AHC: Russian Uberwank

[Sharkani Rend]

Well,

Guys, don't you think that the topic degenerated into a disupte whether Russia and the Russians are good or bad. Lets go back to the question.

My reply is: OTL Russia is wankish, one of the best possible results in the Universal Wavefunction.

BUT, from first glance it is obvious that even greater results are possible if the whole Slavdom has been managed to be united into single, productive political union.

Even now in OTL the Slavic people comprise over 50% of Europe in terms of population ( 400+ mln people ) and territory ( 6+ mln. km2 ), although Eastern Europe as a crossroad and intra-supercontinental interface suffered the most severe losses and instabilities for the last several millennia.

In any timeline of such successfull unification the nowaday era would see times bigger population and territory figures.

Who controls firmly the belt Baltic-Black seas is destined to control the world.

 

[MSZ]

1) Attributing the actions of a totalitarian regime to its people and saying they therefore deserved to be horribly killed. No doubt I am going to get an outraged denial now, but that is what the language says and language is a treacherous thing.

Of course you are going to get a denial since I'm not advocating genocide as you are implying. I will however agree that I consider a countries people to be responsible for their countries actions, yes. Russia is responsible to a large degree for starting World War 2. World War 2 affected the Russians. If you start doing something that gets you killed, or risks getting you killed, don't complain if you die. Its called "responsibility for ones own actions".

And once again what of, ah, everybody else? Should Chamberlain not have foreseen that if he undermined Germany's most powerful enemy in central Europe, they would only use this as a way to speed up their march of conquest? Did Britain - and we elected the poor chap, after all - not then 'reap what we sowed', the outcome which is 'predictable' to us who happen to live in the dying hours of 2011? (Mind you, I thought it was alternate history and therefore we were allowed to change outcomes, but what do I even know.)

Are you stating that the Munich Agreement was an Anglo-Nazi alliance against Czechoslovakia? That's a ridiculous statement in my opinion. That Germany wanted war was plainly visible for everyone in August 1939 - not in September 1938. So Russia knew that the MR pact is going to start a war. That appeasment was bad we know from hindsight - not everyone thought it to be back then, not Chamberlain, and that it would lead to war wasn't that predictable.

Two queries:

1) What alternative course would you propose for the Soviet regime, exactly, from a self-interested point of view and as much as possible without the benefit of hindsight?

2) Did Petrov, Popov, and Ivanov somehow deserve whatever they got? Come to that, did John, Jimmy, and Owen?

1) Not ally with the 3rd Reich?

2) Ivan Petrov, Markian Popov and Semion Ivanov joined the Red Army and survived the war. They could choose not to join. As did others.



As for the OP: With a PoD in the XIXth century, Have Alexander III not try to reverse his fathers reforms nor to russify the Russian Empire. A reformes russian could avoid the 1905 revolution and win the Russo=Japanese War, granting Russia all of Manchuria. Fast forward to World War 1 - in the event of Imperial Russia, or even Kierensky's Republic, Russiacouldget significant gains in Europe - Galicia, Upper Silesia, Greater Poland, Pomeralia - maybe even a Oder-Neisse line border in the west. Also, with the Ottoman Empire collapsed, control over the turkish straits and a base in the Northeastern Aegen Islands. With Persia being an area of mixed Russian and British interests, it might be allowed to annex its nortern parts in return for not annexing more territories in Europe.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Of course you are going to get a denial since I'm not advocating genocide as you are implying.

Not advocating, nodding along. But yeah, I did say.

I will however agree that I consider a countries people to be responsible for their countries actions, yes.

In what way, precisely, was my great-great-great-X-grandfather the Orcadian crofter responsible for the Indian famines?

Russia is responsible to a large degree for starting World War 2. World War 2 affected the Russians. If you start doing something that gets you killed, or risks getting you killed, don't complain if you die. Its called "responsibility for ones own actions".

Again we speak about these imagined entities states as if they were people and judged according to people's standards. It was the actions of small circles of rulers, some of whom were responsible to some of their subjects and some of whom were not, that brought the world to war.

Are you stating that the Munich Agreement was an Anglo-Nazi alliance against Czechoslovakia?

No, but then I have a scrupulous definition of 'alliance', which is more than you can say for some people. Certainly it was the intention of many senior Britons to chuck the small eastern European countries over the side.

That's a ridiculous statement in my opinion. That Germany wanted war was plainly visible for everyone in August 1939 - not in September 1938. So Russia knew that the MR pact is going to start a war. That appeasment was bad we know from hindsight - not everyone thought it to be back then, not Chamberlain, and that it would lead to war wasn't that predictable.

Well, a great many people in Great Britain predicted it. But anyway, the terms you're using are misleading. Of course the Soviets thought there was going to be a war. They were undertaking to make sure it wasn't - immediately - with them.

British and Soviet actions were both motivated by cold self-interest. They were both badly mistaken. What is the crucial difference?

1) Not ally with the 3rd Reich?

They had been repeatedly trying to take that option, in its viable and realistic form, by assembling anti-Nazi coalitions. Nothing came of it.

2) Ivan Petrov, Markian Popov and Semion Ivanov joined the Red Army and survived the war. They could choose not to join. As did others.

To choose not to get conscripted is to choose to commit fraud or go on the run. Plenty of people in all countries do it, but it's still not exactly a trivial decision.

maybe even a Oder-Neisse line border in the west.

Where does this spring from? Sazonov was talking about an ethnographic boundary in Germany minus the Slavic parts of East Prussia, which he felt had more symbolic value for Germany than they would ever have practical value for Russia; his opponents, the generals, differed mainly in wanting Prussia up to the Vistula. Who in government circles, rather than the newspaper-postcard-speculative-map-trade, was talking about the 1945 border?

 

[Russian]

2) Ivan Petrov, Markian Popov and Semion Ivanov joined the Red Army and survived the war. They could choose not to join. As did others.

What country are you from?
You probably think that to live under Stalin's rule is something like living under bad government in England.
In Soviet Union (Russia) in 1941-1945 if you were late to job at a factory (for example) for 1 minute you risked to be sent to Siberia for forced labor in GULAG for 10 years. And it didn't matter if you were a teenager 15 years old.

Now try to imagine what would happen to you if you choose not to join the Red Army?
I advise you to try to read Solzhenitsyn or something...

So slow population growth is "Screwed"

(yes, I know other factors but those are being fixed too)_

I guess B_Munro is a typical American snob. He is a kind of guy who thinks that he can call any nation with slower population growth or just more poor than the USA a "Screwed" country.

Screwed up =/= screwed One implies that presently things are a mess: the other that things will remain so for at least a very long time, or will get worse.

B_Munro, you so much enjoy this "screw" word that I somehow feel obliged to call you Screwed up B_Munro further on.

English is not my first language, but I guess if you feel free to call whole nations "screwed up" I might call a single individual the same. If I am wrong - please correct me.

 

[TheLordProtector]

I guess B_Munro is a typical American snob. He is a kind of guy who thinks that he can call any nation with slower population growth or just more poor than the USA a "Screwed" country.

Excuse me, but that is certainly not called for. There is no such thing as a 'typical American snob', nor has B_Munro ever said anything that would make him one. You're doing the exact same thing you claim he was; discriminating against other nations and ethnic groups based on spurious prejudices. Americans are like any other people, though of course more wealthy than any other! The word 'screwed-up' when applied to nations does not necessarily mean that its people are wrong in some way, merely that its government, economy, or other non-individual component is wrong or terrible beyond all belief, which I would venture to say is true when applied to many Eastern European countries, including Belarus.

Also, what's with the bolding? You're acting like a child who's had his favorite toy taken away from him, and I don't think anyone appreciates your immaturity.

 

[Russian]

Excuse me, but that is certainly not called for. There is no such thing as a 'typical American snob', nor has B_Munro ever said anything that would make him one.

There is such thing as a 'typical American snob'. Believe me.
Ask any non-American and you'll satisfy yourself.
That's the price you American guys pay for being superpower.


And Screwed up B_Munro actually said something that would make him one.
You just need to read carefully this thread.

p.s. I have a lot (!) of friends among the Americans who are not 'typical American snobs'. So I am not prejudiced against the whole country. Just against this individual person Screwed up B_Munro. Sorry, but I am.

 

[TheLordProtector]

There is such thing as a 'typical American snob'. Believe me.
Ask any non-American and you'll satisfy yourself.
That's the price you American guys pay for being superpower.

There are no typical Americans, just like there are no typical Belarussians. Would you say that there are typical Russian drunks? Or for that matter, Belarussian drunks? Perhaps typical German Nazis, eh? You're being anal, and no one likes that. Give us an actual argument and maybe I'll come 'round to your point of view.

And Screwed up B_Munro actually said something that would make him one.
You just need to read carefully this thread.

No, he said something that would make him kind of a douchebag (sorry, B_Munro, but seriously). Please don't extrapolate about all Americans from one example.

EDIT: Oh. Well, listen, please don't argue with him in this thread. Take it to PM or something.

 

[Russian]

No, he said something that would make him kind of a douchebag (sorry, B_Munro, but seriously). Please don't extrapolate about all Americans from one example.

OK, ok, the point is taken. Sorry. Seriously, I mean it.

Further on I will call him B_Munro the douchebag.

p.s. I want to repeat it one more time:
I have A LOT(!) of friends among the Americans. And they are great guys! They are very nice! I do not want to hurt them, seriously.

 

[I Blame Communism]

The idioim 'screwed up' is not insulting. It's usually weary and fatalistic. "I feel like my life's pretty screwed up right now" is an everyday expression with no connotation of self-loathing.

As B_Munro himself pointed out, there is a subtle but important distinction between 'screwed up' (in a mess) and 'screwed' (doomed). English is full of apparently similar expressions with quite different connotations.

English is my first language, so are you willing to take it on trust that what he said was no sort of insult to anyone in the common idiom?

 

[Russian]

The idioim 'screwed up' is not insulting. It's usually weary and fatalistic. "I feel like my life's pretty screwed up right now" is an everyday expression with no connotation of self-loathing.

As B_Munro himself pointed out, there is a subtle but important distinction between 'screwed up' (in a mess) and 'screwed' (doomed). English is full of apparently similar expressions with quite different connotations.

English is my first language, so are you willing to take it on trust that what he said was no sort of insult to anyone in the common idiom?

Well, I always thought that 'screw' is a substitute for 'fuck'.
Am I wrong, guys?

I mean, when you are too shy to say 'fuck you' - you say 'screw you'?

So, 'screwed up' = 'fucked up'?

Well, I am in dilemma:
- How shold I call B_Munro further on:
B_Munro the douchebag or Screwed up B_Munro?

Please, don't laugh at me. It's not a joke. I am serious. It is a problem for the person who has English as a second language.

 

[Sven]

I respect your being honest and outspoken.

You wouldn't respect me much in real life, then.

You are definitely of Swedish origin and that fact explains your attitude:

The Swedish Empire was good - noble Nordic knights in shining armor.
The Russian Empire was bad - stinking goblins like in a Hollywood movie "Lord of the Rings"

Got me all figured out, have you? Your attitude:

Swedes hate Russia.
Sven hates Russia.
"Sven" is a Swedish name.
Sven must be a Swede!

Ironic that, in order to accuse me of racism, you had to use logic that was based entirely on race.

Actually, I'm less than ¼ Scandinavian (Scanian, actually): I was born in Missouri, USA. Most of me is English and assorted other British. Kind of boring, really.

But, it's true that I'm a Swedophile, though. And I like the name "Sven" (which isn't even close to my real name). Still, that doesn't mean I don't recognize the repugnance of the Swedish Empire and many of its kings, or that I wish Sweden could have been allowed to continue its excesses against Denmark and Poland undisturbed by meddlesome Russians.

-----

Things I had to look up before responding to IBC: "spraff." Learn new things daily, I say.

If the Russians can be discussed as human beings without some sort of genetic stupidity complex, perhaps your claims to care a whit about them can be taken seriously. As it is, you are an odious bigot...

...But then you turn around and say the Russians are hereditarily inept, which makes me doubt your claims. After all, I'm not prejudiced, but...!

I'm not a saint, and I'm sure there's some prejudice in me somewhere. But, you want so badly to make a bigot out of me that you automatically read words like "genetically," "hereditarily" and "chronically" in front of all the negative adjectives I use. Please recognize that I haven't said these words, and that I never intended to say them.

I don't believe Russians are genetically inferior to anybody. I have received fairly comprehensive training in genetics, and I'm consequently quite certain that "genetic inferiority" is not a tenable juxtaposition of terms.

What you are doing is treating nations as characters - Russia, which is actually a blob of ink on a map and a collection of confused ideas, is somehow able to be villainous - passing it off on to their inhabitants (who are apparently chronically inept, even if it necessary to spout untruths in support of this assertion), and then turning round and saying that if you were talking about people, which you aren't, you wouldn't appear prejudiced.

No, what I'm doing is treating nations as characters. All that additional stuff is your extrapolations of my comments into realms where they don't belong.

The concept of "emergent properties" isn't all that obscure these days. As an example, table salt is a molecule that has none of the properties of the atoms that make it up; rather, it has an entirely different set of properties. These properties "emerged" when we slid the scale of observation from "atomic" to "molecular." So, if I talk about salt being a translucent, granular solid, you should not assume that I think the atoms of the molecule also make translucent, granular solids. They don't: they make a poisonous, yellow gas and an explosive, lustrous metal.

The same goes for nations of people: many of the properties of a nation "emerge" when you slide the scale of observation from individuals to nations. These properties don't come from the properties of the individuals that make them up. Sociology is not just a derivative of psychology: it is an entirely different branch of study, with entirely different shaping forces and mechanisms.

Please stop this! You don't like that I treat nations as something other than people; you don't believe that I can like a football player while hating the team he plays for; you don't like people who focus on things other than individual people. I get it: I'm not contributing productively to this conversation, so I'll leave now.

 

[Russian]

I don't believe Russians are genetically inferior to anybody. I have received fairly comprehensive training in genetics, and I'm consequently quite certain that "genetic inferiority" is not a tenable juxtaposition of terms.

OK, I have nothing against a kid who is a fan of everything Swedish.

 

[B_Munro]

- How shold I call B_Munro further on:
B_Munro the douchebag or Screwed up B_Munro?

Please, don't laugh at me. It's not a joke. I am serious. It is a problem for the person who has English as a second language.

I'd go with screwed up.

Bruce

 

[I Blame Communism]

Am I wrong, guys?

As a sexual euphemism they're more-or-less the same, but as obscenity unconnected from sex they're completely different in intensity, although the Xed/Xed-up divide is similar.

English obscenity makes no sense. 'Berk', which is rhyming slang for the worst swearword in British English, is considered almost totally harmless.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Things I had to look up before responding to IBC: "spraff." Learn new things daily, I say.

Another victory for the language movement!

I'm not a saint, and I'm sure there's some prejudice in me somewhere. But, you want so badly to make a bigot out of me that you automatically read words like "genetically," "hereditarily" and "chronically" in front of all the negative adjectives I use. Please recognize that I haven't said these words, and that I never intended to say them.

I apologise sincerely for jumping to conclusions: I'm an unfortunately snappish person, although I do my best to lose my temper after the Edinburgh and not the Glasgow method. If I'll make an excuse, a lot of people say a lot of nonsense about the Russians, a vast amount of misconception and untruth circulates, and being 'on their side' (I don't particularly think I am, mind, but I was nominated or something) one tends to get exasperated. After all, compare the attitudes to Russia and to Germany around here.

No, what I'm doing is treating nations as characters. All that additional stuff is your extrapolations of my comments into realms where they don't belong.

No, actually, I'm afraid: some of it is a well-worn exploding out of myths about military history in general and Russian military history in particular for which I am awaiting an answer. You central thesis still rests on the entirely untrue thesis that the Russians only win wars on the back of numbers.

You may wish to familiarise with Suvorov, or note how outnumbered the Germans were in 1940 and wonder whether it was possible for a force relying on numbers to defeat the tactical and operational excellence of the Wehrmacht would have gotten down the garden path.

I'm sorry for starting this clamjamfry (your education continues!) but you are still arguing on premises that aren't on the same street as true and perpetuating the myths that planet prejudices in peoples' minds. I have time for any approach that ends in the truth; yours ends in falsehood because it starts with received wisdom and outright twaddle. But I don't mean to malign it as a method.

 

[CalBear]

OK, ok, the point is taken. Sorry. Seriously, I mean it.

Further on I will call him B_Munro the douchebag.

p.s. I want to repeat it one more time:
I have A LOT(!) of friends among the Americans. And they are great guys! They are very nice! I do not want to hurt them, seriously.

OFFICIAL WARNING

That is WAY over the top.

Please be civil.


CalBear in Mod Mode

 

[Snake Featherston]

To Sven:

Actually I think it's pretty clear that the Nazi invasion was not Russia's fault, nor is it clear that Russia's people have had much choice in the actions of their leaders, who have been autocrats and proud of autocracy. Certainly conquest by the Golden Horde was not their fault.

The idea that Russia marches to victory over a bridge of corpses is drastically and grossly exaggerated. The one big war where Russians did assume that was WWI. I seem to recall it ended badly for them.

The Russians did not win the Great Northern War over a bridge of corpses. Rather they won it due to having reformed and refashioned their army, producing the great tactical and strategic success at Poltava, and Sweden was never fighting *just* Russia in that war. Too, simple numbers are not everything in war, nor is any economic disparity a guarantee of victory, else Russia would have had a short and glorious victory over the Nazis in WWII and the Kaiser in WWI.

In the Great Patriotic War between Russia's summer and winter Napoleon was hemorrhaging men the whole year round. Generals June and August were as lethal as Generals January and February. Napoleon lost his war also due to unimaginative tactics that continually failed to entrap the Russian army and in particular to his cavalry generals wasting his cavalry to the point that after the Battle of Borodino he was out of cavalry. Napoleon and the Russians had an equal number of troops at the start and the 1812 winter killed as many Russians as it did French. 1812, frankly, is a classic example of the winning side losing every single battle tactically and winning the war strategically and is no great vision of Russian hordes overwhelming their enemies.

In WWII, the Russians bought a strategic victory in 1941 overall at the cost of 10,000,000 soldiers and 3,000,000 murdered POWs, but the subsequent manpower losses meant Soviet forces never reached full strength during the war and by the end of the war relied on firepower as much as the WAllies did, for a different reason: the Soviets were unable to afford manpower losses, the WAllies were unwilling to afford such losses. Soviet victory in WWII was due to developing Deep Operations into a workable, functional concept and owed much to WAllies logistical aid in the later parts of the war. It was not fighting to the last Russian, it was superior use of mobility and firepower against an enemy regressing by the year into a pre-modern army and which really did waste its manpower for senseless dickwaving purposes.

 

[1337indahouse]

Screwed up =/= screwed One implies that presently things are a mess: the other that things will remain so for at least a very long time, or will get worse.

(And as to how successfully fixed? Well, like Mao said about the French revolution, it's too soon to say. )

Bruce

I see.

Now try to imagine what would happen to you if you choose not to join the Red Army?
I advise you to try to read Solzhenitsyn or something...

I remember there were a lot of deserters in Red Army. Think most of those who were caught were simply returned to their units by NKVD and not sent to straf battalions or shot or anything like that. There were some interesting things and cases of people escaping from the front through cordons and whatnot a lot.

I guess B_Munro is a typical American snob. He is a kind of guy who thinks that he can call any nation with slower population growth or just more poor than the USA a "Screwed" country.


B_Munro, you so much enjoy this "screw" word that I somehow feel obliged to call you Screwed up B_Munro further on.

English is not my first language, but I guess if you feel free to call whole nations "screwed up" I might call a single individual the same. If I am wrong - please correct me.

He was not intending it as an insult. As an example, my grandmother grew up in a borderline preindustrial, semi feudalistic shithole with no power, in a shack with dirt floor with multiple siblings. Acknowledging that does not insult her!

[She grew up in 'Jim crow' Mississippi as a black woman]

You can say that maybe it was insulting, but there are still problems from the shock the USSR collapse began - some of the central Asian countries are wrse off!

There is such thing as a 'typical American snob'. Believe me.
Ask any non-American and you'll satisfy yourself.
That's the price you American guys pay for being superpower.

Uh....not sure. Lots of foreigners said they were surprised at how nice the people from USA were in their country and how nice people were to them when they were in the USA. I grew up/live in America all my nice and I can't say there is a typical 'snob'. There are nationalist dicks and whatnot, but they aren't the entire USA.

Also the whole 'taking a superstate with population of 310 million people as a single entity'. Remember the US is a 50 member state federation.....

Well, I always thought that 'screw' is a substitute for 'fuck'.
Am I wrong, guys?

I mean, when you are too shy to say 'fuck you' - you say 'screw you'?

So, 'screwed up' = 'fucked up'?


Please, don't laugh at me. It's not a joke. I am serious. It is a problem for the person who has English as a second language.

'Screwed up' is a much nicer way and less insulting than 'fucked up'. It's more applicable as a polite term and a 'weakened' term. Also some people in US tend to use 'strong' curse words like 'fuck' in casual terms more than some other cultures without it being meant as insulting.

 

[Timmy811]

I like to have Russiawanks because the time line always needs a villian to stand against the Brit/Ameriwank empire.

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

I did have a couple of scenarios for a potential Russiawank, but the problem is that I had this posted in the ASB thread mainly because it was for another draft of my Code Geass TL, so here they are:

1) A stronger Parthian Empire in the aftermath of Caesar's failed invasion of the British isles, and resulting in Christianity being the dominant religion there, as well as in the Roman Empire due to the greater efforts for proselytization, and maybe that both Rome and Parthia can use Christians as a bargaining chip. A Parthian Christianity would result in maybe the Parthian/Persianization of the Rus' and Norse peoples. (In this scenario, I would have Castillian Catholicism, Rhomanoi Uniatism {I may have to ask Basilieus Giorgios for permission to use some parts of his Isaac's Empire information} and Parthian Orthodoxy)

2) An Orthodox Scandinavia that unites with the Rus' as a result of the Varangian Guard being allowed to settle in the Rus' lands. Of course, this may seem to be either a Russia power up or a Sweden power up. Inevitably, the Baltic states would end up becoming Orthodox. (Orthodox in the Greek sense, and the Ottoman Empire is still around, as well as Islamic Shia Persia. Not sure on what the fate of the Philippines in this case would be, since Ivangorod Prosperous does have a Russian Philippines.) Name of this proposed country would be Varangia or Varyagiya.

3) An Orthodox Lithuania and Rus' together that may end up as a gigantic Belarus on a rampage. Of course, I tried to think of the outcome of this scenario, but I haven't gotten any information on the results. Still, Rus' united with Lithuania would ensure access to the Baltic Sea, and a possible Lithuanianization of Livonia and Estonia.