Tragic songs of atomic armageddon

The wonderful project Atomic Platters documents how the spectre of nuclear annihilation influenced American popular music in the fifties. From the frivolous to the apocalyptic, a great many artists dealt with the advent of the atomic age. In retrospect, a lot of those, er, contributions look rather naff. They're all pretty revealing, though. Here, I thought I'd discuss two entries into the genre - one terrifying, one hilarious. (Both, by sheer coincidence, are among my favourite songs.)

'The Great Atomic Power' by the Louvin Brothers sums up that act so well that it's no surprise Nathan Rabin chose the song as his introduction. Raised in poverty in Appalachia, Charlie and Ira Louvin were making self-consciously traditional country music in the increasingly pop-oriented market of the 1950s. But they were unusual in another sense, too: where pop stuck to love songs, their lyrics were marked by a harsh and unyielding backwoods fundamentalism that regularly threatened non-believers with the prospect of hell.

Do you fear this man's invention
That they call atomic power?
Are we all in great confusion
Do we know the time or hour
When a terrible explosion
May rain down upon our land
Leaving horrible destruction
Blotting out the works of man?

So far, so good. It isn't cheery, but neither is the nuclear winter.

Are you ready for the great atomic power?
Will you rise and meet your Saviour in the air?
Will you shout or will you cry
When the fire rains from on high?
Are you ready for that great atomic power?

Here the prospect of atomic war is conflated with the second coming of Christ. For pre-millenial dispensationalists like the Louvins, Christ's people will be spared the horrors of nuclear obliteration by being spirited away in the Rapture ('we... shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord', 1 Thess. 4:17). Applying religious imagery to the atomic bomb is common, of course, from Robert Oppenheimer's 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' to Dr. Strangelove's Doomsday Machine. What interests me about the Louvin Brothers is that their identification of Judgment Day with the nuclear apocalypse is literal.

There is one way to escape it
Be prepared to meet the Lord
Give your heart and soul to Jesus
He will be your shielding sword
He will surely stand beside you
And you'll never taste of death
For your soul will fly to safety
And eternal peace and rest

Yes, that's the song's message: the ICBMs might start raining down any time, and if you don't fancy dying of radiation sickness in a post-apocalyptic wasteland you'd best believe in Jesus. I'm not sure how effective this is as an evangelistic strategy. It might get some people to convert out of fear; but in the long term few might be able to bear a God who is both author of and saviour from atomic destruction.

There's an army who can conquer
All the enemy's great band
It's a regiment of Christians
Guided by the Saviour's hand
When the mushroom of destruction
Falls in all its fury great
God will surely save His children
From that awful awful fate

Here the mashup of secular warfare and apocalyptic destruction becomes confusing, perhaps deliberately so. In the context of the arms race, 'the enemy' is the Soviet Union; but the term itself is a New Testament euphemism for the devil. The militarisation of Christianity results in an apparent inability or unwillingness to distinguish between the cause of Christ and that of the United States.

(Applying military discipline to Christians is of course hardly foreign to the Louvin Brothers' fundamentalism. In 'Broadminded', they opine that 'that word broadminded is spelt s-i-n' and lambaste their fellow Christians for indulging in seemingly harmless pleasures like occasional drinking, gambling and dancing, long-standing fundamentalist bugbears all.)

But there's something else going on. Like a lot of the Louvin Brothers' songs, 'The Great Atomic Power' is uptempo and sounds downright cheerful. Behind the vicious apocalyptic detail of the description, there is a certain glee. Such language, as Jacqueline Rose notes, 'is rooted... in a fear; but it also thrives on the prospect of annihilation'. That prospect does away with pesky doubts and moral ambiguities. It allows for a stark message: turn, the brothers preach, or burn.

Tom Lehrer's 'We Will All Go Together When We Go' goes a different route, satirically pointing out that the highest technological development of humankind has bred the danger of total annihilation: 'universal bereavement and inspiring achievement'. The humour comes from the cheerful treatment of human extinction.

Lehrer, too, regularly mixes religious language with that of the atomic age: 'when it's time for the fallout and St. Peter calls us all out', 'just sing out a Te Deum when you see that ICBM'. A sceptic, Lehrer has none of the brutal earnestness with which the Louvins approach the topic. But it's only natural our notions of all-out atomic war should be shaped by end-times fears, and vice versa. The unprecedented possibility raised by nuclear weapons - the sudden end of all human life on earth - was too large and frightening to be easily accommodated into comfortable public discourse. It always had to break those bounds and take on theological dimensions.

In praise of the Red Army

This post touches on a couple of issues regarding the Eastern Front (1941-45) that have irritated me recently. There's a popular perception of the German-Soviet War, refuted in numerous academic works, that runs roughly like this:

(1) Soviet forces overwhelmed the Wehrmacht by sheer numerical superiority: essentially, a four-year zerg rush.
(2) Hitler caused a great number of German setbacks by procrastination, recklessness, and stubbornness (e.g. a fixation on Stalingrad, the failure to cross the Neva in 1941, etc.)
(3) The Western Allies decided the outcome of the war when they invaded Normandy.

In Germany (3) is uncommon thanks to a general awareness that the Eastern Front consumed the vast majority of the war effort. (All my grandparents lost siblings in the Soviet Union; my grandfather fought as part of Army Group North from 1942 to 1945 and was a Russian POW until 1949.) (1) and (2), however, are widespread beliefs.

It's not difficult to see why. When German generals wrote their memoirs in the fifties, they were eager to exculpate themselves from responsibility for total defeat. Instead they blamed Hitler, who was unlikely to find vigorous defenders, and conveniently dead sycophants like Keitel. Of course Hitler was a bad commander-in-chief, terrible both at military judgment and at managing personal relationships with his generals; but in truth a number of people in the OKW would have found themselves with egg on their faces - like Franz Halder, who confidently noted that '[i]t's not too much to say that the campaign against Russia has been won within fourteen days' in July 1941. Collectively, the German generals easily displayed as much arrogance and short-sightedness as the Austrian corporal.

The Soviets, as pictured in German and Anglo-Saxon popular perception, were inferior to the Wehrmacht in everything but numbers. This sort of claim is at least partly a hangover from Nazi war propaganda: what was the Soviet Union but Asia's endless hordes threatening to overwhelm Western civilisation (the line adopted by the Nazis when they attempted to transform an opportunistic war of conquest into a pan-European crusade against 'Bolshevism' in 1942-43)? A few men, hopelessly outnumbered but superior in virtue, natural nobility, as well as technological and operational genius, fighting to the last against slavering barbarians - why, it's exactly the sort of romantic Thermopylae tripe the Nazis loved until the very end (see Kolberg).

In this racist fantasy the Soviets of course had to appear as the direct opposite of the noble Aryan: countless faceless goons (even though, as in the Battle of Kursk, numbers and losses were much more even than is commonly supposed), incapable of anything but mass charges (despite brilliantly executed operations like Operation Uranus and strategic offensives like Operation Bagration), indifferent to losses (there's some truth to this one, owing to the extraordinary situation of the Red Army in 1941-42, but from 1943 the Soviets were much more careful with their manpower), barbaric in their treatment of civilians (ignoring, like all empires, the systematic atrocities the 'civilised' troops committed against the populace).

It goes without saying that the Red Army was the decisive force in the war. Nazi Germany did not fall because it ran out of oil, and certainly not because of the Allied carpet bombing of German civilians: it perished because 80% of its armed forces were engaged and destroyed by the Red Army, and its conquered territories were occupied by the Soviets. In this the USSR was of course helped by supplies provided by the Western Allies; but it was Stavka that in extraordinarily difficult circumstances planned, and millions of Soviet soldiers that executed, the campaigns that brought European fascism to its knees.

In the First World War, Germany defeated the Russian Empire committing only a third of her forces. It's not to excuse Stalinism to note that Uncle Joe's assessment of the need to catch up in industrial development was spot on. By the 1940s the Soviet Union had become an industrial powerhouse. Soviet equipment was often of equal quality (the notorious German realisation, early in the war, that their tanks were inferior to the T-34 was not an isolated incident), but the Nazis' disastrous decision to focus on quality over quantity squandered what technological edge they did have, massively exacerbating the industrial disparity - another instance of Nazi racism digging its own grave.

It's true that in the early phase of the war - roughly, from June 1941 to the second half of 1942 - the Red Army did not have the strategic initiative and, faced with rapidly advancing German armies, indeed attempted to stop the Wehrmacht by resorting to human waves and other desperate tactics. The result, despite intermittent success, is well known: losses so devastating similar tactics could not be contemplated due to manpower depletion alone from 1943 onwards (although Zhukov did some 1941 re-enactment in the 1945 Seelow Heights and Berlin campaigns).

Instead, having recovered from the initial shock, the Soviets relearnt the doctrine of deep battle their theorists had developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Deep battle, superficially similar to 'Blitzkrieg', is designed to break through to an enemy force's rear and occupy its territory. Unlike the Germans' unhealthy obsession with encircling and annihilating enemy forces (a fascination which, while going back to Clausewitz, was certainly favoured by Nazism's prejudices), the Soviet doctrine envisaged not physically destroying an enemy but confusing him, throwing him off-guard, and breaking his ability and will to act at an operational and strategic level.

Early attempts to put deep battle into practice were not unqualified successes, but from Stalingrad onwards the Soviets perfected the strategy, revolutionising the Red Army at every level. It was most impressively displayed in Operation Bagration, launched two weeks after D-Day. The offensive destroyed far more German forces than the Battle of Normandy, brought the Red Army to the borders of the Reich and, most importantly, shattered Army Group Centre and left the Wehrmacht in shambles. Before Bagration, German forces on the Eastern Front had been well-organised; afterwards, the Wehrmacht never achieved the same coherence and was soon forced to throw together Kampfgruppen, improvised formations of whatever was at hand in a sector.

In short, Soviet forces defeated the Wehrmacht because, from late 1942 onwards, they were the better army. Of course numerical superiority, present in most situations, helped, and so did the Soviet Union's greater industrial output. But all this would have counted for nothing had the Soviets not gained the skill necessary to disorganise and defeat the Wehrmacht at a strategic, operational and, yes, tactical level. The stereotype of an ignorant mass driven to the slaughter by callous commissars does a disservice to the bravery, motivation and skill of Soviet soldiers.

Smash the dragons!

Occasionally, life is awesome. And thus it was that the local 'independent' cinema put on a screening of The Battleship Potemkin (1925), a film I had previously only seen on DVD. It absolutely blew me away. If you see The Battleship Potemkin - and until you do, your life will be incomplete - you must see it in the cinema: the film needs the space the big screen affords to develop its full power.

It's worth recalling the extent to which the Russian Revolution, which director Sergei Eisenstein served as a Red Army soldier from 1918, inspired an incredible boom of the avant-garde in Russia: in music, visual arts and film, Russia was world-leading in the first half of the 1920s, until the ossification of Soviet public life stifled the arts.

The Battleship Potemkin was Sergei Eisenstein's second full-length feature, after 1924's Strike. At twenty-seven years Eisenstein was considered a prodigy when he filmed The Battleship Potemkin, the troubles with Soviet authorities that would cast a shadow over his masterpiece, October (1927), still ahead of him. Although the film's success at home was less than stellar, it fared better internationally.

Designed as the ultimate revolutionary propaganda film, The Battleship Potemkin is divided into five dramatically distinct parts. In 'Men and Maggots', sailors on the battleship Potemkin of the Black Sea Fleet become angered by the rotten, maggot-infested meat they are asked to eat during the first, failed Russian Revolution of 1905.

In 'Drama on the Deck', the conflict comes to a head as the officers' decision to shoot down those unwilling to eat is confronted by a mutiny led by Grigory Vakulinchuk (Aleksandr Antonov). After a fight, the mutinous sailors take over the ship.

After the fallen Vakulinchuk is mourned over by the people of nearby Odessa in 'A Dead Man Calls for Justice', the revolutionary population is massacred by Tsarist troops and Cossacks on 'The Odessa Steps'. Finally, the Potemkin must face a naval squadron sent to quash the mutiny.

The version I saw was restored by the Deutsche Kinemathek and claims to be as close to the original as possible, unlike previous versions compromised by Stalin-era re-editing. It is distinctive for its soundtrack, a re-recording of Edmund Meisel's original score, and for the colouring of the red flag the Potemkin flies after the successful mutiny. The brilliant red in a black-and-white film is quite striking and I am more than willing to accept this deviation from the original, since it seems very much in the spirit of Eisenstein. There, are, however, some errors in the subtitles: the call to 'smash the dragons!' is a point of particularly hilarity, although thankfully it does not impede efforts to disarm the dragoons.

Seeing The Battleship Potemkin on the big screen I was very much struck by the perfection of the compositions by cinematographer Eduard Tisse and Eisenstein himself. Image after image is perfectly created; this almost leads to a feeling of sensory overload as the modern viewer is too used to the narrative-centred, 'getting out of the actors' way' style of twenty-first-century direction.

The Odessa steps sequence is the film's most famous by far. And it deserves to be: it's perfectly shot and shockingly violent by the standards of the times. But it shouldn't overshadow other scenes. The early confrontation between recalcitrant sailors and officers is particularly tense, as is the climactic showdown between Potemkin and the Tsarist squadron.

Eisenstein films are notable in eschewing the individualism that is endemic in western cinema. So it is with The Battleship Potemkin: although Vakulinchuk is the only named sailor, he is killed in the second of the film's five episodes and remains a cipher, no more than a spokesman for the revolutionary proletariat. No, the protagonist of The Battleship Potemkin is the collective of the mutinous sailors and, in chapters three and four, the revolting populace of Odessa. It is virtually only the villains who actually receive names.

Speaking of villains: as a work of Soviet propaganda, the film of course deals in broad stereotypes. The bad guys walk around in finery and sport monocles; one attempts to turn the people's assembly in Odessa into a pogrom and is beaten to death for his troubles by the people, who of course know their woes cannot be blamed on the Jews. But such a clear distinction between heroes and villains is not necessarily a bad thing; indeed The Battleship Potemkin absolutely could not work if the counter-revolutionaries were treated fairly.

Propaganda, then: but what propaganda! You don't need to be a dirty Red like me to enjoy this film (although it helps): Joseph Goebbels was apparently a jealous admirer of Eisenstein's craft. But you must  bring a willingness to accept collective protagonists, the flexibility to adjust to silent film, and sturdy footwear to prevent your socks from being blown off. What are you waiting for? To the cinema, post haste.

Die rote Bedrohung vom Karl-Liebknecht-Haus

Gesine Lötzsch verlangt eine Parteidiktatur sowjetischer Prägung in Deutschland, und zwar sofort. Inspiriert von Stalin, Mao und Pol Pot will sie unser Land in den strahlenden Morgen der kommunistischen Utopie versetzen, selbst – nein, gerade! – wenn es Abermillionen Menschenleben kostet.

Könnte man meinen, wenn man in der letzten Woche die bürgerliche Presse durchblätterte. Der „Spiegel“ hatte die Alarmglocken geläutet ob eines Artikels, den Gesine Lötzsch, Parteichefin der Linken, in der „Jungen Welt“ veröffentlicht hatte, Titel: „Wege zum Kommunismus“. „Klartext bei der Linken“, fand „Spiegel“-Autor Stefan Berg. Jan Fleischhauer setzte noch einen drauf: die Linkspartei nehme Frau Lötzsch „vor allem übel, dass [sic!] sie den Leuten so direkt auf die Nase gebunden hat, wohin die Reise mit der Linkspartei geht, sollte sie wieder [sic!] an die Macht kommen“.

Die Linke, eine Bande gemeinster Verschwörer! Aber sehr marxistisch kann man solches Doppelspiel kaum nennen. Heißt es nicht im „Kommunistischen Manifest“: „Die Kommunisten verschmähen es, ihre Ansichten und Absichten zu verheimlichen. Sie erklären es offen, daß ihre Zwecke nur erreicht werden können durch den gewaltsamen Umsturz aller bisherigen Gesellschaftsordnung“? Da gleicht die Linke dann wohl eher jenen roten Komplotten, die die Phantasie der Kalten Krieger Amerikas zirka 1950 bevölkerten.

Daß der „Spiegel“ sich gerne ab und an als staatstragendes Hetzblatt betätigt, interessiert hier nicht. Es hülfe den Herren Berg und Fleischhauer aber möglicherweise, den anstößigen Artikel auch zu lesen. Reichlich seltsam nimmt sich zum Beispiel Stefan Bergs Ausspruch aus, daß Lötzsch die „Blutspur“ des Kommunismus vergesse: „Kein Wort verliert sie über die Opfer des Kommunismus, über die Lager in der Sowjetunion, in China oder in Korea, die alle im Namen des Kommunismus errichtet wurden.“ Es ist kein Wunder, daß diese Opfer nicht erwähnt werden – lehnt doch Lötzsch einen leninistischen Kurs ausdrücklich ab. Sie spricht sich aus für den „Linksradikalismus – [diese] ‚Kinderkrankheit des Kommunismus‘ (Lenin)“. Für Rosa Luxemburg, deren Ideen hier bewundert werden, war der Sozialismus „kein fertiges Ideal, kein genial entworfener Bauplan, sondern etwas, das aus den realen Kämpfen wachsen würde“, ganz im Gegensatz eben zu den Ideen Lenins und Trotzkis, die zur gleichen Zeit das Sowjetsystem aufbauten.

Tatsächlich tritt Gesine Lötzsch in diesem Artikel ein für etwas, das früher Revisionismus geheißen und vor hundert Jahren noch von der SPD als rechtssektiererisch verdammt wurde: die graduelle Verschiebung des Machtgefüges durch die Demokratisierung und Sozialisierung von Institutionen und Wirtschaftsbereichen, das „Zurückdrängen“ kapitalistischer und imperialistischer Kräfte: „die Profitdominanz über Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft zu überwinden, die Ansätze einer neuen Gesellschaft ‚hineinzupressen‘ in die alte, bis sich beweist, daß dem demokratischen Sozialismus die Zukunft gehört“. Nun ist das natürlich nicht mehr als die seit Jahren aus Wahlprogrammen und dem Parteiprogramms-Entwurf bekannte Strategie der Linkspartei, nicht ganz korrekt präsentiert als ein konsequentes Umsetzen der Ideen Rosa Luxemburgs. Aber so schreiben sich keine reißerischen Artikel: nein, der Russe muß her, wie er mit Plattenbau und Kalaschnikow die abendländische Kultur bedroht.

Das Zahlenspiel über Opfer, das die „Spiegel“-Autoren begeistert herbeirufen, könnte man mitspielen, aber eine solche Instrumentalisierung ermordeter Menschen gereicht den Beteiligten nur zur Schande. Daß aber der Kapitalismus, der in imperialistischen Kriegen, durch Hunger, Krankheit und Schufterei seit über zweihundert Jahren Menschen systematisch hinwegrafft, im Namen der Menschlichkeit verteidigt wird, ist an Zynismus kaum zu überbieten.