[Martin Stu]

war memoirs: Years Off My Life: The Memoirs of General of the Soviet Army A.V. Gorbatov

went through three wars - the First World War, the Civil War (1917-20) and the Second World War, some time immediately after the war was the commandant of Berlin.
shortly before World War II, he was arrested by the Stalinist secret police (NKVD) on absurd charges ... he completely passed the so-called "interrogation with partiality", but did not break down and did not sign the nonsense conveyed to him by the investigator... then a so-called "trial" took place, a sentence was passed - 15 forced labor camps... but after about 3 years his "case" was re-examined, he was released and reinstated in the army ... these memories differ from many similar memories of the war...


I will not describe the battle scenes. Here are some excerpts from the book:
“At two o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the door of my room in hotel. To my question:“ Who? ”A woman's voice answered:

“A telegram for you.

"Obviously from my wife," I thought, opening the door. Right off the bat he announced to me that I was arrested. I demanded an arrest warrant, but I heard in response:

- You can see who we are!

After such an answer, he began to remove the medals from my tunic lying on the chair, another to cut off the insignia from the uniform, and the third, without taking his eyes off, watched how I was dressing. Under escort, I left the hotel. I was pushed into a passenger car. We drove in silence. It is difficult to convey what I experienced when a car was rushing me through the deserted night streets of Moscow...

There were five 'interrogations with partiality', with an interval of two or three days; sometimes I went back to the cell on a stretcher. Then for twenty days I was allowed to catch my breath ... Soon they began to summon me again for interrogation, and there were also five of them. During one of them, I accidentally found out that the name of my monster-investigator is Stolbunsky. I don't know where he is now. If he is alive, then I would like him to be able to read these lines and feel my contempt for him. I think, however, that he knew it well then ... To this day, Stolbunsky ominous hissing voice sounds in my ears, which repeats, when they carried me away, exhausted and bloody: "Sign the confession!"
I endured this torture in the second round of interrogations. For twenty days I was no longer interrogated. I was satisfied with my behavior.
But when the third series of interrogations began, how I wanted to die as soon as possible!
I will die, but I will repeat everything: "no and no! "

The trial lasted four to five minute. My last name, first name, patronymic, year and place of birth have been confirmed.

Then the chairman asked:
- Why didn't you confess to your crimes?

“I didn’t commit a crime, so I had nothing to confess,” I replied.

- Why are ten people pointed at you, already confessed and convicted? The chairman asked.

I was in such a good mood at that moment, and I was so sure that I would be released that I dared to take liberty, which I later bitterly regretted.
I said:
- I read the book "Workers of the Sea" by Victor Hugo. It says: once in the sixteenth century in the British Isles, eleven people were captured, suspected of having ties with the devil. Ten of them admitted their guilt, though not without the help of torture, and the eleventh did not confess. Then King James II ordered this poor fellow to be boiled alive in a cauldron: "The fat will prove that this one was also associated with the devil." Apparently, - I continued, - ten comrades who confessed and pointed at me experienced the same as those ten Englishmen, but did not want to experience what was destined for the eleventh.

The judges smiled and looked at each other. The chairman asked his colleagues: "How is everything clear?" They nodded their heads. I was taken out into the corridor. Two minutes passed.
I was again led into the hall and the verdict was announced: fifteen years in prison and a camp, plus five years of disqualification...

...I knew that there were many people who refused to sign the false statements, as I refused. But few of them were able to survive the beatings and torture - almost all of them died in prison or prison infirmary. Good health saved me from this fate, I passed all the tests. Obviously, the harsh conditions of my childhood and adolescence, and then long combat experience, hardened my nerves: they withstood the brutal efforts to break them.

People, mentally (but not morally) broken by torture, were mostly worthy people, deserving respect, but their nervous organization was fragile, their body and will were not tempered by life, and they gave up. You can't blame them for this ... "

the author interestingly depicts how he overcame a feeling of fear in his youth:
"One late autumn I left the village in the morning, it was still dark, and I was in a great hurry to be in the shop by eight o'clock. Not far from the city stretched a large Kochnevsky forest, about which all kinds of fears were always told. This forest lay in a lowland, and even in summer the road, which did not dry out, became almost impassable in autumn. Usually everyone walked through the forest by paths beaten away from the road. I, too, chose this path and suddenly saw a poorly dressed man hanging from a branch, with a face distorted in torment. It scared me so much that I started to run.
I had a really great feeling of fear only once, when I was a child, when I was looking for a fern flower at night. (Childhood fear of father's fists does not count.) But this feeling has long since disappeared, leaving no trace. But after this hanged suicide, I could not get rid of fear and even during the day I avoided walking in the woods. This upset me very much: after all, at that time I was already eighteen. "No," I thought, "something needs to be done to prevent this from happening, otherwise I will become a complete coward.
And I decided to do what the other boys probably did more than once, out of bragging: I decided to go to the cemetery at night. For me it was not mischief, but treatment. To begin with, I chose a cemetery next to the city garden; the voices and laughter of the walking people reached there, and this was very encouraging. Still, at first I did not go far, I went around only the nearest graves; then he began to walk further, to the middle of the cemetery, and, finally, to the most distant wall. The nasty feeling of dread was still great but I didn’t give up my plans, but after a while I began to notice that the fear became less painful. At night, to check, I went to a distant cemetery. Not a single live sound broke the silence that reigned there. I forced myself to come there at midnight - at the most "dead" hour according to legend, - and again some inexplicable fear gripped me. However, when I finally reached the farthest wall, I was relieved to feel that conquered fear.
Now I also walked through the Kochnevsky forest fearlessly at night, and during the day I looked for that unfortunate tree on which a man had once hung, and, proud of his victory over himself, stood under this tree.
Subsequently, already serving in the army, I often recalled my "training" and, observing myself at the front, noted with satisfaction that fear no longer possessed me..."
he also wrote in the book about his feelings, first love: "Once a short girl came into our store, very pretty and shy. She chose her shoes, quietly said "goodbye" and left ... Since then, I really wanted to see her, at least from afar... Four months have passed since our acquaintance. Every Sunday I met her in the city garden, but she was always in the company of her friends, we greeted from afar, but I did not dare to approach. The next Sunday I met Olga alone, quickly approached her, we walked together, sat on a bench for three hours and ... did not say a word. They parted, happy and sad... "

I'll add a link: ""General Alexander Gorbatov dies; Leader in war After His Purge" - The New York Times. 12 December 1973. Retrieved 15 September 2017."

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Last edited by Martin Stu; 09-28-2021 at 01:52 AM.

[RobA_Oz]

Just re-read John Mortimer's 'Paradise Postponed', a wry, amusing story of the foibles of Middle England, mid last century. Mortimer was probably more famous for writing the Rumpole of the Bailey stories.

[Nakedgun]

Just completed: "The Panzer Killers, The Untold Story Of A Fighting General And His Spearhead Tank Division's Charge Into The Third Reich", by Daniel P. Bolger, 2021, 321 pages.

Good reading,

.

[robgski]

Just gave up 270 pages in to The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Was recommended by a friend but good lord that was some of the most embarrassingly poor writing Ive encountered in quite some time. Just couldn't continue down that path.....the metaphors, oh my, the metaphors.....

I know the feeling, and Franzen does not seem to care for his characters, so I certainly don’t

[Martin Stu]

I highly recommend reading. Varlam Shalamov - Sketches of the Criminal World
goodreads - Sketches of the Criminal World

"One mistake of fiction

Fiction has always portrayed the world of criminals with sympathy, sometimes with servility. Fiction has surrounded the thieves' world with a romantic halo, cheap tinsel. The artists failed to see the real hideous face of this world. This is a pedagogical sin, a mistake for which our youth pays so dearly. A 14-15-year-old boy is forgivable for being infatuated with the "heroic" figures of this world; but the artist is unforgivable. But even among the great writers, we will not find those who, having discerned the true face of the thief, would turn away from him or brand him as any great artist should have branded everything that is morally unfit. On a whim of history, the most expansive preachers of conscience and honor, such as, for example, Victor Hugo, have given a lot of energy to praise the criminal world. It seemed to Hugo that the underworld is such a part of society that firmly, resolutely and openly protests against the falsity of the ruling world. But Hugo did not bother to see from what position this thieves' community is fighting against any state power. Quite a few boys were looking for acquaintance with living "miserables" after reading Hugo's novels. The nickname "Jean Valjean" still exists among criminals.
......................
The underworld from the time of Gutenberg to this day remains a book sealed with seven seals for writers and readers. The writers who took up this topic frivolously resolved this most serious topic, carried away and deceived by the phosphoric splendor of crime, dressed it in a romantic mask and thereby reinforced the reader's completely false idea of ​​this insidious, disgusting world, in which there is nothing human.
.......................
What is the underworld?
How does human stop being human?
..........................
Faced with a difficult choice, deceived by fiction and a thousand philistine legends about the mysterious criminal world, the teenager takes a terrible step, after which there is sometimes no return.

Then he gets used to it, finally becomes embittered himself and begins to recruit young people into the ranks of this accursed order.
Doing evil is much more fun than doing good. Entering this thieves' underground with a pounding heart, the boy next to him sees those people whom his father and mother are afraid of. He sees their apparent independence, false freedom. The boy takes their boastful lies at face value.
Among his peers, former comrades, he notices a certain alienation mixed with fear, and, out of the naivety of his childhood, takes this for respect.
The young man sees that people live without what is a constant concern in the family.
Here the young man is really drunk, now he is already beating a prostitute - he must be able to beat a woman! - this is one of the traditions of the new life.
The young man dreams of the final polishing, the final introduction to the order. It is a prison that he is trained not to fear.
He quickly learns manners, an indescribable insolence grin... Already in the very first prison term, he gets a tattoo by his new friends - masters of their craft. The identification mark of his belonging to the rank of criminals, like the mark of Cain, has been permanently applied in blue ink on his body. Many times later he will regret tattoos. But all this will be after, much later...And door after door opens the thieves' world before him its last depths.

Now he is already taking part in bloody "rules", "courts of honor", and he, like everyone else, is forced to "sign" on the corpse of a thieves court strangled by a verdict. Someone puts a knife in his hands, and he pokes the knife into the still warm corpse, proving his complete solidarity with the actions of his teachers.
“They tell me I'm a bastard. Okay, I'm a bastard. I am a scoundrel, a scoundrel and a murderer. But what of this? I have my own life, it has different laws, different interests, different honesty! "

Lies, deception, provocation in relation to a person, even to a person who saved him from death - all this is not only in the order of things, but also a special valor of the thieves' world, its law."

[aslyfox]

last night I started to re read the " Dune " novels by Frank Herbert in order

Original Dune Series and Biography – Dune Novels

I read " Dune ", " Dune Messiah ", " Children of Dune " and " God Emperor of Dune " years ago

and I have picked up " Heretics of Dune " and " Chapter House: Dune " to read for the first time

[ I also saw David Lynch's film released in 1984 - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087182/ ]

[aslyfox]

. . . some of the most embarrassingly poor writing Ive encountered in quite some time. . . .

poor writing example

novel set in Denver Colorado

character in Denver hotel relates he watches as the sun rises over the mountains

[ the mountains are west of Denver, not east ]

[Martin Stu]

[ I also saw David Lynch's film released in 1984 - Dune (1984) - IMDb ]

thanks, interested... I need to watch some David Lynch films

[aslyfox]

thanks, interested... I need to watch some David Lynch films

Lynch has publicly stated that he didn't like the finished cut

[timb64]

The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook.

A novel based on the author’s grandfather’s experiences as a British officer involved in administering Hamburg immediately after the end of WW2.A fascinating account which I am speeding through.(Recently filmed to mixed reviews).

[wtlwdwgn]

I'm slogging my way through The Count of Monte Cristo.

[timb64]

I'm slogging my way through The Count of Monte Cristo.

Steve,life’s too short to slog through books!

[bogwalker]

I'm slogging my way through The Count of Monte Cristo.

Isn't that a short story?

Or maybe I'm thinking of The Cask of Monte Cristo ... or something like that...

[Martin Stu]

I'm slogging my way through The Count of Monte Cristo.

an interesting book ... but to be honest (in my opinion), the best thing written by A. Dumas is "The Three Musketeers"... I also read his book "Adventures in the Caucasus", travel notes, the book is also interesting, if you like adventure (in this case real)...


Top review from the United States
Bill:
"5.0 out of 5 stars One of My Favorite Books
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2014
I can't believe there aren't any reviews for this book. It is one of my favorites. Here's the deal. You know Alexander Dumas right? Three Musketeers? Count of Monty Cristo? Anyway, when he was famous he traveled the world writing a travelogue When he was short on cash, he'd send the manuscript to Paris, the papers would publish, the public would eat it up and his editors would send him more money. So we have My adventures in Switzerland, Russia, Algeria and the Caucasus. Now as then the Caucaus is a wild land on the edge of east and west, home to many diverse cultures, tradition and religions. The book is fast paced, with action, action, action, incredible characters, great story line and fine finale."

illustration of the Russian edition: well-armed horsemen (rifle, dagger and saber - "shashka”) in Caucasian clothes (cherkeska) bandoliers (gazyr) are sewn on the left and right on the clothes and fur hat (papakha) on head

from book:
"On November 7, 1858, at two o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived in Kizlyar. This was the first city that we met after Astrakhan, we drove 600 miles across the steppes, where we found no refuge, except for rare stations and Cossack guard posts. Sometimes we came across small caravans of Kalmyk Tatars or Karanogai, these nomads moved from place to place ... All horsemen and footmen we came across were armed... We met a shepherd who wore a dagger on his side, a gun on his shoulders and a pistol on his belt. ... Even the clothes of the inhabitants now bore a warlike character... Here everyone thought about their safety...

I turned around. This was our young master. He declared in broken Russian with a Tatar accent that it was in vain that I left without a weapon.
Kalino translated.
Indeed, I went out unarmed: it was four o'clock in the afternoon and it was very light, so it never crossed my mind.
I wanted to move on, ignoring his warning; but then yielded to his insistence.
I returned and tucked a fifteen inches long Khorasan dagger, bought in Astrakhan, into my belt. I wore it when traveling, but thought it unnecessary to do it in the city. Kalino took a large French saber, inherited from his father, who acquired it on the battlefield at Montmiral.
Without listening to the remarks of our young owner, who wanted each of us to add a double-barreled gun to this outfit, we left the apartment.
It was market day and we had to work our way between carts, horses, camels and merchants. At first everything went well: we crossed the fortress square.
When we entered the market square, an unimaginable crush began.
Without even taking fifty steps in the midst of this crowd, armed from head to toe, as I already understood, what disrespect this crowd should have shown to an unarmed person. Weapons in the East are useful not only for our defense, but also for preventing any attack. An armed man even silently, as it were, says: "Respect my life or take care of yours." And this threat is not useless in a country where, as Pushkin said, killing a person is no more than one gesture... "

Alexander Dumas in traditional Caucasian dress.

[clackers]

From Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop'.

"Corker, you're off to Ishmaelia." [orders Lord Copper]

"Out of town job?"

"East Africa. Pack your traps."

"What's the story?"

"A lot of n****s are having a war. I don't see anything in it myself, but the other agencies are sending feature men so we've got to do something. We want spot stories and some colour. Go easy on the expenses."

Because of Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour WW2 trilogy, it's tempting to think of Evelyn Waugh as a very serious writer, but early on he was known for his satires.

In 1930s Britain, a publishing magnate with a Type A personality gets the names of his staff mixed up and sends a surprised nature writer for one of his newspapers to cover a mysterious uprising - which country is behind it? This is a fast paced and witty short novel from a lifelong misfit and reactionary.