Quotulatiousness

August 25, 2020

The Russian Revolution 1917

Filed under: Government, History, Military, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Epic History TV
Published 4 Aug 2016

Everything you need to know about the Russian Revolution in a 13 min video. Produced in partnership with Bridgeman Images http://www.bridgemanimages.com/en-GB/

We explain all the major events of Russia’s TWO revolutions of 1917 – the February Revolution that ended Tsarist rule in Russia, and the October Revolution, that brought the Bolsheviks to power. We explain the causes of Tsar Nicholas II’s growing unpopularity – the role of the mysterious Siberian mystic Rasputin, Russia’s disastrous involvement in World War One, and the events on the streets of Petrograd that led to the Tsar’s abdication. That summer Russia lurched from crisis to crisis, with a Provisional Government that faced riots (the July Days), military revolt (the Kornilov Affair), economic chaos, and constantly dwindling support. Socialist Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky, once hailed as Russia’s great hope, was unable to restore order, or, in October, prevent the Bolsheviks from launching a coup, organised by Leon Trotsky and led by Vladimir Lenin, that overthrow the Provisional Government and brought the Bolsheviks to power. A brutal civil war followed, leading to the death of more than 10 million Russians – amongst them Tsar Nicholas II and his family, executed by Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg in July 1918. From the wreckage emerged the Soviet Union, formed in 1922, and destined to be one of the 20th century’s two superpowers.

Please help me make more history videos by supporting me at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/epichistorytv

#EpicHistoryTV #HistoryofRussia #RussianRevolution

Recommended books on the Russian Revolution (as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases):
S. A. Smith, The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction http://geni.us/RzOAk2U
Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution http://geni.us/UIxyirj
Robert Service, The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution http://geni.us/A89T
Neil Faulkner, A People’s History of the Russian Revolution http://geni.us/bME0unl

August 13, 2020

Warsaw, August 1920

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Lawrence W. Reed discusses one of the most historically significant battles of the 20th century:

Initial Soviet advances during the Battle of Warsaw, 12 August, 1920.
Map by Halibutt via Wikimedia Commons.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most important military engagements of the 20th Century. It will be celebrated in Poland, the country which won it decisively. The country which lost it, Vladimir Lenin’s nightmarish gulag known as the Soviet Union, is thankfully extinct. Free people everywhere should be grateful to the Poles for the victory.

From 1795 until 1918, Poland disappeared as Austria, Prussia, and Russia partitioned it into pieces for themselves. Upon its re-emergence as an independent nation (an outcome of World War I), a reconstituted Poland immediately faced an existential challenge from Moscow. Lenin’s Bolsheviks were still consolidating power at home but their territorial appetites were well known to Poles and their new Chief of State, Józef Piłsudski. The fateful Polish-Soviet War broke out in February 1919.

Making war on Poland was more than a local affair to the Soviets. They made it plain that the Poles were simply in the way of their larger goal: exporting communism to the rest of Western Europe. Germany, gripped by post-war economic and political chaos, seemed ripe for a Marxist revolution if only Soviet troops could move in and assist, but Poland would have to be disposed of first.

Nicknamed “the Red Napoleon,” Soviet commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky ordered, “To the West! Over the corpse of Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration. March upon Vilnius, Minsk, Warsaw and onward to Berlin over the corpse of Poland!” Bolshevik theoretician and Lenin confidant Nikolai Bukharin publicly declared that the campaign would take communist forces “straight to London and Paris.” In a letter to Joseph Stalin, Lenin himself suggested the Red Army should attack Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary for the purpose of provoking a communist revolution in Italy, to which Stalin replied in the affirmative.

Both Tukhachevsky and Bukharin, by the way, were executed during Stalin’s purges in 1938 but they were at Lenin’s side and at the pinnacle of Soviet power in 1920. Lenin died in 1924 and was eventually succeeded by Stalin.

Soviet victories in the summer of 1920 looked unstoppable, as Moscow’s Red Army pushed to within striking distance of the Polish capital. From August 12-25, the Battle of Warsaw raged. Foreign observers expected the imminent collapse of Poland. Then, the tactical brilliance of Pilsudski and his chief of staff Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski plus the legendary courage of Polish fighters combined to produce what Poles call “the Miracle on the Vistula.” Author Michael Peck writes in The National Interest:

    Just as all seemed lost, Marshal Pilsudski unleashed his masterstroke, a move worthy of Robert E. Lee or Rommel. While the central Russian armies were fixated on Warsaw, a Polish strike force side-slipped to the south of the city, and then turned north in a left hook into the exposed Russian flank. Surprised, demoralized, and outmaneuvered, the Russian armies disintegrated, with some retreating back to Russia and others fleeing to German territory to be interned. Pilsudski’s counteroffensive was assisted by the breaking of Russian codes, a Polish specialty that they later used to crack the Nazi Enigma machine.

Piłsudski’s attack from the Wieprz river area on August 15, 1920.
Map by Halibutt via Wikimedia Commons.

May 29, 2020

QotD: Historical ways to deal with your “rage heads”

Filed under: Germany, History, Politics, Quotations, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The main lesson I hope our distant descendants draw from the Orange Man Era is: The rage heads ye have always with you, so ye must find a way to channel them into something as non-destructive as possible. The story of modern politics can be written in a sentence: The weaponization of rage heads, combined with the inability of any society to properly dispose of said WMDs.

Set the Wayback Machine to the turn of the 20th century. Lenin’s great insight is that “the masses” will never achieve the proper revolutionary consciousness without a dedicated cadre of hardcore, professional revolutionaries to lead the way. Lenin recognized the prevalence of incipient rage heads in his society — how could he not? — but realized that, absent some guiding hand, they’d flounder around incoherently. At best (from the “furthering the Revolution” point of view), they’d do what his, Lenin’s, idiot brother did: Try to knock off the tsar, and get himself hung for it. Thus, the Bolsheviks.

The problem, though, is that rage heads by definition suffer from poor impulse control. The tiny subset of them that are pure sociopaths (like Lenin), and thus have the icy-veined self-control to hold their fire, have to maintain the very tightest discipline over the Party, or all hell breaks loose. See, for example, the massive street battles in Weimar Germany between the KPD (German Commies) and the SD. Hitler, like Lenin, had to get his rage heads on a tight leash, so he channeled the disciplined sociopaths from the SD into the SS, cooled out the coolable in the SD by buying them off, and shanked the incorrigible remainder. See also the almost-exactly-contemporary Moscow Show Trials.

Note please that this is your best-case scenario for a purely ideological revolution. From Robespierre to Kim Il Sung, the first step in consolidating the Revolution is killing off a large fraction of the original revolutionaries.

The worst-case scenario (again, from the “furthering the Revolution” standpoint) is what the American wannabe-bolshies did / are currently doing. Knowing that you can’t shank or show-trial the dreadlocked poetry majors that make up your goon squad, you try to channel them into academia, the Media, the “arts.” Which fails egregiously, because whatever tenuous contact with reality they once had gets completely severed by those institutions’ social bubbles. They never were very good at holding fire, and now they can’t, literally can’t, see any reason to — life is great here on campus, so why can’t it be that way everywhere?

Severian, “Living in End Times”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-02-28.

October 15, 2019

The Tide Is Turning – Russian Civil War Fall 1919 I THE GREAT WAR 1919

Filed under: History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published 14 Oct 2019

Support 16 Days in Berlin: https://realtimehistory.net/indiegogo

The White Russian advance on Moscow comes to a crashing end as the Red Army manages to turn the tide of the Russian Civil War in Fall 1919.

» SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thegreatwar
Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/thegreatwar/

» SOURCES
Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy. The Russian Revolution (London: The Bodley Head, 2017 [1996]).
Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2005).
Smele, Jonathan. The “Russian” Civil Wars 1916-1926 (London: Hurst, 2015).
Sumpf, Alexandre. “Russian Civil War,” in 1914-1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.
Engelstein, Laura. Russia in Flames (Oxford University Press, 2017).

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2019

March 19, 2019

The Russian Civil War in Early 1919 I THE GREAT WAR

Filed under: History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published on 18 Mar 2019

Check out The Great War Miniatures Game: http://bit.ly/BattlefrontMiniatures

Use “greatwarchannel1” for 25% off of the Great War Game Book
Use “greatwarchannel2” for 10% off of any Army Deal plus free shipping worldwide.

The biggest conflict, or rather series of conflicts, that had their roots in the First World War are today known as the Russian Civil War. After the October Revolution the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky fought all across the former Russian Empire to consolidate their power.

» SUPPORT THE CHANNEL
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thegreatwar
Merchandise: https://shop.spreadshirt.de/thegreatwar/

» SOURCES
Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy. The Russian Revolution (London: The Bodley Head, 2017 [1996]).

Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2005).

Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished. Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 (Penguin, 2017)

Gattrell, Peter. Russia’s First World War (Pearson, 2005).

Leonhard, Jörn. Der überforderte Frieden. Versailles und die Welt 1918-1923 (CH Beck, 2018).

Lloyd George, David. The Truth About the Peace Treaties, vol 1, (London: Victor Glocancz, 1938).

Mawdsley, Evan. “International Responses to the Russian Civil War,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…

Peeling, Siobhan. “War Communism,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…

Smele, Jonathan. The ‘Russian’ Civil Wars 1916-1926 (London: Hurst, 2015).

Sumpf, Alexandre. “Russian Civil War,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…

Volkov, Evgenii. “Czech Legions,” in 1914-1918 online.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online…

» SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WW1_Series
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/TheGreatWarChannel

»CREDITS Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Motion Design: Christian Graef – GRAEFX
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (http://patreon.com/Zalesky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig
Channel Design: Alexander Clark Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licenced material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH i.Gr. 2019

November 25, 2018

Lenin’s death and Stalin’s rise to Power I BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1924 Part 1 of 2

Filed under: History, Russia — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published on 24 Nov 2018

As Lenin’s health starts to fail, the struggle to become his successor picks up speed with Stalin maneuvering closer and closer to power. The outcome of this struggle will define a century of world events.

First off: sorry for some sound issues this was recorded before we built our studio. Again we jump ahead a bit to cover events in the 1920s that have a huge impact on the current events in our WW2 In Real Time series. Our TimeGhost Army member Kamil Szadkowski made this episode possible with his research and balanced views on the events of 1924. Also many, many thanks to Olga Shirnina for providing us with the excellent colorized images for this episode. Check out Olga’s amazing volume of work here: https://klimbim2014.wordpress.com.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written and directed by: Spartacus Olsson
Research Contributed by: Kamil Szadkowski
Produced by: Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Community Manager: Joram Appel

Archive by Screenocean/Reuter https://www.screenocean.com

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH

Miracle on the Vistula – Polish Soviet War I BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1920 Part 1 of 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Equ7u…

Russia Before the 1917 Revolution I THE GREAT WAR Special
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b3f…

The Russian February Revolution 1917 I THE GREAT WAR Week 137
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SyO5…

The Russian October Revolution 1917 I THE GREAT WAR Week 172
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uoLo…

The Last Tsar of Russia – Nicholas II I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OnTL…

Lenin & Trotsky – Their Rise To Power I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPoJ6…

March 11, 2018

Soviet Leaders in 7 Minutes (History)

Filed under: History, Politics, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Austin Olney
Published on 19 Apr 2016

Learn about the leaders of the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Lenin
1917-1922
Joseph Stalin
1922- 1953
Georgy Malenkov
1953-1955
Nikita Khrushchev
1953 – 1964
Leonid Brezhnev
1964 – 1982
Yuri Andropov
1982 – 1984
Konstantin Chernenko
1984 – 1985
Mikhail Gorbachev
1985 – 1991

Music – Goldeneye 64 Menu

March 6, 2018

Lenin & Trotsky – Their Rise To Power I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?

Filed under: History, Politics, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published on 5 Mar 2018

Felshtinsky, Yuri: Lenin, Trotsky, Germany and the Treaty of Brest-Ltivosk. The Collapse of the World Revolution. November 1917- November 1918, Milford 2012: http://amzn.to/2oILHmK

Swain, Geoffrey: Trotsky and the Russian Revolution. New York 2014: http://amzn.to/2CY0gqF

Swain, Geoffrey: Trotsky. Edinburgh 2006: http://amzn.to/2FoRnfb

Wolkogonow, Dimitri: Lenin. Utopie und Terror. Berlin 2017

Vladimir “Lenin” Ilyich Ulyanov and Leon Trotsky are two of the most well known communists today. But how did they meet and how did they rose to the top of the Bolshevik movement? And how did they manage to overthrow the Russian Empire? We take a look at their lives and their early days until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

January 19, 2018

Assassination Attempt on Lenin – Chaos in Romania I THE GREAT WAR Week 182

Filed under: History, Military, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published on 18 Jan 2018

This week in Russia, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was almost killed by sharpshooters in Petrograd and the Constituent Assembly meets. Tensions rise as Russia issues an ultimatum to Romania, with an order for their King’s arrest. There are also machinations in Finland and some action on the Western Front.

December 23, 2017

QotD: Charles Dickens’ ability to portray happiness

Filed under: Books, Britain, History, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The thought of Christmas raises almost automatically the thought of Charles Dickens, and for two very good reasons. To begin with, Dickens is one of the few English writers who have actually written about Christmas. Christmas is the most popular of English festivals, and yet it has produced astonishingly little literature. There are the carols, mostly medieval in origin; there is a tiny handful of poems by Robert Bridges, T.S. Eliot, and some others, and there is Dickens; but there is very little else. Secondly, Dickens is remarkable, indeed almost unique, among modern writers in being able to give a convincing picture of happiness.

Dickens dealt successfully with Christmas twice in a chapter of The Pickwick Papers and in A Christmas Carol. The latter story was read to Lenin on his deathbed and according to his wife, he found its ‘bourgeois sentimentality’ completely intolerable. Now in a sense Lenin was right: but if he had been in better health he would perhaps have noticed that the story has interesting sociological implications. To begin with, however thick Dickens may lay on the paint, however disgusting the ‘pathos’ of Tiny Tim may be, the Cratchit family give the impression of enjoying themselves. They sound happy as, for instance, the citizens of William Morris’s News From Nowhere don’t sound happy. Moreover and Dickens’s understanding of this is one of the secrets of his power their happiness derives mainly from contrast. They are in high spirits because for once in a way they have enough to eat. The wolf is at the door, but he is wagging his tail. The steam of the Christmas pudding drifts across a background of pawnshops and sweated labour, and in a double sense the ghost of Scrooge stands beside the dinner table. Bob Cratchit even wants to drink to Scrooge’s health, which Mrs Cratchit rightly refuses. The Cratchits are able to enjoy Christmas precisely because it only comes once a year. Their happiness is convincing just because Christmas only comes once a year. Their happiness is convincing just because it is described as incomplete.

George Orwell (writing as “John Freeman”), “Can Socialists Be Happy?”, Tribune, 1943-12-20.

July 21, 2017

July Days In Petrograd – Blood On The Nevsky Prospect I THE GREAT WAR Week 156

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Published on 20 Jul 2017

The tensions between the Russian Provisional Government, between the civilians and the Bolsheviks turn violent this week 100 years ago. Machine Guns fire into the demonstrations on the Nevsky Prospect and arrest warrants are issued for Lenin and Trosky. At the same time the preliminary bombardment for the Battle of Passchendaele begins on the Western Front.

March 31, 2017

Lenin Takes The Train – First Battle of Gaza I THE GREAT WAR Week 140

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East, Military, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Published on 30 Mar 2017

When the Russian government promises to continue the war and support the Entente with another offensive, the Germans are allowing Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin to board a train from his exile in Switzerland to Russia. The British Army once again underestimates the Ottoman Empire at the 1st Battle of Gaza and the Toplica Uprising ends.

July 14, 2015

QotD: Lenin’s moment of clarity

Filed under: Liberty, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

There is not very much good to say about the life and career of Vladimir Lenin, but give the pickled old monster this much: He cut through more than two centuries’ worth of bull and straight to the heart of all politics with his simple question: “Who? Whom?” Which is to say: Who acts? Who is acted upon? Even here in the land of the free, meditating upon that question can be an uncomfortable exercise.

The foundation of classical liberalism, and of the American order, is not the rule of law, a written constitution, freedom of speech and worship, one-man/one-vote democracy, or the Christian moral tradition — necessary as those things are. The irreplaceable basis for a prosperous, decent, liberal, stable society is property. Forget Thomas Jefferson’s epicurean flourish — John Locke and the First Continental Congress had it right on the first go-round: “Life, liberty, and property.” Despite the presence of the serial commas in that formulation, these are not really three different things: Perhaps we should render the concept “lifelibertyproperty” the way the physicists write about “spacetime.”

Kevin D. Williamson, “Property and Peace”, National Review, 2014-07-20.

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