100 years since the Russian Revolution

[KeithPratt]

Was the Russian Revolution a "good" thing?

I've left the options simple purely because I like a good argument.

I'd say definitely no for the Russians themselves. Stalin, Famine, Gulags, the Cheka, invaded by Germany purely because they were Bolsheviks etc. I don't know how many dead but I'm pretty sure that the numbers are so much higher than if Russia remained Tsarist. Definitely not for the Ukrainians or the Poles either. Maybe yes for contemporary China as a state in some respects because it is now a fully mobilised command economy that is the manufacturing hub of the world. But how much of that is socialism over the millennium old culture of the Chinese is difficult to say.

Anyway, your thoughts on what was arguably the epochal event of the 20th century.

[Goat Boy]

Considering how many died I'd have to say bad.

I have no idea how things would have panned out if it hadn't happened but Stalinist Russia sounded like a hell hole

[Diamond Dog]

Russia wasn't exactly a cakewalk for the vast majority of the population during the Tsarist regimes. Indeed there is a case that the hardship suffered by all but the exceedingly rich was possibly even worse during that time.

[naughty boy]

There’s hardship and there’s mass murder.

I think there’s a tendency to romanticise these events (not saying anyone here is guilty of this) - the imagery, the idea of a people rising up and reclaiming what was theirs - but the Russian Revolution resulted in decades of appalling devastation.

[Diamond Dog]

Of course.

[KeithPratt]

There is increasing evidence too that Tsarist Russia was in its last years entering a modernisation phase.

[Samoan]

Undecided at this moment..









For anyone who may wish to watch, Peter Hitchens and George Galloway were debating it on Sunday Politics yesterday. It was well worth viewing. 13:47 minutes long.

https://youtu.be/_An5-wpzlDc

[Goat Boy]

What side were they on?

[The Modernist]

Undecided at this moment..

How long do you want?

[The Modernist]

There’s hardship and there’s mass murder.

I think there’s a tendency to romanticise these events (not saying anyone here is guilty of this) - the imagery, the idea of a people rising up and reclaiming what was theirs - but the Russian Revolution resulted in decades of appalling devastation.

Difficult to argue with all that (so I won't), but I think Tsarist Russia would probably have colluded, or at the very best remained neutral, with Nazi Germany, which would have meant them winning the second world war. I'm not a historian though so I can't back up that claim with trifling things like evidence.

[Moleskin]

... invaded by Germany, France, the US and the UK purely because they were Bolsheviks etc.

Just corrected that for you.

[fange]

It brought, in the end, an unspeakable amount of suffering and misery to a large majority of Russians and other peoples. Despite the idealistic dreams of some early Communists, the abuses or power and the injustices that arose when trying to make it a real system were a decades-long calamity for the ordinary people.

[Goat Boy]

THE MODERNIST PREDICTS

Join us next week when BCBs very own historical Mystic Meg predicts what might have happened if JFK wasn't assassinated on that fateful day in Dallas

[KeithPratt]

Hitler's whole purpose in life was to get rid of the Bolshevik menace so i doubt he would have invaded a Tsarist Russia.

[fange]

THE MODERNIST PREDICTS

In Episode 3, Moddie presents his startling new theory explaining how the Vikings were not the first Europeans to visit North America, and who the Giant People of Kentucky REALLY were.

[The Modernist]

THE MODERNIST PREDICTS

In Episode 3, Moddie presents his startling new theory explaining how the Vikings were not only the first Europeans to visit North America,

It was the Welsh lead by Madoc. Everyone knows that.

[KeithPratt]

... invaded by Germany, France, the US and the UK purely because they were Bolsheviks etc.

Just corrected that for you.

To say that France, the US and the UK invaded Soviet Russia is a bit disingenuous. They had forces in the Russian Civil War but that was such a chaotic conflict that one can't really say that there was much of a concerted effort by them apart from opening up the Eastern Front to help defeat Imperial Germany.

"We want to intervene but don't want to interfere..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War

[The Modernist]

Hitler's whole purpose in life was to get rid of the Bolshevik menace so i doubt he would have invaded a Tsarist Russia.

Yes, that was my point.

[fange]

THE MODERNIST PREDICTS

In Episode 3, Moddie presents his startling new theory explaining how the Vikings were not only the first Europeans to visit North America,

It was the Welsh lead by Madoc. Everyone knows that.

Now we do!

[KeithPratt]

Undecided at this moment..


For anyone who may wish to watch, Peter Hitchens and George Galloway were debating it on Sunday Politics yesterday. It was well worth viewing. 13:47 minutes long.

https://youtu.be/_An5-wpzlDc

Galloway classic among left-wingers of basically ignoring the deaths of millions of people to advocate economic success.