Happy May 9th.
If there is one key takeaway that I want people to accept into their heart and souls from my writing and podcasting in both Russian and English, it is the need to move past ideology. For Russian patriots, I have done everything in my power to convince them to move past endless debates about Communism, Liberalism, Fascism and so on. Instead of endlessly debating World War II, the nation ought to instead hone in and focus on one key principle: victory and its attainment at all costs.
Me and the people who agree with my positions, with our modest efforts, have tried to lead by example. Here is an example of our work:
A tradition of victory.
Notice the distinct lack of the hammer and sickle. Notice also, the distinct lack of a swastika. Believe me, this is serious progress for right-wingers in Russia. We are finally honing in on a solid message that most everyone can get behind. Instead of endlessly debating who was right and who was wrong in World War II or whether Leningrad should have been surrendered or whether the Whites should have won the civil war and so on, we have closed our eyes to the past and focused instead on the future.
Russia’s victory in World War II should not be promoted as a victory for Communism going forward, but as the triumph of arms of the Russian military and the Russian people. Our key takeaway from World War II should not be that one ideological system is better than another, but that the Russian nation is indomitable and good at war. That’s it.
For the people of Russia, endless debates about Communism are unnecessary to face the trials in the years to come. Only one ideology has any merit and bends all others to its will and that is the ideology of victory.
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I am tempted to end my May 9th post there. But just in case you want to read more about ideology… What follows is a deeper dive into the folly of political ideology from my nearly completed book. Enjoy:
Political ideology is a smokescreen - there are only the interests of groups of people who hide behind ideologies to promote their own agenda.
Consider: as we all know, during the Second World War, the Germans had a bad and evil ideology and that is why they lost the war. The little details surrounding the actual war are irrelevant and no one knows them. Like, for example, the fact that Germany did not have oil on its own territory, leading them to try and capture Baku, which was then deep in the Soviet Union, but ultimately failing to take it. The battle around Stalingrad and the failure of the southern front to break through and seize the oil fields effectively ended the German war effort. A critical thinker might ask what ideology has to do with an offensive that stalled out due to fuel shortages and stiff military resistance, but he would receive no answer, only moral condemnation.
This is because everything in the modern world must be seen only in terms of good and evil, our ideology (good) vs their ideology (bad).
The Japanese, by the way, had a similar problem. The official narrative goes something like this: Japanese Bushido/illiberal Japan is responsible for the fact that they too did not have enough oil on their islands to resist the American fleet after the oil fields in the South Pacific were lost and an embargo on their home island was established. So, in fact, everything is clear and logical here: history has clearly proved to us that Capitalism and Communism are stronger and more moral than Fascism and Bushido.
Consider another example: During the First World War, the ideology of the Germans was also clearly eviler than their enemies, which is why they lost that war too. The little detail that Germany did not have enough land to grow grain and could not achieve food self-sufficiency, leading their population to starve and eventually capitulate is irrelevant. What we do know is that the French ideological system, which was based on… existentialist angst and crunchy baguettes (???) proved itself to be better than the Kaiser's ideological system, which was based on… stylish mustaches and spiked helmets, probably.
Of course, our second example comes off as particularly absurd, because World War I is not quite as “ideologized” as World War II. But the point remains that modern society thinks exactly this way if it thinks at all. Another example: Americans literally believe that they defeated the British Empire in the War of Independence because they valued freedoms more than the King of England. It had nothing to do with having a huge home field advantage and fighting a war of attrition against an over-stretched imperial army, of course.
Here are some more uncomfortable ideas worth considering.
During periods of all-out war, ALL countries centralize production
All warriors and armies have their own version of a “Bushido”
Better supplied, equipped and trained armies tend to win
Only later, after the war, the winners hire ideologues to explain to the masses and the defeated nations why it was that they deserved to win
Were FDR’s factories any less centralized and appropriated by the government for the war effort than Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s? Did the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy have tolerance and a copy of Ann Rand in their hearts and coats or were they there to fight for their nation? Was it samurai values that forced the Japanese to kamikaze their planes or did they not have enough fuel for the journey back home? What did Lend-Lease, which provided the Soviet Union with credit and supplies to keep the war effort going longer than their enemies prove about the moral righteousness of Bolshevism over that of the Reich’s exactly?
History is quite clear: one must win first to have the luxury of ideologizing later.
The Ideology of Victory
>"Our key takeaway from World War II should not be that one ideological system is better than another, but that the Russian nation is indomitable and good at war. That’s it."
Well, sort of. As in sports, some teams are excellent on offense, and others are excellent on defense, but it's a very rare team that's truly great at both. Russia has never been particularly strong on offense (or, as we call it now, force projection), but is historically virtually unbeatable on defense. This plays out in history: Hitler assumed that Russia's very poor performance in the (offensive) Winter War against Finland meant that Russian defenses would crumble in the face of Operation Barbarossa. Of course, this was not the case.
The big question now is whether the Ukraine war is an offensive operation or a defensive operation. A case could be made either way.
Ideological thought is truly tiresome and not even primarily on the right.
I've had covidians tell me my opposition to getting the jibjab is based in ideology (pay no attention to those horrifying statistics behind the curtain).
Another example is the systematic discrimination against white males in education and employment. When pressed, leftists justify this on ideological grounds (it's because people who look like you were mean a hundred years ago!) Yet they've no answer when the entirely practical objection is posed that: what do you think will happen if a large fraction of young, energetic, ambitious, and competent males are excluded from their rightful positions? Do you think they'll just go away? Or do you think that this might have a destabilizing influence?