Text taken from an article which appeared in dzen.ru by A. Stepnov.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] In the context of the current heated discussion about the personality and views of the fascist philosopher Ivan Ilyin,
| …Wikipedia thinks he was a Russian monarchist, but there is the ahistorical view that anyone to the right of Stalin is a fascist… |
I chose the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40 as such an episode. What did Professor Ilyin write about it?
Firstly, even before the start of the conflict, this man confidently stated that the USSR would not succeed and the country would not be able to field a massive army. Because:
“Trained” millions are not trained; they are only listed on paper. And mistrust, spy mania, poor quality engineering and a general desire for radical change reign everywhere. It would be downright fatal for communists to put weapons in the hands of the masses...” (c) I. A. Ilyin. Hitler and Stalin. / 07/11/1939. / Luzerner Landbote.
Let's just state that although the Red Army had many problems, nothing like this happened. In both 1939 and 1941, the communists did not hesitate to put weapons into the hands of the masses. And the masses justified their trust.
Alas, gentlemen, even this episode clearly shows that the prophet from your Ilyin is like a bullet from a well-known substance...
Secondly, in his publications dedicated to the Soviet-Finnish war, Ivan Ilyin many times calls our country an aggressor: “It acted as an aggressor,” or “in the long, tedious struggle for world power, which began in 1917, the Bolshevik aggressor discovered a huge gap...”
In an article he wrote after the conclusion of the peace treaty, the “great Russian thinker” states:
“The Soviet state began this war as typical "aggressor". There was no talk of any claims or hostility on the part of Finland, which until the last moment demonstrated balance, correctness and even greater readiness to accommodate. It was about Stalin’s desire not to negotiate with Finland, but to defeat a small country with a swift revolutionary onslaught.”
We simply state that the “Russian patriot” Ivan Ilyin completely repeats the theses of Finnish nationalist propaganda. Although he would be ashamed not to know that objectively the roots of this armed conflict go deep into history, to 1811, when Emperor Alexander I, after annexing the Grand Duchy of Finland to the Russian Empire, for some reason transferred the entire Vyborg province to it. A territory with a mixed population, which by that time had been directly part of Russia for a hundred years.
Further, as I already wrote in the publication ABOUT THE REASONS OF THE FINNISH WAR, the following picture emerges: there is objectively a territorial problem between the two countries. But instead of establishing good neighborly relations, Finland, or rather a significant part of its ruling class after 1917:
- Demands fantastic territorial concessions from Russia;
- Organizes several armed incursions into Russian territory;
- Gives the opportunity to world powers, first Germany, then England, to station troops on their territory that can or even attack our country;
- And as a “cherry on the cake”: it encourages large-scale terrorist activities on the territory of a neighboring country;
Moreover, all this is based on the thesis put forward by the President of Finland P. E. Svinhuvud: “Any enemy of Russia must always be a friend of Finland.”
But for Ivan Ilyin it all comes down to “revolutionary onslaught” and “Soviet aggression”! This “statist” simply does not understand, or does not want to understand, that we are talking about the security of the second capital of our state, the largest industrial and cultural center.
Here his level corresponds to the most primitive anti-Soviet propaganda, above which the “deep thinker” and former resident of St. Petersburg-Petrograd, as it turns out, is simply not able to rise!
Moreover, he does not know, or pretends not to know, about the aggressive plans to create a “Greater Finland” with the inclusion of the territory of Karelia and the Kola Peninsula.
Yes, the refined liberal Pavel Milyukov, who uttered the phrase “I feel sorry for the Finns, but I am for the Vyborg province,” is a much greater patriot than Ivan Ilyin!
But our “patriot” many times admires both the bloody executioner Karl Mannerheim and the Finnish nationalists: “The living spirit of Finnish patriots wins.” Or “a real strategist spoke out against this communist “horde strategy,” stoically defending himself on the Karelian Isthmus and maneuvering with shock force on the eastern and northern borders.”
By the way, praising Mannerheim, under whose leadership Finland lost two wars (More details about the paradoxes of perception of the results of the Finnish war can be read here), did the “Russian patriot” Ivan Ilyin know about the “Vyborg massacre”, during which many Russian people died? As a resident of Petrograd in 1918, he could not help but know this. Nevertheless...
And vice versa, here is what Ivan Ilyin writes about our army:
“So, in the Russian army, the “free soldier’s initiative”, once demanded by the old man Suvorov, is deprived of all spiritual consciousness, then instilled with fear, forcibly introduced to the dominant ideology and drowned in uncomplaining, slavish drill. Conscience and honor - the concepts of the old school - are abolished, they are replaced by hypocritical “revolutionary pathos”.
“As a result, the soldier lost the feeling of being a defender of his homeland. For neither the expropriated slave of the state, nor the internationally trained Marxist has a homeland.”
“A person who is not free and collectivized is not a warrior. Taken individually, he is a slave. In a collective, he is a horde. No machine can save where the spirit and heart fail.”
This is from the issue of “Neue Zércher Nachrichten” dated January 27, 1940.
If anyone doesn’t understand, the “great Russian philosopher” calls our ancestors slaves, a horde, people with abolished conscience and honor.
If this is not Russophobia, then what is it???
Moreover, Ilyin does not have a single drop of sympathy for our soldiers, only anger! And our deep “thinker,” when describing the course of the military conflict, trustingly repeats the myths of enemy propaganda:
Do we need to prove to anyone that in this passage our “deep thinker” is retelling complete nonsense. Despite the fact that the battle of Suomussalmi became a tragedy for the Red Army, out of 14 thousand soldiers and commanders of the 44th division, according to various estimates, 1,000 to 1,500 thousand died, 2,200 thousand were missing, 1,500 thousand were wounded. According to their data, about 1,500 people were captured by the Finns.
That is, the majority of the soldiers of the Soviet 44th Rifle Division fought even in the most difficult conditions. Here Ilyin is simply slandering! And on top of that, he gloats over the failure of his country!
Well, he couldn't know all the details of those events. But our thinker also demonstrates a complete lack of critical thinking!
What happens - the Finns sent the captured prisoners back to Russia... The Finnish command are complete idiots who do not understand that these soldiers will quickly be brought to their senses and sent back into battle? Does military analyst Ilyin, sitting in a warm office, even understand what he is writing about? After all, such nonsense puts him on a par with such a famous thinker of our time as Yulia Latynina!
As you know, in March 1940, the Finnish leadership still had to admit defeat and peace was concluded. But Ilyin got away with it too! Like, this is still a victory, because otherwise the Finns would all be sent to Siberia. Apparently to remove snow:
“If he had won, the fate of the brave people would have been sealed. There were rumors about plans to resettle Finns to Siberia, and they could not be considered “incredible”... But you can be sure that the heroic Finns would have suffered a cruel fate if they were defeated. And now these plans have been thwarted.”
Again, the most ridiculous lie, based at least on the fact of the creation of the Finnish government of Kuusinen, the Finnish People's Army, and then the Karelo-Finnish SSR. However, Ivan Ilyin hates our country so much that he is ready to repeat any absurdities.
Let's summarize. Citizens admirers of Ivan Ilyin, using real facts I tried to show that your idol in 1939-40:
- He put forward some fantastic forecasts, which, naturally, did not come true;
- He did not understand at all both the objective reasons for the Soviet-Finnish conflict and the national interests of our country;
- He called our country an aggressor and wished it defeat;
- He sympathized with Finnish nationalists and Russophobes, who then dreamed of seizing part of Russian territory;
- He called our soldiers slaves, without conscience and honor, without a sense of defender of the Motherland;
- He repeated all the tales of enemy propaganda, approaching it completely uncritically.
And the reason for everything was the anger and hatred inherent in Ilyin. In general, reading his works, one immediately notices that this man had absolutely no sense of humor, irony, not to mention the ability for self-irony. Just an angry, sad graphomaniac.
By the way, Ilyin’s articles often resemble modern Russophobic journalism of current relocants. Yes Yes exactly! And do you really think that this person can be called a “deep thinker” and a “Russian patriot”???
(c) A. Stepanov
https://dzen.ru/a/ZlXpeKUM9QEPpiuu - zinc
Having failed to praise the fascist Mannerheim in Russia, they took up advertising for the fascist henchman Ilyin, who praised Mannerheim. The result will be the same.