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Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

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Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#141

Post by lr1970 »

wellthisisgreat wrote: post #51
spaetzleesser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" he was apparently good at managing the program." That's one thing a lot of people don't understand. A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Beria was a good manager, so was Himmler who led the Nazi SS. Stalin also was a hard worker and a master bureaucrat.

There is a really interesting take on Beria in what is possibly the best Stalin's biography ("Court of the Red Tzar"). Apparently, Beria saw himself a successor to Stalin who would put the country onto a milder course, and he was looking forward to redeeming himself in the face of history. There was something to the effect of him saying that his children would get educated at Oxford. And he did not mean it how curren…

> It does sound wild (to me as well), but then there is evidence of USSR party elites (e.g. Kaganovich) turning from maniacs and terrorists into peaceful bureaucrats overnight upon Stalin's death.

They were "murderous bureaucrats" for whom mass murder was a faceless statistics. They would not fret or get emotional about it neither before nor after the fact.

A glimpse of artistic rendition of how plain and "bureaucratic" a mass murder machine could be is a historic re-enactment movie "Conspiracy" [0] about Wannsee conference of 1942 (it is about Nazi Germany not USSR but the theme of "murderous bureaucracy" seems to be universal).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film)

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#142

Post by wellthisisgreat »

wolverine876 wrote: post #136
wellthisisgreat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a really interesting take on Beria in what is possibly the best Stalin's biography ("Court of the Red Tzar"). Apparently, Beria saw himself a successor to Stalin who would put the country onto a milder course, and he was looking forward to redeeming himself in the face of history. There was something to the effect of him saying that his children would get educated at Oxford. And he did not mean it how curren…

Beria's claims or promises are meaningless; that's a completely untrustworthy source. Beria was a homicidal maniac telling you that, if you give them power, they'll be 'milder'. Lots of homicidal maniacs, and even plain old dictators, say the same. The next step, after they gain power, is to say that there is a new period of openness, and their critics are encouraged to speak out. This releases some pressure while th…

The nuance there is that Beria made those claims in private and did not want that to be known. At that moment he would score more political points presenting himself as a hardliner. It was something the author of that book found out almost by accident doing the research about his private life. If not for the excellent quality of the other material in that book I would have not really paid much attention to what Beria had to say about his plans

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#143

Post by esyir »

wolverine876 wrote: post #133
spaetzleesser wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what I am thinking. It doesn’t even have to be MAGA only. I bet wokeness could also turn into a dictatorship with the right leader. That’s why rohe current US political climate where people think that the other side is evil and can’t be negotiated with is so dangerous. The right leader can make a case that there is a dangerous crisis and that laws have to be suspended to deal with the threat and voila you have…

> I bet wokeness could also turn into a dictatorship with the right leader. What is that based on? The progressive left heavily supports the democratic process, they don't try to prevent anyone from voting, they haven't elected anyone who advocates that. They also control no state or national executive positions and no legislatures, while the GOP recently controlled the White House, regularly controls both houses of…

The same democratic left for whom "Pack the courts" became a rallying cry?

No, I'll gladly both sides this.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#144

Post by gattilorenz »

lmilcin wrote: post #15
spaetzleesser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" he was apparently good at managing the program." That's one thing a lot of people don't understand. A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Beria was a good manager, so was Himmler who led the Nazi SS. Stalin also was a hard worker and a master bureaucrat.

You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions. A lot of that "management" was simply terrorizing people to do your bidding. So, no, he most likely wasn't a good manager the same way a bank robber isn't showing "good interpersonal skills" because he was able to convince all patrons to sit by the wall and employees to open the vault.

> You are underestimating how effective a "management" technique is demonstrating that you can shoot underperforming minions.

> A lot of that "management" was simply terrorizing people to do your bidding.

As others are pointing out, but spelled differently: there's a difference between having people do what you want, and becoming successful. Many CEOs are able to get the workers do whatever, and the company will fail exactly because of that. It takes skill and knowledge to know where to lead.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#145

Post by dmz73 »

simonh wrote: post #54
dmz73 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life in the west can be much more horrible for a lot of people than life in USSR was for most but dark humor is very mild and looked down upon. I would say cultural differences play much bigger role. Whose life is worse in the west? Homeless, outlaws (drug addicts, prostitutes), arrested illegal immigrants, some aboriginal communities. I am wrong about that? I lived in a communist country as a child and young adult.…

The USSR had homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes and marginalised communities too. It had all the same problems, plus a whole lot more. Admittedly, there were a lot fewer people outside trying to get in though. I'll give you that.

I did not live in USSR so I can't say how many of each they had but the country I lived in also had all of those and I can say there was and order of magnitude less of them than what you see now in the equivalently sized (population wise) west country. You are also correct that many of us wanted to live like the TV stars we saw lived in the western TV shows and not many people wanted to cross to the east. But if you think that life in the east was all horror all the time or most of the time or event 1/1000 of the time then you have been brainwashed even more than what we were. No one wants to go back to the political system of USSR but imagining that life for most people was horrible is just naive. Not understanding the circumstances and motivations of your opponents is a mistake that will cost us all dearly.
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