21–30 of 77 posts
The Gulag Archipelago is one of those pieces I wish everyone would read. These days the lessons of socialism and communism are lost on a younger generation that seems blind to what Marxism led to, and how much suffering and death it caused. The ideologies behind these government systems require authoritarianism, from the state and the mob. It requires a single ideology to win with everything else stamped out, and thi…
The Gulag Archipelago is one of those pieces I wish everyone would read. These days the lessons of socialism and communism are lost on a younger generation that seems blind to what Marxism led to, and how much suffering and death it caused. The ideologies behind these government systems require authoritarianism, from the state and the mob. It requires a single ideology to win with everything else stamped out, and thi…
You're commenting as if Capitalism and Imperialism are squeaky clean, which is incredibly far from the truth. Just to give a little more context, Solzhenitsyn was a Fascist who supported the Germans during WWII and openly supported Franco in Spain. He was also a notorious anti-semite even at a time when anti-semitism was punishable by death in Soviet Russia. I've read Gulag Archipelago and he's a pretty good writer,…
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Solzhenitsyn's name has come up several times in various things I've read this month. I don't think it's a coincidence. I purchased his book off Amazon a few weeks ago, thinking it wouldn't be long until they started delisting books. Now all this nonsense with Dr. Seuss. One quote, loosely paraphrased from another book I'm struggling to finish -- an interview with survivors of post WW2 totalitarianism. One of them wa…
> I purchased his book off Amazon a few weeks ago, thinking it wouldn't be long until they started delisting books. Now all this nonsense with Dr. Seuss. Except it was the copyright holder of the Dr. Seuss books that decided to withdraw these books. Not the government or sellers like Amazon. It's more of an argument for reducing the length of copyright in the US rather than some sort of ominous supression of free spe…
From wsj:
> Online marketplace eBay Inc. said it is working to prevent the resale of six Dr. Seuss books that were pulled earlier this week by the company in charge of the late author’s works because they contain offensive imagery.
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> What is a gulag? It's a penal colony or a labor camp or a prison. If only. Never thought I would see gulag apologism, but I am not surprised. I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varlam_Shalamov was a facist anti-semite, too. PS. Nice touch with the whattaboutism. PSS. As a Jew I just love when antisemitism is invoked in character assassinations. Makes me feel loved, valued and most all: protected! ;)
The comment you are replying to was rife with absolute inaccuracies. I can assure you you won't get anywhere trying to argue against that person. Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned by Stalin because while on the front lines fighting against the Nazis he wrote a letter that was intercepted with statements in it critical of Stalin's poor execution in supplying the army. The parent commenter doesn't even get this basic fact ri…
The biggest specialist in this subject, Viktor Zemskov, who worked in the Soviet archives in the period of 'Perestroika' gives the following facts1 "In 1937 there were 1,196,369 prisoners and 87% of them were ordinary non-political criminals like thieves, cons, etc. In 1938 in GULAG were 1,881,570 prisoners and 81% of them were ordinary criminals.
In ancient Greece papyrus was roughly worth its weight in silver. For a long time writing was so onerous that people just didn't do it. The shared civilization behind ancient Greece and ancient Northern India and ancient Britain had a system of oral-formulaic poetry, wherein descriptions are full of stock phrases like "wine-dark sea" or "rosy-fingered Dawn", like in today's "My name is X and I'm here to say" in more…
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> What is a gulag? It's a penal colony or a labor camp or a prison. If only. Never thought I would see gulag apologism, but I am not surprised. I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varlam_Shalamov was a facist anti-semite, too. PS. Nice touch with the whattaboutism. PSS. As a Jew I just love when antisemitism is invoked in character assassinations. Makes me feel loved, valued and most all: protected! ;)
How is this whataboutism? I'm in no way apologizing for gulags, but the "Socialism and Marxism always leads to utter destruction" take is so tired and insulting to those who actually study history and political science. Also, this "Ultimately that adherence to a singular ideology, with aggressive suppression of all others, leads to every subsequent horror." You do realize this holds true under every economic system,…
As to the ideology, I agree with you about fundamentalism leading to death and destruction. Marxism, however, contains the premise, that one particular class must be liquidated. Also, it requires people to behave in a very particular and unnatural way leading easily to a conclusion that these should be eliminated too. So maybe it lends itself better as a tool for madmen raising to power, than some others. Maybe it’s not that people trying to implement Marxism have ended up in chaos but that people seeking absolute power have tended to use it as an ideological cover and to rally a support?
Memorization is largely vilified in American schooling, and for good reason. But I think if not abused, it is an excellent form of (self-) learning not at all devoid of near meditative qualities. There something special about committing things to memory, especially verses.
Intuitive understanding of math is better than rote memorization. But that does not mean that rote memorization is bad, only lesser. I'm also not convinced that many people can grasp something intuitively, bypassing rote memorization.
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You're commenting as if Capitalism and Imperialism are squeaky clean, which is incredibly far from the truth. Just to give a little more context, Solzhenitsyn was a Fascist who supported the Germans during WWII and openly supported Franco in Spain. He was also a notorious anti-semite even at a time when anti-semitism was punishable by death in Soviet Russia. I've read Gulag Archipelago and he's a pretty good writer,…
He was fighting in Red Army during the WWII and got wounded doing so. How that constitutes supporting fascism, I do not know. In his later years his views did indeed drift to russian nationalism bordering on russian supremacy. This led him to fall out with, among others, Estonians who sheltered him while he was writing the Archipelago. This is a pity, but does not negate the significance of his early work. Neither do…
He ended up leaving the US and going back to Russia because he said the US had no culture. Not saying I agree with that, but that's how he felt. It's pretty common for people to become more nationalistic after they leave their home country.
The facist tendencies come from a meeting he had with Thatcher where he said "The German army could have liberated the Soviet Union from Communism but Hitler was stupid and did not use this weapon." It seems extraordinary that Solzhenitsyn saw the failure of Nazi Germany to annex the Soviet Union as some kind of missed opportunity.
He also visited Franco in Spain on a number of occasions and did a TV interview where he praised Franco.
When I first read Gulag Archipelago I accepted it as fact and projected his feelings onto the rest of Russian society. It was only through later studies that I found this to not be the case.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is this whataboutism? I'm in no way apologizing for gulags, but the "Socialism and Marxism always leads to utter destruction" take is so tired and insulting to those who actually study history and political science. Also, this "Ultimately that adherence to a singular ideology, with aggressive suppression of all others, leads to every subsequent horror." You do realize this holds true under every economic system,…
When and where did you do your travels? Living in the former USSR I can absolutely confirm the history is way more complicated, than it is commonly presented. Changes over time, changes depending on people you speak to. In my country we have had read army, Finnish army and Waffen SS veterans living out their lives quite peacefully together but they would no doubt give you a very different perspective on how the GULAG…
The percentage of the population that ended up spending time in a work camp was about 2.5% and the average sentence was 2-3 years. It's terrible what happened, there's no two ways about it, but the transition from feudalism to capitalism was pretty horrendous beyond words.
Honestly, the history of the region is so complex that it's incredibly challenging to know where to begin.
The Gulag Archipelago is one of those pieces I wish everyone would read. These days the lessons of socialism and communism are lost on a younger generation that seems blind to what Marxism led to, and how much suffering and death it caused. The ideologies behind these government systems require authoritarianism, from the state and the mob. It requires a single ideology to win with everything else stamped out, and thi…
Uh huh. Now say something about “antifa” so I can laugh harder.