Many of the people with whom I spoke, particularly in Siberia, were  
the victims, or the children of the victims of exactly this kind of  
forced mass movement to subject populations.  More than that a  
Russian serf, prior to Communism was tied to the land, by both  
tradition, and law and, after Communism, was tied to a specific place  
by law.  You could not come in to Moscow without an internal  
passport, for instance. One suffering should never be used to trump  
another, that just another form of projection, but I think it is fair  
to note that Russian suffering really takes place on a scale that is  
really almost impossible to comprehend.  Between the Nazis, and  
Stalin, 35 million people died, getting on to a third of the  
population, in the space of about 25 years.

But all of this is essentially besides the point I was trying to  
make:  most people care less about politics than they do stability, a  
place in the social fabric, regular meals, etc.  What we mean by  
freedom today would have been incomprehensible to most in the 18th,  
or even the 19th century -- and in some places, into the 21st  
century. The words are sometimes the same, but the cultural context  
is very different.  It seems very bad history, indeed, to impose  
present day perspectives on other times and places, analytical  
techniques for sure, but not moral judgments.  God knows the war in  
Iraq should make that clear enough.

-- Stephan


On 12 Jun 2007, at 14:30, Anita Wills wrote:

> I would not compare slaves to people who were under an oppressive  
> regime. I doubt that these people were shipped in from thousands of  
> miles away to labor on plantations. Besides that there are the  
> writings of slaves who escaped, such as one of my ancestors, Josiah  
> Henson, who wrote  narrative about his life as a slave. He wrote  
> that narrative from Canada where he was living the life of a free  
> man, after being a slave in Maryland. Instead of quoting the WPA  
> narratives, maybe you should read the writings of slaves who were  
> able to escape.
>
> Anita
>
>> From: "Stephan A. Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia  
>> history              <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)
>> Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:22:47 -0400
>>
>> Melinda's is the most insightful comment I have yet read about  
>> this,  and I speak from considerable direct personal experience.   
>> From 1981  to 1993 I went to what is now the former Soviet Union  
>> so often I  maintained an apartment there, and have made perhaps a  
>> dosen trips  subsequently.  I had stumbled across the WPA archives  
>> during the  course of research to write John Warner's 1976  
>> bicentennial address  (he was the head of the commission) and been  
>> very struck by their  nostalgic tone in so many instances.  Having  
>> grown up in the civil  rights movement, and having been arrested a  
>> number of times in the  south for nonviolent demonstrations, at  
>> the time I could not  reconcile the discongruity. But, almost 15  
>> years later, I saw its  mirror, in the people of Russia and East  
>> Germany, and it gave me  insight into the slave narratives.  Time  
>> and again I would talk to  Russians, and East Germans and,  
>> somewhere during the conversation,  they would compare their post- 
>> Communist world unfavorably to their  present "free" state. This  
>> was particularly true if they had lost  status, or been cast  
>> adrift to an uncertain day-to-day existence.
>>
>> The cold truth is that many, perhaps even most, people want,  
>> above  all else, a stable life style, with enough food, a place to  
>> sleep,  steady work to do, and a social fabric in which they play  
>> a  recognized role. History abounds in examples of this truth,  
>> even  though it is very hard for many of us today to swallow, not  
>> least  because it seems so politically incorrect.  But there it is.
>>
>> -- Stephan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Stephan A. Schwartz
>> Email:
>> [log in to unmask]
>> Personal Website:
>> www.stephanaschwartz.com
>> Schwartzreport:
>> www.schwartzreport.net
>> Explore Schwartzreport:
>>  www.explorejournal.com
>> Schwartzreport Annual Conference:
>> www.schwartzreportconference.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12 Jun 2007, at 08:07, Melinda Skinner wrote:
>>
>>> On reading some of the WPA narratives of former slaves who  
>>> recalled  their enslaved lives fondly, I thought of the people in  
>>> the Soviet  Union who, after its break-up and the end of the  
>>> communist regime,  were devastated and wanted to go back to the  
>>> way things had been.   It was difficult for some of them to know  
>>> how to live within the  new "freedom."  Surely, it would be hard  
>>> to adjust to being  responsible for everything after living your  
>>> entire life as the  property/ward of the master/state.  If your  
>>> master had not been  cruel, it may not have seemed so bad when  
>>> you looked back with the  perspective of trying to make it in a  
>>> difficult, racist world.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Melinda C. P. Skinner
>>> Richmond, VA
>>>
>>>
>>>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
>>> From: Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Kevin, thank you for your reply. For me, George Washington  
>>>> remains  the
>>>> exemplar, the maximum leader. The more you study him, in almost   
>>>> any aspect,
>>>> the more you have to admire him. In researching Washington as an
>>>> emancipator, I was astonished to find how deeply biographers  
>>>> and  historians
>>>> had buried that aspect of his life and career. It just didn't  
>>>> fit  with the
>>>> received wisdom that slavery was "just the accepted system,"   
>>>> unchallenged, a
>>>> venerable practice enshrined in law, sanctioned by the Bible,  
>>>> and  carried
>>>> out as much as possible on a humane basis. Washington's views  
>>>> and  actions
>>>> don't fit that grid at all--"they don't compute." We like to  
>>>> think  that
>>>> "they didn't know any better; we can't judge them." But if you   
>>>> look at what
>>>> Washington did and contended against, you find that he was not   
>>>> fighting
>>>> against ignorance and indifference, but against profit. The  
>>>> modern  analogy I
>>>> use is: getting Thomas Jefferson to give up slavery is like   
>>>> getting Dick
>>>> Cheney to quit pumping oil.
>>>>
>>>> Henry Wiencek
>
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