Re: Caucasian sketches

[Gary Kern <gkern@alumni.Princeton.EDU>]

Umberto Rossi wrote:
> 
> > Curious that the seeds of EJ's distrust of technology were planted in the
> > Caucasus--not a technologically advanced area at all.  (snip) Or is the contrast between the German technology
> > (advanced) and Russian (backward)?
> 
> As for national technology, Russia's whas NOT that backward.  Ok, there's a
> certain trend to consider the Russians as the Bad Guys, but if there was something
> they were NOT at that time (things changed after 1958-9) it is backward.  During
> WWII Russian tanks were the only ones which could really compete with German
> Panzers and Tigers.  Russian planes were not maybe as good as the Spits and not
> so innovative as the Schwalbe, but they were poweful, reliable machines (the
> Sturmovik was a wonderful fighter-bomber and tank-killer).  USSR had quite good
> rifles and guns, and the only time they had backward planes was the first year of
> war.
> 
> Russia became backward when the US beat them on the computer field.  In some
> specific sectors they remained more advanced than the western countries (e.g. they
> could produce H-bombs more powerful than 20 megatons, something which the
> NATO couldn't do--and I wonder if they spread that scientific secret after 1989).
> Also the field of mechanics was particularly refined.  Russian jet and rocket engines
> were always more powerful than Western machines.  And remember Russian
> superiority in the field of pure mathematics and phisics.
> 
> > Can it be that the
> > contrast between the pre-technical and the future technical was most
> > evident there?
> 
> Yes, that may be it. That's what must have struck him:  technologized warfare in an
> almost primitive area.  It's not, say, computers in London which strike;  it's the
> Bengali programmers that make the difference.
> 
> Umberto Rossi
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What you are saying, of course, is that the Soviet Union had some areas
of high technological development while most areas of society were
primitive, even pre-industrial.  Those few foreigners who had a chance
to fight alongside the Soviets were appalled by their living conditions.
Pilots living in shacks ran out on the field to jump into fighter
planes.  Perhaps EJ saw something like that.  Do the CAUCASIAN SKETCHES
state anything specific?

GK