Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

the-tls.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#31

Post by charlysl »

doombolt wrote: post #10
asianthrowaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why Franco has such a bad rep. I'm not really knowledgeable about the Spanish civil war but it seems he prevented Spain from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian country, which is a good thing in my book. I mean no doubt he was a brutal dictator but in the grand scheme of things he was by far the lesser of two evils. Edit: also I think your comparison of the American prison system and the gulag to be r…

> prevented Spain from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian country, Or maybe it would be a flop and something closer to present euro-socialism which Spain ended up implementing anyway. One should avoid being a brutal dictator since you never know at which rate you exchange real blood to imaginary one.

The political situation in western Europe in the 1930s was explosive, specially so in Spain. On the one hand there was the then quite new Soviet Union stoking unrest in a, by contemporary standards, shockingly poor, unhealthy and exploited working and peasant class. On the other hand, you had much of the rest of society scared out of their wits by the very real prospect of revolution at their doorstep, and more than willing to support and make do with a strongman that, first and foremost, promised to crush the communists. Either side would have crushed the other if victorious.

I recommend anyone to read good books about the Spanish Civil War (like for instance Hugh Thomas' very readable history) to understand the huge polarization of both extremes, the violence, and how those in the middle where totally swept aside. I doubt that the only possible outcome, given those conditions, could have been but one side exterminating the other, either the left or the right.

Our world is, fortunately, very different. Of late, given an increasing political polarization and rise of populism, comparisons have been made with the 1930s, but if you start investigating you will realize that current conditions are nowhere near as bad.

I don't know where you are from, and how familiar you are with European politics, but modern euro-socialism is much closer to pure capitalism than anything the stalinists would have created in Spain.

I strongly dislike Franco, and I am aware that thanking him for preventing a stalinist Spain may turn heads these days. But the fact is that this is exactly what the West thought at the time. Franco became a pariah right after World War II as the only remaining leader that had supported Hitler. However, as soon as the reality of the Cold War kicked it, all that was forgotten, and western leaders (and specially the USA) started toasting him, indeed, as the man who stopped communism in a country in a very strategic position.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#32

Post by effry-much »

CapacitorSet wrote: post #29
effry-much wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's an old trick of antisemites. If you lurk antisemite pages or speak with antisemites, you'll find that a common talking point is the importance of Jews in the birth of communism (and the supposed link between Jews and communism in general), and likewise the importance of Jews in contemporary finance and politics. If you were to listen to such talking points, you'd argue that they were not actual anti-semites, but…

[flagged]

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#33

Post by winchling »

frereubu wrote: post #2

Reading The Gulag Archipelago at university changed my life. I'd been reading Dostoyevsky for a bit, which I was enjoying, but The Gulag Archipelago was the book that opened my eyes to the idea that literature could have fierce moral purpose. I also loved the fact it was dripping with deadpan sarcasm and irony. A wonderful response for the powerless to take given the Kafkaesque situations that people found themselves…

>dripping with deadpan sarcasm

It seems that sarcasm became prevalent in Soviet Russia because it's a way of expressing opposition without party members being able to use your words to denounce you.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#34

Post by arethuza »

charlysl wrote: post #31
doombolt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prevented Spain from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian country, Or maybe it would be a flop and something closer to present euro-socialism which Spain ended up implementing anyway. One should avoid being a brutal dictator since you never know at which rate you exchange real blood to imaginary one.

The political situation in western Europe in the 1930s was explosive, specially so in Spain. On the one hand there was the then quite new Soviet Union stoking unrest in a, by contemporary standards, shockingly poor, unhealthy and exploited working and peasant class. On the other hand, you had much of the rest of society scared out of their wits by the very real prospect of revolution at their doorstep, and more than…

I hardly think there was a unified Western view at the time (perhaps amongst governments but not individuals). George Orwell fought in Spain against Franco's troops in an anarchist unit (POUM) and he hated Stalinism as strongly as anyone.

His Homage to Catalonia is a superb account of his time in Spain (and just how chaotic things were politically):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#35

Post by karpodiem »

CapacitorSet wrote: post #29
effry-much wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's an old trick of antisemites. If you lurk antisemite pages or speak with antisemites, you'll find that a common talking point is the importance of Jews in the birth of communism (and the supposed link between Jews and communism in general), and likewise the importance of Jews in contemporary finance and politics. If you were to listen to such talking points, you'd argue that they were not actual anti-semites, but…

Interesting that one cannot critique Jews without being called an anti-Semite.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#36

Post by CapacitorSet »

effry-much wrote: post #32
CapacitorSet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an old trick of antisemites. If you lurk antisemite pages or speak with antisemites, you'll find that a common talking point is the importance of Jews in the birth of communism (and the supposed link between Jews and communism in general), and likewise the importance of Jews in contemporary finance and politics. If you were to listen to such talking points, you'd argue that they were not actual anti-semites, but…

[flagged]

The matter is that he is specifically denouncing Jews in their link with the USSR, that's what makes him worthy of being called antisemite. It's not merely a coincidence (i.e. he denounces a specific social group which happens to contain many Jews), he singled them out in the context of denouncing the Soviet Union.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#37

Post by nec4b »

varjag wrote: post #28
nec4b wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, people surviving gulags (where btw. lot of jewish people died as well), need to be called names, because they them selves were not saints and said stupid things sometimes.

When a public figure you used to support disappoints you in some substantial way, it's best to change your views rather than paint yourself in the corner by rationalizing their abhorrence. All humans are fallible. There have been some regrettable Nobel Peace Prizes out there, and Amnesty International had to call off some of their awards.

I don't know who he disappointed, but he didn't disappoint me. His analysis of murderous regime is spot on, and there is no discussion about that. There are only character assassinations and name callings for totally unrelated things from his opponents. First discreditation, then disqualification and lastly liquidation.

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#38

Post by varjag »

effry-much wrote: post #17
CapacitorSet wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solzhenitsyn is an anti-semite, and blames atheism for the existence of the Soviet Union and the problems in the modern world in general. It is a great thing that he isn't being listened to - and yet, he is receiving more attention than he's worth.

[flagged]

If you are anti-Marxist, and not anti-Semite why do you feel justified to point out the ethnicity then? You never hear people saying "I'm anti-Stalinist-Georgian", "I'm anti-Chinese-Maoist", yet it's somehow benign with Jews?

If you find the ideology abhorrent, why you focus on a particular ethnicity? It is almost as if you believe there is something special about Jews and Marxism than, say Russians and Marxism?

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#39

Post by asianthrowaway »

CapacitorSet wrote: post #29
effry-much wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's an old trick of antisemites. If you lurk antisemite pages or speak with antisemites, you'll find that a common talking point is the importance of Jews in the birth of communism (and the supposed link between Jews and communism in general), and likewise the importance of Jews in contemporary finance and politics. If you were to listen to such talking points, you'd argue that they were not actual anti-semites, but…

[flagged]

Re: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he saw himself

#40

Post by charlysl »

arethuza wrote: post #34
charlysl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The political situation in western Europe in the 1930s was explosive, specially so in Spain. On the one hand there was the then quite new Soviet Union stoking unrest in a, by contemporary standards, shockingly poor, unhealthy and exploited working and peasant class. On the other hand, you had much of the rest of society scared out of their wits by the very real prospect of revolution at their doorstep, and more than…

I hardly think there was a unified Western view at the time (perhaps amongst governments but not individuals). George Orwell fought in Spain against Franco's troops in an anarchist unit (POUM) and he hated Stalinism as strongly as anyone. His Homage to Catalonia is a superb account of his time in Spain (and just how chaotic things were politically): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia

Sure, I meant across decision makers. Realpolitik (the rest is propaganda).

Before and in the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, when the great Orwell fought, the left in Spain was extremely atomized: there were the anarchist (very active in the beginning), the socialists, the communists (actually a minority initially), and many splinter groups (like POUM). But, just like an equally varied right swiftly unified under Franco, so did the left, more slowly, under the "oficial" communist faction, which, although it decided to be mostly pragmatic until the war had been won, fought some of the other leftists as fiercely as it fought the right.

Post reply on HN