Ajidica
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I'm assuming the whole Soviet Iconography, along with Futurist, Stalinist, and Dismal&Cheap architecture.
Did Stalin's leadership do more good or harm for his country during the Eastern Front
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Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I don't think that can be described as a single coherent aesthetics, though, or even a category of aesthetics. A lot of those schools are at best awkwardly juxtaposed, and more often completely irreconcilable.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Glorious Soviet concrete apartments are beloved by the masses:
Who wouldn't fall in love with the Soviet Union after beholding that concrete beauty?
The first thing I think when I see that isn't aesthetic revulsion, it's how appallingly unsafe it would be in an earthquake.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Khrushchevki would be the Russian plural. It had a specific meaning once, but now it's a blanket term for concrete apartment blocks.
And yes, many of them look no different than dreary Western apartment blocks. Like the one I'm in right now. The only real difference is a paint job.
And yes, many of them look no different than dreary Western apartment blocks. Like the one I'm in right now. The only real difference is a paint job.
ReindeerThistle
Zimmerwald Left
Flat characterizations devoid of data do not constitute a political analysis.
The facts are, given the circumstances of history (not bourgeoisie appeal), Stalin did more good than harm with his leadership on the Eastern front. On top of the factual data presented by Red_elk, I would like to add that the USSR gave 1 million of its citizens lives to liberate the Balkans and even sent an entire army group to fight the Japanese in June and July 1945. There are some debts that can never be repaid. Most people would choose liberation over subjugation, and if you want to dispute that what the USSR did was liberation, read Charles Mee's Meetign at Potsdam, where he reveals that it was the USSR;s position all along to allow the Nazi client states to hold free elections.
See also The Unknown War, and excellent documentary series about the war in the east.
I think that is an absurd statement, given the fact that around 20 million Soviet soldiers became casulaties on the Eastern front. It's hard to imagine anyone doing a worse job than Mr Djugashvili.
To paraphrase your own words: political characterizations do not constitute a proper analysis.
Obvious follow-up - why didn't they?
ReindeerThistle
Zimmerwald Left
JEELEN said:
FLAT characterizations devoid of data do not constitute political analysis. Since when does 20 million deaths at the hands of the Fascist axis equal doing such a bad job? If your criteria is the least lives lost, then, well, Holland did a great job stopping the Nazis. So did France. These countries had fifth columns, the USSR did not.
Flying Pig said:
They did. What do you mean? Austria, one of the heaviest occupied by the USSR, did not vote in a socialist government, Greece did -- and look what the Allies did to them. Czechoslovakia had a huge allied presence, and they went socialist. Field Marshal Von Paulus, head of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, became a communist. Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria -- they all voted in socialists -- and that is a topic for its own thread, since NONE of them are socialist today, n'est pas?
Take a quick look here. Or just about any source; the elections held in most of Eastern Europe after the war were anything but free and fair.
Military irrecoverable losses of the USSR in WW2 were less than 9 millions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union#Military_losses
Number includes ~3.5 millions of deaths in German captivity.
Everything else (around 16 millions, exact number is unknown) were civilian casualties.
"Collateral damage", as somebody here said, nothing personal...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union#Military_losses
Number includes ~3.5 millions of deaths in German captivity.
Everything else (around 16 millions, exact number is unknown) were civilian casualties.
"Collateral damage", as somebody here said, nothing personal...
AnthonyBoscia
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Stalin should have sent this thread to the gulag.
ReindeerThistle
Zimmerwald Left
I took a quick look, there, and it did not contradict what I said -- i.e., who would a friendly Poland do harm to the USSR. This thread's proposition is "Did Stalin's Leadership do more good or harm for his country on the Eastern front?"
My point was that Stalin stuck to his guns and his agreements at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam, and the USSR survived WWII and the following years because of Stalin's leadership on the Eastern front during WWII. Your article did not contradict that -- and the fact that the elections in Greece in voting in socialists who were then assassinated and the fact that Austria selected a NON-socialist government (in spite of 1/3 of Vienna occupied by Soviet forces) may say something, too.
Not 20 million deaths, but casualties (that includes POWs, which, incidentally, were treated as traitors by Stalin when liberated form their camps). If you had been following my posts, you might have noticed that the great Stalin lost the forces originally put against the Axis invasion plus the forces raised to replace these. It was only when Stalin started to listen to his commanding generals that Soviet performance improved. (What your remarks about so-called "fifth columns" have to do with anything is unclear to me.)
Austria (only partly occupied by the USSR) was evacuated according to plan. In Greece there was a civil war going on.
When? Czechoslovakia was part of the Soviet zone.
Actually, after the first free elections the non-Communist parties were systematically removed from power - you left out that bit. (And ofcourse the various popular protests against glorious Communism that had to be violently suppressed in several Eastern bloc countries. The West gladly obliged by not interfering in the Soviet zone.)
Apparently Socialism (or rather Communism) didn't agree with these countries - including Russia, by the way - after all. Forty or so years of firsthand experience with "real existing socialism" seems to have cured most people of it.
But I agree, that is somewhat off topic.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Minor nitpick: Futurism was, politically, a fascist thing. Its mentors became enamoured of fascism, though not necessarily all its artists.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Too bad, cause Futurism was awesome.
Also, it was actively promoted under Mussolini (unlike Hitler, whose art views were simply reactionary).
When I see buildings like that I hope for an earthquake.
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