Well, we can't freely admit it, can we? Our self-expression has been totally crushed!
― Nemo (JND), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:13 (eighteen years ago) link
"It was a disgusting time. Even in terms of music, we were so insular. We didn't really know western music at all. In 1956 I went to Brussels to perform and I came back with suitcases filled with scores of music by Ravel and Debussy - and I suddenly became a focal point for musicians in Moscow who wanted to study these rare documents. What a terrible indictment of our country. It was an embarrassment to be Russian. In 1955, the Boston Symphony Orchestra came and in one concert they performed the Soviet anthem. Before I heard them, I thought our orchestras played it well, but the Americans played it much more beautifully. The problem was our instruments were no good. It was a national shame. But throughout that time visiting western orchestras always gave us music lessons in performing music beautifully."
― TOMBOT, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:17 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.lexia.com.ar/rippers/NKVD_Mandelstam.jpg
― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sam (chirombo), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
Interesting point, which I disagree with. Happy times = bad art and vice versa, I think.
― beanz (beanz), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― beanz (beanz), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― beanz (beanz), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:26 (eighteen years ago) link
1. Answer my first question about why an entire nation would abandon a working system in exchange for chaos, uncertainty and extensive poverty in adjustment
2. Point to the works of art which the Soviet era is famous for that AREN'T Socialist Realism posters or the national anthem. Alternatively, explain why Ashkenazy, Tabachnik, et al. are so unworthy and foolish.
3. Explain how individualism is served better by Stalin's methods. Seriously.
― TOMBOT, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:31 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.liberafolio.org/bildoj/deklarodemilitastato.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― beanz (beanz), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:33 (eighteen years ago) link
ok, who saw him first ?
― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:33 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.weltchronik.de/ws/bio/c/ceausescu/cn01918a-CeausescuNicolae-19180126b-19891225d.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:44 (eighteen years ago) link
I have not thought much of Hobsbawm since this post from mark s:
hobsbawm is and always has been a dismal cultural hypocrite - key sentence: " Whenever Hobsbawm enters a politically sensitive zone, he retreats into hooded, wooden language, redolent of Party-speak."
EH even wrote about jazz, which he loved, under a pseudonym, so as not to fall into disrepute w.the party (jazz of course being a music where "message" and "medium" can't be cut adrift from one another, as per the standard-issue brainless idealism of the line enrique quotes)
-- mark s (mar...), November 3rd, 2003.
The article Mark linked to is regrettably no longer available for free, but is worth reading if you're not familiar with it.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― bethune, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/br/thumb/b/b9/Honecker.jpg/180px-Honecker.jpg
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/KontinuitaetUndWandel_photoWalterUlbricht/index.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:02 (eighteen years ago) link
seriously, i'm more awed than appalled. it's like frozen caveman or something.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:23 (eighteen years ago) link
However, if not, then it is just a simple matter of bethune not having learned that, if one point of view is obviously wrong, it does not make the opposite side obviously right. The propaganda wars of the twentieth century were like Duelling Banjos - both sides were playing the same damn lying banjo.
― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― trappist monkey, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― trappist monkey, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:56 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Chrome/photobar1936.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
Can we stop scaring bethune away with taunting? I'm interested in what he/she has to say.
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:00 (eighteen years ago) link
http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t059/T059123A.jpg
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:08 (eighteen years ago) link
Cathy, I heart you, but I said that it wasn't available for free in my post!
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:31 (eighteen years ago) link
"Stalin, who presided over the ensuing iron age of the USSR, was an autocrat of exceptional, some might say unique, ferocity, ruthlessness and lack of scruple. Few men have manipulated terror on a more massive scale. There is no doubt that under some other leader of the Bolshevik party the sufferings of the peoples of the USSR would have been less, the number of victims smaller. Nevertheless, any policy of rapid modernisation in the USSR, under the circumstances of the time, was bound to be ruthless and, because imposed against the bulk of the people and imposing serious sacrifices on them, to some extent coercive."
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Apparently, he was only 5'3".
― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link
Ah, but I have. ;-) His stuff always ends up on reserve over here, so I've dipped in from time to time.
I have to say that piece you're quoting doesn't do much to change my image of him.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
actually in ref. to TOMBOT's earlier question, soviet film probably represents the single most lasting and awesome artistic achievement by the USSR. of course, the vast majority of the good stuff was mercilessly cut by censors or flat-out banned (and was usually implictly critical of the regime and especially socialist realism anyway), but there's a lotta good shit to be found.
― ZR (teenagequiet), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:59 (eighteen years ago) link
otm
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― andy --, Monday, 30 January 2006 20:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Man in the Iron-On Mask (noodle vague), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― M. White (Miguelito), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:08 (eighteen years ago) link
It's telling that German soldiers would walks 200+ miles to be captured by the Americans.
― andy --, Monday, 30 January 2006 20:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:19 (eighteen years ago) link
It was a bit of revelation for me, never read it in any other books - if my memory serves me right. Only that dreadful fucker could get away with having a past like that revealed during the deadly super-heated phase of The Great Terror.
― calzino, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 19:25 (six years ago) link
The assassination of Slutsky is classic Soviet-fic: Frinovsky keeps him distracted in his office while an agent quietly enters with a chlorophene rag, swiftly incapacitates him whilst a 2nd agent enters and injects the poison into his arm, before he knows what has hit him he has tragically died of a heart attack. And then Stalin undoes it all by posthumously declaring him an enemy of the people anyway.
In some ways Krushchev the "sycophant and boot-licker" who'd left mountains of corpses in Ukraine on his way up, is almost more hate-able than Beria, not that B has any redeeming features other than being a much sharper + deadlier operator than K.
― calzino, Friday, 5 January 2018 17:47 (six years ago) link
Catkin notes how Khrushchev was disgusted by Mein Kampf after Stalin forced his inner circle to read it for clues into Hitler – he was repulsed by Hitler's immorality and bloodthirstiness.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 January 2018 17:55 (six years ago) link
It always struck me as odd that Hitler so publicly declared his intentions of conquest + colonisation the east in MK, it's like the UK government when they talk to the UK press about the EU like they aren't reading this y'know! I bet Khrushchev's "disgust" was a complete bit of ham acting.
― calzino, Friday, 5 January 2018 18:20 (six years ago) link
It was also odd that Stalin had this naive belief in the integrity of the Molotov/Ribbentrop, despite being an un-trusting despot to the core. and all the rest!
― calzino, Friday, 5 January 2018 18:35 (six years ago) link
In the Russian commuter town of Balakhna (near Nizhny Novgorod), a banner has been placed on a building with Josef Stalin styled as the "The Terminator". He's wearing sunglasses & there are two messages: “I'll be back” & “75 years since the Great (WW2) Victory (over Germany)." pic.twitter.com/A9wW2zbsnK— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) December 22, 2019
― calzino, Monday, 23 December 2019 22:56 (four years ago) link
it should be funny but it is mostly scary?
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 24 December 2019 03:40 (four years ago) link
or maybe shouldnt be funny at all
and turned away from him, in splendidindifference to neva's blind force,unshakeable, as if suspendedon high, there sat with arm extendedthe great bronze idol, memed by dorks
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 24 December 2019 03:45 (four years ago) link
It's funny to me because it is hamfisted propaganda done by idiots, but i doubt anyone over is there is scared by it tbf.
― calzino, Tuesday, 24 December 2019 03:47 (four years ago) link
"Oh no zombie terminator Stalin gonna purge all the moderates from the FSB and whip Putin into shape" is not quite a credible fear amongst those in the Russian Federation these days:p
― calzino, Tuesday, 24 December 2019 03:57 (four years ago) link
advertising hoarding in '35 Moscow : Coming Soon : The Great Terror!
― calzino, Tuesday, 24 December 2019 04:16 (four years ago) link
Classic.
pic.twitter.com/ySTzNU5wPV— duckazz ☭ (@duck_azz) July 2, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 3 July 2020 22:20 (three years ago) link
this dude sucks
― methinks dababy doth bop shit too much (m bison), Friday, 3 July 2020 22:25 (three years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFXvrhDXoAAaOxx?format=jpg
― If you choose too long a name, your new display name will be truncated in (Left), Friday, 3 July 2020 22:54 (three years ago) link
Stalin as Christian icon pic.twitter.com/KWbR9Ryu1X— Anton Jäger (@AntonJaegermm) July 31, 2020
― Fizzles, Monday, 3 August 2020 10:35 (three years ago) link
As retold in the dizzying, brilliant Khrustalyov, My Car!
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 August 2020 10:37 (three years ago) link
how anyone can rave about that horrible, noisy, tryhard gagfest by Ianucci and disregard Khrustalyov, My Car! is just beyond me.
― calzino, Monday, 3 August 2020 10:52 (three years ago) link
Much darker jokes, difficult to follow, no rape scene in the Ianucci iirc
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 August 2020 10:53 (three years ago) link
no farting corpse scene either!
stalin did have about 100000 priests shot during the great terror and was probably responsible for umpteen ancient orthodox churches getting bulldozed into dust, but he makes a fine religious icon.
― calzino, Monday, 3 August 2020 10:56 (three years ago) link
Liquidate Me Father
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 August 2020 10:58 (three years ago) link
he was having lots of Jews arrested and murdered towards the end, it's a bit of fortune he eat it when he did because his anti-jewish actions would have definitely escalated.
― calzino, Monday, 3 August 2020 10:58 (three years ago) link
just atheist things
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 August 2020 11:02 (three years ago) link
I've seen Remember Holodomor stencilled on walls all across Lisbon and along the coast. Ukrainians second largest immigrant group
― cherry blossom, Monday, 3 August 2020 11:43 (three years ago) link
Some dick I heard in passing on the radio yesterday was just thinking thoughts about whether Ukraine regretted getting rid of its nukes
― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague), Monday, 3 August 2020 12:00 (three years ago) link
In an unrelated note here is a 10 mins interview with Nadeszha Mandelstam, who wrote a couple of great memoirs of her husband (who was in the end sent to prison and died there) and that time.
https://t.co/uCun5aOjYCNadezhda Mandelstam talking about Osip Mandelstam.(english)— flowerville_ii (@flowerville_II) July 27, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 3 August 2020 12:41 (three years ago) link
"im so horny for josef stalin!" "oh no!" you say, clutching your pearls. "he's a pisces"— wint but AI (@dril_gpt2) December 4, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 December 2020 12:53 (three years ago) link
kids these days irl
― Left, Saturday, 5 December 2020 14:42 (three years ago) link
My son drew this five years ago. Other artists have failed to capture Stalin’s cheeky grin. pic.twitter.com/FziNNJVtnQ— Jon Dennis (@JonDennis) November 21, 2021
― mookieproof, Sunday, 21 November 2021 20:55 (two years ago) link
Stalin knew how to read books pic.twitter.com/CMQgz2gIHH— Daniel Zamora Vargas (@DanielZamoraV) February 19, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 19 February 2022 11:10 (two years ago) link
"rubbish" "scumbag" "piss off"
^^^
me reading the Graun
― calzino, Saturday, 19 February 2022 11:16 (two years ago) link