Exquisite Corpse: The Winter of 1947 in Europe | Hacker News Reader

Exquisite Corpse: The Winter of 1947 in Europe

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61 pointslermontov35 comments

People interested in Allied military government may like the memoir "Naples '44"; the author was landed at Salerno and from that point was in charge of trying to impose something resembling civil order in Naples in an environment where there was very little food available to the local population. Armed only with a classical education and a reasonable command of Italian.

> "We had been given no briefing or orders of any kind, and so far as the Americans were concerned we might as well not have existed. This was the greatest invasion in this war so far – probably the greatest in human history – and the sea was crowded to the horizon with uncountable ships, but we were as lost and ineffective as babes in the wood. No one knew where the enemy was, but the bodies on the beach at least proved he existed. In place of the guns, tanks, armoured cars, barbed wire we had expected to see, all that had been landed in this sector of the beach were pyramids of office equipment for use by Army Headquarters. We had been issued with a Webley pistol and five rounds of ammunition apiece. Most of us had never fired a gun.

As the sun began to sink splendidly into the sea at our back we wandered at random through this wood full of chirping birds and suddenly found ourselves at the wood’s edge. We looked out into an open space on a scene of unearthly enchantment. A few hundred yards away stood in a row the three perfect temples of Paestum, pink and glowing and glorious in the sun’s last rays."

I find it extremely odd that at no point does this article make any reference to the actual temperature, aside from saying that things froze.

Honestly, giving temperature measurements might not have made the article better. An average temperature might not matter - the brief pockets of severe cold do the most damage. Lows and highs are fine, but then where do you calculate that over? The lowest temperature for all of France? You'll get a handful of outliers killing your data.

Additionally, temperature as it is felt is very dependent on how prepared people are and the wind and the moisture. Just a raw number might not do it. Ultimately, I think there probably exists some sort of statistical measure to measure the temperature "fairly" over a long period, but I doubt it's simple enough to use in the article.

That make sense. When I was trying to find actual data, I did find a number of reports of temperature, and some days the temp was well over freezing. +5C°, I think.

I eventually found another article, which appeared to be calculating number of days below freezing in a specific season, and that was the number that was out of whack.

I think you're right. Purposefully excluding raw temperature figures can prevent people from jumping to the 'well, it wasn't that cold' conclusion.

> and when the Soviet propaganda became crudely anti-Western

In spite of Churchill's speech in Fulton it was inevitable I think.

It was strongly anti-Western - and particularly anti-Capitalist - before WW2 was over. So there's zero question it was guaranteed to go that direction no matter what, post WW2.

Stalin was fundamentally opposed to the foundational values of much of the modern West, whether we're talking about representative elected government, substantial & enshrined human rights protections, or free market economics.

Stalin died in 1953, though. Maybe it didn't have to continue to be that way after.

Khrushchev promised to "bury you" well after Stalin's death. It took a new generation coming to power and ham-handedly taking USSR apart.

You do understand that phrase is a mistranslation which doesn't carry the same meaning in original right?

I feel it would have been less condescending to say "that is a mistranslation", without posing it as a question. What do you think the translation should be? Wikipedia suggests it could be "We shall be present at your funeral" or "We shall outlive you", neither of which seem to be hugely different in meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you

It’s quite different. The bolsheviks believed that the collapse of capitalism was imminent, and that revolution would eventually sweep across the west even without their involvement. I always interpreted “We will outlive you” as the ideological belief in the long time superiority of their state. I’m not a historian, but the USSR was very much inferior to the US in strength in the 1950’s, and both Krustchev and Eisenhower knew as much, even if the american public. He didn’t have the strength to carry out the threat even if he’d wanted to, had that been his intention.

They really meant both -- the eventual victory of communism, and that they would help, with nukes if necessary, to achieve it.

You have to understand the phrase in the context of the Russian language and culture.

Take for instance the english expression "I will beat you."

Am I talking about physically beating you or winning in a competition?

It's the same with 'we will bury you'

Being a native Russian speaker, I think I do have a pretty good idea of what Khrushchev said and what he meant.

We're talking 1947. West wasn't so modern these days and substantial & enshrined human were nowhere to be seen.

In 1947, it was absolutely not obvious whether communism or capitalism will be the thing that works. But I don't think hostility could not be held in check.

It was pretty obvious to Orwell in '43 when he started writing Animal Farm, an allegory to Stalinist terror and everything that went to shit during and after the soviets stole the revolution in Russia.

I reckon people in the know totally could tell that the centrally planned economy and brutal totalitarian dictatorship they instated under what they called communism in Russia and later Soviet union was absolutely hideous, broken and totally incompatible with any notion of human well being or progress.

I agree that people in the know would not advocate brutal totalitarian dictatorship in 1947. But the idea of a centrally planned economy was far from discredited in 47. Central planning and some smart financial engineering by Schacht had harnessed tremendous productive capacity in Nazi Germany. Naturally the USSR was committed to central planning, and had ultimately defeated the largest invasion force ever assembled. Both the UK and US adopted central planning to direct their capitalist econonomies to war aims. And that was a big factor in Labour's 1945 election win that removed Churchill from office. Central planning had been seen to be a key factor in winning the war, and that bolstered Labour's arguments for the welfare state, NHS and nationalization of key industries like coal. A political consensus formed around the planned economy and persisted until 1979, and the coming of the Blessed Margaret.

> I agree that people in the know would not advocate brutal totalitarian dictatorship in 1947. But the idea of a centrally planned economy was far from discredited in 47. Central planning and some smart financial engineering by Schacht had harnessed tremendous productive capacity in Nazi Germany.

Wasn't the economic boom of Nazi Germany under Hitler fueled mostly by giant foreign loans? From what I've read, one of main reasons Hitler was so hell-bent on going to war was the looming bankruptcy - war allowed him to pillage conquered countries (mainly in the East), which brought in tons of money.

No - the giant foreign loans arrived in the second half of the 20s, after Hjalmar Schacht had cured hyperinflation with the introduction of the Rentenmark. Germany enjoyed a debt fuelled boom until the crash of Oct 29, which caused US banks to recall loans, crashing the German economy. During the boom the Nazis had been an irrelevance. In the early 30s unemployment hit 6M and Hitler became Kanzler in Jan 33, and brought Schacht back. This time Schacht created mefos to expand credit covertly and reflate the economy. Hitler wasn't hell bent on war for financial reasons. He was hell bent on war because he saw violent struggle as part of the natural order, and the means for the German people to dominate Europe and to replicate the 19th century US drive westwards by carving out a new empire in Russia.

Hey, it certainly was hideous, broken and inhumane, but come on, the Russian version of communism allowed for a lot of progress. Industrial and scientific both.

But does any of this progress counterbalance all the evil they've done, in URSS and in the rest of the world?

Yes. In 1917 Russia was a semi feudal society with 10% literacy. 40 years later it had 90% literacy, universal healthcare, full employment, nuclear weapons and the world's leading space program. The human cost of those advances was monumental: many millions starved to death in the Ukraine during the collectivisation of agriculture, hundreds of thousands shot by the NKVD/KGB, millions sent to the Gulag, and millions of unnecessary casualties during WWII due to Red Army purges during the Great Terror and the casual attitude to spending lives in military leadership.

What kind of development could have occurred under 40 years under a Tsar? Remember, it was the actual workers who made all of that progress - presumably they would have done even better had most of them not been starved.

Well, technically, before communists took over, Tsar had already abdicated and there was something approaching, sort of, a parliamentary democracy.

Well, then Nazis also made some progress in science and industry, but surely you would not defend them.

Bersides, a lot of that industrial progress ewas built by Americans anyway, with USSR, at best, supplying slave labor.

Yes, the system was capable in many areas (although that wasn't enough overall). The socialism is designed to please the majority, first and foremost, so it normal to see that in USSR they addressed a lot of the common people issues that under a different establishment may have been addressed in a lesser degree. The industrialization happened, as I see it, because was an answer to several issues at once: a mean to employ masses, a mean to provide various resources thus a politically desirable and reasonably easy achievable economic independence (as before the industrialization the main exported commodity from USSR was wheat), and on ideological level - a way of depicting the viability of communism (having the industrialized nations as reference, nations that happened to be all capitalist). As for scientific progress, in USSR it had to have an ideological base (as it has to have an economical base in capitalism), and from this I see two occurring issues. First issue is that it works best when you have to compete with something other than yourself (like politically dictated/mandated cosmos-related scientific progress) and not so much otherwise, and the second issue is that things don't get multiplied the way they do in capitalist environment because things here happen when they are commissioned by the state (thus only one) actor and resource pool. (To be fair, I don't see anything serious impeding scientific progress in socialism/communism, just fewer reasons for it to happen.)

A lot of scientific progress in USSR happened despite communism, e.g. consider Lysenko, fights against cybernetics, and other ideology-based interference with science.

Pretty much anything that did not have to do with weaponry, and especially any of the social/philosophical sciences were far behind because they did (or could) go against the communist dogma.

In 1947 I also doubt there was much well being or progress. You seem to be far out of context.

It is possible I misinterpreted your point but one could argue the collectivist policies were inefficient and also caused major grief such as famine and what not.

Also some argue USSR was not communist and that there has never been a communist society and that every country that called itself that was just a brutal dictatorship playing the people with grandiose promises and wild fantasies of the workers running the show and sharing the spoils.

All of that didn't matter much in 1947. There was mmuch larger grief and much brutal events at the time.

Something being obvious to Orwell or any single individual is not the same as it being obvious generally. Also, something being hideous does not necessary imply it will loose.

There are pundits now with many different predictions.

I don't think it was obvious to Orwell that capitalism would defeat, or even necessarily be superior to, communism. As a socialist he was strongly critical of both systems.

Absolutely. By the time of the end of Yalta conference (Feb 1945) they realised they had been severely naive.

Those who think Churchill was hungry for war in 1939 should marvel at his savage pragmatism after the war.

Churchill was always pragmatic when it came to the Soviets:

"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

Churchill even had war plans created in 1945 with the aim of freeing Poland and other Eastern European countries from Soviet control - of course there was no real chance of these ever being used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

And I recall reading that he was quite active in making the Polish government-in-exile acquiesce to Soviet demands. A bit like Chamberlain on the question of Czechoslovakia perhaps?

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