Originally posted by Boroda:
[QB][/QB]
Boroda, to put things into perspective, I did not claim in my original post that Oleg was a bad person or that people posting on the russian forun were bad or anti-west communists. Just that a westerner reading that could form a mistaken negative impression - because of culture differences, etc.
There certainly seem a lot of culture differences for me - those accumulated over 11 years I've lived in US.
I certainly believe you that there is no offence ment. I might doubt the use of divisive terminology in any case because nnobody ever prospered brom division. If the term is innocent for russians, there is no problem for them in using it where weterners have no chance to see it. Quite like the american term "Jap" which is just an innocent contraction but apparently offends japanese.
To me the word "bourzhui" meant "evil class enemies scheduled for eventual extermination", about the same negative loading as "fascists". I would use term "westerners" myself.
On this topic the further discussion is kind of pointless because we are not at odds but just exploring different meanings of the word and it's perception by different cultures.
If I see you stop using that word "bourzhui" in the future, I would be glad. If not, I will not be upset in the least because I know it does not mean what I first suspected...
On a side note, it is curious how ignorant many russians still are about workings of western society - the P51 conspiracy that would not let any games to be published if P51 is not the best plane - as an example.
A word "comissar" for me, thou obviously not for many others is associated with the worst that the communism has ever prodiced. I base my prejudices on books and statements of eyewitnecces, including some surviving relatives.
Army commissars were an independent chain of command separate from line officers who were representatives of the party. Their job was to watch for signs of "treason", moral and political "immaturity" among officers and soldiers.
Despite image build in movies of comissars raising soldiers in the decisive assault and leading from the front, their real job was spying, forcing people to become informers, collecting damaging information for real or imagined fault, terrorising their own people.
In short, the commissar was not a man who lead soviet soldiers but who shot them in the back of the head.
Unlike regular officers, who could do their job well by executing orders of superiors (or at least losing enough of their soldiers to make an impression that they did all they could) and reporting enourmous casualties caused to the enemy, comissars had to show uncovered "traitors" and "enamies of the people" with the easiest outcome for the involved being demotion and penal batallions where life expectancy was counted in days.
If some comissar went soft and found fewer "e.o.p.s" then the next one, he would be first on the list of his superior comissar, but of course soft persons never went into business of exterminating their own people.
I hope I do not offend you and I am interested in you take on that. Maybe in a different thread because we are getting way far from the roll rates here...
Regards,
miko
