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The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is THE book to read for anyone who wants to find out about Stalin's rule over Russia.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:46
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Actually I was always curious about how did the commies perceive alcohol consumption? Did they think that the rampart alcohol consumption in USSR was affecting the general population in a negative way or it was tolerated or even encouraged pretty much like how drugs are viewed in North Korea: as a debouch or a way to make people more docile.
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Dec 15, 2014 12:34
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bitcoin bastard posted:Also how did ordinary Russians view the rest of the USSR/Warsaw Pact in that sense? Did they view Eastern Europe as comrades in arms, or as useful bumpkins to be sacrificed, or somewhere in the middle? As a Romanian I can assure you that my country was basically viewed pretty much like a colony, something like Siberia. Good only to retrieve basic materials from. After WW2 the political echelon was infested with Russians, mainly of Jewish origin, whose sole purpose was to spoil the country of as much industry and prime materials as possible. The story is a bit more complex than that (and things got increasingly complex as Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej died and Nicolae Ceausescu came in his place) but basically every single economic endeavor was nationalized and assigned a Russian-Romanian (by the name only) management that practically moved everything of use abroad. I know that's not what you've asked but it sets the picture of how the Russians view the satellite states. Edit: The Romanian defector Nicolae Pacepa gave a wonderful insight in his two books about the Russian-Romanian relationship viewed from the upper echelon of the Romanian Intelligence Agency.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:40
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Yeah, meant to post a disclaimer for that since I really didn't want it to sound racist and I don't want to derail the discussion towards myself but the unofficial leader of the Romanian communist party after the war was Ana Pauker, a Stalin's favorite for the leadership of the satellite. Even tho the number of Jewish personalities in the communist party was thinned out during Gherghe Gheorghiu Dej's second purging (that includes Ana Pauker - in a historical coup on the hallways of Kremlin) based on his nationalist and antisemitic propaganda, Dej had in his entourage plenty of personalities of Jewish origins. The relationship between communism and the Hebrew minority was very ambivalent and it remains a mystery to me, an amateur in his own country's contemporary history. Enough said that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dedicates plenty of space in his books to it. Again, sorry to have offended someone, I don't mean it and the historical facts I'm basing my claims on do not lead me to be prejudiced or have a negative view toward the Jewish community. If I sound too blunt about some historical facts I believe in, must be because English is not my native language and my vocabulary is not developed enough to put things mildly. Opposite fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 12:22
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