Prokofiev's Wacky Politics
Walter Traprock
sick, he keeled over and died from distress. Years before, he
composed a heart felt toast to Stalin; although it may seem
ridiculous to us now, we should have the moral integrity to owe
some forebearance to some one with such greatness who held such
heart felt views with sincerity.
A Toast! Op. 85
(In honour of Stalin's 60th birthday)
Never has been
A field so green.
Never was such happiness:
The village overflows.
Never was
Our life so joyous,
Never before
Our rye so luscious.
Differently, for is, shines
The sun upon the earth:
It, with Stalin
In the Kremlin had its birth.
I sing, rocking my son
On my hips
"You will grow, like the ears
Of blue cornflowers.
'Stalin' will will be the first word
On your lips!
You will understand, whence streams
This brilliant lightness.
In your book you will draw
Stalin's likeness.
Oh! Cherry blossom in the orchard
Like a blossom shower.
The life of my spring orchard
Has now come to flower!
Oh! Burns, plays the sun
In the pure droplets of the roses!
This sparkle, warmth and sun
Stalin us disposes.
You will understand, my beloved
That his warmth
Through hills, through mountains
Reaches out to you."
II
If I had my time again,
If the Kokshaga river flowed northwards,
If my eyes sparkled as at seventeen,
If my cheeks still glowed fresh as an apple,
Then I would go to Moscow, our big city,
And, to Josef Stalin, "thank you" I would say.
III
He hears and sees how the people lives,
How the people lives, works.
For good work, for work well done
He rewards everyone.
He invites all to Moscow,
Meeting them tenderly,
Speaking with all happily, tenderly.
Oh! He hears and sees how the people lives.
How the people lives, works.
For good work, for work well done
He rewards everyone.
He welcomes guests
Bringing them to the airy drawing room
He seats them around tables, oaken tables,
He questions all,
Yes, he questions, he enquires:
How is work? How do you need?
How do the people work? What do they need?
He gives out sound advice.
He hears and sees how the people lives,
How the people lives, works.
For good work, for work well done
He rewards everyone.
He invites all to Moscow,
He greets them very happily,
He greets them very tenderly,
Giving sound advice.
IV
Oh! yesterday we sang songs, in style celebratory
We neither drank to the passing of chastity,
Nor have we Aksinia in matrimony,
But conveyed to her meeting with Stalin.
To this city of Moscow we took her, to the capitol,
As a girl dressed for marriage ceremonial,
The fair Aksinia came through the gates:
A beautiful, fair lady, in new boots!
We too Aksinia to the outskirts of the village,
With her, sending Stalin our good message.
He hears and sees how the people lives,
How the people lives, works.
For good work, for work well done
He rewards everyone.
He invites all to Moscow,
He greets tenderly,
Talking to all wisely and happily.
V
Much misfortune, Stalin, you endured
Much misfortune you endured, and much torment
For the people you suffered.
The Tsar destroyed us for protest
Destroyed us for protest.
He left women without husbands,
Left them without husbands.
You showed us new ways,
Showed us new ways.
We are happy to follow you.
Your eyes are our eyes, dear chief of ours!
Your thoughts are as one with ours!
Your are the banner of our high forts.
You are the fire of our blood, our thoughts,
STALIN, STALIN!
Bob Harper
> Prokofiev was a real Stalin lover, and when he heard Stalin was
> sick, he keeled over and died from distress. Years before, he
> composed a heart felt toast to Stalin; although it may seem
> ridiculous to us now, we should have the moral integrity to owe
> some forebearance to some one with such greatness who held such
> heart felt views with sincerity.
>
> A Toast! Op. 85
> (In honour of Stalin's 60th birthday)
>
What a grisly way to demonstrate your ability to plant your tongue
firmly in your cheek! I have no idea of Prokofiev's politics, but the
notion that he could have set this text with anything in mind other than
fear of what would happen if he didn't, is unbelievable.
Sorry if I'm being too obvious, but if ever a man existed who deserved
merde on his grave, Joe's that man.
Bob Harper
Paul Ilechko
Walter Traprock is probably a sock puppet for Richard Fangnail, or vice
versa - in either case a troll is a troll is a troll ...
DmitryG
No, you cannot say that Prokofiev was a Stalin lover because at those
times everyone was forced to express adoration of Stalin. Prokofiev
returned to the USSR by mistake, his wife was arrested and he was,
together with Shostakovich and Myaskovsky, a target of the well-known
Zhdanov's 1948 campaign against "formalism" in music. For some reason
(maybe protection of Tikhon Khrennikov) composers were not sent to the
camps but they lost a solid portion of their health because of fear.
This work is cantata, a popular music form favored by the Communist
Party. All composers wrote cantatas to improve their standing, it was
impossible to keep away from this. The verses quoted should belong to
some poet, not to Prokofiev. Prokofiev wrote music.
Best,
Dmitry
aleksios
said:
> [...] the notion that he could have set this text with anything
> in mind other than fear of what would happen if he didn't, is
> unbelievable. [...]
Then be prepared to meet the unbelievable.
And I know whereof I speak, because I had to recite -- and write, and
discuss, etc -- stuff like that throughout my grammar school, high
school, and university. You didn't do it out of fear -- you did it
because it was part of life, like wind in Chicago, or snow in
Montreal; you did it because everybody else (or almost everybody else)
did it; you did it because you were not one of the very few
exceptionally brave ones, and, anyway, it seemed an exceptionally
small price to pay.
--Alex (the experienced philistine)
Bob Harper
no *overt* terror driving your behavior, but by then (the '60s, '70s ?)
it wasn't necessary, and wherever it is you're from was run by a bunch
of lazy thugs, not by a homicidal maniac. Prokofiev wasn't so 'lucky'.
Bob Harper
aleksios
said:
> A distinction without much difference, it seems to me. Perhaps
> there was no *overt* terror driving your behavior, but by then
> (the '60s, '70s ?) it wasn't necessary, and wherever it is
> you're from was run by a bunch of lazy thugs, not by a homicidal
> maniac. Prokofiev wasn't so 'lucky'.
First, I strongly object to the description of Stalin as a "homicidal
maniac". Of course, here's not the place to argue about it, so I'll
mention just this -- when a system of beliefs produces 'homicidal
maniacs' as a matter of course, then the issue is no longer the
individual, but that system of beliefs.
Second, of course there were differences; but do you really think that
'lazy thug' is a suitable description of a Ceausescu or a Hoxha?
Third, IMHO, the circumstances in which Prokofiev wrote Zdravitsa do
not support the notion that he did it out of sheer terror. I'd suggest
Bulgakov's Moliere as an aid in understanding those days.
--Alex (the fortunate philistine)
Martin Altschwager
"aleksios" <alex...@gmail.com> wrote...
> On 2007-06-18 10:12:35 -0400, Bob Harper <bob.h...@comcast.net>
> said:
> >
> > A distinction without much difference, it seems to me. Perhaps
> > there was no *overt* terror driving your behavior, but by then
> > (the '60s, '70s ?) it wasn't necessary, and wherever it is
> > you're from was run by a bunch of lazy thugs, not by a homicidal
> > maniac. Prokofiev wasn't so 'lucky'.
>
> First, I strongly object to the description of Stalin as a "homicidal
> maniac". Of course, here's not the place to argue about it, so I'll
> mention just this -- when a system of beliefs produces 'homicidal
> maniacs' as a matter of course, then the issue is no longer the
> individual, but that system of beliefs.
I think in this case, the egg was there before the chicken, not the other
way round...
M. A.
bob.h...@comcast.net
> On 2007-06-18 10:12:35 -0400, Bob Harper <bob.har...@comcast.net>
> said:
>
> > A distinction without much difference, it seems to me. Perhaps
> > there was no *overt* terror driving your behavior, but by then
> > (the '60s, '70s ?) it wasn't necessary, and wherever it is
> > you're from was run by a bunch of lazy thugs, not by a homicidal
> > maniac. Prokofiev wasn't so 'lucky'.
>
> First, I strongly object to the description of Stalin as a "homicidal
> maniac". Of course, here's not the place to argue about it, so I'll
> mention just this -- when a system of beliefs produces 'homicidal
> maniacs' as a matter of course, then the issue is no longer the
> individual, but that system of beliefs.
As you should know from my history here, I hold no brief for the
system which gave Stalin the opportunity to practice and, indeed, to
enlarge his villainy.
>
> Second, of course there were differences; but do you really think that
> 'lazy thug' is a suitable description of a Ceausescu or a Hoxha?
It's undoubtedly inadequate. Perhaps 'hard-working thug' comes a
little closer. And of course I realize that people like these two were
far more wicked than mere thugs, but I'm convinced that they couldn't
have worked their malevolence without the cooperation of legions
of...thugs, lazy or otherwise.
>
> Third, IMHO, the circumstances in which Prokofiev wrote Zdravitsa do
> not support the notion that he did it out of sheer terror. I'd suggest
> Bulgakov's Moliere as an aid in understanding those days.
I'll try to find it, but I would suggest that in a sufficiently
traumatized society, sheer terror AT THE MOMENT is not necessary to
obtain the, ah, cooperation of the 'masses'.
Bob Harper
>
> --Alex (the fortunate philistine)
Jerry
Reagrdless of the text, the music is still quite delightful.
For a revised text (that replaces references to
"Communism and the Party with praise and
reverence for the homeland") try IMP 00122
(LPO, Derek Gleeson). If you don't mind
the original text and/or can't understand Russian,
seek out Chant du Monde LDC 278 389
(USSR, Svetlanov).
El Klauso
babushka to suck eggs, everything that I've heard of from those who
escaped the Stalinist system or from the undoubtedly biased-but-there-
must-be-some-factual-basis-for-it Western press is in complete
agreement with the designation of Stalin as a homicidal maniac.
The KGB shootings and the brigades of the intelligentsia imprisoned
and starved in the gulags were tactics which stripped off the
protective layer of the very minds and abilities which might have
served Russia better in times of famine and war, hence we can lay much
of the blame for the astoundingly heavy USSR casualties at Stalin's
feet. Another killing machine of Stalin was his unworkable and
inflexible modernization policies. The state dogma of "five year
plans" to "improve" agriculture were in many cases, self-inflicted
genocide.
Accounts vary, but between the human lives wasted in the war by
incompetence, the state-mandated starvations, and the purges, Stalin
may have been responsible for the deaths of any where between
20,000,000 and 43,000,000 citizens of the USSR. (Sources: Conquest's
"The Great Terror" and Rummel's "Lethal Politics."
O
Jerry <GPGe...@aol.com> wrote:
If it makes anyone feel any better, the words as wrote above somewhat
fit the tune "Hooray for Captain Spaulding!" as originally sung by
Groucho. (Another Marx.)
-Owen
O
Klauso <Kla...@Verizon.net> wrote:
> Accounts vary, but between the human lives wasted in the war by
> incompetence, the state-mandated starvations, and the purges, Stalin
> may have been responsible for the deaths of any where between
> 20,000,000 and 43,000,000 citizens of the USSR. (Sources: Conquest's
> "The Great Terror" and Rummel's "Lethal Politics."
>
Hitler was a mass murderer. By Stalin's standards, he wasn't very
good at it. Stalin was very, very good at it. The way we can tell is
the number of survivors left to tell of the deeds. Stalin left only a
few survivors. Stalin won his war, greatly expanded his territory, and
died in bed of natural causes.
-Owen
ukr...@yahoo.com
Actually the estimates range much higher than 43,000,000 by some. What
is generally agreed by narly everyone I've ever read is the 20,000,000
starting point.
I passed this thread by earlier hoping evryone would just ignore it,
but since it hasn't become a shouting match, I have to add that once
Prokofiev returned, he was no longer treated as he had been earlier.
The poster talks about integrity, which is a much different issue once
one has to eat and keep a roof over oneself (and one's family). I
think life much more complex and Prokofoev's situation was a
reflection of that. And what is obvious to us now more than 60+ years
later was not as obvious with the sounds of Europe preparing for war
and all that was going on at that time.
aleksios
> [...] I hold no brief for the system [...]
I shouldn't think you did; but the problem is different. The tendency
(and by no means in the West only) to describe such characters as
madmen, maniacs, psychopaths, etc, tends to obscure the real issue,
which is one of systems, rather than people.
> [...] I would suggest that in a sufficiently traumatized
> society, sheer terror AT THE MOMENT is not necessary to obtain
> the, ah, cooperation of the 'masses'.
Of course not. But -- and sometimes I despair of having most
Westerners fully comprehend the realities of totalitarian regimes --
that was only one part of a very complex picture, and not necessarily
applicable in every instance -- "dem Fuehrer entgegen
arbeiten" ("working towards the Fuehrer") was not specific to Nazi
Germany alone.
As to co-operation, neither Shostakovich (who was no dissident) nor
Prokofiev (who was no lickspittle) were part of the 'masses', any more
than Lully or Marais were part of the French 'masses'; 'middle
management' would be closer to Soviet reality. Frolova-Walker puts it
like this:
[...] The new Soviet music, in contrast to
19-century high-art music, ceased to be a
commodity for public concert institutions, and
it had no more than superficial importance for
music publishers. The composers [...] became
white-collar workers comparable to civil
servants. Their former professional mobility
based on the approval of wealthy sponsors and
well-heeled concert and opera audiences was now
replaced by bureaucratic mobility based on the
approval of their peers within the Composers'
Union and on the attention of senior Party
figures [...]
The majority of works produced by Soviet
composers were written to mark political
anniversaries; this was entirely routine [...].
Almost every work written in the Soviet Union
during this period was therefore an occasional
piece, oil for the machinery of State ritual.
[...] [p104]
For those interested in the subject, I suggest reading the whole
article, which is available here
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/2pg4o3>
I found it worthwhile, even if I didn't agree with every point.
--Alex (the tendentious philistine)
Phil Caron
Ok, all right, OK, WHY PHILISTINE?????
WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ???????????????????????????????????????
AAAAAAAAAHHHHH! EEEEE-YYYAAUUGHHAAAHH !!!
WHY,
EFFING,
PHILISTINE ? ! ? ! ? ! ?
!!!@##@@!$!$!@#$!%i)O890[-15;FFSJKL;?????????????????
- Phil Caron
Bob Harper
> On 2007-06-18 13:23:06 -0400, bob.h...@comcast.net said:
>
>> [...] I hold no brief for the system [...]
>
> I shouldn't think you did; but the problem is different. The tendency
> (and by no means in the West only) to describe such characters as
> madmen, maniacs, psychopaths, etc, tends to obscure the real issue,
> which is one of systems, rather than people.
>
A sentiment with which I am in complete agreement. That many of them
*were* 'madmen, maniacs, psychopaths, etc' is in addition to, and in
part a consequence of, their being in control of said system.
No Ian Pace I.
Bob Harper
Bob Lombard
"Phil Caron" <vlad...@vermontel.net> wrote in message
news:11822027...@r2d2.vermontel.net...
Jeez, Phil. Alexios may (or may not) be an effete, lying piss-ant, but your
post is OUT OF CONTROL.
:)
bl
Philip Peters
"Hello, I must be going".
P.
aleksios
<thorste...@vermontel.net> said:
> [...] Alexios may (or may not) be an effete,
> lying piss-ant [...]
I think you forgot to add "elitist snobbish snivelling stuck-up
pernickety toffee-nosed".
The 'lying' bit has me wondering, though. Have I, in a moment of
unaccountable absent-mindedness, told Deacon that I admired his acumen
in recognising piano geniuses -- or told you that you were honest,
clever, and craggily handsome?
--Alex (the snotty philistine)
aleksios
<wrdslremovethis¿@pacbell.net> said:
> [...] I'd always been under the impression that sending
> politically problematic people to Siberia was an invention of
> the communist era, but it turns out it had been going on for a
> long time prior.
It's part of growing up. As you go to school, study history, perhaps
even read a book or two on your own, you discover new things. For
instance, eventually you'll discover just how different internal exile
under the Tsars was from the Gulag.
Sorta like learning to enjoy a symphony. At first, you're under the
impression that it's just a jumble of sounds. Then you discover you
can hear a pretty melody or two. Finally, you get to understand that a
symphony is about more than just pretty tunes. Isn't it wonderful?
--Alex (the sarcastic philistine)
Ian Pace
"El Klauso" <Kla...@Verizon.net> wrote in message
news:1182195944.3...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
> Accounts vary, but between the human lives wasted in the war by
> incompetence, the state-mandated starvations, and the purges, Stalin
> may have been responsible for the deaths of any where between
> 20,000,000 and 43,000,000 citizens of the USSR. (Sources: Conquest's
> "The Great Terror" and Rummel's "Lethal Politics."
>
scholarly disagreement on the figures who died, with those presented by
Conquest and Rummel very much occupying the higher end of the spectrum
(though Conquest himself shifted his figures down by a factor of almost 10
million from his earlier claims). Some claim figures of less than 10
million. I haven't investigated this in any great detail, so feel unable to
have even an amateur's grasp on the trustworthiness of various competing
figures. Now, it can seem rather crass to be making this an issue (hard to
see that someone who killed 10 million people is somehow 'less bad' than
someone who killed 20 or 30 million); just that there is nothing approaching
the scholarly consensus that exists on the number of victims of the Third
Reich. There's probably still a great amount of work to be done on this
subject.
In the context of this thread, the following article might be of interest -
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2077496,00.html
Ian
Ian Pace
"Bob Harper" <bob.h...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:D9OdnccSq_pkh-rb...@comcast.com...
such a comprehensive and absolutely devastating network of planned mass
murder, total control and repression, gulags, and the like? I would have
thought that needs some very calculating and careful people.
Ian
Ian Pace
'Long Live Chairman Mao' by Cornelius Cardew, written in 1973 (it's in the
1973 Piano Album)? How much information was generally known in the West
about the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution by this time? This
is an issue that (perhaps unsurprisingly) not many of the fanatical Cardew
followers want to discuss. Christian Wolff also wrote a piece in 1972 called
'Accompaniments' for speaking pianist, which includes a text praising the
increases in women's sanitation under Mao.
Artists make mistakes when the full information is not available, that is
why I am curious to know what would have been encountered reasonably
commonly in the West at those times, from anyone who knows?
Ian
ukr...@yahoo.com
> > In article <1182197785.952440.84...@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, ukrn...@yahoo.com says...
> > On Jun 18, 10:45 pm, El Klauso <Klau...@Verizon.net> wrote:
> > > At the risk of metaphorically teaching ones formerly communist
> > > babushka to suck eggs, everything that I've heard of from those who
> > > escaped the Stalinist system or from the undoubtedly biased-but-there-
> > > must-be-some-factual-basis-for-it Western press is in complete
> > > agreement with the designation of Stalin as a homicidal maniac.
>
> > > The KGB shootings and the brigades of the intelligentsia imprisoned
> > > and starved in the gulags were tactics which stripped off the
> > > protective layer of the very minds and abilities which might have
> > > served Russia better in times of famine and war, hence we can lay much
> > > of the blame for the astoundingly heavy USSR casualties at Stalin's
> > > feet. Another killing machine of Stalin was his unworkable and
> > > inflexible modernization policies. The state dogma of "five year
> > > plans" to "improve" agriculture were in many cases, self-inflicted
> > > genocide.
>
> > > Accounts vary, but between the human lives wasted in the war by
> > > incompetence, the state-mandated starvations, and the purges, Stalin
> > > may have been responsible for the deaths of any where between
> > > 20,000,000 and 43,000,000 citizens of the USSR. (Sources: Conquest's
> > > "The Great Terror" and Rummel's "Lethal Politics."
>
> > Actually the estimates range much higher than 43,000,000 by some. What
> > is generally agreed by narly everyone I've ever read is the 20,000,000
> > starting point.
>
> of perspective, what was the population of the USSR at the start of
> Stalin's rule anyway?
>
> > I passed this thread by earlier hoping evryone would just ignore it,
> > but since it hasn't become a shouting match, I have to add that once
> > Prokofiev returned, he was no longer treated as he had been earlier.
> > The poster talks about integrity, which is a much different issue once
> > one has to eat and keep a roof over oneself (and one's family). I
> > think life much more complex and Prokofoev's situation was a
> > reflection of that. And what is obvious to us now more than 60+ years
> > later was not as obvious with the sounds of Europe preparing for war
> > and all that was going on at that time.
>
> communist years generally, that I've only discovered in the last year
> or so, and that is that the atrocities, mass murders, and the sending
> off to Siberia are in a way a very direct continuation of the
> historical brutalities in that part of the world, and were not all that
> new. The scale was unprecedented, but the basics of how it worked were
> well in place long before Stalin arrived on the scene. Funny how
> that's not discussed very much. At the very least, it helps explain
> Stalin's success at it, and the relative lack of resistance, which
> always seemed a little weird to me. For example, I'd always been under
> the impression that sending politically problematic people to Siberia
> was an invention of the communist era, but it turns out it had been
> going on for a long time prior.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
In the neighborhood of 150-160 million when Stalin took over
(population). This is not always so easy to count as republics were
added as well. And then they added more 1939-1941. And of course,
after the war, they took places like Konigsburg (now Kaliningrad).
There is always the question of how to count and what attrocities to
include. For example, the famines in Ukraine.
Yes, others were sent earlier to Siberia. But then, most governments
would do something similar if we are still talking about monarchies
and such of that time. The British, Austro-Hungarians, French, etc.
were not so different in that sense.
sechumlib
> Do you think mentally deranged people could really have put into
> practice such a comprehensive and absolutely devastating network of
> planned mass murder, total control and repression, gulags, and the
> like? I would have thought that needs some very calculating and careful
> people.
Have you any reason to think "very calculating and careful people"
can't, at the same time, be "mentally deranged"?
Bob Harper
> On 2007-06-19 01:55:48 -0400, Wayne Reimer
conditions of (Tsarist era) imprisonment in Siberia with Solzhenitsyn's
description of conditions in Stalin's Gulag will sort it out for you.
Bob Harper
Bob Harper
contradictory. And if indeed they were simply 'very calculating and
careful' people, then they are even more horrifying.
Bob Harper
Al Eisner
> Walter Traprock wrote:
>> Prokofiev was a real Stalin lover, and when he heard Stalin was
>> sick, he keeled over and died from distress. Years before, he
>> composed a heart felt toast to Stalin; although it may seem
>> ridiculous to us now, we should have the moral integrity to owe
>> some forebearance to some one with such greatness who held such
>> heart felt views with sincerity.
>>
>> A Toast! Op. 85
>> (In honour of Stalin's 60th birthday)
>>
> (snip fawning text)
>
> What a grisly way to demonstrate your ability to plant your tongue firmly in
> your cheek! I have no idea of Prokofiev's politics, but the notion that he
> could have set this text with anything in mind other than fear of what would
> happen if he didn't, is unbelievable.
>
> Sorry if I'm being too obvious, but if ever a man existed who deserved merde
> on his grave, Joe's that man.
It's also ironic that Prokofiev and Stalin died on the same day. It
would have been interesting to see what direction Prokofiev would have
gone in had he lived another ten years.
--
Al Eisner
San Mateo Co., CA
A. Brain
> I am not aware that the two states are, in this case, necessarily
> contradictory. And if indeed they were simply 'very calculating and
> careful' people, then they are even more horrifying.
No, I am not comparing the current U.S. regime's
protagonists like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.
to Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, but they are pretty
horrifying.
Perhaps Bob would care to explain Mitt Romney's
recent suggestion that we double the size of the
Guantanamo facility in Cuba? I'm still waiting
for the "liberal media" to pose that question.
And for Rumsfeld's and Bush's complicity in the
Abu Ghraib business, check out "conservative" Andrew
Sullivan's site and scroll down to "The Torture
Documents".
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/
I'm not much of a Sullivan fan, but that
doesn't mean he can't be right some of'
the time. And is this business really just
a matter of scale, such that Stalin or
Mao are arguably "worse" because
there were more victims?
I'm not much of a Christopher Hitchens
fan either, but his new book ought to be
required reading in our schools.
CH is a formidable advocate and his
thesis, "religion poisons everything",
is right on. Let's hope that it becomes
one of the most influential books of all
time and that politicians quit trying to
show how "faithy" they are.
--
A. Brain
Remove NOSPAM for email.
aleksios
> In the context of this thread, the following article might be of
> interest - http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,
> 2077496,00.html
I don't see how it is of any interest in the context of this thread --
as it has nothing to do with Prokofiev, or 'Zdravitsa', or music under
Stalin or Communism in general, or indeed anything to do with music in
the slightest. Other than that, I'm sorry, but IMHO it's the kind of
leftist tripe all too often featured by the Guardian, and not really
worth our while.
--Alex (the trenchant philistine)
Phil Caron
case, firmly ensconced in his craggy cheek.
- Phil Caron
Walter Traprock
Instead of the Guardian, you might try Molotov Remembers, if you can
take 400 pages of Moly mumbling, it has some music references, I think.
He also refers to a tasty food called a salami, which is some type of
sausage made with lard, that Hungarians go in a big way for. The same
author of the original Russian book also did a book on Kaganovich about
the same time, but, unfortunately was never translated; I suspect it's
similar, Molotov and Kaganovich were both mean people, not very nice. I
tried to read a Zhdanov essay on music, but even with just twenty easy
to read pages, it could use some summary; still, with cursory judgement,
it has some good ideas about music.
Michael Schaffer
Lenin was characterized as "stark raving mad" by the German agents who
orchestrated and funded his return to Russia in 1917. They thought
that if let loose there, he would create so much chaos that the
government could be overthrown and Russia would then retreat from the
war. Which all turned out to be true, except that they probably didn't
think they would create a new, ideologically extremely dangerous enemy
and a century of cold war.
Oops.
Richard Loeb
news:MPG.20e25ac4d...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net...
>> In article <467814c2$0$4714$4c36...@roadrunner.com>,
>> sech...@liberal.net says...
> fact, a symptom of being mentally deranged. It all depends on context,
> as does so much in the realm of determining mental condition. I'm
> pretty sure that many CEOs of big corporations are sociopathic and even
> psychopathic, but their context (which is, to a surprising degree,
> controlled by them), they can appear to be "normal" and mentally
> balanced.
>
> wr
>
No question - the fact that one is not a a raving thing does not mean that
the same person is not a sociopath or psychopath. Richard