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.
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.
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