Tag Archives: History

A Good Deal

A painting by Valeriy Franchuk, “Harvest of famine” (2000)

A Reblog.

NBC news recently ran a piece on Trump meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy. In a video clip Mr. Trump announced that he had spoken with Zelenskyy about opening talks with Vladimir Putin to end the conflict between the two countries. Trump stated to the cameras that Russian President Vladimir Putin would give Ukraine a “good deal.”

Mr. Trump does not know nor does he care about Ukrainian history. If he did, the president would understand that negotiating with the Russian leader is unthinkable, a non-starter. To understand why is to look not only into Ukraine’s recent past but back into the 1930’s.

Putin’s first attempted assassination targeted Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. In 2004 Yushchenko narrowly escaped death after surviving dioxin poisoning, a combination of toxic chemicals which left him weakened and permanently disfigured.

Putin, as a former KGB operative is a master of murder, and why the International Criminal Court has an arrest warrant for him.

An impulsive hustler by nature Trump shows little interest in the crimes of Vladimir Putin. After the recent meeting in Alaska, Trump again called on Zelenskyy to make a deal with Putin. That the Russian has targeted Zelenskyy in numerous assassination attempts on multiple occasions, including three failed hits in one week is of no consequence.

However this narrative reaches back further to the early Twentieth Century, when another strongman, Josef Stalin rose to power.

Following the 1924 death of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, Stalin coldly and efficiently murdered his own rivals consolidating his power as an absolute despot.

Launching his Five Year Plan, Stalin’s vision for economic prosperity, he ordered collectivization of Ukrainian farms, seizing land and harvests for Russia’s consumption. Calling farmers Kulaks, a pejorative name, Stalin justified his actions by fabricating enemies, complete with mass arrests, show trials, executions, and deporting thousands to Siberia. In that period alone thousands of Ukrainians perished in freezing rail cars, or worked to death in frigid Siberian work camps.

The total number of transportation deaths remains unknown.

However transport was not the worst weapon employed by Stalin. Ukrainian Communist party workers not only stole seasonal harvests but also the seed for future planting.

A genocide followed.

From 1930 through 1933 millions of Ukrainians starved to death or resorted to cannibalism due to Stalin’s disastrous Five Year Plan. Production dropped under the forced collective effort, and the Communist leader had to find scapegoats for the disaster, so he pinned blame on the farmers. Kulaks were dying in massive numbers on purpose to undermine the Kremin’s economic plan.

Stalin insisted he was the victim of treachery.

Called the Holodomor, (death by hunger) as it is remembered, cost the lives of somewhere between 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians. Adding that number to those deported to Siberian gulags it is safe to say that the Ukrainian people suffered a monstrous horror.

Ukrainian memories and justifiable outrage remain vivid.

As for that ‘good deal’ with Vladimir Putin, President Zelenskyy is not interested. The Ukrainian President has no faith in Russian promises, and is not impressed by Mr. Trump and his previous effort to shake Zelenskyy down for corrupt political ends.

Today thousands more Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have lost their lives fighting this Putin-engineered war, but with national memory to guide them Ukrainians will not back down. Ever.

Independence from Russian oppression is relatively new and very fragile, and that nation will never surrender on Trump’s assurances of a ‘good deal.’ The people of that battered nation know better.

So should we.

This is the web site of the Ukrainian Embassy in DC if you’d like to make a contribution.

https://www.ukrainehouse.us/

Gail Chumbley is a history educator and writer.

Beyond The Symbols

Patriotic symbols, music, and the Pledge of Allegiance recited at a solemn ceremony can be deeply moving. A simple presentation of the flag at a formal function can be awe-inspiring. The lone, austere notes of Taps played at a military funeral elevates a moment into sacred reverence.

The sounds and symbols of American devotion are powerful.

Still, as commanding as recitations, patriotic colors, and America the Beautiful can feel, deeper symbols in our shared history can reveal so much more.

In his book, Washington’s Crossing, historian David Hackett Fischer introduces his volume with a discussion of Emmanuel Leutze’s famous painting of the same name. Fischer guides the reader through elements in the painting, noting passengers figure by figure as they frantically navigate the frozen Delaware River on that long ago Christmas night. 

Why is this particular work especially moving? Because at that juncture, December 25, 1776, the Revolutionary War looked to be flaming out after barely a start. Defeat had dogged Washington’s Continentals after being chased off of Long Island, and driven out of New York City the previous summer. As Washington planned his surprise Christmas attack, victorious Redcoats had settled into winter camp in New York City.

Humiliated, Washington knew he had to strike hard and he had to win.

Viewing his situation with the “clarity of desperation” the General ordered an assault on Hessian (German mercenary) held Trenton, New Jersey. The Continental army would have to use the element of surprise fighting against a better armed and better fed opponent. Risky to the extreme, Washington knew we, meaning America, for all time, was dependent upon his actions that night.

As for the painting, the artist depicts freezing soldiers huddled in a boat with more watercraft in the backdrop. From the starboard side, (to the right of General Washington) sits an oars-man, distinctly Black, putting his back into his strokes, ploughing through dangerous ice floes. Behind him, facing forward at the bow, is another swarthy figure, perhaps a Native American. He is desperately kicking ice with his left boot while handling a sharpened pole to break open a passage through the impossible crust. To the foreground an immigrant (a Scot by the look of his hat) studies the river’s surface closely as he pulls forward to port, while another behind him, in fisherman gear, studies the treacherous water. Others are made up of rustics, one at the tiller, along with a wounded passenger.

General Washington centers the painting as he is the central figure of the drama. Behind the General is Major James Monroe, and another rugged frontiersman by the looks of his garb. Both men are grasping a 13-star (Betsy Ross) flag, in a grip that elicits an attitude of determination and desperation, with perhaps a bit of warmth. Below both flag bearers sits a WOMAN, yes, a woman pulling her oar with an analytic eye upon the clotting water.

Black, Native, white, immigrant, the highborn, the humble, men and women, yesterday, today, and the future: all of our American lives balanced on the gamble played that night in 1776.

The point I believe Leutze is trying to convey is that we all don’t have to be the same. No one has to agree on the details of our beliefs to ride on that boat. The truth is Americans all have and had different realities and ambitions: differing views of liberty. Still, all onboard had to carefully respect each other’s space and not overturn that fragile vessel, Liberty, for we must stay afloat and row in the same direction. It is in all our interests to do so.

And that metaphor of America, that boat, tested our resolve on one of the nation’s most critical nights. Inspiration doesn’t come any better than from Leutze’s allegorical Washington’s Crossing.

Gail Chumbley is the author of the two-part memoir, River of January, and River of January: Figure Eight. Chumbley has also penned two stage plays, Clay, and Wolf By The Ears, concerning the life of Senator Henry Clay, and an in-depth examination of the beginnings of American slavery. Gail is currently working on another piece, Peer Review, best described as Dickens A Christmas Carol meets presidential history.

Lest We Forget

This new year begins with Americans caught in a moral quagmire. Traditional beliefs such as love of country and confidence in leadership seems to suffer from vast divisions. Our American experiment in self government has been turned on end, and what was once seen as threatening, is now open to a sliding scale of opinions. Our national values are, as sung in the musical Hamilton “Upside Down.”

I came into the world as the Cold War simmered between the US and the USSR. Khrushchev had replaced Stalin, and nuclear missiles rested uneasily, waiting for one wrong move from either side. America, caught up in the Red Scare convicted and executed suspected spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The House on UnAmerican Activities Committee, (HUAC) became the equivalent of political show trials, publicly ruining the reputations of citizens, suspected as secret Russian collaborators.

Real covert agent, Klaus Fuchs, stole nuclear secrets from the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. David Greenglass, a physicist, turned Russian agent, and brother of Ethel Rosenberg, worked also on the Manhattan Project. English MI6 agent, Kim Philby, worked for a time in the offices of the OSS, (later the CIA) only to defect to the USSR, with all he knew of American and British secrets. American Communist and union organizer Eugene Dennis, was sentenced to five years for his affiliation with the Kremlin. Soviet spy, Whittaker Chambers renounced his Russian allegiance and became the darling of the conservative right, naming State Department official Alger Hiss as a Russian operative.

Whether true or not, many other Americans were stained with suspicion of acting as Communist agents. Joe McCarthy made a name for himself as a Commie hunting Senator. Caught in the fear were playwright Arthur Miller, screen writer Dalton Trumbo, actor Larry Parks, stage actor, Zero Mostel, movie star, Sterling Hayden, who all found their careers in tatters. Refusing to name others, HUAC branded these unfriendly witnesses as“Fifth Amendment Communists.” These accusations, for many of the accused, never washed off.

The 1950’s were dangerous years for political nonconformists.

So it is no small wonder that many Americans of a certain age are flummoxed by the denial of Russian election hacking at the highest levels of our government. This new president has repeatedly demonstrated absolutely no concern for our democracy, for fear it undermines his legitimacy. In other words he is more worried about his own hide while the most direct and sinister Russian attack ever, has infected our elective process. And worse, his band of true believers gloss over the breach as well, buying into the propagandized term of “Fake News.” Is this president truly more important than the country and people he was elected to serve? Does he understand the prime objective of Russian apparatchiks is to undermine the United States of America?

As for the members of Congress who know more of this breach, and still enable this president- is protecting your party more important than saving our democracy? Are your partisan priorities more vital than the oaths you swore to uphold the Constitution? If the answer is a blind yes, then what was the point of the suffering of that earlier generation—the ruin of artists and free thinkers, the brutal crimes of the guilty? The 33,000 loyal Americans who died fighting Communism in Korea? Or the 58,000 boys who were killed fighting the pro-Communists in the jungles of Vietnam? Are these past sacrifices meaningless in light of current political expediency? Are you going to shout ‘fake news’ while giving away our sovereignty?

America has a vibrant, if not an often difficult history. We who love our country would like a future, as well.

*It wasn’t the Ukraine, either.

Christmas in Algeria, 1932

Dearest Mother,
I have read your letter and I want you to know that Miss has given us that warning already. We never go out alone. Earl Leslie and the other boys keep a close eye on us. There, that should relieve your concern.
North Africa is very strange, but I like it here. Una bought a guidebook and we have, as a group, toured Tunis and Algiers on foot. The buildings are a mix of the past here. The book calls the style “Ottoman-French. I guess that means both Middle Eastern and European.
Every morning we wake up to a public call to prayer. The people are mostly Muslim and the calls are part of their customs. I think it sounds soothing—usually the sound of the caller lulls me back to sleep. Curious, isn’t it?
The heat here is dry, and the sun blinding white. We stroll through the narrow streets (in groups) where the sun can’t reach us, making for darker, cooler shade. Nameless women veiled from head to toe pull their children along dressed all in white. It’s such an exotic world.
Silly as this sounds, I tried to buy you Christmas gifts in the market, but found nothing. You’ll have to settle for a telegram, because this is a Muslim country and they don’t celebrate Christmas. And, Mother, please have a happy Christmas.
We girls have all decided to do our own gift exchange and sing Christmas carols. We’ve hung paper chains on a palm tree in the lobby of the Algiers Hotel! The hotel managers gave us permission.
Merry Christmas Mother. I love you and Eileen very much. The young man I mentioned is not serious. His name is Elie, (Jewish, I know) and he has kindly showed us all around tourist sites.
Helen

River of January, page 165-166.

Indie writer, Gail Chumbley is the author of the memoir, River of January and River of January: Figure Eight. Available at www.river-of-january.com and on Amazon.com.

This is Happening!

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“River of January: Figure Eight” is ready on November 1st! Ordering begins after midnight, on All Hallows Eve.

Go to www.river-of-january.com or to Amazon.com. If you haven’t read the first installment, “River of January,” go to our webpage at www.river-of-january.com or to Amazon.com

Also available on Kindle.

A New Musical Icetravaganza

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Seventeen Days and counting until the release of “River of January: Figure Eight.” Books will be available at http://www.river-of-january.com.

Days of Future Past

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Mont Chumbley with Eastern Airlines Chair, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker

Let the countdown begin! Eighteen days until the release of “River of January: Figure Eight.” Watch for book talks in your area! Visit www.river-of-january.com.

Premier Sunday

Ladies and gentleman! Today, October 2, 2016 I proudly present the cover art for book two of River of January.

Please welcome River of January: Figure Eight, available for purchase one month from today, November 2, 2016.

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Huge thanks go out to the talented Brooke Rousseau, and her brilliant mother, Yvonne at Point Rider Publishing.

Perorders available at gailchumbley@gmail.com.

To catch up with book one, River of January is available at www.river-of-january.com or at Amazon.com. Also found on Kindle.

Author Gail Chumbley can be found at gailchumbley@gmail.com or at http://www.river-of-january.com

Before War Was Cool

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The protagonist in River of January, Mont Chumbley, or “Chum,” as we called him, pined to join the Navy in 1927.  In fact Chum knew that the Navy was his destiny from the time he witnessed a barn-stormer, (stunt pilot) fly miracles across the rural Virginia sky.  What the boy didn’t count on in his hopes was the resistance he met from his own family.

The Chumbley’s were not alone in their disgust with the military.  All of America suffered from a giant hangover after the Great War (World War One), convinced Americans that their participation had been a horrible mistake.  Though not fully true, the US still viewed itself as a simple republic, not an empire builder bound for global influence.  That policy came later, after World War Two, in the Cold War.

President Wilson staked his own presidency on his Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations, which would have bound the country to Europe in a forerunner to the United Nations.  The public, through their Senators voted the Treaty down, killing it as dead as the soldiers who would never come home.  Books were written after 1919 that discredited war as nothing but a fools errand.  “Johnny Got His Gun” was one such novel, and Erich Maria Remarque‘s “All Quiet on the Western Front” was another.

Folks stateside strongly regretted sending Doughboys across the Atlantic to battle the Kaiser and his evil Hun army.  By the year Chum pushed to join the Navy, the US had negotiated a treaty with the French, called the Kellogg Briand Pact, which outlawed war as an alternative in international conflict.  (“Don’t plant that mine, if you can’t do the time?”  Seriously?)

The Nye Commission, a House investigating committee was charged to find out why America joined the war.  In the end these law makers judged money was the culprit.  War manufacturers, such a poison gas producers the Dupont Corporation and financiers,The House of Morgan, were condemned for their roles in fanning the flames while counting their profits.

It was in this cultural/political atmosphere that Chum wanted to join the Navy.  When his father and aunt objected, they simply parroted the opinion of a nation that believed the military was only for scoundrels and suckers.  If Chum succeeded in enlisting he would draw shame on the family’s name.

Now, I am a child of the Vietnam era and understand the power of public opinion concerning war.  Too many young men came home to condemnation for rendering their duty to their country.  Many were already angry from their combat experiences, especially if they were drafted in the first place.  War protestors vented their fury on those boys who did nothing more than complete their mission.

Still for many young people, such as Chum in the 1920’s, the service still offers training and opportunity.  Perhaps it would benefit us all to remember to separate the advantages of military training, from the poor use of young people deployed for uncertain, poorly planned political agendas.

Chum did meet his service obligations, later after Pearl Harbor.  But he would agree, I think, that he gained more from his service in the Navy, than he returned.

Servicemen have never been suckers, and decision makers must never lightly treat them as such.