US Strikes on Iran (Operation Epic Fury)

[Ivan Denisovich]

I learn so much reading your posts about the USSR, @Ivan Denisovich.

I'm beyond happy that someone finds my knowledge useful.

[Deesse23]

If you refer to Lenin testament then Lenin simply wanted to remove Stalin from seat of General Secretary and mustachioed Georgian was far from only one who got criticized. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and Trotsky were criticized too.
*https://en.internationalism.org/internationalreview/200210/9651/trotsky-and-culture-communism

I had read Lenins political last will in detail for my big high school finishing thesis in history, since i took major history classes. I was, and still am impressed by Lenins (in the end very precise) judgement of Stalin. In hindsight (which Lenin just could not have possibly had) he was a prophet.

Pragmatist or idealist? I think the whole group was a mix of both. Much like Bismarck they were committed to a greater cause but were smart enough to realize they had to deal with the reality they found themselves in. Lenin and Stalin probably more so than Bucharin, Kamenev and Zinoview. Trotzky maybe was realistic enough but underestimated Stalin and overestimated himself (and his superior education), which was his undoing.

Pulling off a coup like they did, being a minority they were, persisting through a kind of "counter revolution " (civil war, whites vs reds) needs more than just a bunch of extremist idealist loons. It was very counterintuitive to accept german terms at Brest, but it was a smart political move to use peace as a great tool to promote your own cause. Trotzky taking care of military business right after a massive military defeat...that takes skill, not only zeal. Lenins NEP...we will never finally know..but it probably was the right move, against pure ideology but taking reality into account.

[Ivan Denisovich]

I don’t really like your choice of words. I will give some shorter answers.

That's tough. I had chosen my words deliberately.

You seem to be tired too

Only of your ignorance and obvious and distasteful sympathy to murderous regimes.

 

I meant that Iran would not have backed down at the Cuba missile crisis.

So you're time traveler? You believe that Iran wouldn't have backed down but your belief isn't reality.

They would have started WWIII already (because they think they would go to paradise for that)

It's only your conjecture. You clearly have some animus against Iran which colors your perspective so obviously I'm genuinely amazed you can't see it.
 

I think you are misjudging me. It’s just that I maintain a degree of critical mindset at all time.

You sure do. Examples of this critical mindset are praising SU for irrelevant shit like first astronaut in space and ignoring that it was guilty of genocide and helped to start WWII? Or perhaps you show this allege critical mindset by saying that you start to like trump?

If anything I judge you far less severely than I perhaps should.

Many of you seem to be rather worried about the MAGA movement. I also have my dose of worries about my own authoritarian government. But as I said, populist leader can sometimes be right and the opposition movement can sometimes be wrong.

trump isn't a populist leader. He is fascist but for some reason you can't bring yourself to admit it. Quite curious I must say.

Opposition obviously can be wrong, but opposition to trump being wrong is, let's just say not really probable.
 

We may discuss the USSR in future posts but you will have to watch your mouth a little. We cannot have an intellectual discussion if you decide to lose your temper like this.

Get some education and then I might deign to explain a few things about SU to you. You flatter yourself shamelessly if you think that you're a partner to discussion about USSR to someone who wrote his master's thesis about USSR early history (and it's influence on Poland independence) and then studied it for years.
 

Communist regimes in the world tended to be very corrupt from the beginning. Lenin + Stalin + Mao were people who were ready to sacrifice people in order to erase all traces of the previous feudal social order and create something new: a modern socialist society.

Since communism is end stage of Marx dream, a stateless, classless and moneyless society there were no communist regimes in world history. There were regimes that claimed that they will build it but that's something quite different.
 

Personally I don’t like Trotsky that much. But I know about the friction between Trotcsyism and Stalinism. I also know about the Prague Revolt in 68 and how this all ended in a bloodbath.

Good for you. You have knowledge on the level of 14 year old if I remember correctly how things were taught in Poland schools.
 

Still you cannot say that Communism is not a part of Human History and that communists did now achieve anything in this world. If they did nothing, they defeated fascism. Doesn’t that count for anything?

I can say that communism is not a part of human history because there never was such thing as communism. Lenin supposedly wanted to build communism, hell it was official SU doctrine till Khrushchev but it was never built.

USSR did defeated fascism. With help of western allies which you conveniently forget. It also helped fascists to start a WWII which you also conveniently forget. Quite telling I must say.
 

As a specie we like experimenting stuff. Sometimes we have to try things and it simply does not work. That’s how I see communism. + I believe that a more equalitarian society will be possible in the future. I believe in universal healthcare + free education and other socialist approaches like that (while still believing in democratic values, secularism and supremacy of law).

That's nice. Experiment with practical realization of Marx ideology ended with criminal regime.
 

So I would advise you to not misinterpret some of the things that I write in this forum.

Or what?

I advise you to get some actual education before you will start to yammer on the subjects you know less than nothing.
 

All of this was to say that the Soviets were still a rational element. Just like today’s China if you want. I mean you can talk to them when you have to and you can find solutions by simply talking to them.

Great Terror sure was rational. Or Holodomor. Or sending millions to GULag instead of using them in productive work. You have some peculiar definition of rationality it seems.
 

Now it was D. Trump who walked away from the nuclear deal with Iran. So all of this is basically his fault yes. But this isn’t 2018. We’re in 2026. We need to find solutions to today’s issues. Right now we have no nuclear deal with Iran since 8 years and they already have 60% enriched Uranium already.

If I would live near (relatively) israel a known genocidal regime with nuclear weapon I too would like to have nuclear weapon.
 

Besides Iran was a more rational element in the 2010’s. It seems to me that they are getting even more fanatical as the years are passing.

Yet it is them who are only defending themselves.
 

If I am correct most people here believe that this is different: So explain yourselves. Maybe you are right and I am wrong

That you're wrong is beyond question. I don't owe you any explanation. Educate yourself and maybe you will grasp why cheering for imperialist attacking sovereign countries isn't thing to be proud of.

[Ivan Denisovich]

I had read Lenins political last will in detail for my big high school finishing thesis in history, since i took major history classes. I was, and still am impressed by Lenins (in the end very precise) judgement of Stalin. In hindsight (which Lenin just could not have possibly had) he was a prophet.

Lenin had time to observe him and was very well educated. Though as article mentions part of this judgment might have been simply anger over Stalin treatment of Lenin wife.

Pragmatist or idealist? I think the whole group was a mix of both. Much like Bismarck they were committed to a greater cause but were smart enough to realize they had to deal with the reality they found themselves in. Lenin and Stalin probably more so than Bucharin, Kamenev and Zinoview. Trotzky maybe was realistic enough but underestimated Stalin and overestimated himself (and his superior education), which was his undoing.

I would say that they were idealists in a big picture and perhaps in early stages after getting power (though even then there was Brest Litovsk). Otherwise bolsheviks were startingly pragmatic.

Pulling off a coup like they did, being a minority they were, persisting through a kind of "counter revolution " (civil war, whites vs reds) needs more than just a bunch of extremist idealist loons. It was very counterintuitive to accept german terms at Brest, but it was a smart political move to use peace as a great tool to promote your own cause. Trotzky taking care of military business right after a massive military defeat...that takes skill, not only zeal. Lenins NEP...we will never finally know..but it probably was the right move, against pure ideology but taking reality into account.

I will leave coup for the last as I have juicy quote from Victor Sebestyen The Russian Revolution. Defeating whites was nothing to scoff at but one must note that whites offer to restore the old order put them into a position that was far from great and even then they scored numerous victories against reds. Trotsky did have skill but not enough idealism to prevent him from recruiting tsarist officers. And yes NEP was smart move but one clearly pointing against idealism. Bolsheviks were idealists in that they wanted to jump from realm of necessity to realm of freedom.

Now the quote that unmasks the takeover:

IT IS AN ENDURING MYTH THAT THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION WAS
an impeccably organized operation by a group of highly disciplined conspirators
who knew exactly what they were doing throughout. It is a version of events that
suited both sides. Soviet historians in the following decades presented ‘glorious
October’ as a rising of the masses, brilliantly led by the master of timing and
tactics, V. I. Lenin, and his skilful, heroic lieutenants in the Bolshevik Party, who
kept to a strict timetable of insurrection.
The defeated ‘Whites’, as they would soon be called, also held to a comforting
myth: that they lost power in a precisely calibrated military takeover masterminded
by an evil genius with diabolical plans. It would not have impressed the loyalists’
supporters – or soothed their own amour-propre – if it was put about that they were
beaten by a group of plotters who very nearly botched their revolution. The
Bolsheviks might easily have failed if at certain key moments they had met some
slight resistance.
In reality the supposedly perfect clockwork timekeeping of the insurrection was
so vague that nobody could tell for certain exactly when the rising began. At one
stage the Mayor of Petrograd sent a delegation to the participants of both sides
wondering if the insurrection had begun. He could get no accurate answer. The
Bolsheviks had little military experience. They failed to master the Petrograd
telephone system and had to send runners throughout the city streets. The key
force of sailors from the Kronstadt naval base – reliable Bolshevik supporters –
arrived in Petrograd a day late. Most historians use the word ‘coup’ to describe the
October Revolution, as I have done here as shorthand. But that suggests there was
a takeover of a working government. By this stage the government had long ago
ceased to function. ‘Power was on the streets; we took it,’ as Trotsky wrote later.
The Bolsheviks won because the Provisional Government under Kerensky was
even more incompetent and divided, and because they didn’t take the Bolsheviks
seriously until it was too late. But mainly it was because most of the people didn’t
care which side won. [Victor Sebestyen, The Russian Revolution, p.98-99].

[Deesse23]

Communist regimes in the world tended to be very corrupt from the beginning. Lenin + Stalin + Mao were people who were ready to sacrifice people in order to erase all traces of the previous feudal social order and create something new: a modern socialist society.

Yes, they sacrificed the lives of (tens of!) millions of other people for their own ideas of a modern socialist society, the lives of millions of people (re read my previous post if you will) who didnt want to be part of this "experiment" in the first place. Sorry, if i am not impressed at all, particularly since my family was in the midst of this. But who cares of these many unnamed strangers, right? You clearly dont.

Maybe i should get my dad (who is 88 now) to give you a small lesson about that, since he lived under Stalin, for 10 years, being german.

[Ivan Denisovich]

Communist regimes in the world tended to be very corrupt from the beginning. Lenin + Stalin + Mao were people who were ready to sacrifice people in order to erase all traces of the previous feudal social order and create something new: a modern socialist society.

Yes, they sacrificed the lives of (tens of!) millions of other people for their own ideas of a modern socialist society, the lives of millions of people (re read my previous post if you will) who didnt want to be part of this "experiment" in the first place. Sorry, if i am not impressed at all, particularly since my family was in the midst of this. But who cares of these many unnamed strangers, right? You clearly dont.

Maybe i should get my dad (who is 88 now) to give you a small lesson about that, since he lived under Stalin, for 10 years, being german.

But the USSR sent the first cosmonaut, woman and animal and artificial satellite to space so your argument is invalid. Those were only some proles after all.

Also Soviets were rational element and Iran would definitely not backed down during Cuban crisis so checkmate.

One can't reason with people blind to their own ignorance. Whatever we will write Leo will just disregard assuming he will understand it in the first place.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Ivan Denisovich

I accept the correction. Thank you!

Boru

[Ivan Denisovich]

@Ivan Denisovich

I accept the correction. Thank you!

Boru

Thanks. I do enjoy helping others in widening their perspective.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Communist regimes in the world tended to be very corrupt from the beginning. Lenin + Stalin + Mao were people who were ready to sacrifice people in order to erase all traces of the previous feudal social order and create something new: a modern socialist society.

Yes, they sacrificed the lives of (tens of!) millions of other people for their own ideas of a modern socialist society, the lives of millions of people (re read my previous post if you will) who didnt want to be part of this "experiment" in the first place. Sorry, if i am not impressed at all, particularly since my family was in the midst of this. But who cares of these many unnamed strangers, right? You clearly dont.

Maybe i should get my dad (who is 88 now) to give you a small lesson about that, since he lived under Stalin, for 10 years, being german.

It’s not that a modern socialist society would be a bad thing, it’s just 1) Stalin wasn’t a socialist and 2) he went about it in a nightmarishly bad way.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

@Ivan Denisovich

I accept the correction. Thank you!

Boru

Thanks. I do enjoy helping others in widening their perspective.

You indeed should thank me. I’m told I have a problem with being wrong. I’m working on that.

Boru