The left and rape

[Per Levy]

very interesting article about the massrape of german women at the end of ww2 and the constant downplay of these happenings from many on the left.

http://libcom.org/library/left-rape-why-we-should-all-be-ashamed-left%E2%80%99s-role-covering-rape-2-million-women

[Stalinist Speaker]

first of all it wasn't the left that raped. it was regular soldiers that has nothing to do with politics (mostly).
How can you expect that these things couldn't have happen? after what the germans did to the soviet people this is not even in the scale of bad. there were most civilian casualties in the USSR than any other nation in ww2 , and in some areas the people living there was completely exterminated, Ex. Belarus lost 2/3 of their population.
So what can you expect pretty much every russian hated Germany and everyone that supported the german government.

Once a german officer came home to his wife (i don't remember his name) and said "If a russian soldier comes and knocks on the door one day and does 10 times lees harm to you then what we did to the russians you will never be able to laugh and be happy again"

So i don't blame them. same thing with the soldiers stealing stuff. still don't blame them. etc

lets put it in a perspective, if someone came and killed members of your family and destroyed everything you own wouldn't you do something similar?

[Remus Bleys]

Wow. You are literally a rape apologist.

[Stalinist Speaker]

Wow. You are literally a rape apologist.

i didn't say that they did the right thing, i said it should have been expected that those types of crimes would occur.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

first of all it wasn't the left that raped. it was regular soldiers that has nothing to do with politics (mostly).
How can you expect that these things couldn't have happen? after what the germans did to the soviet people this is not even in the scale of bad. there were most civilian casualties in the USSR than any other nation in ww2 , and in some areas the people living there was completely exterminated, Ex. Belarus lost 2/3 of their population.
So what can you expect pretty much every russian hated Germany and everyone that supported the german government.

Once a german officer came home to his wife (i don't remember his name) and said "If a russian soldier comes and knocks on the door one day and does 10 times lees harm to you then what we did to the russians you will never be able to laugh and be happy again"

So i don't blame them. same thing with the soldiers stealing stuff. still don't blame them. etc

lets put it in a perspective, if someone came and killed members of your family and destroyed everything you own wouldn't you do something similar?

You don't blame them for committing mass rape? The German women and the women in other occupied countries were not the ones killing civilians in the USSR, why should they have been raped?

The Western allies also committed mass rape in the countries they liberated, were these also justified?

[ind_com]

The German women and the women in other occupied countries were not the ones killing civilians in the USSR, why should they have been raped?


Why even bring this argument in? Would be ok to rape them if they were killing civilians? Would it be ok to rape anyone anywhere ever? NO! Let's consider this as an axiom henceforth; rape is ALWAYS a crime.

[Remus Bleys]

You don't blame them for committing mass rape? The German women and the women in other occupied countries were not the ones killing civilians in the USSR, why should they have been raped?

The Western allies also committed mass rape in the countries they liberated, were these also justified?

Of course not. The west didn't wave a red flag.

[Stalinist Speaker]

You don't blame them for committing mass rape? The German women and the women in other occupied countries were not the ones killing civilians in the USSR, why should they have been raped?

The Western allies also committed mass rape in the countries they liberated, were these also justified?

Now if you know basic psychology you should know how most humans react when they get their families killed and everything they have destroyed. So it shouldn't be expected that they did that types of things, soldiers literally dedicated their life to fight Germany, maybe some people saw the german population as an enemy and not the government only, so as i said it should have been expected

The western countries weren't destroyed to ruins and mass murdered so the soldiers from the west haven't got an reason to do it (mostly9 So no.

[Remus Bleys]

Yes yes. The german ruling class committed atrocities, thereby making rape of regular germans okay.
Fuck you.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Why even bring this argument in? Would be ok to rape them if they were killing civilians? Would it be ok to rape anyone anywhere ever? NO! Let's consider this as an axiom henceforth; rape is ALWAYS a crime.

Of course not, however his argument for why he 'didnt blame them' was that it was some kind of retribution for the civilian casualties in the soviet union.

[Stalinist Speaker]

Yes yyes. The german ruling class committed atrocities, thereby making rape of regular germans okay.
Fuck you.

I DIDNT SAY THAT IT WAS RIGHT!! read what i said! I said that some people think like that, basic physiology!

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I DIDNT SAY THAT IT WAS RIGHT!! read what i said! I said that some people think like that, basic physiology!

You literally said you didn't blame them, thats the same as saying it was right.

[Remus Bleys]

I DIDNT SAY THAT IT WAS RIGHT!! read what i said! I said that some people think like that, basic physiology!

Your saying its not a big deal. You are saying that they raped because of basic physiology (which doesn't make sense because rape isn't a basic reaction at all). You are saying give them a break.
You may as well say it was right.
The amount of contempt I have for you is unfathonable. How are you not restricted?

[Stalinist Speaker]

You literally said you didn't blame them, thats the same as saying it was right.

No that means that i acknowledge that these things would happen thats why i don't blame them.

[Quail]

I understand that dehumanising the enemy is part of war, but there is no excuse whatsoever for soldiers raping anyone.

Stalinist Speaker, this is a verbal warning for rape apology. You are coming across as very dismissive, as though mass rape is just "something to be expected" under the circumstances and thus something we shouldn't examine.

[Stalinist Speaker]

Your saying its not a big deal. You are saying that they raped because of basic physiology (which doesn't make sense because rape isn't a basic reaction at all). You are saying give them a break.
You may as well say it was right.
The amount of contempt I have for you is unfathonable. How are you not restricted?

i'm saying that is should have been expected after what happen in the USSR. if someone punches you in the fece would you do it back? i'm saying that they committed those crimes because they were extremely pissed of and wanted to avenge their friends and families.

As long as the high command was against it and tried to stop it the USSR shouldn't be blamed. (there were rules in the 1st Ukrainian and 2 belarusian front (mostly) under the command of I. Konev and K. Rokosovski to not do any crimes against the german population. now obviously it wasn't followed by every soldier but what could they do to prevent them?)

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Dude im not gonna go back and forth with you. The sheer numbers of rapes indicates that no meaningful attempts were made by the officers to put a stop to it, and might even suggest that it was encouraged. This isn't something that happened, it was something that was allowed to happen by the soviet command structure. Saying you don't blame them in this context is the same as saying you agree with it.

[Stalinist Speaker]

I understand that dehumanising the enemy is part of war, but there is no excuse whatsoever for soldiers raping anyone.

Stalinist Speaker, this is a verbal warning for rape apology. You are coming across as very dismissive, as though mass rape is just "something to be expected" under the circumstances and thus something we shouldn't examine.

i am not trying to make the soldiers that committed rape look innocent, what i'm trying to say is you can't blame the USSR for that after all the high command tried to prevent it.

[Stalinist Speaker]

Dude im not gonna go back and forth with you. The sheer numbers of rapes indicates that no meaningful attempts were made by the officers to put a stop to it, and might even suggest that it was encouraged. This isn't something that happened, it was something that was allowed to happen by the soviet command structure. Saying you don't blame them in this context is the same as saying you agree with it.

an officer on field isn't a part of high command, i'm talking about generals, marshals e.t.c

[Stalinist Speaker]

what could the high command have done? placed out some sort of military police that goes around looking for soldiers committing crimes? pretty much unrealistic. So that is why i come to the conclusion that you can't blame the USSR and the Red army, but you should try to find those who committed those crimes (which would be hard) and sentence them for whatever crime they committed.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

If you're able to prevent your troops from deserting or damaging important pieces of infrastructure during combat, then yes you should also be able to prevent them from raping anyone, or at the very least from committing mass rapes.

[Sasha]

its pretty obvious the high command gave the soldiers free reign to commit these atrocities, already in januari 1945 stalin officially gave orders that anyone raping would be shot yet it wasnt before the end of the summer that the very first soldiers where getting arrested in berlin and it would take up to the winter of 1947-48 that eventually a real stop was made to it. during the conquest of germany itself there is ample evidence from testimonies of russian soldiers themselves that during the first 3 days soldiers where given free hand to loot and rape after conquering an new town and only after the 3th day martial law would be implemented.
the russian army committed unspeakable war crimes and we shouldnt hide that, there is no excuse.

[#FF0000]

what could the high command have done? placed out some sort of military police that goes around looking for soldiers committing crimes?

Er, yeah? That's what every occupying force does, specifically to prevent fraternization and this kind of atrocity from happening. Why is it "unrealistic"?. Or they could've done what they finally resorted to in 1947 and enforced strict separation of the Russian occupying force and the German civilian population. The fact is, yeah, this kind of atrocity isn't surprising, because rape has been a weapon for war as far back as human memory has the power to recall. It isn't surprising given how the Eastern Front was basically an all-you-can-eat PTSD buffet. It isn't surprising , but that doesn't diminish the atrocity, which is what you're trying to do here because it doesn't jive with your ideology and makes the idea of "the good war" a lot more complicated.

[The Feral Underclass]

i didn't say that they did the right thing, i said it should have been expected that those types of crimes would occur.

So in other words you're making apologies for rape...

[Conscript]

its pretty obvious the high command gave the soldiers free reign to commit these atrocities, already in januari 1945 stalin officially gave orders that anyone raping would be shot yet it wasnt before the end of the summer that the very first soldiers where getting arrested in berlin and it would take up to the winter of 1947-48 that eventually a real stop was made to it. during the conquest of germany itself there is ample evidence from testimonies of russian soldiers themselves that during the first 3 days soldiers where given free hand to loot and rape after conquering an new town and only after the 3th day martial law would be implemented.
the russian army committed unspeakable war crimes and we shouldnt hide that, there is no excuse.

sources would be nice bro.

[reb]

Stalinists are going to be apologists for some disgusting shit no matter what just because the USSR was in on it, from mass rape, mass murder, torture, slave labor, suppressing workers, antisemitism and so on and so on. This is pretty low for the average person but for self declared communists this is pretty much beyond the pale.

[Sasha]

sources would be nice bro.

the wikipedia is in fact sourcing many of the same fact and figures as the books and articles i read on the subject through the year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#References

[Decolonize The Left]

Wow. Terrific article which shows how ideology and morality are trumped by reality in traumatic situations. As the author notes at the end, many otherwise good men can become rapists when placed in the situation - the question then becomes, how does one stop this from happening? I believe a better question would be: how does one avoid this situation in the first place?

And yes, the left certainly needs to own up to this, however, I would like to note that just because I'm a leftist doesn't mean I support/ed the Red Army or the Soviet Union during WWII.

[BIXX]

Stalinist Speaker, please, just leave. Rape apologia is incredibly fucked up. So stop. Turn off your computer. Never come back.

Otherwise I'm sure you will be banned.

[adipocere]

I think that those of you who are native English speakers here need to chill with the knee-jerking fuck-yous when you can clearly see that someone is not entirely fluent in the language and that they may have difficulties enunciating finer points of their ideas. We should also be more understanding of people who are existing in cultures that may not have the same sensitivity to women's issues. Instead of grabbing pitchforks, I think we should be trying to offer them perspective.

I know I am (sort of) making excuses, but young-white-western-man demographic is pretty well represented here at Revleft. I personally like seeing non-westerners here and I think we should cut them more slack than we do Jim-Bob from Cali.

With that said however, the soldiers raped because they could. Their superiors certainly didn't care regardless of their official position. The idea that there was some burning need for revenge on women by foreign soldiers is utter and complete bullshit. It is war crimes, plain and simple.

[Decolonize The Left]

Stalinist Speaker, please, just leave. Rape apologia is incredibly fucked up. So stop. Turn off your computer. Never come back.

Otherwise I'm sure you will be banned.

This thread is an excellent chance for this poster to become exposed to perspectives which they currently do not hold. Note admin Quail's excellent warning, which was not aggressive and belittling (such as your post), but was constructive.

I believe that Stalinist Speaker is not intending to apologize for rape, but rather that they are not aware of the fact that their statements are seen as such by folks with more background in the areas of socio-political and cultural framing. Furthermore, it would be great if they came to understand why their statements are unacceptable rather than be ran out of the forum - wouldn't it?

[Art Vandelay]

i am not trying to make the soldiers that committed rape look innocent, what i'm trying to say is you can't blame the USSR for that after all the high command tried to prevent it.

Yes you can. In fact I've done it before and I'll do it again, right now. You're a rape apologist simple as that, regardless if subjectively you realize that is what your position amounts to. I'll blame the soldiers who carried out the rapes and the high command who let it happen. For arguments stake, even if they had done everything in their power to stop it (which is demonstrably false) they still have to answer for the actions of the troops under their command, that is how a chain of command functions.

I'm usually all for trying to help posters work through whatever reactionary convictions they uphold, but this is just sickening, someone ban this guy. Pretty sure it happened a while ago, when a bunch of M-L's attempted to justify these same atrocities and were banned, this should probably be no different.

[Art Vandelay]

This thread is an excellent chance for this poster to become exposed to perspectives which they currently do not hold. Note admin Quail's excellent warning, which was not aggressive and belittling (such as your post), but was constructive.

I believe that Stalinist Speaker is not intending to apologize for rape, but rather that they are not aware of the fact that their statements are seen as such by folks with more background in the areas of socio-political and cultural framing. Furthermore, it would be great if they came to understand why their statements are unacceptable rather than be ran out of the forum - wouldn't it?

Usually I'm all for that kind of approach, maybe it is indeed warranted this time as well and my comments were out of line. But I'm really struggling to see how he makes the comments he does, while failing to realize their implications.

"It is understandable what happened. Look at what Germany did to the USSR in the war, it is expected that they'd engage in mass rape afterwards, its human nature."

Then follow it up by saying:

"No I'm not a rape apologist."

I mean maybe he really can't see the implications of those statements, but then he's got some serious comprehension issues going on, as well as a case of cognitive dissonance.

[rednordman]

Surely the only real purpose of this Tread is just to make the Soviets look worse for doing a crime which basically every side did? No one trying to defend the Russians (or individuals rather) for this, but why are they so much worse than anyone else? It is true what Stalinist speaker says, that war is war and shit like this happens. Still horrible non the less. But the way people go on about the events of Berlin, you'd think it was only the Russians that did things like this. History is dark, no matter whose side you are on. Just we don't hear about it all in the west.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I can easily answer the two questions posed by the author at the end:

1) because it was the Soviet Union that did it.

and

2) because when you're subjected to a non-stop parade of death and carnage you often lose empathy for other people that you might otherwise have

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Stalinist Speaker should just be lucky he didn't get banned as hard as other rape apologists on this forum.

If the Red Army were really an agent of bringing socialism or communism to Eastern Europe as it purported, it would work to liberate women from their chains. There is no room for "rape" or "sexual assault" in that, and the fact that it was allowed on such a scale is just strong evidence that the Red Army was just the conquering force working on behalf of their elites to preserve national power, and its soldiers merely agents of that power struggling to impose their will on the weakest and most obvious victims available to them.

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

"The left and rape"? What does 20th century communism have to do with British rapist Trot cults like the SWP?

Either way WWII Red Army rapes put things into perspective don't they? The Bolsheviks shot their own soldiers for raping enemy women during WWII; modern-day leftists that rape their fellow party members get rewarded with leadership positions in the organization.

[#FF0000]

"Sure the Red Army raped hundreds of thousands of women and probably a lot more, but what about the SWP?"

[Comrade Jacob]

This fucking thread man. We all need to chill the fuck out put your pitch-forks away, go outside, do some deep-breathing then come back inside.
StalinistSpeaker's first language (as have been pointed out) is not English. I do not agree with his point but because of English not being his mother-tongue his points may have more to them that meets the eye.

"Blah, blah, Stalinism, Stalinism". (Like most threads).


EDIT: Sorry for my liberalism here (protecting a "friend" when he has clearly gone wrong).
StalinistSpeaker you where a twit.

[Alexios]

Surely the only real purpose of this Tread is just to make the Soviets look worse for doing a crime which basically every side did? No one trying to defend the Russians (or individuals rather) for this, but why are they so much worse than anyone else? It is true what Stalinist speaker says, that war is war and shit like this happens. Still horrible non the less. But the way people go on about the events of Berlin, you'd think it was only the Russians that did things like this. History is dark, no matter whose side you are on. Just we don't hear about it all in the west.

Yeah but you people are extremely hypocritical when it comes to this; you'll posture about the evils of American, British, whatever, conquests and foreign policy but when the topic of mass rape by Soviet soldiers comes up you just say "Oh well that's war what are you gonna do about it."


This fucking thread man. We all need to chill the fuck out put your pitch-forks away, go outside, do some deep-breathing then come back inside.
StalinistSpeaker's first language (as have been pointed out) is not English. I do not agree with his point but because of English not being his mother-tongue his points may have more to them that meets the eye.

"Blah, blah, Stalinism, Stalinism". (Like most threads).

Oh just shut up, he's not the only one who's ever done this. Stalin fanboys are always apologizing for Soviet war crimes.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

"Sure the Red Army raped hundreds of thousands of women and probably a lot more, but what about the SWP?"

well, to be fair I was going to mention/expected the mention of the SWP myself when I saw the thread title. Undoubtedly it doesn't compare at all in terms of scale but surely it's a valid topic in the context of a thread which seems to be about rape apology in the left?

E:

again, I don't say this wishing to detract from the discussion that's already going on, I simply think it's worth a mention.

[servusmoderni]

war is hell

[Ele'ill]

war is hell

What is your point? I assume you don't have a point, that this is another one of your one-liner posts that you're making all over the forum right now to increase your post count.

[#FF0000]

well, to be fair I was going to mention/expected the mention of the SWP myself when I saw the thread title. Undoubtedly it doesn't compare at all in terms of scale but surely it's a valid topic in the context of a thread which seems to be about rape apology in the left?

Yep, it is. I just thought it was comical in a really dark way how Carpet tried to minimize atrocities by the Red Army by pointing to the SWP scandal.

EDIT: comical definitely isn't the word.

[rednordman]

Yeah but you people are extremely hypocritical when it comes to this; you'll posture about the evils of American, British, whatever, conquests and foreign policy but when the topic of mass rape by Soviet soldiers comes up you just say "Oh well that's war what are you gonna do about it."But i never said that anyone else was any better or worse. War is awful and what those soldiers did was very wrong. Another thing is that if everyone did it, than why do we only hear about Russia? We all know that German, Japanese and other allied forces did the same thing, but it just gets swept under the carpet or no-one cares anymore. Everyone seems so obsessed with the Soviet Unions role in this, as if this was the act of the 'evils of communist ideology'. When the west does something like this, its always down to the individuals who where not behaving in a patriotic way. If that's not hypocrisy I don't know what is.

[Os Cangaceiros]

But i never said that anyone else was any better or worse. War is awful and what those soldiers did was very wrong. Another thing is that if everyone did it, than why do we only hear about Russia? We all know that German, Japanese and other allied forces did the same thing, but it just gets swept under the carpet or no-one cares anymore. Everyone seems so obsessed with the Soviet Unions role in this, as if this was the act of the 'evils of communist ideology'. When the west does something like this, its always down to the individuals who where not behaving in a patriotic way. If that's not hypocrisy I don't know what is.

But where has that attitude been expressed in this thread?

I don't know, when I hear stuff like this it often just smacks weakly of not wanting the USSR's "good name" to get too tarnished by pointing out that hey, the nations we rail constantly against from our soapboxes did the same thing, so that makes it not so bad, right...

...right? :unsure:

[Remus Bleys]

What the hell is this shit about his first language clearly not being english? So fucking what? He clearly is defensive about the rapists. No matter which way that is articulated it is rape apologism. I am honestly surprised that a nationalist supporter of Lukashenko can be a rape apologist on a supposedly revolutionary forum and only get away with a verbal warning.

[rednordman]

But where has that attitude been expressed in this thread?

I don't know, when I hear stuff like this it often just smacks weakly of not wanting the USSR's "good name" to get too tarnished by pointing out that hey, the nations we rail constantly against from our soapboxes did the same thing, so that makes it not so bad, right...

...right? :unsure:I never said that the soviet union was a good place. And definitely never meant to make you feel like I think that what the Russians did was any better than any other nations exploits. To be honest, I think that key factor to the whole scenario was that the Russians got there first. Other armies would have very likely behaved in similar fashion.

[adipocere]

What the hell is this shit about his first language clearly not being english? So fucking what? He clearly is defensive about the rapists. No matter which way that is articulated it is rape apologism. I am honestly surprised that a nationalist supporter of Lukashenko can be a rape apologist on a supposedly revolutionary forum and only get away with a verbal warning.

I frequently wonder why people who go on asshole rages in practically every single thread they participate in aren't infracted.

[Remus Bleys]

I frequently wonder why people who go on asshole rages in practically every single thread they participate in aren't infracted.
I mean of all threads this one I wasn't even being an asshole.
Are you telling me not to be mean to the rape apologist? If so, fuck off.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

apologise for the rape of millions of innocent women....get away with a verbal warning.....free to go about the forums preaching an ideology of murder and hatred.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Wow. You are literally a rape apologist.

You haven't been here long enough to know that every once in a while a thread on the rape of Berlin inevitably happens and a shit ton of Stalin's make themselves look really sinister and stupid. It's like clockwork, every 6-7 months or so.

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

Yep, it is. I just thought it was comical in a really dark way how Carpet tried to minimize atrocities by the Red Army by pointing to the SWP scandal.

EDIT: comical definitely isn't the word.
How did I try to minimize the atrocities in any shape or form? By mentioning the SWP shit? The same SWP shit which is the subject of the OP of the thread in which I posted? Fuck off.

That the Red Army raped a few dozen thousand women during its liberation of Europe from the Nazis is pretty tragic. No fucking shit. 1939-1945 was a time of unprecedented daily tragedies. I just don't see how it reflects badly on the Soviet civilian or military leadership, though. When caught, both rapists and looters were shot on the spot, as decreed by the counter-revolutionary cannibalistic Stalinist overlords of the USSR, so if anything, the Soviets were much too harsh when it came to punishing rape and looting during WWII, but that's completely understandable; discipline must be maintained, otherwise there the army is no real army but a disorganized anarchic rabble, and anyway I don't care if some rapist gets put in front of a firing squad or hung or whatever, as long as the killing is quick.

Compare how in 1945 communists executed their own soldiers, millions of whom lost their lives in the fight against fascism, for rape and looting, to how in 2013, rapists gets patted on the back or slapped on the wrist and rewarded with leadership positions, and you'll see exactly why I am disgusted by how pathetic and worthless the modern "left" in the West is.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

That the Red Army raped a few dozen thousand women during its liberation of Europe from the Nazis is pretty tragic. No fucking shit. 1939-1945 was a time of unprecedented daily tragedies. I just don't see how it reflects badly on the Soviet civilian or military leadership, though.

Do you not see it? After nearly 3 decades of socialism, including the advent of socialist realism and the 'socialist man', millions of soviet working men still saw nothing wrong with raping their fellow workers. I think that reflects pretty fucking badly on any self-styled 'socialist leaders'.


discipline must be maintained, otherwise there the army is no real army but a disorganized anarchic rabble, and anyway I don't care if some rapist gets put in front of a firing squad or hung or whatever, as long as the killing is quick.

Spoken like a true socialist. Order must be maintained. Authority must be obeyed. Yessir.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Holy shit this thread makes me so fucking angry every time it happens. Really no use in trying to articulate myself, some people just believe horrible things and there's nothing I can do about it.

[Hrafn]

what could the high command have done? placed out some sort of military police that goes around looking for soldiers committing crimes? pretty much unrealistic.

Pretty sure that's what the military police (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provost_(military_police)) does, yes.

Edit: Also, I thought I haven't done enough ad hominem attacks lately, so - you're a fucking rape apologist, SS.

[The Feral Underclass]

Let's be clear here, it wasn't just Soviet, German and Japanese soldiers that raped. American and British soldiers were guilty of sexual crimes just as much as their enemy. In post-war Germany, British and American soldiers routinely sexually exploited young women and children. Accounts of allied soldiers giving children living in the rubble of Berlin money for sex are well documented.

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

Do you not see it? After nearly 3 decades of socialism, including the advent of socialist realism and the 'socialist man', millions of soviet working men still saw nothing wrong with raping their fellow workers. I think that reflects pretty fucking badly on any self-styled 'socialist leaders'.
What the fuck are you on about, kid? Around 25 million men served in the Soviet armed forces during the second World War(or so, the Soviet military mobilization during the war was almost 26 million, if you subtract the million or so women that served in the army and the air force, you get 25 million). A few thousand, maybe 10, were rapists. 10,000 out of 25,000,000. That's what, 0.04%? A few rotten apples, big fucking deal. There are always going to be motherfuckers that are fucked in the head about. The Soviets dealt with them by putting some lead in their heads, case closed. It's pretty sad but some people are just begging for it. Anyway society is probably better off with the rapists and other predators like that out of it. Compare that 0.04% with the Axis and Allied soldiers and you'll see how favorably the Red Army's attitude towards rape compares with the attitudes of the allied "democracies". Not to mention how the Allies and the Axis didn't even punish their rapists.

And where did you get the millions figure? Goebbels' radio shows? Oh, okay...


Spoken like a true socialist. Order must be maintained. Authority must be obeyed. Yessir.Yeah. Order must be maintained. Authority must be obeyed. Displine is essential. That's how armies work and you can't win wars without armies. And if you're a communist republic trying to survive in an ocean of hostile capitalist powers, you're going to have to defend yourself. Are you following me or should we go over all that again buddy?

Or you know, you could have democratic militias. When the Nazis come to exterminate half your country and enslave the other half, don't be upset, at least you get to high-five and pat each other on the back for being so libertarian and anti-authoritarian!

This is idealism at its worst. You can't bend reality to your will so that armies can become exercises in consensus democracy. That's not how it works. You need to understand that and live in the real world.

[Sabot Cat]

This is article about how these heinous acts often get glossed over, minimized or ignored because it's not politically tactful to acknowledge them for leftists (such as myself), and that's what I'm seeing in this thread. War rape is still an all too common part of the world, and we must do all we can to prevent it from happening as much as possible, principally through the analysis of the causes.

Here are a few things that need to be addressed in broad strokes:

The potential for abuse of power when there is a lack of transparency, accountability and proper oversight;
The glorification of patriarchal values in military structures;
The dehumanization of women and "the enemy" within military culture;

My analysis is by no means an exhaustive one, but we need to study the underlying reasons so that an environment with reduced rates of war rape can be worked towards.

[xxxxxx666666]

The dehumanization of women and "the enemy" within military culture;


I'll agree on this, and no, rape isn't always what happened in violent conflicts.

For example, during the Boxer Rebellion, the Boxers didn't rape anyone, the Boxers killed a lot but no rape was done by the Boxers, even though a lot of foreign female peoples were present, unlike the Eight Nation Alliance, at least that's what's been allerged.

At least according to this:

" During the Boxer Rebellion, the Boxers didn't rape women, but members of the Eight-Nation Alliance (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the United States) did. "

http://www.examiner.com/review/an-overpowering-scent-of-nationalism-the-flowers-of-war

As to how this might have been enforced, there was Order No. 227 were a line of so-called blocking troops prevented the Red Army from retreating, their job was to "shoot "cowards" and fleeing panicked troops at the rear."

"The order also directed that each Army must create "blocking detachments" (Barrier Troops(заградотряд, заградительный отряд)) which would shoot "cowards" and fleeing panicked troops at the rear."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_No._227

By 20 November 1944 the blocking units were officially disbanded(G. I. Krivosheev. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill 1997) however, they were supposedly sucessful in driving the Germans from Mother Russia during the Nazi inversion of the USSR.

Nevertheless, a political officer was attached to the Soviet military units throughout World War II and after " The commissar had an influential role as a "second commander" within the military units during this time. When this proved less-than-effective, in 1942 the political officer was more firmly subordinated to commanding officers: the commissars' work was refocused to non-direct-command (unless otherwise needed) and morale-related functions. the term "commissar" itself was formally abolished in August 1942, and at the company- and regiment-level, the pompolit officer was replaced with the zampolit (deputy for political matters). Though no longer known by the original "commissar" title, political officers were retained by the Soviet armed forces until the Soviet dissolution in 1991"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_officer_%28military%29

Maybe if one was serious, one could have punish anyone who raped, just as they punished "cowards".

[Slavic]

What the fuck are you on about, kid? Around 25 million men served in the Soviet armed forces during the second World War(or so, the Soviet military mobilization during the war was almost 26 million, if you subtract the million or so women that served in the army and the air force, you get 25 million). A few thousand, maybe 10, were rapists. 10,000 out of 25,000,000. That's what, 0.04%? A few rotten apples, big fucking deal.

Surely your hypothetical 10,000 "rotten apples" must have been very busy considering the upper limit of 2 million rapes during the Soviet occupation of Germany. :rolleyes:


The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers range from the tens of thousands to 2 million.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-ElizabethHeineman-2)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-3)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-BBC-4)[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-Schissler-5)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-NPR-6) In many cases women were the victims of repeated rapes, some as many as 60 to 70 times.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-Struggle_for_Europe-7) At least 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin), based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports,[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-BBC-4) with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany#cite_note-Grossman-8) Female deaths in connection with the rapes in Germany, overall, are estimated at 240,000

[khad]

As to how this might have been enforced, there was Order No. 227 were a line of so-called blocking troops prevented the Red Army from retreating, their job was to "shoot "cowards" and fleeing panicked troops at the rear."

"The order also directed that each Army must create "blocking detachments" (Barrier Troops(заградотряд, заградительный отряд)) which would shoot "cowards" and fleeing panicked troops at the rear."
The primary responsibilities of blocking units were to safeguard rear areas from looting by deserters and to return deserted troops to their units. In other words, they were MPs.

http://i.imgur.com/FMKWHrf.png

[xxxxxx666666]

The primary responsibilities of blocking units were to safeguard rear areas from looting by deserters and to return deserted troops to their units. In other words, they were MPs.

http://i.imgur.com/FMKWHrf.png

From your source you post here: these blocking units send most of the people they detained to "punishment companies", shot them, or returned them to their "own units or higher echelon units".

I don't see where they prevented units from looting? :confused: I can read where they prevented retreat though and they did shot a number of troops who were retreating, from your source you provided here. Nevertheless, to be fair;), I'll say that this is just part of the writtings and that maybe I'll need to read the whole work to maybe get where the blocking units stop looting. (I'll try to look up "stalingradskaia epopeia", or is this part of another book or works? One "stalingradskaia epopeia" dates to 1968 and your's is 2000 so what's the complete work or works called?)

Back to the topic, why didn't these Soviet MP units didn't seem so effective at stopping rape?

Or, if not, was the number of rapes by the Red Army inflated?

Or part of a "larger picture" if so please provide the details!:)

[Left Voice]

I think people are getting distracted by the nitty gritty details rather than looking at the broader point of the article.

The article is asking, does the left have an issue dealing with rape? How can Marxism explain rape and sexual crimes, including those committed during war time? Why is there such a lack of academia on the left regarding issues of rape, especially those committed by the so-called 'left'? To what extent does the recent rape and sexual abuse cases within the SWP and their subsequent attempts to cover the issues up rather than deal with them suggest a lack of ability in certain quarters of the left to come to terms with these issues, some even being completely dismissive of women's issues? Why do we find that issues of sexuality are dismissed by so many on the left, dismissed as 'reactionary' or irrelevant to socialism?

These are the kinds of questions that we should be asking, in my opinion. Trying to debate with a Stalinist who wants to deny significance of rape committed by the Red Army is pointless.

[Teacher]

Stalinist Speaker is wrong to say what he said but I agree with those who said we need to be more rational in our responses.

If anyone is interested in a good scholarly account of the rape issue in the Soviet occupied parts of Germany, Norman Naimark's The Russians in Germany is a good book. Naimark is a raving anti-communist so you don't have to be afraid of "Stalinism" coloring his analysis.

[xxxxxx666666]

The article is asking, does the left have an issue dealing with rape?

Depend on the leftist in question, for me, rape is a crime, like murder, that should be doubted with. And I think most here may agree with this.


How can Marxism explain rape and sexual crimes, including those committed during war time?

Part of a wider so-called macho culture, where one tries to be as "manly" as possible, driven by the need to "own things" and seeing females as "things to be own and used", and this is part of the consequences. At least this is how I read it.


Why is there such a lack of academia on the left regarding issues of rape, especially those committed by the so-called 'left'?

Well that depend on what you define as the "left" and depending on your definition there could be in fact a lot of academia, or very few, depending on prospective. Feminist have written a lot on rape and feminist as a whole were considered "the left" until relatively recently.


To what extent does the recent rape and sexual abuse cases within the SWP and their subsequent attempts to cover the issues up rather than deal with them suggest a lack of ability in certain quarters of the left to come to terms with these issues, some even being completely dismissive of women's issues?

The same reasons that the Steubenville football rape case within Ohio and their subsequent attempts to cover the issues up rather than deal with them suggest a lack of ability in certain quarters of the town in Ohio to come to terms with these issues, some even being completely dismissive of women's issues.

One may read more about the the Steubenville football case here: (trigger warning though)
http://www.revleft.com/vb/trigger-warning-steubenville-t179484/index.html

Or anywhere else for that matter (I should say %[email protected]# the rape culture :mad:. And rape apologist too.)



Why do we find that issues of sexuality are dismissed by so many on the left, dismissed as 'reactionary' or irrelevant to socialism?

Similar reasons that those on the "right" dismissed sexuality, though historically, the left has been more progressive overall, if you include the feminists, which until recently, has been considered a left organization, as I've mentioned before. And no, I don't think there are many on the left who dismiss sexuality nowadays. And prior to Stalin and in the beginning of the communist Soviet Union, in the USSR, sexuality was more open, with rape begin a punishable crime and homosexuality begin legal and so forth. So this is probably false.

And so the article was probaby trying to make the left look bad.

[Glitchcraft]

Well I just texted my local communist elitist vanguard unit and after discussing with pretentious banter we came to the conclusion that:

There's no need to apologize for any of the Red Armies actions. No one here represents the Red Army Public relations board.

But as a new added policy: (because we are revisionist scumbags)
the next time theres a workers state and it is attacked by genocidal fascists we will make sure that the army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks has more respect for the fascist women after they liberate a bunch of human flesh lamp shade factories.

Yup we wrote that one right in the handbook.

Because it used to say if you loose 20 000 000 people in a war, liberate millions of Jews and free almost all of Europe from fascism we understand if there were some terrible circumstances that you were responsible for.

[Remus Bleys]

Well I just texted my local communist elitist vanguard unit and after discussing with pretentious banter we came to the conclusion that:

There's no need to apologize for any of the Red Armies actions. No one here represents the Red Army Public relations board.

But as a new added policy: (because we are revisionist scumbags)
the next time theres a workers state and it is attacked by genocidal fascists we will make sure that the army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks has more respect for the fascist women after they liberate a bunch of human flesh lamp shade factories.

Yup we wrote that one right in the handbook.

Because it used to say if you loose 20 000 000 people in a war, liberate millions of Jews and free almost all of Europe from fascism we understand if there were some terrible circumstances that you were responsible for.This is a terribly stupid troll post.

[xxxxxx666666]

the next time theres a workers state and it is attacked by genocidal fascists we will make sure that the army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks has more respect for the fascist women after they liberate a bunch of human flesh lamp shade factories.

Bravo! Bravo! That sounds like what the Boxers tried to do during the Boxer Rebellion in China(more or less)! ;)

I wouldn't say the Boxers were an "army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks" though. :mad:

"An eight-nation allied relief force, including a British contingent, made its way from the coast, with much bickering between the rival commanders. When it lifted the siege on August 14, it proceeded to loot, kill and rape with as much ferocity as the Boxers had shown (with the difference that the Boxers looted and killed, but did not rape). "

(I've bolded and underlined the terms I thought were important :grin:)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/aug/05/china.johngittings

So we shall be like the fierce Boxers, but this time we will be sucessful (unlike the Boxers who were defeated) and like them we shall kill! But never rape! :lol:

Even where enemy female persons are in front of us, we shall never rape, like the honorable Chinese Boxers of China!! Ever!! :)

"A hundred years ago, Sarah Alice Young, an American missionary, was killed in the Shanxi province of China. She was stabbed to death on the banks of the Yellow River in the arms of her "kindest and best of husbands", John Young, a fellow American. They had been married just over a year. Sarah and John were among 180 missionaries and their families slaughtered in the summer of 1900 at the height of the peasant uprising known as the Boxer Rebellion. "(From the same link I've provided above)

[Remus Bleys]

Bravo! Bravo! That sounds like what the Boxers tried to do during the Boxer Rebellion in China(more or less)!

I wouldn't say the Boxers were an "army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks" though.

"An eight-nation allied relief force, including a British contingent, made its way from the coast, with much bickering between the rival commanders. When it lifted the siege on August 14, it proceeded to loot, kill and rape with as much ferocity as the Boxers had shown (with the difference that the Boxers looted and killed, but did not rape). "

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/aug/05/china.johngittings

So we shall be like the fierce Boxers, but this time we will be sucessful (unlike the Boxers who were defeated) and like them we shall kill! But never rape!

Even where women and girls are in front of us, we shall never rape, like honorable Chinese Boxers!

"A hundred years ago, Sarah Alice Young, an American missionary, was killed in the Shanxi province of China. She was stabbed to death on the banks of the Yellow River in the arms of her "kindest and best of husbands", John Young, a fellow American. They had been married just over a year. Sarah and John were among 180 missionaries and their families slaughtered in the summer of 1900 at the height of the peasant uprising known as the Boxer Rebellion. "(From the same link I've provided above)Why the fuck are you talking about the Boxer Rebellion? Did you just go over this in class or something?

[xxxxxx666666]

Why the fuck are you talking about the Boxer Rebellion? Did you just go over this in class or something?

Why the fuck (to use your term) are you making a big deal about it?

They were an example of a violent group who fought and didn't rape.

Anyway do you have a problem with it, or maybe with me, and if so what is it, Remus Bleys?

[Remus Bleys]

Why the fuck are you making a big deal about it?

They were an example of a violent group who fought and didn't rape.

Anyway do you have a problem with it, or maybe with me, and if so what is it, Remus Bleys?
Because its entirely irrelevant to the thread. The so-called left is riddled with rape apologists and you are sitting here telling us all about how we can be violent and not rape! No shit.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

What the fuck are you on about, kid? Around 25 million men served in the Soviet armed forces during the second World War(or so, the Soviet military mobilization during the war was almost 26 million, if you subtract the million or so women that served in the army and the air force, you get 25 million). A few thousand, maybe 10, were rapists. 10,000 out of 25,000,000. That's what, 0.04%? A few rotten apples, big fucking deal.

It's telling that your attitude to the rape, and gang-rape, of perhaps hundreds of thousands of German working women after they'd been through 6 years of war and 12 years of Nazi rule is 'big fucking deal'. But then you've got the good ol' USSR to defend against my fascistic, liberal, trotskyite lies and slander and wrecking, right?


And where did you get the millions figure? Goebbels' radio shows? Oh, okay...

Reductio ad hitlerum. Only took 2 posts.


Yeah. Order must be maintained. Authority must be obeyed. Displine is essential. That's how armies work and you can't win wars without armies. And if you're a communist republic trying to survive in an ocean of hostile capitalist powers, you're going to have to defend yourself. Are you following me or should we go over all that again buddy?

Don't be such a fucking child. The idea of a communist republic fighting wars that involve invading and carving up other countries is the fucked up bit. The idea of a communist republic using bourgeois fucking army structures to defend itself the fucked up bit. The idea of self-styled communists highlighting and defending national borders is the fucked up bit.


Or you know, you could have democratic militias. When the Nazis come to exterminate half your country and enslave the other half, don't be upset, at least you get to high-five and pat each other on the back for being so libertarian and anti-authoritarian!

So basically, the idea of workers doing shit for themselves is utopian but they're not actually good at it ....why? Because we need professional soldiers? Presumably we need professional politicians, too? And professional economists? Hell, why don't we let those professional capitalists run the country, and the workers can get on with producing and waving them red flags. Sound good?


This is idealism at its worst. You can't bend reality to your will so that armies can become exercises in consensus democracy. That's not how it works. You need to understand that and live in the real world.

If they're not exercises in socialist democracy, then it's not worth fucking defending is it? You're essentially defending bourgeois structures...why?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Well I just texted my local communist elitist vanguard unit and after discussing with pretentious banter we came to the conclusion that:

There's no need to apologize for any of the Red Armies actions. No one here represents the Red Army Public relations board.

But as a new added policy: (because we are revisionist scumbags)
the next time theres a workers state and it is attacked by genocidal fascists we will make sure that the army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks has more respect for the fascist women after they liberate a bunch of human flesh lamp shade factories.

Yup we wrote that one right in the handbook.

Because it used to say if you loose 20 000 000 people in a war, liberate millions of Jews and free almost all of Europe from fascism we understand if there were some terrible circumstances that you were responsible for.

Attacking workers, women, jews and much of the left all in one post. And coming across like a massive tosser.

My hat off to you, sir.

[Art Vandelay]

the next time theres a workers state and it is attacked by genocidal fascists we will make sure that the army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks has more respect for the fascist women after they liberate a bunch of human flesh lamp shade factories.

Are you seriously putting forth the argument that the women who lived under Nazi Germany were fascists?

e: Actually wait, are you seriously putting forth the argument that even if they were, their rape could be somehow justified/explained? Explained, that is, without simply stating it was fucked up and wrong, regardless of the context?

[xxxxxx666666]

Because its entirely irrelevant to the thread. The so-called left is riddled with rape apologists and you are sitting here telling us all about how we can be violent and not rape! No shit.

Ok, I stand corrected. ;)

[Glitchcraft]

This is a terribly stupid troll post.

your a stupid troll post.

My point is no one today has to apologize for the actions of people in the past. It's the past... we weren't there. We didn't do that. We also don't have to apologize for what the Vietnamese did to American POWs. We also don't have to apologize for the way the Coyote treated the Road Runner, that wasn't any of us either. Thats one of the few things I agree with Noam Chomsky on. There's a perfectly valid reason to not take this topic seriously. The same reason none of the socialist groups the article petitions for this apology take it seriously.


It's the same old Evil State Capitalists Lenin and Trotsky murdering all the brave freedom fighters of Kronstadt. Now it's the rapist red army. It's a constant necessity to heap as much dirt on the Russian Revolution as possible. The greatest victory the workers have ever known. But since it was not a perfect victory we must condemn it %100 with no exceptions. What is the point in asking Leftists in general to apologize for the Red Army during the most deadly conflict in all of history? Apologize to who Nazis? Women in general? Do the grandchildren of the Red Army soldiers owe the German Descendants reparations? Give one serious answer as to why any socialist today should apologize for anything Stalin did at all ever.

[Glitchcraft]

Are you seriously putting forth the argument that the women who lived under Nazi Germany were fascists?

e: Actually wait, are you seriously putting forth the argument that even if they were, their rape could be somehow justified/explained? Explained, that is, without simply stating it was fucked up and wrong, regardless of the context?

im not seriously putting forth anything because i don't think this is a serious topic. The topic of rape itself is serious but the idea of apologizing for the actions of people in the past is ridiculous. And your right those women were in horrible conditions. But again my point is that its a bullshit topic why be serious. The amount of rage it elicits does not falter either way.

[Art Vandelay]

My point is no one today has to apologize for the actions of people in the past. It's the past... we weren't there. We didn't do that. We also don't have to apologize for what the Vietnamese did to American POWs. We also don't have to apologize for the way the Coyote treated the Road Runner, that wasn't any of us either.

No. Just no. You're completely missing the point. This has nothing to do with our politics as leftists, it has to do with rape being wrong. Simple as that. This has nothing to do with attempting to shit on a 'workers state,' regardless of whether or not I consider it to be a workers state at that point in time, it has to do with rape not being acceptable. Simple as that really and I don't blame people for assuming those who were trying to contextualize the mass rape committed by the red army, as rape apologists.


Thats one of the few things I agree with Noam Chomsky on. There's a perfectly valid reason to not take this topic seriously. The same reason none of the socialist groups the article petitions for this apology take it seriously.

Well I can only speak for myself, but I consider issues surrounding rape/sexual harassment/genuine scum bag actions/etc...committed by members of any 'leftist' organization, as something worthy of discussion, if only to condemn said actions, engage in self reflection, and to see to it they never happen again.


It's the same old Evil State Capitalists Lenin and Trotsky murdering all the brave freedom fighters of Kronstadt. Now it's the rapist red army.

What a pathetic and disgusting example of the use of the 'slippery slope' fallacy.


It's a constant necessity to heap as much dirt on the Russian Revolution as possible.

Nope. Its actually not about that, its about rape.


The greatest victory the workers have ever known.

Agreed.


But since it was not a perfect victory we must condemn it %100 with no exceptions.

Nope.


What is the point in asking Leftists in general to apologize for the Red Army during the most deadly conflict in all of history? Apologize to who Nazis? Women in general? Do the grandchildren of the Red Army soldiers owe the German Descendants reparations? Give one serious answer as to why any socialist today should apologize for anything Stalin did at all ever.

You're delusional if you honestly think that is what this is about. This has nothing to do with apologizing, as you said, no one here had anything to do with it. What this has to do with, is owning up to our history as leftists, and being able to condemn something, regardless of whether or not said actions, were carried out by someone waving a red flag.

[Art Vandelay]

im not seriously putting forth anything because i don't think this is a serious topic. The topic of rape itself is serious but the idea of apologizing for the actions of people in the past is ridiculous. And your right those women were in horrible conditions. But again my point is that its a bullshit topic why be serious. The amount of rage it elicits does not falter either way.

No one is suggesting anyone apologize. You're arguing against a strawman.

[RedBen]

The idea of a communist republic using bourgeois fucking army structures to defend itself the fucked up bit. The idea of self-styled communists highlighting and defending national borders is the fucked up bit.



So basically, the idea of workers doing shit for themselves is utopian but they're not actually good at it ....why? Because we need professional soldiers?

to your first point here, hell yes a communist society should be able to fend of imperialists, the whole world won't wake up and turn red. there needs to be transition. this will include making progress(which won't be uniform everywhere) and preserving and defending that progress. and second, no, an untrained person will not be an effective fighter. i can tell that(from experience) that us army training vs someone who never fought is incomparable. if you cannot wield, maintain and master a weapon, you're pissing in the wind against a force with tactics, training and experience.

[Left Voice]

The leading suggestion in the article asking if the left should feel ashamed is clearly hypothetical. It is a grammatical device to lead the discussion regarding the inability of many on the left (and indeed, many not on the left) to deal with issues of rape, or other aspects of women's issues.

It shouldn't be taken literally, but instead be seen as a grammatical device that challenges people to answer, support, or challenge the suggestions in the article.

The author himself self-describes as a leftist. To suggest that the author is trying to attack the entire left is willful ignorance of the issue being raised.

[khad]

From your source you post here: these blocking units send most of the people they detained to "punishment companies", shot them, or returned them to their "own units or higher echelon units".

I don't see where they prevented units from looting? :confused: I can read where they prevented retreat though and they did shot a number of troops who were retreating, from your source you provided here. Nevertheless, to be fair;), I'll say that this is just part of the writtings and that maybe I'll need to read the whole work to maybe get where the blocking units stop looting. (I'll try to look up "stalingradskaia epopeia", or is this part of another book or works? One "stalingradskaia epopeia" dates to 1968 and your's is 2000 so what's the complete work or works called?)

Back to the topic, why didn't these Soviet MP units didn't seem so effective at stopping rape?

Or, if not, was the number of rapes by the Red Army inflated?

Or part of a "larger picture" if so please provide the details!:)

Use your head for once. Blocking detachments were 3 companies per army--that means about 4-600 men for every 40-80,000, and they were stationed in the rear to pick up stragglers and deserters (and bring them to military tribunal--you should know that if you ever bothered to read the actual order you cited from wikipedia). What purpose would they have in an occupation zone?

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/journal_of_interdisciplinary_history/v043/43.2.thurston.html



Patriotism did not necessarily equate with support for Stalinist governance; people can and do fight for regimes they dislike. By the same token, surrender or desertion from the Red Army resulted from various motives and situational factors, not always disloyalty. Reese argues that coercion in securing service has been overrated. He details the large number of volunteers from the major cities and compares their willingness to fight to the evaporation of self-sacrifice during World War I. Few Soviet volunteers came from the peasantry, but when the army became "repeasantized" in 1942 after horrendous losses among urban soldiers, the armed forces remained effective.

The book counters ideas—often based on remarks by former German soldiers—that Soviet troops behaved like animals or automatons in battle. Reese shows instead that Soviet soldiers largely acted on their own initiative, deciding for themselves why they fought. Political officers often conducted little indoctrination; rather, they explained to untested men what they should expect in battle. Reese also corrects the record concerning blocking detachments. Contrary to legend, they did not fire machine guns at retreating troops. The detachments were not even designed to intimidate soldiers. Bearing only small arms, they rounded up stragglers and disorganized, retreating men and returned them to the front. The blocking attachments arrested only 3.7 percent of the soldiers that they detained, and only 1.5 percent of the detainees received death sentences (170). The penal battalions, in which casualties could be extremely high, did not mean permanent punishment; service in them sometimes lasted only several days. Survivors usually returned to their original units and ranks. Little evidence suggests that women soldiers and support troops ever failed in action; despite horrendous conditions and sexual harassment, women were "vital" to Soviet success.

[Red HalfGuard]

lets put it in a perspective, if someone came and killed members of your family and destroyed everything you own wouldn't you do something similar?

What, rape that person's family? No. How the fuck does your mind even work?

[Red HalfGuard]

Spoken like a true socialist. Order must be maintained. Authority must be obeyed. Yessir.

So basically you're saying the Commisars shouldn't have shot rapists? Looks like you and Stalinist Speaker have something in common...

[xxxxxx666666]

Use your head for once. Blocking detachments were 3 companies per army--that means about 4-600 men for every 40-80,000, and they were stationed in the rear to pick up stragglers and deserters (and bring them to military tribunal--you should know that if you ever bothered to read the actual order you cited from wikipedia). What purpose would they have in an occupation zone?

I DO read the stuff I cited from wikipedia, thank you very much, and there was no fixed numbers for the blocking units, their numbers mostly went up during the beginning of the German invasion and then went down as the war went on, to begin effective disbanded, to offically disbanded, mostly due to the need to put more people on the front lines and other factors.

Oh well, I take it that Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought: The Red Army's Effectiveness in World War IIis the source for that other post you've mentioned?

[khad]

Bravo! Bravo! That sounds like what the Boxers tried to do during the Boxer Rebellion in China(more or less)! ;)

I wouldn't say the Boxers were an "army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks" though. :mad:

"An eight-nation allied relief force, including a British contingent, made its way from the coast, with much bickering between the rival commanders. When it lifted the siege on August 14, it proceeded to loot, kill and rape with as much ferocity as the Boxers had shown (with the difference that the Boxers looted and killed, but did not rape). "

I presume because they realized that the eyes of the world were upon them, as well as the specific mystical beliefs of the boxer activists whose imagined power drew from their monastic celibacy and self-abnegation. None of that stopped the Chinese from raping the wives of the Japanese occupiers following the liberation of the Chinese northeast following the August Storm.

Honestly, let's stop playing this inane game of "who's the bigger rapist?" because any society that is not the perfect anarcho-communist, gay-liberated, post-monetary utopia is going to display elements of the capitalist pathologies that were ubiquitous at the time. No one is justifying this shit, but let's not pretend that rape didn't happen in the Commune or the French Revolution.

[xxxxxx666666]

I presume because they realized that the eyes of the world were upon them, as well as the specific mystical beliefs of the boxer activists whose imagined power drew from their monastic celibacy and self-abnegation. None of that stopped the Chinese from raping the wives of the Japanese occupiers following the liberation of the Chinese northeast following the August Storm.

Honestly, let's stop playing this inane game of "who's the bigger rapist?" because any society that is not the perfect anarcho-communist, gay-liberated, post-monetary utopia is going to display elements of the capitalist pathologies that were ubiquitous at the time. No one is justifying this shit, but let's not pretend that rape didn't happen in the Commune or the French Revolution.

Ok, Ok, I'm sorry about my post on Chinese boxers.

[Red HalfGuard]

So, here's the big question that a lot of left idealists can't answer: How should high command have responded? Should they have respected the autonomy of rapists? Should they not have deployed commisars?

Clearly this is ridiculous and illogical. There was a problem in high command that allowed these crimes to happen. But the problem isn't that rape was an official weapon of policy, there's no evidence for that. Stalin's orders on the matter, as according to http://statehistory.ru/32/Mif-o-millionakh-iznasilovannykh-nemok/ :


Officers and men of the Red Army! We are entering the country of the enemy... the remaining population in the liberated areas, regardless of whether they're German, Czech, or Polish, should not be subjected to violence. The perpetrators will be punished according to the laws of war. In the liberated territories, sexual relations with females are not allowed. Pepetrators of violence and rape will be shot.

The immediate problem was that discipline was not vigorous enough. It was the responsibility of the Political Officers to enforce this discipline. This was not universal. 7-10 thousand rapists were shot in the field (versus only about 150 for the USA forces, and if you think that's because 'Murrican boys are less rapists than Russian ones, I've got a bridge to sell you).

Nevertheless, the pattern is clear. Though Stalin condemned all crimes against the German populace and mandated death for the perps, the enforcement was clearly weak. It's possible (depending on whether you believe Djilas) he was dismissive of the problem, but even his worst detractors (IE the average revleft "communist") would be hard pressed to say he ordered it.

Men commit rapes because they are conditioned to by patriarchy. Patriarchy is a capitalist pathology because it involves the exploitation of a group that is expected to labor for another group (that is, women are expected to do labor, both physically and emotionally, for men). The men who committed rape were being counter revolutionaries. Some of them were caught and shot. More of them should have been and patriarchal behavior should have been educated against before the war even started (though it should be noted that the Bolshevik government established the first department of any government ever for the advancement of women). Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but self criticism is important and what distinguishes us from vulgar social darwinism.

It would also be interesting to know how many female Red Army soldiers were present during the occupation at the time. We know quite a few served.

[Tim Cornelis]

your a stupid troll post.

My point is no one today has to apologize for the actions of people in the past. It's the past... we weren't there. We didn't do that. We also don't have to apologize for what the Vietnamese did to American POWs. We also don't have to apologize for the way the Coyote treated the Road Runner, that wasn't any of us either. Thats one of the few things I agree with Noam Chomsky on. There's a perfectly valid reason to not take this topic seriously. The same reason none of the socialist groups the article petitions for this apology take it seriously.


It's the same old Evil State Capitalists Lenin and Trotsky murdering all the brave freedom fighters of Kronstadt. Now it's the rapist red army. It's a constant necessity to heap as much dirt on the Russian Revolution as possible. The greatest victory the workers have ever known.

Guise, we can't point to historical facts because we may find that the Russian revolution (the greatest victory for workers ever, ever) may not be what we thought it was.

[Invader Zim]

So, here's the big question that a lot of left idealists can't answer: How should high command have responded? Should they have respected the autonomy of rapists? Should they not have deployed commisars?

Clearly this is ridiculous and illogical. There was a problem in high command that allowed these crimes to happen. But the problem isn't that rape was an official weapon of policy, there's no evidence for that. Stalin's orders on the matter, as according to http://statehistory.ru/32/Mif-o-millionakh-iznasilovannykh-nemok/ :



The immediate problem was that discipline was not vigorous enough. It was the responsibility of the Political Officers to enforce this discipline. This was not universal. 7-10 thousand rapists were shot in the field (versus only about 150 for the USA forces, and if you think that's because 'Murrican boys are less rapists than Russian ones, I've got a bridge to sell you).

Nevertheless, the pattern is clear. Though Stalin condemned all crimes against the German populace and mandated death for the perps, the enforcement was clearly weak. It's possible (depending on whether you believe Djilas) he was dismissive of the problem, but even his worst detractors (IE the average revleft "communist") would be hard pressed to say he ordered it.

Men commit rapes because they are conditioned to by patriarchy. Patriarchy is a capitalist pathology because it involves the exploitation of a group that is expected to labor for another group (that is, women are expected to do labor, both physically and emotionally, for men). The men who committed rape were being counter revolutionaries. Some of them were caught and shot. More of them should have been and patriarchal behavior should have been educated against before the war even started (though it should be noted that the Bolshevik government established the first department of any government ever for the advancement of women). Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but self criticism is important and what distinguishes us from vulgar social darwinism.

It would also be interesting to know how many female Red Army soldiers were present during the occupation at the time. We know quite a few served.

I think you make some faulty assumptions here, firstly that because Stalin said something, or even made it policy, that this policy was ever intended to be carried out. Given the systematic nature, and the scale, of the mass rapes across Germany, it is clearly very difficult to suggest that an otherwise highly efficient and effective army suffered from a lapse of discipline on such a scale - rather, it suggests that the regime chose to turn a blind eye and that the upper echelons of the Red Army failed to enforce discipline when it came to this issue, or rather did so in a deliberately perfunctory fashion.

To highlight that, we need only actually make the same comparison you do - that while rape perpetrated the other Allied armies, while vast in number, was still several orders of magnitude lower than that in the case of the Red Army. That does not suggest that Soviet troops were in some way more inclined to rape, rather it implies that they were allowed to get away with it, and that if they did then there would likely be little personal consequence to themselves.

[Per Levy]

reading though this thread, all that i can say is that this thread was a long time overdue. for it proves the article right. rape apologism, whitewashing, downplaying, justifying all happening in this very thread. quite sickening.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

lets put it in a perspective, if someone came and killed members of your family and destroyed everything you own wouldn't you do something similar?

Oh wow. Wow, wow, wow.

Did you seriously just come out and outright advocate for blood feud? What the fuck is wrong with you?

This isn't barbarian-age Europe - it's the twenty-first century. To think that someone would even support this utterly savage and racist-level murder of innocents solely because they are closely related to someone who has committed murder themselves is fucking nuts, and if you support this then you are one evil piece of god-damned shit.

So to answer your question, no - If someone murdered my family members, I would not hunt down and kill his fucking sister and niece who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Question: How would you like it if every time your older brother (from imaginary scenario land) stole a jewel from a salesman, that salesman assaulted you. He hits and abuses you - who had absolutely no connection to the act - solely because you are his brother: Because you look like him. Absolutely cruel, barbaric and insane, isn't it? And that scenario is nowhere near as bad as the shit you are implying.

Of course, all of this is putting aside the fact that you are literally advocating rape as a form of punishment, right here in this thread.


I can't wait to hear what comes next from you. Sympathy for honour-killing because it 'would encourage revolutionary discipline', perhaps? :rolleyes:

[Per Levy]

banned stalinist speaker, rape apologist

i usually dont applaud bannings but that was a long time overdue. good riddance.

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

Surely your hypothetical 10,000 "rotten apples" must have been very busy considering the upper limit of 2 million rapes during the Soviet occupation of Germany. :rolleyes:
The ridiculous 2 million rapes has no basis in reality, though, so nah. Do you even know how the Nazi apologist "historians" who came up with that figure justify it? It's hilarious. The 2 million figure is an extrapolation made from a tiny sample of birth and abortion statistics in a single Berlin hospital where around 500 children were born a year in 1945-1946. It was assumed by Nazi apologists and anti-communist "historians" that every abortion in said clinic was the result of a rape of a German woman by a Russian(because why would beautiful young blonde blue-eyed Aryan women choose out of their own free will to have sex with the Judeo-Bolshevik Asiatic Mongolo-Turkic Untermenschen, right, especially in a city like Berlin, where almost all the German males were either PoWs or corpses) and that every birth where the nationality of the father was written down as "Russian"(i.e 20 of the 500 births) was a rape, even though only 3 of 20 were recorded as rapes. Then they assumed that this was true of every part of Germany.

Do you see what is wrong with such methodology? It assumes that the Berlin sample is representative of the rest of Germany, which it clearly wasn't; not only was Berlin the area with the highest concentration of German women in Germany, but it also had the highest concentration of Red Army soldiers, ergo more sex between German women and Soviet soldiers, mostly consensual but naturally some of it not so. It also assumes that every abortion was the result of a rape, that every rape was a rape by a Russian man, and that every abortion that was as the result of a rape actually was that when in fact the vast majority of the women who had these abortions in 1945 and 1946 invented the rapes to legally secure their abortions.

tl;dr the 2 million rapes statistic doesn't hold water. It's just another example of Nazi racial ideology distorting historical reality because you see mate, the Soviets had to have been a barbaric horde of rapists and looters. Hitler said so, man. Would he lie? Of course not...

[Sasha]

the soviets did behave like a barbaric horde of rapists and looters though, thats the whole fucking point of this thread, its fucking rich to put "historians" in brackets when you are whitewashing the abhorrent behavior of the red army claiming most was consensual sex, there where rapes on a massive scale, that is historic fact, denying it makes you no better than the holocaust denying nazi's

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

What the fuck are you using to base your claim that most of the sex between Germans and red army soldiers was consensual? Jesus Christ, we should have this thread every 3 months to weed out the scumfucks on this forum.

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

It's telling that your attitude to the rape, and gang-rape, of perhaps hundreds of thousands of German working women after they'd been through 6 years of war and 12 years of Nazi rule is 'big fucking deal'. But then you've got the good ol' USSR to defend against my fascistic, liberal, trotskyite lies and slander and wrecking, right?
I'm sorry I have no crocodile tears to shed over the historical falsifications invented by anti-communist Nazi apologists. Reaaaalllly sorry.



Don't be such a fucking child. The idea of a communist republic fighting wars that involve invading and carving up other countries is the fucked up bit.
Why is it fucked up for one communist Republic to spread communism to other countries? One word: internationalism.


The idea of a communist republic using bourgeois fucking army structures to defend itself the fucked up bit.
Why is it fucked up to use the bourgeoisie's own tools against them?


The idea of self-styled communists highlighting and defending national borders is the fucked up bit.
Who said anything about national borders son?



So basically, the idea of workers doing shit for themselves is utopian but they're not actually good at it ....why? Because we need professional soldiers? Presumably we need professional politicians, too? And professional economists? Hell, why don't we let those professional capitalists run the country, and the workers can get on with producing and waving them red flags. Sound good?

You're rambling and ranting there, get a grip on yourself.


If they're not exercises in socialist democracy, then it's not worth fucking defending is it? You're essentially defending bourgeois structures...why?
I don't give a shit about whateverthefuck "socialist democracy" is, maybe? I don't want to spend 12 hours a day debating local production schedules and then another 6 hours selecting representatives to attend the municipal and regional meetings of the workers' factory committee or some shit like that.

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

the soviets did behave like a barbaric horde of rapists and looters
yeah those untermenschen :(

if only hitler won, right? the world would have been saved from the barbarian horde of the slav rapists

Tell me, is being a racist a requirement for Revleft Adminship?

[reb]

Stalinism everyone! A bourgeois ideology for a bourgeois nation!

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

What the fuck are you using to base your claim that most of the sex between Germans and red army soldiers was consensual? Jesus Christ, we should have this thread every 3 months to weed out the scumfucks on this forum.
Do you even realize that abortion was a capital offense in Nazi German and that in 1945 and 1946, in order to get an abortion, German women had to conjure up some chimera of a dozen swarthy untermenschen Slavo-Turkic mongrels raping them, whether it actually happened or not. In West Germany, abortion was illegal except for medical reasons or sexual crimes until 1992. In contrast, the GDR, which was apparently founded by barbarian rapist Slavs as comrade Psycho has demonstrated, legalized abortion in 1972.

There's a large body of literature that details the love affairs between Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany and German women. The whole thing became so widespread that by late 1945 the army began penalizing Soviet soldiers for having affairs with German women, forcefully breaking the couples apart and relocating the soldiers back to the USSR. There are also numerous incidents where in order to stay together, German women and Soviet soldiers would try to defect to the West and there are also numerous examples of German women having sexual relations with Soviet soldiers out of convenience, for the purpose of getting extra food rations and the like from them.

Either way, German women, being women, had sexual and romantic needs, and given that the vast majority of German men were either old, disabled, prisoners of war or corpses, they didn't have many options besides turning to Soviet men now did they? That, or mass conversions to lesbianism, but which is more likely?

Clearly there were many instances of rape, but you are going to have sadists that are fucked in the head no matter what. The Soviets dealt with theirs by shooting them dead. Modern "leftists" propose rehabilitation and most don't even believe in jailing them because prisons are so bourgeois. So when modern "leftists" moan about how the Soviets were supposedly lenient when it came to rape, my only reaction is "ahahahahahahahhhaah no fuck off".

[Magic Carpets Corp.]

the soviets did behave like a barbaric horde of rapists and looters though, thats the whole fucking point of this thread, its fucking rich to put "historians" in brackets when you are whitewashing the abhorrent behavior of the red army claiming most was consensual sex, there where rapes on a massive scale, that is historic fact, denying it makes you no better than the holocaust denying nazi's
To return to this, do you even see the irony in your post here Mr. Rosenberg? You parrot the most vicious Nazi propaganda about the Red being a roving Asiatic horde of barbarian rapists and then you compare me to a Neo-Nazi? That's so fucking rich.

Pot, meet kettle.

[The Feral Underclass]

Quibbling over numbers is just as obscene as making apologies for the rape. Who gives a fuck whether it was 10,000 or 10,000,000. Trying to negotiate the figures just makes you a highly dubious individual.

[Sasha]

To return to this, do you even see the irony in your post here Mr. Rosenberg? You parrot the most vicious Nazi propaganda about the Red being a roving Asiatic horde of barbarian rapists and then you compare me to a Neo-Nazi? That's so fucking rich.

Pot, meet kettle.

Mr rosenberg? I hope that thats an refrence I'm not getting and not a digg on my ethnicity?

[Remus Bleys]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Rosenberg

I think he's referencing this.

[Sasha]

Charming, I assume he doesn't know I'm Jewish then, if not he is an bigger dick than I even thought.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Do you even realize that abortion was a capital offense in Nazi German and that in 1945 and 1946, in order to get an abortion, German women had to conjure up some chimera of a dozen swarthy untermenschen Slavo-Turkic mongrels raping them, whether it actually happened or not. In West Germany, abortion was illegal except for medical reasons or sexual crimes until 1992. In contrast, the GDR, which was apparently founded by barbarian rapist Slavs as comrade Psycho has demonstrated, legalized abortion in 1972.

There's a large body of literature that details the love affairs between Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany and German women. The whole thing became so widespread that by late 1945 the army began penalizing Soviet soldiers for having affairs with German women, forcefully breaking the couples apart and relocating the soldiers back to the USSR. There are also numerous incidents where in order to stay together, German women and Soviet soldiers would try to defect to the West and there are also numerous examples of German women having sexual relations with Soviet soldiers out of convenience, for the purpose of getting extra food rations and the like from them.

Either way, German women, being women, had sexual and romantic needs, and given that the vast majority of German men were either old, disabled, prisoners of war or corpses, they didn't have many options besides turning to Soviet men now did they? That, or mass conversions to lesbianism, but which is more likely?

Clearly there were many instances of rape, but you are going to have sadists that are fucked in the head no matter what. The Soviets dealt with theirs by shooting them dead. Modern "leftists" propose rehabilitation and most don't even believe in jailing them because prisons are so bourgeois. So when modern "leftists" moan about how the Soviets were supposedly lenient when it came to rape, my only reaction is "ahahahahahahahhhaah no fuck off".

'Women being women' nice.

[Rurkel]

Clearly there were many instances of rape, but you are going to have sadists that are fucked in the head no matter what. The Soviets dealt with theirs by shooting them dead.
Whether the USSR army systematically punished these rapes, by lead bullets or not, is exactly the issue of contention here (this, and the number, which indeed sounds out-of-the-blue and too high an estimate - but it's the punishment, or lack thereof, I am more interested in).

[Invader Zim]

The ridiculous 2 million rapes has no basis in reality, though, so nah. Do you even know how the Nazi apologist "historians" who came up with that figure justify it? It's hilarious. The 2 million figure is an extrapolation made from a tiny sample of birth and abortion statistics in a single Berlin hospital where around 500 children were born a year in 1945-1946. It was assumed by Nazi apologists and anti-communist "historians" that every abortion in said clinic was the result of a rape of a German woman by a Russian(because why would beautiful young blonde blue-eyed Aryan women choose out of their own free will to have sex with the Judeo-Bolshevik Asiatic Mongolo-Turkic Untermenschen, right, especially in a city like Berlin, where almost all the German males were either PoWs or corpses) and that every birth where the nationality of the father was written down as "Russian"(i.e 20 of the 500 births) was a rape, even though only 3 of 20 were recorded as rapes. Then they assumed that this was true of every part of Germany.

Do you see what is wrong with such methodology? It assumes that the Berlin sample is representative of the rest of Germany, which it clearly wasn't; not only was Berlin the area with the highest concentration of German women in Germany, but it also had the highest concentration of Red Army soldiers, ergo more sex between German women and Soviet soldiers, mostly consensual but naturally some of it not so. It also assumes that every abortion was the result of a rape, that every rape was a rape by a Russian man, and that every abortion that was as the result of a rape actually was that when in fact the vast majority of the women who had these abortions in 1945 and 1946 invented the rapes to legally secure their abortions.

tl;dr the 2 million rapes statistic doesn't hold water. It's just another example of Nazi racial ideology distorting historical reality because you see mate, the Soviets had to have been a barbaric horde of rapists and looters. Hitler said so, man. Would he lie? Of course not...

As usual, any criticism of the Red Army and the Stalinist regime is put down to pro-Nazi or anti-Communist propaganda. Presumably, in your mind, akin to the likes of Robert Conquest et al in the late 60s and 70s: western Cold-Warrior historians. Of course, a closer reading of the historiography on this topic would reveal that, in actual fact, the issue was, until comparatively recently, seriously understudied. Indeed, Atina Grossmann, goes as far as saying that the topic was 'suppressed' from the discourse because both men and women refused to discuss the issue - primarily because women found it 'shameful' and men found their inability to 'defend' women 'humiliating'. [1] Norman Naimark went even further and, in 1991, observed, 'Nowhere in the historiography of the Soviet zone and Eastern Germany is the question given serious consideration.'[2] In other words, this discussion is a recent one - post-Cold War. Thus the idea that this is a story drummed up as some kind of 'anti-communist' trope, or, to flesh the idea out into a more historically viable context, a Cold War propaganda device, falls a little flat. The reality is that the serious die-hard anti-communists, of the Cold War, actually didn't employ the issue despite its clear utility. It is also disingenuous to characterise those who have studied this topic (which, I presume, excludes you) as 'Nazi apologists'. It is just a ludicrous ad hominem. As it happens, one of my university contemporaries, and a good friend, has done a PhD on this topic, and she is as far as can be from being a 'Nazi apologist'. Indeed, the entire charge insults the intelligence of everybody who may read this thread. So lets just drop that nonsense and move onto the actual meat of your argument.

You claim that the entire 1.4-1.9 million victims of rape is derived from a single study of a single Berlin hospital. However, it is worth noting that Naimark, based on his very preliminary survey of the archival evidence in 1991 concluded that, while the true figure will likely never been known, the figure was most likely in the 'hundreds of thousands'. Thus even without specific studies used to extrapolate figures, we know that we are talking about mass rape on a huge scale. Meanwhile, we also know that mass rape by the Red Army was far from restricted to Germany, indeed it occurred across the Eastern Front. For instance, in Budapest alone, it is estimated that some 50,000 women were raped by their "liberators".[3] So, realistically, the figures speculated for Berlin do not seem exaggerated when contextualised against other studies and estimates. Nor, if this is contextualised further across Germany, or even the entire occupied zone, do the estimates seem unlikely. Nor, if you have had the opportunity to examine some of the sources utilised by historians of the topic, do the estimates seem outlandish. We are talking about a high end six digit number, which may well extend as far as 1.9 million. Given such a scale, and the difficulties of establishing a precise number (or even a ball-park figure) for the very reasons you cite, it does not seem to me that the standard estimates of 1.4-1.9 million victims is outlandish.

On the technical side of the discussion. You suggest that the oft cited two million tally is derived from a single study of a single hospital in Berlin. Care to cite the precise study which you are referring to? And how does this study match revelations by individuals like Anthony Beevor who actually suggested an upward revision of the numbers?[4] And how do we balance such findings, which produce obviously flawed estimates (hence the 25% margin for error), and more importantly, even if the total number of victims was an entire order of magnitude lower (say, 190,000) such an act still constitutes a war crime on an unimaginable scale. I say unimaginable, because, even at that scale, we lose site of individual experience and instead focus on numbers, which, I think rather unfortunately, has a tendency towards trivialisation. This, I suspect is why people are finding your rather callous approach to be somewhat disturbing. I don't think that we are able to envision scale on that end of the spectrum, thus suffering becomes reduced to abstract numbers as opposed to individuals being repeatedly gang raped.

I also think that your assumption that your speculation, and it is just speculation for which you have no evidence, that German women claimed they had been raped in order to secure an abortion is both callous and cynical. It is, undoubtedly, a methodological issue that any historian would have to consider (but as you haven't actually told us who performed this study, it is difficult to check the validity of their research), but without study into that precise issue it would be entirely wrong to discount these women as liars. Indeed, it seems you are engaging in a weird form of historical 'slut shaming'. I'd advice against it.

[1] Atina Grossmann, 'A Question of Silence: The Rape of German Women by Occupation Soldiers', October, Vol. 72, Berlin 1945: War and Rape "Liberators Take Liberties" (Spring, 1995), p. 61.

[2] Norman M. Naimark, 'About "The Russians"and About Us: The Question of Rape and Soviet-German Relations in the Soviet Zone of Occupation', The National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, May 1991, http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/pre1998/1991-802-14-2-Naimark.pdf.

[3] James Mark, 'Remembering Rape: Divided Social Memory and the Red Army in Hungary 1944-1945', Past & Present, No. 188 (Aug., 2005), p. 133.

[4] Anthony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (London, 2002).

[adipocere]

I really just don't understand what purpose it serves on the left to constantly have this truth and reconciliation nonsense for the alleged crimes of other peoples from other nations from generations past. One cannot help but assume that it is nothing more than continuing ad-nauseam attacks on symbols of leftism, and in this case sustained weathering away and minimizing by the West of the Soviets role in WW2. There is something masochistic about our tendency to get caught up with this type of stuff.

I'm curious. How many of you know the name - off the top of your head - of the pilot of the Enola Gay? Or the other pilot of the Bockscar? I'm willing to bet that very few of you do...I had to double check myself. Of course that has nothing to do with rape and the left but what I am wondering is why the hell people on the left aren't focused on bringing attention to atrocities that actually, concretely happened, can be blamed on literally a handful of people and really deserves the attention of leftist writers. There is already an entire industry dedicated to numbering the crimes of the communists in exquisite detail - it's called Washington. It's just tiresome when the left chimes in with pointless self-flagellation.

Which brings me to another observation that I have made since being here at Revleft. People on this forum spend all together too much time bickering over Stalin and the Kims and softy liberal issues like feminism and LGBT rights. I understand that it's all very emotional, but what I took as an occasional preoccupation with these issues now more and more seems like the result of a lack of information about genuine, desperate problems in the word; ie a world war in Africa that has been going on for 20+ years, obscene poverty in India, the NED etc. Yes I see people say phrases like "criticism of the West" but that's about as deep as it gets.

I would also point out that I made a post about Ana Montes and it was all but ignored (http://www.revleft.com/vb/solidarity-ana-montes-t184613/index.html). Yes it was in a smaller area of the forum, but talk about disinterest. That bothered me in a deep sort of way. Here is someone whom the left should hail has a hero and martyr, at least they should know her name and maybe be interested - but no - lets talk more about Stalin and 800 flavors of gender identity.

Why not a thread about Boris Yeltsin for a change. Talk about a villain. Does anyone here even know anything about what Yeltsin did in our own lifetimes?

Sorry, I know this post has turned into more of a rant, but we need our priorities straightened out.

[Invader Zim]

Which brings me to another observation that I have made since being here at Revleft. People on this forum spend all together too much time bickering over Stalin and the Kims and softy liberal issues like feminism and LGBT rights.

Sorry, but what? Do you really think that these issues are 'softy' and 'liberal'?

This thread just got worse.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I really just don't understand what purpose it serves on the left to constantly have this truth and reconciliation nonsense for the alleged crimes of other peoples from other nations from generations past. One cannot help but assume that it is nothing more than continuing ad-nauseam attacks on symbols of leftism, and in this case sustained weathering away and minimizing by the West of the Soviets role in WW2. There is something masochistic about our tendency to get caught up with this type of stuff.

I'm curious. How many of you know the name - off the top of your head - of the pilot of the Enola Gay? Or the other pilot of the Bockscar? I'm willing to bet that very few of you do...I had to double check myself. Of course that has nothing to do with rape and the left but what I am wondering is why the hell people on the left aren't focused on bringing attention to atrocities that actually, concretely happened, can be blamed on literally a handful of people and really deserves the attention of leftist writers. There is already an entire industry dedicated to numbering the crimes of the communists in exquisite detail - it's called Washington. It's just tiresome when the left chimes in with pointless self-flagellation.

Which brings me to another observation that I have made since being here at Revleft. People on this forum spend all together too much time bickering over Stalin and the Kims and softy liberal issues like feminism and LGBT rights. I understand that it's all very emotional, but what I took as an occasional preoccupation with these issues now more and more seems like the result of a lack of information about genuine, desperate problems in the word; ie a world war in Africa that has been going on for 20+ years, obscene poverty in India, the NED etc. Yes I see people say phrases like "criticism of the West" but that's about as deep as it gets.

I would also point out that I made a post about Ana Montes and it was all but ignored (http://www.revleft.com/vb/solidarity-ana-montes-t184613/index.html). Yes it was in a smaller area of the forum, but talk about disinterest. That bothered me in a deep sort of way. Here is someone whom the left should hail has a hero and martyr, at least they should know her name and maybe be interested - but no - lets talk more about Stalin and 800 flavors of gender identity.

Why not a thread about Boris Yeltsin for a change. Talk about a villain. Does anyone here even know anything about what Yeltsin did in our own lifetimes?

Sorry, I know this post has turned into more of a rant, but we need our priorities straightened out.

The only reason these threads extend past a page is because you can always count on a handful of sociopaths to come out and defend literally anything. Rape, muder, outright betryal, everything has a defense and these people are ready to employ it, and if you'll notice it's generally not the people who primarily concentrate on women's or lbgt rights doing it.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Fuck it. I'm losing the will to live on Revleft.

[#FF0000]

Sorry, I know this post has turned into more of a rant, but we need our priorities straightened out.

yeah it's just rape, after all. not anything concrete

edit:
People on this forum spend all together too much time bickering over Stalin and the Kims and softy liberal issues like feminism and LGBT rights. I understand that it's all very emotional, but what I took as an occasional preoccupation with these issues now more and more seems like the result of a lack of information about genuine, desperate problems in the word; ie a world war in Africa that has been going on for 20+ years, obscene poverty in India

The conditions and violence that women in these parts of the world face are part of those desperate problems. I cannot believe you are so clueless that you went ahead and said something like this without noticing the irony of you going on about "softy liberal issues" like feminism (read: women's issues) in the same sentence.

[Taters]

It's sort of out-of-character for revleft that there's not a massive purge happening right about now. Toxic levels of rape apologism, and, so far, only verbal warnings. Users have been banned for less.

[The Feral Underclass]

It's sort of out-of-character for revleft that there's not a massive purge happening right about now. Toxic levels of rape apologism, and, so far, only verbal warnings. Users have been banned for less.

The OP was banned.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)

[#FF0000]

It's sort of out-of-character for revleft that there's not a massive purge happening right about now. Toxic levels of rape apologism, and, so far, only verbal warnings. Users have been banned for less.

Yeah, normally I'm all for staying the banhammer, and I think Quail did well to just hand out a warning earlier on in the thread -- but this is just beyond the pale right now.

[adipocere]

Sorry, but what? Do you really think that these issues are 'softy' and 'liberal'?

This thread just got worse.

Yes I do. A soft liberal issue is one that the position is simple and obvious and where the current focus lies in ironing out remaining inequalities and discriminatory social attitudes. It is also one that capitalists, democrats, progressives, liberals and libertarians can and do champion as well.
(A hard liberal issue for the left would be the scale of the gulags in the US dedicated to the mass incarceration of black people.)
There is no scandal in saying this.


The only reason these threads extend past a page is because you can always count on a handful of sociopaths to come out and defend literally anything. Rape, muder, outright betryal, everything has a defense and these people are ready to employ it, and if you'll notice it's generally not the people who primarily concentrate on women's or lbgt rights doing it.

I understand what you are saying but I just wish Revleft showed as much enthusiasm for moral indignation against something like Africom as it does for exposing "sociopaths" and "rape apologists" on the forum. It's not the criticism of these attitudes/posters i take issue with, it's the comparative volume of it.

[Per Levy]

The OP was banned.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)

but but, i wasnt banned.


It's sort of out-of-character for revleft that there's not a massive purge happening right about now. Toxic levels of rape apologism, and, so far, only verbal warnings. Users have been banned for less.

very true, it seems like revleft gone a bit soft on that, wich is in this case quite a shame.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Yes I do. A soft liberal issue is one that the position is simple and obvious and where the current focus lies in ironing out remaining inequalities and discriminatory social attitudes. It is also one that capitalists, democrats, progressives, liberals and libertarians can and do champion as well.
(A hard liberal issue for the left would be the scale of the gulags in the US dedicated to the mass incarceration of black people.)
There is no scandal in saying this.



I understand what you are saying but I just wish Revleft showed as much enthusiasm for moral indignation against something like Africom as it does for exposing "sociopaths" and "rape apologists" on the forum. It's not the criticism of these attitudes/posters i take issue with, it's the comparative volume of it.

No one here is going to write a lengthy defense of africom or Boris Yeltsin. If someone did you can bet that the thread would drag out for 10 pages with people calling for the defenders to be banned. If the first fucking response to this thread hadn't been a defense of rape, like 5 people would have read the article and maybe two or three people would have responded. It's got nothing to do with what we're preoccupied with and everything to do with how widespread these horrible fucking views are among certain leftists.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

your a stupid troll post.

My point is no one today has to apologize for the actions of people in the past. It's the past... we weren't there. We didn't do that. We also don't have to apologize for what the Vietnamese did to American POWs. We also don't have to apologize for the way the Coyote treated the Road Runner, that wasn't any of us either. Thats one of the few things I agree with Noam Chomsky on. There's a perfectly valid reason to not take this topic seriously. The same reason none of the socialist groups the article petitions for this apology take it seriously.


Aren't you the one shrieking and moaning about how terrible it is that RevLeft ban a few people for supporting NAMBLA? And now you think people are overreacting over RAPE allegations because "well it all happened in the past who cares"?

The Holocaust happened in the past too. Does that mean we shouldn't condemn it?



It's the same old Evil State Capitalists Lenin and Trotsky murdering all the brave freedom fighters of Kronstadt. Now it's the rapist red army. It's a constant necessity to heap as much dirt on the Russian Revolution as possible. The greatest victory the workers have ever known. But since it was not a perfect victory we must condemn it %100 with no exceptions. What is the point in asking Leftists in general to apologize for the Red Army during the most deadly conflict in all of history? Apologize to who Nazis? Women in general? Do the grandchildren of the Red Army soldiers owe the German Descendants reparations? Give one serious answer as to why any socialist today should apologize for anything Stalin did at all ever.So basically if someone flies a red flag then we should say everything they ever did is OK.

Who the fuck is talking about apologizing, reparations or anything like that? People are talking about how Leftist causes are twisted and used as a pretext for violent oppression of women. This is a serious problem because I don't want Leftist movements to descend into unaccountable violence towards oppressed groups, the way it did on repeated occasion with the Soviet Red Army.


Well I just texted my local communist elitist vanguard unit and after discussing with pretentious banter we came to the conclusion that:

There's no need to apologize for any of the Red Armies actions. No one here represents the Red Army Public relations board.

But as a new added policy: (because we are revisionist scumbags)
the next time theres a workers state and it is attacked by genocidal fascists we will make sure that the army of hillbillies and inbred rednecks has more respect for the fascist women after they liberate a bunch of human flesh lamp shade factories.

Yup we wrote that one right in the handbook.

Because it used to say if you loose 20 000 000 people in a war, liberate millions of Jews and free almost all of Europe from fascism we understand if there were some terrible circumstances that you were responsible for.

Yeah, its ok to rape people if bad things have happened to you. Let's not try to break the cycle of violence or anything, that would be dumb.

Also you used problematic language like "hillbillies" and "inbred rednecks" and implied all German women are "Fascist". You should be banned for being a bigoted little prick.


Do you even realize that abortion was a capital offense in Nazi German and that in 1945 and 1946, in order to get an abortion, German women had to conjure up some chimera of a dozen swarthy untermenschen Slavo-Turkic mongrels raping them, whether it actually happened or not. In West Germany, abortion was illegal except for medical reasons or sexual crimes until 1992. In contrast, the GDR, which was apparently founded by barbarian rapist Slavs as comrade Psycho has demonstrated, legalized abortion in 1972.

There's a large body of literature that details the love affairs between Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany and German women. The whole thing became so widespread that by late 1945 the army began penalizing Soviet soldiers for having affairs with German women, forcefully breaking the couples apart and relocating the soldiers back to the USSR. There are also numerous incidents where in order to stay together, German women and Soviet soldiers would try to defect to the West and there are also numerous examples of German women having sexual relations with Soviet soldiers out of convenience, for the purpose of getting extra food rations and the like from them.

Either way, German women, being women, had sexual and romantic needs, and given that the vast majority of German men were either old, disabled, prisoners of war or corpses, they didn't have many options besides turning to Soviet men now did they? That, or mass conversions to lesbianism, but which is more likely?

Clearly there were many instances of rape, but you are going to have sadists that are fucked in the head no matter what. The Soviets dealt with theirs by shooting them dead. Modern "leftists" propose rehabilitation and most don't even believe in jailing them because prisons are so bourgeois. So when modern "leftists" moan about how the Soviets were supposedly lenient when it came to rape, my only reaction is "ahahahahahahahhhaah no fuck off".

The idea that the woman must have just had "romantic relationships" is one of the oldest ways around to minimize or ignore allegations of rape. Yeah sometimes people make up rape stories to hide the fact that they slept with someone, but that can't explain systematic abuse and violence.

As for the idea that the Soviets shot their rapists - the issue isn't with what the official punishment was, it was if the punishment was consistently enforced, which evidence seems to show otherwise.

[reb]

Yes I do. A soft liberal issue is one that the position is simple and obvious and where the current focus lies in ironing out remaining inequalities and discriminatory social attitudes. It is also one that capitalists, democrats, progressives, liberals and libertarians can and do champion as well.
(A hard liberal issue for the left would be the scale of the gulags in the US dedicated to the mass incarceration of black people.)
There is no scandal in saying this.



I understand what you are saying but I just wish Revleft showed as much enthusiasm for moral indignation against something like Africom as it does for exposing "sociopaths" and "rape apologists" on the forum. It's not the criticism of these attitudes/posters i take issue with, it's the comparative volume of it.

If the admin had any sense they'd ban people like you. The scale of gulags in the US? While at the same time Stalinists gives us apologia for the gulags in the USSR. Apologia and hand waving about the rapes committed by the red army, to now the gulag system.

[Invader Zim]

A soft liberal issue is one that the position is simple and obvious and where the current focus lies in ironing out remaining inequalities and discriminatory social attitudes.

If you think that these issues, short of complete social and political revolution, have simple solutions then you obviously haven't given them sufficient thought.

[adipocere]

If the admin had any sense they'd ban people like you. The scale of gulags in the US? While at the same time Stalinists gives us apologia for the gulags in the USSR. Apologia and hand waving about the rapes committed by the red army, to now the gulag system.

What an asinine comment. What you said doesn't even make sense - it's just a lazy, inarticulate ad-hominem strawman.

[adipocere]

If you think that these issues, short of complete social and political revolution, have simple solutions then you obviously haven't given them sufficient thought.

What I think is that a handful of you are pissed off that I referred to these issues as liberal, and so my statements are being (surprise!) over-analyzed

[Per Levy]

What I think is that a handful of you are pissed off that I referred to these issues as liberal, and so my statements are being (surprise!) over-analyzed

seriously have you even read the thread? also its somewhat rich that you just gloss over issues and call them softy liberal while being a member of the cpusa. how does the supporting for obama is working out for you? probally very revolutionary and all.


Yes I do. A soft liberal issue is one that the position is simple and obvious and where the current focus lies in ironing out remaining inequalities and discriminatory social attitudes. It is also one that capitalists, democrats, progressives, liberals and libertarians can and do champion as well.

democrats, liberals, social-dems and all have also championed worker strugles, worker rights and stuff like that. so the plight of workers is also just a softy liberal issue?

[reb]

What an asinine comment. What you said doesn't even make sense - it's just a lazy, inarticulate ad-hominem strawman.

You condemn the prison system in the us by calling it a gulag, which I think trivializes the real gulags in soviet union, but you would probably support those soviet gulags, being a filthy stalinist and all. This is pretty typical of stalinists, condemn one nation for something while at the same time praise another for same, if not worse, things.

[Invader Zim]

What I think is that a handful of you are pissed off that I referred to these issues as liberal, and so my statements are being (surprise!) over-analyzed

Well, actually, I was more concerned by the application of the term 'soft', but there we are. And you feel that I have over analysed your trivialisation of these issues - and I'm right in suggesting that you do intend to trivialise them by saying that they are both 'soft' and 'liberal'? It is worth, I think, noting that both rape, murder and other forms of violence are important elements within these 'soft' issues.

[adipocere]

seriously have you even read the thread? also its somewhat rich that you just gloss over issues and call them softy liberal while being a member of the cpusa. how does the supporting for obama is working out for you? probally very revolutionary and all.
democrats, liberals, social-dems and all have also championed worker strugles, worker rights and stuff like that. so the plight of workers is also just a softy liberal issue?

You condemn the prison system in the us by calling it a gulag, which I think trivializes the real gulags in soviet union, but you would probably support those soviet gulags, being a filthy stalinist and all. This is pretty typical of stalinists, condemn one nation for something while at the same time praise another for same, if not worse, things.

Well, personally, I just reached orgasm. Moving on.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Well, personally, I just reached orgasm. Moving on.

Thing is you might think you're being funny, but there are a shit load of people whose lives are ruined because of homophobia and the like.

Every time you call these issues 'soft' and trivialise them, it makes minority groups such as the LGBTQ community feel that much shitter.

So I know it's fun and all to make the funniest wisecrack on internet forums, but at least try and engage your brain to think seriously about the issues at hand because, at heart, they are serious issues, not soft, liberal issues with a simple cause and a simple solution.

[adipocere]

Thing is you might think you're being funny, but there are a shit load of people whose lives are ruined because of homophobia and the like.

Every time you call these issues 'soft' and trivialise them, it makes minority groups such as the LGBTQ community feel that much shitter.

So I know it's fun and all to make the funniest wisecrack on internet forums, but at least try and engage your brain to think seriously about the issues at hand because, at heart, they are serious issues, not soft, liberal issues with a simple cause and a simple solution.
You're attributing other peoples' hollow, reactionary interpretations of my words to me and extrapolating on them with a twist of sanctimonious bullshit. Go fuck yourself.

[The Feral Underclass]

softy liberal issues like feminism and LGBT rights

What is it about LGBT rights that you think is "soft" and "liberal"?

[Remus Bleys]

Adipocre your not very good at trolling. Or being funny.

[reb]

Well, personally, I just reached orgasm. Moving on.

Why am I even bothering with a shitty stalinist like you? Where are the proper stalinists on the forum? Where are the proper soviet apologists?

[Tim Cornelis]

Adipocre your not very good at trolling. Or being funny.

You're*

I'd expect this from a native English speaker, but you're Danish for crying out loud.

[Ele'ill]

this thread (still going, evolving even)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

What is it about LGBT rights that you think is "soft" and "liberal"?

There's no 5 year plan for being gay, clearly. Dem production quotas and red flags.

[Red HalfGuard]

I think you make some faulty assumptions here, firstly that because Stalin said something, or even made it policy, that this policy was ever intended to be carried out. Given the systematic nature,

Proof of its systematic nature? Army policy documents would be best here. We know what rape as a systematic policy looks like from the German 'Joy Divisions' and the 'Comfort Women' of Imperial Japan.



and the scale, of the mass rapes across Germany, it is clearly very difficult to suggest that an otherwise highly efficient and effective army suffered from a lapse of discipline on such a scale - rather, it suggests that the regime chose to turn a blind eye and that the upper echelons of the Red Army failed to enforce discipline when it came to this issue, or rather did so in a deliberately perfunctory fashion.

Failure to adequately enforce discipline is not the same thing as 'systematic'. Be rigorous in your terms.



To highlight that, we need only actually make the same comparison you do - that while rape perpetrated the other Allied armies, while vast in number, was still several orders of magnitude lower than that in the case of the Red Army. That does not suggest that Soviet troops were in some way more inclined to rape, rather it implies that they were allowed to get away with it, and that if they did then there would likely be little personal consequence to themselves.

Are you forreal suggesting rigorous American discipline was the norm? First of all: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/books/rape-by-american-soldiers-in-world-war-ii-france.html?_r=0

That's less than 200 Americans punished for rape, as opposed to 7-10 thousand Russians.

GIs justified their rape by leaving 'gifts' afterwards, pretending it was a form of prostitution (and we should go into the question of whether a starving person whose home has been bombed out can sexually consent to anything while we're at it). Hell, one of the most iconic images of American victory is of sexual assault: http://cratesandribbons.com/2012/09/30/the-kissing-sailor-or-the-selective-blindness-of-rape-culture-vj-day-times-square/

The rape apologists in this thread have been banned or will be soon and i'm glad of it. The xenophobes who project onto the Red Army exclusively problems that are universal to men in patriarchy will, I hope, either start to hear reason or get the same treatment.

[Remus Bleys]

I really just don't understand what purpose it serves on the left to constantly have this truth and reconciliation nonsense for the alleged crimes of other peoples from other nations from generations past.
Did you just call mass rape "alleged"? And, for whatever reason, stalinism is part of the tradition of the left - so yeah the shit that happened there is very much a part of our tradition. Not to mention that the Left is - or should be - irrevocably connected to feminism.

One cannot help but assume that it is nothing more than continuing ad-nauseam attacks on symbols of leftism, and in this case sustained weathering away and minimizing by the West of the Soviets role in WW2.
Who the fuck is minimizing the West? If this thread were about the west and rape, would anyone moan and groan about how "war is hell" and "the soviets raped too"? Of course not! But seriously, see TAT's post about how the west and german soldiers committed terrible acts too.
What the fuck does "symbols of leftism" even mean? OH GAWD I HAVE TO DEFEND THIS BECAUSE NOSTALGIA!!!

There is something masochistic about our tendency to get caught up with this type of stuff.
I was unaware it was masochistic of the left to concern itself with women's rights or the outcome the working class faces as a result of interimperialist wars.

I'm curious. How many of you know the name - off the top of your head - of the pilot of the Enola Gay? Or the other pilot of the Bockscar? I'm willing to bet that very few of you do...I had to double check myself.
How the fuck is this relevant? How the fuck is knowing the names of insignificant fucks relevant? Seriously, are you really this stupid to think that if a different pilot flew the plane the outcome would be different?

Of course that has nothing to do with rape and the left but what I am wondering is why the hell people on the left aren't focused on bringing attention to atrocities that actually, concretely happened, can be blamed on literally a handful of people and really deserves the attention of leftist writers.
I FAIL TO SEE HOW THIS DOESNT APPLY HERE

There is already an entire industry dedicated to numbering the crimes of the communists in exquisite detail - it's called Washington. It's just tiresome when the left chimes in with pointless self-flagellation. WHAT THE FUCK? If Stalin is to be part of the left, than I am not a part of the left. Fuck that. Fuck you for holding up a bourgeois ideology because its anti-US. I mean, how the fuck does someone adopt another country's nationalism?


Which brings me to another observation that I have made since being here at Revleft. People on this forum spend all together too much time bickering over Stalin and the Kims
There is barely any threads on the kims. And We've talked about several things before, Kshama Sawant being one. But your probably making the assumption that because people "discuss" history on the revleft subboard for history we don't do things irl. Which again, shows how you have no brain cells left, only shit.

and softy liberal issues like feminism and LGBT rights.
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU
This is an irrevocable part of the left. If the "left" does not care about oppressed people, then fuck the left.

I understand that it's all very emotional, but what I took as an occasional preoccupation with these issues now more and more seems like the result of a lack of information about genuine, desperate problems in the word; ie a world war in Africa that has been going on for 20+ years, obscene poverty in India, the NED etc.
People are killed throughout the world for being homosexual, trans* people face continues loathing from society. Once every two minutes, a woman is raped.
Are these not "real concrete problems" or are they just "emotional issues"?

Yes I see people say phrases like "criticism of the West" but that's about as deep as it gets. Weren't you just whining about washington?


I would also point out that I made a post about Ana Montes and it was all but ignored (http://www.revleft.com/vb/solidarity-ana-montes-t184613/index.html). Yes it was in a smaller area of the forum, but talk about disinterest. That bothered me in a deep sort of way. Here is someone whom the left should hail has a hero and martyr, at least they should know her name and maybe be interested - but no - lets talk more about Stalin and 800 flavors of gender identity.

I would like to point out I don't give a flying fuck if a mole for a bourgeois state infiltrated a different bourgeois state. Any self-describing leftist who does should be mercilessly ridiculed.

Why not a thread about Boris Yeltsin for a change. Talk about a villain. Does anyone here even know anything about what Yeltsin did in our own lifetimes?OH GUISE A BOURGEOIS POLITICIAN CHANGED THE WAY A BOURGEOIS STATE IS ORGANIZED!
What the fuck does this have to do with anything? Weren't you just moaning about we dont post about irl shit enough?


Sorry, I know this post has turned into more of a rant, but we need our priorities straightened out.
Go to hell.

In sum: Fuck you.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

You're*

I'd expect this from a native English speaker, but you're Danish for crying out loud.

Please explain to me why dropping an apostrophe and silent 'e' into the word 'your', the meaning of which, in this case, can clearly be understood via context, is so overwhelming that your neuroticism has to make an entire post to spell-correct people every time they do this?

I mean, I'd expect this from the average grammar nazi who knows absolutely nothing about linguistics, but "you're" a leftist for crying out loud.

[Left Voice]

The briefest of glances at the comments section for this article on the Facebook page is all that's required to see some of the very problems that the author is trying to highlight. Everything from rape apologism to even explicitly racist comments like 'no tears for Krauts'. To be fair, the vast majority of people quite rightly took these people to task, but these are the kinds of underlying attitudes that the author is challenging.

They're hardly the kind of comments you would expect to find on a Libertarian Communist website such as LibCom. Whatever people's thoughts regarding that particular strand of the left, reasonable people would agree that these attitudes are out of place. And yet they continue to be held be some people. And some people in this very topic too, apparently.

[Zostrianos]

The mass rapes by Soviet troops are despicable enough on their own, but made even worse by the fact that the Nazis had also raped as many or more Jewish and Slavic women during their campaigns (their usually gang raped women, then killed them), and the Soviet army, which portrayed itself as the Socialist liberator, ended up being not much better. Also, the whole excuse about "revenge" against the Germans is bs, because they also raped Polish women:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_liberation_of_Poland

So all these innocent women and girls, who had suffered enough under the Nazis, now had to endure the same from their "liberators". What did they do to deserve that? How can some 'leftists' dismiss or minimize something like this?

[Tim Cornelis]

Please explain to me why dropping an apostrophe and silent 'e' into the word 'your', the meaning of which, in this case, can clearly be understood via context, is so overwhelming that your neuroticism has to make an entire post to spell-correct people every time they do this?

I mean, I'd expect this from the average grammar nazi who knows absolutely nothing about linguistics, but "you're" a leftist for crying out loud.

Why do I feel the need to point that, when someone brings up the Illuminati, ghosts, or other such nonsense, that it's unbelievably stupid? It's the same reason that I correct such elementary grammar mistakes. The difference between 'your' and 'you're'; 'its' and 'it's'; 'their', 'they're', and 'there'; and so forth, are so elementary that I can't grasp how someone can think it makes sense to write "The parliament and [it is] decisions".

Also, this is not relevant to linguistics. Linguists will tell you that African American Vernacular English, for instance, is as correct as Standard American English. For instance, "He be walking there" is grammatically correct as it is consistent with the internal logic of African American Vernacular English. I think this is what you were alluding to when you said "knows absolutely nothing about linguistics". However, "He be walking their" would be grammatically incorrect only because it's written 'their' as opposed to 'there'.

Have a nice day.

[RedBen]

What I think is that a handful of you are pissed off that I referred to these issues as liberal, and so my statements are being (surprise!) over-analyzed

what with all the "that's not revolutionary enough!!!!" shit going around, i'm shocked more people don't agree. yes all fights are necessary. i won't minimize women's and lgbt struggles, i fully support them, but i am shocked that they do get more talk time than severe poverty leveraged against india by capitalism. you'd think that communists would discuss it more, but we are first worlders, someone getting fired for being trans gender becomes more offensive than children starving and dying of disease because we are spoiled by first world conditions. i think extreme poverty should take precedent over gay marriage only in that one is discriminatory and the other is people literally starving. this reminds me of the debates where people conflate the value of an animal with people value. if i throw a save the puppies charity, i can expect a much bigger turnout than a save the homeless. yes a older dirty and bad smelling homeless person might not be as cute and fuzzy as pups, but i think it's more important. someone dying of a preventable and easily treatable virus(like diahrrea) is of more importance than me marrying a man.

[RedBen]

Did you just call mass rape "alleged"? And, for whatever reason, stalinism is part of the tradition of the left - so yeah the shit that happened there is very much a part of our tradition. Not to mention that the Left is - or should be - irrevocably connected to feminism.


i'd like to point out i have no connection to the soviet union/ww2/rape. i am not going to flog myself over this, i'll reflect on it, and hope we can prevent rape going forward. i will never trivialize or excuse rape. i'm glad this thread got us all at eachother's throats. somewhere, a right winger is sitting back and laughing at us.

[Tolstoy]

Rape is a natural result of the injustice of war. No matter what, an institution like an army will attract people who enjoy dominating others, this paired with all of the male only contact a military produces creates alot of rape. Is it bad? Yes of course. Is it abnormal? No, it is not.

War is the worst of injustices and ultimately rape is just one of its many horrors

[Sabot Cat]

Rape is a natural result of the injustice of war. No matter what, an institution like an army will attract people who enjoy dominating others, this paired with all of the male only contact a military produces creates alot of rape. Is it bad? Yes of course. Is it abnormal? No, it is not.

War is the worst of injustices and ultimately rape is just one of its many horrors

These aren't the questions I think we should be asking. We should be asking ourselves, "Can it be mitigated?" or rather, "Do we have the power and knowledge to mitigate it?". The answer to these questions is 'yes'. Now, we can ask ourselves, "Did the Soviet Union have the power and knowledge necessary to mitigate it more than they did?". The answer to this is also yes, and because they did not when they could have, the military command structure as well the government of the Soviet Union are culpable for, and guilty of, wrong-doing.

[The Feral Underclass]

What is it about LGBT rights that you think is "soft" and "liberal"?

Are you going to answer my question, adipocere?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk (http://tapatalk.com/m?id=1)

[Le Socialiste]

this reminds me of the debates where people conflate the value of an animal with people value. if i throw a save the puppies charity, i can expect a much bigger turnout than a save the homeless. yes a older dirty and bad smelling homeless person might not be as cute and fuzzy as pups, but i think it's more important. someone dying of a preventable and easily treatable virus(like diahrrea) is of more importance than me marrying a man.

Are you seriously reducing the struggles of women and members of the LGBTQ community to a 'save the puppies' charity? I also find it curious that when you mention severe poverty in India, or homelessness here, that you don't bother to note that these issues impact women and LGBTQ people, too. It's not as if these struggles are separate, or that they operate in different spheres. There's significant overlap. If anything these struggles are doubly (sometimes triply) compounded by the effects of poverty, discrimination, and sexism.

[reb]

Rape is a natural result of the injustice of war. No matter what, an institution like an army will attract people who enjoy dominating others, this paired with all of the male only contact a military produces creates alot of rape. Is it bad? Yes of course. Is it abnormal? No, it is not.

War is the worst of injustices and ultimately rape is just one of its many horrors

The problem is the complete dismissal by certain sections of "the left" of this as something less than worse than when nominally capitalist states do it. It's either not talked about, glossed over or some people just try to reason their way out of it. It's not just with the mass rapes by the red army, it's also every other act of the soviet state against it's citizens and it's foreign affairs, from murder, torture and enslavement.

[servusmoderni]

What is your point? I assume you don't have a point, that this is another one of your one-liner posts that you're making all over the forum right now to increase your post count.

War is hell. I think it's pretty accurate and relates to the topic. + The level of irony of you replying on my comment to somehow install some sort of moral. Get over yourself.

What do you want me to say? To explain the words to you?

Now, I imagine you can't understand what war is as if you've probably never lived it you can't understand it.

And what was the actual fucking point of your comment?

[Sabot Cat]

War is hell. I think it's pretty accurate and relates to the topic.

By the way you're using the phrase, it's nothing more than a trite, dismissive cliche on par with "well, life isn't fair".

[Illegalitarian]

The question I haven't seen anyone ask here yet is why are we, as leftists, even bothering with such questions?

I kind of get the feeling that the only reason these sort of questions are still asked is to passively associate the left with the horrible atrocities committed by authoritarian faux-socialist regimes and remind everyone that we're the bad guys, the radicals people need to look out for.

"What's your take on the millions who died under Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot etc?"

"What do you think about the mass rape carried out by Soviet troops in WWII?"


Um, I think it's fucking awful like every other relatively sane human being? What the fuck sort of question is that?


It's the sort of question that has nothing to do with revolutionary leftist thought, that's what, and to start addressing this nonsense in-depth is to defacto acknowledge that this sort of shit is on us, that it's something we have to answer for when it clearly is not. We're the ones who are calling for an end to patriarchy and all other exploitative and oppressive institutions against women (and everyone else for that matter), if it's anyone who needs to answer for authoritarian mass murder and fucked up social relations between men and women, it's the bourgeois and their faithful attack dogs, the state.

[Remus Bleys]

1. Lol at authoritarian
2. No the left bothers with this shit because rape apologism is rampant
3. The left bothers with nthis historic travesty because mass rape that goes unacknowledged is inherently a womens issue, and is therefore connected to the left.

[Left Voice]

i won't minimize women's and lgbt struggles, i fully support them, but i am shocked that they do get more talk time than severe poverty leveraged against india by capitalism. you'd think that communists would discuss it more, but we are first worlders, someone getting fired for being trans gender becomes more offensive than children starving and dying of disease because we are spoiled by first world conditions. i think extreme poverty should take precedent over gay marriage only in that one is discriminatory and the other is people literally starving.

Since when was it an either/or situation? Surely it's the role of the left to tackle both of these issues?

[Alexios]

War is hell. I think it's pretty accurate and relates to the topic. + The level of irony of you replying on my comment to somehow install some sort of moral. Get over yourself.

What do you want me to say? To explain the words to you?

Now, I imagine you can't understand what war is as if you've probably never lived it you can't understand it.

And what was the actual fucking point of your comment?

Oh I don't know, maybe some people just thought it was weird to use a quote from a US Army general on a communist forum???

[Illegalitarian]

1. Lol at authoritarian

Ha h a good one authoritarianism doesn't exist ur right


2. No the left bothers with this shit because rape apologism is rampant

It's not about rape apologism, it's about the "what do you think of German rape by the soviets" question almost always being tossed our way as if we're the ones who have to answer for it, as if our ideological predecessors were responsible for these atrocities and thus we have some sort of obligation above everyone else in society to deal with it.



3. The left bothers with nthis historic travesty because mass rape that goes unacknowledged is inherently a womens issue, and is therefore connected to the left.

It didn't go unacknowledged, though. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone with the slightest inkling of WWII that is not aware of the mass rape that occurred on the eastern front.

Of course rape is a woman's issue and therefore something humanity needs to concern itself with heavily, but again, not the point.

The mass rape on the eastern front has been used time and time again as a politicized question to associate this atrocity with leftists and leftist thought and to look at it or call it as anything other than an awful tragedy that still faces women today and needs to be taken care of is to feed into this passive association of the left with soviet thuggery.

Rape is horrendous and it's something that every society needs to focus upon and deal with, not some loaded question to be wielded against us.

[Remus Bleys]

Ha h a good one authoritarianism doesn't exist ur right
OH GAWD AUTHORITY!!!1111 the libertarian/authority dichotomy is a false one.




It's not about rape apologism, it's about the "what do you think of German rape by the soviets" question almost always being tossed our way as if we're the ones who have to answer for it, as if our ideological predecessors were responsible for these atrocities and thus we have some sort of obligation above everyone else in society to deal with it.
Nah, its about rape apologism.
Many of those associated with the left, like stalinists (i don't know) have sometimes brushed this aside - not all of course. When talking about "beating the fascists" (something most of the left - again i don't know why) have been very proud of, and this goes unquestioned.




It didn't go unacknowledged, though. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone with the slightest inkling of WWII that is not aware of the mass rape that occurred on the eastern front. It only recently (relative terms of course) got big in german. It was recognized in the sense it was brushed away. People knew about it, they just didn't care.


Of course rape is a woman's issue and therefore something humanity needs to concern itself with heavily, but again, not the point.
How

The mass rape on the eastern front has been used time and time again as a politicized question to associate this atrocity with leftists and leftist thought and to look at it or call it as anything other than an awful tragedy that still faces women today and needs to be taken care of is to feed into this passive association of the left with soviet thuggery.
So we don't talk about it? So we don't condemn those on the left - again i have no idea why Stalinists and certain trots are considered left - who do apologize for soviety thuggery.


Rape is horrendous and it's something that every society needs to focus upon and deal with, not some loaded question to be wielded against us.
And how do you propose we prevent that from dealing with us? By hiding it under the rug?

[reb]

The question I haven't seen anyone ask here yet is why are we, as leftists, even bothering with such questions?

I kind of get the feeling that the only reason these sort of questions are still asked is to passively associate the left with the horrible atrocities committed by authoritarian faux-socialist regimes and remind everyone that we're the bad guys, the radicals people need to look out for.

"What's your take on the millions who died under Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot etc?"

"What do you think about the mass rape carried out by Soviet troops in WWII?"


Um, I think it's fucking awful like every other relatively sane human being? What the fuck sort of question is that?


It's the sort of question that has nothing to do with revolutionary leftist thought, that's what, and to start addressing this nonsense in-depth is to defacto acknowledge that this sort of shit is on us, that it's something we have to answer for when it clearly is not. We're the ones who are calling for an end to patriarchy and all other exploitative and oppressive institutions against women (and everyone else for that matter), if it's anyone who needs to answer for authoritarian mass murder and fucked up social relations between men and women, it's the bourgeois and their faithful attack dogs, the state.

You're missing the point of this thread. It's not about people trying to blacken the name of socialism, its "socialists" who are apologists for this and other disgusting acts of the soviet states and other nominally "socialist" countries.

[RedBen]

Are you seriously reducing the struggles of women and members of the LGBTQ community to a 'save the puppies' charity? I also find it curious that when you mention severe poverty in India, or homelessness here, that you don't bother to note that these issues impact women and LGBTQ people, too. It's not as if these struggles are separate, or that they operate in different spheres. There's significant overlap. If anything these struggles are doubly (sometimes triply) compounded by the effects of poverty, discrimination, and sexism.
i did not say women and gay people = puppies. and yes, capitalism impacts them too. my point is priorities. to me, someone starving and without access too water, to me personally take precedence.

[Art Vandelay]

i did not say women and gay people = puppies.
Of course you didn't say 'women and gay people = puppies,' and neither did Le Socialiste accuse you of such. He was simply pointing out the way in which you essentially belittled the struggles of the lgbt community, by comparing the importance of their concerns with animal rights. And you know what, he's absolutely right, your comment was ignorant, even if not malicious.

and yes, capitalism impacts them too. my point is priorities. to me, someone starving and without access too water, to me personally take precedence.
For the proletariat to organize itself as a class for itself (Marx), with the ability to pose a serious threat to capital, it must necessarily incorporate the struggles of oppressed minorities into the proletarian movement. Overcoming hetero-patriarchy is intertwined with surpassing the capitalist mode of production.

[Sabot Cat]

i did not say women and gay people = puppies. and yes, capitalism impacts them too. my point is priorities. to me, someone starving and without access too water, to me personally take precedence.

More of the people who don't have access to water and food are women who are disadvantaged not just by capitalism, but patriarchy. Both need to be tackled.

[Ele'ill]

War is hell. I think it's pretty accurate and relates to the topic. + The level of irony of you replying on my comment to somehow install some sort of moral. Get over yourself.

What do you want me to say? To explain the words to you?

Now, I imagine you can't understand what war is as if you've probably never lived it you can't understand it.

And what was the actual fucking point of your comment?


oh u know i just wanted to go out on a limb and hope that you weren't a human sized taint apologizing for rape but..

[RedBen]

Of course you didn't say 'women and gay people = puppies,' and neither did Le Socialiste accuse you of such. He was simply pointing out the way in which you essentially belittled the struggles of the lgbt community, by comparing the importance of their concerns with animal rights. And you know what, he's absolutely right, your comment was ignorant, even if not malicious.

For the proletariat to organize itself as a class for itself (Marx), with the ability to pose a serious threat to capital, it must necessarily incorporate the struggles of oppressed minorities into the proletarian movement. Overcoming hetero-patriarchy is intertwined with surpassing the capitalist mode of production.

i'll never belittle those struggles. you don't have to quote marx like it's a bible verse, i've read him. i don't intend to pick and choose what cause i like best, and the rest out, but i've been homeless and i can only imagine what third world scenarios are like and how much worse they can be than anything i experienced. i'll admit rereading what i wrote that my context was fucked up, but my priorities are the same, support those struggles, but focus more on poverty. this is a personal choice.

[Sabot Cat]

i'll never belittle those struggles. you don't have to quote marx like it's a bible verse, i've read him. i don't intend to pick and choose what cause i like best, and the rest out, but i've been homeless and i can only imagine what third world scenarios are like and how much worse they can be than anything i experienced. i'll admit rereading what i wrote that my context was fucked up, but my priorities are the same, support those struggles, but focus more on poverty. this is a personal choice.

There is something known as the "feminization of poverty" that's salient to what you're talking about: A disproportionate number of the world's poor are women, disadvantaged by legal systems that inhibit their freedoms and restrict their access to needed resources. You talk about the class struggle as if it were distinct from the fight against patriarchy. They are the same.