Page 161 - Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors, Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors. Vol. 1

these skills and abilities did not appear instantly, but centuries, and sometimes mil-
lennia, were required until people learned to do everything quite well. But people
who developed the Temperate Zone were forced to do this in order to survive.
There was no other way. Those who neglected to do this did not live till the next
spring. This is an example of so-called natural selection applied to man during his
adaptation to the living conditions in the Temperate Zone.

Unfortunately (but from my point of view – fortunately), the problems of man’s
adaptation to the Temperate Zone do not end with the inevitable necessity to build
warm houses and dry food stores; to make warm clothing and create necessary tools
and weapons. The point is that most people are quite lazy by nature and if it were not
for the critical situation — to die of hunger and cold or work very hard to avoid it —
it is highly unlikely that man would convert into a creature who we proudly call today
— Homo sapiens, the reasoning man. The instinct for self-preservation is the driving
force of man’s evolutional development, whether one likes it or not. In different
climatic conditions the self-preservation instinct demands from man different
things which determine the way of his evolutional development in general and every
race in particular. The evolutional differences and features between races are not de-
termined by the race to which a particular individual belongs, but by the requirements
of adaptation to the living conditions in which one or another race lives.

Let us continue to analyze the distinctive features of man’s adaptation to the
Temperate Zone. Let us imagine that a person has built a warm wooden house with a
fireplace, got a fire-wood supply, built a winter repository for food, made warm
clothing, got mushrooms and berries in the forest and bogs and can seemingly relax
now and have his well-deserved rest. But this is only on the face of it.

There should be enough food in the winter store for the whole family to last six
or eight months, depending on the area of the Temperate Zone. However, not only
man can eat mushrooms and berries. The gifts of nature serve as a nutrition basis for
numerous species of animals. Moreover, man is only able to collect them in the im-
mediate vicinity of the house and if the family is large, it is highly likely that he will
never have enough mushrooms and berries. Besides, the harvest of mushrooms and
berries depends on weather conditions; and nature is capricious. Therefore, it is too
risky to rely exclusively on nature in the Temperate Zone. Sooner or later man finds
himself in the situation — what can I do next?

The point is that not only the harvests of mushrooms and berries depend on the
whims of nature, but also a significant number of wild animals, which man hunted for
the sake of meat and fur, went deep in the forests away from human dwelling and in
order to catch a beast hunters had to go further from home every time. Therefore,
man’s next step was the domesticating of some animal species, such as wild pigs, au-
rochs, cows, goats, sheep and from the bird kingdom — hens, geese and ducks.
Someone had the idea that it is much more reasonable to catch animals’ calves, kids
and lambs and birds’ nestlings, to bring them up and tame them, than to kill them for
the sake of meat which had not grown yet. The young receive food and the first les-
sons of life from their parents; therefore they quickly got accustomed to receiving
food from man; the hatchlings of chickens, ducks and geese assume that the first liv-

Back to contents 161