Our article in today's American Thinker, now illustrated

By Oleg Atbashian

The Inevitable Evolution of Pravda

Has Pravda gone anti-Communist, as many of its opinion pieces suggest?

First, let's just say that the hard copy version is not the same as its digital namesake. The original newspaper had been started by Lenin in 1912 and shut down by Yeltsin in 1991.

It was later restarted, changed several owners, including some foreign millionaires, and in 1997 became the official organ of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

At some point during these troubled times, the online edition split from the paper version and left to seek its own destiny. It is now shamelessly whoring for Internet traffic around the world, in an effort to maximize advertising revenues.

Even a cursory glance at the English and Russian digital editions (they have different content, tailored to their respective audiences) reveals a radically apolitical tabloid with a wild mix of real news, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and contradictory opinions, topped with headlines whose main function is to attract search engine traffic. The other two foreign-language versions -- Portuguese and Italian -- probably follow the same pattern.

To use the Marxist vernacular of the erstwhile Party Organ, its glorious ideological monogamy has all but withered away, to be replaced by the historically inevitable capitalist promiscuity.

While the old Pravda's homogenized, truth-free purism made it a respectable but neutered organ with the word "truth" in its title, the new "hands-off" approach allows sporadic diamonds of actual truth to shine through the dirt -- a mind-boggling change from what I remember reading on its pages when I still lived in the USSR.

Pravda to Americans: 'Never give up your guns!'The best example of that change is an opinion piece by Stanislav Mishin, reprinted by Pravda from his blog, in which the author earnestly advises Americans to "Never Give Up Your Guns."

Putting aside vague nods at sinister conspiracies by Wall Street and international bankers -- which, like flies in the ointment, defile this author's writings -- Mishin's article offers a compelling historical lesson.


Below is a compressed, edited, and "de-flied" version of the Pravda article:

This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons -- from swords and spears to pistols, rifles, and shotguns -- were common items. People carried them concealed or holstered. Daggers were a prominent part of many traditional attires.

Various armies -- the Poles, Napoleon, or the Germans -- found out that holding Russian lands was much harder than invading them, as every occupier faced a well-armed and aggressive population, hell-bent on driving out the aggressor.

This well-armed population was what allowed the various groups to rise up in 1918 and wage a brutal civil war against the Red Army. Disorganized politically and militarily, many factions of the White Army were mostly armed peasants, villagers, farmers and merchants, protecting their own property.


When the Reds approached Moscow, the city was home to over 30,000 active and retired military officers, all with their own issued weapons and ammunition, plus tens of thousands of armed citizens. The Communists promised to leave them alone if there would be no armed resistance. The Muscovites believed them and didn't intervene when a few hundred White military cadets and their instructors died defending the city against ten thousand Reds. Shortly afterwards, the Communists asked everyone to register their weapons. Those who showed up, were promptly shot.

Once they won the civil war, the Reds disarmed the entire population. From that point on, mass repression, mass arrests, mass deportations, mass murder, and mass famine were a safe game. The worst the Communists had to fear was a pitchfork in the gut, a knife in the back, or the occasional hunting rifle.

For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare source of light in the ever darkening world.

If politicians really believe that our society is full of incompetent adolescents who can't be trusted with weapons, let them explain why we should trust them or the police, who also come from the same society and grew up in this culture.

While various governments try to limit gun ownership so as to protect the people from lunatics and criminals, what they really protect is their own power. Everywhere the guns are banned, gun-related crime increases. If lunatics want to kill, they can use cars (NYC, Chapel Hill NC), swords (Japan), knives (China), or home-made bombs (world over). They can throw acid (Pakistan, UK), or fire bombs (France). Often times the only way to stop a raging maniac on a killing spree is a bullet to the head fired by an armed citizen.

Do not believe for a moment that progressives and other leftists hate guns. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who will not march in lockstep with their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves, refuse to comply, and eventually will have to be scheduled for a bullet behind the ear.

Do not fall for their false promises. Do not extinguish the last remaining light that allows humanity a measure of self-respect.


Father of Soviet Political Poster who worked for the NazisLet me illustrate the above with this Soviet propaganda poster, published in 1918 in Moscow, during the described events: "Citizens, hand over your weapons!"


Curiously enough, the artist, Alexander Apsit, who is rightfully considered the father of the Soviet political poster, later escaped the communist system for which he advocated with his prolific propagandistic imagery. Shortly after the civil war, he settled in his native Latvia, leaving behind the "workers' paradise" where many of his colleagues were being harassed, jailed, and murdered.

In yet another ironic twist, after Latvia's annexation by the Nazis in 1939, the father of the Soviet political poster moved to Germany and worked for the Nazis until his death in 1943, in the middle of his adopted country's war against the Soviet Union.

Red Terror and AmericaThis story would be incomplete without a quote from the former Pravda editor and prominent Party theoretician Nikolai Bukharin: "We asked for freedom of the press, thought, and civil liberties in the past because we were in the opposition and needed these liberties to conquer. Now that we have conquered, there is no longer any need for such civil liberties."

In a strike of poetic justice, in 1937 Bukharin was declared an enemy of the people and, after a show trial, executed on bogus charges.

Back in 1918, in the times of Lenin's Red Terror, head of the Communist International, Grigory Zinoviev, issued this pronouncement:

"To overcome our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia's population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated."

Quite ironically, Zinoviev himself was later purged and executed in 1936.

Unlike his followers, the father of Communism, Karl Marx, was lucky to die peacefully in his bed -- but not before he wrote: "There is only one way to shorten and ease the convulsions of the old society and the bloody birth pangs of the new -- revolutionary terror."

Perhaps the most ironic historical mind-bender of all is found in the United States, where history was much kinder to communist rebels. In the 1960s, the leader of the KGB-supported communist terrorist group Weather Underground, Bill Ayers, repeated Zinoviev's idea of annihilating ten percent of the population -- 25 million Americans -- so as to advance the revolution in the United States.

Ayers summed up the ideology of his movement as follows: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents." Unlike his Soviet role models, however, this communist didn't have to leave the country or suffer any discomfort. Supported by the left-dominated academic establishment, Ayers became a prominent member of and later vice president for curriculum studies at the American Educational Research Association (AERA), exerting great influence over what is taught in America's teacher-training colleges and, through indoctrination of a generation of teachers, its public schools.

According to this must-read article by Daren Jonescu, Ayers simply altered his strategy, replacing annihilation with re-education -- or, rather, pre-education, thus reducing the number of potential targets. Since then, "the educational establishment has progressed so far that the KGB-supported communist revolutionaries, who received training and funds from Cuba's DGI, have been welcomed, first as honored guests (in lieu of a prison sentence), and finally as leading members of the establishment."

For many years now, the "imperialist" America was being quietly transformed, under our noses, into a socialist country through mind conditioning of at least three complete K-12 generations of public school students. USSR is dead, long live the USSA.

And you thought Pravda turning anti-communist was a big deal!

What? Why no mention of socialist hero and Red Army volunteer, U. S. President Woodrow Wilson?

Was U. S. President Woodrow Wilson a Red Army volunteer? This Soviet agitprop from 1919 paints a different image:

USA, Britain, and France unleash their dogs on Russia: White Army generals Denikin, Kolchak, and Yudenich

The theme of this article is, in a way, also the theme of this song by my favorite Russian songwriter, Vladimir Vysotsky (it has English subtitles).

It compares mass repressions to a wolf hunt, as the hunters set boundaries for the wolves with red flags, which the dumb animals for some reason can't cross and thus are doomed to be cornered and shot.

You may not even like this song - it's a very Russian thing.



Click below for the lyrics - it's a pretty decent translation.

A couple of years ago I read that once safely reelected Obama would use the very first incident as pretext to demagogue and ban guns. What a machine he has. It's going to be an interesting second term. Obama unleashed is at the head of the hunt. But we aren't wolfs. Obama's a dog with very few brains leading other dogs with very few brains and he's trying to run down human beings.

Red Square wrote:Was U. S. President Woodrow Wilson a Red Army volunteer?

Just my way of saying that Wilson was pro big-government and sympathetic to collective rights overruling individual rights.

https://www.heritage.org/initiatives/fi ... -democracy

Someone suggested I redo the above poster to match today's realities.

[img]/images/Poster_Obama_Hand_Over_Weapons.jpg[/img]

Citizens, hand over your weapons!

Like Rahm told us, never waste a good crisis.

I have no doubt that Vice Premier Biden and his Traveling Circus will come up with plenty of good Progressive diktats for Premier Hussein to include in an EO, but there simply is no way to disarm America.

We have in excess of 300 million personal weapons in the hands of the populace. and while the sheeple will gladly trade a black market Glock for a Chuckie Cheese coupon, serious and responsible gun owners will never voluntarily (or involuntarily for that matter) surrender their weapons no matter what EO Premier Hussein chooses to issue. The fact is most of what is being proposed is completely unenforcible.

Look to Australia for a modern day example of what it would take to disarm a country. Keep in mind that in Australia they never had the numbers of weapons, and the percentage of gun owners was only about 7%. But Australia amended their Constitution, and proceeded to pass laws mandating disarmament with severe penalties for not turning in your guns.

It can be done, but disarming is an extreme measure that has exactly zero chance of happening in the US. Despite what dreams the progs masturbate about, amending the US Constitution and eliminating the Second Amendment is unachievable.

A-Ten-Hut!

Fall in line maggots ... on the double.

I'm getting tired of all this gun grab chatter from you mamby pamby pinkos. Yeah yeah yeah, come and get my guns.

Be it advised Sarge is tired of shooting up Charlie and his gook friends anyway, hell no sport in it anymore.

Mousy Tongue didn't need guns, he just starved his people.

Hitler didn't shoot the 8 million Juice.

As for Sarge, I don't need no stinking gun no more, my new toy is a bit hard to conceal carry though.



Oorah!

We can't forget Ft. Hood. Obviously our military personnel cannot be trusted with high capacity magazines either. Put the FN Five-seven on the list Joe!

Commissar Wahoo wrote:
We have in excess of 300 million personal weapons in the hands of the populace.

Yet another example that the gubmint has not the vaguest clue what it is talking about. "Yea we got 'em, all 300 million of 'em". Yea, right. Does that include re-education of tool and die makers with the knowledge to make a weapon? What about a zip gun? A piece of pipe, a nail and a spring and you're pretty much good to go. No commercial ammo available? Go old school with black powder and nails. For anyone with a well-worn copy of the 'Anarchist Cookbook', access to the internet or a little imagination this is just a bump in the road. That genie is out of the bottle. Confiscate guns, Right! Gun buy-backs where someone turns in grandpa's old WWll pistol (usually something like a Walther PPK, P38 or in one case a MP-38 Schmeisser) for a $50 Luby's coupon. "We got .0.001% of them and we'll get the other 99.999% later." Just like Dear Leader's green energy equine excrement. By the year 20-blah-blah he wants to have 15,000 electric cars on the road. Boy will that make a difference. What about the 350 million other fossil fuel burning vehicles out there now? Not even considering lawn mowers, weed eaters, back hoes, etc... and where does the electricity come from? Usually from burning fossil fuel. Until I get my solar powered chain saw that works on a cloudy day, stick to what you know which seems to be limited to buying votes with stolen money and blaming someone else. A weapon(gun) has never killed anyone. It is just a tool, the one that pulls the trigger is the killer. I got'em, come get'em Dear Leader. p.s.-bill ayers, what a worthless piece of shit! Advocates killing your parents but stick a weapon in his face and see what happens.

Anyer Marx wrote:We can't forget Ft. Hood. Obviously our military personnel cannot be trusted with high capacity magazines either. Put the FN Five-seven on the list Joe!

Makes no sense either. I can have 3-10 round mags but I can not have 1-30 round mag. "We'll get him while he's changing mags". Brilliant!

"...they have different content, tailored to their respective audiences) reveals a radically apolitical tabloid with a wild mix of real news, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and contradictory opinions, topped with headlines whose main function is to attract search engine traffic."

Does this not remind us of our glorious red NYT? Why, yes it does. How proud they must be.

I am thinking dear leaders plot is thickening (much like his blood) and he will be making a move to deem all guns illegals (expect for the elite... which brings to mind, are we his faithful, loyal followers part of the 'elite'????) The "bitter clingers" will be even more bitter and more clinging, will they not. With luck and hard work, dear leader Hussein might get the blood flood he has been seeking all these years. ah, yes, there is nothing like a crisis, contrived or otherwise!

A Twelver expecting the Mahdi any day Ahmadinejad can have nukes, but I can't have magazines of a capacity.

Gore prefers to sell to the Wahabbis but not Beck - and that dude was 500 Florida votes from becoming President.

History can be a mean, cynical nasty SOB. But give us a break!

Ah, as a reactionary once said, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" which is why we now have to go to all this trouble to re-write it. What's more, we must spend money we have just printed to give them free phones instead of buying better-quality vodka for ourselves. Damn.

I'm detecting a tad of discord among the comrades on MSLSD today. 8am-Up with Comrade Hayes (The most ridiculous thought provoking news program on cable news) and
10am-Czarina Harris-Perry are now questioning, ever so carefully, the Progressive authenticity of Dear Leader regarding matters of gun legislation and monetary policy. This may must soon lead to denouncement and/or banishment from our official Progressive propaganda news outlet. I suggest a bit of re-education MAY be in order.

Speaking of disarming pictures -


The Religion of Peace™ will never prevail until Israel disarms its citizens

Comrade Square, I have seen many of these so-called "photographs of female IDF soldiers," all of which depict vibrant, attractive young women with assault weapons and the like. Obviously, this can be nothing more than reich wing propaganda.

THIS photo:

is much more representative of the female >spit< IDF soldier. You can read about them and their ongoing atrocities here.

Red Square wrote:Speaking of disarming pictures -


The Religion of Peace™ will never prevail until Israel disarms its citizens

Jesus H Christ

Before I could get my weapon drawn a round went off in the chamber.

Sgt. NeoTroll wrote:

Red Square wrote:Speaking of disarming pictures -


The Religion of Peace™ will never prevail until Israel disarms its citizens

Jesus H Christ

Before I could get my weapon drawn a round went off in the chamber.

Umm Sarge, I think you need to visit this website below.

https://www.stayerect.com/premature-ejaculation-ms.html

But we can keep a secret here at the cube. HEHEHEHEHE

Just found this one - never saw it before:

"Peasants, give your guns to Red Army soldiers! They will do a better job protecting you, your property, and your land!"

...as we know, this isn't exactly how it went.

Oh, but Comrade Director, it worked exactly that way! The Red Army was eventually able to protect the land from the Masses who might abuse it. We do the same thing here...

I just discovered that a Russian translation of this article was published in a popular Russian website InoSMI.ru on 1/14/2013. It was picked from the American Thinker along with their logo, sans the illustrations. The translation is rather awkward, apparently made with some electronic translator and then slightly edited. My writing style in Russian is better than that.

As of now it has 88 comments (some are sane, but mostly made by some runaway gang of paranoid schizophrenics who assume this article is a paid job by the US military-industrial complex).

I learned about this from our reader in Chicago, who found this translation printed in a local Russian-language newspaper Reklama, with full credit to me but no prior request for a permission to publish, nor honorarium.

«Правда», оружие и Америка ("American Thinker", США)

Comrades, it is obvious that the constitution has placed serious limitations on the government's ability to keep you and your children safe. Besides a total ban and confiscation of all privately owned firearms, the state needs the ability of conducting warrant-less searches and indefinite detainment of those who would hide weapons and endanger the kollektive.Throughout history, police states have a proven track record of keeping the law abiding safe by eliminating troublemakers. You all trust the state to provide a government program to solve our problems, now is the time to trust completely and let Dear Leader Comrade President take on the role of father and take care of his children.

Ushanka tip to Mi: from The Moscow News:

Taking center stage at the 17th Congress of the Communist Party, a representative of the Red Army presented Joseph Stalin with a sniper rifle as a gift. The party leader took the gun and, with a playful grin, pointed it at the assembled party elite.

In 1934, the moment might still have seemed funny. But by the end of Stalin's reign, almost half of those who witnessed his morbid sense of humor that day would be shot.

Mi's comment: New York Times opens an internal investigation into mis-attribution of the Obama-with-a-rifle picture.