Actually I'm a Menshevik. I think Trotsky was an ass. Nice dresser though. The Bolshies had fashion sense if nothing else.
I completely agree with you that Russians are concerned, except for a few intellectuals, with daily affairs and quality of living, not ideologies. I was talking to A. Kondorsky (this is a mutual acquaintance, for people who aren't Peter) about this the other day. Sasha rates the Brezhnev era generally positively, but not because he's a "communist." His comment was that "I no longer believe in good or bad regimes, I believe in MY QUALITY OF LIFE." (He's getting remarried, by the way.) Olga's father (remember her? My ex) hates both Lenin and Yeltsin with a passion as nihilistic destroyers. That doesn't mean he wants to return to the pre-1917 or -1991 way of life. What it means is that he thinks that reformers are a lot better than revolutionnaries. Unfortunately reformers seem to get their asses kicked here a lot.
Then again, the academic whose book I just edited is a real Leninophile. I've never met a Leninophile in Russia before. Lots of fans of Stalin, but not of Lenin.
--- Peter Lavelle <untimely_thoughts at yahoo.com> wrote:
> You are right, we must have a misunderstanding. In
> an
> endlessly boring and ahistotrical thread you and
> others went on singing the praises of an awful
> regime.
>
>
> I know I may be alone on the issue of Trotsky on
> this
> list - he was just another intellectual thug the
> world
> would been have been better off not knowing of.
>
> Chris, I think you misplace how Russians think about
> the Soviet Union and Stalin to please your own
> political interests. I think many on this list do
> the
> same.
>
> Recent things I have written concern how nation
> states
> confront political challenges - I have never
> defended
> communist ideology or practices. Having seen it in
> practice has made me very skeptical of any project
> that promotes any such ideas.
>
> Again the issue of context is lost. The Soviet Union
> and Stalin is thought about in Russia because of the
> important need to define national identity and a
> sense
> of being to assess the present. The Soviet Union and
> Stalin are not thought of in terms of politics or
> any
> particular ideology among the vast majority of
> Russians. You should know well that most Russians
> are
> more worried about inflation and other more mundane
> problems.
>
> best to you,
> Peter
>
>
>
>
> --- Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi Peter,
> >
> > You write:
> >
> > "Thus, considering your love for Stalin and the
> > Soviet
> > Union found on his list,"
> >
> > I think we must have a misunderstanding problem. I
> > think Stalin was a horrifically brutal modernizing
> > dictator like Peter the Great on speed and
> > (hesitantly) that the USSR was an outgrowth of
> > Russian
> > peasant culture faced with modernity that appealed
> > to
> > peasant values to justify itself and probably
> > appeared
> > to some extent "natural" to people with that value
> > system. Where does the love for Stalin thing come
> > from?
> >
> >
> > Nu, zayats, pogodi!
> >
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>
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>
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