Author Topic: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)  (Read 1311 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline mountaineer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 78,111
Suicide of the Liberals
  by Gary Saul Morson
   October 2020
First Things
Quote
Between 1900 and 1917, waves of unprecedented terror struck Russia. Several parties professing incompatible ideologies competed (and cooperated) in causing havoc. Between 1905 and 1907, nearly 4,500 government officials and about as many private individuals were killed or injured. Between 1908 and 1910, authorities recorded 19,957 terrorist acts and revolutionary robberies, doubtless omitting many from remote areas. As the foremost historian of Russian terrorism, Anna Geifman, observes, “Robbery, extortion, and murder became more common than traffic accidents.”

Anyone wearing a uniform was a candidate for a bullet to the head or sulfuric acid to the face. Country estates were burnt down (“rural illuminations”) and businesses were extorted or blown up. Bombs were tossed at random into railroad carriages, restaurants, and theaters. Far from regretting the death and maiming of innocent bystanders, terrorists boasted of killing as many as possible, either because the victims were likely bourgeois or because any murder helped bring down the old order. A group of anarcho-­communists threw bombs laced with nails into a café bustling with two hundred customers in order “to see how the foul bourgeois will squirm in death agony.” ...

How did educated, liberal society respond to such terrorism? ...  Not just lawyers, teachers, doctors, and engineers, but even industrialists and bank directors raised money for the terrorists. Doing so signaled advanced opinion and good manners. A quote attributed to Lenin—“When we are ready to kill the capitalists, they will sell us the rope”—would have been more accurately rendered as: “They will buy us the rope and hire us to use it on them.” True to their word, when the Bolsheviks gained control, their organ of terror, the Cheka, “liquidated” members of all opposing parties, beginning with the Kadets. Why didn’t the liberals and businessmen see it coming?

...   Though some liberals recognized their differences from the radicals, most acted like intelligentsia wannabes who were unwilling to acknowledge, even to themselves, that their values were essentially different. Socialized to regard anything conservative as reprehensible—and still worse, as a social faux pas—they contrived ways to justify radical intolerance and violence as forced, understandable, and noble.   ...
Read entire essay at First Things
Support Israel's emergency medical service. afmda.org

Offline dfwgator

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 17,473
Re: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)
« Reply #1 on: September 20, 2020, 10:19:05 pm »
The parallels are frightening.  People think the Russian Revolution started in 1917, but the fact is it had been going on for years before they finally succeeded.

Offline skeeter

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26,717
  • Gender: Male
Re: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)
« Reply #2 on: September 20, 2020, 10:33:51 pm »
The parallels are frightening.  People think the Russian Revolution started in 1917, but the fact is it had been going on for years before they finally succeeded.

It was the peasant class that enabled the bolsheviks to succeed. All our marxist rats have are the urban/welfare class. And they're too well fed to do what it'll take.

Without the state to protect them, the progressives will have their asses handed to them here.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2020, 10:34:46 pm by skeeter »

Offline DB

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13,085
Re: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2020, 11:15:43 pm »
Will not yield.

Offline Smokin Joe

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 56,397
  • I was a "conspiracy theorist". Now I'm just right.
Re: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2020, 07:41:59 am »
The parallels are frightening.  People think the Russian Revolution started in 1917, but the fact is it had been going on for years before they finally succeeded.
I have been calling these red diaper baby jackwagons "Bolsheviks" all along.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline Free Vulcan

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 23,683
  • Gender: Male
  • Ah, the air is so much fresher here...
Re: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2020, 07:45:15 am »
Good read.
The Republic is lost.

Offline Gefn

  • "And though she be but little she is fierce"-Shakespeare
  • Cat Mod
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,180
  • Gender: Female
  • Quos Deus Vult Perdere Prius Dementat
Re: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)
« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2020, 08:11:12 am »
Aren’t there parallels to both the French and Russian revolutions? (Minus the guillotine)
« Last Edit: September 21, 2020, 08:12:58 am by Gefn »
G-d bless America. G-d bless us all                                 

Adopt a puppy or kitty from your local shelter
Or an older dog or cat. They're true love❤️

Offline mountaineer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 78,111
Re: Suicide of the Liberals (Parallels of Soviet Revolution and the USA)
« Reply #7 on: September 21, 2020, 12:44:48 pm »
Aren’t there parallels to both the French and Russian revolutions? (Minus the guillotine)
Of course, the Pantifas have been using prop guillotines, too. They must think they're on a par with the French Revolution.
Support Israel's emergency medical service. afmda.org