IN SOVIET RUSSIA...
history, politics
March 29, 2003, 10:49 AM
On my way back to Alexandria yesterday I finished listening to a lecture course from The Teaching Company titled "The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism: A History of Twentieth Century Russia". I'd definately recommend it; the history of the Soviets in the last century makes for an interesting if rather sad read. Most of the course discusses historical events such as the atrocities committed by Joseph Stalin and his cronies in the Great Terror, the horrible conditions in Leningrad during the Nazi seige in World War II, and the oppression of the Soviet people throughout Soviet rule. Yet the lecturer, Professor Gary Hamburg, does manage to avoid giving a biased, blatently anti-communist account despite looking at Russia from a clearly Western perspective. For instance, he points out that it was Stalin's Soviets who really defeated the Nazis; D-day and the other Allied incursions were important but not nearly as decisive as Hitler's loss on the eastern front. He also notes at the end of the series that even when Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost policies proved less controllable than he had hoped and brought about a more free-market and democratic society, that these institutions have in many respects brought more problems to Russia and the other former Soviet nations than they have solved.
Joseph Stalin was an interesting character. At least in terms of pure body count he was a worse monster than Hitler; he indirectly caused millions to suffer and die through his Five Year Plan and collectivization of agriculture. He executed many repatriated POWs after World War II since they were "suspected collaborators with the enemy". He slaughtered thousands of dissidents and suspected dissidents during the Great Terror; Professor Hamburg describes how the Man of Steel signed an order to murder over 3,000 people in one night, then went to the movies. The only sense in which Stalin's crimes were lesser than Hitler's was that Stalin was not ethnically motivated. Yet even Stalin had his ideals; at the end of World War II when the Soviet Union was crippled and forced to pull out of the war Stalin panicked and withdrew into his quarters and refused to come out. When his generals came a couple days later to try to get him out he was drunk and thought they had come to arrest him. When he learned they had not, he remarked in despair: "Everything that Lenin did, we have turned to shit." I find something strangely comforting about that.
Another more disconcerting impression I got was how many similarities there were between the recently fallen Soviet system and our country's current administration. Professor Hamburg, when discussing whether Boris Yeltsin is truly a democrat and not merely an authoritarian spouting democratic rhetoric, mentions how the legislature offered Yeltsin "rule by decree" for a year, and he not only accepted this authority but fought with the legislature to maintain this power when the year was up. A true democrat, Hamburg argues, would not have accepted this authority in the first place. If we believe this, then I'd like to ask if we can truly say that we are confident the Bush administration would not accept such power if offered it by Congress (which doesn't seem so implausable after the Patriot Act). If we can't say this, then I'd like to add that Bush is no more of a democrat (in the political theory sense, not the American political party) than Yeltsin was. And given his position, that's not a proposition I feel too comfortable about.
Email Rob:
Posted by veji on April 02, 2003 at 05:03 PM
your font is hard to read - can you make it darker? also, can you include the excerpt in the RSS feed? also, where can we get this book on audio?
Posted by Rob on April 02, 2003 at 06:47 PM
Hi Neema!
Yeah, I know the interface sucks; next item on my agenda is to redesign this weblog along with my whole site. Thanks for the suggestions; I'll definately be sure to fix the font. What do you mean by the excerpt? I'm not familiar with all of Movable Type's fields just yet.
I checked The Teaching Company's website and couldn't find the exact course I have; the closest one I found was this one: http://www.teach12.com/ttc/assets/coursedescriptions/8380.asp which is a longer course by the same professor and is currently on sale. The thing about The Teaching Company is you have to buy their courses while they are on sale or they really rip you off.