#Politruks

[carbone14]

Affiche de propagande finlandaise à destination des soldats soviétiques pendant la guerre d'hiver – 1939-1940

'Le Commissaire politique pire que l'ennemi. Il vous tire dans le dos !'

[macs-garage]

Cleaning a microwave?

Use 1 cup of water, 1/4 cup of vinegar, and a quarter of a lemon (or 2 tbsp. Of lemon juice).

Put in a microwavable container and put in the microwave uncovered for three minutes. When done, wipe out with a paper towel.

This does not apply to mechs. DO NOT USE IT ON MECHS, MIRA. I know you spilled soda in Rose. I can smell it.

-Mac

Miss sea oled? Üks Politruk?

-Mira

I know where you sleep.

-Mac

[7ooo-ru]

Боец Политрук назвал основной угрозой со стороны ВСУ дроны-камикадзе

По словам военного, прошлым летом наибольшую опасность представл��ла украинская артиллерия.

Подробнее https://7ooo.ru/group/2024/07/22/352-boec-politruk-nazval-osnovnoy-ugrozoy-so-storony-vsu-drony-kamikadze-grss-326273995.html

[dzismis]

   Adameckiego zabili Żydzi

Jan kopec      Nieostrożnie zwierzyłem się kiedyś serdecznemu przyjacielowi Natanowi T., zamieszkałemu w Lundzie, iż mój Ojciec, jeszcze jako politruk i zastępca komendanta w Szkole Oficerskiej Technicznych Wojsk Lotniczych w Boernerowie, dawno, dawno temu powiedział do mojej matki, że po pierwsze „Adamecki był niewinny”, i że po drugie „Adameckiego zabili Żydzi”     To „po drugie” nie było…

[korrektheiten]

LePenseur:»Brain-washed http://dlvr.it/SVvwC3 «

[lightdancer1]

All things considered I have now gotten hate on Tumblr for saying Russian imperialism is bad and a fictional child soldier isn't innately made of evil

*Looks at Russia in Syria and Ukraine, looks at the arguments of the people who get their knickers in a twist over a Nicktoon*

I regret nothing.

[decoloniality]

Pro-Lit-erati. Workers committee. Seizing means of Capital gain$. Follow the energy, energy nah lie. In Solidarity with the exploited and oppressed of the global south. The work is counter-neoliberal even at the job #WorkersoftheWorldUnite #Politruk https://www.instagram.com/p/ChcJ7n2jZW-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[apolesen]

I tend to think of DS9 as fairly recent (likely because, if you compare it to TOS, it is recent), but sometimes I get reminded that the audience it was originally written for had a different set of outlooks. When we discuss that, we tend to focus on issues of social justice, but it’s not just that. 

My parents grew up during the Cold War, with the Soviet Union on the other side of the Baltic Sea. As the country was neutral, Soviet was not quite as closed off as to people from countries allied with the US. That, of course, meant that not only was the humanity of regular Soviet citizens more obvious, but the sense of everyday brutality was more well-known. (I promise this is relevant.) 

While my parents been Trekkies since the 90s, they didn’t watch DS9, so I showed it to them a few years ago. I was excited to show them Destiny, because it’s a great episode, and I love Cardassians, and there are some great twists in the story. 

When Dejar, the stony-faced undercover Obsidian Order operative, turns up at Quark’s, my parents both sat up straight and shouted: ‘Politruk!’ My reaction was ‘what? What’s that?’ ‘She’s a politruk - a political commissar, like the ones the Soviet Union would send with delegations to keep and eye on them - she’s there to make sure they don’t step out of line!’ I was flabbergasted. I definitely got a weird vibe off Dejar when I first watched the episode, but I didn’t figure out she was Obsidian Order before it was revealed towards the end. But my parents knew exactly what she was and why she was there. 

For some reason, that moment really stuck with me. There are things in DS9 that may be obvious to people who grew up during the Cold War, which to me, who only caught the last few months of it, doesn’t register. 

[aiiaiiiyo]

A Soviet lieutenant, known as a 'Politruk' or a political officer, armed with a Tokarev TT-33 pistol, urges his men to attack German positions during WWII. The photograph was taken on 12th July, 1942. [4,568 × 5,664] Check this blog!

[dirtyfilthy]

infection vector

“the method by which a disease spreads” the curl of your idea reaches up like a tentacle and wraps around the base of my spine three times. like a tendril of smoke blown slowly out of your mouth & then back down the open wound of my ear canal, to lodge there, uninvited,  deep within the cotton-wool cloud-scape of my hippocampus. now i am your carrier. now i am your propaganda department. now i am your politruk. now i find my lips can only ever speak your piece.

[lightdancer1]

Where's a Politruk to ensure the Vorkuta mines are full of self-appointed volunteers when you need him?

/snerk but not really snerk

Seriously if you think Halloween is communism I'm not sure if your understanding of Christianity, harvest festivals, or communism is the worst but somewhere along the line reality failed you and it failed you hard.

Halloween is the closest to communism America gets, there's a level of communal care for children, cars are discouraged, slightly better stuff on tv, sexy vampires witches and ghouls everywhere...

[mostly-history]

The famous Kombat photograph, taken by Soviet photographer Max Alpert on the Eastern Front.

Despite being one of the most well-known Soviet WW2 photos, neither the date nor the identity of the man is known for certain.  It shows a Soviet military officer brandishing a TT pistol, rallying his unit for attack.

Alpert gave varying accounts of the event, with dates ranging from autumn 1941 to 1943 (however, because of the uniform, it couldn't have been 1943).  He stated that he did not know the man's name, and that the photograph's title was probably inaccurate.  Kombat means “commander of a battalion”, and the reason he named the photograph as such was because after taking it, he heard someone call, “The kombat is killed.”

After the war, many people claimed to know the identity of the officer, but only one was tentatively confirmed.  In May 1965, the wife and children of Alexei Yeremenko saw this photo on the front page of the 20-year jubilee issue of Pravda, dedicated to the victory over Nazi Germany.  Komsomolskaya Pravda and the administration of Lugansk Oblast undertook a joint investigation during the 1970s, with the result being that this was most likely to be accurate.

Politruk (political commissar) Alexei Yeremenko, of the 220th Rifle Regiment, 4th Rifle Division, was encouraging his men to counterattack against German positions in the village of Korosheye, near Woroschilowgrad (now Luhansk, Ukraine).  The commander of the unit was wounded, so Yeremenko took command for the counterattack.  He died minutes after the photo was taken.

According to Alpert, he had taken a position in a foxhole, just ahead of the Soviet defensive line.  The Germans had carried out their usual airstrike and artillery bombardment, and after Alpert took his position, they began the attack.  When he saw Yeremenko, he rose to take the photograph, and his camera lens broke into pieces.  Unable to take more photos with a broken camera, he spent some time watching the battle.  He heard the other soldiers shout, “Kombat is killed!”

[mercurialbadger]

Thinking about a story about a tulpa and her host, except the host is a closeted trans girl in denial to the point of executive dysfunction, so once they get to the high school science camp the tulpa is the only one who can dress the body up, so the story plays like a yuri harem romcom AND a josou misunderstandings story.

Girls should be properly unhinged for a science camp also, like, the cool things that make them fall in love are, like, putting your hand into the seaside mud pool to extract a blackened seagull skull everybody wants.

Or, like:

- I have seen such a fluffy and plump rabbit outside today~☆

- Do you want to get some carrots from canteen?

- Of course, and onions also! ♡♡♡

- For what?

- How do you imagine a stew without onions? O_O

The story would also benefit greatly from being set in fictionalized Soviet Union, Petrov and Vasechkin - style.

The necessary support characters include:

- a seemingly "twinked up" femboy who carries his selectively mute 2m tall boyfriend around like a purse. They exist to provide foil to the main cast, and also to demonstrate how toxic masculinity and refusal to sleep together gave the rest of the boys colds;

- a bunch of comsorgs, who take care of kids, but are also depressed and hungry university students, so they take shifts at getting unconsciously drunk;

- the rose-glasses politruk and the glasses and axe pioneer leader;

- old man of the sea and his wife, who love each other dearly, but are also exactly the sort of people you would find living near the expedition site in the middle of nowhere;

- the Diagnosed Mental Illness guy. The mentally healthiest person around, which allowed him to get a diagnosis in the first place. Insufferable.

- a questionably supernatural entity somewhat beyond comprehension of humans. She's also beyond her own comprehension, so this does not work out as a plot driver at all. Since she gets all her knowledge about supernatural from the local library, she's both chuuni and a country bumpkin. Drives a Breadloaf-452, but seems to be entirely unaware of the concept of fuel, and nobody is ready to tell her about that;

- the expedition leader, who is both a respected scientist and a known prankster. Makes the shittiest ceramics around, which they then gift to any person they encounter.

[epochxp]

Review of ‘Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army’

By Catherine Merridale

484 Pages

Published by Metropolitan Books

Released on April 1, 2007

4.5 out of 5 Stars

The number of books that existed that gave a picture of the Soviet Army during World War II was rather limited in the West during the Cold War. Much of what we understood about the Soviet Army and the Eastern Front came to us through the prism of the German experience, as men such as Erich Von Manstein, and Franz Hadler wrote a view of the war in the East that bore little resemblance to the reality (as much to whitewash the crimes of the Wehrmacht in the East as to “restore the reputation of the German soldier.”)

These works portrayed the Soviet Army as a faceless, remorseless horde in the vein of the Terminator. Recent scholarship, such as this book and Mr. Glantz’s works, have done much to reverse this view. Ms. Merridale has done a fine job in this “grunt’s eye” view of the Soviet Army in World War II, demonstrating her skill as a researcher and writer. 

It has only been since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and opening of the Soviet archives, and the availability of Soviet veterans to Western researchers that this balanced picture has emerged. Thirty million served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the entirety of the war, and Ms. Merridale has put a human face on this seeming mass of millions. These were ordinary folks, for the most part, caught between two totalitarian systems, who died in the millions to stop a cruel invader. But, as we shall see, the Soviet Union could mete out a large amount of cruelty of its own. Ms. Merridale has shown in a masterwork that the stereotypical “Ivan” of the Soviet Army never really existed. Soviet soldiers came from one of fifteen Soviet republics, and many of these young men knew little to no Russian, which was the dominant language of the military. 

The book portrays a Soviet army that, in 1939, was large, crippled by Stalin’s purges, and amateurish in the extreme. Worse, living conditions were nothing short of disease-ridden and bestial, with corruption and outright theft common. A system of politruks -political officers, who were the eyes and ears of the party were everywhere, seeking out the slightest whiff of potential disloyalty. There were shortages of equipment, and when the Soviet army invaded Finland, it showed a large behemoth that was far competent or capable. It was this campaign that convinced Hitler that the Soviet state was on shaky ground and:

We have only to kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down (Hitler, June 1941)

However, the size of the disaster in Finland never reached the ears of the Soviet people, and their views were cynically fueled by clumsy state propaganda that convinced the Soviet people that if war came, they would bring glorious revolution to the world, all this came to a crashing end in June 1941. Merridale shows a state that was like Jekyll and Hyde. It was a seeming paradise to its citizens and a blood-soaked nightmare to its enemies - all carried out by the overzealous secret police apparatus working overtime to murder millions and crush any form of dissent. But this clumsy colossus had feet made of clay, and not every Soviet soldier was all that motivated to fight for communism before the invasion of June 1941, as this passage describes: 

“…Two young deserters whose unit was also bound for the north were locked up when they were returned to base. ‘As soon as we get to the front,’ one of them said ‘I’ll kill the deputy Politruk.’ It may have been to spite the party that soldiers daubed swastikas on their barracks walls The fact that many politruks, whose education tended to be better than the average, were Jews, was probably a factor too.” (Merridale p.66)

Ms. Merridale then goes on to show the Soviet army on the brink of disaster as the Germans invade and confusion reigns. The Soviets were seemingly unable to stop the Germans no matter what they did until they were at the very gates of Moscow itself. But what comes through is a Soviet army that learned on the job and did a good job of digesting these lessons. It learned the lessons the Germans taught and then did a fine job of applying what they had learned. By 1943, with the Battle of Kursk, the student had indeed become the master.

The rest of the book goes into the feelings of Soviet troops in their march westward into what the contemporary Soviet press referred to as the “lair of the fascist beast.” The veterans Ms. Merridale speaks to aren’t shy about talking about witnessing individual Soviet soldiers and groups of Soviet soldiers take revenge on German civilians for the atrocities of the German military in the Soviet Union. Murder and especially rape were common, and Ms. Merridale manages to get more than a few sources to confirm it.

We get a look at Soviet women in the military and how they were really seen versus the wartime propaganda and how they earned their own place in the ranks. We see stories of loss, death, and life in the Soviet Army, all told masterfully. We hear stories unfiltered by Soviet officialdom and the lens of the Cold War. 

The book also gets into what happened to the veterans when the war ended, and how their hopes for a better Soviet Union were dashed, most of them shunted aside by a cynical Soviet government (at one point, Stalin rounded up all the amputee beggars, many of them wounded at the front, and had them sent to Siberia), till Brezhnev mythologized the war that the Soviet veteran began to get his due.  But even at the time of the book’s writing, most of them had not received any sort of pension or assistance now that they were in their old age. 

How is This Book Useful to Wargamers?

While this book is a social history on the “softer” side of the Soviet army and dealing more with a conscript’s view of the war, it’s important to remember that this book is of value to the wargamer in that it tells a balanced view of the Soviet soldier. He wasn’t a remorseless Terminator who was indifferent to loss and bereft of any tactical skill. Nor was he the perpetually cheerfully brave fellow of Soviet propaganda. He was most likely a peasant, far from home, serving a state he didn’t particularly care for that would kill him if he demonstrated the slightest disloyalty. Many wargame rules are still caught in that “Hadler” trap of how they handle the Soviets. If this book does one thing, let it destroy those self-serving myths. 

The tactical skill of the Soviets improved as the war went on, and it helped that the German skill declined as well. Like my review of Case Red, this book does a fine job of making ground beef out of the sacred cow and does so in a very readable style. 

While there is some stuff that is not of interest to the wargamer, most of this book is good meat for any wargamer interested in the Eastern Front, and especially the Soviet soldier. Aside from it’s minor flaws, I would give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. The book is available in hardback, softback, and Kindle from Amazon. 

--

At Epoch Xperience, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse Epoch Xperience’s service on our parent site, SJR Research.

--

(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)

[korrektheiten]

Und was wäre wenn ...?

LePenseur:"Zum Artikel von Elisabeth Hennefeld »Warum Rot-Blau die einzig logische Koalitionsvariante ist« bei Andreas Unterberger:Ideologisch völlig undenkbar! Das versichert die SPÖ seit Jahrzehnten. Auch ORF-Chefanalyst Peter Filzmaier ist felsenfest überzeugt, dass sich die Sozialdemokratie eher spaltet, bevor sie einem Freiheitlichen auch nur die Hand reicht. Doch tut sich mit dem heurigen Wahlergebnis für Rot und Blau die einmalige Gelegenheit auf, fünf Jahre lang das Steuergeld schwarzer Wähler ungeniert unter sich aufzuteilen. Als Juniorpartner neben Sebastian Kurz können Kern oder Strache nur verlieren, besonders, sollte er nächstes Jahr auch noch EU-Ratspräsident werden. Natürlich hat Bundeskanzler Kern im Wahlkampf betont, dass nur die SPÖ Schwarz-Blau verhindern kann. Vermutlich hat das auch einen gröberen Absturz in der Wählergunst verhindert. Doch nun ist Machtpolitik am Zug.(Hier weiterlesen)der folgende Gastkommentar von Riese35 Die Darstellung ist richtig, aber nur die halbe Wahrheit. 1.) In dieser Variante wird entscheidend sein, wer sich wie durchsetzt. Wenn die FPÖ inhaltlich umfällt und der sozialpopulistischen SPÖ klein beigibt, wird sie das nächste Mal marginalisiert. Der FPÖ-Wähler kommt nicht nur aus dem Gemeindebau und das Sicherheitsthema ist zu wenig. 2.) Für die ÖVP hätte dieses Kalkül schon lange Teil einer Lagebeurteilung sein und Auswirkungen auf ihr Verhalten haben müssen. Statt dessen hat sie das ignoriert und strategische Fehler an Fehler gereiht. a) Angefangen von der Unterstützung VdBs, der sicher alles unternehmen wird, einen roten Kanzler zu etablieren. Kern hat nicht nur grüne Leihstimmen bekommen, sondern hat an der Spitze auch einen günen Leihpräsidenten. Ich erinnere mich noch, daß der rote BP 1970 für die ÖVP stets ein Trauma war. Karas, Konrad und Pröll haben es aber geschafft, diese Vorsicht zu zerstreuen. Mit einem BP Hofer hätte es anders aussehen können. b) Kurzens und der ÖVP Überheblichkeit gegenüber der FPÖ kamen für den Wähler deutlich zum Ausdruck, als Kurz mit einem hämischen Grinsen Strache Termine bei Orban anbot. Wie sich dann zeigte, war Strache nicht auf Kurz angewiesen. Möglicherweise war die ÖVP sogar mitschuld, als die Ungarn gezwungen wurden, einen bereits bestätigten Termin absagen zu müssen. Diese Überheblichkeit ist mit ein Hauptgrund, wenn es zwischen ÖVP und FPÖ nicht klappen wird. Anstatt die FPÖ als Partner aufzubauen, sich schon vor den Wahlen regelmäßig am Stammtisch zu treffen und gemeinsame Konzepte zu entwickeln, hat man in der ÖVP nur auf die eigene Überlegenheit gebaut. In der SPÖ ging man offenbar strategisch anders vor. c) Aber auch inhaltlich hat man in der ÖVP trotz vieler Übereinstimmungen - zumindest was gesagt wurde - in den entscheidenden Punkten Barrieren gegenüber der FPÖ aufgebaut. Da war das ständige und kontraproduktive Trommeln auf "proeuropäisch" (d.h. EU-unkritisch). Da war die ständige Desavouierung der FPÖ durch Hinweise auf die Mitgliedschaft in der Pariafraktion gemeinsam mit FN. Für die SPÖ, und zwar auf Führungs- und Entscheiderebene, war das offenbar irrelevant. In der ÖVP fürchtete man mehr Brüssel, die europäischen "Partner", Karas und Konrad als eine machtpolitische Lage, wie sie jetzt besteht. Kurz hat mit der ÖVP eifrig am Ast gesägt, auf dem er sitzen wollte. d) Gegenüber den Wählern hat sich die ÖVP auch in vielen Punkten sehr links positioniert. Eine Wende war vielleicht beim Schließen der Grenzen in Sicht. Beim Geldausgeben (Förderungen linker Organisationen wie Lifeball), Steuern erhöhen (Grunderwerbssteuer), Unternehmer quälen (Registrierkassen) und in der Gesellschaftspolitik (froh, daß es die Homoadoption gibt, der Islam gehört zu Österreich, grüßen mit "Guten Tag" statt "Grüß Gott") hat die ÖVP aber fleißig rote Politik mit der SPÖ gemeinsam betrieben. Und es gab keine Anzeichen einer Wende. Brandstetter als Symbol für die Packelei mit den Roten ist von Kurz bestätigt und sogar zum Vizekanzler gemacht worden. Die Wende, wie sie sich die ÖVP vorgestellt hat, war halbherzig. Damit hat man zwar ein paar zusätzliche Stimmen gewinnen können, die alten Kernwählerschichten hat man damit aber ausgegrenzt. Für die einfache Mehrheit hat es gereicht. Die absolute lag damit nicht in Reichweite. Zu halbherzig war das Angebot der ÖVP. 3.) Und letztlich hat es auch der schwachmathische ÖVP-Wähler wieder nicht durchschaut, was leider wieder nur wenigen bewußt war: Um Kurz mit dem verlautbaren Programm zu unterstützen, hätte ein solcher Wähler FPÖ wählen müssen, denn Kurzens Absolute lag außerhalb der Reichweite, und mit einer starken, zweitgereihten FPÖ wäre die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer SPÖ/FPÖ-Koalition deutlich geringer gewesen. Diesbezüglich war ja Lunacek mit ihren Grünen genial bis zur Selbstaufopferung: ihr alles überragendes Wahlziel war die Verhinderung von Schwarz-Blau, und das hat der Grünwähler verstanden und deshalb SPÖ gewählt. Die Rechnung scheint aufgegangen zu sein. In die Hohlköpfe der ÖVP bringt man so etwas leider nicht hinein. Wenn die ÖVP klug wäre, versuchte sie wenigstens jetzt noch, diese Fehler auszubügeln. Der Preis wird sehr hoch sein. Ich fürchte, es wird zu spät sein. Der ÖVP fehlt ein Stratege wie Prinz Eugen, und Kurz fehlt möglicherweise die Kooperationsfähigkeit, auf die es jetzt nach den Wahlen ankäme. http://dlvr.it/Px66fS "

[lightdancer1]

Whatever is discovered as the Russian Army tries to reorient to the Donetsk region is not going to be atypical of what Moscow did all these centuries

Muscovite Russia has willfully indulged in officially sanctioned barbarism on a colossal scale since Ivan the Terrible sacked Novgorod and Pskov in scenes of excess to a point that they would be improbable to accept in fiction had they not happened in reality. The expansion of Russian power west, east, and south was marked by trails of blood and skulls and ashes.

This is not a break in any noble Russian tradition, the Russian tradition is Ivan Grozny and Yermolov. Russia has always been a vicious no holds barred war-fighter and its political and military culture glories in the hard hand of war. It has never done so in the Information Age where the footage and aftermath of Russian 'liberation' in the manner of ashes and bones is visible. Now it is. That is the only difference. To be still more grim, this is what a demoralized and largely unwilling Russian Army does, a fully willing and stiffed by Politruk with rifle to head fanaticism version would be ten times worse than this.

What the Russian Army did to Syrians and Chechens is not exceptional to Russian power, it is normal for it.

This is the result of the Third Rome and Sacred Autocracy mentalities existing for centuries unfettered and combining a devout Christianity with a culture entirely tolerant of horrors within Russia and without it. Those who are too squeamish for this should realize that this is not going to get better, and it will only get worse.

Russia has literally been deporting and kidnapping tens of thousands of Ukrainians as hostages in patterns right out of Tsarist and Soviet times. Putin can't feed his soldiers or train them well but the institutional barbarism is alive and well and it will become more intense with the awareness that Russian power is breaking itself apart on the wheel of Ukraine.