100th anniversary this week

[jayem]

Nov. 7 is the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution. AKA the October Revolution (according to the old Julian calendar used in Russia back then.) The Tsar had been deposed several months earlier, and a provisional government, which included capitalist elements, and some of the old Russian aristocracy was trying to establish itself. But Lenin had the backing of most of the urban working class and much of the Russian army. (The term bolshevik means a member of the majority.) The provisional government was overthrown. The Soviet state was born. And the rest is history. It's just sad that for 100 years now, the Russian people have gone from one authoritarian regime to another.

Though I gotta admit that I like the old Soviet/socialist anthem. One of the better and more stirring marching songs.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

It's just sad that for 100 years now, the Russian people have gone from one authoritarian regime to another.

Though I gotta admit that I like the old Soviet/socialist anthem. One of the better and more stirring marching songs.

Are you saying they are on par with one another?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Bolshevik comes from an earlier meeting in 1903 where the nascent Russian Labour party split into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks after the former faction managed to carry through most of their agenda (hence the majority).
It is completely unrelated to how much support Lenin did or did not have in post-Tsarist Russia.

 

[Chesterton]

Though I gotta admit that I like the old Soviet/socialist anthem. One of the better and more stirring marching songs.

Two thumbs down. I've heard more stirring music in Coca-Cola jingles composed by capitalists. And lyrically, it's disgusting and should insult your intelligence. The song should only be remembered as an annotation that communism and all its bloody atrocities were in fact atheistic.

 

[jayem]

Two thumbs down. I've heard more stirring music in Coca-Cola jingles composed by capitalists. And lyrically, it's disgusting and should insult your intelligence. The song should only be remembered as an annotation that communism and all its bloody atrocities were in fact atheistic.

Each to his own. The lyrics to the Internationale were French, and written in the 1870s. The tune is also French and was composed somewhat later. But the song was around decades before the communists came to power in Russia. They just adopted it.

Off topic: The lyrics to La Marseillaise, which IMO is the best national anthem in the world, refer to cutting throats, and watering fields with blood. It was written as a call to arms to defend the French Revolution. The French can be pretty graphic.

 

[Chesterton]

But the song was around decades before the communists came to power in Russia.

Yeah, well, so were Marx and atheism.

Off topic: The lyrics to La Marseillaise, which IMO is the best national anthem in the world, refer to cutting throats, and watering fields with blood. It was written as a call to arms to defend the French Revolution. The French can be pretty graphic.

I agree with you that La Marseillaise is some fine music. It's funny how some silly Americans will seriously suggest we need to change the American anthem because it mentions war, lol. They apparently don't know how tame our anthem is compared to La Marseillaise and some others.