#161
#162
you dont just get ptsd from shit you do, you get it from americans napalming your village and killing all your family
#163
Most sufferers of PTSD are women. The fact that it is 1) common to women suffering at the hands of vicious, chauvinist bourgeois rule, and 2) gets most of its focus as a problem of imperial soldiers, tells me that it is actually correlated to living under bourgeois terror (whether on the receiving end or on the dealing end). Apparently it was originally used in medicalizing and subsuming veteran resistance to imperial war, (PTSD was specific to the war on Vietnam, but Shell Shock was diagnosed heavily to WWI veterans), heres a book about it:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0739186248/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2LALA6CH345Y&coliid=I27YAH8LNY2ZXA but i dont know how widespread that was

Anyway here;s a study I just found:

"Results indicated that 33 (19.5%) Vietnamese veterans in this study show P(robable)-PTSD, and 136 (80.5%) N(onprobable)-PTSD on all three measures. The NVVRS (National Vietnam Veterans' Readjustment Study) conducted by Kulka et al. (1990) indicated that 30.9 percent of American male veterans and 26.9 percent of American female veterans of the Vietnam-America war experienced PTSD during their lifetime (8). Although the female Vietnamese veterans sample was small for statistical purposes, the P(robable)-PTSD rate was 27.3%.

Hypothesis 2. It was expected that Vietnamese veterans would evidence lower levels of war-related stress symptoms than would American-Australian veterans. This hypothesis was strongly confirmed.

(...)

The results of this study indicated that the profile configuration of symptoms of Vietnamese veterans was similar to the one of American and Australian veterans but Vietnamese veterans reported significantly lower levels of PTSD symptoms than did American-Australian veterans, including overall, intrusive, avoidance, and hyperarousal symptoms on the IES-R. They were also significantly lower in dissociative symptoms on the PDEQ and in other psychological symptoms on the SCL-90-R (see Fig. 1). From reviewing the available literatures on PTSD among American veterans and the observations from this study, the following tentative explanations could be attempted for these differences.

As mentioned previously there are three factors related to the development of PTSD among American veterans. These are pre-war experiences and conditions, war experience, and post-war factors. With regard to war trauma, the Vietnam-America war was a very special war which brought unique experiences to American veterans (9, 31, 42, 43, 44). It was the first to end without an American victory (20). There were no front lines in this war, and it was often difficult to tell friend from foe (31). These features dramatically impacted the experiences of American soldiers. They had no clear sense of the identity of the adversary, no sense of security, and no support from the Vietnamese that they thought they were helping or allied with (43). As a consequence, an unavoidable sense of isolation and bad feeling developed between the American forces and their allies.

The situation of the Vietnamese veterans was totally different. The Vietnamese had justified reasons for engagement in the war, could discern the adversary, were able to feel relatively safe, and had the strong support of their country, and the local population. The Vietnamese veterans fought for their lives, for their families, relatives and country. They were founders of the guerilla war therefore they knew actively what they were doing, how it should have been done, or where and when they did it. They knew who were their comrades or adversaries. They did not have the passive or uncertain feelings characteristic of many American soldiers. The hit-and-run tactics, the fluidity, and the mobility of the Vietnamese soldiers generally made the American soldiers confused in locating them, and this, in turn, helped them minimize their casualties. Additionally, the Vietnamese soldiers got strong support from the Vietnamese population. As a result, they had greater feelings of safety than did the American soldiers.

Pride and identification with their leadership made the experience of the Vietnamese veterans very different from that of the American veterans. Vietnamese veterans were asked “What does it mean to you to belong and/or to attend the meeting of the Veterans Club?” This open-ended question was aimed at investigating the feelings and thoughts of the Vietnamese veterans about being a member of the Veterans Club. In response to this question several veterans expressed their pride to have been “Uncle Ho’s soldier” and to have fought for the ideals of the revolution and army. Among 142 participants responding to that item, 66.2% revealed that they were there for re-meeting their comrades, recollecting their hard war experiences, and receiving mutual support from one another; 25.4% noted that they were there for recalling their revolutionary ideals and army traditions; and 20.4% said that they felt honored to have been “an Uncle Ho’s soldier” and a member of the Communist Party.

(...)

After the war, they were recognized by their government, country, and citizens as contributors to the victory. Many of them were even recognized as heroes of the country. They were encouraged and helped to continue and follow their education and careers, as evidenced by the rate of high school and university or higher levels of education (73.3%) in the sample. They were given jobs, provided with houses, and other privileges. They were given more opportunities than other people in society. Those privileges may have made the Vietnamese veterans feel that they were compensated and rewarded for their sacrifice and contribution. This may have minimized their potential PTSD and other psychological symptoms. And they could be the reasons for the lower level of PTSD and other psychological symptoms among the Vietnamese veterans than among the American veterans. As a result, it would be expected that the rate of PTSD among the Vietnamese veterans would be significantly lower than that of the American veterans if the same method and instruments as other studies were employed. Further study needs to be conducted to investigate this hypothesis."



Anyway socialism is good for everybody

Edited by Crow ()

#164

Crow posted:

Most sufferers of PTSD are women. The fact that it is 1) common to women suffering at the hands of vicious, chauvinist bourgeois rule, and 2) gets most of its focus as a problem of imperial soldiers, tells me that it is actually correlated to living under bourgeois terror (whether on the receiving end or on the dealing end). Apparently it was originally used in medicalizing and subsuming veteran resistance to imperial war, (PTSD was specific to the war on Vietnam, but Shell Shock was diagnosed heavily to WWI veterans), heres a book about it:


How does the Red Army rape train figure into this analysis?

#165

swirlsofhistory posted:

Crow posted:

Most sufferers of PTSD are women. The fact that it is 1) common to women suffering at the hands of vicious, chauvinist bourgeois rule, and 2) gets most of its focus as a problem of imperial soldiers, tells me that it is actually correlated to living under bourgeois terror (whether on the receiving end or on the dealing end). Apparently it was originally used in medicalizing and subsuming veteran resistance to imperial war, (PTSD was specific to the war on Vietnam, but Shell Shock was diagnosed heavily to WWI veterans), heres a book about it:

How does the Red Army rape train figure into this analysis?



please don't provoke crows, they are extremely intelligent, can remember and communicate faces, and undertake acts of revenge.

#166
from 'The Green Nazi: An Investigation Into Fascist Ecology' by J. Sakai
http://trashtree.org/sakai.html

By the summer of 1941 there were some three million foreign workers in Germany, a figure which mushroomed to 7.7 million in the autumn of 1944. ...A high proportion of these workers were either young or female. By 1944, a quarter of those working in the German economy were foreigners. Virtually every German worker was thus confronted by the fact and practice of Nazi racism. In some branches of industry, German workers merely constituted a thin, supervisory layer above a workforce of which between 80 and 90 percent were foreigners. This tends to be passed over by historians of the labour movement.

Treatment of these foreign workers was largely determined by their 'racial' origins. Broadly speaking, the usual hierarchy consisted of 'German workers' at the top, 'west workers' a stage below them, and Poles and 'eastern workers' at the lowest level. This racial hierarchy determined both living conditions and the degree of coercion to which foreign workers were subjected both at the workplace and in society at large.





from 'The Soviet Occupation of Germany: Hunger, Mass Violence and the Struggle for Peace, 1945-1947' by Filip Slaveski:

http://books.google.com/books?id=KfXXAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=red+army+berlin+occupation+barracks+soviet&source=bl&ots=JxYARVAkQE&sig=yRZi159R3LiJR5fT0ONI3o4VbfM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4LyKUq6MEO-v4AOTsYDQAQ&ved=0CMwBEOgBMBQ#v=onepage&q=red%20army%20berlin%20occupation%20barracks%20soviet&f=false

The relatively few Soviet POWs and civilians who survived these tortures across the web of concentration camps in Germany were unleashed on the country in the final months of the war. They were joined by millions of Soviet slave labourers who had been kidnapped from their homelands by German forces. Many were rounded up in the city squares of Minsk, Kiev, and across the western USSR by soldiers on horseback and herded into cattle cars with whips and rifles for shipment to German mines, factories, and fields. After the war they were ill, both physically and mentally, but many of those with enough strength and anger went on a rampage.(9) The rank and file soldier-liberators who joined them were just as sceptical of the distinction between Nazi criminals and ordinary Germans which the Soviet propaganda machine began to peddle force-fully in April 1945. Stalin hoped that the new policy and his order to the troops to treat German civilians humanely would stem the mass outburst of troop violence against German civilians and convince German forces defending Berlin to surrender quickly. His hopes were in vain.(10) The years of Soviet wartime propaganda which had hammered into the Soviet people the message that all of German society was responsible for the war could not wash off so easily, the Soviet experience of German occupation and bondage even less so. There was simply a common feeling among liberators and liberated that the tortures at Sachsenhausen and the many other camps across German-occupied Europe were extraordinary crimes not committed by individuals but by an entire country. These crimes could not be prosecuted within an ordinary legal framework. The liberated would bring the Germans to justice by the best way they knew how - samosud - the old Russian tradition of mob law.

The battles in eastern Germany and the troops' rampages had destroyed so much housing in urban centres that the Red Army had little choice but to keep the former slaves in barracks from which they had just been liberated. By May 1945 some of those liberated were thus billeted at Sachsenhausen. The camps were poorly guarded, if at all, by the Red Army, which in April and early May was still mopping up German forces. These people were essentially let loose. The result at Sachsenhausen and, indeed, throughout the city of Oranienburg where the camp was located was not surprising. Along with Berlin located all but 40 km to its south, Oranienburg was, by mid 1945, one of the most dangerous and chaotic places in Germany and, indeed, post-war Europe.

The Ostarbeiter or 'eastern workers', as the Germans called the slaves, attacked young and old in Oranienburg, robbing, raping, and murdering indiscriminately. The worst of the offenders were, expectedly, those billeted at Sachsenhausen. They organized themselves into bands and rampaged through the city every night since their liberation in April, beating anyone who offered the slightest bit of resistance. The indiscriminate nature of the violence shocked Oranienburg communists who appealed to the Soviet officers to arrest the offenders.(11) Like the soldiers the eastern workers, contrary to Stalin's orders, simply failed to distinguish between the majority of innocent Germans and those Nazis who deserved to be punished.

Most were unaware of the propaganda shifts made by the Soviet leadership which promoted the above distinction. If they had been made aware of this distinction, they invariably dismissed it. They had their own experience to draw upon. The slaves who had laboured under German civilian bosses in industry and agriculture were more dismissive than their comrades who suffered the tortures of camp life at the hands of the German military and SS. Those unfortunate enough to have been sent to the mines in Wurselen, close to the Belgian border, were subject to the daily beatings and humiliations meted out by their German foremen who took so much pleasure in building their reputations as 'Russian killers'. One of the foremen, Koch, habitually beat the thirty or forty Russian and Ukrainian labourers under his control, some as young as sixteen. Any time one of his workers left the work column to relieve himself, Koch, waiting for him to finish, would beat him to the ground, seize him by the collar and shove his face into the shit. In the absence of toilet blocks for the workers, this was the only way the workers could relieve themselves during their long shifts.(12) More and more of these liberated slaves from western Germany were arriving in Oranienburg and across the zone after the war. They too joined the rampage and increased the scale of violence.

(9) Earlier in the war, some Soviet citizens 'volunteered' for work in Germany under the false impression peddled by German propagandists that pay and living conditions in Germany were much better than in the Soviet Union. It is not difficult to see how such propaganda may have been appealing in those areas whose economies had been devestated by war and the pressures of occupation. However, mail from 'eastern workers' received back home revealing the truth of their bondage reduced volunteer numbers significantly, encouraging German forces to forcibly recruit workers to meet growing labour demands. Polian's study of 'eastern workers' remains the benchmark, P. Polian, Zhertvy dvukh diktatur: Ostarbaitery i voennoplennye v Tret'em reikhe i ikh repatriatsiia (Moscow: Vash Vybor TSIRZ, 1996).

(10) For an extract of Stalin's order and the shift in Soviet propaganda see N. V. Petrov, Pervyi predsedatel' KGB Ivan Serov (Moscow: Materik, 2005), 47-48.

(11) GARF - f. r-7077, op.1, d. 178, 11. 30-3.

(12) GARF - f. r-7021, op. 148, d. 104, 1. 27.

#167

"Officers and men of the Red Army! We are entering the country of the enemy... the remaining population in the liberated areas, regardless of whether they're German, Czech, or Polish, should not be subjected to violence. The perpetrators will be punished according to the laws of war. In the liberated territories, sexual relations with females are not allowed. Perpetrators of violence and rape will be shot." -- Stalin, Order of the Day (January 19, 1945)

#168
the issue was one of civilians, not the red army. take your anti-communist horseshit out of here
#169
Damn swirlsofhistory i didnt know you were such a talented artist:






Edited by Crow ()

#170
Can you draw me a swastika?????



Wow beautiful thanks
#171

The Myth of the “Rape of Germany” was Invented by GoebbelsIn recent years, Victory Day has unfortunately acquired a not very pleasant tradition: the closer the holiday comes, the more do all sorts of “researchers” begin to broadcast the myth of “raped Germany.”

In this way, over the years the number of German maidens, allegedly victims of the Red Army, simply grows. But for whom is it necessary that the Russian soldier remain in the national memory not as a liberator and protector, but as a rapist and a robber? This is something that we have talked about to a leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Elena Sinyavskaya.

“The Nazis intimidated people to the point that they committed suicide”

Elena Spartakovna, is all this the result of restructuring? Those years generated a lot of rubbish …

Not really. This nasty story began much earlier, with Goebbels’ propaganda, when it was announced to the population that the Red Army was brutally raping all German women between the ages of 8 to 80 years. And the people were really intimidated to the limit, to the extent that Nazi party activists firstly killed their families and then themselves.

So why was such an Image necessary?

Firstly, to increase resistance against the advancing Red Army, and secondly, so that the population would leave the lost territories and could be of no assistance to the Soviet armed forces.

Goebbels’ line was then continued in the same year of 1945 by the allies, when the first publications appeared in which it was attempted to represent the Red Army as an army of looters and rapists and with absolutely nothing said about the outrages that were happening in the western zone of occupation. With the start of the “cold war” the theme was exaggerated, but not so aggressively and massively as has begun to occur in the last twenty years. The numbers “raped” were initially modest: from 20,000 to 150,000 in Germany. But in 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in Germany there was published a book by two feminists, Helga Zander and Barbara Jor, “The Liberators and Liberated,” where for the first time a figure of 2 million was arrived at. Moreover, it was derived from a completely flawed premise: statistical data for 1945-1946 were collected in a Berlin hospital in which there were born somewhere around 500 children per year and approximately 15-20 people were listed under “nationality of father” as “Russian”. Moreover, two or three such cases were classified as “raped”. What did these “researchers” do? They arrived at the conclusion that all the cases where the father was Russian were the result of being raped. Then Goebbel’s formula from “8 to 80″ was simply factored in. However, the mass distribution of this figure took place in 2002 with the publication of Anthony Beevor’s book “The Fall of Berlin”, which was published here in 2004, and the mythical figure of “2 million” was then taken out for a stroll by the Western mass media on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Victory.


The Germans are tired of repenting

One can understand those who went on about this topic during the “cold war” years, but then the Berlin Wall fell and, according to Gorbachev, there was established “peace and friendship” …

The geopolitical realities have changed. On the one hand there have been attempts to revise the results of World War II, plus the desire to remove the Soviet Union (and Russia as its legal successor) from the victorious side and all the good that is associated with it. This was one of the steps that led to the fact that in a number of decisions of the European institutions, including the European Parliament, was the equating of Stalinism with Nazism, where the aggressor and victim have been placed on the same footing, shifting the question of guilt and responsibility and forcing us to repent for something that was not.

Does it appear that these “researchers” have not written these essays themselves but have been commissioned by those who have been creating this new geopolitic? ..

Of course. The second reason is that the myth is pleasing to the West – to the psychology of the German people, who are tired of feeling guilty. There we hear the present generation already saying: “Well, why do we have to repent for our forefathers’ sin?” With them there has already arisen a wave of feeling that with the formation of a national consciousness is trying to assert the idea that their ancestors were not that guilty; that there isn’t a collective German responsibility … This is where the geopolitical order merges with the sentiments of the masses.

Leave aside revenge!

And what actually happened to these raped people?

We cannot say that such things did not happen. There were rapes, but not on the scale about which they are now lying today. In documents such facts as “extra-ordinary happenings and immoral events” are considered. The country’s leadership and high command believed that it just wasn’t simply a case of creating a bad image for the Red Army, it also undermined discipline. And they fought against this with all available means, starting with party-political work, explanations, and finally ending with tribunal sentences, up to and including the shooting of looters and rapists.

Are there statistics?

Unfortunately, not all documents have been declassified, but from those that have been, we are able to calculate the scale of the phenomenon. Here is a report from the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front concerning unlawful acts against the civilian population during the period from 22 April to 5 May 1945. The seven armies of the front consisted of 908,500 personnel and 124 crimes were recorded, including 72 of rape. Only 72 cases per 908,500 …

Your opponents have written that a wave of rapes occurred before the capture of Berlin …

On April 20 there were directives concerning a change in attitude towards the German civilian population and prisoners of war. So here we have our opponents focusing on the fact that the order had come too late, that during the whole period of the winter and early spring of ’45 the Red Army rioted with impunity. This is not true. Because in addition to this order and subsequent directives, there were orders at front, army and individual unit level that were issued before the Red Army entered the territory of other states. Pamphlets were distributed that told the history of a country, its culture and local traditions. In January of ’45, orders were given to Konev, Rokossovsky and Zhukov, saying that they had to control any feelings of direct revenge [that those under their command had] and to prevent any incidents that would be interpreted as negative.

And how was this perceived by the soldiers? After all, many had lost loved ones at home; a feeling of revenge had been engendered amongst them. Remember Ilya Ehrenburg and his “Kill the Germans!” And then they came to the lair [of the beast] and all of a sudden were told to “put aside revenge” …

Of course, many were not happy with these explanations as regards this new attitude towards revenge. In reports from commissars there are recorded conversations between soldiers who resented these orders: “First they say one thing, then another and why we should feel sorry for those Germans as if they had behaved well on our territory” … But tough disciplinary measures on the one hand, and the Russian love of children on the other (even the Germans recognized that our soldiers were very nice with German children and fed them not only from central food stores but also from their own rations, sometimes giving them all that they had) prevented acts of revenge from happening. But the main thing, which was emphasized at all levels, was that in their actions “we should not be like the Germans”.

The historian Yuri Zhukov has argued that rape and other crimes were mostly committed not by soldiers of the Red Army but by former Red Army soldiers just liberated from concentration camps and by civilians who had been deported to Germany …

Yes, while awaiting repatriation they were not under any control or command, and they generally were quite a motley crowd of repatriates. They formed gangs and started robbing locals in order to make up for the humiliations they had suffered, and as this happened in the area of responsibility of the Soviet troops, all of this was blamed on our soldiers. There is other evidence of allies liberated from the camps, who were engaged in looting in Berlin, stuffing old cars with junk and being told as they were exiting the city to take it back to where they had got it. Another point: in the same reports from military prosecutors it is often stated that there are cases stipulated in which an alleged rape was not confirmed, where the commanders had to punish the innocent. There is a very interesting diary left by Australian correspondent Osmar White, who accompanied the American army, and visited all the zones of occupation. He did not feel much sympathy for us, but claimed that the Red Army, in contrast to the allies, was very disciplined; that the Soviet administration was very effective not only in its acts to combat crime, but also in the field of urban regeneration and the provision of the necessities of life; and all the horrors that they tell of our soldiers were, on the one hand, rumours and gossip, and that, on the other, these crimes were mostly committed by those who were awaiting repatriation.

The Germans fled from the Anglo-Americans to the Russians

And how did women in those territories relate to our soldiers?

Oh, a whole dissertation could be written about that topic. First of all, there was a colossal difference in mentalities. All of these tales that soldiers, especially those from rural areas, had been de-Christianized and were lascivious by definition are nonsense. On the contrary, most of them had been brought up in a patriarchal tradition; that Hungarians and Austrians routinely had numerous sexual relations before marriage was for them simply animal-like behaviour. From a Russian soldier’s understanding, what kind of woman does that? I shall not say, because that would imply a certain aversion to such women. Commanders were in a state of shock. There are lots of documented reports of groups of women who, led by their “Madame”, immediately offered their sexual services as soon as contact was made with a village. In all such cases, the reaction of our officers was angry and abusive. In addition, it was often revealed that the Nazis specifically allowed a certain number of women infected with venereal disease to cause soldiers to be incapacitated. Is this part and parcel of “raped Germany” as well?
In Romania and Hungary our soldiers visited brothels, but, as a rule, not very many: they went out of curiosity, and then later there were unpleasant feelings and a sense of disgust and confusion. The very idea of buying another person did not fit in the head of the Soviet man.

Do not forget that there existed the very common phenomenon of military prostitution. There have been preserved diaries of German women, where they philosophically argue that prostitution is quite a respectable profession. It was very common, especially in the western zone of occupation, where the Germans, by the way, were very scantily supplied with food (as opposed to the Soviet zone, where children up to 8 years of age were even given even milk). The German daily ration was less than an American breakfast. Naturally, the women were forced to earn a living in the well known manner. In this type of rape there were more than enough cases. And if the Germans make claims of violence, it is not directed towards us but against the Allies, from whom the Germans had fled en masse in terror into the Soviet occupation zone.

And how, by the way, did U.S. commanders react to the crimes of their subordinates?

They often chose not to pay any attention to them. The diaries of the same Osmar White said that crimes against German women were widespread and that they were in no way brought to a halt by the American commanders; that if any kind of reaction did take place, then this happened only in respect of the Negro rapists.

Racism?

Yes. In the minds of U.S. commanders, Negros dared not raise a hand against a white woman; if they did, they would be treated in the customary way back in the USA. It was different for French troops. In the U.S. Senate after the war there was described the behaviour of native [African] French forces, the Senegalese, in Stuttgart. Cited figures say that within one to two days there were about three thousand raped in the Stuttgart underground alone. To this very day the Italians claim that the Anglo-American military were responsible for the atrocities that took place on Italian territory and committed by Moroccans. These men raped not only women, but also young men …

Trophies – bolts of fabric and needles

We are also accused of looting. Those trophies, by the way: where did they come from?

This is very interesting. There are complete documents stating that it was chiefly the Anglo-Americans who were engaged in looting and according to a thoroughgoing programme as well: possessions were loaded onto ships, and gradually they began to cause bottlenecks in ports. Basically, they were collecting an assortment of things of various value. As for the Red Army, there was such a thing as “baraholstvo” [odds and ends].

What’s that?

It wasn’t a question of robbery, but the collection of abandoned property in abeyance: open houses, smashed shops, abandoned suitcases … even when they were fighting and during a lull in the combat. At certain times their commanding officers let them send parcels back homes. But they didn’t send back diamond encrusted watches, but what was necessary in a war-ravaged economy: valued sets of sewing needles – they could be bartered for a good selection of food products; bolts of cloth, because there was no clothing left back home; many sent back tools: hammers, pliers, planes: the front line troops knew that they would soon be back home and would need something to rebuild burnt down villages with. You cannot point an accusing finger at them for doing that. In all the letters enclosed with the parcels, the soldiers try to justify themselves in front of their wives and relatives for taking these rags and junk. They were very disgusted with themselves for doing this …

By the way, do you remember the famous photo taken of the Reichstag being discussed on the Internet recently, where on one of the officer’s wrists there are two watches?

I have had that picture for a while now. They’re actually a watch and a compass that I believe a commanding officer wears. And do you remember the photo, where a Soviet soldier is robbing a Berliner of her bike and how the Web Liberals were screaming about the looting? But what was shown was a soldier confiscating a bicycle needed by the army. Do you see the difference in the way this action is looked at?

History is blackened free of charge

By the way, about our home-grown liberals: have they some interest in lying about their forebears?

In fact, there are people who are fully aware of what they are doing. Let’s just say that there is a price, though we are not necessarily talking about a financial reward. There are other means of encouragement: a trip abroad, grants, citizenship … But there is a large stratum of Internet professionals who mindlessly repeat a lie behind the first group. Their minds are so muddled that they are willing to believe any nonsense.

And it’s not only the network hamsters that are involved in this, but intellectuals as well. Here is a lecturer from the North Caucasus Federal University, Pavel Polyan, speaking on the air from a very liberal radio station, after having been asked about the fate some of our women who had had intimate relationships with the occupiers. He says: “There has been rape, but it was not a massive wave of rape. In any case, it is not commensurate with the mass rapes, which the Red Army undertook when entering Germany … ” By the way, is there a lot of disagreement between Russian historians on this issue?

I should not want to focus on specific colleagues. There are historians of the professional community, and there are people who have positioned themselves as such: we call them “folk-history” and they are amateurs trying to impose their views on the public. So, amongst the professionals there are no differences of opinion concerning this subject and there cannot be…

“This is an attempt to deprive the people of their history”

It’s bad enough that this image of a drunken and rapacious Russian soldier appears in Western movies, but we do the same thing in our own films!

This hasn’t just begun now. Remember how many of those films there were after the collapse of the Union. And the first picture that showed the war not from the point of name-calling, but from a patriotic point of view, came only in 2002, “Zvezda” [The Star]. All that came before was full of myths about Stalin’s tyranny, the “bloody” NKVD, SMERSH, the Special Department of which, it appears, only did shootings of good officers in the back and terrorized the troops. And we were fed the idea that victory came despite our leadership, and in a number of films you could sense the hidden suggestion that perhaps we might not really have won …

What was the reason for this?

The Great Patriotic War [in the West: The Russo-Soviet War 1941-1945, the Eastern Front (Europe) of World War II – trans. ME] is still in our history; it is that episode that unites the people, and not just ours, but the other nations of the former Soviet Union. And when on May 9 they try to erase it from memory or to tarnish it, the aim of this is quite obvious: it is an attempt to deprive the people of their history, and to show that we have no past to be proud of. If the majority of the population can see this, then such people will have no future. Understanding the history of the Great Patriotic War has long turned into a major field of the information battle.

Are we losing this battle?

In general, yes.

Why does not one historian oppose these attacks on our history? Doesn’t the state talk about the need to protect history from falsifications, and don’t films in which Russian soldiers continue to appear like frostbitten cattle, and don’t the liberals quietly continue to broadcast on the government channels about the “crime” of the Red Army…

Do you want to hear what I think about this? Because there really is no anti-falsification at state level. And you’ve got to be really tough about this issue. And it should be brought up with the person at the very top. One of the Russian emperors, Nicholas I, having somehow found out that there was to be performed in Paris a play that would blacken the name of the Russian army, demanded that it not be performed. And when the French king refused to do so, claiming freedom of artistic expression, the Russian emperor replied “Well, I’ll send you an audience of a million dressed in their army greatcoats, and they’ll hiss and boo. The play was immediately cancelled…

Can you imagine someone in the United States “at the behest of the soul” making a film in which American soldiers in Germany only rape, rob and drink? ..

I think in the career of such directors and writers it would be their last film. They are very closely monitoring such manifestations of “freedom.” They realize how dangerous it is. Not only that: research on this subject, if it is maintained, is not publicized. By the way, in 1989, there was published the book “Other Losses” by Canadian author James Baca, who argued that in the camps in the American zone of occupation over a million German prisoners of war were starved to death. He was immediately picked on by his colleagues and announced to be almost a fool …

From Firsthand Sources

Eyewitnesses of Germany, 1945

“… At the end of the first day of my stay in Berlin, I was convinced that the city was dead. Human beings simply could not live in this terrifying pile of debris. By the end of the first week, my opinion began to change. Society had come alive in the ruins. Berliners began to receive food and water in an amount sufficient to survive. More and more people were employed in the public works under the guidance of the Russians. Thanks to the Russians, with their extensive experience in dealing with similar problems in their own devastated cities, the spread of epidemics had been put under control. I am convinced that the Soviets did in those days more in order that Berlin should survive than the Anglo-Americans would have been able to do if they had been in the position that the Russians found themselves…”

“… After the fighting had moved onto German soil, there were committed many rapes by soldiers, both front line troops and those who followed immediately behind them. The number [of these rapes] depended on the attitude of senior officers towards them … Lawyers acknowledged that because of cruel and perverse sexual acts with German women, some of the soldiers were executed by firing squad, especially in cases where they were Negros. However, I know that many women were raped by white Americans. No action against these criminals has been taken … ”

“… In the Red Army, strict discipline prevails. Robbery, rape and abuse is no more greater than in any other zone of occupation. Wild stories about atrocities emerge from the exaggeration and distortion of individual cases brought on by nervousness caused by Russian soldiers’ wild manners and their love of vodka. One woman who had told me most of the tales of Russian brutality, tales which would make one’s hair stand on end, was eventually forced to admit that the only evidence that she had seen with her own eyes was of drunken Russian officers firing their guns into the air and at bottles … ”

From the diaries of the Australian war correspondent Osmar White

“… After moving to Oberhunden. Coloured boys staged here God knows what. They set fire to the house. Slashed all the Germans with razors and raped the women … ”

From the journal of the U.S. Army signalman Edward Wise

“… Around the same day I had a talk with a pretty Hungarian girl. When she asked whether I liked it in Budapest, I replied that I did, but that I found the brothels embarrassing. “But why?” asked the girl. “Because it is not natural; it’s animal-like”, I explained. “A woman takes the money and straight after there follows ‘lovemaking’!” She thought a moment, then nodded and said, “You’re right: taking the money first is not nice …”

From the memoirs of cavalryman Alexander Rodina

“… We went to a German city, billeted in homes. A “Frau” appears. She’s about 45 years old and asks for the “Herr Kommandant.” She declares that she is responsible for the town district and has collected 20 German women for the sexual (!!!) servicing of Russian soldiers … The reaction of the officers were angry and abusive. They drove off the German woman together with her ready for action ‘detachment’ …. ”

From the memoirs of mortar man Nahum Orlov

“… A little further on, at a railway crossing just before the village, we came across a “post for the collection of weapons and watches”. I thought I was dreaming: the civilized, prosperous British have been taking watches off German soldiers who were covered in dirt! From there we were sent to the school yard in the centre of the village. There had already been gathered there a lot of German soldiers. Watching over us, the Englishmen rolled chewing gum between their teeth – that was something new to us – and boasted to each other with their trophies, raising high their arms, studded with wrist watch … ”

From the memoirs of corporal Egon Kopiske

“… All this has been acquired by completely honest means, and do not imagine that in Germany, robbery and burglary is not ignored. Complete order. Whenever they came across confiscated things abandoned by Berlin “big noises”, they were distributed in a comradely way to whoever liked them… ”

From a letter from Staff Sergeant V. V. Syrlitsyn to his wife

REFERENCE “KP”

Senyavskaya, Elena Spartakovna – Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, member of the Academy of Military Sciences. Specialist in Russian military history of the XX century, military psychology and author of over 250 scientific papers.

#172




#173
Neat. I like this part, too. (Not the swastikas!)


Today we think of fascism so much in terms of its repression, that we forget how much Nazism built its movement by campaigning against big capitalism.One famous National Socialist election poster shows a social-democratic winged "angel" walking hand in hand with a stereotyped banker, with the big slogan: "Marxism is the Guardian Angel of Capitalism". Hitler promised to preserve the "good" productive capitalism of ordinary hard-working Germans, while wiping out the "bad" parasitic big capitalism of the hidden finance capitalist Jewish bosses. In fact, tens of millions of Americans (and not just white folks) would support such a program right here & now. Fascism blended together a radical sentiment against the big bourgeoisie and their State, together with racist-nationalist ideology, into a political uprising of the middle classes .

#174
#175
Thanks guys that's very informative. I read that Vietnam article you posted Crow, thank you it was quite interesting. I've been a fan of the Vietnamese since before I was a socialist, because a military history minded teenager from Canada can appreciate someone who beat the States. And the more I learn about Vietnam and it's people, the more I love. I really oughta to visit.
#176
knowledgable Russian commentator: "Low number of prosecutions of rape by the occupying force means it didn't happen too much. Plus, I've heard some of the frauleins were begging for it."

I accept that PTSD is probably lower among veterans of socialist countries, if only for the reason that socialism is good at suppressing feelings of guilt and responsibility.

Edited by jools ()

#177
not sure why you probated me, i upvote everyones posts, its how i keep track of what ive read
#178
I just probate everyone now, so i can keep track of the nazis
#179

swirlsofhistory posted:

knowledgable Russian commentator: "Low number of prosecutions of rape by the occupying force means it didn't happen too much. Plus, I've heard some of the frauleins were begging for it."

I accept that PTSD is probably lower among veterans of socialist countries, if only for the reason that socialism is good at suppressing feelings of guilt and responsibility.



Yes the woman historian has no idea what shes talking about, lets go with the Nazi propaganda instead

#180
Rape was severely punished in the Red Army, and male chauvinism and sexual objectification and degradation of women was greatly curtailed under socialism. This is why the Red Army was trying to not prosecute rape for some reason, and Hell, racist fairytales seem good to me. I am a communist,
#181
#182

swirlsofhistory posted:

I accept that PTSD is probably lower among veterans of socialist countries, if only for the reason that socialism is good at suppressing feelings of guilt and responsibility.



in fact its so good at suppressing them that it usually prevents you from engaging in the actions that would have caused you to feel guilt in the first place. insidious...

#183
post traumatic stress disorder (n): the ground state of imperialist vertebrae
#184
i worked trying to get people benefits for a little while, and was a mental health services advocate in my free time, and i realized that a lot of people in the united states think PTSD is the diagnosis of American veteranism, no more and no less. like they think survivors of domestic violence don't suffer post traumatic stress, and also they think that every American veteran will end up strangling his wife while half-asleep in bed and that's just how it goes. i wish i had a punch line to end here but i put it in the middle of the paragraph by accident and i'm not going back for it.
#185
SO ANTI-SEMITIC

#186
love that flute
#187


Soviet support for Umkhonto we Sizwe in their struggle against Apartheid.

(From 'Stories of the Liberation Struggles in South Africa: Mpumalanga Province, Part 2' By Prof. Thabo Israel Pudi)

#188
#189

Crow posted:

Sources:

http://www.privatizationbarometer.net/index.php

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h9FFVgu-Ff0C&pg=PA243&lpg=PA243&dq=yugoslavia%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20economy&source=bl&ots=hD9ja4U8R8&sig=yVtJazEErc1FwP0Fgs_5EJKozPw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCWoVChMIsrKimPvvxgIVAdEUCh0TNQhb#v=onepage&q=yugoslavia%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20economy&f=false

http://www.karlmarx.net/china-1/thechineseeconomicmiracle

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDcQFjADahUKEwiUibbc_e_GAhUL6RQKHZuxDdA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpersonal.lse.ac.uk%2Festrin%2FPresentations%2FOrganizations%2520in%2520Economy%2520and%2520Society.ppt&ei=WTOwVdT4MovSU5vjtoAN&usg=AFQjCNFeNHkMLIIDe2CTg0Lx5-4ocZFjiQ&sig2=b9zn7BQS4PoDj7bq97dspg

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7A8ep7V7MvkC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=north%20korea%20public%20sector%20share&source=bl&ots=oCgLlNYEG9&sig=VHZDQFcwhese03MWCgY6auq_NFE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDUQ6AEwA2oVChMIsJLq_f3vxgIVgZEUCh3v6Aoz#v=onepage&q=north%20korea%20public%20sector%20share&f=false

http://swopec.hhs.se/eijswp/papers/eijswp0236.pdf

(modern china figure from yasheng huang's "capitalism with chinese characteristics, 1990s figure from "the debate amongst market socialists")

edit:



https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b20GC0ZfrgsC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=cuba%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20net%20national%20income&source=bl&ots=7YFTb4sSQh&sig=ffJHv2GUVidMuEFfopEbvrixqzg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBjgKahUKEwigvMmdhPDGAhXKtRQKHW4yA1w#v=onepage&q=cuba%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20net%20national%20income&f=false



weird choice of years there, i know the peak nationalisation year in the uk was 1951 at about 20%, i guess its sort of "since the beginning of neoliberalism"

#190
bump, and goldmine
#191
#192

Themselves posted:


#193
[account deactivated]
#194
crows shall die but crow shall not
#195
this thread didn't come up in search when i looked for "china", and I think its a good thread so I bump it. Love that damn bird. all the hoxhaists left the off site for twitter.
#196

Themselves posted:

this thread didn't come up in search when i looked for "china", and I think its a good thread so I bump it. Love that damn bird. all the hoxhaists left the off site for twitter.


i'm a lower case hoxhaist in the sense that i think hoxha was really cool

#197

Themselves posted:

this thread didn't come up in search when i looked for "china", and I think its a good thread so I bump it. Love that damn bird. all the hoxhaists left the off site for twitter.



What’s his @