Spiderman (or others): a guessing game

[Myshkin]

Guess where I went last Friday? It was a trip that would not have happened if not for some of our discussions ;) Here are two hints: 20/8/1940 and it was not in the United States. I don't know how easy it will be to guess from that (unless you are just going to cheat).

If someone else guesses it, feel free to say that you figured it out (even if you cheated) but please don't spoil it.

[Wazza]

Without cheating.. Not that I'm ever good at history, seems it was early on in World War 2.. Not in USA?
Still thinking it's in war... maybe some town wreck, living nothing but rubble, or a boat... In Japan/Russia/Germany.

That's good enough for me..

Don't say it's got nothing to do with the war. :")

[FeZ]

I am really bad with remembering names & dates, so I had to cheat :D

I think I know now. ;)

[wello]

the only thing I can remember from that date was it was the date that Churchill made this speach
{Never
in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few bah bah }

I only know that because it was on teley over the weekend :p

[monaro]

mexico?

[meinherr]

I will hazard to guess you went to visit the Famous Train Boxcar in Versailles France where in 1918 Germany signed the Treaty papers wich would lead them on the Road to WW II . Is the date you mentioned the Day France Surrendered to Germany and Hitler ? )=)

[FIATLOVE]

Guess I have to cheat here,
hmm, easy ;) :D




:Peace:

[Spiderman2]

I didn't cheat. I don''t know really. Clueless here despite the clues. Something to do with Estonia maybe? =[

edit: OK I cheated now. I think it may have been a house. ;) Any blood stains?

[DCsplash]

Spidy's clue sorted it.
Mysh, i take it you weren't traveling with a forged Canadian passport:)

[Myshkin]

-^

It has nothing to do with war, for Wazza and those of you that went along that line of thinking.

http://www.totalnfs.net/mysh/think.JPG

I hadn't been down there in almost 3 years, and had never walked the 9 blocks from where I go to a house... actually a couple of houses. Frida Kahlo's house was actually maybe 5 blocks. No bloodstains, though :eek: that would have been a little morbid.

I have to say it was interesting though. The house has been preserved as it was, with all of his books and papers.

[Myshkin]

Okay well to remove the riddle completely:

http://www.totalnfs.net/mysh/enfrente.JPG

For those of you wondering what the cheat was, not too many things happened on 20 August, 1940. Google picks out the right answer within two or three hits, without even having to follow the link.

[Myshkin]

http://www.totalnfs.net/mysh/mausoleo.JPG

Avenida Río Churubusco 410 Col. Del Carmen
Coyoacán C.P. 04100 México, D.F.

"While at the home on August 20, 1940, a Stalinist agent, Ramon Mercader del Rio Hernandez, attacked Trotsky in Coyoacán (a suburb of Mexico City), driving the pick of an ice axe, whose shaft had been drastically shortened, into his skull.

Mercader later testified at his trial: “I laid my raincoat on the table in such a way as to be able to remove the ice axe which was in the pocket. I decided not to miss the wonderful opportunity that presented itself. The moment Trotsky began reading the article gave me the chance, I took out the ice axe from the raincoat, gripped it in my hand and, with my eyes closed, dealt him a terrible blow on the head.” Trotsky died the next day."

[WCOutlaw]

Durn, Google Canada didn't even hint at that...

http://www.google.ca/search?q=August+20th%2C+1940&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=

I just got stuff related to Churchills' speech or other WW2 related articles (and then the usual crowd of unrelated stuff)

Sounds interesting Mysh.

[Spiderman2]

It sounds interesting. I read a book some years ago called the Blue House by Meaghan Delahunt, it is not historical fact but based on fact and that house is where it is based.

[Spiderman2]

Whatever happened to the heroes?

Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
He got an ice pick
That made his ears burn
Whatever happened to dear old Lenny?
The great Elmyra and Sancho Panza?
Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to the heroes?

Whatever happened to all the heroes?
All the Shakespearoes?
They watched their Rome burn
Whatever happened to all the heroes?
Whatever happened to all the heroes?

No more heroes any more
No more heroes any more

Whatever happened to all the heroes?
All the Shakespearoes?
They watched their Rome burn
Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to the heroes?

No more heroes any more
No more heroes any more

[Mickcals]

Mercader later testified at his trial: “I laid my raincoat on the table in such a way as to be able to remove the ice axe which was in the pocket. I decided not to miss the wonderful opportunity that presented itself. The moment Trotsky began reading the article gave me the chance, I took out the ice axe from the raincoat, gripped it in my hand and, with my eyes closed, dealt him a terrible blow on the head.” Trotsky died the next day."

Its actually quite interesting, cause after the shot to the head with the ice pick Trotsky then got into a fight with Mercader, before collapsing on his arm chair, where his wife helped him get to a doctor.

No bloodstains, though

I dont think he bleed much, but the blood did stream onto his face and cloths, but even if there were bloodstains their wouldnt be much

[Myshkin]

The Blue House, Rob? That would be Frida Kahlo's house (and Diego Rivera), wouldn't it? We walked from one to the other in maybe 10 minutes. I was more impressed by Trotsky's final residence than with the Blue House... they had some interesting art at the BH, but it wasn't much, they didn't allow any cameras past the entrance (I just stuck mine in my pocket), and, well I don't know, it just didn't seem like much.

At Trotsky's, they had his living quarters preserved with his library, kitchen, dining room... a bunch of historical facts and photos. One noteworthy picture from 1917 showing that, at the beginning of 1940, all of the original central committee members were either dead or killed, with the exceptions of Stalin and Trotsky.

Not only that, but they had more of Frida Kahlo's art displayed in a room at Trotsky's than they did at Frida's museum... they had originals at Frida's and copies at Trotsky's but I appreciated the breadth of the subjects at Trotsky's. I also have a picture of a picture of Frida Kahlo's coffin with what appears to be a communist (hammer and sickle, yellow and red, but doesn't look all red like USSR) flag draped over her coffin at her funeral.

It was a nice afternoon break from the grindstone :)

[Spiderman2]

Yes, the Blue House would have been Frida's. The story was between both houses and day trips. Some of the story was based in Russia too showing how the revolution was dying under the Grave digger Stalin and his insane policies. Most of the gains of the revolution were wiped out and dictatorship imposed. Lenin was turned into a cult figure and his dead body put on public display, statues were built everywhere. Lenin would have hated that. Trotsky was written out of and airbrushed from Russian history. I think most of the original Central Committee were dead by the early 1930's. Stalin picked them off one by one accussing most of being anti-soviet reactionaries. Anyone who agreed with the old Central Committee were sent to a gulag or shot. That is why we would laugh when people used to tell us to "go to Russia". ^_^ I hear the art is good but I haven't seen much.

I'm glad you enjoyed your trip. :)

Mickcals: Yes, he fought to the very end. ;) The old man wouldn't lie down without a fight.

[Mickcals]

The old man wouldn't lie down without a fight.

And to think that a few minutes before the ice pick in the head he was out gardening with gloves on - as he hated getting his hand dirty

[Spiderman2]

Was it his writing hand? ^_^

I don't like dirty hands either. Given the choice gloves are a good alternative to washing them after a good dig. But the old man was used to getting a good dig and getting over it. It took a maniac with no fear of getting his hands dirty to finish him for good. But in the end the Stalinists lost and will go down in history for all time as the arseholes of the planet, second perhaps only to the Nazis.

[Mickcals]

But in the end the Stalinists lost and will go down in history for all time as the arseholes of the planet, second perhaps only to the Nazis.

I wouldnt say that - the only reason why the Stalinist were they way they were was because of a parnoid Stalin - and the Nazi's well they just needed an excuse to gain power legally

[Spiderman2]

Sure Stalin was paranoid. He had good reason I suppose. But Russia wasn't turned into a vast labour camp in the thirties and fourties because of paranoia. It was called Bureaucratic state capitalism and it's aim was to catch up with the West in 10 years. Millions of lives were sacrificed to that alter. Millions of dreams were crushed and the planet was brought to the edge of oblivion. Trotsky and the other Internationalists in Russia and elsewhere paid the price also.

Something OT from the old man's grandson:

My grandfather the revolutionary

Esteban Volkov is a retired chemist living in Mexico City. He is also the grandson of Leon Trotsky. He tells Phillip Hall about life with 'the Old Man', how he survived Stalin's slaughter of his family, and why the new movie, Frida, has got it wrong about Trotsky and Frida Kahlo

Thursday February 13, 2003
The Guardian

The surviving family can be very protective of the reputation of a well-known predecessor. Esteban Volkov, grandson of Leon Trotsky, has more reason than

most such descendants to defend his famous forebear. After Lenin, Trotsky was the most important leader of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, but, vigorously opposed to Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, he was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929, constantly vilified and finally assassinated in 1940.
I met Volkov in the same Mexico City house he shared all those years ago, as an adolescent, with his grandfather, his grandfather's second wife Natalia, plus a number of bodyguards and secretaries. The same home from which Trotsky kept up his ceaseless struggle against Stalin. To preserve his grandfather's memory, he has since turned the house into the Leon Trotsky museum.

Volkov is now in his mid-70s, slim and very fit looking. A retired chemist, he is widowed, with four daughters and five grandchildren. He is at first reserved, and speaks his Mexican Spanish with a slight accent which hints at a family history out of the ordinary. "I am the only person in my family to reach my age," he says, with a grim smile.

Stalin was responsible for the death of practically all of Trotsky's family, whatever their political stance. We total up the closest relatives - Trotsky's first wife, his sister, his brother, one son, two son-in-laws and three nephews were all arrested and later shot; another son was assassinated. His two daughters were harried to their deaths. Others disappeared without trace.

Among the deaths were Volkov's parents. His father, Platon Volkov, an oppositionist, had been deported to the gulag, and shot at some unknown date in the 30s. His mother, Zinaida, left the Soviet Union with Volkov when he was five: he did not know until much later, in 1988, that his half-sister who they had left behind had survived - his mother had only been allowed to take one child with her. Volkov believes the consequent torment she felt was one of several such factors that pushed her to suicide two years later, in 1933.



source and full story (http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,894625,00.html)

[chris]

Hitler had a bone to pick, or an axe to grind, or whatever you want to call it, but he was quite a maniac.

But Stalin was just power-hungry, and very paranoid of losing power. His real name wasn't even Stalin, he had it changed to that..

The old phrase applies:

"Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others".

The reality was probably a fair distance from the ideals of this:


Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics,
Great Russia has welded forever to stand.
Created in struggle by will of the people,
United and mighty, our Soviet land!

Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!

Through tempests the sunrays of freedom have cheered us,
Along the new path where great Lenin did lead.
To a righteous cause he raised up the peoples,
Inspired them to labor and valorous deed.

Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,
Bulwark of peoples in brotherhood strong.
O Party of Lenin, the strength of the people,
To Communism's triumph lead us on!

In the vict'ry of Communism's deathless ideal,
We see the future of our dear land.
And to her fluttering scarlet banner,
Selflessly true we always shall stand!


"Sing to the Motherland, home of the free,"

Free of what, the aristocracy.. But then prisoner to a ruthless dictatorship..

[Mickcals]

But Russia wasn't turned into a vast labour camp in the thirties and fourties because of paranoia. It was called Bureaucratic state capitalism and it's aim was to catch up with the West in 10 years. Millions of lives were sacrificed to that alter. Millions of dreams were crushed and the planet was brought to the edge of oblivion.

Yeah but you have to understand, what Stalin did in the 1930's and 1940's is what Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev wanted to do in the 1920's - rapid industrailisation (as during the 1920's Lenin had opted to go with the Capitalism policy - New Economic Policy (NEP))

Stalin basically copied what Trotsky wanted to do originally with the collective farms and 5 Year Plans

[Spiderman2]

Revolutionaries often change their names, Chris, for obvious reasons. With the failure of the German revolution most pragmatic socialists realised the revolution was dead. Its time had come and gone for that moment in history. But some decided that that Soviet Russia could become a new imperialist power using rhetoric and revolutionary sounding slogans and the barrel of a gun to keep the illusion alive. Those that disagreed were now "enemies of the people".

You are probably right about Hitler and Stalin, perhaps they did have brain chemistry problems. It sure looks like it from a historical perspective.

The Orwell 'quote' is quite apt. Orwell was also betrayed by the Stalinists. But that is another story.

[Spiderman2]

Originally posted by Mickcals
Yeah but you have to understand, what Stalin did in the 1930's and 1940's is what Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev wanted to do in the 1920's - rapid industrailisation (as during the 1920's Lenin had opted to go with the Capitalism policy - New Economic Policy (NEP))

Stalin basically copied what Trotsky wanted to do originally with the collective farms and 5 Year Plans

The New Economic Policy was designed to inject realism into the Russian situation. It meant people could set up their own businesses and run their own farms. But there were limits to how many workers could work in a private enterprise. Collective farming or cooperative farming as it is often called can work and often does. There would have been a mixture of private and collective industries no doubt about that had events been more advantageous. Without Stalin and interference from the west the revolution may still have been too early in historic terms but it is possible that we would have a far fairer world today for the vast majority of people, not just the economically viable. Don't forget that most of this planet is in dire straights to this day. Those that head our way to improve their lot are treated as pariahs and people like Hitler are still waiting to exploit 'our outrage' at 'foreign filth'.

We have nothing against small businesses. Small businesses have existed for thousands of years. If anything we feel sorry for them having to work themselves to the bone, using family members as cheap labour and exploiting themselves to the max. Fair goes if that's the life they want.

[chris]

"and people like Hitler are still waiting to exploit 'our outrage' at 'foreign filth"

How true. -^

That masquerade as good honest, ordinary people trying to help poor battling honest people improve their lot in life, and when they get in power, the prove to have some nasty surprises ready to spring on an unsuspecting public.

Now I'm pretty much thinking of about 3 people in particular, whose political ambitions thankfully are now in ruins thanks to what was effectively election fraud being discovered.

[Spiderman2]

Sorry Chris but your post is a little cryptic. What 3 do you mean?

[chris]

Spiderman: I'll explain it to you later, via private message or something like that..

There are a few people from my country here, and well, that particular subject always seems to stir up tensions, and I don't want that to happen here.

[Spiderman2]

OK mate. No probs. I must admit that Australian politics is all Greek to me. I don't have a clue whats going on in any depth. :(

Night night.

[Mickcals]

I must admit that Australian politics is all Greek to me.

Yeah its pretty much all over the place.

[Spiderman2]

All over the place. Yes, i get you. Bourgeois politics is essentially the same wherever it is. The only difference is I don't know the individual players. I can be sure their game is just the same.