11 Traitors in the Tyrol (Wallace Boys)

Here they settled, leaving the main routes open to the passage of the Teutonic invaders bent on the plunder of the Italian cities and plains, who, we may imagine, did not greatly trouble themselves regarding the byways or waste time in conquering those who had thus hidden themselves amid the higher Alpine valleys and fastnesses. The result of this is seen in the circumstance that whilst in many cases the out-of-the-way places and villages to this day preserve their original Romanized Rhaetian names, those upon the main routes of travel have in many instances a purely Teutonic nomenclature.

The great Empire which Charlemagne created had strangely enough no natural delimitations, and when it was divided, in A. Tyrol still was unknown by that name, the country about that time being known as " Das Land im Gebirge ," or " The Land in the Mountains. There was practically no such unity as now prevails, and, owing to this, the powerful nobles and ecclesiastics gradually suc- ceeded in dividing up the land amongst themselves accord- ing to the almost universal custom of the Middle Ages.

That the Brenner Pass and Tyrol formed a sort of highway for successive invaders of Italy, who swarmed across it from the East and North, there is, however, little reason for doubt. As has been very truly said, "What these vast expeditions, consisting of more or less disorderly masses of curiously mixed races, all in the panoply of war, all eager for booty, even if bent on a peaceable mission, meant for the countries through which they slowly ate and robbed their way, it is not quite easy to picture to one's self in these civilized days, when, even in the fiercest war, the non- combatant has no reason to go in fear of a violent death or having his women: It is the custom for most people to imagine that the " extras " for lights, tips to servants, and attendance which so often makes the present-day hotel bill exasperating, are a modern institution.

This is, however, not the case, for some most interesting and illuminating diaries of early travel which were discovered in amongst the archives of the monastery of Cividate show that at the commencement of the thirteenth century there were a succession of inns already existing along the Brenner route, where travellers could not only obtain lodgment and entertainment, but even purchase necessary medicines.

There are also entries for lights, attendance, and gratuities, which probably vexed the soul of the ecclesiastical diarist we have referred to as much as they do modern travellers. If only there had been a Tyrolese Chaucer what a record might have been preserved! From the diaries of the Bishop of Passau whose notes we have quoted , however, we gratefully gather that in addition to the ordinary itinerant merchants and countryfolk there were bard musicians of both sexes, conjurers more or less skilful, and many of them char- latans , singers, mendicant friars some of little holiness , and the far-famed minnesingers who for a considerable period had a great vogue at Courts and castles.

Along this famous high-road of the Brenner and through Tyrol passed, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, many of the pilgrims and Crusaders bound for or returning from Palestine or some distant shrine of peculiar merit or holiness. One of the chief amongst the many changes and reforms instituted by Charlemagne was the sub-division of the countries he had conquered and welded together to form his Empire into margravates or departments which he placed under the rule of his nobles and other officials whom he appointed for the purpose.

Although this system undoubtedly worked well during his powerful sway, after his death and during the anarchy and dissension which distinguished the reigns of his immediate successors what might have been expected happened. The more powerful of the nobles and officials and their descendants soon commenced to regard their offices as of the nature of hereditary appointments, and in consequence with the development of this idea small dynasties were gradually founded, and towards the close of the tenth century three of these had sprung into existence in Tyrol. These three Countships or Grafschaften were of Andechs, Eppan, and Tyrol, and the country was eventually divided up amongst them and the great ecclesiastical lords of the Sees of Trent, Brixen, and Coire.

Nor is it for the purpose of this book necessary to enquire closely into the evidence we have. The origin of the family of Andechs is almost entirely unknown, although for a considerable period they were the most powerful of the three families we have named. The Eppans are believed to have been descendants of a natural son of a Duke of Bavaria, and their long and bloody feud with the Bishops of Brixen on account of lands taken from them and given to the See is enshrined in Tyrol history and legend.

The third family, the Counts of Tyrol, though originally by no means the most important, was destined to outlast the other two, and eventually to become possessed of most of the country and give its name to ancient Rhaetia. Although even in the days of the Roman occupation there appears to have been a Castle Tyrol, which was the residence of a centurion, the family, as it is generally known, is supposed to have taken its origin from Count Hunfried who lived in the reign of Charlemagne, and was also Count of Vintschgau. This noble came into prominence on the division of Charle- magne's Empire amongst his three sons ; but it appears to be probable that it was not until the middle part of the thirteenth century that one of the owners of Castle Tyrol or Teriolis first took the title of Counts of Tyrol.

It was from this fortress, now in a ruinous condition except for the chapel and fine porch dating from the twelfth century, that not only the family took its name but eventually the whole country came to be known. Until about the then reigning Count Albert was able to style himself Prince Count or gefiirsteter Graf of Tyrol so widespread and rich were his possessions. The first of the Prince Counts of Tyrol was successful, in , in obtaining from the Counts of Andechs the district of the Inn Valley, once the site of Roman Veldi- dena, which place tradition asserts was destroyed about A.

During the early Middle Ages the Premonstratensian Abbey of Wilten had been built on the site of the ancient town, and later on the Counts of Andechs, who had become possessed of land in the neighbourhood on the banks of the Inn, became the most powerful and influential nobles in the district. Under them a trading post or centre of commerce was founded near the bridge over the Inn, the importance of which can be easily understood when its proximity to the Brenner high-road, a then busy thorough- fare, is borne in mind.

From this bridge over the Inn was derived the name of the town Innsbruck — afterwards destined to become the capital of Tyrol — a mention of which appears for the first time in archives of the year It was to the foresight and enterprise of Otto of Andechs that the town owed the walls, towers, and forti- fications which were to stand it in good stead. Count Otto also built himself a palace, which still is known as Ottoburg. This Henry was a good-natured, easily influenced ruler, who by reason of these characteristics fell almost entirely into the hands of the more powerful of his nobles, who by flattery and supplies of money to meet his spendthrift habits were able to acquire not only influence over him, but also gain great possessions from and unchecked by him.

Under this ruler Meran became the capital of Tyrol ; and Hall, Sterzing, and other places were raised to the dignity of towns. Though easily led, Henry was not without his virtues, for he granted several privileges which were in the interests of commerce, and under his rule the hard lots of the villein and working classes were lightened, and a heritable system of land tenure for the peasant class devised and established. The effect of this was destined to be bene- ficial not only to those it was primarily intended to assist, but also to the nobles, and Henry himself.

For as the nobles seldom or never paid taxes it followed that, with increased prosperity, the lower orders who bore the greater part of the burden of taxation could be taxed to a higher degree without suffering in proportion. Many stories are current concerning the difficulties into which Henry's wastrel habits got him. One of them is that he was unable at Innsbruck to settle the bill of a fish and wine merchant, and as a last resort gave this man, one Eberhard, the bridge toll, which it is unnecessary to say formed a valuable consideration. At his death in he left no male heir, the succession falling to his daughter Margaret, known to history as " wide or Pocket Mouthed Meg " on account of her remarkably ill-formed mouth.

How her mouth became so ugly is not exactly known. One story states the name was derived from the word Maultasche, in consequence of her having had her ears or side of face boxed or struck. Eventually, after many abortive attempts to arrange a marriage with the numerous suitors who were willing to become allied to perhaps the richest though the ugliest heiress in Europe of that time, for her inheritance com- prised the dukedoms of Goricia, Croatia and Carinthia, as well as the beautiful land Tyrol, Margaret was married, in A. The latter was destined to have a troublous career, ugly as her mouth in some of its details; and the young couple, when a few years after the formal marriage they came to live together, were almost from the first at variance.

John was feeble and of weak intellect, and Margaret as determined and shameless as were many other women rulers in those times. Plots and intrigues were rife, the former between the two parties who espoused the German or Luxembourg Bohemian claims, the latter between Margaret and her courtier and even peasant lovers, some of whom were given privileges and even lands and patents of nobility by the amorous princess of the " Pocket Mouth," who made several unsuccessful attempts to get rid of her husband, until she frightened him into returning to his own country.

This desire accomplished, Margaret commenced to put in operation her further plans. John was a fugitive, going from castle to castle in search of shelter or sanctuary, awaiting assistance from his father or the Luxembourg party, which was favourable to the Bohemian side of the question.

He found a ready accomplice in his good-looking, attractive son, who appeared willing enough to marry another man's wife, however ill-tempered and ugly, even before the first marriage was formally declared null and void by the Pope, provided wealth and possessions were acquired with her.

However, when the Pope — who him- self had cast longing eyes on Margaret's possessions — heard of the proposed union, he not only declined to annul the marriage between John and Margaret, but threatened the latter with excommunication if she espoused the son of Louis, who was his implacable foe. There were also reasons of consanguinity which made the marriage impossible without the Pope's sanction.

Louis, however, not to be thwarted in his desire, set about to find a bishop willing to defy the Pontiff and bold enough to solemnize the marriage. Soon he succeeded in persuading the Bishop of Freisingen both to annul the first marriage and celebrate the second. Accordingly the Emperor, in whose train were numbers of nobles, set forth with the bishop mentioned, and also the bishops of Augsburg and Regensburg, for Tyrol. But whilst on the journey and crossing a pass the Jaufen , which afforded the quickest route from Sterzing to Margaret's home near Meran, the Bishop of Freisingen's horse stumbled and threw its rider, killing him on the spot.

This accident so sapped the courage of the other two bishops who doubtless considered the event as a direct message of wrath from Heaven that they refused to go on with the scheme upon which they had em- barked. This did not, however, weaken the determination of either the Emperor or Louis, who, on his arrival at Castle Tyrol, forced the terrified resident chaplain to celebrate the marriage, although we are told the people protested loudly, anticipating terrible punishments for ERA OF CIVIL WAR 21 breaking the laws of the Church and defying the commands of the Pope.

Nevertheless the event was celebrated with great festivities, and, so far as one can gather, no immediate wrath from Heaven was experienced by the evildoers. During the weak rule of John, the various nobles in Tyrol had gained great ascendency ; had extended their possessions and rights ; and had in fact seriously weakened the sovereign power of their ruler. Louis proved of very different metal to his precursor.

He at once attacked the nobles, who had aggregated to themselves unlawful or dangerous authority, devastating their estates, burning and dismantling their castles and fortresses, and exiling those who did not submit. Civil war of the most bloodthirsty kind ran riot in Tyrol, and other disasters in the shape of fire, which destroyed some of the most important towns, including Meran the capital ; swarms of locusts, plague and earthquake, all afflicted the unhappy and unfortunate land.

It is needless to say that these terrible calamities were esteemed by many Tyrolese as the direct expression by Heaven of anger at Margaret's bigamous marriage and defiance of the power of the Church. The ravages of the Black Death were not less severe than in other parts of Southern Europe, and, according to one chronicler, scarcely a sixth of the population of Tyrol were left alive.

As was so often the case in the Middle Ages, some human scapegoat was sought for and found ; and the very common one was fixed upon — the Jews. The persecution of this unfortunate race which ensued was of so ruthless a character that neither women, children, nor the aged were spared, with the result, we are told, that very few were left alive.

Then succeeded a period of war. An active campaign followed, characterized by great cruelty on the part of the invaders, during which the two chief towns, Meran and Bozen, were captured and destroyed, and ultimately Margaret was besieged in her own Castle of Tyrol. It was so admirably situated for defence that in her husband's absence Margaret, who, with all her vices and failings, was no coward, was able to defend it successfully from all assaults, and did so until her husband was able to return by forced marches, and surprising the besiegers, succeeded in defeating them and forcing them to retire.

The country, however, suffered terribly during the enemy's retreat, as, in revenge for being baulked of their prey, they burned and ravaged in every direction, and spared no man from the sword. Indeed, the history of the campaign exhibits in the most lurid light the underlying and primitive savagery of all warfare in the Middle Ages. It was to meet the heavy charges arising from the prolonged campaign and defence of his territory that Louis had to sell or pawn many of his richest personal posses- sions, with the result that many nobles who provided him with money or other support gained or regained valuable privileges and a considerable accession of power and influence.

Into the whole course of this war and the history of Tyrol — interesting and even fascinating though it be — it is impossible for us to enter. Margaret ultimately it may be noted made her peace with Rome, owing to the influence exercised over the Pope by her Austrian cousins of the House of Habsburg, the condition of their media- tion being that she should leave to them and not to her Bavarian cousins her heritage should her son and heir Meinhard pre-decease her, and die without issue.

Fate favoured the schemes of the Habsburgs, for both Margaret's husband Louis and her son died before her, the latter at the early age of twenty. Her husband died in 1 whilst on a journey to Munich in her company. This supposed murder was, according to then common report, a crime passionel arising from Margaret's fear that Louis was about to compass the death of Conrad of Frauenberg, a noble with whom she had carried on an intrigue that had been common talk and a scandal for years. On the death of his father, Meinhard assumed the responsibility of government ; in doing this he appears to have placed, or attempted to place, some sort of check upon the shameless conduct and intrigues of his mother, and when he died in January, , his death, like that of Louis, was laid at his mother's door.

Popular opinion, however, has been proved to have been in error by historians who do not favour the supposi- tion that she was really guilty of either death; and although no explanation of the actual cause of Louis's death is forthcoming, there would appear some evidence for supposing that Meinhard's untimely end was un- romantic and free from mystery, and, in fact, was the result of drinking cold water whilst overheated from exertion.

In those days, although news travelled but slowly according to modern ideas, it was less than a fortnight ere it had reached Vienna, and Rudolph IV. Around the picturesque, though licentious and uninvit- ing, figure of "Pocket-Mouthed Meg" has gathered an accretion of traditions and tales unequalled by those attached to any other Tyrol ruler.

But, although she was for many years so outstanding a figure in the history of her country and indeed of South-Eastern Europe, strangely few authentic records or documentary corroboration of these stories have been discoverable. However, he was not destined to long enjoy the posses- sions he had acquired chiefly by skilful diplomacy, and on his death, two years after his accession, Tyrol was governed jointly by his two brothers — Leopold and Albert.

During this dual control the Bavarian relations of Margaret made frequent incursions into the country, especially in the neighbourhood of the Unter-Innthal, and in succeeded in obtaining a large sum from the Habsburgs at a temporary peace made at Scharding. Ten years later the dual sovereignty came to an end, the two brothers dividing the inheritance, Leopold taking Tyrol as his share. He was killed at the Battle of Sempach on July 9th, , where the Swiss gained so signal a victory under the leadership of Arnold Von Winkelried.

In Frederick, Leopold's youngest son, succeeded to the sovereignty, which during his minority had been held by his elder brothers and his Uncle Albert, who had ruled the country in so lax a manner that the nobles gained a great ascendency. It was, indeed, no easy task to which Duke Frederick was called. The nickname bestowed upon him, that of " the Empty Purse," was by no means an exact description of his financial condition, save during a comparatively short period of his reign of thirty years.

It was given him at the time he was an outlaw by reason of the ban of the Church, and was obliged to fly for his life and take refuge amid the mountains. His was a stormy reign. In the early portion of it he was at variance with many of the most powerful of his nobles, who resisted his attempts to curtail the power which they had acquired during his minority. There were three claimants for each position, nominated and supported by the rival factions. Of the Ecclesiastical claimants John had Frederick's support, and when the former, failing to get elected by the Council, had not only to renounce his claims but flee for his life, Frederick assisted him to escape from Constance.

This act of loyalty to a friend almost cost Frederick his life, as Sigismund who of the three candidates had been elected Emperor was his enemy, and not only succeeded in persuading the assembly to declare Frederick's throne forfeited, but also him and his chief supporters and followers outlaws, to shelter any of whom was a crime punishable with death.

Frederick's evil case was made worse and his diffi- culties immeasurably increased by the secession to the ranks of his enemies of his brother Ernest, who had taken the Dukedom of Styria as his portion of the inheritance. Duke Ernest took up the reins of Government of Tyrol, and there ensued a period of bloodshed and disastrous Civil War in which the peasants and the lower classes remained firm and loyal supporters of their ruler Frederick, and the greater number of the nobility espoused the cause of the usurper Ernest.

At length a peace was brought about between the two brothers, chiefly through the mediation of the Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, and the Duke Louis of Bavaria. The remaining portion of Frederick's life appears to have been peaceable, and notwithstanding his sobriquet of "Empty Purse" he left a huge fortune in treasure, which some authorities assert was the greatest amassed by any ruler of those times.

He was undoubtedly one of the most able, and with the peasants and townsfolk most popular, rulers Tyrol has ever had as a separate principality.

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He carried on a struggle throughout his reign against the encroachments of the nobility upon the lands and liberties of the people, which in itself was a thing sufficient to gain him the love and loyalty of the great masses of his subjects, which his affable manners, generosity, and kind- liness served to cement. To him belongs the credit of summoning the first Tyrolean Landtag of any use or importance, held at Meran in Subsequently the Landtag was convened at Innsbruck, which town in con- sequence gradually came to be regarded as the capital of Tyrol.

On the death of Frederick he was succeeded by his son Sigismund, then a mere lad of eleven or twelve years of age. This gifted princess lived in Tyrol for a period of more than thirty years, and by her gentle manners, love of sport, especially hawking and hunting, and social accomplishments made herself much beloved by her husband's subjects. Her Court, for the size of the principality over which her husband ruled, was very large and luxurious.

During the reign of Sigismund the vast mineral wealth of the Unter-Innthal district especially became opened up, and this enabled the Duke to spend lavish sums upon pleasures, entertainments, arts, and science, which soon caused his Court at Innsbruck to be spoken of as one of the most refined, gay, and interesting in Eastern Europe. At the same time Tyrol owed much to Sigis- mund, as he was a generous patron of art and employer of artists of all kinds.

On the death of his consort Eleanor he married, in , the Princess Catherine of Saxony, who was both young and beautiful. A man of great judgment, he yet committed the grave error of provoking a war with the Venetians, whose trade with Tyrol was an important and valuable asset in the country's commerce and material prosperity. It arose from the seizure of some rich silver mines the property of the Venetians in the Valsugana, and the tense situation arising from this act was aggravated shortly after, in April , by the forcible seizure of the goods of Venetian merchants who had come as was their wont to the great fair held at Bozen.

Over a hundred and twenty Venetian merchants were also thrown into prison. In the war which ensued the Tyrolese were ultimately victorious ; but the victory was a Pyrrhic one as Tyrol lost much by this struggle with the great commercial power of those remote times. Sigismund, as had other rulers of the Mountain Kingdom, fell out of favour with the Church, owing to a quarrel with the Cardinal Bishop of Brixen, Nicholas of Cusa, chiefly on account of the latter's persistent endeavour to exalt the power of the Church at the expense of the former's temporal authority, and it was only Sigismund's indifference to religious matters and power in his own country which enabled him to treat with unconcern if not positive contempt the ban placed upon him by the Church of Rome.

He even went the length of making war upon the Bishop, and of besieging him in his castle at Brunneck ; and as a consequence was excommunicated by both Pope Calixtus III. In Sigismund's declining years he applied himself " to the task of purchasing salvation in the manner approved by the Church he had defied, and whose bulls, bans, and mandates he had scorned. One effect of this great expenditure was to impoverish the country, which had already been much "drained" by the demands made upon it by Sigismund's patronage of art, love of women, and lavish entertain- ments. Maximilian, his cousin afterwards the famous Emperor Maximilian I.

He was in a great measure an ideal ruler for Tyrol, whose brave, independent people were touched by the spirit, frankness, and great personal bravery of their new prince. Fond of war, he was equally devoted to the chivalric jousts and games of the period, and, if one may believe historians, to. It was only in the latter portion of his reign that he lost touch with and hold upon them, and, owing to the heavy drain that incessant wars and military operations had placed upon the country, necessitating heavy taxation, became in a measure unpopular.

From his biographers one gathers that the Emperor was deeply affected by the change of attitude of the populace towards him, and he referred to it bitterly on several occasions. During some considerable time before his death he always went about accompanied by his coffin, which he is stated to have described as "the one narrow palace which architects can design at small cost, and the making of which does not bring ruin upon princes. Maximilian also did something for education in his capital of Innsbruck, where he built a new palace which was first used at the time of his second marriage with Maria Bianca Sforza of Milan in He was succeeded by his two grandsons, the Emperor Charles V.

The former, however, found his dominions so vast that he soon resigned his Austrian possessions including Tyrol to his brother Ferdinand, who afterwards became Emperor. The reign of the latter, though long, was not a happy or prosperous one. It was this Ferdinand who founded the famous Fran- ciscan Church at Innsbruck with its world-renowned tomb in memory of his grandfather Maximilian I. On the death of Ferdinand, in , he was succeeded on the throne of Tyrol by his second son who bore his name. A romantic interest attaches to this Archduke, who after much opposition on the part of his family married the beautiful daughter of an Augsburg merchant, Philip- pina Welser, who ultimately succeeded in winning the Emperor's sanction to the marriage.

Indeed, during this period the country reached its highest culture. The world-famous art collection now in Vienna, concerning which most authorities are in agreement that it was the most extensive and beautiful formed up to that period, owes its existence almost entirely to him. The story that Philippina died a violent death seems to have no basis upon fact. Ferdinand after the death of his first wife married Anna Katharina Gonzaga of Mantua, to whose devout tendencies and influence over him Innsbruck and the neighbourhood owed many of its religious houses and institutions.

On the death of Ferdinand, as his and Philippina's children could not succeed to their father's possessions and title for the reason we have mentioned, and as there were no children of the marriage with Anna Katharina, Tyrol reverted in to the Emperor Rudolph II. This prince was the head of the Teutonic Order, and bore the title of Deutschmeister. The event was celebrated with great magnificence even for a period when entertainments of the kind were veritable triumphs of splendour and art, and the wedding feast was served by Tyrolese noblemen. Ferdinand soon appointed his brother the Archduke Leopold as Regent, and on his death in the latter was succeeded by his widow, the wise and beautiful Arch- duchess Claudia Felicitas of Medici, who governed Tyrol during the minority of her two sons.

Her chief counsellor was the brilliant and distinguished Chancellor Wilhelm Biener. The Archduke Ferdinand Charles came of age and succeeded to his estates in , and in default of male heirs was succeeded by his brother Francis Sigismund in The reign of the last named lasted only three years, and came to a sudden and tragic close on the very eve of his marriage. On the death of Sigismund the second Tyrolese-Habsburg line of rulers came to an end. It was then that Tyrol finally came into the possession of the Emperors of Austria, by whom the ancient title of Prince-Count of Tyrol and other subsidiary titles are still borne.

One result was, however, of considerable importance to a family of great note in Tyrol. It brought about the ruin of the Fuggers, whose financial assistance to various rulers of Tyrol and Eastern Europe had been generally forthcoming when required. Owing to their possession of the two famous castle-fortresses of Tratzberg and Matzen their prosperity or otherwise was of considerable importance to Tyrol. From the date when the country became completely incorporated as a part of the Austrian Empire it did homage to the Emperor Leopold I.

It was during his reign and on account of this circumstance that Tyrol became deeply involved in the War of the Spanish Succession, and was the object of attack on the part of both French and Bavarians, Leopold being the Austrian claimant to the Spanish throne, and Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. For a considerable period the invaders were successful, and many villages and castles of the Unter-Innthal and contiguous districts were destroyed.

The capture of the capital was the cause of the uprising of the Landsturm, or general levy of the peasants ; and during a number of fierce engagements were fought between these ill-armed but brave Tyrolese and the Bavarian and French troops. One of the most noted battles was that which took place immediately after the Tyrolese had destroyed the Pontlatz Bridge which spanned the River Inn, by which the Bavarians were about to cross.

In this engage- ment the latter, under the leadership of the Elector Maximilian Emmanuel, were utterly routed by a much inferior force of the Landsturm, and driven back from North Tyrol. Following up this success the Tyrolese concentrated their energies upon the French force under General Vendome which they compelled to retire into Italy. The Emperor Leopold I. The Emperor did not live to see the ultimate triumph of his forces.

He died in , and was succeeded by his sons Joseph I. On the death of the latter in , owing to the fact that with him the Austrian male line became extinct, the Empress Maria Theresa ruled in his stead. During her long reign the Vorarlberg became an integral part of Tyrol owing to the fact that it was an Imperial fief which reverted to the Crown by natural process on the extinction of the line of feoffees.

The Tyrolese and the Innsbruckers gave a warm welcome to their sovereigns, and the festivities were upon a most magnificent scale. The gaiety was destined, how- ever, to be clouded and put an end to by the sudden death of the Emperor husband of Maria Theresa , who expired at the palace immediately after his return from the Italian Opera. His salutary and liberally conceived reforms, more especially as regarded the Church, were brought about by a desire to adjust political and religious affairs and do away with anomalies. Inasmuch as Joseph's scheme embraced the suppression or abolition of numerous priories, monasteries, churches, and other religious institutions, it is little to be wondered at that his action met with the most strenuous opposition from the Church whose property was threatened.

One act, the closing of the University of Innsbruck, which had been founded by Leopold I. The Emperor Joseph II. He was succeeded in by his brother, the Emperor Leopold II. This ruler came to the throne at a great and unhappy crisis in European history. The French Revolution was at its height and the ensuing period of the " blood lustful " Napoleonic Wars made of Europe a vast camp and battle ground. It was also a period destined, as events proved, to make Tyrol famous for all time, to develop the best instincts of her people, and to exhibit the race in a heroic and romantic light.

To understand the position of Tyrol at this epoch it is necessary to briefly sketch the events which led up to the struggle as it affected the "land in the Mountains. Once more the Landsturm was raised in South Tyrol, and again the peasant forces to whom the name of " ragged coats " had been contemptuously given engaged in a terrific struggle for their beloved land with the not only better armed but more numerous detachments of French and Bavarian invaders.

Even the well-tried legions of Napoleon were destined, however, to find them as redoubt- able as had formerly Maximilian. Napoleon's troops, although well led, and possess- ing all the advantages that experience and a knowledge of strategy could give them, nevertheless could not withstand the terrific onslaught and heroic bravery shown by the Tyrolese. A fierce and bloody engagement was fought at Spinges which resulted in the triumph of the peasant forces and the utter rout of the invaders, who were com- pelled to evacuate the country.

This otherwise comparatively unimpor- tant event has gained fame and significance from the fact that this small body of Passeyer peasantry was led by a tall, broad-shouldered man with a long brown beard, named Andreas Hofer, who was destined afterwards to play so great and remarkable a part in the history of his beloved country. During this preliminary struggle against the French it is estimated by several authorities that upwards of , peasants took up arms in defence of their country, amongst whom were many women and young maidens.

The total population of Tyrol at that period did not probably much exceed three quarters of a million. The peace secured by the Treaty of Campo Formio did not, however, endure very long, for early in the war broke out again, and the French under General Massena entered Tyrol, on this occasion by way of Switzer- land through the mountain passes, the Bavarians sup- porting the invaders by incursions over the frontier in the direction of Salzburg. In an engagement near Feldkirch in Vorarlberg General Massena was defeated ; and upon making a fresh attack the French, hearing all the church bells of the district ringing on Easter Eve and mistaking them for the alarm bells summoning the Landsturm, hastily abandoned their intentions and retreated across the frontier into Swiss territory.

The victories of Marengo and Hohenlinden on June 14 and December 3 of the next year, brought about the Treaty of Luneville on February 9, 1 80 1, by which the Bishoprics of Brixen and Trent already in a sense belonging to Tyrol were made integral parts of the country. The French army under Marshal Ney afterwards entered and occupied Inns- bruck.

Then came the disastrous Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, where Napoleon defeated the combined Russian and Austrian forces. The power of the latter was shat- tered, and by the Treaty of Pressburg, December 26, , Tyrol, which now for upwards of four hundred years had been one of the chief possessions of the house of Habsburg, was ceded to the victors. The Bavarians took the northern, and the French the southern portion. Not only was the country for a time lost to Austria, but even its name was taken from it.

The new owners promptly divided it into three departments known by the names of the three chief rivers — the Inn, Eisack, and Adige. In the beginning of the year following the Treaty the Bavarians took formal possession of their new territory. During a period of some three years the Tyrolese fretted under the rule of their conquerors. But the time was not spent merely in idle murmurings or in servile acceptance of the conqueror's yoke.

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The peasants who had fought so bravely for their land and liberty in ancient times, and in and , were eager once more to take the field to recover their lost freedom, and to drive the usurpers of their beautiful Tyrol for ever beyond its frontiers. Of these Andreas Hofer, born of Inn-keeping parents at Sandyland in the Passeyer Valley in , was destined to outshine both in his life and death his two companions, named Speckbacher, born at Rinn, and Haspinger, the tall, red-bearded Capucin monk, known respectively as "the fire-devil " and "the red beard.

The country swarmed not only with the soldiers of the Bavarian occupation force, but with spies who seem always to spring up whenever the price of treachery is worth earning. Death not only for the principals, but death for the humblest participant. Never- theless the plan prospered. It is interesting to remember the very large and important part which was played in the organization of the peasants' uprising by the Tyrolese innkeepers, or wirthe, who were very dissimilar to the ordinary conception which English people have of men of their class.

They were usually the most wealthy as well as the most solid members of the village communities in which they dwelt and kept their Wirthshaus, around which, indeed, much of the social as well as the municipal life of the village centred. They were better informed than many of their neighbours, for whatever travellers came to the villages found their way to their hospitable roofs ; and what echoes of the outer world ever reached the secluded villages filtered its way, as it were, through them.

It was in these men that Hofer found his greatest allies and ablest assistants. During the three years which succeeded the Bavarian occupation and the peasant rising, the innkeepers of Tyrol were busy gathering round them small bodies of trusted men, who, fired by a common desire to free their country, would, indeed, have suffered death rather than betray a single word of the secret arrangements of which they gradually became cognizant.

But although Hofer and his com- panions do not seem to have received very much definite or material encouragement from the Emperor or his advisers, they proceeded to Vienna, had several interviews with the Archduke, who appeared to be most favourably inclined to their scheme, and at these interviews the plan of campaign was definitely formulated. In the end Hofer returned to St. Leonard raised to the dignity of Commander-in-Chief of the national forces, and with full powers to do what he deemed best in the interests of the country. What he did not, however, secure was any support from Vienna in the form of arms or disciplined troops with which to leaven his " ragged coats.

Owing to the rigorous search for arms which the Bavarians and French had instituted in almost every dwelling in the land, during the two or three years which intervened between the Treaty of Pressburg and the uprising of the peasants under Hofer, it was not possible to obtain and store new weapons in any quantity even if to do so had not been rendered difficult from the hosts of spies which overran Tyrol and seemed to lurk beneath almost every rock. Thus it was that out-of-date weapons — most of which had seen service in the war of a century before — billhooks, scythes, clubs and pitchforks, with whatever other arms their own ingenuity could devise or the village blacksmiths make, were pitted against the arms of some precision of the French and Bavarian troops.

All that the peasant forces had to sustain them in the struggle against well-armed and disciplined veterans, superior as regards knowledge of warfare, was dauntless courage and a greater acquaintance with the country and of hill fighting. Many, we are told, blamed him for trusting so implicitly all who came. But to objectors he made the same answer: On the evening of that day the peasants of the Passeyer and other valleys were called to arms by means of great fires which blazed out in the darkness of the clear April sky in long, ruddy banners of flame.

Every hill crest in the vicinity of the Passeyer Valley had its signal fire, and these were answered by others on the mountains overshadowing the distant valleys. On the morrow Andreas Hofer found himself at daybreak at the head of nearly men who had one and all " confessed " and received the Sacrament ere taking up arms in their sacred cause of liberty. The Bavarians were at once hotly attacked and routed; and on the 12th, soon after dawn, upwards of 15, peasants had rallied to Hofer's standard and appeared before Innsbruck.

With indomitable bravery they captured the bridge over the Inn, carried the heights by assault, and entering the town engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand conflict with the troops of General Bisson who was in command of the joint French and Bavarian forces and compelled him to surrender.

In the deadly conflict of the streets, which ran red with blood, and into whose mire peasants, French and Bavarian soldiers and officers alike were trampled by the on-press of the Tyrolese, the ruder weapons of the latter, consisting of heavily butted fire-locks, broad knives used 42 TYROL AND ITS PEOPLE in husbandry, scythe blades attached to staves, and bludgeons cut from the thickets of the mountain side, were as deadly and even perhaps more so than the weapons of their enemies.

Down the ancient streets, overshadowed by the ever- lasting snow-clad mountains ; into the narrow byways and courtyards of the ancient town ; along under the arcades of the old-time Herzog Freidrich Strasse, swept the Tyrolese, slaying as they went, until the invaders, driven from cranny to cranny, struck down in the open, compelled many of them to retreat along the Inn banks till they fell back into the swiftly flowing river, cried for quarter and surrendered.

At Wilten, on the outskirts of Innsbruck itself, the fiery Speckbacher surrounded a Bavarian force of nearly men and took them prisoners of war. Thus after less than four days' fighting the Tyrolese had defeated the Bavarians, captured Innsbruck, and compelled the French commander to sue for quarter. And in their hands they held two generals, officers, nearly men, three standards, five pieces of cannon, and horses. By the end of April, Tyrol was again free of invaders with the sole exception that the Bavarians still held the castle of Kufstein. It was now that the Government in Vienna made one of the many serious mistakes which throughout its dealings marked the policy pursued in relation to Tyrol's struggle for freedom.

General Chasteler, of whom it was said that "he always came too late and went too soon," was given the supreme command. And from that moment the advantages gained by Hofer, his brave companions-in- arms Speckbacher and Haspinger, and the peasant troops, were lost. In an almost incredibly short space of time Chasteler succeeded in losing all that had been won. In little more than a month from the time the French and Bavarians had been driven from Innsbruck they entered it again in triumph ; and thus, on the 20th of May, Tyrol was once more to all intents and purposes conquered.

The brave leader of the peasants, however, was de- termined to make one more supreme effort to free his country from the French and Bavarian yoke, and after summoning to his standard all who were capable of bearing arms, he had the satisfaction of once more driving the invaders from Innsbruck, and freeing for the second time the country he loved so well. This triumph was not, however, destined to endure, for the Austrian forces under the Archduke Charles suffered a crushing defeat from Napoleon's troops at Wagram on July 5 and 6, , and were forced to sue for peace or at least an armistice at Znaim, in which Tyrol was ignored.

Amongst other things, by the subsequent Treaty, Austria ceded all her sea coast to France, as well as considerable territory to Saxony and Bavaria.

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But it was not until the French, Bavarian, and Saxon troops, straight from their victory at Wagram, to the number of some 50, men, entered Tyrol under the command of Marshal Lefebre, and the Austrian army marched away out of Innsbruck in full retreat before the advancing enemy, that Hofer realized that he and his cause once more were abandoned by the Emperor and his advisers. Again Hofer came to the rescue ; and, though in a measure a fugitive, in one of the little-known gorges, he managed to send forth from valley to valley his summons to the people to gather once more round his standard.

That none should certainly know from these summonses where he lay concealed it was his wont to sign them " Andreas Hofer, from where I am " ; whilst in return those communicating with him addressed theirs "To Andreas Hofer wherever he may be. Gathering his forces together in a gorge of the Mittewald he awaited the enemy's advance. We cannot do better than draw in part, for a description of what followed, from the stirring and vivid narrative of Albert Wolff.

The vanguard of Marshal Lefebre under the command of General Rouyer advanced to Sterzing ;' and then a column of Saxon troops to the number of about was thrown out beyond the village towards the gorge of Stilfes with orders to sweep away the insurgents. The idea that the untrained, ill-armed, and heterogeneous peasant forces could successfully resist the victors of Wagram appeared ridiculous to the Marshal and his officers, even if the Tyrolese were so foolhardy as to make the attempt.

For some distance the Saxons advanced without either meeting with opposition or discovering an enemy ; and then, when the whole column, had fully entered the defile from the mountain sides above them there resounded a sudden, terrifying cry of " To the attack, and no quarter. Down the steep mountain gorge crashed rocks, tree trunks, baulks of timber, earth and stones loosed from the restraining ropes by the Tyrolese, sweep- ing every obstruction before them, and falling upon the penned-up Saxons like an avalanche.

Then, as the latter were vainly and fiercely struggling to extricate themselves from the debris and entanglements, the peasants rushed down the mountain side and hurled themselves upon their bewildered foes, shouting Hofer's battlecry, " For God and our Country. Upon the Saxons the Tyrolese had no mercy, and hundreds were cut down as they fled along the road back to Innsbruck.

In little more than a week Hofer, by a vigorous following up of his victory in the Pass of Stilfes, had once more repulsed the invader, retaken the position on Berg Isel, and established his headquarters at Schonberg. These historic eight days of fighting and victory are known in Tyrolese history as " the great week. To take the town was a task that might have given pause to any less brave and venturous a commander than Hofer. But he was not the man to hold back from a complete freeing of his beloved land from those who had invaded it.

The plans were laid, the day fixed, and the advance ordered. On the morning of the attack, at five o'clock, Haspinger the militant Capu- chin, a commanding figure upon whom the light of early dawn threw an almost uncanny refulgence, celebrated Mass before the assembled peasant host, who knelt in serried ranks, ragged, unkempt, but inspired to great deeds by memories of their past victories. After this solemn observance Haspinger once more became a captain of troops rather than a priest ; and springing into his saddle he drew his sword and led on the left wing. Andreas Hofer himself was in the centre, and led the attack there, marching right on to Innsbruck.

A contemporary account describes the hero as being " transfigured with a grandeur scarcely earthly, as, burning with patriotism, he urged his horse forward into battle. God will protect the right! Around him thronged the citizens, overcome with transports of joy, pressing him so closely that many were trampled beneath his horse's feet. In the enthusiasm, relief, and triumph of victory, Hofer was named with one voice dictator of Tyrol.

But there was that strange analogy which links Hofer's attitude in the hour of triumph so closely notwithstanding the differentiations of sex with that of Joan of Arc and with Cromwell. Turning to the thronging multitude, which filled the narrow streets to overflowing, he cried out, with a gentle and almost pitiful glance at their upturned faces, " Do not shout in triumph ; but offer thanks to God and pray.

On leaving the building he was waited upon by the chief citizens, who expressed their undying gratitude to their deliverer. But in response he said, "By my beard and St. George, God himself and not I has been the Saviour of our country. In every act of his government could be detected the truly religious and patriotic character of the man. And during the short time that he reigned in the palace at Innsbruck, waiting anxiously for the approval and the help from his Emperor in Vienna, his conduct was marked by dignity, kindliness, and strength.

But alas, his triumph was but brief. Tyrol by this new arrangement remained Bavarian, and the Archduke John himself called upon Andreas Hofer to lay down his arms. The latter did not obey. He persuaded himself that the Treaty of Vienna was without substance, or merely a trick to enable the in- vaders to make good their fresh hold upon the country, and he decided to continue the struggle.

His followers, however, were discouraged by the callous way in which the Austrian Government had invariably left them to fight their own battles alone. Speckbacher, too, was deserted by all save a mere handful of men, and after remaining in hiding for some time and escaping capture by a miracle he succeeded in getting to Vienna. The Capuchin Haspinger afterwards joined him there, and was ultimately made curate of Hietzing, near Schonbrunn. It then became clear to Hofer that to continue the struggle for freedom just then was useless and, indeed, impossible ; so he dispersed his own handful of faithful friends and supporters, telling them, "We shall meet again before long, for Tyrol will not perish.

A price was put upon his head by the Bavarians and French, who recognized that their peaceful occupation of the conquered and ceded territory depended very greatly upon the capture and imprisonment or death of Hofer, who, as a popular hero, held so high a place in the hearts 48 TYROL AND ITS PEOPLE of his countrymen ; and that for him to remain at large would constitute a perpetual menace.

For a long while Hofer was able to elude the vigilance and discovery of his would-be captors. Technically, and owing to his abandonment by the Austrian Government, he was a rebel on account of his refusal to lay down his arms when commanded by the Archduke John to do so. In the end, as so often happens, there was one found base and treacherous enough to betray the fugitive for blood money. Guided by such an one, named Raffl, some Italian gendarmes, supported by a small detachment of French soldiers, made their way amid the intricate mountain paths to the chalet where — near St.

Leonard, but far from other habitations — Andreas Hofer had for some months lived with his family, now broken down by despair for his country, anxiety and privation. I would not say Russia was near-victory, but definitely could have pursued better terms if it had waited a few more months.

Just look at what the other Entente members got awarded in Versailles. Then again, as others have mentioned, the Tsar was not popular nor too good at keeping the people on his side, and people wanted to speed up change in a forceful way. The Bolsheviks took advantage. Just like Brexit was more about principle and ideals for the future than responding to actual present conditions. Autonomism is usually stopped by material progress and propaganda tying said progress to the whole of the nation as opposed of only to the region.

That may have worked in the long-run — or at least, would have allowed for less violence. All water under the bridge, anyway. I do agree with Mr. Karlin in that Lenin was sneaky — he criticized Tsarist Russian irredentism, only for it to be replaced with the Internationalist Soviet kind that him and Trotsky spoused. Stalin may have brutishly Russified the hell out of the other republics, but he was right in that without such control the other republics would have fallen prey to their own little elites — as happened after the wall fell.

I agree with you, though Hupa does have a point — the post-Peter Occidental Russian state was not popular nor culturally close to the Russian people, ergo when it failed it lacked for defenders the Whites being mostly anti-Bolsheviks and faithful Orthodox more than commited Tsarists. Then again, as others have said, Nicholas was very incompetent. Sometimes we focus too much on the systems and ideologies, when in reality the actions and failures of some individuals have the strongest consequences. You may have a point; do have to look at the data to back that up, but would not be surprised if there was a Youth Bulge.

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At any rate, culture also matters. The Asian regions you mention have a longer history of cultures emphasizing discipline and learning, as well as a stronger sense of identity they tend to be countries bigger in population and not short of historical tragedies and rebirths. Therefore, in those countries it was possible to implement those changes with less blood and more progress. Geography also has something to do with it, but always related with demography.

What about an interpretation of Hitler as an overreaching fuck-up? Well fine, I meant that since Peter the idea that such thing as Sobor Ziemski could gather again, was unthinkable, because Russia became so drastically centralized. Subordination of the Church to the state makes no sense, because the Church can conduct its mission only as a separate entity. And XVIII century is important in Russia because it was revolutionary and as I wrote, it showed the extent to which the russian elites disliked russian tradition, it marked the beginning of the process of the abandonment of russian and christian tradition by the Russians en masse, this is why they were so sloppy in fighting Bolsheviks.

Granted, Lenin probably enjoys a quiet respectability of sorts among Western intellectuals for the reasons you mention. Yet, anti-Germanism does also enjoy quiet respectability. See Paul Gottfried, for example. I also do not fail to notice that many here at UNZ , including Anatolii, are doing basically what Lenin was doing albeit without much effect outside of this blog.

I would also find it peculiarly strange to call a failure the man who founded Soviet Union which achieved superpowerdom, became world premier economic power, sent man to space achieved status Russia under Tsars simply was not able to achieve and created first state in the history that actually was working in the interests of all people, not just elites. Basically is about kicking dead lion. Some find this article brilliant. I find it nauseatic. Posting photo of a very sick man at the end of his life is pretty low in my opinion.

For my assertion that the economic successes of the peacetime Reich have been improperly credited to Hitler and the Nazis. Yes, there is a tendency to consider imperial Germany as just a proto-Nazi empire, which despite its undoubted and quite severe flaws militarism, atrocities in the colonies and Belgium is unjustified imo. Similar imo to the myth that Bolshevist tyranny was just a continuation of Tsarist autocracy. Particularly the pre economic policy, including in credit availability from international sources. Whether he was covertly egged on to invade as Saddam in Kuwait.

A concise explanation of his jewish policy particularly in relation to other enemies of state. Differences and similarities with Spain and Italy that allowed for fascism to rise. He should be neither. You are basing your thinking on the near endless propaganda assault by the jews for the last 70 years, Germany of all places has had such a severe anti Hitler narrative that it makes the personality cults of North Korea look mundane.

If you can accept the fact that jews are detrimental to not just whites, but ultimately to almost everyone else then you will also see that Hitler was not the worst leader. You will find that the places that the jews have least managed to penetrate with their narratives India, Mongolia, South East Asia have some people dressing up as SS officers or other such Reich fashion.

I had known there were millions killed in the Russian civil war caused by Lenin, but not about how many were ordered killed by him during this time. The stupidity goes on down through the centuries unabated, but it will reach a local maximum in this country as the SHTF — coming soon — Peak Stupidity. Indeed, I completely agree that Vladimir Lenin was a total piece of shit who deserves to burn in Hell!

In fact, it would have been much better had the Russian Provisional Government jailed or even shot and killed him and his Bolshevik friends for promoting defeatism and, in July , for attempting to seize power. Of course, the Russian Provisional Government should have also avoided launching any offensives until after large numbers of U.

Frankly, one of the very few positive things about Lenin is his nominal support for national self-determination. Of course, even then, it would have certainly been much better for the whole edifice to come crashing down in the late s or even early s than to have various people—including the Great Russians, of course—suffer under the hands of the Bolsheviks for seven decades!

Ultimately, I wonder if it would have been better for Germany to win World War I and then overthrow the Bolsheviks right afterwards. After all, even the Bolsheviks managed to create a type of Sovok identity among the Soviet population as evidenced by the results of the March referendum in most of the Soviet Union. Indeed, in a surviving Russian Republic, there would have been various ethnic groups who would have had their own languages, cultures, and often autonomy but who might have also very well embraced a Russian national identity rossiyane—not russkiye.

Also, the much greater prosperity of a surviving Russian Republic—in comparison to the Soviet Union, of course—would have probably kept ethnic separatist sentiments inside of Russia relatively low and small. Indeed, Russia had an excellent future in late before the Bolsheviks seized power there.

After all, the excesses of Tsarist Russia—such as the anti-Semitic Pale of Settlement and the lack of genuine democracy and basic liberties—were abolished and, with the U. Thus, had the Russian Republic survived, I could certainly see Russian nationalists and alt-righters being legitimately scared of a looming Islamization of Russia! Are there any documents to prove this? As I said before, if any documents that showed German money transfers to Lenin or Bolsheviks existed in Berlin archives, a subsequent German government e.

Hitler would certainly use them for propaganda. Tambov uprising, which the Bolsheviks crushed with the use of poison gas and concentration camps.

Both Reds and Whites used chemical weapons against each other on several occasions. Additionally, the Romanian Army used poison gas to suppress a Communist uprising in Bessarabia in Similarly, just because a Muslim in British India voted for the Muslim League and thus for the creation of Pakistan does not necessarily mean that he would have personally been willing to move to Pakistan.

Before that, they would have probably been content with sufficient autonomy and land reform. They could have voted No in this referendum just like the overwhelming majority of people in Galicia did, but they instead voted in favor of keeping the Union in some form! Of course, the big wild card that I could see in regards to this is if large numbers of Central Asians and other Muslims began moving en masse to Ukraine.

In such a case—and especially if these Muslims will bring backwards attitudes and whatnot with them to Ukraine—I could certainly see Ukrainian separatism getting a shot in the arm. Of course, in such a scenario, Russia will probably be more resistant than ever at letting Ukraine secede considering that letting Ukraine secede might very well accelerate the Islamization of Russia in this scenario!

Indeed, please remember that, in additional to Central Asia, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims in South Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran! Actually, if we want to get technical about this, Pavlo Skoropadsky was a military man who supported the unity of a future non-Bolshevik Russia and Ukraine in a federation. The article is total garbage. The quotes maybe genuine but then maybe not. Car did loose respect totally. Japanese destroyed Russian eastern fleet. There were two peasant uprising before Lenin. They were defeated and thousands of peasants executed.

Russian army was defeated continuously. Kerensky deposed Car, but he continued failing policies of the Car. All complete regiments were deserting.

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Leaving the front and going home with weapons. Lenin and other communists went to welcome them and convinced them to join the revolution when the time comes. Lenin or no Lenin country was ripe for revolution. That just bugs the living daylights out of me, and one reason is that it gives American policies of all sorts way too much unearned virtue.

A Karlinesque hit piece directed against Herr Hitler and published in the States? It would be necessarily tendentious, one-sided, but I think it would also be productive if written by a German with some conservative or nationalist credibility, and supported by sufficient evidence. The tzarist regime was horrible, forgot in which book the son of a GB diplomat, stationed in St Petersburg, visited his father each summer, the family had not moved there, and found the Russian aristocracy repugnant.

Lenin lived in poverty in Zurich. So, being a terrorist in the tzarist regime, understandable. That communism failed, socially and economically, yes. Socially, one group of aristocrats was replaced by another, even more brutal. Economically, a centrally governed economy is unable to produce those consumer goods the consumer want, just the profit motive accomplishes this, as even China now knows. It was stupid to leave exusting Germany. It should be divided between France and a new Slavic-ruled central European federation, instead if leaving small German republic which wet to war without having chance to win.

Maybe his living standards were lower than most university educated people at the time, but then again, Lenin refused to do any even remotely productive work, and made little effort to make money other than the money sent to him by his sisters. I think even the Swiss were living temporarily worse, because imports particularly of important commodities like coal or foodstuffs were getting more expensive although they could export to the rest of Europe at good prices, so that after the end of the war they were better off as all other countries became indebted to them.

Though at least you acknowledge that the communists were definitely more brutal than the Czarist regime. The only meaningful comparisons with the real timeline is perhaps through , and only in terms of internal development. Shame on you Karlin! Major General William S. Graves, who commanded American occupation forces in Siberia, testified that:. Semeonoff and Kalmikoff soldiers, under the protection of Japanese troops, were roaming the country like wild animals, killing and robbing the people, and these murders could have been stopped any day Japan wished.

If questions were asked about these brutal murders, the reply was that the people murdered were Bolsheviks and this explanation, apparently, satisfied the world. Conditions were represented as being horrible in Eastern Siberia, and that life was the cheapest thing there. There were horrible murders committed, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks as the world believes. I am well on the side of safety when I say that the anti-Bolsheviks killed one hundred people in Eastern Siberia, to everyone killed by the Bolsheviks. The Central European federation is probably unworkable, even the smaller entities like the USSR of the similar Eastern Slavic nations or Czechoslovakia of the industrialized Czechs and rural Slovaks, both of whom speak basically mutually understandable dialects fell apart, not to mention Yugoslavia.

It was disintegrating already before Lenin came to power and there was no one to stop Russia being torn to pieces. Nevertheless, there still would have been job for Anatolii writing about Russia we lost. Those who want to make away with loot from Soviet people need to completely discredit every single aspect of Soviet life and obviously founding fathers of the soviet Union Lenin and Stalin. They use outright lies like German money, taken out of contest and artificially glued together quotes form Lenin and Stalin, outright lying about who deposed Tsar and so forth so on.

Here Anatolii brings again German money label which was proven long time ago to be lie and fraud. Meanwhile it is very reasonable that Abramovich pays Anatolii and same minded people to write similar opuses to brainwash population, cause divide and thus allowing him to keep his yacht and soccer club with other nice things. We obviously do not have a proof but it is even more reasonable by the outcome than Lenin taking German money and then doing everything opposite to what his supposed paymasters paid for. Anatolii on the other hand is doing everything that he would have been supposed to do were he paid by said Abramovich.

All in all, Great October Socialist revolution first time showed that led by talented devoted people who have interests exploited in their heart it is possible to take power away form bloodsuckers and it is possible to build state that takes care of all people not just few. For that Lenin and Stalin are hated. You can imagine to what length enemies would go 80 years ago. I was not sitting and making research in opened archives. The picture is still not clear to me. I understand that Stalin was not all powerful as it has been promoted by liberals and there was intense fight within party different sections.

Anyway, at the time it was already obvious what outcomes of wrong choices would have been. Look how many people were surrounding Gorbachev and Yeltsin and who after the fact were people enemies as we see it. Imagine they would take decisive measures and prevailed. I suspect there would have been trials and many people would be condemned to long terms in jails and death. It would have been reasonable and it would have saved millions upon millions lives that were lost including completely destroyed demography and industry and torn apart country.

Maybe with the older generations it is, but russian zyklon b gen core is not tainted by the red bullshit to such extent. That should be expected considering amount of liberal and other BS thrown at them since their birth. But you cannot expect great things from them either. You cannot even expect from them enough babies to keep Russian population at least stable to allow time for better generations to come forward. Why would it be anti-Japanese propaganda, anyway? They were allies in Siberia. Read the quote again.

I feel your pain. But then I suppose he would rather have preferred to have Russia and Germany keeping each other occupied. After Siberia, he would spend most of the next seventeen years in European exile, writing articles for low-circulation journals that alternated between rehashing Marx and Engels, engaging in disputes with fellow Marxists who were famous in narrow circles…. While meant as criticisms, they are weak. Given enough time, a common Russian identity could have probably grown up. Examples include not only those of France and Germany. With the exception of the Irish, at least until recently, the Brits seemed to get it right.

OTOH, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia illustrate the two ends of the spectrum for dealing with intransigent nationalisms. I do not disagree, but would you care to elaborate beyond what you already said? What sources would you recommend for fleshing out your claims? Yeltsin is modern Grishka Otrepiev that succeeded. By their deeds you will know them. New Russia is being lucky to preserve at least part of soviet foundation that still keeps this ramp afloat and secure. The only hope for Russia to rise again lies in preserving and further developing that foundation.

It seems to me that enough crap has been spread about the man already. Every plank in this nightmare evidence is either completely untrue or not entirely the truth. Rothbard was an American Jew and an historian of the very highest caliber. Hamish Hamilton, — now New York: There was no significant separatism in Finland.

Yes, I posited as much in this post from a few weeks back: I bet around the descendants of these people will be condemning critics of Yeltsin for hating their own country. I do agree with that, but still, as it stands, there are plenty of people Red Myth dismantling without my input. Life on Venus is of great interest to me as well.

I want life to be on Venus.

It is other matter if there is life there at all. Meanwhile it is very reasonable that Abramovich pays Anatolii and same minded people to write similar opuses to brainwash population…. Replacement level question is, well, questionable. Hell, they are unneeded even in their own homelands! I love me some holmie after supper, thanks. Translating it here seems to be pretty redundant after your own piece got published, though.

How long are we going to allow this guy to cloud our thinking? Thanks for your comment. Add one more piece to that puzzle, a Swedish banker named Olof Aschberg helped to finance the bolshevicks. You must know better than me. Did you ever ask Lenin personally if he was paid and he responded or you can only beat upon long dead people by repeating lies that were proven lies long time ago like German money and some unknown mecenats?

Basically I wonder what you people have to offer Russian people? So far I see nothing but paleocrap hunting. I suppose not every voter for these parties wants independence, but most do. In June Ukraine declared broad autonomy including for its own separate military ; the Provisional Government objected to some aspects of this particularly the military , negotiations ensured and a modified Autonomy was declared in July Ukraine was to have its own parliament, its own Ukrainian-language schools, land reforms, etc.

Full independence was declared after the Bolshevik invasion in January They could have voted No in this referendum just like the overwhelming majority of people in Galicia did. There was no independence option on the all-Republic referendum. This declaration meant Ukraine would have run its own affairs, including having its own army. I certainly think that most Ukrainian nationalists would have been satisfied with sufficient autonomy plus land reform in this scenario.

Their initial demands were for local autonomy, schools, and military units. In such a scenario eventual independence would have been likely. A brief tactical move, because without German support Ukraine needed an ally during the Bolshevik invasion and he would have taken autonomy within Russia with hios own army, laws and schools over a Soviet takeover.

This was not his position prior to the German withdrawal, and not his position in exile. But this position had no popular support, and neither he nor his followers actually fought for such as union with Russia. Anatoli, your reanimator like attempt to reanimated that cadaver of long dead Tsarist Russia, put a lot of maep and lipstick on that long dead pig are laughable. It died of the deceased that while originally was curable eventually turned incurable due to neglect and bad life style choices. New Soviet Russia achieved in reality what older Russia could not have achieved even in your optimistic extrapolations.

The proof is on the pudding so to speak. Also interestingly, Rehmat has stopped posting here many months ago, but is quite the regular on TOO now. That, not WWI, was the time that was to forming his later ideas. That propaganda was made to order from Noo Yawk Jews. Point is, the German sealed train containing Lenin, and many mainly Jewish Bolsheviks, was inspired by the tactics of Japan 13 years earlier, even if at the time, Japan was ally of Britain, not Germany.

Nice that you are using a photo of incapacitated and drooling Lenin. Hating to seeing anyone in that state, but thinking he may have been deserving it. Fritz Platten was Swiss, not German. It would be nice to think that Putin, or moe importantly, the gangsters behind him, had learned the lesson. But you left one thing out. At the very end, when it became apparent that orthodox communism was a failure, Lenin realized this. The economy progressed, until by some metrics it became better than under the Tsars.

Then Stalin came along…. He understood that orthodox communism was destined to fail, and he acted on that. Does this forgive his other many sins? But surely worthy of mention. Winston Churchill once said of Russia that its greatest catastrophe was that Lenin was born, and the second greatest is that he died when he did. They would have been wholly on board if Trump had actually been buying their wares. I find it nauseating. More like a jackal. Just out for power like all dictators. Communism was responsible for mega-deaths.

Lenin looks haunted and insane in that photo; because he was, morally. It boils down to this: He is one of those many people the world would have been better off without. He clubbed so many rabbits to death with the butt of his rifle that the boat sank under the weight of all the dead bodies. My understanding is that the new government was excessively centralized, and the communist leaders knew nothing about agriculture. They were constantly railing against the kulaks for hoarding grain.

They confiscated seed grain, and this led to poor harvests the following years. Plus the chaos and lack of motivation caused by the sudden collectivization of agriculture. Plus the desire to finance industrialization by exporting grain. Do you know any books that give this topic worthy treatment?

I am interested in the failed westernization of P I; my Russian Orthodox friend states it just as you have. Not exactly the kind of intellectual reasoning one would expect from extremely high-IQ individuals. More like a declaration of faith. Experience all the fixing, you know, for the betterment of the backwards social order where not everybody is in gulag all time errytime.

Your main point, I think, is that Lenin was an irrational bullshitter. Indeed, the whole theory of Leninism is based on vacuous abstraction , which allowed Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks to rationalize doing whatever they thought they needed to do to gain and keep power. And since there was allegedly a dialectic at play, he and his chums could, at least in their own minds, contradict themselves the next day in either theory, policy, or execution … without the onus of contradiction.

In short, they could do as they pleased without any justification at all. The DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual has baskets of comorbid psychological disorders set aside for these kinds of people. His success had nothing to do with his theories or his policies. It was brute power … the willingness to put hundreds of thousands of people in front of firing squads or, when given the opportunity, save the cost of bullets and starve them to death. Marx, Lenin, Stalin and the mobs of Cultural Marxists currently contaminating Western Civilization all believed it is okay to believe inconsistent things.

So Cultural Marxists, please, no more hiding behind an appeal to dialectics and other flights of vacuous abstraction. Simple assertions about what is true and what is false will better determine what is real and unreal as well as what is good and evil in this world. I just have the books to go on, a picture of poverty, as with most Russian exiles. None of them were able to find decent work. That Lenin lived better than a Russian peasant is probably true. We Dutch did not live in poverty in WWI, not even my grandmother, whose husband was conscripted into the army for four years.

How the business was continued, my grandfather was a baker, my father never could tell me. One minor typo I spotted: Funny sort of invasion which involves so little fighting on the part of the invaders. It depends on when. The ideas were generally that there was ne Rus people with two coequal branches, Little And Great Russians, each with their own languages and local history. Poles and Jews were seen as enemies of the Rus people, who must be removed from Rus territory and their lands divided among Rus peasants; the Tsar was the savior.

As such, Russian nationalism may have been more popular in Ukraine than in Russia itself. The Russian government was initially divided in its approach towards this movement. After the Polish uprisings things changed. The local Russian officials supported Little Russians against the Poles, but the central authorities worried that eventually the Little Russians might end up like Poles, and so they pursued a policy of rigid centralization and assimilation, repressing the Little Russian movement and trying to turn Little Russians into Great Russians.

This produced a backlash — the Little Russians now turned into Ukrainians and wanted to leave Russia. Maybe the centralizers were right all along, but it might very well have been a self-fulfilling prophesy. The linguistic differences between Ukrainian and Russian are greater than between Italian dialects. They are similar to the differences between Spanish and Italian. Yeah, people hate it when they get put on lists to be later shot in the head and pushed into a ditch. Others hate being sent to work to death in freezing-ass cold Siberia. The hell with all of you Commies. If he were mere jackal you and the like would not assemble here in great numbers to houl over his dead body.

There would have been no meat. Like nobody care about dead jackal Yeltsin. There is no meat on the bone so to speak. I also wonder, if you ever suffer two strokes of the same severity God forbids, would you ask your doctor taking pictures to compare. The whole comments line of yours and many others truly belong to jackals.

Poland was part of the Russian Empire, so it can be interpreted as an internal police action, squashing a rebellion. A dozen of foreign countries invaded and occupied substantial territories. French troops occupied Odessa, for example. Japan and others, most of Siberia. Cathedrals and palaces, museums and theatres, train stations — all had been constructed on horrid foundations of bones and blood, and amalgamated by tears.

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Without the Europeans particular their offshoot the American humanity will not have gone through two world wars, one on the edge of Armageddon, and on the verge of another Armageddon. If one could look at the events objectively, all of the above violence were a self rejuvenating effort to get rid of a cancer that was crippling the society, while comparing to the violence led by the Western imperialists including the USA and Japan against rest of the world during their imperial expansions, the crimes against humanity and peace and war crimes they committed only can be classified as criminal of the greedies, all were destructive and nothing good came out of it.

One even can say the Bolsheviks Revolution is self healing event within Russia while the Western imperialist expansion, colonization and invasion are murders and has forced so much destruction onto the world. Cut out the sanctimony, will ya? Times of great upheaval and great transformations are accompanied by violence. These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions. Those bankers took money out of this country to finance Japan in a war against Russia.

They created a reign of terror in Russia with our money in order to help that war along. They instigated the separate peace between Germany and Russia and thus drove a wedge between the Allies in the World War. They have since begun the breaking up of American homes and the dispersal of American children. It may be the first step in our evolution from nonage as well, but it could take a while. The ancients were on to the oracular bullshitters such as those at Dodona and the fume inhalers at Delphi millennia ago, but we, the masses, have yet to get a grip on the concept.

China has been self sufficient in food since its existence. Chinese agriculture technology has been superior to the West except in the last couple hundreds due to Western imperialism and colonialism destructive interference. Without stealing Chinese agriculture technology the West will not have industrial revolution and they would still live in the backward medieval serfdom era. Be aware that this time around, you are dealing with a population that is heavily armed and most are well-regulated. I feel for you, bro, I mean, Joe.

Hey, I actually agree with you somewhat here. However, although ignoring the US Constitution by starting the war to begin with and waiving habeas corpus, etc. Once war starts, all bets are off. Your heroes are the kind of guys who make lists of people to be shot in mass, and bulldozed into big ditches.

Well, everyone has got to have a role model, I guess. BTW, something like the US Constitution, or the English Magna Carta of centuries back, could not have even been thought of, much less implemented in almost all other societies. Maybe the Chinese could have copied one from us, but the people are too corrupt for it to ever actually work.

It is a book about a prolific English author who was pretty much a Commie after he started an affair with s Chinese visiting student to England. This guy spent lots of time there and wrote 17 volumes about how the Chinese invented this, that, and the other yeah, the airplane too! Could the economic systems down through the millenia have had anything to do with it? It was corruption that crammed the constitution down our throats.

It was a huge link in the chain around our necks. But not for the bankers and their buds. The Constitution looked fairly good on paper, but it was not a popular document; people were suspicious of it, and suspicious of the enabling legislation that was being erected upon it. There was some ground for this. It had been drafted, in the first place, by men representing special economic interests.

Four-fifths of them were public creditors, one-third were land speculators, and one-fifth represented interests in shipping, manufacturing, and merchandising. Most of them were lawyers. Not one of them represented the interest of production — Vilescit origine tali. Albert Jay Nock, Liberty vs. This stuff does seem to repeat itself in century-or-so long intervals.

People just refuse to learn, as is is evidence right here on unz this very hour. It is interesting that the Chinese tended not to keep their inventions. Someone might build an air conditioning system of fans powered by waterwheels for a rich patron, but it just gets treated as a eccentricity rather than becoming an idea to build from. The economic system definitely had something to do with it.

A similar case could have been made for late Rome, which also had machinery but capital investment in machinery appears to have been noncompetitive against human labor. The point was mostly to have a common defense. Yes, the central banking stuff is part of the reason for the ruin now, but it was more the last 5 to 10 decades depending on which parts you think are more important of this document being ignored and figuratively shredded that made America what it is today.

Come to think of it, the central banking stuff IS unconstitutional, at least something like the Federal Reserve. His ideology regardless, his books are comprehensive and very highly regarded by the relevant experts. The 50 million gold mark figure comes from German Social Democratic politician Eduard Bernstein who had a lot of reasons to want to make the Second Reich look bad and never gave any source. Dang, man, I am now able to post in real time, at least right here. Very good job regurgitating English Composition at generic State U. Your blue haired TA would be proud. I still suspect that the number 6, given by Karlin is way too large.

Perhaps this is a number of death sentences given but not actual executions? Russian do not like Pushkin and Briullov? And for this rebelled in ? Things have to be engineered at some point — made to work optimally, reliably, and cheap enough to make money on. I doubt there was much of that in any of the Chinese systems back through the past. China has only come this far in these last 35 years or so because the free-market for small business was left alone to a big degree since Mr.

I had first thought you meant Winchester. I notice this all the time, like say, today, under this post. The Unz Review - Mobile. An Alternative Media Selection. All None Exclude Blogs. Teasers Russian Reaction Blog. Hang and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people no fewer than one hundred known landlords, rich men, bloodsuckers. Seize all their grain from them. Find some truly hard people Whereas previously, mass shootings had numbered in the dozens at most, they would now climb into the thousands, once Sovnarkom authorized mass terror on September 5th.

There was this thought there, too This brings me to the final point I wish to make about Lenin: Related Pieces by Author Egor Kholmogorov: Show Comments Leave a Comment. November 7, at 8: RadicalCenter Maybe muhammad disgrace be upon him. My Russian history is thin, but I've read off and on that mass killings under Lenin began very quickly after a few failed experiments at worker-run factories. Still, many of our Western politicians seem to have not learned that solutions devised to fit an abstract, ideological agenda are likely to be freighted by unreality and "puritanical utopianism".

Mao Cheng Ji says: November 7, at 9: But, theses are minor quibbles. The overall essay was quite readable and convincing. It's like doing 8 repetitions of a weight, and saying that after 6 reps you're basically done. I also don't quite like to think about how Russia or Europe would've looked like after Russia and her Western allies having won the Great War.

I think Russia was already large enough in fact, too large by , it didn't need much territorial expansion to the contrary, it probably needed to shed areas like Poland. Hungary's borders were planned to be better than they actually got, but I'm not sure I could be rooting for those either. Okay, fair enough, that might be somewhat overestimating Russia's chances. Talk of counting your chickens before they're hatched But I'm sure he must've had some shortcomings and failures too; are you going to address them in the next post?

Here's what China Mieville writes in his recent book: November 7, at On the other hand, I'm not sure how unavoidable the civil war was. I'm not sure wanted to vote for war in because Stalin considered it kinda unpatriotic to start a revolution during a major war with Germany , and then again in when the first revolution had already won Stalin was slow to understand Lenin's radicalism in that respect because Stalin clearly understood that by fomenting revolution at home, they're essentially doing the bidding of an enemy government.

So I'm not sure there would've been a civil war without Lenin, because even the rest of the Bolsheviks had to be prodded into the revolution and then the Red Terror by Lenin. Regarding the famine, I think you don't quite appreciate the unprecedented dimensions in modern Russian history of the Bolshevik famines, nor the anthropogenic nature of those famines. I don't recall the exact figures, but as I recall Russia's were less severe than Germany's, even as of November As reiner Tor points out, it was indeed manmade in the Soviet case.

Possibly, but there was absolutely no certainty about any of that. It's difficult to know what exactly what was going on in Russia from January to the revolution due to the incessant propaganda about its problems and dis function. If the Germans and other capitalist countries had not poured all the money into the communist revolution and Lenin and his paid mobs there probably would have been a coup.

The Czar would have abdicated under severe pressure. One of his many male relatives would have taken the throne. There would have been a propaganda blast about the new and better Czar. A lot of food and welfare would have been distributed to the people. The clergy critters would have been bribed to preach about the new and better Czar and the bright future. The newspapers and magazines would have treated the new czar as our media treated the demi God Obama.

It is conceivable that in a surviving Russian Empire or Republic, these intellectuals would have helped foster the growth of a Malorossiyan identity subsumed to an overarching Russian one, Doubtful. It's ironic that although Karlin is astute enough to suggest that it's time to put the myth of a nobler, gentler Lenin into the 'dustbin of history' he still manages to play the equally outdated and mythical idea of a 'triune Russian nation' with a melancholic and unrealistic tune, that will not be revived with his incessant and inept marketing scheme lackluster here and elsewhere.

Anatoly, give it up already: Let my people go! After this, I imagine that two other factors would come into play: This is actually the converse of 1. Not my area at all, but my understanding is that Great Russians promoted the tripartite Russia idea, while the two "little brothers" of the meme had little enthusiasm for it, for fairly obvious reasons. In Spain all regional nationalism but the Catalans and Basques became generic Spaniards, though we shouldn't forget the Portuguese, who took their resistance to becoming Spanish to the next level.

Welsh and Scots didn't become English, retaining their national identity but within the greater umbrella of Britishness. It didn't seem like such a large population to support. Daniel Chieh Maoism included such an epic campaign of retardation of a scale that is difficult to quantify, and even entailed the active destruction of well-known realities of farming for the "new scientific measures.

Agriculture The famous Trofim Lysenko. Sure, if Russia could have held out another year or so - in retrospect - it might have won, but that might have also led to other contingencies e. I found that map rather creepy for exactly those reasons and googled it There's very little and irregular precipitation, so agriculture in Russia is a little bit tricky. The central leadership then already under Deng Xiaoping discovered it a couple years later by that time it was already spreading like wildfire in the provinces , and first decided to shut it down, but then a few months later realized that here's an opportunity to increase agricultural production, and pragmatically enough reversed course and spread the experiment to the whole country.

I think communism's main problem with agriculture is basically that during the agricultural season it requires a lot of dedicated work on behalf of the peasants, and it's very difficult to centrally control or supervise. Once you re-privatize the land, the incentives return, and the harvest magically increases - due to the very hard and dedicated work of the peasants. Russians conformed to occidentalist and anti-russian attitudes of the russian elite, they lost faith in russian tradition too and became indifferent to what happens with the country, became indifferent to Orthodox faith which became a puppet in the hands of the monarch Once the Tsarate was destroyed in the war by the Germans, nobody had any vision for future Russia in this whole vaccuum, people were apathetic and indifferent.

Why not the 16th century? Ukrainian parties won the election in Ukraine, and during the Civil War there were no ethnic Ukrainian or Little Russian, as they would have called themselves military leaders or units from Russian Ukraine who supported a Russian cause - the various bands were all Ukrainian nationalist, anarchists and few pro-communists. Also, as a myth, it isn't terribly unrealistic and was once popular among Ukrainians themselves.

The backlash was inevitable, assimilation didn't happen, and the former Little Russians, now Ukrainians, pushed towards full independence. But I wouldn't compare this idea to Bolshevism. Anatoly Karlin Yes, exactly. I mean, Russia's is preferably to France's for Germany: Is it me — or does homeboy look a lot like Charles Manson in that photo?

Hack This was within the spectrum of acceptable of acceptable outcomes for the Ukrainian Social Revolutionaries, though AFAIK their preferred option in was eventual independence. Time to move on and deal with reality Anatoly, not delude yourself somehow that Ukraine will end up being a part of a greater Russia, including your laconic cry of an acceptable 'autonomy'.

November 8, at I'm just wondering, if Russia was in a relatively good position, how did the uprising even succeed in the first place? Or is this just a case of Tocqueville's observation where governments collapse when everything is getting better? The collapse of a whole social fabric doesn't happen often in history, let alone over an area and involving a population like Russia's.

But happen it did in , and it's important not to attribute a process of this magnitude to any individual, let alone one who wasn't even in power. I mentioned this before, but even in a war dubbed materialschlacht , the outcome of war is not always dependent on "correlations of forces" as the Soviets were fond of framing. Indeed, if Russia had been so healthy and strong, would the "bacillus" that the German unleashed have been so devastating? Anatoly Karlin maybe translate it into Russian to spread in Runet?

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't think there's much point, for two reasons. There is no shortage of other good "take downs" of Lenin in Russian just the extended Sputnik i Pogrom ecosystem and the genby blog come to mind , which brings us to the key problem: It's not there is an absence of such criticisms, but of a sizable audience for them. Russian liberals have succeeded in setting the terms of the debate and adoration of Lenin, Communism, the USSR, and especially Stalin is now for all intents and purposes a tribal identifier for the "patriotic" camp.

This is very bad, very sad, and it's not obvious how to get out of here. November 8, at 1: Disordered It's down to Tocqueville, though I would modify that proposition - governments collapse when the proles are given scraps of bread aka some slight growth and betterment, as happened under Nicholas, but not radical change , after which they hunger for more. The keyword is "relatively", at any rate. I've been hard at work for decades trying to make sense of all this, and all I know is some American history, I have figured out that the Brits and bankers were masters at stirring up problems and setting their competitors against one another, and that American "knowledge" about Germany is about the exact opposite as one can get, but I know next to nothing about Russian or Chinese history.

It's interesting that Churchill wrote mourning a Russia that went down when the Brits were, in fact, a significant part of its sinking. I found the article informative and worth studying, but I feel handicapped by not knowing anything more than "tourist level" Russian, and I have a few quibbles. Does anyone know precisely who or what were the precise sources of the money? November 8, at 2: I can't think of anyone else who, through his own efforts and will, has forced so much destruction onto the world. So a Lenin is a once in a thousand years or so type of monster.

November 8, at 3: Joos agree albeit for different reasons people were apathetic and indifferent. Rather more successful than the Bavarians. November 8, at 4: November 8, at 5: Disordered Autonomism is usually stopped by material progress and propaganda tying said progress to the whole of the nation as opposed of only to the region. I think it would have been not like Catalonia, but more like the Spanish Crown before the Bourbons, or the British Isles before the Acts of Union, Ukraine and others being independent kingdoms united in the Tsar's crown.

That may have worked in the long-run - or at least, would have allowed for less violence. Karlin in that Lenin was sneaky - he criticized Tsarist Russian irredentism, only for it to be replaced with the Internationalist Soviet kind that him and Trotsky spoused. Stalin may have brutishly Russified the hell out of the other republics, but he was right in that without such control the other republics would have fallen prey to their own little elites - as happened after the wall fell.

November 8, at 6: Would like to know what you think. November 8, at 7: Probably it wouldn't have started the war in the first place. The NEP was unforgiveable revisionism? AP Wow, you made a comment that I completely agree with. And this contradicts the idea that the Revolution and Russia's destruction were inevitable events, rather than the work of a strong-willed, farsighted, charismatic, malignant genius. I saved a comment by a commentator, "Bardon Kaldian", on another forum: None of what you say disproves the fact that NEP was revisionism. And temporary, at that.

For a brief period of time during Peter 3rd's rule, the russian army even wore prussian uniforms and orthodox priests wore protestant robes XVIII century Russia already marked the beginning of the revolutionary process in Russia. Finally, a sane comment. WHAT May you end up in such "fixing" times someday. November 8, at 8: See my answer to , the Tsar himself was incompetent. After Peter 18th century gathered a meeting of elected representatives of the estates but the name of the Zemsky Sobor was not used he even made boyars cut their beards Similar measures were undertaken in Japan and Turkey two other examples of successful modernization.

Disordered I agree with you, though Hupa does have a point - the post-Peter Occidental Russian state was not popular nor culturally close to the Russian people, ergo when it failed it lacked for defenders the Whites being mostly anti-Bolsheviks and faithful Orthodox more than commited Tsarists. There is a reason why the Tsar's office was not rehabilitated by Yeltsin, yet Spain did bring their king back.

For all the glories of the Roman Republic, we would have never known them if it was not for Caesar's personal desire for military conquest, and those who followed in his footsteps. Well fine, I meant that since Peter the idea that such thing as Sobor Ziemski could gather again, was unthinkable, because Russia became so drastically centralized You're right about Turkey, Ataturk is a kind of Peter the Great but for the Turks.

If you think that the state should make laws regarding beards of people, then you're hyperactive Subordination of the Church to the state makes no sense, because the Church can conduct its mission only as a separate entity. Oh and in XVIII Russia they also abolished the secret of confession in the Church And XVIII century is important in Russia because it was revolutionary and as I wrote, it showed the extent to which the russian elites disliked russian tradition, it marked the beginning of the process of the abandonment of russian and christian tradition by the Russians en masse, this is why they were so sloppy in fighting Bolsheviks.

The German and Austro-Hungarians needed 6 month to take out the second, smaller adversary on the Eastern Front, the Kingdom of Romania, Are you suggesting they put forth maximum effort to remove this minor adversary? If you read the views of the german marechal hindeburg you will see that was true, they felt vulnerable https: It needed the incompetence of the government and person of Nicholas II, with a competent ruler Tsarism would've easily survived. He paid with his and his family's life for it.

AP The Germans never captured all of Belgian territory. Are you suggesting they were too weak to take all of Belgium? Maoism included such an epic campaign of retardation of a scale that is difficult to quantify, and even entailed the active destruction of well-known realities of farming for the "new scientific measures. Thea Bukharin understood this but sadly no one listened.

The West under the American leadership were imposing full spectrum sanctions and embargo against China before , where would China import food from? The American and their lackeys were as helpful to China as before , they were financing and supplying war materials and technology to the beastly Japanese to wage barbaric wars to cripple China. If you do not understand farming or anything about other nation, please stop trolling a distorted imagine about others from a mindset brain washed by the 'god-fearing' morally defunct evil 'inquisitors' in the Washington and London from cradle to grave and reinforced by excessive flag saluting.

1. Whats More Important Than Your Brain?.
2. The Magic Particle.
3. Duncan Watt;

The self righteous attitude permeated in your comment make you a perfect gear in the USSR central planning machinery, creating mayhem based on half baked truth or bigotry imagination. AP I would say that the Tsar was not a complete incompetent - Russia did improve in many ways under his rule, thanks in part to people he had brought in, such as Stolypin. But he made the huge mistake of getting Russia into the war, and wasn't competent enough to steer it successfully through this.

Nevertheless, without Lenin's genius it is likely that Russia would have made it to WHAT I disagree here. If anything, they are cynical beyond belief, and red myth doesn't take much to dismantle anyway. The Germans never captured all of Belgian territory. It is obviously impossible figures.

AP Sorry - that was total military strength, per wikipedia.