Letters to the Editor
-
as long as we're talking 'bout drunks
Let's give a shout out to old Sir John A MacDonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. That old Scotsman was such a drunk that once during question period, and drunk of course, he responded thusly to a question from the Official Opposition (and I paraphrase) "Dear Sir, your position is so offensive that it makes me ill" and then proceeded to vomit in the House of Commons.
now THAT is one blessed drunk of a leader!
(as for Yeltsin, that last story about demanding pizza? Well who on earth could read that story and not love him just a little bit more??)
-
Two great DVDs for a Yeltsin Era Memorial Film Festival
"Spinning Boris," made for Showtime, and "Tycoon," directed by Pavel Loungine, who also did "Taxi Blues," which took place during Perestroika.
"Tycoon" is loosely based on the rise and fall of oligarch Boris Beresovsky, the exiled billionaire who paid Alexander Litvinenko to write "Blowing Up Russia."
This movie is said to lay out the details of why Beresovsky and Putin have hated each other so much for so long. Cherchez la femme, so to speak.
Some of the characters in "Spinning Boris" also appear in "Tycoon," but the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Dick Morris and Bill Clinton probably would NOT enjoy attending this little film festival, by the way.
-
Westerners Never Understood So Called Glasnost
I was a citizen of the former USSR. A child when Khrushchev came to power, I grew up during the Brezhnev era. Married to a foreigner, I was called an enemy of the people, unworthy of the working class. My hometown was surrounded by tanks during the coup where I was under de facto arrest waiting for an order to arrest those who were "un-Soviet". My "shadow" told me handcuffs and the gulag were waiting for me.
The Western love affair with Gorbachev is highly misplaced. After the corruption and drunkenness of the Brezhnev era, where policies of alcohol were encouraged and criminals grew rich running illegal second shifts at factories (with party members taking their cut to look the other way), where oil revenues could no longer hide our inefficient economy, where work was considered a punishment, a policy was developed to ensure communist hegemony would remain unfettered. The playbook was stolen from the so called Khrushchev “thaw” policy, right down to a peasant whose accent grated the ears of every Soviet citizen.
Sorry to say but despite the beliefs of gullible Westerners, there was no true “openness” during so called “glasnost’”. Yes, corrupt low level party members were disciplined or expelled, but this didn't extend to the obkom. All photo ops of Gorbachev speaking to the “masses” were staged, as all Soviets knew, solely by the obkom clothing style. The party was so out of touch with how the average person lived they didn’t even recognize this faux pas in their propaganda campaign.
Files on those who were not “communist” enough continued to be compiled during Gorbachev’s time in office. Like mine, their names were on arrest lists for the planned crackdown.
Your hero Gorbachev ordered the distribution of Chernobyl’ tainted meat to areas across the USSR. One part radiated meat mixed with nine parts “clean”. Shops in Siberia which hadn’t seen meat in years saw fresh sausages for months. Gorbachev ordered Alpha units to quell unrest in Georgia and Lithuania, where protestors were beaten to death with clubs. Gorbachev was instrumental in Yeltsin’s expulsion from the CPSU, as even during so called “glasnost’”, Yeltsin believed in change. This is the “true face” of the darling of the Western media.
Yeltsin exposed the perks of obkom members, the special stores, the servants. Things many naïve Soviets were unaware of. He demanded change all the way to the party level. Of course, this was too much for the Soviet nomenklatura to accept. Hence his expulsion and the assassination attempts.
I remember the day the coup happened. Our apartment radio, always on in the kitchen and tuned to Moscow, played only classical music. No news. No commentators. The television stations were dead. Absolutely no information.
It was because Yeltsin, by then president of the RSFSR, controlled the RSFSR KGB and media that the coup failed. The RSFSR KGB refused to follow CPSU orders. They refused to carry out arrests. Media communications in Moscow were not cut. Yeltsin asked Muscovites to take to the streets and protest. They did this. For Yeltsin and for Russia. Yes, it is true Alpha units refused to follow orders on a Moscow clampdown. But the army did not. Yet, in the face of protests, they did not kill Muscovites.
Within two weeks of the failure of the coup, I was granted an exit visa, which I had been seeking for almost a decade, and joined my spouse in the West.
It is because of Yeltsin that I am alive today. It is because of Yeltsin and Muscovites that my former country collapsed.
I will light a candle for Boris Nikolayevich on Sunday. May his soul rest in peace.
-
On the other hand, sharovik, maybe you're lucky that you left
The good side of Yeltsin created the situation that allowed you to get out.
If you'd stayed you could have ended up a casualty of Yeltsin's bad side, in the war between his drinking buddies competing to carve up state property for themselves.
If those people suspected you of disloyalty, they didn't arrest you, they just planted a bomb underneath your car and waited for you to drive away.
-
The More Things Change . . .
What makes you think things were any different under communism? If one ended up on the wrong side of the party, life was no picnic. In the "worker's paradise", I for years could not find a permanent job because I refused to join the komsomol. Destruction was much more subtle under communism. You were surrounded by snitches until you made a mistake and were arrested. I had friends who left my city, moving to small villages in other republics where they would not be hunted. No bombs, but you could lose your apartment, your car, your job, your children would not get a place in any school. You would be called in for questioning and beaten.
Is it better to be dead or live in fear?
There is no evidence Yeltsin personally profited from privatization. His daughter and son in law did. The oligarchs were not Yeltsin's "drinking buddies" but they did have unfettered access to him.
Yes, Yeltsin made mistakes. But he didn't make them alone. Lots of advisors, still active in Russian politics, devloped these policies. Even Western advisors had a hand in rapid privatiztion of the economy, and made millions on the Russian stock market. Also, during most of Yeltsin's presidency, he was fighting communists in the Duma, who wanted to recreate the USSR.