effort, or perhaps even crushed by the immensity of what they had brought forth and no longer capable of further developing it, handed over the reins to younger peoples, bursting with energy and eager to live. Europe will come on the scene and, later, America.

The source of all of Armenia's misfortune was its disastrous geographic location. One has to look at the map, not from our vantage point, from the center of Europe, but from an entirely different place, from the south of Asia, the way those who sealed Armenia's fate looked at it. Historically, Armenia occupied the Armenian Highland. Periodically (and these periods lasted centuries) Armenia reached farther, was a state of three seas -- the Mediterranean, the Black, and the Caspian. But let us remain within the borders of the Highland. It is this area upon which the Armenians' historical memory draws. After the eleventh century, the Armenians never succeeded in rebuilding Armenia within those borders.

The map, looked at from the south of Asia, explains the tragedy of the Armenians. Fate could not have placed their country in a more unfortunate spot. In the south of the Highland it borders upon two of the past's most formidable powers -- Persia and Turkey. Let's add to that the Arabian caliphate. And even Byzantium. Four political colossi, ambitious, extremely expansionist, fanatical, voracious. And now -- what does the ruler of each of these four powers see when he looks at the map? He sees that if he takes Armenia, then his empire will be enclosed by an ideal natural border in the north. Because from the north the Armenian Highland is magnificently protected, guarded by two seas (the Black Sea and the Caspian) and by the gigantic barrier of the Caucasus. And the north is dangerous for Persia and for Turkey, for the Arabs and Byzantium. Because in those days from the north an unsubdued Mongolian fury loomed.

And so Armenia gives all the pashas and emperors sleepless nights. Each one of them would like his realm to have a nicely rounded border. So that in his realm, as in King Philip's, the sun should never set. A border that does not dissipate itself amid flatland, but which leans against a proper mountain, against the edge of the sea. The consequence of these ambitions is continued invasions of Armenia; someone is always conquering and destroying it, always subjugating it.

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February 8, 2006

The Books: "Down with Big Brother : The Fall of the Soviet Empire" (Michael Dobbs)

And here is my next excerpt of the day from my library.

My history bookshelf. Onward.

DownWithBB.gifNext book on this shelf is called Down with Big Brother : The Fall of the Soviet Empire by Michael Dobbs. This is a great book - even if you already know half of the stories in it. I love the set-up of the book, and I love his writing. He uses the totalitarian language from 1984 as the structure of his book - It has four parts: Revolt of the Proles, Revolt of the Machines, Revolt of the Nations, and Revolt of the Party. This is 1984 language. In this book, I discovered one of my favorite anecdotes - that I use all the time - the one about Boris Yeltsin walking into a supermarket in Houston, or something - I think it was somewhere in Texas - this was in 1989 or 90, I believe - and what he saw there - the convenience, the abundance, the cake-makers, the choices - not only blew his mind, but gave him an epiphany. A horrible soul-shaking epiphany. He had been taught that capitalism was evil. But he knew what supermarkets were like in the Soviet Union. And this? Being able to pick and choose, being able to have choices to feed your family? I guess on the plane ride home, he was totally silent, staring out the window. One of the people with him, an assistant or something, asked him if he was all right. He said, with tears on his face, "They had to fool the people ... They couldn't let people travel. They were afraid that people's eyes would open." He realized he had been fooled. That generations of people had been fooled by communist propaganda. Yeltsin never looked back from that Houston supermarket - it was the end of the road for him. He left the Party shortly thereafter. He was disillusioned. He had been lied to. No more Party loyalty. He would throw his hat into the ring and join the struggle for who would be the next leader of Russia.

There are idiots who still believe that communism was a good idea, in theory, only badly executed by evil leaders. People still cling to the idea that socialism is some happy lollipop land where poverty will be eradicated, and the world will all hold hands as one. People who believe in socialism do not understand human nature, pure and simple. It's not that the people running the show were bad - it's that the system ITSELF IS BAD.

Dear idiots: maybe you just prefer to live in a world where Utopia is possible, and the streams will run with bubbly champagne, and a unicorn will graze in your backyard, and there will be food and hope and sunshine and rainbows! Okay - fine - I get fantasies. Believe me, I understand fantasies. Sometimes I fantasize that Cary Grant has come back to life and takes me dancing at Coconut Grove. But just GET that you are choosing to live in a FANTASY WORLD and not the REAL world and do not be surprised when I, and many many others like me, refuse to take you seriously.

Obviously I feel strongly about this. Millions and millions died under the Soviet system - and certain people STILL hold onto the fact that socialism was a good idea, in theory. It makes my blood boil.

Even if you're a history buff and you know the story of the events of the late 1980s, early 1990s - pick this book up.

I'm going to excerpt a bit of the section on Chernobyl. Chernobyl is, of course, the biggest and most horrible example of a Revolt of the Machines in Soviet Union history. The cracks it revealed in the monolithic edifice of the Communist Party ... unprecedented. The damage control attempted by the Party made things worse. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark and now everybody knew.

Here's the excerpt.

From Down with Big Brother : The Fall of the Soviet Empire by Michael Dobbs

Nuclear accidents can occur anywhere, but Chernobyl was a uniquely Soviet catastrophe. It was the almost inevitable consequence of the rapacious attitude toward nature that was an inherent part of the Soviet system of economic development. In the revolutionary mind-set, nature was subordinate to man. "We cannot wait for favors from nature," Soviet propagandists liked to proclaim. "Our task is to take them from her." In the end nature was bound to take its revenge, one way or another.

"The Russian soil was able to support the Communists for fifty years. It can't put up with them much longer," said Adam Michnik, one of the intellectual forces behind the Polish Solidarity movement, referring to Chernobyl and a host of other man-made disasters. "In Poland, in August 1980, it was human beings who went on strike. In the Soviet Union we are witnessing a strike of inanimate objects."

In the immediate aftermath of Chernobyl, the government blamed the disaster on Bryukhanov, Dyatlov, and their subordinates. It was true that they had ignored safety rules and made serious errors of judgment. The investigation showed that the operators had switched off the emergency cooling system to Reactor No. 4 so that it would not interfere with the turbine experiment. They had failed to observe proper shutdown procedures. At a secret trial in July 1987 both Dyatlov and Bryukhanov were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for "violations of discipline." Four other operators received prison sentences ranging from two to ten years. The prosecution described the defendants as "nuclear hooligans".

By producing a few scapegoats, the court neatly absolved everybody else of responsibility. The verdict deflected attention away from a series of major design flaws in the Chernobyl type of reactor, such as the lack of a containment structure to prevent leaks of radioactivitiy. It turned out that such reactors were chronically unstable at low levels of power, but no one had bothered to inform the operators about this defect. The operators were also unaware that under certain circumstances, the emergency shutdown mechanism could trigger a fatal surge of power. This is precisely what happened at Chernobyl. To have admitted all this at the time would have rarised questions about the whole future of the nuclear power industry. It was much easier to blame "operator error".

The real villain of Chernobyl was not the operators or even the designers of the flawed reactor, but the Soviet system itself. It was a system that valued conformity over individual responsibility, concerned with today rather than tomorrow, a system that treated both man and nautre as "factors of produciton" that could be mercilessly exploited. Eventually something had to break.

The violation of safety procedures was the norm, rather than the exception, in Soviet factories. So too was the obsession with secrecy that deprived the operators of the Chernobyl plant of basic information about the design of the reactor and previous nuclear accidents. But perhaps the gravest shortcoming of the system was the way it suppressed the notion of individual responsibility. The physical bravery displayed by many of the sic hundred thousand "liquidators" who took part in the Chernobyl cleanup efforts - beginning with the operators themselves and the firemen who fought the blaze on the roof of the turbine hall -- was remarkable. Equally remarkable was the moral cowardice that caused otherwise decent individuals to go along with senseless and reprehensible decisions, including a fatal delay in the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from heavily contaminated areas. When the Ukrainian Communist Party chief insisted that May Day parades go ahead in Kiev despite the fact that radioactive winds were blowing in the direction of the capital, hardly anyone stood up to protest.

The moral failing was eventually recognized by one of the leaders of the Soviet nuclear industry, academician Valery Legasov, who committed suicide on the second anniversary of the disaster. Shortly before his death he gave an interview in which he complained that technology had been permitted to outpace morality. He explained that the previous generation of Soviet scientists -- men like Sakharov, Kurchatov, and Kapitsa -- had stood "on the shoulders of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky". They had been educated in the spirit of beautiful literature, great art, and a "correct moral sense". But somewhere along the line the connection with Russia's prerevolutionary traditions had been broken. "Soviet man" was technically developed but morally stunted.

"We will not cope with anything if we do not renew our moral attitude to work," Legasov concluded.

The Soviet system made a catastrophe like Chernobyl unavoidable. It then compounded the tragedy by an insistence on secrecy so absurd that it was ultimately self-defeating. The attempted cover-up was all the more grotesque because it came when the rest of the world was in the throes of an information revolution that rapidly revealed the magnitude of the disaster.

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December 5, 2005

The Arbat

I just finished the novel Children of the Arbat, given to me by my friend John - I am so grateful!! He knew I HAD to read it (even though I had never heard of it before) because of my whole Stalin interest (here's one of the many posts I wrote about him) - and he told me that the book, although fiction, contains one of the best psychological portraits of Josef Stalin he had ever read. Shivers! Stalin makes my blood run cold. I've read all the biographies out there (okay, not all - but most of the main ones) - and he's a tough study. He really is. I DEVOURED Children of the Arbat and will be doing a large post about it at some point in my life - just not now, because I don't have the time. It's such a big subject.

The book takes place in the Arbat - a neighborhood in Moscow with a long long history. (I suppose most everything in Russia has a long long history!) I also found some pictures of it online - it looks absolutely adorable. You do get a sense, from the novel, of the quaintness of this community, the artistic life of the Arbat, the jazz clubs, the theatres - The novel follows a group of kids who grew up together in the Arbat, and we see what happens to them as the Revolution begins to eat its young.

The novel ends with the murder of Kirov.

You just SHIVER with dread - knowing the terror that is ahead for all of these people. Man. Great feckin' book - and I do want to do it justice - a big long post about it, with excerpts - the Stalin sections (he is a character in the book - as is Kirov and many other names that anyone who has studied Russian history will recognize - Yagoda, Bukharin ... )

Here are a couple of the pictures I found. The first one is especially evocative, I think. At least for me. It looks like a place I would love to visit.

arbat.jpg


arbat2.bmp

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October 5, 2005

Lenin's fungi

Quote:

Time has been unkind to Lenin, whose remains here in Red Square are said to sprout occasional fungi, and whose ideology and party long ago fell to ruins. Now the inevitable question has returned. Should his body be moved?

Ew. Fungi?

But it's an interesting article about the controversy, with some very good quotes.

"Our country has been shaken by strife, but only a few people were held accountable for that in our lifetime," said the aide, Georgi Poltavchenko. "I do not think it is fair that those who initiated the strife remain in the center of our state near the Kremlin."

Uhm, ya think?

Mr. Putin said in 2001 that he did not want to upset the civic order by moving the founder's remains. "Many people in this country associate their lives with the name of Lenin," he said. "To take Lenin out and bury him would say to them that they have worshiped false values, that their lives were lived in vain."

If the shoe fits ...

Sometimes it's the most healing thing in the world to actually admit you have worshiped a "false value", and to make a clean break with the past. We've all done it. Perhaps not to the extent that we worshiped a despot, or a tyrant ... but we've all put our values in the wrong places from time to time. Is it best to deny this, not admit the mistake, and keep the trappings of that "false value" all around you? Or is it better to just say, "You know what? We fucked up. Let's start anew."

Besides, he's sprouting fungi in the middle of Red Square and that is just disgusting.

(via Ann Althouse)

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August 5, 2005

The Russian Ark

I'm reading Children of the Arbat right now. I can't speak about it yet. Just going to have to (in true Sheila fashion) post a billion excerpts to show my interest in it. It's about Stalin. That man appears in my nightmares.

This morning I read a couple of chapters that made me dizzyingly sad. Like, I sat in my chair (the sun hadn't even come up yet) - and I had to put the book down for a while.

It made me flash on the movie The Russian Ark for a moment - which I saw a couple years ago. I blogged about it then so I had to go back and dig up that old post to see my thoughts about it. I find the post incredibly sad.

For those of you who have not heard about this film, it was filmed entirely in the hermitage in St. Petersburg, and it is a panoramic look at Russian history ... (a big deal for the nation, whose leaders so often want to erase the past). But the most fascinating thing about this movie is:

The entire 90 minutes of it is ONE TAKE.

People drool with praise over Martin Scorsese's 15 minute takes, or Robert Altman's unbelievably long take at the beginning of "The Player" -- and don't get me wrong ... they are masterful. It's so fun to try to imagine how they pulled it off. But "The Russian Ark", moving through the different rooms of the Hermitage is one long uninterrupted take. I was very very excited to see it, to see how it flowed, and also: to imagine HOW did they pull it off???

(Here's an awesome website dedicated to the film. Here's the page with pictures of the day of shooting.)

The film meanders at times ... but that's all right ... it's part of the whole experience. Sometimes history meanders. Sometimes you can't see things clearly. Sometimes you are peeking through a tiny window into a dark space, and sometimes you are in a sweeping ballroom.

I heard people scoffing at the "gimmick" of it, and I just have to roll my eyes.

YES. It is a "gimmick". But ... is it any less interesting because it is a "gimmick"? Does it feel GOOD to put yourself so above everything? To be so "over" everything? Does it give you pleasure to take a "been there done that" attitude towards everything? Well, knock yourself out, but I prefer to be enthusiastic, curious, and capable of being touched by things. And yeah. I feel like my way is the better way.

The Children of the Arbat put me on the edge today.

Here's my old post which describes the "gimmick" (grrrrrrrr) of The Russian Ark. In a strange way, it's one of the saddest movies I've ever seen. But ... why? I think it's from the one flashing look that crosses the man's face at the end of the movie, when he chooses to stay at the ball, and not move on (to the next stage of Russian history). It's a horrible look. Horrible.

The Russian Ark

There was a narrator - who was just a voice throughout, asking questions, and it was set up that we, the audience, assume that the voice belongs to the man who is holding the camera. Of course he isn't - because the camera-work is not hand-held or shaky - it is a long slow inevitable roll ... but all along our journey through the Hermitage, we hear the soft voice of the narrator - asking questions, saying, "Oh, look over there", etc. Very benign voice. The narrator is a tourist through Russian history.

The narrator has a companion who acts as a kind of guide - He was sort of jolly, and vague, with a shock of white hair. He doesn't say much, but just strolls thru the whole movie, taking us in and out of scenes, telling us where to look ... He was our Homeric guide. Kind of a jester-type, with a flowing funny black coat, and his messy white hair. A friendly weather-worn face, and twinkley eyes.

Just to make clear what an accomplishment this film is: there are over 3,000 people who appear in it. Over 3,000 people had to be organized in the Hermitage, throughout all the different rooms, waiting for their turn ... It just takes one's breath away. The camera moves from room to room in the St. Petersburg hermitage -- strolling through different scenes of Russian history ... Not a lot of dialogue. Sometimes you just get glimpses, or hear snippets of a conversation ... It's not a literal film. We don't really 'get into it' with any one of the specific characters. The camera doesn't dwell. It scans the landscape ... we see this, we see that, we move on ... At times the camera follows people down teeny dark spiral staircases... then a character will open a door into a massive art gallery, or a spectacular ballroom, and suddenly you see thousands of people from czarist Russia all doing the mazurka ...

Because the entire film is done in one take, then that means that those thousands of people have been waiting in that room, in costume, on hold - waiting for the rest of the movie to take place, so that then they can come to life - whenever the doors open.

The camera, on its way through the building, will peek through windows, into a dark interior room, 5 or so people inside, something intense happening. We spy on them for a couple of minutes, and then we move on.

All the time with uninterrupted takes.

I am in awe. Martin Scorsese, famously in "Good Fellas", did that entire scene at the nightclub in one uninterrupted take: Ray Liotta entering through the back, strolling through a hallway, entering the kitchen ... As an actor, I am in love with the thought of LIFE going on whether or not the camera is pointed at you. That is one of the marks of great film acting: if you get a palpable sensation that you are only watching a sliver of life. Think of the great film performances. I'm thinking of Travis Bickle right now, but that's just an example. That 2-hour long movie was just a snippet of the stories that could be told about this man. If only you could peek outside the frames, if only you could stay in this room for one second longer ... you'd see all kinds of amazing things.

"The Russian Ark" felt like a dream, one of those dreams where doors keep opening, or you are walking through a house that you thought was familiar to you, but suddenly you discover another wing, another room.

I want to know how the HELL they filmed this movie. I want the coffee table book. Were there Production Assistants running ahead to the people in the next room, informing them: "Okay, the camera is on its way ...Take your positions please!" Were walkie talkies involved? How did they do it?? And what was it like for the many many many people in the last scene ... who had to wait over an hour for the camera to arrive? The last scene was a ball, with a full orchestra playing... czars and czarinas and nobility, in incredible costumes, dancing, and laughing and talking ... There were probably 800 people people in that scene alone.

There were times when my experience, as an audience member, was primarily about; "How the HELL did they do this??" I couldn't get over it. But then there were times that I completely forgot about the one-take, and got wrapped up in the events on the screen.

It certainly helped that I know a bit of Russian history, but it's not necessary to have that in order to get into the film. The film does a pretty good job of letting you know who is who. Oh, there's Catherine the Great, etc. However, if you do have a bit of context, then you will have eerie moments of recognition. Encountering characters who you feel you know, as if these historical people were personal friends (or enemies, as the case may be). (Here is the cast of characters.)

At one point, the camera enters this long spectacular green-walled hallway. In the hallway there are 4 vivacious young girls, so beautiful in a child-like way that you want to cry. They all have long ringlets, with flowers woven into their hair, they are wearing diaphonous dresses, and ballet slippers. They are heart-achingly beautiful, and they are in a riotous mood, running as quickly as they can down the endless hallway, batting themselves back and forth, from wall to wall, laughing hysterically, their hair streaming behind them. They look like mermaids, especially in that underwater-light of green. And nothing was said at first ... you just see the scene unfold. Everything bathed in a greenish light because of the walls, and there were four rambunctious young fairies catapulting riotously down the hallway. And I knew who they were as well as if they were from my own family. I knew immediately, the second I saw them. My heart tugged up out of my chest at the sight of them, their youth, their beauty, their innocence ...They have no idea how horrible their end will be. And then a nurse-maid, or a nun, in another room, says, "Anastasia, what are you doing?" or something like that. That name ... again, in the context of this film, this non-literal film ... comes across as an incantation of some kind. Or a symbol. Even just being able to speak that name is an important political act. Healing, maybe. I don't know. That was one of the things I felt when I heard her name come floating out of the next room ...

The movie works on another level, what I would call a subterranean level.

Ted and I were so stirred up by the whole thing that we had to go out afterwards and drink wine and talk like maniacs.

The Russians are trying to reclaim their long history, after decades of totalitarian silence. They are building an Ark. So the question is: What should go in the Ark? What will survive? What should survive? What already HAS survived? History did not begin in 1917. NOTHING has been wiped out.

That is why I believe this is a great and an important film, and the whole rolling-eyes "Oh, yeah, the one-take gimmick" crowd have missed the point. This is a film of reclamation for an entire country.

I kept waiting for Stalin to appear. But he did not. It seemed deliberate.

So I guess he does not get to go on the Ark.

This was fascinating to me. And also tragic, in a piercing way. Why tragic? Well, here's how I took it: He wasn't in the film at all, nobody spoke his name, he is unmentionable, and yet, for me, he hovered over the whole thing. All of these ancient events, the camera moving inexorably from room to room... I thought every time a door opened, he would be standing there. Like a Demon of Death, the guy waiting at the end of the corridor. The End of History. The four little green-lit fairy girls, running and laughing ... Somehow, in my subterranean experience, I thought they would go careening around a corner and bump into him, with the twinkley eyes, the big mustache, the solid head ... Terrifying.

But no. He was noticeably absent, and this - to me - was the saddest of all. Because of the terror he wrought. Because of the damage he did. In the context of the film, it seems to me that the wounds are still too raw. Or maybe there's something else going on. That the Russian people (the people this film is really FOR) need to see him as somehow outside of their history (he was from Georgia, after all), he has nothing to do with them, he was not one of them at all.

I can't explain why it made me so so sad, but it did. I almost WANTED to see him ... just so I could deal with my anger, so I could have a catharsis of rage towards that man ... that man subliminally waiting at the end of every Russian corridor, that man just around the corner ... I wanted to see his face. So that I could ... what ... hiss? Boo? All I know is I hungered to see him. I needed a focus to put my hatred.

But he never showed up. Why am I crying? The movie was all about healing. And reclamation of history. But he is still too big to "claim". It can't be healed. What he did.

The last scene of the film is the czarist ball, with the full orchestra, all of these people having the time of their lives. The scene went on and on and on, and was absolutely delicious. The camera swooped around the dancers, entering the dance floor, following the couples dancing, moving along the spectators, then sweeping up to get an overview of the orchestra ... The scene had no beginning, middle, or end. It was just life. That's all. Life captured on celluloid.

It was life in St. Petersburg right before the Revolution. Because the film was in one take, you could feel that the experience was coming to an end ... there was an internal time-clock to the whole thing ... and, like I said, I kept having this expectation that there had to be one scene after the ball - at least one scene. The ball would end, all the rich people with their jewels and silks and laughing faces would scurry away into the corridors, into the darkness ... and then we would see ... what? Lenin? Trotsky? Bolsheviks tramping their muddy boots through the marbled halls, ripping stuff off the walls? I didn't know ... but I expected that very soon the ball would end, and we would then be full on in 'what came after'. "What came after" hung over the scene of the ball like a polluted cloud.

But my expectation was not to be ... the ball-scene went on and on and on ... I didn't time it, but it was very long, and the very length of it became a quiet agony to me.

I could sense we were nearing the end of the journey. And everyone kept laughing, and talking, and living their lives ... while revolution was stirring unseen outside. I got an intense sensation of watching a world which was just about to die. And the people in the scene, the hundreds and hundreds of them, had no idea how close the end was. I wanted to jump into the movie screen and send warnings, tell them all to get out, run while they still had the chance ...

The orchestra finishes the song, and the crowd gives an extended ovation. The clapping and cheering goes on and on and on. There were smiles on every face. The conductor (a famous conductor in real life) continued to bow, gracious, smiling. It seemed that the masses would never stop applauding.

A happy scene, yes? But as it kept going, as they kept clapping, suddenly, out of nowhere, I got this massive lump in my throat. I suddenly wanted to cry. It was more of a physical response, than a purely emotional one. it literally felt like my heart rose up into my throat. And I didn't know why ... but of course, on some level, I did know why.

In the middle of the scene, the "guide" (guy with flowing black coat and messy white hair) suddenly turned and looked directly at the camera. No words. It was just a look. Behind him swooped the laughing dancing bejewlled crowds. And the look on his face - it was piercing, it pierced my heart - all the sadness of the ages was in his face. It was so incongrous, in that glamorous setting. The narrator, still unseen, suddenly says, in a confused voice, "I'm sad."

The narrator says then: "So where to now? Should we move forward?" (He means forward in time.)

A look flashes across the companion's face again. What was the look? I would say: I saw fear. And grief. Or maybe it was just terror I saw, and since I know the end of the story projected grief onto his face. I have no idea. I think what it really was - was terror. Of going "forward". And all he said was: "Forward?" He didn't want to move forward. We all know what happened next.

And the companion does not want to go. "I don't want to go forward. I think I will stay here."

But the sadness I saw ... "sadness" is a tepid word to describe what I saw on that man's face.

I am not Russian. I do not have the Russian history behind me as a cultural memory. Their memories, as a people, are not mine. But that doesn't matter.

In that moment, that moment of terror and grief on his face, I "got" what has happened to Russia. I felt it. As opposed to just understanding it from books.

I can't get that man's expression out of my mind.

Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (14)

July 31, 2005

The mystery of Stalin

One of the ongoing passions or interests I have in my life is the mystery of Stalin. I wrote about it here at rambling length. (And I highly recommend reading all of those comments ... they are amazing.)

In the comments section to that post, my blog-buddy John (who's got a pretty fascinating blog over there, by the way) had some incredible insights into the whole Stalin thing, and why he is such a mystery - an aberration, if you will. A glitch in the human experiment. There are many "glitches", people who are born lacking certain things (like compassion, or a conscience) - but very very few achieve such a degree of power as Stalin did. Most people lacking compassion end up fucking up ... their egos get in the way, they are serial killers who grow sloppy, who need to be congratulated or recognized ... and so they end up leaving a trail of clues which lead to the electric chair. Stalin didn't get sloppy. Ever. He covered his tracks. A Soviet official who knew Stalin (and somehow escaped the purges) said that Stalin had a deadly (and rare) combination of attributes (if you want to call them that): patience and capriciousness. Jesus. Obviously, a serial killer (I'm using that as the most obvious example of a human being lacking compassion or restraint) very often has capriciousness but has no patience. Their lack of patience gives them away. There was a stealth about Stalin, a calculating mind at work. He did not appear to suffer from psychosis, or any kind of mental problems - he is not diagnos-able. It's terrifying. He knew what he wanted, he actually SAID what he wanted ... it's just that nobody believed him. Robert Conquest, in his masterpiece The Great Terror says over and over, "His comrades did not understand Stalin yet." This puts a chill through my bones.

John's comment to that old post of mine deserves to be brought to the forefront now, so I hope he doesn't mind ... Here it is (oh, and the reference to "s"s is self-explanatory to anyone who has read me for a while. John has been particularly sympathetic to one of my phobias. If you want to know what an "s" is, think about "Charlotte", and you should get it. I do not allow that word on my blog):

I think, Sheila that monsters undergo a process of self-discovery just as the rest of us do throughout life, and that gives lie to the simplistic explanations put forth by historians for the root causes of monstrosity. Stalin started out as a little git, suspected of betraying his companions in Baku to the Tsarist Okhrana. At least some of his proclivities to purging probably sprang from his guilt over this betrayal. Once he discovered a means to getting rid of the Old Bolsheviks with memories of those rumors, he became bolder and more depraved. But was he sociopathic to start with? Certainly, at least to some degree.

One facet of his character was humorlessness. I once translated an article written by one of Stalin’s assistants. He mentioned that Stalin only told one joke in his presence over years of service. Stalin came out of his office, looked at a high ranking party functionary, and said “you know, my Grandmother had a goat that looked just like you”. “Goat” is a mild insult in Russian. One joke over almost a decade, and it was demeaning. Says a lot, doesn’t it? This same article also mentioned Stalin’s quest to dress up his purges in ideological terms, while the assistant noted that everyone in the Party hierarchy knew it was the struggle of “ ‘s’ in a jar”. That turn of phrase stuck with me. Stalin as the biggest, baddest ‘s’. Fitting (especially, to you, I’d imagine).

Stalin was lazy, certainly, but he put his efforts where they counted most. When Trotsky, Lenin and the rest were studying Western languages in exile, he studied Russian to get rid of his accent. Lazy, yes, but calculated. He knew that his thick Georgian accent would not be welcomed in a leader by the Russian peasants. I’ve heard recordings of him, and his accent was there, but not bad, certainly better than most Georgians. (Writing that, I had aural hallucinations of Jimmy Carter speaking Russian with a twang, but I digress…;-)

I think it was von Moltke who wrote about recruiting officers to the German General staff who had a certain kind of indolence, but who had energy when the circumstances called for it. Otherwise, the overly ambitious worry their staffs and soldiers to death. A good commander knows when to leave well enough alone. A lot of creative types and scientists have this personality trait as well. A scientist sits and mulls over the literature, observations in the lab, and it looks to an outsider as if the researcher is doing nothing. Then, suddenly an idea hits and you’ve got a fiend on your hands working 120 hour weeks until the experiments are done. Then quiet for a week, then repeat experiments (more slowly and carefully), and then the writing process begins.

I think Stalin had that kind of indolence. A cat’s indolence, sleeping 80% of the day, then springing, claws out, onto his prey.

I’m fascinated by Stalin’s political evil. Who knows how much was natural and how much was learned? The best psychological portrait I’ve ever seen of Stalin was in Anatoly Rybakov’s novel “Children of the Arbat”.

As for the henchmen, I see a lot of parallels with the secular fanatics of today (including the humorlessness). Many of these people are looking for something higher than themselves to devote their lives to, and lacking faith in God, they transfer their devotion to a cause. Once the devotion is transferred, the cause can not be questioned, or it calls into question the self-worth and morality of the questioner. So many in the upper circle (lower functionaries were more likely to be defiant at trial) accepted their fate without argument because it was the Party judging them, and the Party is always right (that's not my analysis, rather it's that of Conquest and Roy Medvedev). A few fought back, mostly the soldiers in the Red Army, men of action, rather than ideologues.

Now that is some great stuff.

He added, in another comment:

I saw a play based on "Children of the Arbat" in a little town in southern Russia. The dude who played Stalin was a "national artist", the highest rank in Soviet arts. (Can you imagine being ranked as an artist just as if you were in the Army?) His performance was spine chillingly correct in every detail.

A great coda to all of this:

A couple weeks ago, I met John in the sweltering morning of an awful heat-wave in New York City ... It was DREADFUL weather. He had a copy of "Children of the Arbat" that he wanted to give me. I didn't bring it on my vacation because, frankly, I needed to chill out, and plumbing the depths of the monster that is Stalin is not really lite-fare ... but I can't wait to dig into it.

He and I met on a street corner in the garment district, so that we could do the pass-off of books. We were both DRENCHED in sweat. The garment district is feckin' nasty, anyway ... and the weather was abominable. You breathed the dirty garbage-scented air in and felt pollution fill your very soul. But there was John, coming towards me, grinning as though we were in air-conditioning. I only had a couple minutes to spare, as did he ... and what did we do? Standing there on the sidewalk? We talked about Stalin. hahahaha I LOVE BLOGGING. We got right into it, in the 15 minutes we had available. Gorgeous. I can't talk to many people about Stalin.

I met John once before, a while back ... but again: with blogging ... it's like we talk every day because I read him every day, and we comment on each other's blogs ... It's a beautiful thing, the Internet, ain't it? There are a ton of people on my blog-roll I feel that way about (and also - people who don't have blogs, and who read my blog ... mustn't leave them out!! People like: ricki, Jay - I love Jay!!!! - susie (although she might have a blog), DBW ... the list goes on and on). Like, it's strange to me that I haven't actually met RTG or Anne or Big Dan or Michele or Val or Jimbo or Tassy ( er- her live journal is rarely work safe - just a heads up. And Jimbo: I can't help it ... I always think of the two of you as a pair! You're how I found her) or Serenity .... There are a million more. Also: is it true that I only have met Emily twice???? That CAN'T BE RIGHT!! Same with CW. I met the dude only once? You gotta be kiddin' me, right?

This is a tangent - all coming out of two things: 1. meeting Dan this past week and having such a nice time with someone I had never met - beautiful!! and 2. out of the beautiful (to me) image of John and I - sweltering on a sidewalk in the garment district - discussing Children of the Arbat and the mystery of Stalin. Surrounded by concrete and orthodox Jews and rolling carts of clothing. The beauty of blogging.

All of this (this post, I mean) is because this morning I read the following quote, and of course - it set off a stream of assocations in my brain:

"Pity the biographer who takes on Josef Stalin. The challenges lie somewhere between daunting and impossible. Stalin took great pains to cover up the facts of his childhood and youth. Aided by state hagiographers, he revised the events of his life multiple times, making it nearly impossible to determine what role he played in the crucial events of the October Revolution and civil war. Airbrushing by state hagiographers added extra layers of obfuscation. Inconvenient witnesses tended to disappear. Secretive, introverted, and paranoid, Stalin made an art of concealing his motives and his methods."

- William Grimes

It seems to me that Grimes' comment is pretty accurate. Sometimes fiction (or theatre, I might add) is FAR more qualified to get at the heart of things than an actual biography, or history. History has to stick to the facts, the things that are visible. Fiction can plumb the depths of psychology (think of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. In my opinion, if you have a question about the criminal mind that is not answered in Crime and Punishment, then it is not a question worth asking.)

Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (5)

March 2, 2005

I wish I had a Trotsky

I wish I had a person out there I could blame everything on. I wish I believed in an omnipresent Trotsky force who worked on me in a subliminal way, making me do all the awful things I do. I wish I had a scapegoat. Wouldn't it be so much easier to justify your bullshit miserable existence if you had a scapegoat like Trotsky? Because then you never have to look within, you never have to ask: "Is what I am doing the right thing?", you never have to question your own motives, you never have to question your behavior.

Point the finger. Trotsky did it!

Trotsky ended up being almost like Stalin's imaginary friend. You know, that imaginary friend some of us had as kids, the ones you could blame stuff on. "I didn't spill my milk! My imaginary friend did it!" In Stalin's view (and who am I to speak - I'm not a Stalin expert - I'm just giving my impression here): Trotsky could be everywhere at the same time. Trotsky's tentacles reached far and wide. He was omnipotent, omnipresent ... he directed counter-revolutionary forces from afar. If he actually had been responsible for everything he was blamed for, he honestly would have to be the greatest most powerful Superhero ever invented. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound. He could turn manure into gold with a wave of his hand. He could THINK something, and someone thousands of miles away in the outer reaches of Siberia could FEEL it, could FEEL Trotsky's thoughts, and then proceed to blow up coal mines in a traitorous frenzy. Trotsky could orchestrate plots and sabotage from hiding places all over Europe, from exile. TROTSKY IS EVERYWHERE. He is the shared bogeyman.

Again, some of the stuff I'm reading would actually be funny (the "blame my invisible friend" theory came to me this morning) - if the consequences of it all hadn't been so evil.

Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (20)

February 25, 2005

"Grokking" Stalin and the murder of Kirov

Update: I just realized that my description of 3 a.m. anxiety may obscure the rest of the post, which would be unfortunate. So if you want to skip over that part to get to the Stalin stuff, feel free. You know me ... I always have to set up everything in some sort of emotional context.

Okay, so onward:

Yesterday the term "grokking" was explained to me, in detail, here on this blog. Beautifully done. Here are some of the definitions provided for me by readers:

"Grok" basically means "to understand," although the term is intended to be somewhat more imprecise than "to understand." If you have a feeling for a concept, if it makes intuitive sense to you, even if you might not necessarily be able to articulate your understanding, then you grok it.

Another one:

To grok is to understand something beyond the strictures of language, to see that something truly and in its entirety.

Astronomical distances might be a good example. We all understand that space is big, you might think it's a long way to the chemist, but that's just peanuts... (sorry)

As I was saying, we understand space is big. But when you really think about, truly comprehend those distances and it takes your breath away, you've grokked it.

Hmmm. Fascinating. And here's more:

Grok technically means the sharing of water. You'll want to remember that Mars, where it originates, is a desert planet; water-sharing is deep sharing, against odds. So to grok something is more or less to really, really get it. Like walking a mile in the same shoes.

I think I grok grokking now.

I had a terrible time getting to sleep last night. Tossing, turning, snow blowing against my window, I could hear it, and the wind ... and my mind was restless and uneasy. I hate that. No matter how tired I was, I couldn't slow my mind down, and I kept thinking of things I needed to get done, things I had left undone, and then finally ... at around 3 a.m., it got all existential and huge, like: I HAVE MADE NOTHING OF MY LIFE.

I don't know if any of you guys out there torture yourselves like this, and I really try not to, but sometimes, at 3 a.m. (the "wee smas" as the old Scottish saying goes) these thoughts come. Now I can recognize the signs. I start to toss, and turn, going over: "okay, I need to get that done ... I need to get THAT done ..." (usually trivial things, like pay bills, whatever). Then it starts to magnify: "Okay, I need to accomplish THIS by this time next year ... and I need to accomplish THAT by the time I'm 40..." which very quickly devolves into: "I have made nothing of my life. I suck."

So what does one do when these horrible thoughts come? You can do what I did last night. Get up, turn on the light, have a glass of water, wash your face, curl up in your chair, and read a couple chapters of Robert Conquest's The Great Terror. Sure. Makes total sense. You want to calm down, relax enough to get to sleep? Immerse yourself in the horror of the Soviet Union in the 1930s.

I have read two of Conquest's other books (on the famine in the Ukraine, and then his small biography of Stalin, can't remember the name) - and always held off on this one, even though I was drawn to it. It seemed like a huge commitment. This is not the first book I have read on this topic. As a matter of fact, it's been one of my raving interests since I first learned about the "Soviet Union". Maybe it all started from reading 1984 in high school. But also, I grew up in the 1970s, 1980s ... when the Soviet Union was still the bogeyman. Totalitarian regimes, state-sponsored horror, atomized societies, show trials, made-up "confessions" ... I have an entire bookcase in my apartment filled with book after book on these topics. It's not just the history that fascinates me, although that's a huge part of it. It's something else. Something deeper. The human element, I suppose. What happens to human beings when they live under such regimes ... and also ... how does it even happen in the first place? The beginnings of the horror in Cambodia, the beginnings of the horror in Russia, etc. Where are the seeds of this stuff? That's the hook, for me.

Remember in 1984 - when he gets a hold of the secret book? That explains how the regime works? And what terrified me to my core in high school when I first read it ... and what is reflected to me, again, in Robert Conquest's book ... is that underneath all of the nice this-will-make-society-better rhetoric (which people in the West were fooled by and still are fooled by) is a naked hunger for personal power. The secret book in 1984 says something like: "and this is the greatest secret of all. This is what no one will admit to. Everything else (all the theories and pontificating) is just a smokescreen for what is the real point of this whole thing: One human being who will be the will of the state. That is the point."

People continue to apologize for all of this, make excuses, they say that Stalin was a bad example of Communism, that true socialism still hasn't been seen on the earth yet, and that the one bad example of Stalin shouldn't spoil the theory. I think this is a disgusting attitude. I think that what we saw in the USSR was communism, in all its unbridled unmasked awfulness. Theory schmeory - what happened there is not to be written off as "a mistake" or "Stalin's fault, not the fault of communism." There is no excuse for it. What we saw was not the result of one man's excess. It was the natural result of the theory behind Communism. Orwell goes a bit farther in 1984 and says that the leaders, the proponents of communism and socialism, knew this all along. I find this a very compelling theory, and one that makes a lot of sense, historically. If you only want to look at this stuff abstractly, as theories, fine. Be my guest. Live in a utopia. But if you look at the record, I honestly do not know how you can maintain the fiction that communism is good, socialism is still possible, and Stalin just happened to be a bad seed.

Orwell says (in the secret book in 1984), and Conquest says: The theory of Communism is actually this: "Power needs to be in the hands of the very very few. Fool the people into thinking it will be about them, that this revolution is for them, and keep it a state secret what we really want ... but the point is to hold onto power." The secret was to never let on that that was what they were doing, to keep up the fiction, to maintain the pose that this was for "the workers", etc, when all along, it was NEVER for the workers.

All of this lying and self-deception is conscious, as well. That's the point of the secret book in 1984. What I just described above was a CONSCIOUS deception. To me, the 'secret book' section is one of the most frightening parts of 1984. Perhaps because it gets a little bit closer to describing the heart of that darkness. The darkness at the heart of man. The seeds of evil. You can believe the theorists if you want. You can believe that communism is great, and Stalin was just a bad example. I choose to not delude myself.

One of my favorite novels is called Hopeful Monsters, and it's by Nicholas Mosley. One of the lead characters is a little girl, half-German half-Jewish, growing up in Berlin following World War I. Her father is German, a scientist, but he sees what is happening and he does not like it. He watches the growth of the Nazis with disgust. At one point he says to his daughter, "The thing is - at this point, the Nazis are the only ones who are saying what they will do if they win. It's just that nobody believes them yet." His daughter says, "What will they do if they win?" Her father answers, "Kill everyone who isn't like them."

Conquest says over and over and over again, in his book, about the people around Stalin (the ones hoping that THIS purge will be the last, that NOW they can start to live a normal life, that NOW the repression can be relaxed): "They did not understand Stalin yet." That's the big word he uses: His comrades, in the early 30s, didn't yet "understand" Stalin. A chilling chilling word, in this context. (Maybe a better word is "grok". By the time you really "grokked" Stalin, it would be WAY too late.)

The blatant-ness of his message ... the lack of secretiveness about it ... the open feeling that one is entitled to kill the millions who get in your way, and the millions who MIGHT get in your way ... with no regard to public opinion ... It takes the breath away.

And so Conquest says over and over again, "They did not understand Stalin yet."

It's because the human mind balks at understanding a man capable of such horror. You CAN'T believe he means what he says. But Stalin was saying all along what he meant, and what he wanted. It's just that nobody believed him.

AS I am reading the thing, I am shaking my head in awe. It's kind of similar to my response when I first read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The book is so dense, so researched ... and all I can imagine is the literal MOUNDS of paper the author had to sift through. And somehow make sense of, somehow put it together: Okay, so THIS random memo was really sinister ... because it then led to THIS report ... It also is amazing to me that these regimes kept such immaculate records. Immaculate records of their evil.

What BALLS. Why? Was it such an insane looking-glass atmosphere that they were somehow PROUD of this horror and thought the rest of the world would look on it, in retrospect, with admiration? Or just that it takes enormous human organization to atomize and terrorize and crush an entire society, and therefore there will necessarily be a massive paper trail?

Conquest, in the first version of the book, had to deal with the fact that there were huge gaps in his knowledge, that a lot of it was guesswork - because the documents proving his conjectures were either destroyed or hidden. With glasnost, the archives opened up - and Conquest (whose last name is feckin' APT, if you ask me) was able to prove all of his theories, and he realized he had actually UNDER-estimated the numbers of those killed in The Great Terror in the original version of the book.

But still. The paper trail amazes me. The fact that these people left such evidence of their depravity behind ... How on earth did they justify that? Is it that in such a world, no air gets in, no breath of reality or morality for that matter can penetrate ... and down equals up, right equals left ... and anything even resembling normal or moderate cannot be heard?

Conquest talks a lot about people lacking certain "restraints" (or "ruth"), and that Stalin surrounded himself with those people. Ruth-less people. People who didn't have the normal human response, ("No, I won't do that") to being asked to do horrible things. Now - this again goes back to that Scott Peck conversation we had. You can blither at me until you're blue in the face about "we all have horrors within us, who knows what you would do in similar circumstances" and that STILL does not explain a horror like Stalin, and the monstrous excuses for human beings surrounding him. It also does NOT explain that there are countless examples of people who did not break, who COULD not break, actually, under the pressure of Stalin's regime. These were people who were, at one time, at least many of them, true believers in socialism, they were a part of the machinery of the state. And yet - there are those who, when push came to shove, had SOME smidgeon of human feeling left, SOME residue of compassion that could not be wiped out. These were the people who refused to confess, even after weeks of torture, people who even on the stand at their own show trial were saying, "This is all a lie...I didn't do anything" ... And then, there were others who had NO restraints, and NO morality - Stalin's henchmen. Were they unloved as itty-bitty babies? Did their mummy not wuv them enough? I don't care. In my mind, there is no logical explanation ... except that there are people who LACK certain things, like morality, like a sense of right and wrong.

Stalin didn't have the restraints that normal people have, the restraints which I would call our birthright, as human beings (animals, yet with consciousness), and so he didn't want the people around him to have restraints either. It would be a reminder.

But ... still ...

There's a mystery at the heart of all of this. I can't quite get to it, though. Perhaps the mystery is: that Stalin was, to some degree, CONSCIOUS of who he was. Maybe to a greater degree than anyone. He said, at the grave of his wife, "With her dies any warm feeling I could have for any other human." (Something like that.) He KNEW he had no feelings for humanity. Other people did not seem real to him. Nothing was real except his lust for power and total control. And he SAID this.

Also - in his choice of henchmen: he was quite careful, quite cunning. He knew the types he could not trust, he knew the types he could. And so, on some level, he had to KNOW that he was "missing" certain things (like a heart, like a moral compass) ... Right? He KNEW he didn't have these things, and so he chose his top men accordingly.

This, to me, is a mystery. I mean, I understand it intellectually, but there's something else going on there. Something we cannot know, because we don't know what was going on in Stalin's head. And maybe it's the MYSTERY that keeps me coming back to this topic. We can theorize, and guess, and psychoanalyze a monster like Stalin ... but still. Still. What terrifies me is how EASILY people succumbed to being controlled (this is the main reason why cults remain a huge fascination for me), and also ... how we never really can know. We can never really know what Stalin FELT. We can only look at what he DID. All we need to know about Stalin can be found in his actions.

But there's that child-like part of me, the voracious part of me that wants to KNOW. I want to get inside Stalin's head, for just an hour or so - so I can look out of his eyes - and see what it's like to have no human feelings. You know? Maybe many of you don't have that curiosity, but I sure as hell do. Always have. What is it LIKE to be Jeffrey Dahmer? What is it LIKE to be Hitler? What was it really like? There has been a part of me that is so fascinated by cults that I have considered joining one - just to see what it was like. But then I'm afraid that I'll get so sucked in that my parents will have to hire some thug to drag me out and lock me up in a Motel 6 for days on end to de-program me. But still. My curiosity about the brain, and how it works, and ... how it can (or cannot) be "programmed" is a never-ending source of fascination.

Robert Conquest's discussions of Stalin are chilling, mainly because of how deeply Conquest understands all of this - the unknowable-ness of many of my questions. Especially with someone as cagey and secretive and elusive as Stalin. Historians make the mistake, over and over again, of coming up with some psychological explanation for how tyrants are made ... ("his mother didn't love him enough", "he was rejected as a painter", "he was a closet homosexual" ... etc.) And while all of these may be interesting components of the personality, certainly not to be ignored ... they do not and can not explain everything. There are tons of people who were "rejected as painters" who didn't end up killing 6 million Jews. If you start with a psychological theory, and then go through the person's life, finding stuff that backs up YOUR theory ... it doesn't wash. At least not for me. I am not saying that it's not interesting or relevant - the background of monsters like Pol Pot or Stalin ... it's just that that's not all there is. That can't be all there is. Plenty of people grew up uneducated, or unloved, or short, or with a small penis. And they don't turn themselves into tyrants with iron fists, ruling over millions.

From where does evil like Stalin's spring?

What motivates a man like Stalin?

Again and again, Conquest reminds us that we ourselves must not under-estimate Stalin. There is no one explanation.

If you go with one theory (he was mediocre, lazy, and ambitious - this was a common view of him) - then that doesn't explain a host of other events, where he was not mediocre or lazy. He could be lazy. Yet he also could move with amazing dispatch, like a cobra striking, and nobody saw the attack coming.

Some Soviet official who knew Stalin said that Stalin had that rarest (and most dangerous) of combinations: patience and capriciousness.

*shivers* Scary stuff. Very scary.

The murder of Kirov was really when Stalin's gloves came off, or when he showed his fangs (to mix a metaphor) - although the signs had been there for some time. Conquest, in the chapter "The Kirov Murder", takes us through it, step by step. The chapter was re-written after glasnost because suddenly he could piece together what really had happened, with the opened archives, etc. archives opened up, etc. Conquest writes very well. There is a feeling of slow inevitability, like a glacier. It cannot be stopped. Stalin cannot be stopped. There is also the fear, reading it in retrospect, because I know the end. Kirov, murdered in 1934, touched off the "purges" - which, all told, killed millions and millions of people. All of them were supposed to be connected, somehow, to Kirov's murder - as though there was a vast country-wide conspiracy of assassins... but meanwhile (and this was the big secret), Stalin was the one who ordered Kirov killed. The murder of Kirov gave Stalin the excuse to bring the terror to another level. He had been waiting for that excuse all along. He NEVER believed in "the people", or the revolution. He believed in power, for himself.

George Orwell describes it perfectly in the secret book within 1984. Evil is not random, or thoughtless. It is cunning, very smart (way smarter than "good" is, sometimes, because good can be naive - Evil never is), and evil can afford to take its time. I find Stalin's patience most frightening. He never forgot or forgave an injury. It could be years before Stalin would get his revenge - but Stalin always got revenge. Always.

I began this long ramble of a post talking about "grokking".

I guess what I really want to say is at some point last night, as the snow piled up against my window, for about two seconds I "grokked" the Great Terror. It was 4 a.m., I couldn't sleep, and reading the chapter about Kirov's murder was a revelation. I know it all intellectually, but what I felt was on another level. I "got it". I had to put the book down. It was too horrendous.

This is only because of the power and clarity of Robert Conquest's writing. I've read 20 books about the Russian Revolution. And 50 books about the USSR. But I don't think I really "grokked" it - until last night - when I read about the planning and executing of the murder of Kirov.

Conquest writes:

This killing [the murder of Kirov] has every right to be called the crime of the century. Over the next four years, hundreds of Soviet citizens, including the most prominent political leaders of the Revolution, were shot for direct responsibility for the assassination, and literally millions of others went to their deaths for complicity in one or another part of the vast conspiracy which allegedly lay behind it. Kirov's death, in fact, was the keystone of the entire edifice of terror and suffering by which Stalin secured his grip on the Soviet peoples.
Posted by sheila Permalink | Comments (30)

January 6, 2004

Ukraine - Part I - The Famine

Somehow, it's all been about Communism today. Along those lines - here are three short pieces I wrote about the Ukraine, on my old blog. Actually, the third piece is a compilation of excerpts from Colin Thubron's wonderful book Among the Russians.

The first piece is on the horrific famine in the Ukraine, engineered by the Soviets in the 1930s. My piece barely scratches the surface at all. Robert Conquest's book The Harvest of Sorrow is the most thorough explanation of exactly how this man-made famine occurred.

But for now:

THE UKRAINE - PART 1 - THE FAMINE

The Ukraine was called "the bread basket" of the Soviet Union. It is a large nation with fertile soil and hospitable people. Basically, it is one large farm. The Ukrainians are very attached to the land. They have a "peasant patriotism", their feelings for their own nation rooted in the rich soil. Ukrainians that emigrate to other areas of the world invariably become very influential and very successful. They are ambitious and resilient.

Until 1917, the Ukraine was one of the world's tapestries of culture, religion, and language. Peoples overlapped here. Then the Bolsheviks conquered the nation. The Ukraine was one of the countries most severely damaged by Communism, the people were some of the most trapped and terrorized: mainly because the Ukraine was the most valuable commodity the Soviets had. The Ukraine fed the entire empire. There was no way on earth that the Ukraine would ever break free of the Soviet Imperium. They had no independence, no freedom of movement, no slack was ever given (like was given to some of the other more remote republics). The Ukraine was crushed like a bug under the thumb of the Imperium.

They declared independence in 1918, directly following being conquered. This was very short-lived, of course. And then the relentless crushing began.

The Great Famine was caused by the collectivization of the farms, a "program" (or a pogrom) implemented across the Soviet Union. Tens and tens of millions (this is not an exaggeration) died as a result of collectivization. And the world did nothing. Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh traveled to Russia in the middle of this great hidden famine. I have her journals from that time, and she writes in glorious positive terms about the "busy" Russians. She loved seeing everybody so "busy", so productive. She had never been in a country which had such industry, such commitment to public works. It's disgusting to read her journals now (at least her journals during World War II), because of 20/20 hindsight. They were willfully lied to. The happy productive Russians were trotted out for their benefit. And 200 miles away, the fields of the Ukraine were piled high with corpses.

In brief: collectivization began in 1929. Lenin was long gone. Trotsky was long gone. Stalin was now king. All of the USSR had to be moved off of their own little farms into kholkozes (collectivized farms). People were herded into barracks, there were armed guards around the peripheries, there were gates outside the collective farms with lovely slogans like: Work is Beautiful. Or whatever. Communist bullshit. The peasants resisted this move. They did not want to go. They hunkered down.

Stalin sent hundreds of thousands of people into the gulag, the massive prison camp structure he erected throughout Siberia, and none of these people were ever heard of again.

The rest of them he decided to starve out. This was a conscious decision. Public policy.

The famine began in 1930 and lasted seven years.

Moscow determined the quotas that each village had to deliver to the state. These quotas were purposefully greater than whatever the land could yield. Authorities confiscated everything that was edible. Schools were closed. Three year olds had to work in the fields, to try to squeeze the quotas out of the land. No one was allowed to leave the villages. People who tried were shot.

The main element of Ukrainian identity is the peasantry. The Ukrainian spirit resides in the peasantry. So Stalin had to destroy that peasantry.

In 1932, a terrifying edict came down called The Law of the Blade of Grain. It's a heartless law. One could be shot or sent to prison for life if one stole one blade of grain.

Meanwhile, the famine is reaching massive proportions. There were villages which resorted to cannibalism. There were not enough graves to contain all the dead. People lay in the streets, in the fields, in their own beds. Entire families dead from starvation in their own homes. Howling filling the streets, people crazed from hunger.

The Law of the Blade of Grain was Stalin's final screw. Outside each village were enormous grain fields. Every single blade of grain, due to the unrealistic quotas, was "earmarked" for Moscow. Within the village, people were starving. They had to work these fields, they had to harvest this grain which could conceivably save their lives and the lives of their families, but the punishment was not just severe, it was basically the end of your life. Nobody came out of the gulag. Soldiers and secret police were posted on watchtowers around the fields, to make sure nobody stole even ONE BLADE of grain.

Desperate mothers would send their toddlers into the field, to see if they could steal a couple of blades, in the hopes that their size would keep them better-hidden than an adult. Of course, many toddlers were shot dead because of this.

It is estimated that 30 million people starved as a result of collectivization and the Law of the Blade of Grain. This estimate may even be low.

Today, in the Ukraine, the collectivized farms still exist, but they are now abandoned. Derelict barracks, gates swinging on the hinges, peeling murals of sickles and clasped hands ... The ghost of the famine still exists in the Ukrainian psychology, in the same way it does in the Irish psychology, but it also exists because of these falling-down buildings haunting the countryside. Relics from that brutal time.

Posted by sheila Permalink