12.05.2007 Pro & contra

My favorite poet Fyodor Tyutchev dreamt of a Pan-Slavic Union. We are still infinitely far from living up to his dream. Brother Slavs don’t want to be friends with us. The Ukraine is going to enter NATO. How can it be? The city where Russia accepted baptism turns away from Moscow. Let alone Prague and Warsaw. The capitals of two Slavic states are ready to host the US ABM. We could rage at it as long as we want, but we should pass from powerless fury to a sober analysis. Why they don’t love us? Why they don’t trust us and want to be protected against us? It is very important to see the problem from their point of view.
Here I mentally go to Prague and view Moscow from out there as through a telescope. What do I see? A memorial board in honor of Y.V. Andropov, which, after being removed under B.N. Yeltsin, now goes back on its “proper” place. How can it be? It was Andropov who supervised the suppression of Prague rebellion of 1968, when Czechoslovakia tried to free itself from petty control imposed by the Soviets. Doesn’t Russia feel she hurt a nation? She sticks to her old colonial aspirations? Should then one wonder at the measures taken by the Czechs to protect themselves?
Focusing the telescope I see Moscow bookstores and I shrink back. What an ocean of fascist literature! Prague was taken over by the Slav-hating fascists in 1938. Warsaw – in 1939. Can Russia, who brags her triumph over Germany in the World War, step on the same path of fascization which threatens any degrading and decaying system? Is Russia the center of the new fascist whirlpool? Why wonder Eastern Europe is held in awe by our shadow.
M.S. Gorbachev and B.N. Yeltsin have done much to bring Russia and the West closer. The talks of some Russian exclusivity, of some imminent Russian anti-Western spirit are groundless. Think of the Novgorodian Republic, which was an essential part of European civilization. Think of the reforms by Peter the Great. The opposition of Russia and the West is a sad anomaly, for which the Moscow-Horde line of our history is in charge. Today this line shows its revival. But the reanimation in this respect is like to galvanizing of a corpse.
Two US ex-presidents visited the funeral of B.N. Yeltsin. The senior George Bush walked a great deal after the hearse. Is it nothing but mere PR? Here Gleb Pavlovsky is saying over the open grave, that the West has cheated Yeltsin. I think it’s quite opposite – it’s the post-Yeltsin Russia that cheated the West, dismantling his democratic project. Yeltsin’s cause was in fact betrayed.
The meaning of two last periods in Russian history can be described by the following equation, based on metaphorical analogy:
First Period = The Sacrificial
Second Period = The Judas-like
We’re going backwards once again. Can such reverse be justified?
There is something defective in out foreign policy. Once again the aggressive rhetoric, once again we rattle the sabre. The renewal of arms race will lie a heavy burden on our people’s back, for we can’t compete with the West. We must overcome the Weimar complex and get along with NATO states. Terrorism is our common enemy. Life on planet Earth can perish – that’s what we should think of, not our vain ambitions.
I would like to introduce a new term – Westophobia – a fear of the Western. This is a phobia from which Russia suffers terribly. The relapse of this illness may cost us a lot.
We mustn’t see an enemy in the West. If we try to impose hostility on the West our way will be marked not with a triumphal arch, but a common grave.
Corruption is fatal for the society. But it has one positive aspect – when it reaches the army, which is based on aggressive ideology, it corrupts it and thus contributes to the cause of peace. Let’s recall general Kazantsev’s case. He doesn’t resemble Suvorov. With generals like this NATO will take us with bare hands.
I want to bring home the phenomenon of Chekism. This term denotes one of the forms of thanatophile will towards non-existence. Chekism is not dead, it changes forms, Proteus-like. Sometimes I think the West intuitively realizes that there may be another outbreak of Chekism in Russia – and that will mean a new catastrophe. It is sad that my country still arouses suspicions like this, but I can’t say so far, she gives no ground for them.
I want to believe that the new president of Russia will continue the course of M.S. Gorbachev and B.N. Yeltsin while the first eight years of the 21st century will remain in history as a temporal stop on our way to global community.

YURI LINNIK,
doctor of philosophical sciences, poet, Russia’s honored worker of science