71–80 of 137 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The west industrialized without gulags.
The West didn't have land hungry pre WW2 Germany next to it.
Not sure if this is sarcasm, but I'll assume it is not.
France and Poland send their regards.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must ask yourself a question here: did they accomplish all of that because of the socialism, or despite it?
Idea was good. Socialism works quite well at critical times. Just in case: pretty much each country, including US, handles COVID problem in typical socialistic state way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just perception - there was a very real conflict in the 19th century between traditional Russian values and western ideas such as nihilism and socialism. Dostoevsky was such an idealist in his youth, then turning his back on those movements after being imprisoned in hard labor camp. In his book Demons, he very much groks the dangers of these western ideas, which led to the disastrous 70 year reign of the Bolshevi…
If you take an objective look at the USSR from 1917 to 1990, while there was a lot of bad things, they also completely industrialized the country, literacy rates went from 28% to 99.7% (triple it in the first 15 years, by trying to teach everyone to read their native language first instead of Russian first). They were the first country to put a man in space. I'm not sure that it was all disastrous.
This decision -- along with many others inaugurated by Peter -- contributed to the perception of a european/slavic bifurcation in the Russian soul. Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and many others wrestled with the implications of this centuries later. I daresay it still shapes russian self-perception.
Not just perception - there was a very real conflict in the 19th century between traditional Russian values and western ideas such as nihilism and socialism. Dostoevsky was such an idealist in his youth, then turning his back on those movements after being imprisoned in hard labor camp. In his book Demons, he very much groks the dangers of these western ideas, which led to the disastrous 70 year reign of the Bolshevi…
There was perhaps a chance in the 19th century, when Alexander II tried to turn Russia into a constitutional monarchy. The chance died when nihilists killed him and his son reversed the course. The same ideas that gave rise to social democracy in the West turned into Marxism-Leninism in Russia. One was a great success story, another was an equally great catastrophe.
This was one of the pet peeves of the Lykov family, descendants of persecuted beard wearers, to the point that they moved into the wilderness of Siberia for 40 years, missing any notion of WW2 in the process: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-rus...
Coincidentally, I recently stumbled across a really great lecture series with maybe 50 hours of great university lecture style content on Imperial Russia and I've been listening to it as I go to bed. Around episode 7 or 8 I believe he discusses this episode. If anyone wants to learn about something off their normal radar, I really recommend this lecture series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qsss5phzpg&list=PLEETkM…
The Beard Tax was notoriously leveraged against religious jews, forbidden by law to shave their beards. The "civilized" authorities took much advantage of this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
PS - Excellent second paragraph, you're right - but I've been hearing that "this is the critical moment" for years. Are in in Turkey now? Where?
The attempted coup was certainly a critical moment as well. It was passed when it became evident many of the protesters fighting back against the coup were political opponents of Erdogan. Hopefully that's settled one particular question - no more coups, even if it's against your political opponents. The coming election is I think another legitimately critical tests. It's not great that Turkey faces multiple critical…
Was that really accepted by the Turkish people as a legitimate coup attempt? From an outside perspective it appeared almost comically staged.
The article states that this was part of an effort to reorient the country's culture. That might seem strange to Americans / Western Europeans today, but this was not an isolated case and while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing (with the right approach and an amount of luck). A more modern example is Turkey, where Atatürk revised script, clothing, education, and many other aspects of th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> while it might not be PC to say so, this could be a constructive thing That's called euro-centrism isn't it. And every westerner believes wholeheartedly that it is the best most constructive thing to do. So it is neither right nor wrong politically. But it does dull the world when every place you go to is Europe in microcosm. That is a true vision of dystopian hell itself.
Nobody pressured Turkey (or Russia, in the era of Peter the Great) into trying to become more like Europe. They chose it on their own. If you're going to say that their choice was wrong, that would be rather paternalistic, don't you think?
history was pressuring. In both cases the more advanced, technically/militarily in particular, Europe was an existential threat - in case of Russia to make Russia (ie. Grand Duchy of Moscow) into a small dukedom far in the forests, and in case of Turkey - for example the post WW1 partitioning plan for Osman Empire included partitioning of what is modern Turkey territory.