Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Photo by Timo Kozlowski
Bangkok is in flames as the counterrevolutionary violence in Thailand reaches a bloody climax. The long-awaited assault by the Thai army has already taken place, and will not cease until every trace of the protest has been wiped out. No-one can be sure of the number of casualties, but the final figure will certainly be more than what the authorities have admitted to so far. It seems that some red-shirts have responded by setting fire to banks, shopping malls and other buildings in the city, and there are reports that protests and violence is erupting in other parts of the city.
Read the rest here
RENEGADE EYE
43 comments:
And of course there was absolutely zero violence when the red shirts started their revolution. No, all the violence started when, and only when, the government began it's "counter-revolution".
What blatant, self-serving nonsense!
Have I Missed Something or is The West Very Silent on the current unrest? I assume The Yellow Shirts are pro-American & anti-terrorist which might explain the lack of outcry .Had it been Cuba The States would have been jumping around all over the place......
Such events in Cuba though would have more direct implications for US security concerns, with severe ramifications involving the potential for massive numbers of exiles, not all of whom would be the kind of people we would want to welcome here. Otherwise, it would have been relatively easy to start a revolution against Castro, at which point he wouldn't have lasted long. The US lost a golden opportunity in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union.
Thailand is handling this situation properly, and I consider it a model for how all nations should deal with violent insurrections. Rubber bullets are a waste of a precious resource.
It’s a real shame about Thailand and Bangkok; I usually stop over for a few days on the way to Oz and they are such friendly people for the most part. Even though there is a fair amount of poverty there, the city was always very safe.
But all in all, this current series of events has its roots in the denial of democracy, not the popular desire for a leftist revolution.
Fresh, open and honest elections would resolve this overnight.
The authorities may have used live rounds, but so were the 'red' protesters.
I deleted all aspects of the previous discussion.
Sentinel: You said something to the effect, it wasn't a leftist revolution happening in Thailand, but just a fight for democracy. I think that is true. I'm going to take that farther, and to a different direction.
There is no such thing as a "leftist revolution." Most people have profoundly conservative lifestyles. Once in awhile something occurs to disrupt it, and it causes someone to enter into the political arena. When many do that, that is a revolution.
Even the Bolshevik Revolution is in that catagory. Lenin called on the SRs and Mensheviks to take power. That's what all power to the soviets meant. In the Chinese and Cuban Revolutions nationalizations came years later.
Tony: Under capitalism as socialism, democracy is the most efficient form of government. You don't have to deal with bribery and corruption.
At this point I don't see the US playing a role. On the other hand they are preoccupied with Afghanistan and Iraq (LOL).
The pro-monarchy forces occupied an airport once. Only a pro-monarchy movement can set foot on an airport.
Pagan: It's ridiculous comparing property damage, to 20 deaths. The government is the more ruthless.
If the US would have attacked Cuba, when the Soviets left, they would have had a war on their hands. People remember The Bay of Pigs. The US would turn Cuba into Haiti.
You show the hypocrisy of the right. You have no right to whine about Che'. He didn't use rubber bullets.
"It's ridiculous comparing property damage, to 20 deaths. The government is the more ruthless."
Tell that to the business owner once his business is smashed and looted, or to the car owner once his sole means of transportation is demolished, or the homeowner while his house is burning down around him and his family.
"You have no right to whine about Che'. He didn't use rubber bullets."
So why should anybody else?
Pagan: You ducked the question. You're oblivious to the military, gunning down civilians.
Property damage is often done by agent provocateurs. The killings were done by unequally armed soldiers.
The bigger problem is the lack of leadership. If the working class was more involved, not a wheel would turn.
Ren,
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If the working class was more involved
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The working class is involved in Thailand. But they are involved AGAINST a billionaire media mogul who used his money to buy poor peasants and turned them into his private guerilla army.
The hypocrisy of supporting Thaksin Shinawatra and denouncing Silvio Berlusconi is absolutely amazing. They are exactly the same.
"You're oblivious to the military, gunning down civilians."
The minute people start throwing rocks, molotov cocktails, and using small-arms fire and other kinds of weapons against soldiers, police, and real honest-to-God civilians, they are no longer civilians, they are rebels. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of their cause, it's insanity to think they should be treated as anything other than rebels.
The British didn't use rubber bullets against American revolutionaries either, they used real ones, and in some cases they used the rope. No one expected any different, and if any rebel is convinced of the rightness of their cause, then that's just a sacrifice they should be willing to make.
Do you even have a concept of how idiotic it sounds to talk about a repressive regime, and then turn around and whine because they fight back with real bullets?
Renegade Eye::
I agree that there is no such as thing as a populist leftist revolution, only a directed agitation of genuine concerns and an infiltration of genuine populist movements to push the direction to the extreme leftist agenda.
And almost invariably the people behind the pushing are foreign governments and agents, in ‘uprisings’ that are usually not locally spontaneous and nationally popularist but more intra-nationally organised and internationally financed, as was the case with the biggest and best known of them all.
Vladimir Ulyanov – Lenin – was only able to return to Russia in time for the ‘revoultion’ from Switzerland by way of the German Secret Service; they arranged for him to travel through Germany in a sealed train and then onto Sweden and Finland into Russia.
Lev Bronstein – Trotsky – was allowed back into Russia only after he was released from Naval custody in Canada by the British secret service, and after a direct request from the Russian Foreign Minster in one of his last acts in the position. US president Woodrow Wilson personally intervened to give Trotsky a US passport in which to travel back to Russia. He travelled back to the 'revolution' with a U.S. passport, a British transit visa, a Russian entry permit and $10,000 cash.
The whole so-called ‘revolution’ was just one giant machination of foreign interests and players and financed by the purportedly symbolic arch-enemy of Socialism: Capitalist Wall Street.
A very detailed account of all this in a work by the renowned expert Anthony C Sutton can be found free and in its entirety here:
http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/bolshevik_revolution/index.html
As for the current situation in Thailand, Pagan is spot on. Shooting civilians is unacceptable, but people cease to become civilians when they turn assault rifles, explosives and make shift missiles onto anyone as did the ‘red shirts’. They become insurgents at the least and possibly even terrorists.
When they turn these weapons onto the army and the army fire back, then that is just to be expected, quite obviously.
Anyways, the violence has ended for the time being now that the ‘red shirts’ have been disarmed.
Sonia: Support and oppose, are not words that I use. I use a method. When someone is the apparent leader of a movement that is popular, to denounce the leaders is crazy.
I wouldn't say, "Down with Thaksin Shinawatra." That would isolate me. Instead I would say, if he's for democracy, he should oppose the monarchy. The same technique applies whether its Obama, Castro, Chavez or any popular leader.
If you have read the post, it doesn't support Thaksin Shinawatra, unless and only to the extent he supports a socialist program.
Denouncing leaders, unless your base hates them as Bush, is a common and dumb tactic. If "Down With The Czar," would have been used in Russia 1917, the revolution would have failed.
Pagan: Do you even have a concept of how idiotic it sounds to talk about a repressive regime, and then turn around and whine because they fight back with real bullets?
They shot right into a temple.
The violence has been denounced even in that far left publication The Economist. The rebellion is spreading. They even shot at paramedics.
Sentinel: The Russian Revolution was financed by Wall Street? What was the Cold War?
I think you're both oversimplifying things from different perspectives. If leftist George Soros invests money toward causing the collapse of a national currency, we wouldn't say "Wall Street played against a national currency". Wall Street is a competitive market, it doesn't act as one giant monolithic entity. If there were certain factions operating through Wall Street pursuing an agenda that involved putting Lenin in power, it would be the same thing. I don't know what their reason would have been, but its probably not a lot different from giant international corporations supporting Cap And Trade laws. There's nothing altruistic about it. They know they can absorb the hit to their bottom line and at the same time make things very difficult for lesser competitors, maybe in some cases put them out of business. By the same token, we don't conclude that "Wall Street supports Cap And Trade." Wall Street doesn't support or oppose anything beyond making profits for investors, sometimes in manipulative ways. If a business fails, or a country, their main concern is how they can benefit, or cut their losses, or recoup them. That's what they do.
I'm not supporting the government of Thailand over the rebels, because I don't know enough about the situation. I'm just pointing out that if you rebel against any government, its nonsense to whine when that government shoots back. Stick to the tactic of what you're fighting them for to begin with, because if you use violence as a tactic, you're going to sound ridiculous when you complain about being opposed with violence. Here's a clue, no one's going to give a shit, especially if they don't know what you're fighting for and what you're trying to accomplish.
Ren,
I use a method. When someone is the apparent leader of a movement that is popular, to denounce the leaders is crazy.,
Well, Stalin used the same "method" as you with Hitler in 1933. Hitler was the leader of a movement that was HUGELY popular in Germany at the time, and Stalin forbid German Communists from opposing him.
Your "method" is stalinist.
Renegade Eye:
The cold war was long after the Russian ‘revolution’ just as Gulf War 2 was quite some time after the various US support and financings of Saddam Hussein and the CIA trained and US supported Mujahideen Bin Laden become the arch-enemy of the US.
You mistake origins for later actions.
The evidence is quite clear, well sourced and very well laid out.
Read the book; it is free.
Pagan:
I would say the same: Read the book; it is free.
The reasons the ‘revolution’ were funded by the usual suspects are apparent, but ultimately it means that the ‘revolution’ was nothing of the sort – a local popualist uprising – but an orchestrated takeover backed by foreign agents, ministries and money.
Not quite the image of the downtrodden working class suddenly recognising their ‘class enemy’ and spontaneously revolting for the good of their fellow man.
’Wall Street’ and the usual suspects also supported Hitler and another free book by the same renowned author on that issue can be found here:
http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/
But ‘Wall Street’ aside, how far do you think the involvement of the secret services must have been with just these two men - Ulyanov (Lenin) and Bronstein (Trotsky) – given the facts above?
And just how and why did US President Wilson come to be personally involved with Bronstein (Trotsky)…
Sonia: I'll reply more late tonight.
After Chamberlain's what is called appeasement of Hitler, Stalin got scared. Churchill was going to help Hitler.
The real alliance was Churchill and Hitler.
Sentinel-
Capitalist investors want to open markets. If I had to speculate, I would guess that is what was going on here. Much like feudal Japan was forced to open it's markets to American merchants under threat of invasion. No one could have known how that would have turned out, but President Fillmore was determined to open them up.
Czarist Russia was probably a closed market, or probably it would be more accurate to say it was a very restricted market. Looking through the prism of the past always gives one a skewed perspective. The capitalist investors of the day were probably well aware the Czarist regime was at its end and was well beyond hope of being salvaged. That would have been easy to see.
Investing a few hundred thousand dollars in men like Trotsky and Lenin amounted to a bet. As in the case with Japan, it wasn't a sure thing under any stretch of the imagination. It was like pouring money down a rat hole, in reality, but it was probably seen as yet another potential investment opportunity. Countries with vast populations like Russia have vast needs to fill. People need to eat, and their countries need money for development. They have vast reservoirs of wealth yet to be tapped in the form of natural resources.
They also need some form of stability under some kind of solid leadership. But I do want to reiterate, Wall Street was not a monolithic entity, and especially back in those days, it was not subject to any degree of regulatory activity to speak of. "Wall Street" did not do it, in all probability it would be more accurate to call it a cabal of Wall Street investors who were not subject to regulation as they would be today.
Wilson, though a progressive, purportedly despised communists, but that didn't mean he couldn't be influenced. No one really knew what a communist government would look like. It was unknown territory at the time.
Pagan:
You could always read the book and forego the need to guess and speculate! It is as cheap as it gets!
The title is ‘Wall Street’ but the actuality is really just the same interlinked bankers who we can find behind most of the worlds more recent calamities, not really a New York Street and its traders.
Besides the funding of the ‘revolution’ the two main protagonists were only able to even be in situ by the machinations of foreign secret services and the bizarre interventions at the highest levels of, amongst others, the US, UK, German and Russian governments – this was no ‘revolution’ at all, this was the carefully planned, intricately financed hostile takeover of a sovereign nation.
That is my main point really: It was no ideological, spontaneous working mans uprising more of a capitalist funded foreign foray.
The masses do not choose to enslave themselves in a Godless state hostile to the very nature of man and determined to make the cultivation of human failure the epitome of success. People do not choose to be governed by tyrannical fanatics who impose granular controls at every level and layer of life, brook no opposition, allow no criticism and torture and murder as if it were going out of fashion.
The only people served by such brutal oppression are those other then the working classes – the new elites and the old – and the inevitable edict that some are more equal then others.
Pagan,
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Czarist Russia was probably a closed market, or probably it would be more accurate to say it was a very restricted market.
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Only your "probably" saves you from looking like a complete fool. Tsarist Russia had a completely free-market economy, with no restrictions on ecomic activities of any kind.
Under the tsar, Russia produced enough grain to feed half of Europe. Under Stalin, it was forced to import food.
Sentinel,
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The masses do not choose to enslave themselves (...) People do not choose to be governed by tyrannical fanatics who impose gradular controls at every level and layer of life
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Really... Venezuelan "masses" certainly do. And even in United States, "gradular controls at every level and layer of life" are being imposed year after year.
Sonia-
I don't believe for one minute Russia was a "completely free-market economy". Russia's food production was irrelevant. It was from top to bottom a feudal economy in all but name, with very little manufacturing or technological development. Even their military industrial capacity, such as it was, was two or three decades behind the times. Free-market economies don't act like that. If it were a free market economy, don't you think there were innumerable numbers of investors who would have been frothing at the mouth to try to develop those vast resources? Try again, Sonia.
Sentinel-
You just confirmed my suspicions. It wasn't Wall Street, it was a cabal of international bankers working through Wall Street, almost word for word what I said, just minus the bankers part.
I also disagree with your statement that people don't choose to enslave themselves. They do that here every time they cast a vote for the Democratic Party. They just cast it under a different set of priorities. The Democratic Party as champion of "the working man" or of "the little guy" and all that crazy horse shit. What they are the champions of is of a bureaucracy and tax regime that is taken almost word for word from Marx, from progressive income tax to socialized medicine and "free" public education.
A vote for a Democrat is a vote for government growth, spending, and ultimately, government control, which is a kind of slavery without the bullwhip-for now.
No, people don't willingly choose to give up their freedom-they trade it in.
Sonia: Thaksin Shinawatra is what I'd call an accident of history, just like Mousavi or Zelaya. These are people who because of a leadership gap,become thrust into being the head of a mass movement.
Pagan is correct about the feudal character of Russian agriculture. You can't build socialism in one country. revolution was defeated in Germany, Hungary and Italy.
The collectivized agriculture, made the transition to war production easier, and later industrialization.
Pagan/Ren
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Pagan is correct about the feudal character of Russian agriculture.
The collectivized agriculture, made the transition to war production easier, and later industrialization.
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Some people believe in fairy tales. Others believe in Communist propaganda. Your ignorance of actual history is astounding.
Sonia-
"Some people believe in fairy tales. Others believe in Communist propaganda. Your ignorance of actual history is astounding"
Oh, I'm sorry Sonia, I must have been sleeping in class when my teachers got to the part about the Czarist Russian Industrial Revolution. I strangely remember how the Industrial Revolution took hold in the US, Britain, Germany, France, and Italy, but I mistakenly thought that it passed Czarist Russia by, for some strange reason.
But don't worry, I think I get it now. Czarist Russia was a kind of free-market economy with vast potential. You had to start out small, of course, but if you were willing to work hard and play by the rules, you might eventually own your farm growing your own cabbage and beets.
Pagan,
Please, stop making a complete fool of yourself...
By 1914 Russian steel production equaled that of France and Austria–Hungary, and Russia's economic growth rate was one of the highest in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_history,_1892%E2%80%931917
So says that unequivocal source of undisputed knowledge and reservoir of historical fact-
Wikipedia.
Sonia, why did you not make the link to that Wikipedia page? If you had, I might be inclined to click on over and read your entry
What was that great Czarist Russian automobile they produced again?
Oh yeah, I remember now,there wasn't one. Who needs cars when you don't have paved roads anyway? A troika would do just fine, thank you very much.
And by the way, don't take all this wrong, if I had a choice between living under any Russian communist leader or living under the worse Russian Czar, I would choose that Czar hands down.
But I wouldn't be going back with the expectation of finding anything remotely like a "free market economy".
You seem to be mistaking a situation of near unlimited private property rights for an elitist few for a free market. Sorry, its not necessarily the same thing. Private property rights are important, sure, and I'm all for them, but after a while it can get to the point where it can become a monopoly.
I know a peasant could own property, and could even get wealthy, but how many actually did that, and how many hoops did they have to jump through to get there? What was the level of economic activity for the average person. In a free market economy the size of Russia, it should be considerable.
What was the percentage of land ownership by peasants and kulaks compared to the upper classes? Who owned the steel mills you were talking about? By the way, I know there was some industry and manufacturing, it would be almost impossible for there not to be in a country that size. The question is what was their level of development in comparison to the other industrialized countries of the world.
Russia was behind all the developed countries of the world by at least two or three decades. That's real history. No Wikipedia links required.
Pagan,
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unequivocal source of undisputed knowledge and reservoir of historical fact
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This Wikipedia article was based on Library of Congress Federal Research Division's Country Studies series.
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why did you not make the link to that Wikipedia page?
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Because you're a lazy ass and I wanted to make you work a little sweat...
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What was the percentage of land ownership by peasants and kulaks compared to the upper classes?
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About the same as in United States, I would say, and maybe even a little bit better. The serfs definitely had a lot more rights than blacks, and Jews were treated slightly better than Americans Indians.
Alexander II freed Russia's serfs two years before Lincoln freed America's slaves.
And Stolypin's reforms occured 50 years before similar Civil Rights reforms in America in the 1960's.
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Who owned the steel mills you were talking about?
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I think they were owned by people otherwise known as "owners", "industralists" or "capitalists". But I might be wrong, maybe they were owned by Hawaiian fishermen or Japanese summo wrestlers...
What kind of dumb-ass question is that ? Like asking, "Who owns farms in Kentucky ?". Eeee... Kentucky farmers ? Either that or Argentinian tango dancers...
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The question is what was their level of development in comparison to the other industrialized countries of the world.
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Lower than Britain, Germany and America's North-East. Similar to France and Austria-Hungary. Way better than Italy, America's South and America's West.
Sonia:
The term I used was ‘granular’ rather then ‘gradular’ – but that is probably a more apt description anyway.
I don’t know much about Venezuela so I can’t really comment on their situation, but I know that the ‘gradular’ method – the ‘totalitarian’ tiptoe – is used globally.
In the UK for instance, the people were given a referendum on the EEC – an economic entity – but ended up instead with a European federal super state largely run by unelected bureaucrats to the extent that the UK’s sovereignty has effectively been ended now that 85% of its laws are made by this unwarranted, unmandated and largely unelected monolith.
And that was the plan all along.
Just as the rest of the world is being divided up into manageable blocs with the US heading at a rapid rate of knots for more NAFTA powers, which in turn will become the NAU.
The same processes are at work as they were in Europe with the nationalism being knocked out of Americans, indeed turned into something evil and repulsive; traditional values and aspirations are treated the same way as well as freedom of speech to speak out against it being twisted into the Orwellian device of ‘hate speech’ and each group is played against the other.
The end result is extreme mistrust, tangible divisions, exhaustion and confusion. Ideal conditions for these people to do their business.
The US border is not protected because there is no point.
NAFTA transition and the full NAU are on the way in due course and the illegal invasion can only speed up the process - and as revealed in the UK by government advisor Neather – render the ‘rights’ arguments out of date and ‘rub their noses in diversity.’ Essentially when whole swathes of the US already resemble Central America it is all rather redundant to complain about setting up an organisation that will allow free movement – in fact, it will only be controlled and made better with an open alliance with Mexico and the rest, the pitch will be.
Organisations like Bilderberg, CFR etc make organising such things easy as do the same organisations that bankroll the politician’s ambitions for office; reluctant or resistant countries are taken care off by IMF demands for ‘reform’ before granting monetary aid.
Even the BBC acknowledges the enormous influence of such organisations as Bilderberg on political futures:
“Bilderberg meetings often feature future political leaders shortly before they become household names. Bill Clinton went in 1991 while still governor of Arkansas, Tony Blair was there two years later while still an opposition MP. All the recent presidents of the European Commission attended Bilderberg meetings before they were appointed.”
Source
But people in the main, and I say the same to Pagan, do not consciously elect to subjected to tyranny, torture, oppression, wholesale murder and complete subjugation, though they do often buy into propaganda or are led down the garden path by the age old ‘totalitarian’ tiptoe – or problem, reaction solution – techniques.
Sonia-
Who owned the factories is a legitimate question. Saying capitalists owned them isn't a good answer. Were they state subsidized to some degree? Were they owned by upper class aristocrats? Were they owned by banking interests? Were any of them owned to any extent by foreign capitalist investors?
What was the percentage of the Russian population that was employed in manufacturing compared to the percentage that worked on farms? Of those who worked on farms, what percentage owned their own land? Of those, what percentage owned large farms?
What percentage of the Russian population could be called Middle Class compared to developed countries? Where did they live? Were they concentrated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg or was there a strong middle class throughout the country, in small towns and villages?
Where were the factories? How many of them were there? How many people did they employ? What was their output?
What was the level of economic activity regarding foreign trade? Who did they trade with? Did they have a thriving export business? What did they export? What did they import?
If Russia was such an advanced country, why was their military two or three decades-at least- behind the British and Germans?
Sonia: Productivity numbers without analysis, have no meaning.
Russia was a country, with feudal agriculture. Even pre-WWII Germany had a peasant majority. You are talking like you are talking about modern economies.
Pagan,
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Were they state subsidized to some degree?
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I don't think the concept of being subsidized by the state was even invented back then. And any such demand would probably provoke much hilarity among tsar's accountants....
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Were they owned by upper class aristocrats?
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Usually after marrying the rich (but usually ugly) daughter of the factory's owner. This way, the daughter became a countess and the aristocrat could finally fix the leaking roof of his decaying mansion...
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Were they owned by banking interests?
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Not owned. But their owners certainly borrowed from banks. Borrowing money from banks was a old Russian tradition, unknown anywhere else... Are you joking ?
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Were any of them owned to any extent by foreign capitalist investors
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To the same extent as anywhere else. But Russia had a certain pecularity - rich minorities. Most Russian industrialists were Russian-born Protestants (mostly of German origin) or Catholics (many opf Polish origin). They were also many Russian Jews becoming factory owners (usually using some half-wit Russian village idiot as a front).
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What was the percentage of the Russian population that was employed in manufacturing compared to the percentage that worked on farms?
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Same as in France and much bigger than in Kentucky.
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Of those who worked on farms, what percentage owned their own land?
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Probably the same percentage as in California's Central Valley today. But their farmhands didn't swim across the Rio Grande...
Pagan,
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Of those, what percentage owned large farms?
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And don't think that statistic will ever be abvailable as long as someone defines whata large farm is. I think that compared with Belgium, all farms in Russia were extremely large.
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What percentage of the Russian population could be called Middle Class compared to developed countries?
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That one's easy. Find out the percentage of Jews, multiply it by two and you get the middle class...
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Where did they live?
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In houses.
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Were they concentrated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg or was there a strong middle class throughout the country, in small towns and villages?
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There were much more middle class people in the provinces.
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Where were the factories?
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Moscow, Sankt-Petersburg, Kiev, Donbass Basin, Warsaw, Lodz, Minsk, etc.
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How many of them were there? How many people did they employ? What was their output?
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How the fuck would I know THAT ? I don't know who won the tennis match in Wimbledon on March 15, 1983 neither...
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What was the level of economic activity regarding foreign trade?
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Russia was more dependent on foreign trade than most countries. That's why World War I (blocking trade routes in the Baltic and the Black Sea) hit them extremely hard.
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Who did they trade with? Did they have a thriving export business? What did they export? What did they import?
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Check out the present-day statistics on Canada's and Australia's exports and imports, and you will get very close to what Russia's economy and trade looked like circa 1913.
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If Russia was such an advanced country, why was their military two or three decades-at least- behind the British and Germans?
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If United States was such an advanced country, why was their military two or three decades-at least- behind the North Vietnamese ?
Well, Russia was a backward nation, obviously, so its foolish to try to paint them as a "free market economy", because they obviously weren't. Or if they became one, it was obviously much too late in the game to reverse its ultimate fate.
I still want to know what the percentage was of people who worked in factories and manufacturing compared to the percentage of people who worked in agriculture. I would be willing to bet it wasn't as large as Kentucky during a good economy. Maybe now, but I even doubt that. I bet the people involved in manufacturing and factory production wouldn't even amount to anywhere close to ten percent of the population.
Most of what you are calling middle class you could find in Dark Ages England during the reign of Canute. Hell, under that criterion, any old shoe-cobbler was "middle class".
Just because you had a certain percentage of the population employed in areas outside of agriculture doesn't necessarily translate to a vital, strong middle class forming the backbone of a thriving, bustling economy, under any stretch of the imagination. It sure as hell doesn't translate to a technologically advanced manufacturing society. The most advanced thing I ever heard of coming out of Czarist Russia was Faberge' Eggs. And from the sound of the name I'm thinking that was French.
Why was their military in such sorry shape? Sorry, but a country as vast as Russia, and with such a large population, if it were a free market economy should be able to build its military capacity to where it should be able to protect its ports and its trade routes with little problem.
Your economic output in those final years, was probably all based on an uptick in military weapons production, which was too little too late.
There was more people in Czarist Russia than in Germany, and maybe as much or more than Germany along with Austria and Turkey combined. If they were as technologically advanced as Germany-and by rights they should have been, especially if they were traditionally a "free market economy"-they should have been able with their population to overrun the continent, to day nothing of protect a few trade routes.
Sort of like the way North Vietnam overran South Vietname, yet strangely never made it over to our shores. Or how about the way China with its vast population overran Korea.
Oh wait a minute though, they didn't actually do that, did they, they just tried to do that until we kicked their asses out of Korea, seeing as how they were nowhere near as advanced as the US. That's what usually happens when a free market economy of an advanced nation goes up against a backwards piece of shit of a country still stuck in the middle ages.
Pagan,
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The most advanced thing I ever heard of coming out of Czarist Russia was Faberge' Eggs.
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What about Igor Sikorsky ?
He built the world's first multi-engine airplane in 1913 and the first bomber in 1914.
After the revolution, he came to United States and invented the helicopter.
At the beginning of World War I, Russia had the second largest air force in the world (after France).
Really? That's pretty interesting.
What percentage of the population of Czarist Russia owned automobiles.
Pagan,
Cars were never very popular in Russia, be it capitalist or communist.
It wasn't until the automobile became faster than the horse (probably around 1918) that it became a practical means of transportation in such a vast country. By then, the tsar was dead.
Another impediment - Russian roads (rural and urban) were covered with snow for almost 5 months of the year for sleighs. So cars could only be used for 7 months a year. And snowmobiles weren't invented yet.
I'm glad Ren finally posted a new article so we can move on from this nonsensical "debate". The most advanced thing in Czarist Russia might well have been cases of syphilis upper class women got from Rasputin.
Pagan,
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we can move on from this nonsensical "debate".
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Translation from hillbilly: we can move on from this debate that makes me look like an ignorant bluegrass country bumpkin whose total knowledge of Russia could be squeezed inside a Kentucky Derby's midget jockey's ass.
"that makes me look like an ignorant bluegrass country bumpkin whose total knowledge of Russia could be squeezed inside a Kentucky Derby's midget jockey's ass."
Heh.
Comedy gold.
Russia was a backwards country under the Czar. What Lenin tried to do, the way he tried to do it, would never get off the ground in an advanced nation. In the US, Europe, and Canada, they try a different tactic, trying to talk people into giving up their freedom for some perception of material advancement and equality.
In Czarist Russia, it was a lot easier to get them to fall for it, because most people had very little in the way of material comfort. They were taught to accept life the way it was. The church and nobility worked hand in hand to keep the people backward. And that's what Russia stayed for the vast majority of people-a backward, undeveloped nation of ignorant, superstitious people.
If you made any advancement in Russia during the Czar's time, you had to be able to entertain Rasputin. You had to sleep with him, or get drunk with him, or be able to play a mean fiddle. Do that and he would get you a cushy appointment, or a contract or a business license, etc. If you let your wife sleep with him, you might even get to be what passed for rich.
Really, Sonia, how advanced could they be? Rasputin was popular because people were ignorant and uneducated. He achieved power and status because the Czarina, who he obviously fucked, and probably her daughters as well, and maybe even her son, were all ignorant bumpkins, just like the people they lorded it over.
Shit like that doesn't happen in an advanced society, but it might well happen in a backwards society where the wealthiest classes are able to hide under a thin veneer of civilization and lord it over the common people by keeping them ignorant and uneducated, and encouraging their supersitions.
Rasputin was a mirror of the basic soul of the average Russia of all classes at the time-their intellect and their culture was corrupt and barbaric. There was nothing advanced about them. They were an ignorant, superstitious lot, barely civilized. That's not my fault, nor can you blame anybody for wanting to go beyond that kind of ignorance.
Even their farming methods was probably decades behind most other countries, even smaller ones. And that was the main way most people made their living.
Free market society? Yeah, right it was free, sure-free of any kind of hope or opportunity for any kind of what would pass for a decent life for the vast majority of people.
Pagan,
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a backwards country
most people had very little in the way of material comfort
to keep the people backward.
a backward, undeveloped nation of ignorant, superstitious people
ignorant bumpkins
keeping them ignorant and uneducated, and encouraging their supersitions.
their culture was corrupt and barbaric
decades behind most other countries
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Does it hurt your feelings when a sophisticated New York liberal intellectual says those things about Kentucky and other hillbilly states ?
If it doesn't hurt, I will try to follow your example. If it does hurt, you know exactly how I feel.
WTF? How the hell old are you anyway, Sonia? Are you 10 years old, or 100?
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