"...Soviet bastards have destroyed Russia"

Despite being absolutely fed up with graduate school, I somehow still enjoy the subject of early Soviet print culture. One of the reasons for my resilience (!) is the fact that I occasionally come across gems like the following:

“In your journal you mock the Tsarist ministers and the Tsar in such a way that you show your stupidity. You have done nothing in the past ten years to show your intelligence. What good, and for whom, has the Soviet power brought? Industry has dropped to nothing. Unemployment has increased by 100%. We workers were never without fish in Astrakhan’, and now we don’t see it anymore. Where did the fish go, dear comrades? Where is the gold of Russia? All the workers know that Soviet bastards have destroyed Russia. You show in your journal that the Tsar’s ministers drank a lot, but at least they were doing their job. Now everyone drinks and steals and does nothing. Everywhere they sit in other peoples’ places...Dear comrades, you should learn from the bourgeoisie, not mock them...I ask you to print this letter in your magazine. It is of greater interest than all your caricatures. Our Moscow workers will read it with pleasure.” (Astrakhan’ workers, a letter to Gudok newspaper, Apr-1927)

(Jennifer Clibbon, The Soviet Press and Grass-roots Organization: The Rabkor Movement, NEP to the First Five-Year Plan (PhD thesis, University of Toronto manuscripts, 1993). Emphasis -- mine.)

This letter shouldn't come as a surprise to other "junior scholars" (pardon the pretentiousness) in modern Russian history. However, I think it is important to demonstrate things like this to my fellow alternative right-wingers, as it shows dissent amongst the lower social echelons within the first years of the Bolshevik regime.

Former Soviet "borderlands"

This week I came across (purely accidentally) an interview conducted by Dominika Cosic with a Russian political scientist and Putin's advisor Gleb Pavlovsky for Wprost.

Not surprisingly, the interviewer brought up Belorus. While it is customary to bash Lukaschenko, Pavlovsky mentioned a crucial point: Belorus' economy has been steadily growing by 5% annually, not due to the expected export of natural resources (as in the case of Russia), but via the manufacturing and services industries! He admitted that the main receptacle of Belorussian exports is Russia, however this is partially based on the fact that the rest of Europe had decided to ostracize Belorus for ideological reasons and left it without much choice. He then expectedly warned against American/W. European democrazy exportation (as in the case of Ukraine election funding or even Iraq) and underscored the small respresentability of the new Belorussian opposition.

More important, Pavlovsky then emphasized the emotionality, which characterizes the current Polish foreign policy towards Russia (throughout the Kwasnievski / Putin rule), in contrast to the Walesa / Yeltsin period. He demonstrated this via maintained stereotype-based anti-Russian attitude in the Polish press, whereas Russia has no such anti-Polish attitudes.

This emotionality particularly affects the issue of the planned Russo-German gas pipeline: he explained that the pipeline is not a method of political circumscription (this is not the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, part II!), but a result of sober decisions with economic gain in mind, in which Poland is not even in question - for better or for worse.

The second issue that Pavlovsky attributed to irrationally driven foreign policy is the Katyn question and the current halt in the investigation procedures. He reminded the interviewer that Yeltsin already officially apologized for this particular example of Stalin's brutality - should every consecutive Russian leader be obliged to do the same? Historic tolerance is an essential democratic tool, and Kwasniewski initiated the ongoing faux pas.

Pavlovsky concluded that the current Russo-Polish relationship is classified by a vacuum, which explains the unnecessarily extended focus on the recent incident of the Russian teenagers' beatings in Poland / Polish diplomats' and journalists' beatings in Russia. If real issues are to be resolved, then two-sided discussions are more productive than historic grievances!

"America, f*ck yeah!" and Soviet "imperialism" in Central Asia

Less than 48 hours in the historic parts of the north-eastern US on the weekend, 20+ of which were spent on the road: a shameful lack of time to reassure one's (okay, mine!) "culturedness". At least my kultness had been proven more than adequate!

In addition to the landscape (though not quite as gorgeous a drive (I should say "ride", not "drive", as I drive rarely, period) through Wisconsin), I was yet again impressed by American patriotism. Almost every car sported stickers, most commonly and expectedly the "support our troops" kind and of course, flags - a lot of flags. The only time I see such numbers of patriotic memorabilia here in Canada is on Canada day and on Canada day only. In fact, at any given time I notice more "gay pride" insignia.

This simple observation reassured my preference for the American model of immigration, for example, as opposed to that of Canada - we all remember our junior high social studies classes and being taught (if this sort of thing can even qualify for being educational) that Canada exceeds the US because it has a cultural "mosaic" and integration, as opposed to the American "melting pot" and assimilation. It should be noted that both of these North American countries regretably prefer pop instead of time-tested culture, what little of it these youngsters do have in comparison to mother Europe. At least in the case of the US, however, beer and mindless mass (often sporting and/or hyperrealistic) spectacles of choice are supplemented by a greater sense of unity and national allegiance than what we see in the Babylonian city of Toronto.

On the way back from "America, f*ck yeah!" I finally finished Chingiz Aitmatov's (a Kyrgyz author) errr.....Executioner's Block - I have no idea how else to translate the title of this late Soviet novel into English. My mother bought it for me along with his other best seller when she visited me here in May, because it seemed like I had read just about everything worth reading offered in the local Russian bookstore we visited. I was not familiar with this author, and frankly the novel was just above mediocre, although its ending would make a great Hollywood flick. I was particularly annoyed by the Bulgakovesque (I am aware of the fact that he is not the only author to have done this, but at least he was the best) inclusion of a thematic "time warp" back to the mental torment of Pontius Pilate after his decision in regards to Christ.

The reason I mention this, other than to rant about the fact that I used to read a book a week back in the good old days, is the fact that I have just come across an interview with Aitmatov in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Apparently he now resides in Brussels and plays quite the diplomat. I was intrigued by his praise of Russian/Soviet "imperialism" and the benefits that it brought to the former Soviet asiatic republics - a breath of fresh air in contrast to the bullsh*t we have been fed for the past two years by the simpleton Western media like the Washington Post and such (re: Georgia, Ukraine vs Russia). His frank late Soviet nostalgia likewise reminded me of my own plight. In the case of the younger generation, however, this nostalgia is doubled- mourning the loss and the inability to experience this loss to a fuller extent.