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I Am Back From My Adventure In Texas

I am back from my adventure in Texas. I accomplished all my objectives except getting to watch the Star Ship launch. I learned a lot. I got back to my roots. I got to meet a lot of great and friendly people. When I was in moments of crisis like when I needed to find a charger for my electric car, (a rarity in Texas), I got help. I had some great meals including real Texas barbecue in South Padre Island and gourmet seafood at Gaido's Restaurant in Galveston. I had some tough moments like a hotel room with no electric power and a flight that I seemed sure to miss at DFW Airport. Thanks to the brilliant design of the airport and the fast train system, I made my connection and got home. On television and in my conversations with locals, I kept hearing complaints that temperatures were getting hotter and hotter. They now use a heat index where the actual air temperature, the humidity, and the wind speed are factored in to get the exact temperature which is always much higher. I suffered in the heat. It limited my mobility outside. For example, when I came to the house where I started life, I wanted to make the three-block walk I always made every day with my mother to the large cemetery. I had to drive in my air-conditioned car. In this awful heat, air conditioning is not a luxury, it can literally be a matter of life and death. Texas moved to privatize its electricity grid. There are big weaknesses. A few years ago, the electricity grid collapsed during frigid winter temperatures one February. Up to 300 people died. As temperatures get higher, more electric power will be consumed to keep the cooling systems working. We could see more and more grid collapses. This could be fatal for people with medical conditions and vulnerable older people. The heat also produces more volatile weather conditions. This includes violent and volatile weather. As I was driving toward my hotel near Houston International Airport. I found myself in the middle of a violent thunderstorm including big hail balls. When I arrived at the Sheraton Hotel, it was a dark and dead building. The Texas power grid does not hold up well in this violent weather. Repairs take a long time. When I left the hotel to go to the airport 14 hours later, the power was still out in the hotel. I arrived at the airport terminal around 3:30 A.M. I expected to find a virtually empty building. It was packed with people. They all had flights canceled due to the bad weather. Some had slept in the terminal for many hours.

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Waiting For Gorbachev's Report on Chernobyl

Waiting for Gorbachev: The Chernyaev Diary, 1984 “What if we just went ahead and destroyed all these weapons? To say … that’s all, full stop!” Soviets “trying to civilize” Afghanistan and “make it happy” costing “thousands of lives” and bringing “global shame” on USSR Chernyaev: “And I am again an asshole idealist” Gorbachev “lively, with quick reaction … competent, confident, precise, capable of grasping the very essence of an issue … We have our “succession” Published: May 25, 2024 Briefing Book # 860 Translated and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya with assistance from Anna Melyakova For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Subjects Russia-U.S. Relations Regions Russia and Former Soviet Union Project Russia Programs Tom Blanton - Chernyaev Tom Blanton and Anatoly Chernyaev, Washington 2003. Photo by Svetlana Savranskaya Captain Chernyaev Chief of Staff of a separate battalion of the 1st Guards Rifle Corps of the 1st Shock Army Chernyaev A.S. 1944 Sloka, Latvia. Chernyaev and Yakovlev Anatoly Chernyaev and Alexandr Yakovlev at the Central Committee, 1990. Gorbachev Foundation Archive. Chernyaev and Shakhnazarov Anatoly Chernyaev and Georgy Shakhnazarov, early 1980s. Gorbachev Foundation Archive. Chernyaev with colleagues, early 1980s Anatoly Chernyaev and his colleagues share a moment of fun, the early 1980s. Gorbachev Foundation Archive. Chernyaev and Matlock Chernyaev and then-United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock Chernyaev with Gorbachev Chernyaev with Gorbachev. Chernyaev, Vesti interview, May 25, 2016 TV screenshot from Chernyaev's interview with Vesti on his 95th birthday, May 25, 2016. Anatoly Chernyaev with Malcolm Byrne and Svetlana Savranskaya at his home, June 2015, from Svetlana Savranskaya personal archive. Our last visit to Chernyaev's home, September 2016, photos by Svetlana Savranskaya Our last visit to Chernyaev's home, September 2016, photos by Svetlana Savranskaya Our last visit to Chernyaev's home, September 2016, photos by Svetlana Savranskaya Chernyaev and Svetlana Savranskaya Chernyaev and Svetlana Savranskaya, Washington 2003 Washington D.C., May 25, 2024 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 103rd birthday with the publication for the first time in English of his diary for 1984. A top aide to Mikhail Gorbachev who later became one of the most important scholars of the perestroika period, Chernyaev’s diary for 1984 documents his time as deputy director of the International Department of the Central Committee, responsible for the International Communist Movement (ICM). Within three years, he would become Gorbachev’s chief foreign policy adviser. With the aim of preserving his diary as a historical document that should be available to scholars, Chernyaev donated the original copy to the National Security Archive. Every year, the Archive translates and posts another installment of this extraordinary chronicle. Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Hoffman has called the Chernyaev diary “irreplaceable” and “one of the great internal records of the Gorbachev years.” After the Soviet collapse, Chernyaev followed his president to the Gorbachev Foundation, where he continued his scholarly work and also became one the most important voices for transparency and historical truth. In the 1990s, he was a prolific writer, a participant in numerous conferences, and a mentor to many Russian and Western scholars of the Cold War. This is the final installment of the Chernyaev diary. With this publication, the staff of the Archive’s Russia Programs has finished translating all of the “public” portions of the diary, as selected by the author himself, covering the years 1972-1991. This year is also the longest and most varied of the diary in terms of the subjects it covers. * * * For Chernyaev and many in-system dissidents and critical thinkers, 1984 was a year of great anticipation. The hopes connected with former General Secretary Yuri Andropov had not materialized, and as a result of the Soviet shootdown of a Korean airliner in September 1983, U.S.-Soviet relations had deteriorated sharply to levels not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. In December 1983, the Reagan administration started the deployment of Pershing missiles and cruise missiles to Europe, and the Soviets withdrew from arms control negotiations. Internal stagnation and a worsening international situation weighed heavily on the mind of Chernyaev, the Central Committee’s progressive thinker. But when Andropov dies on February 9, Chernyaev is thinking about the future: “Awful. Our poor Russia. But did the Andropov era come to an end? […] Would they have enough responsibility before the country, enough of Lenin’s party sense to appoint Gorbachev! If Chernenko—then the era will end quickly and overall …” Chernyaev believes that the promise of the “Andropov era” could be still realized and that the country could start moving under a new, energetic General Secretary. But already by February 14, Chernyaev expresses deep disappointment in his diary: the “miracle did not happen.” He sees the new Soviet leader, Konstantin Chernenko, as “mediocre and squalid in his intellectual capacity, poorly educated and devoid of any cultural basis, a minor party bureaucrat in his habits and ‘work experience,’ [an] apparatchik in the worst sense of this word.” The party quickly forgets about Andropov, and his name is barely mentioned in the Soviet leadership discourse. During Andropov’s funeral, many international leaders, including Margaret Thatcher, who led a large delegation, came to Moscow signaling a possible warming of relations. Sensing a chance for a new start, Chernyaev wonders if the leadership would grasp the opportunity and respond to the peace gestures appropriately, or “will our ‘class’ suspiciousness, our disparaging attitude to ‘their’ customs and rules of the game, and mainly the needs of the military-bureaucratic complex (meaning Gromyko-Ustinov personally) take the upper hand?” But the Soviet foreign policy remained frozen on Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko’s harsh positions. During 1984, Chernyaev writes about Gromyko frequently, often sharply disagreeing with his views. On May 25, he notes that Gromyko “is a person dangerous for his country. […] He was talking about how to present issues of nuclear arms control during negotiations. The essence of his numerous approaches and hints is—harsh confrontation, and not an iota away from the set formula: no negotiations until you remove the missiles from Europe.” In these notes on the fate of negotiations and on militarization, one sees a glimpse of Chernyaev the abolitionist, as he would later become as Gorbachev’s adviser. Chernyaev believes that the Soviet Union has to respond to Reagan’s “peace offensive,” especially since East European allies also want to improve relations with the West. One unforgettable vignette in the diary describes a June 4 Central Committee session on “military education.” In Chernyaev’s description, Chief of General Staff Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev gives a presentation “About the Character of Modern War” and shows U.S. documentaries about NATO weapons and war scenarios. Chernyaev is impressed not only by the technological aspects of the new weaponry, but also by the expense of producing it and the burden that responding in kind would put on the Soviet economy. The Marshal argues for “turning the country into a military camp,” while Chernyaev thinks about a suicidal war: “I was watching it and thinking: but it means that we must spend just as much, and even more for similar things. And what is all this for? To prepare a suicide of the humankind? Some kind of insanity! Forgetting where I was, I wanted to jump up and ask the Marshal: And what if we just went ahead and destroyed all these weapons, which are not worse and not less smart on our side? And to say to the entire world: we had enough, that’s all, full stop! We regained normal vision and common sense! What will happen?... Americans will go and conquer us at once?” These words seen like an early version of what he would write later, in 1986, in reaction to Gorbachev’s nuclear abolition proposal of January 15, 1986: “nobody will attack us even if we disarmed totally.” In another episode described in the diary, speechwriters and consultants gather at one of the “dachas” in Serebryanny Bor where they work on a draft of the new party program and relax after work: “atmosphere—loosened tongues, Alexandrov, in front of other people, calls Gromyko a dangerous senile, the term ‘duocracy’ is being used from time to time (Gromyko+Ustinov); the policy of being tough with the United States is discussed briskly: ‘we are working on Reagan’s reelection.’” Chernyaev, who was not present, heard about the scene from another International Department official and Chernyaev’s close friend, Karen Brutents. People around the table include Vadim Zagladin, Alexadr Bovin and Alexandr Yakovlev—all future new thinkers and architects of Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika. In Chernyaev’s own work, in the International Department, the crisis had become more and more obvious, as the International Communist Movement (ICM) was stagnating just like its patron, the USSR. In the diary, Chernyaev muses about the fate of ICM and the “helplessness” of his department. He sees that “there are some objective causes of our helplessness: the object of our work is either helpless itself or not ‘manageable’ from Moscow.” Communist parties in capitalist countries and even longstanding socialist allies like Hungary were trying to distance themselves from the USSR. As in previous years, Chernyaev gives vivid critical assessments of his boss, Boris Ponomarev, who he sees as an ossified apparatchik whose main aspiration is to please his bosses and maybe become a Politburo member. Chernyaev sees himself as an “asshole idealist” compared to Ponomarev, now almost 80 years old, who is obsessed about his own role in Soviet policy formulation, demanding that Chernyaev and other deputies produce endless drafts of speeches and programmatic articles. The work is almost unbearable for Chernyaev, who writes, after one conversation with Ponomarev: “Our poor party, which keeps this kind of vainglorious pigmy in its leadership (and for so many years!).” In late May and into June, Chernyaev visits Hungary on the invitation of the Hungarian leadership, who see him as a “smart” old friend. He sees his old friend Gyula Horn, who will become one of the leading Hungarian reformers in the late 1980s, then Foreign Minister, and later Prime Minister of Hungary. The Hungarians speak quite openly with Chernyaev about self-sufficiency, independence, and openness to the West. At the same time, they assure him that Hungary will not leave the commonwealth and will stay on the socialist path. But even loyal Hungarians complain about the heavy-handed and disrespectful Soviet policy: “how disrespectfully and un-comradely we acted when we did not consult or inform or agree beforehand about refusing to participate in the Olympics. Could there have been any doubt—Gyula was saying—that we would show solidarity regardless of whether we liked it or not? But how could one show one’s disrespect to their friends so rudely, to confront them with a fait accompli? To leave them looking like fools in front of their own people and athletes?” The Soviet international image had suffered considerably from the ongoing war in Afghanistan. The situation there continued to deteriorate, and the puppet regime of Babrak Karmal was relying more and more on Soviet advisers and combat troops. In the diary, Chernyaev describes an August 9 Politburo session in which Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov reports about his conversations with Karmal: “The bandits control 80% of the territory. There is no full normalcy and order even in Kabul. The trouble is that the liberated areas are not ‘reinforced,’ or the way we would put it, they do not implement ‘soviet regime’ there. The troops leave—and the bandits come back.” The Soviet army defends the border with Pakistan. The military draft is not working, and the Afghan draftees “run away and scatter.” Ustinov tells Karmal, “it will not work this way. You are in power, this your country, you should govern” and not shift responsibility to Soviet advisors. As part of his work on a new edition of the History of the CPSU, Chernyaev comes face to face with memories of Stalin’s crimes and the way they were brushed under the rug even after the 20th party congress. He meets with a party historian who had full access to documents from Stalin’s purges. The historian, Zaitsev, tells him about his experience: “There are terrible things there. I held those documents in my own hands. For example, the list of 145 industrial leaders … signed: Molotov, below [his signature] Stalin. But in Stalin’s handwriting, there is a bracket across from all the names and it says: ‘All to be shot!’ Or the list of 46 secretaries of district committees.” According to Zaitsev, Khrushchev eventually decided that there were already too many revelations and that school textbooks should not say anything about the purges. The documents were reclassified, and since then nobody had access to them. Chernyaev, in indignation, writes in his diary about the cult of Stalin and the fact that it is still present among the population. 1984 is also the year of the cotton “affair” in Uzbekistan and when the Politburo took a closer look into what was happening in the Central Asian republics. Chernyaev describes a report to the Politburo by the first secretary of Turkmenistan, Gapurov, who reveals that there are “[t]housands of underground mullahs. In public view, people appear to live by the Soviet norms, but at home, in the village—follow the Sharia norms. Boys are circumcised, 100% of funerals are done by the rules of the Koran, and so on.” Women are forced to stay at home, the dowry system is widespread, and the situation looks quite medieval. Gorbachev and other Politburo members react with disbelief. Chernyaev’s reaction is quite radical: “maybe we should send all these Turkmen, with the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Estonians and others to go f*** themselves: let them do whatever they want to do to themselves independently!” But the main theme of the year is anticipation. Chernyaev was hoping that Gorbachev would become Andropov’s successor, but “the miracle did not happen,” and so in 1984, he keeps comparing the lively and smart Gorbachev with the sluggish and asthmatic Chernenko. On April 10, he notes in the diary, “I am living in an almost unbearable anticipation of something, as if something is about to happen with me any time now, or something must happen at the Kremlin heights, or in the bowels of our blessed Ponomarev’s agency, or in my ‘social relations’ with people who surround me … I don’t know … Maybe it is a more global foreboding: maybe something will suddenly change in the world and it will all turn completely differently.” Chernyaev observes Gorbachev chairing the CC Secretariat sessions on a regular basis, meeting with foreign dignitaries and engaging with Soviet regional leaders on the most challenging issues of the day. In June 1984, Gorbachev was sent (after some controversy, because Ponomarev wanted to go) as Soviet representative to the funeral of Italian Communist party leader Enrico Berlinguer, where he was greeted by adoring crowds. Chernyaev watches the young agriculture secretary with avid interest and is convinced that he would become the next Soviet leader: “I was admiring Gorbachev: he is lively, with quick reaction, and at the same time one can see that he had been preparing; competent, confident, precise, capable of grasping the very essence of an issue, distinguish chatter from business, find solutions, point to practical measures, straighten out and even threaten when things are hopeless. He is cheerful and with internal strength. In other words, we have our ‘succession.’” Chernyaev seems to describe every Politburo session where he heard Gorbachev speak: his smart and substantive remarks, his displeasure with presenters who read their formal papers, his attention to new ideas, his hints that it is time to break the monopoly of the Foreign Ministry. The problem is that his boss, Ponomarev, “despises Gorbachev, he considers him a parvenu and a complete ignoramus in big politics, an ‘agrarian secretary,’ who went twice on foreign trips and believes that he learned everything. This hubris will cost Ponomarev dearly. Especially so because it is directed toward a person who is superior to Ponomarev in all parameters many times over, including by his intellect, his education, and in his adherence to his principles, and in his decency.” Gorbachev consults with Chernyaev and values his opinion, especially before his groundbreaking trip to Great Britain in December 1984, during which Gorbachev impressed Margaret Thatcher as a man “we can do business with.” In this year, the minds of the future General Secretary and his future adviser meet, and probably a spark flies between them, previewing a time, in less than two years, when they would work together closely and help change the world. DIARY 1984 The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev, 1984. The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev, 1984 1984 Source Donated by A.S. Chernyaev to The National Security Archive Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev 1921-2017 CHERNYAEV DIARY POSTINGS Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1972 May 25, 2012 Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1973 May 25, 2013 Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1974 May 25, 2014 Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1975 May 25, 2015 Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1976 May 25, 2016 Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1977 May 25, 2017 Anatoly S. Chernyaev Diary, 1978 May 25, 2018 The Chernyaev Diary, 1979 Mat 25, 2019 The “Irreplaceable” Chernyaev Diary 1980 May 25, 2020 The Chernyaev Centennial, Diary 1981 May 25, 2021 The Chernyaev Diary, 1982 May 25, 2022 The Chernyaev Diary, 1983 May 25, 2023 Waiting for Gorbachev: The Chernyaev Diary, 1984 May 25, 2024 The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1985 May 25, 2006 The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1986 May 25, 2007 The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev: 1987-1988 May 23, 2008 The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1989 May 26, 2009 The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1990 May 26, 2010 The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1991 May 25, 2011 Anatoly Chernyaev. Interview from 1997. Anatoly Chernyaev. Come out of the shadows. Part 1. Anatoly Chernyaev. Come out of the shadows. Part 2. "Vesti" on Chernyaev's death. 2017. National Security Archive Suite 701, Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street, NW Washington, D.C., 20037 Phone: 202/994-7000 Fax: 202/994-7005 Contact by email Join Our Mailing List 'Like' us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

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Some Excellent Reflections On Time

We are on Saturday again: A poem that I saw in a Rice University yearbook almost 60 years ago haunts me: Once upon a time... And once again times two I say... What and where is time? The mark and measure of events?... Birth and death? It waits for some... Runs out for others... And yet is endless. Let us fast forward from 1966 to 1986. A cult film that Elena and I both love, "Blade Runner," premiered. In the first cut, the film had an unforgettable ending. Harrison Ford and Sean Young flew over beautiful countryside in a flying car. Harrison Ford went into a reflective monologue with the movie ending with these words: "Then none of us knows how much time we have left." Now we are 38 years later, and I found this beautiful pearl of wisdom that I have already shared with some of you: "Time is the only currency you spend without knowing the balance." Each of us has a finite amount of time here on earth. What happens to you after this time depends on your philosophy and religious beliefs. One of my swim club members gave me a great moment of Chinese philosophy as follows: "C is between the letters B and D. B signifies birth. D signifies death. C signifies the choices that we make in life." My dear father died at age 60 some 48 years ago. He is remembered most wonderfully by all who knew him. He was not a racist. A keystone of his life was helping others and being generous to others. When he died, his funeral was well attended. Please take some time to reflect on this. Eat some healthy non-processed food. Get some life-renewing exercise. Rest after a week of hard work. Most importantly, tell someone close to you that you love them.

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Ukraine Has Invalidated Centuries Of Conventional Military Wisdom

In 2010 the prominent Yale historian Timothy Snyder wrote a powerful history book about the part of the world where Ukraine sits. A summary is as follows: Snyder's book examines the region between Moscow and Berlin, which he calls "The Bloodlands", and describes the atrocities committed by the Nazi and Soviet regimes, including mass executions, cannibalism, and the murder of children and infants. Snyder argues that the regimes murdered around 14 million people in this region, which stretches from central Poland to western Russia and includes Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. He also discusses the regimes' use of demographic profiling to target civilians, and the killing of ethnic minorities, including 110,000 Poles who were shot for suspected espionage. Some say that Bloodlands is a difficult book to read, but an important warning to military leaders about the consequences of unchecked military force. It appears that another bloodbath is taking place in the area of Ukraine. By the end of the year, I project that Russian deaths in Ukraine will exceed one million. Ukraine is very secretive about its military losses. Here is what they report on civilian casualties: Civilian deaths By 24 September 2023, OHCHR had recorded 27,449 civilian casualties in Ukraine since February 24, 2022: 9,701 killed and 17,748 injured. This included 14,231 (4,287 dead and 6,324 injured) in Donetsk and Luhansk. This figure does not take into account some 4,500,000 Ukrainian citizens displaced by the war. I am going to estimate the military deaths at 300,000+, We are headed for another Vietnam where some 3.25 million Vietnamese lost their lives during the 10-year U.S. war there. Despite these appalling and almost unimaginable losses, Ukraine has held up well. They have shown a stunning innovation not seen in warfare for centuries in some cases as follows: Conventional wisdom number one: A nation must have a large blue water navy fleet with many advanced ships, many people operating them, and massive firepower. Ukraine's tiny navy was neutralized on the first day of the Russian invasion. Ukraine got very smart. They learned how to use drones, including undersea drones to decimate the Russian Black Sea fleet including a major heavy cruiser, nuclear submarine, large landing ships, etc. Conventional wisdom#2: A nation must have a large and technologically superior air force with very expensive fighters like the F-35 and very expensive bombers like the B-2. Ukraine's air force consisted of obsolete fighters from the old Soviet Union. This air force fought valiantly but suffered grievous losses. NATO allies sent them some more obsolete Soviet-era jet fighters. F-16s are on their way. The Ukraine air force and defense industry did not let this hold them down. They started using all sorts of drones to carry out very sophisticated bombing missions even deep inside Russia. These drones were up against one of the most sophisticated and deadly air defense systems on earth. They have also shot down or destroyed hundreds of very advanced Russian aircraft including strategic bombers, advanced AWAC platforms, and even an advanced command and control aircraft. Conventional wisdom #3: A nation must have a large standing land army with massive quantities of tanks, other armored vehicles, and artillery to prevail. Ukraine's army is constantly outnumbered and outgunned by the Russian army. They have learned to use drones of all kinds to inflict massive military casualties and destroy massive amounts of military equipment. Here is an example of Ukraine's advanced drone technology at its best. It is a stealth drone submarine: New stealth submarine with James Bond-like features could help Ukraine defeat Russia (newsbreak.com) I am sure that Chinese military planners considering an invasion of Taiwan take note of what is happening in Ukraine.

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Would The Soviet Union Had Survived The German Invasion In World War II Without U.S. Aid?

From your Digest Profile photo for Dima Vorobiev Dima Vorobiev · Follow Former Propaganda Executive at Soviet Union (1980–1991)Updated 4y Would the Soviet Union have survived the German invasion without American military aid? Originally Answered: Would the Soviet Union have survived German invasion without American military aid? My stance is yes they would have survived. If we divide the American help to the USSR in WW2 into three most important parts, the answer would be: “Without American weapons”: probably yes. “Without American deliveries for military production and logistics”: most probably, no. “Without American food”: certainly no. Among the critical deliveries to military production was the welding equipment that sped up and improved the production of our T34s enormously. Half of the explosives and gunpowder we spent on the Nazis, came under the lend-lease. Almost all aluminum and three quarters of copper was from the Allies, as well as hundreds of thousands of military vehicles. Tires for these, and the fuel for our air forces also came from the Allies. Almost all the rolling stock and railway engines, too. UPD: The aluminum, copper, and some other stats vary from source to source depending on whether they include the USSR’s own production throughout the entire year 1945 or not. For example, in 1945 the production of Soviet aluminium tripled because two additional plants were taken into use (Kamensk-Uralsky and Bogoslovsky.) What is almost certain, is that without American deliveries of food to our troops, the USSR hadn’t have lasted past the winter/spring 1943. Consider the following: In January 1941, the combined food reserves of the USSR amounted to 16,162,000 metric ton. This means about 80 kilograms per head of population. Much of this was lost in summer and fall 1941 to the advancing Germans and as a result of scorched earth policy. Almost the entire stock of canned meat on the European territory also was lost. The food production in the most fertile territories west of Volga was lost in 1942, and most of it was also lost in 1941. The agriculture lost millions of work hands when men from the countryside were drafted into the army and mobilized for military production. Horses from the collective and state farms were requisitioned for the army. Almost the entire stock of agricultural machines was rendered idle because of a strict fuel rationing and absence of spare parts to the shoddily made tractors and other equipment. The appalling losses of human lives in Leningrad where over a million succumbed to starvation, cold and diseases in 1941–1943 gives an indication of what happened elsewhere in the country where the scorched earth policy left remaining civilians without food and shelter. My mom was on the verge of starvation in Moscow in the fall 1941—imagine how bad it was in the provinces. Below, a piece of government-endorsed painting of Alexander Deineka “Tanks are heading to war”. According to canons of official propaganda, the apples and the Sunday clothes the peasant woman is wearing for work symbolize the wealth of Soviet countryside at the start of the war. However, the fact that the woman uses a milk cow for plowing her plot subtly indicates a huge problem food production faced in wartime USSR: no horses for food production, and no tractors. Below, this is how the fields really were worked during the war. An agriculture in such a state of despair simply couldn’t carry the mighty Soviet war machine through the dark first half of the war without a massive help from the US and other allies. 330.9K views View 6,750 upvotes View 68 shares 1 of 122 answers

The Economist Magazine Cover For 05/11/2024

The Economist Read in browser MAY 11TH 2024 How we chose this week’s image SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s image Insert a clear and simple description of the image Edward Carr Deputy editor We had two covers this week. In most of our editions, we wrote about the breakdown of the economic order. In Britain, after local elections which made it even more likely that Labour will form the next government, we asked whether it can work with business. At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient, yet we fear that it is flirting with collapse. A worrying number of triggers could set off a descent into anarchy, where might is right and war is once again the resort of great powers. Even if it never comes to conflict, the degradation of the economy could be fast and brutal. Our working metaphor for this breakdown in norms had been “entropy”, a measure of randomness that crops up in the study of thermodynamics. The smashed globe was peak randomness, we thought. But our science-minded colleagues objected that nobody understands entropy, and suggested that a better term for a seemingly steady state vulnerable to sudden collapse would be “metastable equilibrium”. A former science editor even went so far as to illustrate the mechanics with a sketch. Oh dear. The Economist was rapidly heading down a rabbit hole better suited to Nature or Science. As British journalists like to say, time to reverse ferret. We shifted from the laboratory to the salesroom. In 2018 a painting by Banksy destroyed itself just after the hammer came down at a price of £1.04m ($1.4m), including fees. We would be repeating the trick: you might think the world is secure, but it is about to be shredded. However, some of our colleagues found this imagery every bit as confusing as entropy. And, in truth, “Girl with balloon” is a flawed metaphor for ruination. In 2021 Banksy’s half-shredded masterwork returned to auction—and fetched £18.6m. We thought some more. The institutions that safeguarded the old system are either already defunct or fast losing credibility. The World Trade Organisation is in stasis, owing to American ­neglect. The IMF is gripped by an identity crisis, caught between a green agenda and ensuring financial stability. The UN Security Council is paralysed. Meanwhile, sanctions and subsidies threaten open markets. One way of representing this was to have the world as a ball of wool about to unravel. So far fragmentation and decay have imposed a stealth tax on the global economy. It is perceptible, but only if you know where to look. Unfortunately, deeper, more chaotic collapses are possible. The first world war killed off a golden age of globalisation that many at the time assumed would last for ever. In the early 1930s, following the onset of the Depression and the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, America’s imports collapsed by 40% in just two years. In August 1971 Richard Nixon unexpectedly suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold; only 19 months later, the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange-rates fell apart. Again, though, we worried about the metaphor. Unravelling does not happen slowly and then suddenly. Yet that is the threat today. The return of Donald Trump to the White House, with his zero-sum worldview, would continue the erosion of institutions and norms. The fear of a second wave of cheap Chinese imports could accelerate it. Outright war between America and China over Taiwan, or between the West and Russia, could cause an almighty collapse. We wanted something more violent and troubling than a wool-planet. That favoured an image of the rules being torn apart. We have put some words over a disordered map. However, “world order” was too reminiscent of President George W. Bush, so for the final cover we substituted “economic” instead. Buttressed by strong growth in America, it may seem as if global commerce can survive everything that is thrown at it. It can’t. In the British election, due by the end of January 2025, the central forecast of our model gives Labour a thumping 106-seat majority. The transformation of Labour’s political fortunes since the last general election has been accompanied by a fervent romancing of business. Bosses are keen to listen. It is easier to get tickets to see ­Taylor Swift’s opening night at Wembley next month than to attend the party’s “business day” in September at a dingy ­Liverpool conference centre. Here is an office painted red. It is apt because polls of business leaders suggest they would rather see Labour in power than the Conservatives. Since the election in 2019, Britain has left the EU and had three prime ministers, five chancellors and seven chief secretaries to the Treasury. Labour promises to end political instability and investment-chilling policy churn. The trouble is that a person-free image lacks warmth. Besides, if you probe business leaders in private, they profess alarming uncertainty about what lies in store under a Labour prime minister. Much better was Labour’s prime minister-in-waiting, Sir Keir Starmer. Here he is chomping on a rose—a symbol of courtly romance and the Labour Party itself. At the heart of Sir Keir’s pitch is a grand bargain. Labour promises to restore basic governing principles that have too often been neglected by the Tories: political stability, predictable policymaking and supply-side reform. In ­return, it will ask companies to swallow big changes, notably in labour markets. Our artist has done a tremendous job. But how to position the noble knight’s arms? Here they are outstretched as if Sir Keir were an old lothario. In reality, he is a decent man, but not a flamboyant one. We preferred him as an eager suitor, hands clasped meekly behind his back. A great deal is at stake for Labour and Britain in striking the right bargain with business. The country has been plagued by low growth since the financial crisis of 2007-09. Money is so tight that the only way to pay for better public services is to improve the economy. Unfortunately, romances often end in disappointment. Cover image • View large image (“The new economic order”) • View large image (“Be mine: Labour’s courtship of business”) Backing stories → The liberal international order is slowly coming apart (Leader) → The world’s economic order is breaking down (Briefing) → What companies can expect if Labour wins Britain’s election (Leader) →

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A New Perspective On The Atomic Bomb And Japan

Profile photo for Brandon Ross Brandon Ross · Follow J.D. from Western Michigan University (Graduated 2007)Mar 4 Say hypothetically that the Japanese government in August 1945 said that they would never give up, no matter how many atomic bombs dropped, and were would risk the eradication of Japan as a country. How would the invasion of Japan be in this case? Say hypothetically that the Japanese government in August 1945 said that they would never give up, no matter how many atomic bombs dropped, and were would risk the eradication of Japan as a country. Hypothetically? No, that actually happened. When the atomic bombs were dropped, the Imperial Japanese government sent some people out to investigate. Government officials in Tokyo didn't know there were atomic bombs. Just that the Americans had bombed something like… their 23rd city. So they looked, shrugged, and, “Yep. It's some kind of new bomb. Not that important. Let the Japanese people suffer the bombings. The Japanese people will do anything to save their Emperor.” How would the invasion of Japan be in this case? Russia would say, “Well. Time to go to war against Japan. Let's start doing that…” And then make a break for the coast, retaking all of the strategic gains that Japan had taken on the mainland. And then they would start planning their invasion of Northern Japan. In a desperate race to seize Japan and Tokyo before the Americans could invade. And then Japan's military council looked around, and some of them said, “The Soviets are about to hit the mainland from the North. And once they do, things are going to get very hard very quickly. And we can't fight them off forever. When they finally get to Tokyo, they're going to kill everyone—including the Emperor. And not getting him killed is pretty much our only goal.” Which led to a very quick solution: “We better surrender to the Americans.” And after some infighting and a very brief coup attempt, they promptly did. A complete and total surrender. Except for one teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, most-humble ask from Japan: the emperor gets to stick around. Every once in awhile, Russia lets everyone know it's still pissed off about via it petty land claims against Japan. (Note: when I say Americans here, I mean that Western coalition. Yes the Americans were most prominent. But there were other soldiers, sailors, and Marines who fought as well.) 12.8K views View 235 upvotes V

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The Economist Magazine Cover For 05/0/2024

The Economist Read in browser MAY 4TH 2024 How we chose this week’s image SUBSCRIBER ONLY Cover Story How we chose this week’s image Insert a clear and simple description of the image Edward Carr Deputy editor We had two covers this week. In most of the world we featured our interview with Emmanuel Macron, France’s president. In Asia we looked at the science behind the threat from disinformation. Our interview with Mr Macron took place in the opulent salon doré, which looks out from the first floor onto the expansive gardens of the Elysée Palace. It was a beautiful spring day and I was joined by our Paris bureau chief, Sophie Pedder. Through a half-open French window onto the balcony, you could hear birdsong. The jollity made Mr Macron’s apocalyptic warning about Europe’s future all the more shocking. His worry is not just for the European Union, or even the defence of European territory. It is about the durability of a set of rules and values, underpinned by economic wealth and physical security, which bind all Europeans. European civilisation, he told us, is in mortal danger. We had a photographer there and before we started the interview, he had some moments to snap France’s president against a dark screen set up at the top of the Elysée’s grand marble staircase. Seven years ago, when Emmanuel Macron was first elected president, his campaign was brimming over with optimism. This shot is sombre and bleak. Here is a man with a furrowed brow who has seen the future. But this shot, taken as the interview was under way, is much better. Mr Macron spoke to us about the triple shock of interconnected threats facing Europe. The first is geopolitical: its struggle to stand up to Russia bent on war, even as America’s future commitment to Europe has gone wobbly. Second is an alarming industrial gap that has opened up as Europe has fallen behind America and China, especially in renewable energy and artificial intelligence. Mr Macron’s third theme is the frailty of Europe’s politics, under assault from a resurgent nationalism, turbo-charged by disinformation and echo-chamber news. The trouble with this picture was the president’s wrist. Like a Wimbledon winner flashing his Rolex, Mr Macron has a watch and it jumps out at you. Not only was this the watch-lite version of Mr Macron, but France’s president is pitched towards our masthead at an alarming angle, one eye deep in shadow. We tried to give the cover a historic weight, by putting it in black and white. But colour had an urgency that captured Mr Macron’s intensity. Behind him the gilt moulding of the salon doré is a sulphurous, egg-yolk yellow. Mr Macron’s ideas have real power, and he has proved prescient in the past. He is clearer about the perils Europe is facing than the leader of any other large country. But he is bedevilled by unpopularity at home and poor relations with Germany. The tragedy for Europe is that the words of France’s Cassandra may well fall on deaf ears. Our second cover is about the falsehoods that are intended to deceive. Disinformation is being spread around the world by increasingly sophisticated campaigns. Artificial intelligence and intricate networks of social-media accounts are ­being used to make and share eerily convincing photos, video and audio, confusing fact with fiction. In a year when half the world is holding elections, this is fuelling fears that technology will make disinformation impossible to fight, fatally undermining democracy. How worried should you be? Here we have a wolf in a digital sheep’s clothing. Disinformation has existed for as long as there have been two sides to an argument, but the internet has made the problem much worse. Social media have made false information very cheap to spread; artificial intelligence makes it very cheap to produce. This is a clever idea. Our designers have taken the truth and wrapped it in barbed-wired writing to spell out the word “lies”. Disinformation obscures the truth, by cloaking it in scurrilous untruth of the sort that people love to believe. Take, for example, the story that Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, went on a $1.1m shopping spree on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. This was a Russian campaign that began as a video on YouTube, before passing through African fake-news websites and being boosted by other sites and social-media accounts. The trouble is that “lies” here is too hard to read. If this was how disinformation worked, the truth would be easy to spot and the lies barely intelligible. The goal of many operations is not necessarily to make you support one political party over another. Sometimes the aim is simply to pollute the public sphere, or sow distrust in media, governments, and the very idea that truth is knowable. Hence the Chinese fables about weather weapons in Hawaii, or Russia’s bid to conceal its role in shooting down a Malaysian airliner by promoting several competing narratives. The common feature is that disinformation grabs you. One of our designers is a keen fisherman and he thought of comparing it to bait on a hook. Here is one hook, with one bright-red, wormy lie. Our final cover ended up depicting lots of worms. The reality is that the truth is often outnumbered. Cover image • View large image (“Europe in mortal danger”) • View large image (“The new science of disinformation”) Backing stories → Emmanuel Macron’s urgent message for Europe (Leader) → Emmanuel Macron on how to rescue Europe (Europe) → How disinformation works—and how to counter it (Leader) → Disinformation is on the rise. How does it work? (Science and technology)

The Components That Go Into A Tesla Battery

This is a Tesla model Y battery. It takes up all of the space under the passenger compartment of the car. To manufacture it you need: --12 tons of rock for Lithium (can also be extracted from sea water) -- 5 tons of cobalt minerals (Most cobalt is made as a byproduct of processing copper and nickel ores. It is the most difficult and expensive material to obtain for a battery.) -- 3 tons nickel ore -- 12 tons of copper ore You must move 250 tons of soil to obtain: -- 26.5 pounds of Lithium -- 30 pounds of nickel -- 48.5 pounds of manganese -- 15 pounds of cobalt To manufacture the battery also requires: -- 441 pounds of aluminum, steel and/or plastic -- 112 pounds of graphite The Caterpillar 994A is used to move the earth to obtain the minerals needed for this battery. The Caterpillar consumes 264 gallons of diesel in 12 hours. The bulk of necessary minerals for manufacturing the batteries come from China or Africa. Much of the labor in Africa is done by children. When you buy an electric car, China profits most. The 2021 Tesla Model Y OEM battery (the cheapest Tesla battery) is currently for sale on the Internet for $4,999 not including shipping or installation. The battery weighs 1,000 pounds (you can imagine the shipping cost). The cost of Tesla batteries are: Model 3 -- $14,000+ (Car MSRP $38,990) Model Y -- $5,000–$5,500 (Car MSRP $47,740) Model S -- $13,000–$20,000 (Car MSRP $74,990) Model X -- $13,000+ (Car MSRP $79,990) It takes 7 years for an electric car to reach net-zero CO2. The life expectancy of the battery is 10 years (average). Only in the last 3 years do you start to reduce your carbon footprint, but then the batteries must be replaced and you lose all gains made. What are your thoughts?

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The Shocking Cost Of Going To College In The U.S.A.

One of our readers got the joyous news that their son had been accepted at Occidental College in Los Angeles. I pointed out to his wife that former President Barack Obama began his academic career at that college before he transferred to Columbia University on the way to Harvard Law School. Many of our readers have children who are students at colleges like UCLA, U.C. Davis, Northeastern University, Tulane University, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, etc. I have been aware of the high cost of tuition at private colleges (Harvard@$90,000 per year, for example.). Two of our readers have a daughter who is finishing her freshman year at Terra Nova High School. Their daughter has expressed interest in attending the University of California Santa Barbara. This is a public university run by the University of California system. The daughter is a California resident with a Green Card. Here is what she is looking at as annual costs to attend this excellent academic institution: Tuition: $14,517.00 Other Costs: $23,285.00 (This includes books, a room in a student residence building, meals, etc. It does not include what the parents will have to spend for clothes, mobile phones, medical care, etc.) Total Costs: $37,802.00 U.C. Santa Barbara literature claims that scholarships, grants, and other government programs reduce this cost to $15,438.00 per year. I am skeptical of this figure because not every student will get all these discounts. Let us take the total costs above and multiply them by 4 years. We get some $151,208. Many economically disadvantaged students will leave college with a student loan debt of $151,208. If the student goes on to law school, medical school, graduate school of business or engineering, etc., this debt could go up hundreds of thousands of dollars more. If that student wants to return to San Mateo County and buy a home, they will need an income of $500,000 per year to afford a home here according to published reports. They will need a much higher income because they must pay off student loans and a monthly mortgage payment. Let us go back 52 years. I attended and graduated from Tulane University. It is a private college. Long ago tuition was $5,000 per year. I left college with a $2,500 student loan debt. (Tulane's tuition today is $68,678 per year.) A year later, I bought my first home in Falls Church, Virginia. The cost was $22,000 then. I was not required to pay a down payment because I was on active duty in the U.S. Navy. The monthly payment was $150. Elena's great fear is that we will end up with a society where there is no upward mobility. Either one will be born with money, or they will never get it. I am not that pessimistic. But it is going to become harder and harder to move up from poverty or the lower middle class (Where Elena and I started) to prosperity

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