Svetlana Alexievich, Secondhand Time: The last of the Soviets, an oral history, Random House 2016. -better to forget the bad past. -Perestroika wasn’t created by the people, it was created by a single person and handful of intellectuals -before i hated money. I didn’t know what it was, considere...
Russia has always fascinated me--the mystical orthodox faith brought to Kievan Rus in the ninth century, the stern heroes who defended Muscovy against the Golden Horde in the 13--15th centuries, the vast spaces, the remarkable literature of Pushkin and Tolstoy, the Bolshevik Revolution against imperialism ... The West has always been a bit jealous of its proud race of genius.
I fell in love with Russia as a teen when I discovered Prokofieff and insisted--rebelling against my teacher--on playing his fiendishly difficult Toccata in D minor for my Conservatory diploma. I have no idea how I managed it now, but I did, and the piece and my performance proved to be a fine metaphor for the logically impossibility of 20th century Russia, which lived on war and revolution, dreams and nightmares. Prokofieff returned to Russia in 1933, at the peak of Stalin's repressions, and produced his greatest works, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, War and Peace, his war sonatas (not to mention his Ode to Stalin). That hooked me.
Today's standoff between the Russian bear and the American eagle is yet another epic struggle in Russia's history, at the heart of Eurasia--the world's "heartland". It had a narrow brush with complete collapse in 1985--98 under Gorbachev/ Yeltsin, a weak, indecisive leadership, a metaphorical reenactment of Boris Godunov seizing the throne in the 16th century. 1985--98 was a repetition of Godunov and the legendary Time of Troubles.
Perestroika is like an airplane that takes off without knowing where it will land. (Bondarev)
Reading Taubman’s exhaustive biography of Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, I was rivetted time and again, marvelling (as did Shultz and everyone who cared): how did this guy get from collective farm winner of the Red Banner of Labour to the top? My first question in reading a bio is ‘would I like to have this person as a friend?’, then ‘would I like to be him?’ Gorbachev gets a firm Nyet on both. But he’s important and pleasant, and this 700-page bio is full of real characters acting out a drama of Shakespearian dimensions.
Review of Bill Browder, Red Notice: A true story of high finance, murder, and one man’s fight for justice, Simon & Schuster, 2015.
‘Red notice’ is the catch phrase for an interpol arrest warrant. There is sort-of one out on Browder, accused by the Russian government of tax fraud, though only Spain briefly acted on it in May 2018 before releasing him, saying it was a political case. Browder, our speculator-hero, who made and spirited out of Russia hundreds of millions, compares his last flight from Moscow to London in November 2005 as “like those who had narrowly escaped Phnom Penh or Saigon before their countries fell into chaos and ruin.”
Here as elsewhere his memoirs full of incongruencies, though occasionally hitting a bull’s eye. Phnom Penh was indeed descending into chaos in 1973, but Saigon’s legendary ‘last helicopter’ moment was not a descent into chaos, but a liberation from the chaos of American invasion, that killed millions and devastated Vietnam over two decades.
And Moscow in 2005 was finally beginning to look like a normal country after 15 years of ‘chaos and ruin’, thanks, not to the western briefcase crowd, but to a large extent to Browder’s nemesis, the now legendary Putin. Putin is the star in history books; self-styled ‘human rights’ activists like Browder, mere footnotes.
Browder is the grandson of the CPUSA leader in the 1930s--40s, Earl Browder,
Putin is either an aggressive schemer, to be opposed and vilified at all costs, or a wise, restrained real-politician, balanced irreconcilable forces next door. Which is it?Page 2 of 15
