September 26, 2016 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Keynes Introduces Vladimir Lenin
Keynes in some of the passages of the book also
brings in Lenin (after the October Revolution of 1917 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
became the head of the Soviet Russia inheriting his fragile and tired nation in
the middle of the World War I) in his discussion on currency and reasoning why
high inflation is likely to occur in Europe.
No matter how Lenin is perceived today
(largely forgotten I guess even in modern Russia) there is no doubt that he was
an ape of powerful intellect.
You may be surprised to know that he spent
some time researching in the British Museum of London and was author of quite a
few treatises some of which gained great popularity such as “What is to be
done? Burning Questions of our Movement” (Shto delat? Nabolshie vaprosi nashi
dvizhenia of 1902).
It is almost certain that he named this treatise
on the novel of the same name that had inspired him much earlier when he was a
student at the Kazan University written by the Russian philosopher Nikolay
Chernyshevsky in 1863.
Lenin is believed to have read this novel
five times during one summer in Kazan and many consider that this novel played
far greater role than much believed Marx’s Capital (1867) in generating the
emotional response needed for completing the dynamics of the Russian
Revolution.
Interestingly, the chief character of this
novel is a woman by the name of Vera Pavlovna who seeks independence and wishes
to escape the control of her family and arranged marriage eventually finding solace
in Russian peasant commune which was oriented towards industrial production.
Such is the power of written words over
brains!
What is even lesser known about Lenin besides
his association with the bloody October Revolution and Communism that he was
also an economist of sort who ushered in his New Economic Policy or NEP (which
in Russian stood for novaya ekonomicheskaya palitika) soon after the Russian
Famine of 1921-22.
This famine, because it involved primarily
the regions around Volga and Ural Rivers, is also known as Povolzhye (meaning
Volga Region) famine and took away 5 million lives.
Russia is one of those places on this planet
that is deeply tragic (although can also be said about the African continent,
Latin America, Indian subcontinent and then the modern Middle East) one of
whose manifestations being recurrent and almost regular episodes of famine and
drought throughout its history.
On average droughts tended to occur every
five to seven years and famine every ten to thirteen years the causes of which
generally tended to be brought about by humans such as economic or political
instability, disastrous polices, environmental problems and of course
wars.
It was perhaps these harsh times that
forced Lenin to introduce this new Economic Policy that in Lenin’s own words
would include “a free market and capitalism, both subject to the state
control”, something that modern China has been implementing with great success.
Complete nationalization of the industry
was revoked (that was established during the war from 1918 onwards) and the
concept of mixed economy was implemented that allowed private individuals to
run small enterprises.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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