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;void(0)) . . . ROMANCE see: "LOVE & MARRIAGE (OR NOT)" for related links One only needs to see a smile in a white crape bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams. --Victor Hugo (1802—1885) French poet, dramatist, and novelist. For a man, romantic love is worship. He doesn't want to do great things with a woman, he wants to do them for her. --Irma Kurtz Journalist and author, _Malespeak_ [1986] - Then I took her off her feet. I suaved her. --Mike Tyson (1966— ) American professional boxer and heavyweight champion. Comment about Robin Givens. and note: Torture, pure hell, worse than anything I could imagine. --Robin Givens on her marriage to Mike Tyson [1988] - - Because of you there's a song in my heart. Because of you my romance had its start. Because of you the sun will shine, The moon and stars will say you're mine, and never to part. I only live for your love and your kiss. It's paradise to be near you, like this. Because of you, my life is now worthwhile, And I can smile, Because of you. [. . . ] --"Because Of You" [1940 song] words and music by Arthur Hammerstein and Dudley Wilkinson - I am looking for a man who is sensitive and caring and macho in emergencies. --cartoon caption - These are entries to a competition asking for a rhyme with the most romantic first line but least romantic second line: Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss but I only slept with you, cause I was pissed. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you. But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head. Of loving beauty you float with grace If only you could hide your face. I thought that I could love no other Until, that is, I met your brother. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot This describes everything you are not. I want to feel your sweet embrace But don't take that paper bag off of your face. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes— Damn, I'm good at telling lies! Every time I see your face I wish I were in outer space. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife, Marrying you screwed up my life. I see your face when I am dreaming That's why I always wake up screaming. My love you take my breath away What have you stepped in to smell this way. My feelings for you no words can tell Except for maybe "go to hell". What inspired this amorous rhyme? Two parts vodka, one part lime. -  . . Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945) American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945]. see "POLITICS" for related links see "WAR & PEACE" for related links see "PEOPLE" for related links If anything happened to that man [Roosevelt], I couldn’t stand it. He is the truest friend, he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I have ever known. --Winston Churchill (1874—1965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955]. In Kenneth Pendar, _Adventures in Diplomacy: Our French Dilemma_ [1945]. Roosevelt is a fraud from snout to tail. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956) American journalist and literary critic. Diary [6 October 1939]. ;void(0)) ROUGHNESS . . asperity [as-PAIR-uh-tee], noun: 1. Roughness of surface; unevenness. 2. Roughness or harshness of sound; a quality that grates upon the ear. 3. Roughness of manner; severity; harshness.  ROUTE 66 . . see "TRAVEL" for related see: "THE FIFTIES" see: "MEMORIES" ROUTE 66: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/back0303.htm - He Gets His Kicks on Route 66 By Joanne Kaufman The Wall Street Journal [. . . ] The 77-year-old "all-weather" route was the first road from Chicago to Los Angeles. Before its first right-of-way was purchased, the only way west was through the northern terrain — from Chicago to Denver to San Francisco. In the '30s, Route 66 was the street of dreams for migrant workers; in the '40s, Gen. George S. Patton and his troops trained in towns along the route; in the '50s, Route 66 carried tourists to the Grand Canyon and to Disneyland, as well as workers seeking employment in California's burgeoning aerospace industry. But the advent of the interstate highway system and the speed and ease of air travel made many deep six Route 66 . Now, the Mother Road is the mother lode for those on nostalgia trips and sentimental journeys, and for those still in thrall to that quintessential American passion: the open road. [. . . ] Mr. Conkle was nine when he took his first trip on Route 66, a mostly two-lane road composed of asphalt, Portland cement and gravel that originally followed the path of the railroad. He has cherished memories of the two-headed snake, a big attraction just outside Gallup, N.M.; the concrete-thick milkshakes at Ted Drew's in St. Louis; and the peanut butter pie at the aptly named Midpoint Café in Adrian, Texas. Later, when Mr. Conkle, a former Marine, was stationed in California, he drove home to Indiana on you know what. "I think I've changed more than the road has changed," he says. "When I was young I didn't appreciate it. I just took it for granted. I enjoyed it, but it was just a way to get back and forth. But I think I wanted something to do, so about 10 years ago I went to a Route 66 Rendezvous," an annual conclave of asphalt and automobile addicts. "When I went on the road more and met foreign tourists, they were very much involved and impressed with Route 66 . Their dream had been to come and travel it, and that made me think 'do they know something I don't know,'" recalls Mr. Conkle, who became galvanized and began reading books and doing research. "When I think of Route 66 I think of my grandparents. It reminds me of the way America was. [ . . . ] . . see: "KINGS" see "PEOPLE" for other related links When I appear in public people expect me to neigh, grind my teeth, paw the ground and swish my tail — none of which is easy. --Anne, Princess Royal (1950— ) In "Observer" [22 May 1977]. ^^ Noël Coward was always ready with a wry comment apropos the grand public occasion. While watching the television coverage of the Coronation procession, he saw that the coaches carrying the dignitaries to the Abbey had their hoods up because of the rain, but the very ample Queen of Tonga persisted in waving to the crowds with the hood of her carriage down. Sitting opposite the Queen was a tiny man, less than half her size. Someone turned to Coward and asked: 'Who's that little chap with her?' Coward replied: 'That's her lunch.' --_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ [2005] Introduced by Edward Leeson, "Royalty" ^^ - At long last I am able to say a few words of my own. I have never wanted to withhold anything, but until now it has not been constitutionally possible for me to speak. A few hours ago I discharged my last duty as King and Emperor, and now that I have been succeeded by my brother, The Duke of York, my first words must be to declare my allegiance to him. This I do with all my heart. You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the Throne. But I want you to understand that in making up my mind I did not forget the country or the Empire which as Prince of Wales, and lately as King, I have for twenty-five years tried to serve. But you must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love. --Edward VIII (1894—1972) King [1936], afterwards, the Duke of Windsor. Radio broadcast following his abdication [11 December 1936]. & see: Hark the herald angels sing Mrs. Simpson's pinched our king. --anon. (Sung after Edward VIII abdicated.) - The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left — the King of England, the King of Spades, The King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds. --King Farouk (1920—1965) King of Egypt [1936-1952]. (In 1948.) ^ Francis or Franz Joseph (1830—1916), emperor of Austria [1848—1916]. The emperor was basically a simple man. On one occasion he and two companions were out hunting near Bad Ischl in Austria, dressed in hunting clothes. A passing peasant stopped his cart to offer them a lift. As they were some way from the lodge, they accepted and soon fell into conversation with their benefactor. The peasant asked one his passengers who he was. 'The king of Saxony,' was the supercilious reply. The peasant nodded and asked the next man the same question. 'The king of Bavaria,' said the second passenger. 'And you?' said the peasant, indicating Francis Joseph, 'I suppose you are the emperor of Austria?' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ There are no laurels for the lazy ... If by bad luck I am ever captured I command you — and you will answer for it with your head — that in my absence you will disregard my orders, that you will advise my brother, and that the state will stoop to no unworthy act to achieve my liberation. On the contrary, in such an event I order that even greater energy shall be displayed. --Frederick II [Frederick the Great] (1712—1786) King of Prussia [1740—1786]. (To Podewils [7 March 1741].) - If I had not been born to inherit the crown I would have been a yokel myself. --Henri IV [Henry of Naverre] (1553—1610) King of France [1589—1610]. (After the 1594 uprising.) People like you are all scoundrels. I do not mind if a hundred have hanged themselves. --Henri IV [Henry of Naverre] (1553—1610) King of France [1589—1610]. [1610], In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 380. Cohan & Major explain: The king harshly rebuffs a petitioner, brother of a woman who has hanged herself and six young children, after being made destitute by the taille and forced to sell her cow. - Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Henry IV_, pt. 2 [1597], act 3, sc. 1, l. 31 - Despite the equality which democracy seeks, it nevertheless is in constant struggle to keep up with the Joneses. We boast that we have no royalty in America, and we disdain all that it implies, but what American has ever been invited to the Court of St. James who has not accepted? And though we frown upon kings and queens, we nevertheless, have our "copper kings," our "asparagus kings" our "cotton queens," and our "Sugar Bowl queens." But it is a good and healthy sign that we never outgrow our love of fairy stories, of humor, of heroes and saints, and even of princesses. --Fulton John Sheen (1895—1979) Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular preacher to appear on television. _Life Is Worth Living_ (Fifth Series) [1957] - The king is dead — long live the king! --anon. (First used upon the death of King Charles VIII of France [1461].) --- (The following section regards Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1900—2002), who was the widow of King George VI and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II (1926— ), the present British sovereign. Following that are some thoughts about HM Queen Elizabeth II.) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother saw almost all the world's other crowns and thrones perish — those of her husband's cousins in Germany and Russia, Austria, Turkey, Italy, all the great empires. The nations dominating today's headlines — Israel and its enemies, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia — didn't exist [in 1905], nor, for that matter, did the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Kingdoms waned, but rarely rose. In a demotic age, Yankee Doodle came to London in the form of a peanut farmer who, on being presented to Her Majesty, kissed her smack on the lips. Long after the rest of the world had forgotten Jimmy Carter, the Queen Mum included him in her list of post-prandial "anti- toasts" to various bętes noires — Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe and the former U.S. President, "the only man, since the death of my dear husband, to have had the effrontery to kiss me on the mouth." --Mark Steyn (1959— ) Canadian journalist. "Detecting the steel fist beneath her pastel chiffon", ...as she put it, "The work you do is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on Earth." The Queen Mum occupied a swankier room than most and so worked hard, until the end. --ibid - When it was suggested during the worst days of WWII that she go to Canada, or at least send the two princesses there, she replied: "The children will not leave without me. I will not leave without the king. And the king will never leave." Her very long life must be regarded as a tribute to the preservative powers of gin. Several of her staff were known to be gay, and when some of them were slow to answer her request for a drink, she is reported to have said, "I don't know what you two old queens are doing, but this old queen is dying of thirst." Despite cutbacks at Buckingham Palace, the Queen Mother was allowed to carry on being transported in helicopters. "The chopper has changed my life as conclusively as that of Anne Boleyn," she commented. --selections from article by Paul Levy in the WSJ - I'm homeless and a republican. But I am here because people had respect for old King George, who was a nice man even if he was a royal. And Elizabeth was beautiful. She didn't aggravate people like the present Queen and her repulsive children. She represents the England I remember as a young woman. It was all God, Queen and country then. I'm here for the sake of nostalgia. Because it all ends here, doesn't it? --Eve, British mourner quoted in The Guardian [1 April 2002] Oh, I'm a huge fan of the monarchy," said Bruce Pope, 44, from Washington DC. "I wanted to come to say my farewells to a great lady. She was the same age as my grandmother, so I felt a connection. It's lucky, because I leave for home tomorrow, so I got to sign the book before I left — and hey, there's one of the buddies I made in the queue! Hey there! Or should I say g'day!" --another mourner quoted in same article London's East End, with its shipping docks, warehouses, ironworks and factories, was the hardest hit. It was where the poor lived, crowded together in cheap housing. The fiercest bombing was at night. Houses collapsed around families; shrapnel hit them as they ran down streets. Hundreds died nightly, and their bodies were stacked in temporary mortuaries. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, parents of the reigning Queen Elizabeth II, stayed in London. The north side of their palace was damaged by a bomb. "I'm glad we've been bombed," the queen said. "It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face." --George DeWan, "When War Comes to Your Doorstep: Londoners Who Endured the "Blitz" Identify With America's Pain" - To be, or what. --Derek Walcott (1930— ) West Indian poet and dramatist; winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Poetry. Describing Sly Stallone's version of Hamlet to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth when they were chatting about how Americans speak Shakespearean verse [1989]. She just cracked up — she's one helluva relaxed woman. --Derek Walcott, describing Her Majesty's reaction to his Shakespeare joke, quoted in Brian Hoey, _Her Majesty: Fifty Regal Years_ [2001] The former United States President George H. W. Bush recalls a visit to Buckingham Palace in 1989 when he noticed an unusual three-legged silver dish which intrigued him. "What is that?", I asked Her Majesty. She replied, "I don't know. You gave it to me" --Hoey, op. cit. - I am Xerxes, great king, king of kings, the king of all countries which speak all kinds of languages, the king of the entire big far-reaching earth. --Xerxes I (519 B.C.—465 B.C.) Persian king [486-465 B.C.]. Foundation tablet at Persepolis, in M.J. Cohan and John Major {ed.} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. (Xerxes was defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis.) TOPICAL "Royal Reprimand" _The Wall Street Journal_ [12 November 2007] Spain's King Juan Carlos is revered for his decisive role in restoring democracy in his country after the death of General Francisco Franco. Over the past quarter century, the Spanish royal has been a voice for civility and reconciliation, both in his home country and throughout the Spanish-speaking world. So it was a rebuke heard 'round the world this weekend when he told Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, "why don't you shut up," at the Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile. Mr. Chávez had gone on a rant against former Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar, calling him a "fascist" and stating that "fascists are not human. A snake is more human." Venezuelans have endured this sort of rhetoric for nine years from their strongman president, and Mr. Chavez has shown the same bullying style without rebuke at the United Nations. But the summiteers apparently had enough. Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero — who has enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Venezuelan government and is no ally of Mr. Aznar — demanded that Mr. Chávez respect the participants at the table. He reminded the Venezuelan that Mr. Aznar had been elected by the Spanish people. As he later told journalists, Mr. Chávez's words were "inappropriate and unacceptable." Mr. Chávez would have none of it and, although his microphone was turned off, tried to talk over the Spanish head of state. That's when King Juan Carlos leaned forward, looked directly at Mr. Chávez, and told him to close down his act. Mr. Zapatero finished his dress down of Mr. Chávez and the room erupted in applause. The king rose and walked out shortly thereafter, having made his point in defense of civil discourse. ----- diadem [DY-uh-dem], noun: 1. A crown. 2. An ornamental headband worn (as by Eastern monarchs) as a badge of royalty. 3. Regal power; sovereignty; empire; -- considered as symbolized by the crown. transitive verb: To adorn with a diadem; to crown. Ex.: The sky above is blue; the many clouds -- sun-drenched, gilded, lively -- have moved down, settled like a great diadem on the broad ring of the encircling mountains. --Milan Kundera, "Love's labour's lost," _The Guardian_ [2 November 2002] royalist [roy`al-ist] An adherent of a king (as of Charles I. in England, or of the Bourbons in France); one attached to monarchical government. ;void(0)) RUDENESS . . see "HURTING (SOMEONE)" for related links I am one of those people who have to be known exactly the right amount to be liked. I am standoffish with strangers, a form of shyness which whisky cured when I was still able to take it in the requisite quantities. I am terribly blunt, having been raised in the English tradition which permits a gentleman to be almost infinitely rude if he keeps his voice down. It depends on a complete assurance that a punch on the nose will not be the reply. --Raymond Chandler (1888—1959) American writer of detective fiction. Letter to Charles Morton [1 January 1948]. No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British which amazes the Americans, who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute. --Paul Gallico (1897—1976) American sportswriter and novelist. _New York Times_ [14 January 1962] Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture. --Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774) Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and dramatist. Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. --Eric Hoffer (1902—1983) American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982. _The Passionate State of Mind_ [1954] - 1. Hilaire Belloc was kneeling at Mass in Westminster Cathedral. A sacristan whispered to him, 'Excuse me, sir, we stand here.' Belloc: 'Go to hell.' Sacristan: 'I'm sorry, sir, I didn't know you were Catholic.' 2.G.K. Chesterton was a vast man physically — over twenty stone, say three hundred pounds. During the war a patriotic lady accused him of cowardice. Patriotic lady: 'Why aren't you out at the Front?' Chesterton: 'Madame, if you will go round to the side, you'll see that I am.' The stories are typical — Belloc rude to the polite stranger, Chesterton polite to the rude stranger. --F. J. Sheed _The Church and I_ [1976] - It is a lovely disposition and a most valuable one, that can brush away indignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features of an experience. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. - Sometimes being a bitch is all you have to hold on to. --Tony Gilroy (screenplay) "Dolores Claiborne" [1995] Spoken by Kathy Bates. ----- blackguard [BLAG-uhrd], noun: 1. A rude or unscrupulous person; a scoundrel. 2. A person who uses foul or abusive language. brusque (adjective) [bręsk] Rudely curt, offensively blunt, gruff, or short with someone. churlish (adjective) [chęrl-ish] Like a churl: rude, burly, boorish, vulgar; difficult to work or communicate with. contumely [kon-TYOO-muh-lee]; noun: 1. Rudeness or rough treatment arising from haughtiness and contempt; scornful insolence. 2. An instance of contemptuousness in act or speech. effrontery [ih-FRUN-tuh-ree], noun: Insulting presumptuousness; shameless boldness; insolence. ;void(0)) RULES . . see: "CIVILIZATION" see: "DISCIPLINE" We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules. --Alan Bennett (1934— ) English actor and playwright. There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the general rule. --Samuel Butler (1835—1902) English novelist, essayist, and critic. There ain't no rules around here! We're trying to accomplish something! --Thomas Alva Edison (1847—1931) American inventor. - Benjamin Franklin began his quest [to attain moral perfection] around the time he ended his unsatisfactory visits to Presbyterian services and started spelling out his own religious creed. The endeavor was typically pragmatic. It contained no abstract philosophizing nor any reference to religious doctrines. As he later noted with pride, it was not merely an exhortation to be virtuous, it was also a practical guide on how to achieve that goal. First he made a list of twelve virtues he thought desirable, and to each he appended a short definition: Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; (i.e., waste nothing). Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. Sincerity: Use no harmful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation. A Quaker friendly "kindly" informed him that he had left something off: Franklin was often guilty of "pride," the friend said, citing many examples, and could be "overbearing and rather insolent." So Franklin added "humility" to be the thirteenth virtue on his list. "Imitate Jesus and Socrates." --Walter Isaacson (1952— ) American journalist and author. _Benjamin Franklin: [1706—1790] An American Life_ [2003], Chapter 4 - The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by other people's rules, while quietly playing by your own. --Michael Korda _Success_ [1977] The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121—180) Roman emperor [161—180] and Stoic philosopher. ----- proscribe (verb) [pro-'skrIb ] To prohibit or forbid as a bad practice. . . see: "GOSSIP" see "HURTING (SOMEONE)" for other related links see "COMMUNICATION" for other related links Rumor is a pipe, blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, and of so easy and so plain a stop that the blunt monster with uncounted heads, the still-discordant wavering multitude, can play upon it. --William Shakespeare (1564—1616) English dramatist. _Henry IV_, pt II There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink. --Booth Tarkington (1869—1946) American novelist and dramatist. _Penrod_ [1914] A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way. --John Tudor . . see "ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES" for related links - Many writers have described the Tarahumaras and their incredible running abilities. These Indians from Mexico routinely run distances covered only by the most advanced ultra-marathoners from north of the border. Legend has it that a marathon promoter once invited a team of Tarahumaras to his race. When the Indians learned how short the distance was, they sent only women. --Joe Henderson In Dick and Mary Lutz, _The Running Indians: The Tarahumara of Mexico_ [1989], "Foreword") The Tarahumara are amazing endurance runners. They may run 200 miles over a period of three days and nights. To this day, one of the methods used by the Tarahumara to hunt deer is to chase the animal until it drops from exhaustion. Rabbits and wild turkeys are also hunted in this manner. Within recent decades the Tarahumara were sometimes hired by nearby ranchers to chase and capture wild horses. --ibid. Probably the longest run (not race) on record is that of a Tarahumara man running nearly 600 miles in five days to deliver an important message. --ibid. - . . Images of the Soviet Union: http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/art/photography/index.htm see: "COLD WAR" see: "COMMUNISM" see "PLACES" for related links I did more for the Russian serf in giving him land as well as personal liberty, than America did for the negro slave set free by the proclamation of President Lincoln. --Alexander II [Aleksandr Nikolayevich] (1818—1881) Emperor of Russia [1855—1881]. Interview of 17 August 1879, in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 676. Cohan & Major add: The Russian serfs were landless peasants in bondage to their masters for life. They were freed by the 'Tsar Liberator', Alexander II, in 1861, the year before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The Lord God has given us vast forests, immense fields, wide horizons, surely we ought to be giants, living in such a country as this. --Anton Chekhov (1860—1904) Russian dramatist and short-story writer. _The Cherry Orchard_ [1904] I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. --Winston Churchill (1874—1965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955]. Radio broadcast [1 October 1939]. One day Mikoyan and I were taking a walk around the grounds and Stalin came out on the porch of the house. He seemed not to notice Mikoyan and me. 'I'm finished,' he said to no one in particular. 'I trust no one, not even myself.' --Nikita Khrushchev (1894—1971) Soviet statesman, Premier [1958—1964]. _Khruschev Remembers_ [1971] pp. 306-307 - In the terrible spring of 1933 I saw people dying from hunger. I saw women and children with distended bellies, turning blue, still breathing but with vacant, lifeless eyes. And corpses — corpses in ragged sheepskin coats and cheap felt boots; corpses in peasant huts, in the melting snow of the old Vologda, under the bridges of Kharkov ... I saw all this and did not go out of my mind or commit suicide. --Lev Kopelev, a Party activist, The Education of a True Believer [1977] p.12 & see The 'famine' is mostly bunk. --Walter Duranty to H.R. Knickerbocker [27 June 1933]; In S. J. Taylor _Stalin's Apologist_ [1990] p. 210. In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 738. Cohan & Major explain: Duranty was Moscow correspondent of the New York Times and an uncritical admirer of Stalin. Duranty & the famine - - All educational work in the Soviet Republic of workers and peasants, in the field of political education in general and in the field of art in particular, should be imbued with the spirit of the class struggle being waged by the proletariat for the successful achievement of the aims of its dictatorship. --V.I. Lenin (1870—1924) Russian revolutionary and first head of the Soviet state (1917—1924). [8 October 1920] You must ... *instantly* introduce mass terror, *shoot and transport* hundreds of prostitutes who get the soldiers drunk, ex-officers, etc. Not a minute to be wasted ... You must act at full stretch: mass searches. Executions for possession of weapons. Mass deportations of Mensheviks and unreliable elements. --V.I. Lenin (1870—1924) Russian revolutionary and first head of the Soviet state (1917—1924). [Telegram of 9 August 1918.] - Whoever has really seen Russia will find himself content to live anywhere else. It is always good to know that a society exists where no happiness is possible because, by a law of nature, man cannot be happy unless he is free. --Astolphe Louis Leonard, Marquis de Custine (1790—1857) French writer, playwright, poet and traveler. _La Russia en 1839_ "Peterhof, July 23, 1839" - The Soviet troops are assisting the Hungarian people to retain their independence from imperialism. --The London _Daily Worker_ [7 November 1956] (After the Hungarian uprising.) The Hungarian Revolution - If you think that we will ever allow anybody to speak and write anything that comes into his head, then this will never be. --V. A. Medvedev, secretary for ideology of the Leningrad party committee, to the mathematician Revolt Pimenov [July 1970] Russia has two generals in whom she can confide — Generals Janvier [January] and Février [February]. --Nicholas I (1796—1855) Russian emperor from 1825. Attributed, in "Punch" [10 March 1855]. In the current decade [1961—1970] the Soviet Union, in creating the material and technical basis of communism, will surpass the strongest and richest capitalist country, the USA, in production per head of population; the people's standard of living and their cultural and technical standards will improve substantially; everyone will live in easy circumstances; all collective and state farms will become highly productive and profitable enterprises; the demand of the Soviet people for well-appointed housing will, in the main, be satisfied; hard physical work will disappear; the USSR will have the shortest working day. --Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, adopted by the 22nd Party Congress [31 October 1961]; in _New York Times [29 November 1961]. If Russia chooses to develop purely on her own line and to resist the growth of liberalism, then she may put off the day of reckoning; but she cannot ultimately avert it, and ... she will sometime experience a real terror which will make the French Revolution pale. --Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919) American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909]. To Cecil Spring Rice [13 August 1897], in Elting Morison (ed.) _The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt_ v. 1 [1951] p.647. With a rumble and a roar, an iron curtain is descending on Russian history. --Vasilii Rozanov (1856—1919) Russian writer and philosopher. _Apocalypse of Our Time_ [1918] - For most people in the West, the word "gulag" refers to the system of forced labor camps that entrapped millions of citizens of the former Soviet Union. Begun under Lenin but vastly expanded under Stalin, the Gulag (Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1973 book, "The Gulag Archipelago," gave full currency to the term) comprised thousands of prisons, camps and exile communities. It was intended to isolate the regime's opponents, real and imagined, and to inflict punishment. It also served the country's economy, providing workers for mines, timber harvesting and construction. Lynne Viola's "The Unknown Gulag" reminds us that, before Stalin began his mass roundups in the mid-1930s, a program of forced collectivization was already devastating the Soviet countryside. The program was intended to consolidate roughly 25 million individual peasant households into collective farms and thereby free up labor for industrial work in the cities. Stalin believed that, among the peasants, the land-owning kulaks constituted a class enemy — Lenin had called them "callous, savage exploiters." They would have to be separated from the other peasants to ensure the success of collectivization. The kulaks and their families made up about a fifth of the country's peasant class. In 1930, the regime began deporting about two million of them to "special settlements" in the northern territories, the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Far East. It was Stalin's first act of mass terror. "The brutality and senselessness of dekulakization," writes Ms. Viola, "created an impression of rupture . . . as the peasant world was turned upside down." Party cadres would descend on villages "like the troops of an invading army, threatening, destroying, stealing, and arresting." There were incidents of rape and murder. Rounded up in their villages and deprived of their possessions, the kulaks and their families were transported under armed guard to remote locations, where they were expected to build barracks and begin working in forests or industrial enterprises. But the regime failed to provide adequate food, shelter or medical care. Resettled peasants were reduced to eating "food surrogates," as one official reported, referring to grass, roots and bark. The mortality rates were staggering, particularly for the children, who succumbed to epidemics of typhus and measles. Ms. Viola quotes from letters (intercepted by Soviet officials) expressing despair and making pleas for assistance from relatives back home. The whole experiment proved to be "a human catastrophe and economic boondoggle," writes Ms. Viola. Historians have long been aware of the scale of collectivization and the exile of the kulaks. But "The Unknown Gulag" provides the human voices that were secreted away for decades in formerly closed archives. Ms. Viola's painstaking research lays the foundation for a compelling and, in certain ways, surprising narrative. The regime knew about the tragic effects of collectivization. Party bureaucrats reported to Moscow on the epidemics that ravaged the population, the inability of sick and famished adults to work, the lack of schools for the children, and the frequent acts of defiance against such brutality. Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, privately complained about the plight of the children. In 1931, Nikolai Ezhov, who later became head of the Soviet secret police, submitted candid reports about the "horrendous conditions" faced by the resettled peasants. And Genrikh Iagoda, who headed the secret police at the time, insisted on the need for housing, schools and hospitals. But the system, as Ms. Viola writes, proved "impervious to reform." One party secretary, Sergei Bergavinov, who was in charge of the northern territories, was appalled at the conditions but preferred to play down reports of suffering. Another party official, Mikhail Tolmachev, sought to document how many peasants had been "incorrectly exiled" and complained bitterly of the hardships they endured. Stalin and the Politburo had little patience for Tolmachev's appeals, and he was soon stripped of authority. It is a vivid testament to Stalin's cruel logic that both Bergavinov and Tolmachev were to be arrested and executed in 1937, the year of the Great Terror. Even after Stalin's death in 1953, Soviet leaders could not acknowledge the injustice that had been done to the peasants. When Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in his famous "secret speech" in February 1956, he failed to include the deportation of the kulaks among the dictator's many crimes. But collectivization laid the groundwork for the full authority of the secret police, the Gulag's system of forced labor, the devastation of Soviet agriculture and the famine that followed from it. No wonder Khrushchev chose not to mention it. To do so would have required exposing, in the so-called workers' state, a full-scale assault on the country's population. --Joshua Rubenstein "The Crimes of the Countryside" Reviewing Lynne Viola's _The Unknown Gulag_ [2007] in _The Wall Street Journal_ [26 April 2007]. (See Stalin quote below.) - - Tomorrow I leave the land of hope [Russia] and return to our Western countries of despair. --George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.] & see: Soviet Russia represents a new civilization and a new culture with a new outlook on life, involving a new pattern of behavior alike in personal conduct and in the relation of the individual to the community; all of which I believe is destined to spread, owing to its superior intellectual and ethical fitness, to many other countries in the course of the next hundred years. --Beatrice Webb [née Potter] (1858—1943) English Socialist economist. Diary entry [28 July 1932]. & see: Russia proves that you can change human nature sufficiently in one generation ... these kids despise a business man ... Service for profit is a sham ... I believe they will make a race, the meanest of which will be as noble as the best men of our day. --Lincoln Steffens (1866—1936) American journalist. In _The Letters of Lincoln Steffens_ v. 2 [1938], pp.627-628. & see: In the abominable distress of the present world now Russia's Plans seem to me salvation ... the miserable arguments of its enemies, far from convincing me, make my blood boil. --Andre Gide (1869—1951) on 23 April 1932; French novelist and critic who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947. & see: The Soviet labour camp provided a freedom for its inmates not usual in our own prisons in this country. --Pat Sloan British communist, _Russia Without Illusions_ [1938] & see: Fear haunts workers in a capitalist land. Fear of dismissal, fear that a thousand workless men stand outside the gate eager to get his job, breaks the spirit of a man and breeds servility. Fear of unemployment, fear of slump, fear of trade depression, fear of sickness, fear of an impoverished old age lie with crushing weight on the mind of the worker ... Nothing strikes the visitor to the Soviet Union more forcibly than the absence of fear. --Rev. Hewlett Johnson _The Socialist Sixth of the World_ [1939]. The previous six entries are from M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 744-745. - The small hall echoed with stormy applause, rising to an ovation! ... However, who would dare to be the *first* to stop? ... After eleven minutes the director of the paper factory assumed a business-like expression and sat down in his seat ... That same night the factory director was arrested [and] his interrogator reminded him: 'Don't ever be the first to stop applauding!' --Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918—2008) Russian novelist. _The Gulag Archipelago_ [1999 edn.] pp.27-28. - Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union --Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879—1953), Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death. Now we are able to carry on a determined offensive against the kulaks, eliminate them as a class ... It is ridiculous and foolish to discourse at length on dekulakization. When the head is off one does not mourn for the hair. --Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879—1953), Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death. In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 737. Cohan & Major note: The kulaks, the richer peasants, were now seen as the enemy of the state and the most serious obstacle to socialization of the economy. & see The 'kulak' child was loathsome, the young 'kulak' girl was lower than a louse. They looked on the so called 'kulaks' as cattle, swine, loathsome, repulsive. They had no souls; they stank; they all had venereal diseases; they were enemies of the people and exploited the labor of others. --Vasily Grossman _Forever Flowing_ [1972] - 'So you've been over to Russia?' said Bernard Baruch, and I answered very literally, 'I have been over into the future and it works.' --Lincoln Steffens (1866—1936) American journalist. In _The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens_ [1931], v. 2, p. 79 [conversation in April 1919]. There are today two great peoples on the earth who, setting off from different points of departure, seem to be advancing towards the same goal: they are the Russians and the Anglo-Americans ... Each of them seems to be summoned by a secret plan of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world. --Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859) French historian and politician. _Democracy in America_ [1835] bk I, pt. 2, ch. 10 Freedom of assembly is granted, but the assemblies are surrounded by the military. Freedom of speech is granted, but censorship exists as before. Freedom of knowledge is granted, but the universities are occupied by troops. Inviolability of the person is granted, but the prisons are overflowing, --Leon Trotsky (1879—1940) Russian revolutionary. Referring to the October Manifesto of 1905, in Sidney Harcave _First Blood_ [1964] p. 244. If someone rapes a boyar's [member of the old aristocracy's] daughter or a boyar's wife [then he is to pay] 5 grivnas [coins] of gold for the dishonour, and 5 grivnas of gold to the bishop; and if she be [a daughter or a wife] of lesser boyars 1 grivna of gold, and 1 grivna of gold to the bishop ... [if she be a daughter or wife] of common people, 15 grivnas [of fur] to her and 15 grivnas [of fur] to the bishop. --Yaroslav I {Yaroslav the Wise} (980—1054) Grand prince of Kiev. In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. - Every country has its own constitution; ours is absolutism moderated by assassination. --anon. Ernst Frederich Herbert, quoting an "intelligent Russian" in _Political Sketches of the State of Europe 1814-1867_ [1868]. end page | RABBITS - RAIN | RAP - READING | REAGAN (RONALD) - RECOGNITION | RED HEADS - RELIEF | RELIGION - PAGE 1 (A-M) | RELIGION - PAGE 2 (N-Z) | REMEMBERING - REPORTERS | REPUTATION - RESPONSIBILITY | REST - REWARD | RICH (THE) - RIGHTEOUS | RIGHTS - ROLLER COASTERS | ROMANCE - RUSSIA | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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