Never on the face of the earth have a more cowardly, racist and self-pitying bunch of bullies and strong-arm robbers been assembled as we now see gathered in the Kremlin. Russia lapses into its natural state, a modus vivendi characterized by insularity and self-aggrandizement. Georgia again plays with fire, nationalist sentiments arise, only to be beaten down, as in centuries past. It has all been seen before

Xenophobia is the lifeblood of the Russian regime. Peter the Great tried to force the Russia of his day into the modern world and was obliged to build an entirely new city on the Baltic, Saint Petersburg. He did so on the bones of hundreds of thousands of peasants, it is said, but he did not succeed in any meaningful way. Saint Petersburg is one side of Russia, the part we want to see, the wide European streets and fauborgs clever Gogol would describe, the dancer Balanchine, Dostoyevsky, Shostakovich, the treasures of the Hermitage and the like. But though the earnest glories of the Russian Revolution began in Saint Petersburg, the capital returned to Moscow in 1918 after two centuries of western influence, and in Moscow it has stayed.

America is so goddamned stupid. When we look at Russia, we want to see Saint Petersburg. The reality is Moscow, a low, dirty, hyperviolent den of thieves and the abode of tyrants for many centuries.

Bush is the quintessential manifestation of that idiocy: his fawning man-love for Vladimir Putin early on was revolting, all that talk about looking in his eyes and seeing his soul makes my gorge rise, and I have a strong stomach. But more importantly, Bush was incredibly naive, for those of us who have followed the mess in Chechnya for years know the Chechen Muslims are now appearing in odd corners of the world like Afghanistan and Pakistan, among our worst enemies.

Having seen a horror movie, a child might be unduly afraid of clowns. A competent therapist might take the child’s GI Joe doll and dress it in a little clown outfit, bit by bit, to show the little boy it’s just a costume, like the soldier’s uniform. The psychologist might even engage the services of a kindly clown, who would talk to the boy, explain the ancient and honorable traditions of the craft of clowning, culminating in making the boy up as a clown. The boy’s fear of a disguise would be overcome by meeting that kindly clown out of costume, come to understand his fear was based on a film-maker’s horrific perversion of a craft dedicated to silliness and laughter and the joy of life.

There was once a day when the USA was unduly afraid of the USSR. This fear crippled us, and this fear only fed the USSR’s power structure. Only when Nixon and to a larger extent Ronald Reagan stood up to the bully, faced him down, held up the Gulag Archipelago and declared the USSR the Evil Empire did the Russians finally get the point. We were no longer afraid. When the USSR collapsed in a steaming wreck, America went from paranoia to a uniquely American mania of condescending, believing the post-Soviet politicians were anything other than what they truly were. We so hoped the Russians would behave like the Germans and Japanese after WW2. We stupidly believed the USSR was merely Russia in clownface: surely the Russian leadership had changed its tune. Gorbachev’s idealistic overtures to the West must be an exhibition of decency. It was not: it was the rank capitulation of a bureaucrat run out of options, a long-dead corpse propped up in a chair.

America rejoiced at the fall of the USSR, a fall I had predicted in 1983. When I began issuing warnings of a future Russian tyranny, my Liberal cohorts scoffed. Oh, you’re just a recent convert to Liberalism, they would say, and it was true, I had only converted upon the treachery of Reagan’s dirty dealings in Iran and Lebanon and Nicaragua. Still, I darkly warned everyone: do not expect another Germany or Japan: we did not conquer the USSR. It collapsed from within. We had little to do with it. I told them then, as I tell you now, of the dichotomy of westward-facing Saint Petersburg and the Barad-dûr of Moscow. The Conservatives still in my acquaintance then scoffed even louder: Reagan’s Star Wars and his vigorous backing of the Contras and the Taliban had brought down the USSR.

The USSR failed, but not because it could not manage Russia. The reason is embedded in the story of the old Soviet national anthem the Internationale, a big, bloody, inclusive old ditty first written in French:

In translation from Russian, the Internationale comes out even more horridly:

In 1944, Stalin changed the national anthem to glorify himself, including this stanza:

Upon Stalin’s death, those lyrics wouldn’t do, but nobody had a worthy replacement. Eventually only the tune was played. Putin was annoyed his athletes had nothing to sing on the podium, so he had new lyrics written in 2000: here they are in English:

Conclusion:

Russia is reforming around an ancient paradigm going back to the first Tsars. Forget all this talk of 1968. Russia’s incursion into Georgia is no different than the Tsars of old. Georgia served as a ready-made battleground from the Russians, Persians, Georgians and Armenians since the 1400s. Russia’s tsars first treated Georgia as a vassal state and Georgia was glad enough of that fealty. With a little prodding, Tsar Alexander I incorporated it into Russia in the early 1800s. Russia’s wars against Imereti, (a little kingdom of the 1400s) and the larger Ottoman Empire served to annex most of what the Georgians now claim as their own, especially Abhkazia, the only part of that wretched landscape worth contesting. But Russia’s always had issues with Georgia. Even Stalin, a Georgian himself, knew the score. Stalin was crueler to Georgia than anywhere else, for many Georgians had also fought for the Nazis.

There’s nothing new in this wicked world. Georgia has always been a pimple on Russia’s ass, but a most annoying pimple. For those who are interested in the history of Georgia and the Caucasus, I leave George Kennan’s Vagabond Life as an exercise to the reader. Kennan's grand-nephew, also George Kennan, would go on to write the Long Telegram, and was the best judge of the USSR. All who read him will be changed.

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