Generaloberst
Banned
Honestly, I think it'd be really cool if Germany was still intact and still an Empire and all that.
Decimation - A Europe after the French break at Verdun
- Thread starter rejs7
- Start date
Lenin stared hard at the empty bookshelf, the last few books tossed into the trunk in a hurry. When would he get a chance to return to Geneva? He hoped never, but given the bastard Germans he needed to make sure he kept his options open. Heavy handedly he slammed the trunk lid, the thud echoed around the attic room like it meant something, may be it did, but not today. Today was about kicking open the door of the people's state, follow in Trotsky's footsteps, and show the rest of Europe at the downtrodden masses were capable of making something far more of themselves.
“Comrade, are you ready?”
A local apparatchik stood in the doorway, Smitt or something German like that. Lenin looked at him through tired eyes, the young man's exuberance burning brightly in the late morning sunshine hanging in the dusty air.
“Just about. Make sure this gets to the station by two. I need to finish up in town before I leave.”
Smitt, or whatever his name was, nodded, and picked up the trunk with a swift heft onto his shoulder. Soon enough the young man was out the house and gone.
Lenin walked over to the mirror and made sure he looked presentable. Was there ever a time when he had not been loosing his hair? Probably, but too far back for it to be anything more than a whimsical notion he had no time for. There was plenty of things to do, and no much more time to do it in. Bohemia awaited, and as Lenin followed his case five minutes later, he allowed himself a small smile for the first time in weeks.
Smoke and Mirrors remains one of the few pulp Lenin novels that I could actually enjoy. Lenin's cult status, given the magnitude of his accent and decline over nineteen eighteen to nineteen twenty two, made for some pulpy trash fiction in the forties and fifties. Unlike Trotsky, who's status has only begun to be rehabilitated now the BSSR has morphed into the Burgundian Republic, Lenin never really suffered the bashing to his personality in the media. Yes he was a high profile Red, and like most communists he was tarred with the brush of seditious bastard in most sections of the media while he was still active, but unlike Trotsky he seems to have escaped being tarred with the brush of genocidal bastard.
When you look at the Red leaders around this time you have to understand that while the Russian backbone was getting a reputation for harsh measures, there was also a core group of British, French, and German communists who were fast proving themselves worthwhile to the cause. It has been suggested that without Fyodor Raskolnikov the BSSR would have lost the war, and without Slyvia Pankhurst's intervention Labour would have succumbed to more extreme Trotskyist ideologies bearing fruit in mainland Europe. In a book accompanying the 2004 BBC series Red or Dead, the write Shamus Mallin details the various approaches taken by the Red factions in nineteen eighteen.
I posit that it is clear there were four key communist factions at play throughout 1918, excluding those in Russis which had not broken the surface. Everyone is aware of the BSSR's Trotskyist philosophies, but I would argue that French sensibilities actually reigned in his worst excesses, for I doubt the BSSR would not have been the intellectual mecca of the twenties and thirties if it had been as brutal as all that. Yes it is a given that anti-communist forces were suppressed, and yes there was rape and pillage, but at the same time if you compare Trotsky to say the Russian commanders in Poland it was on a par, though I would never condone either.
Second we have the British communists, who developed a far more socially progressive program that molded perfectly with the Labour party's momentum in 1918/19. Unlike in France, Germany, and America, the Communist Party was never banned in Britain, and as such there was far less need for extreme rhetoric to progress their agenda. Slyvia Pankhurst has much to be thanked for, as her speeches through 1918 and 1919 helped quell much anti-communist feeling among the voting classes.
The third strand comes straight out of the Rhineland and Germany. Not much is known about the early leaders as most of them were either executed by the Reich or purged during the 1920 leadership challenges, only Rosa Luxemburg survived this period to become a member of the BSSR cabinet. Especially after Liebknecht's death in Frankfurt at the hands of the Freikorps Luxemburg espoused a middle ground between the Trotskiest hard line and the soft socialist elements which began to pervade the Germany philosophical Marxist school.
The final group are the splintered factions across eastern Europe which Lenin motivated during his great revolutionary march towards his homeland. As none of his diaries survive, we only have glimpse into his mind through the speeches he gave, and he appears to be more of a unifier than any of the other schools. Yes he was very much of the school of Marx, but I think his time in Bohemia changed his outlook, as by the time he left his speeches were far broader, looking to bring in as much as the proletariat as possible, not just those who subscribed to Marxist teachings. This is probably why post Bohemia you do not see Lenin resorting to Trotsky style purges.
My father gave me a copy of the book for my birthday, signed by the author, and why I agree with him for the most part, having done the research in Prague I cannot help but think he has misread Lenin. Lenin was shrewd and calculating, seizing the moment to export the revolution and making sure it worked. Even bringing in Stalin as Bohemian party secretary was not such a terrible idea when you realise how effect he was. As for Lenin's post Bohemian life I doubt that any other revolution would have given him the chance to carry out purges and mass murder, as by that point Europe was growing sick of the new of yet more dead bodies.
I don't often find myself agreeing with Churchill, but I feel he was right to warn about the danger of both sets of extremists. There is a well know photograph of him and Slyvia Pankhurst exchanging pleasantries at a dinner party, and the gossip was that their conversation was not entirely toxic. Churchill knew when to moderate, and while it was a very bitter pill to swallow having to at lest parlay with the devil, he managed to do so with much aplomb, which is why his tenure as Home Secretary probably saw a marked decrease in strikes and protests throughout late nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen. On the flip side of that was his handling of the BSSR agents uncovered in the UK. Paul Levi's trial and execution was a sensation, not least because he was supposed to be heading a diplomatic party attempting to get the British to send relief aid to the refugees in the BSSR. Churchill’s ruthlessness at interning the the BSSR representatives of course did not go unnoticed by Trotsky or his agents, and after Levi's arrest in September nineteen eighteen there was a significant uptick in the number of British soldiers targeted by snipers across the border.
My time in Prague had been very fruitful, given that I now had plenty of research material to be getting on with in relation to the Bohemian events of nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen. My next leg was going to be through Moravia into Slovakia and Hungary, and I could feel myself steeling myself against the facts I would probably uncover. The Hungarian hyper inflation of nineteen was not a subject I preferred to dwell, especially the images of starving children which many of the current textbooks tended to show. Putting my suitcase in the car, I set off with grim determination.
“Comrade, are you ready?”
A local apparatchik stood in the doorway, Smitt or something German like that. Lenin looked at him through tired eyes, the young man's exuberance burning brightly in the late morning sunshine hanging in the dusty air.
“Just about. Make sure this gets to the station by two. I need to finish up in town before I leave.”
Smitt, or whatever his name was, nodded, and picked up the trunk with a swift heft onto his shoulder. Soon enough the young man was out the house and gone.
Lenin walked over to the mirror and made sure he looked presentable. Was there ever a time when he had not been loosing his hair? Probably, but too far back for it to be anything more than a whimsical notion he had no time for. There was plenty of things to do, and no much more time to do it in. Bohemia awaited, and as Lenin followed his case five minutes later, he allowed himself a small smile for the first time in weeks.
Smoke and Mirrors remains one of the few pulp Lenin novels that I could actually enjoy. Lenin's cult status, given the magnitude of his accent and decline over nineteen eighteen to nineteen twenty two, made for some pulpy trash fiction in the forties and fifties. Unlike Trotsky, who's status has only begun to be rehabilitated now the BSSR has morphed into the Burgundian Republic, Lenin never really suffered the bashing to his personality in the media. Yes he was a high profile Red, and like most communists he was tarred with the brush of seditious bastard in most sections of the media while he was still active, but unlike Trotsky he seems to have escaped being tarred with the brush of genocidal bastard.
When you look at the Red leaders around this time you have to understand that while the Russian backbone was getting a reputation for harsh measures, there was also a core group of British, French, and German communists who were fast proving themselves worthwhile to the cause. It has been suggested that without Fyodor Raskolnikov the BSSR would have lost the war, and without Slyvia Pankhurst's intervention Labour would have succumbed to more extreme Trotskyist ideologies bearing fruit in mainland Europe. In a book accompanying the 2004 BBC series Red or Dead, the write Shamus Mallin details the various approaches taken by the Red factions in nineteen eighteen.
I posit that it is clear there were four key communist factions at play throughout 1918, excluding those in Russis which had not broken the surface. Everyone is aware of the BSSR's Trotskyist philosophies, but I would argue that French sensibilities actually reigned in his worst excesses, for I doubt the BSSR would not have been the intellectual mecca of the twenties and thirties if it had been as brutal as all that. Yes it is a given that anti-communist forces were suppressed, and yes there was rape and pillage, but at the same time if you compare Trotsky to say the Russian commanders in Poland it was on a par, though I would never condone either.
Second we have the British communists, who developed a far more socially progressive program that molded perfectly with the Labour party's momentum in 1918/19. Unlike in France, Germany, and America, the Communist Party was never banned in Britain, and as such there was far less need for extreme rhetoric to progress their agenda. Slyvia Pankhurst has much to be thanked for, as her speeches through 1918 and 1919 helped quell much anti-communist feeling among the voting classes.
The third strand comes straight out of the Rhineland and Germany. Not much is known about the early leaders as most of them were either executed by the Reich or purged during the 1920 leadership challenges, only Rosa Luxemburg survived this period to become a member of the BSSR cabinet. Especially after Liebknecht's death in Frankfurt at the hands of the Freikorps Luxemburg espoused a middle ground between the Trotskiest hard line and the soft socialist elements which began to pervade the Germany philosophical Marxist school.
The final group are the splintered factions across eastern Europe which Lenin motivated during his great revolutionary march towards his homeland. As none of his diaries survive, we only have glimpse into his mind through the speeches he gave, and he appears to be more of a unifier than any of the other schools. Yes he was very much of the school of Marx, but I think his time in Bohemia changed his outlook, as by the time he left his speeches were far broader, looking to bring in as much as the proletariat as possible, not just those who subscribed to Marxist teachings. This is probably why post Bohemia you do not see Lenin resorting to Trotsky style purges.
My father gave me a copy of the book for my birthday, signed by the author, and why I agree with him for the most part, having done the research in Prague I cannot help but think he has misread Lenin. Lenin was shrewd and calculating, seizing the moment to export the revolution and making sure it worked. Even bringing in Stalin as Bohemian party secretary was not such a terrible idea when you realise how effect he was. As for Lenin's post Bohemian life I doubt that any other revolution would have given him the chance to carry out purges and mass murder, as by that point Europe was growing sick of the new of yet more dead bodies.
I don't often find myself agreeing with Churchill, but I feel he was right to warn about the danger of both sets of extremists. There is a well know photograph of him and Slyvia Pankhurst exchanging pleasantries at a dinner party, and the gossip was that their conversation was not entirely toxic. Churchill knew when to moderate, and while it was a very bitter pill to swallow having to at lest parlay with the devil, he managed to do so with much aplomb, which is why his tenure as Home Secretary probably saw a marked decrease in strikes and protests throughout late nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen. On the flip side of that was his handling of the BSSR agents uncovered in the UK. Paul Levi's trial and execution was a sensation, not least because he was supposed to be heading a diplomatic party attempting to get the British to send relief aid to the refugees in the BSSR. Churchill’s ruthlessness at interning the the BSSR representatives of course did not go unnoticed by Trotsky or his agents, and after Levi's arrest in September nineteen eighteen there was a significant uptick in the number of British soldiers targeted by snipers across the border.
My time in Prague had been very fruitful, given that I now had plenty of research material to be getting on with in relation to the Bohemian events of nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen. My next leg was going to be through Moravia into Slovakia and Hungary, and I could feel myself steeling myself against the facts I would probably uncover. The Hungarian hyper inflation of nineteen was not a subject I preferred to dwell, especially the images of starving children which many of the current textbooks tended to show. Putting my suitcase in the car, I set off with grim determination.