As the twig is (violently) bent . . .

As a twig is bent, so shall the tree grow.

In 1917, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik revolutionaries  launched an armed insurrection to overthrow the fledgeling post-Czarist government of Russia; the Bolsheviks imposed a Communist dictatorship.
Lenin’s very forceful leadership extinguished what would have been a more democratic form of government. Up until the moment when the Bolsheviks grabbed control, there was a deliberative congress, composed of several political parties.
Lenin’s strong-man tactics nipped-in-the-bud that nascent Russian representative  congress. From the moment of Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ commandeering of the revolution, the emerging Soviet regime was fatefully routed into an tyrannical authoritarian path—in spite of the supposed “masses,” who would have--or so it was assumed according to Marxist doctrine-- established a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The dictatorship that became entrenched following Lenin’s bully tactics became an actual “dictatorship” controlled one man--Vladimir Lenin.
The subsequent development of the Soviet State never escaped dictatorial  control by (first) Lenin, then (second) Stalin, until Stalin died in 1953.

I recently watched an excellent documentary series on Amazon:
Red Chapters: Turning Points in the History of Communism.
This 6-part work of historical video includes, in its first two episodes, a very informative and concise explanation of the fatefully oppressive forces that were set in motion in St. Petersburg (Petrograd), beginning on the night of October 24, 1917.

At that nocturnal turning point, the Bolsheviks were absconding control of an emerging popular revolution. They wrested power from a multi-partied congress and dumped it into the hands of the dictator, Vladimir Lenin.
According to Red Chapters narrator Daniel Evans, on the fateful night of October 24, 1917 . . .

“Lenin’s left-wing delegates doubted the delegates’ resolve to oust (provisional government head Alexander) Kerensky.” . . .
“Paradoxically, Lenin did not want the Congress to vote for Soviet power. A ‘yes’ vote by the ballot box would translate into a coalition government, in which the Bolsheviks would be only one of many parties represented” (in that congress.) Lenin would not be the central figure. He might not even get into the cabinet . . . But if he seized power before the congress met, he could dictate the terms of government and open the way to a Bolshevik dictatorship.”
“Lenin harangued the party members to seize power.” 

Red Chapters scholar-contributor Orlando Figes clarifies:

“Everything suggests that what he (Lenin) wanted was a Bolshevik dictatorship from the start, and that’s precisely why it was so important for him to seize power before the congress opened, to provoke the other socialist parties to walking out in protest.”

Red Chapters narrator Daniel Evans continues their account of what happened on that fateful night:

“ (Julius) Martov, the leader of the Menshevik party, proposed the formation of a coalition Soviet government. His proposal was greeted with a great cheer, and passed without a vote.
But this was not the Soviet power Lenin had intended.”

Leon Trotsky, Lenin's #2 revolutionary intimidator, shouted down  Menshevik party leader Julius Martov. As Martov was taking leave of the assembly room, Trotsky commanded:
“Go where you belong, into the dustbin of history.”

Julius Martov headed for the back door. Here's the video overlay as Martov's face appears in the Red Chapters documentary:



Red Chapters Narrator Daniel Evans explains,

“Walking toward the door, Martov warned the remaining delegates, ‘One day, you will understand the crime in which you are taking part.’ ”

And it was indeed a crime, which would be cruelly perpetrated for several generations upon the entirety of the Russian people.
Ultimately, Lenin’s strong-arm tactics dictated the oppression by which  Kerensky, and later many others, were ousted. By the same means, Trotsky would also later be ostracized.  By 1938 fellow-dissident-leaders Liev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev would likewise be purged out by Stalin’s post-Lenin manipulations.
The Lenin-Stalin hegemony became the dark heart and soul of Soviet oppression in the USSR for many decades to come.

Lenin imposed his dictatorial will by violent rejection of what would have been a nascent representative government. After Lenin’s death, Stalin continued and extended the pattern of tyranny; he wrested control of their dictatorial  party machine and established hundreds of gulag prisons where millions perished.
In the Russian revolution, Bolshevik violence begat a very long legacy of USSR violence and oppression.

Government reaps what government sows.
As the twig is violently bent, so shall the tree distortedly grow.
As societal control is established through tyrannical cruelty and violence, government tyranny expands accordingly--by the extension of force and violence.
The American revolution, on the other hand, brought forth a bi-cameral representative democracy with judicial oversight.

Liberty begat liberty. Lawful rule begat Rule of Law (not dictatorial tyranny.)
A nation reaps what it sows.
As the twig is bent, so shall the tree grow.
In Russia's case, Lenin's dictatorial tyranny brought forth an abusive system of imprisonment.

We Americans should help the Russians to overcome their past mistakes of Lenin and Stalin.

Glass half-Full

The Fierce Circle of Power

Power in the modern State/Nation/Union runs around in a big circle.

As in a big atom-smasher, where charged-up sub-atomic particles race to oblivion, or to wherever it is that electrons and protons and quarks and neutrinos and cheerios go when they manifest at the speed of light transforming between energy and matter . . . between things falling apart and things hanging together. . .

Power in the modern State cycles around, and is transformed, into greater and greater levels of constructivity. And, unfortunately, destructivity.

On one side of the Circle is Left, and on the other is Right.

The two sides meet at top and bottom.  At these two polarities—top and bottom—Left and Right merge together in a region  where Left and Right are indistinguishable, for instance . . .

A Government in which Democrat and Republican allow neutrally pragmatic institutions for the sake of productivity and increase.

A State in which Socialist and Capitalist tolerate similar policies that do not violate  their diverging identities.

A Regime where  Left and Right achieve tolerance, mimicking each other in their tactics.

Now looking back, a lifetime ago . . .

At the top, leaders and their agents at the peak of diplomacy met with the other side to do business, but unknowingly made arrangements that passively allow harm to all the citizens of the world who would soon get caught in the crossfire.

And a few years later. . .

An Agreement in which Communist and Fascist coexisted, militarily, for about two years, by means of a sham treaty . . .

A Treaty in which, 80 years ago, a Communist and a Nazi tyranny attacked and plundered the Polish nation that lay between them.

Then, years after that initial double-sided invasion . . .

Allied  armies later penetrated the morass of Power, bringing to light of day the deplorable bottom where Nazi concentration camps were found,  and later, Communist gulags. These hellhole prisons were established by both sides, for purposes of controlling both their peoples by means of the same criminally cruel imprisonments and executions.

Because Left and Right made no difference in their tortuous abuses of mankind.

At that low point, persecution, torture, imprisonment, pain and death are the same whether they’re inflicted by a damn Communist or a damn Nazi.

More generally, however. . .

These days, at the Top

of our hypothetical circle we catch sight of moderate players who manage to do their moderating thing  in spite of the treacherous slippery slope curvature of the two sides.

And at the Bottom—in the pit of both sides’ dubious or even despicable practices, the tactical crimes common to both extremities are occasionally uncovered, identifiable as the same  atrocities.

Because Left and Right make no difference, at their extremities, in their manipulations and abuses of mankind.

At what is perhaps our present High point, everybody seems to be chugging along in a globalized quasi-peace.

But at some future a Low point, persecution, torture, imprisonment, pain and death will be the same whether they’re inflicted by a Socialist or a Fascist, a Democrat or a Republican,  by a whacko shootist or a jihadist terrorist.

At some other low point of history, armies representing Truth and Justice—if there is such a thing in this circle— will be required again, to blast their way into the cycle of hellish human history, and liberate those prisoners who are caught in the crossfire.

Even now, the widening gyre,  the next circle, gathers speed to ramp up to dizzying velocity, delivering at some dismal low point of human depravity a new deposit of deplorable arrests and atrocities, accumulating in the pit where innocent souls get caught in the crossfire, deprived of justice and mercy.

Beware. On the last go-round, the pit could be bottomless.

Get ready to meet your maker. If you don't acknowledge the Maker . . .well,  good luck with that. May the bird of paradise fly up your nose until it all hits the fan. 

King of Soul

Sukkot, Hawaiian style

About 3000 years ago, Moses led his people, the Hebrews, out of Egypt. The people had been oppressed under Pharoah's enslavement for a long time.

Their need to bust out of oppression had came to a certain fullness, and so Y_H the Lord appointed Moses to direct them out. By fleeing Egyptian oppression, they escaped slavery.

But their newfound freedom was no walk in the park; they soon found themselves in what seemed like a never-ending arid land of deserts and perilously adverse wilderness.

During that new phase of their development as a people, Y_H the Lord gave Moses instructions and laws that would enable them to live together as an independent people, and ultimately establish themselves among the nations.

Their God-given set of laws included the well-known--now infamous--Ten Commandments. But those commands were only the first of many, many more laws that numbered more than 600.

Among that long collection of principles for healthy, spiritual living, was an instructive celebration called Sukkot, also known as Succoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of Booths.

The Sukkot was a celebratory commemoration by which Y_H ensured that they would not forget the Egyptian oppressions from which they had recently escaped.

Instructions given in the 23rd chapter of Leviticus include an annual arrangement, during harvest time, of leaves and branches to form numerous huts as temporary dwelling places for each family. The Hebrews would, by living in these tabernacles (sometimes called "booths"), call to remembrance the poverty and oppression from which they had escaped through their Exodus from Egypt.

In subsequent history, the Hebrews came to be known as Jews, because, many centuries later, their last vestige as a landed nation (until 1948) had been established in the land called Judea, along the Jordan River.

Some Jews and Christians, even today, observe the Feast of Succoth ceremonially by constructing and camping in palm-thatched huts such as those Hebrews of old might have done in the wilderness of Sinai.

I have never seen such a hut or tabernacle, but I have read about it in the Old Testament. I have also, from time to time, heard or read of Jews and/or Christians who still celebrate the Feast of Sukkot in this way.

A few days ago, I was reminded of Succoth while visiting the big island called Hawaii.

On the upper slopes of the volcano Mauna Kea, I saw what appeared to be a kind of hut or tabernacle that resembles the Succoth structures of ancient days.

A group of zealous Hawaiians known as We Are Mauna Kea had constructed this structure:

The Hawaiians with whom I spoke there called the hut a Hale (Ha-lay), built by human hands to commemorate their heritage of regarding the Mauna Kea volcano as a sacred place. The sacred designation of the place is now imperiled by construction of massive buildings on the peak. The large structures--some already built and others proposed--are used for purposes of scientific observation and electromagnetic data-gathering.

As I pondered this Hawaiian Hale hut, I was reminded of the Succoth hut in the ancient Hebrew scriptures.

Methinks there is something fundamentally human going on here, between the ancient Hebrew Succoth tabernacle and the legacy of Hawaiian Hale to revere Mauna Kea.

I'll call it, in both cultures, "wanting to get back to our roots."

I'd like to think that Alex Haley, author of "Roots", would agree with me. "Roots" is about African huts and heritage.

The purpose of Sukkot is remembrance of past slavery, and deliverance from those oppressions. The Hebrews were delivered from slavery, and they should never forget it.

Everybody know the Jews are unique in the history of world cultures. Here is one reason why:

The Jews, with help from Y_H the Lord, were one of the first people-groups in the world that was able to effectively retain, preserve and extend their history and their worship of God through the ages. Part of that enduring oral/written/celebratory heritage is this Succoth practice, established for purposes of not forgetting the past--not forgetting the "oppression from which we were delivered."

But the Jews are not the only people who should remember the sacred elements of their past.

Likewise, the Hawaiian Hale pictured above represents, it seems to me, a similar inclination to call forth the people's identity with their ancient culture, to remember "who we are and where we came from."

And maybe of little bit of "Don't mess with us!"

Glass half-Full