Notable Passings

[Reese Williams]

It was part of the NPR obit piece. May be available on their website. Granted not the most unimpeachable source.

[Pat Holscher]

Thanks for all the really interesting comments on this one. Very interesting, and it caused me to go back and see what I could dig up on him.

What I learned shows, to a degree, what an enigmatic character he was. It's universally noted, as JV notes, that his father was an artillery officer in the Imperidal Russian Army, meaning that Solzhenitsyn repeated that part of his father's career. His father died in 1918, but in a hunting accident, and he never knew his father. Some items state that his family was of peasant stock, and others of Cossack stock, the two not being exclusive, so it would seem that he did have a bit of a Cossack background. Given his strong affinity for traditional Russia, and the Cossack's traditional defense of the Czar, it would seem that he sort of reprized that role as well, albeit in a literary fashion.

Some articles claim his mother remained strongly Russian Orthodox after the Revolution. Others say that she raised him in the Russian Orthodox tradition, but it was really an aunt's devotion to the traditional faith that came out in him in later years.

None of that is a surprise, but an article in a Belfast newspaper did indicate that in his teens he was an ardent Marxist. At the same time the article noted that he remained religious. While I suppose this isn't impossible, being both at the same time, in the Soviet Union, does seem irreconcilable. Based on that article, at any rate, it would appear that as a very young man he had picked up the official enthusiasm for Marxism. I don't think that's impossible, as it does seem that the generation that came up between the wars in the USSR did fall into their country's extreme official enthusiasms at least briefly. Some remained ardent Communist, but the influence of their native culture, their intelligence, and tradition ultimately overcame that. That seems to be the case with Solzhenitsyn, who seems to have gone from traditional Russian youth, to somewhat ardent Marxist as a late teen, to moderate Leninist at the time he was at first in the Army, back to Russian traditionalist by the time he was imprisoned.

The depths to which he opposed Communism cannot be doubted. He labored for years, when he did not have to, under great threat of arrest, to write in opposition to it. Only the truly dedicated would undertake such a labor, when it could have cost him his life at any time, and when it seemed so extremely unlikely that it would ever bear fruit.

As an added horse related item, I note that at the time he was a wagon driver, he was actually in a Cossack regiment. He didn't know much about horses, however, and was the brunt of jokes in the unit for that reason.

On joining the Communist party, even though he was enamored with it as a teen, he never joined it. The Belfast article noted that he was only one of two of thirty officers in his unit that did not join the Communist Party. That speaks pretty loudly as well, as that would have made him an object of unwelcome attention.

On officers and the Communist Party, thanks for clearing that up, JV. I had thought that all Soviet officers were in the Communist Party, and I was clearly wrong.

On his criticisms of the West, I agree with JV. I really don't think his comments are all that unusual, and they fall into a certain line of thought. I suspect that Solzhenitsyn himself did not realize that his criticisms of materialism were not unique. In some ways, Solzhenitsyn's later views almost seem to be a Russian version of the same line of country that individuals like Wendell Berry have plowed in the US. That is, they are not anti-modern, but they are anti-materialistic, and have a religious focus. In Solzhenitsyn's case, they also had a Russian cultural focus, but then that makes sense in the context of his Russian centralism.

[Pat Holscher]

I've always felt that his "August 1914" was his best book but I'm sure thats my prejudice for the era speaking rather than the quality of his writing, which is very difficult to translate well.

I haven't read that, what is it about?

[Joseph Sullivan]

Ah, well, I suppose it is time, to quote Kenneth Clark, "to reveal my true colors as a stick in the mud." I certainly think that some elements of our pop/material culture are repulsive and wrong. That said, I am as ardent a supporter of free enterprise as you are likely to meet. The two are not mutually exclusive. And, I agree that Solz. went a bit over the top, but remember, Communism is a materialist creed, and he was all too used to and repelled by its consequences. materialism is, well, materialism.

I am no expert on Russia and Russians. However, in my dim collegiate past, I did independent study on them under a Hungarian Cistertian of blessed memory -- to the amount of, brace yourselves -- 7,000 pages of reading. Much of that has slipped away, leaving only a few key conclusions. The first is that they are not part of Western Civilization except on the edges, but rather , an oriental culture of their own, but one that looks in many ways like ours in the west. This makes understanding them harder, in my experience, than if they were dramatically different, like, say, India, where westerners are clearly and obviously different and so can be more detached and less likely to interpret in western terms. Russians aren't today and never were in any cultural sense democratic. They have a strong pull towards a powerful central leader, a "little father," once the Tsar, and now Putin. Their cultural frame of reference is mostly inward. They treasure Russian-ess. Read Tolstoy, especially War and Peace, for a strong expression of this. Solz, treasured Russian-ness. He did not ever to my knowledge advocate westernization and democracy. Rather, he wanted a just Russian society. He was not an enemy of the west, and he was grateful to be exiled here, but he was not a part of the west and saw its flaws and what he thought were its flaws.

Joe

[JV Puleo]

Joe,
That is very well put. Better than I could have done.
I'd go a half-step further and suggest that even Russian Communism was a surface gloss on a unique culture. No amount of ideology has ever been able to really obscure the essential Russian-ness of their behavior.

Joe P

[Joseph Sullivan]

Thank you, Joe, and I agree with you. In fact, you could argue and some do, that Communism was a temporary incursion of a Western ideology into Russia.

The different-ness of Russia is a big part of its fascination. It is genuinely very different indeed. For example, a friend of mine was once a representative of the Swedish Parliament to the Politburo of the Soviet Union. He spent time there, had dinner with them, en bloc, and so forth. They used to march in military-style, and take their seats on command. There was no free discussion of issues over dinner. This is the Politburo, mind, of the Soviet empire. Can you imagine anything like that from men of similar rank in the West?

FWIW, he found them, in his words, intelligent, ignorant (of the outside world), and ruthless.

[Trooper]

...and ruthless.

Never forget that part.

[Pat Holscher]

Wow, this has been an extremely interesting conversation. I'll make a couple of replies/inquiries to the post above, but I can't help but note how interesting it has been. Today's entries are really fascinating.

[Pat Holscher]

Joe,
That is very well put. Better than I could have done.
I'd go a half-step further and suggest that even Russian Communism was a surface gloss on a unique culture. No amount of ideology has ever been able to really obscure the essential Russian-ness of their behavior.

Joe P

I agree. Both your comments, and Joe S's, have been simply excellent.

[Pat Holscher]

Ah, well, I suppose it is time, to quote Kenneth Clark, "to reveal my true colors as a stick in the mud." I certainly think that some elements of our pop/material culture are repulsive and wrong. That said, I am as ardent a supporter of free enterprise as you are likely to meet. The two are not mutually exclusive. And, I agree that Solz. went a bit over the top, but remember, Communism is a materialist creed, and he was all too used to and repelled by its consequences. materialism is, well, materialism.

That's an excellent, and misunderstood, point. The Communist often criticized the West as being materialist, but Communism itself was purely materialistic in nature, as it reduced all forms of human interaction to distribution of materials, and nothing else. And free markets do not equate with materialism. Our sort of present materialism is relatively recent, but free markets are not. Indeed, at least in the US, our markets are likely somewhat less free than they were a generation ago, but we're certainly more materialistic.

I am no expert on Russia and Russians. However, in my dim collegiate past, I did independent study on them under a Hungarian Cistertian of blessed memory -- to the amount of, brace yourselves -- 7,000 pages of reading. Much of that has slipped away, leaving only a few key conclusions. The first is that they are not part of Western Civilization except on the edges, but rather , an oriental culture of their own, but one that looks in many ways like ours in the west. This makes understanding them harder, in my experience, than if they were dramatically different, like, say, India, where westerners are clearly and obviously different and so can be more detached and less likely to interpret in western terms. Russians aren't today and never were in any cultural sense democratic. They have a strong pull towards a powerful central leader, a "little father," once the Tsar, and now Putin. Their cultural frame of reference is mostly inward. They treasure Russian-ess. Read Tolstoy, especially War and Peace, for a strong expression of this. Solz, treasured Russian-ness. He did not ever to my knowledge advocate westernization and democracy. Rather, he wanted a just Russian society. He was not an enemy of the west, and he was grateful to be exiled here, but he was not a part of the west and saw its flaws and what he thought were its flaws.

Joe

Thank you very much for your synopsis. I think you really set out very well what some of us were sort of murkily grasping out, and clarified it. And I think you very nicely summarized Solzhenitsyn's views, for good or ill.

To add a little commentary, although I should abstain from doing so as this post is so well set out, I somewhat wonder if those of us in the US find Russia to be fascinating as Russia's history has some parallels to our own, but in an exaggerated and extreme fashion. They're almost the negative of ourselves. We can recognize things, but they're strange and reversed.

For example, both countries have huge expanses, with densely populated cities, and vast stretches of farm and steppe. Russia more so, but we do as well. And both countries saw an expansion from the settled regions to the less settled, terminating on the Pacific. In our case, we went West. True to form, they went East. Both expansion were violent, but Russia's even more so, with the wild men of their expansion seemingly being the conquering people, rather than the conquered.

Both countries have played a critical role in stopping armed authoritarianism, but not in the same way. The US fought against the British in the name of freedom of the seas in the War of 1812. In what amounts to the same war, the Russians fought with the British to put down Napoleon, but in defense of the old order, in their view. We later came to reconciling with the British in nearly all things. The Russians already admired the French a great deal during the time period they were fighting them. In WWII we both fought the Germans, but the outcome for our peoples was quite different.

The US has tended, in modern times, to look outward. Russia tends to look inward, sort of the reverse of ourselves. Just within the past 24 hours, for example, the US had threatened to increase Russian "isolation", which demonstrates our view that isolation is bad, but which probably is a baffling threat to the Russians.

Of course, a person can only take that so far, but in some ways, Russia appears recognizable, but never quite in focus, to those of us looking at it from here.

They treasure Russian-ess. Read Tolstoy, especially War and Peace, for a strong expression of this.

I am presently reading War and Peace. I've never read it. I actually was motivated to read it by a review of a new translation of it I read, which stated the book to be the "greatest novel ever written".

I'm not sure that it's the greatest novel ever written, but it is really good. I've been getting a lot of airport time, and I bought a paperback version, so I'm proceeding through it quickly. It's excellent.

Since starting it, it's struck me how odd it is that people usually refer to the book's length. It is long, but it's perfectly manageable. And its so readable, even translated, that it's easy to go through a large portion of it in one reading.

[Pat Holscher]

Joe,
That is very well put. Better than I could have done.
I'd go a half-step further and suggest that even Russian Communism was a surface gloss on a unique culture. No amount of ideology has ever been able to really obscure the essential Russian-ness of their behavior.

Joe P

I'm not so sure that I'd agree that Communism was a surface gloss, except perhaps at the end. I agree with your observation, however that they've remained culturally identifiable.

Nations sometimes seem to have lives like people, except that they repeat their aging again and again. I mention that as it has seemed for me for some time that a lot of people, and perhaps all people to some degree, go through a late teen-early twenties stage in which they experiment with not being themselves. Before that they are, and later they are. It seems to me that a lot of people can see themselves, when their past their early 20s in the same people they were when they were about five or ten. The same likes, dislikes, and character, largely tends to be there. In their late teens and twenties, however, some false element often slips in. In some people it does so only to a small degree, as people pretend to like something as it appears to interest the opposite sex. In others, it makes a strong appearance. I've often thought, in recent years, when people make the statement that so and so "has changed", they're wrong. They didn't change, their suppressed personality just reappeared.

Perhaps not, but it sort of seems that way.

Anyhow, nations, in their long lifespans, sometimes do that as well. A nation will have a long identifiable culture, and then suddenly slip into a period of utter lunacy. When the lunatic period ends, surprisingly, the old culture pops back up, usually (although some cultures clearly permanently change).

Perhaps things are not really that way, but when I was a teen I remember lectures in junior high about how now, with the long history of Communism in the Soviet Union, people didn't know anything else, and really liked it. I was skeptical.

Well, starting in 1990, it turned out that Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, etc., remembered exactly who they were, and what they were, and what that meant. Who would have guessed? Russians too. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, we'd see the reappearance of Czarist symbols that would have landed a person in the pokey a few years prior. That people remember what those meant, and had them, is stunning.

Anyhow, to at least some degree, what is notable about that is that the people of the Soviet Union were ruled by some of the most wicked, ruthless, and ideological cretins to ever rule any nation. And at least the first batch, Lenin through Stalin, and their flunkies, were likely true Red Loons. In spite of that, it would appear that all the critical elements of Russian-ness survived. Some have reappeared to an amazing degree.

[Pat Holscher]

In fact, you could argue and some do, that Communism was a temporary incursion of a Western ideology into Russia.

One of the real oddities of the Russian Revolution is that Communism managed to establish itself first in Russia.

Russia had a whole host of strong radical groups, of which the Communist were one, prior to WWI. And Russia had a significant labor class, with very little ability to express its grievances, so it isn't surprising that radical labor centered groups like the Communist would gain a foothold there. And while they do appear to be a unique culture, they've always had a lot of European influences on their culture, of all sorts.

Having said that, however, Russia had an enormous rural peasant class. The peasantry was never a class that Communist were interested in, and the peasants were never interest in the Communist. Indeed, the peasantry was primarily interested in land issues, from a political prospective, which placed them squarely in opposition to the Communist. And as we now know, the peasantry actively opposed the Communist during the Russian Civil War, but their extreme regionalism made their opposition ineffective.

Even the urban laboring class was only barely removed from the peasants. There were Communist amongst them, but most weren't. And they likely didn't understand Communism well. Littauer gives a good description of that in his book on being a Hussar, where he describes one of his NCOs being an ardent anti-Communist, and then becoming an ardent Communist by attending a meeting. The NCO, Littauer felt, didn't understand Communism. Littauer noted that his Polish troops, who were better educated, understood that everything was going to go down the tubes after they left, which goes to the same thing.

Anyhow, the leaders of the Russian Communist were real Communist, to be sure, but through the process of exile and isolation, they were probably not entirely real Russians by the time they seized power. They were sort of a freakish murderous culture of their own making, and they managed to stamp out a lot in their own mold. Be that as it may, if a person had to have predicted where a Communist revolution would have broken out, and if you made the prediction in 1910, predicting that it would have occurred in Germany would have made a lot more sense. It was a lot more urban and industrial, and Marx thought of everything in that context.

In some ways, the Communist themselves must have sensed that. After taking over, one major Communist wacko, Trotsky, spent his time urging the USSR to invade other countries. At some level, you have to wonder if he felt they couldn't build on the Communist Manifesto in Russia, as it wasn't a society contemplated by it. The other wacko, Stalin, fixed that by industrializing, so he built a society that was one that made more sense in Communist terms.

[Pat Holscher]

Joe,
That is very well put. Better than I could have done.
I'd go a half-step further and suggest that even Russian Communism was a surface gloss on a unique culture. No amount of ideology has ever been able to really obscure the essential Russian-ness of their behavior.

Joe P

Somewhat related to this, the author of the memoir I quoted here occasionally a while back noted that in one Russian town he entered early in his experiences as a Soviet cavalryman, there was an Orthodox Priest who had a Soviet Army decoration, and had just been discharged from Soviet service in the war.

I know that the Soviets brutally repressed the Orthodox Church during the Communist period, and yet it survived the worst of it. I'm curious if anyone knows the extent to which the Soviets were forced to retreat on this during the war, and therefore thereafter.

[vidette]

I long ago read two to his books. I plan to read the "Oak and the Calf". I find his books slow and heavy to read; I don't look excitedly forward to reading them. But when I finish, I feel a sort of satisfaction; like, "I did my duty". I think he was an ethical man; and unexcitedly, I like him.

Circa 1967?, I was an Eastern Air Lines ramp serviceman at RDU (for me, a wonderful company; I loved my other three later airlines too); for vacation, I wanted to see Isreal and the U.S.S.R. Alitalia flew to Moscow once a week; only in the winter could an interline pass rider get reservations in and out. I made my reservations a year in advance, so I could bid my vacation to coinside. Apparently the Italian Communist Party soon booked all the rest of the seats.

I would be followed in Washington leaving the Soviet consulate (Washington Post said FBI had cameras upstairs across the street), and later followeed in ol' Mockba too--everyone doing their job, no complaints against either side--it was fun. I'd go talk with my followers in both countries; the old guys would grin like I was grinning. In both countries, an old hand knowing where I was headed, would correct my misdirections. The young'n's nervousness; like perplexed, "Where's this in the manual?"; I just loved, when I talked with'm. One pretended I was not there. Once an observing old hand was as much bemused by his nervous young partner as I--we chuckled together.

I stayed where the American scholars stayed, in the then Third Class, Hotel Berlin with polar bear (stuffed) rampant in it's lobby, near the Lenin Library, GUMS, Red Square, etc. I'd love to walk in the fresh falling snow at night. Anyway, our flight was Milano-Mockba. As we taxied in, the members stood up and flipped Lenin medals out of their suit coat front pockets. This "fellow traveler" felt naked--where's mine? I did not know the progressive Italian party would censor the Soviet party for it's ill treatmemt of Solzhenitysn at the writer's union. "S" had friends and admirers in the Italian party. I can't prove it; but to my perception, "S" had streak of ethical pragmatism I liked when it beat out his anti-ideology, ideology.

I guess "S" was in town to get progress reports from his Italian party admirers; if he was in town? I knew nothing of this until a year later when I learned how in WWII, he was called back from the front line to front headquarters; and before his C.O., the MKVD took his pistol and shoulderboards. It was about a letter, about "the man with the mustache". Under arrest, "S's" C.O. said stop, he wanted to shake "S's" hand, saying "S" was his best artilley officer. Note: The C.O. would become a KGB general. "S" never forgot that man's outstreched, hand of friendship, and adieu.

My next to last day in Moscow; I wanted something to take back. The "open book" store was called that, because it looked like an opened book on end. I could find no books in English in the big store. On the mezzanine I chanced on original Soviet prints. I narrowed my choices to two. A "politically safe" in America, Russian fairy tale; and one where my heart was in those saddles; a WWII Soviet (Cossack?) charge, all in red ink only. Alas, under a "politically incorrect" (in America) red hammer and sickly banner. I agonized--and observed a tall man in a cloth coat behind me (had my Hush Puppy shoes on (Russians instantly looked at my unusual shoes); those eyes, good eyes, not bad like Rasputin's; intently observing me. KGB?

My head said followed my heart, not my mind's concept of politcal correctness; it was the Red cavalry charge. And here an observation: The French talk head-to-head. The Americans heart-to-heart. The Iranians eyeball-to-eyeball. And Russians, soul-to-soul. And my American heart said; your soul's in the Russian cavalry charge. As the clerk rapped the framed print well; I turned to my tall observer, telling him I could find no books in English--did he know of any there?

He looked me in the eyes a while, then both firmly and dramatically (like an actor on stage; a bit more 'real life' than real life) grabbed my arm and elbow to his side, and steered down the steps, to a table in the far back, left corner, and watched me make quick selection.

I looked him in the eyes.

Telling him, that come the morning, I was leaving; likely never to return. That I had come as a friend, truelly wanting to meet Soviet citizens, but I'd never even gotten to shake the hands of one citizen. And in that one aspect of my otherwise succesfull journey, I'd failed. I would like him, TO BE THAT CITIZEN! I put out my hand. He stared at the hand, stared at my eyes; then my hand--I was beginning to feel foolish. Then he took the extended hand, firmly between his hands. Hand-in-hand-in-hand; I smiled; he seemed to be doing that as well.

That's the stoty of my Red cavalry charge print. Later given (with my Matroska dolls) to an ex-Russian neighbor at Pine Knoll Shores, Bogue Banks, N.C.

In coach, on the Alitalia DC-8 back to (JFK?), take-offs and landings; I had to hold that damn cavalry charge print back across the Atlantic to America. In the window seat next to me was this old Italian who "didn't add up". Small like me, his hands were big, grippy, dark; but the nails manicured superbly. And his suit bespoke quality; like an undertaker's, or the lawyer's suing him.

I asked him about his apparent incongruentness?

The old man said he was comeing back from his (twentieth, or some such) visit to the small Italian village of his orgins, where he was--with a gentle, self contemplation smile, he said this--"a big man". He'd send deserving kids to college, help a child, or the child's parent find needed medical attention; maybe get an underserving child out of jail.

It was the '20's, or '30's, he'd come to America "with a few grape vines", "table grapes". He was not formally educated he said, but: he knew two things well: how to judge table grapes, and how to judge men.

He started a grape farm in New Jersey (I know not where) but then spoke poor English. And later still, not so good. He found a lawyer he could trust, and trusted him.

Next he found a young American to work with him in the fields;to learn, then to train, in English; the other workers in the vineyard. And that lad, he trusted, too. But not others, for he needed not to. And he prospered. And they prospered.

And he said to me: you are like that once young American I trusted in the fields with me, when I came to America.

Wow!

[vidette]

solzhenitsyn-I@yahoogroups.com
solzhenitsyn-1@yahoogroups.com

[Pat Holscher]

Delfino Edmondo Borroni, age 110, Italy's last WWI veteran, died yesterday, October 26.

He served in the 6th Bersaglieri Bologna, was wounded in action in 1917, and was a POW of the Austrians thereafter, until the end of the war.

[Pat Holscher]

The 27th Commandant of the Marine Corps whose military career started during WWII, when he was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer, and sent to serve with guerrillas in China. He later served in the Korean War and Vietnam War.

[Pat Holscher]

Lt. Gen. Kinnard, who when a Lt. Col, suggested to Gen. McAuliffe that he give the "Nuts" reply to the German request that the 101st Airborne surrender, dies at age 93.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/11 ... 1&emc=eta1

He later commanded the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam.

Of interest, he would have only been in his late 20s when he was a Lt. Col. at Bastogne, showing how young some senior officers were in WWII.

[FtValleyPS]

Lt. Gen. Kinnard, who when a Lt. Col, suggested to Gen. McAuliffe that he give the "Nuts" reply to the German request that the 101st Airborne surrender, dies at age 93.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/11 ... 1&emc=eta1

He later commanded the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam.

Of interest, he would have only been in his late 20s when he was a Lt. Col. at Bastogne, showing how young some senior officers were in WWII.

Yes, his words(word?) are marked in time for many Americans, I think, although, regrettably, most Americans would not know who he was. I hope we remember. I served under him (way under) for a time during the Vietnam war. For some reason it's always amazed me how many WW2 soldiers were still around during the Vietnam era. Gen. William Westmoreland was another whom I served under, as had my father during WW2 in Europe.

[FtValleyPS]

I enjoyed re-reading this thread, the Joe's comments, vidette's story ..... and agree with Dusan. This morning's news brings just a little of the old Communist ways back to mind in terms of ruthlessness, although perhaps a mild (relatively speaking) example. Russia and the Ukraine are arguing over natural gas prices, the Russians shut the gas off a week or so ago that runs from Russia through Ukraine to Europe, and 100,000 Europeans are freezing in the dark. Russia may or may not turn the gas back on this morning. Wars have been fought over lesser matters. And I understand I live in a glass house.