"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"

Quote: Cincinnatus wrote in post #1

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"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"

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Algernon, have you run across the story of the Forest Jews? The Bielski brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans

Fascinating story. There may have been more resistance that we were taught to believe.

Read it many years ago and can't remember a thing w/exception of becoming opinionated old bat. Must reread. Have done that w/Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Thx for putting up w/me. :)
P.S. I still don't get William Faulkner. :(

Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #3

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Algernon, have you run across the story of the Forest Jews? The Bielski brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans

Fascinating story. There may have been more resistance that we were taught to believe.

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Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #3

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Algernon, have you run across the story of the Forest Jews? The Bielski brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans

Fascinating story. There may have been more resistance that we were taught to believe.

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Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #5

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Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #3

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Algernon, have you run across the story of the Forest Jews? The Bielski brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans

Fascinating story. There may have been more resistance that we were taught to believe.

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Yes I suspect there was, Thanks for the link.

I have the DVD of Defiance, a recent version of the story with Daniel Craig.

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Quote: musiclady wrote in post #6

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Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #3

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Algernon, have you run across the story of the Forest Jews? The Bielski brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielski_partisans

Fascinating story. There may have been more resistance that we were taught to believe.

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I highly recommend the documentary, "The Singing Revolution," about the resistence in Estonia through their refusal to give up their music and their patriotism.

It's fascinating.

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After I saw Defiance I read up on the brothers. The older one (I think the one played by Craig) ended up as a solid citizen in America and lived out the rest of his life here. Interesting story.