Songs of the Era of Fire

[JarlWolf]

I remembered an old cartoon music compilation way back in the 70's, and felt to share it, watched it with my daughters when they were just youngsters. That and I don't know how many of you seen some cartoon's from the other side of the fence. Mind, this wasn't a child's cartoon necessarily, just a music compilation back in the day.

Most of the songs are famous Civil War songs. The Civil War as you may know was a brutal conflict that lasted from 1918-1924 primarily, and it was between two major factions: The Bolsheviks and the White Army. The White Army was comprised of fascists, Monarchists and people supported by Western powers, notably Britain, United States and even Germany and the Ottomans. There was also Makhnovists and the Black Army, and several smaller militia's. The Bolsheviks were mainly a Socialist front that later formed The Soviet, and their faction eventually evolved into what would become the Soviet government.

This cartoon shows a bit of that history with songs such as Polyushke Poyle, Tachanka etc.

Some information: Budyonny and Voroshilov were famous Civil War Generals and geniuses at Cavalry warfare, particularly with Tachankas, or Machine gun carts. They weren't as competent later on during the Patriotic war though as they were not as familiar with the new technologies and tactics introduced in that war, but that's another subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_v1cTcSsy8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V0QT-NiWbc

[Buster's Uncle]

You wouldn't believe how little mention the WWI Allied invasion into Russia gets mentioned in US history classes - I had no idea such a thing had happened at all until I was in college, and I think I found out through my own reading, not a class...

[JarlWolf]

Which is kind of funny, over here the Civil War era has enough mythology, folklore and legendary exploits and romanticism associated with it as the Americans treat the concept of the Wild West. There is several movies on the Russian Civil War: The Fiery Miles, White Sun of The Desert to name a few. Mosfilm hosts them for free on youtube, there is English subtitles for both if you want to watch them.

[Buster's Uncle]

[shrugs] Its the nature of the thing that cultures concentrate on the stuff they feel good about or makes traditional enemies look bad.  US schools/history/entertainment don't talk about William Walker much - I don't imagine Central American schools/history/entertainment choose to ignore his imperialist adventurism.  I imagine Russians don't dwell on the invasion of Poland much.  Not hard to understand why, even if it's unfortunate that cultures are that way.

[JarlWolf]

The Polish Soviet war was actually covered extensively, at least when I learned it, and when my daughters did. Learned about every major victory, and defeat the Red Army encountered. You also have to remember that the army was still fighting Polish nationalists up until the 1960's, 1963 was when the last Nationalist rebel in Poland was killed.

Education in the Soviet Union was rather good actually, and I state that from both looking at the modern system and having gone through the former. Just the catch was: It was strict. You kept hush and you asked questions when the teacher allowed time for it. (You of course were allowed to ask questions, but after a teacher is done lecturing normally they would give a period of time to answer any questions. Raising your hand beforehand would be considered arrogant, and some teachers would give you a swift smack.)


Edit: Also, remembering back I also noticed that my daughters learned even more of the ugly side of the Polish Soviet War ( and the Finn war as well, back then for me it was still recent enough for people to remember it.) and even the Patriotic war. Post Stalin era had a lot of educational addition to it, and deconstructing Stalinism was one of it's biggest goals. I grew up during the height of the Stalinist era, and the difference was pronounced: It went from praising Voroshilov, Budyonny and Iosif Stalin to flat out stating Stalin was an autocrat. The Kruschev regime was probably the biggest reasoning for that.

As for myself I knew first hand what the ugliness of what happened during those previous conflicts. I grew up in Volgograd in my youngest years, and Volgograd was a horrible place to be during that time. I think only Leningrad may have been worse to be honest, or if you were a Pole in Warsaw.

[Buster's Uncle]

Huh.  The first thing I thought of was Stalin's excesses, but I reasoned that in the Kruschev years that probably changed.

How about Trotsky's murder in Mexico?  Or Trotsky in general?

I don't really know soviet history in fine enough detail to guess well about this, but history is written by the winners, and every culture seems to have its own blind spots about its own history.

[JarlWolf]

Trotsky was completely shunned during the Stalinist years, and there wasn't really any mention of him at all. Later on after the Khrushchev reforms there was mention of him but they didn't go into tremendous detail.

At least in the education system that is. People knew what happened to him during the Stalinist years because of rumours: The Soviet system had a very vibrant underground if you knew where to look.