Sky Hedgehogian Maestro
29th June 2013, 16:07
So I've recently procured this wonderful tome, "Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy", which deals on my favourite subject: what happens to the oppressors after they're overthrown?
This is a historical fact of the Russian Revolution, and follows two aristocratic families as well as the whole of the Russian nobility through the turmoil of those years, 1917-1941.
Of course, if you know me, I'm far more interested in the brutality enacted against them.
I agree with its author, Douglas Smith, that there's been way too much focus on Lenin and the politics of the Revolution and the final days of the Romanovs (since Russia didn't really allow much discussion of it).
What I've always been interested in is "What happens to the rich when the angry poor took over?" Almost every other text just glossed over and said "sent to gulags" or "liquidated." And then it goes to the kulaks and discussing Stalin's methods and dealings with his underlings and foreign powers and I lose interest.
This book stays almost firmly with the nobility and chock full of classism and class hatred. Specifically, how they get screwed and fucked by the Revolution, and how they're so wonderfully oppressed.
One line even goes, "Who are the proletariat in Russia?" Answer: The ex-bourgeois. "Who are the bourgeoisie in Russia?" Answer: The ex-proletariat.
I love this thing already. Even my beloved fictional Viyetism finally gets some historical precedent since it claims that "bourgeois" becomes a notice of social origin rather than social status, and it is from this that they're oppressed.
Instant buy, although I tend to ignore all the goodtalking it does towards the aristocrats. It's just damn funny to see these people suffer!
PS: No it's not. It's actually quite disturbing and you hate the way the people, even if they had been oppressed by them before then, treat them.
This is a historical fact of the Russian Revolution, and follows two aristocratic families as well as the whole of the Russian nobility through the turmoil of those years, 1917-1941.
Of course, if you know me, I'm far more interested in the brutality enacted against them.
I agree with its author, Douglas Smith, that there's been way too much focus on Lenin and the politics of the Revolution and the final days of the Romanovs (since Russia didn't really allow much discussion of it).
What I've always been interested in is "What happens to the rich when the angry poor took over?" Almost every other text just glossed over and said "sent to gulags" or "liquidated." And then it goes to the kulaks and discussing Stalin's methods and dealings with his underlings and foreign powers and I lose interest.
This book stays almost firmly with the nobility and chock full of classism and class hatred. Specifically, how they get screwed and fucked by the Revolution, and how they're so wonderfully oppressed.
One line even goes, "Who are the proletariat in Russia?" Answer: The ex-bourgeois. "Who are the bourgeoisie in Russia?" Answer: The ex-proletariat.
I love this thing already. Even my beloved fictional Viyetism finally gets some historical precedent since it claims that "bourgeois" becomes a notice of social origin rather than social status, and it is from this that they're oppressed.
Instant buy, although I tend to ignore all the goodtalking it does towards the aristocrats. It's just damn funny to see these people suffer!
PS: No it's not. It's actually quite disturbing and you hate the way the people, even if they had been oppressed by them before then, treat them.