A collection of short texts dealing with various challenges
of modern time, past times, eternity
(Russia, Vladivostok, 1993-1994)
CONTENT
The Way We Live Now
Book publishing in Russia
Climate of violence in Vladivostok
Terrorist as a pocket thief
The Primorsky Republic
The Deep Within Us
King’s Tooth
We, children
Cannibalism is undemocratic
To coin a word
To be or not to be
The Dissidence
The Hand from the Grave
Death Wish
Too Heavy
Love Is Not a Fallacy – In Russia
A Religious Feeling of Life
The Russian Injuns
The Disease of Labels
The Force of Nature
Masturbation as an anti-Communist activity
KGB
Will the Chinese Martians Occupy the Primorsky Territory?
The Beauty of the Beholder
I’m a frog, you are…
Boris Yeltsin – the Hero of our Time
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THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
Why do they shoot militiamen…
… and urinate in the streets?
As for pissing in the streets, I don’t mean the “person with no fixed abode”. Moreover, I’ve never seen such a person pissing in a gutter, for example. No, I mean quite ordinary people, well dressed – and not always drunk, too!
Imagine: two girls and a young man on a bench, the young man suddenly gets up and urinates at a wall not ten meters from the girls, who wilt, of course. But! But in a few days I’ve seen a group of high-school youngsters, maybe 10th form, they are not children in this age, these boys and girls. They are talking; suddenly one of the girls asks the others to shield her and urinates. The boys turn their heads away, surely, and so do I, but when I was young nothing of the kind was possible. Later at the same place, a mature man, about forty, and all these events in daytime… O, God!
As for shooting the militiamen, I’ve never seen such an event. I don’t want such events ever to take place, but they do take place, more and more often now. In the past, even the relatively recent past, such cases were extremely rare.
I consider these “features” of our life as birds of the same feather – but why? Why they do the first and the second, the second and the first, and both birds are flying now?
Because the “freedom coin” must have a reverse side, and this is it. The totalitarian society in which we all lived not too long ago would not tolerate the “nasties” I describe. Mind, I’m not sorry for the late totalitarianism, this is not the issue. But, in that society everybody knew his place, the line he or she could not cross, and we all felt ourselves in a cell to a certain degree. What now? The false ideology has fallen, but a building can’t fall without a lavatory breaking too, without a gun lying on a top shelf in a closet firing accidentally…
I mean simply: now a great number of us don’t know what’s permitted and what’s prohibited – where is the line I must not cross?!
It is too complicated to search for this line, that’s why they shoot militiamen and urinate in the streets.
November 02, 1993
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BOOK PUBLISHING IN RUSSIA
Looking at our bookstores, cooperative book kiosks and private book stands, one may erroneously think that the United States has already conquered Russia. (Or is the error so great?). The conquering forces, one may also see, include British troops – but not much. No Australians, no Canadians…
… The only author’s names will be American, with a spattering of British. Mickey Spillane, Carter Brown, Rex Stout, Earl Stanley Gardner – are they really the greatest writers of America and even of the world of all time? Five-ten-fifteen-volume collections of their immortal novels are being published. I have yet to see at least a three-volume collection of William Faulkner.
But of course, you will say the Russian reader had a great hunger for simple but good detective books. Well, well... Not knowing that my "well, well..." was the epitaph for the forgotten crime novels by Faulkner, you will persist. The prose mentioned had been written and published before 1971 when the late Soviet Union had signed the Geneva Convention, so the publishers have to use what they have to use.
A-ha! Thanks for the valuable tip. Yes, sure, the late Soviet Union had signed, but the dear corpse is very dead now, and what about Russia? Maybe it has signed a somewhat proper Convention and our publishers have to be civilized and pay the foreign authors and publishers appropriate fees?
No! Instead of that, our President has declared that Russia is the legal inheritor of the Soviet Union. But, if this is a fact, not a declaration of intentions, where are our old political allies? Where are Cuba and our Arab friends, so numerous not long ago?
A declaration remains a declaration if there is not a written law. There being no written law, our publishers have now flooded the bookstores with the newest books by Stephen King, Eric Lustbader, Colleen McCullough, Michael Crichton, Sidney Sheldon, etc. Good books: I mean good, even very good hard covers, as the translations are always disgusting. He wins whose printer is the best-equipped one.
Naturally, not everybody thinks this state of our being is normal – I mean the Convention problem. A few civilized publishers and literary agents have founded the league "The Publishers Against the Pirates". Whom do they remind me of, those noble men? Don Quichotte, I’m afraid. In Russia, even having the law on your side is not always easy to win, they want to win without any law…
Our President may be helping them, I don’t know. He has recently disbanded the Russia Agency for Authors’ Rights, the only organization in the country which could do something at least for the Russian writers who also suffer from the “pirates”. In its place, a Russia Authors Society has been founded. Knowing our tendency to liquidate all the achievements of the disbanded structures, I’m now really afraid for the Russian authors' rights.
Now let me finish my… Stop! Stop! You say. Is this really all about the book publishing in Russia? Why not a word about Russian detectives, for example?
Sorry, I forgot, now you'll understand why. There are Russian crime novels in print, maybe you'll even find them on sale. But you'll have to have a magnifying glass when looking for them: their print runs are always infinitesimally small.
May I finish now? Yes, you say, sighing.
November 03, 1993
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CLIMATE OF VIOLENCE IN VLADIVOSTOK
Darkness, lonely street lights, a stray empty tram, not a single soul walking around – what is the time now? After midnight? No, it’s 8 p.m.! Everybody in his right mind is sitting at home, behind well locked doors, a heavy axe somewhere handy. As for the time after midnight, yes, when I was a schoolboy, walking the streets until sunrise was not dangerous at all. But now if you meet a schoolboy after dark, you better be well armed because he will be!
When a man knifes his former wife, it’s an unfortunate but an ordinary event, not worth special mentioning. But when a rival mafia gang destroys a living flat using a grenade launcher, destroying at the same time the neighbors’ flat, this is unusual even for a port city where military personnel will sell you anything.
So what’s the matter? There are courses and causes. Of course the foreign cars, Japanese mostly, now from Southern Korea, too and even from the USA. Rival gangs fight for supply lines and markets. Night shootings: handguns, submachine guns, corpses are found strangled, knifed, burnt. In a certain sense it’s natural. But it would be difficult to call natural an incident that happened not long ago in a restaurant called “Nagasaki” on the central city street.
Two groups of young men were celebrating something in the evening. They were sitting not far from each other, and strong words were exchanged. Somewhat later the groups left the restaurant for the street where strong blows were exchanged. One group was larger and won. Shortly after all the young men returned to the restaurant, one of the losers left, fetched a gun from his car, and, entering the restaurant, shot one of the winners dead. Incidents of this kind never happened before, the punishment has never been so harsh for such a trifling – in this city – provocation.
Surely this restaurant shooting tells nothing about the climate, I mentioned this only to show the extent of changes in our city. The climate: mugging, assault and battery, breaking and entering (then beating the inhabitants and stealing their possessions. Sometimes doors are burnt with gas to gain entry.), snatching mink hats, tearing off earrings…
The climate: nobody will help you in these harrowing times.
Militia? Or, more correctly, the police, as they are paid for their work? Yes, they may be seen from time to time in the streets, they catch criminals rather often, but we never feel that they can protect us.
Again, the climate: even those who never before would even think of trespassing, now commit crimes. And, the important features of the climate, people around them don’t see anything unusual or overly criminal in their deeds. As if all this should be this way and only this way.
So, as I’ve said, there are courses and causes.
Imagine an anthill. As you know, it’s a very complex structure and very orderly. Now imagine yourself taking a stick and poking the anthill. A growing chaos, the ants are disturbed, they are looking for an enemy and, not finding any, begin fighting between themselves.
Our anthill under Communism was very orderly, now it’s in chaos. We are now reforming our social life on a greatly more sensible basis. But now our society is in a period of great discontent, as no major restructuring can be achieved without negative side effects. Far be it for me to proclaim “Through violence – to the new life!” But do we have an alternative?
That’s our present. What awaits us in the future? I’ll try to make a prognosis.
After this period of disorder, I mean “criminal disorder”, a new power will emerge. A real Godfather who will liquidate all these “sporadic” fires of criminality in our streets. Similar to many other countries, cities, times…a solid criminal structure will rule. Will our life be better after this drastic and unavoidable change? Well, in civilized countries in which this phase of development is already accomplished, life is better…
November 08, 1993
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TERRORIST AS A POCKET THIEF
Again: a plane-load of hostages taken by the Arab "glory boys”, ransom taken, then the plane and hostages exploded just for the hell of it.
Again: a busload of citizens exploded by the Irish terrorists – the hell of it from the very beginning, as a matter of principle.
But if the terrorists explode a planet-load of us, there will be no "again” at all. The planet Earth can be exploded only once.
Are we doomed to wait for it? Or is there a way to fight the terrorists effectively, in all the countries at once? There is.
Mind, I don’t mean the hapless duffers who snatch somebody or something valuable and demand money and a fast car to the frontier, the poor darlings simply don’t know any better. No, I mean the “terrorists-theorists” – the above-mentioned Arabs, Irish, gangs like Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigades, Japanese Red Army. Their goal and task is to destroy on a large scale, and as an especially giant goal I perceive the one of the “reds”: to destroy the capitalistic society as a whole. (Why, I wonder, were there never any political terrorists in the Soviet Union?).
So why do all these political terrorists exist and flourish? Yes, of course, I am not forgetting that the Soviet Union paid for the expenses of training camps for the Arab terrorists, and that even now the Irish-Americans donate money to the IRA. But a terrorist organization can’t exist as a self-contained entity, “a thing in itself”, amidst the general, law-abiding population. The general population is always general to such an extent that not all of it is completely law-abiding… Somebody is always “aiding and abetting”! Somebody is always helping in small everyday things without which the terrorists just could not function.
Why? O, the answer is very simple. Because a terrorist is such a glorious figure! He is not afraid of death and he is ready to give his life for “the cause”. Well, one can understand this attitude. A criminal with flair can, as a rule, find sympathizers. For example, in old times any woman in the crowd of onlookers could, a minute before his execution, take the brigand as her husband – and he was set free!
But who will ever sympathize with a pocket thief? So let’s show that a terrorist is no better than a pocket thief – or even worse.
They are not afraid of death. Our “great revolutionists” in Russia (who were terrorists too) also were not afraid of death. But was it really so in both cases?
A relatively simple psychoanalysis can show us that such “fearlessness” is really an inverse fear of death, a burning desire to negate this fear by means of maximally approaching it’s cause. A state of constant under tension, so characteristic for revolutionists and terrorists, produces a sort of cocoon-person, hence life seems easier. Also: if an ordinary person takes a loaded gun, he always experiences a subconscious-conscious wish to put the barrel to his temple and pull the trigger. A terrorist-type person takes the gun, puts it to his temple, but then turns the barrel and shoots the “capitalism”! And if innocent people take his bullets – well, are they really quite innocent, living in a capitalistic society?!
As for shooting, the terrorists like to shoot. They prefer automatic guns – many, many rounds a minute. A masked man in black, blazing away with a submachine gun: a romantic, sexy figure, yes? Or not?
We must not forget Dr. Freud and his teachings. A long barrel of a gun is for a man a substitute of his penis which he subconsciously considers inadequate. Then, if a single shot is an ejaculation, just imagine how many subconsciously pleasant ejaculations a submachine gun can produce!
But, if the terrorists are not brave and masculine, maybe they are at least mature and responsible persons striving for a noble goal? No, again not.
Behind all their ranting about “people’s revolution” against “vicious capitalism”, a quite definite image is seen: a bully boy destroying a sand castle built by other children, only because it exists. If you can’t join them, fight them, if you can’t find your place in a normal society, destroy the society. Infantilism in all its manifestation is always potentially dangerous. The criminal infantilism of terrorists is the most dangerous of all.
Contrary to the cowardly, impotent, infantile figure of a terrorist, what do we see in a pocket thief? We see a quite normal man who works among people which hate and never help him, who after this work comes back home and fucks his woman, without any gun.
November 15, 1993
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THE PRIMORSKY REPUBLIC
For the idea of the Primorsky Republic to flourish, the former Governor Mr. V. Kuznetsov had to go. He was (and is) a really enlightened man, looking into future. The present killed him.
He would never condone any actions to make this idea true, hence he was in the way. Everybody was hating him: Soviets which still existed at that time and big industrialists ("The Directors Corps”).
The new Governor Mr. Ye Nazdratenko is not intellectual, he is not overly interested in the future because the material valuables are being distributed now. "The Directors Corps” supports him, and more than that, he and his administration are a pinnacle of PACT: The Primorsky Joint-Stock Company of Producers. That’s why the Governor’s decree had stopped the process of privatization in Vladivostok and the regions of the territory, and after the process restarted, all the best objects (plants, factories, etc.) were factually being given to the narrow elitist circle of the directors. More than that, businessmen from other cities of Russia cannot even take part in the privatization auctions.
But, what about the Primorsky Republic – are we proclaiming it or not? No! The games are more subtle.
As it was established long ago and remains formally until this day, all the export quotas and licenses for fish, timber, coal, etc. are granted in Moscow. The present administration and personally the Governor Ye Nazdratenko repeat loudly: Moscow is interested in Moscow political wars and intrigues, the electricity tariffs and railway tariffs are discriminating against the Primorsky industry, our industry is in danger of dying. In this they are right. We can provide for ourselves. They say, if only Moscow permits us establish our own tariffs and export quotas for our own use! Here is the root of the problem. The export quotas! Because the former Governor V. Kuznetsov had personally obtained a favorable decision in the Moscow government on the eve of his resigning – I mean the tariffs which are really prohibiting for our industry. The present Governor makes it his own achievement…
After coming into office, the present Governor had stated: we are not going to sell our natural resources to foreigners. Moscow is selling Russia away, we shall proclaim the Primorsky Republic and stop this selling on our territory. Now the Governor is the boss of all the Primorsky quotas (after long talks with the Prime Minister and certain ministers), and the Republic has not been proclaimed! The blackmail proved successful.
But still, what about the natural resources? The administration has decided recently to begin anew the selling of excellent Primorsky coal abroad. When there is not enough coal for power stations!!!
The Primorsky Territory was, is, and will be selling the natural resources abroad. Here is no question. The question was, is, and will be: who gets the spoils?
And, again, what about the Primorsky Republic? Will it ever be? No, but the idea itself is destined for life eternal. This “banner" will be raised again to frighten Moscow. A blackmailer never stops.
Nonetheless, and it can’t help being important for the Pacific countries, all the principal questions regarding the Primorsky Territory have now to be decided not in Moscow, but in Vladivostok. Alas.
December 06, 1993
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THE DEEP WITHIN US
In a village in the Primorsky Territory a man in his forties raped and killed a young girl, a teenager. After killing he cut and mutilated her extensively.
He was insane, you may say, or of generally criminal inclinations. No. He was quite an ordinary man, a tractor driver, he was married and had children. A tractor driver – in Russia it means the salt of the earth, a pylon of the rural society. The medical, psychiatric examination had proved him normal.
What is normalcy? In a European town, a homosexual got acquainted with two young men in a public lavatory. He brought them home, they killed him, and one of the young men, an apprentice butcher, cut the dead body from crotch to breastbone and gutted him like a chicken. At the trial the apprentice butcher said: “He was not normal”.
In both cases one can understand the killing itself, but not the next step. The rapist, fearing the punishment, kills his victim. But cutting and bloodshedding? In a physiologically normal person, the sight of blood causes a violent reaction, this is our inheritance from prehistoric times. A loss of blood from a wound could be fought only by decreasing the blood pressure, and the system does that automatically. Hence the most robust males often get dizzy looking at their own blood. It’s normal. So what are the roots of the bloodshedding in the above-mentioned cases? One can only guess.
The sight of blood in great quantities must be associated subconsciously with the idea of one’s own death. A strong fear of one’s own death may cause an urge (subconscious, of course) to “leave the pattern”. I mean, to leave the realm of those who can be killed, whose blood can be shed aplenty. This subconscious jump makes viable the association between someone’s bloody death and the invulnerability of self. Jump = escape. But only the innocent and insane confuse escape with freedom. Nobody of those whose fear of death is strong enough is ever free. Here I see the subconscious base of many serial killers.
I’m afraid this inner mechanism must be universal, but only in persons with a certain psychological structure does it manifest itself in such horrible ways. Look into the deep within yourselves. Or would it be better not to look?
December 13, 1993
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KING’S TOOTH
Mr. Stephen King’s works are now among the most popular in Russia, practically all of them have been published in Russian, even “Needful Things”, whose intrigue is on the level of a Soviet communal apartment and the feature means are on the level of third-rate fairy tale. That’s why I’m trying to find the roots of his popularity.
When King had been first published here, rather long ago, his “Firestarter” and “The Dead Zone” were something like an explosion for us, though, of course, nothing special for the rest of the world. Far be it for me to analyze King’s prose in detail. I’m only trying to find the root of King’s Tooth, his means to achieve the popularity, even if he does not recognize the process himself.
First and foremost – blood. It swells, flows, and eddies. It can appear anywhere, at any time, and have any number of consequences or none at all. In itself this feature is not anything new. A conscious and subconscious fear of the freed blood is inherent in any sane human. But Mr. King pours too much blood! And, being a really great master, he does it so skillfully that the reader’s nerve synapses become overloaded and the thrill of fear becomes pleasant…
In a lesser writer this would look as butchering, not more, or, in case of – we are coming now to the second prong of King’s three-pronged tooth – than pissing in the trousers, simply sewer-watching. But now, the great master uses the spectacular pissing verily often and effectively. The subconscious meaning of these scenes must be simple: “If they piss in their trousers from fear, nothing terrible, if it happens with me”. Hence, the very real fear, present in many of us, is subdued. Pediatricians know that the fear of this kind is natural for children, mostly male children, but the psychologists know this fear persists in adults.
That’s why King could forge the third prong of his tooth: everybody’s childhood. The theme of childhood being the most cruel, most unhappy period in man’s life is not new. Let’s recall Ray Bradbury, a few of his early short stories. But King’s way is more subtle. The Bugbear, the Bugaboo of our childhood takes very interesting and horrifying-features in the depicted adult world with adult problems: and the Bugbear is beaten every time! Thanks to Mr. King his readers overcome their lingering childhood fears in their present, adult life! Nobody could make his readers a better present. Re-read the novel “It”, which I consider his most important work, and you will see that this is really true.
But, you might ask, why King’s tooth? Ask at your peril, as the answer is nigh.
Like a person with a dull toothache touches constantly the tooth in question with his tongue, so Mr. King, in all his works, constantly and gently, sometimes even boldly, touches with his magnificent pen (or an electric typewriter, I don’t know) all the fears, all the darkness in life and his soul (read “The Dark Half”) which don’t let him live in peace. Mind, his tooth is our tooth as well, otherwise we would not be so taken by his wonderful stories.
December 20, 1993
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WE, CHILDREN
In Russia, now there is a constantly increasing level of criminality provided by children – of all ages, down to almost tender. Groups of boys rob single or paired boys, girls rob girls - and even boys, giving them a thrashing, and children beat and rob adults, steal weapons and ammunition… Quite often you can see small groups of adolescent thieves in large department stores. These wolf-cubs seem to be completely detached from the normal population, almost a separate kind of being.
On another hand, in Russia now less and less children are born, infant and child mortality increase steadily. Still, no child abuse worth mentioning is seen in our country. It is not in the Russian character to burn your own child with cigarettes or to stick pins into his or her head.
The growing criminality in children and the birth rate decreasing: is one the root, the cause of the other? One wonders. Of course, seen in socio-economical terms, the general disorder in the society throws children into the criminal substratum, and deters the adult from child-bearing: too expensive for too many now. A pregnant woman in the street is looked upon with considerable surprise now. But still, if we, adults, stop bearing children, they will stop mugging us. This is an interesting problem.
The parents – or the “parental society” – demands obedience from the children. It is dictated by the instinct for survival which governs not only individuals but societies, too. To perpetuate itself, any society has to have children – psychological slaves. The parents are afraid of children who, having grown, will refuse to help them or will want to kill them. So this is a kind of repression, and in cases where this repressive conditioning fails, we see anarchists, terrorists, Communists, certain types of sociopaths – and adolescent criminality.
The common reason of parents’ demands for obedience, gratefulness, help in future, is the “sacramental” one: “I gave you your life; life is the greatest gift worthy of eternal gratefulness”. Is this really so? Is there anything in life with its constant perils and sorrows and inevitable death which could support this “sacrament”?
We know – at least from literature! – that childhood is the cruelest and harrowing period in man’s life. Here it would be enough to recall a few early short stories by Ray Bradbury. Yes, children are cruel because they know instinctively that life in itself, life as event, as a process, is worth nothing. Only later does the parental society brain-wash them with the idea that life is sacred. And if the brain-washing fails…
Medical Science tells us that man as a person becomes completely shaped in his or her main traits when only five years old. Imagine! A cabinet minister who is factually a four-five year old spoiled boy. A woman teaching thousands of students, educating them according to her immature principles. Of course, all of this is not as self-apparent as the inherent “infant flaws” which are always clothed into grown-up features. But who starts all the wars? Old boys, surely. In all human activity, in all streams of life – games are seen, eternal games, among which the sexual game is maybe the only mature one. Or you’ve never seen middle-aged citizens at a soccer stadium? Any game is always an escape, be it even a game of a business carrier. And all of this is always seen, more or less, on faces, if you look attentively enough. Maybe only on old cons’s faces nothing of the kind is seen. No games here…
Well… but who are they who demand obedience, etc., from us, children? Why, of course, right, those persons who bring them, us, everybody the most harm. The parents. It is not my fantasy. The medical psychology recognizes this objective and universal pattern: the most harm any person gets is from the parents, even if they are very conscientious people. But everybody has the right to reproduce… So, the harm perpetuates, and so on. You want to call any life in this life a precious gift?
As to our criminal children in Russia, their revolt is rather simple, I’m afraid. The grown-ups here are showing their inadequacy, too, apparently, instead of at least trying to help children to find their place in a life that has changed drastically and continues to change, they can only flounder helplessly.
Any inadequacy of authority-figures still insisting on their authority can cause resentment, revolt, revenge. The revenge of these here children will be terrible.
December 27, 1993
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CANNIBALISM IS UNDEMOCRATIC
Since the very beginning of the political, economic and sociological changes in Russia, circa 1985, an increase in the cannibalism cases was apparent. At first, the cannibalism as such was only a lesser part of the general corpses’ utilization, the “mainline” being the use of dead human bodies as fodder for animals. As seen from the papers, mostly minks in private owning were the human meat consumers. I don’t know whether their pelts become more beautiful on such food.
During the first years I mention, the rationale behind all this was the acute shortage of absolutely all the foodstuffs. These last years, the foodstuffs for men and animals are plentiful, but too expensive. This is the rationale of cannibalism, sane humans eating dead humans. Rationale. But not the real reason.
To find the real reason, which is surely ignorant of those who eat people or who only gut, cut, and sell them, we have to make a certain historical excursion. Why was cannibalism always prohibited, in all times, in all countries? Why, for example, were the marooned explorers, cannibals of necessity, always ostracized? I’m afraid the answer is simple. Any society, even the most primeval one, has to protect itself. Hence it has to prohibit its members from eating each other, prohibit this most strongly. As since it’s much easier to kill a man in the settlement and eat the body than to kill a deer in the forest and do the same, the reason not to do it must be very weighty. So the appropriate taboo appeared, which was, like all taboos, at first strictly religious. But now, even in not religious societies like Russia, it remains TABOO. People don’t ask themselves or somebody why it’s wrong to eat human bodies, they know that it is not done. Although from the purely nutritional point of view, human flesh is the best food for humans: it contains only the needed substances and does not contain anything harmful. By the way, second best is pork.
Yes, we all know it’s wrong to kill a member of our society and eat the dead body. But what if the society commits an act which on the subconscious level is perceived as cannibalism? I mean the death penalty. Imagine: a society sentences one of its members, a criminal, to be hanged, or shot, etc. What is this if not a ritualistic cannibalism – perceived as such, I repeat, on the subconscious level? I’m sure that this subconscious aversion and disgust, caused by cannibalism, is the grounds of there being so many opponents of the death penalty in all the world, not excluding Russia, of course.
Otherwise it would be impossible to understand why exactly they are against the death penalty, as their arguments are never convincing enough. Often they point at the United States and say that death penalty is no good or the criminality there would be lower than in other countries – but it is higher. This argument is fallacy as a valid comparison in this case is impossible. No doubt, the criminality in the USA would be higher without the death penalty – that’s the issue.
Let it be said that on the question of the death penalty, in the Soviet Union and now Russia, a very peculiar situation existed. Officially it was always only an “exceptional penalty”: this is the inheritance of Lavrenty Beria who wanted to make our law-enforcing agencies toothless. At the same time, during the “purges” and at other times, numberless executions were carried out illegally and indiscriminately. The state in this country has always been a hypocritical cannibal.
But what to do with the death penalty now, when we say we are building a democratic society? In essence, a democracy is a state which puts the interests of an individual above those of the society, thus making itself almost indefinable. Look at any Western democracy. And look at Mussolini’s Italy. For a dictator, the cannibalism of the death penalty is something quite natural. He is the leader of his pack and feels free to eat anybody in the “herd”.
But again, we say that we are now building a democratic society. So, when it became possible to write in the papers almost anything – this began under Gorbachev – the cream of our liberalistic cream, I mean the bleeding-heart liberals, began a relatively active fight against the death penalty. For their subconsciousness, this kind of state-propagated cannibalism is unthinkable. Alas, they were successful to a large degree.
But our people know better. In our country a man’s life is not – never has been – a birth-right, it is something akin to a miracle. This conscious-subconscious feeling is deeply rooted in the national soul. So not believing in our democratic future, people eat people more and more.
They are right. In the new program of fighting crime suggested to the government – only suggested yet – such measures are proposed which remind strongly of Mussolini’s Italy…
We are not a democracy. It is possible we’ll never be a democracy. In view of this, is eating people… right?
February 02, 1994
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TO COIN A WORD
Now, when at least some time has passed, it’s the right time, I’m sure, to try to reveal exactly why Mr. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal-Democratic Party, which is neither liberal nor democratic, has achieved such a major victory at the elections. The worldwide response to this victory has been too exaggerated, in my eyes, although one can hardly blame the politicians: the Soviet Union had been strong and evil, Russia will be soon be strong and remains angry.
During the pre-election campaign, the official democratic press – there is really no democratic press in Russia – had coined a label for Mr. Zhirinovsky: a fascist. Having performed this great feat of name-calling, they were satisfied that his number was beaten. Why not, if for decades “fascism” was a four-letter word with our children.
Fine. But let’s see what “The Random House Dictionary of the English Language” has to say about fascism: “Fascism. 1. a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism; 2. the philosophy, principles or methods of fascism; 3. a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy from 1922-43”.
All the Soviet sources give fallacious formulas, tending to associate fascism and fascists with Germany. Here is the root of the myth which, in present time, has made it impossible to pin the label “fascist” on Mr. Zhirinovsky.
In the time of the war with Hitler’s Germany, the Soviet radio and papers invariably used the expression: "German-Fascist forces”. Of course, Italian troops, sent by fascist Mussolini, did take part in the war, although they were not numerous. But for the masses in this country, fighting desperately against the powerful enemy, a swear-word was needed. Which, could be this word? Not "The German", surely. Not "The Nazi", most assuredly, as the “national question” had been an extremely controversial one under Stalin. So – FASCIST, no doubt! The masses had created the swear-word, not being able or disposed to discriminate distinctions between Italian fascists and German Nazi. Mind, Hitler never considered himself a fascist, only a Nazi. We may safely assume he knew better… An outsider can even think that the Russians don’t know who they fought.
Alas, the popular myth had infected all the Soviet sources – even our dictionaries confuse “fascist” and “Nazi”. Hence the fallacy of calling Mr. Zhirinovsky a fascist. But in the mass-consciousness he simply could not be associated with fascist – only an external enemy. (The “internal” Russian fascists are not yet an apparent power). And really, I mean in reality, a fascist Mr. Zhirinovsky is not, a Nazi he is, this may be seen even without any complex analysis.
This is one of the reasons of his success in the elections. He “put his money” on the Russian nationalism, automatically collecting a large following. The second reason of his victory is more subjective. While his opponents, the governing so-called democrats, were talking on the TV about dull “inflation indexes” and the like, Mr. Zhirinovsky spoke about things everybody could understand – cheap vodka, for example. Now the democratic "sheep” see a “wolf” nearby. Hopefully, the lesson they’ve received is not too late.
So what can we – and you – expect from Mr. Zhirinovsky in the near future? I’m sure nobody knows, least of all himself. His announcements are too controversial, too dependent on this-minute considerations and circumstances, on the auditorium. Living in Vladivostok, I was mostly vexed by his territorial announcement concerning Japan. He said that there is no territorial problem between our countries and that the islands in question belong to Russia. Of course, one can cite his words to the contrary, but his mentality, being imperial, will preclude any decision favoring the Japanese interests.
In this connection, a few additional words have to be said. Our Moscow government is also not very likely to solve the problem according to the historical justice. They are not even able to cope with matters more pressing for Russia. One hopes they will all go soon. And if the confrontation with Zhirinovsky’s party will expedite their descent – well, sometimes from evil something good may arise.
February 07, 1994
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TO BE OR NOT TO BE
A rather old question, would not you say? Recent years in Russia, a growing number of people answer this question negatively, even strictly negatively: they commit suicide. People in any walk of life, poor and rich, young and old, men, women, even children. Why is the number of the “negative responders” growing?
Not so long ago, when our society was “socialistic”, it was much simpler to perceive this why. The official view was that all the suicides were “temporarily insane”. (The underlining idea: one has to be insane to leave voluntarily the paradisiacal socialistic society).
But let’s look and see what a person, in any society, in any historical time, actually leaves forever when committing a suicide.
Born into this life and, in essence, left to swim. Do they ever ask us whether we want to be born? Childbearing, procreating is automatically considered as something like a law of life. A necessary illusion, otherwise the society would die out. Then, growing, learning, maturing, we always exist on the brink of an abyss: the existence we call life can at any time be broken by death, accident, fatal illness – and no second chance for any situation, everything is irrevocable. After this so-called life, a more or less long decline begins in which the person knows that death is imminent. Religious systems simply had to arise to depict a life after death. Science simply has to look for ways to achieve a personal immortality. Although the principal impossibility of such an immortality is evident. Nature could not provide a complex living organism with an inherent mechanism of immortality. As fatal accidents are unavoidable, a species has to reproduce to avoid becoming extinct…but if an immortal species reproduces itself also, it will soon overcrowd the universe. So only either-or is possible.
The life of non-sapient species is much more “normal”. They are not aware of their mortality, not aware that the hardships of life could, in principle, be avoided. But what about our life? Is it sane always to live on the brink of an abyss and not to lose one’s “sanity”.
It would be more reasonable to assume that the so-called sapiens (homo-sapiens) are but Nature’s disease. A completely irrational state of being which we can hardly expect to find on another planet.
Unfortunately, we do exist. Nobody is expecting a radical self-liquidation from us (although we try it from time to time). Maybe life is the art of avoiding pain and it would be less pain for all concerned if life were short. So the suicides make the logical step, leaving the brink for the abyss. Doing this, they only show their sanity, as we are insane. More than that, the psychiatrists, free now from the socialist state, write that 75% of suicides are “clinically healthy”, i.e. sane. So, it seems, they are just more aware of the insanity of living than we are.
Dr. Freud’s psychoanalysis tells us that any person has a will to live, or the instinct of self-preservation, and a suicidal wish. Evidently, without the death wish as a limiting factor the instinct of survival might become a too destructive force, destructive as regards to the ambience. Nature may be wise in certain things. So, for the would-be suicide to take the final plunge, they have to receive a sort of push. This push disrupts the dynamic equilibrium between the survival instinct and the death wish, and the latter wins. In general, people like living, the awareness of oneself is precious, so the push must be strong enough – or the psychological background has to be ripe.
As for background, Russia at present is the most prepared ground. The psychological quality of life reminds a quicksand. All the usual grids of the city and country life are disrupted, the process of changes is continuous, but nobody knows for sure what awaits them. And this in a country where nothing ever changed for decades! John Steinbeck had coined the title “The Winter of our Discontent”. This, here, is “The Life of our Discontent”.
So, what’s the result? The absolute absurdity of living into death becomes poignantly apparent for a person, and even not so mighty a “push” may become fatal. The “pushes” are many, in anybody’s life. But if they occur in conditions of racing prices, crime, shortages of electricity(!), the ever-growing fear of losing one’s job because the job itself may disappear – the results are not surprising. The socialist state – which labeled all the suicides insane – played a role of a strict and unjust guardian. Life in this country was similar to life in prison to a great degree, but it’s much easier to get used to a prison, especially as you see no alternatives, than to get accustomed to constant changes.
All this would be of academic interest were it not for a very dangerous factor. If a man decides to kill himself he becomes ungovernable. Is there anything that could frighten him? A would-be suicide can, usually, get some medical, psychological help. But what about a country where such a suicidal, self-destructive mood reigns?
If this goes on, Russia may become dangerous.
February 21, 1994
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THE DISSIDENCE
There is a dangerous tendency in Russia, now, to attribute all the changes to the better and to those who were called dissidents. At face value it could seem logical. If so, the capitalism we are building now via the process of privatization has been the goal of the dissidents who have been harassed, jailed, put into the psychiatric institutions, exiled, sometimes killed? I’m afraid if this had been put to them like that, many of them would wish to kill themselves. I’m sure they were fighting not for something, but against everything.
Now they are the heroes? Unfortunately, they are.
All those long years that the Soviet Union existed, there were always people who wished to destroy the regime and its institutions. In this they were right, of course, but they did not understand that in this country all changes can be made only from above. This had been finally provided by our perestroika and the following drastic socio-economic changes leading to a capitalistic society. The poor state of economics had made the restructuring unavoidable, and the hysterical cries of the dissidents did not speed up the process at all. More than that, their “selfless activity” caused the repressive organs to repress even more: anything even slightly “untoward” in literature, cinema, science, sociology, etc., was vigorously and methodically exterminated.
There had always been, there are, and there will always be people discontented with the society they live in. It’s natural and understandable. Unfortunately, the breed of dissidents in the Soviet Union contained too few rationally thinking people and too many infantiles. The reasons for their behavior were various. But the greatest flaw was their criticizing the state for its being such as it was: like berating a dog for its not being able to fly. We must not forget that in the civilized capitalistic countries, there have always been a number of sincerely discontented people. In the USA, for example, such writers as Philip Bonossky, Alvah Bessy, Albert Maltz, even John Steinbeck in his later years. Too little democracy for them in the United States? Be thankful for what you got. Everything has to conform with today’s socio-economic conditions and relations.
That’s what our dissidents in the Soviet Union could not understand. The most striking difference between a dissident and a reformer in this country is the absolute inability of the former to suggest a positive program of development. They wished only to destroy – so were they so unlike the Bolsheviks?!
Still, for many of the dissidents, their dissidence was the means to win their “place under the sun”, although it may seem a paradox. These writers, such as Mark Popovsky (now living in New York), for example, chose only such themes as would put them in the spotlight: their talent was not enough for anything “conventional” and more complex. And of course, a pen man under harassment can always find a helping hand here or abroad regardless of his real worth. There were some “funny” occasions when a person received the “dissident” label quite gratis, such as the case of an editor in a publishing house: he had to leave Vladivostok, though, I’m sure, and he had never been a dissident. As far as I could see, his colleagues were simply envious of his beautiful wife. Quite logically, I’m afraid, the dissident circles were a splendid source for the Western intelligences; only recently have a few publications have appeared about these men whom one can understand but not forgive.
All the world, I’m sure, knows the great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His books have played a really important informative and subversive role. But when this prominent dissident had sent his open letter to the Russian people, entitled “How we have to reorganize Russia”, it became regrettably evident that he has not anything positive and rational to suggest either. His books, written by the man with a strictly destructive mentality, had been an anathema in the Soviet Union. A short example from my own life, as an aside. Once, many years ago, a friend brought me one of Solzhenitsyn’s books and left it overnight. I hid the book till the morning, but did not even open it. In case THEY ASK ME, I would be able to answer honestly, that I’ve not read a single word. (Much use it would have been for me, such a lame answer!!!).
Another prominent dissident, the Academician Andrei Sakharov (also widely known), had played a mostly negative role in this country. Being the father of the Soviet H-bomb, he was sure he could speak freely on any theme. Yes, he really had a certain leeway. But what about his numerous followers? They, inflamed by his speeches, had to spend years in prisons – he remained free. One thinks he would be better advised to speak directly to the Central Committee: maybe a little good, in any case not so much evil. As it was, he had unwittingly played the role of an agent-provocateur.
No, all these dissidents did not help this country to shed the Communistic ideology to begin building a much more normal society. Their destructive mentality can only hamper us in this process. But the dissidence is an inherently Russian disease, and an incurable one, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, the dissidents in the Soviet Union, in Russia, were always sure to get moral and material support abroad. In those times no great harm could arise from this. But who are the dissidents in Russia now?
The most famous of them is Mr. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party. His form of the dissidence disease is one of the most malignant. And yes, he is getting valuable support from certain allies in the West. If this goes on, the new dissident will bite the helping western hand cleanly off.
March 07, 1994
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THE HAND FROM THE GRAVE
Crime is rampant in Russia. I’m now citing Herald Tribune # 34,358: Underworld in Moscow: Gangsters Kill in Streets and Twist the Economy “… seven men with machine guns, burst into an automobile showroom on Leninsky Prospect and opened fire. Security guards shot back and four people died…
…Last week, in another afternoon attack, three people were killed by machine-gun fire in an office.
Moscow’s gangsters, a brazen lot to begin with, have put their brutality on display this summer with a series of gangland-style hits right out of “The Untouchables”. Nothing seems to faze them – not policemen, not public outrage, and not even broad daylight”.
Since the summer in question, no changes for the better have been seen in Moscow. In Vladivostok? The situation is very similar, maybe even worse, because it is easier to obtain new army and navy weapons here. And the reason I’m citing the Herald Tribune are the words “public outrage” in the end of the excerpt.
The most tragic thing is that there is no public outrage at all. I mean, only those are outraged who are directly concerned: victims (naturally), law-enforcing agencies, press… But not the public. Why? Crimes of all and any kind are now committed in Russia as never before, and still the public behaves as if it even should be so. Why?
In Vladivostok, in a short story by one of the local humorists, a situation is depicted. A girl is eager to date a young man, thinking him a mafioso. Upon realizing he is but a successful – and rich – businessman, she leaves him, disgusted. Here I see an approach to the root of the problem, but not more than an approach because the glorification of criminals is nothing new. The root of our problem is much more deep and not readily seen.
The attitude of crime is astonishingly simple. Almost everybody is confident – and content – that everything is happening exactly as it should happen. Mind, this is in Russia where historically only thieving was condoned by the public, not the atrocities, often senselessness, we see now. As a special example: the corruptness of militia is looked upon as a natural event – here everything is as it should be, too…
One could ask: why is this so? Why is the Russian society so indifferent to crime, why does it condone crime, why does it not fight crime? Having considered this problem at length, I have to say it simply could not be otherwise. I’ll try to explain.
In the Soviet Union everybody knew that there can’t be any organized crime, any prostitution, and any drug trafficking in the country because there are no “social grounds” for these law-breaking activities. A large part of the public did not even know about the drug problem in foreign countries as it had been prohibited to write on these themes. Everybody had been indoctrinated, everybody was sure: it is not possible here. All the mass-media pounded and pounded: crime is the product of the capitalist society. Money is the evil. The Communist party is making our country secure against all the western rottenness.
When all this rant had stopped with the disappearance of the Communist party, in the following transitionary period it had been lost from view of the general public that in the Soviet Union all the “sores” of the West did exist, too. The mass-media, after milking these themes for a relatively short time, went on to more promising, new events. God knows, they had enough goods for papers and TV! So until now our people in fact don’t know that we had flowering organized crime all these long decades. For a foreign citizen it must be next to impossible to understand how it was possible at all: to live in a country and not know what is happening around you. But the Soviet mass-media under censorship had mastered to perfection the very difficult art of concealing…
The long-time indoctrination could not help leaving a lasting impression in people’s minds. As the science of behaviorism tells us, a man is just a sort of a machine, although a very complex one. All and any impulses received by men cause the reactions conditioned by the inherent psychological structure plus the man’s previous experience. Negative experiences, false experiences are not less valid than the positive and real ones. It is quite possible to make a man believe that the black is white: he will behave as if it were really so. Exactly this had been done in the Soviet Union.
Now everybody thinks that we are building a capitalistic society. This is not quite so, but the definitions are too difficult, the differences are too tenuous for the general public. So the man-machine behaves in the way it had been programmed long ago. Crime rampant? Yes, of course, because we are building the capitalism whose reality is the crime rampant. We are building capitalism? Yes, so the crime must the rampant. A vicious circle. A subconscious association of the present changes in our society with the old bugaboos is the root of the problem.
No doubt, everybody pictures his own picture for himself: we are all different. For many, I’m afraid, the dominant feeling is a sort of malicious gloating. You wanted capitalism? Here you get the full measure! But this is a side issue. The heart of the matter is much worse. I mean that the old, now dead, ideology, like a hand from the grave, is destroying us even now, because we unwittingly have lost the ability to resist, to fight for ourselves. Our society fails to oppose crime. The hand from the grave can kill us.
March 14, 1994
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DEATH WISH
Saying “death wish” I don’t mean any of the usual, “legitimate” death wishes, such as in persons who lost their dear ones, or who logically or illogically feel their life not worth living, etc. – there are many reasons, all may be valid or invalid objectively, but they are always valid subjectively. No, I mean those death wishes about which the people harbouring them don’t even know. To explain my point of view I’ll have to begin with… the music.
In Russia, music was always something special. Played on primitive instruments, sung rather primitively, it united, if even for a very short time, people who had very little joy in their life. This music was never joyful, mind you. The music and singing in Russia was, is, and, I’m sure, will always be more like a groan. Or crying. Even now, when life itself is much more joyful, our music, in essence, remains heart-rending. Of course, there are gay tunes, as there have always been, but they are not numerous and rarely are popular. The longing for such music must be inherent for the Russian soul.
Looking at people vibrating – in the direct and indirect sense – to music of this kind one tries to understand – why? Why this longing, this striving to become one with the sound waves, why is it so important?
The answer must lie in the very deepest regions of the Russian soul. As we know, human subconsciousness works under two driving forces: to live and to die. The Russians are the most durable people, survivors, so their life-instinct must be very strong. But this threatens to destroy the equilibrium between the two driving forces. Nature always tries to restore harmony, doing this in ways which may sometimes be peculiar. So, when a Russian soul unites with the music I’m telling about, it must be a sort of death, moments of touching death – but continuing to live. Subconsciousness never sleeps, never rests, it knows that the death has not yet come: but the event of touching death permits the conscious mind to relax, to rest. The harmony is restored…
When jazz, “foreign music”, began seeping into the Soviet Union, our rulers tried to exterminate it by various means. For example, in Vladivostok in the early 1960’s, a campaign was carried out during which audio tapes were confiscated. I was one of the victims: my tapes were confiscated at my home. The rulers were right, though, of course, they did not know the heart of the matter and were simply following their instinct. They were right because it is much easier to oppress the people who fulfill their death wish inside themselves. The rhythmic and tonality of, say, American music, being really foreign for us, could in time change the Russian mentality to a certain degree. Maybe this is happening now.
But the question of music and death wish is only a part of a much greater picture, and I’m sure the picture is universal. After all, Russians can’t be all that unique.
Sex. Anybody would agree that sex is universal. The moments of orgasm. What are they if not “touching death”, when everything is blocked out, blacked out – and then people feel relaxation and reviving. It has been long ago established that orgasm is not a simple physiology in people, that it plays a great psychological role.
The recurring need, necessity to “touch death” must be closely connected with time itself, with the flow of time. Time, evidently, is a force which creates the impossibility to go on in too orderly a mode, to remain face to face with one’s usual self. So one strives to revive the self by touching the tightly wound spring of not-being. Is this the inherent function of time? Quite probable, because all the functions of man’s organism are spread and evolved in time.
The universal need to touch death – yet remain within life – brings many people on the brink of real death, and over the brink, too. I mean the states of extreme intoxication, be it alcohol or drugs. The many scientific publications on these states and the processes leading to them tend to show this striving in patients, although this streak of idea lays hidden in literature.
There is another category of people striving to achieve the peculiar state of living in death, no doubt the only noble category. They are deeply religious, these people, and in their religious ecstasy they wish to unite with their God, but God is death, too.
Why am I writing about these things which may be called arcane or esoteric? Is it worth it to dig into man’s dark soul? Maybe it would be better not to know these deeps, to live as ignorant animals? Yes, it would be better, but – impossible. The sapient life, having separated from the unsapient, can’t go home again. And, as man continues to evolve, we have to know more about ourselves.
Russia is the place to perceive many intricate things, old and new. Russia, the county of quaint music. A country to wonder, although not all it its wonders are wonderful.
March 21, 1994
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TOO HEAVY
A very interesting process is going on in Russia now. Children, who had always been called “our future” in this country, have now been left, in fact, to provide for themselves. More and more kindergartens are closed, summer camps die out, the schools rent their spaces to commercial companies, and the childbirth rate is steadily decreasing. There are very few families with more than two children. The most apparent reason of all this would seem to be deteriorating financial status of our population, but it would only seem to be so. The statistical data shows that in fact we live better now than a year ago, two years ago. So what? And if an “anti-child process” is on, can one expect an epidemic of child-killings?
Such an epidemic is possible, I’m afraid, although there are no evident and valid reasons for it, as there are no valid and evident economic reasons to constrict children’s “lebensraum” in Russia.
As to what is happening, the answer promises to be interesting, not less interesting than this concrete process itself.
Life in Russia had lost its usual staticity a few years ago. So now people feel – I mean not understand but really feel – some things which pass unnoticed for more static societies, or for more disordered ones. This-here timeplace is the most propitious locus to perceive the most arcane strings of the world life. As the result our people feel:
This planet has become too heavy with man.
From time to time the scientists publish their data as to how many people this planet, Earth, can feed. The number is staggering but it is not the issue now. The issue is: what the hell for?! To overstrain the Earth’s resources – for what? For the new millions and billions of people to be born, with all their mindlessness, aggressivity (aggression; aggressiveness), hereditary diseases, their greed, senseless crime, pain, and eventual death, often senseless and painful as well… Any thinking man can see that almost all of people’s sorrows are generated simply by their numbers, by the fact that there are too many of us.
Examples? They are hardly needed, but here is the most striking one. The wars. The more populated is a region of Earth, the more wars we can count in its history. But nobody wants to reduce the population. Worse, nobody can do it. Even in the relatively disciplined China this goal has not been achieved.
People are sure it is their right to procreate. Their own personal right, and if the consequences are catastrophic, in the end, for the procreators themselves, it is still their right. About the Earth which will soon be impoverished, they don’t think at all. In literature you can find soppy SF novels of a not so distant future when it is prohibited to produce children over a settled quota. Then lots of ink and snot is spent to describe how somebody tries desperately to fool the government and give birth. They succeed, of course, and for everybody in that future the life becomes a little harder. The readers weep from happiness.
Luckily, there are SF novels of another kind, showing the present procreators the consequences of their procreating in future, also not very distant. Alas, the authors of the former stories are more successful! Why not, if for multiplying one need only the animal instinct, when for rational abstinence you have to think. Our instincts will be the death of us.
They will be – if another instinct does not appear, the striving to prolong one’s biological life by means of giving birth may be seen as an instinct of personal survival. If humanity wants to survive on Earth as a whole we all have to become rational – begin by controlling birth rate effectively.
Maybe the present processes in Russia signal the emergence of an instinct of communal survival. Surely, the forms it takes now are often ugly, but instinct is always rude. Still, it is a good beginning.
March 28, 1994
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LOVE IS NOT A FALLACY – IN RUSSIA
“Love is a fallacy” – I’ve read some young people in the USA used to wear such a pin. As a motto it has its merits, and, in general, it may even be true: depending on what we mean saying “love”.
Looking at young people in Russia now, and not so young, and sometimes too young, almost children, it seems that in our country love is becoming something much more natural than it is customary to perceive. What am I trying to say? After all the billions of works in all kinds of art, what else can one say? It appears that something really new has been said not so long ago, not by me, but by scientists, and I’m only trying to fit a scientific idea to everyday life.
The scientists insist that the feeling of love has a purely biochemical base. When ones sees or hears, or even thinks about the person of their choice, some powerful chemical substances are secreted into their blood and these substances create the state of a “high” – this “high”, of course, is expressed in everyone in their peculiar way, everybody being, after all, unique. The idea, supported by biochemical data, was published here – and immediately forgotten by the general public. It is natural. To lose the notion of “romantic love” would be too hard on our minds.
Still, the best writers made attempts to approach the said idea intuitively. Norman Mailer’s “The Executioner’s song” is but one of the examples. “But when she looked at Gary, she did not just see his face and the way he looked, it was more like Nicole felt in the right place for the first time. She was enjoying every minute he was there”. Here it is! I would not even try to say it any better.
There is a Russian folk saying ”Love is evil, you can love even a devil”. And I’m sure every nation has a saying that goes something like “Love is blind”. I mean to say that in all times, in all places somebody always took notice that there is no rational explanation of love – no known rational explanation. Now we have a quite valid idea, and I wish to show that the present sexual relations in Russia are consistent with said notion.
But first a few words are necessary as to how it was all those long and dreary decades under Communists. If one were to judge the sexual life in the Soviet Union based on literature and cinema, one would be convinced that the Soviet people have got no genitals at all. Sex was considered something shameful which had to be kept hidden. But since sex as a side of life still dared to exist, the state just had to play a domineering role in everybody’s sex life. A telling example: a wife of an adulterous husband could complain to the appropriate party boss and the culprit would be punished and told to behave. (A husband could do the same – but rarely did.) In short, love was a matter of will, not whim.
As for nudity, a young girl could be arrested for coming to a public sand-beach in a transparent swim-suit. It was practically impossible to show a nude scene even in a historical film. People were convicted for not so short sentences for “pornographic” videocassettes.
So it is maybe symbolic that the new style of love-life in Russia is apparent first of all in nudity. I don’t mean movies, no, I want to say that in the summer before last it became “in fashion” in Vladivostok to sunbathe topless for girls and “bottomless” for men. Such naturalness is but a detail illustrating our new morals.
Or this is not morals at all, perhaps? If people now, in general, in all walks of life are forgetting the ages-old concept of romantic love, this has to be something beyond the morality in its old, also ages-old, sense. Men and women have stopped pretending that their partners are “the only” in this Earth, in this life, in fact they love the object which is near. The object causing the special biochemical substances to invade their blood? To produce a “high” for them? Yes, no doubt, this is the real underlying structure. But is this too profane, too low-down? Yes – but only if it is profane and low-down for flowers to pollinate each other…
Unavoidably, any coin has two sides. People singing “romance” – singing in all meanings – all these ages long, knew instinctively that romantic feeling heightens the sensual pleasure in sex. Now, surely, much is being lost. Clothes are a major factor, too. One can understand the nudists but can hardly envy them as the process of undressing plays an important role in sex. Well, it’s long been known that one can’t eat the cake and have it too.
As for the “sacramental romanticizing”, maybe a “romance” of a completely new kind will be born here. It is quite possible: Russia can be first in many things.
April 04, 1994
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A RELIGIOUS FEELING OF LIFE
Religion in this country has always been a very interesting problem. Now it is becoming even more interesting. Yet, more futuristic.
But first a few words about the past. The Bolsheviks very long ago had made a grave mistake regarding the Church in Russia: they separated it from the state completely. But, in the view of the Russian Orthodox Church, all power is from God – hence the Communists’ power would be from God for millions of believers, and much strife would have been avoided.
Having separated the Church from the state, the Communists could not liquidate religion as such. In all periods of this country’s history there were masses of believers – but, so to say, “undercover”. Open worshipping was more than frowned upon, it could cost anybody a carrier. Even such innocent deeds as, students from the Institute of Arts singing in a Church choir for money, was dangerous. The students – it really happened in Vladivostok – had been expelled from the institute.
The “religious feeling of life” I’m writing about made itself aware shortly before the fall of Communism. Maybe because something was already in the air, maybe because it had nothing to do with the Communists at all. Probably the latter. It was seen as a kind of a hashed awe, a special state of mind in people, a religious feeling of life which needs no God.
Yes, really, in our country, after Lenin and Stalin, it would be very difficult for the masses to believe in a god whose portrait they could not see in a paper, whose voice they could not hear on the radio. But at this time people needed more than ever something to believe in, because all other beliefs were dead. They could not know that great changes were coming, but the web of reality was already shaking. In this condition, when they were again losing the ground under their feet, the people glimpsed the awareness that all our life is governed by certain supra-statistic quasi-natural laws, be they set by God, Super-Being, or the Great Experimenter who keeps our Earth like a cage with laboratory animals. One can’t believe in abstract laws, even if they are “natural”, so, needing to believe and having only abstractions, our people are now constantly on the brink: this is a dangerous state of collective mind.
As for the supra-statistic quasi-natural laws, I’ll try to explain my somewhat moot point. Some processes, epochal or purely personal, have the outcomes which cannot be explained on any rational basis. For example, the rise of Communism in this country, in its most virulent Bolshevist form, was a sort of miracle. All the attempts to substantiate this miracle from the political, ideological, economical, historical standpoint are not convincing. In particular, the Civil war. What could save the Communists at that time when so much was against them? Only something like a flow of time, a wave of time – a supra-statistic law which we don’t understand in spite of its being natural in this part of space-time continuum. After that – the victorious march of Communism around the world.
And suddenly, really unexpectedly, like a house of cards, the Communist system exploded from within. First, Mikhail Gorbachev made the mistake of proclaiming glasnost. This word was in fact a funeral bell tolling for Communism. Then Boris Yeltsin’s decree of Departisation. A complete crash. A system which seemed indestructible was destroyed magically – a magic word, a magic deed. Now the tide of time was against the Communists, and there was not a single protest rally in Russia after the decree… This is one of the character features of an event coinciding with the flow of time: the causes leading to it seem most natural and unavoidable. Here, too, a supra-statistic natural law has shown its hand…
In personal life, in anybody’s life, the same “supra-statisticity” of changes, of processes, may be perceived which cannot be explained simplistically, based on the rational cause-effect principle. A sort of “life-line” is seen, short or long: I’m sure everybody could recollect something of this kind in their life. One thinks usually “It’s luck”, or “I’ve lost my luck”, or “Fate!” Yes, in a general meaning it is fate, but the word itself is too cloudy, foggy, too religious. People more finely attuned to these “lines” can even have some prescience…
Paradoxically – or maybe not – the religious institutions as such in Russia don’t play any significant role now. At least they are not suppressed, but one can’t really notice their influence. The Church has returned to the armed forces, still, it is only a quantitative advancement. As for the people in masses, their advancement is qualitative. They now look more in the sky than elsewhere.
April 11, 1994
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THE RUSSIAN INJUNS
Or Indians, if you insist on the correct spelling. But in this case the slang form has its own rather specific meaning; I hope my idea will become clear later on.
In Russia, the official course of reforms has a number of opposing parties, groups, and blocks. One of the prominent opposing ideological “lines” is the so-called “patriotic” one. Their general stand was most succinctly expressed by a mouthpiece of the Liberal-Democratic Party (Mr. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party), “There are two civilizations in the world, the mechanized Western one, and the spiritual Russian one. The Western will perish ultimately; the Russian is destined for life eternal”.
Well, one must say there is some truth in these words. Russians as a people are more spiritual and soulful than most people on Earth. No doubt they are more compassionate than anybody one could mention, they always express kind interest in the culture and life of other people. But if a party or parties strive to base their politics and plan the country’s future on these traits, this becomes too dangerous. Only one small example: the “patriots” will never return the Northern Territories to Japan.
But let’s see what they are protagonists of if they want to “restore” and build on the “spiritual Russian civilization”.
In the country where it’s customary to not drink after work, but instead of work it is really easier not to use complex machines at all. Machines being characteristic for Western civilization, they would surely be the first candidates for the abolishment. But what about the armed forces? How would they fight, if the need arises? How to fight without machines? No answer, because the “patriotically” thinking activists cannot ever think practically.
Well, maybe a few machines would be left, after all, and they would be functioning, but all the rest of the “western” traits and features will be burned out. Pornography, for example. Knowing our Russian moralizers, I’m sure even a half-nude woman would be considered “pornography”. Mind, the roots of such hypocrisy are deep in this country. It is a well-established fact that a few years ago, under Gorbachev, the citizens of one large city in Central Russia refused to be proclaimed a Free Economic Zone as they were “afraid it would bring pornography, prostitution and crime”. The masses. Not the party bosses who were still in power, but the people themselves refused the economic freedom. So one never knows…
Next: “Russia has to follow its own unique way”, they say. The way: where and why must it be unique? Nobody answers because to answer would mean to admit that it’s again something akin to inventing the bicycle. Which bicycle, no doubt, would not run.
Luckily, the Russian people in masses would not go after those who want to erect – not the Iron Curtain now, but more probably a Straw Curtain. Such isolationism and new desires of our people are incompatible. Also, the country dwellers are too busy producing foodstuffs, the city dwellers are a too inhomogeneous lot. Really, during the decades of the Soviet Power our population had become too intermixed, the citizens of the former Soviet Republics now live anywhere in any numbers; the notion “Russian person” has become something like a fallacy in many regions, having been replaced by the notion “Russian-speaking person”. So whom are they going to organize for the new struggle? Those who show in their ideological isolationism their fear of everything new, their virulent xenophobia, and, most of all, their fear to be left on the curb of the new road Russia is following now…
But, in any case, the Russians are not a good building material for a “spiritual civilization”. A “spiritual way of life” presupposes a harmony, a harmony with ambience and oneself. But harmony is always an order first of all. Contrary, a “mechanical civilization” is only a semblance of order, being virtually torn apart from within by the conflicting urges of man’s ego. Russians as a people never wished to live orderly. There is a virtual impossibility to build in Russia a “spiritual civilization” which would be aggressive to the West.
Even if there were not these inherent reasons, Russia has now gone too far on the “mechanical” road, the population is too “westernized”. The dreams of our “patriotically thinking politics” can come true with no more probability than, for example, the USA reverting to the times and customs of Red Indians.
Russian Injuns, Ahoy!
April 18, 1994
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THE DISEASE OF LABELS
The new Russian parliament’s leader was elected as a Communists’ delegate. For people abroad, looking at Russia now, this can seem grounds for worry. “The Communists have returned?” they may wonder. Yes and no, as this is a rather complicated question.
The label of “Communist” is pinned mostly on those in the parliament who got elected due to this platform. But in most cases, this platform was taken for expediency’s sake, as this political stand was automatically giving a candidate a considerable part of the electorate: those who lived too long under the Communist rule, those who feel nostalgia for the old cage. But the candidates which came to the parliament using this simple trick, are jurists, economists, businessmen, etc. The Russian Communist party, consisting of such men, concedes the private property, for the old Communists, the notion of private property was an anathema. Only the faction of the die-hard Communists in the parliament would not budge, their principles remain the same, they are against private property – hence they must be for everybody’s poverty…
Mr. Ivan Rybkin, the leader of the present parliament, while being formally a Communist, is interested more in the economic problems than in ideology. We can hope he will fulfill his mission of a rational leadership.
Still, it would be interesting to see why the “formal Communists” play until now such an important role in the political and economic life of our country. After such a horrifying history?!
The Communist Party and administrative structure was a ruling caste. But to rule, the caste had to work. So the key positions were as a rule given to those who could work. More than that, they had to work in abominable conditions, to push ahead a humongous machine whose brakes were always in the “stop” position. I mean that the system without private property, based on administrative orders, is unviable, it is really like a car which constantly brakes instead of progressing. Yet it is right that this machine was moving due to the Communists’ ministrations, despite the economic handles being only brakes, and it was moving. Slowly, yes, but ahead! One can try to imagine what these Communist administrators can do when the economical handles are normal, when they help the progress.
The truth of my words can be surely seen through the examples of the former prominent leaders returning to the highest levels in politics. There is nothing paradoxical in this in spite of the changes in the state regime. Even before these changes they did not believe in Communism, but the system existed and they had to work within this system. It would be wrong to consider them according to the old label!
Most often these “Post-Communist” leaders of industry are accused of trying to amass large assets during the process of privatization. In fact, they are actually doing this, legitimately and not quite, and they become in the shortest time something like large capitalists, the capitalists they were “fighting” against not so long ago. But, rationally assessing, this is quite normal for the present phase of our development. The following accusation is that their activity in “capitalization” is the root of monopolization harmful for the public. Alas, this is normal, too…
The idea I want to stress is that this mass participation of former Communists in the political and economic life of Russia is not a dangerous sign. More than that, without them there would be a great vacuum. The danger, I’m afraid, is not posing in plain view, but lurking in dark corners.
First, the great idea of democracy has been killed in Russia. Killed by words of the glib talkers who called themselves democrats and could only talk, not work. Now everything bad in Russian life is associated with the democrats. Consequently, Russia will not see a real democracy for a long, long time.
Second. About two weeks ago an Antifascist front was formed in Sankt-Petersburg. At face value it seems to be good because the Russian fascists are active now. But are there real, factual, valid differences between fascists and Communists? I’m sure it would be difficult to find them, accepting that the fascists are much more open and honest and that their propaganda is more effective because it acts mostly on the subconscious level. So would not it be more logical to form a front against the die-hard Communists who can, potentially, raise a greater public support in our country?
No, it would not – but only because in Russia the disease of labels is indigenous.
April 25, 1994
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THE FORCE OF NATURE
In recent years, in Russia, we see that women are taking a more and more prominent place in society – in politics, economics, etc. Maybe in politics it would seem more natural, but have you ever seen a woman as a bank president in a civilized country? I don’t mean we are not civilized, the general idea will be clear somewhat later.
In the late Soviet Union women had to work. Certainly, in this respect our country was not civilized. An idle woman was a rarity, the all-women road gangs were a norm. This had been called equality of sexes. But the present trend of the female “take-over” in the social and, even more important, economic structure, is a sure sign of our country’s viability. And that’s why.
It is a well-known fact that for a population’s survival more females are needed than males. The most evident example is with chicken: one cock can serve lots of hens. So, naturally, males are expendable in large numbers. But, as Nature never spends anything vainly, the male’s sheer expendability makes them a useful tool. In humanfolk, men possess an inherent urge to risk. If the risky deed is successful, all the population gains, if the male perishes… well, he was expendable from the start! That’s also why men are more prone to create, because in general creativity is a risk, the risk of leaving the well-trodden path.
Women, being vitally needed for survival of a population, of a society, don’t risk, don’t often create or don’t create as well (dear feminists, please excuse me!), they are not burdened with too much scruples, in any problem they instinctively go for the jugular. Yes, no doubt, they are something like a natural force!
History shows us not a few examples of women’s effectivity in “male” business. The Amazon warriors. The women of “Death Squadrons” in various armies. The women assassins. And so on.
The science of physiology can show that the “female fragility” is but a myth. A woman’s muscles, computed in body weight/work load ratio, are even slightly more effective than a man’s. Women endure hunger and thirst much easier than men. Only once a month they are indisposed, but is this enough to consider them fragile?
More than that, their seeming fragility and sensibility had helped them long ago to create the eternal myth of romantic love. But let’s stop fooling ourselves, a young man loves the love itself, and more often than not becomes forever burdened with a silly wench! As the result the expendable men the world around serve the nonexpendable women. This is quite logical and rational, but let’s at least call a spade a spade, not a violet!
Let’s do more. And perceive the evident. If in fact women determine the life of society in, they must rule openly. The benefits would be many. Women, programmed by Nature for survival, will not permit wars, they will exterminate violent crime, and all the walks of life will soon become as velvet. Let’s be frank: men have been botching everything they were undertaking since time immemorial. This new Matriarchy would be a Gold Age.
No doubt, this idea of giving women the leading posts everywhere (they will take power eventually, so what’s the sense of prolonging the agony of the “male” society?) will not find much support with men at first. Really, men are much too afraid of women even in the existing conditions to grant them the right to rule de jour, too. I’ll go even further and say that we, men, instinctively sensing women’s supremacy, had created all the grid of ordinary life, including all the attributes of “romantic life”, mostly from fear and desire to placate. Leaving them for work every morning, we escape into a predominantly male world, or at least into a world living after our say-so, and then return to them… Is it not like returning to womb, I wonder? And if the society is like a womb from which everything new is born, would not it be better for this womb to be completely female–organized and female-oriented?
In any case, such an unconditional surrender would permit men to negotiate a few dear points: the right to drink and smoke, watch TV, read papers… but no fighting, of course, no wars, no drugs!
Women in Russia are not waiting for our surrender; they are marching to power today.
May 02, 1994
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MASTURBATION AS AN ANTI-COMMUNIST ACTIVITY
A few days ago, one of my friends, a great lover of onanism (yes, I’m aware that “lover” sounds ironic here), told me: “Now, when the Communist bullshit about the perils of masturbation is void, I’m happy!”
This idea was something new for me. I mean – the connection between the Communist ideology and the “anti-onanism propaganda”. But is it really so farfetched? Recalling the long, oh so long decades under Communism, I perceived the sordid truth: the Soviet totalitarian society just could not help being rabidly against masturbation.
Why? Because for a totalitarian governing structure, the idea of somebody getting even such a small pleasure according to their own free will was an anathema. A person indulging in self-gratification could be looked upon as a public enemy. Mind, no punitive measures were introduced, but the atmosphere itself was strictly “anti-onanistic”. Even in the popular-medicinal texts you could not find a scientific explanation of this “fact of nature” – that this is a sort of a safety valve created by nature for preserving physical and psychical equilibrium and tranquility. And only if onanism becomes a fixation it is really bad and harmful.
So, as we see, masturbation in the Soviet Union had been an anti-Communist activity, being a deviation from the approved mode of life. I’m far from declaring, nonetheless, that large numbers of people were aware of this being so. The masturbating masses – and they were masses, as it was rather difficult to find a more sociable sexual outlet in the society which frowned upon any kind of extramarital activity – well, as I say, the masturbating masses were seeking only the self-gratification, not the overthrowing of the existing regime. But nothing human vanishes completely; any lasting trait of character strives to last, especially if the trait in question had long become a trait of the society. And if the sexual onanism precludes procreation of people, the social onanism precludes a real social progress.
Look at Russia now. Everybody who is in power now, who has lost the power, who is eager to seize power, they all took their roots in the Communistic time. Hence their inherent urge for self-gratification. Oh, if they only limited this urge to their genitals! Alas, all their professional activity bears the deadly (deadly only in the social life!) sigh of the onanistic self-gratification. Examples? Not to be too tiresome for the reader, I’ll make only two.
“Democracy!” they are proclaiming. “We are building a democratic society. The human rights must be respected!” A loud sigh is heard, a sigh of mass gratification. Soon all the institutions are abolished where the chronic alcoholics lived and worked and even received some treatment. Since then they live with their families where all normal life had since stopped, as these persons are not fit for coexistence with the society. The families, I’m afraid, can’t help thinking: In Russia, the more democracy, the worse…
Second. The Prime-Minister says: “The tax burden on the producers must be lightened!” Everybody’s lightened sigh, everybody is gratified. The President says: “The tax burden on the producers must be lightened!” The greatest self-gratification is achieved, assuredly, by the President himself. Not one of the producers, industrialists, businessmen has yet been gratified, the tax burden remains the same. Although everybody knows that it could be lightened by the President’s signature alone: he signs lots of papers every day…
Still, we have a consolation (or a self-gratification?!), albeit a very small one. As the specter of Communism, due to the deteriorating social conditions, is a staying menace, the onanistic socio-political activity in Russia remains an anti-Communist activity!
November 10, 1994
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KGB
The monster slain? Or, in other words, the malicious hydra beheaded? It seems so. All the formal signs are apparent. If so, the real issue now is not “if”, but – “why?" Why is this a so sudden, so unexpected slaying?
The infamous acronym, KGB, world-known and ominous, had disappeared rather long ago and been replaced with MSR – and now, quite recently, with FCC – Federal Service of Counter-intelligence. The letter change brought also drastic changes in the structure of the agency – at least the newspapers say so. The cause of the latest events is very interesting. The understanding of this cause came to me almost at once, but I had to wait a little, hoping I was wrong, hoping that there were objective and valid reasons to maim the most useful agency still known in the world as KGB. Alas…
But, at first a few words as to how any law-abiding citizen felt the KGB’s presence in Vladivostok. For example: actually in any city, I’m sure, all those long decades. Anybody speaking on the phone with anybody would suddenly jerk, was everything I’ve just said kosher? I'm sure there was very little tapping of the phones, but everybody was afraid. Letters sent abroad rarely found their addresses. As well as the letters sent to the Soviet Union. Men reading books in English – and talking about these books! – could find themselves in trouble. Everybody knew that in any institution, organization, factory or plant there were people who regularly inform the KGB. Now I have to ask: could it have been otherwise? To preserve the “Communist zoo” the appropriate special service simply had to do all this, such was the main task as defense by the Communist party. To punish the KGB for this style of work would be the same as to punish a horse because it neighs and eats hay.
But the KGB had been punished for eating hay – in other words, harassing the dissidents. In fact, it was really the former dissident, who achieved this no mean feat: the KGB had been reformed. The system of the political intelligence had been disrupted. As a result, the government and the president since then are defenseless against their political opponents, Communists, so-called patriots, - and Mr. Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party… These dissidents are much more dangerous than the dissidents of the past.
The Ministry of Security of Russia was carrying out the counter-intelligence work, fought the organized crime and contraband more or less successfully, and, one could think, did not harm anybody. Maybe it had even saved President Yeltsin when the flight dispatch center was suddenly switched off from the electricity network for his plane when it was in the air in the Rostov region. It was the power plant’s punishment for Aeroflot’s not paying for the electricity (!!!). One of the MSR officers ordered to switch the electricity back on, threatening the responsible official with an immediate arrest. The electrical supply was restored, and not one of the many planes in the air crashed. Unfortunately, the President did not know about this until recently.
So why the hell reform the MSR? The official version was that it was still harassing people. It’s hard to believe. Maybe the Moscow liberals did not like that some people selling the state secrets were arrested – but it is the duty of any special service in any civilized country. No. The real reason was not even half rational.
The decision to reform, in fact liquidate, the MSR and create the Federal Service of Counterintelligence, FSC, was taken very soon after one of the announcements by Mr. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal-Democratic party (in reality the party is nationalistic, not liberal, not democratic). Mr. Zhirinovsky said that when he would come to power in Russia, all the officers of KGB who had had to leave the agency on political grounds would be invited back. Those were not empty words. It is well known that the Zhirinovsky’s party had been established and financed by the KGB. It was the first party apart from the CPSU, when the Communists were still ruling in the USSR.
One has to know the relations between Yeltsin and the KGB to at least try to understand his reaction to Mr. Zhirinovsky’s promise. The KGB tried to liquidate Boris Yeltsin twice, both attempts are documented. It happened in Gorbachev’s time. One can imagine what he thinks of the agency. Mr. Zhirinovsky’s words must have caused an intense, irrational fear in Yeltsin. The fear produced the action…
Surely, instead of liquidating the MSR, formerly the KGB, he would better oppose Mr. Zhirinovsky in the political scene in such a way that the latter would not have any chances to take his place. But our President is too emotional like all the charismatic figures. Hence the sudden faux pas.
My theory seemed too outlandish even for myself, so I waited for a certain time. Maybe something will come to light which would explain the events in a rational way. My expectations came to an end a few days ago when an interview with the predent Director of the FSC, Lieutenant-General Golushko was published. In his words about the “new” tasks (how can they be new?), I could not find even a glimmer of the necessity of the changes to have been made.
Unfortunately, a subjective factor had again played a fatal role in Russia.
February 28, 1994
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WILL THE CHINESE MARTIANS OCCUPY THE PRIMORSKY TERRITORY?
The specialist’s general contention is that they will. Numerous numbers are published here showing how many joint ventures have been established, how many businesses have been bought through local fronts, the dynamic indicators of the Russian-Chinese export-import, etc. There was a time, not so long ago, when I wanted such an occupation to happen, and not only I. We had a sort of nostalgic feeling because in the pre-revolution Vladivostok, veritably all the infrastructure had been Chinese: laundries, shops, small crafts.
But Vladivostok and all the Primorsky Territory have changed too drastically since then, and, which is even more important, the Chinese people under Communists are not fit for any meaningful task.
So – no “occupation”. The climate for the Chinese here is too unfavorable. And they have only themselves to blame for it. First of all – who visits our Territory predominantly? Criminals and merchants – “shuttles” crossing our frontier on a regular basis. The merchants bring Chinese goods of the worst quality in great quantity. The Soviet, now Russian, consumer goods have always been bad, but the Chinese are even worse, which is no small feat. The prices are low, of course, so our public buys – but very reluctantly. In 15-20 years our people will have much more money for better goods, so the Chinese trash will mostly disappear. Maybe only the Chinese chocolate will stay, because it is really good, at least of the same quality as the Spanish and Finnish and better than the Turkish.
The Chinese businessmen are as a rule untrustworthy. This is a consensus here. There are exclusions, naturally, but for a Chinese company, it is extremely difficult to find a partner in the Primorsky Territory. They can only buy our produce, natural resources mostly, but in this case the prices which the Chinese decide could suggest they are not too attractive. It is more profitable for us to trade with Japan, Republic Korea, the USA.
As for the Chinese criminals, they are a quite another story, of course. This kind of more or less legal Chinese immigrant are numerous and dangerous – for the Chinese traders. In general, the Chinese gangs live off their own kind; they wisely leave alone the hosts.
So what do we see at present? There is a number of working frontier transfers, the Chinese flock here with their bags, sacks, and cartons. In one rural village in the Primorsky Territory it was found once that the Chinese outnumber the locals two times… but still the Chinese remain for us a sort of Martian. Not to say completely irrelevant, but evidently superfluous.
Alas, they would not agree with me now. Nobody has ever killed and robbed Martians in Russia, but the killings and robberies of Chinese businessmen and traders take a large part of the militia criminal statistics. Alas, they would be right in this concrete regard. Almost any day one can see in a paper something of the kind: the local criminal element – Russians, Koreans, and Chechens (who came here from afar, from Caucasian mountains), attack, kill, maim, rob single Chinese in their homes and in the streets and take large sums in dollars and rubles. One has to think they follow the idea that there are no poor Chinese in Russia…
As to “occupying” the Primorsky Territory, this might be easier done by the Republic Korea, or South Korea, as we call it here. All the traits, mentioned above negatively about the Chinese, may be retold about the South Koreans – but positively. Their consumer goods, due to their good quality and lower prices, are ousting the American and Japanese goods. And nobody would dream of calling the fine Korean guests – Martians.
January 10, 1994
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THE BEAUTY OF THE BEHOLDER
As we know, “The Beauty of an object is in the eye of the Beholder”. But is this Oriental wise saying true-contrary wise too? I mean, can the beauty surrounding us make us a little more beautiful or no? Let’s see.
For about 70 years, in the late and mostly unlamented Soviet Union, the uniform drabness had been the ideal. Naturally, a Soviet citizen could be recognized in any country of the world from afar. In the territory equaling 1/6 of the Earth, only one kind of soft drink, as a rule, was on sale. The color of diarrhea, in the same bottles, always opaque. To hell with soft drinks, surely, because the architecture was in the like sorry state, so much so that the humorists had produced an infinite number of stories as to how a person can’t find out which city he is walking about… The same was with cinema, music, literature: the universal evenness, one-sidedness, drabness. The general purpose was and is clear. It is easier to indoctrinate the people living such a “half-life”, that “only that exists which must exist; that does not exist which exist must not”, this being the real mainline and under-line of the party ideology for the masses.
Of course, saying all this I don’t mean the functional beauty of the Soviet military technique – guns, tanks, fighter planes. But if the beauty of a country exists only in its war machine, this in itself tells too much.
Now a very interesting situation has arisen. The “homo soveticus” (we are not cured yet, not to any noticeable degree) is now under a constant siege by foreign beauty. From gaudy candies and chocolate bars to such cars as Toyota and Ford. You can enter any shop, large or small, or simply come up to a street kiosk or stand and see all the “signs of the capitalist life”. Everything is being imported here now, and everything is more or less beautiful, because if your packaging and trademark do not attract, you don’t sell your goods or services.
This concept had been virtually new for us until recently, but the changes in our society are striking. The people dress much better, they are not ugly apparitions any more, in hotels and restaurants you can see splendid putas – I can’t say for all the country, but in Vladivostok they are really beautiful!
An average person can’t help but be influenced by all this. Let’s take movies, for example. The images of normal life are now easily accessible for all those who cannot and never will be able to visit a foreign country. When we were still called the Soviet Union, almost any foreign film could be considered an anti-Soviet propaganda: the contrast between lives here and there was too great.
Music. One must never underestimate the importance of music for the masses, its influence on the minds. The Communist party did not underestimate. In the early 60’s, the party had carried out a “musical purge”. All the Western groups of singers had been banned. In Vladivostok, the tape recordings had been confiscated at homes. Much later, when Konstantin Chernenko was the ruler in the USSR, the Ministry of culture “recommended” the musical tapes for radio, passenger planes and ships… At present beautiful music from all over the world flows around our cities and villages and, I’m sure, we are little by little becoming better. It’s easier for us to appreciate beauty in all its expressions.
Even in architecture. A townhouse is being built in Vladivostok, it’s almost ready. Nothing of the customary Soviet drabness could you see in this four-story building, it reminds more of houses in Western Europe which had never known the Communist rule. A prominent member of mafia will live in the townhouse I’m writing about, but what the hell! This is also a sign of the changing times.
All that is said above is very true, I hope, but it would not be worth the ink if the picture was only superficial. No, to perceive the deeper structure of changes provided by the altered environment, one must consider the drinking habits. Yes, really. I‘m afraid all the world thinks the Russians drink more than anybody else in world, but this is not the issue now.
It is well known in science that the food a man or a nation eats influences to a certain degree the national character. This is in the nature of the structural information contained in the food. But alcoholic drinks can determine the national character much easier and to a greater degree. Beer in the German-speaking countries, grape wine in Italy and France, rum in Latin America, whisky in the English-speaking countries, sake in Japan, but – vodka in Russia.
Hence – the Russian national character. One of the greatest Russian writers now, Victor Astafiev, said, “One has to state: the character of the nation has formed unsatisfactorily”. I have to underline that this writer is quite free from the so-called “Western sympathies”…
But what do we see now? Our traditional vodka is progressively ousted by more “noble” imported drinks. Whisky, gin, good wine, various kinds of “Amaretto”, fruit liquors from all over the world. The influence of these drinks is, evidently, much slower than the influence, purely esthetic, of cigarette packs such as “More” or “Dumont”, but it is structural. After many years, maybe a few generations, the national character has to change, to improve under this influence together with the predominantly aesthetic factors.
Then “the beauty of the object” will become transformed into “the beauty of the beholder”.
January 17, 1994
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I’M A FROG, YOU ARE…
It was in the newspapers recently that a new organization has been formed in certain republics of the former Soviet Union, “The Russian Vityazes”. (“Vityaz” means something like “Knight”). Now, I’m sure, many writers will try to associate the new organization with the infamous “Pamyat” (“Memory”) which is ultra-nationalistic and violently anti-Semitic. It would be a fallacy.
“The Russian Vityazes” are an illustration of the old law: “any action will cause a counteraction”. The Russians and Russian-speaking persons are now being discriminated against in, actually, all the former republics of the Soviet Union. Hence – the counteraction, this organization, whose main task is to protect the Russian-speaking population. The leadership of “The Russian Vityazes” insists the methods will be strictly legitimate and athletic-cooperation with the law-enforcing agencies, founding sport clubs, etc.
But we know the inherent dialectics of such peaceful organizations. A sport club is in essence an iron fist; cooperation with law-enforcement can generate “death squads”, like in Latin America. So the future of “The Russian Vityazes” cannot be predicted all too well. To a great degree the situation will be determined by the extent of influence the indiscriminate Russian nationalism will exact upon the leadership of the new organization.
When I was very, very young I heard for the first time the popular motto: “This is not the Russians’ way” (Sorry, this is almost impossible for translation, also the intonation is unavoidably lost.). At first I could not understand the meaning, as even then I could not see anything in the Russian way of life. Now I feel this inner meaning, although I still don’t understand it; as for the “Russians’ way” in itself, it means now predominantly: “The best work is the one where you don’t have to work at all”. Of course, this is the opinion of Russians after the Communist rule, but I’m speaking about what is, not about what could be.
I’ve had chances aplenty to observe that an average Russian considers himself better with no apparent reasons, simply based on his birth-right. But a citizen of the USA, England, France, Japan, Australia has the same bases to be proud of his origins, is it not so? Then we are all equal, no? No. Because the average person does not want to be equal, he wants to be better. But if you are average, you have nothing to be especially proud of, so you are by necessity proud of your nationality… So, if I’m a frog, I’m assuredly better than any toad? A moot point. Personally I’m confident that a dog is not better than a cat, or vice versa, they are different. There are much more differences between them, than, say, Armenians, Azeri, and Georgians who try to exterminate each other.
Once, about 20 years ago, I read a short poem by a writer from an infinitesimally small state in Africa, this state having just then obtained the long sought for “independence”. I’ll never forget these words: “My country is mighty again…” Here it is! Everybody wants to be mighty, to frighten all the neighbors. In essence, this is the basic structure underlying all nationalism – and patriotism. Nationalism had played its positive role in very early, prehistoric times, but now? To a certain extent it is understandable from an African poet, because it is a tribal-level manifestation. Between “grown-up” nations it is absurd.
I would like to suggest an analogy. There are numerous publications in Russia on the problem of the so-called Northern Territories of Japan. Virtually all the writers, with few exceptions, try to prove that these islands are indispensable for Russian interests in this region. It is so easy for them to forget that these islands belong to Japan… Here we see patriotism in action. And the analogy: children in a sandbox, every one of them jealously guarding their own sandcastle…
Patriotism precludes clear thinking. There are not many examples to the contrary. One of them is the behavior of Ukrainians during World War II. In general, they preferred the German occupation to the Communist rule. But the Germans, being too nationalistic, failed to realize the implications, failed to use the possibilities.
Considering all the above, it becomes evident that such organizations as “The Russian Vityazes” could play a definitely positive role in overcoming the harmful nationalistic tendencies. Why? They represent the active part of large Russian communities abroad. They could begin the process leading to non-nationalistic symbiosis of a new type. A working integration would benefit all the republics. The future will show whether “The Russian Vityazes” are able to achieve this.
January 24, 2004
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BORIS YELTSIN – THE HERO OF OUR TIME
A few days ago Boris Yeltsin, the first President of Russia, died. But his efforts were not in vain.
People and peoples tend to forget their heroes. At present, though many “high” words are being said about Yeltsin, yet nobody has even mentioned his greatest achievement. He had made the return of Communists to power, the re-establishing of the so-called “socialism”, impossible.
What can an “average man from the street” say about Yeltsin now? That Yeltsin drank, everybody knows about his drunken sprees… But, were it not for Yeltsin, we would all still be living in the country of long queues for anything, shortages of everything.
B. Yeltsin against M. Gorbatchev – it was a battle of titans. Yeltsin won, and now Russia is a country of strong economy and growing military strength. The disbanding of the USSR was not the “greatest tragedy”, like our present President, V. Putin, says, but simply a constatation of the objective state of events.
Rest in peace, Mr. Yeltsin.
April 28, 2007