The Russian Revolution in Colour

[mk12]

I can't be bothered to continue this anymore - I don't think anything will come of it. I have enjoyed this discussion though. I have already bought one book you recommended (Beevor - Spanish Civil War), so I will probably get a couple from this thread.

You have changed some of my views - on the change of personnel and Bolshevik propaganda - but haven't convinced me that supporting the Kronstadt rebels was the way to go. I will try not to make you talk about Kronstadt, Makhno or Spain for a while now.

EDIT - from post 128 - According to Avrich, "It was a bogus report that the Communists were preparing to attack the [March 2] meeting that actually precipitated the formation of the PRC, the step by which the sailors crossed the Rubicon of insurrection. Who was responsible for the rumor? According to Petrichenko it was the work of the Communists themselves, with the object of breaking up the conference themselves. Although certainly possible, there is no evidence that this was the case...And it is worth noting that Petrichenko himself took up the rumor and announced that a detachment of 2,000 Communists were indeed on their way to disperse the meeting."

Also, as Avrich claims, - In May 1921 Petrichenko and several of his fellow refugees at the Fort Ino camp decided to volunteer their services to General Wrangel.

Have a good easter.

 

[butchersapron]

Ok, fair play. Have a good weekend.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Just read the rest of the thread and there is some interesting stuff. I agree with Matt though that none of it has convinced me that backing the Kronstadt rebellion was the right thing to do. And this whole thing is in the context of the ice being about to melt.

But butchers you really are patronising and smug when you debate. I think it's extremely off putting for most people and is the kind of attitude that totally puts people off from getting involved in political debates and in politics generally.

 

[butchersapron]

The smacked arse talks back.

I don't think after your contribution to this thread that you are really in a position to offer advice. Do you?

 

[davgraham]

The smacked arse talks back.

I don't think after your contribution to this thread that you are really in a position to offer advice. Do you?

Just come to the end of this thread [?]

. . . butchers you truly are a hero. I simply would not have had the patience.

there are none so blind as those that will not see . . .

I hope this can be archived as an object lesson in historiography.

Gra

 

[butchersapron]

That is my final contibution though Gra. And hopefully my last ever thread on this particular topic.

 

[cockneyrebel]

The smacked arse talks back.

With your next post you prove exactly what I was saying about your attitude. Despite me and Matt saying we have learnt things and taken some things on board (but not accepting your overall conclusions) you come out with this shit.

I've found Matt to be open to ideas and debates and patronising the fuck out of people doesn't really help. All you do is ended up excluding people from debate because people dont want someone to try and patronise and humiliate them.

While your anarcho chums might pat you on the back, believe me that way of debating just put people off and makes you look totally patronisng and smug.

 

[rebel warrior]

Think the next one is on soon (Tuesday)...

About 'Lenin's totalitarian regime' apparently... I expect it will be in the main more Right wing liberalism, which will make the anarchists here happy no doubt.

Shame, because Steve Smith is a good historian - see Red Petrograd. Christopher Read's From Tsar to Soviets is quite interesting, but its section on Kronstadt reads as badly as Orlando Figes notoriously poor A People's Tragedy. Barely a mention is made for the argument of Lenin about the dangers of the Whites taking advantage of the Kronstadt uprising. Still, I suppose we should be grateful that Figes is not on the programme...

 

[Sorry.]

do you reckon having one of your referees on the telly improves your chances of Arts and Humanities Research Board funding?

 

[rebel warrior]

do you reckon having one of your referees on the telly improves your chances of Arts and Humanities Research Board funding?

Wouldn't know mate. Whos that - Read?

God - just watched the show - about 40 minutes of not really telling us anything new. How have they found out that Reisner and Raskolnikov lived a life of luxury at Kronstadt - from the sailors letters alone? Hmm... Still, some interesting pictures of Kronstadt...

 

[mk12]

I didn't watch it - was it along the lines of - 'Lenin was dictator'?

 

[rebel warrior]

I didn't watch it - was it along the lines of - 'Lenin was dictator'?

Yes. 'Lenin and Trotsky sold out the revolutionary ideals of 1917' - that sort of thing. The historians pointed out that the Kronstadt sailors wanted a 'third revolution' - but the programme makers didn't bother to ask the historians about what possible future a 'third revolution' in the devasted Russia of 1917 might have had, or whether it might have allowed an opening for counterrevolutionary forces to return. The programme makers/ historians didn't feel it necessary to tell us that there was such a thing as the 'White Terror' either - just a 'Red Terror' without any real context - you get the idea...

 

[mk12]

Of course the bourgeois historians were all for the 'workers democracy' the Kronstadt sailors supported, weren't they? Your enemy's enemy...

 

[butchersapron]

You didn't even watch it you muppet.

 

[Sorry.]

Wouldn't know mate. Whos that - Read?

Yeah. He was a bit fond of my dissertation on the Spanish Civil War.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes. 'Lenin and Trotsky sold out the revolutionary ideals of 1917' - that sort of thing. The historians pointed out that the Kronstadt sailors wanted a 'third revolution' - but the programme makers didn't bother to ask the historians about what possible future a 'third revolution' in the devasted Russia of 1917 might have had, or whether it might have allowed an opening for counterrevolutionary forces to return. The programme makers/ historians didn't feel it necessary to tell us that there was such a thing as the 'White Terror' either - just a 'Red Terror' without any real context - you get the idea...

satan, but you're full of shit. again. you plainly missed the bit about the mutilated reds in kazan.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, there was good 5 minutes on that - including long close ups of dead Bolsheviks with their propaganda stuffed down their throats and their party cards pinned to their chests. Oddly enough it was the Kronstadt sailors who discovered them and who also later (if you follow RW's argument through)were to pay for the murders.

 

[mk12]

You didn't even watch it you muppet.

Fuck off. I was referring to all bourgeois historians who hate Lenin and the Bolsheviks - I didn't have to watch the programme to know that.

 

[Sorry.]

Fuck off. I was referring to all bourgeois historians who hate Lenin and the Bolsheviks - I didn't have to watch the programme to know that.

Except that there were plenty of historians involved in making the problem who were sympathetic to both February and October 1917. Which you would have known had you watched it.

 

[Pickman's model]

Fuck off. I was referring to all bourgeois historians who hate Lenin and the Bolsheviks - I didn't have to watch the programme to know that.

you don't have to be either bourgeois or an historian to hate lenin and the bolsheviks.

 

[mk12]

Pickman's - you are right - bourgeois or anarchist.

 

[Sorry.]

Pickman's - you are right - bourgeois or anarchist.

Or the many other brands of non-Leninist socialism and leftism.

 

[rebel warrior]

Yes, there was good 5 minutes on that - including long close ups of dead Bolsheviks with their propaganda stuffed down their throats and their party cards pinned to their chests..

A good 20 seconds perhaps. And they didn't use the phrase 'white terror' once - though they mentioned 'Red Terror' of course.

People might have heard of Edward Acton's book, Rethinking the Russian Revolution.[1996] He looks at the Russian Revolution from three sides - the traditional Soviet view (Stalinist), the Liberal view (bourgeois) and the 'Libertarian view' (anarchist) and thinks he has got the revolution 'objectively' covered as a result. Yet all these different viewpoints agree on one thing - that Lenin led to Stalin - an opinion that fitted nicely into the worldviews of both ruling classes East and West, for obvious reasons, during the Cold War. The anarchists also buy into this Stalinist/ bourgeois notion. Only one person is almost completely missing from Acton's account - Leon Trotsky, who insisted that there was a 'river of blood' between Leninism and Stalinism - and so his ideas are conveniently forgotten by modern Liberal historians, just as Stalin banned him from the USSR back in 1929. Those who really want to 'rethink the Russian Revolution' might take a look at Mike Haynes book, Class and Power in Russia, 1917-2000.

 

[Good Intentions]

It's like a political history version of Eliza... I wonder, if posts like the above where made during a Turing test with a suspicious judge, would the Leninists be able to pass as human? Some of the Turing contenders I've seen are very sophisticated in every aspect but their ability to digest data.

 

[Sorry.]

A good 20 seconds perhaps. And they didn't use the phrase 'white terror' once - though they mentioned 'Red Terror' of course.

People might have heard of Edward Acton's book, Rethinking the Russian Revolution.[1996] He looks at the Russian Revolution from three sides - the traditional Soviet view (Stalinist), the Liberal view (bourgeois) and the 'Libertarian view' (anarchist) and thinks he has got the revolution 'objectively' covered as a result. Yet all these different viewpoints agree on one thing - that Lenin led to Stalin - an opinion that fitted nicely into the worldviews of both ruling classes East and West, for obvious reasons, during the Cold War. The anarchists also buy into this Stalinist/ bourgeois notion. Only one person is almost completely missing from Acton's account - Leon Trotsky, who insisted that there was a 'river of blood' between Leninism and Stalinism - and so his ideas are conveniently forgotten by modern Liberal historians, just as Stalin banned him from the USSR back in 1929. Those who really want to 'rethink the Russian Revolution' might take a look at Mike Haynes book, Class and Power in Russia, 1917-2000.

Why is an historian obliged to accept Trotsky's analysis of something in order to produce useful work?

And why is it that you seem comfortable conflating the bourgeois and libertarian analysis of the revolution (thus smearing the latter as being bourgeois), when you must be aware that to do so is intellectually dishonest in the extreme?

 

[WasGeri]

I thought it was a good programme and very informative for the average person who has no knowledge of minute details of the Russian Revolution.