Even Pravda agrees with me

[Seth]

A very 'credible' opening referring to the Russian people being 'free' under the Czars. More than half the population were serfs - a state indistinguishable from slavery. Land owners used guns to keep them in their place and were more or less free to shoot them if they stepped out of line.

Even when Alexander II emancipated the Serfs in 1861, pressure from the nobility made sure that many peasants remained far from "free".

Maybe Seth should read some reliable Russian history instead of self-serving populist/nationalist nonsense. Say what you like about the Communist-era Pravda, but it would never have printed that article. Indeed, the whole article would have been considered thoughtcrime - off to the Gulags or internal exile with you. So the argument that "even Pravda agrees ..." holds no water, because this is not the Pravda that most people remember. It's something else entirely.

Indeed it is. Why is that I wonder? Could it be that the Russian people figured out that Socialism and it's end-state utopia Communism don't work and just kill tens of millions of people for no better reason than they want to be free, and managed to do so easily because first they were disarmed wholesale?

Makes you go "Hmmmmm"

[Rum]

A very 'credible' opening referring to the Russian people being 'free' under the Czars. More than half the population were serfs - a state indistinguishable from slavery. Land owners used guns to keep them in their place and were more or less free to shoot them if they stepped out of line.

Even when Alexander II emancipated the Serfs in 1861, pressure from the nobility made sure that many peasants remained far from "free".

Maybe Seth should read some reliable Russian history instead of self-serving populist/nationalist nonsense. Say what you like about the Communist-era Pravda, but it would never have printed that article. Indeed, the whole article would have been considered thoughtcrime - off to the Gulags or internal exile with you. So the argument that "even Pravda agrees ..." holds no water, because this is not the Pravda that most people remember. It's something else entirely.

Indeed it is. Why is that I wonder? Could it be that the Russian people figured out that Socialism and it's end-state utopia Communism don't work and just kill tens of millions of people for no better reason than they want to be free, and managed to do so easily because first they were disarmed wholesale?

Makes you go "Hmmmmm"

How idiotic. The reason that Alexander's reforms didn't work (they were genuine and he had a real wish to liberalise) was that they only offered a partial response once the nobility had watered the proposals down. The package on offer actually made Serfs indentured labourours, now paying rent (instead of goods). Most of them couldn't cope financially with the watered down deal. Most were actually worse off than previously, but the notion of some sort of liberty was by then at large.