Red Tide
Front page of the Wall Street Journal today (sub required) details a resurgent Bolshevik Revolutionary Party in Moscow. As if Russian politics weren’t interesting enough:
The National Bolsheviks play to a growing nostalgia in Russia for the nation’s past greatness. Mr. Putin’s own talk of restoring Russia’s might resonates with millions of Russians, and Mr. Limonov’s party takes it to the extreme. The party flag has the same colors and layout of the Nazi one: a white circle on a red background with a black symbol in the middle. The symbol itself is a hammer and sickle instead of a swastika.
Their leader, punk author Eduard Limonov, sounds like a real winner:
One night at a literary conference in Budapest in 1989, he got into an argument with the British novelist Paul Bailey over capital punishment. Mr. Bailey said he was against it. After an angry exchange, Mr. Limonov ended up knocking Mr. Bailey unconscious with a bottle of Mumm’s Champagne, both men recall.
Rather bourgeois choice of tipple for an anarcho-punk-neoBolshevik revolutionary, no?
Will Putin give these jokers a place at the table? He might be well advised to remember Churchill’s words to Lloyd George: “You might as well legalize sodomy as recognize the Bolsheviks.”
2 of the 3 original Bolshevik leaders (Lenin + Stalin) were bank robbers before they became politicla leaders. does this say something about politics or just Russian politics? Trotksy was an “intellectual”. What does that say about intellectuals?
Rod Stanton (4f1b9f) — 4/1/2005 @ 12:35 pm–
Hm….
Actually, Pat, I support both legalizing sodomy and also recognizing Bolsheviks as a political party. But I expect any free government to crack down like Barry Bonds on double-dose steroids with a bat made of depleted Uranium on any political violence or intimidation.
Remember history: no Communist or Fascist party ever seized control without first resorting to violence, murder, and thuggery… because their cartoon political ideas are so obviously buffoonish.
Vigorously prosecute the latter, and there is no danger of the former.
Dafydd
Dafydd (df2f54) — 4/1/2005 @ 1:21 pmSorry, See Dubya, I didn’t notice the byline. Make appropriate mental correction.
Dafydd
Dafydd (df2f54) — 4/1/2005 @ 1:23 pm“The party flag has the same colors and layout of the Nazi one: a white circle on a red background with a black symbol in the middle.”
Thats odd, given the millions of russians killed by the fascists.
actus (e137d7) — 4/1/2005 @ 1:25 pmDidn’t the Supreme Court already legalize sodomy?
Bryon Scott (3cbea9) — 4/1/2005 @ 2:29 pmActus– I hate all kinds of Commies, but the worst are Commie Nazis!
As for the sodomy, I don’t know its status in Russia. Just thought it was an interesting peek into Churchill’s times, and what passed for “unthinkable” in those days. Quote’s from Paul Johnson’s Modern Times, about p.73 or so.
Dafydd, your suggestion is fine in a system that respects the rule of law and can credibly draw such a distinction and enforce it. I’m not sure Russia is able to do so. (disclaimer: Russia is an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, stuffed in a trunk and abandoned on the freeway of ‘I really have no clue what’s going on there.’)
See-Dubya (85b967) — 4/1/2005 @ 2:43 pm“Will Putin give these jokers a place at the table?”
A better question might be, does he have a choice?
Had the pleasure of attending a recent lecture by the noted Russian historian James Billington (also, the Librarian of Congress) where he extemporized his belief that Putin’s Russia will either emerge as a democracy or something much like Nazi Germany. He made some very interesting parallels between Russia’s post-Cold War condition with that of the Weimar Republic in the 1930s. With lots and lots of nuclear weapons. Pretty chilling stuff.
He suggested it might behoove the United States and its citizens (and businesses) to get more involved to hopefully encourage the adoption of a more democratic outcome.
The military arms of the German (and Italian) fascist political parties may have been buffoonlike, but some of the leadership was not. It would be a mistake to repeat a historical mistake and underestimate their intelligence again.
Kazak (d902b0) — 4/1/2005 @ 2:44 pmSee-Dubya:
(Is that CW?)
Dafydd, your suggestion is fine in a system that respects the rule of law and can credibly draw such a distinction and enforce it. I’m not sure Russia is able to do so.
True. But the solution isn’t to give sanction to dictatorship, so long as it’s pro-America (even if it were, which it isn’t). Trading freedom for stability, the essence of Kissinger’s realpolitik, has finally been debunked: it simply doesn’t work. It only postpones the inevitable, provoking all the greater anti-American reaction when steam-engine-time rolls around.
Realpolitik is actually surrealpolitik.
The essence of W-ism in foreign policy is to recognize that our only safety lies in world-wide democracy and freedom. It’s best for America’s national security to push Putin to allow the Nazi Bolskevik party but crack down hard on their thuggery, rather than ban them and drive them underground.
(On the other hand, I don’t think it affects American national security one way or another if sodomy is legal in Russia 😉 !)
For what my opinion may be worth.
Dafydd
Dafydd (df2f54) — 4/1/2005 @ 3:47 pmDafydd:
First, thanks for being the first to miss the byline and helping the rest of us avoid error.
Second, do you think *realpolitik* is behind us. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20069-2005Apr1.html for the operation of the same in this ‘war on terrorism’.
No one can miss Putin’s hamhandedness, but his insistence on appointing to governerships his cronies instead of allowing the mandated elections for those posts leaves no doubt as to his respect for democracy. Looks as if he’s called a halt to a pretense of joining the west in any real sense.
Ruth (deec64) — 4/2/2005 @ 4:18 am“As for the sodomy, I don’t know its status in Russia. Just thought it was an interesting peek into Churchill’s times, and what passed for “unthinkable” in those days”
Churchill also would say it was ok to use WMD’s against middle eastern minorities (ie, “gas the kurds”) and would also dismiss gandhi’s independence movement as “I will not have british imperial policy dictated by a man in diapers”)
actus (f9abe0) — 4/2/2005 @ 9:44 am