About propaganda, ideology and information superiority of the United States. CH 2. our story
So, about ideology: as we said in previous articleDespite many political parties, the American people are united by a national idea based on: patriotism, belief in the exclusivity of their country and nation, tolerance, equality, including equality of all citizens before the law, as well as belief in the superiority of the American way of life over any other.
The essence of the American way of life is, on the one hand, the material priority, that is, the measure of success in life is the well-being of a person, and on the other hand, in the presence of so-called social elevators. In other words, the essence of the American way of life is that "money is our everything, but from whatever low start you start, you can become a champion." Thus, Americans very elegantly combined ideology (patriotism) with mercantile spirit (the priority of money as the main life goal of an individual). It must be said that in the discussion of the previous article it was repeatedly pointed out to the class society of the USA and the theory was advanced that this same class character interferes with the existence of common ideas for society, that the exploiters capitalists and the workers and employees they use have opposite interests, and therefore they cannot united by a common idea.
This, of course, is incorrect, but the detailed proof of this thesis is beyond the scope of this article. We indicate only the main circumstances mitigating class contradictions:
1. Social lift. That is, a person is not tied to his class, society gives him the opportunity to significantly change their social status. Yesterday’s worker or employee may well become a capitalist today - this is possible, and this is strongly encouraged (from public approval to preferential lending programs, tax incentives, etc.).
2. Decent conditions for the “exploited” - yes, they will not have the prosperity of the “exploiters”, but nevertheless, the level of income is sufficient to meet the basic human needs in the modern world. It is interesting that the USA is gradually losing this advantage of its system, but so far it still exists.
3. The presence of "internal classes" among the "exploited" - there is a very large property stratification between employees, well-paid employees can live richer than the owner of a medium-sized or even medium-sized business.
4. The so-called corporate culture, based in essence on two “whales”. It allows you to feel part of a team that is changing life for the better (the company's mission), and at the same time reminds you that the labor market is not dimensionless, and if a capitalist (employer) fails, its employees are likely to lose their jobs - that is, some kind of community is promoted interests of "exploiters" and "exploited".
In general, we state that despite all the authority of Marx and his friend and comrade-in-arms Engels, the class of American society did not lead to its split and it remains just a society — that is, a small group of people over 327 million people who feel their identity and have shared values, interests and goals.
And, by a strange coincidence, they consider themselves the citizens of the best country in the world.
In fact, it is absolutely natural. Man wants to be a part of something great. It is difficult to be a member of a society that you do not respect and consider as defective in comparison with similar associations of other people (in our case, other countries) - this is akin to masochism. A person can share a national idea only when he is proud of his identity, his belonging to this particular society. If he despises the society to which he considers himself, then how should he then follow his goals?
For a national idea, a society does not have to claim the first place in the world (if a country does not seek to become a superpower): but it is imperative that you have some merit and a basis that distinguishes the country’s population from other nations and gives reason to be proud of belonging to it. And you certainly cannot count on the success of a national idea without having respect for the people of your country.
And such respect, in turn, consists of pride in the actions of the ancestors and the approval of this state of affairs. We will return to the approval of the current one, but for now - we will consider the issues historical science and the younger generation.
Historical science, on the one hand, is terribly multifaceted and complex, because the history of our Fatherland is very difficult. Information about our distant past, about the origin of Russia is fragmentary, there is a lot of space for various legends. Then - the formation of the state and the conflict with the Mongols, the Mongol-Tatar yoke. Liberation from it, the gradual strengthening of the Russian State, but then again the Time of Troubles. The periods of recovery are changed by severe recessions, the country periodically finds itself literally on the verge of losing statehood (the 1917 revolution and the collapse of the USSR as an example), but at the same time it soars to the status of a superpower (USSR). Russia reflects the two most formidable invasions in the history of mankind (Napoleon and Hitler), but at what cost? (this is not a hint of the red losses of the Red Army, which, in the opinion of the author of this article, was not, but the number of civilians killed by any reasonable estimate exceeds 15 million ...) Sometimes strong, charismatic leaders emerge at the head of the Fatherland, pushing it forward (Peter I, Stalin, etc.) but again, their role in our history is ambiguous. And so literally in everything.
And here is the result - a lot of things in our history are being questioned today, and even what is known reliably (the October Revolution, participation in the Second World War) is interpreted very differently. We still can not come to a common opinion about the manner in which, positive or negative, to evaluate even the most important events of our history. To take the same Great Patriotic War - for someone it is an unprecedented feat of the Soviet people, who have found the strength to qualitatively surpass the magnificent German military machine, and for someone "have filled up 50 with millions of corpses." What about 1917 year? For some, this is a step into a bright communist future, in which the country has managed to develop science, medicine, and social care for people to unimaginable heights. Well, for someone it is a step in the "Gulag Archipelago". In other words, the history of the Russian State is very complex and multifaceted, a lot of beautiful and terrible things are mixed in it, and very often we cannot even distinguish the first from the second. There are no easy answers in it, but ... but what about the history of other nations somehow different?
Here, take the same US. You can romanticize the period of their formation, the first settlers, who eventually felt like a separate society and country and weapons in the hands they defended their independence. And you can remember that just at this time the Americans almost completely destroyed the Indians - the indigenous population of the North American continent. You can admire the US civil war, which ended with the victory of the North and the abolition of slavery. And you can remember that, strictly speaking, it was not slavery as such that led to war, but insurmountable contradictions between the money bags of the North and the South: the industrial North, wanting to promote its goods, advocated tighter customs duties on imported industrial goods of non-American origin, but the agricultural South, preferring to “buy” for their products in the Old World, this, of course, did not want. And we should not forget that this struggle between the North and the South in fact turned out for the Americans in the 4 year of the fratricidal war, in which US citizens lost killed more than in any other "external" war that the United States waged throughout its history . You can admire the feat of American pilots and sailors who stopped and defeated the armed forces of Imperial Japan, the eastern member of the Axis Berlin-Tokyo-Rome. And you can be terrified by the intolerable American rampantness at the beginning of the war, when their fleet suffered the hardest losses at Pearl Harbor and the reaction of “enlightened” American citizens who drove Japanese-Americans (or even just Asians) to concentration camps. And - completely ruthless total bombing, wiping out entire cities of Japan "crowned" with the use of atomic weapons against the civilian population of this country.
In other words, history is a very complex science in which the “black-and-white” approach is simply not applicable. But at the same time it is necessary for the consolidation of society, for the national idea. Let's look at how two superpowers, the USSR and the USA, got out of this situation during the Cold War.
Both countries have created a positive version of their history, which emphasized historical achievements, but failures were retouched or some kind of unprofitable in terms of today's morality events. If the event had a double interpretation, then the most positive was used. The significance of one or another event could have been inflated (by the way of the “decisive role” of the USA in the First or Second World War), etc. But at the same time, the general attitude, the presentation of information has always been strictly positive.
In this respect, the magnificently Soviet presentation of tsarist time. It would seem that the ideology of the USSR is completely antagonistic to the autocratic monarchy, and how was it possible to talk about the latter at least something good? But no, they guessed here - the emphasis was on the achievements of the people (great scientists like Lomonosov, Mendeleev, Popov, the heroism of the Russian people in battle, the glorification of individual statesmen, generals, such as Suvorov, Nakhimov, Kutuzov, etc.) and failures - the lag of Tsarist Russia in industrial development from the leading European countries, the loss of the Crimean and Russian-Japanese wars, etc. they were blamed for the rotten royal regime, which clearly distanced itself from the people. But not all those in power were depicted as complete parasites and villains (without repeating about the military leaders mentioned earlier, let us remember the same Decembrists). As a result, a remarkable result was achieved - any Soviet schoolchild, despising tsarism, could be proud even of the royal period in the history of their homeland, and what were the drawbacks - after all, then the October revolution came, and everything was corrected, so now we live in the best country in the world.
In other words, both the USSR and the USA created a “positive” version of their history, but further their actions diverge: in the USSR this version was given the status of official and, in general, the only correct one. And this, no doubt, was a mistake.
The fact is that even the writings of historians allowed for reading contained in a multitude of data that allowed to doubt the official version of the story. This, in general, was even related to the Second World War - if one could “dig in” into the Soviet publications, it was possible to find significant differences with what was taught in school. The problem was that this information could be found, but to write about them - no, it was impossible, and this led to the feeling that the official history was deceiving us, but in fact everything was completely different. Gradually, the feeling that we were hung noodles on our ears became ubiquitous (which was greatly promoted by the apparent contradiction of the reality surrounding the Soviet person and what was broadcast from high tribunes), and it was this feeling in 90-ies that created the demand for post-perestroika “revelations "The most heinous sense. Of course, Soviet historiography was not the ideal of reliable and impartial historical analysis, but it never, not even a hundredth, distorted reality in the way that numerous “historians of the new wave” who quickly found their way in conjuncture, clearly set themselves the task of mixing every page with dirt our history.
But the United States chose a different path: no one declared that this particular version of history was the most accurate and correct, it was just the young Americans who were taught it - and that’s it.
And what if some American suddenly had a desire to dig deeper, not being satisfied with a school history textbook? Yes, no question, at his disposal - all the power of libraries in the United States and Europe, huge masses of archival documents. Everything is open, study if there is such a desire. And write refutations, if you want, no one will pursue you for it. If you write interestingly, and convince the editors, then your books will stand on the shelves of bookstores, someone will buy and read, and agree with your point of view on this or that question. If you do not convince - well, your monographs will not disappear anyway, but will become the property of a narrow circle of specialists who, like you, are interested in the issue raised by you.
That's just what you do, and the official version of the story, which is taught in schools and universities, will remain exactly the same as it was - positive, optimistic and ignoring the facts you got. And how did you want a boyfriend? We have a free country. Here you personally see this question in a way, well done, look, look at the roots of your monograph on the shelves of book hypermarkets. People buy, read, they are interested, and thank you for it. But compilers of textbooks do not agree with you in everything, they hold a different point of view, and this is their right. It's free speech, you know? You're not against her, are you?
Well, of course, do not mind. And given the fact that there have never been many people willing to waste their time and energy on in-depth study of history, all these protest publications make up perhaps a fraction of a percent of the total information background. And if so, then what's the point at all to prohibit them? That is why you can read the great work of American authors on how actually Americans fought in the same North Africa or Europe, but the overwhelming majority of the US population will still be confident that the USA won the Second World War (“Hitler was defeated. He didn’t like Negroes, I don’t remember Jews, but man was bad, that's for sure ”- the answer is a young African American during a street interview).
And what about us?
A little historical background. In 1837, the St. Petersburg-Tsarskoye Selo railway was built, 26,7 km in length. It was the first railway in the Russian Empire and the sixth in the world. The first in the world was built in England, between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. The second - in the same year in the USA, it connected Charleston and Augest and had a length of 64 km. The third is in 1833. in France, Saint-Étienne-Lyon, 58 km. Fourth and fifth in 1835 in Germany (Fürth - Nuremberg, 7 km) and Belgium, (Brussels-Mecheln, 21 km). But this hierarchy does not take into account the creation of the Cherepanov brothers, who built both their own locomotive and two railway lines with a length of 700 m (1834 g) and 3,5 km. If we also count them, then Russia built its fourth railway in the world.
Production of locomotives and wagons? In 1845, the Alexander Plant produced the first steam locomotive of the Stefansson type. 1849 passenger and 42 freight locomotives, passenger 120 and about 70 freight cars were built for the Petersburg-Moscow Railway by 2000. They were built with the help of Americans, but they were building the same ...
In 1880, Russia, although it did not lead by the total length of railways in Europe, was not to say that it was totally inferior to European powers. The largest length of railways in Europe was Germany - 33 838 km, followed by Great Britain - 28 854, then France - 26 189, the European part of Russia (with Finland) - 23 429 and Austria-Hungary - 19 512 km.
In 1891, the Russian Empire embarked on an extremely ambitious railway project - the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It was a real construction of the century, which involved more than 100 000 workers (by the standards of those years - a completely enchanting figure). The project cost was estimated at 350 mln. Rub. gold (in fact it was 936 million) - given that the income part of the budget of the Empire (namely, the profitable part, not the surplus) in 1891 was about a billion rubles, we can fully imagine the scale of expenses. This project was implemented in just 10 years (the first train went to 1901 r), while the average annual construction rate is impressive even today. The importance of Transsib for Russia is difficult to overestimate: the foreign press noted that after the discovery of America and the construction of the Suez Canal there was no event in history that had richer consequences.
Why am I writing all this? But to what. My daughter comes home from school and tells me that she received a four in history today. For her, this is a low grade; my children know this subject quite well. I do not blame her, but she doesn’t like it, and she shares this “incident” with me. It turns out that this was the case - telling the board about the economic development of the Russian Empire, the daughter told the class that the first railway in Russia was laid in the first half of the 19 century. But the teacher did not agree with her: according to the “teacher’s” version, the first railways in Russia appeared only at the end of the 19 century (!), And at the beginning of the 20 century, Russia, it turns out, only took the first steps in mastering this kind of transport. Then the teacher suggested her daughter to make a conclusion from the above, and when she answered about the technological lag of the Russian Empire from European countries, she clarified that she would like more specifics. Which, according to the teacher, was that at the beginning of the 20 of the 20th century, Russia in terms of railway transport was behind the European countries by 150 (!!!) years.
I must say, this is a highly interesting version: taking into account the fact that the first rails (without a locomotive, for transporting carts on horseback) were first used in England in 1767 g, and taking into account our “fifteen-year” lag, it turns out that the beginning of the 20 century in the Russian Empire, no one even suspected that there is such an amazing thing in the world - the rail ...
On the one hand, this is, of course, ridiculous. But I just felt like having fun completely when I looked into my daughter's eyes, because they were bewildered and confused and hinted at a reproach: “Well, why, dad, because you told a completely different story!”.
It is clear that I immediately explained everything to my daughter - on my fingers, with pictures from the Internet, etc. Well, how many children "swallowed" what the "teacher" told them? How many children shared such “revelations” with their parents, but remained unheard by virtue of our eternal employment? How many parents could not refute the nonsense of such unfortunate teachers because of the poor knowledge of the history of their country?
Shaped disgrace, you say? I absolutely agree, but only we opened the road to him ourselves - not personally the readers of the VO, of course, but our beloved authorities. They opened it when they abandoned the uniform view of history, from uniform history textbooks.
Formally - from the best intentions, because history is a complex subject, and various views should not be respected by one or another event. Practically - putting all the teaching of history, depending on the views of a particular teacher. And they, these teachers, are very different, all the more so since those generations are already working, the childhood and youth of which fell on the wild 90, and the beginning of the 2000's is not enough. The time when the Niagara Falls of lies and mud plummeted into the history of our country, and many, alas, took them quite close to their hearts. And now they teach the story to our children the way they see it themselves. We have a free country, right?
I must say that the author of this article has repeatedly expressed very different criticisms of the current government and the president of the Russian Federation. But let us be fair: namely V.V. Putin in 2013 r spoke finally about the need for a single history textbook. Here are just ...
Here are just the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia decided differently. Instead of a single textbook, it developed a single historical and cultural standard, and then “professional expertise” decides whether a new textbook meets this standard or not ...
Ksenia Konyukhova, journalist of Komsomolskaya Pravda, gave a wonderful summary of the new history textbooks:
Excellent, isn't it? That is, instead of giving the children a historical picture of the world that is understandable for their age, arouse interest in the subject matter and convey respect for the past generations, we simply throw out “different points of view” on immature minds in the hope ... of what? What does an average student of an average school do to what the Ministry of Education and Science did not succeed, that is, he himself will understand our long-suffering history? Or so that this very feeling of respect for the history of one’s country has never been born at all, “after all, there is another point of view that must also be respected”?
In fact, instead of teaching our children love and respect for the Motherland, for the Fatherland, we teach them tolerance in the worst sense of the word. And, at the same time, with our own hands we are destroying the basis, the basis of our society, preventing the revival of the national idea of Russia.
Продолжение следует ...
PS Often ask your children what they are told by their school history teachers ...
The essence of the American way of life is, on the one hand, the material priority, that is, the measure of success in life is the well-being of a person, and on the other hand, in the presence of so-called social elevators. In other words, the essence of the American way of life is that "money is our everything, but from whatever low start you start, you can become a champion." Thus, Americans very elegantly combined ideology (patriotism) with mercantile spirit (the priority of money as the main life goal of an individual). It must be said that in the discussion of the previous article it was repeatedly pointed out to the class society of the USA and the theory was advanced that this same class character interferes with the existence of common ideas for society, that the exploiters capitalists and the workers and employees they use have opposite interests, and therefore they cannot united by a common idea.
This, of course, is incorrect, but the detailed proof of this thesis is beyond the scope of this article. We indicate only the main circumstances mitigating class contradictions:
1. Social lift. That is, a person is not tied to his class, society gives him the opportunity to significantly change their social status. Yesterday’s worker or employee may well become a capitalist today - this is possible, and this is strongly encouraged (from public approval to preferential lending programs, tax incentives, etc.).
2. Decent conditions for the “exploited” - yes, they will not have the prosperity of the “exploiters”, but nevertheless, the level of income is sufficient to meet the basic human needs in the modern world. It is interesting that the USA is gradually losing this advantage of its system, but so far it still exists.
3. The presence of "internal classes" among the "exploited" - there is a very large property stratification between employees, well-paid employees can live richer than the owner of a medium-sized or even medium-sized business.
4. The so-called corporate culture, based in essence on two “whales”. It allows you to feel part of a team that is changing life for the better (the company's mission), and at the same time reminds you that the labor market is not dimensionless, and if a capitalist (employer) fails, its employees are likely to lose their jobs - that is, some kind of community is promoted interests of "exploiters" and "exploited".
In general, we state that despite all the authority of Marx and his friend and comrade-in-arms Engels, the class of American society did not lead to its split and it remains just a society — that is, a small group of people over 327 million people who feel their identity and have shared values, interests and goals.
And, by a strange coincidence, they consider themselves the citizens of the best country in the world.
In fact, it is absolutely natural. Man wants to be a part of something great. It is difficult to be a member of a society that you do not respect and consider as defective in comparison with similar associations of other people (in our case, other countries) - this is akin to masochism. A person can share a national idea only when he is proud of his identity, his belonging to this particular society. If he despises the society to which he considers himself, then how should he then follow his goals?
For a national idea, a society does not have to claim the first place in the world (if a country does not seek to become a superpower): but it is imperative that you have some merit and a basis that distinguishes the country’s population from other nations and gives reason to be proud of belonging to it. And you certainly cannot count on the success of a national idea without having respect for the people of your country.
And such respect, in turn, consists of pride in the actions of the ancestors and the approval of this state of affairs. We will return to the approval of the current one, but for now - we will consider the issues historical science and the younger generation.
Historical science, on the one hand, is terribly multifaceted and complex, because the history of our Fatherland is very difficult. Information about our distant past, about the origin of Russia is fragmentary, there is a lot of space for various legends. Then - the formation of the state and the conflict with the Mongols, the Mongol-Tatar yoke. Liberation from it, the gradual strengthening of the Russian State, but then again the Time of Troubles. The periods of recovery are changed by severe recessions, the country periodically finds itself literally on the verge of losing statehood (the 1917 revolution and the collapse of the USSR as an example), but at the same time it soars to the status of a superpower (USSR). Russia reflects the two most formidable invasions in the history of mankind (Napoleon and Hitler), but at what cost? (this is not a hint of the red losses of the Red Army, which, in the opinion of the author of this article, was not, but the number of civilians killed by any reasonable estimate exceeds 15 million ...) Sometimes strong, charismatic leaders emerge at the head of the Fatherland, pushing it forward (Peter I, Stalin, etc.) but again, their role in our history is ambiguous. And so literally in everything.
And here is the result - a lot of things in our history are being questioned today, and even what is known reliably (the October Revolution, participation in the Second World War) is interpreted very differently. We still can not come to a common opinion about the manner in which, positive or negative, to evaluate even the most important events of our history. To take the same Great Patriotic War - for someone it is an unprecedented feat of the Soviet people, who have found the strength to qualitatively surpass the magnificent German military machine, and for someone "have filled up 50 with millions of corpses." What about 1917 year? For some, this is a step into a bright communist future, in which the country has managed to develop science, medicine, and social care for people to unimaginable heights. Well, for someone it is a step in the "Gulag Archipelago". In other words, the history of the Russian State is very complex and multifaceted, a lot of beautiful and terrible things are mixed in it, and very often we cannot even distinguish the first from the second. There are no easy answers in it, but ... but what about the history of other nations somehow different?
Here, take the same US. You can romanticize the period of their formation, the first settlers, who eventually felt like a separate society and country and weapons in the hands they defended their independence. And you can remember that just at this time the Americans almost completely destroyed the Indians - the indigenous population of the North American continent. You can admire the US civil war, which ended with the victory of the North and the abolition of slavery. And you can remember that, strictly speaking, it was not slavery as such that led to war, but insurmountable contradictions between the money bags of the North and the South: the industrial North, wanting to promote its goods, advocated tighter customs duties on imported industrial goods of non-American origin, but the agricultural South, preferring to “buy” for their products in the Old World, this, of course, did not want. And we should not forget that this struggle between the North and the South in fact turned out for the Americans in the 4 year of the fratricidal war, in which US citizens lost killed more than in any other "external" war that the United States waged throughout its history . You can admire the feat of American pilots and sailors who stopped and defeated the armed forces of Imperial Japan, the eastern member of the Axis Berlin-Tokyo-Rome. And you can be terrified by the intolerable American rampantness at the beginning of the war, when their fleet suffered the hardest losses at Pearl Harbor and the reaction of “enlightened” American citizens who drove Japanese-Americans (or even just Asians) to concentration camps. And - completely ruthless total bombing, wiping out entire cities of Japan "crowned" with the use of atomic weapons against the civilian population of this country.
In other words, history is a very complex science in which the “black-and-white” approach is simply not applicable. But at the same time it is necessary for the consolidation of society, for the national idea. Let's look at how two superpowers, the USSR and the USA, got out of this situation during the Cold War.
Both countries have created a positive version of their history, which emphasized historical achievements, but failures were retouched or some kind of unprofitable in terms of today's morality events. If the event had a double interpretation, then the most positive was used. The significance of one or another event could have been inflated (by the way of the “decisive role” of the USA in the First or Second World War), etc. But at the same time, the general attitude, the presentation of information has always been strictly positive.
In this respect, the magnificently Soviet presentation of tsarist time. It would seem that the ideology of the USSR is completely antagonistic to the autocratic monarchy, and how was it possible to talk about the latter at least something good? But no, they guessed here - the emphasis was on the achievements of the people (great scientists like Lomonosov, Mendeleev, Popov, the heroism of the Russian people in battle, the glorification of individual statesmen, generals, such as Suvorov, Nakhimov, Kutuzov, etc.) and failures - the lag of Tsarist Russia in industrial development from the leading European countries, the loss of the Crimean and Russian-Japanese wars, etc. they were blamed for the rotten royal regime, which clearly distanced itself from the people. But not all those in power were depicted as complete parasites and villains (without repeating about the military leaders mentioned earlier, let us remember the same Decembrists). As a result, a remarkable result was achieved - any Soviet schoolchild, despising tsarism, could be proud even of the royal period in the history of their homeland, and what were the drawbacks - after all, then the October revolution came, and everything was corrected, so now we live in the best country in the world.
In other words, both the USSR and the USA created a “positive” version of their history, but further their actions diverge: in the USSR this version was given the status of official and, in general, the only correct one. And this, no doubt, was a mistake.
The fact is that even the writings of historians allowed for reading contained in a multitude of data that allowed to doubt the official version of the story. This, in general, was even related to the Second World War - if one could “dig in” into the Soviet publications, it was possible to find significant differences with what was taught in school. The problem was that this information could be found, but to write about them - no, it was impossible, and this led to the feeling that the official history was deceiving us, but in fact everything was completely different. Gradually, the feeling that we were hung noodles on our ears became ubiquitous (which was greatly promoted by the apparent contradiction of the reality surrounding the Soviet person and what was broadcast from high tribunes), and it was this feeling in 90-ies that created the demand for post-perestroika “revelations "The most heinous sense. Of course, Soviet historiography was not the ideal of reliable and impartial historical analysis, but it never, not even a hundredth, distorted reality in the way that numerous “historians of the new wave” who quickly found their way in conjuncture, clearly set themselves the task of mixing every page with dirt our history.
But the United States chose a different path: no one declared that this particular version of history was the most accurate and correct, it was just the young Americans who were taught it - and that’s it.
And what if some American suddenly had a desire to dig deeper, not being satisfied with a school history textbook? Yes, no question, at his disposal - all the power of libraries in the United States and Europe, huge masses of archival documents. Everything is open, study if there is such a desire. And write refutations, if you want, no one will pursue you for it. If you write interestingly, and convince the editors, then your books will stand on the shelves of bookstores, someone will buy and read, and agree with your point of view on this or that question. If you do not convince - well, your monographs will not disappear anyway, but will become the property of a narrow circle of specialists who, like you, are interested in the issue raised by you.
That's just what you do, and the official version of the story, which is taught in schools and universities, will remain exactly the same as it was - positive, optimistic and ignoring the facts you got. And how did you want a boyfriend? We have a free country. Here you personally see this question in a way, well done, look, look at the roots of your monograph on the shelves of book hypermarkets. People buy, read, they are interested, and thank you for it. But compilers of textbooks do not agree with you in everything, they hold a different point of view, and this is their right. It's free speech, you know? You're not against her, are you?
Well, of course, do not mind. And given the fact that there have never been many people willing to waste their time and energy on in-depth study of history, all these protest publications make up perhaps a fraction of a percent of the total information background. And if so, then what's the point at all to prohibit them? That is why you can read the great work of American authors on how actually Americans fought in the same North Africa or Europe, but the overwhelming majority of the US population will still be confident that the USA won the Second World War (“Hitler was defeated. He didn’t like Negroes, I don’t remember Jews, but man was bad, that's for sure ”- the answer is a young African American during a street interview).
And what about us?
A little historical background. In 1837, the St. Petersburg-Tsarskoye Selo railway was built, 26,7 km in length. It was the first railway in the Russian Empire and the sixth in the world. The first in the world was built in England, between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830. The second - in the same year in the USA, it connected Charleston and Augest and had a length of 64 km. The third is in 1833. in France, Saint-Étienne-Lyon, 58 km. Fourth and fifth in 1835 in Germany (Fürth - Nuremberg, 7 km) and Belgium, (Brussels-Mecheln, 21 km). But this hierarchy does not take into account the creation of the Cherepanov brothers, who built both their own locomotive and two railway lines with a length of 700 m (1834 g) and 3,5 km. If we also count them, then Russia built its fourth railway in the world.
Production of locomotives and wagons? In 1845, the Alexander Plant produced the first steam locomotive of the Stefansson type. 1849 passenger and 42 freight locomotives, passenger 120 and about 70 freight cars were built for the Petersburg-Moscow Railway by 2000. They were built with the help of Americans, but they were building the same ...
In 1880, Russia, although it did not lead by the total length of railways in Europe, was not to say that it was totally inferior to European powers. The largest length of railways in Europe was Germany - 33 838 km, followed by Great Britain - 28 854, then France - 26 189, the European part of Russia (with Finland) - 23 429 and Austria-Hungary - 19 512 km.
In 1891, the Russian Empire embarked on an extremely ambitious railway project - the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It was a real construction of the century, which involved more than 100 000 workers (by the standards of those years - a completely enchanting figure). The project cost was estimated at 350 mln. Rub. gold (in fact it was 936 million) - given that the income part of the budget of the Empire (namely, the profitable part, not the surplus) in 1891 was about a billion rubles, we can fully imagine the scale of expenses. This project was implemented in just 10 years (the first train went to 1901 r), while the average annual construction rate is impressive even today. The importance of Transsib for Russia is difficult to overestimate: the foreign press noted that after the discovery of America and the construction of the Suez Canal there was no event in history that had richer consequences.
Why am I writing all this? But to what. My daughter comes home from school and tells me that she received a four in history today. For her, this is a low grade; my children know this subject quite well. I do not blame her, but she doesn’t like it, and she shares this “incident” with me. It turns out that this was the case - telling the board about the economic development of the Russian Empire, the daughter told the class that the first railway in Russia was laid in the first half of the 19 century. But the teacher did not agree with her: according to the “teacher’s” version, the first railways in Russia appeared only at the end of the 19 century (!), And at the beginning of the 20 century, Russia, it turns out, only took the first steps in mastering this kind of transport. Then the teacher suggested her daughter to make a conclusion from the above, and when she answered about the technological lag of the Russian Empire from European countries, she clarified that she would like more specifics. Which, according to the teacher, was that at the beginning of the 20 of the 20th century, Russia in terms of railway transport was behind the European countries by 150 (!!!) years.
I must say, this is a highly interesting version: taking into account the fact that the first rails (without a locomotive, for transporting carts on horseback) were first used in England in 1767 g, and taking into account our “fifteen-year” lag, it turns out that the beginning of the 20 century in the Russian Empire, no one even suspected that there is such an amazing thing in the world - the rail ...
On the one hand, this is, of course, ridiculous. But I just felt like having fun completely when I looked into my daughter's eyes, because they were bewildered and confused and hinted at a reproach: “Well, why, dad, because you told a completely different story!”.
It is clear that I immediately explained everything to my daughter - on my fingers, with pictures from the Internet, etc. Well, how many children "swallowed" what the "teacher" told them? How many children shared such “revelations” with their parents, but remained unheard by virtue of our eternal employment? How many parents could not refute the nonsense of such unfortunate teachers because of the poor knowledge of the history of their country?
Shaped disgrace, you say? I absolutely agree, but only we opened the road to him ourselves - not personally the readers of the VO, of course, but our beloved authorities. They opened it when they abandoned the uniform view of history, from uniform history textbooks.
Formally - from the best intentions, because history is a complex subject, and various views should not be respected by one or another event. Practically - putting all the teaching of history, depending on the views of a particular teacher. And they, these teachers, are very different, all the more so since those generations are already working, the childhood and youth of which fell on the wild 90, and the beginning of the 2000's is not enough. The time when the Niagara Falls of lies and mud plummeted into the history of our country, and many, alas, took them quite close to their hearts. And now they teach the story to our children the way they see it themselves. We have a free country, right?
I must say that the author of this article has repeatedly expressed very different criticisms of the current government and the president of the Russian Federation. But let us be fair: namely V.V. Putin in 2013 r spoke finally about the need for a single history textbook. Here are just ...
Here are just the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia decided differently. Instead of a single textbook, it developed a single historical and cultural standard, and then “professional expertise” decides whether a new textbook meets this standard or not ...
Ksenia Konyukhova, journalist of Komsomolskaya Pravda, gave a wonderful summary of the new history textbooks:
“The idea to make a single, correct and approved textbook was doomed to failure in advance. The authors got out: they did not decide for the children what they need to know and how to judge the events. Just earlier, to learn different points of view, the guys would have to read three different books. And now more or less complete alignment is given in each textbook.
And what is nice, the textbooks did not write in black and white, who is right and who is to blame. Instead of seeking a compromise under the guise of truth, and checking every word so as not to offend anyone, the authors of these books gave the right to vote to different parties ... ”.
And what is nice, the textbooks did not write in black and white, who is right and who is to blame. Instead of seeking a compromise under the guise of truth, and checking every word so as not to offend anyone, the authors of these books gave the right to vote to different parties ... ”.
Excellent, isn't it? That is, instead of giving the children a historical picture of the world that is understandable for their age, arouse interest in the subject matter and convey respect for the past generations, we simply throw out “different points of view” on immature minds in the hope ... of what? What does an average student of an average school do to what the Ministry of Education and Science did not succeed, that is, he himself will understand our long-suffering history? Or so that this very feeling of respect for the history of one’s country has never been born at all, “after all, there is another point of view that must also be respected”?
In fact, instead of teaching our children love and respect for the Motherland, for the Fatherland, we teach them tolerance in the worst sense of the word. And, at the same time, with our own hands we are destroying the basis, the basis of our society, preventing the revival of the national idea of Russia.
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PS Often ask your children what they are told by their school history teachers ...
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