Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There was one. The Prague Spring and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 were part of it. Similar things happened in Russia. The biggest cultural change is that people stopped believing in the promise of the Revolution. After that, the Soviet Union was running on fumes. Not very long after the Awakening ended, Gorbachev came to power, and that was the beginning of the end. It could never have happened that way if people still believed they were building a workers' paradise.

Well, I looked up the Prague Spring and it does seem 2Tish. But I still have no reason to believe the Revolution was a 3T. No, a far more palatable explanation is that the 4T was 28 years long, ending in 1945 and putting Russia on the European timeline.

The thing is, in 3Ts one might expect governments to overreach and melt down, but you would NEVER expect millions of people to launch a bloody, people-powered revolution and bring power to the populace. 3Ts are full of apathy and cynicism, NOT all-out revolution.

NOTE: Because of that last sentence, I see the Romanian Revolution of 1989 as a major 4T. Thus, even if Russia and much of the former Soviet states are 4T instead of 1T or 5T, Romania and probably Bulgaria definitely aren't.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

But that's not the way a 4T shapes out, further bolstering my understanding that all of these events were 3T for Russia just as they were for France, Germany, and Britain. Had Russia been in 4T, or entering 4T, in 1914, the outbreak of war would have submerged domestic disputes and rallied the country behind the Tsar. Instead, the war aggravated those disputes and led to the Tsar's overthrow, and ultimately to the Bolshevik revolution.

Russia seems to go through changes in government during Unravelings. I believe the transition from Brezhnev, to the string of ancients after Brezhnev, to Gorbachev, to Yeltsin, to Putin, also to be 3T events, a decay of public order and not a strenghtening of it (although Putin is trying to reverse the process and, with Russia entering a 4T, may succeed). Whatever form the new post-Communist government takes for the next saeculum is yet to be determined.

As a rule I separate the Russian Civil War from World War I, even if I consider the bloodletting of World War I and the incompetence of the Tsar's court strong contributors to the political collapse. Moderates like Prince Lvov and Alexander Kerensky can thrive in normal times... but 1917 in Russia was an abnormal time. Enemies changed from foreign powers to opposing sides in an extreme social divide.

You're talking about the Russian Civil War here, obviously. What you say is true, but it's also true that the civil war, along with Lenin's bad health and some other factors, prevented the Bolshevik revolution from really taking place. The plans were there, the blueprints were drawn up, but they weren't implemented until later. Russia was a backward country when Lenin took over, and it was still a backward country when he died.

Without the Russian Civil War, it is entirely possible that the more moderate figures in the Bolshevik Party would have prevailed. The economic collapse was in part a choice of the Right that hoped that mass unemployment would turn people against Lenin. That backfired. Communist mismanagement also contributed. But somehow I see the Russian Civil War as analogous in some respects to the American Civil War -- with genocidal killers on each side. It's as if the Union side chose to massacre slave-owning families and the Confederates did something parallel.

Also because the economy broke down, and because there was too much internal opposition. Typical 3T stuff; if it were a 4T, Lenin would have been replaced as unable to govern, and the defeat of the Whites would have led immediately to the implementation of the revolutionary regime (as happened in the U.S. with the defeat of the Confederacy), not to a retreat from it as actually happened.

What passed for regional distinctions in Russia were ethnic divisions that had been comparatively ill-defined before 1917. Some of those popped up only as the result of the choice between independence and Bolshevism. The aristocrats trying to hold onto lands and peasants that the Bolsheviks were in the same rural districts, and the plutocrats who owned the businesses and the workers that the Bolsheviks promised would become the true masters of the new Russia were in the same cities.

Yes, but another way to put this is that he (Stalin) actually implemented the revolution that Lenin never got further than planning.

Had Stalin been stopped, one can imagine very different results. Lenin himself began to recognize the failure of his style of socialism and instituted the New Economic Policy which had started to work -- about as Stalin consolidated power.

What I believe to have been the catalyst of Russia's last 4T was the death of Lenin in 1924. This set loose the power struggle. The Regeneracy was Stalin's consolidation of power in 1928. The Climax was the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. And the Crisis ended, I believe, in 1945 or 1946, with the end of the war and the creation of the Soviet central-European satellite empire. The Nazi invasion was the last Crisis era challenge to the Stalinist regime, and its defeat confirmed that regime in power, to persist beyond Stalin's death.

That conclusion suggests that Russia's "Crisis of 1940" corresponds roughly with that of most of the rest of the world. What is relevant today is that Russia is on roughly the same timeline as the rest of the world... and it justifies my conclusion that the collapse of the Soviet system between 1985 and 1991 was a typical 3T phenomenon. Institutions remained intact; there was no great bloodletting in civil war or mass executions; there was no religious or political persecution. Soviet institutions became those of the constituent republics without mass purges.

As for the former satellite states... there was little bloodletting except in Romania, and then only because the dictator indulged in post-seasonal behavior, calling the military to suppress a revolution after the military had changed sides.

I have a very significant problem with this: I believe Russia went through another Crisis in the period beginning from 1854 (beginning of the Crimean War), encompassing the reign of Tsar Alexander II. Wikipedia has a good article on Alexander:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia

From that article:



The reforms were extensive: the serfs were freed, the military reorganized, courts reformed, industrialization encouraged, and democratic local government (Dumas) established. The level of bloodshed and suffering may not satisfy the understanding of those who define Crisis eras along those lines, but of course I do not, so this looks very much like a 4T to me.

If it was, then 1917 falls too early from the end of the last Crisis to be a 4T itself.

I recognize the Crimean War and the emancipation of Russian serfs as part of a Crisis Era. I also consider the assassination of Alexander II as the end of the post-Crisis High. The war happened earlier than most of the other Crisis-like times in most of the world, as did the emancipation of the serfs (1861). Howe and Strauss date the Missionary Awakening to the Haymarket Riot of 1886... but I consider the assassination of Alexander II of Russia (1881) as the beginning of the corresponding 3T in Russia. That itself suggests that the cycle turned about five years earlier in Russia than it did in most of the world.

I see only 56 years between 1861 (emancipation of serfs) and 1917 (Bolshevik Revolution), which suggests too short a time between Crisis eras to fit the model. Except that that is from one end to one beginning. That's close to sixty years. 1924 (death of Lenin, ensuing chaos)? You may have more of a point. That's 63 years, which is more in line.

... I see a huge difference between the First World War in most of Europe and the experience in Russia. There were no significant changes of political structure in Britain, France, Italy, or the US. Big changes followed in Turkey almost six years after the end of the war.

Emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary were overthrown.... but former Kaisers were not killed. Political institutions changed from Imperial ones to republican ones. In Russia the entire Imperial family was massacred at the behest of Lenin.

There were, to be sure, revolutions in Germany (abortive) and one in Hungary (a Red one!) -- and the latter was crushed through foreign intervention. In both countries, anti-revolutionary governments held sway afterwards.

No country, to be sure, had a more violent 28 years than did Russia between 1917 and 1945, except perhaps China. I see three distinct waves of devastating violence in Russia characteristic of a Crisis; some would see only two (forced collectivization, WWII) some see four (WWI). It seems to be a matter of interpretation.

History is not a 'hard' science in the sense that physics or chemistry is.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Naturally a libertarian would focus on the seriously objectionable things that both Lenin and Stalin did, e.g. the use of terror. That, however, was not a major societal change; in fact, it was not a change at all. The tsars did the same thing. Forced collectivization of agriculture: that was a major societal change. Industrialization of the whole country in a space of 10 years, at huge human cost: that was a major societal change. Eradication of almost all private industry, and making Party membership define the new elite: that was a major societal change.

Lenin WANTED to do all of these things, although perhaps not quite the same way they happened. But it was Stalin who actually DID them.

Ah yes. I forgot about some of your wacky ideas about the early history of the USSR.

Suffice to say that even the non-libertarians around here focus primarily on the bad stuff that Lenin and Stalin (and Khrushchev and so forth) did. In fact, you get more positives about Stalin -- at least he did preside over the victory against the Germans -- than you will about Lenin. (Not that 'more' is particularly many).

You could perhaps call the first years of Stalin, wherein the broad plans discussed by Lenin-and-colleagues were settled and embarked upon, the last stages of the Russian 4T. Maybe you could date the end of the 4T to the first Five Year Plan in '28 or the exile of Trotsky in '29; at which point the future direction of the Soviet Union was finally and concretely settled (at least for the next twenty-thirty years). At that point you'd be splitting hairs anyway. But Stalin, from the perspective of Russian people who lived through his time (and I have been able to talk to a couple of those) was anything but a force for radical social change; his early days were of consolidation, and the rest of his reign was more or less politically just maintenance, and economically not so very different from America's post-WWII-1T (other than the whole 'communism' thing, of course..)

Originally Posted by Justin '77

But Stalin, from the perspective of Russian people who lived through his time (and I have been able to talk to a couple of those) was anything but a force for radical social change; his early days were of consolidation, and the rest of his reign was more or less politically just maintenance, and economically not so very different from America's post-WWII-1T (other than the whole 'communism' thing, of course..)

It's kind of odd for me to think that I am now living in a country where Stalinism once expanded in the 1940s because it has left little trace -- even the people the NKVD murdered were buried in mass graves or in Siberia -- so you can't even visit their graves.

There's a statue to Jaan Tõnisson, a prewar Estonian prime minister, near my house. It says 1869 - ? because nobody is sure when or how he died. It's like the 1940s were just one murky period of characters being whitewashed from history by Stalinism. He most likely was executed by the NKVD, but no one is sure and no one knows where he is buried.

Yesterday we visited my wife's grandmother who escaped deportation. Her sister -- who was deported and lived in Siberia for most of the 1950s (her crime: being the daughter of a man of some means) recently got a medal from the state for her, I guess, survival of the gulag. Neither of them like to talk about it. Their lives are modest and normal enough now that the whole thing must seem just crazy. In fact, those I've heard describe the experience speak about it in those terms: absurd, crazy, preposterous. The officer shows up at your door, tells you to get your stuff, next thing you know you are in a concentration camp for a decade.

And that's the thing. The industrialization of the USSR was built on the backs of slave labor from ethnic and political prisoners.

What I think is most striking is the effect this had on families. People talk about the Stalinist death toll, but they neglect to mention that those who survived didn't have it too peachy either. When they were allowed to return to their homelands following the death of Stalin (which marks the end of the 4T in Estonia, by the way) they assumed the lives of the ruined alcoholics, drinking themselves to death. Even children that survived the camps were unable to escape a fate of uselessness. They made excellent Soviet citizens because they were broken people. And that was the other purpose of the gulag -- to break people, to break families, to destroy free will. Prison at its worst.

In hindsight, Khruschev's secret speech has been invaluable. Even while Putin's generation toys with the Stalinist legacy, the willingness of Khruschev to internally condemn Stalinism gives hope that future Russians will continue to see the end of his reign as a great relief for all people in the neighborhood of Russia.

Originally Posted by Uzi

And that's the thing. The industrialization of the USSR was built on the backs of slave labor from ethnic and political prisoners.

No doubt. But inside Russia, they'd been going through that stuff since Lenin's days.

I wonder, do people in the Baltics curse Lenin, or just Stalin? In Russia it's both, but Lenin has the clear lead in the asshole-olympics, but I could absolutely see how the later-annexed areas would have a different view of things. And rumor has it that Finns are still pretty fond of Lenin, since he gave them their independence and all.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

...And rumor has it that Finns are still pretty fond of Lenin, since he gave them their independence and all.

Ehh, not so much.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia uon the White Guards

The Civil War erupted at a time when Finland was focusing on the Russian threat: Russia had tried to russify Finland for 20 years; White Russia wanted to limit Finland's autonomy; Russian soldiers were the closest threat; and Russian Bolsheviks were perceived as the most dangerous. In this situation, it was easy for large parts of the Finnish public to assume that the Civil War had been The War of Liberation from Bolshevist Russia, and consequently perceive the Reds as traitors.

But, I speak for a family (largely, but not entirely) tied to the less urban and more idiotically rural winning White side in these matters and not the more Progressive Red side. Most of my Euro-cousins are on the Democratic Socialist Left, but, they are from White roots. But, see:

Originally Posted by Virtual Finland

Choosing his words with care, Kekkonen also suggested that
the shadow of Hitler's Germany lay over Finland in the late
1930s and that Finnish society ‘as a whole’ could
not deny having felt a certain sympathy towards that country.

Put this way, it was conceivable to think that Stalin’s
lack of trust was the Finns’ own fault. Kekkonen may have
meant what he said. But whether he did or not, he gave a lot
of thought to the content of this speech, which agreed exactly
with the official Soviet version of history.

Kekkonen’s great strategy, based on the Soviet Union’s
own sacred writings, was to prove the possibility of coexistence
between capitalist Finland and the socialist Soviet Union. He
sought to demonstrate that the father of Finland’s independence
was Lenin, who had declared the principles of ‘peaceful coexistence’
back at the time of the 1917 Revolution.

If coexistence had suffered a setback during the Second World
War, it was not fitting to seek the reason in the Soviet Union’s
own foreign policy, which was taboo; it must lie elsewhere.
Kekkonen was too well aware of what had happened to put the
blame entirely on Finland and too good a diplomat to undertake
an analysis of the Soviet Union’s role in those events.

For a very good reason, then, the president did not mention
the shadow imposed on Finland by the totalitarian Soviet Union.
Realizing the existence of this shadow is, however, essential
for our understanding of Finland’s policy at that time.
He did not waste time pondering what kind of a state Finland
had been and was still dealing with. He was not interested in
the truth of history, but in its utility.

HTH

Originally Posted by Justin '77

No doubt. But inside Russia, they'd been going through that stuff since Lenin's days.

I wonder, do people in the Baltics curse Lenin, or just Stalin? In Russia it's both, but Lenin has the clear lead in the asshole-olympics, but I could absolutely see how the later-annexed areas would have a different view of things. And rumor has it that Finns are still pretty fond of Lenin, since he gave them their independence and all.

I can only speak for my experiences with Estonians, but I think they generally treat Lenin with sardonic distance while Stalin is seen as a genocidal maniac. They view Stalin as a destroyer of their country that set in place the wheels to wipe them off the face of the Earth.

So in the Estonian mindset, Lenin = crazy Russian intellectual with mustache. Stalin = Hitler. Unlike the Finns, the Estonians did not fight a Civil War between "whites" and "reds". There was a failed coup in 1924, but by that time Lenin was already out of the picture.

Lenin authorized Bolshevik Russia to recognize Estonia in 1920. Therefore he cannot be see as really, really bad, as opposed to Stalin, who is seen as a super villain.

Originally Posted by Uzi

I can only speak for my experiences with Estonians, but I think they generally treat Lenin with sardonic distance while Stalin is seen as a genocidal maniac. They view Stalin as a destroyer of their country that set in place the wheels to wipe them off the face of the Earth.

So in the Estonian mindset, Lenin = crazy Russian intellectual with mustache. Stalin = Hitler...

Lenin authorized Bolshevik Russia to recognize Estonia in 1920. Therefore he cannot be see as really, really bad, as opposed to Stalin, who is seen as a super villain.

Yeah. That's basically what I got from the Lithuanian side of my family, too. Whereas in Russia, Lenin is seen as just as bad as Stalin, but without any of Stalin's (very few, very minor) redeeming qualities.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Suffice to say that even the non-libertarians around here focus primarily on the bad stuff that Lenin and Stalin (and Khrushchev and so forth) did. In fact, you get more positives about Stalin -- at least he did preside over the victory against the Germans -- than you will about Lenin. (Not that 'more' is particularly many).

You've missed the point, and perhaps that's my fault. I'm not actually saying there was anything either of them did that I really approve of. I'm saying that certain things, such as the terror, loom so large in your mind that they define the Soviet system, and this is inherently distorting because that is not how the system would have defined itself.

Remember the 7 isms idea from the other thread? Socialists -- and these were genuine socialists if there's ever been such a beast -- value economic equality above all other values. A liberal like you or me would have been unwilling to resort to terror in support of that end, because it would violate a more important end (human rights and liberty), but to a socialist economic justice is everything.

But Lenin was never able to implement the socialist features that, in the minds of the Bolsheviks, were what the revolution was all about. He made some abortive attempts, but in the 1920s retreated to a capitalist system with a few socialist features, which he called the "New Economic Policy."

The terror existed not as an end in itself but as a means to an end. Stalin used it to enforce his socialist society. Lenin used it merely to protect the survival of his regime. Which means his regime was on the defensive, and was unable to use either terror or any other tool to do what he really wanted to do.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

You've missed the point, and perhaps that's my fault. I'm not actually saying there was anything either of them did that I really approve of. I'm saying that certain things, such as the terror, loom so large in your mind that they define the Soviet system, and this is inherently distorting because that is not how the system would have defined itself.

Can we talk about the good things Herr Hitler did for Germany next? Pretty please, with edelweiss on top?

Originally Posted by Uzi

Can we talk about the good things Herr Hitler did for Germany next? Pretty please, with edelweiss on top?

We could, but since I was NOT talking about the "good things" Lenin did for Russia -- that was purely Justin's misinterpretation -- and also yours, it would seem -- what would be the point?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

We could, but since I was NOT talking about the "good things" Lenin did for Russia -- that was purely Justin's misinterpretation -- and also yours, it would seem -- what would be the point?

I just butted in for some Stalin-bashing and the chance to say edelweiss. Stalin, in my opinion, is the "other white meat" of evil dictators. Hitler gets all the credit for invading Poland, when it was a two-man job. I guess Djugashvili should have gotten a more recognizable mustache.

Originally Posted by Uzi

I just butted in for some Stalin-bashing and the chance to say edelweiss. Stalin, in my opinion, is the "other white meat" of evil dictators. Hitler gets all the credit for invading Poland, when it was a two-man job. I guess Djugashvili should have gotten a more recognizable mustache.

Oh, I completely agree. If we pass from discussing where in the saeculum Russia stood when Stalin became her harsh master, and instead pass judgment on his rule based on personally-held values, I have to consider him one of history's truly monstrous tyrants. How could anyone conclude otherwise?

But that doesn't change what I was saying in the least.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

There was one. The Prague Spring and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 were part of it. Similar things happened in Russia. The biggest cultural change is that people stopped believing in the promise of the Revolution. After that, the Soviet Union was running on fumes. Not very long after the Awakening ended, Gorbachev came to power, and that was the beginning of the end. It could never have happened that way if people still believed they were building a workers' paradise.

Gorbachev probably came to power during the awakenings end, even the time Europe's (Russia is a European country) awakening ended, around 1988.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

But that's not the way a 4T shapes out, further bolstering my understanding that all of these events were 3T for Russia just as they were for France, Germany, and Britain. Had Russia been in 4T, or entering 4T, in 1914, the outbreak of war would have submerged domestic disputes and rallied the country behind the Tsar. Instead, the war aggravated those disputes and led to the Tsar's overthrow, and ultimately to the Bolshevik revolution.

Agreed, people have to realize Russia was invaded during WW1, like it was during WW2. Note the differences between those periods and that Stalin's regime was 1000 times worse than the Tsar's.

Russia seems to go through changes in government during Unravelings. I believe the transition from Brezhnev, to the string of ancients after Brezhnev, to Gorbachev, to Yeltsin, to Putin, also to be 3T events, a decay of public order and not a strenghtening of it (although Putin is trying to reverse the process and, with Russia entering a 4T, may succeed). Whatever form the new post-Communist government takes for the next saeculum is yet to be determined.

I disagree with you about when the awakening ended for Russia and Unraveling started. However the beginning of the end for Soviet Regime occurred when the Berlin wall fell in 1989. Just after the awakening ended in rest of Europe (circa 1988). Russia ever since Peter the Great, has been integrated into Western Civilization (much the same has occurred in the other Eastern Orthodox countries), although Russians would not apart from maybe the elite would consider themselves western. Although Baltic peoples, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Croats and Slovaks do. Even now the Greeks, Serbs, Albanians, Romanians and Bulgarians consider themselves Western European.

What I believe to have been the catalyst of Russia's last 4T was the death of Lenin in 1924. This set loose the power struggle. The Regeneracy was Stalin's consolidation of power in 1928. The Climax was the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. And the Crisis ended, I believe, in 1945 or 1946, with the end of the war and the creation of the Soviet central-European satellite empire. The Nazi invasion was the last Crisis era challenge to the Stalinist regime, and its defeat confirmed that regime in power, to persist beyond Stalin's death.

I have a very significant problem with this: I believe Russia went through another Crisis in the period beginning from 1854 (beginning of the Crimean War), encompassing the reign of Tsar Alexander II. Wikipedia has a good article on Alexander:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia

From that article:

The reforms were extensive: the serfs were freed, the military reorganized, courts reformed, industrialization encouraged, and democratic local government (Dumas) established. The level of bloodshed and suffering may not satisfy the understanding of those who define Crisis eras along those lines, but of course I do not, so this looks very much like a 4T to me.

If it was, then 1917 falls too early from the end of the last Crisis to be a 4T itself.

Interesting Brian, Europe went through a 4T during the 1860's and early 1870's too. For the French and British the Crimean war was probably a 3T rather than 4T event. Western Europe I have seen it went through an awakening in the 1820's and 1830's, unraveling during the 1840's and 1850's and a short 4T from c.1860 to c.1872. Going back further I see the French revolution as the climax of the 4T throughout Europe, it started earlier with the Batavian revolution in Netherlands happening in 1780's.

Fair enough Brian. We'll drop the whole 'who was the worse mass-murderer' debate and return solely to the question of when was Russia's early-20th-century 4T/1T boundary.

I would sum up my position by noting among other things that it is the 4T that is characterized, over the vast majority of its length as being a succession of attempts by a society to find and implement a model that addresses its systemic problems. The direction of the society in the first half of a Crisis era is almost certainly guaranteed not to resemble the direction of the society coming out of that era. Conversely, the 1T sees the wide-scale implementation and more-or-less full realization of the direction that is only really settled upon at the end of the Crisis era.

So, laying this on top of the Russian model -- and I would like to preface by saying that I can absolutely accept the contention that many of the countries annexed into the Soviet Union during the Stalin years are on a different cycle; their assimilation into the Soviet system lagged behind Russia's by a couple of decades, after all.

• The period mainly characterized by the civil war, revolution, and the reign of Lenin contained within it the defining characteristics of a 4T:
  - The cracks in the existing social structure had grown to the point that the need for radical change was fairly widely-recognized.
  - Once the old regime was being pushed aside, several competing groups of Prophet-types began struggling amongst each other to be able to implement their vision
  - As the victor-apparent power took the reigns and began to implement their vision, flaws in it became fairly quickly apparent and were addressed summarily and relatively efficiently
  - by the time the torch was passed, the form of the new social structure was more or less clear (even if not yet full yestablished)
• Then we can look at the early years under Stalin:
  - The final power struggle (for succession at this point) was conclusively decided.
  - The direction of the country was no longer simply implicit, but by the late 20's was explicitly laid down.
• And finally we can look at the time after the first Five Year Plan onwards as having the defining characteristics of a 1T:
  - Grand, sweeping national projects
  - Monolithic rule
  - Stability (achieved at the expense of sidelining any dissenters)
  - Significant advances in Establishment sciences and technology
  - Conformity (again, enforced if need be)
• In fact, you could look at the end of Stalin as the start of the country's opportunity to begin on the soul-searching and the redress of 1T-excesses that so characterizes an Awakening.

It all maps out really clearly.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I would sum up my position by noting among other things that it is the 4T that is characterized, over the vast majority of its length as being a succession of attempts by a society to find and implement a model that addresses its systemic problems. The direction of the society in the first half of a Crisis era is almost certainly guaranteed not to resemble the direction of the society coming out of that era.

Here, I disagree. If we look at the two American 4Ts that fit the typical pattern (setting aside the Civil War), we find that the direction society was to take was settled fairly early in the Crisis, and the remainder of it consisted of a struggle not to decide the issue but to implement the decision. Yes, there remained disagreements to be worked out, but these were details within the overall direction that had been decided early. It's only the period between Catalyst and Regeneracy that sees the kind of confusion and wholesale dispute to which you refer, and which occurred in Russia under the rule of Nicholas II, Kerensky, and Lenin.

In the American Revolution Crisis, the overall direction the U.S. (and we must now call the country by that name even though Britain had not yet acknowledged it) was going to attempt to take was set by November 15, 1777, when the Articles of Confederation were adopted. (We could even posit this as an alternate Regeneracy to compete with July 4, 1776, or call the Regeneracy the entire 16-month period when the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation were adopted.) That direction was: independence from England, and a federated central government with considerable autonomy remaining to the states, but not complete sovereignty for the individual states. From this point on, America ceased to be a set of colonies attempting to gain independence, and became an independent nation, albeit one endangered by war. Was there opposition? Yes, but it was overwhelmed by the national consensus; the British based much of their strategy on the aid of Loyalist Americans but they were too few and too scattered to make this strategy effective. Towards the end of the Crisis, it became necessary to completely rework the structure of the central government, hence the Constitution, but without downplaying the significance of that change, it did not alter the fundamental direction of the country: towards independence, federated central government, and limited state autonomy.

In the Great Depression/World War II Crisis, things aren't quite as obvious, but the overall economic direction America was to take was set -- and began to be implemented -- from the election of Roosevelt in 1932: neither a fully socialist nor a fully capitalist economy, but a mix of the two, preserving free enterprise where feasible but regulating it to prevent abuse and disastrous panics. The methods FDR employed weren't always good ones, and didn't always work, and even when they WERE good ones and DID work they sometimes had unfortunate consequences (e.g. the Social Security payroll tax, which depressed consumer demand at a time when it was already seriously depressed). Also, Roosevelt was never willing, or else never politically able, to engage in the heavy federal spending that would have jump-started the economy and allowed the new machinery to work to full effect, until the nation's entry into World War II let him do so in the form of military spending. But the general direction was never seriously in doubt. Was there opposition? Yes, but it was overwhelmed by the national consensus. The reason this Crisis isn't as cut-and-dried in appearance is that it had a late-emerging issue, that of participation in the global sphere. America could be isolationist up to a point and was, and so the U.S. role as global superpower was not envisioned early on (but there are parallels in Russia to this, see below).

In Russia, however, although Lenin himself certainly had no doubts about what direction he wanted to take the country, his opinion did not represent a consensus, except insofar as most Russians wanted the Tsar gone and the nobility brought down. This was done. (Although in fact most of it was done under Kerensky.) Getting out of the war was also popular, even though it cost Russia a good bit of territory, and that was done under Lenin. But collectivization, one-party monolithic rule, a fully-socialized economy, full industrialization, and movement towards (as they supposed) communism? That had little popular appeal, and the steps necessary to achieve it faced much popular opposition. The Civil War was only part of the problem. The Whites were by and large reactionaries who wanted a restoration of the old regime. It's doubtful they would have had the popular support to be able to bring that off even if they'd won the war, and they achieved the victories they did only because of foreign aid. Obviously they had to be fought and defeated, but they were, and the more intractable trouble proved to be the resistance of the Russian people to the kind of massive change Lenin envisioned, along with the stubborn intractability of economics.

Some years later, as the generations advanced and (I believe) the Hero generation of the time began to come of age, things proved different. Stalin consolidated his hold on the government a few years after Lenin died. He was more of an autocrat, as far as the internal workings of the Party were concerned, than Lenin ever was, but that would have meant little if it weren't for the changes that had happened OUTSIDE the Party, which now allowed Stalin to begin implementing his own version of Leninism. You can speak of "grand, sweeping national projects," but let's recognize now just what those involved (here YOU seem to be the one sweeping the horror under the rug):

- a program of terror that provided the state with slave labor

- forced collectivization of agriculture, giving the state control over the harvest, allowing it to take much of that harvest and sell it to the West for industrial equipment and knowledge, condemning millions of Russians to starve

- industry built at a cruel pace, with all the inhumanity of our own century-long industrialization condensed, it seems, into the space of 10 years: "criminal" slaves worked to death to build factories, dams, railroads, etc.

Granted, these were "grand projects," but they also represent a complete transformation of the country from an agrarian, relatively backward nation into an industrial power. That kind of wholesale restructuring doesn't occur during a 1T, it is 4T stuff. And it was this transformation that allowed the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazi invasion (although it would have been beaten more easily if Stalin hadn't also slaughtered Russia's best military leadership -- a 4T does not guarantee that leaders will make wise decisions).

The war provided an unforeseen twist to the Soviet direction just as it did for the U.S., and of the same kind. But otherwise, it was decided where things would go once Stalin became dictator, a few years into the Crisis (as I see it).

After the war, there continued to be "grand projects," but since the country's direction had already been established, they were not transformative. This makes them more characteristic of a 1T.

So you see the 1905 - 1928 period as one big unraveling in Russia, I guess.

You could see the 1987 to 2004 period in Estonia as a crisis. From the very begining, the new direction was laid out -- reinstitution of independence, integration with Western institutions - ie. EU and NATO, privatization of industry, development of a multiparty system.

However, the early 00s were very much party time here. The economy has been growing at 10 percent a year. And that's where we see something of an overlap with the West.

When the Soviets took over in 1940, they put Estonia an hour ahead, on Moscow time. But when the Estonians redeclared independence, they went back to Finnish time. You could say this has carried over to their turnings. The Estonians are very much part of the soul searching mood that is going on in Europe right now vis a vis the future of the EU, et cetera.

Have you all picked up Mozambique? The current Smithsonian has an article on a rich American who is working to preserve a huge national park there which was used by government forces and rebels alike "during their civil war of 1975-1992." So Mozambique is 15 years into its 1st Turning.

My apologies if you've already done this.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Have you all picked up Mozambique? The current Smithsonian has an article on a rich American who is working to preserve a huge national park there which was used by government forces and rebels alike "during their civil war of 1975-1992." So Mozambique is 15 years into its 1st Turning.

My apologies if you've already done this.

Yep, we have Mozambique as late 1T, soon to enter 2T.

Actually, Easton's been MIA from this forum. What up, dude?

Originally Posted by 1990

Yep, we have Mozambique as late 1T, soon to enter 2T.

Actually, Easton's been MIA from this forum. What up, dude?

I'm still here, just not here. With Senior Seminar, AP Exams, finals, and writing/delivering a speech, I have/will be busy until early June.

You can continue research on Africa and South America, and I will assist, but I cannot go out on my own at the moment.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

I'm still here, just not here. With Senior Seminar, AP Exams, finals, and writing/delivering a speech ....

What's the speech about?

John

Originally Posted by Uzi

So you see the 1905 - 1928 period as one big unraveling in Russia, I guess.

You could see the 1987 to 2004 period in Estonia as a crisis. From the very begining, the new direction was laid out -- reinstitution of independence, integration with Western institutions - ie. EU and NATO, privatization of industry, development of a multiparty system.

However, the early 00s were very much party time here. The economy has been growing at 10 percent a year. And that's where we see something of an overlap with the West.

When the Soviets took over in 1940, they put Estonia an hour ahead, on Moscow time. But when the Estonians redeclared independence, they went back to Finnish time. You could say this has carried over to their turnings. The Estonians are very much part of the soul searching mood that is going on in Europe right now vis a vis the future of the EU, et cetera.

Aren't you Estonians been a part of Western European 'civilization' for hundreds of years, sharing in the same movements which swept the continent like the Reformation, the Enlightenment and rise of Nationalism. Which can be associated with 2T periods, namely the Reformation period lasting from c.1520-c.1540, c.1720-c.1750 and c.1820-c.1840.

Many sections of European society, especially the upper class and intellectuals have always been pretty mobile and in constant contact with each other throughout the centuries. The slower rate of travel in those days was a reason why the turnings lasted like 25 years, instead of 20 years.

Russia is a different case since it only became integrated into European society (for a long time it was just the elites who were westernized) in last three centuries, starting with Peter The Great. Judging by what I observe of Russian history, their saeculum is similar to rest of Europe's, although could be a few years ahead.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Have you all picked up Mozambique? The current Smithsonian has an article on a rich American who is working to preserve a huge national park there which was used by government forces and rebels alike "during their civil war of 1975-1992." So Mozambique is 15 years into its 1st Turning.

My apologies if you've already done this.

Mozambique is a Southern African nation, it borders Zimbabwe and South Africa, both those countries I have seen had their awakenings in the 70's and 80's and now are in 3T's.

The Mozambican War of Independence started in 1964 and once independence was declared Mozambique fell into a civil war when the two factions of the independence movement FRELIMO which was Marxist and RENAMO which was anti-Marxist fell out and fought against each other. That does not seem very 1T, imagine if the American war of independence turned into a civil war once Britain accepted the USA's independence.

I see in sub-Saharan Africa the whole period after decolonization as 2T leading into a 3T. The reason why the events occurred after decolonization can be attributed to the saeculum, the peaceful decolonization around 1960 happen during a High period and the 2T started just after it. It means Sub-Saharan Africa right now is about to enter a 4T period or just entered it.

Sub-Saharan Africa before the Europeans colonized it was a pre-saeculum society, so was Europe before the Reformation or maybe a little earlier. The saeculum is a modern thing. Due to many early African leaders being educated by Europeans, the societies of sub-Saharan Africa from the intellectual elite down adopted the European saeculum. A legacy of western colonization of Africa and Asia is to put a lot of the world on the European saeculum.

The Middle East was never fully colonized by western powers and has a different saeculum (11-15 years behind North America), like wise China (although they match us on generations), Korea and Japan which are on a different saeculum.

I am out on Latin America since I dunno enough, however the events which occurred in Latin America during the last 40 years or so are broadly similar to what happened in a lot of the rest of the world. Places like Brazil, Rio-Plata countries and Chile I see are on a similar generational position as we are, that is expected since European colonists pretty much replaced the existing native populations, instead of just conquering them.

Well in conclusion, hopefully the countries of sub-Saharan Africa can finally achieve political stability in the 4T coming.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

But that's not the way a 4T shapes out, further bolstering my understanding that all of these events were 3T for Russia just as they were for France, Germany, and Britain. Had Russia been in 4T, or entering 4T, in 1914, the outbreak of war would have submerged domestic disputes and rallied the country behind the Tsar. Instead, the war aggravated those disputes and led to the Tsar's overthrow, and ultimately to the Bolshevik revolution.

Russia seems to go through changes in government during Unravelings. I believe the transition from Brezhnev, to the string of ancients after Brezhnev, to Gorbachev, to Yeltsin, to Putin, also to be 3T events, a decay of public order and not a strenghtening of it (although Putin is trying to reverse the process and, with Russia entering a 4T, may succeed). Whatever form the new post-Communist government takes for the next saeculum is yet to be determined.



This is where we disagree. Everything didn't change, only the blueprints of change were laid down.



You're talking about the Russian Civil War here, obviously. What you say is true, but it's also true that the civil war, along with Lenin's bad health and some other factors, prevented the Bolshevik revolution from really taking place. The plans were there, the blueprints were drawn up, but they weren't implemented until later. Russia was a backward country when Lenin took over, and it was still a backward country when he died.



Also because the economy broke down, and because there was too much internal opposition. Typical 3T stuff; if it were a 4T, Lenin would have been replaced as unable to govern, and the defeat of the Whites would have led immediately to the implementation of the revolutionary regime (as happened in the U.S. with the defeat of the Confederacy), not to a retreat from it as actually happened.



Yes, but another way to put this is that he actually implemented the revolution that Lenin never got further than planning.

What I believe to have been the catalyst of Russia's last 4T was the death of Lenin in 1924. This set loose the power struggle. The Regeneracy was Stalin's consolidation of power in 1928. The Climax was the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. And the Crisis ended, I believe, in 1945 or 1946, with the end of the war and the creation of the Soviet central-European satellite empire. The Nazi invasion was the last Crisis era challenge to the Stalinist regime, and its defeat confirmed that regime in power, to persist beyond Stalin's death.



Well, I certainly agree with this, but I see it as the END of Russia's Crisis, not the beginning, just as it was with us.



I have a very significant problem with this: I believe Russia went through another Crisis in the period beginning from 1854 (beginning of the Crimean War), encompassing the reign of Tsar Alexander II. Wikipedia has a good article on Alexander:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia

From that article:



The reforms were extensive: the serfs were freed, the military reorganized, courts reformed, industrialization encouraged, and democratic local government (Dumas) established. The level of bloodshed and suffering may not satisfy the understanding of those who define Crisis eras along those lines, but of course I do not, so this looks very much like a 4T to me.

If it was, then 1917 falls too early from the end of the last Crisis to be a 4T itself.

The events happening in Russia during the 1860's were quite similar to what were happening in Europe. The 4T was not mild on the continent, the Italian war of unification, The Spanish revolution of 1868 when Queen Isabella II was deposed and a republic established which lasted to 1874, the Italian Risorgimento which established the modern state of Italy, The Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune.