Communist symbol returns to Russian Army's flag

AuBC News ^ | Saturday, May 5, 2007. 12:06pm (AEST)

[james500]

Russia's Parliament has voted to restore the communist-era hammer and sickle to the official flag of the Russian Army.

It is expect President Vladimir Putin will ratify the move in time for next week's commemorations marking the end of World War II in Europe.

If so, Russians will again have the Soviet version of the victory banner for next week's Victory in Europe parade in Moscow.

For many Russians, especially the elderly, its symbolism is immense.

The red banner, together with the hammer, sickle and a white star, was the one raised on the Reichstag roof on May 1, 1945.

Millions of people all over the world know that photograph, but in Russia its significance is much deeper, with the Soviet victory over fascism in World War II remaining something seen in almost religious terms.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Notice the sonar-absorbing tiles on the new Soviet nuclear submarine being launched? The covered propeller?

I wonder where they copied them from? /sarchasm - The gaping whole between truth and a liberal’s mindset.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Add to these people murdered directly in the prisons the 5-13 million murdered by starvation as Stalin took over the locally-owned farms into national collectives in Ukraine and the western states.

(The NY Times got a Pulitzer Prize for concealing these murders under propaganda releases in the mid-30’s.)

[Robert A Cook PE]

Generally - and it’s impossible to specifically quote a generic number - 100,000,000 is used as the total lost to Communism in Red China and Russia (Soviet Union) in the 20th century.

Sometimes the numbers 65 million under Mao, 35 million by Stalin are used. A paltry 5-8 million elsewhere in the world.

[M. Espinola]

"Notice the sonar-absorbing tiles on the new Soviet nuclear submarine being launched? The covered propeller?

The covered propeller is to prevent the outside world from seeing Putin's portrait :)

I wonder where they copied them from? /sarchasm - The gaping whole between truth and a liberal’s mindset.

The 'liberal' leftists like the the fact Putin is blaming America and everyone else for any of Russia's domestic problems.

[M. Espinola]

"Russians always return to their bloody roots."

Like their vodka, it's in the blood.

[instantgratification]

Russia is not a fascist state. It is moving to a more authoritarian model.

As for the “free nations”, none of the former Soviet republics is really “free”.

[instantgratification]

America didn’t defeat the Soviets. Pope John Paul II started the ball rolling, but the Soviets effectively defeated themselves.

[instantgratification]

Your post is disgusting.

Did 10 million Ukrainians deserve to be starved to death because they happened to have lived under communism?

Did another 10 million Ukrainians deserve to die because they happened to inhabit lands the Nazis wanted?

Did a further 2.5 million Ukrainians deserve to be sent as slave labourers to Germany (where most died) because as Slavs, they were deemed to be “untermenschen”?

Did 3 million Red Army conscripts, most of whom refused to fight for communism, deserve to starve to death when they were captured by the Germans?

[instantgratification]

The problem generally which I see in this thread is a lack of knowledge of the USSR, Soviet history, Russian history, or Russia generally. JadeEmperor got it right.

Yeltsin was facing a Duma which was communist controlled. He had some success in banning the party, but remember, he faced a coup attempt after the collapse of the USSR, a Duma which wanted to restore the USSR, and several assassination attempts. Yes, he can be faulted for not banning all communists from holding power. But he was surrounded by the former nomenklatura and, as much as I admire much of what he did, Yeltsin’s thinking never rose beyond a provincial apparatchik.

[instantgratification]

The academically accepted number is 10 million in Ukraine. And that is the Left Bank, as at that time, much of Western Ukraine was part of Poland.

However, millions more, the majority of them ethnic Ukrainians, were also starved to death in Southern Russia.

[miliantnutcase]

Jesus...It’s at hand, the resurrection of the empire. Tom Clancy was right. We won’t get hit by Iran, North Korea, or China...alone. It’s gonna be Russia that strikes back.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Ronald Reagan brought the rabid Soviet animals to their knees in Afghanistan and sent them retreating in humiliation and defeat. Reagan bankrupted them. I’m sure the Pope’s prayers helped too though.

[G8 Diplomat]

Communist symbol returns to Russian Army's flag

When did it leave?

This gesture obviously tells you something about what Putin intends to do to the country. The Soviet Union never died. It's just been dormant, and is slowly creeping back to life. Cold War Part II, here we come.

[G8 Diplomat]

President Vladimir Putin will ratify the move in time for next week's commemorations marking the end of World War II in Europe

Riiiiight....more like marking the beginning of the gradual re-appearance of the neo-Soviet Union. Stupid commies...

[instantgratification]

The Soviet economy was in freefall from the late 1950's. Oil prices in the 1970's kept them alive. Afghanistan did little to change that. However, if you want to claim it was Afghanistan, give the credit to Brzezinski, not Reagan. In 1978, Pope John Paul II's first papal tour was to his native Poland. There, a young electrician in Gdansk was asking Gdansk's working class to join a trade union, Solidarnosc, which he and his fellow shipyard workers had established. Times were economically difficult in Poland then - workers were not being paid, thousands of Poles travelled to the USSR to sell gold and buy goods they could sell in Poland in order to buy enough food to live for six months, and yet, the population was still enough under the communist party's control, that Solidarnosc could not attract members. Pope John Paul II's first visit was electric. He endorsed Solidarnosc. He preached to the people to ,i."Be not afraid." That was the moment the Eastern bloc was doomed. The last gasps of totalitarian rule occurred with the imposition of martial law in Poland and similar crackdowns throughout the Eastern bloc (Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia excepted - the latter because it had been completely under Moscow's yoke for well over a decade). In little more than a decade after Pope John Paul II's famous act of faith, the Berlin Wall had collapsed, most of Eastern Europe was free of the Soviet menace, and the USSR was well on its way to the collapse of totalitarian rule. At the time of the Soviet coup, all communications in all republics were cut. No radio. No television. Other than symphony music. Why did the coup not succeed? Because Yeltsin, as president of the RSFSR, had the RSFSR KGB under his personal control. They moved him from harm's way, so he was not immediately arrested. They refused to follow the orders of the Soviet KGB. And Yeltsin still had access to Moscow's media, and asked that they broadcast that people come out on the streets to protest. Which Muscovites did. In the tens of thousands. They did this for Yeltsin. And for Russia. You see, people tired of living under totalitarian rule. They, and not some foreign power, decided the rotten system they were living under no longer deserved to survive. They freed themselves. But it was John Paul who shook the tree.

[instantgratification]

An overreaction. Red Army soldiers who fought in Stalingrad, who marched to Berlin and back are still alive. That is the largest reason for adopting the hammer and sickle. WWII still has a mythical hold on the Slavs of the FSU.

[Tailgunner Joe]

I see, it wasn't a foreign power, no, it was Rome.

Poland Plans Ronald Reagan Statue - Polish admirers of Ronald Reagan plan to raise a statue of the former U.S president in Warsaw, where he is revered for his role in the downfall of communism in Europe. The 3.5-metre (3.8-yard) stone-and-bronze statue will stand across from the U.S. Embassy, the head of the group raising money for the memorial said on Monday. The group includes Poles living in Poland, Canada and the United States. "Reagan was the person who defeated the communists and opened the way for freedom in Poland," Janusz Dorosiewicz said. "The statue is a way for his legacy to live on."

[instantgratification]

Can we say “foreign aid”?

Look the reality is the KGB had begun planning a major crackdown before Ronald Reagan was even elected. So called “glasnost’” and “perestroika” were the first steps to that crackdown. That has been confirmed by Bukovsky, who had access to all the Soviet archives (now resealed) when Bukovsky put the communist party on trial.

Economic indicators in the USSR were flat from the late 1960’s. Not a big surprise in a country where only one in ten people actually works, where work is viewed as a punishment and alcoholism was rampant due to CPSU policies in the 1970’s.

Communism did not collapse because of Reagan, or his policies. The one thing that he may have done to hasten the demise was the “evil empire” speech. Getting major play in the Soviet press, this had an opposite effect. People began to wonder why they were afraid.

With no Solidarnosc, there would not have been a collapse of the Eastern bloc. WIthout a Yeltsin, the coup may have succeeded. At least in the short term.

Personally, I think the USSR was doomed in any event. The collapse of the Eastern bloc just hastened the demise.

[Tailgunner Joe]

And Reagan had nothing to do with the Berlin wall coming down either, right?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Considering the number of Russians who died to put that flag on the Reichstag, this is not surprising.

The dead numbered 27 million last I heard.