On May 6, 12:34 pm, P=C4=93teris Cedri=C5=86=C5=A1 (Peteris Cedrins)
<cedr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On 6 Maijs, 06:18, The Black Monk <ch....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > On May 3, 12:28 pm, P=C3=A7teris Cedri=C3=B2=C3=B0 (Peteris Cedrins)
>
> [deletions]
>
> > Do you doubt that the Bolshevik Revolution would have failed if not
> > for the Latvian Red Rifles?
>
> That's a what-if game.
Sure,, and is there a problem with that? Without the participation of
the Latvian Red Rifles, would Russia have become Bolshevik? Yes or
no?
The evidence I posted strongly suggests that the answer is no.
> > If so can you find any sup****t for the idea that the Latvian Red
> > Rifles weren't critical for the Revolution's success?
>
> I'm not denying that.
Okay. Thank you for your honesty.
> > 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.
>
> Here and elsewhere, the distinctions you make -- or fail to make --
> between ethnicity and nationality are far too slippery.
But at a time when there are no states, or they are not yet
established, all we have is ethnicity.
> And you are leaving a vital element out -- the state. I don't hold
Russian=
s
> collectively responsible for Soviet crimes,
By demanding reparations from the Russian state you are in essence
holding the Russian people collectively responsible - after all, who
will ultimately pay the reparations if not Russian taxpayers?
> but the Russian Federation is the successor state of the USSR, which
invad=
ed
> the Republic of Latvia. States have responsibilities.
Yes, the Russian Federation is the successor state of the USSR. This
was a practical necessity - the USSR's security council seat, debts,
and foreign property (embassies, etc.) had to go to someone after
all. But do you recall Russia agreeing to take on the USSR's moral
burdens? It seems that you are confusing the practical matter of
division or inheritance of assets with a very different one -
inheritance of legacy. The USSR's assets and foreign debts had to go
somewhere, and did, to Russia - but the state itself died and is
gone.
> I would note, too, that
> nostalgia for the Soviets is far more prevalent among Russians than it
> is among Latvians, and I think that's rather illustrative of whether
> Bolshevism was forced upon Russia or not.
Why would nostalgia for the stable Brezhnev days of the 1970's by
Russians who haven't trasnsitioned well or by the youth who doin't
remember Soviet times tell us anything about whether Bolshevism was
forced on the Russian people in 1918 or not? Are you going to tell me
that similar East German commie nostalgia also means that the
imposition of communist rule in that country was voluntary?
> > > 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?
>
> Another weird analogy, sorry.
Anderson was incredulous that a tiny minority could take power over a
much larger majority. I merely gave an example of this happening. If
the majority doesn't know what's coming, is indecisive, afraid etc. it
can be quite helpless in the face of a ruthless brutal brave minority.
> The state of the neighborhood was something that developed over a long
per=
iod of time.
Of course.
> So did the fanaticism, in fact -- I'm sure you've read _The Devils_ and
co=
uldn't
> help but think about later revolutionaries and the Russian character.
> I know very well that the Latvian character had also secreted
> considerable venom -- as I said, the 1905 Revolution was also not a
> pretty thing. Nonetheless, we were able to build a democracy, if
> briefly, from 1918/20 -- and to rebuild one in 1991.
Sure, but Lenin and friends would never realize their dreams without
"Latvian muscle". This is not a vague exercise in "what-ifs" - the
facts that I posted speak for themselves. Lenin, Trotsky et al were a
handful of radical intellectuals, the sort capable of assassination
and conspiracies (which obviously happened throughout the 19th
century) but not of actually capturing an entire country. In the
chaos of 1917 they might have actually captured and held onto a city
for a few days (as ahppened in Paris in 1871, for instance). Consider
Savinkov to get an idea of what a Revolution without the 10,000 or so
Latvian Red Rifles would have looked like. For Lenin to succeed in
holding his city, consolidating his rule and cru****ng opposition he
needed a large number of loyal, disciplined, skilled, brave soldiers.
The Latvian Red rifles filled that role. They made sure that the
Bolshevik intellectuals came to power.
> > > 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."
>
> I wonder if you bothered to read the rest of the Mangulis text, much
> of which isn't at all in accord with your theory?
Which of the text is not in accord with my "theory"?
=2E..cut...
> > > They were never Latvians taking over another people -- they did not
th=
ink
> > > 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.
>
> The passage regards ethnic Russian soldiers, not ethnic Russians. And
> again -- nationality is not ethnicity.
Are you suggesting that the Latvian soldiers who held Russian soldiers
in contempt had positive feelings towards Russian non-soldiers?
As for nationality and ethnicity:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nationality
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary states, among others:
3. A race or people, as determined by common language and character,
and not by political bias or divisions; a nation.
To be clearer you should use the term citizen.
> > > 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=C3=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=C3=A2rlis
> > P=C3=A7tersons, leaped upon the speaker's platform:
>
> > "Comrades!" he cried and there was a hush. "My name is P=C3=A7tersons
- =
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."
> > Wild applause. "But they do not represent the soldiers! ... Our
> > 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, 'No more resolutions! No more
> > talk! We want deeds-the Power must be in our hands!' Let these
> > impostor delegates leave the Congress! The Army is not with them!"
>
> > 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's promises of
> > 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' 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=C3=A7sis 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=C3=A2cietis, 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=C3=A7rzi=C3=B2=C3=B0 became the
Bolshev=
ik commandant
> > 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=C3=A2nis Pie=C3=A8e. Fighting
be=
tween
> > 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=C3=A7nis. The
> > Commandant of Petrograd was Augusts K=C3=AFavs-K=C3=AFavi=C3=B2=C3=B0.
M=
=C3=A2rti=C3=B2=C3=B0 L=C3=A2cis,
> > J=C3=A7kabs Peterss, K=C3=A2rlis P=C3=A7tersons, and P=C3=A7teris
Stu=C3=
=A8ka were members of
> > the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Stu=C3=A8ka 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?
>
> Crimes are specific and committed by individuals or individual units.
Of course.
> > > 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.
>
> No -- it's a matter of separating one's country off from a berserk
> empire that you really can't do anything about.
As the posted information above describes, the Red Rifles did much
more than that - they determined the direction in which that "berserk
empire" would go. They played an active role in doing so, and even
you admit that their role was "critical." Many Russias could have
emerged from that mess - a constitutional monarchy, a Latin American-
style dictator****p of some sort or a Horthy-like regency as in Hungary
(the latter two are most likely one in my opinion), etc. Thanks to
the Latvian Red Rifles, it was the genocidal Red regime.
> Why should a Latvian have chosen anachronistic feudalism over the Reds'
ut=
opia?
You really think that Lenin's Russia was equivalent to that of the
Czars?
> That question gets asked about what happened a couple of decades later
--
> choosing the Soviets or the Nazis. Given a free choice, most would
> choose neither. The Whites were dismissive even of Baltic autonomy.
> Why should anyone here defend their cause? The idea of a fully
> independent Latvia came about quite late, with the realization that it
> was possible -- because of the strength of the Riflemen as a fighting
> force -- and the realization that Russia would not become a decent
> country. Fighting for "a free Latvia in a free Russia" makes no sense
> if the latter is impossible.
The problem here is that the Soviets were the lesser evil vis a vis
Hitler while the Whites were a lesser evil compared to the Soviets.
Is there a pattern there of consistantly chooisng the greater evil?
> You see a similar thing again in the 1980s -- everyone urging sup****t
for=
a kindler, gentler USSR
> when most here wanted to get out.
Question for you: if getting out for Latvia in the late 1980's meant
setting up a Pol Pot type regime in the rest of the USSR, would you
sup****t that?
=2E..cut...
> > > 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.
>
> You're saying that all Muslims and Arabs _should_ be held responsible
> for those actions?
Reread my first paragraph. Sorry for being unclear. I'm saying that
assigning blame for all Muslims and Arabs for 9-11 is ridiculous. But
assigning blame for 9-11 on the passengers is even more ridiculous.
Likewise, asssigning blame for the Revolution for Latvians as a people
is ridiculous. But blaming the Russian victims is even more
ridiculous.
> > > 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.
>
> "Playground"?
How would you descibe it? A rare op****tunity to control the course of
history.
>
> > > 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.
>
> "Convenient"? I can walk up 18 November Street and see the graves of
> the Latvians and others who died clearing the Reds out, or go around
> the corner and see the crucifix where the Poles who died were buried
> (a hill before the Soviets bulldozed it). The Latvians had plenty of
> help from others -- but you'll recall that the Allies attempted to
> intervene in Russia also.
Sure, but not enough and White Russia was too big and too divided to
have much of a chance agianst the centralized ruthlessly efficient and
well-led Red Russia.
> Look at all of the other factors involved in building the states. The
> _causes_ for the popularity of Bolshevism were addressed in Latvia --
> through pro****tional representation and a radical land reform.
Yes.
> > > 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.
>
> It seems to me that confusion is more convenient for the other side --
> your side, as John put it. I don't find the issue confusing -- I am
> talking about nationality, obviously.
Nationality has many definitions and I'm using "a race or people, as
determined by common language and character, and not by political bias
or divisions; a nation" which is no less correct and no more confused
than yours.
> In 1917, _everyone_ was a
> Russian national. There was a war -- and, as even you realize, Russia
> was in chaos (your words). Latvians took the op****tunity to achieve
> sovereignty and bring an end to that chaos here.
Which was commendable. Unfortunately other Latvians made other
choices. And now you want to make the Russian people collectively
responsible for those choices made by some Latvians.
Look, it seems to me that the sad fact is that Latvians' most
significant contribution to world history was ensuring that Lenin was
in power in Russia. Although a small minority of Latvians, the
Bolshevik Latvian Red Rifles left more of a stamp on the world than
did any other Latvians in history. And no hatred of Russia by other
Latvians can erase that fact. It's ironic, isn't it, that the nation
most vocal in calling for reparations is the one whose contribution
was so indispensable, isn't it? Pu****ng this unpleasant idea out of
their minds may be why otherwise rational, intelligent and decent
people make ridiculous arguments about Russia's responsibility for
what the Bolsheviks had done.
regards,
BM
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