Soviet History: More enigma than you can shake a stick at

If I might make a generalization of Soviet History, and bear in mind that I am a man who hates generalizations unless they are poetic or get at the essence of the human experience.

Soviet history is an enigma, an enigma wrapped in a cipher, and smothered in secret sauce.

However, we are still invited from time to time to contemplate it in a manner which defies Mr. James' assertion.

And so I did some time ago in an essay about Soviet foreign policy between the end of the Russian Civil War and the beginning of World War II. However in the brutal process of editing (it is a brutal, brutal business, editing is), I had to shave off a very elegant block of text. However, I have this alternate forum just for such elegant blocks of text and so I thought I might share it with you:

In the Preface to his book, The Soviet Tragedy, Martin Malia writes “With the collapse of 1989-1991, the world that Lenin and Stalin build was no longer even a secret. The intimate record of seventy-four years of utopian experimentation is an open book for all to read.”1 Given that many records have been destroyed and many eye-witnesses killed without note, Malia's assesment is questionable, but it is undeniable that the fall of the Soviet Union unleased a tidal wave of new historical material for Western scholars to page through. However even if we are to assume that the new material constitutes the whole of the “intimate record” of the Soviet Union, understanding the history of the Soviet Union is still a challenging task. Soviet history might now be an “open book” but it is a book written in the language of opaque personas, official and unofficial lies, self-deception and hidden truths, and above all else the intense relationship between the state and the Communist ideology. This language is not translatable by mortals, even if we can see the lines that make up its symbols.
Thus even if the history of the foreign affairs of the Soviet Union between 1921 and 1939 is mostly known, and even if the history of the domestic policies of the Soviet Union between 1921 and 1939 is mostly known, deciphering the relationship between the two is a matter of speculation rather than fact. Still speculation can be made. What need not be speculated is that the Soviet Union was built on the idea of war between capitalism and communism. The USSR was designed to be the first in the world revolution. This precept can be found publicly in all the ideologies of the Soviet leaders, and more privately in their planning and geopolitical thought. However, what is less certain is whether this war was a matter of immenent conflict or far away victory for the Soviet leaders.

A nice little paragraph or two non?

Aelita, Queen of Mars

A Soviet Sci-Fi Epic. A man goes to Mars, befriends its queen and helps its workers. Its plot has definite propaganda elements, but it still sounds pretty cool. Besides it was made in 1924 and for that early a sci-fi plot like that is pretty damn cool. Aelita's Wikipedia article claims that it inspired a lot of future sci-fi movies, and while I'm skeptical of some of its claims (the article claims it inspired Metropolis, and that's a pretty big claim), it's age probably means it inspired some stuff. If I have enough time I'll watch it, and I might watch it as part of my Russian film project, but I thought I'd like up some places to get the film for all you good people out there in internet land.

(Also of note for any Code Lyoko friends, notice that the name is the same as Code Lyoko's female lead. She too is queen of a foreign world. Coincidence? Probably not, but maybe it is a coincidence, either way=cool)

Aelita, Part 1
Aelita, Part 2
Aelita, Part 3
Aelita, Part 4
Aelita, Part 5
Aelita, Part 6
Aelita, Part 7
Aelita, Part 8
Aelita, Part 9

First 8 parts are about 9 minutes, last part is about 4 minutes, so altogether a 76-84 minute viewing experience. Not that long. But it between being great, being crazy, and doing work, ah, it's hard to find time for the movies.

Even more quotable, even more boatable, roughly the same amount of John

"I like to quote myself, because I'm just that awesome."- Rand

"The world is hollow, and I have touched the sky."-Star Trek, episode title

"If you're going to be an ass, you should be a spectacular one. At least then it would become a character trait and people would have some warning about your ass-like behavior. A slight ass is like a virus, invisible and infectious, and he sours all the relationships around him. Of course it is best not to be an ass at all." - Rand

"The stars are like dust, and history is infinite."- Rand

"Art belongs to the people." - Lenin

"No, art belongs to the truth. But yo momma belongs to the people." - Rand

"People do not do things over and over again without getting some joy out of it." - Bob Kelso, Scrubs

"Which would do you think the tiger would prefer, being a dead rug in the seat of power or being alive in the jungle.

Alive in the jungle.

So would I."-Prez Richards, Sandman

"You're on my mind all of the time, I know it's not enough." - Electrical Storm, U2

"It is best to be both feared and loved, however, if one cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved." - The Prince, Machiavelli

"I'm both quotable and boatable, are you?" - Rand

History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce

When I'm feeling pessimistic and doubtful about myself, the future, and humanity's abilities I begin to feel almost Marxian. I think maybe humans are nothing more than economic creatures, maybe the world does need mass bloody revolution, etc. then I come to my sense and remember humans are in the end spiritual creatures possessing of complex minds which reach far beyond economics and I remember that the means don't justify the ends and that humanity can reform its problems without mass killings, etc. One other Marxian adage that occurs to me while I'm pessimistic, or at least occurs to me now and likely will occur to me in the future is the title of this session: History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Marx was speaking of the French Revolution comparing the first which led to Napoleon and the later revolution of 1870 which led to Napoleon III. But looking at current times I see odd parrellels with the past except they seem distorted, watered down and pathetic. George W. Bush reminds me of another nationalistic, common-man imaged, polarizing figure, Andrew Jackson, except that Andrew Jackson for all his faults contained a germ of legitimate reform. He became a symbol for popular democracy. George W. Bush, whose star has risen and fell far quicker than Andrew Jackson was also once considered symbolic of common people rebelling against the "liberal elites," his value as that symbol is fading but the sense that the common people need to rebel against the elites is still around, except there is no great reform ideas being articulated, only moderate, piecemeal ones which won't satisfy or change things quickly enough, meaning at the core of the movement is just anger.

But perhaps the better parrellel for this era is early 20th century/late 19th where people became discontent at liberal capitalism and came up with new revolutionary theories to challenge it. Except the theories they have now are all the same like nationalism or socialism, except even the rehashed theories are watered down. Chavezism is watered-down socialism with all the incompetance of communism without the redeaming quality of washing away the old social problems. But maybe it comes down to this. History isn't repeating itself, but the old historical forces which caused previous events still remain except now seeing them again after we thought we had dealt with them those forces seem tired and ridiculous.

Like the anger against capitalism. It really isn't anger against capitalism I think. A lot of it is just a sense of being lost, being small, being thrown around by forces that are alien to you and wanting to do something, anything to take back control. And so you try to force the nation together through the ideology of nationalism via the engine of socialism. But that doesn't work, because after a while you'll realize that you're actually at the bottom rung of the movement. Maybe you're on some worker's council or something, maybe, but even then it'll always be the more popular guys that'll really have all the power. You, you're still powerless in the end. Because the truth is the world acts upon us, and very few people can have power large enough that they can not seem small compared to the world. If we were to divide all of the power out there evenly and hand it out to each person, that would simply give a situation where no one would have a large piece of power and everyone would seem small compared to the world. I think even those with lots of power feel small, because most of those with lots of power acquire it through spreading out their interests throughout the economy or politics or culture and that simply exposes them to more historical forces to push and pull at them.

In the end, we must accept that events out of our control will always shape our destinies. Yes, we can work hard and improve things and help things, but we should never delude ourselves that we are in control, because then something out of our control and horrible, like a meteor strike, or a hurricane, or a terrorist strike might come and we'd have to watch as our illusions crumble. I'm not saying stop trying to improve the world, but rather... take pleasure in your effort, because even if you can't control the world you can control yourself, because ultimately we are more than our economic outcome, status or produce. We are not economic men and Marx was wrong. And history just rumbles onward, mysterious like the location of an electron, even if we could see it, it would just dart somewhere else and we would not know it anymore.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!