Author: Forbidden Texts (Page 1 of 10)

Has it ever occurred to you that there are multiple points of views about World War II rather than just the American version? Of course Germany has their own perspective, but so does France and Italy and the Soviet Union. Each country educates their youth with their own experience of the war. “The Russian Version of the Second World War” is a book translated by Majorie Vanston that contains the Russian point of view during World War II. It is the history of the war as taught to soviet school children. Since the second world war, Americans have learned about anti-Russian bias that has affected our feelings about Russia. School books especially are one of the best resources to learn about the great events of a certain nation. Two Russian books that aided in teaching the youth of Russia are “Istoriya SSSR” by I.V. Bekhin, M.I. Belenkii, and M.P. Kim, and “Noveishaya Istoriya” by P.M. Kuzmichev and others. Both of these books were published in Prosveshcheniye. For some reason before reading the book, I expected Russia to have a totally different view of the second world war, however they did not. The book contained many similarities and differences in comparison to the American version. Some of the similarities consist of; Germany wanting to take over Europe and the world, the invasions and events like Germany invading Poland, and the axis and allied powers. Though they have the right countries on the correct side, instead of calling them “axis powers” and “allied powers,” Russia labels them as “Fascist Countries” and “Imperialist Group.” Also, Russia believed they were the main country who really battled Hitler and inserted peace. “The only state to make an effort to restrain the Fascist Aggressors was the Soviet Union.” This makes sense though because of the fact America did not enter the war until later. Overall, the Russian version was more calm and mild than I expected. This is definitely because they had a rough time during the war and were stabbed in the back by Germany many times. 

In 1976, The Russian Version of the Second World War was published in 1976 in the United Kingdom by publishers Facts on File Publications. The novel was edited by Graham Lyons and translated by Marjorie Vanston. One thing I wanted to discuss first is the publishers. I had not heard of Facts on File Publications till now and wanted to do some research to see its credibility. The company is located in New York, New York, and has been publishing books since 1946.

Going back to The Russian Version of the Second World War, it starts off with the foreword which of course immediately caught my attention. In the foreword the first sentence states that the purpose of the text “is to show how the Second World War and some the events leading up to it are presented to young people in the Soviet Union in their schools”. It then goes on to say that the version of the war is likely to be different when told by Britain and the United States.

The foreword starts with the primary purpose of this book, and I also think it is clear by the text. I believe that no matter what war, depending on who is teaching about the events, the facts can be skewed in any way. Not only because it may be because of bias, but also because of propaganda. The Russian Version of the Second World War is a window into Russian propaganda. The Soviets believe that they won World War II. They say that they had a major impact on the war and that they lost more people than the United States. These are not exact numbers, but around 27,000,000 Soviet military and civilian lives were lost during the war. The United States had around 419,000 deaths during the war.

I think depending on who looks at this text, people can understand why this text can be banned. I tried to do some more research on The Russian Version of the Second World War, and I did not even find a Wikipedia page on it. This text does contain the thoughts of the Soviets on how they saw World War II and it was very interesting to read.

The Russian Version of the Second World War was a book that was taught to the Soviet children in school and described World War II from the perspective of the Russians. This reading included a lot of details about World War II that I have never heard or learned about before, because most general knowledge about the war is about British or American writings. It also includes how the actions of the United States affected other non-US people. I also noticed how the Halocaust was hardly mentioned in this book. It also spoke a lot about Facism and Communism, which I was expecting, and it compares them and they start out as being very different things, but ends up with the outcome of them being somewhat the same thing, or at least very similar. 

One thing that I found interesting about this reading, is more specifically about the author. It was very difficult to find any information about who Graham Lyons was, or what he did. The only thing that comes up from a quick google search is his other books that he wrote, but it is very hard to find personal information about him and his life. The name of the publishing establishment was also quite random, and it made me wonder if it was even a real publishing company because of the name, Facts on File. It just is not a very common publishing company and I do not think that many people have heard of it and even know it exists. 

I forgot to write a review for watching The Life of Bryan back in September. I wasn’t previously aware of this movie existing, and honestly didn’t have too much interest in watching it anyways. This movie wasn’t all that great. It’s obviously an old movie, just by seeing the quality of it. But it just really didn’t do much for me. I didn’t think it was entertaining, nor did I really get the point of it. I felt the sense that it was mocking some sort of religious book or something related, but I just really wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be about. I don’t have much of a background behind religion so that might be why I didn’t really like it or think it was funny.

Firstly, I had absolutely no interest reading this book. When our FSEM professor said that this was our last read, I felt no excitement whatsoever. I wanted to move on from this and not read it at all. Second, when trying to do research on this book, there’s not much that comes up for it. There aren’t many reviews or summary articles you can find for it, so I assume this is not a popular book.

There are many reasons as to why I had absolutely no interest in reading this book. For one, it’s so long and boring. Second, again there’s no much information online about it so how am I supposed to get a preview to this book?

Onto the content of the book: again I’m going to be honest here, I did not read the full text. I just felt it dragged on and there wasn’t much that intrigued me. It talks a lot about how people only normally hear about the Soviet side from American and British textbooks.

Right off the bat of the text, it talks about how greatest power would to seize territory and enslave people of other countries/dominate the world. I see a hard connection between this and today’s Russian country. Russia is trying to take over Ukraine and Poland as I am writing this, so could we say a third world war is coming? It says how in the first world war that the “Hitlerite Germany and militarist Japan wanted to take out the Soviet union and enslave the people.” From what I’ve always learned in history classes, the Soviet Union worked aside with Germany and Japan? So I don’t see how that makes much sense. This entire text just has a bitter tone to it and seems very butt-hurt about the way the second world war went.

In 2012 the film, The Dictator, directed by Larry Charles, was released. The producers, Jeff Schaffer and David Mandell, stated that the film was inspired by real dictators like Kim Jong-il and more. The movie is a political comedy film about the dictator, Aladeen, of a country called Wadiya. Due to the ways that Aladeen uses his power and not wanting a democracy, the United Nations threatens to use the military if he does not change his ways. After this, Aladeen then travels to New York to address the UN council. When the movie was released, it received mixed reviews from critics.

There are critics that said The Dictator is funny and does provide the comedy it aims to. However, there are other reviews that criticized the movie as Aladeen is sexist, anti-Western, and antisemitic. Aladeen also surrounds himself with female bodyguards, works on making nuclear weapons, and sponsors terrorism.

I will admit, the movie is comedic which of course means it did make me laugh. However, at many points, I feel like should not have been laughing due to the sexism, antisemitism, and anti-Western shown in the film. With this post being on a blog about forbidden/banned texts, there are movies that can fall under being forbidden/banned, and based on what I have said is in this movie, I believe it is understandable why this movie is banned.

People can see The Dictator in different ways due to what the movie contains. However, I think it is important to understand that Aladeen did eventually change his ways at the end of the film by making Wadiya a democracy. While it does not justify how he treated people, it does show that he did change. I think that is something that the film’s creators did well at, showing the other side of people in the world. Showing that there are people that do not act like Aladeen.

Industrial Society and Its Future is a text written by Ted Kaczynski, also known as the “Unabomber”. This reading is about how Ted believes that the industrial revolution is a harmful process of natural destruction, and that it suppresses human freedom and self-esteem. He blames the leftists for the industrial revolution and he is anti-left because they work to preserve the industrial system. He wanted to see living in an industrial society get so bad that the hardships can only be blamed on the industrial revolution. 

Kaczynski was considered to be “America’s most academic terrorist” because of his education at Harvard and the University of Michigan. He built a one room cabin in the woods of Montana and created bombs. Ted killed three people between 1978 and 1995 by sending bombs through the mail. He believed that killing people was the only way to get his message across. This text was originally published in the Washington Post, which caused him to get caught because his brother identified him and reported it to the FBI. 

This text inspired an array of anti-tech radical groups. One Mexican terrorist group, called ITS, picked up where Kaczynski left off and began to send bombs to scientists in April of 2011. This group has been blamed for attacks in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Greece. The banning of this text is definitely something that needed to be done, but it also caused a lot of harm to many different people. It also inspired many people in very wrong ways and caused them to do many violent and harmful things.

The Anarchist Cookbook includes step by step instructions on how to build bombs, how to make drugs, and how to operate firearms. The first part of this text is the table of contents, and they definitely grabbed my eye the second I started reading. They include all different types of drugs, firearms, weapons, and many other very violent and dangerous things. It gave me an idea of what I was about to get into as I continued to read. One thing that I also found very interesting in the beginning of the book was when he states “This book is for the people of the United States of America. It is not written for the members of fringe political groups, such as The Weathermen, or the Minutemen. Those radical groups don’t need this book. They already know everything that’s in here. If the real people of America, the silent majority, are going to survive, they must educate themselves. That is the purpose of this book.” I found this interesting because he claims that they need this text in order to survive, but in reality this text was a large reason for many mass shootings that took the lives of many innocent people. 

For that very reason, I believe it is a very good thing that this book was banned. It has caused a lot of damage, sadness, and fear in our country. It should have never been written, or published in the first place. If it hadn’t been brought to the United States and shown to the people, many lives would not have been taken. It makes me wonder if this was a large reason that mass shootings and school shootings started and occurred more frequently as time moved on. 

Monty Python is a British surreal skit comedy group known for their absurd humor and movies. One of their most famous movies is “The Life Of Brian” produced in 1979. This movie stars the group members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Jerry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The movie follows Brian throughout his life. Brian is a half-Roman, half-isrealite man who lives in Judea in AD 33. This comical story begins with Brian being mistaken as the Messiah after being born next to Jesus. This awkward situation quickly gets resolved, however it was just the first of many mix ups. Monty Python is notorious for each member to play multiple roles and Terry Jones actually played Brian’s mother. Brian becomes infatuated with a rebel woman who is a part of the “People’s Front of Judea”, which is an independence movement that wishes to take down the Romans, however spend their time fighting each other. Since the rebel woman, Judith, was a part of this group, it is only inevitable that Brian ends up joining as well. This movie also makes it known to the viewer that the “Peoples Front of Judea” is NOT the same thing as the “Judean People’s Front,” which is another independence movement. This detail adds into the classic Monty Python humor that one can find in any of their movies. After joining the group, Brian encounters many absurd situations that end up with him being crucified with many others. Though “The Life of Brian” can be seen as a comical skit comedy movie nowadays, it was very controversial when it was published. Monty Python was accused of blasphemy because of the film’s theme of religious satire. They make constant jokes of Romans, preachers, religious followers, and religion in general. Another controversial moment was when one of the members of the “People’s Front of Judea” stated they wanted to be addressed by she/her pronouns when she was presented in the beginning of the film as a male. Nowadays, people may still be offended, but overall the film is a good one to laugh at. 

The Turner Diaries has many layers to it. This includes not only the content of the novel, but also the author as well. This 1978 novel was written by William Luther Pierce, however one would not know that unless they have done extra research on the book. This is due to the fact that William Luther Pierce uses a different name, or a cover name, to be associated with this book. This name he uses is Andrew Macdonald. Though the reason for this cover name is not clearly stated, my theory is that Pierce did not want his real name to be associated with this book out of fear that the controversial contents will put a target on his back. Many people say that the Turner Diaries is a novel about white supremacy. I would agree with this comment since in the book he uses many slurs to describe the African American characters and associates rape and robberies with African Americans. One example of this is when in chapter one, he makes the brief comment, “inexperienced Blacks” when describing what they are doing. Though the outside layer of this novel may be seen as white supremacy literature, which the FBI also agrees with by labeling it “The bible of racist right”, I believe that after reading the novel, Pierce also adds another layer of Nazism. It is very clear that the target audience for this novel are people who are already on board with Nazi ideology. It seems like he wants to inspire readers to become more radical with their everyday life. This novel follows Earl Turner and his small group of revolutionary terrorists in a guerrilla war against the U.S. government. The main  conflict in this book is that the government is trying to take away citizens’ firearms. They do this by searching houses that are on a firearms list and putting people who are found with firearms into jail. Pierce explains that the government has been doing this so much that when Earl Turner gets arrested, there are no more jail cells for him to live in. He ends up just being on house arrest. Overall, this text was a little confusing. It is written in the format of a diary and honestly reminds me of how I used to write in my diary (besides the whole white supremacy and nazi content) because of sentences like “Omigod! It’s 4:00 am. Got to get some sleep!” I think it is funny he would add this childish factor considering how serious the content of this book is. I also thought before doing my research that this book was written by Earl Turner. That is very embarrassing to admit, but after unlocking that piece of information, the novel became much less confusing.

From 1978-1995, the United States lived in crisis due to the unabomber terrorist, Ted Kazinsky. Kazinsky mailed bombs to citizens and in his 17 years of terror, killed three people and injured 23. He used his terror campaign to exploit negativity bias of media and in 1995, he pressured the Washington Post into publishing his manifesto called Indusrtial Society and its Future. This anti-technology manifesto was written about “why the Industrial Revolution and its consequences were a disaster for the human race.” In the first paragraph, he names reasons why the Industrial Revolution was bad and lists why technology is bad as well. After these reasons, he goes into detail about how the Industrial-technological System can either survive or break down. If it survives, they may achieve a low level of physical and mental suffering, however only after a long period of pain. If it breaks down, it would be best if it happened sooner rather than later. This is because the bigger the system, the more disastrous the breakdown. This would have alluded to the breakdown of Germany. Kazinsky makes it clear that the manifesto is not political. The object will be to overthrow the economic and technological basis of present society. With this being said, after his introduction he jumps right into how the leftist and socialist groups are the problem. Kazinsky’s definition of leftists is anyone who is socialist, collectivist, feminist, gay, an animal rights activist, or has a disability. This is definitely not the modern definition of a leftist. He explains how leftists all have low self-esteem, feel powerlessness, depressive tendencies, self hatred, and guilt. A quote that I picked out from his rant about why leftists ruined everything briefly displays his thoughts on feminism and women, “Feminists are nagged by fear that women may NOT be as strong and capable as men.” As a feminist and a woman, I believe this shows how far off his thinking was when dealing with feminists and the other groups previously mentioned. Not only does Kazinsky talk about the left side of the political spectrum, he also writes about how the right conservatives are also a problem, however way more briefly. He says, “The conservatives are fools: they whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth.” From this, he again reiterates his main point that he hates the economy and technology. Though Kazinsky was a bit rambally throughout his manifesto and was a bit hypocritical, he does end up gaining a lot of attention, especially from right-wing extremists. In the end, him coming out publicly with his demands and his manifesto blew his cover and he was eventually identified by his own brother.