#this is essentially what happened to the USSR

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Honestly think between Trump and Israeli-American push towards war and destabilization in the middle east might be what finally kills the United States of America, or at least, neutralizes it as the world power it currently is.

[16woodsequ]

Things People Seem to Forget About Steve Rogers (aka the past is complex)

Things in the future didn't happen in a vacuum, and while Steve missed a lot of stuff while he was in the ice, he would have seen the roots of things like the Civil Rights, Women's Rights and even LGBTQ+ Rights movements in his time.

While I'm sure Steve encountered a lot of people expecting certain right-wing behaviours from him, due to his birth year and the things he missed in the ice, this doesn't mean he would act that way—even right out of the ice.

But first lets take a look at the things Steve missed and see what he did in fact know:

The atom bomb. Steve never saw the atomic fallout, but what did he see? Hydra bombs literally being flown to his home city. There is also a possibility that as a specialty team, he learned about the German Nuclear Program during the war. His unit was tied to the Strategic Science Reserve, so I wouldn't be surprised if between that, and Hydra's bomb initiatives, Steve was well aware of the potential of a bomb threat. I doubt Steve has clearance to know about the Manhattan project, and I think he would be horrified to learn about the impact of the atom bomb on Japan (especially since he essentially thwarted the same thing from happening to New York) but majorly powerful bombs would not surprise him.

• The Cold War. Steve may not have experience the Cold War, but he grew up surrounded by the outcome of the First World War after the Communist take over of Russia. The debates surrounding Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism aren't new. Steve would have grown up with them and would probably be familiar with American pro-capitalist, anti-communist rhetoric. But would he agree?

Here's some things we know about Steve: He's an artist, he grew up during the Depression which was heavily mitigated by socialist measures, he grew up poor, he grew up disabled. As an artist Steve would be well aware of the debates between the political movements, and with his background, and the success of Roosevelt's New Deal reforms, it would not surprise me if Steve leaned more towards the Socialist side of the scale.

All this to say: Steve would not be unfamiliar with the tension between Russia and the USA. Especially since even though they were allies during the war, there were already concerns that the USSR wasn't so much 'liberating' the countries they drove Germany out of, as putting them under new management.

Steve would be familiar with the tensions underlying the Cold War, and his background might lead him to have a critical view of some of the pro-Capitalist propaganda that came out during the Cold War. While I don't think Steve would approve of Russia's methods and the ultimate outcome of Communism there, I don't think he would approve of the Red Scare Witch Hunt that happened in the States either.

• Civil Rights Movement. While Steve missed the major changes that occurred during the 50s and 60s, he would not be unfamiliar with movements for equality. Steve would also not be unaware of the inequality that minorities faced in his country.

For example:

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established in 1909 and is still run today. The NAACP fought and fights against discrimination and advocates for equality.

In the 30s President Roosevelt responded to "to charges that many blacks were the "last hired and first fired," [his administration] instituted changes that enabled people of all races to obtain needed job training and employment. These programs brought public works employment opportunities to African Americans, especially in the North" (Link)

"The first precedent-setting local and state level court cases to desegregate Mexican and African American schooling were decided during [the late 1930s]" (Link)

In 1941 thousands of Black Americans threatened to march on Washington for equal employments rights which pushed Roosevelt to issue an executive order that "opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin." (Link)

The Double Victory or Double V Campaign during the war was an explicit campaign to win the war against fascism in Europe and the war against racism as home.

All this to say, Steve would not be unfamiliar with many of the issues tackled during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s.

Not only that, but Steve led a multi-racial special unit during the war during a time of active army segregation. Not only does he have a Black man on his team, but also a Japanese man. This would have most definitely led to backlash from higher command as well as discrimination from other units against Jones and Morita. Steve and the entire Howling Commandos would be explicitly aware of prejudice against two of their members and likely had to fight for them many times.

• Anything space travel. It's true Steve wouldn't know anything about attempts to reach the moon. But there were still several space discoveries he could know about, especially since he and Bucky are clearly interested in scientific discoveries, considering how they went to the Stark Exbo before Bucky shipped out.

Some discoveries:

Hubble's Law: In 1929 Hubble published evidence for an ever expanding universe, and thus provided evidence of the Big Bang theory.

1930: Discovery of Pluto (makes me chuckle to think this is a relatively new discovery for Steve and he wakes up to find it is a dwarf-planet now. You think Millennials are protective of Pluto? I think Steve would be too 😆.)

1937: "the first intimation that most matter in the universe is `dark matter'"

Personally I think Steve would be absolutely amazed by the advances in space travel.

• Women's Rights. Like with Civil Rights, while Steve may have missed the large movements during the 50s and 60s, he was around for the early movements. The 60s movement is called Second Wave Feminism for a reason. This is because there was already many pushes for women equality in Steve's time.

For example:

1920: White women win the right to vote. This means Steve's mother first voted in his lifetime. I feel this alone would make Steve heavily aware of inequality faced by women. (As a side note I feel that Sarah always emphasized voting to Steve since it was such a major development in her lifetime.)

Also in the 20s the Flapper trend rose, along with hemlines. Women's skirts were shorter and they smoked and drank with men. Middle-class and working-class women also worked outside of the home. The 1920s-1930s 'modern' woman is very different from the Victorian vision of a woman in petticoats and skirts.

Early Birth Control movement: Was "initiated by a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger, just as the suffrage drive was nearing its victory. The idea of woman’s right to control her own body, and especially to control her own reproduction and sexuality, added a visionary new dimension to the ideas of women’s emancipation. This movement not only endorsed educating women about existing birth control methods. It also spread the conviction that meaningful freedom for modern women meant they must be able to decide for themselves whether they would become mothers, and when."

1936: A Supreme Court decision declassified birth control information as obscene. Legalised doctor-prescribed contraceptives.

WW2 Watershed: Women serve in the army and work factory jobs. The government establishes universal childcare while women work.

Women also wore pants and form fitting clothes to work in factories. We also see Peggy wearing pants during the last assault on Hydra. While Steve may need to get used to modern fashion, he would already be familiar with the 'morale outrage' over women's clothes in his time, and probably try to manage his surprise in private as well as possible.

• LGBTQ+ Rights. Like with the rest of the equality movements, LGBTQ+ rights movements also started before the late 1900s.

1924: "Society for Human Rights is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. The society is the first gay rights organization as well as the oldest documented in America." This organisation was broken up soon after founding due to arrests, but it published "the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom."

In the 1920s and 30s "the gay and lesbian movement started taking shape. Social analysts began rejecting prior medical definitions of "inversion" or "homosexuality" as deviant.

Communities of men and women with same-sex affiliations began to grow in urban areas. Their right to gather in public places such as bars was tenuous, and police raids and harassment were common." (Link)

WW2 Watershed: While many LGBTQ people lived in rural areas or outside 'queer neighbourhoods' the war brought people from all backgrounds together. "As with most young soldiers, many had never left their homes before, and the war provided them an opportunity to find community, camaraderie, and, in some cases, first loves. These new friendships gave gay and lesbian GIs refuge from the hostility that surrounded them and allowed for a distinct subculture to develop within the military."

They still had to hide their identities for fear of persecution and a 'blue discharge', however "Gay and lesbian veterans of World War II became some of the first to fight military discrimination and blue discharges in the years following the war."

It's unclear how much Steve would have known about the gay and lesbian rights movement. But in the comics he has a gay friend Arnie Roth, and there are many meta posts (X X X) about how Steve may have lived in a queer neighbourhood.

And, according to my history professor, gay and lesbian soldiers were often protected by their friends in the army instead of outed. This is not to downplay the discrimination and pain outed veterans faced, but there was a comaraderie and understanding that developed between soldiers that protected many gay soldiers.

• Computer and the internet. The seeds of modern computers began during World War Two. Arguably it began earlier with Ada Lovelace. While technology has changed a lot for Steve, there is a long history of it's development.

Colossus Computer: Kept secret until the 70s, it's unclear if Steve's association with the SSR, Peggy (who was a code breaker before SSR) and Howard, would have led him to know anything about the "the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer", but we see electric screens and machines being used in Captain America: The First Avenger. So he would know something of those mechanisms.

Also the first American TV was broadcasted in the 1939 World Fair, And since Steve and Bucky are already shown going to a science fair, I believe it is reasonable for Steve to know about the concept of television, though it looks much different in modern day.

• Rise of Neo-Nazis. Steve already saw the rise of fascism in his own country before the war, so while I think he would be horrified and saddened to learn of the Neo-Nazi movement, I don't think he would be surprised.

Because:

Eugenics: A large part of the Nazi campaign, this part of the movement originated and was inspired by the United States Eugenics movement. "It is important to appreciate that within the U.S. and European scientific communities these ideas were not fringe but widely held and taught in universities."

Lobotomies and institutionalisations were part of the treatments for disabled and 'weak-minded' individuals during Steve's time. With Sarah being a nurse it is likely Steve knew of these treatments and more. And as a disabled child of immigrants, I have no doubts Steve brushed up with eugenics beliefs many times.

1939: More than 20,000 people attended a Nazi rally in Madison Square while "[a]bout 100,000 anti-Nazi protesters gathered around the arena in protest".

In the comics Steve canonically has a Jewish friend, Arnie Roth. If he wasn't part of the protests against the Nazi rally, he would have heard about it and known about the rise of antisemitic sentiment in the US before the outbreak of the war.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Steve has a history of anti-racist behaviour. While he would still have a lot to learn from the Civil Rights Movement and no doubt has unconscious biases he grew up with, he also explicitly builds a multi-racial team that would have led to clashes with systemic racism in the army. This would have inevitably led to him and the Howling Commandos taking an anti-racist stance in protection of their members.

Would Steve say the N-word? Likely not. The N-Word already held negative connotations by the 19th and early-20th century. I doubt Jones would be willing to follow a man who would knowing use the insult. 'Coloured' or 'Negro' were seen as the more acceptable terms. So Steve may use those words at first, instead of 'Black' or 'African-American'. 'Negro' is a controversial term for some Black Americans, so this would be something for him to learn, but he would not purposely by insulting or hurtful. And I believe he would adapt as quickly as possible upon learning.

Steve saw the early steps of many social movements. Given what we know about Steve—artist, disabled, immigrant, poor, raised by a single mom, gay and Jewish friend, potentially lived around queer people, worked with Peggy and smiled when she punched a sexiest, and built a multi-racial team—Steve would not only be aware of the social movements of his time, but he would be happy to learn of the developments after he went into the ice.

While it would take some time for him to learn all the changes that happened, Steve's background would led him to be pleased with the changes in society. This is the opposite of being racist, sexist, and homophobic. Some things might take some adjusting for Steve to get used to, but he is already open-minded and has a frame of reference for many of the social changes that happened.

People sometimes bring up Steve's Catholic upbringing to argue about some beliefs he might have. But while I do think this upbringing would lead to some biases, I think Steve's life experience helped counter, or helped him unlearn some of those biases, even before he hit the ice.

Also, as an Irish-Catholic, Steve would have faced some discrimination of his own. It is most certainly not on the same level as other minorities, and things were better in the 20th century. Being very clear, any discrimination Steve faced for being Irish-Catholic would not be systemic or commonplace like racism. But adding his heritage to the rest of Steve's background helps give us a better idea of why he was already open to social movements like the Civil Rights movement before the ice. And it may have made him already more understanding of LGBTQ+ people, who he may have lived around, even if he grew up being taught certain biases.

Other Things We Forget About Steve

He is quite tech-savvy. While Steve would have a lot to learn, we know he is capable. There are a lot of jokes about his technical know-how in Avengers, but I think he's actually managing very well considering it's probably only been a few weeks or months since he came out of the ice.

Examples:

Deleted scene where we see Steve using a laptop in his apartment. He presses the spacebar to pause a video, which is a keyboard shortcut. So not only can he set up a laptop to watch a video, but he already knows key shortcuts.

Deleted scene where waitress mentions 'wireless'. Steve is confused and thinks she means radio. But I think he actually knows about wi-fi at this point, but probably had never heard it referred to as 'wireless' before. By this point he knows radio is not as common, so his real confusion is why the waitress is offering him 'free radio'. If she had said free wi-fi (the more typical phrase in my opinion) I think he would have understood.

Canon scene of Steve helping Tony fix the Helicarrier engines. This is my favourite evidence because Tony asks Steve to look at the relays and Steve makes a quip that they 'seem to run on some sort of electricity' indicating he is out of his depth. But we never see Tony tell Steve what to do. Steve figures out how to fix the relays himself. Tony is busy with the debris in the rotors and the next thing we see is Steve telling Tony the relays are all good.

Steve is much better at adapting and figuring out technology than we give him credit for. This doesn't mean he won't be anxious or uncomfortable with the sheer amount of stuff he has to learn (especially if everyone keeps making jokes about it to him). But by 2014, it's clear he's already mastered all of it, which is amazing when you think about it, because that's only two years of learning.

Steve is very book smart. In the comics Steve goes to art college, implying he finished high school. Even if he did drop out of high school to work, we know Steve is very smart.

We see him unloading a whole suitcase of books in the barracks before he got the serum.

The mental math is must take to throw the shield at the right angles for it to bounce back is insane.

Steve is also known as a master tactician. So it is clear he has the brains and smarts to run his team during the war. Not only that, but he is not just Captain in name. He actually has that rank, which means he passed the Captain's exam. I also have a feeling he would have needed to pass some kind of evaluation to get the serum in the first place.

We see in Steve's 2014 apartment that his bookshelves are full of history books. Steve is a veracious reader and spends a lot of his time catching up on what he missed. Things he didn't learn or were taught differently growing up would definitely exist, but Steve is actively working to counter that.

Steve would swear. Swearing has been a constant throughout all of history. So too, the backlash against profanity. Even if Steve grew up being told not to swear he would have heard it. And, Steve became a soldier. If he didn't swear before the war, he most definitely picked up some of it then.

I think Captain America isn't supposed to swear, and I think Steve would be aware of this perception of the symbol of him. But I think when Steve is comfortable with people, he would swear. We see in Avengers he doesn't swear, but in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he does.

We joke about Steve and the "Language" line, but I think that line has something to do with Steve's history of being perceived as a symbol and as Captain America since he said it 'just slipped out'. So, while Steve may have been encouraged not to swear growing up, and expected not to swear as Captain America, I fully believe that soldier, veteran, and Irish man Steve Rogers does swear.

Wrap up

I hope you liked this deep dive into Steve's history and character.

I think it can be easy to take the past as a lump sum and view everyone in the past through one lens. We know the past was racist, sexist, and homophobic, so we view everyone from the past that way.

And while it's true things were different back then, people were most definitely fighting for change and aware of the issues. There is also a lot of nuance to the past, and a lot that can be gleaned from what we know about Steve.

It's true that Steve would have a lot to learn when it comes to terminology and specific technology, but I believe Steve's background would prepare him for a lot of the social changes that happened after he went into the ice.

[mesetacadre]

i genuinely am asking this in good faith, but what's "leftcom" ? leftist/left communist ? i don't really understand the terminology. aren't most communists leftist ? i'm fairly new here so i know it's a stupid question, sorry

It means left-communists, called this because they're mostly concienved as the "left" opposition to Leninism. I'm not actually sure on where the term comes from specifically, but the main theoritician you'll see talked about is Amadeo Bordiga, one of the founders of the Communist Party of Italy. My main interactions with leftcoms have been, as what the post that prompted this question says (I assume it's that one), regarding various criticisms of the USSR, focusing on Stalin. It has been a while since I engaged with these, but the main one is the existence of commodity production within the USSR, and that therefore it wasn't a socialist economy (I've seen some calling Stalin a social-democrat for this. which. lmao). But essentially, the rationale between conceptualizing it as being to the left of Leninism is that leftcoms believe that the transformation towards communism should happen much, much faster. At least that's how I've conceptualized it. The difference with trotskyism lies in that trotskyism (nowadays) is more a different conception of Leninism based on Trotsky's criticisms of Stalin's period, while leftcoms don't generally hold leninism in a very high regard. Even more synthetically and maybe oversimplying too much, trotskyism is an offshoot of leninism while left-communism is a departure from it. That's as neutral a definition as I think I can give, hope this helps

[keepsmagnetoaway]

X-Men Origins: Colossus (May 2008)

Chris Yost/Trevor Hairsine

X-Men Origins was a loose series of a dozen one-shots published by Marvel from 2008 to 2010, each exploring the early days of an X-Man in a single issue (Marvel evidently having concluded that unless you were a really big deal, like Storm or Wolverine or Wolverine or Wolverine or Wolverine, you couldn't support a full prequel miniseries). Generally these picked up on existing but not fully explored canon, going back and depicting incidents that had been referred to but not shown, expanding on brief flashbacks, stuff like that. These are, so to speak, the last bits of X-Men pre-history, each of them leading right up to the first appearance of the characters, and they're the last things we're going to read in our Era 0 ... era (with the exceptions of the issues for Deadpool and Gambit, which I'm not reading yet because we haven't got to those guys in the main read yet). Got all that?

For whatever reason, the series started with Colossus, in an issue that both establishes the overall tone and quality of these (which is, basically, "meh") and has a really deeply weird vacuum at its heart - a vacuum which is present in the rest of the series but is a particular problem here.

There is, of course, no need to really rehearse the details of Colossus' past: it's simple and pure, just like Colossus himself. Farmboy turns to steel, saves his sister, goes off to save the world. It's all very Superman. You know, this Superman.

Ah, right, yes. Here's the thing about X-Men Origins: Colossus: it isn't set in the fucking Soviet Union.

Oh! The Federal Security Service! Of what country, pray tell? Never mind. (The closest we ever get is "Russia".) And what kind of farm does Piotr Rasputin grow up on? Just...a farm. Just a regular farm.

This sucks, man. It's right there in the first sentence of his appearance, what kind of farm it is!

This Origins update is, of course, an emanation of the so-called "sliding timescale" of the Marvel universe, the principle where by the past moves along behind the present to ensure that all these characters who debuted in the 1960s aren't now 70 years old. But more than most of these characters - more than almost all of them, I would argue - Colossus' origin in the Soviet Union meant something, and had been explored on that basis before. Piotr believes in certain "Soviet" values - the common good, the collective before the individual - and he exists in a world different from the one in which he was raised. These things cause him considerable angst, and this is essential to his character. You could even have written a story about him growing up during the fall of the USSR, which could have updated the timeline but still would have used and further explored these themes! Instead we get this...nothingness, with nothingy designs and nothingy characters.

This issue gets Colossus to where he needs to be by the end of it, but reading it is an utterly bizarre experience of watching a character's story get hollowed out. Claremont wasn't doing anything especially radical by featuring a Soviet character to emphasise the internationalism of his team - it was a trick that dated back to, at very least, Chekov on Star Trek (another member, along with Piotr Rasputin, of the "uhhhh, quick, think of a Russian surname" club) but to strip even that radicalism out thirty-whatever years later really is depressing.

Also, WTF is happening with Storm's face. Anyway, Jean is next.

[transmutationisms]

hi! a while ago i think you mentioned that “mutually assured destruction” is a really reductive way of explaining what happened in history, so i’m wondering what you’d say is a more accurate way of describing what happened?

damn i forgot i said that. you would get a more interesting & complete answer from someone better read on the cold war but i think what i meant was, just calling it mutually assured destruction tends to collapse all distinctions between the us and ussr's foreign & nuclear policies, & the importance of the sort of jockeying for power that they were doing. like it's true that eventually both feared a total nuclear event, but part of the reason the us state dept and such have embraced the mad explanation is because as a framework, it relies on the idea that both parties are essentially in the same bargaining position and are acting rationally; this all obscures the us's position in the cold war as an imperialist power, its perception that the ussr threatened its global reach, and its particularly risky and boneheaded decisions. fwiw i think some in the us military intel sphere have pushed back on the idea that they operated on principles of mad because they don't like the idea even now that the ussr was a powerful enough player on the world stage to have been a threat to the us, which like. lmao. anyway again it's not like the entire idea is irredeemably bad or totally inaccurate but i do think it's worth asking how the mad framework functions and whose interests it promotes in many cases

[dasha-through-the-snow]

A big rant about the Russian opposition

Well, you said you wanted it, so here it is.

Be warned: this will be long, rambly and unfocused. But I will try to split it into several parts.

Where it all began. The 90s.

Following the collapse of the USSR, Russian opposition was left in a weird state. Big Soviet-era opposition figures like Yeltsin now held all the power, yet, at the same time, the government was full of ex-Soviet party members. See, ol' Boris didn't want to do a lustration. I don't have his exact motivations, but, if I was put at a gunpoint and forced to guess, it was because Russia, even without all the states that left was a BIGHUGE country and needed people who knew how it all worked. And all of them happened to be party apparatchicks.

Yeltsin also left the KGB eseentially untouched. This is not well-known, but KGB were actually supportive of the fall of the USSR. Now, late-Gorby KGB is not the same as KGB during Stalin or even Khruschev. They were de-fanged and forced under too much supervision. Which they didn't like. So they were allowed to change their name, had some reshuffling and re-emerged as FSB. Ostensibly, just there to fight crime and protect the state, no disappearing people allowed anymore.

This is important to understand as we go forward.

90s were, overall, a time of terrible, terrible poverty and unimaginably, unprecedented freedom in Russia. If you knew what to do and was willing to do it, you could become a millionaire overnight. If you didn't have a particuarly marketable set of skills or was just unwilling to adapt, you'd be on the brink of starvation. And that's me not even touching the organized and disorganized crime which was absolutely rampant.

Then there was the privatization. Essentially, Yegor Gaidar, the prime minister during Yeltsin's first term decided that the best course of action was to take this lumbering 70-yo communist system and crash it head-first into capitalism. It was even called "shock therapy".

Now, in hindisght, we can say that his policies very much saved Russia and lead to economic prosperity later on. But man, shit was HARD for regular people. Especially hordes of state workers.

His most infamous project, however, was the privatization. Essentially, since EVERYTHING in USSR was state-owned and we were moving towards a capitalist system, someone needed to become the owner of all this state property. Privatize it, so to say. Of course, regular people could privatize their cars and apartments, which most everyone did. But the big bucks were in all the factories and natural resource mines. And this was done in the most ass-backwards way possible. People with connections got to bid on very lucrative property in the dead of the night with only one announcement in the local newspaper nobody read. Shit like that.

Everyone disliked that.

This is how Russia became saddled with it's giant oligarchy class.

I promise all of this is relevant.

Another really important thing happened in the 90s: the 1996 election. Yeltsin wanted a second term and he REALLY didn't want commies, his main opposition, to win. So he played dirty. Unlike what many later said, he didn't outright steal the elections. He did, however, do everything in his power as a prez to ensure a victory.

Everyone disliked that. Which is how we got Putin.

But 90s also saw the rise of several important opposition figures. And there really was actual freedom of speech and very little crackdown on opposition and protests. It still happened, don't get me wrong, but it was so minor compared to what's happening today, that it's barely worth mentioning. Anyway, back to opposition figures.

I will note three main one. Boris Nemtsov was the biggest - he was a favorite of Yeltsin's, was even a Deputy Prime Minister at one point and was considered as Yeltsin's heir at the same point. Things didn't work out. But he was the big face of liberals and democrats of the era. A guy who's "against everything bad and for everything good".

Then there was Mikhail Khodorkovsky. An oligarch and a philantropist, he was genuinely interested in the future of Russia and making it a big important country on the world stage through education and commerce.

Lastly, Gennady Kasparov. Yeah, the chess guy who lost to a computer. He wasn't really political in the 90s, but I still consider him part of the "old guard".

Part 2 in a reblog, because this is getting unreadable.

[universal-casey]

I know you said that Sovime was in the hospital after losing his eye, but roughly how long was he there, and what was his reaction when he realized he was missing an eye? And how did Soviet hide that Sovime was there?

(sorry for all the questions but i love this AU and thinking about the logistics behind things)

Hey no worries! I love questions like these. Makes me think lol. Also helps me not forget to post!

He was in the hospital for about a week or so. The gouging to his eye was severe and Soviet fractured the entire eye socket so there was a lot of bone reconstruction. It’s a miracle the only visible scars are the claw marks.

As for America’s reaction to his missing eye? It wasn’t as dramatic as you may think. He knew his eye was gone the moment he saw it hanging off the rake like a bloody water balloon. So he wasn’t too surprised when the doctors told him that there wasn’t anything they could do to save it. Of course, it was still traumatic so his brain kept forgetting he didn’t have an eye and he’d freak out a little when he noticed his vision was essentially halved.

It’s pretty easy for a government official to keep a hospital visit under wraps. Soviet had taken America to a military hospital so he had even more control over the process than a civilian one. It also helped that the actual incident happened in a garden shed away from any witnesses. Really easy for Soviet to lie through his teeth about what happened. He also claimed that America’s cries of “You took my eye! You took my fucking eye!” were deluded statements due to shock.

As for the press? Well the press of the USSR was government controlled and had no “reporter’s rights” like we have in the good ol US of A. So that was a cake walk really

[shituationist]

You're a weird political dissonant and I love that despite me having nooo understanding of your vibe. Quick! Opinions on rand paul and the peristroika?. I'm only partly trolling

Thanks. Rand Paul is a disappointment compared to his dad. Both represent an essentially petty bourgeois standpoint, but Ron Paul was a significantly more authentic libertarian than Rand. That might speak to consequences of the libertarian movement being swallowed up by the GOP in ~2010 with the Tea Party movement. I don't know.

"Democratization" in the USSR came too little too late, and liberal political mechanisms combined with the restoration of capitalist relations of production set the stage for post-Soviet Russia to become an aspirationally (if not actually) imperialist nation, the war in Ukraine being one consequence of that. With Yeltsin, pretty much exactly what the communist "hard-liners" feared would happen ended up happening. The population of the former Soviet Union was decimated as liberal reforms tanked living standards and sent millions fleeing to the West where they would serve as part of the industrial reserve army of labor, putting downward pressure on wages and shoring up the profitability of European capital. The US intervened politically to make sure Yeltsin would stay in power despite or because of the wreck he was making of the Russian economy. This story culminates in Putin and United Russia coming to power, who stabilize the Russian economy (mostly) under a kind of plutocratic-kleptocratic dirigisme and enter Russia into Great Power competition with the US.

[silent-calling]

And now time for: Echoes of History, first installment.

So I saw this tweet earlier,

- and thought "huh, that seems odd anyone might celebrate a Nazi." so, I did a little bit of digging, and found the Politico article to read for myself what the hubbub was about.

Now, I'm on principal skeptical of headlines, so I read through it, and the article details the ovation was for one Yaroslav Hunka, a 98 year old WWII veteran from modern day western Ukraine. He was heralded as a hero, not just to Ukraine, but to Canada as well, having been cited as a freedom fighter against Soviet rule.

However, at least one Jewish advocacy group took issue with this, because this man was a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier division in the Shutztaffel, 1st Galician unit (Wikipedia article, well sourced) - meaning, this man served in the Nazi party's paramilitary forces, along with a collection of men from Galicia, which can be seen below.

Pretty shocking, huh? How could we possibly honor a man who obliged to such a heinous group as the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, commonly known as the Nazis?

Well, the answer might surprise you, if you're not familiar with the history of the region.

See, Nazi Germany marched through Poland in 1939, same years as the Soviets. But what happened prior to these invasions is arguably as heinous or moreso - the Holodomor, or "terror famines," of Ukraine. Ukraine was subsumed by the USSR, and in the aftermath the farmers of fertile Ukraine would be forced to surrender nearly all their yield to the Party for redistribution, which led to the starvation of between 3.5 and 7 million Ukrainians and some of the worst famines across Europe. Those who didn't starve were often rounded up, executed or imprisoned, and their land redistributed to the comrades of the Party.

Needless to say, Ukraine and her neighbor Poland were in dire straits.

Well, here's the thing about this scenario: the terrors of the Soviet Union were largely hidden from the outside world, and would remain such until the 1960s, when we got a peek into the Iron Curtain to see what Stalin's Party was doing. And what we would learn years later was the depths of depravity the USSR had went to in order to bring forth the great revolution.

Many Ukrainians and Polish saw the Soviets are, believe it or not, worse than Nazis, because of the simple fact that the Soviets were much less discerning on who they killed and how - any opposition, no matter how small, against the Party would be a death sentence. So, they got desperate, and some would opt to side with the devil they don't know, who wasn't actively genociding them, over the devil they did. This is where the 14th Waffen Grenadier comes in.

See this unit would become disbanded and reformed before the conclusion of World War II, being renamed toward the end as the First Division, Ukrainian National Army. Further, during its formation, one of the three major concessions made by the Germans at the request of the Ukrainian-majority unit Was they would not be sent westward, but would remain in the east to fight "Bolsheviks" - the old name of the Communist Party. (citation here)

Essentially, the unit was stood up as a sort of freedom fighter against Soviet oppression.

They would then surrender to the allied forces in 1945 at the end of the war in Europe.

And that is how a man who fought under the banner of the Shutztaffel could possibly be heralded as a hero to Ukraine - because he essentially joined a group of Ukrainian men in using Nazi equipment to fight Soviet oppression.

[maya-the-skaven]

Much Ado About Rats: A Skaven Story

Greetings everyone and welcome to the very first of my series of posts that will follow as I write my fanfiction about Skaven in the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar setting. While my fanfiction is something rather private and will probably go through a long and thorough process of writing, editing, proofreading and even rewriting before I am comfortable publishing it, I would still like to talk about its worldbuilding, its characters and my personal headcanon on all matters Skaven.

It's easy to consider Skaven as just cannon fodder for the good guys of the setting, nothing but a mass of hungry and inherently if not comically evil vermin that exist only to multiply, destroy and die, not too dissimilar from the Tyranids of the 40k setting. They represent all the worst traits both on individual and societal level and, more importantly, they're not human and kind of ugly and monstrous, you'd get weird looks if you told anyone you empathise with them, similar to reactions you'd get from the common audience if you said you feel nothing but pity for the orcs of the Lord of the Rings setting.

However, to me the Skaven are much like the Imperium of the 40k - they are independent individuals trapped in and molded by from their very birth to their rather short death by a highly institutionalized and hierarchical society with ruthless inner politics, warlordism and a merciless system of economics and labour. The Skaven who are not ready to do everything in their power to survive and chase the power are either destined for death or slavery. They fanatically worship a god that doesn't care that much for his children if not bestows constant malice onto them, but any deviation from that worship is tightly controlled by a tyranical sect of wizard-priests. The Skaven either conquer, ruthlessly exploiting their surroundings until their utter desolation, or stagnate forced to literally cannibalize each other to survive. They are essentially trapped in a vicious circle where the society forms natural selection where the most power-hungry, cruel and vicious individuals win and these individuals, in turn, do all in their power so that this society stays that way, with them in power and their subordinates in various forms of slavery. I don't know about you, but most of the above doesn't sound to me that different from average life of an Imperial citizen in a Hive World. Moreover, isn't that also what happened in real world many times? How the ultra-rich of today stay in power, how Nazis brainwashed the entirety of Germany into genocide and complete ruin, how medieval tyrants and their aristocrat countries held entire countries in serfdom, how USSR bureaucrats reproduced their own power by what amounted to negative selection?

The main difference between Imperium and the Skaven is that, while the Imperium also exists in a constant flux of decay, misery, exploitation and treachery, it still gets many stories about individuals that manage to represent better aspects of being human, in spite of their culture, their upbringing, their status. Skaven, however, are for some reason excluded from humanity and human stories, despite having the same sapience and free will as humans do, they almost never get any stories that center them and everywhere else they are just there to do something horrible (and sometimes funny) and then be defeated by the heroes of the story. Despite this, we got more intricate glimpses of Skaven in the Queek Headtaker novel, it turns out they can be loyal, they can have a conscience, they can be brave, they can reflect on the poor state of their species, they can actually care for each other for other reasons than power, however rare that is and however corrupted and abusive that care might be.

Skaven also make me reflect a lot about our own world. In a way they are kind of like Ferengi from Star Trek series, their culture on one hand seems completely alien from ours, but on the other hand it has direct connection to our culture because it is a huge exaggeration of it. We exist, function and prop up systems that cause suffering, we compete even if that means that someone else will go hungry, we punch down our most marginalised and miserable, we entrap people into economic system where the line must go always up propped by extremely underpaid labour or everyone will be scrounging for food, we exploit and destroy our environment without care for neither other living creatures nor even other humans, our current cultural mindset is thoroughly hierarchical and power-seeking with even those critical our the current state of things rarely escaping from it. It's easy to sneer at the Skaven as the utterly evil "monster" species of the setting, but they are only doing what we are doing, but dispensing with our dislike of grotesque, with our flimsy morals and with our ever so cautious self-preservation instinct. But in our world we have many stories of people prevailing despite tyranny, misery, poverty, people going to great lengths to help each other, people protesting and fighting injustice, even if their mind was still polluted by bigotry, cruelty or selfishness. If Rom from DS9 can unionize in spite of his entire species and culture, why not give a chance at better characterisation and characters for Skaven that doesn't revolve around being comically evil? Something akin to Queek's bravery and care for Ska, even if completely insane and abusive by our standards, Ska's unquestioning loyalty, Gnawdwell's refined composure and genuine pride for Queek, Sharpwit's recognition of Skaven being doomed to be trapped in their vicious cycle and never learning from any mistakes.

Source: https://twitter.com/nan_ivel/status/1460612547887910914

My motivation for writing a fanfic about Skaven is thus motivated by this unfair treatment of simultaneously portraying the Skaven as sapient and free willed individuals completely capable of forming a society woes many traits and woes of our own and other similar societies in fiction, while they are always treated as non-persons, never get any kind of diversity despite numbering trillions and stories about them that delve deeper into their psyche are practically non-existent. My story will be focused on a band of Skaven finding their own ways and detaching their personalities from the society that made them what they are, it's an escape story, a story of change, a story of experiencing and feelings things you could never put a name to. This is not necessarily a story about redemption, bad guys becoming good, the Skaven being goodie-two-shoes, it's much more about a seed of hope that exists even for cruelest and vilest of beings to change in whatever way, it's humanising Skaven in a way how our own evil is deeply human and it's about negating the idea of evil being ontological and immutable for sapient persons of free will.

The fact that there are trillions of Skaven and tens of thousands of clans should be, on the contrary, taken as a reason for the fans and creators to experiment with imagining diverse environments, individuals, sub-cultures of the Skaven society, sprawling like a tumour, growing in every which way. Similarly the fact that there is not really a lot of actual established lore about the Skaven and either very old bits that can be easily considered not even close to canon, short paragraphs that describe the trope of Skaven, but rarely go into any nuance or expand on them or things that could be very easily supplemented by additional lore, rather than be contradicted.

For example, what is the true nature of Great Horned Rat, is he even a real god of Chaos, as his aspects, domains and character seems to change all the time? Or maybe he is the truest of them, since even his nature changes chaotically, usually following the constant dynamic flux Skaven as a whole find themselves in? What is the relationship of Skaven with gender? Are breeders just an irrelevant lore tidbit that could be disregarded, or maybe it could be expanded, for example, how clans that don't have the means to purchase Moulder monstrocities operate? What of cloned Skaven? How is Skaven biology influenced by their constant misuse of warpstone, permanent overexertion, starvation and lack of sleep? Are we to believe Black Hunger isn't a psychological reaction that a half-starved sleepless human couldn't experience? A lore purist could disregard all these questions, but they'll end up without a backbone to their faction and barely anything interesting to write or ponder, apart from them being just mindless characterless beasts of ruin.

Next posts will answer these questions and go more into detail about some of my personal headcanon that informs my fic, such as diversity and function of Skaven society, their biology and its relationship with warpstone and exertion, their reproductive cycle, basic details of Blight City are the protagonists come from and what Great Horned Rat represents in essence. But, of course, that’s just my interpretation.

[thepolyamorouspolymath]

We need to stay out of Iran-Israel.

Buckle up I'm about to say something real unpopular again...

We need a policy of nob intervention. Give them the bare minimum required by treaty, which is arms not men.

Iran entering this fray is EXACTLY what has been needed. Because Iran may have absolutely psychotic leadership, BUT they are the ONLY power in the region that can pose a real threat to Israel. (Otherwise it would take a full coalition of Arab nations which isnt going to happen for many reasons.)

Iran has pretty much no real allies to drag in and make this global. Iran is a big enough threat to force Israel to the table or at least agree to moderate their fucking genocidal tactics.

If Israel proceeds against all reason and logic (bc one thing absent from everyone involved thus far has been fucking reason and logic, I'm including both Hamas in the 10/7 attack -- no do not try to tell me why they were justified, I grasp the fucking nuances of why terrorism happens ffs, I'm fucking Irish not that long back -- and the fucking lunatics in charge of both the Israeli government and the IDF), Iran can press hard enough doing enough damage that WE will have a bargaining chip again.

Because Israel doesn't need us to murder Palestine. But if Iran really wants to commit to this fight, they DO need us to beat Iran without being absolutely crippled and easy pickings over old grudges. Essentially Iran can serve as the USSR did as a reason why Israel has to listen to us.

[warsofasoiaf]

I still have my question about how the books should handle the White Walkers in a thematic and narratively satisfying way. Because I always thought they should have a bigger presence rather than be wiped out after barely touching Westeros.

Well, there are plenty of ways to go about it, all depending on what you want to emphasize for your narratively and thematically successful presentation.

For example, say my current prediction of the three heads of the dragon flying north beyond the curtain of light at the end of the world to destroy the Others, that essentially has the thematic purpose of leaving the world to humanity. They saw what happened when they neglected the dangers that were encroaching, and now it's up to them to remember the lessons. From that point, every success, and drawback, are humanity's own to make. So there are cosmic destiny trappings, but the cosmic forces annihilate each other, and it leaves room for the mundane people to stand.

Contrarily, if, as it was in the show, that humanity goes back to bickering over its little iron chair following the Others, then the thematic purpose is much more cynical. That while humanity might pitch in to fight the true problems, they'll turn on each other at the first opportunity. Certainly, that's a *true* sentiment in a lot of ways - Reagan often joked that the one thing that would get the USA and the USSR together would be an alien invasion (and Alan Moore had that happen successfully in Watchmen, at the cost of New York City). Or, alternatively, it could be taken as a cautionary tale, to mind the dangers that effect all of us, which fits GRRM's own lived experiences, having grown up in the shadow of atomic warfare.

Thanks for the question, Ikac.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Cosmic Voyage

Week 17:

Film(s): Cosmic Voyage [AKA The Space Voyage] (Космический рейс, Dir. Vasili Zhuravlov, 1936, USSR)

Viewing Format: DVD

Date Watched: 2021-09-24

Rationale for Inclusion:

My partner and I are not just science fiction nerds, we're also space race history nerds. Part of the interest in watching any Soviet produced sci-fi films is better understanding the cultural context for the later real life firsts associated with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin. As we moved into the 1950s section of the survey, we frequently found ourselves asking, "Had Sputnik happened yet?" and that milestone will no doubt be invoked when I get to that decade of films.

The other reason Cosmic Voyage [AKA The Space Voyage] (Космический рейс, Dir. Vasili Zhuravlov, 1936, USSR) was of interest when I ran across it during my titles roundup for this survey was that it is a silent film.

If you've been paying attention to this series, then you may recall that the last silent film discussed was Woman in the Moon (Frau im Mond, Dir. Fritz Lang, 1929, Germany). Histories of the Hollywood film industry have the silent film era ending in 1929, with some notable exceptions, mainly made by Charles Chaplin. In other countries their silent eras lasted longer due to the complications and expense of technical conversion and/or artists who accompanied the films not wanting to give up their jobs. In Japan, for example, silent films continued to be produced until 1939 due to katsudō benshi narrators being an essential component of the country's filmgoing experience. 

In Soviet Russia, their film industry began converting to sound around 1930 and had essentially stopped producing silent films by 1935. Cosmic Voyage is an outlier largely due to its prolonged production, which began in 1932 amid the overlap of formats. The creation of futuristic sets, special effects to create the illusion of space travel, and stop motion animation sequences took awhile to create and combine in the analog era.

Once Cosmic Voyage finally was completed, it only had a brief theatrical run in 1936. In the middle of its four year production, the Soviet leadership had declared in 1934 that a doctrine of socialist realism would govern the written and visual arts throughout the Soviet Union. Having the goal "to depict reality in its revolutionary development," the censors found Cosmic Voyage with its use of special effects to be too fanciful for widespread public consumption. If they knew that pioneering rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had been a consultant on the screenplay, it may not have factored into the censor's decision process.

Amid cultural shifts in the 1980s, Cosmic Voyage began making the rounds at international film festivals and gradually came to film nerd consciousness.

Reactions:

Like The Woman in the Moon before it, watching Cosmic Voyage comes with the joy of how many things the filmmakers got right about spaceflight and microgravity. It also has the same narrative structure and concerns that would be oft repeated in the 1950s films about experimental space flights.

As a late silent film, unencumbered by early sound technology, the cinematography is quite wonderful, and shows off the amazing set pieces. We were particularly amused by the fact that the spaceship is effectively shot out of a rail gun. I like the symmetry of the first space flight silent film that we watched, A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, Dir. Georges Méliès, 1902, France), and the last one using the same means of launching their spacecraft.

Overall, Cosmic Voyage is a nice piece of cinema that straddles where spaceflight movies had been thus far, and what they would evolve into.

[unofficial-com1]

The massive military clanger of 1942 (and '43.)

THIS is the motherfucking CAUCASUS BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

The Caucasus! Home to many things! A plurality of beautiful cultures, languages AND a massive source of resources. From the 1920s until the '90s, the Caucasus was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the region's usefulness was not lost on Moscow. Huge oil reserves and metal reserves exist in the Caucasus to this day AND the mountains provide a natural barrier to invasion.

Enter the Nazis.

In 1942, the Nazis had fallen on hard times in the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa had failed to meet it's primary goal of destroying the Red Army and causing the collapse of the USSR. What's more, they had just gotten their asses kicked in the Winter Offensive of 1941-42 by Zhukov. Below is the aftermath of the Winter Offensive:

So, Hans was having a hard time. Germany was having a shortage of many things. Germany was having a shortage of manpower, equipment, food, coats, horses, general logistics and, biggest of all, oil. Germany had expected the USSR to collapse by now which would have given Germany all the resources of the European USSR. The Nazis were arrogant bastards, however, and did not have a contingency plan for when this obviously did not happen. So, Hitler, Halder, Jodl and the rest all had to come up with a plan and very ruddy quickly. Some of the generals wanted to try again at Moscow but this was obviously a terrible idea. Instead, Hitler and his generals agreed to go into the Caucasus to steal all the oil and cut of the Soviets from it.

But there was a problem. Railways.

From this^ map, we can deduce that there are really only two major lines going into the Caucasus, the one from the Kuban and the one from Stalingrad. This meant that the capture of Stalingrad was essential to the Caucasus campaign for the Nazis, contrary to what Wehraboos will tell you; sending hundreds of thousands of Nazis on one (1) major railway line in the USSR is a recipe for disaster when a 5'6'' man from Perm with a stick of dynamite catches wind of this. So, Nazi Germany's plan was this: Take Stalingrad to secure the railways. Secure the Caucasus. Steal all the resources. Try again at Moscow at a later date.

Spoiler alert: this did not happen.

The Nazis got this^ far before shit really hit the fan. The first problem was that Stalingrad was a touch nut to crack. The Nazis attacked Stalingrad for months on end and the city's defenders just refused to give up every inch without a fight. What's more is that the Nazis couldn't make it past the Caucasus mountains which meant that they were unable to cut off the Caucasus like they had hoped. Things then got worse for the Nazis.

Remember this guy? Say hi to Zhukov again. Zhukov had an idea.

That's right. In 11 days, Zhukov broke the back of the German Sixth Army and 4th Panzer Army. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from the 17th of July, 1942, to the 2nd of February, 1943. In 11 days in November, 1942, the tide of the battle was turned completely. I mean, I say that, the Nazis never really had a hope to begin with. The next few months would entail actually scrubbing the Nazis out of the Caucasus and out of Stalingrad. Operation Uranus was only a smaller part of the much wider Voronezh-Kharkov offensive:

The aftermath of the Battle of Stalingrad saw Von Manstein's new Don Front get completely demolished. It would signal the end of any Nazi offensives in the region until the Battle of Kharkov. All that the Nazis' gamble in the Caucasus achieved was 746,000 soldiers dead, millions more injured, thousands of tanks, planes and other vehicles lost, billions of marks worth in equipment lost and their foothold in the Caucasus lost forever. It permanently dashed any dreams of the fall of the USSR, for the Nazis and, from here on out, it would just be a long retreat back to Berlin.

Moral of the story? Not much fun in Stalingrad.

[stillunusual]

Kremlin propagandists claim that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which led directly to the outbreak of the Second World War a week after it was signed, was no different from earlier treaties that other countries signed with Germany.... There's a shit ton of Kremlin propaganda about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on social media (including many variations of the list in the above screenshot) which seeks to portray the infamous pact between the Nazis and Soviets as being essentially no different from all the other treaties in the list, which - surprise, surprise - is not the case. It's just another Russian lie. To illustrate this, let's compare the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Polish-German Non-Aggression Treaty of 26th January 1934, which for some strange reason is referred to here as the "Hitler-Pilsudsko Pact" (sic). The Polish-German non-aggression treaty is often used by mindless vatniks and tankies to portray interwar Poland as "pro-German" in a dishonest attempt to excuse the Soviet Union's subsequent collaboration with Nazi Germany at Poland's expense and the war crimes that the USSR committed against the Polish people as a direct result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (ie "let's blame the victim - they got what they deserved"). Stalin's apologists routinely do the same to other victims of the pact, as well as victims of Soviet tyranny in general, because in their delusional fantasy world it was perfectly fine for the Soviet Union to invade, occupy and terrorise other countries. Obviously, when Hitler or western imperialists did stuff like that - it was bad, but when the Soviets did it - it was good. And if you were one of the millions of men, women and children who were robbed, gang-raped, imprisoned, sent to the gulags, tortured, starved to death, executed or ethnically cleansed by Stalin's henchmen - the Kremlin's shills and useful idiots will either deny it happened, or blame it on somebody else or - if there's no way of doing that - they'll just say that you deserved it. Because they also frequently try to dishonestly portray all Stalin's victims - or anybody who opposed Soviet tyranny - as fascists and/or Nazis. And as a lot of people are very ignorant about the history of central and eastern Europe (or only seem to see it from the perspective of the so-called "great powers") this kind of bullshit is widely believed, even though it's blatant historical revisionism. Interwar Poland was very aware that it was sandwiched between two aggressive neighbours who wouldn't hesitate to wipe "the bastard child of the Versailles treaty" off the map if they got the chance. As such, Poland signed non-aggression treaties with both the USSR and Nazi Germany in an attempt to normalise relations and reduce tensions that existed along their borders. In the aftermath of the Polish-Soviet War and Treaty Of Riga, Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski initially believed that the more immediate threat was from the Soviet Union, because prior to the rise of the Nazis, Germany was a million miles away from the force it would eventually become by the end of the 1930s (Germany only seriously re-armed after Piłsudski’s death in 1935). Russian disinfo generally avoids any mention of the fact that Poland signed a non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union first, in 1932 (and this treaty was subsequently re-confirmed in 1938). The treaty with Germany two years later was simply a continuation of the same policy of trying to maintain peaceful co-existence with Poland's neighbours. Piłsudski was deeply concerned about the emergence of Hitlerism, although disputes over the free port of Danzig (Gdańsk) were already ongoing before Hitler came to power. Poland had retained the right to formally welcome foreign ships into the port, but in 1932 the Danzig Senate kept delaying the renewal of the requisite agreement. Piłsudski used the planned visit of three British warships for a show of strength and they were duly welcomed into Danzig by the Polish destroyer Wicher, after he'd made it clear that the ship had instructions to open fire on the nearest government building if the local German authorities intervened. The incident annoyed the League of Nations but successfully secured the renewal of the agreement sought by Poland. Immediately after Hitler came to power Piłsudski made a similar gesture, by assigning 120 more Polish troops to Westerplatte (on 6th March 1933) - and again the Germans acquiesced. According to some accounts (by Jan Karski and Norman Davies for example), Piłsudski actually suggested a pre-emptive attack on Germany to the French government in 1933, with the aim of removing Hitler from power, but his proposal was rejected by the French. Poland was also alarmed by Italy's plan to cut "minor" nations out of European settlements, which would be determined by the four "major" powers — Britain, France, Germany and Italy - and could have potentially included decisions about Danzig and the "Polish Corridor" to the Baltic sea. These are the events that prompted Poland to seek a non-aggression treaty with Germany in 1934 - and after signing it, Polish Foreign Minister Józef Beck travelled to Moscow to reassure the Soviets that the Polish-German declaration did not affect the 1932 Soviet-Polish Treaty of Non-Aggression in any way, and offered to extend the treaty to ten years. It's perfectly understandable why a country in Poland's position would enter into such agreements in an attempt to safeguard its security. Furthermore, a non-aggression treaty is not an alliance, and these treaties did not make Poland "pro-Soviet" or "pro-German". Poland's 1934 agreement with Germany had no secret protocol or ulterior motive, and any comparison with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is completely false.  One of the more ludicrous claims made by Kremlin propagandists is that Poland tried to form an alliance with the Nazis to attack the USSR. However, this is yet another Russian lie. When Hermann Goering visited Poland in January 1935, he sounded out the Polish government about a possible anti-Soviet alliance but the idea was promptly dismissed. In February 1937 Goering again visited Warsaw to suggest that Poland align itself with Germany against the Soviet Union. Beck turned him down. When German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop came to Warsaw in January 1939, Beck informed him that Poland would not agree to German demands (made since 1938) for the return of Danzig to the Reich and an extraterritorial highway to East Prussia, and would also not join the Anti-Comintern Pact against the Soviet Union. In a speech to the Reichstag on 28th April 1939, Hitler denounced Germany's non-aggression treaty with Poland. Beck responded in a speech to the Polish parliament on 5th May 1939, making it clear that he refused to be intimidated. In reality, it was Germany that tried to persuade Poland to enter into an anti-Soviet alliance, and after Poland declined, the Nazis then turned to the Soviet Union and negotiated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was presented to the world as a simple non-aggression treaty, but was really a plan to carve up Europe between Germany and the USSR - involving the mutual invasion and partition of Poland, a free hand for Hitler to attack Western Europe and for Stalin to annex the Baltic states, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, and to attack Finland. And funnily enough, that's exactly what actually happened.... TL;DR - Russian propagandists are lying as usual. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union led directly to the outbreak of the Second World War, and all its tragic consequences, almost immediately after the pact was signed on 23rd August 1939. The signatories were the foreign ministers of the two countries, Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop - hence its name. A week later on 1st September, Nazi Germany attacked Poland from the west and just over two weeks after that, the USSR attacked Poland from the east (which is another topic that the Kremlin simply can't stop lying about).... What also makes the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact different from the other treaties listed in the screenshot above, is that it was just one step in a continuum of Nazi-Soviet collaboration that lasted until June 1941, and was well documented in the numerous diplomatic communications between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union throughout this period. After the Second World War, the relevant documents that had been stored in the archives of the German Foreign Office were translated into English and published in a book called "Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-41". The complete collection can now be found online. There was actually a sickening prelude to Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, ie the dismissal by Stalin of his staunchly anti-fascist foreign minister Litvinov (who also happened to be Jewish), and his replacement by the more Nazi-friendly Molotov (who was told to purge the ministry of Jews) in order to facilitate negotiations between the two tyrannies. This change was received favourably by the Nazis, and after Molotov took over from Litvinov, Stalin immediately sounded them out to see if this would make it easier to do business, as shown by this quote from the German Foreign Office Memorandum dated 5th May 1939: "Astakhov touched upon the dismissal of Litvinov and tried without asking direct questions to learn whether this event would cause a change in our position toward the Soviet Union. He stressed very much the great importance of the personality of Molotov, who was by no means a specialist in foreign policy, but who would have all the greater importance for the future Soviet foreign policy".... The pact was signed on the basis that: "there exist no real conflicts of interest between Germany and the USSR. The living spaces of Germany and the USSR touch each other, but in their natural requirements do not conflict" (as stated in a telegram from Ribbentrop to the German ambassador in the Soviet Union on 14th August 1939). It had seven articles.... ARTICLE I Both High Contracting Parties obligate themselves to desist from any act of violence, any aggressive action, and any attack on each other, either individually or jointly with other powers. ARTICLE II Should one of the High Contracting Parties become the object of belligerent action by a third power, the other High Contracting Party shall in no manner lend its support to this third power. ARTICLE III The Governments of the two High Contracting Parties shall in the future maintain continual contact with one another for the purpose of consultation in order to exchange information on problems affecting their common interests. ARTICLE IV Neither of the two High Contracting Parties shall participate in any grouping of powers whatsoever that is directly or indirectly aimed at the other party. ARTICLE V Should disputes or conflicts arise between the High Contracting Parties over problems of one kind or another, both parties shall settle these disputes or conflicts exclusively through friendly exchange of opinion or, if necessary, through the establishment of arbitration commissions. ARTICLE VI The present treaty is concluded for a period of ten years, with the proviso that, in so far as one of the High Contracting Parties does not denounce it one year prior to the expiration of this period, the validity of this treaty shall automatically be extended for another five years. ARTICLE VII The present treaty shall be ratified within the shortest possible time. The ratifications shall be exchanged in Berlin. The agreement shall enter into force as soon as it is signed. However, the above articles were just a cover story for the secret protocol between the Nazis and Soviets, which defined their mutually agreed "spheres of influence", ie the territories that each of the signatories could invade without having to worry about retaliation from the other. SECRET ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL On the occasion of the signature of the Non-aggression Pact between the German Reich and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics the undersigned plenipotentiaries of each of the two parties discussed in strictly confidential conversations the question of the boundary of their respective spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. These conversations led to the following conclusions: 1. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR. In this connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is recognized by each party. 2. In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narew, Vistula, and San.The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish state and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments.In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement. 3. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia. The German side declares its complete political disinterestedness in these areas. 4. This protocol shall be treated by both parties as strictly secret. It's interesting to note that the protocol already includes a provisional agreement about the future border between Nazi Germany and the USSR "in the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state" and it's also fascinating to read through Nazi Germany's diplomatic records of the negotiations between the Nazis and Soviets to define all the "spheres of influence" that Hitler and Stalin eventually agreed on. These negotiations clearly demonstrate that when the Kremlin subsequently made the ludicrous claim that the Soviet invasion of Poland was some kind of spontaneous rescue mission to protect the Belarusians and Ukrainians living in the east of the country, it was just another gratuitous lie. Further negotiations after the pact was signed also led to minor alterations in the "spheres of influence". TL;DR - Russian propagandists are lying as usual. Soviet military and economic cooperation with Germany actually dated back to the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, although it was initially discouraged by Hitler after coming to power. However, from August 1939 onwards the USSR provided Hitler with a great deal of much needed economic and military support, which ironically also helped the Germans in their preparations to launch Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. During their invasion of Poland the Nazis and Soviets held a joint military parade in Brest-Litovsk on 22nd September 1939. A Friendship and Border treaty was signed by Germany and the USSR on 28th September 1939, along with a secret protocol that finalised the new border between the two countries. Three additional protocols were added to the agreement, the third of which stated that: "Both parties will tolerate no Polish agitation in their territories which affects the territories of the other party. They will suppress in their territories all beginnings of such agitation and inform each other concerning suitable measures for this purpose". The signing of the treaty was accompanied by an announcement stating that both parties wanted an end to the war between Germany, Britain and France - and that if Britain and France refused to stop the war "....the Governments of Germany and of the USSR shall engage in mutual consultations with regard to necessary measures". According to Molotov: "....it is not only absurd, it is criminal to wage a war to 'smash Hitlerism' under the false slogan of a war for democracy". At a session of the Supreme Soviet on 31st October, he bragged about the USSR's military partnership with Germany: "....it was proved enough for Poland to be dealt one swift blow, first by the German army and then by the Red Army, to wipe out all remains of this monstrous bastard offspring of the Versailles Treaty". The USSR and Germany implemented parallel policies of suppressing resistance in occupied Poland and destroying the Polish elites in their respective areas of occupation. The Soviet NKVD and Nazi Gestapo coordinated their actions on many issues, including prisoner exchanges. Between 1939 and 1941 the NKVD delivered to the Gestapo over 4000 Jews and German communists who had taken refuge in Soviet held territory. Hitler then proceeded to invade the other countries in his agreed "sphere of influence" while Stalin did the same in his agreed "sphere of influence".... An important factor in Hitler's successes in the west was that he didn't have to watch his back following his alliance with the USSR, which gave him a free hand to mobilise all the forces at his disposal to rapidly conquer the countries of Western Europe. And in June 1940, while the Germans were marching into Paris, the Soviet Union was simultaneously annexing the Baltic states (although they did find time to send congratulations to their Nazi allies). The Soviets also provided all manner of assistance to the Nazis during their military campaigns in the west, and while Germany was fighting Britain and France, Stalin was not only calling them "criminals" and "imperialists" for opposing Hitler, but he was also helping his Nazi allies to break Britain's blockade by supplying Germany with raw materials. Provision was made for the supply from the USSR of a million tons of grain for cattle, 900000 tons of mineral oil, 100000 tons of cotton, 500000 tons of phosphates, 100000 tons of chrome ore, 500000 tons of iron ore, 300000 tons of scrap iron and pig iron, and numerous other commodities vital to the German war effort. In the summer and autumn of 1940, when Polish pilots were defending the skies over Britain from the Luftwaffe (after escaping to the west following the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland), the German pilots were flying on fuel supplied by their Soviet allies. More details here.... Nazi–Soviet economic relations (1934–1941) The Nazi–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1939) The Nazi–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940) The Nazi–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement (1941) The USSR also furnished Germany with military cooperation far beyond that which the United States was giving to Great Britain during this time. The Soviets actually allowed Germany a naval base on Soviet territory near Murmansk, which proved valuable for U-boats operating in the North Sea, and played an important role in helping to supply Hitler's invasion of Norway. German ships such as the liner "Bremen" found refuge at Murmansk, as did a succession of blockade breaking vessels - and measures violating international law were adopted by the Soviet authorities to allow the Germans to escape with a captured American merchant ship, City Of Flint (which had been carrying a cargo of tractors, grain and fruit to Britain). German auxiliary cruisers were also equipped at Murmansk for raids on British shipping. The Soviets helped a German raiding cruiser, Schiff 45, to make its way through the ice around Siberia to the pacific, where it subsequently captured or sank 64000 tons of allied shipping. In this and other ways the Soviet Union lent enormous assistance to the otherwise vulnerable German Navy. Stalin actually requested the USSR's membership of the tri-partite Axis agreement as a full member, and negotiations took place over several months from 1940-41 but never reached fruition. He was "visibly pleased" at the idea and irritated when it didn't happen, although the USSR did sign a neutrality pact with Japan in April 1941. These negotiations are also documented in the archives of the German Foreign Office. When they were published after the war Stalin was so embarrassed that he went to the trouble of publishing a book full of reality-denying nonsense about how he was just playing a game of bluff with the Axis powers, and didn't mean any of it - but then again, he would say that wouldn't he? From 1939 to 1941, the friendship between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was promoted to the Soviet people in state propaganda - even that which was aimed at children. And as well as indoctrinating the citizens of the USSR with pro-Nazi and anti-western messaging, Stalin also ordered communist parties throughout the world to stop all agitation against Hitler's regime and to follow suit. For example, the newspaper published by the Communist Party of Great Britain (which was then known as the "Daily Worker" but later changed its name to "Morning Star") began the war supporting resistance to the Nazis, but then rapidly changed its tune and began shilling for Hitler under orders from Moscow - and continued to do so even as German bombs were dropping all over the UK. Ironically, on 16th April 1941, the Daily Worker's London office was destroyed by fire caused by German bombing.... By this stage publication had already been suspended by the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, for contravening Defence Regulation 2D, which made it an offence to "systematically publish matter calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war". FUN FACT: Jeremy Corbyn's mother Naomi was an enthusiastic seller of the Daily Worker at the time.... Stalin was simping for the Nazis for two whole years before Hitler turned on his former ally - taking an unprepared Stalin completely by surprise and forcing him to execute the "great patriotic u-turn" and join the alliance against the Nazis out of sheer desperation. TL;DR - Russian propagandists are lying as usual. It's easy to see what motivated Stalin to agree to a pact between the world's only communist state and a fascist state. Neither Germany nor the USSR recognised the Versailles treaty, Stalin's personal animus towards Poland was well known and when Hitler offered him an opportunity to destroy Poland he jumped at it (there may also have been an element of desiring revenge for defeat in the Polish-Soviet war two decades earlier, especially as Stalin's incompetence had played a role in that defeat). Dividing continental Europe into mutually agreed spheres of influence also suited both countries to an extent that made ideology irrelevant. Two years later, when Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and launched Operation Barbarossa, Stalin refused to believe initial reports that Germany was invading his country, just as he'd previously refused to believe credible intelligence that Germany was preparing an invasion (these preparations had been monitored and even filmed by the Polish resistance, and having seen footage smuggled out of occupied Poland by Polish SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek, Winston Churchill personally warned Stalin about the imminent invasion, but the Soviet dictator stupidly brushed him off). Stalin's immediate response to Hitler's attack on the USSR was to run away and hide in his dacha in a state of panic because he didn't have a clue what to do. He eventually re-emerged eleven days later to deliver a radio address to the Soviet people, in which he claimed that he agreed to the pact because he'd always known that a German invasion was inevitable and that it had "secured our country peace for a year and a half and the opportunity of preparing our forces to repulse fascist Germany should she risk an attack on our country despite the pact. This was a definite advantage for us and a disadvantage for fascist Germany". This was a laughable claim, given that the German invaders were cutting through the completely unprepared and disorganised Red Army like a knife through butter at the time. Although the Soviets had made some half-hearted attempts at building fortifications in the territory they'd gained via the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, nothing much had actually been accomplished and all this territory was rapidly overrun by the Germans. The obvious fact that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact resulted in Germany and the USSR having shared borders, which made it easier for the Germans to invade, didn't seem to occur to Stalin. The huge economic and military aid that the USSR had provided to the Nazis, which helped them to expand and build up their war machine in preparation for the invasion also seems to have slipped his mind. And he also forgot about the fact that he'd been pumping out pro-Nazi, anti-western propaganda for the previous two years.... Stalin was clearly upset about being betrayed, but felt that Hitler would pay for his treachery with the damage it would do to Germany's public image: ...."What has fascist Germany gained and what has she lost by perfidiously tearing up the pact and attacking the USSR? She has gained a certain advantageous position for her troops for a short period of time, but she has lost politically by exposing herself in the eyes of the entire world as a bloodthirsty aggressor".... This is also laughable. Stalin was very happy to tear up treaties when it suited him - like the eight treaties he threw out of the window when the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939 as allies of the Nazis: 1. The Peace Treaty between Poland, Russia and the Ukraine signed in Riga on 18th March 1921, in which the eastern frontier of Poland was defined. 2. The Protocol between Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Rumania and the USSR regarding renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy, signed in Moscow on 9th February 1929. 3. The Non-Aggression Treaty between Poland and the USSR signed in Moscow on 25th July 1932. 4. The Convention for the Definition of Aggression signed in London on 3rd July 1933, signed by Estonia, Latvia, Rumania, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and the USSR. 5. The Protocol signed in Moscow on 5th May 1934 between Poland and the USSR, extending until 31st December 1945, the Non-Aggression Treaty of July 25th 1932. 6. The agreement resulting from the notes exchanged in Moscow on 10th September 1934 between the Polish government and the Soviet government, in connection with the entry of the USSR into the League of Nations. This agreement emphasised that the relations between the countries would, in every respect, continue on the basis of all existing agreements between them, including the Treaty of Non-Aggression and the Convention for the Definition of Aggression. 7. The Covenant of the League of Nations, to which the USSR acceded on 17th September 1934. 8. The joint Communique issued in Moscow on 26th November 1938, by the Polish and Soviet governments, which confirmed that relations between them were, and would continue to be, based on all the existing agreements, including the Non-Aggression Treaty dated 25th July 1932, and extended on 5th May 1934. Stalin had also exposed himself as a bloodthirsty aggressor since signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In a speech by Winston Churchill broadcast in January 1940 (while the Soviet attack on Finland was ongoing), he made it clear that he viewed the Nazis and Soviets as opposite sides of the same barbaric coin: ...."Everyone can see how communism rots the soul of a nation; how it makes it abject and hungry in peace, and proves it base and abominable in war....if at any time Britain and France, wearying of the struggle, were to make a shameful peace, nothing would remain for the smaller states of Europe, with their shipping and their possessions, but to be divided between the opposite, though similar, barbarisms of Nazidom and Bolshevism".... The Soviet Union continued to deny the existence of the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact almost until its dying day, as well as denying all the other well documented examples of Nazi-Soviet collaboration that took place between 1939 and 1941, and the numerous Soviet war crimes that are directly attributable to the pact, such as the Katyń massacre, which was carried out by the NKVD in 1940, and the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Polish and Baltic citizens to the gulags. However, another fun fact that Kremlin trolls rarely mention is that in December 1989, a couple of years before the USSR was finally flushed down the toilet of history, its highest body, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union, adopted a resolution denouncing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which finally condemned the secret protocol and accused Stalin and Molotov of "treacherous collusion" with the Nazis. But even after that had happened, the Soviet Union and its successor state, Russia, were very reluctant to undo some of the consequences of the pact that still remained. For example, when the Baltic states declared independence, it took Russia until August 1994 to finally withdraw all its troops from their territories, after enormous international pressure was exerted on Moscow. Under the iron grip of Vladimir Putin, Russia has tried to justify the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with lame propaganda (like the above list of pacts signed with Nazi Germany) that doesn't actually hold any water. Another of the never-ending revisionist lies that the Kremlin's stooges promote is the ridiculous claim that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were never occupied by the Soviet Union. Russia also continues to occupy part of Moldova to this day.... TL;DR - Russian propagandists are lying as usual. In summary, there are two fundamental differences between the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the other treaties in the screenshot. 1. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact contained a secret agreement to divide Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence that led directly to the immediate outbreak of the Second World War, after which the Nazis and Soviets both committed appalling war crimes in the countries they invaded as a direct result of the pact. 2. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was also the first step in a continuum of collaboration between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that lasted for the next two years. It's not rocket science is it?

[cyberprincehavoc]

Superman Red Son kinda sucks.

Superman: Red Son runs with the premise "What would happen if Superman's ship crashed not in rural America, but rather in rural USSR, in the 30's".

The comic's answer, as it's written by the same dude who described his political views as...

"I regard myself as traditionally left of centre and progressive, a Eurosceptic in the Bennite mould, and the policies espoused by the coalition formed under the Yes umbrella are the closest to my own particular ideology."

...is naturally not great. Or rather, the comic takes steps in a much stranger direction than it should, with Superman eventually becoming a sort of dictator in the USSR (because, as we know, the USSR had absolutely no democratic institutions or elected officials, they just chose a dude to succeed the previous one and that was it) and actually leads it to a weirdly Trotskyist and prosperous future, with the USSR "expanding" and "taking other countries under its wing" with the help of Brainiac, who becomes a sort of "helpful A.I." to sort things out.

Eventually we get to the point of basically recreating the setup for Atlas Shrugged. Superman's USSR has dominated the entire globe except the USA, which is a bastion for capitalism and democracy and elects Lex Luthor to fuck them up. Superman, as a spooky scary socialist, is lobotomizing people and turning them into passive robots (because Mark Millar thought lobotomies didn't exist in the 30's...? Like, it's a technology that existed and we know the USSR didn't do it for political control) who can't question his rule. With the exception of the Batmen, who are part of a disgruntled working class who apparently suffered under the secret police. I think Ukraine is mentioned there, perhaps the holodomor, it's been a while.

In a surprisingly empathic move in the end, Luthor says to Superman "fuck you man, you're a good person deep down but you're too overbearing and That's Bad™️ so perhaps chill?" and Supes goes "huh, that's true, maybe lobotomizing my political opponents IS cringe." Brainiac, who was there in the corner, goes "ah! ah! ah! you fell into my-" and before he can finish the sentence he blows up, but Superman flew him to space and exploded too.

Anyway the USSR falls because that's how countries work I guess, Luthor also becomes a sort of dictator and also incorporates parts of Superman's philosophy, cures all sorts of things, invents all sorts of advancements alone, creates a whole ass dynasty, stays in power for a thousand years and dies. It's God-Emperor of Dune but if that was portrayed as a good thing, essentially. Superman is immortal, apparently, and didn't die in the blast, and after a couple billion years the earth explodes and a descendant of Luthor sends his son back to the past and he lands in a little ukrainian collective get it it's like poetry it rhymes. (I'll admit it is a little bit clever how he takes Superman's surname, "El", and says that it was actually an L, from Luthor, whatever, I like cheesiness)

So yeah it's not the most politically coherent story out there. The USSR's communism is demonized because apparently it'll end up with lobotomies but it still falls to great man theory, yet the most ideal system in the end is one where Luthor micromanages the whole economy of the world. It's funky, kinda not great but not horrible either, and the art is pretty good. But that got me thinking: what if an actual Marxist-Leninist wrote this?

Like, what would Superman do if he was a communist? More importantly, what developments of theory would happen if a superpowered, but apparently benign alien decided to start helping people and natural disasters and shit?

I don't have a great answer for this tbh. I just think Superman represents the best in all of us, and there's no way in hell he'd take on as an unelected dictator.

The worst part in all of this is the cognitive dissonance Millar seems to have where Lex admits Superman was doing material good, but this clashes with his notion that the USSR could be anything other than the kingdom of the Devil himself on earth.