Stalin's Supersoldiers
This puzzling Scotsman report about Josef Stalin's efforts to create a race of super-soldiers by crossbreeding humans with chimpanzees is getting some attention in the blogosphere. Puzzling, I say, because it's far from clear to me why one might think chimpanzee genes would improve soldier-quality, given the realities of 1920-era warmaking technology and Soviet terrain and climate conditions.
The general subject of half-man, half-chimp "humanzees" is pretty fascinating. Check out this October 2003 Atlantic article on Oliver, thought by some (erroneously) to be such a creature. I think one seriously does need to wonder whether recent biomedical advances won't make the sort of tampering Stalin was allegedly interested in possible in the near future.
"Puzzling, I say, because it's far from clear to me why one might think chimpanzee genes would improve soldier-quality"
Not puzzling at all. Stalin was actually aiming for the winged monkeys as seen in the Wizard of Oz.
Flying monkeys have long been a fearsome war fighting tool. The Japanese conquest of Manchuria was immeasurably aided by use of the cute critters. Prior to widespread deployment of the tank, flying monkeys were long the scourge of the battlefield.
December 20, 2005 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
So not only was Stalin a mass murderer he was also a sexual deviant who liked the idea of human-chimp sex?
December 20, 2005 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
If only I could have traveled back in time to have cross-bred my mother-in-law with a bonobo....
December 20, 2005 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is old news -- where do you think Sean Hannity came from?
December 20, 2005 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
So which gene pool was it - George Herbert Walker or Barbara - that contributed to the anthropoid characteristics of their most famous son?
December 20, 2005 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, that Scotsman article is one for the archives. Thanks for freaking me out...
December 20, 2005 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stalin should have got his chimps to fight for him the way we do it:
Offer them a green card, and/or a college education.
See how well it's worked in Iraq? Anybody who doesn't see the "chimp" in Graner and the others just isn't looking very closely.
Anybody who doesn't see the "chimp" in Bush is blind.
December 20, 2005 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn dirty apes.
December 21, 2005 2:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think one seriously does need to wonder whether recent biomedical advances won't make the sort of tampering Stalin was allegedly interested in possible in the near future.
ever play FarCry ?
December 21, 2005 4:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
In a, um, more serious vein, pound for pound, chimps are a lot stronger than humans.
December 21, 2005 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sure chimps are stronger than people, but what good was that supposed to do the USSR? Their soldiers had guns. Meanwhile, chimps are much slower in non-forested terrain and they're more affected by cold weather, surely a crippling problem for a would-be Russian soldier. It's not for nothing that the chimp's natural range is restricted to a pretty narrow patch of central Africa.
December 21, 2005 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
A couple of points on this. First, this talk about chimps not being useful on Soviet terrain is true, but why assume Stalin was concerned about fighting at home rather than expanding his reach to other climate zones. Secondly, the article linked by Drudge talked about Stalin ordering up genetically modified soldiers (very much in line with the Eugenics fad raging at the time).
It doesn't say Stalin specifically wanted ape soldiers but that he wanted superior fighters who could be sustained on poor quality food and would not complain. His chief scientist went about this by trying to develop a human/chimp hybrid, but that seems to be his decision regarding the best starting point, not Stalin's whim. All and all, this story is not that bizarre considering that the study of genetics was still very new and had advanced tremendously from the 1880s to the 1920s such that it was believable that inter-species hybrids could be engineered.
December 21, 2005 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just because chimps are affected by cold weather, doesn't mean Humazees would be!
Admittedly in far range combat, they would have no advantage. But as a police force to stay behind and keep the empire in line? Sounds good to me!
December 21, 2005 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Supposedly, AIDS came from some chimphunter who ingested a chimpanzee infected with simian immunodeficiency virus in the twenties. But now, I guess, we know different. It came from Stalin!
Why is it that that doesn't surprise me.
December 21, 2005 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Puzzling, I say, because it's far from clear to me why one might think chimpanzee genes would improve soldier-quality, given the realities of 1920-era warmaking technology and Soviet terrain and climate conditions.
Don't assume that anyone in the 1920s knew very much about apes. The Mountain Gorilla was only discovered by Europeans in 1902. Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall were still 30 years in the future. "Apes=dumb brutes" was probably the basic stereotype. And don't forget Stalin loved Tarzan stories so we probably have Edgar Rice Burroughs to blame for this miscarriage of science.
December 22, 2005 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, thanks for the suggestion Matt. But see a lot of people are doing this already but they are constantly maligned by the Left as "unserious" scholars. You know all those wacky religious conservatives who think that maybe we shouldn't clone humans for the express purpose of killing them for stem cells? They are dealing with these questions.
See Nigel Cameron, Leon Kass, Sen Brownback, Eric Cohen, Wesley Smith
December 22, 2005 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink