
Exquisite Corpse: The Winter of 1947 in Europe - lermontov
https://granta.com/exquisite-corpse/
======
pjc50
People interested in Allied military government may like the memoir "Naples
'44"; the author was landed at Salerno and from that point was in charge of
trying to impose something resembling civil order in Naples in an environment
where there was very little food available to the local population. Armed only
with a classical education and a reasonable command of Italian.

> "We had been given no briefing or orders of any kind, and so far as the
> Americans were concerned we might as well not have existed. This was the
> greatest invasion in this war so far – probably the greatest in human
> history – and the sea was crowded to the horizon with uncountable ships, but
> we were as lost and ineffective as babes in the wood. No one knew where the
> enemy was, but the bodies on the beach at least proved he existed. In place
> of the guns, tanks, armoured cars, barbed wire we had expected to see, all
> that had been landed in this sector of the beach were pyramids of office
> equipment for use by Army Headquarters. We had been issued with a Webley
> pistol and five rounds of ammunition apiece. Most of us had never fired a
> gun.

As the sun began to sink splendidly into the sea at our back we wandered at
random through this wood full of chirping birds and suddenly found ourselves
at the wood’s edge. We looked out into an open space on a scene of unearthly
enchantment. A few hundred yards away stood in a row the three perfect temples
of Paestum, pink and glowing and glorious in the sun’s last rays."

------
arbitrage
I find it extremely odd that at no point does this article make any reference
to the actual temperature, aside from saying that things froze.

~~~
owenversteeg
Honestly, giving temperature measurements might not have made the article
better. An average temperature might not matter - the brief pockets of severe
cold do the most damage. Lows and highs are fine, but then where do you
calculate that over? The lowest temperature for all of France? You'll get a
handful of outliers killing your data.

Additionally, temperature as it is felt is very dependent on how prepared
people are and the wind and the moisture. Just a raw number might not do it.
Ultimately, I think there probably exists some sort of statistical measure to
measure the temperature "fairly" over a long period, but I doubt it's simple
enough to use in the article.

~~~
arbitrage
That make sense. When I was trying to find actual data, I did find a number of
reports of temperature, and some days the temp was well over freezing. +5C°, I
think.

I eventually found another article, which appeared to be calculating number of
days below freezing in a specific season, and that was the number that was out
of whack.

I think you're right. Purposefully excluding raw temperature figures can
prevent people from jumping to the 'well, it wasn't that cold' conclusion.

------
jerry40
> and when the Soviet propaganda became crudely anti-Western

In spite of Churchill's speech in Fulton it was inevitable I think.

~~~
adventured
It was strongly anti-Western - and particularly anti-Capitalist - before WW2
was over. So there's zero question it was guaranteed to go that direction no
matter what, post WW2.

Stalin was fundamentally opposed to the foundational values of much of the
modern West, whether we're talking about representative elected government,
substantial & enshrined human rights protections, or free market economics.

~~~
bojan
Stalin died in 1953, though. Maybe it didn't have to continue to be that way
after.

~~~
Fins
Khrushchev promised to "bury you" well after Stalin's death. It took a new
generation coming to power and ham-handedly taking USSR apart.

~~~
izacus
You do understand that phrase is a mistranslation which doesn't carry the same
meaning in original right?

~~~
chimprich
I feel it would have been less condescending to say "that is a
mistranslation", without posing it as a question. What do you think the
translation should be? Wikipedia suggests it could be "We shall be present at
your funeral" or "We shall outlive you", neither of which seem to be hugely
different in meaning.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you)

~~~
oxymoron
It’s quite different. The bolsheviks believed that the collapse of capitalism
was imminent, and that revolution would eventually sweep across the west even
without their involvement. I always interpreted “We will outlive you” as the
ideological belief in the long time superiority of their state. I’m not a
historian, but the USSR was very much inferior to the US in strength in the
1950’s, and both Krustchev and Eisenhower knew as much, even if the american
public. He didn’t have the strength to carry out the threat even if he’d
wanted to, had that been his intention.

~~~
Fins
They really meant both -- the eventual victory of communism, and that they
would help, with nukes if necessary, to achieve it.

