The blog and contents of the entire greeklish.org site represent the personal views of the site's authors. The views expressed on these pages are the views of the authors alone and are not the views of our employers or of any organizations with which we are affiliated.
Copyrighted quotes and images obtained from third party web sites are used under the terms of Fair Use. Some materials used by greeklish.org are in the public domain.
Family photos are intended for viewing on this web site and should not be reproduced or used elsewhere without the permission of the owners and operators of greeklish.org.
After reading a short piece on the Henri Barbusse book Stalin: A New World Seen Through One Man (originally published in French under the title Staline), I decided to buy a cheap copy through AbeBooks.com. Earlier this week, I received the book in the mail. It's a 1935 copy and apparently a first printing of the English edition. Late last night, I decided to have a quick preview of the text before bed and a particular photo caught my eye. The photo is a black and white plate opposite page 62 of the text. Eight men are depicted in the image, but the caption only names seven of them:
click on the picture to view a larger image
As noted in the caption, the following men are clearly identified:
The eighth man (to the right of Molotov) is obviously Sergei Kirov, who was murdered in 1934, around one year prior to the publication of the Barbusse book. Despite the fact that Kirov's murder was a monumental event in the early history of the USSR – one with resounding consequences and enduring controversy for many years to come – Kirov's name is clearly missing from the caption, replaced with periods of ellipsis. There are no clues in the immediate text as to the basis for the omission. Kirov is mentioned (with the old spelling "Kiroff") much later in the text on pages 114 and 181, but these are merely fleeting references to his assassination with no indication as to Kirov's prominence before death nor as to the significance of his assassination relative to the political climate of the time.
I'm sure I'm not the first person to have noticed this peculiarity, but I must say for posterity that this certainly is a curious omission, indeed. Further Reading Stalin in Reality and Legendby Walter Held (1935 book review of Staline by Henri Barbusse)
November 7 marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Under the Julian Calendar, which was in use by Russia at the time of the Revolution, the date was October 25, 1917, hence the term "October Revolution" is still used to refer to this watershed event. Vladimir Lenin To the Citizens of Russia! Source: marxists.org The Provisional Government has been deposed. State power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies--the Revolutionary Military Committee, which heads the Petrograd proletariat and the garrison.
The cause for which the people have fought, namely, the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers'control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power—this cause has been secured.
Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers and peasants!
Revolutionary Military Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
ты мне ваньку не валяй (Don’t make yourself more stupid than you are.)
For the second time in just over a year, George W. Bush has decried the name of V.I Lenin, raising the specter of Lenin as a "boogeyman" in Bush's polymorphic "war on terror." His most recent jab at the revolutionary leader came during a November 1, 2007 speech at a so-called "conservative think tank":
"History teaches us that underestimating the words of evil, ambitious men is a terrible mistake," Mr. Bush said. "Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. And the question is, will we listen?" (source)
Prior to this, Bush made similar comments during September 2006 speech:
"Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them," he said. (source)
It's hard to say why exactly George Bush has developed this tendency to lump Lenin in with the likes of Hitler and Bin Laden. At the height of McCarthyism, it was Joe Stalin who was a preferred target of scorn for red-baiting American demagogues. Then again, I suppose that for the duration of the Cold War, it was usually the current (living) Soviet Premier who was the focus of the bulk American ire and rhetoric. I guess it's always more effective to have a living boogeyman than a dead one. Even still, these days I would think that Stalin would be an "easier sell" as some sort of ghostly bad guy. It's obvious that critique of Chairman Mao is off-limits to the Bush propaganda machine so long as China is still willing provide scads and scads of low-cost, cheaply made trinkets to the teeming hordes of America's consumer class. But there's still Pol Pot or Kim Il Sung on the left. I think they might easier for Bush to cast in his "dead rogue's gallery" than, say, Pinochet or Mobutu who both rose to dictatorial power with the assistance of the United States Government.
My guess is that one of Bush's speech writers feels like "Dubya" will come across as more of an "intellectual" by avoiding old stand-by foils like Castro and Khomeini in favor of pre-Depression, anti-Bolshevik agitprop in the form of nebulous attacks on the life and legacy of Lenin. It's either that or Bush just really, really hates the Beatles.
Some classic Cold-War shenanigans: “Uncle Joe Stalin” hatches a wild scheme in G.I. Joe #11 (April-May, 1951; Ziff Davis series)
