On military decorations, Soviet and Russian

This post was started as a comment on Lex Libertas's posting with a picture of a building, but his comment system is not working right now, and since the comment was too long-winded anyway, I decided to post it here.

Here on the building there are two circles below the national emblem. What is depicted on them is not a simple architectural decorations, but orders. On the left is the Order of Lenin, and on the right is the Order of October Revolution (with cruiser Aurora on it). The building itself is former Leningrad Higher Party School, now St.Petersburg International Business Center.

Military and civilian decorations in USSR and Russia have two classes. The higher one is called an order, the lower one is a medal. For example, if a soldier did some heroic deed in WWII, he was awarded a medal 'Za otvagu' (For courage). Many medals were awarded for participation in a specific battle, e.g. 'For the defense of Moscow', 'For the liberation of Prague', 'For the conquest of Budapest' (since Hungary was Hitler's ally, it is conquest, or taking, (vzyatie), not liberation).

However, if the deed was outstanding, he could be awarder an order 'Slavy' (of Glory), or an order of Red Banner. 'Hero of Soviet Union', 'Hero of Socialist Labor', and modern 'Hero of Russia' are special titles. In the Soviet times, the awardees were decorated both with an Order of Lenin and the special Golden Star medal (with Hammer and Sickle for Labor version). This makes this medal the highest award, like Medal of Honor in USA. But basically, orders are what is called medals in America, and medals are what is called badges and coins.

The word 'order' in this sense is a relic from the Imperial Russia. In Russian Empire, just like in the most of the contemporary Europe, orders were knight orders -- they had a limited number of members, they had their complex insignia, chapels, celebration days, the official head of order was usually the Emperor. When a commoner got in the Order he usually officially became a noble (there were exceptions for the lowest ranks in the lowest orders). However, in Russian Members of Orders were called 'cavaler', not 'rytsar' (knight), and this word was used exclusively in the context of orders. So, when the Communists decided to design their own system of military and civilian decorations, they simply used words 'order' and 'cavaler', both of which had already lost most of the connection to the concept of Knight Orders.

British system of orders is one of the few traditional ones which made it to the modern world, and now every time a celebrity of any kind gets a British decoration, the world is abuzz. Is Bill Gates a knight now? Paul McCartney surely is, but Gates wasn't dubbed and cannot style himself as 'sir'. Was it appropriate for the former Presidents of USA Reagan and Bush Sr. to become members of the Order of Bath? Well, everyone can remember something similar. However, a mere century ago 'the order' meant 'the Knight Order' with few, if any, exceptions, and there were no confusion when someone was awarded one of them (or, to be more precise, was accepted in one of the Knight Orders).

Another confusing feature of the Soviet award system is the practice of awarding not only persons, but legal bodies too. Factories, newspapers, organizations, cities, universities, and, of course, military units were awarded 'the order of Lenin', 'the order of Red Banner', 'the order of October Revolution', etc. Not all of the orders were used in this way, most of the military orders were highly restricted, but these three were quite common. That's why you see the depictions of two orders on the building in Owen's picture. The Leningrad Party School was decorated with them in both senses. Sometimes this practice brought extremely funny linguistic monstrosities such as 'Leningradskii Ordena Lenina Metropoliten imeni V.I.Lenina' (the official name of Leningrad subway).

Colonel Maskhadov is still dead-2

I didn't intend to return to that theme, but
1) most of the analysts both in Russia and the West are promoting the usual 'he was the only hope for peace' meme that worked such brilliantly with Arafat, Hussein, and other 'legitimate secularist leaders', and
2) for some (probably technical) reasons, I was banned from commenting on Wind of Change article "The Death of Aslan Maskhadov" by Dan Darling, so I couldn't present some of the counterarguments there. Nothing to do but bore myself (as the sole reader of this startup blog) with the following:

The death of Maskhadov is almost the best thing for Chechnya. In some sense it is even better than the death of Basayev would be. Lots of Basayev-like jihadi are already dead. Hattab, Gelayev, Baraev, Abu al-Walid, Atgeriev, Raduev. Their death doesn't mean much, Arabs will send another leader. There are lots of jihadi wannabes and lots of Arabic funds and support for them.

But Maskhadov was an Arafat figure, a leader whose ability for fundraising and PR went beyond usual Islamist sources. He had influence in the West and was widely supported by British, American, and German NGOs and, to some extent, governments. He learned the art of speaking different things in different languages, making himself simultaneously the feared terrorist leader whose orders unleashed Dubrovka and Beslan massacres, and noble freedom fighter whose aspirations for peace process were trumped by ham-fisted Chechen-hating Russian KGB henchmen. Worse, he was relatively popular among purely nationalistic Chechens, those whose alliance to terrorist jihadi is contested with Chechenization.

The purpose of Chechenization is to separate legitimate insurgents from jihadi terrorists, and Maskhadov was the main obstacle. His talks about talks not only gave the air of legitimacy to terrorists, but also prevented real insurgents from making separate deals with Kadyrov's Chechens. Many of them made deals, and now are serving as police officers. But many others hesitated, hoping that Maskhadov will cut a better deal, and fearing his retribution. Now that hope is over and they are presented with their choice.

There are also talks about supposed 'revenge attacks'. We heard this after every successful killing of the terror leaders: Yasin, Rantisi, the aforementioned Hattab and company. However, this theory is fundamentally wrong in the presumption that jihadis usually lack the will to make terror. In fact, they have all the will to strike regardless of their enemy's actions, what they lack when they do not attack is means. And the death of a leader diminishes their means.

Colonel Maskhadov is still dead.

Chechnya loses its Yasser Arafat, says Guardian, and I, for the first time in a while, agree with them.

Not completely, because their description of both needs some additional clarification:
For some outside observers, Maskhadov was the Yasser Arafat of the Chechen conflict - beyond the pale for negotiations as far as the occupying power was concerned, but the only person with the combination of military credibility and diplomatic experience to carry his people to the peace table.
..., and, with the opponents' hands tied with 'peace process', to unleash a wave of terror while getting financial support from both Western democracies and Arab terror-charities.

However, we have to remember that it wasn't the death of Arafat alone that brought positive changes to the Arab territories. The death of Yasin and Rantisi was also required. So our guys still have a lot of work. Nevertheless, kudos to them.