On May 3, 12:28 pm, P=C4=93teris Cedri=C5=86=C5=A1 (Peteris Cedrins)
<cedr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On 3 Maijs, 06:54, The Black Monk <ch....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > On May 2, 10:39 pm, Vladimir Makarenko <vmak...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> [deletions]
>
>
>
> > > The Black Monk wrote:
> > > > On May 1, 2:36 pm, P=C3=A7teris Cedri=C3=B2=C3=B0 (Peteris
Cedrins)
> > > > <cedr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > > >> On 1 Maijs, 18:19, MTRP(tm) <Mir.Topol...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
=2E..cut...
> > > So, despite I think that Cedrins at least sometimes - expresses
himsel=
f
> > > - if not thinks like neocon, he has a point here - Latvians did have
a=
> > > very good reason to make a deal with Bolsheviks, mabe be not well
> > > thought reasoning, but who did one? Half of the world was on fire.
>
> > You are well aware that Latvian involvement in the Bolshevik
> > revolution went much deeper than merely making a deal. The revolution
> > would have been stillborn without Latvian participation.
>
> Meaning what, exactly? We've been through this before, Black Monk --
> (1) _most_ of the Riflemen (by far) didn't end up Red, and (2) the Red
> Riflemen were never Latvian in terms of nationality (as opposed to
> ethnicity)... and the Riflemen who fought in Ukraine weren't even
> Latvian by ethnicity, for the most part. But most of what you write
> implies that Latvia, the nation-state or polity, should take
> responsibility for what a few thousand people did to Russia. Why is
> that, and how can that possibly make sense? I'm not my brother's
> keeper, or? Is a Jew in Piter responsible for the ravages of Zionism,
> perhaps?
Well, let's review what I wrote above, which is "You are well aware
that Latvian involvement in the Bolshevik revolution went much deeper
than merely making a deal. The revolution would have been stillborn
without Latvian participation."
The fact that the Latvian Red rifles were the Bolshevik elite, their
most reliable and disciplined troops, in the crucial early months of
the Revolution, is accepted history. It was the Red Rifles that saved
the Bolshevik Revolution at the beginning, when it would otherwise
have been snuffed out.
As Harvard historian Richard Pipes wrote in his "The Russian
Revolution": the Latvian Riflemen "gradually turned into a combination
of the French Foreign Legion and the Nazi SS, a force to protect the
regime from internal as well as foreign enemies, partly an army,
partly a security police. Lenin trusted them much more than
Russians."
The riflemen guarded the Smolny and the Kremlin, the Bolsheviks
headquarters in Petrograd and Moscow. They literally saved the regime
and the lives of Lenin, Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky in 1918 during the
anti-Bolshevik uprising in Moscow when the entire city, except for the
Kremlin, fell into the hands of rebels, and they then smashed a dozen
other uprisings throughout the country.
Do you doubt any of the above?
Do you doubt that the Bolshevik Revolution would have failed if not
for the Latvian Red Rifles?
If so can you find any sup****t for the idea that the Latvian Red
Rifles weren't critical for the Revolution's success?
Perhaps I am misinterpreting your intention, and if so I apologise,
but it seems that you are trying to deflect the conversation away from
the clear fact that Latvians were crucial to the Revolution (so much
so that it would not have succeeded if not for them) to a different
conversation, on whether Latvia as a whole is responsible for those
actions. I've already repeated many times that I consider neither
Russia nor Latvia collectively responsible for the actions of a band
of criminals - I assume you are intelligent enough to remember that.
> > > > Sure, the Latvians forced a regime on the Russian and Ukrainian
peop=
le
> > > > that was far, far worse, than what had ever been done to their own
> > > > people, and washed their hands of it, living happily for about 20
> > > > years. Unfortunately the consequences of that crime came back to
th=
em
> > > > and their people.
>
> John's joke was good enough -- it was made at the time, and I've come
> across it in various memoirs written back then. Ooh, ooh, those
> terrifying Letts, responsible for subjugating the Russian people.
> Gimme a break -- that's just not possible.
About as possible as 5 Arabs with boxcutters (no guns, no knives)
subduing a plane of 92 people and cra****ng it into a building. Russia
at that time was in chaos, anything was possible. It was a real
window of op****tunity for a well-led group of brave, disciplined
fanatics. That the tsars' and provisional government's incompetance
made all this possible in no way deflects responsibility form the
criminal - after all, are rapists less rapists if their victim became
drunk and stupidly wandered into a bad neighborhood at night?
> As to what had been done to our people and wa****ng our hands of it --
> you're just being a racist moron, sorry, Black Monk. For one thing,
> they were Russians, transcendent, dreaming of global communism.
Really? According to an arrested Western spy:
http://www.historia.lv/publikacijas/gramat/mangulis/05.nod.htm
"The Letts [Latvians] were the best [sentries]. Most of them were
contemptuous of the Russians, whom they regarded as inferiors. One
Lett informed me that, if Russia could have put a million non-Russian
troops into the trenches, she could not have failed to win the war.
Every time the Letts advanced, he said, they were let down by the
Russians, who failed invariably to sup****t them. He despised, too, the
dirt and laziness of the Russian troops. On the other hand, he had a
wholesome respect for the Bolshevik leaders, whom he regarded as
supermen."
But wow - you've gotten really upset. Perhaps now you understand a
little bit about how Russians feel when Latvia blames them
collectively for Soviet crimes (which is the case when it tries to
send Russia a bill for such crimes)
> They were never Latvians taking over another people -- they did not
think
> in terms of peoples (or, for that matter, people in the way we think
> of them -- the narod in its lowest sense was their people).
How do you know what they thought of? We know that they knew they did
not think of themselves as Russians in an ethnic sense Russians and,
indeed, held ethnic Russians in contempt.
> Secondly, they didn't set the rules. Soldiers rarely do.
Ah, the "just following orders" defense. Unfortunately in doesn't
apply to the Latvian Red Rifles, because they were actors not
subjects. They made history. Facts have an inconvenient way of
trumping excuses:
http://www.historia.lv/publikacijas/gramat/mangulis/05.nod.htm
The Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd took place during the night from
November 6 to 7 (old style calendar, October 24 to 25, hence it is
called the October Revolution). Troops loyal to Bolsheviks occupied
railway stations, banks, and the telephone exchange. Kerensky fled for
the front. The Provisional Government in the [page 27] Winter Palace
surrendered during the night from November 7 to 8 to a force of Red
Guards, sailors, and soldiers. The sailors were led by the Latvian
Ei=C5=BEens Bergs.
The Second Congress of Soviets met in the great hall of the Smolny
Institute in the evening of November 7 while the Winter Palace was
still under siege. The Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries
denounced the uprising. A delegate from the 12th Army protested the
revolution as a stab in the back of the army and a crime against the
people. Khinchuk, an officer from the 5th Army, declared that the
Congress of Soviets was not necessary because a Constituent Assembly
was scheduled to be held in three weeks. Khinchuk read a Menshevik
declaration of withdrawal from the Congress. The delegates hesitated -
perhaps the Bolsheviks did stand alone, and perhaps the army was
marching on Petrograd. Then, as described by the American
correspondent John Reed, a delegate of the Latvian Rifles, K=C4=81rlis
P=C4=93tersons, leaped upon the speaker=E2=80=99s platform:
=E2=80=9CComrades!=E2=80=9D he cried and there was a hush. =E2=80=9CMy
name =
is P=C4=93tersons - I
speak for the 2nd Latvian Rifles. You have heard the statements of two
representatives of the Army committees; these statements would have
some value if their authors had been representatives of the Army.=E2=80=9D
Wild applause. =E2=80=9CBut they do not represent the soldiers! =E2=80=A6
Ou=
r
Committee refused to call a meeting of the representatives of the
m***** until the end of September, so that the reactionaries could
elect their own false delegates to this Congress. I tell you now, the
Latvian soldiers have many times said, =E2=80=98No more resolutions! No
more=
talk! We want deeds-the Power must be in our hands!=E2=80=99 Let these
impostor delegates leave the Congress! The Army is not with them!=E2=80=9D
According to John Reed the hall rocked with cheering and suddenly the
delegates stopped wavering-this seemed to be the voice of soldiers. In
reality most of the 12th Army was either neutral or against the
Bolsheviks, and the Latvian Rifles (plus a few Russian regiments) were
the only ones actively sup****ting them, misled by Lenin=E2=80=99s promises
o=
f
self-determination for all nationalities.
However, the Bolshevik foothold in Russia was still small and
precarious. The Menshevik majority in the Executive Committee of the
Soldiers=E2=80=99 Soviet of the 12th Army in the Latvian town of Valka
declared itself against the new Bolshevik government on November 8.
However, the Latvian Rifles purged their regiments of anti-Bolshevik
officers and occupied C=C4=93sis on November 9, Valmiera on November 11.
They frustrated the attempts of the 12th Army Headquarters to send
troops to Petrograd and, in the words of the Russian General
Baronovskii, terrified the whole 12th Army. The reserve regiment,
stationed in Estonia, secured the town of Tartu. The last stronghold
of the anti-Bolsheviks, the 12th Army Headquarters in Valka, was
occupied by Latvian Rifles on November 20. To avoid the appearance of
ethnic warfare, a Russian regiment was sent along. The planner of the
seizure of Valka, Colonel V=C4=81cietis, was appointed Commander of the
12th Army.
Kerensky had gathered a small force and clashed with Red Guards
southwest of Petrograd on November 12-14 while officer cadets
attempted an unsuccessful uprising against the Bolsheviks inside the
city. Defeated, Kerensky fled into exile.
In Moscow the Latvian Ensign O.B=C4=93rzi=C5=86=C5=A1 became the Bolshevik
c=
ommandant
of the Kremlin on November 7. The Kremlin was im****tant both as a
fortress and as an arsenal for the Red Guards. The Chief of Staff of
the Moscow Red Guards was the Latvian J=C4=81nis Pie=C4=8De. Fighting
betwee=
n
Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik forces ended on November 15 with victory
by the Bolshevik Red Guards.
Since the German occupation of Latvia had dispersed Latvians
throughout Russia, they were active in the October Revolution from the
Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Ivars Smilga was the head of the
Regional Soviet Committee in Finland. Roberts Eidemanis was the vice-
chairman of the Siberian Executive Committee. The chairman of the
Crimean Military Revolutionary Committee was Juris Gav=C4=93nis. The
Commandant of Petrograd was Augusts K=C4=BCavs-K=C4=BCavi=C5=86=C5=A1.
M=C4=
=81rti=C5=86=C5=A1 L=C4=81cis,
J=C4=93kabs Peterss, K=C4=81rlis P=C4=93tersons, and P=C4=93teris
Stu=C4=8Dk=
a were members of
the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Stu=C4=8Dka became
Commissar of Justice (equivalent to a cabinet minister) at the end of
November.
etc. etc. "Just following orders," right?
> This applies even to
> the entire Party -- as Volodya suggested, no one told them where the
> tunnel ended. They fought for a free world, and many really believed
> in it.
So what. So did many other murderous Bolsheviks. We know that the
Bolshevik volunteers who took took the last bits of grain at gunpoint
from starving Ukrainian peasants during the Famine sometimes had heavy
hearts, and convinced themselves that this tem****ary evil was
necessary in order to build the future paradise.
Does that make them less criminals or less responsible?
> Down with Czars and Kadets and Black Monks, et al. Thirdly, the
> Party was hijacked, and that is something you should look into more --
> the high vote for the Bolsheviks here was essentially a vote for LSD,
> the Social Democracy of Latvia, and you tell me how different that was
> from LSDSP in 1905 because I also come into difficulties studying the
> ins and outs. But 1905 wasn't pretty, either -- in fact, that's what
> radicalized most... the reaction to that failed revolution, which was
> rather different in the Baltics than it was in most of the Empire.
>
> As to Kerensky, et al. -- Black Monk, personally, as a Balt, I am
> quite happy Russia failed, because those of your ilk would never have
> let us go. I prefer Reds to Whites, yes. I prefer a weak Russia, and
> its weakness is not the Latvians' fault.
You left out a major reason of Russia's weakness thanks to the Red
government you prefer for Russians - the murder of millions. You
didn't write it openly, but implicit in your statement expressing
preference to Reds versus Whites as rulers of Russia - I prefer
millions of dead Russians, as long as Latvia is independent.
I sup****t Ukrainian independence, but If the price for Ukrainian
independence were tens of millions of innocent dead Russians and
Balts, I would decline. But as for you - some lives have more value
than others, right? "I ptrefer Reds to Whites, yes. I prefer a weak
Russia..."
As for "not the Latvians' fault" - I've already posted the evidence of
their culpability. I know you have excuses, but can you provide
evidence by some historians that the role of the Latvian Red Rifles
WASN'T critical for the Revolution's success? I doubt it.
I wonder how many other Latvians share your racist, genocidal
viewpoint. If it is the majority (and I hope it is not), how can you
expect sympathy from anyone for Latvia's ordeals of the 1940's and
1950's?
> That you even indulge in such sick fantasies is my favorite fodder for
amu=
sement.
>
> "Washed their hands of it" is the most interesting phrase here -- it
> shows how little you know and how racist your view is. So a Latvian
> conservative -- e.g., a sup****ter of a German puppet government,
> perhaps -- would have to wash his hands of some Reds he always
> detested, even more than than the Russians or Germans detested him?
> How so?
That Latvian conservative is as much to blame for Latvian Red Rifleman
crimes as were the 95% of the Russian population who did not take the
Bolesheviks' side in 1917 and 1918.
> You take collective guilt to new lows, Black Monk.
Well, you are assigning guilt not even collectively but to someone
else entirely. You seem to be saying that the Latvian people should
not collectively be held responsible for the actions of 10,000 or so
Latvian Bolsheviks. That is correct, of course, and I have made my
opinion clear on this matter when we discussed it a few months ago.
But then you want to assign blame collectively to the Russians for the
work largely done as a result of the effort of 10,000 Latvian
Bolsheviks, which is ridiculous. It's like, after 9-11, someone
saying that all Muslims or Arabs shouldn't be held responsible for the
actions of a few fanatics on those planes. Instead, it's the
passangers' fault beause they failed to stop the hijacking.
> Neither the
> provisional government of Ulmanis nor the conservatives had _anything_
> to do with the Reds, ever, in any way.
Nor did most Russians whose country served as a playground for the
Latvian Red Rifles.
> There was no wa****ng of hands
> -- what happened was that a nation-state came into being.
> The Reds were driven out, Black Monk, and became Russians...
That's convenient.
> again, never having been Latvians.
So being or not being Latvian is a matter of convenience. Just don't
be surpised if non-Latvians don't take this sort of nonsense
seriously.
regards,
BM
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