Posted on 09/20/2020 7:16:25 AM PDT by karpov
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.”
Instead of the pendulum’s swinging back—a metaphor of inevitability that excuses people from taking a stand—the killing grew and grew, both in numbers and in cruelty. Sadism replaced simple killing. As Geifman explains, “The need to inflict pain was transformed from an abnormal irrational compulsion experienced only by unbalanced personalities into a formally verbalized obligation for all committed revolutionaries.” One group threw “traitors” into vats of boiling water. Others were still more inventive. Women torturers were especially admired.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
History repeats. The murder of Stolypin was the most consequential political assassination of the 20th century. IMHO there will soon be overt political assassinations on both sides in the near future.
I have been reading lots of the eastern front in WWI. Pretty fascinating.
Anyways, most of Russia’s best units, which were also fiercely loyal to the czar, were wiped out in needless attacks.
I wonder how history would be different if those units returned to Russia, intact, with the ceasefire with Germany.
Same problem here, but different players. The victims here are armed and dangerous.
WOW! Talk about deja vue all over again! Today’s Rats are yesterday’s Kadets.
“Though Kadets advocated democratic, constitutional procedures, and did not themselves engage in terrorism, they aided the terrorists in any way they could. Kadets collected money for terrorists, turned their homes into safe houses, and called for total amnesty for arrested terrorists who pledged to continue the mayhem. Kadet Party central committee member N. N. Shchepkin declared that the party did not regard terrorists as criminals at all, but as saints and martyrs. The official Kadet paper, Herald of the Party of People’s Freedom, never published an article condemning political assassination. The party leader, Paul Milyukov, declared that “all means are now legitimate . . . and all means should be tried.” When asked to condemn terrorism, another liberal leader in the Duma, Ivan Petrunkevich, famously replied: “Condemn terror? That would be the moral death of the party!””
“The victims here are armed and dangerous.”
More like armed and unorganized. Armies of one afraid to use their arms until it’s too late.
The time to fight back is now and not in onesies or twosies but with a concerted organized willful massive counter attack. It’s militia time.
Do you see that happening?
I realize we’re at a big disadvantage because not only do we have to fight the left, but the forces of the establishment who more and more are siding with the left.
Most of us seem to take comfort in the idea that things usually revert to the mean, that this is just the pendulum of human affairs swinging back and forth. But sometimes it just flies off it’s hinges and you get the French or Russian revolutions. I hope it’s not where we are.
Thanks for posting.
This is one of the most interesting and informative historical essays I have ever read.
Its similarity to what the USA is facing today is quite shocking.
Bump
One of the most notorious robbers was a man who went by the name of "Koba".
You all know him as Joseph Stalin.
You got that right - from the article: “During the famine of 1891–92, when Tolstoy and Chekhov engaged in famine relief, Lenin advocated hoarding food to bring revolution closer (“the worse, the better”).” Gosh, I wonder what Lenin would think about extending a COVID-19 lockdown indefinitely?
What a super excellent article! A goldmine of incredibly useful references.
Talk about history repeating itself and those that ignore it (or are ignorant of it) being condemned to repeat it!
Imagine how much different the thinking of young people would be today if they were taught what’s in this article instead of all the postmodernism crap.
Thanks for posting it, Karpov!
Somalia is a good example because it shows what happens when Marxists try to force Communism on an armed populace.
History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
>>> 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. .... Revolutions never succeed without the support of wealthy, liberal, educated society. Yet revolutionaries seldom conceal that their success entails the seizure of all wealth, the suppression of dissenting opinion, and the murder of class enemies. <<<<
And repeatedly the who’s who representing “lawyers, teachers, doctors, and engineers, but even industrialists and bank directors” all think they won’t be eaten or eaten last.
Humans rarely learn from history lessons.
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