>>1808456You're beating up a strawman fella. You're also putting in qualifiers that don't need to be there. They used, a LOT, of officers and they commanded units larger than simple companies or platoons. When you're in a battle to the death as the Bolsheviks were… you're in a tough spot. Do you allow the former Tsarists to command this regiment when he volunteers and defects? Or do you trust the former farmer to possibly get men killed?
And look where all this shit gets us. How does this help anyone? Instead of being constructive and saying "hey, we should court all comers, and if they're particularly problematic they should be relegated to non-sensitive duties with the possibility they can work themselves into higher trust" we act like we have the luxury of being this huge movement in the West. We don't.
If someone comes in, wanting to work with us in times of harsh need do we have the time and luxury to ask whether the ditch digger filled out an ideological purification form? Like what are we even talking about here? I actually hold no ill will towards any of you. I met some reprehensible pieces of shit in the military. We've all met some. But what of redemption? What of change?
Comrades, the facts are before us. Our revolutionary forefathers by necessity, had to rely on professional soldiers to win. When the conflict is won, you can worry about reducing reliance on these people and comb their backgrounds to see if they are reprehensible enough to be expelled or even face more serious punitive measures. But we're doing what Marx said the philosophers do, merely interpreting the world. Put the future between a rock and a hard place, there's good chance you'll need military veterans and generally hard men and women who've been there and done that. And there's a lot of good ones, and in my personal experience there's more good than bad.
I'll see you all in a decade or two, when push comes to shove. I hope you come to realize you won't have the luxury of a deep background check when possible recruits come ready to get down with the cause.