A few points that might interest people

A few days ago I quoted from Oleg Khlevniuk's recent biography of Stalin and I propose to do so again. I am going to avoid the description of the real horrors: the collectivization and subsequent famine or examples of Soviet "justice" first introduced by Stalin and some of his colleagues and henchmen during the Civil War (he and Voroshilov were highly unsuccessful commanders and strategists but rather good at torturing and murdering their opponents) and repeated subsequently until they reached their apogee during the first great purge in the thirties and the second purge (less well known) in the later forties early fifties.

What I want to concentrate on is the period when times were better. Some years ago a friend told me about reading Solzhenitsyn's One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich soon after it came out in English and being horrified by the ending. Some of my readers might remember how it ends. After a day of quite unspeakable horror for anyone who had not gone through those camps, Ivan Denisovich, the canny peasant, goes through the events and enumerates various small successes, sighing contentedly that it had been a good day. That? A good day? Well, all things are relative.

So let us look at the very end of Khlevniuk's book when he describes the situation in the Soviet Union not long before the dictator's death, in the "relatively prosperous year of 1952" not during the famine of 1931 -1933 or that of 1946 1947.

Most people lived primarily on grains and potatoes. Budgetary studies conducted on the eve of Stalin's death, during the relatively prosperous year of 1952, established the following daily nutritional intake in worker and peasant families: the average Soviet citizen consumed approximately 500 grams of flour products (primarily bread), a small amount of cereals, 400 - 600 grams of potatoes, and approximately 200 - 400 grams of milk and milk products.

These items accounted for the bulk of the typical diet. Anything else, especially meat, was a special occasion. The figure for per capita consumption of meant and meat products averaged 40 - 70 grams per day and 15 - 20 grams of fat (animal or plant oils, margarine or fatback). A few teaspoons of sugar and a bit of fish completed the picture. Average citizens could permit themselves an average of one egg every six days. These rations are approximately equal to the dietary norm for prison camps.

Let us not forget that these figures were compiled and published by the Central Statistical Directorate and were probably on the generous side. The reality was probably worse, especially for the peasants.

How very different from the descriptions of the long and, in their own way, painful suppers that Stalin held for his henchmen in the Kremlin or one of his dachas. Somewhat different from the lives of the various privileged sections of Soviet society, the bonzy, who could shop in special shops where many other goods were available, both home-grown and imported and whose salaries together with the special konverty (envelopes with extra bonuses that remained a secret between the organization and the recipient) amounted to a great deal more than the pay most people received.

Of the good listed above, the more luxurious ones, such as meat or sausage were not available outside the big cities and people from all over the country had to travel to them in order to buy a few things to feed their families with.

Those were the good years. What of the vozhd, the leader himself? We have had, as I mentioned above, many accounts of the sort of feeding that went on around his table, even during the hungry years of the war and the famine immediately after, never mind the relatively good years after that.

Here is an account of the sort of budget that went on the immediate Main Guard Directorate under its leader of many years, Nikolai Vlasik. (He, too, was demoted in 1951 and arrested in 1952 but released in 1956.) Some of the accounts, especially of Stalin's last days, come from him.

Under Vlasik, the Main Guard Directorate became a powerful and influential government agency. In early 1952 it comprised 14,300 people and had an enormous budget of 672 million rubles. Vlasik's directorate was responsible not only for protection, but also for the maintenance of the apartments and dachas of top-level Soviet leaders, keeping Central Committee members supplied with consumer goods, handling the transportation and lodging of foreign guests, and overseeing the construction of new government buildings. In 1951 approximately 80 million rubles of the directorate's budget went toward maintaining the dachas and apartments of the fourteen highest-ranking Soviet leaders (including expenses for protection and servants). Staling was, of course, the most expensive of the fourteen. A total of 26.3 million rubles were spent on his apartment and dacha in 1951. This sum probably did not include such expenses as automobile transport.

Serving in the Guard Directorate was both prestigious and lucrative. In 1951 the average compensation for members of Stalin's security team (including uniforms, housing, etc.) was 5,300 rubles per month, at a time when the average monthly wage throughout the Soviet Union was 660 rubles and the average per capita income for collective farm workers was approximately 90 rubles per month. In addition to material benefits, Vlasik's relationship with the leader gave him significant political influence, leading to his increasing involvement - with Stalin's encouragement - in the political intrigues that roiled round the vozhd (leader). Having a powerful patron and sense of impunity was intoxicating. Vlasik drank and enjoyed a promiscuous love life, and so did his subordinates.

There was, of course, a down side: if the vozhd so desired you could be arrested with all that entailed. Earlier a number of the personal security guards were executed or chose to commit suicide as an easier way out.

By and large it was Stalin's colleagues who trembled with fear and tried to protect themselves at all costs. Towards the end of Stalin's life, as the second purge raged, Vyacheslav Molotov and Georgy Malenkov had been demoted and were waiting for worse. Molotov's wife had been arrested during the second purge, largely because she was Jewish, and not only did her husband not dare to speak up for her but he he agreed to divorce her on Stalin's orders. She was released after the dictator's death and, as far as I know, the two re-married.

Stalin's invitations to come sup with him and watch a film or just "have a bit of fun" were never refused though guests tended to wonder whether they would be returning home after the party or going somewhere quite different. And those were the "good years".

Where does the money go?

The House of Lords is again under attack and I intend to spend some time and several postings defending it though not defending the Prime Minister's extraordinary decisions for the appointment of new peers.

First of all, some good news for people who like the idea of hereditary peers in the House and have some idea of history: we now have a Duke of Wellington in Parliament as the latest holder of that title has just been elected by Conservative Peers to the House of Lords.

It would have been nice to report that it was a "damn close run thing" as the Duke is supposed to have said or "It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life" as he actually said to Thomas Creevey but this blog has to record that the 9th Duke won hands down.

A total of 48 other hereditary Conservative peers voted in the election under the alternative vote system and, after four transfers of votes, the Duke ended up with 21 votes, beating the Marquess of Abergavenny and the Earl of Harrowby, who picked up six votes each.

Before the vote, the 70-year-old peer said: “I have aspired to serve in the Lords since I first became interested in politics. I stood for the House of Commons in 1974 and was elected to the European parliament in 1979 for two terms.

“Since then I have been chairman of a life insurance company, a luxury goods company and a fund management company. I have been a commissioner of English Heritage and am currently chairman of the Council of King’s College, London.”

What was that about wanting politicians who have experience outside politics?

Moving on to related matters. Tuesday saw a long debate in the House of Lords about future developments and reforms. I intend to write more about that debate, which I have not finished reading yet. Right now, I want to turn my attention to Lord Pearson's Motion to Resolve on which he spoke twice: once during the debate itself and once after it.

As I shall say in future postings I did not agree with everything the noble lord said in his main speech though I do not disagree with his fight for more UKIP peers, given the fact that the Prime Minister decided to give a peerage to a number of Lib-Dim politicians whose great achievement was to lose their seats in the May General Election. I also found his comments at the end of the debate interesting and useful for anyone who wishes to become involved in the discussion:

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, chided me for not including the Scottish National Party in my Motion and remarks. The reason for that omission is that, regrettably, it does not want any seats here, let alone the 35 which its performance at the last general election would give it under the Liberal Democrat coalition policy.

One other important suggestion has been brought home to me during this lengthy but creative debate. We should not concentrate so much on the total size of your Lordships’ House as on average daily attendance. The Library tells me that, as of last week, actual membership was 775, but our average daily attendance is only 483. Yet, before most of the hereditary Peers left us in 1999, we numbered some 1,325 Peers, but the average daily attendance was only some 446, so it is not much more today. Of course, it is daily attendance that costs taxpayers money. Peers who do not attend do not get the daily allowance. If the public understood that better it might do something for our suffering reputation.

That said, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have supported me. Ever an optimist, I hope that the Prime Minister will take note of our debate. I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Motion.

Will the Prime Minister pay attention to that and any future debates? Who can tell?

The figures and the fact that Peers get paid expenses for daily attendance only are worth noting, however.

Something to ponder over

We now have a Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer who not only expressed great sympathy and admiration for the IRA, on which he was called out by Nigel Dodds, DUP MP for Belfast North yesterday after the slightly idiotic attempt by the new Leader of the Opposition to turn PMQs into a phone-in, but he has expressed the view that he loathes capitalism and spends his time fomenting opposition to it and planning to destroy it.

So, I think it is time to look at a description of what that entails. But, first, Mr Dodds [you have to scroll down to read the different contributions]:

The plaques at the entrance door to this Chamber in memory of Airey Neave, Robert Bradford, Ian Gow and Sir Anthony Berry—serving Members of this House who were murdered by terrorists as they stood up for democracy and the British way of life—are a reminder of the savagery and brutality of terrorism, as are the gravestones and the headstones in Northern Ireland and right across this land. The Opposition Leader has appointed a shadow Chancellor who believes that terrorists should be honoured for their bravery. Will the Prime Minister join all of us, from all parts of this House, in denouncing that sentiment and standing with us on behalf of the innocent victims and for the bravery of our armed forces who stood against the terrorists?

Honourable Members and the Prime Minister, I am glad to say, did join him but as I did not watch PMQs I do not know whether the Labour Front Bench did. Still, as they say, never forget.

On to that hatred of capitalism. I happen to be reading a recent biography of Stalin (yes, yes, I know, a masochist of the first order) by Oleg Khlevniuk, translated by Nora Seligman Favora and published earlier this year by Yale University Press.

In his introductory chapter, Khlevniuk writes:

Underpinning Stalin's worldview was an extreme anti-capitalism. His hostility towards this system was unequivocal, and he rejected even the limited concessions that Lenin made in instituting the New Economic Plan (NEP). Stalin grudgingly allowed a few capitalist economic vehicles within the Soviet system, such as money, limited market relations, and personal properly.

After millions had died during the famine of 1932 - 1933, he agreed to allow peasants limited freedom to produce and sell outside the collective and state farm system. But to the end he believed that the concessions that had been forced on him by hard circumstances would soon be reversed and the socialist economy would be transformed into a money-free powerhouse where people would work as ordered by the state and receive in exchange the natural goods that the state decided they needed.

That, ladies and gentlemen, readers of this blog is what a man who is vehemently anti-capitalist really believes and wants to achieve.

One of the many reasons why I dislike and distrust plebiscites

A referendum may sound better but plebiscite is the term I prefer and I dislike and distrust them. I accept that we are going to have one on our membership of the EU and shall do my best to help our side win it. But I am not sanguine.

How can you distrust the people, I hear you say at the back. Easy, just look at history even if you don't trust Shakespeare's famous descriptions of how easy it is to sway a crowd. Or, if you don't like history, look at the present and see how easy it is to sway what is laughingly known as public opinion by a well placed picture or a media campaign. In addition, if we have plebiscites with any frequency on all subjects, easily comprehensible or not, easily reducible to a yay or nay vote or not, an ever fewer people will bother to turn out to vote. Instead of legislation or political decisions being made by people we have delegated power to, they will be made by a small group of people who have nothing else to do with their lives besides voting and whose views are not necessarily underpinned by any knowledge.

Those are general views and I am prepared to argue them in another posting, and another, and another, until my readers accept that I am right. Which is one of the many reasons I dislike and distrust plebiscites: the ease with which they can be called again and again in the name of so-called democracy but really to ensure that the "correct" answer is given.

We know that the EU and its minions indulge in that habit; we also know that a number of politicians who did not do as well as they think they should have done under a first past the post system want to set aside the result of the fairly recent referendum on the subject in which the people of this country decisively voted for that system.

Now we have renewed calls for another Scottish Independence referendum although it was only last year that the people of Scotland voted conclusively in favour of staying in the Union. To argue that the vote has been negated by the SNP's achievements in the General Election in May is to use what was once called jesuitical methods. The SNP did not campaign on the question of independence or even on that of a second referendum. And as this blog points out:

In fact, the SNP vote, at 1,454,436 was lower than the Yes vote in the referendum, 1,617,989, let alone the No vote at 2,001,926. The turn-out, at 71.1 per cent was higher than UK average at 66.1 per cent but considerably lower than the referendum turn-out at 84.59 per cent. It is, in the opinion of this blog, hard to prove that the overwhelming SNP success on May 7 was really a vote for Scottish independence, which was roundly rejected in the referendum.

Nevertheless, there are ever more calls from that party for a second independence referendum, each call using some spurious reason but we all know what this is all about: the SNP failed to get what they wanted and are yearning to have another go. And another, and another, and another, until the people of Scotland, exhausted and impoverished by the endless campaigns, will vote the way they are told by Ms Sturgeon and her cohorts.

According to City AM we now have Alistair Darling, one of the leaders of the No campaign, making similar noises though he obviously thinks that the offer of yet another referendum "if the Scottish people want it" will take the wind out of Ms Sturgeon's sails.

Do the Scottish people want it? There is no evidence for it unless you consider the votes in the General Election to be that, which is a tad dishonest.

The former chancellor’s comments come two days after Sturgeon said the SNP’s manifesto for next year’s Scottish Parliament election will include possible timescales and triggers for a second vote.

However, opponents have criticised her for reneging on her pledge to honour the “once-in-a-generation” vote.

Scotland’s only Conservative MP, David Mundell, who is the Scottish secretary, said yesterday that a second vote would be at least 15 years in the future.

Yet, in a separate interview with the Telegraph Darling claimed that Sturgeon did not want a referendum any time soon as she knows she would lose.

The First Minister of Scotland is only raising the possibility of a second referendum now to appease SNP members and “let them down lightly”, he added. “There’s no high principle here. It’s base political calculation.”

Base political calculation? Oh surely not. Still, as long as one can keep that issue at the forefront we need not look too closely at the SNP's lamentable record of government in Scotland.

Somewhat ironic

Every year around this time the European Parliament announces its nominees for the Sakharov Prize, so-called because of the great scientist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov. On their own account

The prize is awarded every year to honour exceptional individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression.The nominations will be formally presented on Monday 28 September during a joint meeting of the foreign affairs and development committees and the human rights subcommittee. The winner will be announced in October.

Who was nominated this year? Mostly the names cannot be faulted though, clearly, we know more about some of them than about others.

From the Middle East we have Raif Badawi, a blogger who is in prison in Saudi Arabia, still under threat of inhumane punishment though the flogging after the first portion has been postponed time after time. As a blogger in a country where I can write what I want without worrying about the police breaking down my door at dawn I feel particularly for my colleagues in less fortunate circumstances.

From the Horn of Africa we have Edna Adan Ismail, a Somali activist for the abolition of female genital mutilation and a former government minister. While I am not particularly interested in former or present government ministers in that part of the world, I do find activists for the abolition of female genital mutilation in a country where its prevalence is extremely high and where it is dangerous to speak up against it worthy of support and highly admirable.

I know less about Venezuela but find it not unreasonable to have Political prisoners in Venezuale as as well as the democratic opposition in Venezuela embodied by the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática among the nominees.

So we come to two nominees about whom I know a great deal and who can be said to represent many other people, murdered or imprisoned in Russia or kidnapped from Ukraine and the Baltic States; Boris Nemtsov, the former Leader of the Russian opposition, murdered in full view of the Kremlin and Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian military pilot and a member of the Verkhovna Rada and of Ukraine’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who was captured on 18 June 2014 and illegally transferred to Russia.

So we come to the West where the nominees are of a lesser calibre and face slightly lower levels of danger: Antoine Deltour, a former Price Waterhouse Coopers auditor who revealed secret tax rulings with multinational companies in Luxembourg to journalists and a man who seems to be on the side of the taxman; and Stéphanie Gibaud who uncovered tax evasion and money laundering by UBS AG, also apparently more interested in the rights of the tax collector than anything else.

And finally, the nomination that made me laugh, the one that has made nonsense of the whole effort: Edward Snowden, the man whose love of liberty is so high that he has decided to live in Russia, the country two of whose victims have been nominated to represent, as I said above, many others.

My own prediction that this year the prize will go to Boris Nemtsov, who is dead and is, therefore, uncontroversial. As it happens, his daughter Zhanna, a journalist, has been hounded out of Russia because of the statements she made about her father's murder, can accept it in his name. That is what I suspect will happen. But one can never tell. It could go to Edward Snowden, which will be highly entertaining.

Thankfully it is over

By this morning I was in such a catatonic state that all I could hope for was that 11.30 with the announcement of the Labour leader would come soon. It came in due course and the Labour party proved to be more docile than the electorate at large and voted the way the media had told it to do. Tom and Jerry are now the Deputy Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition.

The turn-out was 76.3 per cent, which makes one wonder about the 23.7 per cent who, though members of the Labour Party, do not care who their leader might be in a highly polarizing election. Of those who did turn out Jeremy Corbyn won 59.5 per cent of the vote, which makes one wonder about the Labour Party in general.

As I have pointed out before, Corbyn was until a few months ago a little known left-wing backbencher who appeared a great deal on RT (Russia Today as was) and on various rallies, usually together with terrorists, extreme Islamicists, anti-Semites and, sometimes Holocaust deniers. Very few people had heard of him. The amusing idea of nominating him for the leadership election in order to have a more interesting debate has badly misfired and there are, I suspect, a few MPs now in hiding from their furious colleagues. But, you cannot get away from the fact that the majority of the Labour Party members as well as the unions wanted this out of date socialist.

So what are his policies? As a matter of fact, he has none or none that anyone has managed to discern. Making fiery speeches about inequality (not in itself a bad thing, as he knows full well, earning as he does a great deal more than average, what with various expenses and so on) is not quite the same as having policies.

I am glad to say a friend of mine who lives in a very different country and, therefore, possibly finds this all a bit more interesting, unearthed Corbyn's "policy on the EU" and asked me "what will Corbyn really try to do re the EU". Anyway, here is the policy, as quoted from a statement Corbyn released to the Guardian on July 28:

Labour should set out its own clear position to influence negotiations, working with our European allies to set out a reform agenda to benefit ordinary Europeans across the continent. We cannot be content with the state of the EU as it stands. But that does not mean walking away, but staying to fight for a better Europe.

As a left-wing journalist of my acquaintance said about another comment of Corbyn's, what a lot of waffly woo. At least, he is not so far in favour of Brexit. I rather dread that as Corbyn's support would lose us a good many votes. So far so good. Now, what about any other policy? Speaking at a rally, organized by the Stop the War Coalition, and saying that refugees are welcome here does not count as a policy or even as a political idea. Try again, Jeremy.

Things are speeding up

The EU Referendum Bill has made its way through the House of Commons and has had its First Reading in the House of Lords. This is a formality merely but  the Second Reading is scheduled for October 13, immediately after Parliament's return in the wake of those tedious party conferences.