mutability set in stone

stalin's consolidation of political power in 1929 wasn't especially good news for nikolai yemelyanov...when lenin and zinoviev lammed out of st.petersburg during the"july days" yemelyanov hid them out in his barn in razliv for a few days before rowing them across lake razliv to finland...per geert mak in his book "in europe" nikolai was dragged in and out of the gulag because he knew it was zinoviev and not stalin that he rowed across the lake...

it seems clear that lenin was acquainted with nikolai and appreciated his help and tried to return the favor...more bad news for nikolai...references to yemelyanove are sparse ( so far ) and what i can find seems to counter mak's version of a gulag future ( nikolai outlived stalin incidentally, dying in 1958 ) the museum of political history russia ( that's what their website calls it ) says this...

they would maintain that the dispute was over who visited lenin in finland, not who rowed across the lake with him...and that it only took a visit with the ogpu for nikolai's memory of stalin's visit to be retrieved from his aging forgetfulness...either way...rowed or visited...it's the kind of micromanagement of history that comes with an authoritarian obsessed with their place in the hagiography of political myth...history is mutable...uncertain...hard to know factually...so what happens if donny squeaks out a victory, wins in a landslide , steals the election, or loses in 2020...history is initially written by the winners...the losers do not vanish however and they harbor their own version of events...it takes a while before that antithesis works its way into the dialectic of the national narrative...eventually it comes to light...( and, given the ubiquitous nature of social media, the time frame may have significantly shortened )...and whatever happens in november the losers will have a version...if donny loses qanon becomes their gospel ( and someone makes a lot of money selling qanon branded merchandise )...if donny wins it wil be because of gross voting interference ( both in the mails and in electronic balloting ) and/or theft...and the dialectic will grind on..it's going to be an interesting autumn...but it isn't going to be any fun...a welter of recriminations and blowback...but not much progress on anything that really matters to most of us...politics is a clusterfuck of narcissists and fact is about to be trumped by ego...buckle up.