On May 8, 3:05 am, P=C4=93teris Cedri=C5=86=C5=A1 (Peteris Cedrins)
<cedr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On 8 Maijs, 06:23, The Black Monk <ch....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > 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?
>
> My problem with what-if games, which I've explained many a time, is
> that if you change one thing -- everything changes. In this case -- if
> the Riflemen hadn't formed Lenin's Praetorian guard, others would have
> been found. One could then find other things to play with -- I've even
> read a novel in which the speculation is that Nechayev would have been
> in Lenin's place, had he lived. You could ask questions like would
> there have been Bolshevism without Lenin? You could read _War and
> Peace_ on a similar question, as I'm sure you have...
Sure - you make a good point. An individual such as Lenin may have
been interchangeable. But I struggle to think of 10,000 disciplined,
brave, excellent soldiers in the rubble of the Russian Empire, in late
1917 through early 1918, who would have taken the Latvian Red Rifles'
place as Lenin's soldiers. The only other real actors at that
specific time at the beginning of the Revolution, the Cossacks, would
have been opposed to the Bolsheviks for obvious reasons (indeed, they
formed the first real opposition). There was practically zero sup****t
for Bolsheviks beyond the factories, and industrial workers were a
small minority of Russia's population.
> > 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.
>
> ...and then you could ask whether the failures of the provisional
> government, and the failure of previous governments to introduce
> reforms that addressed the causes of the extreme discontent that led
> to such extremism, weren't critical to the Revolution's success. But
> if I ask that, you're going to reach for some metaphor about girls
> wandering around in bad neighborhoods.
Which is a correct metaphor. I didn't blame the Latvian Red Rifles
for causing the Revolution. I blamed them rather for the course that
the revolution took.
> There were over half a million landless persons (heads of families and
> dependents) in what is now Latvia in 1897, out of a total population
> of less than two million. Urbanization was taking place on a grand
> scale. 1905 was the crucible -- that earlier revolution, and its
> brutal suppression, radicalized many.
Certainly.
> > > > Perhaps I am misinterpreting your intention, and if so I
apologise,
> > > > but it seems that you are trying to deflect the conversation away
fr=
om
> > > > 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.
>
> OK, sure. But what does it -- did it -- mean? The national awakening
> that took place from the 1850s wasn't political -- except in that the
> idea of a "Young Latvia" (the term was given to the movement by the
> Germans, because the book of poetry that marked the beginning of the
> First Awakening included a translation of Heine) was detested by both
> the Baltic Germans and the Russians, who saw Latvians as a peasant
> class rather than as a nation -- wasn't overtly political. The "first
> Latvian," Kri=C5=A1j=C4=81nis Valdem=C4=81rs, was a pragmatic and
construc=
tive man,
> interested in the betterment of his people and a self-described
> Russophile. By the 1890s, the First Awakening had petered out -- with
> the development of a bourgeoisie, "Latvianness" became bourgeois;
> ethnic decoration, basically. Real work was done -- in education, for
> instance. Then came the so-called "suitcase with the dangerous
> contents" -- the Marxist literature Rainis brought in from Germany.
> Even some of the major radicals (e.g., Jansons-Brauns) admit that
> their understanding of the new wave of socialist thought was shallow.
> But the lines of thought that run through this period are where you
> find the profound differences -- and points of agreement.
Interesting. There seems to be a lot of parallels between this
situation and what had been happening at the same time in central and
eastern Ukraine. Petliura, Hrushevsky, Vynnychenko, etc. the fathers
of the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Russian-controlled Ukraine -
they were all SR's. Bolsheviks were practically nonexistent outside
the Russian-populared factory towns in the east; an attempted
Bolshevik revolt in Kiev in 1917 was easily crushed by Petliura within
a couple of days.
Naturally the more conservatively-inclined Galicians were more
successfull militarily and organizationally than their leftist
brothers. And this brings us back to Latvia, sort of - Galicians were
after all half of the Ukrainian military in those days and composed
its elite forces. It is not surprising that 10,000 Latvian Red Rifles
determined the balance of power in Petrograd and Moscow - 20,000 or so
Galicians captured much of Ukraine for a while. My father's uncle was
among those who triumphantly entered Kiev in those times.
And of course 30,000 Czech former POWs held the balance of power in
Siberia.
> Rainis, for example -- Latvia's greatest writer -- worked with
Stu=C4=8Dka=
> at the leftist newspaper _Dienas Lapa_. His sister married Stu=C4=8Dka,
in=
> fact. Rainis, however, rejected the dictator****p of the proletariat
> (he could have become an academician in Moscow, but turned it down).
> Rainis was _both_ a fervent socialist and a fervent nationalist. You
> ask how I know how they thought -- well, you can read a lot of
> polemics at different points.
>
> Rainis in a letter to Krauze, June 1916, my crude translation:
>
> "We must get rid of the idea that we can only survive at the mercies
> of the Germans or Russians. The proletariat and Social Democracy also
> require a nation, and a free nation. The proletariat suffers the most
> from the repression of the nation. The proletariat and Social
> Democracy can only achieve its goals through the International, but
> this is based on nationality -- on the existence of the nation. (To
> kill a nation of a couple of a million is the same as killing a couple
> of million members of the proletariat.) _Cosmopolitanism is a utopia
> and old-fa****oned._ A nation-less situation is only a distant goal,
> but not a means toward that goal. The cosmopolitan is a rabble, a
> disorganized mass in which nations are held captive. The cosmopolitan
> is sawdust and chaff, not grain or wood to be worked with."
>
> The reason he wrote this way was because the idea he is dissing --
> that of the nation-less situation as a means toward his goal, social
> democracy (I used capitals in the text because that's what LSDSP
> became during the relevant period -- LSD, the Social Democracy of
> Latvia, which was taken over by the Bolsheviks) -- was indeed an idea
> that was _au courant_. Stu=C4=8Dka only grudgingly even agreed to
forming =
a
> "Latvian Socialist Republic"; nationality was a distraction from class
> warfare.
Nationalism always triumphs over pure socialism. The workers of the
world proved that in 1914.
> It's not so hard to perceive the idea, Black Monk -- it's closely
> related to the sovok ideas of such as Andrius.
>
> > > And you are leaving a vital element out -- the state. I don't hold
Rus=
sians
> > > 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
i=
nvaded
> > > 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.
>
> And you have the gall to accuse me of defining Latvians according to
> convenience? What the above translates to is "we'll take the UN seat
> and the nukes, but you can share the guilt." And that is indeed the
> usual Russian approach -- "we'll take credit for defeating Fascism,
> you Nazis pygmies, but you weren't occupied and share the blame for
> Stalinism."
There is a fundamental difference between a UN seat and nukes (actual
tangible things that can be distributed) on the one hand and
responsibility for Bolshevism on the other. The latter is a matter of
facts, history and interpretation.
If the nukes were divided differently, would that change the
evaluation of Russia as the culprit of Bolshevism?
> The inheritance of a continuous, complex history, which even
> revolutions don't change very much, also has to "go somewhere."
> Personally, I don't want reparations (and I've said so before) -- I
> think asking for money is an impediment to asking for acknowledgment
> of the occupation.
Of course.
> But this is exactly where I think you get slippery in a way that
> matters -- states matter, and very much so. The peace treaty was
> signed between states (and here you could, of course, pursue the
> argument that the Soviet government wasn't legitimate in 1920, but
> this debate is already too long...). States have _more_ responsibility
> than ethnoi do, because they supersede ethnicity -- an ethnic Latvian
> can become a Russian citizen and vice-versa, a state includes its
> minorities, etc. In essence -- states are legal entities, and ethnoi
> are not.
By emphasysing states rather than other entities such as ethnicities
or social groups you sacrifice truth for the sake of convenience.
Yes, it is messier to deal with ethnicities and loyalties.
Unfortunately, when speaking of the Bolsheviks in 1917-1918 you are
dealing not with a state but with a large gang of armed criminals. No
state is to blame. Yes, the evil took hold in the territory of Russia
- this was after all the center where many, including Latvians, from
the defunct Russian Empire went to.
> No, I don't recall Russia taking on the moral burdens of the USSR -- I
> recall Russia blaming everybody else for everything.
As opposed to taking all the blame for everything onto itself? Russia
has a lot to blame everyone else for.
> "We were all in
> it together, and we built the Autobahn I mean those nice factories,
> Siberia was a vacationers' paradise and anyway you are rehabilitating
> Nazism, etc." Tomorrow Russia will happily take on the moral burden of
ec=
statically celebrating the > Soviet victory in 1945, no?
As will Ukraine. So?
> > > 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?
>
> It's nostalgia for the Brezhnev days? Even you bring up the youth who
> don't remember. Don't you think state policy has an effect on what
> youth think? Don't you think the lack of a
_Vergangenheitsbew=C3=A4ltigung=
_
> is a problem? Putin proclaimed himself a "proud Chekist" and revived
> the Soviet music, did he not?
Sure. And again, what does turn-of-the-21st century mythology prove
about the events of 1917? Putin may feel that it is healthier and
less demoralizing for the Russian people not to simply think of
themselves as victims and the last 70 years as an enormous grotesquery
and of their parents and grandparents as collossal failures. Even if
some time in the future the Russians come to believe the fantasy that
Stalin was a great, beloved guy who expressed the wishes of the
Russian people, a 20th century Peter the Great, such attitudes are
completely irrelelvent when considering who is actually guilty for the
events that happened under Stalin.
> Here's a piece I like a lot, "A Few Words About History, Russia and
> Latvia," by the historian Aivars Stranga --
>
> http://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/latvia/History-of-Occupation/Stranga/
Thanks!
regards,
BM
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