Striving to make sense of the Ukraine war

[horsefly 4,318]

1 minute ago, kirku said:

That's all well and good but the trains were definitely on time..

(Reality: they were not)

 

What percentage weighing on the good side of Hitler do you think whataBortery would award for that?

[Creative Midfielder 2,003]

18 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

CM, I don’t often disagree with you, but I think experts generally agree that Stalin was under no illusions about Hitler and knew there would be a war, but also knew his armed forces (partly because of his own actions) were nowhere near ready, so he agreed to the pact to buy time. He never thought it would last ten years.

Further, I think the German High Command settled on 1941 for the invasion of the Soviet Union because it thought the Soviets were not ready but would be, or at least readier, a year later.

Bear in mind that even in 1940 in the Tory party in the UK there was still a strong appeasement faction or argument, not least because Soviet communism was seen as the greater long term threat. Impossible to be sure but Halifax came close to being chosen as PM rather than Churchill and he might have tried to do a deal with Hitler.

All of that is true, and Stalin clearly realised that Russia was badly under-prepared for a war and accordingly played for time. But the Non Aggresion pact went well beyond merely trying to delay conflict between Germany & Russia, it was an agreement between Stalin and the Nazis to carve up the whole of Eastern (and some of Northern) Europe - so Stalin wasn't just strengthening his defences against Germany he was aggresively attacking his neighbouring countries jointly and in agreement with the Nazis.

If Hitler hadn't foolishly overstretched himself then who knows how things would have turned out but whatever the outcome had been, as far as I can see there is no basis whatsoever for @Bort's comment that the Russians made the strongest condemnations of the Nazis - that was really the point I was making.

 

[ricardo 7,402]

41 minutes ago, horsefly said:

What percentage weighing on the good side of Hitler do you think whataBortery would award for that?

He loved his dog.

gotta be worth 5%

oh and he could draw a bit so another 2%

Don't know much about his housepainting but probably another 1% for wallpapering.

[horsefly 4,318]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

He loved his dog.

gotta be worth 5%

oh and he could draw a bit so another 2%

Don't know much about his housepainting but probably another 1% for wallpapering.

yep! He's beginning to look a lot better than I thought. Perhaps all mass murdering dictators should be assessed by the same system of weighing up the percentage of "successes" against the percentage of "failures". Certainly wouldn't do any further reputational damage to Pol Pot, Mao, Ceausescu, et al.

[ricardo 7,402]

11 minutes ago, horsefly said:

yep! He's beginning to look a lot better than I thought. Perhaps all mass murdering dictators should be assessed by the same system of weighing up the percentage of "successes" against the percentage of "failures". Certainly wouldn't do any further reputational damage to Pol Pot, Mao, Ceausescu, et al.

I think Pol Pot and Mao ate their dogs so no points there.

[horsefly 4,318]

5 hours ago, Bort said:

And before you say "but what about gulags??" - the death rate in Soviet gulags was actually considerably lower than in the Tsarist prison system. Sentences were a maximum of ten years (average around five), and after WWII, prisoners received pay for their labour in line with market rates and worked eight-hour days at most.

Like bloody Butlins, those gulags.

To prove it, here's an extract from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's much forgotten sequel, "Another day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"

8.00am- Guard ran me a nice hot bath, and brought me a lovely cup of Russian Caravan to enjoy while he gave me a head massage. Wasn't keen on the lavender scented bubble bath.

9.00am- Breakfast. Could only manage four slices of sour dough toast today, thought the bacon was a tad overdone, but the poached  eggs were perfection. Coffee a little stewed for my liking, but the guard did apologise so I shan't report him.

10.00am-1.00pm- Work meeting with the camp commandant, the usual bureaucratic bore was significantly relieved by a nice cup   of first-flush Darjeeling, seems the commandant has got the message that 2nd flush is simply not acceptable. Informed the commandant that our hut committee unanimously voted in favour of blue velvet curtains for the windows and the removal of those dreadful puce monstrosities. The commandant apologised profusely for not having checked with us before he bought them.

1.00pm-3.00pm- Lunch. Had to tell the guard we're all getting a little fed up with the same old blinis and caviar every lunch time. I swear I shall scream the camp down if they serve that up again tomorrow.

3.00pm-5.00pm- Work in the library. Had to get the guard to turn down the heating again as I was sweating buckets. Doesn't he realise how damaging sweat is to all those first-editions of the literary classics.

5.00pm-7.00pm-Supper. As ever it is almost impossible to choose from the menu. Plumped for the Chef's special, a lovely blue sirloin served with an exquisitely delicate hollandaise. I wasn't disappointed.

7.00pm-9.00pm- Movie night. "The Great Dictator" Bloody marvellous that Chaplin chap. I hear he's a good Marxist too.

9.00pm- Early to bed. Guard tucked us all in as usual. I said my prayers, making a particular request to God to bless our beloved Joe. Wouldn't want to be ungrateful for his generosity in having me ripped from my bed one evening and brought to this marvellous gulag for a 10-year stretch. Guard sang us all a lovely lullaby which brought a tear to my eye as I drifted off into a lovely slumber. Just hoping there's no more fu*cking blinis and caviar for tomorrow's lunch. Nighty night!

[horsefly 4,318]

43 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I think Pol Pot and Mao ate their dogs so no points there.

I think they both liked cats, so that's a couple back.

[Bort 34]

5 hours ago, kirku said:

Yet equating Ukraine with N azism doesn't?

You're absolutely dreadful at this

At no point have I suggested that Ukraine is a N*zi state - all I've done is point out specific examples of openly neo-N*zi elements within its military, to emphasise that uncritically supporting Ukrainian soldiers in this conflict would be unwise. Anyone who uncritically supported the Russians should also reconsider (others have already mentioned the Wagner Group), but thankfully that bias doesn't seem to be as common as the other extreme.

[Herman 9,837]

4 minutes ago, horsefly said:

I think they both liked cats, so that's a couple back.

Quick fried?

[ricardo 7,402]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

Quick fried?

In batter

[horsefly 4,318]

Just now, Herman said:

Quick fried?

Tut tut! How could you besmirch those heroes of the people. 

[Bort 34]

4 hours ago, horsefly said:

Estimates of 20 million slaughtered by Stalin counts as mere "failures" to be compared with successes does it? But of course, if a Chinese dictator says he's ok who could possibly disagree. You'll be telling us that Hitler's employment record, and road building should be compared with the Holocaust next; what percentage would you give those?  Idiot!

Where's that 20 million figure from? The Black Book of Communism perhaps, an exercise in N*zi apologia which included German soldiers killed by the Red Army in its totals, and has been widely criticised by academics?

Dismissing Deng Xiaoping as merely "a Chinese dictator" exposes your lack of knowledge about the incredible improvements in quality of life he oversaw for hundreds of millions of people. 800 million dragged out of poverty in China in the last 40 years - and that's calculated by the World Bank!

Again, mentioning Hitler in the same breath shows a complete misunderstanding of ideology, policy and material reality.

[horsefly 4,318]

4 minutes ago, Bort said:

Where's that 20 million figure from? The Black Book of Communism perhaps, an exercise in N*zi apologia which included German soldiers killed by the Red Army in its totals, and has been widely criticised by academics?

Dismissing Deng Xiaoping as merely "a Chinese dictator" exposes your lack of knowledge about the incredible improvements in quality of life he oversaw for hundreds of millions of people. 800 million dragged out of poverty in China in the last 40 years - and that's calculated by the World Bank!

Again, mentioning Hitler in the same breath shows a complete misunderstanding of ideology, policy and material reality.

Deng Xiaoping was a dictator you buffoon! Or have I missed the bit where China introduced multi-party democratic general elections?

You do realise that dragging people out of poverty is actually possible while respecting their human and democratic rights as individuals, don't you? Silly me! Of course you don't.

Edited May 21, 2022 by horsefly

[Bort 34]

21 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Like bloody Butlins, those gulags.

To prove it, here's an extract from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's much forgotten sequel, "Another day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"

8.00am- Guard ran me a nice hot bath, and brought me a lovely cup of Russian Caravan to enjoy while he gave me a head massage. Wasn't keen on the lavender scented bubble bath.

9.00am- Breakfast. Could only manage four slices of sour dough toast today, thought the bacon was a tad overdone, but the poached  eggs were perfection. Coffee a little stewed for my liking, but the guard did apologise so I shan't report him.

10.00am-1.00pm- Work meeting with the camp commandant, the usual bureaucratic bore was significantly relieved by a nice cup   of first-flush Darjeeling, seems the commandant has got the message that 2nd flush is simply not acceptable. Informed the commandant that our hut committee unanimously voted in favour of blue velvet curtains for the windows and the removal of those dreadful puce monstrosities. The commandant apologised profusely for not having checked with us before he bought them.

1.00pm-3.00pm- Lunch. Had to tell the guard we're all getting a little fed up with the same old blinis and caviar every lunch time. I swear I shall scream the camp down if they serve that up again tomorrow.

3.00pm-5.00pm- Work in the library. Had to get the guard to turn down the heating again as I was sweating buckets. Doesn't he realise how damaging sweat is to all those first-editions of the literary classics.

5.00pm-7.00pm-Supper. As ever it is almost impossible to choose from the menu. Plumped for the Chef's special, a lovely blue sirloin served with an exquisitely delicate hollandaise. I wasn't disappointed.

7.00pm-9.00pm- Movie night. "The Great Dictator" Bloody marvellous that Chaplin chap. I hear he's a good Marxist too.

9.00pm- Early to bed. Guard tucked us all in as usual. I said my prayers, making a particular request to God to bless our beloved Joe. Wouldn't want to be ungrateful for his generosity in having me ripped from my bed one evening and brought to this marvellous gulag for a 10-year stretch. Guard sang us all a lovely lullaby which brought a tear to my eye as I drifted off into a lovely slumber. Just hoping there's no more fu*cking blinis and caviar for tomorrow's lunch. Nighty night!

Haha, very good.

Glad you mentioned Solzhenitsyn actually - he was an antisemitic Russian nationalist with fascist sympathies (admired Franco's Spain as it was built on good old Christianity as opposed to "Judeo-Bolshevism"), and is a terrible source for any critiques of the USSR. Even his wife called the Gulag Archipelago "folklore".

One interesting aspect of his time in the gulag which isn't often mentioned is that he had a cancerous tumour removed during his incarceration, then was fully diagnosed and successfully treated in hospital. This was in the 1950s. Damn Soviet medicine, saving his life!

[Bort 34]

Also, let's try not to descend to xenophobic jokes about eating dogs, shall we? If any of you eat pigs, which are more intelligent, I would urge you to consider why the former is bizarre while the latter is acceptable.

[horsefly 4,318]

49 minutes ago, Bort said:

Haha, very good.

Glad you mentioned Solzhenitsyn actually - he was an antisemitic Russian nationalist with fascist sympathies (admired Franco's Spain as it was built on good old Christianity as opposed to "Judeo-Bolshevism"), and is a terrible source for any critiques of the USSR. Even his wife called the Gulag Archipelago "folklore".

One interesting aspect of his time in the gulag which isn't often mentioned is that he had a cancerous tumour removed during his incarceration, then was fully diagnosed and successfully treated in hospital. This was in the 1950s. Damn Soviet medicine, saving his life!

Jesus Christ! Best you up Stalin's percentage to 71%

Solzhenitsyn, the twice decorated commander who fought on the front line against the Na*zis (but clearly the only Russian fighter who was a nationalist and a bit anti-Semitic). No doubt he was enormously grateful for receiving his reward for his service; 8 years in a gulag for daring to criticise Stalin's war leadership in some private letters to a friend.

You do realise it is possible to diagnose and treat a person's cancer without throwing them into a gulag, don't you? Silly me! Of course you don't.

Edited May 21, 2022 by horsefly

[horsefly 4,318]

4 minutes ago, Bort said:

Also, let's try not to descend to xenophobic jokes about eating dogs, shall we? If any of you eat pigs, which are more intelligent, I would urge you to consider why the former is bizarre while the latter is acceptable.

More concerned about the fate of animals than the slaughter of innocent Ukrainians. Bravo!

[PurpleCanary 5,586]

Since quotes from leaders seem to be popular, one from Chief Red Cloud of the Oglala Sioux, who negotiated vainly on behalf of his people and their way of life, and lived too long, and saw the end of it all:

"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one. They promised to take our land, and they took it."

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

2 hours ago, ricardo said:

He loved his dog.

gotta be worth 5%

oh and he could draw a bit so another 2%

Don't know much about his housepainting but probably another 1% for wallpapering.

He had a lot of cuddles for his niece. So he is back to nought again.

[horsefly 4,318]

1 hour ago, Bort said:

Glad you mentioned Solzhenitsyn actually - he was an antisemitic Russian nationalist with fascist sympathies (admired Franco's Spain as it was built on good old Christianity as opposed to "Judeo-Bolshevism"), and is a terrible source for any critiques of the USSR. Even his wife called the Gulag Archipelago "folklore".

The KGB also sponsored a series of hostile books about Solzhenitsyn, most notably a "memoir published under the name of his first wife, Natalia Reshetovskaya, but probably mostly composed by Service", according to historian Christopher Andrew.^[66] Andropov also gave an order to create "an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion between Pauk^[c] and the people around him" by feeding him rumors that the people around him were KGB agents, and deceiving him at every opportunity. Among other things, he continually received envelopes with photographs of car crashes, brain surgery and other disturbing imagery. After the KGB harassment in Zürich, Solzhenitsyn settled in Cavendish, Vermont, reduced communications with others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Bort said:

Haha, very good.

Glad you mentioned Solzhenitsyn actually - he was an antisemitic Russian nationalist with fascist sympathies (admired Franco's Spain as it was built on good old Christianity as opposed to "Judeo-Bolshevism"), and is a terrible source for any critiques of the USSR. Even his wife called the Gulag Archipelago "folklore".

One interesting aspect of his time in the gulag which isn't often mentioned is that he had a cancerous tumour removed during his incarceration, then was fully diagnosed and successfully treated in hospital. This was in the 1950s. Damn Soviet medicine, saving his life!

Strange that they treated his cancer and then tried to poison him with ricin. And he was not anti semite. Even Jewish scholars like Wiesel accept that. To be honest, he didn't ever really make up his mind about anything. Throughout his life he had several changes of opinion on the revolution, religion, nationalism and monarchy. He considered his time in the Red Army as no different to being a gulag guard. Quite a chequered mind.

 

[kirku 1,339]

15 hours ago, horsefly said:

What percentage weighing on the good side of Hitler do you think whataBortery would award for that?

+60% with a 30% uplift because trains are the most proletariat form of transport

[horsefly 4,318]

41 minutes ago, kirku said:

+60% with a 30% uplift because trains are the most proletariat form of transport

Good point. Seems we may have to re-write history.

[horsefly 4,318]

14 hours ago, Bort said:

all I've done is point out specific examples of openly neo-N*zi elements within its military, to emphasise that uncritically supporting Ukrainian soldiers in this conflict would be unwise

Just WTF is that supposed to mean in any substantive sense? Every Ukrainian soldier, irrespective of their political views, has a right to defend his/her country against an illegal invasion by a foreign power. What is truly "unwise", is to persistently post propaganda seeking to defend an illegal and utterly immoral invasion, perpetrated by a kleptocratic, mass-murdering, human rights abusing dictator.

[1902 1,167]

17 hours ago, Bort said:

Where's that 20 million figure from? The Black Book of Communism perhaps, an exercise in N*zi apologia which included German soldiers killed by the Red Army in its totals, and has been widely criticised by academics?

Dismissing Deng Xiaoping as merely "a Chinese dictator" exposes your lack of knowledge about the incredible improvements in quality of life he oversaw for hundreds of millions of people. 800 million dragged out of poverty in China in the last 40 years - and that's calculated by the World Bank!

Again, mentioning Hitler in the same breath shows a complete misunderstanding of ideology, policy and material reality.

There's no credible historian who argues that Stalin didn't kill millions of the USSRs own citizens. The numbers are still up for debate.

However surely it's fairly immaterial. Trying to rehabilitate the memory of the Soviet Union by arguing that it 'only' murdered a few million is ridiculous.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,603]

On 21/05/2022 at 15:01, keelansgrandad said:

I beg to differ. I had a friend who worked at GCHQ and he told me we trust no other nation. They are all assumed to have something to hide from us and friends don't do that. It is expedient for us to agree on certain matters with the US. Just as OZ and NZ do.

Absolutely. There are no friends in geopolitics; there are merely aligned interests. 

[horsefly 4,318]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/one-of-russia-s-most-senior-diplomats-quits-with-most-damning-resignation-letter/ar-AAXCU3P?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=1b1f4f1e569b420c9d433b71251e2d1d

One of Russia's most senior diplomats quits with most damning resignation letter

 

A senior Russian diplomat finally quit – three months after the war in Ukraine started.

Boris Bondarev, Russia’s counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva, said in his resignation letter Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is ‘the most serious crime against the people of Russia’.

Mr Bondarev has also served for the Russian Ministry of foreign affairs since 2002 and wrote about the increasing levels of corruption from within the Kremlin.

He said in a statement: ‘I regret to admit that over all these 20 years the level of lies and unprofessionalism in the work of the foreign ministry has been increasing all the time.

‘I simply cannot any longer share in this bloody, witless and absolutely needless ignominy.’ The former diplomat harked back to a period reminiscent of the 1930s Soviet Union. He wrote: ‘Instead of unbiased information, impartial analysis and sober forecasting, there are propaganda clichés in the spirit of Soviet newspapers of the 1930s. A system has been built that deceives itself.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 hours ago, horsefly said:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/one-of-russia-s-most-senior-diplomats-quits-with-most-damning-resignation-letter/ar-AAXCU3P?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=1b1f4f1e569b420c9d433b71251e2d1d

One of Russia's most senior diplomats quits with most damning resignation letter

 

A senior Russian diplomat finally quit – three months after the war in Ukraine started.

Boris Bondarev, Russia’s counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva, said in his resignation letter Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is ‘the most serious crime against the people of Russia’.

Mr Bondarev has also served for the Russian Ministry of foreign affairs since 2002 and wrote about the increasing levels of corruption from within the Kremlin.

He said in a statement: ‘I regret to admit that over all these 20 years the level of lies and unprofessionalism in the work of the foreign ministry has been increasing all the time.

‘I simply cannot any longer share in this bloody, witless and absolutely needless ignominy.’ The former diplomat harked back to a period reminiscent of the 1930s Soviet Union. He wrote: ‘Instead of unbiased information, impartial analysis and sober forecasting, there are propaganda clichés in the spirit of Soviet newspapers of the 1930s. A system has been built that deceives itself.

 

Wait for him to get a visit from a couple of Russian tourists

[horsefly 4,318]

12 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Wait for him to get a visit from a couple of Russian tourists

Are you suggesting he's set up an illegal business selling steroids to gay Russians?

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

4 hours ago, horsefly said:

Are you suggesting he's set up an illegal business selling steroids to gay Russians?

I believe its Eau de Parfum. You can buy them at all boot sale outlets. Great for door handles.