Russian President Vladimir Putin often accuses the West of distorting history. But in his latest comments about Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin and his successor, Josef Stalin, Putin’s penchant for reshaping the past to suit his goals was on stark display.
Speaking to pro-Kremlin activists in the southern city of Stavropol on January 25, Putin -- for the second time in a week -- accused Lenin of setting a time bomb that blew the Soviet Union apart in 1991. He also seemed to conflate Russia with the entire U.S.S.R., saying:“They placed an atom bomb under the building called Russia, and it later exploded.”
The bomb, Putin said, was Lenin's concept of the Soviet Union as a federative state, with each of its republics having the right to secede. He said Lenin was on the wrong side of a dispute with Stalin, who he said opposed giving the largely ethnic-based republics that right.
According to Putin, Lenin’s concept was one of the major causes of the Soviet collapse.
Putin’s remarks were striking because the former Soviet KGB officer has been known to be very cautious when talking about Lenin, whose embalmed corpse still lies in a mausoleum on Red Square 92 years after his death -- and who is still revered by millions across Russia.
Putin’s attempt to portray Stalin as a wiser leader -- one who opposed the republics’ right to part with the U.S.S.R. -- is badly undermined by a look at the dictator’s record on the issue.
Here’s why:
The first Soviet Constitution, adopted by the Second Congress of Soviets on January 31, 1924 -- 10 days after Lenin’s death -- enshrined as law the 1922 Treaty on Creation of the Soviet Union.
Signed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Trans-Caucasus Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the treaty granted each of those entities the right to leave the union. At the time, Stalin was one of several men jostling for power in the wake of the Bolshevik leader’s death.
In 1936, when Stalin’s autocratic power was at its peak and his Great Terror purge campaign in full swing, the Soviet Union adopted a new constitution that changed the legal status for Central Asian ethnic autonomous republics within the Russian Federation, which are currently Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and turned the Trans-Caucasus Federation into three separate republics, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia.
The number of the republics with so-called union status within the U.S.S.R. was increased from four to 11 by Stalin. In other words, at a time when Stalin could potentially have used his power to strip Soviet republics of the right to secede, he instead extended that right to a total of 11 republics rather than four.
If Stalin indeed opposed the right of ethnic republics to secede from the Soviet Union, he had more than enough clout to change the constitution in the opposite direction, turning the U.S.S.R. into a unitary state. But that never happened.
In 1940, the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were forced to join the Soviet Union along with Moldova, bringing the number of republics to 15 -- though many Western countries never recognized the Baltics as part of the Soviet Union.
Stalin died in 1953 and the right the republics to leave the Soviet Union was reiterated in the Soviet Constitution adopted under Leonid Brezhnev in 1977.
In 1991, they all left the Soviet Union -- a right granted them, in part, by Stalin.
Ethnic republics that had only autonomous status remained within the larger union republics -- Chechnya, Daghestan, Tatarstan, and Buryatia within Russia, for example, and Karakalpakstan within Uzbekistan.
Exactly why Putin criticized Lenin in public and once more praised Stalin may be known only to Putin.
Was it another attempt to justify Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, and its backing for separatists in eastern Ukraine? Was it another attempt to glorify Stalin among ordinary Russians?
Although Putin said in Stavropol that the issue of Lenin’s burial is not on the agenda, his bold statements regarding what he suggested were Lenin’s “mistakes” -- including the destruction of Russia as a state and the killing of Tsar Nicholas II and his family -- sounded like an attempt to revise Lenin’s role in Russian history in general.
The answers could come soon, with the centennial of the Great October Revolution of 1917 approaching next year.
The following shameful state sponsored article is released by the Voice of Russia which is obviously destined to be read by The Ignorant, The Thugs, The Uneducated, The Low Life member's of Russian Society.
This article was written in 2014 and not in Stalin's Era.
It brings shame on all RUSSIAN Society.
Perhaps we do need to return to the Cold War where we in the West are Free, Where we can make our own decisions, Where we choose our lifestyle and our sexuality without fear of the State Apparatus, where the little 5'5" man in the Kremlin, Czar Putin can rule his private realm though terror!
WE IN THE WEST DO NOT NEED RUSSIA, WE NEVER DID, WE NEVER WILL
US, NATO, CIA supporting nazis in Ukraine project
The overthrow of the government of Ukraine was an armed coup d’état
ordered, planned, organized, funded, carried out and executed by the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Pentagon, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) and their surrogates in the European Union (EU) using every instrument
at their disposal including the National Security Agency (NSA) and all of their
amassed media resources. It was carried out with the knowledge and approval of
US President Barack Hussein Obama if not at his directive.
The
actions of the US in organizing the armed overthrow and installation of an
illegitimate puppet government in Kiev was and continues to be illegal and
revelations that continue to be exposed, including the latest regarding the
hiring of snipers to kill demonstrators and police, are an outrage and a crime
against all humanity that must not be allowed to stand.
Snipers
brought in by oppostion
The
latest revelations with regard to the coup d’état in Ukraine concern the
snipers that were present in an around Maidan Square during the height of the
recent violence. According to multiple reports from varied sources including
video footage, witness statements, released telephone conversations between
officials and even statements by doctors, the snipers were shooting
indiscriminately and killing both protestors and members of the security
services. Of the almost 400 police officers injured in the clashes and the
approximately 82 dead (figures are from initial reports on newswires) almost
all of them suffered bullet wounds to the head and neck. More than 20
protestors were also reportedly killed by snipers on February 20th.
Catherine
Ashton Urmas Paet conversation leaked
According
to multiple reports and sources the snipers on Maidan Square were hired by the
Klitschko led opposition that has now assumed itself to be the new government
in Kiev. The most damning evidence to date has come in the form of a telephone
conversation between EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton and the Estonian
Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Paet which was intercepted and recorded and
has been authenticated by the Estonian
Foreign Ministry.
According
to the Voice of Russia in comments regarding the conversation Paet said that it
had taken place last week, on February 26th, immediately after he returned to
Estonia from Ukraine. He also said that it was necessary to conduct an
independent investigation into the events on Maidan Square in Kiev and called
on those responsible to be prosecuted.
During
the conversation Paet voiced his concern that the new “authorities” were not
interested in investigating the murders and that it was actually the opposition
that had carried them out.
Paet: "And still, people are seriously
concerned about the fact that the new coalition is unwilling to investigate
what really occurred there . The understanding of the fact that somebody from
the new coalition, not Yanukovych, was behind those snipers is becoming more
and more strengthened with every passing day."
Ashton: “I think we do want to investigate. I
mean, I didn’t pick that up, that’s interesting. Gosh,”
Ashton’s
response and her support of the neo-nazi opposition indicates that she knew all
along who was behind the attacks and that she was on the inside of the Ukraine
Project. Her telling the FM that she thinks we do not want an investigation is
chilling. She merely thinks of it as “interesting” is also telling.
According
to the transcript Paet was also concerned by the testimony of a doctor who said
that both protesters and police were shot at by the same people.
Paet: “And second, what was quite
disturbing, this same Olga Bogomolets told as well that all the evidence shows
that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and
then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people
from both sides.” He also added: “She also showed me some photos and said that
as a medical doctor she can say that, the same type of bullets were used on
both police and protestors.”
Ashton: “Well, yeah…that’s, that’s terrible.”
Ashton
says it is terrible but the fact that there has been no outcry from the
European Union and no calls from the European Commission for an investigation,
which should have come right after she hung up the phone also point to Ashton’s
collusion with Nuland and the US on the Ukraine Project.
Whether
the EU is merely a pawn in the Ukraine Project or a witting collaborator has
yet to be seen but the telephone conversation points to far more knowledge than
what has been admitted to and to the fact that everyone is merely operating
according to a script that has already been agreed upon and from which no one
is allowed to stray.
Russian
Foreign Ministry statement
The
Russian Foreign Ministry has studied the recordings and issued a statement
expressing surprise that the EU had not commented on the recording as they had
boisterously commented on the now infamous Nuland/Pyatt “F- the EU”
conversation.
"We
have paid close attention to this audio recording, and we are surprised to hear
that the EU refuses to give its commentary on this score. As you know, some
time ago the high-ranking representatives of the EU member countries actively
commented on the audio record of Victoria Nuland," a Foreign Ministry
official said .
The
Russian Foreign Ministry also stated: "As it appears, the European Union
is well aware of the fact that the Ukrainian opposition backed the snipers on
the Maidan Square!"
The
black operations side of the Ukraine project
In
documented regime change operations, which Ukraine clearly was, the CIA has
classically used snipers to heighten the panic and the terror and in the end to
blame whichever side it is against for crimes against the people. In other
violent regime change operations terrorist attacks and bombings are also
common, usually blamed again on the government, or “the regime” that is
targeted for destruction.
In the
case of Ukraine the illegitimate “authorities” immediately “filed charges”
against the acting President Yanukovich. These charges of course came in unison
with choreographed statements by western officials (EU officials, the White
House and others), massive choreographed media coverage, showing selected
scenes and footage of “poor defenseless peaceful protestors” bloodied and
apparently the victims of “the brutal police forces” who themselves were
completely unarmed having to face snipers, guns, Molotov cocktails, steel
cement filled pipes and highly trained armed protestors bent on killing them.
Western
media footage is absent of Berkut troops and police being literally beaten to
death, shot to death and taken hostage to be executed later. This does not play
with the narrative.
The
snipers played two functions; they provided cover for the murderous thugs who
were attacking the police and they provided the West with its “victims of a
brutal regime”. The western media did not need many victims, the ones they had
were enough. The order was probably for 20 protestors and 100 police which
would explain the onslaught on the law enforcement officers.
The
methodical nature and the timing of the sniper killings point to a carefully
planned operation and not to a mob gone mad or crowd control operations by
security officers. The sniper killing did not coincide with clashes or the
actions of law enforcement bodies and all happened within a few hours. It is
not a coincidence that the killings happened in the same period that President
Yanukovich was to meet with a delegation from the EU. Very similar to the
killing of 426 children in Latakia Syria and the gas attacks in Damscus when
Syrian President Bashar Al- Assad had welcomed UN chemical weapons inspectors.
Just
as the killing of 426 children was to serve as the pretext for the invasion of
Syria, the killing of “civilians” served as the pretext for toppling the
government and to charge the president with mass murder.
Reports
from witnesses, media and police say that there were foreign mercenaries on
Maidan and video footage shows a sniper lair with various shooters including
Muslim clad sniper teams, which is backed up by reports that mercenaries and
terrorists were brought in from Syria.
Television
footage in Russia of one of the “protestors” who was returning to Russia and
stopped on the border undergoing questioning, shows him stating under no
duress, that there were 50 Americans involved and that he had counted them.
During the height of the violence there is also television footage of men
running around shouting instructions in English.
The
violence is not over in Ukraine. The US/CIA/NATO/EU are growing desperate and
having problems getting the Ukrainian people to accept that the murderers and
neo-nazis are now their new leaders. Almost no one accepts their legitimacy,
except of course western lackeys and politicians who are in on the coup.
The
Ukrainian people know there was no popular uprising. A delay in an EU agreement
which in fact meant nothing was not something that brought the people out into
the streets en-mass, however it was the ridiculous pre-planned pretext that the
choreographers had planned.
The
goal of turning Ukraine into NATO territory is first on the agenda and later
today NATO is expected to push NATO membership documentation through the
Verhovnaya Rada. This has to be done before their puppets are all arrested or
the people rise up and take their parliament back.
The
nazis are having problems on other fronts as well. Recently their “Foreign Minister”
made a ridiculous statement to the United Nations that charges from the Soviet
Union against the Bandera nazis at the Nuremburg Trials were not legitimate and
the Ukrainian Nazis were basically just normal Ukrainians who as the EU
recently stated, expressed “real European values”.
The
Ukraine scenario is almost identical to the Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya
scenarios on the black operations side. The only difference is that air support
has not been used, yet. 300 US mercenaries from the former Blackwater/XE/Greystone
Limited a subsidiary of Vehicle Services Company LLC, are now in Ukraine to
provide illegal “non-state” military support to the thousands of mercenaries
already in the country.
Greystone
Limited mercenaries are part of what is called “America’s Secret Army.” They
are called in when there is no legal basis for an American military
intervention and no basis for NATO or other surrogate armies to intervene or
provide air-support to their initial illegal internal takeover force, this time
the Bandera nazis who have been training for 10 years.
Nuland’s
nazi project
In a
video briefing to her controllers and press in Washington last December, after
returning from her innocent looking but ridiculous doughnut trip, in front of
logos from the Chevron and Exxon oil companies, Victoria Nuland, former US
Ambassador to NATO, stated that they had spent $5 billion dollars on Ukraine.
Today
Obama is set to hand $1 billion to the militants parading as officials and of
course there are the billions that have been spent by CIA front USAID, George
Soros and the like in the Ukraine Project. So no matter how obvious it is to
the world that what occurred in Kiev is an illegal western backed coup, they
must keep to their scripts and no amount of evidence against them is going to
change their public statements.
Even
if the Bandera Nazis start hanging people from street lamps and making nazi
salutes at the United Nations, Obama and company are going to continue to call
them legitimate and “peaceful demonstrators”. It will not even matter if the
Ukrainian people, down to the last woman and child start waving Russian flags,
and protesting the Bandera Nazis, the US and the subservient controlled
corporate media will continue to follow their own narrative.
Why
Nazis in Ukraine? It does not bother Obama or US/NATO/EU who they support in a
targeted country. It does not matter to Nuland, who is in fact Jewish herself,
if she is supporting the same Nazis that are calling for her brethren to be
killed in the street, because they have their objectives. Divide and surround
Russia. Remove Russia from Ukraine, establish NATO/US military bases and seize
the resources.
Just
like in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and everywhere else the US has
targeted it does not matter who they support and arm and fund as long as the
target government is gotten rid of. In South America there are far-right
groups. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and other Middle East
countries there is Al-Qaeda (created by the CIA). In Ireland there were
Republican paramilitaries, in the Caucuses Chechen terrorists, in Ukraine? Well
neo-nazis. They take what they can get as long as their objective is attained.
Why
300 US mercenaries? I would say the violence in Ukraine is just beginning. It
takes a lot of death and mayhem to destroy a country. Especially when there is
no NATO air-support or a fake UN resolution to allow for bombing. They will
have to go house to house and kill anyone who resists, something which Nuland’s
peaceful opposition is already doing.
Fake
Russian invasion
RT
reported about the and the collusion of the western media as
follows: Ukraine’s statement at the UN that 16,000 Russian soldiers have been
deployed to Crimea has caused a frenzy among Western media which chooses to
ignore that those troops have been there since the late 1990s in accordance
with a Kiev-Moscow agreement. Western media describes the situation in the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea as if a full-scale Russian invasion were under
way, with headlines like: “Ukraine says Russia sent 16,000 troops to Crimea”
and “Ukraine crisis deepens as Russia sends more troops into Crimea,” as well
as “What can Obama do about Russia's invasion of Crimea?”It seems they have
chosen to simply ignore the fact that those Russian troops have been stationed
in Crimea for over a decade. Russia’s representative to the UN, Vitaly Churkin,
reminded on Tuesday that the deal surrounding the Black Sea Fleet allows Russia
to station a contingent of up to 25,000 troops in Ukraine. However, US and
British media have mostly chosen to turn a deaf ear.”
No
international or other outcry
Has
the world been terrorized into silence or does the NSA now control the flow of
information so well that no one is getting the truth of what is occurring in
Ukraine? Why is no one calling for sanctions or legal measures against the
US/NATO/EU for overthrowing a democratically elected European government? How
much blood will US/NATO be allowed to spill before the world stands up? Why
does it seem that the world is cowering in terror? Even what I thought were
die-hard anti-NATO activists have jumped boat and refuse to stand up and
protest.
Dear
readers and citizens of the world
How
many more countries are we going to sit by and watch be destroyed by the
US/NATO war machine and their secret armies? When they decide your country is
no longer following orders they will come for you too, make no doubt.They rape
and pillage they send in illegal armies
These
are the ancestors of the same people who committed genocide on the indigenous
peoples of North America for their resources. They do not know anything else
but violence, force and stealing whatever they need. Are we powerless to stop
them?
I would like to
leave you with parts of two speeches which I think are completely relevant and
topical, although they had different reasons for writing both of these speeches
they these words apply exactly to what the US/NATO are doing today, in 2014, a
year when all war, hunger and poverty on earth could have been long eradicated:
“There's
a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick
at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And
you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the
levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got
to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless
you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!” - Mario Savio
“It
requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions, by the
government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every
newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless
conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of
influence on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of
elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night
instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and
material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine
that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and
political operations.” – John F Kennedy
The political and economical crisis of the EU might help a new European Hitler to emerge, warns historian Geoffrey Roberts. He believes the current rise of ultra-nationalism in Europe resembles that one of 1930s as history tends to repeat itself.
Professor Geoffrey Roberts sees the rise of extreme nationalism in Europe as a test for the whole international democratic concept – with no predictable results.
Still, Roberts is hopeful that European democracy can survive this current crisis because “the democratic culture, democratic institutions which are much stronger in Europe than they were before WWII.”
RM: People from WWII are still alive and the memories of that war are fresh. The war could be a good lesson for all of us but we see the huge rise of nationalist right movements in Europe. What is to blame?
Geoffrey Roberts: The extreme ultra-nationalist movement in Europe is not a new phenomenon. Recently, the political influence of nationalism has been very strong; particularly the extreme force has grown in various countries of Europe. I think that has mostly to do with the economic and political problems that Europe is facing at the moment, which pose a dire threat to the whole future of the EU.
As time goes on, the war recedes from memory and becomes much more distant even, and the more time elapses, the more possibilities there are for people to present distorted accounts of the war. Partly, this development of extreme ultra-nationalism in Europe is explained by the distance from the war troubles. But it is not the main reason. The main one is contemporary politics and economics rather than history. That is not to say that history is not important because there are many history lessons that are relevant to the contemporary crisis.
RM: If the crisis in Europe is to last, will there be a rise of more nationalist sentiment.
GR: There is a great danger of that. If the eurozone collapses, if the EU collapses, the most likely scenario it would be replaced by different fronts of nationalists. Good question is what forms of nationalism, how extreme and dangerous they are going to be.
That is the historical lesson, what happened before WWII, particularly the 1930s when there was a crisis similar to the one we’re going through now. The result of that was the rise of extreme nationalism, the emergence of a number of authoritarian and Nazi-type regimes in Europe.
The historical lesson is the great danger of that development now. I don’t see this by any means inevitable. I think the difference between now and then is the democratic culture, democratic institutions which are much stronger in Europe than they were before WWII. I’m not confident but I’m hopeful that European democracy can survive this current crisis.
RM: Do you think that a politician with anti-democratic views could rise to power through those democratic institutes?
GR: That’s exactly what happened in the case of Hitler. He did it. And that’s what happened in a number of other countries in Europe before and after WWII. It is a distinct possibility, a challenge that would be a test of Western democracy. Not just Western democracy, but European and international democracy. Can it actually survive the challenge of nationalism which thrives in conditions of economic collapse and political disorder?
RM: Could a sticking together of the united Europe work as a magic push against rise of nationalism?
GR: I don’t think it is a panacea, but I sincerely hope that the European Union doesn’t collapse. Because for all of its faults, the EU is much better than an ultra-nationalist alternative. Who knows what is going to happen? I think it is possible that the EU will survive and I hope it does.
If I were Russian, I would actually be hoping that case as well because a collapse of the EU and the rise of extreme forms of nationalism in Europe could pose quite a significant challenge for Russia as well.
Stalin's USSR: The high price of becoming superpower
RM: In Russia there are two dimensionally different takes on [Joseph] Stalin. Some say he was a great guy who won WWII and actually gave the country an immense boost. Others say he actually undermined the economy which led to eventual collapse of the USSR. What is your take on that?
GR: When Stalin died Winston Churchill reportedly said “Stalin found Russia with the wooden plough and he left it with an atomic bomb.” I think that statement sums up Stalin’s achievement. That achievement was to modernize, urbanize and industrialize the Soviet Union, to build the foundations of a country that was able to withstand the German invasion in 1941 and go on to the victory over fascism and also the foundations to the post-war rise of the Soviet Union to a nuclear superpower.
If Russia is still a great country to play an important role in the world and with an enormous potential for the future it’s because of the foundations that were laid during Stalin’s time.
Having said that, of course, there could be lots of questions and discussions as to whether or not that modernization of Russia had to have been as brutal as it was. Because of course Stalin might modernize Russia and the Soviet Union…
RM: You mean the post-war Russia?
GR: No, the pre-war Russia as well. Stalin was also responsible for the deaths of the millions of people. Take another discussion about the cost, you can have a discussion about whether or not different courses in action of events would have been perhaps more effective than the ones Stalin pursued. But nevertheless in the end it is a historical fact that the Soviet Union was successfully modernized under Stalin, although on a very brutal basis.
RM: So the cause of the collapse [of the Soviet Union] should really be put on other leaders who came after Stalin?
GR: Of course the system that Stalin built and which persisted after his death, some of the most brutal aspects of the system disappeared after his death, such as the mass terror. Essentially, it was still Stalin’s system. But that system was very defective in many ways. Those defects in the end resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
RM: Was it also the mentality that Stalin tried to establish in the Soviet Union, the mentality that he left after his death was to blame for the collapse?
GR: It depends on what kind of mentality you’re talking about. Stalin was a Communist. He believed in Socialism. He believed in a Communist utopia. He believed in the Soviet system. He believed that the Soviet Union was a model for the whole world. One doesn’t have to agree with his beliefs or his vision, but one has to recognize the power of that vision. The power of that vision was very important in the historical development of the Soviet Union, both when Stalin was alive and then subsequently.
What happens is Gorbachev comes along and he questions and challenges that traditional Soviet image and he attempts to reform the system in quite a radical way. That resulted in the eventual collapse of the system.
RM: People in the West mostly see Stalin as the politician who led Russia to win WWII. In Russia there is no doubt we won the war. Without Russia the war would not be won. Are there doubts in the West about that?
GR: There are some people in the West who would want to deny. Not Russia – the Soviet Union won WWII – because that is an uncomfortable truth for them to face. That this authoritarian socialist regime, that this dictator Stalin was responsible for the defeat of Hitler. And in effect he was responsible.
RM: As opposed to Nazis?
GR: This kind of people also tends to have a view that there was no great difference between Nazism and Communism, Stalin and Hitler, which is as bad as each other. I don’t think that would be the most prevalent view. The most prevalent view would recognize the differences between the Nazism and Communism and the differences between Hitler and Stalin. Hitler was a far more dangerous dictator for the world than Stalin ever was.
I think there is nowadays an increased recognition of the Soviet role in WWII. Of course there have always been people who want to present a different, distorted view of the events of WWII.
RM: You’re someone who knows a lot about that and you studied Stalin. You wouldn’t say that at this point in the West there is a deficit of knowledge about Stalin and Russia’s role in WWII?
GR: There is always a deficit of historic knowledge about the world, not just in the West but in Russia as well. I don’t think that this deficit is too great. As I said there is nowadays much greater recognition of the Soviet role in WWII… particularly since the end of the Cold War.
During the Cold War there existed an ideological struggle going on. Part of that ideological brawl was an effort by Western Cold Warriors to deny the reality of the Soviet role defeating the Nazis. Western Cold War era views still exist and are still making the same kind of arguments, but they are not as widespread and effective as they used to be.
