Happy Holidays Comrades!

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Maye you can dim the light a bit with something.

BTW, nice camera collection - I'm an Argus user too!

 

[comp_wiz101]

Hehe... the second shot was outdoors (today) - First one... a while back.
Yes, it's a nice little collection, fun to use. The C3 is a great way of learning how to repair your own camera - I even had to remove the rear element to get at a hair!
I've been tempted for a while now to purchase a Crown Graphic... then I could have a 4x5 rangefinder!

 

[fgianni]

I know it is a joke, but I still fail to find it to my taste, a bit like celebrating Hitler's raise to power as an excuse to show off some Leicas.

But that's just me, nowadays it looks that with the war on terror and all that crap the "strong leader" may be soon back in fashion.

 

[Austintatious]

Well I Know some folks do not seem to like cameras that have a different color of leather than the original, but I happen to like this one. Bought from a fellow RFF member. After all, it is RED comrade ! 😀 Seems kind of fitting I think.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

OT- Malverne bagel store

OT- Malverne bagel store

A couple years ago while driving home from work I noticed
a new bagel store in a nearby town - "Babushka Bagels".

Visible from the main road through the plate glass door was
a coin-op video game with a large, very authentic looking
Socialist Realism-style painting of someone who looked a
lot like Lenin in a typically heroic pose. When I stopped in
I noticed a large caption at the bottom attesting to the
benefits to society of the store's bagels. Very kitschy!

The place had lots of Russian and Soviet decorations.
I thought, how cool for a place in my typical suburban
Long Island neighborhood! Too cool, maybe - read on.

Just weeks later I stopped in again and the mural had
been painted over with flat black paint - no more Lenin.
The teenagers who worked there looked at me like
I had two heads when I asked about the painting.
What painting? I don't know anyone named Lenin...

Within months the Russian motif was gone completely
and the place had new owners. I never found out for
sure, but I can't help but wonder if all the above was
caused by reaction from the Malverne "town fathers".

Lots of Americans are still fighting the Cold War...

-Chris-

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Bagels and Stalin/Lenin are a strange mixture. Stalin and other soviet leaders were responsible for commiting many Russian Jews to exile in Siberia to endure a life of hardship.

Then there was the deliberate elimenation of the Bolsheviks and the assasination of Trotsky. Let's not forget the execution and exile of Thousands of Armenians.

He was not a warm and cudly guy. He's right up there with Hitler and Idi Amin on the despot scale. He wasn't a Socialist. He was in many ways a Fascist totalitarian.

So, I can easily see how the shop changed it's decor. It is possible that many in that community are descended from people who were not only oppressed by Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, but by Stalin as well.

I am interested in Russian Soviet and Sino Soviet "art." However, I no longer feel that it's as cool or progressive as I had believed as a teenager. There is just too much pain and suffering behind it.

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Change that sign to English, add some tie-dyed clothing, clouds of tear gas and you will have traveled back in time to May Day 1971 in Washington, DC., outside the Justice Department.

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

I little more on Stalin -1956: Khrushchev lashes out at Stalin

I realize that I have hijacked the thread, and I apologize for that. But some things get lost in popular culture. Some things are worth never forgetting.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Yeah, well I'm half Lithuanian and my wife is Jewish,
but I still got a kick out of it. Try to lighten up, Bob.

Sveiks!
-Chris-

 

[Jocko]

May I make a couple of points?

I think it is quite wrong to call Stalin a Fascist, with the possible inference that he was not a characteristic product of an otherwise decent Socialist system. Had Trotsky triumphed or Lenin endured, the subsequent terror might possibly have been on a somewhat reduced scale - but terror itself was absolutely certain. From the moment of its inception, the Soviet system rested on violence, compulsion and fear - and genuine Socialists were amongst the first to suffer. Khruschev's denunciation of Stalin was notable in part for its emphasis on the slaughter of communists in the "Great Terror" of '37-'40. It deliberately failed to acknowledge the vastly greater number of ordinary Soviet citizens who died. Even in a "reformist" system, the masses had no value.

My fascination with Soviet history and art actually prompted me to take up photography and I have very mixed feelings on this subject. If we reject all so-called propaganda we lose some of the noblest works of the 20th century imagination. Equally, we can only be appalled by wonderful skills in the service of evil. Bob - if you have a few spare dollars you might like to keep an e-bay eye open for Petr Sadecky's inspired hoax Octobriana and the Russian underground (1971) - which contains a wonderfully astute analysis of Soviet art. I'm sure you'd enjoy it.

But finally, I agree with Reagan. Let's mock Stalin. In doing so we honour the freedom he denied to so many and thus salute their sacrifice. Each Soviet camera was a ticking bomb of potential liberty and self-expression. that isn't a FED he's holding: it's his death warrant!

Ian

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Yeah, well I'm half Lithuanian and my wife is Jewish,
but I still got a kick out of it. Try to lighten up, Bob.

Sveiks!
-Chris-

I try daily and succeed on that same schedule.

Clearly you've missed my signatures.

Stuff like "Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow -- Oscar Wilde"

I'm parts African, Powhattan and Irish, and according to my family's folk lore - a descendant of RJ Reinolds. Still, I wouldn't feel comfortable having a laugh or two if the local Bar-B-Q joint had Confederate flags on the wall.

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

May I make a couple of points?

I think it is quite wrong to call Stalin a Fascist, with the possible inference that he was not a characteristic product of an otherwise decent Socialist system.

Hi Ian, thanks for bringing it back to cameras. Not that I would choose to agree with Reagan or even Thatcher. (I once saw Elvis Costello perform "Stand down Margret," replacing her name with "Ronnie")

Good point, as Fascists allowed capitalists to continue under their totalitarian rule. The Soviets did not. There was a reintroduction of cast and political favoritism, and it continued right to the end of the Soviet Union. Both things were antithetical to the original communist idealogy and too close to their ideological enemies. A great example of how "Absolute power, corrupts. Absolutely."

Too bad that the Bolsheviks were so naive. They celebrated their artists and craftsmen.

How can I bring this back to cameras? My FSU cameras are a fine part of my collection. Which I have labelled in the past as my "Cold War Collection." All of my film cameras are from that period. That is, if you consider the Reagan/Gorbachev period of the 80's the end of the Cold War. The FSU cameras are very good example of what can be done with stretched resources, re-engineering and a state that encourages participation in the arts and crafts.

I will definitely look into the book you have recommended. Thanks!

I really am a cheerful fellow.

 

[reagan]

May 7, 2000 - President Vladimir Putin took the oath of office in Russia's first democratic transfer of power. Let FSU.GAS begin!!

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

LOL - and ebay had already been established in 1995, providing the conduit for thousands of old Zorkis, FEDs and Kievs.

It was G.A.S. waiting to happen.

I guess we are all comrades waiting on the postman.

 

[smiling gecko]

zradvitya !!...atlichna!! so far my only fsu goodie is a shkolnik - student - 6x6..sort of an elegant brownie.


/////WARNING OT DRIFT/////
on my first and only - so far- visit to russia i found stalin to be alternately loved and hated...many times i found his portrait on a wall besides sveti georgi - saint george - i confess to a lack of knowlegede of st. george in depth. after my visit to beslan, russia i still carry the memories of the survivors of the school hostage taking of september 1, 2004. there is so much i want to do and so little i have done to honor the dead and re-affirm the the living after my all-too short visit there. i often feel like i have failed them all. still, i don't give up easily and i/m not finnished yet.

dazvidanya,

hasta la vista, adieu, dazvidanya, fino al prossimo tempo, auf wiedersehen, and later y’all
kenneth
_______________________________________
"...patience and shuffle the cards" miguel cervantes
"nothing can be learned" herman hesse
"everybody knows everything" jack kerouac
"some memories are realities and better than anything" willa cather
" doo-wacka doo, wacka doo" roger miller
"we have met the enemy and they is us !" walt kelly (pogo)
“a mans cartilage is his fate” phillip roth

 

[Jocko]

Oh Mighty Fedzilla of Infinite Cheeriness - it was OUR Reagan - CVBLZ4 - that I was agreeing with!

Elvis Costello = Jolly Good!

"til we meet on Monster Island 🙂,

Yours ever, Ian

 

[fgianni]

I think it is quite wrong to call Stalin a Fascist

It is wrong to call Stalin a Fascist, but not for the reasons you state.

Please check "Fascism" in wikipedia, and you will find a reasonably correct definition of Fascism, also check "Giovanni Gentile"which many think is the philosopher that somehow started it all, the same way as Marx and Engels with Communism.

Fascism and Communism are political doctrines derived from the work of important philosophers, there is a rigorous definition for both and the terms should not be abused.
Defining Communist any dictator than does not allow free market, and Fascist any dictator that does is just historically incorrect.

 

[Jocko]

It is wrong to call Stalin a Fascist, but not for the reasons you state.

Francesco, I don't want to get in a political argument, but I do not understand your objection. My point was that many people identify Stalin as a "Fascist" in order to falsely differentiate his tyranny from its origins in a supposedly benign Leninist or Trotskyite psuedomarxism. Personally I believe that Stalin simply pursued pre-existing trends in Leninism - but that is another matter.

I attempted no definition of Fascism. I lectured on Gentile - and the yet more interesting Evola - at the University of Wales in the 80s, so I do have a vague understanding of the subject. I completely agree that "Fascism and Communism are political doctrines derived from the work of important philosophers, [and that] there is a rigorous definition for both and the terms should not be abused. [that] Defining [as]Communist any dictator than does not allow free market, and Fascist any dictator that does is just historically incorrect". But, with respect, I said nothing of the sort.

All the best, Ian

 

[fgianni]

Francesco, I don't want to get in a political argument, but I do not understand your objection.

Ian

My message was not willing to start a political argument, you may notice that I carefully avoided to express any personally held opinion, I just wanted to point to the dangers of abusing terms like Fascism and Communism.

This practice is so common nowadays that almost no one understands the correct meaning anymore, and if we don't understand history, we are bound to repeat it.

Re reading the thread more carefully I now realize that I picked on the wrong guy so I apologize to you for my mistake.

All the best

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Oh Mighty Fedzilla of Infinite Cheeriness - it was OUR Reagan - CVBLZ4...
...Yours ever, Ian

Glad You appreciate Mr. Costello. Strange thing that he was appearing on an American sitcom with Charlie Sheen, ain't it? Lets not forget that he married one fabulous woman - Dianna Krall. Ain't she nice? And sings so sweetly. Maybe we could convince her to let us have a photo shoot using all our FEDs, Kievs and Zorkis. She's quite an eyefull.

My bad, I keep forgetting our own CVBLZ4 is named Reagan. Sorry Reagan, I find you most aggreeable.