Mar

5

There seems to be a widely held belief that the Russian leaders are, and always have been, a collection of power-hungry thugs with little or no finesse. I have long felt that Putin, far from fitting that stereotype, has been a patient and successful player in the "great game."

Rather than get involved in the current duel, I suggest checking out New Lies for Old by Anatoliy Golitsyn. Written in 1984, Golitsyn had defected to America in 1961. His book, in addition to being a severe critique of the west's intelligence services, gives a whole series of predictions as to what would (and has) happen to Russia and its government. Considering how accurate most of his prognostications have turned out, it might not be a total waste of time. It's a long read and can be arduous, so I suggest reading some of the reviews before making the commitment.

Stefan Jovanovich adds his two cents: 

1. The comparisons of Putin to Stalin have to stop. Roy Medvedev (a Georgian) has calculated that Stalin killed 20 million Soviet citizens (this does not include any of the people who died during WW II) when you total all the premature deaths from these events: 1 million imprisoned or exiled between 1927 to 1929; 9 to 11 million peasants forced off their lands and another 2 to 3 million peasants arrested or exiled in the mass collectivization program; 1 million exiled from Moscow and Leningrad in 1935; 4 to 6 million dispatched to forced labor camps; and at least 1 million arrested for various "political crimes" from 1946 to 1953. The Soviet records alone directly confirm these deaths: 6 to 7 million killed by an artificial famine in 1932-1934 and 1 million executed during the ''Great Terror'' of 1937-1938. Solzhenitsyn thought Medvedev's number was almost a naive underestimation; he put the figure at 60 million.

2. The use of Emersonian racialist categories (Slavs) is not only bad history but also in very bad taste, given what the 14th Amendment to our Constitution says. "Slav" is a category invented by people who wished eastern Europeans nothing but harm (like Marx's label of "capitalism" for the freedom to own yourself and your own property). No one now alive in Eastern Europe recognizes the word as having any meaning. The Ukrainians speak a language largely indistinguishable from Russian; but they are separated from the Russians by religion, heritage and history. They are only fellow "Slavs" in the eyes of the rest of the world, which knows as much about their history as David knows about Hungary and Kosovo and the occupation of Paris by the German Army in WW II and the List knows about the Russians' two-hundred year war with the Chechens and the four hundred year war in Northern Ireland among the Irish, Scots, English, French and Spanish.

 


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