6 ms·

Exquisite Corpse: The Winter of 1947 in Europe

61 points by lermontov 9y ago

jerry40 9y ago
> and when the Soviet propaganda became crudely anti-Western In spite of Churchill's speech in Fulton it was inevitable I think.
- adventured 9y ago
  It was strongly anti-Western - and particularly anti-Capitalist - before WW2 was over. So there's zero question it was guaranteed to go that direction no matter what, post WW2. Stalin was fundamentally opposed to the foundational values of much of the modern West, whether we're talking about representative elected government, substantial & enshrined human rights protections, or free market economics.
  - bojan 9y ago
    Stalin died in 1953, though. Maybe it didn't have to continue to be that way after.
    - Fins 9y ago
      Khrushchev promised to "bury you" well after Stalin's death. It took a new generation coming to power and ham-handedly taking USSR apart.
      - izacus 9y ago
        You do understand that phrase is a mistranslation which doesn't carry the same meaning in original right?
        chimprich 9y ago
        I feel it would have been less condescending to say "that is a mistranslation", without posing it as a question. What do you think the translation should be? Wikipedia suggests it could be "We shall be present at your funeral" or "We shall outlive you", neither of which seem to be hugely different in meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you
        oxymoron 9y ago
        It’s quite different. The bolsheviks believed that the collapse of capitalism was imminent, and that revolution would eventually sweep across the west even without their involvement. I always interpreted “We will outlive you” as the ideological belief in the long time superiority of their state. I’m not a historian, but the USSR was very much inferior to the US in strength in the 1950’s, and both Krustchev and Eisenhower knew as much, even if the american public. He didn’t have the strength to carry out the threat even if he’d wanted to, had that been his intention.
        Fins 9y ago
        They really meant both -- the eventual victory of communism, and that they would help, with nukes if necessary, to achieve it.
        Teever 9y ago
        You have to understand the phrase in the context of the Russian language and culture. Take for instance the english expression "I will beat you." Am I talking about physically beating you or winning in a competition? It's the same with 'we will bury you'
        Fins 9y ago
        Being a native Russian speaker, I think I do have a pretty good idea of what Khrushchev said and what he meant.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    We're talking 1947. West wasn't so modern these days and substantial & enshrined human were nowhere to be seen. In 1947, it was absolutely not obvious whether communism or capitalism will be the thing that works. But I don't think hostility could not be held in check.
    - nugga 9y ago
      It was pretty obvious to Orwell in '43 when he started writing Animal Farm, an allegory to Stalinist terror and everything that went to shit during and after the soviets stole the revolution in Russia. I reckon people in the know totally could tell that the centrally planned economy and brutal totalitarian dictatorship they instated under what they called communism in Russia and later Soviet union was absolutely hideous, broken and totally incompatible with any notion of human well being or progress.
      - osullivj 9y ago
        I agree that people in the know would not advocate brutal totalitarian dictatorship in 1947. But the idea of a centrally planned economy was far from discredited in 47. Central planning and some smart financial engineering by Schacht had harnessed tremendous productive capacity in Nazi Germany. Naturally the USSR was committed to central planning, and had ultimately defeated the largest invasion force ever assembled. Both the UK and US adopted central planning to direct their capitalist econonomies to war aims. And that was a big factor in Labour's 1945 election win that removed Churchill from office. Central planning had been seen to be a key factor in winning the war, and that bolstered Labour's arguments for the welfare state, NHS and nationalization of key industries like coal. A political consensus formed around the planned economy and persisted until 1979, and the coming of the Blessed Margaret.
        badpun 9y ago
        > I agree that people in the know would not advocate brutal totalitarian dictatorship in 1947. But the idea of a centrally planned economy was far from discredited in 47. Central planning and some smart financial engineering by Schacht had harnessed tremendous productive capacity in Nazi Germany. Wasn't the economic boom of Nazi Germany under Hitler fueled mostly by giant foreign loans? From what I've read, one of main reasons Hitler was so hell-bent on going to war was the looming bankruptcy - war allowed him to pillage conquered countries (mainly in the East), which brought in tons of money.
- emmelaich 9y ago
  Absolutely. By the time of the end of Yalta conference (Feb 1945) they realised they had been severely naive. Those who think Churchill was hungry for war in 1939 should marvel at his savage pragmatism after the war.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    Churchill was always pragmatic when it came to the Soviets: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." Churchill even had war plans created in 1945 with the aim of freeing Poland and other Eastern European countries from Soviet control - of course there was no real chance of these ever being used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
    - oxymoron 9y ago
      And I recall reading that he was quite active in making the Polish government-in-exile acquiesce to Soviet demands. A bit like Chamberlain on the question of Czechoslovakia perhaps?
pjc50 9y ago
People interested in Allied military government may like the memoir "Naples '44"; the author was landed at Salerno and from that point was in charge of trying to impose something resembling civil order in Naples in an environment where there was very little food available to the local population. Armed only with a classical education and a reasonable command of Italian. > "We had been given no briefing or orders of any kind, and so far as the Americans were concerned we might as well not have existed. This was the greatest invasion in this war so far – probably the greatest in human history – and the sea was crowded to the horizon with uncountable ships, but we were as lost and ineffective as babes in the wood. No one knew where the enemy was, but the bodies on the beach at least proved he existed. In place of the guns, tanks, armoured cars, barbed wire we had expected to see, all that had been landed in this sector of the beach were pyramids of office equipment for use by Army Headquarters. We had been issued with a Webley pistol and five rounds of ammunition apiece. Most of us had never fired a gun. As the sun began to sink splendidly into the sea at our back we wandered at random through this wood full of chirping birds and suddenly found ourselves at the wood’s edge. We looked out into an open space on a scene of unearthly enchantment. A few hundred yards away stood in a row the three perfect temples of Paestum, pink and glowing and glorious in the sun’s last rays."
arbitrage 9y ago
I find it extremely odd that at no point does this article make any reference to the actual temperature, aside from saying that things froze.
- owenversteeg 9y ago
  Honestly, giving temperature measurements might not have made the article better. An average temperature might not matter - the brief pockets of severe cold do the most damage. Lows and highs are fine, but then where do you calculate that over? The lowest temperature for all of France? You'll get a handful of outliers killing your data. Additionally, temperature as it is felt is very dependent on how prepared people are and the wind and the moisture. Just a raw number might not do it. Ultimately, I think there probably exists some sort of statistical measure to measure the temperature "fairly" over a long period, but I doubt it's simple enough to use in the article.
  - arbitrage 9y ago
    That make sense. When I was trying to find actual data, I did find a number of reports of temperature, and some days the temp was well over freezing. +5C°, I think. I eventually found another article, which appeared to be calculating number of days below freezing in a specific season, and that was the number that was out of whack. I think you're right. Purposefully excluding raw temperature figures can prevent people from jumping to the 'well, it wasn't that cold' conclusion.

61 points by lermontov 9y ago

> and when the Soviet propaganda became crudely anti-Western In spite of Churchill's speech in Fulton it was inevitable I think.

adventured 9y ago
It was strongly anti-Western - and particularly anti-Capitalist - before WW2 was over. So there's zero question it was guaranteed to go that direction no matter what, post WW2. Stalin was fundamentally opposed to the foundational values of much of the modern West, whether we're talking about representative elected government, substantial & enshrined human rights protections, or free market economics.
- bojan 9y ago
  Stalin died in 1953, though. Maybe it didn't have to continue to be that way after.
  - Fins 9y ago
    Khrushchev promised to "bury you" well after Stalin's death. It took a new generation coming to power and ham-handedly taking USSR apart.
    - izacus 9y ago
      You do understand that phrase is a mistranslation which doesn't carry the same meaning in original right?
      - chimprich 9y ago
        I feel it would have been less condescending to say "that is a mistranslation", without posing it as a question. What do you think the translation should be? Wikipedia suggests it could be "We shall be present at your funeral" or "We shall outlive you", neither of which seem to be hugely different in meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you
        oxymoron 9y ago
        It’s quite different. The bolsheviks believed that the collapse of capitalism was imminent, and that revolution would eventually sweep across the west even without their involvement. I always interpreted “We will outlive you” as the ideological belief in the long time superiority of their state. I’m not a historian, but the USSR was very much inferior to the US in strength in the 1950’s, and both Krustchev and Eisenhower knew as much, even if the american public. He didn’t have the strength to carry out the threat even if he’d wanted to, had that been his intention.
        Fins 9y ago
        They really meant both -- the eventual victory of communism, and that they would help, with nukes if necessary, to achieve it.
        Teever 9y ago
        You have to understand the phrase in the context of the Russian language and culture. Take for instance the english expression "I will beat you." Am I talking about physically beating you or winning in a competition? It's the same with 'we will bury you'
      - Fins 9y ago
        Being a native Russian speaker, I think I do have a pretty good idea of what Khrushchev said and what he meant.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  We're talking 1947. West wasn't so modern these days and substantial & enshrined human were nowhere to be seen. In 1947, it was absolutely not obvious whether communism or capitalism will be the thing that works. But I don't think hostility could not be held in check.
  - nugga 9y ago
    It was pretty obvious to Orwell in '43 when he started writing Animal Farm, an allegory to Stalinist terror and everything that went to shit during and after the soviets stole the revolution in Russia. I reckon people in the know totally could tell that the centrally planned economy and brutal totalitarian dictatorship they instated under what they called communism in Russia and later Soviet union was absolutely hideous, broken and totally incompatible with any notion of human well being or progress.
    - osullivj 9y ago
      I agree that people in the know would not advocate brutal totalitarian dictatorship in 1947. But the idea of a centrally planned economy was far from discredited in 47. Central planning and some smart financial engineering by Schacht had harnessed tremendous productive capacity in Nazi Germany. Naturally the USSR was committed to central planning, and had ultimately defeated the largest invasion force ever assembled. Both the UK and US adopted central planning to direct their capitalist econonomies to war aims. And that was a big factor in Labour's 1945 election win that removed Churchill from office. Central planning had been seen to be a key factor in winning the war, and that bolstered Labour's arguments for the welfare state, NHS and nationalization of key industries like coal. A political consensus formed around the planned economy and persisted until 1979, and the coming of the Blessed Margaret.
      - badpun 9y ago
        > I agree that people in the know would not advocate brutal totalitarian dictatorship in 1947. But the idea of a centrally planned economy was far from discredited in 47. Central planning and some smart financial engineering by Schacht had harnessed tremendous productive capacity in Nazi Germany. Wasn't the economic boom of Nazi Germany under Hitler fueled mostly by giant foreign loans? From what I've read, one of main reasons Hitler was so hell-bent on going to war was the looming bankruptcy - war allowed him to pillage conquered countries (mainly in the East), which brought in tons of money.
emmelaich 9y ago
Absolutely. By the time of the end of Yalta conference (Feb 1945) they realised they had been severely naive. Those who think Churchill was hungry for war in 1939 should marvel at his savage pragmatism after the war.
- arethuza 9y ago
  Churchill was always pragmatic when it came to the Soviets: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." Churchill even had war plans created in 1945 with the aim of freeing Poland and other Eastern European countries from Soviet control - of course there was no real chance of these ever being used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
  - oxymoron 9y ago
    And I recall reading that he was quite active in making the Polish government-in-exile acquiesce to Soviet demands. A bit like Chamberlain on the question of Czechoslovakia perhaps?

pjc50 9y ago

People interested in Allied military government may like the memoir "Naples '44"; the author was landed at Salerno and from that point was in charge of trying to impose something resembling civil order in Naples in an environment where there was very little food available to the local population. Armed only with a classical education and a reasonable command of Italian. > "We had been given no briefing or orders of any kind, and so far as the Americans were concerned we might as well not have existed. This was the greatest invasion in this war so far – probably the greatest in human history – and the sea was crowded to the horizon with uncountable ships, but we were as lost and ineffective as babes in the wood. No one knew where the enemy was, but the bodies on the beach at least proved he existed. In place of the guns, tanks, armoured cars, barbed wire we had expected to see, all that had been landed in this sector of the beach were pyramids of office equipment for use by Army Headquarters. We had been issued with a Webley pistol and five rounds of ammunition apiece. Most of us had never fired a gun. As the sun began to sink splendidly into the sea at our back we wandered at random through this wood full of chirping birds and suddenly found ourselves at the wood’s edge. We looked out into an open space on a scene of unearthly enchantment. A few hundred yards away stood in a row the three perfect temples of Paestum, pink and glowing and glorious in the sun’s last rays."

arbitrage 9y ago

I find it extremely odd that at no point does this article make any reference to the actual temperature, aside from saying that things froze.

owenversteeg 9y ago
Honestly, giving temperature measurements might not have made the article better. An average temperature might not matter - the brief pockets of severe cold do the most damage. Lows and highs are fine, but then where do you calculate that over? The lowest temperature for all of France? You'll get a handful of outliers killing your data. Additionally, temperature as it is felt is very dependent on how prepared people are and the wind and the moisture. Just a raw number might not do it. Ultimately, I think there probably exists some sort of statistical measure to measure the temperature "fairly" over a long period, but I doubt it's simple enough to use in the article.
- arbitrage 9y ago
  That make sense. When I was trying to find actual data, I did find a number of reports of temperature, and some days the temp was well over freezing. +5C°, I think. I eventually found another article, which appeared to be calculating number of days below freezing in a specific season, and that was the number that was out of whack. I think you're right. Purposefully excluding raw temperature figures can prevent people from jumping to the 'well, it wasn't that cold' conclusion.