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Russia was ruled by tyrannical czars for centuries before Communism - does that mean the actions of Communist leaders like Stalin were really the czars' fault?

• bitwize 4y ago
  • wonderwonder 4y ago
    What do you mean by "whiteness itself"?
    • colechristensen 4y ago
      Clearly the mean UV exposure of my ancestors dominates my disposition towards others. If I spend more time in the sun do I become less white, and therefore a more acceptable, kinder, and all together better human? I mean, I am usually a little happier if I remember to get some sun. Maybe I won't find an equatorial people to oppress today, that's really a winter-time activity.
      • throwaway0a5e 4y ago
        >If I spend more time in the sun do I become less white, and therefore a more acceptable, kinder, and all together better human? Construction workers are the exception that prove the rule.
      • wonderwonder 4y ago
        I always emerge from winter with a long boat and a small coastal community to raid
    • gee_totes 4y ago
      I am not OP (they seem to have been downvoted to oblivion) but a fascinating book I read recently on this topic was "The Invention of the White Race" by Theodore W. Allen. The book traces the historical development of the concept of whiteness from early Britain, where the Irish were considered non-white as a means to "other" and impoverish them, to pre-revolution Haiti, where people of mixed race could attain certificates of Whiteness that would grant them the same rights and privileges as non-mixed French people. Those are just two of the anecdotes I remember from the book. It's really worth a read if you're into the whole "race as a social construct" thing, since it digs into the mechanics of how that social construct was created.
      • wonderwonder 4y ago
        Intersting. Growing up in South Africa I vaguely remember Indian people being given "white" status. Didn't know that about the Irish who are pretty much the whitest people I can think of.
      • jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
        Haven't read this book, though it's on my list now. You can go back and find writing from the USA's so called Founding Fathers that makes quite clear most of them didn't view the Irish, Spanish, or Italians as white. Then if you look at the history of immigration waves in the US, you see a clear pattern where the definition of whiteness was expanded to groups previously discriminated against as a form of solidarity against the newly arriving group. This is what all the rhetoric about being colorblind misses. Whiteness is not the same as other ethnicities, and policy that pretends it is will have problems as a result.
    • zuminator 4y ago
      I'm not the author of that comment, but going by the HN credo that we should steelman (assume the most charitable interpretation of) their remark, "whiteness itself" has nothing to do with people's inherent genetic makeup, but with the creation of "whiteness" (and other modern day races) as a category. In other words, that a lot of problems started when people in the 15th-16th centuries developed philosophical, moral, and religious (and centuries later, scientific) frameworks under which racism could be formalized as a part of the political economy, justifying the horrors to come, such as genocide, chattel slavery, anti-miscegenation laws, lebensraum, apartheid, etc. Perhaps it's debatable as to whether philosophical racism is responsible for later atrocities, or if it was more of a post-hoc excuse, a way to resolve the cognitive dissonance resulting from humans continuing to treat great swathes of other human beings like scum even while our understanding of universal human rights developed in leaps and bounds.
  • gred 4y ago
    Who needs Toyota's five whys, when we can just skip straight to the root cause of every problem? Whiteness. QED, time for lunch. /s
    • linksnapzz 4y ago
      Whiteness, the Dianetics Engram of the social sciences.
  • christkv 4y ago
    In comparison to the Arab, Ottoman Empire, Chinese Empire, Japanese Empire, Ethiopian Empire, Aztec Empire etc. Human history is one continuous tale of rise and fall of empires with colonisation, subjugation, slavery and exploitation of other people of all kinds of colors by people of all colors. I'm sure the ~1.5 million white europeans captured and sold into slavery in North Africa, balkans and Middle East would also take exception to the narrow definition.
• asah 4y ago
  well... I think the point is that it's especially challenging if a people have never experienced semi-functional democratic institutions...
  • nradov 4y ago
    Every functioning democracy started out at some point with no democratic institutions. Why did they succeed while other countries failed?
    • Jensson 4y ago
      Most functioning democracies slowly expanded voting rights until everyone could vote. At first only the aristocracy could vote, that was the norm, then you add nobles, rich people, land owners, then go down to soldiers, women and eventually every adult. Going from no voting to every adult can vote is probably too much. Having elites create a parliament and make the foundation before full voting is how basically every well functioning modern democracy was formed.
      • adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        Japan would like to have a word with you. (It also doesn't help that the US couped most of the South American examples to install dictators).
        • Jensson 4y ago
          Japan went that way as well, Japan has held elections since 1889. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Constitution > The Lower House, or House of Representatives was directly elected by all males who paid at least 15 yen in property taxes, effectively limiting the suffrage to 1.1 percent of the population. That 1.1 percent was expanded over the years. Then after WW2 USA just needed to finalize the expansion and you got a well functioning modern democracy.
        • rayiner 4y ago
• forinti 4y ago
  I feel like you chose the wrong example, because the communists did manage to transform Russia into a modern state very quickly (I don't propose to ignore Stalin's atrocities), whereas South Africa doesn't seem to have a plan.
  • bennysomething 4y ago
    What about Lenin's atrocities?
    • christkv 4y ago
      And Trotsky's crimes.
• wizofaus 4y ago
  I would think historical czar-dom does in fact play a significant role in explaining the state of Russia today. As it is, Putin very much appears to aspire to czar-dom, and it's not impossible to believe the Russian people will grant it to him. I don't support blaming current woes on the past however, as it carries the implication there's nothing can be done to improve things now, which is almost never really the case.
  • nickff 4y ago
    Why not blame the Mongols rather than the Czars?
    • wizofaus 4y ago
      I don't "blame" either! But I would expect the period of Mongol rule left its mark too, particularly in how it led to the rise of the czardom, though I'm way out of my depth there.
  • klipt 4y ago
    Sure, there's a difference between "Putin is trying to be a czar, this is bad and Putin is bad" Vs "Putin is good, everything wrong with Russia is the fault of those perfidious czars! Citizens are reminded that any criticism of Putin is illegal czarist sentiment, and to report all czarist sentiment to Putin's secret police. They know where to find you." When South Africans realized their public funds were being looted by the Gupta family, and the latter paid PR firm Bell Pottinger to come up with a campaign to blame everything on white people ... that starts looking a little more like the latter situation.
    • wizofaus 4y ago
      But you could argue that the ANC only gets away with blaming everything on white people because the narrative that the country was historically screwed up when it was run by them actually has some credibility to it. Again, not defending that blame-culture at all, it's completely counter-productive.
  • 4y ago
• nemothekid 4y ago
  >For how long can you blame the czars when they're no longer in power? As long as their power structures still remain you can continue to blame them. However in the case of Russia, the Soviet Union pretty much hit the reset button on power and the elites of the Russia were thrown out. AFAICT (I'm not very well versed in South African history), the elites of SA are the same and are largely inheritors of the pre-apartheid power structures. To me, any "solution" would have to address the deficiencies of the power structures that were setup 70-80 years ago.
  • s1artibartfast 4y ago
    >As long as their power structures still remain you can continue to blame them. This is the cognitive problem in a nutshell. If the power structures of the current government are the same as the old government, the problem lies with the current government. If the new government does the exact same thing as the old government, the fact that the old government did it is not a defense
    • kingofpandora 4y ago
      > This is the cognitive problem in a nutshell. If the power structures of the current government are the same as the old government, the problem lies with the current government. Why? Because the current government didn't hit a Soviet-style reset button?
      • s1artibartfast 4y ago
        yes. The current government is accountable for its own corruption. If the current president is taking bribes, They are at fault. The fact that the last government was also corrupt is not an excuse.
      • alienthrowaway 4y ago
        > Why? Because the current government didn't hit a Soviet-style reset button? Ironic that Mandela was so loved because he chose not hit the Soviet-style button. IMO he should have used all the political capital he had gathered to make some difficult decisions (not a reset, but major changes). Unfortunately for South Africa, he (and every subsequent ANC leader) just coasted, and here we are.
• lbrito 4y ago
  That's a really poor example. >Russia was ruled by tyrannical czars for centuries before Communism - does that mean the actions of Communist leaders like Stalin were really the czars' fault? Absolutely yes, a thousand times. Maybe Nicky wasn't responsible for the colors Stalin picked for his office walls, but most of the important, nation-wide decisions were obviously affected by how (dismally) Nicky ran things. >For how long can you blame the czars when they're no longer in power? I'd say a very long time, probably centuries. I'm sure there's a PhD thesis or other publication somewhere estimating how long each economic/social policy impacted the country. Note that this isn't the same as saying "meh, we found it like this, let's not do anything". >And who does it serve? Anyone who's interested in learning from history and not repeating mistakes from the past? >It seems to me blaming the long gone czars mostly serves as a distraction from corruption in the successor government. It seems to me blaming the successor government mostly serves as a distraction from the very real, very recent despotism and absolutism of semi-medieval tsardom.
  • Nimitz14 4y ago
    I think your claim is ridiculous. Please explain why stalin's purges in the 30s, the decision to occupy and install puppet governments in eastern europe, and the failure to reform the economy in the 80s (perestroika) was the fault of the tsars. You can't.
    • lbrito 4y ago
      Please read my statement again, perhaps without vitriol this time: >but most of the important, nation-wide decisions were obviously affected by how (dismally) Nicky ran things. Observe the word most. Just as I was saying the tsars definitively were responsible for most (note the word carefully again) of the momentous decisions later, it should be painfully obvious that they weren't responsible for 100% of all actions forever after. This is ridiculously obvious in any non-insanely polarized debate, which unfortunately isn't always the case of HN.
      • Nimitz14 4y ago
        Most is at least over 50% (I would say "most" implies 70-80%). Your statement as written implies that 50+% of the important decisions made during soviet times were influenced by the tsar's previous actions. That is (still) ridiculous.
• bergenty 4y ago
  It’s really both though. You blame the “czars” and you blame the revolutionaries that can’t seem to do a great job because they’re both part of the problem. Also I don’t know why you’re holding Russia up as a paragon, yes they had their brief heyday with the USSR but they’ve been in shambles every since.