The Bear is Back

By Walter Kish

Two significant events occurred this week that dramatically increased my trepidation about Ukraine’s irrational and dangerous northern neighbours, the Russians.

It started with the funeral of Russia’s most famous and influential contemporary writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  His voluminous and painfully detailed exposй of Stalin’s infamous prison system, better known as The Gulag, showed the world the brutality and horror that was the essence of Soviet totalitarianism.  Untold millions of the USSR’s citizens, many of them Ukrainians, and most of them innocent of any crime whatsoever, perished in the remorseless black hole of the Gulag.  Their bones lie buried across the vast Siberian landscape, silent testimony to the barbarism of a system whose lunacy reached grotesque proportions.

I remember reading Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag trilogy with a mixture of fascination and horror.  I recall in particular how in these books he expressed his admiration for the resistance, idealism, brotherhood and bravery of the numerous Ukrainian nationalists he came across in the various prisons he had been incarcerated, who formed a significant proportion of the inmate population.  At the time, I was quite pleased when he was justifiably awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.

Solzhenitsyn’s passing reminded me that despite his earlier dissident credentials, in recent decades, he became an almost fanatical Russian chauvinist of the highest order.  He longed for the return of an illusory and almost religious “greatness” for Russia and its people, contemptuous of the numerous minorities and cultures that were their neighbours.  Ironically, he became a great admirer of Vladimir Putin, conveniently ignoring that the KGB which fostered and created Putin, was the same organization that was behind the worst excesses of the Gulag.  As Putin imposed ever greater controls on the media and imprisoned rivals and dissenters, Solzhenitsyn sat silent.  Solzhenitsyn’s last and most outrageous pronouncement earlier this year claimed that the Ukrainian Holodomor was but a fable, a lie.  I was never a believer that oppression and intolerance is somehow genetically encoded into the makeup of all Russians; nonetheless when even someone as brilliant as Solzhenitsyn can succumb to such imperialist bigotry, it makes one pause.

Russia has never abandoned its reactionary imperialistic aims as amply demonstrated in recent days by its bellicose warmongering in Georgia.  Ever since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russians have been fomenting unrest and terrorism in the Caucasus.  In the north of Georgia is South Ossetia, which is legally and internationally recognized as part of Georgia. Georgians prefer to call it by its ancient name of Sambachablo or, more recently, Tskhinvali region. It is part of Georgia’s Shida Kartli Province. The Russians have been providing arms and other support to local rebels seeking independence from Georgia. Last week, when Georgian troops tried to regain control of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, the Russians sent in their troops and started bombing strategic targets throughout all of Georgia and not just the South Ossetian region.  In recent days, they have sent their tanks and troops deep into Georgia proper.  The original pretext had been the death of a number of Russian “peacekeepers” killed in the local fighting.  It was not lost to the international community that the very term “Russian peacekeeper” is in this part of the world the most grievous of oxymoron.

It is obvious that the “Russian Bear” has once again awoken and is on the prowl to reassert its imperialistic control over what it considers its domains. Georgia is its first target, having angered Putin with its efforts in seeking NATO membership.  Although Putin is technically no longer President, there can be no doubt that he is in complete charge.  Upon the outbreak of hostilities, Putin rushed to the scene on the northern border between Russia and Georgia where he is personally directing the military campaign.  From Russia’s official puppet President, Dmitry Medvedev, there is nary a word.

It is obvious that Putin is testing the waters with Georgia, seeing how the US, NATO and the West in general will react. In the absence of a strong response, Georgia’s independence will become history, and we all know where he will turn his attentions to next.  Ukraine has cause to be greatly concerned.