For those who care about Russian lies and history
 

Nice article brings back memories of how Russia lies to everyone :know:

Soviet and Russian leaders: Their illnesses and deaths

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20171951

Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924)

Josef Stalin (1878-1953)

Nikita Khruschev (1894-1971)

Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982)

Yuri Andropov (1914-1984)

Konstantin Chernenko (1911-1985)

Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007)

Russia lies to everyone?

What makes Russia so different to any other country in that respect.

Nice article though. :yep:

Yuuuuuuuuuuuup
:D

yep, for a prime example look at the physical and mental state of Churchill in the term when he was actually elected to the office of Prime Minister.

Becoming PM was a godsend for him, otherwise I think the biggest thing he would have been remembered for was Gallipoli...

A certain stubborn element that went through with things no matter what people told him, it was a good thing and a bad thing.

yes, but I am talking about his condition during the term he served when he was elected not the term when he got appointed after his disasterous adventure in Norway collapsed the existing government.

Well, true, I think if he came into power today that the press would have a field day with his alcohol problem and manic depression. Confidence wasn't exactly high with him either, I mean if the Battle of Britain had gone worse then Halifax probably would have couped him, but he managed to present a good public image and that is 75% of what a leader does that people remember.

One thing USA and UK have in common is that they don't lie about history.

I have often thought someone should start a www.truthinhistory.edu

Oh, I dunno about lying, but we have been known to view things with rose-tinted specs a lot, or only one side of the story. Just ask Tribesman. :yep:
We tend to just skip over bits of history where we were...not very nice people...such as Cromwells jaunt to Ireland, or the Concentration camps during the Second Boer War.

It's the old adage that nearly always rings true, history is written by the victors. :yep: It's a case of walking that fine line between being proud of your nation and being patriotic to the point of jingoism. I admit, I sometimes stray across that line, particularly when it comes to harking back to the days of the Empire, but I try to keep myself grounded by reminding myself of things like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, but even then it's hard, as someone born in England, and aware of the days of Empire, not to feel a little bit of nationalistic pride in our accomplishments of the era, even if they were written in the blood of many others. Of course, the milage may vary, I think most people in this country of my age are only aware of what is on television or facebook, and couldn't really give two hoots about history outside Downton Abbey perhaps. A mixed blessing, because it lowers the likelihood of nationalistic tendencies amongst the populace of the future (as the BNP are finding out, although the fact that they are morons also works against them) but it also builds walls around us and fractures society a bit when you don't look at where you've come from before you look at where you're going.
Still, c'est la vie et c'est la guerre, as my terrible GCSE French would say. :salute:

Churchill, the only one who could lead the nation in wartime but was unable during peacetime.

Yep Cromwell is still fondly remembered in town, and Galway wasn't even one of his more extravegant parties.

I don't know, they didn't actually win but your history books are getting updated by the Mau Mau after it turns out the "lost" foriegn/commonwealth office documents hadn't all been destroyed.

Touché, and that's the beauty of the modern era, and indeed any era after the dawn of writing, some scraps of even defeated empires remain, things that enable us to get a better understanding of the history of the time rather than purely relying on the victors testament.

I think that's because it is easier to lead people in a war than in peacetime.

In war, you have an external adversary upon which you can direct the focus of of not only the government but the citizens. Nothing shields like wrapping yourself in the flag.

In peacetime, the political adversary is often internal to the government.

As far as the US is concerned, I think pretty much any viable candidate can be a good wartime president. Doing a good job in peacetime is the tricky part.

Your statement is true to an extent in the US and UK you can learn the truth in most cases but this does not mean that the typical person via the standard educational means (in other words the "official" truth that is taught as part of normal education) learns every detail of our history positive and negative at face value.From the "official" point of view the rocky bits are viewed from an idealistic point of view.

For example when I was in high school(early 90's) the history book and official course did not really go into much detail about either the Korean War or the Vietnam War.The Korean War was barely mentioned in the book and Vietnam was very vague.

I myself knew alot about Vietnam because my dad was a grunt in that war my class mates got lucky because our teacher Mr.McGovern happened to be a Marine officer and Combat Engineer in Vietnam he did a very good job of explaining things in his matter of fact un-skewed by political leanings way not just about Vietnam but about all history and life in general.I recall one day in class the topic of the Apollo 11 mission being fake came up in class with the usual batch of derps claiming that it was faked McGovern simply said "Well I was in the middle of no where in a foxhole in Vietnam when I heard about the moon landing and I believed it".

Possibly in your school books, and ours, but one of the hallmarks of Britain and the US and some other Western countries is that people can freely question the 'official' histories and publish contrary books without fear of jail or censorship. Anybody can publish pretty much anything he wants, which makes it hard sometimes to ferret out the truth, but is still far preferable that having nothing investigated for fear of being sent to the gulag.

And as far as deaths of leaders go, if everything is so open and transparent in the USA, why is there still such a huge number of conspiracy theories around JFK? No Soviet leader's death is surrounded with the amount of mystery, red tape, and sealed files than JFK's. That's not to suggest that I believe in the conspiracy theories, but the history of that one is anything but straightforward, transparent and open.

I didn't say everything here is "open and transparent". Far from it. There is the chance that the Warren Commission lied, and all those theorists are trying to find the truth. There is the chance that the Warren Commision report is spot on, and the conspiracy guys are all nuts. In either case my point is that all those people can openly question the 'Official' reports without fear of reprisals. Of course the conspiracy guys will tell you that many people involved died "mysteriously", but they still get to say it, and they do.

Soviet Union? Have you ever heard of this book?
http://www.amazon.com/The-Commissar-.../dp/0805052941

I own a copy and it's...interesting, to say the least.

Oh no, I'm not arguing about that at all. Of course the level of covering-up that happened in the USSR is downright disturbing, and Putin isn't exactly a gift from heaven. Just pointing out that lying and murky business around state leaders is not really a Russian trait, and the very title of this thread irks me for that reason. Russian history is not made up of lies, and quite the opposite - in some regard, we know more 'truth' about Russian history than we do about many other places', with the benefit of hindsight on the fallen Soviet era that doesn't require romanticization and is, at least outside of Russia, largely de-politicized now when it comes to historical studies. It's a tragedy that the opening of the Soviet archives was so short-lived in the 90s, but even for the brief time that those were open, an unprecedented amount of historical evidence emerged. By comparison, much Western documentary history from the Cold War era is still locked away in intelligence agencies' vaults. So, even in respect to the brave Russian historians who delved into Soviet archives before they were locked away again, "Russian lies and Russian history" just strikes me as unfair to say the least, as does the notion that somehow Western history is more open. In some ways the reverse is true. Give credit where it's due, etc.

Got that right!

In that I have to agree. :sunny:

so true. A thief will steal all you have but a liar will watch you hang.