"... by the breakup of the Soviet Union. Again and again he raised this. That is why, for him, the end of the Soviet empire was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century."
Said Condoleezza Rice, quoted in "The Making of Vladimir Putin/The 22-year arc of the Russian president’s exercise of power is a study in audacity" by Roger Cohen (NYT).
This is a very substantial article, and there are some excellent photographs — Putin scaring Angel Merkel with a dog, George W. Bush yukking it up with a smilingly sober Putin.
I'll just add a bit:
Born in 1952 in a city then called Leningrad, Mr. Putin grew up in the shadow of the Soviets’ war with Nazi Germany, known to Russians as the Great Patriotic War. His father was badly wounded, an older brother died during the brutal 872-day German siege of the city, and a grandfather had worked for Stalin as a cook.
The immense sacrifices of the Red Army in defeating Nazism were not abstract but palpable within his modest family, as for many Russians of his generation. Mr. Putin learned young that, as he put it, “the weak get beat.”
“The West did not take sufficient account of the strength of Soviet myth, military sacrifice and revanchism in him,” [said Michel Eltchaninoff, the French author of “Inside the Mind of Vladimir Putin"], whose grandparents were all Russian, said. “He believes deeply that Russian man is prepared to sacrifice himself for an idea, whereas Western man likes success and comfort.”...
[Putin] was the first to call President Bush after 9/11 [and] an important potential ally in what came to be called the Global War on Terror. It meshed with his own war in Chechnya and with a tendency to see himself as part of a civilizational battle on behalf of Christianity. But Mr. Putin was far less comfortable with Mr. Bush’s “freedom agenda,” announced in his second inaugural of January 2005, a commitment to promote democracy across the world in pursuit of a neoconservative vision.
In every stirring for liberty, Mr. Putin now saw the hidden hand of the United States. And why would Mr. Bush not include Russia in his ambitious program?... When François Hollande, the former French president, met Mr. Putin several years later, he was surprised to find him referring to Americans as “Yankees” — and in scathing terms. These Yankees had “humiliated us, put us in second position,” Mr. Putin told him.
NATO was an organization “aggressive by its nature,” used by the United States to put Russia under pressure, even to stir democracy movements....
The United States and its allies, in Mr. Putin’s telling, were intent on globalizing these subversive values under cover of democracy promotion and human rights. Saint Russia would stand against this baleful homogenization. Putinism, as it was now fleshed out, stood against a Godless and insinuating West. Moscow had an ideology once more. It was one of conservative resistance, and it appealed to rightist leaders across Europe and beyond....
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70 comments:
Demography is destiny. Russia's birth rate is so low that there will be 30 million less Russians by the year 2050. The future is only there for those born to live it.
i see people are thinking that NATO should put "10,000 troops" into the Ukraine, for a
"no fly zone" "that would be tasked with defending humanitarian convoys with food and medicine"
I wonder what people think a "no fly zone" is?
I wonder what people think a "no fly zone" DOES?
We should ask some dead Iraqi pilots about that. They could tell us that a "no fly zone"
means a shooting war. A shooting war with Iraq is One Thing; a shooting war with Russia
(that was started by US!) is An Entirely Different Thing.
Am I the only one reading Rice while thinking, I really don't want to hear another word from these focking neocons. They've done enough damage to the USA
Heartless Aztec pointed out...
Russia's birth rate is so low that there will be 30 million less Russians by the year 2050.
And that's Not figuring in the losses in Russian daddy aged men, caused by this war.
Of course, here's a simple solution to their problems..
a) EurAsia needs children
b) EurAsia is losing their men, in this war
c) EastAsia has MILLIONS more men than women
d) EurAsian women are HOT
and
e) while we have ALWAYS been at war with EurAsia (or is it EastAsia?), we have ALWAYS been allied with EastAsia (or was it EurAsia?).. Anyway; what happens to Oceania, if it finds itself at war with Both EurAsia AND EastAsia??
War IS Peace, but is THAT the sort of peace we want?
Anything about Obama's great "Reset"?
Did she forget the part about Putin watching the video, dozens of times, of Moamar's death at the hands of rebels who took power under the cover of a NATO no fly zone over Libya? Hillary thought it was a gut-buster, and channeled Caesar, "We came, we saw, he died."
I guess, as good Romans, we citizens are required to cheer on the adventures abroad of our empire's forces, to suffer our ridiculous leaders, and to be grateful for the bread and circuses.
Rice's explaining the origins Putin's views isn't the same as excusing them or justifying them. It could be taken as a warning, presuming it's correct.
I listened to a good interview with Condoleeza Rice and Bari Weiss recently. (I think it was with Bari Weiss, but could have been elsewhere). I get Michael's comment about not wanting to hear from neocons again.
But listening to her reminded me that, despite what occurred with GW Bush, Condoleeza is brilliant. And very few people in our country have an understanding of Russia, the old Soviets, and Putin that she does. In the interview, she sounds like a person who also learns from mistakes. Not so much a dyed in the wool ideologue, but a thinker. Someone who can take the information and grow with it, learn from it. I wish we had a few leaders with that capacity.
Frankly, I had forgotten how brilliant she is on a range of topics. I wish we had more like her, fewer like Biden. And no- she will never run for office. She's done with that.
Despite having my own strong feelings about the Neocons, I can’t help liking Rice. The thing is, she’s a good analyst, but not a good planner. Take her for what she is, and she’s good. Just don’t let her set the agenda.
Listening to Putin and the NATO/neocons reminds me of Mad Magazine.
Except it's Lie vs Lie.
On the subject of American neo-cons: Putin seems to have thought we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
Add into the equation that Putin and Russia think that the world and the West in particular owe them. That THEY saved the world from Nazi Germany, the great enemy. And as the great enemy, they view any opposition to Soviet Russia to be Nazism, e.g. a free, independent and sovereign Ukraine. And there are enough useful idiots in this country that hear that dog whistle of "NAZI" and hence spout their own idiocy about Ukraine.
On the subject of American neo-cons: Most of the people commenting here (who call themselves "conservative") are as knee-jerk ignorant and dismissive about them as they are about the reality of geo-politics in their blind me-first isolationism.
And, no, I'm not a neo-con. Nor am I lefty Mark.
"But listening to her reminded me that, despite what occurred with GW Bush, Condoleeza is brilliant."
She's also a war criminal.
"And there are enough useful idiots in this country that hear that dog whistle of "NAZI" and hence spout their own idiocy about Ukraine."
How much time had you spent reading about Ukraine prior to this war? Canadian truckers? Not actual Nazis, 15,000 strong Azov Battalion, with heavy weapons, fighting a civil war for eight years and killing thousands of civilians in regions of Ukraine which rejected the US backed coup? Actual Nazis.
The proper way to deal with a liar is not to presume that telling the truth is never in his interest, but to ignore the liar, in this case Putin, and verify or disprove for yourself. A good way to do this would be to set your search parameters on Ukraine, Donbass, and Nazi to before the invasion, say 2014 (US backed coup) to 2021. A "useful idiot" is somebody who mindlessly repeats regime propaganda without the slightest effort to validate it.
It's the return of the anti-anti-Communists.
Anyone with open eyes can see that since 1917, Soviet Russia has been the enemy of all humanity, not just the West. Anyone with a heart, conscience and balls has understood the need to do something about it.
yes Soviet Russia, yet Holomodor deniers like Nellie Ohr roam the bureau and company on a green badge,
Azov aren't people I would like to invite to dinner, but considering Ukraines bloody history, where the mudzik Kruschev, rose up over a mountain of skulls you would expect otherwise,
Mark said...
Anyone with open eyes can see that since 1917, Soviet Russia has been the enemy of all humanity, not just the West. Anyone with a heart, conscience and balls has understood the need to do something about it.
"Something" needed to be done.
Starting a war, causing a worldwide famine and purposely destroying the US economy was not it.
Russia was doomed demographically. The entire regime was going to wither and die because it had no children and was well below replacement.
But now you warmongers are going to see the devastation wrought by this war you are begging for.
Egypt is going to go first. The government there just seized control of food. Egypt imports over 70% of their food.
Renumber when Hillary and Obama wanted to play footsie with the Creeps?
There was money to be made.
some details here, re nellie ohr,
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/the_real_dossier_story.html
Of course, it helps that Rice knows Russian.
But the focus on Putin as a person is misguided. Regardless of personality, Russia has its interests and is likely to behave a certain way in pursuit of them. We'd like to think we could impose a liberal "rule-bound" international order. The world would be better for it. But this is not that world. Russian and China disagree. India is on the fence. We ourselves break rules as we see fit.
From a moral point of view, realism is at best second-best. But it has the virtue of being realistic.
Our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan had a huge impact on my way of thinking about US interventions in the post-Soviet era. Colin Powell had it right. We should only use the US military if the answers to these questions are all "yes".
Is a vital national security interest threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?
All of them should be answered "yes", not a majority.
We are not close to that standard.
He was always obsessed with the 25 million Russians trapped outside Mother Russia...
She makes him sound like Hitler.
Last week -- before Twitter jailed my account for tweeting something about teachers unions promoting the trans agenda starting at kindergarten and going through 12 -- I posted a Picture of the elegant Ms. Rice performing at the piano, nominating her for Biden's Supreme Court. She towers over any of these clerks he's choosing from, the smartest Black Woman candidate Biden could possibly choose.
@Mark
You have zero credibility.
We all remember Hillary's attempt at 'overcharging' Putin, and Mr. "The 1980s want their foreign policy back/tell Vlad I'll have more flexibility after the election."
We also remember the non-response to the takeover of Crimea and the incursions into Donbas, and the non-existent redlines in Syria.
I posted a Picture of the elegant Ms. Rice performing at the piano, nominating her for Biden's Supreme Court.
========
very good suggestion -
why only prompted now?
how come no such idea during Trump president with 3 shots available?
and all calling Trump racist!
"Last week -- before Twitter jailed my account for tweeting something about teachers unions promoting the trans agenda starting at kindergarten and going through 12...."
Understandable, as that is pure lunacy on your part.
Lefty Mark says he's not Lefty Mark.
Blogger Mark said...
Anyone with open eyes can see that since 1917, Soviet Russia has been the enemy of all humanity, not just the West. Anyone with a heart, conscience and balls has understood the need to do something about it.
Lefty Mark, do you need any help with your plane ticket ? I could come up with a few bucks if you are short.
Mark: "It's the return of the anti-anti-Communists."
So dumb. Surprisingly so given this is VA lawyer Mark and not Dumb Lefty Mark.
The real threat and the entity we should spend 90% of our time on are the ChiComs.
But the ChiComs have bought the services of our "elites" so those elites rattle the sabers and scream about russia (russia russia!) to deflect attention and Mark falls right into line.
Hey, maybe we'll be so "successful" again there will be open air slave markets in Ukraine similar to those that exist in Libya today!
tim in vermont,
We hear a lot about the Azov Battalion. They sound pretty nasty. "Nazis...I hate these guys."
What do you think of the Sparta Battalion, whose fallen leader Zhoga was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation? Those guys must be pretty serious anti-Nazis since they're fighting on Russia's side, right?
"Anyone with open eyes can see that since 1917, Soviet Russia has been the enemy of all humanity, not just the West."
How so?
Amadeus 48 said...
Our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan had a huge impact on my way of thinking about US interventions in the post-Soviet era. Colin Powell had it right.
==========
was Powell's own Iraq War comply with his Doctrine? was his UN performance honest? I don't see how
The Soviet Union was in no position to pass judgment on Nazi Germany. They learned from each other.....One way for Russia to have a dominant influence on Ukrainian culture and institutions is to present a better alternative than the west offers. Another way is to move in the tanks and kill those people who don't think that Russia should prevail in the culture and institutions of Ukraine.... England became Great Britain because there was some appeal to their culture and institutions. I'm not Anglo-Saxon but I like Shakespeare and the jury system.....Putin has blundered. There is no one alive in Russia or Ukraine who has benefited from this invasion, and the number of corpses and refugees will keep growing. I don't know what is the perfect response to his stupidity, but this war is Putin's fault.
Thank you, Ann, for suggesting the NYT article about Putin. It is essential reading, something I rarely say these days about the Times. As Ana side, I’d like to point out that the dog that Putin brought in to scare Merkel appears to be a slightly overweight, very sweet black lab. Not the dog I’d figure Putin to have.
30-40 million dead, it midwifed mao who led to another 50-60 million dead, the two million in Cambodia, just for starters,
Turns out Obama is probably a war criminal too. And his money grubbing side kick White Biden.
The number of Russians "trapped outside of Russia" is zero. Every country with the misfortune of having Russians living there, notably the Baltic states, would love nothing more than seeing all those Russians returned to Mother Russia. There has been no impediment at all to permitting the colonizers to go home.
Trouble is, they don't want to. They know what a misery it is to live in Russia if you are not pals with Putin.
"was Powell's own Iraq War comply with his Doctrine? was his UN performance honest? I don't see how"
1. But are the ideas in the Powell Doctrine wrong? I don't think so.
2. The Powell Doctrine was developed post-Vietnam and was applied fairly well in the first Gulf War, when Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
3. He was Secretary of State and not in the Defense Department or military in the leadup to the Iraq War and famously (but perhaps apocryphally) invoked the Pottery Barn Rule, namely, if you break it, you have bought it. Although he made the presentation to the United Nations, he was notably skeptical regarding Iraq. As to the UN presentation, he was effective and persuasive, but wrong. The Bush people made a huge bet on finding WMD to sell the war when what they wanted was regime change.
4. You could argue that the USA won the Iraq War and then Obama threw victory away when he failed to push for a status of forces agreement with the Iraq government. But that failure supports the idea that full scale military interventions should be very rare and conducted along the lines that Powell indicated when he developed the Powell Doctrine in the Reagan/Bush41 years.
5. Ukraine should never spark direct US military intervention. Look at a map.
Seems a pretty good piece on Putin's thought process
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=50980
We hear a lot about holodomor. I am not a denier, I believe millions starved to death in Ukraine due to Stalin's agricultural policies. I believe that it was on purpose to reduce Ukrainian population though I don't dousing the possibility of stupidity.
I also know millions starved in the rest of the ussr during this period due to govt policies.
I am pretty well read. No expert on Kazakhstan but have read a bit. Until the other day I had not realized how badly they suffered under collectivization.
35-40% of the Kazakh were murdered in the famine. Around 1.5mm.
I will probably get criticized for mentioning this. Criticism will be by the same people and reasons who criticize me when I point out that 12mm were murdered by the national socialists in the camps, including 6mm Jews.
It's OK, I'm used to it.
John Henry
Peter Zeihan has talked about how the Russians want to recover territory to solve their defense problems. Only now they do not have the conventional power to do that. So either they give up building the Third Russian Empire or they try something else such as non-conventional forces.
And there is the PRC/CCP wanting the Greater China Co-Prosperity Sphere and you have history rhyming rather loudly these days.
“…since 1917, Soviet Russia has been the enemy of all humanity, not just the West.“
I yield to no one in my hatred to old USSR, which ceased to exist in 1991. ‘Soviet Russia’ is common term, but strictly speaking it has no historical basis. The closest entity would be RSFSR, which was a powerless entity just like any other Soviet Socialist Republic. The real power was always wielded by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (KPSS).
Many people think that USSR was just another Russian imperial project in disguise. These people simply have no idea how international it was. Many different nationalities made major contributions to it. Bolshevik revolution was saved by Latvian rifle regiments (strictly for cash). Creator of secret police was a Pole, Dzerzhinsky. Stalin (Dzhugashvilli) was Georgian. His executioner during Holodomor was Khrushchev, ethnic Ukrainian. There are many more examples… Russian people were oppressed and murdered just like any other nationalities, because Communists truly were not racist. It was all based on economical theory for them.
There was a major break when Russia became independent country once more in 1991. Putin has much more in common with Salazar, Franco and Pinochet, than with Lenin and Stalin.
Every country with the misfortune of having Russians living there, notably the Baltic states, would love nothing more than seeing all those Russians returned to Mother Russia.
How very Nazi of you. Now do Putin giving heavy weapons to Indian tribes in North America after installing his own leadership there, you know, sort of like what we did in Ukraine.
"Those guys must be pretty serious anti-Nazis since they're fighting on Russia's side, right?"
Are they being installed in power and armed with my tax dollars in my name?
Not. our. war. No good guys to be found.
William said...
The Soviet Union was in no position to pass judgment on Nazi Germany. They learned from each other.
===========
is USA in any position to pass judgment after WW = Thomas Woodrow Wilson who involved Americans in the first war and FDR in second [FDR bromancing Stalin etc.]
tim in vermont,
"Are they being installed in power and armed with my tax dollars in my name?"
No, I just find it interesting how you back the line that the Russians are fighting Nazis because we can in truth find actual, loathsome neo-Nazis among the Ukrainian forces. But if I point out that you can too among the Russians, you shift to Hey, not my dollars!
(Those Wagner PMC guys seem like real honorable warriors too.)
So if there are otherwise no good guys and no bad guys, then I'm still rooting for the Ukrainians to push out their invaders. Just as I'd be cheering on the Russians to kick out the Ukrainian Army had it attacked into their territory. But you know as well as I do that never was going to happen, even if Ukraine had been admitted to NATO.
Having Ukrainian Nazis shoot at Russian Commies, and Ruusian Commies shoot at Ukrainian Nazis, sounds like a good plan to me. If Russia decides to get bled out in Ukraine while also scaring other NATO countries to look after their own defence, also seems good to me.
That Joe Biden has always wanted to be seen as a slick operator rather than the clumsy bully he always has been is a problem, and not one that can be fixrd until 2024.
'Am I the only one reading Rice while thinking, I really don't want to hear another word from these focking neocons. They've done enough damage to the USA'
My exact thought with more creative sweating...
"Turns out Obama is probably a war criminal too. And his money grubbing side kick White Biden."
Yes.
“He believes deeply that Russian man is prepared to sacrifice himself for an idea, whereas Western man likes success and comfort.”
He is right (and I include myself here as a Western man, even though I'm not). Luckily he is not facing Western men, Ukraine is not really Western, even though its Western parts are (Greek) Catholic.
If he tried this on a Western European country, it would have probably already surrendered in a week.
This is a very substantial article, and there are some excellent photographs — Putin scaring Angel Merkel with a dog
That sound you hear. It's an angel getting its merkin.
"These people simply have no idea how international it was."
This is true to some extent, but not entirely. All the non-Russian Soviet republics had Russians in their leadership, not the other way around. The children of non-Russians had to learn Russian in school much more than the other way around, even if they lived in the non-Russian republics. Non-Russian nationalists within the Communist Party were purged or thrown out (with exceptions, like Uzbekistan I think). And all these people and all the personalities you mentioned (Dzerzhinsky, Stalin, Khrushchev) were russified.
Yes, it is true that the Russian people suffered greatly as well, but those who survived the civil war and the purges were the main beneficiaries of the Soviet Union.
"The temptation of the West for Putin was, I think, chiefly that he saw it as instrumental to building a great Russia. He was always obsessed with the 25 million Russians trapped outside Mother Russia by the breakup of the Soviet Union. "
They weren't trapped, they were gleefully free of the shithole Russia.
Any of them who wanted to "come back to Mother Russia" could have.
[Putin] was the first to call President Bush after 9/11 [and] an important potential ally in what came to be called the Global War on Terror. It meshed with his own war in Chechnya and with a tendency to see himself as part of a civilizational battle on behalf of Christianity
Except:
These Yankees had “humiliated us, put us in second position,” Mr. Putin told him.
No, Russia being a shithole country is what put them in "second position".
But Putin's not willing to accept that, which is why he was never an ally of the US in the Global War on Terror, despite the fact that doing so was in Russia's rational best interests.
Because it wasn't in the "best interests" of re-creating the USSR as the "Greater Russian Empire", with Putin as Emperor.
Putin is our enemy. Putin always will be our enemy. This is not because we've done anything wrong, but just because we keep Putin from being able to enslave those around him.
Well, yes, all the SSRs in the USSR were equal, but everyone knew Russia was a whole lot more equal. Viewing the USSR as the successor state to the Russian Empire seems a far better fit than assuming the USSR's leadership actually believed all that idealistic junk about International Communism. Especially after Stalin's purge of the Old Bolsheviks.
“He was always obsessed with the 25 million Russians trapped outside Mother Russia... by the breakup of the Soviet Union.”
And does he also realize that the reason so many of these Russians are outside Mother Russia is because Stalin moved them there- for the purpose of diluting those non-Russian nationalisms that had been trapped within the Russian (and then Soviet) Empire?
tim in vermont said...
Are they being installed in power and armed with my tax dollars in my name?
We're not installing anyone in power, we simply trying to keep Putin from conquering it.
Which is a position that, which I can see a patriotic American saying "that's not worth my time", I can't see an actual patriotic American upset at keeping Putin from conquering another country.
Which appears to be your position.
"But Putin...was never an ally of the US in the Global War on Terror, despite the fact that doing so was in Russia's rational best interests."
America's "Global War of Terror" was a fraud, an incredibly wasteful fraud, an obscene squandering of lives and money. It was a perfect example of what the CIA calls "blowback," a result of our violent global chess playing from decades ago.
MB,
Regarding Russian language, it was universal language over the whole USSR. The simplest explanation is it was inherited from old Russian empire. It cannot be considered as proof of Russian hegemony. For example, the English is universal language of global communications. Is it due at least in part to British hegemony in the world 200 years ago? May be, but British empire has long ceased to exist.
Any overt nationalists were purged from KPSS, Russian or non-Russian.
Nationalism was considered atavistic relic of the past by Communists, standing “in the way of History”. That is why they treated it so cynically.
For example, take Crimea. Recent events show that Russians care deeply about Crimea. If USSR was run for the benefit of the Russians, why would they give Crimea away to Ukraine in 1950s?
Caligula said...
“Well, yes, all the SSRs in the USSR were equal, but everyone knew Russia was a whole lot more equal. Viewing the USSR as the successor state to the Russian Empire seems a far better fit…”
Far better fit with what?
Greg The Class Traitor said...
“…we simply trying to keep Putin from conquering it.”
Other than poisoning the discourse here, what else have you done for Ukraine?
Douglas B. Levene,
I’d like to point out that the dog that Putin brought in to scare Merkel appears to be a slightly overweight, very sweet black lab. Not the dog I’d figure Putin to have.
I agree. A guy wanting to scare someone (Merkel, fwiw, looks not in the least scared) would have a Dobie or a Rottweiler or a freakin' mastiff. I wasn't thinking "slightly overweight," but rather "preggers" (you can see some teats), but anyway, a Black Lab is about the friendliest dog on earth short of a Golden Retriever.
Mariupol seems to have fallen, so the Nazi question is settled.
Dear Candide,
"May be, but British empire has long ceased to exist."
However, the Russian empire didn't. For example: Soviet Russia's annexation of Ukraine and the Caucasian republics, its armed attempts to regain Poland and Finland (all before the Soviet Union came into being), or the Eastern European sphere of influence claimed by Stalin in his deal with Hitler, are pretty clearly based on their feeling of entitlement to the territory of the former Russian empire, though the overlap is not exact.
You are right, however, that the overt expression of Russian nationalism went through phases in the Soviet Union, it was not constant. Lenin despised Russian nationalism, Stalin encouraged it, under Khrushchev there was a relaxation for the other nationalities, Brezhnev encouraged Russian nationalism again.
Stalin's anthem had a verse about "great Russia". Movies were made about Russia's glorious past. Russian nationalism was certainly encouraged, unlike the other peoples' nationalism, which was repressed.
The British Empire still exists, but has move its headquarters to Washington, DC. This kind of stuff happened with Rome and Ancient Greece.
Hey look, Cookie is back!
Are you still claiming that in 1967, one year into the Cultural Revolution, the US was the greatest source of violence in the world?
Candide said...
For example, take Crimea. Recent events show that Russians care deeply about Crimea.
Bullshit
Recent event show that Putin cares a great deal about the Crimea.
Could you point us to teh huge groundswell of Russians joining the Army so they can "conquer Crimea for Russia"?
If USSR was run for the benefit of the Russians, why would they give Crimea away to Ukraine in 1950s?
1: Because geographically Crimea is part of Ukraine?
2: Because they all knew the idea of the Ukraine SSR being anything other than a satrapy of the Russian controlled USSR was delusional fantasy whose only purpose was to rope in dupes like you?
In USSR were three types of people.
1. Those who spoke Russian, Polish (etc.), and Yiddish were Rootless Cosmopolitans.
2. Those who spoke Russian and Estonian (etc.) were Bourgeois Nationalists.
3. Those who spoke Russian were Good Internationalists.
Dear MB,
Stalin did not encourage Russian nationalism, he exploited it to beat Hitler.
Those were different times, different ideologies. You have to remember the basic Communist maxim of ‘abolition of the state’. They really believed that. They believed so hard, they created the most oppressive state in history to abolish the concept of ‘the state’. Yes, Marxism/Communism has all the symptoms of acute mental disorder, but it ran over the world. Anyway, they proceeded to use Russia both to destroy the traditional nation state and create a springboard to expand the Communist revolution over the whole world. Russian culture was purposefully destroyed, churches were dynamited, traditional way of life was ruthlessly uprooted. Then came the turn of other provinces of old Russian empire, that briefly became independent states during Civil war. Caucasian states, that had vibrant Socialist parties were strong-armed into USSR by Stalin, Ordzhonikidze (Georgians) and Mikoian (Armenian). Ukraine was taken over by Poland, so they attacked Poland and almost have taken it. They were beaten back just outside Warszaw. Defeat in Poland seemed to produce a major revision in Communist policies. They really believed that they were unstoppable, that they were destined to remake the old world. After Polish fiasco they abandoned the cause of immediate World revolution and concentrated on building Socialism in a ‘separately taken country’ (exact phraseology).
So they were building Socialist paradise for about 20 years (including Holodomor and other atrocities) and suddenly found themselves face to face with Nazi Germany, implacable foe that clearly stated to take their lands and subjugate their people. So the Communists forgot all about World revolutions and desperately appealed to Russian national feelings to resist the Nazi aggressors. As soon as the WW2 was over they started cracking down on nationalism again, but not so hard this time.
After that was a long period of tug-of-war between Communism and Nationalism (not just Russian but all the nations subjugated under USSR). Finally, USSR collapsed but we are still dealing with the aftermath of its existence, such as border disputes between Ukraine and Russia.
Dear Candide,
I agree with much of what you wrote, but it does not contradict what I wrote. Russian communists were never persecuted for their ethnicity in the Soviet Union, though they may have been criticized in theory, but pretty much all the other important nationalities' communists were purged on ethnic grounds at some point.
Russian communists were in on the ground floor and benefitted from it.
Whether the people as a whole benefitted or not is another question. Surely the Russian people was a victim of communism more than anybody else, except the Chinese. At the same time, Russians had a privileged position within the USSR. The Russian people was considered the "elder brother". I'll go even further: they had a better position than under the Russian empire, where probably ethnic Germans were the most advantaged. In the USSR, Russians were the most advantaged.
Or maybe this is a question about the burden of empire: is empire worth it? It imposes a drain on the people and distorts the economy. I still think Russia benefitted from having an empire, just like all countries in history that had an empire, even though at times it may not be clear.
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