[LoisHunt]

Yours is the first commentary I've ever read that the Russian peasants were happy campers.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

"Happy" is not an appropriate word, if used in the modern American sense of frivolous consumerism and mindless debauchery. But, yes, I am willing to go so far as to say that the Russian commons were happy in their Faith and in their traditions. Life was uncomfortable for them, just as life was uncomfortable for everybody -- and still is in most of the world.

But to portray the Russian peasantry as living in a life of incessant horror and violence is simply not borne out by their conduct with respect to the forces of so-called enlightenment as embodied in the Grande Armée. Were the Russians as downtrodden and miserable as you (and the Soviet historians) suggest, then why was there no massive insurrection on behalf of Mr. Buonaparte? Why, in fact, did volunteer organisations spring up to fight the French?

Your view of Russia prior to Communism has been clearly influenced by Soviet Agitprop. I suggest you go read some Solzhenitsyn. Or Tolstoy.