ambersun - 05 January 2012 01:40 PM

Peter K.,
No “what if” possible with Stalin and “the revolution” since “what was” was psycho and insane.  Stalin and his rapist, pervert, criminal, etc. henchmen as they disgustingly and really were.

The point wasn’t that Stalin might have been less murderous or that Latvia could have dodged Soviet occupation.  It was that Stalin did choose those he favored, and as it happened he eliminated the old Latvian Bolsheviks more thoroughly than most other groups. 

So there is a legitimate what-if: what if Stalin had decided that the Latvians as a group could be cowed into trustworthy behavior?  After all, the Latvian Chekist Berzins directed the Kolyma forced-labor camp complex as it was built out in the 1930s.  And it was Lacis who formulated the doctrine of ‘justice’ (i.e. murder) based on class affiliation and not the facts of individual cases.  So what if Stalin had kept the Latvians on as henchmen and functionaries, and the ultimate Soviet occupation had had Vacietis, Alksnis, Eidemanis, Rudzutaks, etc. leading the parade and not the motley puppet band of Kirchensteins et al under Vyshinsky’s direction?

Likewise with the second what-if. This isn’t a dream of a socialist wonderland. What would the Latvians have done if their independence had been destroyed by Hitler’s Germany instead of by Stalin?  The Nazis’ stance toward Latvia was informed by the embittered, dispossessed Baltic Germans who had seen waves of anti-German violence in 1905 and 1917-9, and then their complete removal (and characterization as ethnic undesireables by the official press) in 1939-40. There would absolutely have been a Nazi Baigais Gads, and what mental world would the Latvians be inhabiting then?

No “what if” possible? Speak for yourself.

Thank you for the advice Albert, but I think I started the new year just right.

Andrejs, the lighting triangle

Anita,

I only just saw your post—my follow-up appeared at the top of a new forum page.  I don’t recall much of what my grandfather told me personally, but fortunately he described his involvement in considerable detail in his memoir that he wrote around 1970.  He was just a schoolboy, and the main thing he did was scatter leaflets in Aizpute. That was enough to get him thrown out of school, with additional punishment likely to follow, so he stowed aboard a ship to America after having his request for travel papers rejected by the local authorities.

In PC’s initial “Something of a Footnote” post, he seems to NOT be asking for any clarity, but rather for someone else to provide some expected number of Latvians “involved” in the Palmer Raids.—-Merely a means of replying to a recent post without being too obvious (at the very least, to avoid some resurrected, potentially embrassing entanglements)?

(...But to my statement of misunderstood Latvian “socalism”, he surely should had asked for clarification.)

Let’s first write down some axioms of communism. (After agreeing that communism is socialism only vamped up by at least 101%?)
Premise: harp upon science as the means/method (even though psychology is not an exact science)
First condition: try to see the death of philosphy.
Second condition: focus even harder to see the death of religion.
And when its initial “social” experiment just does not seem to go “right”, recyle the same parameters—-except this time shove philosphy a little more closer towards science.

Does not this (formula) describe Marx’s “dominence”? ...that awared/seen phase when many countries did fall to communism?
But does this also acurately “model” its history since the 1970’s?
(And socialism as well ...only if we skip the initial [“dominence”] phase?)

It should follow that one would basically have to first put aside (thus into a moral “sleep”) ones heritage/up-bringing to allow the dominence stage to ever germinate. But given time, this sleeping heritage/up-bringing begins to toss and turn, forcing communism to enter its next phase?
So failling with dominence, communism enters the “forced suggestive” phase.
Hey, I refuse to use “their” own term of “hegemony” (where modern Marxist philosophers try to merely hide/blend-in with conservatism—-or for that matter, any of the more typical social structures ...whether once/later deemed good or bad by result.)

—- “Marxist philosophers” ... indeed an oxymoron of all oxymorons! Hmmm, didn’t “they” have to justify their later survival thru that ever increasing selfish drone of: “Two Marxes—- the early humanist and the later scientist”? (Well, not only is it blatantly wrong, but does it still not yet follow the last condition of the above mentioned “formula”?)

Having said ALL THAT…
One should then always make a mental note of whether someone is taking about early communists or not. (i.e.: the sleepers who “fled” from their home countries [to US or other parts], simply because it still remainded too much of an “un-fullfilled urge”—- that urge to only fertilize/feed the communist dominence phase.)

Now to my definition of “Latvian ‘socialism’”...
(and I only use the term “socialism” here because this is how the WWII allies wrongly interpret-ed our “wish”—- that common wish that was promply yanked-out/censured from our widely published, distributed publication within the camps of displaced Latvians.)

My father wisely wrote down those “western” driven censured Latvian words.—-And pease note, this censorship was not by some very easy form, noticeably common with today’s “released” CIA documents or court documents (oh those blacked-out lines/phrases/words); but instead, a precise cut-bar (the actual physical removeable of a section of a printed page), thus perhaps more often wanting-ly indicating some very severe wrong (...and so, not just a “secret”?)—-at least with the complete disregard for any text upon the proper next page. (Okay, I may now be getting a little too biased here!)

And although I have my father’s exact, saved wording, I will still paraphrase here…
We were not interested in immediately achieving a x number of millionairs. We rather first want to ensure that we all do reasonably well.—-But later, of course, what is then to stop our expectant x millionairs from appearing?

Mikus E.

P.S. PC, is this not more “tribal” then socialistic? And please, do then take note of the difference between sleepers and non-sleepers, when it pertains to the two phases of communism (especially when your insatible apetite for misleading finally starts to consume your own words).

And so, during the “dominence” phase, it would had been “brother” against “brother “? But in the context of the DVD I had mentioned (a DVD that the communists probably thought was to be much more useful in promoting their later kinder-and-gentier dominence stage), the “actors” certaintly seem to be “awaking”—- indeed exhibiting more often then not, typical “tribal” attributes. (And much to later ...? ) But when will EU and western influence allow/foster our “tribal” attributes to re-materialize?

P.P.S. Yes PC, this post had been bulkly composed right after your own opening of this thread—-before your/other responses.
Was I awaiting for further comment by you?—-OF COURSE!

Communism and socialism were only ideas. The former Soviet Union was
a great example of prehvatnicism. The priviledged party members had
unlimited resources and the lumpen had nothing, except work,
when they could work.
Soviets actually maintained unemployment to create some mobility
in the work force.

ps. on Palmer raids…....so far i have not found any Latvians mentioned
in a quick Googling foray. It may be that some of the folks involved
got to States before Latvia was recognised.

A couple of things, on that letter about the revolution succeeding in Russia… time to resurrect my translation of the 1905 revolution in Latvia memorial book (now that I’ve got a way to integrate Google translate moving the content to lobh.org), would you be willing to share it online?

The other, when debating Nazism and Stalinism and did Ulmanis condemn us or save us (recall, scholars estimate 17,000 Latvians were left alive after Russia conquered Livonia from the Swedes), is to remember to take the long view of the situation, quoting content I added to Wikipedia some years ago:

Crossroads

  Mēs esam kā starp vārtiem,
  Starp vārtiem uzcēluši savas mājas
  Kur tautām pāri staigāt.
      We are as if between gates,
      Between gates we have built our home
      For other peoples to trample over.
    — Anna Brigadere, Latvian poet

  “The historical mission of the Baltic provinces is to serve as a battlefield for the problems of the highest politics in Europe.”
    — Count Shuvalov, Russian Governor-General of the Baltic Provinces

Latvia and the rest of the Baltics were a crossroads overrun by foreign domination for over seven centuries prior to achieving independence after the start of the 20th century, after World War I.

So old it doesn’t even match current site navigation on latvians.com, work still in progress ...

The 1905-1907 Revolution in Latvia

Sveiks, Vecrumba!

Your work on the 1905 book is impressive and interesting, both the presentation and the translation. I wish I had some advice to give about making it available to a wider audience. It was happenstance that I was asked to do the Nezināmais karš translation, and although I learned a lot from the process, I’m still an outsider and an amateur to the translating field. If you could make sure that copyright wasn’t an issue, and that the photographic images can be treated as public domain, then it might even be possible to make your translation into an e-book. Actually, since none of the authors could own their work in the 1957 USSR, and the USSR was itself rather cavalier about international copyright, it might be a non-issue entirely. Any copyright experts are welcome to enter this discussion!

I have a translation project or two that I’m nudging forward in my spare time, and if I find any interesting information for making such historical translations public—with or without an eye to making money from them—I could send you a private LOL message.