Stalin - classic or dud

ok, who saw him first ?

http://www.weltchronik.de/ws/bio/c/ceausescu/cn01918a-CeausescuNicolae-19180126b-19891225d.jpg

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.

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

seriously, i'm more awed than appalled. it's like frozen caveman or something.

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.

http://www.soviethistory.org/images/Chrome/photobar1936.jpg

Can we stop scaring bethune away with taunting? I'm interested in what he/she has to say.

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t059/T059123A.jpg

Cathy, I heart you, but I said that it wasn't available for free in my post!

"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."

Apparently, he was only 5'3".

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.

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.

otm

It's telling that German soldiers would walks 200+ miles to be captured by the Americans.

I think German policy in the occupied Soviet Union might have a lot to do with that.

The early Soviet era (pre-Socialist Realism) - revolutionary era blending into Lenin with stragglers into Stalinism was ripe with art. Rodchenko and Malevich and El Lissitzky, Constructivism/Suprematism, etc. Eisenstein and early Soviet film, of course.

Also, The Man With The Camera and I Am Cuba for later achievements. And Tarkovsky.

Also at issue is our insularity - westerners in general know relatively little about the painting or the photography or the writing of the later Soviet era, and film knowledge is largely confined to those who broke into the Euro art film market (Tarkovsky), but not much about popular film making.

You can also treat the failures with more than a 'well, shucks, it was bound to hurt anyway' diffidence.

dovzhenko's "earth"

kuleshov

meyerhold

all totally brilliant

ts: the great depression vs collectivization/"liquidation" as a "kulak"/mass famine

Not to mention that maybe if there hadn't been all those military purges then just maybe the Nazis wouldn't have been so successful as they were initially. And how much further death was the result?

That isn't how I understand Hobswbawm's attitude at all. But, oh well.

Anybody seen "Night Watch"?

As retold in the dizzying, brilliant Khrustalyov, My Car!

how anyone can rave about that horrible, noisy, tryhard gagfest by Ianucci and disregard Khrustalyov, My Car! is just beyond me.

Much darker jokes, difficult to follow, no rape scene in the Ianucci iirc

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.

Liquidate Me Father

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.

just atheist things

I've seen Remember Holodomor stencilled on walls all across Lisbon and along the coast. Ukrainians second largest immigrant group

Some dick I heard in passing on the radio yesterday was just thinking thoughts about whether Ukraine regretted getting rid of its nukes

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/uCun5aOjYC

Nadezhda Mandelstam talking about Osip Mandelstam.
(english)

— flowerville_ii (@flowerville_II) July 27, 2020

"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

kids these days irl

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

Stalin knew how to read books pic.twitter.com/CMQgz2gIHH

— Daniel Zamora Vargas (@DanielZamoraV) February 19, 2022

"rubbish" "scumbag" "piss off"

^^^

me reading the Graun