"Death has become a phenomenon observed at every turn. When you step outside in the morning, you stumble over corpses lying in the gateway, and in the street. The dead bodies lie there for a long time, because there's nobody to dispose of them."
- Yelena Skriabina
The Siege of Leningrad was the longest and most destructive siege of any city in the world. For 872 days, the citizens of Leningrad were at odds with death. Encircled by German troops, the city was cut off from supplies, short of water and under the constant threat of air attacks. Yet the citizens did not give up and believed that there was no other option but to fight. Surrender was never an option.
Leningrad was a strategic location and a desired hub for the German troops. Not only was it an important port and the base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, but it was also the symbol of the Soviet Revolution. By the start of September 1941, it became apparent that the Germans were fast approaching the city.
There was constant fighting on the outskirts of the city. The Moscow-Leningrad railway route was cut, and the enemy forces encircled Leningrad. Orders were given to fight to the end, and the three million citizens of Leningrad began preparing for the siege.
With the start of winter, temperatures dropped to -40ºC (-40ºF), freezing all the water pipes. Citizens would go down to the river, make holes in the ice and carry water home. Rats were also an enormous issue as they spread disease and ate through the already scarce supplies. People were dying right on the streets and were often left unburied.
Through all this, the city tried to keep up morale. Museums and theatres remained operational as much as possible. Among the most memorable moments was the performance of the Leningrad Symphony (written by Dmitry Shostakovich), which was transmitted everywhere by loudspeaker. Leningrad was determined to survive.
By 1943 the first breakthroughs were made and the Soviet troops were preparing to free the city. On January 14, 1944, the siege was partially lifted.
The siege continued until 27 January 1944, when the Soviet Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city. This was a combined effort by the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts, along with the 1st and 2nd Baltic Fronts.
The Baltic Fleet provided 30% of aviation power for the final strike against the Wehrmacht.[64] In the summer of 1944, the Finnish Defence Forces were pushed back to the other side of the Bay of Vyborg and the Vuoksi River.
Red Army Choir - Little Star :tank:
Siege of Leningrad: 872 days of hunger and bombardment :t34:
Battlefield - The Siege of Leningrad Documentary :lenin-fancy:
Soviet Storm. WW2 in the East - The Siege Of Leningrad. Episode 5. :iron-soviet: this one is really good :lenin-heart:
:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:
Remember, sort by new you :LIB:
Yesterday’s megathread :sad-boi:
Follow the ChapoChat twitter account :comrade-birdie:
THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) :RIchard-D-Wolff:
COMMUNITY CALENDAR - AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING USER ORGANIZING EFFORTS :af:
Join the fresh and beautiful batch of new comms:
!wallstreetbets@hexbear.net :stonks-up:
!earth@hexbear.net :flag-su: :ancom:
!recovery@hexbear.net :left-unity-2:
!neurodiverse@hexbear.net :Care-Comrade:
spoiler
:brace-cowboy:
The people of Leningrad and the Red Army saved the world from fascism :sankara-salute:
Nazi Germany would have done what they did to Leningrad to every major Russian city - they wanted to ethnically cleanse the region of the Slavic population and replace it with Germans.
Holy shit I have a cousin that works for an unnamed financial data company and their CEO just emailed everybody essentially saying "hey our hedge fund clients are really stressed today because they're getting fucked by their short positions in Gamestop, Bed Bath and Beyond, and AMC and have to unload their positions in other large stocks (like Netflix, Amazon, Apple, etc) to cover their losing short position. Please keep this in mind when talking to them today, be understanding." lol poor hedge fund managers :xi: :sicko-yes:
The siege of Leningrad is one of those things that's so far beyond the scope of my life that I can hardly understand it. That degree of suffering is literally impossible to fully emphasize with.
Good comment I saw the other daylmao it's so true
the thing that led to me finding leftism was reading about Bike Lock Antifa getting doxxed back in 2017 and going "wait people are out there hitting Nazis with Bike Locks? ... why isn't everyone doing that? What else are these Antifa folks about?"
I had some very popular posts today :screm-pretty: I feel good about the big numbers, thank u everyone who upvoted them, I appreciate all of u
Send him Richard Wolff seriously his channel is made for dudes like that
just keep sending him these links https://www.google.com/search?q="jeffrey+epstein"+"new+atheist"
"DID WE TALK YET ABOUT HOW ALMOST ALL OF NEW ATHEISM WAS ASTROTURFED BY AN EPSTEIN ASSOCIATED AND THESE PEOPLE ARE STILL RUNNING AROUND AS IF THEY'RE NOT AFRAID OF BEING HIT BY LIGHTNING OR DRAGGED TO HELL??" https://twitter.com/RationalWiki/status/1278201868754313216
I agree I don't wanna see too much of it, but I wouldn't say it's boring. Watching hedge Fund ghouls trot out onto CNBC to cry about the wrong people manipulating the markets will never not be funny to me.
Just remember that we're not cheering at some brave underdog sticking it to the man, but rather we're cheering at a pack of wolves tearing into each other after some of them caught rabies.
But that happens every day.
What's different about GME is lots of people are tuning into something they've probably ignored their entire life.
This seems to be turning into a radicalising event, and for that reason it'd be short-sighted for leftists to ignore. I say this as someone who cares nothing about stocks or gamestop or even games for that matter.
A few years ago there was dIsCoUrSe in Russian liberal media that the Soviets should have given up Leningrad. They insisted it'd have been treated as kindly as Paris was, the Soviets caused further death, etc. It honestly makes me so unbelievably furious. I'm glad nobody cares or knows enough about the Eastern Front for this to be a discussion I've seen in English.
Love seeing like 70% of main clogged up with GameStop bullshit. Praxis is getting into gambling so you can try to turn $20 into $10,000 and rationalizing it as you're pwning the capitalists (you're not).
All I want to do is lay on a rock outside in the sun
I hope you're in the Southern Hemisphere.
Hey don’t worry it’s pissing down where I am atm and I’m far south of the equator. Although tbf it was pushing 40 degrees Celsius yesterday
The Trans Liberation thread has been unpinned, but I finally got around to reading it and I'd like to share my perspective.
For years before becoming a "leftist", I had vague moral positions loosely based on being kind to people whenever possible. Sometimes, my co-workers would make offensive "jokes" about people's sexuality/race/etc, but one thing that would always come up is a "joke" about how many genders there are, and how people can identify as anything [insert helicopter transphobia here]. Generally, my only response to this was along the lines of "who cares, it takes so little effort to just address people in the way they want, so we should just do that", which got mixed responses.
However, Leslie's writings have not only expanded my own understanding of gender, but also provided me with the tools and vocabulary to more effectively confront transphobia when it appears. A more comprehensive understanding of the gender spectrum hasn't really changed how I view myself or my gender identity, but does help me to better understand and support my comrades who exist on a spectrum, and not in a box labelled "M" or "F".
I think it's incredibly important that we all take time to better educate ourselves on the struggles and perspectives of oppressed people, because doing so gives us the tools to better represent them and stand together whenever possible.
./rant
Chapo: hahaha reddit SUCKS so glad I left that website, phew
Also Chapo: hanging onto every moment of wsb drama
@Beatnik @ScreamoBMO @itsPina @renamon Let us never forget the Great sacrifices of the Soviet people, that save the World from Fascism :flag-su:
The SEC is a joke, allowing HFT and front-running for the sake of "liquidity."
I mean of course there are rich people that are going to profit off of the scenario, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of established financial firm like Citadel out there that wasn't finding a way to make this in their favor.
Citadel is happy that they can legally shaft Melvin and buy them out for cheap. Rich people cheat each other all the time. Of course not every cent from Melvin is going into the pockets of common people, it's just an unusual situation where they're actually in the picture and that's why r/WSB is celebrating.
At some point after their target goes bankrupt they'll want to sell and cash in. But hedge funds and institutions can see the sell off coming and front-run it, getting their sales in first at the higher price. That's my understanding anyway.
