The future is History

Tags

Alt-Right, China, history, Masha Gessen, Putin, Russia, Trump, USA, USSR

A strange title for a book, The Future is History, remember in 1989 we were told that history had ended because the Cold War had ended and Communism was defeated. Rather naive to believe that then, it was merely a re-ordering of politics. In this book, the author attracts our attention to her thesis or her reality that Russian history today is a simple repetition of what happened in the XXth Century Soviet Union with a hiatus between 1989-1999.

This is the latest book I am reading, the author Masha Gessen, a Russian citizen, journalist and author, born in Moscow in 1967 and living now in New York City.

In The Future is History Masha Gessen follows the lives of four Russians, born as the Soviet Union crumbled, at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children or grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own – as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths not only against the machinations of the regime that would seek to crush them all (censorship, intimidation, violence) but also against the war it waged on understanding itself, ensuring the unobstructed emergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state under Vladimir Putin.

She makes the distinction in her book between Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism, the two words are different in political terms.  The first is about the rule of one person through personal authority (dictatorship) but devoid of ideology, i.e. Chile under Pinochet, Spain under Franco, Greece under the Colonels, Germany under Hitler, the dictator rules using terror and violence on the masses to enforce compliance. In the case of the Nazi dictatorship, Gessen explains that Nazism was not so much an ideology it was terror used to silence anyone opposing the regime, a regime which borrowed its ideas from the writings of the dictator like the one on racial superiority but overall maintained itself in power by terror and nothing else.  Where Totalitarianism is dominated by Ideology, the Bolcheviks and Lenin used terror but justified it with the ideology of class warfare as described by Karl Marx an ideology which proclaimed world revolution by the workers against other classes. The Communist party then constantly tweaked the ideology to maintain itself in power.  Stalin and Mao proclaimed the exclusive authority of the Communist Party as the only correct ideological source for their society. Stalin then tried to impose this model on other countries after 1945 in Eastern Europe and Mao did the same in Asia in Tibet, Cambodia, Mongolia, North Korea etc. it continues today in China.  Gessen tells us in her book that since 1999 under Putin, Russia is returning to the good old ways of the Soviet Union but under a new guise. It would be too crude now to reimpose a Soviet model, so Putin instead has married the nostalgia for the Czarist regime, the Supremacy of the Orthodox Church with the Totalitarian ideal of the Soviet regime which gives stability Russians crave. Giving us a new Czar Putin who unites factions within his authority and glorifies the exceptional nature of Russia in an ideology of nationalism which echoes the old glories of Imperial Russia. What Gessen is also showing us is how Russia never was a democracy and had no democratic institutions, the Russian knew Imperial orthodoxy under an absolute ruler with the Russian Orthodox Church as co-ruler then they simply moved into a new system aping the old with the Bolchevik and then Communism.

It’s a fascinating book, a great read and explains a lot about Russia and Putin today. With the gradual withdrawal of the USA from the World stage, an inept President who is too intellectually lazy to understand how the USA is simply being eclipsed, Russia is stepping into the void like China is doing and they are not losing time.

But Gessen in her book also shows us the danger of a population who is willing to give up on a more inclusive open form of society and government for the security of stability at all cost. In a way she is saying that we in the West are also at risk. Countries like Poland and Hungary are falling back into the old ways. The rise of the Alt-Right and Christian-Conservative movements in the USA with a President who shows openly his contempt for the Constitution puts the USA on a similar path. A good read and one that makes you think about what is going on around us.

 

Advertisements

the long slide

Tags

China, G-7, Putin, Russia, Syria, Trump, USA, war

You know the expression it is a slippery slope, a few months ago I was reading a book by Austrian author, journalist, poet, historian Stefan Sweig, 1881-1942. The book was entitled The World of Yesterday, it tells the story of life in Europe prior to the First World War 1914-1918, a world ruled by Emperors, Kings and old Empires, genteel and elegant, a world vanished by 1919, replaced by a frantic and disillusioned Europe gripped by economic chaos, revolutions, violence and hate, preparing itself for an even greater disaster the rise of Fascism and the Second World War 1939-1945.

The events of the last week makes me wonder if the world has not lost it’s mind. We learned that the Great Barrier Reef off Australia is now dead, a terrible ecological disaster with grave consequences. We have been warned for decades that this was going to happen if nothing was done, well nothing was done, no one cared and here are the results.

A passenger on a flight beaten by security goons in Chicago in what I call the Airport Security Circus, an airline unable to apologize and admit its fault. Only after a Public Relation nightmare did the CEO of United finally apologize. But what does that say about the world we live in, no one is safe now, Corporations use the police to beat people with impunity. In Canada our Minister of Transport in Parliament announces new security measures at airports, when asked during Question Period what they are, he refuses to answer stating Security reasons and State Secret to justify his non answer.

In Syria more atrocities, gas used on civilian population, a clear crime against humanity. In fact the use of gas or chemicals is strictly forbidden under International Law for civilians and military. In response US President Trump bombs an empty air base, provoking a strong warning from Russia, not to cross that line again because they will retaliate against the USA. China also condemns the USA the day the Chinese President leaves Mar-a-Lago after his visit with Trump. Secretary of State Tillerson is unable to get the G-7 countries to back more sanctions against Russia despite Canada and the UK support. Tillerson uses un-diplomatic language calling the Russian incompetent in controlling their ally Syria. Tillerson is to visit Moscow on Wednesday 12 April, what will that achieve and for what purpose?

War ships are being sent to the China Sea to threaten North Korea over the ballistic Nuclear weapons dispute. South Korean government is so worried that Trump will launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea that it has to reassure its own people that a military strike won’t happen. Trump finally tells China that if they do nothing about North Korea he will retaliate militarily, however if the Chinese cooperate they might get economic concessions, such talk angers the Chinese.  So an erratic American Foreign Policy seems  to be the way Trump wants to play this game, which is confusing to all and dangerous.

Wars are started on pretext and incidents usually after an escalation of rhetoric. Russia will not be impressed nor bullied by the USA and China can flex its own muscle to harm the economic interests of the USA.

Like many now I am worried about war and the behaviour of this President who fails to appreciate that World politics is complex and delicate. Russia may very well call Trump’s bluff and he will loose face. China has, through its official newspaper The People’s Daily already ridiculed Trump. It looks like a new Cold War but without the old reserve and careful maneuvering of the past.

Events in the World

Tags

Assad, Canada., Iran, Iraq, morality, Russia, Syria, Turkey, USA, war

The deadly Sarin gas attack on a town in Syria got the world’s attention with the publication by the Media of bodies of dead children frozen in a death pose. Immediately everywhere comments on how shameful it is and we must stop this war. Why is nothing being done, we will be held accountable and we should be ashamed, etc.

The use of the word ”They” comes  back a lot in comments, but who is they? Everyone wants to stop this war, but how? We must intervene, we must protest, again who is ”We”. Those making such comments are probably expressing honest feelings of disgust at such scenes. Hopefully many realize that a solution is not being pursued by the great powers, USA, Russia or China and other regional powers like Turkey and Iran are looking for political advantage. Israel is keeping quiet, this war is a good thing politically, Lebanon and Jordan are hoping not to be destabilize by the conflict on their doorstep. Iraq has its own problem trying to get rid of ISIS on its territory and is making progress at great civilian cost.

This Syrian Civil War is not about to end quickly, it has now been 6 years of indiscriminate killings, civilians are always caught in between, hostage to various armed groups. The casualties are by far civilians, war today has been escalated to levels of uncivilized barbarity seen centuries ago but thought to have disappeared with the modern age, well that was just a fiction.

To stop this war there would have to be an agreement by various rebel groups and governments to stop all fighting, ISIS would have to be neutralized and destroyed, finally the super powers, USA, Russia and China would have to agree to look for a solution which would not favour essentially their political interests. We all know that is not going to happen, this is not how powers operate today or in the past. War is about gaining an advantage on your opponents and to hell with the cost. Politicians are willing to sacrifice their own army, people, and as for the opponents or in this case the Syrians well they simply don’t count and if they have to die, well so be it, political, commercial and regional domination is far more important.

Obviously our politicians cannot speak the truth on what they want to achieve the good people they govern would not understand. So here in Canada our Prime Minister read a prepared statement in the House of Commons yesterday about the gas attack in Syria, it was rather surprising that he could not speak off the cuff clearly and express his feelings and opinion on the matter, well he had other things to think about like appearing today at the UN in New York to lobby for a Seat for Canada at the Security Council. Our Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said this attack was unacceptable and went on to speak as a mother of small children. Fine but what can Canada do in this case? We are not a super power and we are on the margins in the region, have always been. We have neither the military capacity nor is there any stomach in Canada to get more involved, the cost alone would anger many.

The situation in Syria and the region is a complex one and an old one, the root of the conflict is at least 100 years old. It all started with Britain and France plotting to destroy the Ottoman Turkish Empire that ruled the area for 500 years and turn it into a colonial outposts for their profit. In the 1930’s with the rise of Fascism in Europe and the growing power of the Soviet Union, destabilization of the area was the main game.

With the start of the Second World War, the Soviets played on the unhappiness of the population in the area under British and French Colonial rule to sow the idea of independence. The end of the war in 1945 saw a collapse of British and French Colonial power, replaced by a new super power the USA. In the 1950’s with the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and the overthrown of the Monarchy, the Soviets gave full support to his Pan-Arab Socialist Movement, Syria was an easy target, Iraq another one where in a violent coup the Royal Family was massacre in 1958 and a group of military officer took over. The population in these countries were nothing more than pawns, serving the interests of either Soviet Russia or the USA. The whole region from Iran to Egypt and including the Levant was a big chess game between the USA and Soviets, oil played a part but many countries did not have significant oil deposit but they had strategic military importance.

Both the USA and Soviet Union encourage coups and wars in the region, often arming and paying various groups to push by proxy their agenda.

Massacres in Iraq by the late Saddam Hussein of his own countrymen with mustard or sarin gas was done in the 1990’s. In Syria Hafez Al-Assad the father of the current President Bashar, used his army to raze to the ground entire villages killing all who oppose or simply thought of opposing him in the 1980’s. His secret police and their prisons were feared by all. What we see now is just a continuation of the same.

Could politicians suggest we send our soldiers to fight on the ground there? No, in Canada our Prime Minister has been clear that he is looking for other ways to help. We are waiting 2 years after he came to power for his ideas on the matter. We withdrew our Air Force from Iraq to save money. We did take 40,000 Syrians refugees however they were selected following very specific instructions by Cabinet on who we would take mostly Christian Armenians. Though this was done with much criticism in Canada about cost. We now also have people crossing our US Southern Border into Canada to the alarm of the communities on that border.

So as long as Russia and the USA use Syria to wage war to gain influence or retain their advantage nothing will change and there will be more horrors to come. Just this week King Abdallah of Jordan and President Al Sisi of Egypt visited the White House to ensure that their insurance policy is renewed and the USA will continue to protect them with generous financial aid in the Billions of US $$$. Iraq is also looking for protection from whoever can deliver stability. Turkey’s President Erdogan is trying to give himself dictatorial powers and Russia is willing to help him, this means Turkey would leave the military alliance of NATO to forge a closer military union with Russia. This is a surprising development when one thinks of the acrimonious relationship between Turkey and Russia for the last 500 years. But when one sees an advantage, your thinking can change, the old enemy of yesterday because a good friend.

I know many have spoken of the immorality of war, however when it comes to political question, morality makes a quick exit, there is no morality nor ethical behaviour amongst countries, only the law of the mighty. He who wins not only writes history but is always right.

But people who leave comments on News chatlines should also honestly ask themselves if they really care for the population of Syria or the region in general. Do we only care because we do not like to see pictures of dead children. Are we willing to write to our politicians and say,  Yes I am willing to pay more taxes to support a program to help Syria, Iraq, the Kurds, etc. I am willing to send my kids to war to end this conflict, I am willing to take in as many refugee as possible and help them financially, to do whatever is necessary to end these atrocities.

I am willing to bet that the answer is no to all those questions, so is human nature and our politicians know it.

Oh and let’s not forget North Korea and the nuclear question, now that is another tricky question. We do live in interesting times, a curse if you ask me.

Not for me to say

Tags

Canada., China, Inauguration, Nuclear weapon, Russia, Trump, USA, war

Well tomorrow the USA will have a new President, gloom and doom, much apprehension and despair. Fear of war and economic collapse that is what is in the news. No one knows what will happen and in my life I have seen quite a few swearing in of new Presidents starting with JFK but I do not remember anything like this in the past. There was drama as when Lyndon Johnson became President after the assassination of JFK in Dallas, Nixon’s second term, though unpopular there was no hysteria. Many were no happy with George W. Bush there was ridicule but again life went on. This time something is clearly unhinged, I deliberately did not watch or listen to much about Trump until a few days ago. It is not my country, I did not vote in this election and could not anyway, the USA is another political culture very different from ours, we have our own problems in Canada and things to worry about here. Our Prime Minister is currently on a tour of Canada stopping in many small towns to meet people here and there, people are invited to ask him questions on the spot, he has made some mistakes and maybe he is tired but twice he showed poor judgement in the way he answered questions and the Press pounced at once. He then went on do to a bizarre thing in Sherbrooke, where a women asked him a question in English and he replied in French, that did not go down well. The Conservative Party now has 15 leadership candidates, all more stupid than the next, men and women, three of them would like to be Donald Trump, no seriously, just weird.

What struck me this week, I listened briefly to the confirmation hearings, some of the questions were loaded and the candidate had to be careful not to endorse a point of view. Most answers given were not answers and the candidate showed they had an agenda. Rick Perry discovered that the Energy Dept is about nuclear matter and not oil and gas. Tillerson gave the impression that he would like a war with China, a nuclear power. DeVos though well spoken is clueless. Wilbur Ross the Commerce Secretary nominee appears ready to do a lot of harm to trade on NAFTA, which will harm many American workers whose job exist because of the Free Trade Agreement. What will happen in Canada, our economy is very well integrated with the American economy, so Ross has to be careful and I wonder if causing a lot of economic pain in Mexico is a good idea, given the number of Americans who go there on vacation or own homes.

It is all pretty sad and I have the impression that we are entering the age of Ignorance and greed something we should worry about a lot. I also worry about all those Americans, millions of them, who are likely to loose medical insurance under ACA. How can any elected official take away from Citizens something as vital as Health Care, I do not understand. Is Trump the Manchurian Candidate, is he Russia’s man. I cannot  imagine in all the movie thriller scenarios, such a plot where the American President would be the puppet of Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy would be stunned.  Well we will have to wait and see. But I will not pass judgement or give out an opinion on what is happening South of the border, it is not for me to say.

  The Embassy of Canada entrance 501 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. the inaugural parade will pass in front of our Embassy. 

Books I am reading

Tags

Beria, France, Louis XVI, Russia, Stalin, Stefan Zweig, USSR

Well I am finishing the great big book on Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore, a lesson on why the Soviet Union collapse, it was doomed from the beginning. I remember a professor in one of my Political Science classes in University telling us that when Karl Marx wrote his book Das Kapital, he was thinking of industrial Germany not agricultural Russia. What has been depicted in movies and books as a glorious revolution by the people was in fact what we see today in Syria with ISIS. The government of the Tsar collapsed in 1917 when Nicholas II abdicates, the country is at war with Germany and all authority disappears. A group of adventurers styling themselves as revolutionaries “Bolsheviks” take over by simply killing anyone who might have been connected with the Tsarists regime. Russia then falls into a long 10 year Civil War which ends in 1928, after all opponents have been summarily shot, Lenin has died of cancer and Stalin grabs all the power for himself by shooting is old comrades and will launch purges against all manner of imaginary enemies, no one is safe, including his own family and the family of those comrades who managed not to be purged. Stalin’s wife who suffers from mental illness, shoots herself because she cannot live with this monster,  his reaction is How could she do this to me, he then proceeds to kill family members who he thinks conspired against him. Millions will die this way in an unending blood bath which will last until 1939.

So how or who is running the country, the industries, the army etc. well no one really, Stalin appoints incompetent people most of whom cannot read nor write but are Commissars in charge of everything and their first job is to shoot any worker or manager who does not produce ridiculous quotas of goods no one wants nor could use because the production is so shoddy. Famine ensues and millions die in vast areas of Russia.

As the war in Europe approaches, Stalin makes a secret pact with Hitler to divide Europe and the World. Stalin is secretly hoping that the Nazis will destroy the capitalists in France and England and will not attack Russia. He will make a more public pact to divide the world in 1945 in Yalta with Truman and Churchill, the beginning of the Cold War. Poland is sacrificed in the deal and 10% of its population will be killed, the country divided and disappear, the ultimate plan was to kill all the Poles, Stalin and Hitler hated them.

The same applies for Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.   Finland manages to save parts of its territory after a ferocious battle against the Soviets. Because of the purges of Stalin, the Soviet Army has no Senior officers in command, no modern armament, Stalin is still in favour of a 19th century style army with horses and old cannons, unable to understand that Germany has modern weapons and no one uses cavalry anymore and certainly not against tanks and machine guns. The Soviets have no planes, while Germany has a modern air fleet. The few planes Russia has are so poorly built that they are described as flying coffins. Again Stalin does not want to hear about it, his battle is against his own family, relatives and anyone he thinks might oppose him, a death sentence for many. When Hitler finally attacks Russia in 1941, in the first 48 hours despite the quickly advancing German army and aerial bombardments of cities, pleading by army officers like Zhukov to do something, Stalin refuses to believe the war is on, he thinks it is only a provocation by a lone German General, Hitler his friend would never do that to him. It is all conspirators around him who created this mess, he cannot be responsible for this disaster.

At the time of the pact with Nazi Germany, Stalin to please Hitler and later after 1945 for various reasons will purge (kill) all the Jews from the Soviet government, all of whom are committed Bolsheviks from 1905. They form a majority of all senior comrades in most government departments and in diplomacy. His henchmen is Lavrenti Beria who will outlive Stalin by one year and he himself will be arrested and shot by the new Soviet ruler Nikita Khrushchev in 1953. The master executioner was the peasant Vasily Blokhin who was in charge of all high profile execution and torture, he killed thousands and had a special squad to ensure efficiency in mass murders, he will commit suicide in 1955 after being disgraced by the new Soviet Leader.

So this is Josef V.Stalin, a Georgian peasant, who came from a dysfunctional family, poorly educated, suffering from various mental problems, his a reign of crimes, depravity and massacres against his own people, there was no communist ideal, no program, no policies, just a lot of purges of people to ensure that no one would ever topple him. Millions died at the hands of his secret police. If the purges stopped once Stalin died, the idea of a Soviet Union was forever doomed, no one, not Khrushchev, not Leonid Bhreznev, no one was able to reform the government and make social progress. Until it finally collapsed in 1989. In other words 72 years of utter misery and mismanagement, so much for the glorious revolution of the people. Problem is no one bothered to invite the people to their own revolution.

The book is well researched but after a while the reader is nauseated with the utter cruelty and nonsense of such a regime which brought nothing to Russia.

The other book I finished reading was the biography of Queen Marie-Antoinette by Stefan Zweig, a very detailed work, giving us a graphic picture, one I had not encountered before of the last 15 years of the Ancient Regime, the story of a monumental failure of the State, of an incompetent King Louis XVI and a Queen Marie-Antoinette who was unable to understand her role being a selfish, spoiled woman and the dangers around her despite many warnings. Missed opportunities at many crucial moments in history. The old Monarchy is swept away by a Bourgeois uprising again done in the name of the people and arranged or staged managed by the brother of the King, the Duke of Provence and his cousin Duke of Orleans, the problem is they (the people) are not aware of it. Only to be replaced by an Imperial regime under Napoleon I and a restoration of the same old monarchy in 1814. A Republican regime is only born in France in 1871, some 82 years later.

I am now going to read another of Stefan Zweig’s books The World of Yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This and that

Tags

Assad, carpets, Civil war, Damascus, Diana Darke, Iran, Italy, Line C Metropolitana, Line C Roma, Museums, Roma, Rome, Russia, Souk al-arwam, Syria

Have you ever noticed that if you hear Jazz on the radio the announcer always has a smoky voice. It seems that you cannot have Jazz music without that voice, it goes together and this is true of every station I have ever heard, from Radio Jordan to Catalunya Musica from Barcelona or BBC3 or Radio-Canada, etc.

I just finished reading an excellent book My house in Damascus by Diana Darke.

Diana Darke is a fluent Arabic speaker and has specialised in the Middle East for over 30 years. The owner of an old courtyard house within the walls of Old Damascus, she is well known as an authority on Syria and has written for the Sunday Times, the
Guardian, the Financial Times and the BBC. Diana Darke is the author of several guides to Syria and Eastern Turkey.

At the moment Syria is in the news everyday and Canada is taking some 25,000 refugees selected by the UNHCR, people who reside in those immense camps in Jordan. Very low risk for Canada and mostly poor people with large families who could not flee elsewhere.

Diana Darke tells the story of the house she bought in the old walled city of Damascus surrounded today by the modern city. It is an area I know well, since I went to it many times to buy my carpets from the brothers Khaled and Anas Lahham in the Souk Al-Arwam in the days under the dictator Hafez and then his son Bashar Al-Assad.

1920 photo of Souk Al-Arwam in Old Damascus. The carpet shop is or was on the left of this photo a man is standing at the entrance.

Her house was from the Ottoman Period several hundred years old and she tells the tale of her Syrian friends and how she came about to buying and renovating the house, its history, her friends and how the Civil War starting in 2011 overtook them and she had to return to Britain.

It’s a very good book and very accurate in its description of the people and their terrible situation, something very few readers will be able to grasp the full horror of a people condemn to be bystanders in their own tragedy while the political actors great and small play. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read about the ordinary human face of this civil war. I travelled and stayed in Syria many times during my 8 years in the region and while living in Jordan, I wish I could say I enjoyed my time in Syria but no, having to deal with the monumental stupidity, greed and sheer idiocy of the Baath Party and the government officials in Syria was enough to put anyone off the country.

As Diana Darke points out astutely the civil war in Syria could go on for many more years since Assad is unlikely to let go as long as Iran and Russia support him fully. Unless Iran is promised or given something they want from the USA and then they could switch camps and abandon Assad, but the prize will have to be fairly important for Tehran for this to happen. Then what will Russia do? As another observer pointed out, in Arab countries whenever there is a revolution it is always about political institutions there is never talk about enhancing or creating a new social framework and institutions.

Finally reading the Italian newspapers this news item, Line C of the Metro of Rome which has been under construction for 9 years and is 5 years late and 1 Billion Euros over budget has been shut down for gross mismanagement, 500 workers have been laid off, the City of Rome is 225 million Euros short and can no longer pay. The line will now end at the St-John Lateran Station only one third of it built. The two critical stations going by the Colosseum and down the avenue through the Roman Forums, the most archeologically sensitive area of the Eternal City will not be completed for the time being and the rest of the Line which was to go all the way to the Vatican and down to the Olympic Stadium may never be completed now since work has not started on that portion. The portion of Line C which opened last year only carries a third of the passengers it is meant to carry, the planning predictions were way off.

Another story which made headlines in this time of austerity in Italy with Museums forced to close or stay open only a few days a week, all have budget problems. How can this be with more and more tourists coming to Rome and flocking to the numerous museums?  All the money that is collected from ticket purchases, usually 12 Euros per ticket, only 30% actually goes to the Museums the rest or 70% of the profits go directly into the pocket of the company running the ticket app. online. Who allowed this to happen?  Another Roman story or farce.

None of this surprises me, this is the way things work or don’t in Italy. Some are saying, I am not kidding, where is Benito Mussolini to help us out of this mess, but I somehow doubt it. Even Il Duce would say that Italy was impossible to govern.

 

 

 

 

 

Books I am reading

Tags

Bolchevism, Fallada, Germany, Lenin, Nazism, Russia, Soviet, Stalin, terror, USSR, WWII

Recently I started two books, one was given to me by someone who came in for an interview at the Museum it is entitled Alone in Berlin, by German writer Hans Fallada (nom de plume) whose real name was Rudolf Wilhelm Adolf Ditzen (1893-1947). He was the greatest writer of the XXth century. Fallada suggests that morality under the Nazi Dictatorship was not measured by the size of the struggle; it mattered only that one did not capitulate…the very act of writing Alone in Berlin – to say nothing of the stunning political clout of the novel itself – implies that for Fallada, the artist’s true role under fascism was chiefly one of bearing witness.

The story starts in an apartment building in central Berlin where several families live. All have different economic conditions, a retired senior Judge, an old Jewess, a worker and his wife, a Nazi party family with sons in the SS, a shifty alcoholic and his prostitute wife and their 5 kids. Tragedy strikes when the worker Quangel and his wife learn by official letter of the death of their son Otto, a soldier in the German Army invading France, this death will make of them resisters, the book is dark and full of anguish and fear. The Quangel write postcards denouncing the Fuhrer and leave them around Berlin. The Gestapo and the SS embark on a hunt to find whoever is responsible and it is a game of Cat and Mouse. The reader understands that many Germans resisted the Nazi, hated them but given the politics of fear and the Police State with the constant threat of the Concentration Camp for anyone resisting or criticizing the Fuhrer, people kept their heads low. Fallada who lived through it all also explains how the Nazi regime financed itself through extortion of the public in general and Party members.

Primo Levi called this book ”the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis. I have read other books about German resistance and living conditions during the Nazi dictatorship, it has been 75 years now and more biographies and diaries are coming out, it was not a black and white picture many shades of grey and complex reality. The picture is one of a society in turmoil and we have to ask ourselves what would we do if we lived in such atmosphere where the police can arbitrarily arrest you, beat you up, kill you or send you to a concentration camp. Where the wrong word can mean a death sentence, where no one can be trusted, where no one will be foolish enough to come to your defence.

A few years ago I read two biographies entitled Purgatory of Fools and Berlin Diaries 1940-45, it was the stories of two sisters of Russian-German origin, Marie Princess Vassilchikov and Tatiana Princess Metternich. Both worked at the German Foreign Ministry as secretaries and were implicated in the attempt on Hitler’s life in 1944. They miraculously survived the war. However they do give a gripping account of the horrors under the Nazis.

The other book is about Joseph Stalin, who was not Russian but Georgian who becomes  the all powerful dictator of Soviet Russia under the Bolcheviks. Entitled Stalin, the Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It gives a psychological picture of the man and his family and entourage. It also re-establishes in reality what actually happened from 1917 onwards, removing all the romantic nonsense about the Revolution or that it was done for the people. What we see is how the people, the peasants, millions of people were starved, put to death, a country destroyed by fanaticism similar to what we see with the Taliban today. It was not the overthrow of the Tsar or the old Aristocratic Regime that was achieved, since the regime stop to exist in February 1917 by the sudden abdication of Nicholas II forced out by his cousins, a surprise to all including the Bolcheviks. No it was the fanatical pursuit of an inhumane ideology ”Bolchevism” to create the new man, a robot  basically who only thought in terms of means of production, devoid of any human feelings described as Bourgeois sentimentality.

The author Montefiore gives us a detailed psychological portrait of the people in Stalin’s entourage, few actual Russians, many were Jews who occupied top positions around him, their families, the children, their lack of education, their poverty and in the case of the Jewish colleagues the oppression they felt in Russian society. Even after the so called Revolution, Bolchevik Jews could not be promoted to senior positions because they were considered non-Russian, though non-Jews like the Armenians, Ukrainians, Abkazians, our other Ethnic groups could. Stalin will eventually get rid of all of them in his purges.

Montefiore did meticulous research much through interviews of the children now aged, and newly opened Kremlin State Archives , diaries and personal journals of who they were. We see Lenin the petit bourgeois, from a small noble family whose father was a Tsarist bureaucrat, Lenin who was absolutely convinced that in 1919 the world was going to fall into an orgy of blood and revolution, who believed that the people were with him, totally delusional. When he realized that nothing of the sort was happening, he turned to absolute violence against the very people he claimed to be wanting to free. As he said quote Change will come through total terror. Something Mao in China and Pol Pot in Cambodia years later will copy.

Trotsky the Jewish intellectual despised by all for his grandeur and aloofness, forced into exile and later assassinated in Mexico City on Stalin’s orders.

Stalin the Georgian street urchin, low birth and next to no education raised in a violent family background dominated by superstition and blood feud typical of the Mountains he came from, ready to kill for any reason. Stalin’s second wife Nadya, an unstable self-centred egoistical schizophrenic who after a party in 1932 will go to her bedroom in the Kremlin palace and shoot herself. Followed by the horrible vengeance of Stalin on his own family and all his close friends who he will blame for her death. Stalin himself is paranoid and violent, though highly intelligent and manipulative, always suspicious and ready to believe in conspiracy against him. A man who has no scrupules about exterminating, his own word, millions of innocent people simply because they do not fit into Bolchevik ideology. The mass starvation in the Ukraine where 10 million peasant died to satisfy the Five Year Plan for grain export to the rest of the Soviet Empire. The life of luxury on special trains taking the entourage and their families on vacation in the Crimea or to Sochi, the lavish banquets and constant drinking binges while the whole country is in flames gripped by a Civil War and then the purges 1936 of entire families, the old revolutionaries Stalin came to despise and fear, they knew too much. What the author shows us is that the entourage of Stalin who were rough necks of low birth and little education enabled him to become the Boss. He dominated them with his quick grasp of events. But also Stalin’s children how they did not fare very well, his first son Yakov from his first marriage, died during the Second World War a prisoner of the Germans in 1943, Stalin refused to save him for political reasons. He second son Vasily who will become a general in the Soviet Air Force drank himself to death unable to cope with such a father. Svetlana his daughter will fare a little better, but just, she will escape to the West and finally return to Russia to a life of oblivion, the crimes of her dead father followed her everywhere. The only one who appears to have done relatively well is Artyom his adoptive son who became a general and wrote two books about his adoptive father Stalin. He died in Moscow in 1981.

Lenin and others had no plan for the new promised Proletarian society, Bolchevism led to a dead end and Communism and Karl Marx mere shiny objects of little meaning used to retain absolute power over the masses. Stalin with the help of people like Beria, Molotov and others developed a State Secret Police to maintain a system of constant terror, creating the infamous Gulag. Even during the Second World War which again caught the Bolcheviks by surprised, so certain they were of their pact with Hitler to divide the world, Stalin would spy on his own troops at the Front and shoot here and there soldiers on the mere suspicion that they might not be faithful to him. He signed order 270 condemning as traitor any Soviet soldier who surrendered to the enemy or was made a POW.  Some 28 years in power and the total destruction of a society is the legacy of Stalin and his henchmen.

Stalin lived like a Tsar using Palaces and Dachas surrounding himself and his cronies with opulent luxury while the people had nothing. A sad commentary on a revolution that was not and almost 70 years of rule by one ideology. It explains a lot about Russia today and the many problems it faces. If you love history this is a great book.

Who do you support the Alexandrovich or the Vladimirovich Branch of the Family?

Tags

Canada., Holstein Gottorp, Imperial Russia, Romanov, Russia, St-Petersburg

Who would have thought that 97 years after the Russian Revolution which saw the end of the Russian Empire and downfall of the Romanov Dynasty we would be back at square one. Yes folks, believe or not the news this week from Russia is for the re-instatement of the Imperial Family on the Throne of all the Russias. This news comes from a Member of the Russian Parliament and a supporter of Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.

I know that if you took a passing interest in Russian History you would believe that according to the movie Dr. Zhivago and all other Soviet propaganda movies, the Romanovs were dead and gone, end of story, the country is now run by the little people. Well not quite, it’s complicated as they say.

It is true that the Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra and their children and servants were shot in July 1918 in Yekaterinburg at the Ipatieff House. BUT! because there is a but, the rest of the family all fled in exile, thanks to their cousins in the various Royal Houses of Europe. Many left including the mother of Tsar Nicholas on war ships sent to the Crimea by King George V of England. That is quite a few uncles and aunts and nieces, nephews, cousins etc. with their servants and the sister of the Tsar, Grand Duchess Olga who ended up in Toronto with her husband and children.

On top of that, for all their rhetoric Lenine and other revolutionaries kept everything they found in the Palaces including the personal objects left in the Ipatieff house by Tsar Nicholas and his wife and kids. All of it which includes, children’s toys, clothing, personal diaries and all manner of other personal items, preserved in vaults at the Kremlin or in other locations. It is one of those contradictions of history that is very difficult to explain. In France when the revolutionaries arrested Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette and the children, the palaces were emptied and everything that could be sold was put on the auction bloc. You can see much of it nowadays in London in museum like the Wallace Collection at Hertford House. The French would love to have it back now, too late.

The Soviets were a little more thoughtful, thinking that the people had to see what the revolution was all about and artefacts from the past was an important reminder, though ghoulish given the fate of the Tsar and his family.

So fast forward to 1990 and the fall of Communism and the collapse of Soviet Russia. First, Boris Yeltsin then President opens a special enquiry on the fate of the remains of the Tsar’s Family, will follow 10 years of DNA examination and expertise with numerous scientists in Forensic Pathology and historians. Members of the Royal Families in Europe were involved, Prince Philip who with other Princes is a close family relative gave blood for DNA matching. The results confirmed the grave site in an abandon field as those of the Tsar, his family and servants. In turn President Yeltsin arranged an elaborate State National Funeral for the Tsar and his family for their remains to be returned to St-Petersburg with a guard of Honour, 21 gun salute, broadcasted on Russian TV. He also invited the Romanov Family to come as his guests to the Cathedral in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St-Petersburg to witness the internment in a chapel amongst all the other Romanov Tsars and Grand Dukes. Many other governments also sent delegations and Queen Elizabeth II was represented by a personal family member. Suddenly the Romanovs are back in style and well the Bolcheviks and Lenin are criminals and terrorists.

Funeral Chapel and Mausoleum in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St-Petersburg. The Imperial family is interred below the floor.

Now when the Romanov family departed Russia in 1918 for various countries in Europe and Canada a deep division occurred amongst them. You had the main branch the Alexandrovich who were headed at the time by Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna who was originally a Danish Princess and widow of Tsar Alexander III father of Tsar Nicholas II.

Today the Alexandrovich branch is headed by Prince Andrew Andreyevich Romanov who lives in California and is 93 years old. He belongs like all Romanovs to a German-Danish Princely House, the Holstein-Gottorp House. There are no Russian Romanovs since the days of Tsarina Catherine II the Great who was a Prussian Princess and married the heir to the Throne of Russia, Peter III who himself was a Holstein-Gottorp. This family is linked to the Romanov by marriage and Law of Succession.

Coat of Arms of the Holstein-Gottorp Romanov Family used by the Romanov Family Association to this day.

So when the news of a possible return of the Monarchy was broadcasted on Russian news outlets and around the world the old Feud between the two branches of the family came back full force.

The other branch is the Vladimirovich Branch headed today by Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovich who also styles herself as Her Imperial Highness and Head of the Imperial House, she has a son George.

Her great grandfather Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the direct male-line patrilineal descendant of Alexander II of Russia, claimed the headship of the defunct Imperial House of Russia, and assumed the pretender title “Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russians” in 1924 when evidence that all earlier claimants had been killed was final. He was followed by his only son Vladimir Kirillovich. Vladimir’s only child, Maria Vladimirovna, is the current pretender; her only son from her marriage with Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia, George Mikhailovich, is her heir apparent, dynastically about to found a new branch Hohenzollern-Romanov, while other descendants of junior side branches of the Holstein-Gottorp-Romanovs are still living.

The Romanov Family Association, a private association of most of the remaining descendants of Emperor Paul I of Russia, makes no claim to the defunct throne, and disputes the current headship of the house. These two groups continue to have differences of opinion. Maria Vladimirovna is treated/described coldly as that other cousin of ours. Kirill Vladimirovich is seen as a traitor since he was in charge of the Regiment guarding the Alexander Palace where the Tsarina Alexandra and children lived. He deserted his post to join the revolution and make a claim for the Throne Nicholas had just vacated. By doing so he sealed the fate of the Imperial Family who were arrested.

Maria Vladimirovna has been very active by forming alliances with the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and organizing events to promote herself and her cause. She is often photographed with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and supports the Church’s agenda. She visited Pope Benedict at the Vatican, she also met with Putin and other Russian Politicians. Putin has been watching this evolving situation and what he has in mind is to use a possible restoration of the Monarchy to enhance his own position. The new Sovereign would be a titular head,  a living symbol of Russia and have a ceremonial role only. Already a suitable palace is being scouted in the St-Petersburg region, there are quite a few palaces available. President Putin has been since 2000 restoring many palaces and historical sites. A forest of Statues to former Tsars are sprouting up everywhere quickly replacing Bolchevik monuments. Always in attendance at the unveiling are members of the Romanov Family and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, on display the old Imperial Flag and of course military band to play God Save the Tsar. This reunification with the past does not stop at the Romanov it also includes all the other old aristocratic families and they too are being wooed to return to Mother Russia. The Tolstoy family has returned and now manage their old estates. The Fabergé are not aristocrats but still everyone loves their creations. Putin also offers to any Romanov Princes to be buried in Russia in the Crypt of the Grand Dukes with their ancestors. Each funeral is given an Official sanction. The Church has made the Tsar and his family Saints and Martyrs, they are now venerated. Each year on 17 July marking the date of their execution, hundreds of thousands of Pilgrim attend the special Mass for the Nicholas II and his wife and family in the new Cathedral in Yekaterinburg built on the site of their execution.

The Russian government is betting that Russians will feel a bond with the old days and since religion and ruler in Russia has always been a uniting factor this might just be the thing for Putin. Tourism wise, having a Romanov to show to the tourists is not a bad thing, look at England, it brings hard cash.  As for World Opinion, for purely sentimental reasons might just see such a return to the old ways as a softening up of that hard regime image Russia has, how bad can they be if they return the Romanov to the Throne? All is forgiven and not quite forgotten. This could be quite the game changer.

Imperial Coat of Arms used by HIH Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna.

So stay tuned folks more to come on this evolving story line.

The Pope visits Warsaw, June 1999.

Tags

Church, Curia, Greece, Jean-Paul II, Orthodox Christian, papal visits, Poland, pope, Russia, Vatican, Warsaw

Being in Poland at the time of the long pontificate of Jean-Paul II meant that he was a very central figure in the affairs of the Polish State, this despite the fact that many Polish politicians were not necessarily his fans. But being politicians they had to show proper respect and speak in code so as not to offend the powerful Polish Church and other Catholic zealots. On the other hand Lech Walensa the former leader of Solidarnosc and ex-President of Poland was not liked much in Poland which for us Canadians was always a puzzle. Was he not sort of the great man of resistance to the Communist authorities? By becoming President and siding time and again with the Church did not make him popular, for a lot of Poles it was like you replace the Communist dictatorship by a Catholic dictatorship. Walensa was also seen as a man of little education and he apparently could not speak very well in public often using slang expressions and not having enough gravitas in public. Poles preferred figures like General Josef Pilsudski (1867-1935) or Ignacy Paderewski (1860-1941) Walensa was too of the people.

In the Spring of 1999 it was announced that the Pope would come and visit Poland again, he actually came 9 times between 1979 and 2004. June was set date and an elaborate program was laid out including visits to many cities and mass rallies and all manners of public events. Considering that the Pope suffered from an advance state of Parkinson’s disease at the time, many of us wondered if he would be able to do everything. His Press Office and the Polish Catholic Church controlled the agenda and the messaging was not only optimistic but enthusiastic, yes he would go hiking in the mountains and yes he is ill but it has no impact on his daily activities. The truth was very different, the Pope was frail and many activities announced were often at the last moment modified into some other activity. But every time we were told that he had decided to change the program to cram in even more activities to please as many people as possible, it was not true of course, but the gullible public was willing to believe anything and the Polish and international press played along.

Per example there was a large monument across the street from our Embassy building and the Pope was scheduled to come and bless it. In the end the pope mobile passed by, stopped briefly, Jean Paul II raised his hand and blessed it and then simply moved on.   A small circle of people knew that his team of doctors would prepare a medical cocktail each day and would either increase or decrease certain drugs to allow him to do his program. One day the medical team over medicated him and he was unable to get out of bed. It was announced immediately that he had the 24 hour stomach flu and he needed to rest, nothing to worry about and then a series of interviews were given by specially designated Catholic spokes persons to reinforce the point that the Pope was vigorous and would continue to work from his bed directing the affairs of the church and attending to other matters. All this was a lie, in reality Jean-Paul II was not conscious and his entourage were very worried he might have to return to Rome immediately or worse be hospitalized in Poland, his condition was that serious.

The health of Popes is a little like the health of the Soviet leaders, everyone has the 24 hour flu until suddenly they are dead. Every word has to be measured and only positive or optimistic pronouncements are allowed after having been vetted by advisors and senior Cardinals who alway have an eye on the political impact of events and developments. Also Popes despite having all the necessary means at their disposals do not always have the best of medical teams. Again consideration is given to Canonical Law and Church doctrine what is allowed and not allowed or what could go against Church teachings, after all the Pope is in God’s hands, the Heavenly Father decides not us. Modern medical science plays only a side role not a primary one. Finally another element maybe more venal, all the people around him lose their positions when a Pope dies. The new Pope will have a new Court around him so if you are waiting to be created Cardinal or if you want this or that prominent post or a commission within the Curia or become bishop in some diocese, you have to make sure your cause is advanced while the Pope can still sign a decree granting your wish.

It was known that once Jean-Paul II died all the Polish prelates would go, there would be a house cleaning, though the public is never made aware of this. Though it was no secret in Rome that the Polish group was not well liked by other members of the Curia. The reason being that mixing Polish Nationalism, Nationhood, Politics and Religion mixed with, in some cases, extreme Conservative views never a good cocktail, though you find this in other countries like Orthodox Christian Russia and Greece.

Jean-Paul II wanted to visit Russia in what was described as the Spirit of Ecumenism and dialogue. The Russian Orthodox Patriarch rejected the idea of such visit for various reasons. One main reason being that the Orthodox Church does not recognize the supremacy in Christendom of the Bishop of Rome (Pope) and in this case of a Pole over a Russian and how would that play politically in the popular minds in Russia to see such a visit happen. Jean-Paul II could have visited had he taken the role of the supplicant and drop the title of Pope for that of Bishop of Rome, knowing the man this would never happen.

The rest of the June visit continued after this flu episode but the pace was more leisurely.

 

Warsaw, Poland, 1998.

Tags

Amman, Jordan, opera, Piaseczno, Poland, Russia, Saska Kepa, Soviet, Stalin, Vistula river, Warsaw

I arrived in Poland from my previous posting in Amman, Jordan, from the desert to a lush green land. The day I arrived it was raining in Warsaw and my hotel room was high up in a tower facing the Central Train Station and the Palace of Science and Culture, an iconic building in Warsaw, a gift of Josef Stalin to Poland, not much loved though and after 1990 there has been continuous discussion about demolishing the large monumental building in the Stalinist style. All I could see through the rain was green everywhere, it made an impression on me because a few hours before I had left dusty Amman behind.

Palac Kultury i Nauki, Warsawa

In 1998 life was still changing fast for Poles and everyone had ideas about becoming rich and starting a business, everything was possible now that the Communist were gone. One funny thing was that I could not find one single former Communist Party member. It appears that no one had ever been a member of the Party despite the fact that Communist ruled Poland from 1945 to 1989 though there were many people whose parents had participated in the Warsaw uprising of 1944 against the Nazi rule. Whatever happened after 1945 was lost in a sort of collective amnesia. I came to understand that the historical period after the end of the Second World War was a painful episode for many Poles. Poland had recovered its independence in 1918 only to lose it again in September 1939 when the Nazis invaded its territory which started the Second World War. Then in 1946 Polish borders shifted yet again West and many were forced to migrate Westward in a social engineering project imposed by Stalin. You can understand why many Poles were wondering when they were going to get rid of the Russians once and for all.

After reading Polish history you can see why Poland is always weary of Russia. Though Poles are Slavs like the Russians, they have been dominated politically by their neighbour to the East for centuries. Polish language is written with Latin characters whereas Russian uses Cyrillic alphabet. Poles are Roman Catholic, Russians are Orthodox Christians. So all those differences made for very uneasy relations for a very long time.

Warsaw is also a culturally rich city and this was a nice change from Amman where the entertainment was playing Bridge, golf or bowling and endless rounds of dinner and cocktail parties with the old Hashemite Princesses and Lebanese Bankers.

Seen from the air the Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa

the Quadriga on the main facade of the Opera house, installed in 2010 some 180 years after it was planned.

Warsaw has the Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa (National) and the Opera Kameralna (Chamber), the Narodowe has a full seasons offering each night a program of Opera, ballet or concert. The Opera Kameralna at the time under director Stefan Sutkowski who we knew personally  a charming person and we met the company of singers many of them are international stars, like Marta Boberska and Dorota Landowska. He had started a Mozart Festival which is now in its 24th edition. Sutkowski is now 82 and he is retired, he was the creator, founder of the Kameralna from 1961 to 2012. We loved going to the Kameralna because it is a very small theatre housed in a former Protestant Church with a beautiful garden all around. The performances were intimate and absolutely charming. Since 2012 and because of drastic budget cuts from the Polish Government the program of the Opera Kameralna has changed substantially.

Then of course there is the food and Polish food is very varied with many different dishes, salads, meats, paté, deserts of all kinds etc.. In 1998 many restaurants were opening and offering good quality food, some had pretensions and the decor was often over the top. Many old houses that once belonged to Noble families were taken over and restored to their former splendour such as the Sobanski Palace on Ulica Ujadowski near the Canadian Embassy.

Upon my arrival in Poland I was assigned a staff quarter, you do not get to choose where you will live, the employer decides. It was a house in Piaseczno a small town south of Warsaw, my house was near a very big forest famous for a terrible plane crash. At that time Piaseczno was really the end of the world, we were far from everything and Russian criminal gangs still operated in Poland. Meaning that there were shootings and car bombs but within one year of my arrival much of that had disappeared, the Polish Police must have been very effective. I had been offered a much bigger house outside of Warsaw some 40 Km from the City located on the Vistula River, but it really was too far and to isolated and I could not imagine living in such a place. Until 1995 by law we as diplomats had to live in Polish Government flats in the city proper, where in the days of the Cold War the Polish Secret Service could keep and eye and an ear to our doings and goings. Those buildings were horrible, poorly built, cramped and smelly, in other words the finest of Soviet architecture. After 1995 the Polish government abolished these rules and Foreign Diplomats were allowed to live wherever they wanted. Our administrator at the Embassy was a women who loved the far, far suburb and she had gone out and bought all kinds of houses far from the city centre. She did find plenty of old rambling kind of houses with vast gardens in the middle of nowhere. No one at the Office shared her love of the suburb, so her decision quickly became a problem for everyone. I campaigned to be housed within walking distance of the Embassy and within one year, I moved to Saska Kepa a very pleasant and green residential neighbourhood across the Vistula River from the centre of the City. We had a lovely house on Dabrowiecka street with a big garden.

It really was a period of Renaissance for Poland and I am glad I arrived there at that point.