h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Some scene-setting:

I'm about to start reading a book about the Russian Gulag, also there was a joke on HIGNFY about Russians turning up in Blackpool to see a lightbulb switched on, and now to cap off my evening I espy this on the Beeb.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4521663.stm

So this all seems rather timely.

Is The Forum in agreement with Dubya that the former Soviet domination of eastern Europe was one of "the greatest wrongs of history"?

Discuss.

would that have been in september they came ,

'one of the greatest wrongs'? No, I'd have trouble agreeing with that. Unless it were more qualified, for example, 'one of the top 100 wrongs of the last few centuries of European history'.

hi anhaga how are you ?

fine, thanks, colourfultrueblues. Have a nice day.

maybe 1 of the greatest wrongs of the 20th century
even then not the greatest wrong of that period

1955, according to HIGNFY.

It strikes me that, despite Mr. Bush's recent self-appointment to the position of Supreme Judge of History, the jury still hasn't heard all the evidence on most of the 20th century.

The Gulags certainly were a very big bad indeed (if that's Applebaum's book, Clive, it's well worth it).

However 'Russian' is a problem, since if a relatively small number of Russians were in large part responsible - though Stalin was actually Georgian - they were in very much larger numbers the victims of the camps (along with many Poles, Ukrainians, all the various ethnic minorities of the former Soviet Union and a surprisingly large number of German P.O.W.s. Even the odd American, for that matter).

Which is also a problem for the idea of 'Russian' oppression of Eastern Europe. The Russian people themselves weren't any better off.

I started thinking fair enough, allowing a little leeway for Bush's usually imprecise use of language, but as I think about it, there were comparable attrocities all over. I'm sure if you picked the right (wrong?) block of land in the rest of Europe, or South America, or Asia, or Africa containing the same population as Russia you'd find as bad.

I mean who's read the article about Belgium in the Congo for a start?

There have been many great wrongs in the 20th century, and that's only the bit we know most about.

We were learning about the Russian Revolution in school, and it was observed that it's practically identical to every single revolution that's happened elsewhere. The French one, for instance, springs to mind. And if you're looking for a comparison for the gulags, why not try the concentration camps of the Nazis, tos state the obvious example?

Bouncy's right that there are 'comparable atrocities all over'. I think that the very domination of Eastern Europe wasn't the problem - at least, considering America's history of expansionism, our president certainly shouldn't be one to talk. The idea of Communism and 'The Revolution' really isn't bad either. It's a bit idealistic, but you're not committing human rights violations until you get to the famines and collectivisation and Stalinism and all that ensuing terror. And in the end, it's not really *the* worst thing in history, when so many others are just as extreme, if not more so.

"Is The Forum in agreement with Dubya that the former Soviet domination of eastern Europe was one of "the greatest wrongs of history"?"

It was one of the great wrongs of the 20th century, certainly. post-WWII the destiny of your country depended on whether you had been occupied by the victorious Western powers (USA, UK, France, Canada etc) or the victorious USSR. At the start, parliamentary democracy was restored across Europe but Stalin quickly moved to impose single-party rule in the manner of the USSR. This was generally done by holding a rigged multi-party election. This would be 'won' by a coalition of far-left partys (usually a communist party and more conventionally democratic-left sounding partys). These parties would then 'merge' to form a single, dominant political party (usually called something like 'The Party of Socialist Unity' or suchlike, due to it being a 'merger') and the remaining conservative and liberal partys in opposition would be disbanded. The new ruling party would then claim that a revolution had effectively taken place with the people's consent and hence they now stood, politically, on the side of the USSR.

There were several uprisings against de-facto Soviet rule, such as Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. These were supressed by Soviet invasion on the pretence of preventing a 'counter-revolution'. Despite this, the Eastern Bloc post-Stalin was not as strong on dissent as it had been. The Communists faced internal dissent from both the right (Lech Walesa in Poland) and liberal-left (Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia) but chose to 'freeze-out', ridicule or imprison these dissenters rather than execute them as Stalin would have. The internal dissent they created (helped by sympathisers in the West), the fundamental unworkability of the Marxist-Leninist economic system, the strong dissatisfaction with Communism in the East and it's defeat and usurption by democratic socialism in the West (reducing the popular appeal of communism to dirt-poor third-world states and feudal South American dictatorships) helped make the Soviet empire an increasingly futile and pointless exercise until Gorbachev and Yeltsin called it a day in 1991, after decades of decline.

You want to be careful with comparisons of revolutions. Pretty much every group of revolutionaries who came after were very aware of the French Revolution and consciously portrayed themselves as following in its footsteps but learning from their mistakes.

Honestly I would consider most comparisons between the French and Russian Revolutions, over a century apart, to be superficial and misleading. Perhaps the very broad: authority collapses, creates power vacuum -> mayhem ensues.

Also, while the Bolsheviks probably weren't the worst in the 20th centuries, they still come in pretty damn close. The US hasn't done anything near as bad.

And remember their Revolution was a bloody coup and civil war against popular opinion. The Bolsheviks didn't overthrow the Tsar.

Make that coup and bloody civil war, sorry, the coup itself was bloodless.

It is Applebaum, Trin.

I take it you've read it?

I might attempt The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich afterwards, picked up a copy in a 2nd hand book sale ages ago, with the intention of reading it in a few years, so maybe now's the time.

First I've got to finish The Man in The High Castle by Philip K Dick. I just finished A Scanner Darkly so figured I'd investigate more Dick for fiction, my Dad lent me the Applebaum book in the meanwhile so that's on my reading list next.

oh i hate bloodless

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I am with you there, Blackberry Cat. I just heard something on the BBC WS about that - to the effect that it was Russia which saved the world from fascism. Correct, I think.

Saved the world from facism?

Has it all gone then

I cant see Russia as the big bad only last night I saw a documetary where though welcoming the new fredoms an elderly Mongolian gent was bemoaning the turn away from collectivism. I think particularly of the explosion in child prostitution in Russia after the fal of the old communist hierachy.

The Russinas did run things with an grip in North Asia and Eastern Europe but was that any worse than the subtle string pulling and use of financial influence to control geo-political matters that the Western powers used.

Personally I dont trust any country run by politicians or mullahs or soverigns or....

I don't think subtle string pulling or financial influence compare to the millions who died in the Ukraine.

I'm just relieved that the cold war has ended and we're all friends again. But Bush seems determined to provoke one of the few nations who DO have WMDs and COULD threaten the West. Methinks it's about time he kept his trap shut.