Putin’s Speech Laid Out a Dark Vision of Russian History

Putin’s views (shared by some other Russians) makes it clear that to many Russians the western view of the Soviet Union was in error - it was just the Russian Empire dressed in communist clothes, and all the lossed of the broken-up Soviet Union are losses of what “belonged” to Russia.

It would have been beter for Russia today if like Japan post-WWII dreams of empire were banished and Russia accepted just being a single democratic state living at peace and without suspicion of war with any of its neighbors. But that does not wash with either the imperial or Soviet Czarist views, or Putin’s. It is also why he has been a dictator and real open and free democracy has been stifled by him.

The Kremlin works hard to ensure Putin’s constructed worldview, in which Russian greatness is derived from the country’s past glory and suffering, is taught in schools and shown in all media and academic discourse as reality…A shocking and important example of this…claiming that Memorial “creates a false image of the USSR as a terrorist state and denigrates the memory of World War II.”
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Denigrating the memory of WW2 is one thing (and unacceptable on both sides, each claiming -falsely - that they were the main reason that the mutually hated Nazis were defeated). But denying that the USSR, particularly under Stalin, was a terrorist state is quite another. It is beyond question that Stalin purposely engineered the Holodomor to eliminate millions of his supposed enemies in Ukraine, starving literally millions to death, that under his leadership the USSR began to support, train and arm many of the worst terror groups in the world and that he set up the Gulag Archipelago, a massive prison system that held tens of millions over the decades in completely inhumane conditions, killing millions of them via starvation, injuries disease, etc. Millions more perished in NKVD jails in or near their home towns - including one of my great grandfathers, beaten to death in 1937 despite being in his mid-70d and suffering from cancer. The USSR was not a terrorist state? Biggest f’ing lie since “Arbeit macht frei.”

I understand that part of what makes for a long-lasting nation is myths of various types, and most of the time that kind of minor invention or whitewash of History is OK or at least tolerable. But when a shameful incident or series of events just comes up and smacks you in the face with a baseball bat, you not only can’t deny it, you shouldn’t. That definitely applies here, and the fact that Putin is supporting or driving this effort is all the more reason to despise him.

That all said, as much as I despise Putin and condemn this invasion and the atrocities being committed as a purposeful part of Russian strategy, I will always contend that: a) we have to try to understand him better; and b) that part and parcel of understanding him is an honest acknowledgment of the fact that our so-called “leaders” and “elites” have lied to the Russians about NATO expansion and thus made Putin justifiably suspicions and unwilling to compromise further. This is not the only thing that we have done. So, we bear SOME blame for pushing Putin into a corner, even as MOST of the blame is properly

“Or China’s Xi Jinping”

Yes. Like Russia, the political system in China did not so much get rid of the Imperial China system, but adopted many of its central premises, inlcuding its core - dictatorial central authority, The Soviets too (and now Putin) did not abandon either the Czarist systems or the Czars imperal claims. In both cases the ancient political culture has held up (so far) against true modern and revolutionary change. I actually have more hope (post Putin) for true democratic change in Russia than in China. China has its billionaires but they do not play the outsized role in China’s leadership circle as the oligarchs do in Russia, and the average Joe or Jane in China sees that, and has some appreciation of that aspect alone. Not so in Russia where the money corruption between Putin and Russia’s billionaires is a stench noticed domestically and internationally. THAT could be the cause that brings Putin down, together with his military misadventures.

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