Saturday, October 13, 1923. German October

The Reichstag enacted emergency powers that over road the constitution to deal with the ongoing economic crisis.  

Thuringian Prime Minister August Frölich took three Communists into his cabinet, the second Communist victory in what the Executive Committee of the Communist Party was planning to be its German October, the Communist takeover of Germany.

As an aside, there was no Oktoberfest in 1923.  The economy cancelled it.

Not content with just trying to spark a Communist revolution in Germany, the NKVD detonated the Polish munitions facility at the Warsaw Citadel. Twenty-eight Polish soldiers were killed.

Turkey moved its capital to Istanbul.

Irish Republic Army prisoners at Mountjoy prison announced a hunger strike.

The Yankees took game four of the World Series, beating the Giants 8 to 4.

Thursday, September 20, 1923. Showdown in Oklahoma.

The Governor of Oklahoma and its legislature were in a toe to toe contest over whether the Governor's mobilization of the National Guard over the KKK was warranted.

This is an historical episode of which I was wholly unaware, and quite extraordinary.  While it was late in coming, the Governor was reacting to racial violence in the state by deploying the National Guard under what was essentially an act of declaring martial law. The legislature clearly was upset by the act and intended to convene to address it, and the Governor himself.

A Communist led revolt broke out in Bulgaria.

The Yankees took the American League pennant, beating the St. Louis Browns 4 to 3.

Wednesday, September 11, 1923. The British Empire in Southern Africa.

Southern Rhodesia became a British colony when the British government took it over from the British South Africa Company due to a 1922 referendum.  Prior to that time, it had been informally been known as Zambesia, based on the Zambezi River. It would form a government on October 1 and would retain its status, sort of, as a British colony until 1964.  

Flag of Southern Rhodesia.

Southern Rhodesia, massively British in terms of its colonial character, saw itself in that fashion, and its white residents had been highly supportive of World War One.  They would be again of World War Two.

Flag of Northern Rhodesia.

In 1953, it was confederated by the British with Northern Rhodesia, which had a larger landmass.  In the 1950s, it began to fall apart with the rise of African nationalism.  Northern Rhodesia became independent and changed its name to Zambia in 1964, interestingly changing its name during the course of the Olympics, and therefore entering the games with one name and exiting it with another.

Flag of Zambia.

When Northern Rhodesia became independent, with the cooperation of the British government, it struck fear into Southern Rhodesian whites, and the country, which was controlled by them, issued its Unilateral Declaration of Independence as Rhodesia in 1965.  The winds of change already well set in, Rhodesia, while it had cooperation from various countries, was unrecognized by any.  It fought an increasingly losing battle against African nationalist forces in the 60s and 70s, and returned to British colonial status brief in 1979, before becoming the current state of Zimbabwe.

Rhodesian flag.

Unfortunately, since independence its history has not been a happy one, as it fell to one party rule under Robert Mugabe, something it only recently overcame.  Zambia, spared a post-colonial war, has fared better, and indeed uniquely for a post colonia African nation, had an Acting President in recent memory who was of European (Scottish) descent.

Finnair, the Finnish national airline, was incorporated as Aero O/Y.

The Convention for the Suppression of the Circulation of and Traffic in Obscene Publications was signed in Geneva by members of the League of Nations. The anti pornography treaty is still in effect, accepted and amended by the United Nations, although a person would hardly know it.

Bulgaria arrested 2,500 Communist suspected of plotting an uprising.

Tuesday, September 11, 1973. Allende overthrown in coup.

 Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and—because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970—probably appeared to condone it.

Church Committee.

On this day in 1973 nearly the whole of the Chilean military rose up to depose Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist president of the country.  The crisis had been brewing for months, and this coup was actually the second one attempted that year.

In the weeks and years to follow, hundreds would die at the hands of the military regime with many people, including the sister of a friend of mine, simply disappearing.   Allende refused to surrender himself and instead killed himself with an AK47 that had been given to him by Fidel Castro. Augusto Pinochet would become the military ruler of the country until democracy was restored in 1990.  Pinochet retired as commander of the Chilean Army in 1998.

As the Church Committee's report noted, the CIA did not initiate the coup or have a role in it, although the US has tended to be blamed for it.  The Administration was not sympathetic to Allende's regime, so the conclusion was probably natural enough.  Having said that, Allende had been in trouble for months and the coup was probably inevitable.  The coup was positively received, if not openly, by many Western nations, which saw it as preventing a Chilean descent into Communist rule.

Dealing with the coup in Chile has been problematic, with the country never getting over, for obvious reasons, the large number of people who disappeared. At the same time, support for the coup itself has grown in recent years, although it is still a minority of Chileans who feel it was justified.

Saturday, September 4, 1943. British advance in Italy, Australians land in New Guinea, Russian Orthodox services return.

The British took Reggio Calabria and San Giovanni de Gerace in Italy.

The Australian 9th Division landed on New Guinea at Lae.  They were the first Allied forces to land on the island since the Japanese had taken it early in the war.

Joseph Stalin hosted the acting Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and two Metropolitans.  No installed Patriarch was in place.  In the meeting, he offered to open up religious services if the Church recognized the legitimacy of the Soviet state and abstained from criticizing its policies.  They agreed, and the end of restrictions on religious services was announced the following day.

Among the concessions granted by Stalin were the permission to open the Moscow Theological Seminary and Academy, the release of imprisoned clerics, the return of some church property.  The Church was put under the control, however, of Soviet secret services.

TBF’s returning o the USS Ranger, September 4, 1943.

Thursday, August 23, 1923. Trotsky schemes, Turkey votes yes, Bluebeard's 8th Wife, Nancy Hayes Green dies, Fr. Giovanni Minzoni assassinated.

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ratified the Treaty of Lausanne.  British, French, and Italian troops were withdrawing from Istanbul in accordance with the treaty.

Germany announced that it was introducing heavy taxation in order to address the country's economic woes.

Trotsky persuaded the Politburo, in a secret meeting, to finance the German Communist Party, the KDP, in order to overthrow the Weimar Republic.  A revolution in October was the goal, which planned for a Communist Germany to develop the agricultural Soviet Union, demonstrating how Communism, at the end of the day, always has an industrialized corporatism view of things, posters of smiling buxom peasant girls aside.

Bluebeard's 8th Wife was released.

Nancy Hayes Green, born in 1834, died after being hit by a car as a pedestrian. The car had hit a laundry truck.

Born into slavery in Kentucky, Green was already a widow by the end of the Civil War, having suffered the loss of her children as well.  Relocated to Chicago, she was employed in the household of Charles and Amanda Walker, transplanted Kentuckians.  Upon the Walkers recommendation, she was hired to portray "Aunt Jemima" for the RT Davis Milling Company.   The role was frankly demeaning by modern standards as it portrayed a happy picture of the antebellum south, including the status of slaves.  She continued to play the role for twenty years until replaced by Agnes Moodey, as Green would not travel to the 1900 Paris Expedition.  She used her fame from the role to advocate for the poor and for equal rights.

Portrait of Green, maybe, in character.  This could also be successor model Anna Robinson.

The depiction used for the pancake mix changed over the years as society became awakened to its inherent racism.  There was no real way, in the end, to disassociate it with its racist past, however, and Quaker Oats, the then owner of the brand, discontinued the image in 2020, during which time a variety of such depictions of brands were taken out of use by various companies.

Horrifying 1909 advertisement using the Aunt Jemima theme.

1935 Quaker Oats advertisement using a more familiar theme.

The name of the brand was changed completely to Pearl Milling Company, but interestingly minor use of the name and its branding continues by current owner, PepsiCo, so as to not have it become abandoned and become public domain.  Descendants of Robinson, it might be noted, protested the change in branding on the basis that ignored the history and heritage of the brand and American society, for good or ill.

Fr. Giovanni Minzoni, age 38, a Catholic Priest who opposed the fascist rule of Mussolini, was murdered in Argenta.  It is widely assumed that fascist Italo Balbo ordered his murder.

Balbo briefly resigned from office, but would return and was the Governor General of Libya when World War Two broke out.  He died in 1940 when an airplane he was a passenger in was shot down by friendly fire while trying to land at Tobruk.

Sunday, July 29, 1923. Ptomaine poisoning?

President Harding's physician reported his condition had worsened and that the rest of the Voyage of Understanding was cancelled.  He was checked into a hospital in San Francisco.

The press was still reporting the incident as an instance of food poisoning.

Benito Mussolini received thousands of letters congratulating him on his 40th birthday.

A German Communist called Red Sunday failed to bring out much of a turnout.

Tuesday, July 17, 1973. The beginning of Afghanistan's descent.

Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shah was deposed by his cousin Gen. Mohammed Daoud Khan and a republic declared.

King Mohammed Zahir Shah.

The king was in Italy undergoing eye surgery at the time.

Zahir Shah had been king for 40 years and had modernized the country.  He was the last king of Afghanistan and the country's descent began with his removal.  He died at age 92 in 2007, having returned to Afghanistan.

Daoud Khan was assassinated in 1978 in the coup that brought the Communist to power.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLVIII. Library withdrawals.

From the Cowboy State Daily:

Montana Quits American Library Association Over Marxist President, Wyoming Noncommittal

Oh heck, Wyoming, go ahead and pull out.

Here's the Tweet:

An actual Marxist woman. . . who probably has little use for the head of the American Library Association and its head.

I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity! 

And my mom is SO PROUD I love you mom.

First of all, I don't know if she's a Marxist, or a lesbian, but anyone dense enough to claim an association with British Library butt sitter Karl "look at the massively screwed up mess my children were" Marx is a twit.

And screaming "I'm a lesbian" right now is the functional equivalent of screaming "I'm whatever seems to be edgy and unpopular but really isn't". If Tucker Carlson came out with a blistering rebuke of Cocker Spaniels tomorrow, about half the people in the Progressive camp would come out as Cocker Spaniels.

Maybe she's a lesbian, which maybe is a social construct, or maybe not, but it doesn't have much to do with this role.

Or maybe right now it actually does, if her claim to be a "lesbian" is much more of a social construct of identification, rather than a weird declaration of sexual attraction orientation.  One of the things that is truly gross and disgusting has been the insertion into public school library of books that basically amount to homosexual sex manuals.  Efforts to remove them, and they should be removed, meet with "only the Nazi's burn books", which we have to assume would mean that if Public School No. 9 purchased a subscription to Playboy, it'd be okay.

That ties in with the Marxist claim, as even though actual Communist regimes quickly abandoned it in their own administrations, revolutionary Marxism, following Marx's written lead, had the personal sexual morality of alley cats.  The association of Marxism with radical sexual views isn't simply an item of right wing condemnation, but a feature of actual revolutionary Marxism, if not of actual governing Marxism.

And what does Marxism really have to do with "collective power".  Marxism was based on the theory that library butt sitters and smelly café debaters had a right to tell workers what to think, organize them, and then tell them what to do or have a bullet put in their head.  If you really want Marxism, there's a place left espousing it, and the Kim's may love a visit from you, although I doubt that Yo-jong, who is the Marxist functionary she'd probably draw, would really approve of her attraction declarations.

And Solidarity is an anti-Marxist position.  It comes from Catholic Social Teaching.

Why does everything have to involve screaming politics and gender raging in Western Society anymore?

Truly, Radical Self Centeredness and Narcissism is the Zeitgeist of our times.

Last prior edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLVII. Eh?

Monday, June 21, 1943. Spreading the Holocaust in the Baltic

Douglas SBD "Dauntless" dive bomber balanced on nose after crash landing on carrier flight deck, June 21, 1943.

Head of the SS Heinrich Himmler ordered that all remaining Jews in the Baltic States be transferred to slave labor camps.

Sarah Sundin notes, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 21, 1943: US Marines land unopposed at Segi Point, New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands. Detroit race riot begins between whites and Blacks.

The NFL approved the temporary Merger of the Eagles and the Steelers, something we reported on the other day.  The declined the proposal to merge the Bears and the Cardinals.

Occupied Greece saw action as the SOE destroyed a railway bridge over the Asopos and the Greek Liberation Army conducted an ambush in the Battle of Sarantaporos.

The US Supreme Court rules in Stack v. Boyle that a foreign born citizen could not have that citizenship revoked for joining the Communist Party.

Harvard rejected a proposal to admit women to its medical school.

Pride and Unintended Consequences.

Yesterday, I ran this item, which noted the following:

Lex Anteinternet: On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compellin...: 

All of this fuels part of the counter reaction which is raging in our time.  People wonder how a late septuagenarian serial polygamist with weird bad hair can openly demand to be crowned Emperor and stand a good chance of having it happen, or how a thirty-something single Californian who has never held a real job but who spouts conspiracy theories and cloaks himself in the mantle of true conservatism can win office and be prayed over by college Republicans, or how individuals can be voted onto school boards with the intent to remove books.  Well, an administration that demands you accept the unnatural, a political party that requires you accept the new eugenics, and the stocking of books in school libraries that are openly sexually perverse are a big part of the reason why.

In other words, going from the widely accepted "look, we don't tell you what to do in your bedrooms, so just leave the same sex attracted alone, and they won't bother you", to "you must accept children being taught sodomy" and "you must let gender mutilation of minors occur" is a big part of that.  People on the left might claim that's the manifestation of Christian Nationalism (which it really isn't), but a lot of the reaction is just a species knowing what is biologically correct and reacting to being attacked. 

It wasn't the first time I noted this.

It's sometimes claimed, although I haven't researched it, that the moral descent of Berlin in the 1920s lead in part to people voting for the Nazis in the early 30s.  I.e., their revulsion over what they were seeing lead them to an extreme reaction, it's claimed.  At least one writer has noted:

It seems grotesque in retrospect, but Hitler posed as a moral crusader gallantly battling the forces of iniquity, corruption, and even deceit. Many Germans, horrified by the loosening of moral standards in Germany after World War I, were duped by his promises of moral rejuvenation. Hitler’s project resonated with many who were disgusted by the rampant hedonism and carnality of Weimar high culture and popular culture. Whether one views Hitler and Nazism as a Utopian and technocratic expression of the modernist project, or as an atavistic reaction against modernity, or as some blend of the two (“reactionary modernism” or “conservative revolution”), or as something completely unique, it is clear that Nazism promised a resurrection or awakening of the German people that involved a revival of morality that was in the process of decay and degeneration.

Hitler as Moral Crusader and Liar, Richard Weikart, abstract.

Extreme wealth in upper Russian society certainly contributed to the rise of the Communists in late imperial Russia and the Bolshevik Revolution.

The point of this is this.  While the Southern Populist ethics that have spread into the American middle class country wide (more on this soon) are full of hypocrisies, people do have a limit. Most people don't think night and day about politics, which opens the void to people like Rep. Ward of Casper, whose reaction to a Pride event in Casper lead to this headline:

Wyoming Lawmaker Calls For Boycott Of Businesses That Sponsored Casper Pride Fest

Ward's rise as a legislator in a state that she has almost no connections with stunned me.  She's of the extreme right and has a Weltanschauung that she's imported from the Rust Belt, where she previously lived and politiced. She's associated herself in politics with Christianity, but in a way that suggest she doesn't understand her claimed faith very well.  In Illinois, she showed up associated with some outrage over a school teacher who claimed that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, which in fact they do.  In Wyoming's last legislative session, she made the claim that Christians are not their brother's keeper, and that the story of Cain and Able in the Old Testament really only meant that you just weren't supposed to kill your brother, but otherwise could let him suffer.

Middle Class Germans of the 1920s were heir to a long Christian tradition.  Upper class Germans were as well, and frankly lower class Germans were too, that latter class being the one most vulnerable to Nazi and Communist agitation.  Russia had a long history of Christianity, leading into 1917.  

Wealthy societies produce largess.  Largess produces self-indulgence, and a lot of the self-indulgence will, seemingly almost inevitably, turn into sexual narcissism and individual domination.  Disgust inevitably results by those who don't chose that path, which is, at the end of the day, most people.  But when a society becomes focused on it, those willing to stand most in the opposing spotlight, no matter how extreme they are, will take up most of the opposing light.  

Immoderation leads, inevitably, to immodesty, which leads, almost inevitably, to opposing immoderation.  When toleration becomes a demand for absolutely acceptance, in categories of extremes, those masses simply trying to get through their days will listen to the loudest voices.

Southern Populism gave us what the Southern Strategy took into the GOP.  Losing the moorings on genuine civil rights, amongst other things, gave us a warped left wing view that individualistic self definition is a right, no matter how destructive or delusional.  That latter left wing view is pushing the other, far right populist view, to success, at least temporarily.

Friday, June 15, 1923. The American Relief Administration stops aid to the USSR.

The American Relief Administration stopped aid to the USSR after finding that the country was exporting grain in spite of internal famine.

Lou Gehrig played his first major league baseball game, being a defensive substitute in the ninth inning.

Monday, June 14, 1943. Flag Day and Constitutional Rights.

It was Flag Day for 1943.

Perhaps for that reason, the U.S. Supreme Court chose this day to release its opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), which found that compulsory flag salutes were unconstitutional.  This had the effect of overruling Minersville School District v. Gobitis from 1940.

The Court also turned around a conviction a mere 13 days after hearing oral arguments.

BUSEY ET AL.

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

No. 235.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued June 1, 1943.

Decided June 14, 1943.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Mr. Hayden C. Covington for petitioners.

Mr. Vernon E. West, with whom Mr. Richmond B. Keech was on the brief, for respondent.

580*580 PER CURIAM.

In this case petitioners, who are Jehovah's Witnesses, were convicted of selling, on the streets of the District of Columbia, magazines which expound their religious views, without first procuring the license and paying the license tax required by § 47-2336 of the District of Columbia Code (1940). In affirming the conviction the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia below had two questions before it: whether the statute was applicable to petitioners, and if so whether its application as to them infringed the First Amendment. The court construed the statute as applicable and sustained its constitutionality (75 U.S. App. D.C. 352, 129 F.2d 24), following the decision in Cole v. Fort Smith, 202 Ark. 614, 151 S.W.2d 1000, the judgment in which was affirmed by this Court in Bowden v. Fort Smith, 316 U.S. 584, one of the cases argued together with Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584. Since the decision below, and after hearing reargument in the Opelika case, we have vacated our earlier judgment and held the license tax imposed in that case to be unconstitutional. Jones v. Opelika, 319 U.S. 103; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105. Petitioners urge us to construe the District of Columbia statute as inapplicable in order to avoid the constitutional infirmity which might otherwise exist — an infirmity conceded by respondent on the oral argument before us. In view of our decisions in the Opelika and Murdock cases, we vacate the judgment in this case and remand the cause to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to enable it to reexamine its rulings on the construction and validity of the District ordinance in the light of those decisions. Cf. New York ex rel. Whitman v. Wilson, 318 U.S. 688, 690-691, and cases cited.

So ordered.

MR. JUSTICE RUTLEDGE took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Franklin Roosevelt addressed the nation by radio.

Today on Flag Day we celebrate the declaration of the United Nations—that great alliance dedicated to the defeat of our foes and to the establishment of a true peace based on the freedom of man. Today the Republic of Mexico and the Commonwealth of the Philippine Islands join us. We welcome these valiant peoples to the company of those who fight for freedom.

The four freedoms of common humanity are as much elements of man's needs as air and sunlight, bread and salt. Deprive him of all these freedoms and he dies—deprive him of a part of them and a part of him withers. Give them to him in full and abundant measure and he will cross the threshold of a new age, the greatest age of man.

These freedoms are the rights of men of every creed and every race, wherever they live. This is their heritage, long withheld. We of the United Nations have the power and the men and the will at last to assure man's heritage.

The belief in the four freedoms of common humanity—the belief in man, created free, in the image of God- is the crucial difference between ourselves and the enemies we face today. In it lies the absolute unity of our alliance, opposed to the oneness of the evil we hate. Here is our strength, the source and promise of victory.

We of the United Nations know that our faith cannot be broken by any man or any force. And we know that there are other millions who in their silent captivity share our belief.

We ask the German people, still dominated by their Nazi whipmasters, whether they would rather have the mechanized hell of Hitler's "New" Order or—in place of that, freedom of speech and religion, freedom from want and from fear.

We ask the Japanese people, trampled by their savage lords of slaughter, whether they would rather continue slavery and blood or—in place of them, freedom of speech and religion, freedom from want and from fear.

We ask the brave, unconquered people of the Nations the Axis invaders have dishonored and despoiled whether they would rather yield to conquerors or—have freedom of speech and religion, freedom from want and from fear.

We know the answer. They know the answer. We know that man, born to freedom in the image of God, will not forever suffer the oppressors' sword. The peoples of the United Nations are taking that sword from the oppressors' hands. With it they will destroy those tyrants. The brazen tyrannies pass. Man marches forward toward the light.

I am going to close by reading you a prayer that has been written for the United Nations on this Day:

"God of the free, we pledge our hearts and lives today to the cause of all free mankind.

"Grant us victory over the tyrants who would enslave all free men and Nations. Grant us faith and understanding to cherish all those who fight for freedom as if they were our brothers. Grant us brotherhood in hope and union, not only for the space of this bitter war, but for the days to come which shall and must unite all the children of earth.

"Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color, or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today that our children and our children's children may be proud of the name of man.

"The spirit of man has awakened and the soul of man has gone forth. Grant us the wisdom and the vision to comprehend the greatness of man's spirit, that suffers and endures so hugely for a goal beyond his own brief span. Grant us honor for our dead who died in the faith, honor for our living who work and strive for the faith, redemption and security for all captive lands and peoples. Grant us patience with the deluded and pity for the betrayed. And grant us the skill and the valor that shall cleanse the world of oppression and the old base doctrine that the strong must eat the weak because they are strong.

"Yet most of all grant us brotherhood, not only for this day but for all our years- a brotherhood not of words but of acts and deeds. We are all of us children of earth—grant us that simple knowledge. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger, we hunger. If their freedom is taken away, our freedom is not secure. Grant us a common faith that man shall know bread and peace-that he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best, not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march, toward the clean world our hands can make. Amen."

"Quantum", an American scientist, turned over secret information about operating U-235 from Uranium to the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C.

The Venona Files reveal Quantum to have been Russian-born Boris Podolsky, who emigrated from Russia in 1913.

Communist related, on this day Earl Browder, General Secretary of the Communist Party USA began correspondence with Franklin Roosevelt regarding Argentine leftist Victorio Codovilla, whom that country was threatening to deport to Spain.  

Saturday, May 22, 1943. Comintern dissolves.

The Comintern was dissolved in Moscow.

The Soviet Union had already betrayed the propaganda associated with the entity by being an ally of Nazi Germany until attacked by Nazi Germany.  The move was interpreted as a feeler towards the Western Allies, in that the Comintern had been dedicated to supplanting any government that wasn't a communist one.

Sarah Sundin's blog reports:

Today in World War II History—May 22, 1943: USS Bogue’s TBF aircraft damage German U-boat U-569, which is scuttled by her crew, the first victory for an Allied escort carrier unassisted by surface ships.

She also noted that Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland flew the ME262 on this day and was impressed by it, as anyone would have had to have been.

Long Range Desert Group, No. 2 Commando and the No. 43 (Royal Marine) Commando raided the Yugoslavian island of Mljet.   The raid was a substitute for ones early planned, and was supported by the OSS which had agents on the island.

Helen Taft, former First Lady, died at age 81.

Thursday, May 3, 1923. The attempt to depose Archbishop Tikhon.

 

Archbishop Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was expelled by the church and declared a traitor by the Communist dominated All Russian Church Council and declared "henceforth a simple citizen—Vasily Bellavin."

The body further declared:

Inasmuch as the Soviet Government is the only one in the whole world fighting capitalism, which is one of the seven deadly sins, therefore its struggle is a sacred struggle. The Council condemns the counterrevolutionary acts of Tikhon and his adherents, lifts the ban of excommunication he laid on the Soviet Government, and brands him as a traitor to the Church and to Russia. It hereby formally abolishes the office of Patriarch forever and establishes an annual Church Council as the supreme directive body in Church affairs.

The Russian Orthodox Church naturally did not recognize the move, and he continued to offer Devine Liturgy for the rest of his life, which at this point was not to be much longer. The Russian Orthodox Church has declared him to be a saint.  The move by the All Russian Church Council lead to the establishment of a competing church, which died out in the 1940s.  Of note, the establishment of competing government aligned churches is a common practice by authoritarian regimes.  Communist China at one time established a rival church to the Catholic Church, aligned with the government, and Nazi Germany attempted to create an aligned Lutheran Church, although the German efforts failed.

The move would lead to a period of irregular leadership in the Russian Orthodox Church, which was unable to procedural choose a successor in the regular method for a period of time, after Tikhon's death.

Then Bishop Tikhon at the consecration of Anglican Bishop Reginald Heber Weller at St. Paul's Cathedral in the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac.  Also present are Anthony Kozlowski of the Polish National Catholic Church in what sort of amounts to an interesting collection of clerics either claiming Apostolic succession, in the case of the Anglican's, or actually having it in the case of the Russian Orthodox and Polish National Catholic Church, and yet not being in communion with Rome.

Tikhon had been a clergyman for a very long time, but had only been head of the Russian Orthodox Church since 1917.  Earlier in his career he had been the Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, which became the Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America, and was a naturalized American citizen.  He was a participant, which is to say receptive, to the conversion of Byzantine Catholics into the Orthodox Church due to the ill feelings caused by Catholic Bishop John Ireland's view toward Eastern Rite Catholics comporting with the Latin Rite and Pope Pius X's restriction on Eastern Rite priests marrying, the latter which was later changed and the former which is recognized as a signficant mistake by Bishop Ireland.

The Pan American Treaty was signed in Chile between(Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela to "avoid or prevent conflicts between the American States.

The Union River flooded in Maine.

Friday, April 16, 1943. Mercader starts his wait.

Photo of a B-18 that had done a gear up landing, April 16, 1943.

The Battle of Cigno Convoy occurred off of Sicily, in which a Royal Navy attempt to interdict an Italian convoy resulted in the loss of the British destroyer Pakenham. The Italians lost a torpedo boat.

U.S. submarines under construction.

Swiss biochemist Albert Hofmann accidentally ingested LSD, making him the first human to do so.  He'd repeat the experiment and endure a "bad trip" two days later.

Hofmann was an advocate for the drug, hoping it would find some use, which it never did.

Ramón Mercader, a.k.a. Jacques Monard, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Mexican authorities for murdering Leon Trotsky.  Mercader would serve out his term and ultimately move to the Soviet Union, where he was employed by the USSR and regarded as a hero. Before his death in 1978 he noted;  "I hear it always. I hear the scream. I know he's waiting for me on the other side."

Tuesday, April 3, 1923. Murderous Communists, lost rail, the Roaring Twenties

Anyway you look at it, Communists are a bunch of murderous criminals.

This rule is darned near universal.

The Bureau of Social Hygiene, Inc., was asking about "spooning". That didn't mean what it would at some later date, but it wasn't all that far off.  In this case, it applied to what we might call consensual groping, which oddly enough was undergoing a certain fad popularity in certain sets.

It didn't mean chase conduct.  The Bureau of Social Hygiene resulted from the appointment of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to a Special Grand Jury to investigate white slavery in New York City as far back as 1910. The organization, centered under Rockefeller, came into existence in 1913.  Funded by grants, it went out of existence in 1940 when other pressing concerns existed.

It's tempting to look at it as superficial, or "Victorian", but in reality many of the developments of the late 1960s were strongly foreshadowed by the 1920s, including nearly every aspect of what would later be called the Sexual Revolution, if, in fact, not every single aspect, including widespread drug use in some sectors.  The rebellion against convention, as with the later one, was centered in youth, the difference being that the transformative era of the 1920s was in fact much greater than the one of the 1960s.  "Dating", and women living outside their parents households, really only began to become widespread in the 20s.

As with a marked increase in women working outside their households, due to the onset of domestic machinery, this development would be arrested by the Great Depression, and then somewhat by World War Two.  The Great Depression caused a lot of younger women, and men, to go back into their family homes, or remain there, throughout the 30s, something that World War Two likewise caused, although not in the same way given the widespread mobilization of society for the war effort.

This era of the Roaring Twenties is pretty well depicted in the book The Great Gatsby, and very well predicted by the second film variant of that novel.  People like to talk about the loss of an "age of innocence", which in many ways never existed, but the 20s, in some ways, would be a good candidate for that.

A movement was building in Casper to get a new proposed rail spur.  

FWIW, remnants of this spur exist far north of Casper for quite some time today.  The groundwork was done. . . but the rail never laid down.

Turkey lowered its voting age to 18 and removed its poll tax.

Yankee Stadium, April 3, 1923.

Only a Fool Would Say That

Only a Fool Would Say That was Steely Dan's song in reaction to John Lennon's Marxist anthem Imagine.

I'm glad some other musicians reacted.  Imagine is a horrible song, espousing an ideology that, while he claimed it would result in "nothing to kill or die for", killed more in the 20th Century than any other ideology going.

Lawrence Reed has an article on Lennon himself in The American Spectator.  It catalogs Lennon's real character, including his physical abuse of his first wife and his multiple extramarital affairs.  He's not a guy to be admired for any reason, but for some reason, perhaps his late physical appearance, and a decades long Libby Custer like effort to boost his image has created a false one for him.

I don't really get why people idolize performers anyway, except for their work.  I love the music of Jimi Hendrix, but he wasn't example a model of clean and effective living.

And interestingly, people will recite music and sing it without really pondering what the lyrics actually mean.  In our "Me Too" era, this is astounding.  Imagine is a Communist anthem.  Sweet Home Alabama excuses ongoing racial segregation in the South.  Brand New Key really does have sort of a creepy set of double meanings quality to it.  

And in spite of my self, I like those last two songs.

But at the same time, I guess, I don't idolize the Leonard Skynard or Melanie Safka

Tuesday, March 9, 1943. Rommel departs. Air Force limits. De La Rocque arrested. Goebbels looks in the Stable. We Will Never Die opens. Mardi Gras.

Erwin Rommel was recalled by Hitler from North Africa and put on medical leave. General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim assumed command of the Afrika Korps, and would remain in command until its surrender.  Effectively, Hitler had rescued Rommel.

Von Arnim.

Von Arnim bore a remarkable resemblance to actor Keenan Wynn, who played Col. "Bat" Guano in Dr. Strangelove.

Wynn, left.

Von Arnim would go into captivity in the UK and then later the U.S.  He would not enter the Bundesheer following its establishment, perhaps due to age, and died in 1962 at age 73.

Sarah Sundin notes on her blog:

Today in World War II History—March 9, 1943: US Eighth Air Force Central Medical Establishment recommends 25-mission combat tour for bomber crewmen and 200 hours or 50 missions for fighter pilots.

Of note, making it through 25 bomber missions at the time was against the odds.  Also, I didn't know that there was a limit for fighter pilots.

De La Rocque.

French right wing political figure François de La Rocque, who had gone from accepting the French surrender and Petain's rule to being a secret opponent of it and founder of a right wing resistance movement, was arrested by the Germans. Regarded by some as a precursor to de Gaulle, he would survive the war and die in 1946 at age 60.

De La Rocque had interestingly gone from the far right into moderation prior to the war, first being part of the Croix de Feu and then being a founder of the French Social Party.  The latter party was a combination of conservative and corporatist, but it was not anti-democratic. Some credit it with giving the French middle class an alternative to fascism, thereby preventing fascism from rising in France.

German poster in Dutch, part of an effort to recruit occupied Europeans to German arms out of fear of Communism.

German propagandist Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary

The anti-Bolshevik theme is the best horse in the stable.

Goebbels' comments are something that are frighteningly relevant in our current society.  Communism was the enemy of mankind, but so was Nazism.  Indeed, they both shared the common trait of mass murder as a central element of their ethos, which gave the regimes an odd sense of being constantly imperiled by huge plots, in their view, which necessitated murder, in their view, which in turn made millions of people culpable, and therefore loyal, through guilt.  

Victory or Bolshevism was the theme of this poster, which ironically portrayed starving Germans in the manner of which recalls Holocaust victims.  After 1943 the theme of this poster was in fact becoming increasingly true, although victory was no longer possible, as the Red Army was now advancing toward the German frontier.  Germans would have recalled that being a threat during the Russo Polish War of the early 1920s, when Trotsky seriously imagined entering Germany after defeating Poland, but now it was rapidly becoming an inevitability, which the German government implicitly acknowledged through this poster.  In fact, the German government would take no action to withdraw the civilian population from Prussia, although individual German commanders sometimes did, which mean that thousands of German men were shot and tens of thousands of German women raped when the Red Army entered the country.  The final months of the war would be a combat blood bath as German soldiers often went down fighting attempting to let the civilian population get out, a situation which was brought upon them by a barbarous Nazi government.

The Nazis, right from the onset, portrayed themselves as the cultural defenders against Communism, which made many forget, and then adopt, their radical views which were not "conservative" in any real sense. After reaching an accord with the Soviets just prior to World War Two, this was downplayed, but it was ramped back up again prior to Operation Barbarossa and kept at a fever pitch through the remainder of the war.  The message to Germans was that the Nazis were the only defense of Western culture against an "alien" Communism, although Communism itself was originally a German movement.  The message was sufficient for many Germans, including high ranking ones, to put aside their doubts about Nazism on the basis that it seemed to be, based upon what they were hearing, their only alternative to Communism.

Of course, for millions of Germans, the end of the war and Germany's fighting it out past mid 1943 would bring Communism to them.

By way of contemporary analogy, millions of Americans today have been listening, and continue to, to populist propagandist who spread lies and whip up panic over their being the only alternative to "wokeism".  Tucker Carlson and his ilk portray the far populist right as the only means of combating a host of truly concerning liberal ideas.  By espousing lies, they bring those ideas closer to implementation.

We Will Never Die, a Jewish pageant featuring spectacular artwork (copyright protected) on its cover, opened on the East Coast.  It acknowledged that it was held in memory of what it then thought to be Europe's 2,000,000 then Jewish dead, showing that knowledge of the Holocaust was in fact widespread, contrary to what some will claim.

Today was Mardi Gras for 1943.  On the same day, readers of the nation's newspapers learned that the wartime ban on sliced bread had been lifted the prior day.  The ban had been to save steel needed for slicing machines.

Monday, March 5, 1923. Reds.

The Soviet Union, which claimed to respect the rights of nations, delivered a protest note to Finland over Finland's negotiations with the League of Nations over Karelia, which should have been Finland's.

Soviet barbarity would later assure that it ended up in the USSR, and then later in Russia.  A general Soviet policy of Russification, which settled lands with Russians, means that Karelians, a Finnic people, are now minorities in Russian Karelia.

On the same day, Lenin wrote Stalin on a personal matter.

Dear Comrade Stalin:

You have been so rude as to summon my wife to the telephone and use bad language. Although she had told you that she was prepared to forget this, the fact nevertheless became known through her to Zinoviev and Kamenev. I have no intention of forgetting so easily what has been done against me, and it goes without saying that what has been done against my wife I consider having been done against me as well. I ask you, therefore, to think it over whether you are prepared to withdraw what you have said and to make your apologies, or whether you prefer that relations between us should be broken off.

Respectfully yours,       

Lenin 

Lenin's wife was one Nadezhda Krupskaya, who was also a Bolshevik and very active in party affairs.  She's long out live her husband, dying in 1939, just before the start of World War Two.   

She managed to survive Stalin's purges, even intervening to attempt to save some condemned Reds.  No doubt her status as the wife of the original Red dictator insulated her from such attacks.

It's widely asserted that Nadezhda wasn't Lenin's only love interest, and that French Communist Inessa Armand was his mistress.  This is hard to prove, however, even though it is flatly asserted as being the case in many histories referencing Lenin.  They had met in France while Lenin was living there, and she came to Russia following the Revolution.  Becoming overworked in Revolutionary Russia, Lenin urged her to go to the Caucasus for a holiday, which was suffering from an epidemic and which still had armed opposition to Communism. Supposedly, Lenin was unaware of this.  She contracted cholera there and was buried in a mass grave at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, being the first woman to be accorded this dubious honor.

Igor Sikorsky, who felt Soviet barbarity, incorporated the Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation in the U.S.

The state of Washington got around to adopting an official flag.

It's incredibly boring.

It's original appearance:

Still boring.

Casper read of railroads to be built, $1.00 gasoline, and the dangers of ardent wooing.