Anatomy of a Revolution; 13; Russia: Permanent Revolution?

nico i'm nice to people last time i spoke i consider the phone the doors of our revolutions as the beginning of the end i suspect many of you wondered whether after all it is true that in russia the revolution really is over doesn't russia seem to be in permanent revolution i'm now going to try to fix the russian revolution a little more detail into our general scheme for revolutions let me say at the start that in my opinion the russian revolution is indeed all over finished as far such great seminal movement ever to finish of course in many sense the russian communist revolution spilled those are just as does our own eighteenth century revolution in thousands of

cymbals here is just one of the most famous work the minuteman to remind us of our paths so do with the french their eighteenth century democratic revolution goes on here is what they did with the plaster law passed the year destroyed the old castle and put up this great wine so to the even greater revolutions of buddha mohammed and christ still go on for the russian revolution was in part a religious movement inspired by a set of ideas of faith which there was held by millions let me be more specific the russian revolution is not ended in the restoration of the romance as the english did in that it distorts the french inevitable but this fact seems to be relatively unimportant in reality there've been two strong if somewhat unpleasant solace in russia since may joseph the first

and nikki get the first or perhaps better give whose jaw is full slates name which he must've been christened with nicolas nicolas that they're both sides rather more efficient than the last remark yes but a much more serious failure of the russian revolution to conform to pattern least on the surface it's the record does some terror in nineteen thirty six in the so called yes off period twenty years after the explosion of the october revolution i find are the true russian they're to be in the years nineteen eighteen nineteen twenty one years of war communism white russian foreign invasions of jake are secret police under georgian city here are some examples is requisition ing in a pleasant valley ish here

the bourgeoisie the white collar men are forced to do hard work in the streets and hear is the execution dramatic execution of a catholic clergymen one senor would get rich here is the other side white russian you'll see some english uniforms if you look carefully making reprisals i'm bolshevik commerce sides both sides are guilty of terror there was a white parent as well as to read all the earmarks than out there and so too is the relaxation the third hour with the new economic policy net of nineteen twenty one the edge off period to widen it shows many of the marks of a reign of terror especially for almost directly concerned with the work of government and that's a lot of people in russia in sheer individuals suffering the edge off period with the addition of the and forced collectivization of the farm's a scene

as in this early propaganda picture of a group of tractors which i think are american origin the destruction of the cool arcs or the independent peasants in the early thirties because as this picture shows they resisted communism even in the heart of the grain indeed even burned it sometimes all this added up to something far worse probably than the earlier terror famine deportation the horrible northern camps were added to the political persecution spurts it's melodramatic public trials and confections i cannot go into detail but i suggest that haven't minimum you read two fascinating books first kessler's famous novel

darkness happening which deals with the plight of an unjustly accused coleman sought and the second plate in many ways even more interesting it got wide imprisoned victim who managed to escape death alexander weisberg says the cue just a bias there was a serious minded rob a heavy german honest communist and this is an honest account of his troubles the whole period some day i suspect may yet be painted by another dostoyevsky it would be a splendid then for the imaginative writer here i'm going to try to make this particular this peculiar to our real to you by letting you hear one of those groups of jokes by which people under tyranny relieve their attentions

at four o'clock there was a knock on the door of a mask allows occupied by five families all of them were leaked out of bed but none of them did open the door they stood waiting another grew louder finally one of the tenant took his courage in both hands and open the front door he whispered whispering for a few moments with a man standing outside and he came back to his terrified fellow tenants with a bright smile on his face nothing to worry about the house is on fire at all no i said it gets this a contemporary american syndicated got two which also throws light on the anatomy of revolution the caption is it's hard to believe the whole american revolution started over just one tax but note theme park and big shot

was just pages income tax talking to his lawyer is angry but he is not frightened a big difference the russian renewed they're out of the nineteen thirties then the edge off period does need explanation it comes at a time when most revolutions are quieting down getting back to the ordinary and relatively calm runways of life let me start by saying that messes that and go dean these are pseudonyms for a german prominent scientist and a native russian historian lucky enough to escape to the west in this book russian perch in the extraction of confession recorded no less than fifteen theories to explain the edge off period most of them work up in conversation with fellow prisoners good communists who often debated the reasons for

their plight on my own i proposed to suggest six for its six elements of a theory to explain the edge off period out first of all the edge off period was not a reign of terror and virtue and my sense it was just a reign of terror that was not the attempt of inspired a fanatical minority to realize here on earth that once the promise of it heaven utopia it was an effort by a tyrant to secure its own power to dispose of rivals an effort to go out of hand an infected many many people besides stalin himself lifted the ideal one bizarre incident in france i'm sure other revolutions such as the mexican and many aspects of chinese is missing in this second russian down all major revolution spend the fallen like a major earthquake by minor shocks until the oldest

urban ends in a new adjust the english revolution of the sixteen forties was followed by the coup d'etat that got rid of james the second that was followed by two jacobite vaults to restore the store main ones like this one you see here in an old fashioned illustration of the raising of the young pretender standards in seventeen forty five even our own revolutions followed by shays rebellion in massachusetts and the whiskey rebellion in pennsylvania which you see your voice content redrawing that state revenue officer the dod and feathered and ridden on a pole were lively times and pennsylvania the french revolution of the seventy nineties was followed by two serious of surgery shocks those of eighteen thirty and eighteen forty eight years some scenes from paris and this eighteen

forty eight scenes a while but my favorite memory is the story of one of the leaders to seeing his followers rushing off towards the hotel did feel to produce the republic said i've got to follow what i believe in and so it goes in a sense and our dynamic western society a great revolution never holy hands the reigns of terror and virtue do i think russia has not had another one since the new economic policy of nineteen twenty one seconds the revolution's subject to secondary shocks and other irregularities tend to work toward a state we make all roughly normal this normal is not the same for every society to be brutal this sometimes called the asia theory states that the russian normal for eleven and sherry

society was not one to democracy of government wide open free discussion of civil rights activist corpus russia before the revolution was an absolute isn't with secret police here for instance is a siberian march these old fee will people all of them push together and into siberia mile after mile and not better country here is russian punishment again in siberia and that peculiar kind of what it is used is i gather right dickie lee while they ratchet them i need this in was a backward country technologically without what we call establish civil rights and democratic traditions why should anyone expect russia after the revolution to be all that it was not before the revolution i wasn't it

means just joking now when i referred to star lean and push joffe as joseph the first and nicholas the third back and good been referred this factor as the patient theory the notion that russia is in easton despotism which is no really been part of europe or europe overseas that is the free west the office were fond of russians many ways do not like this patient theory but even they admit there is something in that i think we have to also there the continued isolation especially cultural isolation of russia since nineteen eighty the simple fact that the non communist world has so to speak black ball russia would in itself and made it hard for russians to relax it to acceptance of the world they would've felt on the defense but actually from the very start they were exposed to this sort of thing a cartoon from

punching the old early days i'll read the old fashioned catch first of all to let me see we've made and then the mall credit treaties navy the army is there anything else to abolish second option about war first watched book and peace to do away with both this i repeat is not very well indeed ally bungled intervention in nineteen eighteen nineteen twenty eight clearly help the bolsheviks to identify themselves with russian patriotism something that was a natural rhythm let me say firmly intervention by an outside power strengthens the revolutionary regime the only exception is when the intervention is an overwhelming and successful force as in the russian intervention in nineteen eighty six eighty percent successful there is a bear pulling down the red star who

had and also going down the statutes that the children of these grandchildren are going to boost jobs and the successes for years to come please listen carefully i do not say we americans are to blame for isolating russia i do say that whether it is wholly their fault before the rumors are the inevitable consequence of there being a separate communist society the fact remains that the russians ever since nineteen eighteen have felt excluded have felt believe it by the simple device of restoring them to govern both france and england were welcomed back into the clock into respectability within a few years after their dish rack of the revolution it's russia remains perhaps in vain to our own fault a disreputable outcast for

the fact that the russian revolution took place in the backward country not only made it hard for russia to escape from its political backwardness it meant that those who lead russia felt obliged to remedy that particular economic backwardness by catching up to the west but the easy the quick way to do this with the way a starry rigorous restrictions on production for consumer law high rate of saving for capital investment forced labor not only in camps but by speed as that is tolerant and industry forced collectivization in agriculture here is the celebrated stuff out from a russian publication let me read you the caption something new was added to the plants and waltz out yet afford when alex a storefront on a bomb us coal miner presented a pretty good idea oh to his superiors he said it was a demon with a magic drill but only mediocre and putting in the props

by trying to expert properties he proceeded to take out many times as quote of coal for six hours she stepped out of theirs and swept the country to speed up system based on division of labor with rewards for record breakers in all industries and i like say became a national hero in a fur coat his wife got one too not crack about his wife was not by admitting it occurs in the russian propaganda this is not america now a note that in many ways they summon that seat policy of guns before butter could be was only achieved by similar to radical that is there is a famous low cot to that lurked between the butter added can fit russia since nineteen eighteen has never quite solved an

important problem which must be solved within society is to be even relatively stable politically especially in our dynamic at russia has not solve the problem of political succession at the top levels the problem of legitimacy one of the obvious reasons for the actual purchase and trials of nineteen thirty six seven was stalin's jealousy and fear rivals at the top levels what has happened in russia it's a continuation of murderous rivalries at the top like they need the true democratic election the majority vote or truman article succession or other devices to maintain legitimacy the succession after stalin's death was not marked by any renewed revolutionary violence and some observers with it or hoped but remember what happened to better yet he was jailed too mollenkopf exile tomorrow a top x cell my only but still works out we should not a sort of normal on mr

eisenhower zach session in nineteen fifty three it the foia fbi hoover had been hanged dean acheson made postmaster of a crossroads in the nevada desert and adlai stevenson confined to his liberty bill illinois state six and in my mind a particularly important variable the russians and not get them as well as we the french and other western nations who in so many ways children of the eighteenth century enlightenment and its revolutions in reconciling their ideals with their reality this is a tremendously difficult matter and i can't skim the surface here briefly a great revolutions an effort to achieve an idea say the famous liberty equality fraternity of the french or own bills of rights we americans have a comparative piece with a pretty an ideal of equality for deep troubling this

witnesses segregation problems south and north we are good democrats with a small d of course but we're not logical radical insane democrats neither of course of the russians quite that sort of communist anymore one reason i fuel revolutions over i'm sure that most russians are not greatly disturbed but the obvious fact that all the marxism they are taught in school as slogans like from each according to his need to each according to his ability a ballet dancer actually earns her daily rate gets at least thirty times as much real incomes a street sweeper i find it very hard to imagine anything from food and clothing to share is that a pleasure that the ballet dancing the starchy or indeed three times as much of this does the street sweeper but let me put it simply quietly and offensively in the united states face the

problem of the gap between what we kind of a what we are uniformly cute enough the negro cannot vote with the army are both have equality under law could hardly stand up on that familiar traffic wrecks let alone more serious cases equality of opportunity does not stand up fully even in our education are complicated status system social inequalities occupies the energy's many novelists and cultural anthropologists here for instance is a famous best seller on the point and of course baffles foreigners to the point where they don't even see it but ours is an old and write society and our revolutionary faith as soft enough to mention once more the daughters of the american revolution but how much fresh air more on compromising an ideal is the russian

marxist fight economic equality plenty for all to each according to his needs is added to pretty exquisite claims for social and legal equality the material satisfactions spiritual ones to war over the marxist has been told that in the class a society which lies ahead there will be no police no army no law courts that the state will wither away i doubt if the most innocent communist thinks the russian state at the moment is withering away very fast there are any signs the russian leaders of course have given their people explanations for the obvious fact that these marxist names of five even approached in reality in russia in official to terms russia is now i'm not a classless society

but a dictatorship of the proletariat not even a communist society but only a socialist society you cannot cross the threshold in the economist heaven on earth because as long as there are work in capitalist societies like our own so the russian leaders say the soviet union was conduct an international class struggle therefore maintained army police propaganda mechanisms and all the rest this explanation and experience plus the passage of time plus norman human inertia normal human patriotism well i guess do for most russians keep them fairly quiet know i still suspect that even for the man in the street three vaughn evanovich the gap between reality and ideal maybe uncomfortably large but what seemed to meet real problems to the right or to

the reasons for its continued potential instability our first murder struggle for power at the top might mention second the existence of a sensitive intellectual marley syria's minority once more the american and general western powers those americans were outraged by our moral failures women are the problem graft the corruption juvenile delinquency right on down to the threat of collapse of our public transportation the low level of taste of the big entertainment these intellectual can say right even do a lot of things about it they can join so that is sensitive and gifted person that russia is confronted with a far more serious gap between what is being taught right what goes on around yet he can do nothing and surely the pasternak incident as crew pasternack

has said that we use bottled up suppressed its someday he there must be thousands of him of loesser genius perhaps must break out at least i feel sure that saw get leaders fear such an eventuality and the fear hardly makes them more easygoing i should warn you that many cable mid century western publics disagree with me and find the russian communist movement still in its active missionary stay for example the french sociologist june marlowe in this book compares communism what he saw as the fighting aggressive totalitarian religion still expanding still trying to conquer the earth for hammer and sickle as mohammed's followers saw the conduit for the crescent perhaps so but let me conclude with three concrete evidence is of the fact that big role at the heavens storming phase of the russian revolution is over there is a picture of the

top echelons russian leadership in nineteen sixty three these people look like revolutionaries think on the other hand of the faces of lenin and his early associates other sensitive intellectual lennon here marked off here all the others of the it's grass here and now look what's more of nicholas service and this rare one of them perhaps to be a success and what do they look like politicians not to say sen is not intercepted in the law this khrushchev himself in may nineteen fifty nine and i quote we are getting richer and richer in russia and when a person is more deeply he gets more democratic finally fear is a quotation from all the hallway in the boston

herald reviewing a book on russia by harrison salzburg prostitution gambling adolescent dancers in black markets currency speculations similar paraphernalia of a society as advanced beyond revolutionary puritanism and come back there are almost as many hollywood sport shirts in moscow as in california but they don't make revolutions in sport shirts until next month we can i'm speaking the peak this

week this is an eighty national educational television ms bee