The best die in war

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

“We know that people are unequal. There are geniuses and idiots, healthy and sick, heroes and criminals, strong-willed and weak-willed, old people and children, men and women, etc. The fate of any society depends primarily on the properties of its members. A society of idiots or mediocre people will never be a successful society.

Give the group of devils a great constitution, and yet that does not create a beautiful society out of it. And vice versa, a society consisting of talented and strong-willed individuals will inevitably create more perfect forms of community.

It is easy to understand from this that for the historical destinies of any society it is far from indifferent which qualitative elements in it have increased or decreased in such and such a period of time. A careful study of the phenomena of the flourishing and death of entire peoples shows that one of the main reasons for them was precisely the sharp qualitative change in the composition of their population in one direction or another.

The changes experienced by the population of Russia, in this respect, are typical for all major wars and revolutions. The latter have always been a tool of negative selection, producing selection "topsy-turvy", i.e. killing the best elements of the population and leaving the “worst” to live and reproduce; people of the second and third class.

And in this case, we mainly lost the elements:

a) the most healthy biologically, b) energetically able to work, c) more strong-willed, gifted, morally and mentally developed psychologically

For the same reason, morally defective persons suffered to a lesser extent. During the world war, they were not taken into the army, therefore, they were not at risk of death. During the revolution, conditions were just conducive to their survival. In the face of brutal struggle, lies, deceit, lack of principle and moral cynicism, they felt great; occupied lucrative posts, committed atrocities, cheated, changed their positions as needed, and lived satisfyingly and cheerfully.

The morally honest elements felt quite differently. They could not "cheat", steal, abuse and rape. So they starved and melted biologically. The surrounding horrors overwhelmingly influenced their entire sense of life, their nervous system could not withstand the "irritations" of the environment - and this led to their intensified extinction. By virtue of their morality, they could not one way or another not protest against the atrocities committed, and even more praise them: this brought them suspicion, persecution, punishment and death. Finally, they could not easily refuse to do their duty. In conditions of war and revolution, such behavior again increases the risk of death of such people. That is why over the years, and especially during the years of the revolution, the percentage of deaths of persons with a deep consciousness of duty (on the red and white sides) was much higher than the percentage of deaths of persons "immoral" (self-seekers, cynics, nihilists and just criminals).

The percentage of deaths of outstanding, gifted and mentally qualified persons over the years is, again, incomparably higher than the percentage of deaths of an ordinary gray mass. In any war, and especially a civil war, large persons have always been a target, which the other side seeks to destroy in the first place. The Roman slogan Parcere subjectes et debellare superbos (spare the submissive and kill the proud) remains true to this day. It was justified in our experience as well. In the army, the percentage of deaths of officers over the years was much higher than the percentage of deaths of soldiers. Almost all of our officers died in the world war. The officers of warrant officers who replaced him also almost without exception fell to the bone on the fields of the civil war.

The officer corps, starting with the "non-commissioned officers and sergeant major," is the "brain of the army", its soul, squeeze and cultural aristocracy. The war with the revolution played the role of a gardener, pulling out the best vegetables from the ridges and leaving weeds to multiply. With this selection, it will, of course, crowd out vegetables. It's the same in the history of people. Wars, and civil war in particular, ruthlessly wiping out the best from among the people, have always degraded it biologically and racially. This was rarely seen. But it is necessary to ponder a little into the essence of the matter in order to understand the fatal purpose of these facts."

P. A. Sorokin, The current state of Russia, Novy Mir magazine, 1992, N 4.