Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

I have to admit, after spending some time looking at the fighting between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, I'm becoming more and more convinced that WWII ended in a First Turning Reset for the Soviet Union rather than it being an unusually brutal non-crisis war.

What the Soviet Union faced was essentially a war of extermination. However brutal the fighting on the Western Front was, it was minor compared to the carnage in the East. They ended up losing about 10 million soldiers and 15 million civilians, far more than any of the western powers did. I know we can't use war deaths alone to determine it, but it is suggestive.

More important in my opinion is the sheer level of brutality that the Soviet Union used, including to its own soldiers. They were given orders to fight to the death and gunned down if they made any attempt to retreat. They threw wave after wave of their men into the fight, wiping out a large percentage of their military-age population. About 2% of their wartime deaths were executions, if you include penal battalions. To put that into context, they executed more of their own soldiers on the Eastern Front than the United States lost during four years of war.

Approximately half the deaths in the infamous gulags occurred during the WWII period, where millions were being worked to death. Even in 1945, the Soviets were willing to sacrifice close to a million men to finish the Germans after they were driven, indicating to me a fervent desire for revenge.

In addition to that, there is also how Axis POWs were treated. The Western Allies used them for forced labor, but less than .5% actually died in captivity. In Soviet hands, the number was over 10% and some estimates go even higher than this. Many Germans were willing to fight to the death rather than surrender, knowing what was waiting for them in their custody. Only 5,000 of those who surrendered at Stalingrad were still alive when they were finally released. Not to mention that it was official policy not to take any members of the Waffen-SS

There's also the treatment of civilians in both Germany and Eastern Europe. To put it into context, estimates of German women raped by the western Allies number in the tens of thousands. In Eastern Germany, a common estimate is two million and even this does not include the countless victims in Poland and all across Eastern Europe. Civilians were tortured, executed and starved on a mass scale. America and Britain looked like paragons of mercy in comparison to the Red Army. In 1989, the Germans estimated that 630,000 civilians were killed in East Germany, not including the Battle of Berlin.

One final piece to this: the end of the Soviet Union reads much more like an awakening-era climax than a crisis era revolution. Many of the demonstrations remind me of photos I've seen of students protestors in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s. There wasn't a violent uprising that would be expected in a crisis and while the end of the USSR is significant, it just doesn't look to me like a fundamental charge. Much of the power structure in Russia is still in place, even if it's now under a different name.

I'm not quite at 100% on this, but the more I look at Soviet participation in the war, the less I can see this as anything resembling an awakening-era conflict. First Turning Resets do happen, even if comparatively rare, and I believe what they endured is sufficient to cause one.

Trevor wrote: > I have to admit, after spending some time looking at the fighting
> between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, I'm becoming more and
> more convinced that WWII ended in a First Turning Reset for the
> Soviet Union rather than it being an unusually brutal non-crisis
> war.

> What the Soviet Union faced was essentially a war of
> extermination. However brutal the fighting on the Western Front
> was, it was minor compared to the carnage in the East. They ended
> up losing about 10 million soldiers and 15 million civilians, far
> more than any of the western powers did. I know we can't use war
> deaths alone to determine it, but it is suggestive.

> More important in my opinion is the sheer level of brutality that
> the Soviet Union used, including to its own soldiers. They were
> given orders to fight to the death and gunned down if they made
> any attempt to retreat. They threw wave after wave of their men
> into the fight, wiping out a large percentage of their
> military-age population. About 2% of their wartime deaths were
> executions, if you include penal battalions. To put that into
> context, they executed more of their own soldiers on the Eastern
> Front than the United States lost during four years of war.

> Approximately half the deaths in the infamous gulags occurred
> during the WWII period, where millions were being worked to
> death. Even in 1945, the Soviets were willing to sacrifice close
> to a million men to finish the Germans after they were driven,
> indicating to me a fervent desire for revenge.

> In addition to that, there is also how Axis POWs were treated. The
> Western Allies used them for forced labor, but less than .5%
> actually died in captivity. In Soviet hands, the number was over
> 10% and some estimates go even higher than this. Many Germans were
> willing to fight to the death rather than surrender, knowing what
> was waiting for them in their custody. Only 5,000 of those who
> surrendered at Stalingrad were still alive when they were finally
> released. Not to mention that it was official policy not to take
> any members of the Waffen-SS

> There's also the treatment of civilians in both Germany and
> Eastern Europe. To put it into context, estimates of German women
> raped by the western Allies number in the tens of thousands. In
> Eastern Germany, a common estimate is two million and even this
> does not include the countless victims in Poland and all across
> Eastern Europe. Civilians were tortured, executed and starved on a
> mass scale. America and Britain looked like paragons of mercy in
> comparison to the Red Army. In 1989, the Germans estimated that
> 630,000 civilians were killed in East Germany, not including the
> Battle of Berlin.

> One final piece to this: the end of the Soviet Union reads much
> more like an awakening-era climax than a crisis era
> revolution. Many of the demonstrations remind me of photos I've
> seen of students protestors in the U.S. during the 1960s and
> 1970s. There wasn't a violent uprising that would be expected in a
> crisis and while the end of the USSR is significant, it just
> doesn't look to me like a fundamental charge. Much of the power
> structure in Russia is still in place, even if it's now under a
> different name.

> I'm not quite at 100% on this, but the more I look at Soviet
> participation in the war, the less I can see this as anything
> resembling an awakening-era conflict. First Turning Resets do
> happen, even if comparatively rare, and I believe what they
> endured is sufficient to cause one.

This is a great analysis, including viewing "the Great Patriotic War"
as a First Turning reset. That would explain a lot about what's going
on in Russia today.

However, I think there's another dimension to this -- namely how to
explain Russia's behavior as documented in your post.

I've been writing a lot lately about behavior of a nation or society
during a generational Awakening era. In their foundational work on
generational theory in the 1980s and early 1990s, William Strauss and
Neil Howe glorified generational Awakening eras as times for the birth
of new ideas for society and even new religions, and a renewal of
society and the nation. Strauss and Howe's work was limited to
Britain and America since the 1400s, and their characterization of
Awakening eras seems to make sense in those cases.

But when you extend generational theory to all places and times in
history, as I've done with Generational Dynamics, their
characterization of Awakening eras turns out to be almost completely
wrong, especially after a generational crisis civil war.

In Syria, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Burundi, Thailand, Uganda, Democratic
Republic of Congo, China, Cameroon, Eritrea and others, the group that
wins the civil war takes power and then uses torture, massacres,
genocide and atrocities during the Awakening era to keep from giving
up power, reneging on promises of free elections made during the
settlement of the civil war.

So if you look your description of Russia during WW II, which was an
Awakening era war for them, you see the same kinds of atrocities that
are typical of every country in the Awakening era after a civil war,
except that they're magnified a thousand times over because Russia was
in an existential crisis.

Josef Stalin had fought in the very bloody Bolshevik Revolution.
After Lenin died, he beat out Trotsky in a very bloody civil war. In
the 1930s, Stalin purposely starved millions of innocent Ukrainians in
his man-made famine known as the Holodomor. Then Stalin made a deal
with Hitler (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) to split up eastern Europe
between them peacefully.

So when Hitler reneged on the deal and invaded Russia, it's not
surprising that Stalin reacted in the way that you've described.

Trevor wrote:I have to admit, after spending some time looking at the fighting between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, I'm becoming more and more convinced that WWII ended in a First Turning Reset for the Soviet Union rather than it being an unusually brutal non-crisis war.

What the Soviet Union faced was essentially a war of extermination. However brutal the fighting on the Western Front was, it was minor compared to the carnage in the East. They ended up losing about 10 million soldiers and 15 million civilians, far more than any of the western powers did. I know we can't use war deaths alone to determine it, but it is suggestive.

More important in my opinion is the sheer level of brutality that the Soviet Union used, including to its own soldiers. They were given orders to fight to the death and gunned down if they made any attempt to retreat. They threw wave after wave of their men into the fight, wiping out a large percentage of their military-age population. About 2% of their wartime deaths were executions, if you include penal battalions. To put that into context, they executed more of their own soldiers on the Eastern Front than the United States lost during four years of war.

Approximately half the deaths in the infamous gulags occurred during the WWII period, where millions were being worked to death. Even in 1945, the Soviets were willing to sacrifice close to a million men to finish the Germans after they were driven, indicating to me a fervent desire for revenge.

In addition to that, there is also how Axis POWs were treated. The Western Allies used them for forced labor, but less than .5% actually died in captivity. In Soviet hands, the number was over 10% and some estimates go even higher than this. Many Germans were willing to fight to the death rather than surrender, knowing what was waiting for them in their custody. Only 5,000 of those who surrendered at Stalingrad were still alive when they were finally released. Not to mention that it was official policy not to take any members of the Waffen-SS

There's also the treatment of civilians in both Germany and Eastern Europe. To put it into context, estimates of German women raped by the western Allies number in the tens of thousands. In Eastern Germany, a common estimate is two million and even this does not include the countless victims in Poland and all across Eastern Europe. Civilians were tortured, executed and starved on a mass scale. America and Britain looked like paragons of mercy in comparison to the Red Army. In 1989, the Germans estimated that 630,000 civilians were killed in East Germany, not including the Battle of Berlin.

Excellent analysis. I have never bought the idea that WWII was a non-crisis war for Russia. Not only because of the sheer brutality, but also because that would that contradict the notion that we are headed towards a Clash of Civilizations World War. In my opinion, a Clash of Civilizations would be impossible unless most of Eurasia entered a crisis war simultaneously. This would require Russia to be on the same timeline as Western Europe and East Asia for generational turnings. Given how brutal WWII was, you can argue that WWII was the catalyst that put almost all of Eurasia on the same timeline, making a CoC inevitable.

Now, I say "almost all of Eurasia" has been placed on the same timeline due to WWII and its aftermath because there is one region that stands out, because its timeline cycle was not disrupted by the war. That region is the Middle East. In my opinion, the Middle East has yet to have a post-WWI regional crisis war (the Iran-Iraq war was a crisis war for Iran and Iraq, but not for the region as a whole. Same logic applies to Syria regarding its ongoing civil war), but that will be made up for soon. If I were to create a general regional timeline, the region was in a (unusually long) high period from the end of WWI to the establishment of Israel (1918-1947). It was in an (unusually long) awakening period from the establishment of Israel to the Iranian Revolution (1948-1978). It was in an unraveling period from the Iranian Revolution to 9/11 (1979-2000). And since 9/11, it has been in a crisis period (2001-present).

Trevor wrote:One final piece to this: the end of the Soviet Union reads much more like an awakening-era climax than a crisis era revolution. Many of the demonstrations remind me of photos I've seen of students protestors in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s. There wasn't a violent uprising that would be expected in a crisis and while the end of the USSR is significant, it just doesn't look to me like a fundamental charge. Much of the power structure in Russia is still in place, even if it's now under a different name.

I'm not quite at 100% on this, but the more I look at Soviet participation in the war, the less I can see this as anything resembling an awakening-era conflict. First Turning Resets do happen, even if comparatively rare, and I believe what they endured is sufficient to cause one.

I 100% Agree. If I had to make a timeline for Russia, I would say that WWI was the beginning of its last crisis period, and not the climax. The years from 1914-1945 were an unusually long crisis period that turned at the end of World War II. Subsequently, Russia had a high period that lasted from the end of WWII to the protests of the late 1960s. This was followed by an awakening period that lasted from the protests of the late 1960s to the collapse of the USSR. This was in turn followed by an unraveling period that lasted from the collapse of the USSR to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. And today, Russia is about halfway through a crisis period, and is probably going to end up in a crisis war within the next 5 to 10 years.

Now, you're probably thinking, what will cause Russia's crisis war? We know that it will be part of the CoC, but that's not an answer to that specific question. In my opinion, Russia's crisis war will be caused by the neo-Eurasianist movement. Most people don't know much (if anything) about this movement, but it's extremely important that they do. Neo-Eurasianism is a very, very, very radical ideology. It's centered around the notion of a Clash of Civilizations, but instead of making CoC a prediction of the future, it makes CoC an ideology. It's specifically designed to cause a CoC.

Neo-Eurasianism's lead ideologue, Aleksandr Dugin (a man who admires both Hitler and Stalin, and has extensive ties to neo-Nazi, occultist, and Islamist organizations) says that his goal is to create a neo-fascist Eurasian Empire that brings together the "Eurasian peoples" and encourages the strongest powers in "civilizational spaces" to rise up and expel all "Atlanticist" influence from Europe and Asia, in order to create a multipolar world. By the way. When he says "Eurasian peoples," he means the people that live in the "Eurasian space," which he defines as the "heartland" region that Harold MacKinder said would be the key to ruling the world in his 1904 paper "The Geographical Pivot of History." And when he says "Atlanticist," he means "Anglo-Saxon." Yeah. What Dugin is basically doing is saying that because of Anglo-American policies towards Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries, the peoples who live in the "Heartland" must unite into one nation and essentially create a new civilization that is a hybrid of the Orthodox, Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslim, and Buddhist civilizations. Now normally, this idea would sound absolutely insane. It would sound like it were created by someone who has zero knowledge about how International Relations works. However, this ideology has been gaining popularity in Russia. It is especially popular among media and military figures who lament the loss of the USSR, and there are signs that Putin himself sympathizes with it. It also has a popular following in Iran, Turkey, and both far-left and far-right groups in the West.

Though I don't believe the Neo-Eurasianists will succeed in building the empire they want, I do believe that their ambitions will cause serious tensions in the Orthodox, Sunni Muslim, Shia Muslim, and Buddhist civilizations that they want to merge, and will eventually lead to a major war in the region, possibly but not limited to a second Russian Civil War. Should that occur, I can see the CoC war turning out for Russia the same way WWI did. God forbid we have to send troops into Russia to prevent rogue organizations from nuking us!

A First Turning reset occurs when a country is in a non-crisis era (in
this case an Awakening era), and there's an unexpected invasion or
relocation that's so brutal that it destroys the normal generational
relationships. The country fights the invasion according to the
behaviors of its generational era (in this case an Awakening era), but
when the war ends, it reverts to a First Turning Recovery era.

Note that a Second Turning Awakening era can only occur after a First
Turning. A Third Turning Unraveling era can only occur after a Second
Turning. A Fourth Turning Crisis era can only occur after a Third
Turning. If there's no crisis war during the Fourth Turning, then
there's a distinctly different Fifth Turning.

Turnings cannot occur in any other order, and a turning cannot last
longer than a single generation, around 20 years. However, a First
Turning reset can occur from any turning if there's an unexpected
invasion.

Shame the lists from the other countries were taken down, which gave a greater perspective of crisis wars than the books alone. From what I remember from the two books and the additional information from the country studies, the risk of a crisis war is low until about year 55, when it really starts to climb.

I just can't really see the Eastern Front as anything other than a First Turning reset; I'm over 90% on that and it continues to grow the more I look at it. Rare is a relative term. If it happens only 5% of the time and you look at 10,000 cycles, that's still 500 occasions of it. I'm hoping to make a final analysis of it soon.

What's interesting is that the Clash of Civilizations world war has a good chance of putting the entire world on a single timeline. Certainly I would expect it to merge with Southeast Asia's timeline and perhaps even South America as well, depending on how long it takes for this to start. I wouldn't expect it to begin everywhere at once. Arguably, WWII began in 1931, 10 years before we got involved in it.

With Russia's current timeline, I'd expect them to end up fighting both an external war and a civil war, likely with their Muslim minority population. As big of a problem as Islamophobia is here, it's far worse over there. Another possibility is China and Russia working together in the early stages on the war, similar to WWII.

A question: is there any possibility of another book on Generational Dynamics? The ones on the website were written in 2003, when this was still in its infancy. In addition, what happened to the country studies that used to be on this website? I thought they were quite a valuable resource outside of the two novels.

What "other lists" are you talking about? I save everything. I have
a copy of every email message I've sent and received since the 1980s.
I've lost the ones from the 1970s because nothing reads DECtapes any
more. So what lists are you referring to?

There was a "Generation Lengths" thread back in 2015 that contains
some of the data that you're looking for.

http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3167

I'm glad I wrote the two books, but nobody wanted to buy them. In
fact, nobody's willing to pay me for anything. Last year someone
called me up and said he was in touch with various fund raising
people, and would I like it if I could receive a grant to continue
work on Generational Dynamics. He wanted to repay me because he had
followed my advice ten years ago and saved hundreds of thousands of
dollars.

Three months later I wrote and asked him if anything had come of
getting a grant. He said that that there were a million things I
could write about that could get funding, but that nobody would pay a
cent for Generational Dynamics. I'm pretty bitter about that. And
believe me, I ask myself every day why the hell I'm doing this,
since all it does is make a lot of people hate me.

So no, I'm not going to write another book. I'll just continue doing
what I'm doing.

Why don't you write a book on Generational Dynamics?

I don't remember why I removed the Country Studies. I think it's
because a lot of the individual links were out of date. Anyway, I
just put them back. They're accessible from the menu on the home page
and the web log, and if I ever get around to recompiling all the
pages, then they'll be available on all the other pages as well.

What two novels are you talking about?

I remember why I removed the Country Studies.

I set up a new "Country Wiki," and went to a lot of trouble to
transfer all the information from the static Country Studies site to
the dynamic Country Wiki site. The idea was that anyone could
contribute to the country wiki.

After a couple of weeks, the wiki was subjected to a massive denial of
service attack, and the wiki was flooded with dozens of robotic
requests every minute. So I had to shut it down, but I neglected to
restore the Country Studies, which I should have and which I've done
now, thanks to your reminder.

Even though the wiki has been down for almost a year and a half, I'm
still getting attacked with hundreds of wiki requests per day, even
though they're immediately rejected. That's a lot better than dozens
of requests per minute, but it still shows how people hate this web
site and hate me.

John wrote:I remember why I removed the Country Studies.

I set up a new "Country Wiki," and went to a lot of trouble to
transfer all the information from the static Country Studies site to
the dynamic Country Wiki site. The idea was that anyone could
contribute to the country wiki.

After a couple of weeks, the wiki was subjected to a massive denial of
service attack, and the wiki was flooded with dozens of robotic
requests every minute. So I had to shut it down, but I neglected to
restore the Country Studies, which I should have and which I've done
now, thanks to your reminder.

Even though the wiki has been down for almost a year and a half, I'm
still getting attacked with hundreds of wiki requests per day, even
though they're immediately rejected. That's a lot better than dozens
of requests per minute, but it still shows how people hate this web
site and hate me.

Who do you think could've done those DDoS attacks and robotic requests?

I have to admit, it has crossed my mind, but I'm much more of a fiction writer than a non-fiction one. Generational Dynamics does play a role in the book, however, and helped to shape the plot.

I've got a good idea as to the reason for that: because this theory about what's coming isn't something that anyone really wants to believe. A Clash of Civilizations isn't something that's easy to wrap your mind around; much easier to worry safe topics about climate change and Trump. I really don't want to believe it myself and would like to think you're wrong, but my inner cynic doesn't allow that. I expect Churchill felt the same way when he was trying to warn about Germany, only to be completely dismissed. I've also noticed Neil Howe hasn't followed up on The Fourth Turning for a similar reason.

Still, I think it's been worth it, being that Steve Bannon is aware of the theory and at least according to you, believes in it. I'm hoping we at least make some sort of preparation. And like I said, I'm hoping to have a final analysis on the Eastern Front soon. Hopefully this theory is something future generations build on.

the group that
wins the civil war takes power and then uses torture, massacres,
genocide and atrocities during the Awakening era to keep from giving
up power, reneging on promises of free elections made during the
settlement of the civil war.

The ACW may be an exception to this, John? Was the South treated badly during the Third Great Awakening? If not, why not?