[HN Gopher] Mini-States and Micro-Sovereignty: Democracies in Ea...
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       Mini-States and Micro-Sovereignty: Democracies in East Central
       Europe, 1918-1923
        
       Author : benbreen
       Score  : 75 points
       Date   : 2023-04-18 02:11 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cambridge.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cambridge.org)
        
       | nsajko wrote:
       | Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Cadres
        
       | hackandthink wrote:
       | In western parts of Germany something similar happened, for
       | example the Bavarian Soviet Republic. And it ended similar:
       | nationalist troops killed the people.
       | 
       | (though it was much worse in East Central Europe: Polish-Soviet
       | War, Ukrainian War of Independence)
       | 
       | "In the first months of 1919, in the wake of uprisings, soviet
       | republics were proclaimed in Bremen, Munich and Saxony. The
       | deployment of Freikorps troops put a violent end to them by the
       | beginning of May of that year at the latest."
       | 
       | https://www.bpb.de/themen/deutschlandarchiv/54085/raete-im-d...
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Soviet_Republic
        
         | lo_zamoyski wrote:
         | Not sure what you're claiming here:
         | 
         | > And it ended similar: nationalist troops killed the people
         | [...] though it was much worse in East Central Europe: Polish-
         | Soviet War, Ukrainian War of Independence
         | 
         | The Polish-Soviet War was not a war of "nationalists killing
         | the people". It was a war to prevent the spread of communism
         | and Soviet imperialism. Not only did Poles by and large reject
         | communism (communist sympathy was higher in Germany, for
         | example), and Soviet communism even more so, but Lenin saw
         | Poland as the corridor through which the Red Army would need to
         | pass to support revolution further West.
        
         | rebolek wrote:
         | not sure who were the nationalists, but soviets were killing
         | people by millions, making nazis jealous how effective were
         | they with killing
        
           | nsajko wrote:
           | > not sure who were the nationalists
           | 
           | See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps
           | 
           | > soviets were killing people by millions, making nazis
           | jealous how effective were they with killing
           | 
           | You're confusing the USSR ("the soviets") with
           | socialism/communism/other stuff in general.
        
         | odiroot wrote:
         | > (though it was much worse in East Central Europe: Polish-
         | Soviet War, Ukrainian War of Independence)
         | 
         | Poland was actually lucky, because the Soviets lost. At least
         | back then, until they attacked us again in 1939.
        
       | Haga wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | baybal2 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | fogzen wrote:
       | Interesting. Scale is an often overlooked aspect of politics. On
       | this point, I highly recommend "The Breakdown of Nations" by
       | Leopold Kohr, which is an entire treatise on the (negative)
       | effects of size on nations.
        
       | denton-scratch wrote:
       | I've been reading Bloodlands, by Prof. Tim Snyder. I've also
       | watched his entire series of Yale lectures on Ukrainian history.
       | His account is remarkable (I'm only 1/4 of the way through
       | Bloodlands).
       | 
       | He doesn't mention any of this. It seems to be a serious
       | omission.
        
         | slackfan wrote:
         | Post-1917-pre-1930-ish eastern european/north asian history in
         | general is fascinating. However, even moreso than most
         | histories, it's been politicized, warped, twisted, rewritten,
         | and wiped out by any number of ruling groups to fit their own
         | victors' version of history. It's also a political landmine
         | studying which can still get you locked up in certain parts of
         | the world, unless you do it in the _correct_ way.
        
         | mistrial9 wrote:
         | The paper begins by saying that this viewpoint is a new and
         | unexplored academic angle. If you think of a "cathedral versus
         | the bazaar" point of view, and that academics are often
         | employed by the cathedral owners, then a missing grass-roots
         | point of view is no surprise.
         | 
         | 20th century atrocity certainly is overwhelming to know, but it
         | was a wave not an impact from space. The history in Central
         | Asia is swarms of invaders, again and again.. it was literally
         | the winning tactic in the eyes of many over a very long time,
         | because the losers are just dead!
         | 
         | Your professor's "blood" book probably makes him some coin.
        
         | Arrath wrote:
         | An excellent, yet extremely depressing, book.
        
         | HillRat wrote:
         | These micro-republics didn't leave any lasting trace on the
         | land, unlike the successful neo-nationalist movements (e.g.,
         | Tiso's Slovak Republic) that landed on one side or another of
         | World War Two. I tend to think of them as the tail end of the
         | 19th century _kulturkampfs_ that swept nationalism,
         | clericalism, liberalism, and socialism into a ferment of
         | conflict from 1848 on; by the time Hitler rolls through, and
         | Stalin after him, most of this has been steamrolled into a
         | smaller number of national and ideological movements. Having
         | said that, viewing the invasion of Ukraine and the complex
         | political machinations of the Central European Visegrad states
         | through the lens of this time period is, I think, fruitful, and
         | explains some things (such as the Russian insistence on going
         | to war to  "defend" Russophones abroad) that are otherwise
         | unintuitive if not inexplicable to Americans and many
         | Europeans.
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-19 23:01 UTC)