Timeline:
1927 Dec: Announce the collectivization and move on to the next grand stage of Communism
1929: Two million ton shortfall in grain.
Guys! It's not working because we haven't gone far enough! On to greater glory! Collectivize it all!
(cough Fed printing money cough austerity measures cough tax breaks cough). I know its said that those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, but given the average knowledge of history in the USA and the fact that we're not obviously doubling down on things that haven't worked yet because we haven't taken them far enough, that saying is a blatant lie. Blatant.
I just stumbled across this quote, which is utterly wonderful. Made my night. It pertains to Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the secret police (and officially responsible for the Russian Terror) and his successor, Lavrenty Beria. It is particularly relevant here that the Russian word 'yezh' can be translated to 'hedgehog'. A year after he resigned from his post, Yezhov was arrested for crimes against the regime and killed. Regarding the official reaction to his death,
"As had happened with the Old Bolsheviks [party leaders who had been part of the revolution and therefore could make some claim to being Lenin's successor], his image was removed from official photographs, and the pages of his entry in The Great Soviet Encylopaedia, which had celebrated him as the protector of the revolution, were ripped out. To fill the gap, a very long article was inserted on the subject of hedghogs.*
*The same thing would happen in 1953 when Yezhov's successor as head of the secret police, Lavrenty Beria, fell from grace. In his case, readers of The Great Soviet Encylopaedia would find themselves very well informed about the Bering Strait."
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