Schizo Мой Blog

[Ree Vannin]

"As ignorance diminishes, tradition becomes weakened, and the war destroyed the hold upon men's minds of everything merely traditional. It may be that, through the influence of America, the capitalist system will linger for another fifty years, but it will grow continually weaker, and can never recover the position of easy dominance which it held in the nineteenth century."

"I entered Soviet Russia on May 11th and recrossed the frontier on June 16th. The Russian authorities only admitted me on the express condition that I should travel with the British Labour Delegation, a condition with which I was naturally very willing to comply, and which that Delegation kindly allowed me to fulfil. We were conveyed from the frontier to Petrograd, as well as on subsequent journeys, in a special train de luxe, covered with mottoes about the Social Revolution and the Proletariat of all countries; we were received everywhere by regiments of soldiers, with the Internationale being played on the regimental band while civilians stood bare-headed· and soldiers at the salute; congratulatory orations were made by local leaders and answered by prominent Communists who accompanied us; the entrances to the carriages were guarded by magnificent Bashkir cavalry-men in resplendent uniforms; in short, everything was done to make us feel like the Prince of Wales."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"I entered Soviet Russia on May 11th and recrossed the frontier on June 16th. The Russian authorities only admitted me on the express condition that I should travel with the British Labour Delegation, a condition with which I was naturally very willing to comply, and which that Delegation kindly allowed me to fulfil. We were conveyed from the frontier to Petrograd, as well as on subsequent journeys, in a special train de luxe, covered with mottoes about the Social Revolution and the Proletariat of all countries; we were received everywhere by regiments of soldiers, with the Internationale being played on the regimental band while civilians stood bare-headed· and soldiers at the salute; congratulatory orations were made by local leaders and answered by prominent Communists who accompanied us; the entrances to the carriages were guarded by magnificent Bashkir cavalry-men in resplendent uniforms; in short, everything was done to make us feel like the Prince of Wales."

"This not only gave me further knowledge of the country, but made me acquainted with Sverdlov, Acting Minister of Transport, who was travelling on the boat to organize the movement of oil from Baku up the Volga, and who was one of the ablest as well as kindest people whom I met in Russia."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"This not only gave me further knowledge of the country, but made me acquainted with Sverdlov, Acting Minister of Transport, who was travelling on the boat to organize the movement of oil from Baku up the Volga, and who was one of the ablest as well as kindest people whom I met in Russia."

"Marx has taught that Communism is fatally predestined to come about; this fits in with the Oriental traits in the Russian character, and produces a state of mind not unlike that of the early successors of Mahomet."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"Marx has taught that Communism is fatally predestined to come about; this fits in with the Oriental traits in the Russian character, and produces a state of mind not unlike that of the early successors of Mahomet."

"The baser side of the present Russian Government is most nearly paralleled by the Directoire in France, but on its better side it is closely analogous to the rule of Cromwell."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"The baser side of the present Russian Government is most nearly paralleled by the Directoire in France, but on its better side it is closely analogous to the rule of Cromwell."

"Cromwell's dealings with Parliament are not unlike Lenin's with the Constituent Assembly. Both, starting from a combination of democracy and religious faith, were driven to sacrifice democracy to religion enforced by military dictatorship. Both tried to compel their countries to live at a higher level of morality and effort than the population found tolerable. Iife in modern Russia, as in Puritan England, is in many ways contrary to instinct. And if the Bolsheviks ultimately fall, it will be for the reason for which the Puritans fell: because there comes a point at which men feel that amusement and ease are worth more than all other goods put together."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"Cromwell's dealings with Parliament are not unlike Lenin's with the Constituent Assembly. Both, starting from a combination of democracy and religious faith, were driven to sacrifice democracy to religion enforced by military dictatorship. Both tried to compel their countries to live at a higher level of morality and effort than the population found tolerable. Iife in modern Russia, as in Puritan England, is in many ways contrary to instinct. And if the Bolsheviks ultimately fall, it will be for the reason for which the Puritans fell: because there comes a point at which men feel that amusement and ease are worth more than all other goods put together."

"Bolshevism is internally aristocratic and externally militant. The Communists in many ways resemble the British public-school type: they have all the good and bad traits of an aristocracy which is young and vital."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"Bolshevism is internally aristocratic and externally militant. The Communists in many ways resemble the British public-school type: they have all the good and bad traits of an aristocracy which is young and vital."

Comparing the communist elites to British public-school students is HILARIOUS. https://orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/e_joys

 

[Ree Vannin]

"Bolshevism is internally aristocratic and externally militant. The Communists in many ways resemble the British public-school type: they have all the good and bad traits of an aristocracy which is young and vital."

"The true Communist is thoroughly international. Lenin, for example, so far as I could judge, is not more concerned with the interests of Russia than with those of other countries; Russia is, at the moment, the protagonist of the social revolution, and, as such, valuable to the world, but Lenin would sacrifice Russia rather than the revolution, if the alternative should ever arise."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"The true Communist is thoroughly international. Lenin, for example, so far as I could judge, is not more concerned with the interests of Russia than with those of other countries; Russia is, at the moment, the protagonist of the social revolution, and, as such, valuable to the world, but Lenin would sacrifice Russia rather than the revolution, if the alternative should ever arise."

"The only time I saw Trotsky was at the Opera in Moscow. The British Labour Delegation were occupying what had been the Tsar's box. After speaking with us in the ante-chamber, he stepped to the front of the box and stood with folded arms while the house cheered itself hoarse. Then he spoke a few sentences, short and sharp, with military precision, winding up by calling for "three cheers for our brave fellows at the front," to which the audience responded as a London audience would have responded in the autumn of 1914. Trotsky and the Red Army undoubtedly now have behind them a great body of nationalist sentiment."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"The only time I saw Trotsky was at the Opera in Moscow. The British Labour Delegation were occupying what had been the Tsar's box. After speaking with us in the ante-chamber, he stepped to the front of the box and stood with folded arms while the house cheered itself hoarse. Then he spoke a few sentences, short and sharp, with military precision, winding up by calling for "three cheers for our brave fellows at the front," to which the audience responded as a London audience would have responded in the autumn of 1914. Trotsky and the Red Army undoubtedly now have behind them a great body of nationalist sentiment."

"The reconquest of Asiatic Russia has even revived what is essentially an imperialist way of feeling, though this would be indignantly repudiated by many of those in whom I seemed to detect it. Experience of power is inevitably altering Communist theories, and men who control a vast governmental machine can hardly have quite the same outlook on life as they had when they were· hunted fugitives. If the Bolsheviks remain in power, it is much to be feared that their Communism will fade, and that they will increasingly resemble any other Asiatic Government - for example, our own Government in India."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"The reconquest of Asiatic Russia has even revived what is essentially an imperialist way of feeling, though this would be indignantly repudiated by many of those in whom I seemed to detect it. Experience of power is inevitably altering Communist theories, and men who control a vast governmental machine can hardly have quite the same outlook on life as they had when they were· hunted fugitives. If the Bolsheviks remain in power, it is much to be feared that their Communism will fade, and that they will increasingly resemble any other Asiatic Government - for example, our own Government in India."

This is about Lenin:
"He said that two years ago neither he nor his colleagues thought they could survive against the hostility of the world. He attributes their survival to the jealousies and divergent interests of the different capitalist nations; also to the power of Bolshevik propaganda. He said the Germans had laughed when the Bolsheviks proposed to combat guns with leaflets, but that the event had proved the leaflets quite as powerful. I do not think he recognizes that the Labour and Socialist parties have had any part in the matter. He does not seem to know that the attitude of British Labour has done a great deal to make a first-class war against Russia impossible, since it has confined the Government to what could be done in a hole-and-corner way, and denied without a too blatant mendacity."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"If we take the generation of modern people, they were born at the dawn of the computer age and will die at the moment of complete overlap between reality and virtuality. The probability of being born in just such a period of civilization is vanishingly small, obviously this is the plot of the game in which we all live. Our deaths will be the end of the game, which will be legendized by the creation of absolute virtuality. User, whether they get to heaven or hell, will loudly praise the resolution and shadow mapping."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"India was the heart of the Empire. All other colonies were acquired almost exclusively for the sake of securing the routes to India. Often they were also governed through one of the Indian governorates."

 

[Ree Vannin]

Started to read "The Foreign Office and defence of the empire" by John Kent

 

[Ree Vannin]

Started to read "The Foreign Office and defence of the empire" by John Kent

"As nuclear weapons became important strategic considerations, the tension between foreign policy makers and those with military priorities over the relation of geopolitical foreign policy needs and its effect on strategic priorities did not decrease."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"As nuclear weapons became important strategic considerations, the tension between foreign policy makers and those with military priorities over the relation of geopolitical foreign policy needs and its effect on strategic priorities did not decrease."

"From the time of the first conflicts over the continental commitment, the needs of imperial defence did not initially dictate foreign policy but opposed it; it was only in the 1950s that an agreed global strategy, followed for political reasons, led to alleged military needs justifying the policies maintaining the status and (prestige) of an imperial, non-European or global role for Britain."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"From the time of the first conflicts over the continental commitment, the needs of imperial defence did not initially dictate foreign policy but opposed it; it was only in the 1950s that an agreed global strategy, followed for political reasons, led to alleged military needs justifying the policies maintaining the status and (prestige) of an imperial, non-European or global role for Britain."

"A number of issues arose from the dramatic effect on the empire of the Second World War even though old conceptions of Britain’s imperial role remained. The loss of India was one such issue. But arguably, India had been replaced by the Middle East, especially in the minds of army officers and the jewel in the Crown had become by 1945 the largest military base in the world in the Suez Canal zone."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"A number of issues arose from the dramatic effect on the empire of the Second World War even though old conceptions of Britain’s imperial role remained. The loss of India was one such issue. But arguably, India had been replaced by the Middle East, especially in the minds of army officers and the jewel in the Crown had become by 1945 the largest military base in the world in the Suez Canal zone."

"The Indian Ocean and its shores, which, along with the northern shores of the Mediterranean (East of France and Spain), Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Iran, India and Black Africa, formed the regions covered by the British Defence Co-ordination Committee (BDCC) (Middle East). Whatever the realities of the economic and political value of the Middle East, British Army officers, with interwar experiences of the BDCC region informing their perceptions, believed the region to be important."

 

[Ree Vannin]

"The Indian Ocean and its shores, which, along with the northern shores of the Mediterranean (East of France and Spain), Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Iran, India and Black Africa, formed the regions covered by the British Defence Co-ordination Committee (BDCC) (Middle East). Whatever the realities of the economic and political value of the Middle East, British Army officers, with interwar experiences of the BDCC region informing their perceptions, believed the region to be important."

"First attempts by the military to produce a strategy for defending the Commonwealth and prepare for future global war were made in early 1946. By then, key disagreements in the attempts to produce peace settlements were reflecting the rhetorical gestures towards the establishment of freedom and self-determination. These conflicted with the FO policies that embraced the power political spirit inherent in spheres of interest and the British Empire. Whatever the justification for the British imperial ethos, there had to be a means of defending the empire now more commonly referred to as the Commonwealth"

 

[Ree Vannin]

"First attempts by the military to produce a strategy for defending the Commonwealth and prepare for future global war were made in early 1946. By then, key disagreements in the attempts to produce peace settlements were reflecting the rhetorical gestures towards the establishment of freedom and self-determination. These conflicted with the FO policies that embraced the power political spirit inherent in spheres of interest and the British Empire. Whatever the justification for the British imperial ethos, there had to be a means of defending the empire now more commonly referred to as the Commonwealth"

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"The requirements of foreign policy, as opposed to military deployments and operations, were designed to be compatible with Britain’s past and present imperial role, but in ways which reflected some of the new post-war circumstances that were no longer in line with the military’s imperial conceptions"