Awm c'mon, where's the fun in those??
"There once was a girl from Nantucket ..."
Posted on 02/03/2007 8:25:25 AM PST by aculeus
PALO ALTO, Calif.--Those who were born in Year One of the Russian Revolution are now entering their 10th decade. Of the intellectual class that got its vintage laid down in 1917, a class which includes Eric Hobsbawm, Conor Cruise O'Brien and precious few others, the pre-eminent Anglo-American veteran must be Robert Conquest. He must also be the one who takes the greatest satisfaction in having outlived the Soviet "experiment."
Over the years, I have very often knocked respectfully at the door of his modest apartment ("book-lined" would be the other standard word for it) on the outskirts of Stanford University, where he is a longstanding ornament of the Hoover Institution. Evenings at his table, marvelously arranged in concert with his wife Elizabeth ("Liddie"), have become a part of the social and conversational legend of visitors from several continents.
I thought I would just check and see how he was doing as 2007 dawned. When I called, he was dividing his time between an exercise bicycle and the latest revision of his classic book "The Great Terror": the volume that tore the mask away from Stalinism before most people had even heard of Solzhenitsyn. Its 40th anniversary falls next year, and the publishers need the third edition in a hurry. Had it needed much of an update? "Well, it's been a bit of a slog. I had to read about 30 or 40 books in Russian and other languages, and about 400 articles in journals and things like that. But even so I found I didn't have to change it all that much."
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Robert Conquest Bump.
Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. Robert Conquest is the best. He was the whistle-blower on the Soviet Union when nearly all the other academics and the entire press were believing the official Soviet line of lies. Nobody believed him when he wrote of the Soviet sponsored famine, and now we know he was right. Others' credulity and our timidness cost tens of millions of lives. He was the writer of Mrs. Thatcher's Iron Lady speech. That is why his is the voice we need to hear concerning the new totalitarian Islamic threat. His vision is the clearest of anyone. His two recent books The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History, and Reflections on a Ravaged Century should be required reading of all college freshmen. For a while I believed that Condoleeza Rice, who was close to him and learned a lot from him, understood his message, but I now think global forces are too horrendous to be managed at this stage of events, and have defeated her resolution if not her understanding.
The World needs a lot more people like Robert Conquest, who are willing to tell the truth regardless of academic fashions.
Fabulous author.
Harvest of Sorrow is still the definitive history of the terror famine.
They don't find they're having to check a
Movement of homage to Decca.
It's no longer fair
To say Oakland's "not there"
She's made it a regular Mecca.
The old girl was quite blown away by this tribute, and kept the inscribed napkin as a souvenir.
Wow. I'm blown away both by Robert Conquest and by Christopher Hitchen's writing.
Orwell and Churchill were more prescient, but R. Conquest outlasted them both.
The most effective anti-lefties seems to be former lefties.
Amen. Whittaker Chambers was one of the best; he lived it and wrote it.
The only reason Hitchens enjoys Stalin being exposed is that Hitchens is a Trotskyite. That said the man can write.
To showcase my woeful ignorance, I had never heard of Mr. Conquest before reading this article. He seems to be quite an amazing, and also extremely rare, person.
Most college freshman would be quite at a loss to even attempt to read his works. I recently met a high school senior, in a computer class, who was very bright and very personable. He reflected, quite bemused with himself, that he not read even one book in his entire high-school career. Shame on the schools.
I also feel that Ms. Rice is a bit out of her depth, but there are few who would not be. No names come immediately to mind.
The most effective anti-lefties seem to be former lefties. To this I would add that Mr. Conquest, when he was younger, was a science fiction author. Perhaps it is necessary to have such an imagination to have the vision to clearly see what is confronting us.
Then you have his squeaky-clean limericks, published under the name Victor Gray. For instance,
While visiting Arundel Castle
I sent my sick uncle a parcel.
The contents of it
Were the local grey grit
To rub on his sore metatarsal.and
One morning old Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Was wanting a trip in a punt;
But the puntmen had struck,
So he shouted ‘Good luck!
—Your wage is a social affront!’
Lots of good things from the Hoover Institution.
Yes, Conquest is terrific and I have all his books but don't forget other co-equal pioneers like Robert Tucker and Adam Ulam. I personally think that the historical essays (and novels) of Arthur Koestler are the best, most neglected writings that reveal the communist (and totalitarian) mindset. Allow me a quote from "The God That Failed" in which Richard Crossman reports a conversation with Koestler. Koestler says to him "Either you can't or you won't understand. It's the same with all you comfortable, insular anti-Communists. You hate our Cassandra cries and resent us as allies -- but when all is said, we ex-Communists are the only people on your side who know what it's all about." By the way, I love Hitchens and his independence of thought but his attitude toward institutional religion is only slightly more tolerant and understanding than Lenin's!
Awm c'mon, where's the fun in those??
"There once was a girl from Nantucket ..."
Robert Conquest is a great man. Thank you for this reminder.
bookmark
Spot on, considering the dems and the dem lites, respectively.
In the face of the "inevitable" communist attacks from within and without, Robert Conquest stands as a mountain that never failed to take each step boldly and with confidence in face of the evil Soviet empire that looked to march on and their evil supporters in the West who never failed in their attempt to discredit him at every turn.
Even Stephen Cohen his Sovietologist counterpart, along with his commie wife who does left wing propaganda for The Nation were met with kindness by the great man.
And he is as humble in victory as anyone could hope to be.
God Bless Robert Conquest and all his works.
Here's more on the great legacy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics:
Ever seen this?
Some think it's a hoax, but it's a young Ukranian woman who goes on motorbike tours of the Chernobyl ruins, which are safe enough for humans as long as you stay on pavement.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html
Link provided courtesy of FReeper RockinRight
Bet you cannot help but be mesmerized by the website.
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