Ukraine Football (and the inevitable stream-of-conscienseness NSR)

No. He served five years in the camps because his sister was spotted selling clothes on the black market and he said he made her to.
Are you about to start comparing the dicks of martyrdom?

 

There are many different factors than go into military victories. Disregarding economy is stupid. Disregarding human resolve is disrespectful. One shouldn't do either.

 

Ok, lets just totally rename the thread to "Ethnical Discussion" because this is clearly not about Ukrainian Football.

 

1) I already did
2) Is it not?

 

So is it then your position that the Russians "out-resolved" the Germans? If not, isn't this point rather moot?

 

Oh come on Shurik, you're better than that. Your grandpappy wasn't targeted BECAUSE he was Tartar, was he?

 

God forbid people might find this discussion and find it interesting.

 

Personally, I think that Polish resistance in September of 1939 is one of the most heroic stories of WW2.

But getting back to identities for another moment, I think it's worth remembering that it's possible and common to be both Russian and Jewish or American, or all three. The more prominent aspects of these identities are expressed in different contexts.

Going abroad, I act - and am related to - as an American. Come Christmas or Passover time, or when I'm with my American Jewish friends, or in Israel, etc, I feel Jewish. When I'm at home or in the company of flag-waving Americans, I'm Russian/Ukrainian.

This is all very simplified, of course, but as immigrants we are all chameleonic.

 

My position is that the Soviets would have an equally bad chance of winning without either the resolve or the economy.

When you are imprisoned or killed by an unjust regime, does it really matter if ethnicity was a part of it?
There are millions of carcasses buried in the tundra, whose Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish and Kalmyk owners didn't feel better in the slightest about the reasoning their murderers used.

 

Immigration in itself is an act of reinventing your identity, for some to a greater extent than the others. There is nothing simple about the dichotomy (or trichotomy) we subject ourselves to.

 

If you're going to prevaricate, fine. All credit to the Russians for matching the resolve of the Germans. Now, once we've determined we're even in that column, lets discuss how they actually won the damn war, with strategy, ingenuity, equipment, materiel, and the brilliant notion that if you have umpteen million human capital that's expendable, you can just throw them in the enemy's general direction in the hope he might run out of bullets or that he runs out of food while trudging over your carcass in the winter (or the battle of Stalingrad, as its better known).

I keed, I keed. Sort of.

Oh come on Shurik. There's a difference between being an oppressed minority and being oppressed because you were selling goods on the black market. I know you see this, and I'm not sure why you're arguing about it. No, it doesn't matter after death, but refuseniks and murderes aren't alike, just because they both helped build derricks on Siberia's oil fields.

 

With all due respect, bulls**t.
Stalin's whole regime was not a targeted extermination of Jews, nor was it always anti-Semitic. He was an equal opportunity cannibal and while at different times of his glorious career he waged ethnic warfare on Kalmyks, Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and Jews, killing of the vast majority of his victims was not ethnically motivated.
My grandfather's sister would've been thrown in jail for trying to feed her family, a victim of the Soviet system, if he didn't volunteer to serve the time for her.
My mom's Slavic father was arrested in 1952 for saying things he should've kept to himself. He was lucky, he died of his war wounds before an NKVD gun got to him.
Neither of them were murderers or even urkas, though both dispatched plenty of Germans while showing the very valor you seem to wave your well-manicured hand at. They were victims of a horrible regime, just like the members of your family. I am sure they both are very sorry for not having the high education or the correct ethnicity to get into the company of "elite" victims.

 

I hate that use of phrase. Say it like you mean it.

When wasn't it?

Ah. So the Jewish doctor's plot was a random fun time for Jews? WTF?

Sorry to hear that. So is your argument that saying things the NKVD doesn't like and being arrested because your nose is too long are identical?

Are you up on your cross tightly enough? Because I guess only from there can you possibly interpret my comments to mean YOUR relatives were murderers. Must be the lack of oxygen.
But hey, I guess by this reasoning, being Jewish and, say, not obeying the Gestapo were exactly the same thing in Nazi Germany, right?

Are you arguing that persecution based on ethnicity is the same as trying to feed your family or saying something the NKVD doesn't like? Because if you are, we might as well end this discussion right here.
No one gets bonus points for suffering, but differences are differences.

 

Maybe about the time Yagoda was his chief executioner?
Massive state-supported anti-Semitism in Stalin's USSR started in the post-war years. In his early day it was not unheard of to be arrested for anti-Semitic slurs.

I thought I expressed myself clearly. I am not sure why you need to play stupid.

I get it. You have this weird desire to rank things. (I do too, but mine is limited to athletes and kits.)
Saying that valor and technology are equally important in winning a war isn't good enough for you. You won't stop until you've trotted out every abominable piece of garbage Western revisionists spew about the battle of Stalingrad and every excuse made by a German general for his loss.
Saying that being oppressed for your ethnicity and being opressed for your views is equally bad is not good enough. You need the Premier League of Suffering for Jewish MD's and the First Division for political prisoners of other nationalities. Maybe, a Doc Martens League for Tatar girls with no money and little understanding of the sacred principles of Socialist economy.
Fine. Rank. Indulge yourself. Must be a pretty good feeling.

 

Really? So why did Stalin publish the original names of Kamenev and Zinoviev after their official fall from grace? And keep referring to them as such? The Jewish influence on the party was effectively ended with the Kirov/Raykov nonsense. The only one left was dear old Lazar, and it'd have been better if he'd been chucked into a morgue, quite frankly.

It isn't about ranking! Its about differences! One isn't "better" than the other. Its about one being different from the other. I don't understand why you're dancing around this point like its burning your shoes.

What? What excuse? What are you talking about? Your claim "it was due to Russian valor". OK, great. Russians win because they're braver. That must be why they won, right? Those Poles charging at tanks on horseback were pretty damn brave too. Does that mean the drivers of the Panzers were braver? Or more valorous?
Where did I say "Russians were cowards". Where did I say "Russians won accidentally". All I've said is that ascribing the victory to Russian valor misses the point. Both sides were brave. Neither side turned yeller' and went home.
But pray tell, what won it for the Russians at Stalingrad? It couldn't have been with the aid of Hitler's stupidity for not supporting the belated thrust south sufficiently, and then his refusal to let Powlus withdraw. Then his inability to property supply the cut-off German forces who were running out of food and were completely unprepared for a Russian winter in terms of materiel. No, it must have been Russian valor. If we're going to blame Stalin for incredible ********-ups during the beginning of the war, as well we should, we need to blame the Germans for their mistakes as well.
The Germans fought like demons in the siege of Berlin. So what?

Whatever. If you're not willing to admit there's a difference between oppression on the basis of ethnicity and action, this discussion is pointless. Its not about being "better". Its about a difference.

 

This is not the same as state-supported anti-Semitism. The pre-war situation wasn't even remotely as bad as during Brezhnev's years.
Ukies, Kalmyks and Chechens had it much worse when it comes to Stalin's ethnic projects.

See, this is where I say it like I mean it: CRAP!
What part of the "equally important" is too hard to grasp?

Difference? Yeah, I suppose. After all, views are your choice. That is what you are implying, of course. One can choose to toe the party line, or publically denounce their parents, or tell on their friends.
Of course, there were also millions who simply did nothing wrong (even using the draconian Soviet definition of "wrong") whatsoever. But who the hell cares, anyway? They are so ever different from the Long-Nosed Deathrow.

There is also a difference between being skinned and burned alive. Probably even a big one. Forgive me for not giving much importance to this difference.

 

Weren't you the one arguing that Ukies didn't have it so bad?

The part of it that's wrong. God is on the side of the stronger batallion, no matter how valorous the parapalegic with the rubber band is.
You're acting as if I just spat on the grave of every veteran. Why I don't know, since I hardly called them cowards.

Perhaps its the lawyer in me that tends to draw distinctions where they exist. Because the distinction between "you're Jewish, get in the van" and "we heard you say you didn't think Stalin farts rainbows, get in the van" is there, on a fundamental level. Otherwise, its ALL the same. If you don't want to face the point, fine. We'll move on.

 

Incidentally, what the hell were you talking about here?

 

I argued the same point I do here: he was an equal opportunity cannibal. There were Jews and Russians in Ukraine in 1933 who died the same hungry death as the Ukrainians, though the famine was manufactured against the latter.

Your trotting out of eighteenth-cetury French philosophers as carriers of the ultimate and universal truth wouldn't be of much value if the Germans did make those final dozen kilometers to Moscow. In fact, you wouldn't even be here trotting out the poor Frog if it wasn't for a certain amount of valor in the face of the odds. And no amount of economy or expendable human force would've changed that.

I see. It's the lawyer in you. So, what is the verdict for the unfortunate souls who got killed for reasons other than being Jewish?
What does that Difference you cherish so much entail?

 

I wasn't talking about the famine.

Face of what odds? You're acting as if the German advance was rolling along and it took some sort of superhuman effort on the part of the resistance to stem it. That was the last gasp of a faltering German offensive which was defeated as much by weather as it was by Russian forces, and probably more. And spare me the "dishonor" crap - I have pictures of dear old granny digging defense ditches in front of Moscow. Yes, everyone pitched in. Yes. However, at the end of the day, it wasn't valor that won. And yes, I suppose had the Russians simply picked up and ran away from their positions, I wouldn't be here typing this now. All credit to the Russians for not running away. That was the most important part of the battle. I agree. The not running away. A performance, which, I should remind you, was matched by the Germans.

Uh, they're dead Jim.

The difference between being persecuted for who you are and for what you do.

 

Even if you do nothing at all?
It's not the victims, it's the murderers... Jim (?)

 

I thank you for the very illuminating post. So, we'd like to talk about history would we? Well let's talk. Since this about Ukraine, let's begin there. Ukraine, particularly western parts, were for centuries under Polish domination. As far as development went, there was little, few towns or cities to speak of. Most if not all the land was diced up into very sizeable panstvi, all the property of the Polish slechta. Within this scheme, the Ukraine peasantry, an ignorant and sorry lot, were forced to work in serfdom for the Polish pan. Within this social setting lived many Jews. They lived more or less off on their own by choice, with the rabbi playing a leading, if not authoritarian role, upholding Jewish law within their Shtetls (spelling?) As with most of their history, the Jewish minority sought out a protector to guard against the majority Ukrainians who were suspicious of the Jews who made few if any effort to mix with the culturally inferior Ukrainians. The Jews turned to the Poles, who were more than willing to protect the Jews and at the same time use them as their tax collector. Jews were also given licenses to sell vodka. And, as Norman Davies, the most distinguished English professor on Poland has noted, while Jews could not own land, they could rent it from the Polish Sletcha. But that rental or arenda was set for a set period of time. So it was in the interest of the Jewish lander renter to collect as much from the land because his lease on it was so short. For the average Ukrainian it appeared he was either always paying or in debt to the Jews. That was the perception, argue it if you will, but it's historically pretty acurate. As Davis notes, the role played in collecting arenda was to be fateful for the Jews, as the Ukrainians time and again would direct their rage at them. When Chmelnitsky led his peasant uprising it was directed against the Polish slechta. But while they owned land in Ukraine, most if not all remained furthrer west in Poland proper. Those at hand were the Jews, who suffered a horrible wrath at the hands of the oppressed Ukrainian peasantry. While Jews see this uprising, and yes, pogrom, as first-hand proof of the anti-Semitism of the Ukrainian people, Ukrainians take a more... how should I put, not as simplistic view, factoring in what was going on at the time. I've read where Jewish thinkers have poo-pooed the economic underpinnings for the Chmelnitsky uprising, dismissing it as Marxist cant. To them its pure and simple, the Ukrainians had and have a hatred for the Jews coursing through there veins, and that explains it. End of story. Not very nuanced thinking from a people who rightly so have much to be proud of in so many fields of endeavor. Does that excuse the horrible excessives of the Ukrainian peasants? Of course not. Does it put it into context? Yes it does. Son, I don't know how old your are. But assuming you think you know everything, I would take it you're pretty young. Get a little older, you'll realize how little you actually know. A little humility would serve you well.

 

Oh, they take a less "simplistic" view of killing over 100,000 Jews? Oh, those awful Jews, oppressing the poor Poles and Ukranians. How awful! Never mind that Ukranians could have done the same thing that Jews did, or that Jews weren't even allowed to own land. No, its the Jews fault for making a living the only way they knew how in the face of an admittedly hostile society. Damn them and their desire for food! Damn them!
See, when I punch your face in for writing crap like "simplistic view of murdering 100,000 people", you'll see it as simple assault. I take a less.....how should I put it, not as simplistic view. That you have to take into account what was going on at the time.
Apparently, if I'm unhappy, its OK to kill the person to whom I owe money, since their vodka is too expensive. Great. I think I'm going to go and kill half of the Pell/Stafford loan people now, who've saddled me with a giant debt burden.
Un ********ing believable!

 

It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. You hate a group of people because you think they present some kind of danger. You put them into a position in which they are forced to take certain actions that may be deemed unsavioury by your own people. You say: "See?! The sinister bastards! Nu uzho my im".
Russian anti-Semites similarly blame Jews for causing the Revolution.

Of course, Ukrainian peasants can't be accused of understanding or hatching these kinds of nepharious schemes. It's simply the way society works. Especially a backward one.

 

Thanks for the patronizing Gave me a chuckle. Now tell me, wtf does any of this wonderfully enlightening history lesson have to do with the post you were responding to, or for that matter with anything else I said in this thread?

But still, I gotta say, I looooove people who explain away genocides, but then add "Oh emm OF COURSE this doesn't EXCUSE it." No, of course not. But I guess you'll have much "less simplistic" understanding if I go kill me a white woman in Greenwich Village, cut open her stomach, stuff it with a live cat, and hang her, and the kitten, out along the NJ Turnpike, with some few hundred thousand of others I deem responsible for my economic condition.