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Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

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Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#71

Post by abrichr »

google234123 wrote: post #25
the_af wrote: post #5

> Some of the stories are more in the line of “hooray for Soviet scientists” genre, which I find a lot less interesting I find this very telling about the reviewer. When the Russians (or Soviets) show gallows humor, or are simply bizarre or we (in the West) want to read dark undertones in what they wrote: hell yes, it's just like I thought, the Soviet Union must have been a constant nightmare! When they write in a se…

If you ever need a dose of reality, go see (google) some of Nikolai Getman's paintings of the life of prisoners in the Gulag which he had to paint in secret after being imprisoned for 8 years.

Thank you for the recommendation.

Link for the lazy: https://onartandaesthetics.com/2018/10/03/the-gulag-collecti...

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#72

Post by paganel »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #8
Animats wrote: post #2

Beria really was in charge of the early Soviet nuclear weapons program, and, while everyone was terrified of him, he was apparently good at managing the program. The classic joke about that, and it may not have been a joke, is that after the first bomb worked, the people who would have been shot if it failed got the Hero of the Soviet Union award. The ones that would have been sent to a labor camp got some lesser awa…

" 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.

The same goes for today's leaders of organised crime, you have be CEO-material in order to manage 'Ndrangheta's ~50 billion euros business [1], it's not enough just to be able to kill some guys on a dark street in Catanzaro anymore.

[1] https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210113-ndrangheta-crime...

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#73

Post by tada131 »

the_af wrote: post #57
google234123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever need a dose of reality, go see (google) some of Nikolai Getman's paintings of the life of prisoners in the Gulag which he had to paint in secret after being imprisoned for 8 years.

Thanks for the recommendation, I googled the paintings and they are both impressive and depressing. However, I'm not sure I understand the relation to my comment. Do you think I was claiming life in the Gulag wasn't oppressive? Let me clarify: I was pointing out what I think is a curious bias in the author of the article.

According to Nikolai Getman, even staying in Soviet "Metropoliten" is soooo depressing (See more of him, not only related with Gulags).

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#75

Post by redis_mlc »

Animats wrote: post #49
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.

A lot of these monsters aren't just monsters but they are also very capable. Scary thought for today: what happens when MAGA world finds someone with not just charisma, but competence and energy?

> what happens when MAGA world finds someone with not just charisma, but competence and energy?

Trump was the most effective on policy since Roosevelt.

Unlike the stiff that's in office today.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#76

Post by vkou »

the_af wrote: post #5

> Some of the stories are more in the line of “hooray for Soviet scientists” genre, which I find a lot less interesting I find this very telling about the reviewer. When the Russians (or Soviets) show gallows humor, or are simply bizarre or we (in the West) want to read dark undertones in what they wrote: hell yes, it's just like I thought, the Soviet Union must have been a constant nightmare! When they write in a se…

Self-congratulatory jokes are generally not very funny, regardless of what nationality or political orientation they come from.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#77

Post by arethuza »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #74
quercusa wrote: post #4

For Soviet-era black humor, it's hard to beat the 2017 movie The Death of Stalin .

that was a british movie, though it had some soviet era characters, that is true.

Yes, it was set in Soviet times but the humour was definitely British.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#78

Post by mdp2021 »

quercusa wrote: post #4

For Soviet-era black humor, it's hard to beat the 2017 movie The Death of Stalin .

I would have written 'For black humour about the Soviet-era', because «Soviet-era black humor» suggests that the humour is that of the Soviet-era. It is surely British, extremely Armando Iannucci (of course), with French sources - and I am not sure the humour has a "Russian spirit".

It is intentionally a strong rewriting of history - in no way a documentary but for many historic details that fit with the intended narrative for being preposterously "humorous" (if you wish, read "shocking").

An unmissable masterpiece, an Armando Iannucci insight about humans and politics - or "the human condition", and consequently "the nature of humour". Facts are sacrificed to this intent, which has priority.

Re: Surely you're joking, Comrade Beria

#80

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #31
lmilcin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I am somewhat skeptical of this take. I think if heaping abuse and threats of worse on people worked magic, there would be no homeless people in the US. Threats only work if the capacity is there -- or almost there -- and it's feasible to extract X with sufficient pressure. But you still can't g…

If police starting executing 10 random homeless people every night, it wouldn't necessarily "solve" homelessness but the homeless would get very creative, very quickly to figure out how to not be where-ever the police were looking.

As with any management technique, it's about making sure you're focusing people on the right efforts, for values of "right" in terms of getting what you want. A horrifying police state has many examples both more and less efficient than Stalin and Beria, particularly if you take a view of the modern world through the lens of competitive authoritarianism.

Was it purely luck that they happened to pick good candidates to run specific programs whereas say, Mao did not? Could be, but to pick another example, I'd wager that few people would argue against the notion that Fidel Castro did more, with less resources, and less terror, than Stalin in relative terms.

But back to the homeless situation in the US, it's more than major political groups have no interest in solving the problem and that creeps into institutional policy in insidious ways, as opposed to whether or not harsh methods might have any positive results (ignoring the whole awfulness part). Malignant neglect is perhaps worse than active malice.

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