I’ve just watched Billy Bob’s last video featuring Ian and I have something to say about Russia, China, India, Lenin and Stalin who were mentioned.
I believe there is no such thing as democratic, communist or socialist countries. There are just countries with their unique cultures that have some central, pivotal ideas. For example, the pivotal idea of the Russian culture seems to be Justice for everybody, the pivotal idea of the American culture seems to be Freedom. And yes, many of those ideas are actually complimentary, not mutually exclusive. I guess I wrote that before, so this is just a recap.
Democracy, capitalism, communism and socialism are just short terms that are used to describe the current or goal condition of a country for outsiders, they are conventional labels. Yes, China is considered a communist country, but it is actually China. After the Revolution, China reverted to its ancient path defined by Taoist concepts, Confucius’s philosophy, the local version of Buddhism, etc. In its time, each of these philosophies was best to reflect China’s national Psyche, the drive inside the nation, their cravings and dreams.
Mao didn’t invent anything new for China, he just was best at choosing a modern idea that dovetailed with China’s original, grassroots nation-building pattern. And, by chance, it was communist [with with Chinese characteristics] (it’s the official name of the ideology, by the way). I also assume that Mao tried to retain whatever was good in the previous period mainly associated with attempts to colonize China.
Lenin and Yeltsin, while being totally different personalities, both diverted Russia from its path of Russian-ness. Stalin and Putin, also very different people, both brough it back on track. Stalin relied on Communism, Putin speaks of traditional values [with Russian characteristics, shall I add]. Stalin tried to retain all the gains of the Lenin’s period (e.g. women’s rights), same is true for Putin, though there is much less to retain from 1990s, if you ask me.
When Ian read the draft for this post, he asked me whether or not Stalin also relied on traditional values, and decriminalized the church. And, it’s true, he did when the war started. There’s an anecdote about marshal Vasilevsky’s father who was a priest. The original story seems to come from several sources including Vasilevsky himself, but here’s the gist. Stalin allegedly asked Vasilevsky whether he helped his old father, and the marshal replied he didn’t, he said he had split up with his father in 1926 because of the priesthood thing that might affect the son’s career. Stalin reminded that he himself actually wanted to become a priest insisted the marshal make it up with the father. Allegedly Stalin had also been secretly helping the old man before. As I said, this story exists in several versions with different shades and commentaries to it, but it gives an interesting angle to consider the personality from. The Nobel Prize winner Sholokhov was asked about the personality cult and he said, “Yes, there was the cult, but there was the personality”.
Now, India. It was I who told Ian that China was lucky to have Mao, while India… India had Gandhi. I think Gandhi failed to return India to its original path whichever it was and is. He also failed to prevent bloodshed as much as he tried to (look at how India and Pakistan got split). India still seems to be confused and ruled by ideas that came from abroad. Even its own traditions like yoga, Hinduism and Buddhism seem to work like tourist attractions, not pillars of the national mentality. I see the same trend in Japan and South Korea which are colonies retaining empty skins of national culture.
Wonderful to read native Russian perspective ideas, love them! Also had no idea about the Stalin-Vasilevsky exhange. It would be very interesting if you added ( by contrast ) Japan, Pakistan, or Europe. Thanks, and nice to “e-meet” you, Maria! I will be checking this blog much more frequently from now on.
Ben – from Bill Bob’s team – product of the People’s Republic of Hungary 1982.
Thanks for the comment, Ben! Nice to meet you).
Yes, all ideas are lies; and what’s left are fundamental values and cultures, nation, race, religion.
Great leaders are mostly pragmatic and patriotic. I believe they’re also religious, whatever they themselves may say.
Bismark and Stalin were great, in every sense of the word.
Churchill had greatness in him but he wasn’t a Brit; he was a Toff.
Gandhi was a fraud.
Gandhi is now rightly and widely held in contempt by much of the Indian population, and has just about been abandoned by the Modi regime, which prefers to idolise Vallabhbhai Patel (independent India’s first home minister) instead. I am convinced that Slavoj Zizek was right for once when he called Gandhi a safety valve for the Brutish. He let off popular anger in India against Brutish rule in “nonviolent uprisings” that achieved exactly nothing. Without Gandhi, I am convinced, a violent Indian uprising was inevitable in the 1920s which would (likely with covert Soviet assistance) have brought about independence of a united Indian subcontinent with a far lower cumulative number of deaths. For instance the 1943 artificial Bengal Famine which killed over 4 million would not have happened, nor would the over one million murdered in the Partition pogroms of 1947-48.
It’s interesting. I didn’t know that opinions are changing. Thanks for the comment.
Arguments over labels are generally a waste of time but some how we still get into them. There are Americans who think Russians are still all communists but they are pretending not to be in order to trick us into letting down our guard.
Americans don’t even know what communism is. We still think our system is capitalist