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  7. I saw that the only group of people able to preserve a 
  minimum of humanity in conditions of starvation and abuse 
  were the religious believers, the sectarians (almost all of 
  them), and most priests.

  29. Russians’ uncontrollable urge to denounce and complain.

A warning for those who loudly denounce Western society as a great tyrannical patriarchy, who wish to replace the old culture. Be wary of complaining, denouncing, secular men and women.

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Please don't. Even if you're completely right, the container can't hold it. It will invariably degenerate to the same template as every other ideological/religious flamewar. That's just the way internet forums are, and on this one we're hoping to exercise different muscles.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry Dang, I've brought up the topic before and it's been flagged as well. I guess I need another forum.

Eh, kind of a stretch. Religion is not a purely Western invention, and you're reading what you want to in #29.

I admit it is not a precise argument, but eradicating religion & denouncing your nation's culture as a tyrannical, oppressive force were the two major ingredients for the revolution that led to the slaughter of 60 million Russians. The two motivations that led to the communist revolution are alive and well in our present culture.

Wheat and gunpowder were also major ingredients in the revolution. The fact that the revolution was anti-religion tells us nothing about the wisdom of being anti-religion, any more than the Crusades tell us about the wisdom of being religious.

>The fact that the revolution was anti-religion...

It's more helpful to think of Communism as just another kind of religion.

Indeed. The structures are more or less the same, just the names change.

It has a lot of the same narrative structures, yes, and there’s lots of symbology and people playing the roles of High Priests etc. Of course, so does consumerist Capitalism. The symbology there is just corporate symbology coupled with dogmatic adherence to “free markets”.

This argument is tendentious nonsense, and simultaneously an attempt at starting a religious flamewar and a culture flamewar. That's not discussion, it's arson. Find another place to wave this bloody shirt.

Agreed that eradication of religion and denouncing culture were properties of the soviet revolution, but I disagree that they were primary drivers of the slaughter.

After all, don't most revolutions involve a denouncement of the previous culture? For example, most Americans were British in culture, but they then shrugged off the trappings of that culture, choosing to rule themselves rather than to accept norms set by the rightful king and parliament.

Denouncement of religion isn't new either -- for how many countless centuries have religions (and sects of religions) been denouncing each other? Regarding tolerance, anti-religious secularists are the same as fundamentalists, except that they deny one additional religion. Probably even better morally, because they rarely call for killing those who disagree.

It was not the revolution that killed 60m people. At most, the shooting part of civil war took less than a million people.

People who ran Soviet Union had very little to do with leading people on the streets. They did had few squabbles with loyalists after they began their purge campaigns, but their extend is also exaggerated.

Ones who were the true loosers were the people who hid under the bed and thought that things will sort out (no civil war ever "sorted out" - one side loses, another wins.) And even bigger ones were those spend the civil war wailing and moaning for moderation and trying to dissuade others from even thinking who is right and who is wrong. Bolsheviks repaid those types with a lot of gratitude, those fools were first to walk in front of firing squads after a token expression of gratitude.

> People who ran Soviet Union had very little to do with leading people on the streets. They did had few squabbles with loyalists after they began their purge campaigns, but their extend is also exaggerated.

Very misinformed statement, don't even know where to begin. Red Terror was Lenin's invention. The whole leadership was a band of thugs. Lenin developed an entire philosophical theory of terror. These 60 millions were not killed overnight, true. The "night" lasted from 1917 to 1953.

I just wanted to highlight that loyalist army were largely chill till the moment bolsheviks killed the emperor, started the terror raids and began going after them and their families.

It is certainly true that Religion is not a purely Western invention, but I think the point was that only in the West do we see these denunciations of it as a great tyrannical patriarchy.

That's not Shalamov's point though, which is what I'm trying to steer us back towards. I think it's fair to take from Shalamov's words that religion is getting short shrift from secular society in the west today. But beyond that, I'm afraid our conversation is mostly descending into the typical culture war topics.

> I think the point was that only in the West do we see these denunciations of [Rreligion] as a great tyrannical patriarchy.

What? What of the revolutions in China, Cambodia, Laos et al not to mention the forced but successful reduction+ of shinto?

+ I wanted to use the term "degradation" but that has acquired a non-technical connotation -- I really do mean its diminution in status

ok jordan

Not here please.

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