DR. FRANKENSTEIN THE NATION BUILDER

Perhaps the worst case of wishful thinking, the wicked, irresponsible kind, is the desire for nation building not even of one’s own nation, but of other people’s nations, and not for the naive purpose of remaking them in one’s own image, but for the ulterior motive of breeding for oneself a few helpful servants. If we could thus “nation-build” the whole world, migliore ancora!
...In the title I have made a reference to Dr. Frankenstein, which is an insult to the good Doctor. At least, that one used to operate on dead corpses. Our new Dr. Frankenstein, the social surgeon, practices vivisection!
But all such minor differences and nuances notwithstanding, one thing is certain: All Frankensteins, past, present, and future, are destined to regret creating their respective monsters. Paraphrasing Cicero, to each the same, but from his own.

COMRADE STALIN'S LAST HURRAH

After the grandiose international celebration of his seventieth birthday, in 1949-1950, Stalin’s health was now deteriorating rapidly, but he was not ready yet to relinquish his official duties.
When, in October 1952, Stalin suddenly convened the Nineteenth Party Congress, after an unprecedented hiatus of thirteen and a half years, he intended it to be his retirement swan song. He was old and very sick, and had less than five months to live.
Thirty years! Yes, his reign was shorter than the reigns of his two illustrious precursors Ivan IV and Peter I, but, looking at it from a different angle, Comrade Stalin, nearing the age of seventy-three, had outlived each of those two by a good two decades.
At the Congress, he had some important personal business to attend to. Back in 1922, he started his tenure by renaming the suddenly all-important title of Executive Secretary into General Secretary, emphasizing his unquestionable uniqueness. But now, in 1952, he was closing his thirty-year page of Russian History by retiring that title. If you want something to be done right, do it yourself! To make certain that there would be no more “General Secretaries” after him, Stalin not only abolished the title, introducing the brand new title of First Secretary, but he also became the first “First Secretary” himself, cementing the deal for posterity. (But then came one of those subtle historical ironies, which tend to elude the attention of historians. Comrade Khrushchev, the Stalin-basher, implicitly followed his Master’s wish, and dutifully kept the new title of First Secretary for himself. Then, after him, came Brezhnev, ostensibly attempting to patch up Stalin’s tattered reputation, and mindlessly destroyed Stalin’s historical uniqueness by reinstating the title of General Secretary for himself.
And finally, as to the circumstances of Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, my father ruled out poisoning, or any other act of violence. It was a "natural death" all right, but with a passive conspiracy on the part of his three disloyal lieutenants: Beria, Khrushchev and Malenkov. Stalin was having a serious medical paroxysm, collapsing on the floor of his office; he was in urgent need of medical help. These three denied him doctors’ attention, just leaving him there, on the floor, to die.

(Postscript: Soon thereafter, one of the three, the "dark horse", was to kill the strongest of the three and demote the third one, and later take on the whole Presidium of the CPSU, on his way to a decade-long absolute rule. You can mock him and despise him all you like, but one thing you cannot take away from Nikita Sergeyevich.--- He was a consummate political animal, and what he accomplished in the 1950’s in Soviet domestic politics, could not be done by any other player of the time.)

LIBYA AND HER LIBERATORS: US AND THEM

I do not subscribe, at least wholesale, to the intimation that the current events in Libya are a foreign import. I am positive that the native frustration with “Colonel” Qaddafi’s regime for the past couple of decades has been most genuine. It does not matter that, under Qaddafi, Libya had enjoyed (until the Odyssey Dawn, at least) one of the highest standards of living in Africa. Even in the richest country on earth, the United States of America, there are many millions of discontented citizens, and having a disgruntled opposition in Libya cannot come as a big surprise even to those who do not follow world affairs for a living.
Yes, for a very long time, there has been an authentic opposition to Qaddafi in Libya, and yes, that selfsame opposition has become quite active in the course of the recent events, no matter what its actual impetus had been lately. In other words, the attempted revolution in Libya has been genuine, no matter what.
However, I do doubt that the forces of this revolution are overwhelming. In fact, I think that they are evenly matched at best with the defenders of the status quo. Or perhaps, they had been evenly matched, before the foreign nations started bombing Libya.
Whereas a week ago, as I am sure, the majority of the Libyan opposition had been genuine patriots of their nation, I am equally sure that in the last week or so their loyalties have shifted rather substantially.
Don’t get me wrong. I am well aware of the past history of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. I do know that there is a historical divide between Western and Eastern Libya. But I also know that a foreign intervention of any sort had never before succeeded in solving such domestic problems, but, on the contrary, had usually helped the warring nation to consolidate behind its existing government, good or rotten. So far, I see no exception in Libya today.
Although I am not cognizant of all the numerous and subtle details of the present situation in Libya, I have no doubt that the ongoing Western intervention is neither helping the rebels, nor promoting the Western oil interests (except those of Germany). I think that the West, be that American or West European experience with multi-culturalism, is all messed up about this matter. Whatever happens now, no good is going to come out of it.
The two key words are nationalism and foreign intervention. These two are totally incompatible. No matter what the multi-culturalists think, not too many people in this world think too much of multiple citizenship or of multiple loyalties, for that matter. Our son-of-a-bitch is always preferable to the foreign liberator. For the people know that it is natural for a foreigner to pursue his own foreign interest, whereas even the very worst dictator’s selfish interest is, after all said and done, a native interest.
…I am following the events unfolding in Libya with an unabashed curiosity. If I were a betting man, I would as sure as heck put my money off the liberators, but rather on the outsiders, waiting on the sidelines.

VANECHKA! AN AMERICAN VICTORY IN RUSSIA

A curious insight into Nikita Khrushchev’s impulsive authoritarian personality is provided by the following story of how the young American pianist Van Cliburn with Nikita Khrushchev’s personal blessing won the First Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1958.
Nikita Khrushchev’s impulsive and superstitious nature would reveal itself to its fullest extent in his Cuban adventure, which will be discussed at length in my later two entries, but the reader may catch a glimpse of it already in this instructive vignette.
While classical music in the Soviet Union was the best safe haven for human dignity, international music competitions often turned into cold war battlefields, or “armistice conferences.” This is a story told by Emil Gilels, who presided over the jury in the first Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1958.
After the first of the three rounds of the competition, Khrushchev talked to Gilels and Oistrakh about how the field of the contestants was shaping up. Everybody expected Soviet musicians to win in both piano and violin. But Khrushchev was only interested in the American contestants. Who of them had shown enough talent and skill to go all the way into the final round?
When Khrushchev heard the name Van Cliburn, he grabbed Gilels by the sleeve of his jacket, and started shaking it, like he wanted to tear it off.
“What?! Ivan Kleeburn? We have an American boy with the name Ivan, and I didn’t know? Why wasn’t I told?!”
Ivan, Vanya, Vanechka Kleeburn, were now Khrushchev’s pet names for the American pianist who would become his main preoccupation in the days to come.
“How is my Vanya doing?!” he kept terrorizing Gilels all the time.
“Frankly, Nikita Sergeyevich, he is doing very well,” Gilels would reply. “He is a very talented boy. Too much sugar for my liking, but a very talented boy.”
“In America, I am told, they make sugar out of corn. It’s called corn syrup,” Khrushchev added playfully. “Watch over him for me, Milechka (Gilels’s pet name)!”
“...Watch Van Cliburn,” Gilels was telling everybody before Cliburn’s appearance in the second round of the competition. “He is going all the way to the top, with Comrade Khrushchev’s blessing.”

The deeply shocking news that the sweet American boy with curly hair was going to win the Tchaikovsky Competition to the chagrin and detriment of the proud Russian school of music, was quickly absorbed and enthusiastically accepted by Moscow elite before the start of the third, and final, round of the Tchaikovsky Competition. Van Cliburn was dubbed “First Lad of the Russian Village.” Every Russian now called him Vanya, and America was huge on people’s minds like nothing less than Russia’s twin sister. No more cold wars! Peace and friendship, and good will toward fellow men!
Where was now America’s image as the Empire of the Yellow Devil, the focus of evil, for the Russians, in the modern world? “Odi et amo: I love you and I hate you,” that would be the officially sanctioned feeling toward the United States in Russia for the rest of 1958 and for a very long time afterwards.
Khrushchev was a crude and vulgar man. But he showed his political genius in the matter of Van, “Vanya,” Cliburn, the baby-faced American, who was sent to Moscow by Providence to help Uncle Nikita change the world for the better.

TRAITOR-HERO

There are some stories from history, which clash so violently with our conventional knowledge that our first judgment is to keep them to ourselves. It doesn't matter that they come from good trustworthy sources. If they are true, why haven’t those good trustworthy sources revealed them to the world themselves, but have instead allowed a historical lie to be perpetuated?
The last question is of course disingenuous. We darn well know why: the proverbial sources and methods! The real question must be whether we ourselves, having come into the possession of this kind of knowledge, are allowed to share it?
Of course we are, as long as we do not start namedropping our sources, just because we have nothing else, as far as “hard evidence” is concerned, to back up our story with. However, it makes such perfect sense that this reason alone is worth telling our story, backing it up with nothing else but this reason why we think that it must be told.

Like this one, for instance. A decorated Soviet general, universally acknowledged as a great Russian patriot, much admired by Comrade Stalin himself, entrusted with some of the most daunting tasks in the early stages of Russia’s war with Nazi Germany (including the heroic defense of Moscow), and accomplishing them all with flying colors, suddenly, for seemingly no reason at all, defects to the vile enemy, bent on bringing his beloved Mother Russia down to her knees, and henceforth himself becomes the worst kind of traitor, whose fate--- repentance or no repentance--- is to burn in hell for all eternity.
Come to think of it, a man so bright and charismatic, yet so duplicitous that he could be so much loved and respected by everybody before showing his “true” colors, a man who was able to fool such a perspicacious and famously suspicious judge of character as Comrade Stalin, must be either the devil incarnate, in possession of truly supernatural powers… or an incredible hero, doing all this for the greater glory of Mother Russia!
So, here is the story, told without attribution, told not to be believed to be true, but only to be registered in the mind of the reader, as something worthy of being thought about.

One of the practical outcomes of targeting the United States as the main adversary of the Soviet Union in the world of the future was General Milstein’s (see my blogpost Father Frost) suggestion, eagerly approved by Stalin, to plant Soviet agents as Nazi collaborators, with the far-reaching goal of their prospective postwar recruitment by the United States into an anti-Soviet espionage and sabotage network. This bizarre twisted scheme suggested using them only as "sleepers" under Hitler (read bona fide traitors to their motherland), who would not trust them with anything, anyway. However, after the war they were supposed to “wake up” and using their by now well-established anti-Soviet credentials, infiltrate and disrupt the anticipated anti-Soviet activities of their new Western masters.
The most amazing fact about this scheme is that it was not a joke. In fact, it worked almost exactly along the predicted lines, and some of this has by now become public knowledge. I believe that it was fairly recently reported in the West that some of the leading Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe and the USSR, later finding home in America and in Western Europe, and actively involved in the planning and execution of the invariably botched postwar anti-Soviet operations, were subsequently exposed as Soviet agents, planted all along in exactly that capacity.
Ironically, the best-ever such Soviet super-agent, carefully selected, psychologically evaluated, and prepared for his “triple cross” mission, had misfired. He was none other than the vastly talented, extremely capable, and fanatically patriotic General Andrei Vlasov. His cover was exposure-proof. He had been hand-picked by Stalin himself, in circumvention and total ignorance of the official channels. His mission was known only to a handful of people, plus one specially assigned psychiatrist who had done his evaluation.
General Vlasov’s name was to become a synonym for “treason.” At the very end of the war, he dutifully surrendered to the Allied troops, but instead of being taken in by the American side, as expected, he was handed over to the Soviet side, to face harsh judgment for treason and inevitable execution. The reader may now ask the obvious question: why did the American side refuse to take him in, when so many others, Nazis and collaborators, were given asylum? Some of the latter were later acknowledged as planted Soviet agents, so it wasn’t mere prudence. Once again, why was General Vlasov, the flagship of the lot, and a man who would be a treasure trove for any intelligence service, turned back? This can be explained, of course, by the fact that by then he had become such an odious figure that the Allies did not want to hurt the feelings of their Soviet counterparts, but considering the well-known role of American General Patton, and the "well-leaked" Churchill plan codeworded “Operation Unthinkable,” holding on to Vlasov would have been a relatively minor offense, compared to others. Incidentally, I never bought Khrushchev’s official charge against Beria that he was a British spy, and so I completely exclude the incredible scenario where Beria, who of course had been one of the very few who had known about Vlasov’s real mission, could have tipped the West about it. Besides, had the American side known or even suspected something about General Vlasov’s secret, they should never have given him back like this, earning into the bargain a condemnation of the whole anti-Soviet community (which the United States was otherwise so keen to cultivate), that the Americans had mercilessly delivered a lamb to the wolves… Well, one thing is certain, that for some unknown reason, the American side treated Vlasov as one treats a ticking bomb: get rid of it before it explodes!
And so General Vlasov was in Soviet hands now. What was Comrade Stalin supposed to do with him? Give him a Gold Star for collaborating with Hitler and showing heroism under Soviet torture? Sending this most hated man in Russia off into some quiet retirement pretending that he never existed was out of the question. There had to be a trial, and there had to be an execution. Both were widely reported, and both were closed to the public and to the press.
Was General Vlasov indeed executed, or maybe hidden away at the last moment, under a new identity? I don’t know. But even though after his death the circle of people who knew of his true function must have become slightly wider, no one has ever dared to tell the truth about the man whose tragic mission had been to become one of the worst traitors in the history of mankind.

Will the truth about General Vlasov, the traitor-hero, ever come out? I don’t think so. Certain missions are accomplished only by never (I mean never!) being disclosed…

SAVE THE TIGER!

Four years ago, in January 2007, to be exact, I wrote an article, under the title Save The Tiger, which was  never published. There is, however, a very good reason for me to resurrect it today, in conjunction with a remarkable unfolding news story.
But first, my article.----

Save The Tiger!
An acquaintance of mine, who supports a muscular U.S. foreign policy, preemption and all, explains the American campaign in Iraq and a potential military strike against Iran by the necessity to project America’s power in the world with sufficient force, in order to overcome the image of a paper tiger, brought about by the dovish policies of the past.
This is such nonsense (which I told him, of course)! Nobody in their own mind could ever mistake America, even metaphorically, for a paper tiger! A terribly exhausted and diminished tiger, yes, but a very real one still.
America has indeed lost a lot of stature since the good old days of the “evil empire,” when she was staring down the Soviet giant across the globe and had a China policy, which put another international giant high up on her national agenda. Benjamin Franklin was right to say “there is no little enemy,” but then, as the proverb goes, judge the man by the size of his enemies. Proclaiming Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the axis of evil of the new century, then adding Syria and perhaps Somalia too to the list, makes America’s enemies big indeed ---not in absolute terms, of course, but by making America small!
Seems like these days Washington is recklessly spending America’s blood and treasure trying to emulate that stupid giant, who turned himself into a mouse to impress Puss in Boots. Iraq is no Vietnam, where, at least, America thought, albeit mistakenly, that she was fighting an expansionist Soviet empire. Iraq is a profoundly disturbing psychiatric disorder, a profligate obsession at the expense of this nation’s vital national interest. It was because of Iraq that America’s legitimate war against Al Qaeda (I resent the unfortunate term war on terror: only specific wars are winnable, generic wars, such as "wars" on crime as such, poverty as such,  and, yes, on terror as such, are generally unwinnable, by their very nature), was waged with such a mind-boggling incompetence, as if America's leaders all along had better things, like Iraq, on their minds. But the hapless Iraq adventure was reducing America from a global superpower to a full-time regional player, drawn into an ethnic game of others, whose rules she did not even understand.
Next target Iran? Is Washington like a desperate gambler trying to increase his chances of winning by increasing the number of games played, even before any one of them has been brought to completion? In real-political terms, Iran is far less dangerous to America right now than, say, her ‘ally’ Pakistan, and yet Washington politicians seem to be ready to lose the whole world (warning them not to attack Iran!) for the sake of an illusory victory, which, like in Iraq, is very much in question.
Yes, this country is still the great tiger, but risking soon to become an endangered species. Anybody watching The Animal Planet knows that big animals have an instinctive aversion to messing with little animals, for fear of injuries, yet even in this Washington has shown a reckless disregard for the laws of nature and common sense.
Now, what happened to the big game? What about Russia, and her six thousand nuclear weapons, and her latest military doctrine of nuclear preemption, authorizing a preemptive nuclear strike against the enemy? As to who that enemy is, Army General Mahmut Gareev, President of the Military Academy of the Russian Ministry of Defense, minces no words: “The political course taken by the USA is inevitably leading it to a confrontation with a considerable part of the world.”
Russia’s new military doctrine was the subject of the Russian Military Academy conference in Moscow, on January 20, 2007. Will the Russians ever deliver on the nuclear first strike threat? In the words of General Gareev, “if Russia is faced with an extremely unfavorable alignment of forces in all strategic directions, nuclear weapons will be the most important and reliable strategic deterrent against foreign aggression.” As to the nature of the strategic threats facing Russia, “their list includes, above all, the efforts of certain international forces and leading states to threaten Russia’s sovereignty and to prejudice its economic and other interests by different forms of pressure and subversion, as was the case in Ukraine, in Georgia, and in Kyrgyzstan.” It is quite clear that while still paying lip service to the ongoing “war on terror,” Russia is much more concerned with what it sees as an American neo-imperialist aggression, and is poised to resist it with all necessary means, including the first use of her strategic nuclear force.
Meanwhile, on the global scale, America is on the verge of losing the whole continent at her doorstep south of the border. All Latin America from Mexico to Argentina is becoming more and more radical, virulently anti-American, and unmistakably pro-Russian, buying Russian weapons and signing mega-deals with Moscow. President Chavez of Venezuela is becoming the face of America’s next-door neighbor, while she is “gone” on a mission to change the face of a far-away land.
Her European and other siblings, known under the common family name of free nations, are shaking their heads no longer willing to accept her lead. Her courtship of India, judging from the recent triumphant visit there by President Putin of Russia, is threatening to end in a marriage to America’s rival.
And finally, what about China, successfully challenging the US in space, by shooting down their satellite with a ballistic missile? Why are so many American experts pointing to China as an emerging global threat to the United States, the greatest superpower of the twenty-first century, while Washington still has her stuck clueless in a place that belongs to the middle ages?
Save the tiger from the smallness of his hunt! Let America recalibrate her vision to bigger game, and truly global challenges.

And now the most recent event, which makes my erstwhile article so palpably current.---

Courtesy of NPR.ORG.
10 March, 2011, 6:30 PM EST.
Title: U.S. Intelligence Chief Alarms Senators By Calling China, Russia ‘Threats.’

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper caused a stir Thursday during an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee when he described China and Russia as "mortal threats" to the U.S.
His remarks, coming in response to a question from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), caused concern among senators of both parties. After all, the U.S. has mainly friendly relations with both China and Russia.
Iran and North Korea? Not so much. So senators were taken aback, to say the least, that those two members of what used to be called the "axis of evil" got a pass.
The senators were so concerned that Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chair of the committee helped Clapper "revise and extend" his remarks, as they like to say in Congress.
Meanwhile, the "mortal threat" description, as well as Clapper's estimation that Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was likely to fend off attempts to oust him, had Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) calling for Clapper's resignation or, if that wasn't forthcoming, President Obama to fire him.
Here's the "mortal threat" exchange:
MANCHIN: First of all, Director Clapper, I'd just ask — the first question would be: In your estimation, which is the greatest threat we have in the world against the United States of America — whether it be a build up of their army or their defenses or their economic threat they pose or a combination of both?
MR. CLAPPER: Are you speaking of a nation state, sir?
SEN. MANCHIN: Yes.
MR. CLAPPER: I'm sorry?
SEN. MANCHIN: Yes, a country.
GEN. CLAPPER: Well, a country — well, from strictly — well. Certainly the Russians have a — you know, still have a very formidable nuclear arsenal, even with — which does pose, you know, potentially a mortal threat to us. I don't think they have the intent to do that.
Certainly China is growing in its military capabilities. It has a full array of — whether conventional or strategic forces that they are building, so they too pose, potentially, from a capability standpoint, a threat to us, as — a mortal threat. The issue, though, is — which, you know, we always have trouble gauging, is intent versus — versus the capability.
Having said all that, my greatest concern, though, does not lie with a nation-state posing a threat to us as much as it is in the area of terrorism, as I indicated in my opening statement.
When he had the opportunity a few minutes later, Levin moved in to help try to set things right.
LEVIN: Senator Manchin asked a question; I was frankly kind of surprised by your answer, Director Clapper. He asked a very direct question, who represents the greatest threat to the United States. And your first answer was Russia, and then you kind of clarified it in terms of saying, well, that's in terms of capability, but that — they don't have any intent to use that capability. But I still was kind of surprised by your answer. Then the next one was China, who also would have the capability, I guess, but without the intent.
By that — you didn't mention Iran or North Korea, which would have been the first two countries that I would have thought of in response to that question. I was really kind of taken aback, almost, by your answer. I thought it was a very — kind of a very clear question.
GEN. CLAPPER: I think — as I interpreted the question, it is, you know, which country or countries would represent a mortal threat to the United States.
SEN. LEVIN: Could have the potential of being a mortal —
GEN. CLAPPER: Yes. And so I — the two that come to mind are — because of their capabilities, are Russia and — and China.
SEN. LEVIN: Now, if we were sitting —
GEN. CLAPPER: Iran and North Korea are, you know, of great concern. I don't know that at this point in time they pose a direct mortal threat to the continental United States.
SEN. LEVIN: Does Russia or China, at this time, represent a direct mortal threat to the United States?
GEN. CLAPPER: Well, they have the capability, because of their strategic nuclear weapons.
SEN. LEVIN: Right.
GEN. CLAPPER: I don't think —
SEN. LEVIN: By that measure, we —
GEN. CLAPPER: The intent is low, but they certainly have the capability.
SEN. LEVIN: By that measure, we represent a direct mortal threat to both of them, right? We have the capability of an attack.
GEN. CLAPPER: Well, sir — we do.
SEN. LEVIN: So you would say, the director of — you're national intelligence, that you wouldn't mind a headline out there in Russia and China saying the United States represents a direct mortal threat to Russia or China?
GEN. CLAPPER: (Off mic) — each of these countries certainly have the capability in our strategic arsenals.
SEN. LEVIN: And vice versa.
GEN. CLAPPER: Yes, sir.
Even after Levin tried to provide an escape route, Clapper refused to use it. A few minutes later, he sad that because of the New START treaty with the Russians, he would rate them a lower threat than China.
(End of quoting from the NPR post.)

My opinion of today’s exchange in the US Senate must be clear to all from my decision to start this post with my Save The Tiger article. To spell it out explicitly, I am fully with General Clapper on this, who seems to be alone in this episode who is doing his job as a topnotch professional. I would have called his detractors fools, had the situation not been too serious for name-calling.
America has been taken over by agenda-driven politicians, and from many indicators, which I am following with great concern, both American national interest and global security as such, have been taken hostage by a particularly virulent strain of political correctness. The American media are timid self-censoring sheep, and should the media now allow one of the best professionals Washington has today, namely Director Clapper, to be fired for doing his job with dignity and integrity, I shall completely lose whatever has remained of my respect for the once great American reporting.

MEDIA AND THE NEWS

When reporters opine, who is there to report?
When the media picks and chooses, what is there to report?
Vivat honest reporting!

STALIN'S KOREAN CHARADE

The story of the Sino-Soviet eternal friendship continues with the tale of the Korean War.
…A single China was a great threat to Soviet security in Asia. Comrade Stalin made two attempts to remedy the situation, but both failed.
Number one was to assassinate Chairman Mao on the sidelines of his friendly visit to Moscow in 1949-1950 to celebrate Stalin’s seventieth birthday. But alas, Comrade Stalin was already too old, and Chairman Mao, too smart, for the plot to succeed.
Number two presented itself during the above-mentioned birthday bash, when the young and reckless leader of North Korea, Comrade Kim Il-sung, suddenly started openly boasting to Stalin about his intent to liberate South Korea from her capitalist oppressors, for the purpose of immediate reunification. It was a dangerous piece of lunacy for anybody to swallow, and a stern rebuke from Stalin was expected by the witnesses at the scene, but Stalin quite unexpectedly encouraged Kim’s idiotic adventure, visualizing it, as it turned out, as a brilliant ploy to revive the original Soviet plan of two Chinas.
His Byzantine design was to prod the Chinese into supporting North Korea, hoping that the United States would rush to get involved on the side of South Korea, using this opportunity to fight Communist China, in order to resurrect Chiang Kai-shek. America would then invade South China and restore Chiang to power there, but before they could reach the North, Stalin would say “Stop!” and support Mao’s rule in Northern China.
In this rather convoluted scenario, Kuomintang China (and not Russia!) would once again become Mao’s main adversary, while Russia would become the indispensable big brother. As for the Koreans, Stalin was convinced that the existing North-South split was giving America legitimacy to keep military presence in the South anyway, as a “security guarantee,” whereas Korean reunification had a far better chance of resulting in the American troop withdrawal. For this reason, he favored reunification! (See my entry Secret History Of The Iron Curtain, for exactly the same kind of logic.)
The actual course of the 1950-1953 Korean War is now a matter of public record. On June 25, 1950, Kim Il-sung invades South Korea, and on June 28 captures her capital Seoul. In the meantime, the UN calls for international help in assisting South Korea, and on June 27 President Truman orders the American troops in the area to interfere in the Korean conflict. Under the flag of the United Nations and the able command of General Douglas MacArthur, US forces recapture Seoul on September 17, and then, on October 19, 1950, seize the capital of North Korea Pyongyang. Next, prodded by the Russians, the thoroughly unenthusiastic Mao sends the Chinese Army into North Korea, at the end of October, forcing MacArthur into a temporary retreat from the North. On December 5, 1950, Pyongyang is in Chinese hands, and then Seoul falls again on January 4, 1951, to be recaptured once again by the American/UN forces on March 14, 1951.
So far so good, and in full harmony with Stalin’s plan, MacArthur asks for the authorization to attack Red China, and in order to emphasize the military necessity of this move, he makes his request and the reasoning behind it public. What follows is a lethal blow to Comrade Stalin’s grand design. President Truman relieves MacArthur of his duties, and instead of rolling into China, the war itself fizzles out.
Why did President Truman stop short of the most natural move under the circumstances? Stalin explained it by the fact that the Americans were by no means as naïve as their rabid anti-Communist rhetoric might have suggested. Washington’s refusal to punish Mao with the help of Chiang, told Stalin that the United States had developed a Realpolitik stance toward the balance of power in Asia and was by no means fooled by its own phony term Sino-Soviet Bloc. He never bought the official explanation that there had to be an actual fear of the Korean War escalating into a World War III and expanding into the atomic dimension.
At any rate, President Truman explained the American strategy in the Korean War in the simplest and best terms when he shockingly called it a “police action.” Whether or not he was really on to Stalin’s plan, does not matter that much. The history lesson here is that his common sense prevailed, whereas Stalin’s plan was thereby thwarted… A note to the wise of today… although, are there any wise left in Washington these days of false ideologies and self-defeating agendas, I wonder?

MAO THE LONG MARCHER

“Moscow-Peking!!! Under the banner of freedom, the peoples of the world are marching forward!!!” This was the happy song blasting out of the loudspeakers, as our train pulled into the railway station in Peking in late summer of 1954. Oh what a triumph of hypocrisy! How could anybody possibly believe that the two great nations Russia and China could ever get along in a relationship where Moscow refused to see Peking as an equal partner, but wanted to boss over the other unconditionally. It is only today, when these two nations have become genuine partners, joining hands on the crest of the anti-American global tidal wave of the post-Soviet world order, that the Russian-Chinese relationship can fully blossom. Curiously, this new relationship is an organic projection of their two separate national strategies of the past century, yet only today has it been able to overcome the longstanding climate of mutual distrust and false preconceptions.


But then, ever since the People’s Republic of China had come into existence, on October 1, 1949, especially after Comrade Mao had brilliantly outsmarted all parties concerned, notably including Stalin and the USSR, these two eternal friends would have nothing but choicest rattlesnake venom for each other in private, while publicly singing all those sweetheart tunes.
Chairman Mao had turned out to be a big disappointment for Comrade Stalin: the Soviet postwar plan had been counting on two Chinas: Northern, under Mao, and Southern, under Chiang Kai-shek. With these two at each other’s throats, Mao would have made such a perfect client! But as the leader of half-a-billion-and-counting Chinese Comrades he had grown too big for the special shoes cobbled for him in the Kremlin. In retrospect, it would have been better for Moscow to have had him dead, back in 1934, when, with Moscow quietly looking on, the Chinese Communist Army, to which Mao belonged, was routed by the Kuomintang forces. The Commander of that Red Army had been Comrade Chu Teh, a fairly reliable client of Moscow, who, subsequent to the Communist defeat, went on to cooperate with the Kuomintang (as Moscow wanted), like nothing nasty had happened. But Comrade Mao, at the head of 100,000 men, then started a punishing 10,000 km-long retreat to a safe haven in northern China, going down in history as The Long March, which was survived by just 5,000 of his loyal followers, but started a powerful legend, which would propel him to the heights of an unchallenged dictatorship over this most populous nation in the world.
Perhaps, at that time already Mao Tse-Tung well understood the role played by his Soviet Comrades, and he would never trust them in anything for as long as he lived. Nor would he ever trust his erstwhile elder associate Comrade Chu Teh, although publicly, he stopped short of a full renunciation.
It was therefore slightly unwise of Stalin to expect that Mao could be relied on to follow the Soviet script, in the events following the end of World War II in Asia. On the other hand, he did not have much choice in the matter: Mao was by now the unchallenged Communist leader in China, his legend having fully blossomed, and all that Stalin could hope for was that the forces of Mao and Chiang might be fairly evenly matched, to sustain his dream of two Chinas. But that was not to be the case. It was not even a close contest, but a full-sized rout, sweeping Chiang Kai-shek off the Chinese mainland into the last-ditch retreat on the island of Taiwan, where Washington now reassured him of its support, gladly and gratefully accepted.
What happened thereafter, past October 1, 1949, was an intense game of cat and mouse, immersed in a lot of smoke and deceptively reflected in a hundred crooked mirrors. The two key centerpieces of the years from 1949 to 1953 are to be featured in my last China entry, which follows, but the rest of my present story will be wrapped up in the remainder of this entry.
Cautious and alert, Mao had thwarted Stalin’s assassination attempts, and in 1954, he hosted the next Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Peking, for the big festivities, surrounding the fifth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. My personal memories of that Khrushchev’s 1954 visit to Peking are related in my book Stalin, and Other Family. In a nutshell, there was an abundance of personal spite between the two leaders, covered up by a profusion of disingenuous smiles and a public profession of the eternal friendship between the two great nations. But the telltale signs of the actual sorry state of the Sino-Soviet relationship were all out there, for everybody to see, only the West preferred not to see it, maintaining the self-serving fiction of an unbreakable Sino-Soviet bloc, most probably for sheer cold-war propaganda purposes. Ironically, this West-perpetuated myth was exactly how the two Communist enemies wanted the world to see it. The state of deceit would continue until the official Sino-Soviet rift was publicly announced in 1961.

IN MEMORIAM

I am interrupting the promised sequence of my posted entries, as today, March 5th, is a double memorial day in my family calendar, and it requires a special posting.

My father would have turned ninety today. He died three years short of this date.
Surrounded by his old comrades and younger admirers, he died a staunch Stalinist, never relinquishing his membership in the Communist Party of the USSR, which of course had been officially abolished in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. At the time, he called Gorbachev and Yeltsin traitors to the Motherland, and he never changed his mind about their betrayal and dishonorable role in Russian history. He died with the last words “I serve the Soviet Union” on his lips. He could just as well have said “I serve Russia,” but the Soviet Union was Russia’s official designation throughout most of his life. He had all along pledged allegiance to the USSR when he had become a soldier of his country and when he had fought and bled for the USSR in the war against Nazi Germany. I understand him quite well. It would have been sacrilegious to dismiss that allegiance at the end of his life, just because the country, to whose wellbeing he had sacrificed his all, had officially been declared dissolved by some three drunken scoundrels, gulping vodka in a Russian steam bath.
In the fateful year 1949, he responded to Stalin’s call of duty by unquestioningly sacrificing his personal life to the higher demands made on him by the State. The definition of a consummate patriot is one who puts his nation’s interest above his personal desires, which is in fact exactly what my father did. It was not his own, but Stalin’s decision, and Stalin was of course the embodiment of Soviet national interest. I am not judging Stalin’s decision, either. Right or wrong, Stalin was acting according to his perception of what would be the most advantageous course of action for the Soviet State, and he was obviously entitled to this perception.
Even less can I sit in judgment of my father. What matters is that he answered his call of duty with sadness, but also with determination to do what must be done. He was a Great-Russian patriot and a true hero of the Great Fatherland War. And now that he is dead, there is just one thing I wish to say: May the soil of Russia sprawl light over his mortal remains, as he served her well and did his duty. And may God take good care of his soul.

March 5th, 2011 is also the fifty-eighth anniversary of Stalin’s death. I was five years old at the time, and the only thing I remember is that I cried bitterly, when I was told that Grandpa Stalin was dead.
In commemoration of the anniversary of his death, I find nothing more appropriate than posting yet another extremely short, but sharp entry from my book Nunc Dimittis, under the title Khrushchev And Stalin As Opposites.---

My contraposition of Stalin and Khrushchev as two diametrically opposed types of leader-dictator is based on the character of both men, and on their style of governing. Stalin was the consummate "ascetic prince," the epitome of the totalitarian leader, who rules rationally, and not emotionally. Khrushchev, on the other hand, was the typical authoritarian despot, an entêté, an impulsive and emotional leader, who relied exclusively on intuition, rather than on reason and good judgment of his own, or of others.
Stalin was all about the Soviet State. Khrushchev was mostly about himself.

STALIN AND KUOMINTANG

(This is the beginning of a triptych on the uneasy “friendly” relationship between the two nationalist giants, the USSR and China. The triptych covers the early years of that relationship, ending with Mao Tse-tung’s self-establishment as the uncontested leader of mainland China, contrary to Moscow’s strategic preferences, and causing a seemingly irreparable rift underneath the glossy façade of the much-acclaimed “Sino-Soviet bloc.” Since those problem-ridden times, however, certain radically new developments, brought about by the realities of the new post-Soviet world order, have occurred in the evolving relationship between Mr. Putin’s Russia and modern-day China, bringing the two colossi as close to each other as they ever have been. This latest stage in the Sino-Russian relationship, particularly relevant for the geopolitical future of the world, is featured in my prognosticating section Beyond Wishful Thinking, and to it I am referring my reader for more.
Meantime, the present entry is a story of the two Chinese generalissimos, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, and their intriguing relationship with the Russians. It is Part I of my Chinese miniseries here, followed by Part II, The Long Marcher, focusing on the person and times of Chairman Mao, and by Part III, intriguingly titled Stalin’s Korean Charade, about the most unanticipated origin of the Korean War of 1950-1953 which has something to do with the North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung, but a lot more to do with Stalin’s plans for Mao’s China.)

The story of Stalin’s close relationship with the newly emerged nationalist Kuomintang Party of China, in the 1920’s, at the expense of the “brotherly” Chinese Communist Party, unmistakably rings the German bell (as sounded in my earlier entry Lenin And Rosa). The Chinese Communists had wanted a full partnership with Soviet Russia, and stubbornly resisted Moscow’s control, for which they were unsurprisingly punished, and essentially sold out to the Kuomintang, although most historians of those events have unsurprisingly shown their surprise. What also resonates with the “German bell” is a similar reversal of great expectations: in the post-WWII cold war years, the previously pleasantly sounding word Kuomintang had soured into an obscenity, in Soviet usage, just as the Nazi Party of Germany had suffered a similar linguistic shock.
The two famous leaders of Kuomintang, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, were both friends of Russia, at one time or another, but, unlike Dr. Sun, whose image in Russia had remained fairly positive, on account of his life and death during the good-relations years, the name of Chiang would become a dirty word in Soviet usage, although he himself would always be remembered, inside the Kremlin, with a great nostalgia.
But let us start with Dr. Sun Yat-sen. (He was a medical doctor, to be sure, and kept this reminder steadily in his title.) Born in 1866, to a family of poor Chinese farmers, he gradually rose through China’s years of political turbulence, to become known as the father of modern China. In between his abject obscurity and international fame, he lived in Honolulu (then the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii) and in the rebellious British colony of Hong Kong, and on his path to becoming a revolutionary, he was converted to Christianity by an American missionary in Hong Kong. This event, coupled with his other “Western” experiences, must not, however, be interpreted as an expression of his pro-Western sympathies. (By the same token as the fact that Yamamoto studied in the United States must not be seen as his own pro-American orientation.) Dr. Sun was a Chinese nationalist, using the West merely to advance his personal clout and his nationalist agenda. In his years of revolutionary exile, he lived in England, the United States, and elsewhere for sixteen years, but in this he can be compared to a fellow revolutionary Lenin, who lived in the West much of the time between 1900 and 1917 without ever becoming a friend of the Western values either.
In 1912 he co-founded, and became head of, the political organization known as the Kuomintang; took part in the overthrow of the last Chinese Imperial Dynasty Manchu; and became the first Provisional President of the Republic of China. In 1923 he installed himself as Generalissimo Sun, and ruled China in good style, although for a very short stretch, dying of cancer in 1925. His remarkably warm relationship with the Soviet government was influenced by his personal friendship with Stalin’s emissary Mikhail Markovich Borodin (Gruzenberg) who became an important adviser to Sun, and officially to the Kuomintang Party. After Sun’s death, the staunch Soviet Communist Borodin managed to manipulate the Chinese Communist Party in its strongest bastion at Hankow into supporting the Kuomintang, but, in the process, he quarreled with Sun’s successor Chiang Kai-shek, and was promptly recalled to Moscow in 1927, his big mission accomplished anyway.
As for Chiang (1887-1975), for a long time he had been a friend of Russia, and he even visited Moscow in 1923, on a visit of friendship and cooperation, as an emissary of Sun Yat-sen. Briefly supported by China’s erratic Communist Party, swayed by Borodin, Chiang “suddenly” turned against them in a bloody lightning coup, having received a wink and a nod from Moscow. (Overtly, Soviet historiography condemned the massacre of 1927, where thousands of Chinese communists were brutally slaughtered, but there is a lingering fascinating ambiguity in the overall Soviet/Russian assessment of his action, followed by Chiang’s temporary retirement from public life, after which he returned, and his good relationship with Moscow was eventually and conveniently for both sides resumed.)
By the end of 1936, Chiang “suddenly” changed his previous policy of appeasement toward Japan to direct confrontation, resulting in China starting (sic!) a full-fledged war against the mighty Japanese Empire, on August 13, 1937 (effectively lasting until the end of World War II), for which event, he, once again, allied himself with his old enemies the Communists! This insane “yo-yo” relationship between Kuomintang and CPC cannot be (and has not been) properly explained, except by taking into the account the Machiavellian hand of Moscow (see my revealing entries on Stalin’s Eastern policy in the anticipation of a war with Nazi Germany), but there has always been and continues to be a great reluctance to touch this political-historical hot potato, by the operators of the history business, and thus the most natural and exhaustive explanation has been left out of the picture, and is still unaccounted for…

(The rest of the Chiang Kai-shek/Kuomintang story belongs to the next two entries, where it will be further pursued.)

SECRET HISTORY OF THE IRON CURTAIN

...Sixty-five years old this week… Well, maybe not.

Who was the first person to use the term “Iron Curtain?”
“Churchill, of course!”-- eagerly replies one who knows what the term “Iron Curtain” means.
Who created the actual Iron Curtain?
“Stalin, of course!”--- proudly rushes to reply our Mr. Know-all, with an accompanying self-indulgent smile, signifying: “Yes, I know my history!”
Well, this is not the first nor the last time Lady History has been tortured. Without any further delay, let me alleviate her sufferings, putting certain things here in some semblance of order.

Number one. The term "Iron Curtain" had already been in use before Churchill’s historic speech on March 5, 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. That speech, under the title Sinews of Peace, is now officially known as the launching of the term, and the city of Fulton, MO, is now universally recognized as its birthplace. It is however one of those innumerable historical misconceptions that nobody bothers to correct. So, here is my starting technical correction in keeping with the stated grundthema of this section: history unknown, ignored and misunderstood.
The literal term "iron curtain" refers to such curtains used in the old days in theaters to protect their audiences against theater fires. It had also been used extensively in the figurative sense. The first time it was applied to Soviet Russia was in 1920, courtesy of the British socialist and feminist Ethel Snowden (1880-1951), in her book Through Bolshevik Russia, where it referred to the difficulties of crossing the Soviet border.
Ironically, the very first person ever to refer to it in the exact figurative sense as we know it today was… the Nazi Propaganda wizard Joseph Goebbels, in his “futuristic” piece Das Jahr 2000, published on February 25, 1945, by the German newspaper Das Reich:
“If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, would occupy all Eastern and Southeastern Europe, along with the greater part of the Reich. An Iron Curtain would fall over this enormous territory, controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered…”
Soon after Goebbels, the term iron curtain was used in its exact sense first by pre-Fulton Churchill and then by Allen Dulles, both times in 1945. It was only on March 5, 1946 (sixty-five years ago this week), that Mr. Churchill made this term historic, and here is that famous paragraph in his Fulton speech:
“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia; all these famous cities, and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence, but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

...Well, so much for who said it first. Now we can reach beyond the word to the deed itself, and here we are in for no less of a revelation.
As I previously mentioned, in 1941 Stalin adopted a new Soviet global strategy, first formulated by General Milstein, which named the United States of America as Russia’s number one enemy in the bipolar postwar world. In the spirit of this strategy, from 1942 to 1945, Stalin was persistently trying to pour little quantities of poison into the British-American relations, which appeared to him sufficiently strained, and begging to be taken advantage of. He believed that Britain’s greatest weakness, putting her incurably at odds with the United States, was the unbridled arrogance of her imperial ambitions, and he worked really hard, but, as it turned out, in vain, to exploit it. (Generally speaking, the whole World War II was one giant clash of gross misconceptions. Stalin also had thought that France would be a formidable enemy to Hitler. Hitler had thought that Soviet Russia was a colossus with feet of clay. The Japanese had thought that the "filthy-rich" Americans would be unwilling and unable to fight, and so on, and on…)
With regard to Britain’s attitude toward the United States, Stalin honestly believed that the snobbish Brits had somehow retained a sense of superiority over their erstwhile colonial subjects, and would never accept America’s bossing over them in Europe lying down. (In hindsight, it is hard to imagine how America’s push for free-world supremacy could possibly be resisted by Great Britain, even with Soviet help!) For his part, Stalin was prepared to support British colonial claims and mandates, and whatever else they would like him to support, and offered Prime Minister Churchill, during the latter’s 1942 visit to Moscow (to attend the so-called Second Moscow Conference) a tempting secret accommodation: after this war, Britain would become (with Russia’s blessing) by far the strongest power in Europe, for as long as they would both agree to keep America where Columbus had found her.
Indeed, had it been up to Stalin, why bother to cut Europe “from Stettin to Trieste?” The “Iron Curtain” he had in mind, would have descended on the postwar world right across the Atlantic Ocean, from Greenland to Antarctica, separating the upstart United States of America from “the old world.”
Therefore, it had never been Stalin, but Churchill all along, who had insisted on dividing Europe into two spheres of influence, in this way repudiating the notion of a common European home, where America would have remained an unwelcome outsider. Churchill’s famously cryptic scribble of numbers on those dinner napkins at Yalta, in 1945, was in reality his insistence on splitting Europe, where the specific numbers were mystifying, but otherwise meaningless eccentricities, but their ultimate value (60:40=55:45!!!, etc.) was all-meaningful, indicating which way each “napkin country” would be going, and which of them should remain neutral at the end. It was this division of Europe, which opened the door to NATO, the very symbol and the most effective tool of the new world order, establishing America’s leadership role in global affairs.
...Talk about historical misconceptions! Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” signified the collapse of Stalin’s European dream, just as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 would later signify the collapse of Khrushchev’s dream of making West Berlin part of East Germany.