Russian History: 'And Then It Got Worse.'

[PoliticalChic]

The American philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot rememberthe past are condemned to repeat it."


So.....let's remember Russia's past, and consider the reasons why Putin is twice as popular with his populace as Obama is with ours.





1. "....many Westerners speculate that the discomfort the Russian people feel will become too much for them to withstand. Many say the sliding standard of living will become unbearable, and that it could cause the Russians to turn on President Vladimir Putin.

a. “[Putin is] facing a full-blown currency crisis that could weaken his iron grip on power,” Reuters wrote on December 17.

b. “It looks all over for Putin,” Forbes said on December 18, adding that his “days are numbered.”

Will this lead to the end for Putin? ... let’s look back through the annals of Russian history.




The history of the Russians can be summarized in five words: “And then it got worse.”





2. Beginning in the 11th century, the majority of Russians lived as serfs in a dreary and oppressive feudal society. .... in a severe climate, forbidden to own any property or to leave the estates they worked... essentially slaves owned by a slender minority of landowners.

Historian Richard Hellie said they “raised and made most of what they had, and had few resources left after paying rent and taxes to buy anything” (The Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600-1725). Hellie says that, for many years, up to 90 percent of Russia’s population lived this punishing existence.



3. ....Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom in 1861, life for the average Russian took a turn … for the worse.

Serfs hadn’t owned land, but most of them only needed to meet a certain quota and then were permitted to keep the remaining crop yields. But after serfdom was abolished, the masses became wage laborers. Everything they grew or produced belonged to the property owner, and they were compensated with a few kopecks a day. They could barely buy the food they had grown with the wages they’d been paid to grow it.

Alexander had abolished serfdom to assuage the Russian masses and prevent a revolution. But the circumstances created by that abolition only increased revolutionary pressure. In 1905, the pressure exploded into a revolution against Czar NicholasII. However, because of infighting among the revolutionaries, the czar’s power strengthened. Russian nights grew longer, darker and colder.


When it looked as if things couldn’t get much worse, World WarIbroke out." The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com




“And then it got worse.”

 

[CrusaderFrank]

“And then it got worse.”

That could be the DNC 2016 theme

 

[Moonglow]

except that Russia is now rated at the junk bond level, while the USA is not...But please plant a big one on Pootins ass for me....

 

[Moonglow]

Russia forgot that if you free the peasants you must have industrialization to adsorb the new free workers,or land for them to work such as private property....Russia was slow at industrialization..Hell the USA was more industrialized...

 

[PoliticalChic]

“And then it got worse.”

That could be the DNC 2016 theme

Indeed!

A Hillary bumper-sticker!

 

[PoliticalChic]

4. " .....World War I broke out.


The Russian Army, large but poorly armed, took the offensive against the German-led Axis. Russian soldiers were often sent to the front lines unarmed and instructed to fight with whatever weapons they could find on the battlefield. Russia lost more people in the Great War than any other nation, but its ill-equipped yet strong-willed soldiers managed to tie down great numbers of enemy troops.

While the Russian soldiers loyal to the czar were fighting at the front, whispers of revolution within the country grew into cries of upheaval. The people had had enough of Russia’s gross social inequality, discouraging war losses, deepening economic crises, rampant starvation and monarchy scandals.

... [February 24,] 1917, revolutionaries toppled the czarist system.

.... after five years of savage civil war, the Soviets took power."
The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com


“And then it got worse.”

 

[PoliticalChic]

5." And Then It Got Worse.... [Under Soviet domination] Russia then entered a chapter bleaker perhaps than any it had known before.


Joseph Stalin and other leaders orchestrated what is sometimes called “the other holocaust of the 20th century”—the imprisonment, debasement and murder of tens of millions by their own government. Communists herded millions of poorer Russians into collective farms, effectively reintroducing serfdom.



In the midst of this dark Soviet chapter came an even darker inset:

World WarII.


Russian losses in this largest war ever fought are perhaps best summarized with one tragic statistic: 80 percent of all Soviet males born in 1923 were dead by the end of World War II."
The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com





Soviet communism was maintained in Russia through the tireless and misguided efforts of Franklin Roosevelt.

Although the results of communist governance is clear to those who can read, it's off-spring, Liberalism/Progressivism thrive in many of the once free nations.

 

[Camp]

Soviet communism was maintained in Russia through the tireless and misguided efforts of Franklin Roosevelt.

.

Who didn't see this coming?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Soviet communism was maintained in Russia through the tireless and misguided efforts of Franklin Roosevelt.

.

Who didn't see this coming?

Good to see you not try to contest same.

You're learning.

 

[Roadrunner]

The American philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot rememberthe past are condemned to repeat it."


So.....let's remember Russia's past, and consider the reasons why Putin is twice as popular with his populace as Obama is with ours.





1. "....many Westerners speculate that the discomfort the Russian people feel will become too much for them to withstand. Many say the sliding standard of living will become unbearable, and that it could cause the Russians to turn on President Vladimir Putin.

a. “[Putin is] facing a full-blown currency crisis that could weaken his iron grip on power,” Reuters wrote on December 17.

b. “It looks all over for Putin,” Forbes said on December 18, adding that his “days are numbered.”

Will this lead to the end for Putin? ... let’s look back through the annals of Russian history.




The history of the Russians can be summarized in five words: “And then it got worse.”





2. Beginning in the 11th century, the majority of Russians lived as serfs in a dreary and oppressive feudal society. .... in a severe climate, forbidden to own any property or to leave the estates they worked... essentially slaves owned by a slender minority of landowners.

Historian Richard Hellie said they “raised and made most of what they had, and had few resources left after paying rent and taxes to buy anything” (The Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600-1725). Hellie says that, for many years, up to 90 percent of Russia’s population lived this punishing existence.



3. ....Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom in 1861, life for the average Russian took a turn … for the worse.

Serfs hadn’t owned land, but most of them only needed to meet a certain quota and then were permitted to keep the remaining crop yields. But after serfdom was abolished, the masses became wage laborers. Everything they grew or produced belonged to the property owner, and they were compensated with a few kopecks a day. They could barely buy the food they had grown with the wages they’d been paid to grow it.

Alexander had abolished serfdom to assuage the Russian masses and prevent a revolution. But the circumstances created by that abolition only increased revolutionary pressure. In 1905, the pressure exploded into a revolution against Czar NicholasII. However, because of infighting among the revolutionaries, the czar’s power strengthened. Russian nights grew longer, darker and colder.


When it looked as if things couldn’t get much worse, World WarIbroke out." The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com




“And then it got worse.”

I wonder which one would poll better in a "Does Your Leader Love His Country Poll".

Sad commentary on America that the subject could even be raised here.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So....WW II....why the Russians would never have lost to Germany.



6. Once again, the Russians lacked enough weapons for all of their soldiers. Many units had only one rifle for every 10 men. The unarmed man trailed the armed one, waited for him to be shot down, then grabbed his gun and fought on. Russian soldiers were known to sometimes clear minefields by marching over them. Upon witnessing these tactics, one German soldier reportedly said he was convinced that the tough-as-nails Russians would win the war.

It was not only soldiers who suffered. In the infamous Siege of Leningrad, Nazi forces surrounded Russia’s second-largest city and choked it off in order to starve its residents. For 872 days, shelling was constant; starvation and disease pandemic. After all rats, pets and other animals in the city had been eaten, more than 2,000 starving residents resorted to cannibalism. With more than 1 million dead, it was one of the worst sieges in mankind’s strife-ridden history.

The Soviet Union’s total number of war dead for World WarIIexceeded 25 million, once again higher than the losses for any other nation.
The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com


a. "In 1945 Zhukov is reported to have said to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there." The shear weight of numbers eventually drove the Germans back, along with the Soviet leadership's determination not to relent, whatever the cost." Georgy Zhukov hero file



b. . World War II left over 27 million Soviet citizens dead....but only a fraction of them were killed by the Germans. Yet throughout the West. 'war crimes' is a phrase only attacked to the Nazis. When the Red Army marched, an NKVD army marched behind, with its own tanks, machine guns, firing forward....never allowing retreat. More than a million Soviet citizens joined the Nazis. Ask yourself this: why was it that the USSR, of all the Allies, had provided the enemy with thousands of recruits? Nearly one million Russian and other anti-Soviet men joined the enemy of their Soviet Army. "
The Secret Betrayal" by Nikolai Tolstoy, p. 19-20.


So....Russia had not only geography and its three best generals (December, January, and February) going for it....it had leadership that couldn't care less how many of its citizens it sacrificed.

 

[TheOldSchool]

Does this mean republicans putin worshipping days are over?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Soviet communism was maintained in Russia through the tireless and misguided efforts of Franklin Roosevelt.

.

Who didn't see this coming?

Only because its the truth

 

[PoliticalChic]

Does this mean republicans putin worshipping days are over?

You refer to a 'fact not in evidence.'

The same applies to you having been to any school, old or otherwise.

 

[Roadrunner]

So....WW II....why the Russians would never have lost to Germany.



6. Once again, the Russians lacked enough weapons for all of their soldiers. Many units had only one rifle for every 10 men. The unarmed man trailed the armed one, waited for him to be shot down, then grabbed his gun and fought on. Russian soldiers were known to sometimes clear minefields by marching over them. Upon witnessing these tactics, one German soldier reportedly said he was convinced that the tough-as-nails Russians would win the war.

It was not only soldiers who suffered. In the infamous Siege of Leningrad, Nazi forces surrounded Russia’s second-largest city and choked it off in order to starve its residents. For 872 days, shelling was constant; starvation and disease pandemic. After all rats, pets and other animals in the city had been eaten, more than 2,000 starving residents resorted to cannibalism. With more than 1 million dead, it was one of the worst sieges in mankind’s strife-ridden history.

The Soviet Union’s total number of war dead for World WarIIexceeded 25 million, once again higher than the losses for any other nation.
The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com


a. "In 1945 Zhukov is reported to have said to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there." The shear weight of numbers eventually drove the Germans back, along with the Soviet leadership's determination not to relent, whatever the cost." Georgy Zhukov hero file



b. . World War II left over 27 million Soviet citizens dead....but only a fraction of them were killed by the Germans. Yet throughout the West. 'war crimes' is a phrase only attacked to the Nazis. When the Red Army marched, an NKVD army marched behind, with its own tanks, machine guns, firing forward....never allowing retreat. More than a million Soviet citizens joined the Nazis. Ask yourself this: why was it that the USSR, of all the Allies, had provided the enemy with thousands of recruits? Nearly one million Russian and other anti-Soviet men joined the enemy of their Soviet Army. "
The Secret Betrayal" by Nikolai Tolstoy, p. 19-20.


So....Russia had not only geography and its three best generals (December, January, and February) going for it....it had leadership that couldn't care less how many of its citizens it sacrificed.

American aid began arriving in time for the stand before Moscow.

Had we not supplied them, would have been a different story.

It was close as it was.

Lack of US aid would have tipped the balance.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So....WW II....why the Russians would never have lost to Germany.



6. Once again, the Russians lacked enough weapons for all of their soldiers. Many units had only one rifle for every 10 men. The unarmed man trailed the armed one, waited for him to be shot down, then grabbed his gun and fought on. Russian soldiers were known to sometimes clear minefields by marching over them. Upon witnessing these tactics, one German soldier reportedly said he was convinced that the tough-as-nails Russians would win the war.

It was not only soldiers who suffered. In the infamous Siege of Leningrad, Nazi forces surrounded Russia’s second-largest city and choked it off in order to starve its residents. For 872 days, shelling was constant; starvation and disease pandemic. After all rats, pets and other animals in the city had been eaten, more than 2,000 starving residents resorted to cannibalism. With more than 1 million dead, it was one of the worst sieges in mankind’s strife-ridden history.

The Soviet Union’s total number of war dead for World WarIIexceeded 25 million, once again higher than the losses for any other nation.
The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com


a. "In 1945 Zhukov is reported to have said to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there." The shear weight of numbers eventually drove the Germans back, along with the Soviet leadership's determination not to relent, whatever the cost." Georgy Zhukov hero file



b. . World War II left over 27 million Soviet citizens dead....but only a fraction of them were killed by the Germans. Yet throughout the West. 'war crimes' is a phrase only attacked to the Nazis. When the Red Army marched, an NKVD army marched behind, with its own tanks, machine guns, firing forward....never allowing retreat. More than a million Soviet citizens joined the Nazis. Ask yourself this: why was it that the USSR, of all the Allies, had provided the enemy with thousands of recruits? Nearly one million Russian and other anti-Soviet men joined the enemy of their Soviet Army. "
The Secret Betrayal" by Nikolai Tolstoy, p. 19-20.


So....Russia had not only geography and its three best generals (December, January, and February) going for it....it had leadership that couldn't care less how many of its citizens it sacrificed.

American aid began arriving in time for the stand before Moscow.

Had we not supplied them, would have been a different story.

It was close as it was.

Lack of US aid would have tipped the balance.

How did that work out for Russia vs Napoleon, without US aid?

 

[PoliticalChic]

7. "After the war ended, Stalin and the other Soviet rulers returned to inflicting the “other holocaust” on the people of theUSSR.

Historian I.  G. Dyadkin estimated that 56 to 62 million people died “unnatural deaths” from 1928 to 1954, and that excludes wartime casualties. Stalin himself admitted to destroying 10 million." The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com


This is the regime that Franklin Roosevelt insisted to the American people that fought for the same values as we did.



The Soviet Union killed more than twenty million men, women and children: its own citizens.
Former USSR leader Joseph Stalin is estimated to have killed millions of people for various reasons. Reports from the Soviet archives show prisoners under Stalin's regime who were executed either for political or criminal offences. Around 158,000 soldiers were also executed for deserting the war.
Why Did Stalin Kill His Own People - Ask.com



8. Let's be very clear: the savagery had little to do with the war, or the Nazis. It was the character and nature of communism:

"The Soviet NKVD trained the SS, taught them how to build concentration camps, as they had been operating for 20 years before the origin of the Nazis." Viktor Suvorov, former Soviet Military Intelligence Officer. "According to Suvorov, Stalin planned to use Nazi Germany as a proxy (the “Icebreaker”) against the West. For this reason Stalin provided significant material and political support to Adolf Hitler, while at the same time preparing the Red Army to “liberate” the whole of Europe from Nazi occupation."
Viktor Suvorov - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia


a. "Major Soviet Paper Says 20 Million Died As Victims of Stalin"
Major Soviet Paper Says 20 Million Died As Victims of Stalin - NYTimes.com


b. “Culture is a stubborn opponent. The Soviet Union attempted to create the New Soviet Man with gulags, psychiatric hospitals, and firing squads for seventy years and succeeded only in producing a more corrupt culture.”
Bork, “Slouching Toward Gomorrah,” p. 198




There is absolutely no metric by which Joseph Stalin was less evil than Adolph Hitler.

None.

Both communism and National Socialism share the same provenance.
As does Liberalism/Progressivism.

 

[Moonglow]

So....WW II....why the Russians would never have lost to Germany.



6. Once again, the Russians lacked enough weapons for all of their soldiers. Many units had only one rifle for every 10 men. The unarmed man trailed the armed one, waited for him to be shot down, then grabbed his gun and fought on. Russian soldiers were known to sometimes clear minefields by marching over them. Upon witnessing these tactics, one German soldier reportedly said he was convinced that the tough-as-nails Russians would win the war.

It was not only soldiers who suffered. In the infamous Siege of Leningrad, Nazi forces surrounded Russia’s second-largest city and choked it off in order to starve its residents. For 872 days, shelling was constant; starvation and disease pandemic. After all rats, pets and other animals in the city had been eaten, more than 2,000 starving residents resorted to cannibalism. With more than 1 million dead, it was one of the worst sieges in mankind’s strife-ridden history.

The Soviet Union’s total number of war dead for World WarIIexceeded 25 million, once again higher than the losses for any other nation.
The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com


a. "In 1945 Zhukov is reported to have said to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there." The shear weight of numbers eventually drove the Germans back, along with the Soviet leadership's determination not to relent, whatever the cost." Georgy Zhukov hero file



b. . World War II left over 27 million Soviet citizens dead....but only a fraction of them were killed by the Germans. Yet throughout the West. 'war crimes' is a phrase only attacked to the Nazis. When the Red Army marched, an NKVD army marched behind, with its own tanks, machine guns, firing forward....never allowing retreat. More than a million Soviet citizens joined the Nazis. Ask yourself this: why was it that the USSR, of all the Allies, had provided the enemy with thousands of recruits? Nearly one million Russian and other anti-Soviet men joined the enemy of their Soviet Army. "
The Secret Betrayal" by Nikolai Tolstoy, p. 19-20.


So....Russia had not only geography and its three best generals (December, January, and February) going for it....it had leadership that couldn't care less how many of its citizens it sacrificed.

American aid began arriving in time for the stand before Moscow.

Had we not supplied them, would have been a different story.

It was close as it was.

Lack of US aid would have tipped the balance.

How did that work out for Russia vs Napoleon, without US aid?

Not the same strategy, not the same leader....Different philosophies...Why did it work for the Mongols? The Poles, The Swedes, The Vikings? Germans lost because of Hitler...

 

[PoliticalChic]

So....WW II....why the Russians would never have lost to Germany.



6. Once again, the Russians lacked enough weapons for all of their soldiers. Many units had only one rifle for every 10 men. The unarmed man trailed the armed one, waited for him to be shot down, then grabbed his gun and fought on. Russian soldiers were known to sometimes clear minefields by marching over them. Upon witnessing these tactics, one German soldier reportedly said he was convinced that the tough-as-nails Russians would win the war.

It was not only soldiers who suffered. In the infamous Siege of Leningrad, Nazi forces surrounded Russia’s second-largest city and choked it off in order to starve its residents. For 872 days, shelling was constant; starvation and disease pandemic. After all rats, pets and other animals in the city had been eaten, more than 2,000 starving residents resorted to cannibalism. With more than 1 million dead, it was one of the worst sieges in mankind’s strife-ridden history.

The Soviet Union’s total number of war dead for World WarIIexceeded 25 million, once again higher than the losses for any other nation.
The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com


a. "In 1945 Zhukov is reported to have said to US General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there." The shear weight of numbers eventually drove the Germans back, along with the Soviet leadership's determination not to relent, whatever the cost." Georgy Zhukov hero file



b. . World War II left over 27 million Soviet citizens dead....but only a fraction of them were killed by the Germans. Yet throughout the West. 'war crimes' is a phrase only attacked to the Nazis. When the Red Army marched, an NKVD army marched behind, with its own tanks, machine guns, firing forward....never allowing retreat. More than a million Soviet citizens joined the Nazis. Ask yourself this: why was it that the USSR, of all the Allies, had provided the enemy with thousands of recruits? Nearly one million Russian and other anti-Soviet men joined the enemy of their Soviet Army. "
The Secret Betrayal" by Nikolai Tolstoy, p. 19-20.


So....Russia had not only geography and its three best generals (December, January, and February) going for it....it had leadership that couldn't care less how many of its citizens it sacrificed.

American aid began arriving in time for the stand before Moscow.

Had we not supplied them, would have been a different story.

It was close as it was.

Lack of US aid would have tipped the balance.

How did that work out for Russia vs Napoleon, without US aid?

Not the same strategy, not the same leader....Different philosophies...Why did it work for the Mongols? The Poles, The Swedes, The Vikings? Germans lost because of Hitler...

. What does history tell us about similar attempts to conquer the Russian bear?

"Napoleon began his invasion 550 miles from Moscow and 420 miles from St. Petersburg. Hitler began his invasion from a similar distance."
Why Russia Is Marching mdash and Eastern Europe Is Afraid - theTrumpet.com
And the same winters.
How did that turn out for the attackers?

Different philosophies???????
Be serious.


In any case.....Stalin wasn't going to surrender to Hitler.
And that was the view of the experts in the Department of State.


1. What could, should have happened? When the (anticipated) event that Hitler would attack Stalin's Russia, as they did June 21st, 1941, America should have done nothing.

..no more than relaxing restrictions on exports to the Russians...but at the same time securing a quid pro quo for further assistance! Lend-Lease should not have been the automatic and unlimited buffet that it turned into! "Finally, should the Soviet regime fall,...we should refuse to recognize a Communist government-in-exile, leaving the path clear for establishment for a non-Communist government in Russia after the war."

These were the words of Loy Henderson, Soviet and Eastern European affairs expert and Foreign Service officer, as quoted by Martin Weil in "A pretty good club: The founding fathers of the U.S. Foreign Service," p. 106.


2. Hanson Baldwin, military critic of the New York Times, declares in his book, "Great Mistakes of the War:" 'There is no doubt whatsoever that it would have been to the interest of Britain, the United States, and the world to have allowed and indeed to have encouraged-the world's two great dictatorships to fight each other to a frazzle.'

Baldwin writes that the United States put itself "in the role-at times a disgraceful role-of fearful suppliant and propitiating ally, anxious at nearly any cost to keep Russia fighting. In retrospect, how stupid!"

 

[PoliticalChic]

9. "Stalin died in 1953, but the grinding Russian conditions lived on. ... the Soviet Union endured the Era of Stagnation, languishing under the yoke of communism and the ice of the Cold War.

Revolution broke out again in 1989, leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Then things got worse.


In the decade following the USSR’s collapse, rates of poverty and economic inequality skyrocketed. In the late Soviet era, about 1.5 percent of the population lived in poverty (which means they were earning less than $25 per month). By the mid-’90s, this number jumped to somewhere between 39 and 49 percent of the population. Russia’s economy sank into a deep depression, which, in terms of gross domestic product, was more severe than the Great Depression in the United States. Russia’s 1998 financial crisis further exacerbated the difficulties.

Meanwhile, a small class of kleptocratic oligarchs rose up and became obscenely wealthy. In many ways, Russia was again a serf-like state.

... the turmoil and poverty of the 1990s gave democracy a bad name.

A large percentage of Russians today agree with President Putin’s belief that the fall of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” The Amazing Durability of the Russians - theTrumpet.com