Posted on 04/18/2004 4:56:03 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
IN OCTOBER 1917, when the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, sailors in the port of Kronstadt formed the vanguard of the revolution. They overran the cruiser Aurora, bombarded the Winter Palace, stormed the building and handed it over to the Bolsheviks.
Four years later, 900 of those same sailors were executed by firing squad after they rose up against the Communists and the Red Army. Thousands of others were dispatched to the Gulag prison camps.
Now their story is to be used by the TV company WarkClements as the narrative spine of a two-part documentary promising to "unpack" the myths of the Russian revolution and the lethal battle for power that followed.
Storm in the East will argue that Russia should never have had a Socialist revolution in 1917, that the Bolsheviks were a fringe party, and that "the revolution was an exercise in capturing and maintaining power at all costs".
Alan Clements, the managing director of the company, described yesterday how it took two years to secure financing for a project he has wanted to do for 21 years, ever since he studied the subject at the University of Glasgow.
"It has been a long-haul putting together the funding, a labour of love," he said. "The thesis will be quite controversial, but at least thought- provoking.
"People tend to believe that Lenin was this cuddly guy and Stalin made it all bad. Historically there are a lot of people on the Scottish left with that view, certainly when I was still at university, and that can't be justified."
Lenin, who died in early 1924, founded the feared secret police, the Cheka, and authorised them to take the first brutal measures against Russian peasants in a foretaste of Stalinist horrors.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.scotsman.com ...
Maybe he'll post the whole article.
Not.
FMCDH
Anyone who has read Solzhenitsyn knows better.
Maybe you can just rent it. Will look forward to hearing what you thought about it.
I need to track down Oblomov. I love Russian films. I also have Siberiade.
The revolution was a horror orchestrated by a small minority which, playing on societal discontent, amassed more power as it gathered momentum. It sounds somewhat like America today, the politics of hate and discontent, being played out before our eyes. A similar thing, actually an even worse thing, could happen here if the checks and balances give out. The groundwork has been carefully laid.
I don't know where things are going to be truthful.
I don't know. But I bet Hillery was there, in a "prior life".
That mad me laugh.
Thanks for the ping, risk.
There are some aspects of the nasty business that are not pc to talk about publicly so I'm not going to talk about it, but everything isn't as neat and tidy as historians would have us believe.
Considering what Gibson was able to accomplish with his "Passion", telling the Christian story right out of the Gospels despite being shut out by leftist-controlled Holeywood...
We know that Holeywood will never, never, NEVER document the horror perpetrated upon Russia by the Bolsheviks, by Germany, and by the Jewish Left in Europe (sorry, folks, but that's the truth, and I'm Jewish, so don't bother howling). So, here in America, we will never get the proper exposure of the virulence of Communism that is fundamental to ensuring the destruction of socialism *here*, even while it is in decline elsewhere in the world.
But maybe the Russians can do it for us? Maybe they can document on film what our own film industry is too biased, too cowardly, and too infested with leftists to even contemplate admitting? It would be a wonderful way to reward us for starving Communism out of existence in their country... they could help us finally get rid of it in our own.
there, I fixed it for the author.
Gorky Park perhaps?
Another Western bankers who poured funds into Bolshevik Russia was Olaf Ashberg of the Stockholm Nia Banken. He remained the Soviets' paymaster until the late 1940s
The Bolsheviks also received assistance from Armand Hammer Hammer's Occidental Oil Company is at the moment building a 1600 mile chemicals pipeline in southern Russia. He is also on such good terms with the Soviets that he personally arranges for Soviet art galleries to lend paintings to America.
Another American-based businessman to help out the Soviet economy is Michael Fribourg, who owns the massive Continental Grain Company. Together with the Louis Dreyfus Corporation, these speculators were able to buy up vast quantities of cheap American grain in 1972, sell it to the Soviets at a vast profit, and collect an export subsidy from the U.S. taxpayer
Good point. You don't hear much about him anymore. Most of us who have read him did so in the 60s and 70s, especially the latter decade when his Gulag Archipelago was being published in the West for the first time. That work utterly explodes any benign picture of Lenin.
This review of a different book (one I haven't read) captures the situation well.
March 26, 1917, NYT
Root Predicts Fall of Central Rulers
Hollenzollerns and Hapsburgs Will Follow Romonovs, He Declares
MASS MEETING FOR RUSSIA
Cable Message from President Lvoff Cheered by 1,500 Celebrating Success of the Revolution
"Fifteen hundred persons who attended the mass meeting at the Manhattan Opera House last night to celebrate the success of the revolution cheered the prediction in a letter from Elihu Root . . ."
It goes on for quite a bit, and near the end:
"The following message was read from Jacob H. Schiff, who telegraphed from White Sulphur Springs:
"Certainly I shall feel greatly honored to be named a Vice President for tomorrow evening's mass meeting, and I only regret absence prevents me from being present to give personal evidence of my rejoicing and elation over the wonderful deliverance of the Russian people from their long bondage. They deserve all the happiness and prosperity the future doubtless has in store for them under a Democratic government."
I don't know if the Opera House and Carnegie Hall are one and the same, but it is close enough.
I haven't plowed through the entire article and I can't post it because of copyright restrictions and it is not in text format.
In fairness, I wonder if they were aware of the violence and repression that would follow. It appears they supported the violent revolution to install a democracy. I don't know if they foresaw the consequences or not.
You can say they were deluded, just as the idiots in Hollywood who support Communism were - and are today (albeit for different reasons). But that doesn't exonerate them one bit. It doesn't matter at all to someone who is killed by a totalitarian police state, whether or not those who bankrolled it had good intentions - he or she is still just as dead.
I saw Siberiade on Ebay for about $40. It is apparently a 2 dvd set and looks pretty good.
What did you think of it?
I got my copy on vhs at buy.com for about $21, I think.
I need to watch it again. And again.
One of the nice things about some foreign films is that the actors aren't as glamorous as we tend to expect from Hollywood, more your average kind of person which really makes it more true to life.
I guess I was expecting the Russian equivalent of Gone with the Wind, only with snowy, wintery birch tree forests, and it wasn't quite like that.
And there was a strange scene I wasn't sure about where an old man seemed to be trying to "hit" on a little boy in his care . . . I was hoping they didn't do that in Russia :-). The kid rebuffed him successfully, thankfully. I wonder why the director put that in the film. Maybe I interpreted it wrong.
That's enough. I don't remember the story very well, just a couple scenes stuck in my mind. Life was hard, and there wasn't much to do when they weren't fighting.
The one thing you didn't mention was the persecution of Jews in Russia which probably caused many to support the revolutionaries who may not have otherwise. I guess it has bothered me more than a little that Yurovsky?, whom I believe was a Jew, as were others who ascended to power which cannot be denied, was the one who carried out the orders to liquidate the czar and his family. Do you happen to know if the statue commemorating him still stands in or near Ekaterinberg? One would hope it is gone now.
I fear some accounts remain to be settled, but I don't like to speculate on just how that will be.
(To MarMema: You might enjoy the rural walk book. They describe in great detail the orthodox churches. Also there is a film about Russian pilgrimages which I haven't seen. You might want to see if you haven't already.
I need to try to get Solzhenitsyn's (I used to know how to spell it but had to copy this time) latest book.
Yes they kill Christian Tsar and unleash unholy hell fire on all of earth, 200 million dead or more was Devil reward for death of Tsar...what difference of one life can make...hugh?
I just love Russian culture; such a shame their politics does not keep pace.
I will post back to you when I have view one of these.
I just love Russian culture; such a shame their politics does not keep pace.
I will post back to you when I have view one of these.
I believe there are two different film versions of Anna Karenina which were produced in the west. Both are quite good.
Also I recommend you might try to find an older American film called "Nicholas and Alexandria", if you've never seen it. I saw it for the first time when I was in high school, and I and my friends were horrified at the gruesome murder in Ekaterinberg. I found it again as a video rental somwhere.
Dr. Zhivago was one of my all-time favorite movies and stories.
I love Russian culture, too, from a distance, and I'm trying to pinpoint how I got interested in it. I've tried to imagine if I would feel at home in their culture and think not unless I gradually became accustomed to it. Growing up, we were in terror of them; all I knew was that they were evil communists and might nuke us. I think my perception began to change when I started realizing that some of the people under communism had very redeeming qualities, warmth, openness, etc. I think Dr. Zhivago had much to do with my wanting to learn more about Russia and the Russian people.
I was concerned when Russia opened up to the west after the fall of communism that Americans would try to push some undesirable things on them. I'm still concerned about that and wish Americans wouldn't push in there with some of their foolishness and our-way-is-best attitudes.
I want to think about some of the rest.
I forgot to address your comment about Islam. I think they were destined to be a problem regardless of what happened in Russia, but it is more over oil and the politics that accompany keeping the oil flowing imo.
Both parties are not doing justice to American voters. Like it or not, we need the oil. Without it, our economy and way of life would come to a screeching halt, with consequences that could be as bad or worse than what happened in Russia.
I think we would have gotten along better with Islam if oil politics and Israel hadn't entered the picture. In any case, oil or no, they are in expansionist mode and there would have been inevitable clashes.
Last night while I was waiting in the drive through at McD's for my fish sandwiches, I watched in my rear-view mirror some Islamic kids playing in the yard at the local mosque. They were dressed just like western kids, were playing just like western kids, and I started wondering, wondering if it were a good thing they were here . . . just a random thought. It is bothering me, because if it weren't for things playing out on the world stage, I would have otherwise felt more welcoming to have them in our community.
Who got all the Russian wealth? Western bankers?
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