15 July 2017. V I Lenin on Socialism

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28 May 2017. On Sergei Stagorodsky and “Sergianism”

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You hear rightwing elements excoriating Patriarch Sergei Stagorodsky and who blather about “Sergianism“. Arzamas (his hometown) put up a memorial to him. He was in prison for Christ’s sake three times. Bear in mind what “Sergianism” is… selling-out the Church to political elements, often, to factions more inimical to Christianity than Communism ever was. Actually, “Sergianism” was mostly a trend amongst rightwing anti-communist émigrés and you find it amongst present-day konvertsy, who hobnob with the slimiest rightwing fascists imaginable (on the grounds of being “pro-life!” What hypocrisy!). Interesting… that what the right accused Sergei of, they were guilty of themselves! They sold out Christ for a mess of pottage from anti-Church/anti-Rodina elements… they still do!

BMD

The Great Split

Note well that the clans that make up the “Golden 400” all had a hand in “February”… thus, they all had a hand in bringing in “October”. Therefore, all their rants against the USSR (or any personality in it) are bootless and toothless. If it wasn’t for the perfidy and treason of these clans, there’d be no revolution. Think on that… however, they remain convinced of their goodness and innocence and refuse to confront their complicity in the subsequent events.

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Editor:

The leading lights of the “Golden 400”, the leading elements of both the OCA and the ROCOR, mostly come from clans that instigated or supported the February revolt. That is, they SUPPORTED the tsar’s imprisonment, making it easier to kill him, which did happen a year later. That is, without the treason of the Potapov, Golitsyn, and Bennigsen clans (and such subsidiary clans as the Schmemanns), there would’ve been no Stalin. That’s a meaty reflection. It makes Victor Potapov’s rants against Stalin rather empty, don’t they? Recall that none of the major White figures wanted to restore the monarchy… in essence, they were all “Februaryists” (in a play on “Decembrist”).

Here’s the irony… the children of those who made the tsar’s death possible canonised him in the 80s of the last century. Note well that they expressed no repentance for that. That’s no small beer…

BMD

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The Revolution, which broke out a century ago in Russia, is a most controversial and multifaceted phenomenon that exerted a powerful influence on the fate of humanity as well as Russia. Thus, we can justifiably refer to the events triggered by February 1917 to as “the Great Russian Revolution”. Professor A V Lubkov, Rector of Moscow State Pedagogical University, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Science, Doctor of Historical Sciences, touched on the events of the February Revolution.

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It was a catastrophe, a tragedy for the Russian national identity of that period. It gave rise to a negative perception of the revolution, as any calamity brings about root-and-branch change, a break with the past, a painful departure from tradition. In 1917, the split affected both government and people. Unsurprisingly, many Russian scholars pondering pondered over the phenomenon turn to the February events, not just October, as they see them as a trigger for the collapse of traditional Russian nationhood. However, it doesn’t imply that we should paint only a grim picture of the Revolution and portray it as “the end of history”. History can’t endure standstill; it’s a flowing stream. Dialectically speaking, any of the most difficult periods still created opportunities for further development. It’s the case here as well. However, the tragedy of 1917 offered prospects for the next stage of Russian history, the steps taken as part of the “Soviet project”.

I consider the events of February 1917 to have human causes. What happened in early 1917 is mainly on the conscience of the contemporary élite, both the liberal opposition and the one in power. The authorities didn’t always opt for reconciling interests. However, every event has its architects, its creators, and its leaders. I think that the liberal opposition systemically contributed to the February Revolution, as it deliberately ruled out any coöperation with the authorities and constantly appealed to the public since as early as late 1915. Therefore, the opposition essentially rocked the boat. In fact, it’s like an avalanche. If one keeps throwing small stones at a mountain, it may eventually lead to a disaster, a landslide destroying everything on its way. History shows us that flirting with revolution is a very dangerous game. Should the authorities and the opposition feel responsible for the nation’s lot, they should seek to avert a radical scenario.

The next fundamental issue is the cause of the February revolution. I believe that longstanding problems, which tragically culminated with the developments of early 1917, largely came from positive and not negative trends in the Russian economy, including the booming Russian economy and the rapid pace of modernisation, which raised very difficult adjustments in society. In re the economic situation in the winter of 1916-17, it wasn’t as gloomy as Russian textbooks and monographs on the February Revolution tend to describe it. In fact, there was no rationing system as such in the cities. With food supplies regulated in a way, Russia avoided the problems of its enemies Germany and Austria-Hungary. At best, disruptions to bread deliveries occurred. Nothing more serious came our way.

From a popular standpoint, a plot against Tsar Nikolai lay behind the February Revolution. In reality, the country simultaneously witnessed several secret cabals within the Gosduma and military establishment. After a while, the plotters combined their efforts, with particular scenarios considered, and bridges built between liberals and left-wingers, as well as between civil and military leadership factions. In this context, we must touch upon the role of Freemasons or Masons. Although reducing everything to Masonic conspiracy theories naturally leads to oversimplification, neglecting this factor implies concealing the truth and distorting the real picture. Undoubtedly, it’s easy to portray the Revolution as an exclusively democratic, spontaneous, and popular uprising, which liberal historians often do. However, I consider the February developments a far more complex phenomenon.

Above all, the conspirators only intended to make the Emperor abdicate. They sought to preserve Russia’s monarchy, with the power of the Tsar being substantially limited. Moreover, they planned to replace Nicholas II with Tsarevich Alexei, to establish a government accountable to the Gosduma, and to transform the country into a stable constitutional monarchy. Yet, everything turned out differently. One can also dwell on the specific participation of the Triple Entente members, which firmly believed that the Tsar’s inner circle and the monarch himself at some point could favour a separate peace agreement with Germany. Our allies understandably found that unacceptable. 1916 revealed the Russian army’s resilience and the remarkable capacities of its weaponry. The Western allies expressed both interest in Russia’s continued fighting at their side and concern over its potential change in the attitude to war.

There’s sound reasoning behind the idea that the February Revolution provided Russia with many opportunities. At the same time, one can’t but point out that the liberal opposition caused the nihilism that eventually muffled all its appeals and killed its aspirations stone-dead. Finally, I think that we should look at the 1917 February and October Revolutions within an overall context. They’re two interlinked and divergent processes. In other words, one can’t deal with them separately. As I see it, today’s emphasis on considering the 1917 Great Russian Revolution from a broader perspective is very sensible. Obviously, we should assess the Revolution in this very way, as a conveyor-belt of changes.

24 February 2017

Rethinking Russia

http://rethinkingrussia.ru/en/2017/02/the-great-split/

Peacemaker: How the Soviet Tsar Bomba Helped Prevent Nuclear War

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Fifty-five years ago, the USSR detonated a 50-megaton bomb over an uninhabited island north of the Arctic Circle. The most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever built by man, aptly called the Tsar Bomba, gave the USSR nuclear parity with the USA.

The Super Bomb was a Necessity

The “thaw” in Soviet-US relations resulting from, amongst other things, Nikita Khrushchyov’s visit to the USA in autumn 1959 ended on 1 May 1960, when the Soviets shot down a US U-2 spy plane flown by CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers in their airspace as it performed photographic aerial reconnaissance of the Baikonur cosmodrome and a number of Soviet military and nuclear facilities. Powers parachuted safely, the Soviets captured him, and he admitted the military nature of his mission. As a result, Khrushchyov cancelled the scheduled opening of an east-west summit in Paris. The incident prompted a marked deterioration of US-Soviet relations, especially after US-backed Cuban emigrants bungled an attempt to invade Cuba in April 1961. The Moscow-proposed moratorium on nuclear tests by the USSR, the USA, and the UK, in effect since 1958, left the USSR lagging far behind the USA in the size of its nuclear arsenal. By 1960, the Americans used the moratorium to bring the number of their nuclear and thermonuclear warheads to 18,600 from 7,500 in 1958. In July 1961, Khrushchyov decided that he had enough of the moratorium and decided to start work on super-powerful thermonuclear weapons to restore nuclear parity with the USA. He also announced the need to build a 100-megaton thermonuclear bomb as a means of forcing the Americans to wake up to reality.

The Tsar Bomba

A four-man development team of nuclear physicists… Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Smirnov, and Yuri Trutnev… had the responsibility to design and build a three-stage thermonuclear device in just 15 weeks. Officially designated the AN602 thermonuclear bomb, the Tsar Bomba used the common three-stage Teller-Ulam design. The primary fission reaction compressed a secondary mixed fission/fusion fuel layer, which in turn compressed a large tertiary thermonuclear payload, essentially stringing a pair of hydrogen fission reactions together to generate enough energy to activate fusion in a uranium payload.

Record-Breaking Blast

At 09.00 on 30 October 1961, a specially modified Tu-95 strategic bomber took off; it carried the Tsar Bomba and a Tu-16A flying laboratory accompanied it. They headed for a testing range on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. At 27 tonnes, the Tsar Bomba weighed nearly as much as the Tu-95 that carried it; it was so big that groundcrew had to cut off the bomb-bay doors to fit it in. At 11.30, the crew released the device from 10,500 metres, using a parachute to retard its fall so that the bomber and its companion craft had sufficient time… 188 seconds… to leave the area. The bomb went off at an altitude of 4,200 metres. The calculated power of the unprecedented explosion was 51.5 megatons. In reality, its power was between 57 and 58.6 megatons. The fireball from the explosion was 4.6 kilometres across; it was visible 1,000 kilometres away, despite dense clouds. The mushroom cloud rose up to almost 70 kilometres and had a diameter of 95 kilometres. For about an hour after the explosion, people observed radio signal distortions hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre due to ionisation of the atmosphere. The shockwave circled the planet three times. On Dikson Island, some 800 kilometres from the range, the shockwave shattered windows, bringing the sound of cannonade with it.

Aftermath

Even though the Tsar Bomba wasn’t an active service weapon, its creation confirmed the USSR’s ability to have as many megatons of nuclear might as it desired. With this realisation in mind, the USA stopped their nuclear buildup. On 5 August 1963, the USSR, the USA, and the UK signed a treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. Thus, the test of the Tsar Bomba played a crucial role in achieving nuclear parity between the USSR and the USA. This prevented nuclear war.

30 October 2016

Sputnik International

https://sputniknews.com/russia/201610301046887680-ussr-bomb-history/