tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/communism-4088/articlesCommunism – The Conversation2024-03-06T17:15:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2250202024-03-06T17:15:09Z2024-03-06T17:15:09ZA US with fewer allies threatens global security<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579834/original/file-20240305-30-n3u2sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C0%2C6657%2C4652&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/american-soldiers-us-flag-troops-1170998920">Bumble Dee/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At a recent election rally in South Carolina, Donald Trump <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68268817">said</a> he would “encourage” aggressors such as Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to Nato allies he considers to have not met their financial obligations. </p>
<p>Trump’s comments, however offensive, may merely be an electoral strategy. Why should, say, a South Carolinian citizen see their taxes go towards defending faraway lands, especially if they believe these partners are not willing to pay equally? </p>
<p>But there’s also a logic to his remarks that Europe should recognise, especially in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Many European nations need to build up their <a href="https://www.econpol.eu/sites/default/files/2024-01/EconPol-PolicyReport_45_0.pdf">own security capacities</a> again after years of lax spending on defence.</p>
<p>Regardless, such public comments from a presidential candidate have long been unthinkable. Since the second world war, America has sought out allies. What would it mean for the nation’s security, as well as that of the wider world, should they forego them?</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trump says he ‘would encourage’ Russia to attack non-paying Nato allies.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>British precedent</h2>
<p>The modern US-led global order is in many ways a modern iteration of something developed by Great Britain at the beginning of the 19th century. Britain used the peace negotiations that followed the Napoleonic wars (1803–1815) to try and limit the power of expansive land empires like that of defeated France. </p>
<p>The 19th century is sometimes referred to as “Pax Britannica” (British peace) because of the relative absence of conflict between major European powers, with the notable exception of the Crimean War (1853–1856). It lasted until a unified German state emerged as a land power in continental Europe in 1871, upending the security presumptions of the post-Napoleonic peace.</p>
<p>One of Britain’s key reasons for fighting two world wars against Germany was to maintain its version of a global order. But, in winning, Britain depleted its finances – and <a href="https://www.antiquesage.com/world-war-ii-bankruptcy-of-the-british-empire/">capacity to maintain an empire</a> – through borrowing from the US. </p>
<p>The US had become the new economic heavyweight, with a military built up and spread by wartime necessity. Its adherence to basic principles meant the British did not resist America’s newfound global primacy. </p>
<p>Free trade was to remain sacrosanct. Sea trade routes were defended as these were (<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-airstrikes-on-houthi-rebels-are-the-us-and-uk-playing-fast-and-loose-with-international-law-222906">and still are</a>) vital for US economic superiority. The US would also maintain the kind of alliances that the British tended to turn to during times of war, where coalitions of allies share the costs and persevere towards victory. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-airstrikes-on-houthi-rebels-are-the-us-and-uk-playing-fast-and-loose-with-international-law-222906">With airstrikes on Houthi rebels, are the US and UK playing fast and loose with international law?</a>
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<h2>Lonely at the top?</h2>
<p>The US would actively shape the world to its own liking in the post-war period. After the hyper-nationalistic conquests that were characteristic of its enemies in the first and second world wars, the US wanted no more empires.</p>
<p>It set up institutions dedicated to spurring free trade and global stability like the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. And it formed alliances, most notably Nato, which included befriending wartime enemies like Germany and committing themselves to a long-term global role.</p>
<p>These alliances allowed the US to station troops overseas in strategic positions without having to administer a costly and potentially discontented empire, like the British and basically every world power had done before them.</p>
<p>Much of this was motivated by the Cold War. The Soviets had exchanged Nazi occupation of eastern Europe for their own. And it was widely believed that in the absence of US security guarantees, western Europe would also be invaded and made communist – an ideology that the US considered incompatible with its own. </p>
<p>The great power competition soon led to US involvement in other zones of communist activity, such as Asia. This was a period in which the US intervened in foreign governments and carried out or supported ethically questionable conflicts. For US politicians, however, it was generally bipartisan to believe that US intervention was justified by a bigger conflict between democracy and authoritarianism.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white image of paratroopers jumping out of a plane." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579835/original/file-20240305-26-olbpm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">US paratroopers carrying out a strike in the Tay Ninh province of south Vietnam in 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/vietnam-war-march-1963-840-south-245961343">Everett Collection/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>US power was also different to, say, the heyday of the Spanish empire in the 16th century. This empire did an excellent job of antagonising other powers and depleting its own vast resources in endless wars over honour and Catholicism.</p>
<p>Although certainly not universally loved, US power is not completely resented. This has much to do with America’s <a href="https://news.illinoisstate.edu/2018/07/book-examines-american-cultures-influence-on-the-world/">globally exported culture</a>, from Hollywood to hip-hop. But also in how its power can be articulated as mutually beneficial to other nations, both in terms of trade and security. </p>
<p>We do not live in a peaceful world. But it is widely acknowledged that the world would <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/12/11/if-the-united-states-pulls-back-the-world-will-become-more-dangerous">become more dangerous</a> if the US were to suddenly disengage. US security guarantees, for instance, disincentivise allies like Germany and Japan from developing nuclear weapons for their own safety.</p>
<h2>Global security is American security</h2>
<p>Supporting US allies, which was once a bipartisan issue in American politics, is becoming a <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/can-republicans-find-consensus-foreign-policy">zero-sum game</a> – even though it is just about the most dangerous issue to do this with. </p>
<p>Bringing global security guarantees into question is exactly what states hostile to the US want. They know it weakens a world order that protects democracies, global trade, and weaker states that could otherwise be imposed upon militarily. </p>
<p>The US protects these not merely as an act of charity, but also because they are in the vital interests of America’s own safety, even if it can seem indirect to some American voters or the politicians who recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-senate-passes-us-95-billion-aid-package-for-ukraine-what-this-tells-us-about-republican-support-for-trump-223502">held up aid</a> for Ukraine.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-senate-passes-us-95-billion-aid-package-for-ukraine-what-this-tells-us-about-republican-support-for-trump-223502">US Senate passes US$95 billion aid package for Ukraine – what this tells us about Republican support for Trump</a>
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<p>Ironically, a worldview that sees raw, almost <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/mercantilism">mercantilist</a>, selfishness as the entirety of foreign policy is exactly the thing that the US’s global order of free trade and respecting national sovereignty has discouraged for almost a century. </p>
<p>If America First becomes America Only, it might be a world view that certain regimes wish to emulate. But morally, it will not do what the nation managed in the past. To convert souls to an American future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Rees receives funding from The University of Exeter and The Royal Historical Society.</span></em></p>A world where the US has fewer allies would be an even more dangerous place.William Rees, PhD Candidate in Modern American History, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231482024-03-06T13:35:23Z2024-03-06T13:35:23ZOppenheimer feared nuclear annihilation – and only a chance pause by a Soviet submariner kept it from happening in 1962<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578712/original/file-20240228-16-283s2r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5496%2C3899&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Onlookers at a Key West, Fla., beach where the Army's Hawk anti-aircraft missiles were positioned during the Cuban missile crisis. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/onlookers-gather-on-george-smathers-beach-in-key-west-news-photo/148266845?adppopup=true">Underwood Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>History has often been shaped by chance and luck. </p>
<p>One of the blockbuster films of the <a href="https://www.oppenheimermovie.com/">past year, “Oppenheimer</a>,” tells the dramatic story of the development of the atomic bomb and the physicist who headed those efforts, J. Robert Oppenheimer. But despite the Manhattan Project’s success depicted in the film, in his latter years, Oppenheimer became increasingly worried about a nuclear holocaust resulting from the proliferation of these weapons.</p>
<p>Over the past 80 years, the threat of such nuclear annihilation was perhaps never greater than during the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis">Cuban missile crisis of 1962</a>. </p>
<p>President John F. Kennedy’s secretary of state, Dean Acheson, said that nuclear war was averted during that crisis by “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/100/2/598/695452">just plain dumb luck</a>.” As I detail in my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520390966/the-random-factor">The Random Factor</a>,” nowhere was the influence of chance and luck more evident than on Oct. 27, 1962.</p>
<h2>Russian missiles next door</h2>
<p>To set the stage, a cold war of hostilities between the U.S. and the communist Soviet Union began almost immediately following World War II, resulting in <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control">a nuclear arms race</a> between the two during the 1950s and continuing through the 1980s. </p>
<p>As a part of <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-cold-war">the Cold War</a>, the U.S. was extremely concerned about countries falling under the Soviet communist influence and umbrella. That fear was magnified in the case of Cuba.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An aerial photo of a missile base in Cuba." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578653/original/file-20240228-22-e9caga.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Aerial spy photos from October 1962 of a medium-range ballistic missile base, with labels detailing various parts of the base during the Cuban missile crisis, San Cristobal, Cuba.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/aerial-spy-photos-of-a-medium-range-ballistic-missile-base-news-photo/3208373?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Tensions between the U.S. and Cuba had dramatically escalated following the failed 1961 U.S. attempt to overthrow revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and his communist ruling party. Known as the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-bay-of-pigs">Bay of Pigs invasion</a>, its failure proved to be a major embarrassment for the Kennedy administration and a warning to the Castro regime. </p>
<p>In May 1962, Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis">secretly deploy strategic nuclear missiles</a> in Cuba, with the intention of providing a strong deterrent to any potential U.S. invasion in the future. The Russian missiles and equipment would be disassembled and shipped aboard freighters bound for Havana, then be reassembled on-site.</p>
<p>On Oct. 14, a <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/cuban-missile-crisis">high-flying U.S. U-2 spy plane</a> photographed the construction of a missile launch site in western Cuba. This marked the beginning of the 13 days in October known as the Cuban missile crisis. </p>
<p>After heated deliberations with his cabinet and advisers, Kennedy decided on a <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/cuban-missile.html">naval blockade</a> surrounding Cuba to prevent further Soviet ships from passing through. In addition, Kennedy demanded removal of all missiles and equipment already in Cuba.</p>
<p>This began a standoff between the U.S. and Russia. Ultimately, the missiles were disassembled and removed from Cuba. In exchange, the U.S. removed its Jupiter ballistic missiles from bases in Turkey and Italy. </p>
<p>But one utterly random – and utterly crucial – aspect of this resolution was not known until years later through the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390500088304">memoirs of, and interviews with, Soviet sailors</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Use the nuclear weapons first’</h2>
<p>During the crisis, the Soviet Union had sent four of its <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/foxtrot-class-old-russian-submarine-notorious-past-208458">Foxtrot-class submarines</a> to the crisis area. Each submarine carried 22 two-ton torpedoes.</p>
<p>Unbeknownst to the U.S., one of those 22 torpedoes aboard each of the four subs was nuclear-tipped with a warhead yielding 15 kilotons, or a force equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb. </p>
<p>In a briefing before the four submarine commanders set out for Cuba, <a href="https://cimsec.org/cuban-missile-crisis-soviet-submarines-attack/">Vice Admiral A.I. Rassokha</a> of the Soviet Northern Fleet gave instructions that if attacked by the American fleet, “I suggest to you commanders that you use the nuclear weapons first, and then you will figure out what to do after that.”</p>
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<span class="caption">This newspaper map from the time of the Cuban missile crisis shows the distances from Cuba of various cities on the North American continent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-newspaper-map-from-the-time-of-the-cuban-missile-news-photo/515016314?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>His advice came alarmingly close to being carried out. </p>
<p>In approaching the blockade area on Oct. 27, Captain Valentin Savitsky’s submarine B-59 had been under prolonged harassment from an array of U.S. ships, aircraft and helicopters attempting to force it to the surface. Needing to recharge the boat’s electrical system, the B-59 did eventually resurface, at which point Savitsky thought he had emerged into a full-scale conflict – surrounded by naval ships and planes, shots being fired across his bow, depth charges dropped and powerful blinding searchlights aimed at the conning tower. Thinking he was under attack, Savitsky gave the order to immediately dive and prepare the nuclear torpedo for firing. </p>
<p>And here was where pure luck intervened. </p>
<h2>Stuck on a ladder</h2>
<p>Staff Captain Vasili Arkhipov and an unnamed sailor aboard B-59 likely <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2022-10-03/soviet-submarines-nuclear-torpedoes-cuban-missile-crisis">prevented World War III from occurring</a>.</p>
<p>As Savitsky tried to descend from the conning tower into the hull of the sub and begin the dive, he was momentarily blocked by a signaling officer who had accidentally gotten stuck on the conning tower ladder. During this split second delay, <a href="https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8342&context=nwc-review">Arkhipov, who was on the conning tower as well</a>, realized that the chaos on the water’s surface was not an attack but rather an attempt to provide a warning. </p>
<p>Arkhipov, who had equal authority as Savitsky, immediately ordered the submarine to “cancel dive, they are signaling.”</p>
<p>World War III was very likely averted as a result of a brief delay in time caused by a sailor who happened to be stuck in the right place at the right time, along with a second-in-command who, when given a few extra seconds, perceptively realized that the boat was not under attack.</p>
<p>Had this not happened, Savitsky would have dived and in all likelihood within five minutes fired his nuclear-tipped torpedo, causing a cataclysmic reaction on the high seas and the world as a whole. </p>
<p>According to Martin Sherwin, co-author of the <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/kai-bird-and-martin-j-sherwin">Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Oppenheimer</a> that the recent movie was based on, “The extraordinary (and surely disconcerting) conclusion has to be that on October 27, 1962, a nuclear war was averted not because President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev were doing their best to avoid war (they were), but because Capt. Vasily Arkhipov had been <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/165952/gambling-with-armageddon-by-martin-j-sherwin/">randomly assigned to submarine B-59</a>.”</p>
<p>This is but one of countless examples where global and military history has been dramatically altered by chance and luck. On Oct. 27, 1962, the world was extremely lucky. The question that Robert Oppenheimer would surely ask is, will we be so lucky the next time?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Robert Rank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>During the Cuban missile crisis, World War III was likely averted by what one US official called ‘just plain dumb luck.’Mark Robert Rank, Professor of Social Welfare, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225542024-03-01T13:39:19Z2024-03-01T13:39:19ZThough CBS legend Edward R. Murrow is given credit, he wasn’t the first muckraking journalist to question Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578089/original/file-20240226-46329-2veguo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=431%2C63%2C2267%2C2502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CBS' Edward R. Murrow was the most influential person in the early years of television news during the 1950s.. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/edward-r-murrow-was-the-most-influential-person-in-the-news-photo/517367890?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been 70 years since Edward R. Murrow’s withering broadcast report about Cold War demagogue Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, a program that has been called television’s “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/CBS_s_Don_Hollenbeck/1XsMVd2IEDgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22television%27s+finest+half+hour%22&pg=PA196&printsec=frontcover">finest half-hour</a>.”</p>
<p>Legendary though it may be, it took more than a television show to take down McCarthy and short-circuit his relentless drive to rid the federal government of communist sympathizers.</p>
<p>The 70th anniversary of the program that aired March 9, 1954, is likely to be recalled by some historians in nostalgic terms – how Murrow, supposedly <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/12/hes-no-murrow-hes-stewart-and-thats-plenty/67000/">alone in American journalism</a>, had the <a href="https://mediamythalert.com/2010/09/22/edward-r-murrow-had-guts-in-taking-on-joe-mccarthy-not-really/">courage</a> and national stature to confront McCarthy and expose him for the Red-baiting menace that he was.</p>
<p>McCarthy, an otherwise obscure Republican U.S. senator from Wisconsin, had <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1046648461/decades-before-trumps-election-lies-mccarthys-anti-communist-fever-gripped-the-g">unsettled 1950s America</a> with thinly documented charges of communists <a href="https://virginia.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/amex31m-soc-speechredscare/the-speech-that-launched-the-1950s-red-scare-mccarthy/">infiltrating and subverting</a> the State Department and other federal agencies. As chairman of the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm">Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations</a> from 1953-54, McCarthy grilled and bullied witnesses in a relentless effort to root out Americans who supposedly sympathized with Soviet communism.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/04/archives/murrow-vs-mccarthy-see-it-now.html">the popular version</a> of the story goes, McCarthy’s power was unchecked until Murrow aired his searching report on the <a href="https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/see-it-now">CBS newsmagazine show</a> “See It Now.”</p>
<p>As my research has demonstrated, however, that interpretation about the impact of Murrow’s report is a tenacious <a href="https://theconversation.com/woodward-and-bernstein-didnt-bring-down-a-president-in-watergate-but-the-myth-that-they-did-lives-on-183290">media myth</a> — a well-known tale about the news media that is widely believed and often retold but which, under scrutiny, dissolves as apocryphal. </p>
<p>The Murrow-McCarthy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1994/06/15/showdown-with-a-senator/defc10b5-d046-406a-8e2a-f257efec724e/">myth</a> overlooks the belated nature of Murrow’s report and minimizes the aggressive work of journalists who took on the senator long before the “See It Now” program in 1954. </p>
<p>Two of those journalists paid a steep price for doing so.</p>
<p>As I wrote in my <a href="https://mediamythalert.com/2009/11/02/media-myths-faqs/">media-mythbusting</a> book, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520291294/getting-it-wrong">Getting it Wrong</a>”: “It wasn’t as if Americans in early 1954 were hoping for someone to step up and expose McCarthy, or waiting for a white knight like Murrow to tell them what a toxic threat the senator posed.” </p>
<p>They already knew.</p>
<h2>Drew Pearson’s muckraking journalism</h2>
<p>Murrow’s program aired more than four years after McCarthy had launched his campaign against communists in government — and more than four years after muckraking journalist <a href="https://www.american.edu/library/archives/pearson/drewpearson_bio.cfm">Drew Pearson</a> had challenged the senator’s claims as flimsy and outlandish.</p>
<p>Pearson, who wrote the nationally syndicated “<a href="https://auislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/pearson%3A1">Washington Merry-Go-Round</a>” newspaper column, lacked the popularity and <a href="https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/murrow-edward-roscoe">pedigree of Murrow</a>, who made his reputation in vivid radio reports from Britain during World War II. </p>
<p>Pearson was an <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/09/he-bribed-he-blackmailed-he-extorted-he-lied-was-jack-anderson-a-reporter-or-a-spook.html">unlikable figure</a>, eager to meddle in policymaking and often overbearing. </p>
<p>But Pearson quickly recognized the dubious character of McCarthy’s allegations.</p>
<p>In a column in February 1950, <a href="https://nieman.harvard.edu/articles/drew-pearson-vs-joe-mccarthy-demagogue/">Pearson disputed McCarthy’s assertions</a> that scores of communists apparently had infiltrated the State Department, writing that when the senator “finally was pinned down, he could produce … only four names of State Department officials whom he claimed were communists.”</p>
<p>Of the four, Pearson wrote, one had never worked for the State Department, two had resigned years earlier and the fourth had been cleared of any allegation of being a communist.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/joseph-mccarthy-and-the-force-of-political-falsehoods">Pearson also scrutinized</a> the senator’s income tax filings and his acceptance of suspicious campaign contributions. </p>
<p>Pearson’s columns angered the hulking McCarthy, who in December 1950 <a href="https://www.realclearhistory.com/2017/12/08/joe_mccarthy039s_assault_on_drew_pearson_6796.html">confronted the columnist</a> at the end of a private dinner party in Washington. </p>
<p>McCarthy <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,816553,00.html">assaulted</a> Pearson either by punching him or slapping him or <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/infamous-sen-joseph-mccarthy-brutally-attacked-reporter-1950-article-1.3217648">kneeing him in the groin</a>. Versions varied.</p>
<p>The man who broke up the encounter was future U.S. president Richard Nixon, who had been sworn in as senator a few days before the dinner party. In his memoir, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/06/archives/rn-the-memoirs-of-richard-nixon-nixon-on-his-family-heart-was-wifes.html">RN</a>,” Nixon wrote that Pearson “grabbed his overcoat and ran” while McCarthy muttered, “‘You shouldn’t have stopped me, Dick.’”</p>
<p>Soon afterward, McCarthy took to the Senate floor <a href="https://niemanreports.org/articles/drew-pearson-vs-joe-mccarthy-demagogue/">to denounce Pearson</a> as a “diabolically” clever “voice of international communism,” a “fake” and a “Moscow-directed character assassin.”</p>
<p>McCarthy also took aim at the sponsor of Pearson’s lucrative Sunday night radio program, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1950/12/31/archives/adam-hat-explains-dropping-pearson.html">Adam Hat Stores Inc.</a> The senator declared that “anyone who buys from a store that stocks an Adams hat is unknowingly contributing at least something to the cause of international communism by keeping this communist spokesman on the air.”</p>
<p>A week later, Adam Hat said it <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,890274,00.html">would not renew</a> its sponsorship of Pearson’s radio show, citing “a planned change in advertising media.” </p>
<p>The decision cost Pearson thousands of dollars.</p>
<h2>The wrath of McCarthy</h2>
<p>Pearson wasn’t the only prominent journalist to challenge McCarthy years before Murrow’s program. Another was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/12/obituaries/james-wechsler-a-columnist-and-ex-editor-of-post-dies.html">James Wechsler</a>, editor of the then-liberal New York Post, which in 1951 published a bare-knuckled, 17-part series of articles about McCarthy’s allegations and excesses. </p>
<p>The closing installment likened the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/03/12/the-bottle-the-genie-drinking-in-washington/b8b8f435-9341-427b-9388-55e3c3721083/">hard-drinking</a> McCarthy to “a drunk at a party who was funny half an hour ago but now won’t go home.”</p>
<p>In retaliation, <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,935333,00.html">McCarthy hauled</a> Wechsler before his Senate subcommittee and grilled him about his former association with a communist youth group. </p>
<p>Wechsler described the closed-door session as little more than “a reprisal against a newspaper and its editor for their opposition” to McCarthy and his methods.</p>
<h2>Murrow’s finest hour</h2>
<p>CBS’ “See It Now” program 70 years ago featured extensive and impressive use of video clips to puncture a series of half-truths and exaggerations that McCarthy had told during the early 1950s.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white man sits behind a desk and is speaking in front of a telivision camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578091/original/file-20240226-24-zanlnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578091/original/file-20240226-24-zanlnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578091/original/file-20240226-24-zanlnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578091/original/file-20240226-24-zanlnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578091/original/file-20240226-24-zanlnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578091/original/file-20240226-24-zanlnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578091/original/file-20240226-24-zanlnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy responds to Murrow’s report by calling the CBS newsman a communist propagandist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/senator-joseph-r-mccarthy-appearing-on-a-television-screen-news-photo/514957192">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>It made for good television, critics agreed. It also projected a certain familiarity.</p>
<p>“Murrow said nothing, and his cameras showed nothing, that this and some other newspapers have not been saying — and saying more strongly — for three or four years,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/25/nyregion/jay-nelson-tuck-69-a-reporter-and-editor.html">Jay Nelson Tuck</a> of the New York Post said in his review at the time.</p>
<p>“The news,” he added, “was in the fact that television was saying it at all.”</p>
<p>The most dramatic blow against McCarthy in early March 1954 wasn’t Murrow’s program. </p>
<p>Two days after the show, the U.S. Army publicly accused McCarthy and a top aide, Roy Cohn, of applying pressure to gain preferential treatment for Cohn’s friend and assistant, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/21/us/crash-kills-g-david-schine-69-mccarthy-era-figure.html">G. David Schine</a>, who had been drafted into military service.</p>
<p>The charges became a centerpiece in spring 1954 of the televised <a href="https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal54-1358787">Army-McCarthy hearings</a>, which were a prelude to the senator’s <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/censure/133Joseph_McCarthy.htm">censure</a> that year and his political eclipse.</p>
<p>McCarthy <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/health/mccarthyism-joseph-mccarthy-red-scare-medical-mystery-20190809.html">died</a> in 1957 from complications of alcohol abuse and hepatitis. He was 48 years old.</p>
<p>Murrow left CBS in 1961 to become head of the U.S. Information Agency. He was 57 when he <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0425.html">died</a> in 1965 of lung cancer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222554/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>W. Joseph Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Starting in 1950, as the fear of communist subversion spread throughout America, McCarthy launched hearings that were based on scant evidence and overblown charges.W. Joseph Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Communication, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219192024-02-25T14:20:58Z2024-02-25T14:20:58ZWhy the West’s resentment of China is so misguided<p>Over the past few years, <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/08/24/why-chinas-economy-wont-be-fixed">some western commentators</a> have proclaimed the “decline of China.” They argue <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/responses/who-killed-chinese-economy">China’s economy is failing</a>, its <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/root-chinas-growing-youth-unemployment-crisis">youth are alienated and unemployed</a>, it <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/13/chinas-beautiful-xinjiang-continues-oppress-uighurs">abuses human rights and represses its people</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-shrinking-population-and-constraints-on-its-future-power/">its demographic decline means that China will never rise to surpass western power</a>. </p>
<p>The subtext of this focus on China’s problems is that western domination of the world will continue, proving the superiority of the West’s political and economic ideologies.</p>
<p>These eulogies for China are premature, at best. </p>
<p><a href="https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/why-economists-failed-to-predict-the-financial-crisis/">Economists in the West</a> <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n22/john-gray/we-simply-do-not-know">don’t fully understand western economies</a>, let alone China’s, and <a href="https://www.edelman.com/trust/2023/trust-barometer">western states have numerous fundamental problems of their own</a>. </p>
<h2>Drumbeat of negativity</h2>
<p>China is experiencing <a href="https://eastasiaforum.org/2023/10/08/has-the-chinese-economy-hit-the-wall/">economic headwinds as it transitions to a new model of economic development</a>. It is <a href="https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/five-years-trade-war-china-continues-its-slow-decoupling-us-exports">also contending with</a> <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/09/16/u.s.-china-trade-war-has-become-cold-war-pub-85352">western economic</a> and <a href="https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/why-the-united-states-is-losing-the-tech-war-with-china">technological sabotage</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-american-technological-war-against-china-could-backfire-219158">Why the American technological war against China could backfire</a>
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<p>How well China manages these forces remains to be seen. </p>
<p>An objective analysis of China’s economy is required, but the constant drumbeat of negativity emerging from the West makes that difficult. Some of it is a <a href="https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/china-news/21091-a-500-million-dollar-business-america-s-state-sponsored-anti-china-propaganda.html">concerted propaganda campaign, financed by the United States</a>, to undermine America’s biggest competitor. But the trend also reflects the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3223603/what-used-be-called-yellow-peril-now-china-threat">western world’s racial and political anxieties</a> and its profound insecurities about its own failures and decline. </p>
<p>For hundreds of years, <a href="http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/backgrounds/colonialism-and-imperialism">the West has used imperialism and violence to construct an international system</a> that ensures its prosperity and prioritizes its interests. Keeping the Global South subservient to a Eurocentric world order has been critical to this strategy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/south-africa-icj-israel-genocide/">Israel’s attack on Gaza, killing tens of thousands of Palestinians</a> — along with the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/12/how-the-us-uk-bombing-of-yemen-might-help-the-houthis">associated American and British bombings of Yemen</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-launches-retaliatory-strikes-iraq-syria-nearly-40-reported-killed-2024-02-03/">Iraq and Syria</a> — are contemporary manifestations of this phenomenon. </p>
<p>China’s rise is the first time in modern history that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6811-1_25">a non-European state beyond western control</a> is economically eclipsing the West. <a href="https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/05/09/who-hates-chinas-rise-the-most-from-the-yellow-peril-to-the-biggest-challenger/">The “yellow peril” is back</a>, and the West will now need to compromise and negotiate with a powerful, non-western entity. </p>
<p>It cannot simply impose its will on the Global South, though the American campaign against China is an effort to re-establish this status quo.</p>
<p>To the West, this was not how it was supposed to be.</p>
<h2>China forged its own path</h2>
<p>According to American political scientist Francis Fukuyama, the end of the Cold War was the <a href="https://pages.ucsd.edu/%7Ebslantchev/courses/pdf/Fukuyama%20-%20End%20of%20History.pdf">“end of history,”</a> meaning that liberal democratic capitalism is the final and best form of government for all nations. </p>
<p>This political and economic system, embodied by the West (especially the United States), <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/24/how-the-two-big-ideas-of-the-post-cold-war-era-failed/">was supposedly the only path to success</a>. The West was held up as pinnacle of achievement that the entire world should emulate.</p>
<p>China <a href="https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/how-china-survived-end-history">disproved this narrative</a> <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience">by achieving extraordinary economic and technological developments with unprecedented speed</a>, and it did so by following its own path. It is a major player in the world economy, but has refused to become a western <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/vassal">vassal state</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, the western world has failed in many measurable and obvious ways, particularly since the 2008 financial crisis. Europe is facing <a href="https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/02/14/eurozone-avoids-recession-but-remains-stagnant-as-germany-struggles">economic stagnation</a>, <a href="https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/05/11/changing-continent-the-eus-population-is-declining-new-figures-reveal">demographic decline</a> and increasingly <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/fake-news-and-personal-attacks-how-the-political-right-took-down-europes-green-agenda/">toxic politics</a>. </p>
<p>Western youth are alienated and <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/trust-nicola-sturgeon-prime-minister-mark-drakeford-jeremy-hunt-b2290758.html">pessimistic</a>. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-ukraine-war-vladimir-putin-imf-growth-military-spending-economy-2024-1">West’s failure to destroy Russia’s economy with sanctions</a> following its invasion of Ukraine is evidence of decreasing western economic power. Its <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/1/17/gaza-will-be-the-grave-of-the-western-led-world-order">absolute moral failure</a> in Gaza is tragically apparent.</p>
<h2>American decline</h2>
<p>But the most spectacular and consequential example of western decline is the United States. On paper, the U.S. economy is performing <a href="https://www.commerce.gov/news/blog/2024/01/numbers-us-economy-grows-faster-expected-year-and-final-quarter-2023#:%7E:text=Helpful%20Not%20helpful-,By%20the%20Numbers%3A%20U.S.%20Economy%20Grows%20Faster%20than%20Expected%20for,and%20Final%20Quarter%20of%202023&text=Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Commerce%20Department's,quarter%20of%202023%20exceeding%20expectations.">moderately well</a>. In practice, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/2/8/americas-underemployment-problem">under-employment</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-income-inequality-rose-3-years-through-2022-fed-data-shows-2023-10-18/">and economic</a> <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/#:%7E:text=In%20the%20third%20quarter%20of,percent%20of%20the%20total%20wealth.">inequality are posing major problems</a>. </p>
<p>Many Americans <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/mood-by-microbe/202311/defusing-armageddon-why-are-so-many-americans-angry">are angry</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/24/americans-take-a-dim-view-of-the-nations-future-look-more-positively-at-the-past/">disillusioned</a> <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/07/22/key-findings-about-americans-declining-trust-in-government-and-each-other/">and polarized</a>. American politics are dysfunctional and blatantly <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/twelve-years-since-citizens-united-big-money-corruption-keeps-getting-worse/">corrupted by money</a>. Even the <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4/25/23697394/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-neil-gorsuch-corruption-harlan-crow-constitution">highest judiciary has been accused of corruption</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-americans-be-shielded-from-the-u-s-supreme-court-186084">Can Americans be shielded from the U.S. Supreme Court?</a>
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<p>In the next presidential election, Americans may well <a href="https://www.economist.com/interactive/us-2024-election/trump-biden-polls/">re-elect</a> Donald Trump, someone <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-new-york-indictment-1.7115927">who epitomizes</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68175846">this corruption</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. government also continues to stir up <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/02/12/us-foreign-policy-bombing-deterrence-north-korea-nuclear-sanctions/">violence and instability around the world</a> rather than dealing with its own <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-trump-foreign-policy.html">enormous domestic problems</a>.</p>
<h2>China’s achievements</h2>
<p>Over the past 20 years, China’s transformation has been astonishing. Its modern cities feature <a href="https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/travel-and-architecture/a8407-buildings-of-china-15-architectural-marvels-every-architect-must-see/">marvels of architecture</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibRorZwnZl8">well-constructed infrastructure</a>, phenomenal <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm3IxEtzj7s">public spaces</a> and are clean and safe, in contrast to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvJSGc14xA">crumbling infrastructure</a> and <a href="https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting">dangerous streets</a> of some <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/most-dangerous-cities-in-the-us/">American cities</a>. </p>
<p>By purchasing power parity, China’s GDP <a href="https://cepr.net/china-is-bigger-get-over-it/#:%7E:text=Measuring%20by%20purchasing%20power%20parity,Source%3A%20International%20Monetary%20Fund.">is currently 25 per cent bigger than that of the U.S.; the International Monetary Fund estimates it will be 40 per cent larger by 2028</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/china-worlds-sole-manufacturing-superpower-line-sketch-rise#:%7E:text=China%20is%20now%20the%20world's%20sole%20manufacturing%20giant.,the%20G7%20countries%20still%20dominate.">China is responsible for 35 per cent of the world’s manufacturing compared to 12 per cent for the U.S</a>. China’s <a href="https://yogesh-upadhyaya.medium.com/how-did-china-become-a-manufacturing-superpower-7322c3058d8">economies of scale</a> and <a href="https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/research/blog/how-china-is-winning-the-race-for-clean-energy-technology%EF%BF%BC/">technological advancements</a> mean that renewable energy may become <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/chinas-spending-on-green-energy-is-causing-a-global-glut-d80eaea7">affordable to billions of people all over the world</a>, <a href="https://eastasiaforum.org/2023/11/21/chinas-electric-vehicle-surge-will-shock-global-markets/">offering viable climate action</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-so-much-of-the-worlds-manufacturing-still-take-place-in-china-207178">Why does so much of the world's manufacturing still take place in China?</a>
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<p>If China really does fail — something those western commentators perpetually claim is imminent — it would have serious consequences for the rest of the world.</p>
<p>Western hostility towards China reflects the grudging realization that the West may not be the pinnacle of achievement after all. Rather than possibly learning from China’s successes, westerners have chosen resentment borne of a sense of frustrated superiority.</p>
<p>The modern world is a pluralist global system. Different states will follow different paths to development and experiment with different forms of government. The West does not have all — or maybe any — solutions to the many problems the world is currently facing.</p>
<p><a href="https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-china">China is pursuing</a> its own economic and social goals. These may not accord with western models, and <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/12/China-bumpy-path-Eswar-Prasad">China may stumble</a> as it follows its own path. </p>
<p>But cheering on those stumbles won’t make for a more peaceful or co-operative world, nor will it compensate for western failures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221919/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaun Narine is a contributor to Jewish Voice for Peace and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.</span></em></p>Western hostility towards China reflects the grudging realization that the West may not be the pinnacle of achievement after all.Shaun Narine, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155682023-11-10T15:20:02Z2023-11-10T15:20:02ZCzesław Miłosz: what the Polish poet tells us about the ‘westsplaining’ of eastern and central Europe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558370/original/file-20231108-27-uwo3r1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Czesław Miłosz (third row, fourth from the left) at the Stefan Batory University of Vilna in 1930.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz#/media/File:Jacek_Dehnel_collection_-_Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz_i_studenci_Uniwersytetu_Stefana_Batorego_w_Wilnie_P-1158_01.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1931, when the Polish poet Czesław Miłosz was 20 years old, he spent a summer travelling across Europe with friends. At the French border, as he later wrote in <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/187456/native-realm-by-milosz-czeslaw/9780141392288">Native Realm</a>, they saw a sign that “Prohibited <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-care-how-gypsy-roma-and-traveller-children-face-discrimination-across-europe-and-the-uk-170312">Gypsies</a>, Poles, Rumanians and Bulgarians from entering the country”. </p>
<p>This experience was a vivid reminder that travellers from eastern and central Europe were often unwelcome in the western part of the continent. </p>
<p>Fifty years later, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1980/milosz/lecture/">in his Nobel lecture</a>, Miłosz pointed out that it was still difficult to speak of a single Europe. There were in fact “two Europes”: western Europe and what he referred to as “the Other Europe”.</p>
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<p>The perceived “otherness” of eastern and central Europe is a complex phenomenon, which Miłosz continued to examine in his writings until his death in 2004. As the literature scholar Eva Hoffman notes in her new book, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691212692/on-czeslaw-milosz">On Czeslaw Milosz: Visions from the Other Europe</a> (Princeton University Press), his oeuvre is, to a large extent, an exploration of this region that shaped him as a person and a poet. </p>
<p>As Hoffman observes, however, this same region was “imagined as inferior, obscure and altogether insignificant by the inhabitants of what was considered Europe <em>tout court</em>: Europe, which stood for civilization itself.” </p>
<p>The Other Europe that Miłosz wrote about was deeply marked by <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/timothy-snyder/bloodlands/9780465032976/?lens=basic-books">the excesses</a> of Hitler’s and Stalin’s totalitarian regimes. Miłosz witnessed much of this violence first-hand. </p>
<p>He spent the second world war in Poland under Nazi and then Soviet occupation. In 1951, he defected from the Soviet-controlled Polish People’s Republic and became an exile in France. </p>
<p>His writings from the period are an attempt to make sense of the increasing appeal of political ideologies such as fascism and communism, at a time when religion, as <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-61530-7">my research shows</a>, had ceased to offer a shared frame of reference. </p>
<h2>The othering of eastern and central Europe</h2>
<p>Miłosz’s 1953 book, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/57403/the-captive-mind-by-czeslaw-milosz-trans-jane-zielonko/9780141186764">The Captive Mind</a>, provides an incisive critique of Soviet communism. Miłosz was ostracised not only in Poland as a traitor to the New Order, but also in France by intellectuals including Jean-Paul Sartre. </p>
<p>In his youth, Miłosz had sympathised with communist ideals. In France, however, he found himself in the unenviable position of an eastern European exile whose experiential knowledge of an oppressive political regime was rejected because it challenged left-wing intellectuals’ uncritical admiration for the Soviet project. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An archival black and white photograph of refugees marching." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558372/original/file-20231108-27-jadsg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558372/original/file-20231108-27-jadsg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558372/original/file-20231108-27-jadsg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558372/original/file-20231108-27-jadsg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558372/original/file-20231108-27-jadsg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558372/original/file-20231108-27-jadsg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558372/original/file-20231108-27-jadsg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People displaced during the German occupation of Poland in 1939.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Poland_(1939%E2%80%931945)#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_R_49_Bild-0131,_Aussiedlung_von_Polen_im_Wartheland.jpg">Wilhelm Holtfreter|Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Hoffman, who herself became an exile from Poland in 1959, recounts the not dissimilar experience of being treated with “patronizing scorn” as a graduate student at Harvard in the 1960s because she dared to challenge what she describes as her fellow students’ “naïve idealization of ‘the workers’”. </p>
<p>Her peers, she writes, perceived Soviet communism to be “a radically progressive philosophy” rather than what she knew it actually to be, “an exceptionally repressive, reactionary ideology and form of governance”. </p>
<p>As both Miłosz and Hoffman point out, to be framed as the “other” is to occupy a position of marginality. This is a shared experience of many exiles. Hoffman uses the term “immigrant rage” to describe the feelings that she experienced when she was ignored, misunderstood and marginalised. </p>
<p>Miłosz and Hoffman rejected dominant western narratives of eastern and central Europe, whether they came from the left or the right. This chimes with the long-standing resistance among eastern and central European writers to what political analyst Edward Lucas has called the <a href="https://cepa.org/article/its-time-to-stop-westsplaining/">“westsplaining” of the region</a>.</p>
<p>The perception of eastern and central Europe as a place of essential otherness continues to shape the experiences of migrants from the region today. The discrimination they face, however, often remains invisible. </p>
<p>While eastern Europeans’ whiteness places them in a position of privilege, it is, as sociologist Kasia Narkowicz has said, “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2154913">peripheral whiteness</a>”. Research shows that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380261221121218">eastern Europeans are often racialised</a> and perceived through the lens of their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23793406.2019.1584048">linguistic otherness</a>. </p>
<p>What’s more, sociologist Aleksandra Lewicki <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2154910">points out</a> that this racialisation reflects and contributes to the marginalisation of the region in both political and economic terms.</p>
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<p>All this has serious political implications. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-must-stop-looking-at-eu-migrants-as-coming-from-two-europes-the-east-and-everywhere-else-58007">racialised vilification</a> of eastern Europeans played <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/S0895-993520200000027012">a central role</a> in the unofficial Leave.EU Brexit campaign. It continues to shape eastern European migrants’ <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2085678">post-Brexit experiences</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, the perceived otherness of eastern Europe has set the tone for the public debates that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some antiwar campaigns have presented the war as a clash between, as Stop the War has put it, <a href="https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/a-win-for-peace-ucu-opposes-the-war-in-ukraine/">“Russian and US imperialism”</a>, rather than an <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/a-letter-to-the-western-left-from-kyiv/">entirely unprovoked aggression</a> against a sovereign state. (Stop the War’s motion <a href="https://bylinetimes.com/2023/06/26/the-lecturers-union-and-the-betrayal-of-the-intellectuals/">was endorsed</a> by the UK’s largest union of university staff, the University and College Union).</p>
<p>The discourse that such campaigns have employed frames Ukraine as a place of essential otherness. It denies Ukrainian people both a voice and a right to self-determination. </p>
<p>As political economist Yuliya Yurchenko aptly points out, westsplaining of the conflict has resulted in <a href="https://www.stopwar.org.uk/peace-now-stop-the-war-in-ukraine-add-your-name-to-our-letter-to-rishi-sunak/">calls</a> for what she terms a “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13684310231172721">phoney peace</a>”. By this, she refers to peace as “confused and conflated with faux international stability – peace for some nations at the expense of localised wars for others”. </p>
<p>In practice, Yurchenko states, this amounts to condoning the mass murder of Ukrainians.</p>
<p>Having witnessed crimes against human rights, Miłosz argued that poets who hailed from the Other Europe were in a unique position to be “bearer[s] of memory”. In his Nobel lecture, he mentioned two of his contemporaries, the poets Władysław Sebyła and Lech Piwowar, who were murdered by the Soviet secret police in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447048">Katyń Massacre</a> of 1940. </p>
<p>Their deaths were obfuscated by a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-13507-2_6">conspiracy of silence</a> for almost half a century. The Russian government would only acknowledge Soviet responsibility for the crime in the 1990s. </p>
<p>Today, Ukrainian poets and writers bear witness to the suffering of the victims of the Russian aggression in occupied Ukraine. Their testimonial voices – such as that of the author <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/03/poem-about-a-crow-a-work-by-the-killed-ukrainian-writer-victoria-amelina">Victoria Amelina</a>, who was killed in a Russian missile strike in July 2023 – offer an important counterpoint to the public debates that continue to take for granted the otherness of eastern Europe. </p>
<p>Listening to them would be an important step in mending the rift between “two Europes” that Miłosz’s writings confront us with.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Rzepa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The perceived “otherness” of eastern and central Europe is a complex phenomenon, which a new book on the Polish Nobel laureate’s oeuvre brings to light.Joanna Rzepa, Senior Lecturer in Literature, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2108572023-08-24T12:26:44Z2023-08-24T12:26:44ZWith fewer than 1,500 Catholics in Mongolia, Pope Francis’ upcoming visit brings attention to the long and complex history of the minority religious group<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542225/original/file-20230810-19-5i7hoe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C1630%2C1070&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, seated with his Eastern Christian queen Doquz Khatun.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hulagu-khan-also-known-as-hulegu-hulegu-or-halaku-was-a-news-photo/1354437053?adppopup=true">History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Pope Francis is set to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pope-visit-mongolia-will-thrill-tiny-catholic-community-cardinal-says-2023-07-17/">make the first-ever visit to Mongolia</a>, a country with fewer than 1,500 Catholics, all of whom have come to the faith since 1992. But the pope’s visit is a reminder that the country has a long and complex history with Christianity, among many other faiths. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/mongolia">Mongolia has only 3.4 million people, and at least 87.4% are Buddhists</a>. The small Catholic community came into existence after this landlocked country, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, began to abandon its <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645157">communist ideology and embraced different religions</a>. At that time, it also restored diplomatic relations with the Vatican and welcomed Catholic missionaries.</p>
<p>But Catholicism has been known to the Mongols <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Mongols-and-the-West-1221-1410/Jackson/p/book/9781138848481">since the early 13th century</a>. As a <a href="https://search.asu.edu/profile/1268668">scholar of religions in Asia</a>, I am aware that Nestorianism, a Christian tradition commonly known as the Church of the East, reached the periphery of the Mongolian plateau as early as the eighth century, long before the Mongols became active in that area. Several old tribes in the Mongolian steppes were <a href="https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/13943/">converted to Nestorianism around 1000 C.E.</a> </p>
<h2>The Mongol Empire</h2>
<p>The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206 after he conquered all the other nomadic tribes on the Mongolian Plateau. Later on, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-the-mongol-empire/339475953C6AECE567FA50F1AED951A7">the empire extended from Mongolia to the Eastern Mediterranean regions</a>.</p>
<p>Initially the Mongols practiced a Shamanic religion, worshipping the God Tengri. However, to be able to rule all conquered subjects across the vast empire, Genghis Khan issued the “Great Yasa,” a regulation allowing people under his regime the freedom to freely practice their faiths. Under the Mongol Empire, people practiced <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40109471">Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam</a>. </p>
<p>The conquered tribes included Nestorian Christians, who believed that Jesus Christ had both human and divine natures and rejected that Mary was the mother of God. Christian women dominated the inner court of the Mongol Empire <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25183572">following their marriages with several Mongol Khans</a>. </p>
<h2>The messengers of the papacy</h2>
<p>The Mongol conquest paved the way for long-distance cultural, religious and commercial exchanges across the vast Eurasian continent. For the first time Catholic missionaries were able to travel along the land route to East Asia.</p>
<p>Genghis Khan and his sons launched a series of military campaigns in Central Asia and West Asia, conquering vast land across the Eurasian continent and reaching the <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2022/02/mongol-conquest-hungary/">borders of modern-day Hungary and Turkey</a>.</p>
<p>During the conquest, the Mongols often <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Mongols-and-the-West-1221-1410/Jackson/p/book/9781138848481">spared many Christians in Central and West Asia</a>, even though they killed those who resisted the Mongol rule. </p>
<p>The conquest shocked many in the Latin world in Europe and Muslims in the Middle East. In 1241, soon after the Mongol troops invaded Hungary and Romania, Pope Innocent IV sent Catholic missionaries, including an Italian Franciscan priest called <a href="https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/585">John of Plano Carpini</a>, to the Mongol court seeking peace. </p>
<p>In 1246, on orders of the pope, Carpini visited the Mongol court and urged the new ruler of the Mongol Empire, Güyük Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson, to convert to Catholicism. Güyük Khan instead asked that he summon the pope and other European rulers to <a href="https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/585">swear allegiance to him</a>.</p>
<p>Catholic missionaries could not find a way to convert the Mongols but continued their efforts with the successive rulers. </p>
<p>In 1248 a Franciscan priest named William of Rubruck, a companion of French King Louis IX, met a Dominican priest, Andrew of Longjumeau, during his visit to Jerusalem. At that time, Louis IX was leading the crusades against Muslims in the Eastern Mediterranean region, and William of Rubruck was fascinated with Andrew of Longjumeau’s suggestion of building an alliance with the Mongols against the Muslims. </p>
<p>In 1253, William of Rubruck visited the Mongol court in Karakorum to urge Genghis Khan’s grandson Möngke Khan to convert. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Mongols-and-the-West-1221-1410/Jackson/p/book/9781138848481">Möngke Khan instead handed him a letter for Louis IX</a> in which he not only refused to convert to Christianity but threatened to invade the heartland of Europe if the Europeans did not accept the Mongols’ eternal God, Tengri. </p>
<h2>Catholicism and Nestorianism</h2>
<p>William of Rubruck’s visit did not bring any immediate results in terms of conversions, but it left a more far lasting impact. </p>
<p>Before his visit there was not much communication between Catholic missionaries and Nestorians, but William of Rubruck was able to chronicle the activities of the Nestorian community within the Mongol Empire. The visits of Catholic missionaries also prompted many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004288867_005">Mongol Nestorians to start going on pilgrimages to West Asia</a> as a way to expand their influence beyond their comfort zone under the Mongol Empire. </p>
<p>In 1287 a Nestorian monk, Rabban Bar Sauma, embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Khanbaliq, near modern Beijing. Later Sauma’s student Rabban Markos became a patriarch with a title Yahballaha III, <a href="https://uni-salzburg.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/two-letters-of-yahballaha-iii-to-the-popes-of-rome-historical-con/publications/?type=%2Fdk%2Fatira%2Fpure%2Fresearchoutput%2Fresearchoutputtypes%2Fcontributiontobookanthology%2Fchapter">or the chief of the Nestorian Church</a>, in the Mongol-ruled Ilkhanate Empire in modern-day Iran.</p>
<p>At the same time, the Catholic missionaries also started to expand their influence in Central Asia. In 1307 a Franciscan priest, John of Montecorvino, built a Catholic church in Khanbaliq and <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/corvino1.asp">became the patriarch under the order of Pope Clement V</a>. He had converted about 6,000 people in Mongolia by 1313. </p>
<h2>Religious revivals in Mongolia</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A priest leads a service while worshippers, including two nuns, stand with prayer books and heads bowed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544343/original/file-20230823-27-51fiyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Catholic Mongolians pray during a Mass at St. Peter and St. Paul parish church in Ulan Bator, Mongolia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/catholic-mongolians-pray-during-a-mass-at-st-peter-and-st-news-photo/2178763?adppopup=true">Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Over the next few centuries, the religious landscape in Mongolia continued to change, depending on who was ruling the region. </p>
<p>Many Mongols converted to Tibetan Buddhism during the later part of the 13th-century reign of the Kublai Khan, another grandson of Genghis Khan, who favored the religion. But after 1368, when <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108687645">the Mongols withdrew from central China and left Khanbaliq</a>, the practice of Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism was suppressed. The Nestorian community gradually disappeared and never revived again.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/our-great-qing-now-available-in-paperback/">under the Qing dynasty</a> that ruled China and Mongolia in the 17th century, Buddhism was revived. But again, in the 20th century Mongolian politics changed drastically when the country adopted communism following the Soviet Union’s intervention, and the practice of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520244191/modern-mongolia">Buddhism declined again</a>.</p>
<p>After Mongolia became a democracy in 1992, Mongols were allowed to freely practice their faiths again: Buddhism began to flourish, and Catholic missionaries arrived in the country and built a small Catholic community.</p>
<p>When the pope visits this complex religious terrain, his visit will be significant from the geopolitical and religious perspective: In June 2023, the pope’s peace envoy visited Russia as part of international peacemaking efforts. But no pope has ever visited its other close neighbor, China, which <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/05/china-vatican-relations-in-the-xi-era/">does not have diplomatic relations</a> with the Vatican. </p>
<p>Overall, I argue that the pope’s groundbreaking visit to Mongolia might <a href="https://aleteia.org/2023/08/06/vietnam-oks-permanent-papal-representation-in-the-country">send important signals</a> in East Asia and, in particular, to the much larger Catholic community in China.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210857/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huaiyu Chen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Catholic community that Pope Francis will visit later this month has a complex history that goes back to the 13th century, when the Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan.Huaiyu Chen, Professor of Religious Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099882023-08-01T20:14:47Z2023-08-01T20:14:47ZOlympic star Nadia Comăneci was a Romanian ‘hero’ who defected to escape her government. What do her surveillance files reveal?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540318/original/file-20230801-17-v1arxj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C5%2C3958%2C1970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Composite image of Nadia Comaneci at the Montreal Olympic Games, 1976.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“On the night of 27–28 November 1989,” Stejărel Olaru writes, “seven people hurriedly but warily made their way towards the frontier between Romania and Hungary.”</p>
<p>Five-time Olympic gold-medal-winning Romanian gymnast <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Com%C4%83neci">Nadia Comăneci</a> was one of those scrambling across fields in the dark. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Nadia Comăneci and the Secret Police: A Cold War Escape – Stejărel Olaru, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>“By now it was after midnight and the temperature had dropped so low that the cold had become a real danger,” Olaru adds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>although it wasn’t the only one, nor even the most significant, since the seven had embarked on the perilous adventure of their lives: they were about to make an illegal border crossing between two communist states.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These quotes, which would sit comfortably in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_le_Carr%C3%A9">Le Carre</a> thriller, come from <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/nadia-comaneci-and-the-secret-police-9781350321298/">Nadia Comăneci and the Secret Police: A Cold War Escape</a> (2023). </p>
<p>Translated from Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth, this book sheds light on state surveillance, lived experience and sport in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc">Eastern Bloc</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540335/original/file-20230801-19-jjmgjo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nadia Comaneci performing on the balance beam on her way to a gold medal in the Moscow Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The most famous gymnast in the world</h2>
<p>To say Comăneci was well-known when she fled Romania would be an understatement. </p>
<p>Put simply, Comăneci, <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/audio/podcast-episode/nadia-comaneci-the-gymnast-who-made-olympic-history-with-a-perfect-10/wk5d54oc6">the first gymnast</a> to be awarded a perfect score of ten in an Olympic event, was, as Olaru points out, “the most famous gymnast in the world”.</p>
<p>Comăneci was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nadia-Comaneci">born</a> on November 12 1961 in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One%C8%99ti">Onęsti</a>, a provincial town in the Carpathian Mountains. She displayed an interest in gymnastics at an early age. </p>
<p>Her parents approved, hoping Nadia would burn off excess energy. Olaru notes that the precocious youngster “began to learn exercises on the mat, the vault, the parallel bars, and the beam, doing things she wouldn’t be able to do at home”. </p>
<p>All this, it should be added, happened while she was still in nursery. </p>
<p>By the autumn of 1969, Comăneci had enrolled at her local gymnastics centre, where she received formal training. In 1970, she became the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Com%C4%83neci#:%7E:text">youngest gymnast</a> to win at the Romanian Nationals. Success after success followed. </p>
<p>Comăneci shot to international prominence in 1975 when, at the age of 13, she dominated proceedings at the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/news/nadia-comaneci-a-pioneer-in-perfection">European Gymnastics Championships</a>.</p>
<p>“Nadia astonished not only the public,” Olaru asserts, “but also the opposing teams, who discovered a gymnast who, perfectly and unhesitatingly, could execute exercises of extreme difficulty.” </p>
<p>Comăneci’s performance had profound ramifications. In Olaru’s estimation, she single-handedly “managed to change public perceptions of the sport thanks to the perfection with which she performed her routines”. </p>
<p>Having piqued the world’s interest, Comăneci reached the pinnacle of gymnastic perfection at the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/montreal-1976">1976 Montreal Olympics</a>, when she scored her famous perfect ten on the uneven bars.</p>
<p>Olaru’s description of Comăneci’s remarkable routine is worth quoting:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nadia leapt straight to a support position on the high bar and cast away from it to perform a straddled front somersault while re-grasping the same bar. Her routine was marked by moments of exquisite balance as she performed handstands and her well-known full twisting somersaults between bars. Finally, using the spring of the lower bar for lift, she span through the air before sticking a perfect landing. The whole routine had lasted a mere twenty seconds.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The arena erupted in applause. Comăneci’s name and score was on everybody’s lips and immediately started to wend their way around the world. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4m2YT-PIkEc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Nadia Comăneci’s world-first perfect ten routine at the Montreal Olympics.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This performance transformed gymnastics and changed Comăneci’s life. She received a hero’s welcome on returning home. Her name and likeness adorned posters all over Romania. </p>
<p>Never one to miss a publicity opportunity, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu">Nicolae Ceaușescu</a> – Romania’s dictatorial ruler – also looked to get in on the action. He declared Comăneci an official <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Socialist_Labour">Hero of Socialist Labour</a>. </p>
<p>In the same breath, Ceaușescu moved to safeguard what he regarded as a national asset and propaganda tool – a device that might prove useful when stoking mass patriotic sentiment. This explains why, over the coming years, Comăneci and those close to her were subjected to sustained state surveillance. </p>
<p>Compounding matters, in 1985, the Ceaușescu regime refused to let Comăneci – who was by then working as a sports ambassador – travel abroad, except to other communist countries.</p>
<p>This, in turn, accounted for Comăneci’s decision to leave Romania in 1989. She simply couldn’t stand the pressure and intrusion any more. </p>
<p>“All the restrictions in her life convinced her that she should abandon caution and do something that was not in her nature,” Olaru surmises, even if that life-threatening decision to set out to the United States likely meant she would never see her family and loved ones again.</p>
<p>Such is the dramatic personal narrative that Olaru puts forward in his book, which makes impressive use of 25,000 pages’ worth of secret police documentation, state intelligence archives and extensive wiretap recordings.</p>
<p>This, though, is but one part of a larger and more distressing story.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-from-delicate-teens-to-fierce-women-simone-biles-athleticism-and-advocacy-have-changed-gymnastics-forever-124485">Friday essay: from delicate teens to fierce women, Simone Biles' athleticism and advocacy have changed gymnastics forever</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Influential, abusive coaches</h2>
<p>I mentioned before that Comăneci and those close to her were, in the wake of her triumph in Montreal, subject to remarkable, even intolerable levels of state-sanctioned scrutiny.</p>
<p>This applied, too, to the married couple who trained Comăneci from a young age.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540336/original/file-20230801-27-uthhh0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=721&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coach Béla Károlyi (middle) and Nadia Comăneci (right), with gymnast Teodora Ungureanu.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9la_K%C3%A1rolyi">Béla</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1rta_K%C3%A1rolyi">Márta Károlyi</a> are two of the most influential and successful coaches in the history of gymnastics. They are also extremely <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/bela-karolyi-revealed/">controversial</a> - as viewers of <a href="https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/athlete-a-review-netflix-about-larry-nassar-trial-47554030">Athlete A</a> will already know.</p>
<p>Consider what Olaru has to say about the pair, who feature prominently in every chapter of his book. (In fact, there are moments when one could be forgiven for thinking Olaru is really interested in writing about the Károlyis and the secret police.) A word of warning though: this is confronting material. </p>
<p>“Today,” Olaru remarks, “it is no secret that the Károlyis used to beat their gymnasts.” </p>
<p>Indeed, “Béla Károlyi’s hand was so heavy that the victim of his abuse, a defenceless child, would be knocked over, bowled across the floor.” </p>
<p>Olaru makes the point – and the archival record supports him – that the abuse Comăneci and her peers suffered at the hands of Bela Károlyi was not only physical:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Repeated blows, verbal violence and insults, starvation, excessive and aberrant control of medical care, and the inhuman demand to train and compete even when injured caused deep wounds in the psyches of the gymnasts, who distanced themselves from him, regarding him as cruel, and certainly not as a protective father figure. Only when there was a need to manipulate them did he tell the young gymnasts he cared about them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How, we might ask, did Károlyi get away with such appalling behaviour?</p>
<p>The depressing conclusion Oralu reaches is that the Romanian authorities chose to ignore the multiple warnings that came their way. Officials at the very “highest level” were more than happy to support Károlyi, provided he kept on winning.</p>
<p>And this he did, up until the moment – <a href="https://sports.jrank.org/pages/2456/Karolyi-Bela-Defection.html">in March 1981</a> – when he and Márta defected to the US. </p>
<p>Having traded communism for capitalism, the Károlyis set about re-establishing themselves as trainers in their adopted state of Texas. US gymnasts were keen to work with the man who had played such an important role in Comăneci’s career. </p>
<p>Károlyi’s first major success in the US came as the coach of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Retton">Mary Lou Retton</a>, who won a gold medal at the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/los-angeles-1984">1984 Los Angeles Olympics</a>, becoming the first US woman to win the all-round gold medal in Olympic gymnastics.</p>
<p>This achievement caught the attention of <a href="https://usagym.org/">USA Gymnastics</a>. Béla Károlyi went on to serve as a member of the US Olympic coaching staff at four more Olympic Games, and worked as <a href="https://usagym.org/bela-karolyi-to-step-aside-as-national-team-coordinator-for-usa-gymnastics/">National Team Coordinator</a> until 2001 (when Márta Károlyi took over). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/girls-no-more-why-elite-gymnastics-competition-for-women-should-start-at-18-143182">Girls no more: why elite gymnastics competition for women should start at 18</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>America’s gymnastics community knew</h2>
<p>Given Béla Károlyi’s success in the US warrants barely a mention in Oralu’s study (which takes leave of the Károlyis not long after they make their break for the West), one could be forgiven for asking if any of this matters. </p>
<p>It matters because it’s clear the US gymnastics community was well aware of Károlyi’s reputation.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540338/original/file-20230801-19-j573dz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>Take Joan Ryan’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159298/little-girls-in-pretty-boxes-by-joan-ryan/">Little Girls in Pretty Boxes</a>, published in 1995, which exposed the abusive reality of professional gymnastics in the US. </p>
<p>Given what we have already established, it will come as no surprise to discover Béla Károlyi and his methods came under sustained attack in Ryan’s searing exposé. </p>
<p>But nothing happened. USA Gymnastics continued to place its trust - and the bodies of its athletes - in Károlyi’s hands. </p>
<p>The impression we are left with is the same one we get when reading Oralu: it seems some people are significantly more interested in the pursuit of gymnastic success than in the physical and mental health of the gymnasts themselves.</p>
<p>Troublingly, as the Károlyis’ involvement in the devastating <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Gymnastics_sex_abuse_scandal">USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal</a> of recent years demonstrates, it appears not much has changed since the days of Comăneci and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain">Iron Curtain</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nadia Comăneci was the most famous gymnast in the world when she defected from Romania in 1989. A new book includes 25,000 pages worth of secret police surveillance material.Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084432023-07-31T19:26:12Z2023-07-31T19:26:12ZThe world’s most powerful democracies were built on the suffering of others<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540042/original/file-20230730-17-i1imbz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C31%2C3957%2C2452&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this July 2013 photo, supporters of Egypt's democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans against Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi at Nasr City, in Cairo, Egypt. El-Sissi removed Morsi two weeks earlier with support from the U.S. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-worlds-most-powerful-democracies-were-built-on-the-suffering-of-others" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>United States President Joe Biden has cast the conflict between the western world and its competitors <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/25/politics/biden-autocracies-versus-democracies/index.html">as a clash between “democracies and autocracies.”</a> This masks the American desire for power and the complex realities of creating democracy.</p>
<p>Democracy is supposed to <a href="https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/democracy">base a state’s legitimacy in its accountability to its people</a>. It supports people’s freedoms and human rights. What these ideals mean in practice and how to achieve them are difficult questions.</p>
<p>But it’s clear the U.S. is no longer a credible champion for, or exemplar of, democracy.</p>
<p>In fact, it has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html">long history of overthrowing</a> and undermining democracies abroad. </p>
<h2>A troubled record with democracy</h2>
<p><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/02/egypt-coup-morsi-arab-spring-us-obama-democracy-middle-east/">Barack Obama’s administration, for example, greenlit the military coup</a> that <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/7/shadi_hamid_obama_egypt_arab_spring">overthrew Egypt’s democracy and ended the Arab Spring</a> uprisings in 2013. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1677300748806246400"}"></div></p>
<p>The U.S. also has a long history of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/american-tradition-supporting-authoritarianism">supporting authoritarian regimes</a>. It has made it clear that <a href="https://www.rolandparis.com/single-post/democracies-are-certainly-friends-of-canada-but-what-about-the-in-between-countries">being authoritarian does not impede</a> any country from joining its <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/12/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administrations-national-security-strategy/">coalition against China</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. itself is a failing democracy — or perhaps a better description is a <a href="https://www.cirsd.org/en/horizons/horizons-autumn-2020-issue-no-17/democracy-or-plutocracy---americas-existential-question">plutocracy</a> with <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014/">democratic embellishments</a>. </p>
<p>American politics <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/opinion/citizens-united-corruption-pacs.html">have been corrupted</a> <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/168044/united-states-tax-havens-south-dakota-plutocracy">by money</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/12/republican-states-rights-restrictions/621101/">civil rights</a> are under assault, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/17/martin-luther-king-jr-march-family-activists-voting-rights">voter suppression</a> is rife and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/opinion/polarization-nationalism-patriotism-history.html">distrust and social division</a> are ubiquitous. In 2021, <a href="https://www.allianceofdemocracies.org/initiatives/the-copenhagen-democracy-summit/dpi-2021/">only 50 per cent of Americans</a> said they believed they live in a democracy. </p>
<p>Russia <a href="https://www.csis.org/blogs/strategic-technologies-blog/russia-ramps-global-elections-interference-lessons-united-states">has used social media to interfere in elections around the world</a>. China has tried to <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2023/china-target-diaspora-canada/">influence diaspora communities</a>. But there’s not much evidence these activities are co-ordinated and they pale <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/03/12/is-u.s.-hypocritical-to-criticize-russian-election-meddling-pub-75780">compared to the ubiquity and influence of American interference</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. has not been “defending democracy.” It’s been defending its power and privileges in an unequal global system.</p>
<h2>Western democracy’s grim origins</h2>
<p>This is not the only way the concept of democracy has been misused by the United States and other western nations.</p>
<p>Many countries in the West provide their citizens with the highest living standards and freedoms in the world. How they got there is something many conveniently forget.</p>
<p>The western world’s <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/questioning-western-nations-moral-values/">tendency to see itself as the pinnacle of civilization and morality</a> has been used to justify global domination and intervention in the rest of the world. </p>
<p>The contemporary successes of some of the most powerful democracies are the result of the subjugation and exploitation of other people both within and beyond their borders. The U.S. was <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/11/us-genocide-china-indigenous-peoples-day-columbus/">built on genocide</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">and slavery</a>. </p>
<p>Canada is only <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/trudeau-s-acknowledgment-of-indigenous-genocide-could-have-legal-impacts-experts-1.5457668">starting to acknowledge its history of cultural genocide</a>. Every European state that <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/economic-impact-colonialism">practised colonialism profited</a> from that brutality. </p>
<p>The British <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india">extracted more than $45 trillion of wealth from India</a> between 1765 and 1938 and <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/watch-shashi-tharoor-says-britain-has-historical-amnesia-about-colonial-empire-in-india/story-an8J11lhdYRGBxyoARxQgK.html">destroyed the country’s economy</a>. </p>
<p>The U.K.’s industrial revolution was financed by Indian plunder. <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians">Tens of millions of Indians</a> died as the result of Britain’s economic policies. During the Second World War, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study">Winston Churchill deliberately</a> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/4/1/churchills-policies-to-blame-for-1943-bengal-famine-study">implemented policies that created and exacerbated</a> the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2019.1638622">Bengal Famine</a> that killed more than three million Indians. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Soldiers in colourful uniforms and head gear march in unison." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540043/original/file-20230730-63311-xahusw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indian paramilitary soldiers march during a rehearsal for the Indian Independence Day parade in Srinagar, India. India celebrates its 1947 independence from British colonial rule every August 15.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hiding the truth</h2>
<p>Western amnesia about its brutal history is deliberate. As the British Empire ended, it launched <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2017.1294256">Operation Legacy</a>, the <a href="https://jacobin.com/2016/11/british-empire-kenya-oman-ireland-state-secrecy/">destruction of millions of documents</a> detailing the full extent of British atrocities in its colonies. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black boys stand beside a toppled statue in a black and white photo from the 1960s." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540044/original/file-20230730-3774-sx1217.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1961 photo, the bust of former Belgian King Leopold II lies on the ground on the Avenue General De Gaulle in Stanleyville, Congo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Belgium hid the truth of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520305651">King Leopold’s vicious exploitation of the Belgian Congo</a> that involved the murder of 10 million people. </p>
<p>In the U.S., the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/20/1008449181/understanding-the-republican-opposition-to-critical-race-theory">political right’s campaign</a> against <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-anti-critical-race-theory-movement-will-profoundly-affect-public-education/">critical race theory</a> stifles the historical <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory">reality and legacy of American racism</a>. </p>
<p>Democracy is not a cure-all for human misery and inequity. For impoverished states, democracy can actually exacerbate social divisions. </p>
<p>Exactly what makes a democracy successful is unclear, <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/democracy-alone-is-no-guarantee-of-development">though it seems to lie in “good governance</a>.” What is clear is that democracies cannot simply be wished into existence. Most western states can only offer examples of democracy-building that have relied upon extreme military, political and social violence.</p>
<p>Democracy in principle is a desirable goal. Most of the world supports the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/responsibility-protect">“responsibility to protect”</a> doctrine — the idea that states bear basic obligations to their citizens. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/1875-984X-14010001">However</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogy045">most do not support military interventions</a> to further those ostensible goals. They are aware of the great difficulties involved in making democracy work. </p>
<p>Western states argue that only democracies are legitimate states because they are supported by the consent of their citizens. That isn’t the case for most authoritarian states.</p>
<h2>Chinese prosperity</h2>
<p>However, China — the primary target of the American “democracy versus authoritarianism” campaign — complicates the “democratic narrative.” A <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/">meticulous, long-term Harvard study</a> found that the vast majority of Chinese citizens support their national government. Other surveys have reached the same general conclusion. </p>
<p>This support may reflect, in part, <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/05/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-china">China’s cultural and historical norms and experiences</a> but it is mostly attributable to how much the lives of the Chinese people have improved. </p>
<p>The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has overseen 40 years of economic growth and technological development unprecedented in world history. Chinese GDP per capita <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/gdp-per-capita">increased from US$195 in 1980 to US$12,556 in 2021</a>. As many as <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience">800 million people have risen out of poverty</a>. Like any government, democratic or not, the CCP’s legitimacy reflects its performance. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Thousands of people at a night-time celebration hold up their smartphones to take pictures of fireworks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540045/original/file-20230730-104526-61wdf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2019 photo, people use smartphones to film fireworks exploding at Tiananmen Square as part of a gala evening commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of Communist China in Beijing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andy Wong)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>China is <a href="http://lv.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/xwdt/202211/t20221104_10800517.htm">not, however, aggressively promoting its political model</a> around the world, unlike the West’s often violent, coercive and selective push for liberal democracy.</p>
<p>Western democracies can best help the world by doing more to live up to their highest ideals and approach their relations with the rest of the world with humility borne from historical awareness.</p>
<p>The one existential threat the entire planet faces is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/05/hottest-day-ever-recorded/">climate change</a>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/opinion/america-china-clean-energy.html">Co-operation within the entire international community</a> is more important than ever and will require global economic and political transformation. </p>
<p>The American and western strategy of fomenting global division to maintain a harmful status quo is counterproductive at best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaun Narine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Western democracies can best help the world by doing more to live up to their highest ideals and approaching their relations with the rest of the world with humility borne from historical awareness.Shaun Narine, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2048852023-07-24T12:16:37Z2023-07-24T12:16:37ZHow the Soviets stole nuclear secrets and targeted Oppenheimer, the ‘father of the atomic bomb’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538815/original/file-20230722-19-gtfzxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C0%2C3074%2C2024&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cillian Murphy as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in 'Oppenheimer.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dam.gettyimages.com/universal/oppenheimer">Universal Pictures</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.oppenheimermovie.com/">Oppenheimer</a>,” the epic new movie directed by Christopher Nolan, takes audiences into the mind and moral decisions of J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the team of brilliant scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico, who built the world’s first atomic bomb. It’s not a documentary, but it gets the big historical moments and subjects right.</p>
<p>The issues that Nolan depicts are not relics of a distant past. The new world that Oppenheimer helped to create, and the nuclear nightmare he feared, still exists today. </p>
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin is <a href="https://theconversation.com/would-putin-use-nuclear-weapons-an-arms-control-expert-explains-what-has-and-hasnt-changed-since-the-invasion-of-ukraine-178509">threatening to use nuclear weapons</a> in his war in Ukraine. Iran is doing everything it can to <a href="https://theconversation.com/enriching-uranium-is-the-key-factor-in-how-quickly-iran-could-produce-a-nuclear-weapon-heres-where-it-stands-today-186985">develop nuclear weapons</a>. China is <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/29/pentagon-china-nuclear-stockpile-00071101">expanding its nuclear arsenal</a>. Hostile governments like China are <a href="https://www.striderintel.com/resources/the-los-alamos-club/">stealing U.S. defense technologies</a>, including from Los Alamos. </p>
<p>Charges that Oppenheimer was a Soviet spy and a security risk – a major focus of the movie – have been disproved. In December 2022, the Biden administration posthumously voided the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s 1954 decision to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance, calling that process <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-granholm-statement-doe-order-vacating-1954-atomic-energy-commission-decision">biased and unfair</a>. Declassified records reveal that Soviet spying on the U.S. atomic bomb effort advanced Moscow’s bomb program, but Oppenheimer was no spy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large orange cloud rises over desert land." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538816/original/file-20230722-39889-hklbnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mushroom cloud forms seconds after detonation of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Trinity_Detonation_T%26B.jpg">U.S. Department of Energy/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Oppenheimer’s perspective</h2>
<p>Oppenheimer joined the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Manhattan-Project">Manhattan Project</a>, a nationwide effort to build an atomic bomb before the Nazis developed one, in 1942. The scientists he led at the Los Alamos site were probably the most talented group of minds ever assembled in a single laboratory, including <a href="https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781648431630/nobel-laureates-of-los-alamos/">12 eventual Nobel laureates</a>. </p>
<p>In 1954, at the height of the McCarthy era, Oppenheimer was accused of being a communist and even a Soviet spy. What’s the truth? </p>
<p>We know that in the 1930s, and until 1943, Oppenheimer was a Communist sympathizer. His <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/frank-oppenheimer/">brother Frank</a> and <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/jean-tatlock/">his girlfriend Jean Tatlock</a> belonged to the Communist Party of the United States, and Oppenheimer’s <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/katherine-kitty-oppenheimer/">wife Katherine</a> was a former member. </p>
<p>For Oppy, as his students called him, Marxism was intellectually interesting, but it was also practical. Oppenheimer saw communism as the best defense against the rise of fascism in Europe, which, being of <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-750317">Jewish heritage</a>, was personal for him. </p>
<p>By 1943, however, Oppenheimer’s support for Communist Party causes shifted – evidently, as he <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14540301">realized the enormity of his mission</a> to produce an atomic bomb. That year, Oppenheimer helped U.S. Army security officers <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14540301">identify scientists he believed were communists</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K7uvrd94mrg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Los Alamos, N.M., was developed as a secret town where scientists built and tested the first atomic bomb.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Russian overtures</h2>
<p>Oppenehimer was a top target for Soviet intelligence, which assigned him the code names CHESTER and CHEMIST. He was also being cultivated by Soviet intelligence officers. But being targeted and cultivated for recruitment is not the same as being a recruited spy. </p>
<p>As the movie shows, in 1943, Oppenheimer’s academic colleague at the University of California, Berkeley, Haakon Chevalier, told Oppenheimer that a British scientist working in San Francisco could relay information to the Soviets. Oppenheimer <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/haakon-chevalier/">rejected the approach</a>, but for reasons that remain unclear, he did not inform authorities for several months.</p>
<p>Over the ensuing years, Oppenheimer provided at least three versions of the story, sometimes involving his brother Frank. It seems likely that Robert was trying to protect his brother from Army security.</p>
<p>Archives made available after the Soviet Union’s collapse now establish beyond doubt that Oppenheimer <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300164381/spies/">was not a Soviet agent</a>. In fact, Soviet intelligence reports about the Manhattan Project reveal that at key points, Stalin’s spy chiefs were frustrated that their operatives had not recruited Oppenheimer. But the Russians did penetrate the Manhattan Project – the greatest security breach in U.S. history.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A page from a declassified security agency report describes events depicted in 'Oppenheimer'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538817/original/file-20230722-23-sagv3c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An excerpt from British security agency MI5’s dossier on J. Robert Oppenheimer describes efforts to persuade Oppenheimer and other scientists to share information about their atomic bomb research with the Soviet Union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Calder Walton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>All the Kremlin’s men</h2>
<p>Multiple scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project provided critical information about U.S. atomic bomb research to the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>“Oppenheimer” focuses on <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/klaus-fuchs/">Klaus Fuchs</a>, a brilliant theoretical physicist who fled from Nazi Germany to Britain and became a British naturalized subject. From the time he started to work on Britain’s wartime atom bomb project, Fuchs was in what he later described as “<a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11134981">continuous contact” with Soviet intelligence</a>, providing theoretical calculations that were necessary to build the atom bomb. </p>
<p>General Leslie Groves, the military commander of the Manhattan Project, later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1950/02/05/archives/gives-views-on-alleged-atom-spy-groves-blames-the-british-in-atom.html">blamed the British</a> for failing to identify Fuchs as a Soviet spy. That’s correct. But the declassified dossier on Fuchs from Britain’s security service, MI5, shows that at the time, the agency <a href="https://www.mi5.gov.uk/klaus-fuchs">did not have any positive, reliable evidence</a> of Fuchs’s communism. MI5 knew that Fuchs was anti-Nazi, but not that he was pro-Soviet. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Head and shoulder portrait of a man, labeled 'K.E.J. Fuchs'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538818/original/file-20230722-19-l9u616.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Los Alamos worker identification photo of theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs, who passed information to the Soviet Union about the construction of nuclear weapons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ca-1944-los-alamos-national-laboratory-worker-news-photo/615305088">Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As I discuss in my new book, “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Spies/Calder-Walton/9781668000694">Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West</a>,” other spies at Los Alamos included a prodigious scientist, Theodore “Ted” Hall (code name MLAD, or “Young”); Julius Rosenberg (code name ANTENNA, later LIBERAL); David Greenglass (BUMBLEBEE, CALIBER). Other Soviet spies, like the British scientist Alan Nunn May, worked in other parts of the Manhattan Project. </p>
<p>These men had multiple motives for betraying U.S. atomic secrets. They were communist true believers and thought atomic weapons were too powerful to be held by one country alone. Moreover, they had a (misguided) defense – that the Soviet Union was America’s wartime ally, so they were “only” delivering secrets to an allied government. But as Nolan correctly shows in the movie, when Chevalier approached Oppenheimer with the same argument, Oppenheimer retorted that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27757496">it was still treason</a>. </p>
<p>Soviet espionage inside the Manhattan Project would change history. By the end of World War II, Stalin’s spies had delivered the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Kremlin. This accelerated Moscow’s bomb project. When the Soviets <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/soviet-atomic-program-1946/">detonated their first atomic weapon</a> in August 1949, it was a replica of the weapon built at Los Alamos and dropped by the Americans on Nagasaki.</p>
<p>Even now, nearly 80 years later, secrets about Soviet nuclear espionage are still emerging. One Soviet agent whose espionage has only recently been revealed is <a href="https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/profile/george-koval/">George Koval</a> (code name DEVAL), an American engineer who was drafted into the Manhattan Project, where he worked on polonium bomb “initiators” at a facility in Dayton, Ohio. </p>
<p>After Koval died in 2006, at the age of 93, Russia’s ministry of defense disclosed that the initiator for the first Soviet atomic bomb was prepared to specifications provided by Koval. Putin posthumously honored Koval as a “Hero of Russia,” <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300248296/the-secret-world/">offering a champagne toast in his honor</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo looking across dozens of buildings and facilities." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538819/original/file-20230722-92729-1pcvlm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Today, Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of three federal labs that maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/LosAlamosLabAnniversary/42da501214c742d4b9932601aa37c8a7/photo">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span>
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<h2>New targets</h2>
<p>If Nolan’s film inspires audiences to read the deeply researched <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/13787/american-prometheus-by-kai-bird-and-martin-sherwin/">biography of Oppenheimer</a> by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, which inspired Nolan to make this movie, or <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Making-of-the-Atomic-Bomb/Richard-Rhodes/9781451677614">other accounts</a> of the Manhattan Project or the <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/odd-arne-westad/the-cold-war/9780465093137/?lens=basic-books">Cold War</a>, they will find that the underlying tissues of science and espionage remain alive. </p>
<p>Today, the world stands at the edge of technological revolutions that will transform societies in the 21st century, much as nuclear weapons did in the 20th century: artificial intelligence, quantum computing and biological engineering. Watching “Oppenheimer” makes me wonder whether hostile foreign governments may already have stolen keys to unlocking these new technologies, in the same way the Soviets did with the atom bomb.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204885/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Calder Walton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Spying was a concern from the dawn of the nuclear age, but charges that J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the development of the first nuclear weapons, was a Soviet spy have been proved wrong.Calder Walton, Assistant Director, Applied History Project and Intelligence Project, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2040592023-04-19T16:44:39Z2023-04-19T16:44:39Z‘Esterno Notte’: Marco Bellochio’s series grapples with ghost of assassinated Italian prime minister Aldo Moro<p>Central Rome, 9 May 1978. A crowd of curious passersby spills out by an open car boot. There lies the bullet-riddled body of Aldo Moro, Italy’s Prime Minister, parked mid-way between the party headquarters of the Christian Democrats and those of the Communist Party. The scene concludes 55 days of kidnap and sequestration by the Marxist revolutionaries of the Red Brigades.</p>
<p>One of the darkest chapters in Italian history, the Aldo Moro affair continues to be revisited and written up to this day. Acclaimed film director Marco Bellocchio is the latest to add his take. In his mini-series <a href="https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/RC-023478/esterno-notte/"><em>Esterno Notte</em></a> (“Exterior Night”), which was broadcast on French-German channel Arte throughout March, Bellochio walks us through the tortuous and often little-known history of Italian terrorism.</p>
<p>Bellocchio gives the floor to the tragedy’s protagonists: from the members of the <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-outre-terre2-2014-4-page-433.htm">Red Brigades</a> to Aldo Moro himself, without forgetting his family and the representatives of the political class of the time. The assassination remains a national trauma closely linked to the <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-mouvements-2003-3-page-196.html">“Years of Lead”</a> in Italy, which spanned the late 1960s to the early 1980s. </p>
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<p>Against the backdrop of the Cold War, the period saw a steady rise in political, economic and social tensions, ultimately culminating in a spate of terrorist attacks from the far left and right. Then the head of the Christian Democracy party, Aldo Moro sought to rally the nation around a government of “historical compromise” that would have brought in the general secretary of the Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer. But the Red Brigades had other ideas, viewing the proposal as a sell-out from the communists.</p>
<p>From terrorist communiqués to official statements and letters written by Moro during his captivity, <em>Esterno Notte</em> exposes a tale of vengeful escalation in merciless detail. Each side intends to fight its corner at all costs, without compromise. The Red Brigades, a far-left terrorist organisation founded in the early 1970s that took up <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-outre-terre2-2014-4-page-433.htm">“armed propaganda”</a> in the name of the workers’ movement, are strengthened hour by hour in their vengeful resolve, just as the Italian authorities are strengthened in their resolve to annihilate them.</p>
<h2>The ruthless escalation of terrorist vengeance</h2>
<p>Was there ever any chance Moro could have escaped the “people’s prison”? Could he have exited the parallel proletarian justice system in which the Red Brigades “tried” him, as Bellocchio suggests when he brings him back to life in the introduction to his work? And, had the Italian government accepted their terms, could the Red Brigades have compromised by releasing him?</p>
<p>The argument that the Italian government could have negotiated with the Red Brigades is often put forward in certain academic literature, media and <a href="https://books.openedition.org/pur/49607">artistic intepretations</a>, and here reclaimed by <em>Esterno Notte</em>. However, this omits how tenacious the Red Brigades were in seeking revenge, and how an unfavourable historical and socio-political environment could corner all parties into the impasse of violence.</p>
<p>Often performative when it comes to revenge, discourse is central to this series, both in terms of the action it inspires and the events it reports. The first communiqué of the Red Brigades, which immediately follows <a href="https://perspective.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/servlet/BMEve/411">Moro’s kidnapping</a> on 16 March 1978, leaves no doubt as to the abductors’ bloody intentions. The talk is one of “annihilation”, posited by radical activists as the answer to a “bourgeois and imperialist counter-revolution” and to the “bloody policies” of which Moro would be the “political godfather and the most faithful executor”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=694&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521859/original/file-20230419-18-o99uff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Aldo Moro looks wearily into the camera during his detention by the Red Brigades.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Aldo_Moro_br.jpg">Creative Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>A state dragged into the mud of retribution</h2>
<p>Another problem that <em>Esterno Notte</em> tackles head-on is the reaction of the authorities to this ruthless progression of revenge in the terrorist camp, even though we know <em>a posteriori</em> at <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00322.x">what price this revenge will come</a> for the Red Brigades. Why did the state apparatus refuse to negotiate with Moro’s kidnappers, when he expressly asked the government to release him and when the political elites were divided over the best course of action? The line that eventually emerged was that any mediation with the Red Brigades would be tantamount to complicity with the terrorists’ negotiation strategy and thus legitimise their violence, in a sensitive context marked by the death of many policemen since Italy launched its “war on terror”.</p>
<p>Writing in <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315088914-2/prelude-long-preparation-dying-life-aldo-moro-1916%E2%80%931978-1-david-moss">the <em>Corriere della Sera</em></a>, the writer and columnist Indro Montanelli argued that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If the Italian State had yielded to blackmail and negotiated with the violent forces that had already caused the death of five of Moro’s bodyguards, then the State, as a State, would no longer have any reason to exist.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, power had no alternative but to freeze into a stance of counter-retribution.</p>
<p>Consumed by their revenge, the Red Brigades systematically rejected any genuine discussion with the authorities, opting instead to send the government a succession of murderous messages. Thus, no exchange of prisoners took place, while all the political parties ended up rallying behind the certainty that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26299800">no democratic state in the world could bargain with terrorism</a>.</p>
<h2>Terrorism’s unforgivable crimes</h2>
<p>Last but not least, what can we learn from <em>Esterno Notte</em> about the eminently complex relationship between terrorism and forgiveness, especially in relation to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1292116">the possibility, or not, of forgiving terrorists</a>? Is forgiveness even conceivable as a response to terrorism, a supreme crime in the eyes of all societies? Symptomatically, when it comes to terrorist acts, forgiveness is often absent and unattainable. While Moro evokes in one of his letters the forthcoming “moment of massacre” and implores the authorities to intervene, he also appears to have already relinquished the possibility by announcing that he will not forgive anyone and that no political party or government member will be able to attend his funeral.</p>
<p>If the character of Aldo Moro and his letters have inspired a great deal of interpretations since, it is important to question the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2023/03/14/esterno-notte-sur-arte-la-passion-d-aldo-moro-selon-marco-bellocchio_6165472_3246.html">quasi-“Christology”</a> that Bellochio’s <em>Esterno Notte</em> dubs its subject with from the beginning. It is true that the victims of terrorism can sometimes forgive. But in this case, and contrary to the imaginary resurrection of Moro and the <a href="https://www.la-croix.com/Debats/Ce-jour-la/9-mai-1978-Aldo-Moro-proche-Paul-VI-assassine-Brigades-rouges-2018-05-09-1200937656">sacrificial, if not martyrological picture</a> developed here, which tends to suggest a form of forgiveness on the part of the former leader, let us emphasise, once again, that he never forgave anything, either to his executioners, or to the authorities after they renounced saving him. This is probably the ultimate revenge that Moro could individually achieve.</p>
<p>In the end, Italian society has yet to assimilate this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/09/italy.worlddispatch">exceptionally brutal episode</a>. Moro’s assassination remains an indelible stain on local culture, marring not only political and media narratives, but also the very process of remembrance of terrorism. As the researcher Nicolas Demertzis points out in an <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-146">evocative contribution</a>, exorcising the shock of violence means forgiving its use in order to reconcile with the past. On the one hand, the Italian <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/mots/12032">“Years of Lead”</a> remain subject to controversy and are frequently instrumentalised by competing parties. On the other, the cycle of terrorist revenge and state counter-retribution tends to culminate, by nature, in the radical refusal of forgiveness. According to <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-146">Demertzis</a>, this ultimately amounts to “[defending][the integral subjectivity of the victim” and “[ethically protesting] against the unjustifiable evils and wrongs” inflicted by terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Myriam Benraad ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Marco Bellochio’s series is the latest interpretation of a murder that continues to haunt Italy.Myriam Benraad, Responsable du Département International Relations and Diplomacy, Schiller International University - Enseignante en relations internationales, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1995722023-03-03T06:09:49Z2023-03-03T06:09:49ZEconomic growth is fuelling climate change – a new book proposes ‘degrowth communism’ as the solution<p>I’m often told that degrowth, the planned downscaling of production and consumption to reduce the pressure on Earth’s ecosystems, is a tough sell. But a 36-year-old associate professor at Tokyo University has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/28/a-greener-marx-kohei-saito-on-connecting-communism-with-the-climate-crisis">made a name for himself</a> arguing that “degrowth communism” could halt the escalating climate emergency.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black book cover with white Japanese writing and an image of the author superimposed on a red Earth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513174/original/file-20230302-16-g0suqd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first edition cover of Capital in the Anthropocene, published in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Anthropocene#/media/File:Capital-in-the-Anthropocene.png">Kohei Saito</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kohei Saito, the bestselling author of Capital in the Anthropocene, is back with a new book: <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/marx-in-the-anthropocene/D58765916F0CB624FCCBB61F50879376">Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism</a>. The book is dense, especially for those not fluent in Marxist jargon who, I suspect, care little about whether or not Karl Marx started worrying about nature in his later years.</p>
<p>And yet, the way Saito mobilises Marxist theory to make a plea for “the abundance of wealth in degrowth communism” (the title of the last chapter of his book) is as precise as it is gripping. This is what attracted my attention as an economist <a href="https://theses.hal.science/tel-02499463/document">working on degrowth</a>: Saito’s attempts to reconcile Marxism with newer ideas around alternatives to economic growth might bring critiques of capitalism to an unprecedented level of popularity.</p>
<h2>Economic growth creates scarcity</h2>
<p>Saito turns the concept of economic growth on its head. Many people assume that growth makes us richer but what if it did the precise opposite? </p>
<p>Gross domestic product (GDP), a monetary measure of production, can rise because someone privatises a common good – what British geographer <a href="https://books.google.se/books/about/Seventeen_Contradictions_and_the_End_of.html?id=EDg_AwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">David Harvey</a> calls “accumulation by dispossession”. Fence a resource that people could previously access for free and start selling it to them. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919304203">rent extraction</a> might inflate GDP but it doesn’t create anything useful. In fact, by preventing people from accessing the means of subsistence it creates an artificial scarcity.</p>
<p>The more money accumulates, the more these snatch-and-sell tricks become possible, whether it’s for natural resources, knowledge or labour. In a world where everything becomes a potential commodity (in other words, something which can be bought and sold), the ruling rationality favours lucrative activities over others. </p>
<p>Why would you lend your apartment to someone for free if you can rent it on Airbnb? And that’s the catch: once you need money to satisfy your needs, you are forced to play like a capitalist.</p>
<h2>An emergency brake</h2>
<p>This self-perpetuating striving for moneymaking pushes us to turn more and more of nature into a commodity. The money companies can make is infinite while the quantities of nature at disposition are getting scarcer. </p>
<p>There may be no clearer illustration than the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/02/07/bp-boasts-record-profits-as-oil-giants-report-historic-windfalls/">record profits</a> of fossil fuel companies amid <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/climate-change-is-messing-with-forests-ability-to-soak-up-carbon">worsening climate conditions</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/3989-the-future-is-degrowth">Degrowth</a> could act as an emergency brake on this vicious cycle, Saito argues, by “terminat[ing] the ceaseless exploitation of humanity and the robbery of nature”. </p>
<p>Academics define degrowth as a democratically planned effort to downscale levels of production and consumption in order to lighten environmental pressures. The democratic part is important: the idea is to do this in a way that reduces inequality and improves wellbeing for everyone.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to imagine this happening within capitalism, a system which must continually expand and generate more. And that’s Saito’s point: communism is much more likely to achieve these objectives.</p>
<p>He reasons that an economy concerned with meeting human need is more likely to avoid producing junk. Without the get-rich-or-perish imperative, many nature-intensive goods and services would cease to be necessary or desirable. </p>
<p>Saito calls this “a conscious downscaling of the current ‘realm of necessity’”. This Marxist term describes what we consider our essential needs. Under degrowth communism, this realm would shrink to exclude things and activities which don’t benefit human wellbeing or contribute to sustainability.</p>
<p>Suddenly, it’s possible to organise work differently. Gone is the industrial model of producing something as cheaply as possible while sacrificing safety and the pleasantness inherent in a shared effort. </p>
<p>Instead of competing for market share, companies could cooperate to achieve common goals like restoring biodiversity. Reducing the importance given to moneymaking would free societies to improve all these things we today trivialise because they aren’t profitable.</p>
<p>Such an economy might be slower and smaller money-wise but it would be more sustainable and more effective in delivering wellbeing, which is all we should be asking from an economy anyway.</p>
<h2>Towards a post-scarcity society</h2>
<p>Saito’s book is refreshing because it helps end an old feud between socialists who trust that new technologies and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/18/fully-automated-luxury-communism-robots-employment">automation of work</a> can deliver an expanding economy with greater leisure time and those who argue for a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2017.1386695">socialism without growth</a>. </p>
<p>Instead of perpetually growing the economy by making more things private property and saleable, Saito proposes sharing the wealth we’ve already created. This could usher in a new way of living, where people can afford to spend less time and effort producing commodities and turn their attention towards things that really matter to them, what Marxists call the realm of freedom. This should start, Saito argues, with restoring the health of Earth’s ecosystems, on which everything else relies.</p>
<p>No longer forced to obsess over money, people could enjoy the abundance of social and natural wealth <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/3693-post-growth-living">outside of consumerism</a>. Imagine trading the new smartphones which arrive yearly for luxuriant ecosystems, thriving communal spaces and vibrant democracies we finally have time to explore and participate in.</p>
<p>Saito breathes new life into Marxist ideas with his book by presenting evidence of life beyond endless extraction, production and consumption. As the author himself argues, this could not have come at a better time: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although it was never recognised during the 20th century, Marx’s idea of degrowth communism is more important than ever today because it increases the chance of human survival in the Anthropocene.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothée Parrique does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What does Karl Marx have to say about climate change? Quite a lot, according to a new book.Timothée Parrique, Researcher in Ecological Economics, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959382023-02-21T19:02:13Z2023-02-21T19:02:13ZEssentialising ‘Russia’ won’t end the war against Ukraine. Might ‘real and credible’ force be the answer?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511004/original/file-20230220-14-d1ckp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C14%2C4886%2C3248&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kirill Braga/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/russias-war-on-everybody-9781350255081/">Russia’s War on Everybody</a>, by UK writer Keir Giles, is an alarming book. It argues that for years Russia has been waging “a clandestine war against the West”. </p>
<p>The current all-out military aggression against <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-recap-how-the-conflict-might-unfold-in-its-second-year-200131">Ukraine</a> is only the latest escalation of this larger, hybrid war. “Shooting down airliners, poisoning dissidents, interfering in elections, spying and hacking have long seemed to be the Kremlin’s daily business.” </p>
<p>This multi-pronged and sophisticated war is deeply rooted in Russian history, the book further argues. Russia is different from “the West” (the latter term helpfully defined as “you know it when you see it”). </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Russia’s War on Everybody and What It Means for You – Keir Giles (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Russian soldiers aim guns in a field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511023/original/file-20230220-2192-tgt7id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The current ‘all-out military aggression against Ukraine’ is the latest escalation in Russia’s long, clandestine war with the West, writes Keir Giles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A post-imperial power that has never come to terms with decolonisation, Russia has fundamentally different values from the West – and this difference drives its attempts to take as much power as possible, wherever and whenever it can. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even at its weakest, Russia never stopped insisting that it has greater rights than other countries around it, or demanding to dictate the foreign policy decisions of countries beyond its borders.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-fighting-three-undeclared-wars-its-fourth-an-internal-struggle-for-russia-itself-might-be-looming-189129">Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth – an internal struggle for Russia itself – might be looming</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A handbook for hawks</h2>
<p>Keir Giles is somewhat more sceptical about the effectiveness of Russia’s various interventions into democratic processes and public debate outside its borders than <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/570367/the-road-to-unfreedom-by-timothy-snyder/">a book</a> that can be seen as a direct predecessor. </p>
<p>Timothy Snyder’s 2018 <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-road-to-unfreedom-review-timothy-snyder-puts-the-blame-on-vladimir-putin-20180724-h132ck.html">The Road to Unfreedom</a> blamed everything from anti-immigration sentiments in Germany, to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, on Russia’s secretive meddling. </p>
<p>But the upshot is the same in Russia’s War on Everybody: be afraid; Russia is on the march everywhere; nobody is safe. The war against Ukraine is just an escalation of an ongoing hybrid war of “Russia” against “the West”. </p>
<p>Only military defeat will bring Russia to its senses and its leadership to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>reassess its place in the world. This would be the shock the country needs to start the long, hard process of transitioning from a frustrated former imperial power to a normal country that can coexist with Europe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This book, then, is a handbook for hawks. It is a timely corrective to interpretations that <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/its-nato-stupid/">blame NATO</a> or “the West” (either <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/ashes-of-empires/">partially</a> or “<a href="https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/03/11/john-mearsheimer-on-why-the-west-is-principally-responsible-for-the-ukrainian-crisis">principally</a>”) for Russia’s war of aggression, and imply it’s up to “the West” to find some compromise Russia can live with. </p>
<p>By contrast, Giles sees Russia alone as responsible: not Putin, not the kleptocratic <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/mikhail-zygar/all-the-kremlins-men-inside-the-court-of-vladimir-putin">elite in power</a>, not the <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374712785/putinspeople">men of the KGB</a> who have taken over the country, but “Russia”. </p>
<p>The book is sprinkled with historical comparisons that attempt to show everything Putin’s regime does today has “deep roots” in the country’s history. </p>
<p>“Almost everything Russia does,” Giles writes, “is recognizable from previous centuries – just updated as new technology for delivering malign effects becomes available.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/back-in-the-ussr-my-life-as-a-spy-in-the-archives-26303">Back in the USSR: my life as a 'spy' in the archives</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A strange historical method</h2>
<p>These sections are highly problematic. They pick and choose instances that show continuity, while ignoring all change – a strange historical method. Take the claim that the Soviet Union </p>
<blockquote>
<p>did not <em>have</em> a war machine, it <em>was</em> a war machine, because every national effort and every sector of the economy was subordinated to sustaining the Armed Forces.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It neatly encapsulates the period of the Bolsheviks’ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_communism">War Communism</a> (1918-21) or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-stalins-great-terror-can-tell-us-about-russia-today-56842">Stalin</a> years (1928-53). It is entirely misleading, however, for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy">New Economic Policy</a> implemented by Lenin (1921-28) and even more so for the post-Stalin decades. </p>
<p>Under Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64), the size of the army was cut back repeatedly. Funds were instead poured instead into welfare for the population, including what one historian has called “the greatest <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780875804231/property-of-communists/#bookTabs=1">housing program</a> in the world”. </p>
<p>Khrushchev frequently clashed with his top military men over what he saw as their scandalous squandering of resources, as his <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Khrushchev/HyBYLL5V0z0C?hl=en">biographer</a> noted. “Are we planning to conquer anyone?” he grumbled when presented with the military’s shiny hardware. No, he was told. “Then why do we need the weapons we saw today?” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511017/original/file-20230220-409-yvn22j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Under Nikita Khrushchev (pictured, shaking hands with JFK), the size of the Russian army was cut back, with funds instead poured into welfare for the population. AP original.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Khrushchev’s vision of the Soviet Union was the exact opposite of an army with a country. What he tried to build was a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199236701.013.028">thermonuclear welfare state</a>”: behind the shield of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal, the army could be reduced to an absolute minimum and the resources redirected towards welfare. </p>
<p>His successor, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev">Leonid Brezhnev</a> (in power 1964-82), did increase military spending again, but did not finance this by suppressing civilian consumption, as Stalin had. Instead, he overspent on both. And <a href="https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2009/R3907.pdf">the Gorbachev years</a> (1985-91) “witnessed an unprecedented erosion of the military’s standing in Soviet society at large”. </p>
<h2>Othering Russia</h2>
<p>Other historical references are the kinds of cliches one could routinely read in the worst examples of 1950s assessments of why “the Russians” were different from “us”. </p>
<p>Russia missed the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-preacher-who-changed-europe-reformation-at-500-years-86514">Reformation</a>, we read. So did, of course, most Catholics. And, as historian <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/lost-kingdom-9780141983134">Serhii Plokhy</a> has pointed out, Russia did undergo a process similar to the counter-reformation, which is what the Old Believers rebelled against. </p>
<p>Russia also allegedly missed “<a href="https://theconversation.com/criticism-of-western-civilisation-isnt-new-it-was-part-of-the-enlightenment-104567">the enlightenment</a>”, which makes one wonder why <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-catherine-the-great-may-have-inspired-putins-ukraine-invasion-178007">Catherine the Great</a> corresponded with <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-voltaires-candide-a-darkly-satirical-tale-of-human-folly-in-times-of-crisis-157131">Voltaire</a>. As a <a href="https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300113136.001.0001">careful study</a> of the interactions of Russian Orthodox and European thought after 1500 concluded, the “late eighteenth-century Russian intellectual scene would have been unrecognizable” without the reception of enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and <a href="https://theconversation.com/denis-diderot-and-science-enlightenment-to-modernity-15040">Diderot</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-montesquieus-persian-letters-at-300-an-enlightenment-story-that-resonates-in-a-time-of-culture-wars-160176">Montesquieu</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau">Rousseau</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-that-holds-adam-smiths-wealth-of-nations-together-35674">Adam Smith</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511020/original/file-20230220-28-373urt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=620&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Keir Giles writes that Russia ‘missed the enlightenment’ – but Catherine the Great corresponded with Voltaire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Catherine II, Alexey Antropov</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The whole notion the Reformation and the Enlightenment are the basis of democracy and civil liberties was a staple of old-fashioned “from Plato to NATO” histories of “Western civilisation”. But this view has been undermined both by newer <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/The-Life-and-Death-of-Democracy/John-Keane/9781847377609">histories</a> of <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edinburgh-companion-to-the-history-of-democracy.html">democracy</a> and explorations of the destructive <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-state/">possibilities</a> inherent in enlightenment thought. </p>
<p>The selective and misleading polemical pseudo-history, intent on showing that what Moscow does these days is just the normal state of how “Russia” behaved through the centuries, leaves the book open to charges of essentialising, othering and orientalising Russia. </p>
<p>Putin’s country is somehow essentially different from “us” – non-Western, non-liberal, non-civilised, and deeply and fundamentally so. The consistent use of “Russia” to refer to the current government in Moscow will further entice some critics to accuse the book of that all-purpose thought-crime of anybody critical of the Kremlin: “Russophobia”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-biznez-and-a-failed-coup-journalist-monica-attard-on-covering-the-empire-gorbachev-allowed-to-collapse-188469">Protests, 'biznez' and a failed coup: journalist Monica Attard on covering the empire Gorbachev allowed to collapse</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Is Russia eternally malicious?</h2>
<p>Giles attempts to defend his book against such accusations with nimble terminological footwork. He pre-emptively accuses critics of his approach of being “apologists for Russia” and not “objective reader(s)”. And he tries to use a definition of what the word “Russia” means to safeguard his argument against critique. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Russia” in this book is a shorthand, standing for the people within the country today who direct its state policy, both for dealing with its own citizens and with foreign countries.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hence, only unobjective readers might claim he essentialises the Russian national character: they mistake a shorthand for a characterisation. </p>
<p>But the claim does not stand up to scrutiny. The historical argument, after all, is that today’s leadership in the Kremlin just enacts the normal way “Russia” has always acted. It has reverted to type: “Russia’s behaviour today is returning to what was normal in its Soviet past, and further back into Tsarist times.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Russia has always seen the idea of its subjects enjoying uncontrolled access to news and ideas from abroad as highly dangerous […] Russia has always felt the need to insulate its population from excessive exposure to foreigners so they are not contaminated with dangerous ideas of political liberty or democracy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so on. Russia is eternal; and it is eternally malicious.</p>
<p>It therefore makes no difference who’s in the Kremlin. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is no reason to assume that what comes after Putin will be an improvement – because Putin and his accomplices are a product of Russia rather than the other way round.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Russia always interfered in the politics of its neighbours, Giles writes. Putin’s Russia “has moved back towards its own historical normality – vicious repression and dictatorship at home, and open confrontation with the West wherever it can reach out and harm it abroad”.</p>
<p>Whenever “Russia” acts like the current government, it acts normally, in other words; whenever it does not, it’s just a temporary aberration. A better example of the practice of essentialising and simplifying the complex history of a country would be hard to find.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a soldier carrying ammunition" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511022/original/file-20230220-25-ptcs1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Giles believes today’s leadership in the Kremlin just enacts the normal way ‘Russia’ has always acted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An excellent grasp of Putin’s view</h2>
<p>It is lamentable that Giles has weakened the argument of his book by this methodological overreach. The claims about Russian history and the “deep roots” of the Putin regime will make it easy for critics to dismiss it. But his analysis of the way the current government thinks and acts should be taken seriously. </p>
<p>He has an excellent grasp of Putin’s view of the world and the ways the men in the Kremlin perceive the actions of what they, too, conceptualise as “the West” (although they don’t like what Giles tries to defend). </p>
<p>If he’s right (and I think he is), then the recurrent voices in the democratic world who ask to negotiate with Putin, to find him an “off-ramp”, to make concessions, have it all backwards: such approaches will be seen as the predictable weakness of the decadent enemy. Such perceived weakness will be exploited and lead to further escalation rather than compromise. </p>
<p>There are some fundamentally different interests involved, which will be difficult to negotiate. Giles writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s simply not possible to humour Russia’s demands for what it sees as “great power” rights to influence the countries around it at the same time as respecting those other countries’ rights to independence and to make their own decisions. Russia’s drive to dominate Ukraine and dictate its future stems from an implicit assumption of entitlement and exceptionalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not off-ramps and compromises, but “real and credible military force” will cause Russia “to think twice and step back from aggression”. Replace “Russia” with “Putin” and you get a thesis that requires serious consideration as the war against Ukraine drags into its second year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195938/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Edele receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP200101728;DP200101777)</span></em></p>A new book argues the war against Ukraine is an escalation of an ongoing hybrid war of ‘Russia’ against ‘the West’ – and that only ‘real and credible force’ will make Putin step back from aggression.Mark Edele, Hansen Professor in History, Deputy Dean, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974242023-02-01T19:10:49Z2023-02-01T19:10:49ZKath O'Connor was writing a novel about her grandmother’s ovarian cancer when she was diagnosed, too. She died before it was published<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505811/original/file-20230123-14-x2323w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C5973%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ivan Samkov/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The concept of death has preoccupied people for probably as long as people have existed. Nonetheless, we are are practised at avoiding, forgetting or suppressing the inevitability of our own death. We write about death in philosophy and medicine and sociology, and in fiction too. But typically, these writings locate death “out there”, as an event or a case. </p>
<p>It is rarer for literature to focus on a person who is confronting their own death. <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-george-eliot-200-years-on-a-scandalous-life-a-brilliant-mind-and-a-huge-literary-legacy-127438">George Eliot</a>’s Middlemarch provides one famous example of this approach. Casaubon, on receiving his hopeless prognosis, <a href="http://www.literaturepage.com/read/middlemarch-436.html">becomes aware</a> of the heartwrenching difference between “we must all die”, and “I must die – and soon”. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Inheritance – Kath O'Connor (Affirm Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In recent years, several Australian novels have explored this topic. I think here of Debra Adelaide’s 2008 novel <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/the-household-guide-to-dying-20080614-gdshui.html">The Household Guide to Dying</a>, in which the narrator spends her own terminal cancer writing a “guide” to the long, complicated process of becoming dead. </p>
<p>I think too of Georgia Blain’s 2016 novel <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/between-a-wolf-and-a-dog-georgia-blain/">Between a Wolf and a Dog</a>, which similarly traces what Hilary, the central character, does to wrap up her life after being diagnosed with aggressive cancer. (Cruelly, Blain was herself diagnosed with the cancer that would kill her just as she was working on the edits of the manuscript.) </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/goodbye-georgia-blain-a-brave-and-true-chronicler-of-life-70329">Goodbye Georgia Blain: a brave and true chronicler of life</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Fiction, but close to memoir</h2>
<p>Now we have Kath O’Connor’s debut novel, Inheritance, a work of fiction that is very close to being memoir. O’Connor’s grandmother, we learn in the opening notes, carried the <a href="https://theconversation.com/angelina-jolie-has-had-a-double-mastectomy-so-what-is-brca1-14227">BRCA1</a> gene mutation, which caused her death from ovarian cancer. O’Connor, who carried the same mutation, was diagnosed with the same disease, and wrote this novel during her treatment. </p>
<p>Tragically, she died shortly before completing the work, leaving it to her partner, her writing mentor Inga Simpson, and family members to bring it to publication.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505812/original/file-20230123-20-nrew7g.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kath O'Connor died shortly before completing this book – her writing mentor, Inga Simpson, helped bring it to publication.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Affirm Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The novel works across two stories, and two voices. The first is that of Rose, a contemporary woman living in Melbourne with her partner Salima. In her professional life she is an oncologist, who works to heal cancer patients, or help them to die. In her private life she is rather resentfully caring for her difficult drunken father, Eddie, and more optimistically contemplating IVF so she and Salima can start a family. </p>
<p>But in the very first chapter, Rose gets a call from the fertility specialist to confirm that her BRCA test was positive. That is to say, without a total hysterectomy and a bilateral mastectomy, she is at risk of dying early. </p>
<p>The other voice and story belong to Rose’s grandmother, Nellie. The second chapter, in which Nellie’s narrative begins, is a portrait of rural life: of rhubarb chutney, of chickens and fresh-laid eggs, of a determination to be satisfied in her unsatisfactory marriage to a taciturn husband. </p>
<p>Nellie lives in 1945 regional Victoria with John and their two little sons. After a youth of political activism, higher education and making plans for a career, she now busies herself with the daily tasks of cooking and cleaning and managing her family. And she does not know that she carries what Rose calls the BCRA “sleeping time-bomb”, or that she already has the beginnings of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ovarian-cancer-is-not-a-silent-killer-recognizing-its-symptoms-could-help-reduce-misdiagnosis-and-late-detection-181415">ovarian cancer</a> that will kill her.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/angelina-jolie-has-had-a-double-mastectomy-so-what-is-brca1-14227">Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy, so what is BRCA1?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Cancer in the 1940s, and 2016</h2>
<p>This opening links the two women, and simultaneously, in its shifting voice, setting and points of view, teases out the difference that some 80 years can make to a life, its prospects and opportunities. Nellie, for instance, speaks to us directly, while Rose comes to us only through the third person. Nellie is self-deprecating and diffident, while Rose is – at least in her professional self – all cool medical precision. </p>
<p>Nellie is an object of the system: not trusted to make her own decisions; subjected to the horrors of 1940s cancer treatment; separated from her beloved little sons, on the basis this is no place for children. Rose, by contrast, is directly informed about her genetic inheritance, and trusted to make her own decision about treatment. And yes, 2016 cancer treatment is still brutal, but Rose’s patients are more likely to be treated as individuals, to be honestly informed about their situation, to be given the presumption of agency.</p>
<p>I am usually very reluctant to draw a connection between an author and their characters, but given O’Connor’s history as a GP, it’s easy to hear in the narrator’s reflections the professional training the author brings to the story. It’s also easy to see the shift from the scientific gaze to that of the sometimes frightened, sometimes fractious human being. </p>
<p>Plenty of passages show the confident articulation of the medical professional. But plenty of passages, too, show the anxious, generous, resentful, loving, complex mix of qualities that make up most individuals – that make up Rose, and Nellie, and the other characters, and indeed the whole social realm.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brace-yourself-genetic-testing-might-give-you-more-than-you-bargained-for-40246">Brace yourself, genetic testing might give you more than you bargained for</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Inheriting a social conscience</h2>
<p>I’ve read this as a novel about death and dying; but it is equally a novel about society, and social justice – and this is another inheritance Nellie passes on to her descendants. Nellie’s dearest childhood friend Ruth is a political activist, and was a dedicated Communist until disillusioned by the Party’s refusal to “put women’s rights on the agenda”. </p>
<p>Nellie too briefly joined the Party, but discovered the consolations of being ordinary and withdrew to a quieter life. Ruth, though, retained a powerful voice for women’s rights and human rights, and this becomes the germ of the social conscience possessed by Nellie’s descendants.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505813/original/file-20230123-15-d38zp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p>During Nellie’s illness, Ruth took up a role in the family. She visited Nellie, read her stories and poems, fed her small treats, played with the boys, and most importantly, saw her as herself, Nellie, and not as a dying patient. </p>
<p>Her involvement with the boys influenced Eddie – Nellie’s younger son, Rose’s father – to take up the cudgels of social change. He became a human rights lawyer specialising in refugee cases, and however distressing he might be as a retired drunk, he still maintains the energy to support refugees in the community. And Rose, too, inherited a sense of social justice – enough to feel guilty that she elected to work in the private rather than the public health sector. </p>
<p>Rose justifies her choice on the basis that “suffering from cancer is essentially no different in the world of the privileged”. But then she reflects on her own risk of cancer, on how illness “overrides everything else”, how it will reduce her to sickness, pain, to being just “the mastectomy in Bed Four”. </p>
<p>Though <a href="https://theconversation.com/triggering-cancer-cells-to-become-normal-cells-how-stem-cell-therapies-can-provide-new-ways-to-stop-tumors-from-spreading-or-growing-back-191559">cancer treatment</a> is radically different now from 1945, still – as Rose notes – it reduces patients to categories: “newbies” identifiable by their “full heads of hair and terrified faces”; “seasoned members” who seem bored by or resigned to their treatment; the “sicker ones in wheelchairs”. </p>
<p>But she also knows her patients as individuals; knows their lives and fears as well as their diseases. She is willing to sit with them and listen to them; to offer, where she can, some comfort. She can ease their pain. She can ease them into death when it comes. </p>
<p>I read this novel aware that its author has herself gone into death; that she wrote this while going through treatment and facing this new, and final, stage of life. The tenderness, the professionalism, and the careful eye on what it is to be a person in relation to other people is, at least for me, immensely moving. </p>
<p>It’s a dense novel, written with close attention to detail and clear-eyed understanding of the complexities of life, of living and of dying. In this, it is an exemplar for how fiction can travel alongside other specialist languages – here, the language of medicine – to illuminate things that matter, and to normalise things we dread.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jen Webb has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Kath O'Connor’s debut novel, Inheritance, follows two women – an IVF hopeful and her grandmother – who carry the BRCA1 gene and contract ovarian cancer. It’s very close to being memoir.Jen Webb, Dean, Graduate Research, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1978642023-01-13T23:23:25Z2023-01-13T23:23:25Z‘The most dangerous Negro’: 3 essential reads on the FBI’s assessment of MLK’s radical views and allies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504509/original/file-20230113-24-t3h2p0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=407%2C113%2C2609%2C2121&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. relaxes at home in May 1956 in Montgomery, Alabama.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/civil-rights-leader-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr-relaxes-news-photo/74279047?phrase=martin%20luther%20king%20home&adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Left out of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/us/politics/house-republican-committee-weaponization-government.html">GOP debates</a> about “the weaponization” of the federal government is the use of the FBI to spy on civil rights leaders for most of the 20th century.</p>
<p>Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the targets.</p>
<p>As secret FBI documents became declassified, The Conversation U.S. published several articles looking at the details that emerged about King’s personal life and how he was considered in 1963 by the FBI as “the most dangerous Negro.”</p>
<h2>1. The radicalism of MLK</h2>
<p>As a historian of religion and civil rights, University of Colorado Colorado Springs Professor <a href="https://paulharvey.org/about/">Paul Harvey</a> writes that while King has come to be revered as a hero who led a nonviolent struggle to build a color blind society, the true radicalism of MLK’s beliefs remain underappreciated. </p>
<p>“The civil saint portrayed nowadays was,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/martin-luther-king-jr-had-a-much-more-radical-message-than-a-dream-of-racial-brotherhood-92795">Harvey writes</a>, “by the end of his life, a social and economic radical, who argued forcefully for the necessity of economic justice in the pursuit of racial equality.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/martin-luther-king-jr-had-a-much-more-radical-message-than-a-dream-of-racial-brotherhood-92795">Martin Luther King Jr. had a much more radical message than a dream of racial brotherhood</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. The threat of being called a communist</h2>
<p><a href="https://chass.ncsu.edu/people/wjmille3/">Jason Miller</a>, a North Carolina State University English professor, details the delicate balance that King was forced to strike between some of his radical allies and the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.</p>
<p>As the leading figure in the civil rights movement, Miller explains, King could not be perceived as a communist in order to maintain his national popularity.</p>
<p>As a result, King did not overtly invoke the name of one of the Harlem Renaissance’s leading poets, <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/langston-hughes">Langston Hughes</a>, a man the FBI suspected of being a communist sympathizer. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/langston-hughes-hidden-influence-on-mlk-91736">Miller’s research</a> reveals the shrewdness with which King still managed to use Hughes’ poetry in his speeches and sermons, most notably in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech which echoes Hughes’ poem “<a href="https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-dream-a-world-2/">I Dream a World</a>.”</p>
<p>“By channeling Hughes’ voice, King was able to elevate the subversive words of a poet that the powerful thought they had silenced,” Miller writes.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/langston-hughes-hidden-influence-on-mlk-91736">Langston Hughes' hidden influence on MLK</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. ‘We must mark him now’</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/TrevorGriffey">a historian</a> who has done substantial research regarding FBI files on the Black freedom movement, UCLA labor studies lecturer Trevor Griffey <a href="https://theconversation.com/j-edgar-hoovers-revenge-information-the-fbi-once-hoped-could-destroy-rev-martin-luther-king-jr-has-been-declassified-118026">points out</a> that from 1910 to the 1970s, the FBI treated civil rights activists as either disloyal “subversives” or “dupes” of foreign agents. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277279/original/file-20190530-69087-q5gp5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot from a 1966 FBI memo regarding the surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/613/2820.pdf?1559244493">National Archives via Trevor Griffey photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As King ascended in prominence in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was inevitable that the FBI would investigate him. </p>
<p>In fact, two days after King delivered his famous “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety">I Have a Dream</a>” speech at the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/march-on-washington.htm">1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mlks-speech-attracted-fbis-intense-attention/2013/08/27/31c8ebd4-0f60-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html">William Sullivan</a>, the FBI’s director of intelligence, wrote: “We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/j-edgar-hoovers-revenge-information-the-fbi-once-hoped-could-destroy-rev-martin-luther-king-jr-has-been-declassified-118026">J. Edgar Hoover’s revenge: Information the FBI once hoped could destroy Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has been declassified</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As Martin Luther King Jr. gained national prominence, the FBI launched several investigations to prove that King and his radical allies were communist sympathizers and a danger to America.Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1899302022-12-05T16:19:38Z2022-12-05T16:19:38ZMikhail Gorbachev wanted to save communism, but he buried it instead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483487/original/file-20220908-20-nldouv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">h</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/mikhail-gorbachev-five-things-you-need-to-know-189709">death of Mikhail Gorbachev</a>, the last leader of the Soviet Union, under whose leadership the communist bloc was brought to an end, was met in the west with tributes and personal reminiscences by leaders who had met him and enjoyed his company. This reverence wasn’t matched in Russia or in several of the former Soviet satellites, where he is blamed for the turmoil that followed.</p>
<p>But, beyond debating the effectiveness of his policies of <em>glasnost</em> (openness) and <em>perestroika</em> (restructuring) and whether they had sounded the death knell for Soviet-style communist rule in Europe, few people really got to grips with what Gorbachev, himself, actually believed. But an <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/08/30/mikhail-gorbachev-former-president-soviet-union-whose-glasnost/">obituary in the Daily Telegraph</a> carried the following quote from his memoirs which can serve as a useful jumping-off point for assessing ideologies at the end of the cold war. It’s also useful for drawing out lessons now. Gorbachev wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Communist ideology in its pure form is akin to Christianity. Its main ideas are the brotherhood of all peoples irrespective of their nationality, justice and equality, peace, and an end to hostility between peoples. It is true that communism was used to camouflage a totalitarian regime. But in its essence communism is a humanist ideology, and it never had anything in common with the misanthropic ideology of fascism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This statement is probably correct in one proposition – though incomplete in another. Gorbachev is plausible about the difference between fascist misanthropy and basic communist idealism: communism equalled good intentions leading to bad consequences – while fascism was bad intentions leading to bad consequences. </p>
<p>But his proposition that communism is the same as humanism is incomplete to the point of being wrong. This is because if communism means the philosophy of Karl Marx, then Marx’s philosophy was never humanism in a straightforward sense, nor humanism alone. Marx’s philosophy was a scientific vision of past, present and future and the way technological change drives history – as well as a philosophy of necessary violence in political action. </p>
<p>Marx’s humanism was also less a “do-unto-others” ethic than a vision of human beings flourishing by unobstructed work – which could be constricting (it left out other ways of being).</p>
<h2>Muddled, not just moving, ideas</h2>
<p>Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985. He is largely known for his innovations: <em>glasnost</em> and <em>perestroika</em>, which comprised his “<a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/rd/108225.htm">new thinking</a>” in both domestic and foreign policy. Obituarists <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62739416">admired his decency</a>, but what the plaudits find merit in has often been off the mark. He was not a convert to western liberalism – he wanted to save communism more than bury it. </p>
<p>After the cold war had reheated in the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/second-cold-war/2DF5D90F8AEEBD279CC9840532D8B4A1#fndtn-information">early 1980s</a>, Gorbachev pursued disarmament. He released political prisoners, renounced intervention in eastern Europe and allowed the rehabilitation of writers opposed to the Soviet system. By increments, he moved from the type of socialist who was a communist reformer to one resembling a social democrat. </p>
<p>Yet the boosters of his reputation are only half right, because in a fundamental way his aims and ideas were not just moving – they were also muddled.</p>
<p>Gorbachev’s flagship statement of political theory is <em>perestroika</em> – which was the title of <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1988-03-01/perestroika-new-thinking-our-country-and-world">his 1987 book</a>. It is a machine metaphor the book fixates on: the Soviet economy had become negatively affected by “braking mechanisms” such as alcoholism and drug addiction. </p>
<p>Gorbachev was caught between two political practices that were typical of the cold war fought by both sides: <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682745.2018.1434508">dissenting and rebelling</a>. Dissenting meant reforming the cold war world, at home and abroad. Rebelling meant going beyond it entirely.</p>
<p>Dissenters in religion are those proclaiming distance from an established church but maintaining faith. Dissidents reflected Gorbachev’s observation that pure communism was akin to Christianity. Dissent meant “revisionist” Marxism-Leninism, but in 1968 the crushing of the Prague Spring killed this, driving dissenters to become rebels rather than reformers and reject communism entirely. </p>
<p>In the immediate post-Soviet world, US philosopher Francis Fukuyama wrote <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/francis-fukuyama/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man/">The End of History and The Last Man</a> (1992), which climaxed in the dawn of a universal liberal order. Neoliberalism as a political theory became the mood of the time – not the communist idea of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. It ushered in an era of western triumphalism.</p>
<p>Seen in this light, the west’s praise for Gorbachev is actually self-praise. The cold war was not a morally equivalent contest: east and west were not equally guilty. But both sides told simplifying narratives.</p>
<p>The east’s story? The struggle for peace in the face of aggressive imperialism – something Vladimir Putin has attempted to foreground, apparently unironically, for the purposes of Russia’s war in Ukraine. But, by the 1980s, Gorbachev’s leadership had already called that into question. The west meanwhile told a story that exaggerated the defence of the “free world” against the totalitarian state. This was the story that prevailed – certainly at the time.</p>
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<h2>The rise of populism</h2>
<p>The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 brought a sense of glee in the west rather than a sense of decency and appreciation of the political thought being shaped. A liberalism emerged that headlined opposition to repression – but it tended to ignore exploitation, in post-communist states as well as elsewhere in the world. And exploitation has more recently become one of the wellsprings of contemporary populist reactionism. </p>
<p>When the global financial crisis of 2008 prompted widespread governmental austerity policies in the west, a stage was set for realising the belated effects of the west’s handling of the post-cold war moment. Had enthusiasm for the free market been kept under some control, perhaps not quite so many western citizens would have made up a ready pool of followers for the post-globalism of Trumpists, Brexiteers, or Lepenistes and Zemmouristes. </p>
<p>Contemporary populism is far from being a straightforward social effect of poverty – the enthusiasm for xenophobic and racist policies and those who espouse them suggests the presence of as much noxious ideological conviction as economic despair. As Marx himself said, there is always a social context to the formation and force of ideas that spring to life in politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shorten receives funding from Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>The death of the last leader of the Soviet Union brought tributes, largely from the west. But his real legacy has been misunderstood.Richard Shorten, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884692022-08-31T04:06:13Z2022-08-31T04:06:13ZProtests, ‘biznez’ and a failed coup: journalist Monica Attard on covering the empire Gorbachev allowed to collapse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481961/original/file-20220831-26-ixc18l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=107%2C4%2C2880%2C1911&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mikhail Gorbachev addresses American business executives in 1990.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Longstreath/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s unlikely that in 1970, when I was 12, I could have imagined myself covering the collapse of an empire. Nor could I have dreamed that 51 years later, my passion for Russia would still be alive, if battered by its barbaric invasion of its neighbour, Ukraine, in February 2022.</p>
<p>But back then, when I was a young girl, I did dream of being a foreign correspondent; in particular, a foreign correspondent in what was then the Soviet Union. From that romantic notion to doom-scrolling social media for news on the latest atrocity in Ukraine is quite the narrative arc.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-is-fighting-three-undeclared-wars-its-fourth-an-internal-struggle-for-russia-itself-might-be-looming-189129">Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth – an internal struggle for Russia itself – might be looming</a>
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<p>As far back into my childhood as I can recall, there were dinnertime conversations about how brutal capitalism could be, how <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-stalins-great-terror-can-tell-us-about-russia-today-56842">Joseph Stalin</a> had saved Europe from fascism – and my favourite story of all, how the brave Soviet experiment with socialism would reap the benefits of communism at some point, sometime, in the future. </p>
<p>A new world, in the nirvana of time and place, where all human beings would live as equals! My father was from war-torn Malta, and he was a “believer”, at least in a better world. He remained that way to the end. </p>
<p>And when he encouraged me to go the Soviet Union for the first time in 1983, I
was wearing his rose-coloured glasses. Everything seemed to be on the way to nirvana – even the empty shops, the long queues for offcuts of substandard meat, and the clothes shops that sold thousands of copies of just one item of clothing in the same size and the same colour. This, I reasoned, was a place sacrificing something – life – for something better. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481556/original/file-20220829-17-4cjaya.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Monica Attard saw 1980s Moscow through ‘rose-coloured glasses’, as a place sacrificing life for something better.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ceri C/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>From nothing to something, to uncertainty again</h2>
<p>In 2022, after 30 years of Russia’s integration into the global economic and financial system, that long-lost world of deficits – the word Russians used for everything not available – was ancient history. </p>
<p>But by March 2022, the nirvana of nascent capitalism born in the 1990s had abruptly and eerily been shut down, thanks to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/just-short-of-nuclear-these-sanctions-will-cripple-russias-economy-178000">deep and wide sanctions</a> imposed by the West on an invading belligerent Russia. </p>
<p>It’s been a long road from nothing to something to uncertainty again. The world is yet to see whether Russians will again rise against a ruler whose voracious appetite for land and blood has returned them to an Orwellian nightmare.</p>
<p>In 1983, when I first travelled to Russia with a friend in the dead of winter, <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-orwells-1984-and-how-it-helps-us-understand-tyrannical-power-today-112066">Orwell</a> was hovering in my mind. Although nothing I saw could have been further from my own reality, I reasoned there was purpose. The driver sent to ferry us from the then only international airport in the capital was such a welcoming touch, I thought. The driver was of course associated with the UPDK, the Directorate for Service to the Diplomatic Corps, an agency of the Foreign Affairs Ministry charged with looking over the shoulder of any and all foreigners who dared then visit for leisure or work. </p>
<p>UPDK still does much the same job, if now under commercial auspices – although as Russia’s President <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-long-can-vladimir-putin-hold-on-to-power-181500">Vladimir Putin</a> tightens the noose around the freedoms won by his own people, the agency may well return to its darker days. But back in 1983 there was still, for me, romance to the Russian capital. The streets from Sheremetyevo Airport to the city centre were virtually empty, because cars were in deficit, and the trip took a brisk 15 minutes. Magic, I thought – no traffic.</p>
<p>Arriving at the decrepit and now demolished Intourist Hotel on what was then Gorky Street, it was like being in the twilight zone. These two young female foreigners couldn’t figure out what all the men and women hovering at the front of the hotel were up to. Maybe they were there to greet us? How friendly, I thought. It turns out they were awaiting tourists of the male variety and businessmen to proffer the
wares of what we discovered was a highly lucrative trade in sex work.</p>
<p>Inside, surly desk workers looked over our documents and briskly marched off with our passports, which was a momentarily discombobulating feeling. But when they returned minutes later with our passports in hand, I thought – how efficient! All foreigners, still to this day, need to have their passports registered with UPDK, as though our arrival at the airport and delivery to Intourist hadn’t already
been clocked.</p>
<p>A rickety lift took us to our floor, where a babushka sat on a chair in the hallway, arms comfortably perched over her bosom, scowling at us for reasons unclear. Still, I thought kindly of her; it was icy cold outside and this poor woman had to come to work. </p>
<p>Looking out our hotel window overlooking Gorky Street, we spied huge red banners with Lenin’s image fluttering in the wind. “That must be the Lenin Museum,” we decided. This place is going to be easy to navigate, I thought. The next day, we decided to put our lives on the line and make our way across Gorky Street through foot-high snow underpinned by ice.</p>
<p>Gorky Street was what in Australia we’d call a highway – six lanes wide and connecting the heart of the city centre, across from the Kremlin, to the outer reaches of the city. We hadn’t seen the underpass to allow foot traffic to avoid the car traffic, which led to our first brush with the law. In the end, taking pity on us, the militsiya, or local police, accompanied us to the underpass and across the road, from where we emerged – like magic – just below the fluttering Lenin banners.</p>
<p>Sadly, a near hour-long effort to cross the road didn’t get us to the Lenin Museum. As we looked up Gorky Street, there were Lenin banners fluttering everywhere. Most were worse for wear – much like the rest of the city as it turned out – but flutter they did, as if to say, “Welcome to the land where we all sing from the same song sheet.” </p>
<p>Only briefly in the scheme of time has this turned out to be untrue. The more than 30 years between 1991, when the old order collapsed, and 2022, when it threatens to rise again, was perhaps the nirvana.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/today-is-not-my-day-how-russias-journalists-writers-and-artists-are-turning-silence-into-speech-185120">'Today is not my day': how Russia's journalists, writers and artists are turning silence into speech</a>
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<h2>Foreign correspondent</h2>
<p>When I was a child, being a foreign correspondent seemed like the best job in the world, particularly for a kid from the inner western Sydney suburbs at a time when travel was expensive and rare. I didn’t see the inside of an aeroplane until I was 17. </p>
<p>But as a child, I imagined the vest-wearing, bespectacled, notepad-carrying reporter in fields of war, penning stories for faraway Australia, hungry for news
from the world out there, far, far away from our marooned island nation. And so it came to pass for this dreaming migrant child, carrying the burden common to my socio-economic and racial class of low expectation. Just minus the vest. But it didn’t come easily.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four people in warm coats in the back of a van" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481543/original/file-20220829-15-i60s6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Monica Attard (second from left) with friends, former foreign correspondent Debbie Whitmont, Maxim Raoutenfeld and young Xenya as he was known.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>I had spent years in newsrooms, commercial and the ABC, spiriting myself over to the then Soviet Republic of Russia each year on my annual break to poke around and observe. I’d been travelling in and out of the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, since that first trip in 1983. Friends in Paris who, as young university students on exchange to Moscow’s State University, had met some like-minded Russians, led me to a woman who would become my lifelong friend.</p>
<p>Natasha Yakovleva was a film archivist with the state archives. She died recently, so trips to Moscow now feel empty. Back in 1985 when I met Natasha, she was as curious about me as I was about her, and surreptitiously she showed me the weird and wonderful underbelly of this intriguing city, about which, oddly, I felt I understood less and less with each visit.</p>
<p>By 1989, the ABC was ready to open a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2013/s3772466.htm">Moscow bureau</a> and post its first correspondent. I was devastated when the job didn’t come my way, although when the second position did later that year, I was happy not to have been the first correspondent in. Establishing a physical bureau, navigating the vagaries of UPDK and hiring support staff while filing on a big story would have been a herculean effort for a then young, single female.</p>
<p>Soviet society was thought by its members to be matriarchal. And in the sense that women carried the major burdens of life, including family life, in a country of constant deficits, perhaps it was. But men, like everywhere else, in every significant aspect of life outside the home, held all the power. </p>
<p>Operating as a foreign correspondent in this environment was often confusing. My questions were always entertained, but I was invariably considered exotic for having asked. My desire to understand the place was always welcomed but my curiosity was considered, by some, a little unbecoming for a woman. </p>
<p>The one saving grace for me was that socialism had given the Soviet people a strong sense that everyone was in the same sinking boat – men, women and children. There was an affordance of empathy for hardships suffered and help when help was needed. That made a difference in reporting the place.</p>
<p>The demise of the Soviet Union was slow, burning with disappointment and rage and, of course, with anticipation. By the time I arrived as a correspondent, it was well and truly underway, though the end couldn’t have been imagined. </p>
<p>Politically and geo-strategically isolated, the Kremlin plastered over the long and obvious economic disasters while holding out the promise of better days to come. And coercion was the tool of choice to ensure people maintained the faith, much as now in 2022, even if the faith is no longer communism but nationalism.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/reagan-and-gorbachev-offer-a-script-for-biden-putin-summit-162872">Mikhail Gorbachev</a> came along in the mid-1980s. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31733045">Perestroika</a> (political and economic reinvention) and glasnost (openness) gave people the right to think for themselves about how they wanted to live and work. </p>
<p>But it enraged the bureaucrats and the hard left of the Soviet Communist Party. As a result, it wasn’t a smooth, seamless transition from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diktat">diktat</a> to free thinking, and it brought societal schisms – some of which were entirely predictable, some of which were not. </p>
<p>There were those who feared freer thinking would let loose the hounds of capitalism, which would kill off the achievements of their forebears whose blood and hard work had built the Soviet industrial base and, of course, rip away the sureties on which their lives were built. There were those who thought just a little freedom would do the job of making people feel valued and hopeful of a better life, and give them the chance to do something for themselves, outside the regime’s boundaries, to make their lives better. And there were those who wanted the chains to be thrown off completely. </p>
<p>Add to that potent mix 14 largely resentful republics outside of Russia (the most politically and economically important republic of them all), and the result was years of social upheaval, from the Kremlin to the most far-flung corners of the Soviet empire. </p>
<p>The reverberation from that upheaval, the breaking apart of a 70-year-old federation of states built on dogma and held together by coercion and fate, is what the world now sees playing out in <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraines-fight-for-its-identity-is-more-than-a-century-old-it-is-not-about-to-stop-179303">Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>By 1989, when I arrived in Moscow as a correspondent, even the most fearful regularly took to the streets in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16107101">protests</a> for and against Gorbachev’s rule. There would be tens of thousands, sometimes even a million or more people, crushing into each other, carrying each other along with sheer body weight, overseen by scores of KGB and militsiya. </p>
<p>We saw this again on the streets of Russia’s big cities in 2022 as people protested Russia’s invasion of its neighbour, only this time the protests were smaller in number, people were instantly arrested, and they were entirely unified in what they wanted – no war. </p>
<p>Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the protests were almost confused; some wanted a break put on reform, others wanted more and faster reform. There were uprisings against rulers and parliaments across the 15 Soviet republics, the most frightening of them being when local Soviet officials defended their political fortresses with force, though relatively few were killed. As punishment, the food-producing republics and their subjects who wanted freedom from Moscow imposed food blockades on the capital. Deficits of cars, furniture and clothes produced by decades of a malfunctioning economy suddenly seemed quaint, even preferable.</p>
<p>Throughout it all, I had a group of Russian friends holding my hand, taking me to the edges of Soviet society, where I could see how people were experiencing the teetering of an empire. Some of them are still holding my hand to help me understand what rage and fury brought their country to invade its neighbour. </p>
<p>When the USSR finally collapsed in December 1991, I again felt as I had when I first travelled there in 1983: I was in the land of the brave. Their new world was
something neither they nor their forebears could ever have imagined. Now, in 2022, it all seems threatened.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/military-history-is-repeating-for-russia-under-putins-regime-of-thieves-181164">Military history is repeating for Russia under Putin's regime of thieves</a>
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<h2>Russia and women</h2>
<p>The odd thing about Russia’s relationship with women was the strange contradiction at its heart. While women had and have no real power, they simultaneously had and have all the power. </p>
<p>They cleared those underground crossings of ice and snow in labour for which they were physically unsuited. They were prevalent among university graduates in medicine and engineering, even if that led to a downgrading in the salary and status of both professions. They rarely appeared on politician roll calls, yet their influence was evident in politics. And, most certainly, the influence of women’s thinking, needs and demands was evident in the manoeuvrings of local communities. There was a respect, and it was not secret. </p>
<p>When it came to journalism, some of the toughest were women. <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-politkovskaya-murder-putin/31496138.html">Anna Politkovskaya</a> is a name still recognised in the West. Her fearless reporting of the war Russia waged against the semi-autonomous republic of Chechnya as it tried to break away
from Moscow remains a high point of independent journalism in a country where that has never been easy, and where it now appears to have been snuffed out completely by a new law penalising journalists for telling the truth about the war with Ukraine.</p>
<p>When Politkovskaya was gunned down returning to her apartment in Moscow in 2006, the Russians I knew were sad but not shocked. They expected something to happen to her. Who writes about atrocities perpetrated by the Kremlin without consequence?</p>
<p>Politkovskaya’s murder – and the murder and harassment of dozens of journalists, activists and politicians since 2006 – put paid to any notion that media in Putin’s Russia was free in the sense we understand media freedom in the West. </p>
<p>But like all those killed or harassed, Politkovskaya was respected, heard. The Kremlin might wish to forget her and her reporting, but many haven’t. To this day, no one sits at her desk at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta">Novaya Gazeta</a>. (In March 2022, following two warnings from the censor, the paper suspended its operations until, it said, the end of Moscow’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.) </p>
<p>Still, the retort I hear most often about this assassination is – why didn’t she just stick to issues that were safe to cover, issues that women should cover? There’s that odd relationship with women, again.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-long-can-vladimir-putin-hold-on-to-power-181500">How long can Vladimir Putin hold on to power?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>“Biznez” and the mafia era</h2>
<p>Into this I waded, in my early thirties, single, very excited to be on my first posting and covering what appeared to me then to be the most consequential story in the world. The USSR was in its death throes. </p>
<p>Gorbachev was <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wild-decade-how-the-1990s-laid-the-foundations-for-vladimir-putins-russia-141098">tussling for authority</a> with Boris Yeltsin, and on the streets, Russians were rooting for both men. The hard left of the Communist Party was keeping a watchful, anxious eye on the new liberties granted: the ability to trade; the new television programs which questioned; the protests which, while overseen by a still operative KGB, gave the newest freedom of all – the right to protest. </p>
<p>Even though many in my circle thought that if communism was going to survive, it would need more than a little miracle, no one thought it would collapse. The system was corrupt and few showed any real loyalty to it. But the system did provide free health care, education and accommodation. Cradle-to-grave security was a big deal.</p>
<p>Russians also knew that the nirvana Lenin had promised, Stalin had corrupted and Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko had failed to revive was gone – as an idea as much as an achievable destination. But life without the Communist Party was still unthinkable.</p>
<p>The new buzzword was “biznez”. Making do in a nation of deficits was no longer cutting it. Even the class of people who proudly maintained “they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work” were looking to find ways to do their own thing. My local state cafe, which rarely had anything but diluted coffee to offer its customers, and from which its manager, Galia, made a paltry amount of money each month, suddenly changed. </p>
<p>Galia was an imposing figure: tall, graceful and gracious, and most of all, determined. She decided to offer the locals something new – real coffee, food and service. With her blonde beehive perched atop her strikingly Slavic face, Galia tapped into her contacts in the caviar industry, sourcing bucketloads of the stuff, red and black. When word spread, the customers came, queuing around the block to buy a slice or two of bread with caviar, and Turkish coffee that tasted real. She was in business for a good six months before the cafe was firebombed.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/23/how-organised-crime-took-over-russia-vory-super-mafia">era of mafia</a> had taken hold, with thugs whose only way of doing “biznez” was to extort. Galia refused to pay for protection and her business was annihilated. This was life as the Communist Party lost control.</p>
<p>While danger was everywhere for those Russians trying to make a go of the new trade freedoms, fear of it was abating among others. By 1990, just six months before Russians experienced their first dance with democracy with the election of President Yeltsin, young people were making their voices heard. They would gather on street corners to deride the “party mafia” that guarded its own turf and operated protection rackets to ensure only a new class of post-communist entrepreneurs could live well. People weren’t afraid to talk about the issues anymore. </p>
<p>On television, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-01-11-mn-8283-story.html">Vzglyad</a>, or Outlook, was a talk show hosted by the immensely popular <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lyubimov">Alexander Lyubimov</a>, the son of a well-known spy. Looking back now from Putin’s Russia, this was a high point of media freedom. Lyubimov openly discussed with guests the ills of Soviet communism, what people wanted from government, how they would get it, what Gorbachev was doing right and wrong, how the feud between Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, and Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, might hinder progress towards a capitalism-based nirvana. </p>
<p>In 1990, my friends could barely believe what they were watching. Now, in 2022, even using the word “war” to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine is penalised. As I spend nights doomscrolling for information on the war with Ukraine, I wonder how Lyubimov feels about the gains he forged being squashed so comprehensively?</p>
<p>As a correspondent, I would often hit the streets back then to test the limits of the newfound intolerance of the regime, and the reactions, while mixed, had one idea in common. Living as they had was no longer possible; personal freedom couldn’t be the price for cradle-to-grave security. </p>
<p>Of course, few ordinary folk followed their desire for more freedom and a better life in a functioning economy to its logical conclusion. They thought the old structures could be reformed, renewed, revitalised. Certainly, no one I knew thought the old structures might actually collapse under the weight of the reforms. Not even Gorbachev.</p>
<p>And so, as 1990 ushered in a newly empowered Yeltsin, who held court at the Russian parliament, oddly named the White House, the demands for more grew louder and louder – led by the non-Russian republics. The Communist Party was becoming very tetchy indeed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-former-journalist-recalls-ukraines-1991-vote-for-independence-and-how-its-resilience-endures-189266">A former journalist recalls Ukraine's 1991 vote for independence — and how its resilience endures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Putin is different</h2>
<p>On August 19 1991, Russia – and the world – woke to startling news. Gorbachev had been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/21/world/the-soviet-crisis-gorbachev-reportedly-arrested-in-the-crimea.html">put under house arrest</a> while holidaying with his family in Crimea. In the dead of night, a group of 11 men (of course) had hastily put together a State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) to return the USSR to its “natural” pre-Gorbachev state. </p>
<p>Led by the KGB chief, Vladimir Kryuchkov, the committee declared that the Soviet Union was falling apart. It said Gorbachev had refused to return order to the country and the protesters had eroded the authority of the state; extremism had taken hold. The GKChP encircled Moscow with tanks, and by morning, the capital had erupted in fury, fear and concern for Gorbachev, who was by then incommunicado.</p>
<p>On February 24 2022, <a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-invades-ukraine-5-essential-reads-from-experts-177815">when Putin sent Russian tanks</a> across the border into the Donbas region of Ukraine, proclaiming his intent to rid Russia’s neighbour of its extremists and Nazis, I thought of what Gorbachev had said about the Emergency Committee many years after the failed 1991 coup: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I said to them they must be mad if they think the country would simply follow another dictatorship. People are not that tired.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Russian shelling may yet break the Ukrainian resolve to fight. But it won’t be soon. Putin is now assessing how much fight the Ukrainians have in them and how many urban Russians still have memories of 1991 coursing through their veins. The difference: Gorbachev was largely unwilling to turn his military against his people. Putin is different.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481559/original/file-20220829-1164-2ltj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian tanks invaded the Donbas region of Ukraine in February 2022. They were still there in May, when this photo was taken.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Francisco Seco/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When, in August 1991, the centre of Moscow was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/20/communist-hardliners-stage-coup-against-gorbachev-russia-1991">occupied by its own military</a>, with columns of tanks rumbling through its main streets and soldiers armed with assault rifles fending off angry citizens, Muscovites screamed for sanity to prevail. “Go home to your mother,” was the most frequent refrain. “Do you know what you are doing?” was another. While there was animosity towards Gorbachev for failing to deliver on his reforms, he was preferable to the putschists.</p>
<p>I felt safe, mostly. But never safer than when I scrambled onto a tank to speak with a group of soldiers in their early twenties. They looked terrified, like they wanted to jump off the vehicle and go home. Today in Ukraine, some young Russian conscripts have been doing just that – refusing to use force to overcome the Ukrainians who’ve stood in their path. Not enough of them have yet decided to defy their leaders to turn the tide, but the war is still young.</p>
<p>Through three days of heartache, confusion, mayhem, destruction, defiance, resilience and hope, Russians and the world were united – the GKChP must fail. Little did anyone know that its resolve to turn back the tide would be eroded by internal disorder. Defence minister Dmitry Yazov and KGB chief Kryuchkov were at odds while the other committee members, overwhelmed by their own anxieties, drank themselves into a stupor. They had all failed to understand how perestroika and glasnost had changed their own people. </p>
<p>By day three, their efforts to end the Gorbachev era looked shambolic. Their so-called “constitutional transfer of power” was over before it had begun. The grave errors the putschists had committed were evident – Yeltsin, the leader of the defiant, had not been arrested, the TV tower had not been captured, allowing media to broadcast the truth, mass arrests had not taken place. </p>
<p>Putin, a student of history, has no doubt studied the dying moments of the August 1991 putsch. He has not committed the same mistakes in Ukraine.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract of Monica Attard’s essay in <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/through-her-eyes-by-trevor-watson/9781743798898">Through Her Eyes: Australia’s Women Correspondents from Hiroshima to Ukraine</a> by Trevor Watson and Melissa Roberts (Hardie Grant), published 6 September 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Attard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Monica Attard witnessed the death throes of the USSR – and the birth of a brave new world – as the ABC’s Russia foreign correspondent. In 2022, a return to an Orwellian regime looms.Monica Attard, Co-Director, Centre For Media Transition, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884082022-08-19T12:41:27Z2022-08-19T12:41:27ZWith ‘bravery’ as its new brand, Ukraine is turning advertising into a weapon of war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479176/original/file-20220815-20-37mg81.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman walks by large signs that read 'Bravery is Ukrainian brand' in Kyiv. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/woman-walks-by-large-signs-in-store-windows-that-read-bravery-is-picture-id1242245557?s=2048x2048">Oleksii Chumachenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a preview of Vogue’s October 2022 <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/portrait-of-bravery-ukraines-first-lady-olena-zelenska">cover story</a> on Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska hit Twitter on July 26, 2022, reactions on social media were swift and polarized. Some critics said that a photo shoot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for a fashion magazine was a “<a href="https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1552095961501126662">bad idea</a>” and <a href="https://twitter.com/CostanzaRdO/status/1552215150735855616">glamorized war</a>. </p>
<p>Others <a href="https://twitter.com/TamiErwinVZ/status/1552282456472129538">lauded the magazine and Ukraine’s first lady</a> for bringing awareness to the suffering of Ukrainians, five months after Russia first invaded its neighboring country.</p>
<p>In the cover photo, 44-year-old Zelenska wears a cream-colored blouse with rolled up sleeves, black trousers and flats. She sits on the stairs of the Ukrainian Parliament, leaning forward with hands intertwined between her knees. Her makeup is minimal, her hair casually tossed as she looks directly at the camera. Within hours Ukrainian women started using the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/TetyanaWrites/status/1552831968068378633">#sitlikeagirl</a> to share photos of themselves in the same pose as a show of solidarity.</p>
<p>Vogue’s profile of Zelenska, headlined “A Portrait of Bravery” and written by journalist Rachel Donadio, fits into a larger communication strategy, mounted by Ukraine’s government, that’s intended to keep the world focused on the country’s fight against Russian aggression. As part of that effort, Ukraine also initiated a nation branding campaign in April with the tagline “<a href="https://brave.ua/en/">Bravery. To be Ukraine.</a>”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=A872GQ4AAAAJ&hl=en">communications scholar</a>, I have studied how former communist countries like Ukraine have used marketing strategies to burnish their international reputations over the past <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2020.106">two decades</a> – a practice known as <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/nation-branding-explained">nation branding</a>.</p>
<p>Ukraine, however, is the first country to launch an official nation branding campaign in the midst of war. For the first time, brand communication is a key part of a country’s response to a military invasion.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1551901521180229632"}"></div></p>
<h2>Nation branding and the end of communism</h2>
<p>The idea that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/branding-nations.html">nations can be branded</a> emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. This kind of work uses advertising, public relations and marketing techniques to boost countries’ international reputations. Campaigns are often timed to coincide with major sporting, cultural or political events – like the Olympics.</p>
<p>After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, formerly communist Eastern European countries were particularly eager to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Branding-Post-Communist-Nations-Marketizing-National-Identities-in-the/Kaneva/p/book/9781138776777">rebrand themselves</a> and get an updated international image.</p>
<p>When Estonian musicians won the international singing competition <a href="https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2001">Eurovision in 2001</a>, Estonia became the first post-Soviet country to hold this prize. Subsequently, the country’s government hired an international advertising company to design a modern <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630701848721">national brand</a> for Estonia as it prepared to host Eurovision the following year.</p>
<p>Research has shown, however, that former communist countries’ nation branding efforts were not meant just for international consumption. They also provided a new way to talk about <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Branding-Post-Communist-Nations-Marketizing-National-Identities-in-the/Kaneva/p/book/9781138776777">national identities</a> at home, and <a href="https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/85/Strategic%20Review/Vol%2039(1)/pp-116-138-n-kaneva.zp121530.pdf">re-imagine national values</a> and goals, via marketing terms. </p>
<p>But until 2022, no country had used nation branding to fight a war.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white woman is shown holding the leashes of several dogs, with the words 'Be brave like Ukraine' in big text over her" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478417/original/file-20220809-16-8xw795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Ukrainian woman who is saving abandoned pets is featured in a campaign billboard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Be Brave Like Ukraine campaign/Banda</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Bravery is our brand’</h2>
<p>Executives from the Ukrainian <a href="https://bandaagency.com/">advertising agency Banda</a> first pitched the idea for Ukraine’s Bravery Campaign <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-propaganda-war/">to the government</a> shortly after Russia invaded in February 2022. Based in Kyiv and Los Angeles, the agency had already worked before the war on government-sponsored campaigns, <a href="https://bandaagency.com/case/ukraine-now">marketing Ukraine</a> as a tourism and investment destination.</p>
<p>Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsed the wartime branding campaign and publicly announced its launch on April 7, 2022, in a <a href="https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/buti-smilivimi-ce-nash-brend-budemo-poshiryuvati-nashu-smili-74165">video address</a>. “Bravery is our brand,” he stated. “This is what it means to be us. To be Ukrainians. To be brave.”</p>
<p>In the following months, Banda produced numerous messages in formats ranging from billboards, posters and online videos, to social media posts, T-shirts and stickers. A <a href="https://brave.ua/en/">campaign website</a> offers downloadable logos and photographs and asks visitors to share the message of bravery and donate to Ukraine. </p>
<p>Some billboards feature images of courageous, ordinary Ukrainians and soldiers. Other billboards are emblazoned with bold slogans in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag. They urge audiences to “Be brave like Ukraine” and say that “Bravery lives forever.” </p>
<p>Inside Ukraine, the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-propaganda-war/">campaign’s messages appear</a> on everything from juice bottles to 500 billboards in 21 cities. The campaign is also running in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and 17 countries in Europe, including Germany, Spain and Sweden, according to <a href="https://adage.com/creativity/work/campaign-celebrating-ukrainian-bravery-around-world/2418766">AdAge</a>.</p>
<p>This massive communication effort is happening at <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-propaganda-war/">a minimal cost</a> to Ukraine. Banda is donating its services, and the Ukrainian government pays only for production costs. Media space, including high-profile billboards in Times Square and other major cities, was <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90765014/pavel-vrzheshch-banda-most-creative-people-2022">donated by</a> several global media companies. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People's hands are shown holding phones and cameras, pointed at three blue billboards that say in yellow 'be brave like Ukraine" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478414/original/file-20220809-12-8xw795.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukraine’s bravery media campaign is displayed on billboards in Times Square, New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://brave.ua/en/">Be Brave Like Ukraine campaign/Banda</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Branding as a weapon of war</h2>
<p>Banda’s co-founder, Pavel Vrzheshch, <a href="https://adage.com/creativity/work/campaign-celebrating-ukrainian-bravery-around-world/2418766">has said</a> the campaign aims to strengthen Ukrainians’ morale as they continue to fight Russia. But the focus on bravery is also about Ukraine’s future, he says. </p>
<p>“The whole world admires the Ukrainian bravery now, we must consolidate this notion and have it represent Ukraine forever,” Vrzheshch <a href="https://adage.com/creativity/work/campaign-celebrating-ukrainian-bravery-around-world/2418766">said in a media</a> interview. </p>
<p>At its core, the campaign attempts to transform an intangible value, like bravery, into an asset that can be converted into real military, economic and moral support. In other words, it aims to cultivate positive public opinion in the West that will support further aid to Ukraine in order to help fight the war.</p>
<p>This way of using brand communication in a war is unprecedented in at least three ways. </p>
<p>First, rather than relying only on diplomatic channels to seek international support, Ukraine is harnessing popular media and social media networks to speak directly to citizens of other countries. It gives ordinary people around the world a chance to show solidarity <a href="https://u24.gov.ua">through donations</a> or by sharing campaign messages and pressuring their government to support Ukraine.</p>
<p>A formal brand campaign also allows Ukraine to extend the visibility of the war beyond news coverage. As the conflict continues, it is likely to fade from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/12/ukraine-fears-western-support-will-fade-as-media-loses-interest-in-the-war">news headlines in international media</a>. But billboards, social media posts and the strategic use of entertainment publications like Vogue can keep it in front of audiences.</p>
<p>Finally, the best brand messages connect with consumers by inviting them to imagine better versions of themselves. Famous ad slogans like Nike’s “Just do it” or Apple’s “Think different” illustrate this idea. So does Ukraine’s call to people around the world to “Be brave like Ukraine.”</p>
<p>It is notoriously difficult to measure the effectiveness of nation branding campaigns, as <a href="https://placebrandobserver.com/how-to-measure-country-brands-models-tools-approaches/">brand consultants</a> point out. The process is costly and time-consuming, and results are often contested.</p>
<p>The direct impact of the Brave Campaign may not be clear for months to come. It is also not clear how long its message will continue to resonate. But it is clear that Ukraine is transforming nation branding into a new propaganda weapon, adapted for the age of consumer culture and constant media stimulation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadia Kaneva does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ukraine is partnering with an advertising company to produce an innovative nation branding campaign during a war. The campaign could have influence beyond how Ukraine and Russia conduct this war.Nadia Kaneva, Associate Professor, University of DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1640682022-07-04T20:00:56Z2022-07-04T20:00:56ZKarl Marx: his philosophy explained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467396/original/file-20220607-18-6fmszz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In 1845, Karl Marx <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm">declared</a>: “philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”.</p>
<p>Change it he did. </p>
<p>Political movements representing masses of new industrial workers, many inspired by his thought, reshaped the world in the 19th and 20th centuries through revolution and reform. His work influenced unions, labour parties and social democratic parties, and helped spark revolution via communist parties in Europe and beyond.</p>
<p>Around the world, “Marxist” governments were formed, who claimed to be committed to his principles, and who upheld dogmatic versions of his thought as part of their official doctrine. </p>
<p>Marx’s thought was groundbreaking. It came to stimulate arguments in every major language, in philosophy, history, politics and economics. It even helped to found the discipline of sociology.</p>
<p>Although his influence in the social sciences and humanities is not what it once was, his work continues to help theorists make sense of the complex social structures that shape our lives.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-ideas-of-foucault-99758">Explainer: the ideas of Foucault</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Economics</h2>
<p>Marx was writing when mid-Victorian capitalism was at its Dickensian worst, analysing how the new industrialism was causing radical social upheaval and severe urban poverty. Of his many writings, perhaps the most well known and influential are the rather large Capital Volume 1 (1867) and the very small Communist Manifesto (1848), penned with his collaborator Frederick Engels.</p>
<p>On economics alone, he made important observations that influenced our understanding of the role of boom/bust cycles, the link between market competition and rapid technological advances, and the tendency of markets towards concentration and monopolies.</p>
<p>Marx also made prescient observations regarding what we now call “<a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/351/35192/capital/9780140445688.html">globalisation</a>”. He emphasised “the newly created connections […] of the world market” and the important role of international trade.</p>
<p>At the time, property owners held the vast majority of wealth, and their wealth rapidly accumulated through the creation of factories.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470403/original/file-20220622-51080-ukl5qx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The labour of the workers – the property-less masses – was bought and sold like any other commodity. The workers toiled for starvation wages, as “appendages of the machine[s]”, in Marx’s famous phrase. By holding them in this position, the owners grew ever richer, siphoning off the value created by this labour. </p>
<p>This would inevitably lead to militant international political organisation in response. </p>
<p>It is from this we get Marx’s <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/">famous call</a> in 1848, the year of Europe-wide revolutions: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>workers of the world unite!</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Society</h2>
<p>To do philosophy properly, Marx thought, we have to form theories that capture the concrete details of real people’s lives – to make theory fully grounded in practice.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=861&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467394/original/file-20220607-15946-3pn9ey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Karl Marx photographed in 1875.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His primary interest wasn’t simply capitalism. It was human existence and our potential. </p>
<p>His enduring philosophical contribution is an insightful, historically grounded perspective on human beings and industrial society.</p>
<p>Marx observed capitalism wasn’t only an economic system by which we produced food, clothing and shelter; it was also bound up with a system of social relations. </p>
<p>Work structured people’s lives and opportunities in different ways depending on their role in the production process: most people were either part of the “owning class” or “working class”. The interests of these classes were fundamentally opposed, which led inevitably to conflict between them.</p>
<p>On the basis of this, Marx predicted the inevitable collapse of capitalism leading to equally inevitable working-class revolutions. However, he seriously underestimated capitalism’s adaptability. In particular, the way that parliamentary democracy and the welfare state could moderate the excesses and instabilities of the economic system.</p>
<h2>Innovation</h2>
<p>Marx argued social change is driven by the tension created within an existing social order through technological and organisational innovations in production.</p>
<p>Technology-driven changes in production make new social forms possible, such that old social forms and classes become outmoded and displaced by new ones. Once, the dominant class were the land owning lords. But the new industrial system produced a new dominant class: the capitalists.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467391/original/file-20220607-24-iagsaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster of Marx at a May Day march in Sydney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Miller/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Against the philosophical trend to view human beings as simply organic machines, Marx saw us as a creative and productive type of being. Humanity uses these capacities to transform the natural world. However, in doing this we also, throughout history, transform ourselves in the process. This makes human life distinct from that of other animals. </p>
<h2>History</h2>
<p>The conditions under which people live deeply shape the way they see and understand the world. As Marx put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>men make their own history [but] they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Marx viewed human history as process of people progressively overcoming impediments to self-understanding and freedom. These impediments can be mental, material and institutional. He believed philosophy could offer ways we might realise our human potential in the world.</p>
<p>Theories, he said, were not just about “interpreting the world”, but “changing it”.</p>
<p>Individuals and groups are situated in social contexts inherited from the past which limit what they can do – but these social contexts afford us certain possibilities. </p>
<p>The present political situation that confronts us and the scope for actions we might take to improve it, is the result of our being situated in our unique place and time in history. </p>
<p>This approach has influenced thinkers across traditions and continents to better understand the complexities of the social and political world, and to think more concretely about prospects for change.</p>
<p>On the basis of his historical approach, Marx argued inequality is not a natural fact; it is socially created. He sought to show how economic systems such as feudalism or capitalism – despite being hugely complex historical developments – were ultimately our own creations.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-nietzsche-nihilism-and-reasons-to-be-cheerful-130378">Explainer: Nietzsche, nihilism and reasons to be cheerful</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Alienation and freedom</h2>
<p>By seeing the economic system and what it produces as objective and independent of humanity, this system comes to dominate us. When systematic exploitation is viewed as a product of the “natural order”, humans are, from a philosophical perspective, “enslaved” by their own creation. </p>
<p>What we have produced comes to be viewed as alien to us. Marx called this process “alienation”.</p>
<p>Despite having intrinsic creative capacities, most of humanity experience themselves as stifled by the conditions in which they work and live. They are alienated a) in the production process (“what” is produced and “how”); b) from others (with whom they constantly compete); and c) from their own creative potential.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467680/original/file-20220608-20-2g1hpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers in an Indonesian clothing factory in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Marx, human beings intrinsically strive toward freedom, and we are not really free unless we control our own destiny. </p>
<p>Marx believed a rational social order could realise our human capacities as individuals as well as collectively, overcoming political and economic inequalities. </p>
<p>Writing in a period before workers could even vote (as voting was restricted to landowning males) Marx argued “the full and free development of every individual” – along with meaningful participation in the decisions that shaped their lives – would be realised through the creation of a “classless society [of] the free and equal”.</p>
<h2>Ideology</h2>
<p>Marx’s concept of ideology introduced an innovative way to critique how dominant beliefs and practices – commonly taken to be for the good of all – actually reflect the interests and reinforce the power of the “ruling” class. </p>
<p>For Marx, beliefs in philosophy, culture and economics often function to rationalise unfair advantages and privileges as “natural” when, in fact, the amount of change we see in history shows they are not.</p>
<p>He was not saying this is a conspiracy of the ruling class, where those in the dominant class believe things simply because they reinforce the present power structure. </p>
<p>Rather, it is because people are raised and learn how to think within a given social order. Through this, the views that seem eminently rational rather conveniently tend to uphold the distribution of power and wealth as they are.</p>
<p>Marx had always aspired to be a philosopher, but was unable to pursue it as a profession because his views were judged too radical for a university post in his native Prussia. Instead, he earned his living as a crusading journalist.</p>
<p>By any account, Marx was a giant of modern thought. </p>
<p>His influence was so far reaching that people are often unaware just how much his ideas have shaped their own thinking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Pollard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Marx’s thought was groundbreaking. His primary interest wasn’t simply capitalism. It was human existence and our potential.Christopher Pollard, Tutor in Philosophy and Sociology, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1854992022-06-24T01:36:37Z2022-06-24T01:36:37ZHow Operation Phoenix exported violence from Australia to Yugoslavia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470698/original/file-20220624-60671-h24970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ill-fated nineteen: the only known photo of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood members who went to Yugoslavia in 1972.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datoteka:Bugojanska_skupina_skupina_feniks72.jpg#mw-jump-to-license">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago this month, in June 1972, Yugoslavia’s Territorial Defence Force was desperately trying to contain and kill militants associated with the Australian-based <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Revolutionary_Brotherhood">Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood</a>. </p>
<p>For the second time in ten years, foreign-based nationalists were attempting to incite a revolt against the country’s Communist Party government, headed by president Josip Tito. Their aim was to create a Croatia independent of the rest of Yugoslavia. </p>
<p>Believing that now was the time for a revolutionary uprising of Croatians, and having learnt from the smaller, unsuccessful attack in 1963, the militants devised a daring plan to strike deep into the heart of Yugoslavia. The fallout of the operation, which was launched under the code name <a href="https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=747209">Operation Phoenix</a>, would echo through the governments of both Yugoslavia and Australia. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cinema-opens-a-dialogue-about-coming-to-terms-with-balkans-past-69714">Cinema opens a dialogue about coming to terms with Balkans' past</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Militants move in to Bosnia</h2>
<p>Nineteen men, many of them Croatian Australians and some of them from West Germany, had been preparing for months. Inspired by Fidel Castro’s tactics during Cuba’s revolution and observing the recent suppression of the “Croatian Spring” movement, they believed they could rally the Croatians of Yugoslavia against Tito. </p>
<p>On the night of the June 20 1972, the militants managed to evade detection by the authorities and enter Yugoslavia from Austria. They hijacked a truck and drove to Bugojno, a central Bosnian town with a large ethnically Croatian population. There, they attempted to recruit locals to their cause. </p>
<p>Receiving little sympathy from the resident population – some of whom reported them to the authorities – the militants began to attack Yugoslavian outposts and distribute propaganda. Aware that they had no way to escape the country, their aim was to give maximum visibility to their cause.</p>
<p>Alarmed and embarrassed by these developments, Yugoslavia mobilised thousands of men and placed central Bosnia under quarantine. Tito was personally involved in the operation. After a brutal firefight on June 25 in which most of the attackers were killed, the surviving members of the incursion fled into the hills. Only after four more weeks were all 19 men accounted for. Fifteen militants and 13 Yugoslavians had been killed in this bloody event. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Sebian-language letter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mobilisation: a report to President Tito on the Yugoslav response to the incident.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Petar Dragišić</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The four captives faced trial in Yugoslavia. Three were executed and the final member, the youngest, was sentenced to life imprisonment. He would later be released, and ultimately died fighting during the breakup of Yugoslavia almost 20 years later. </p>
<h2>Reverberations</h2>
<p>For Australia, the incident was unique. An organisation founded and headquartered in this country had attacked Yugoslavia in a stunning way. </p>
<p>Now, new research, and the increasingly accessibility of primary source documents in the former Yugoslavia, has highlighted the considerable impact of the attack in both countries. </p>
<p>The militants didn’t spark an uprising of Croatians against Yugoslavia, and the Yugoslavian government was no doubt reassured by their failure to attract local support. But the psychological impact of an attack deep into the country was considerable. Tito was enraged. His security detail feared that diaspora Croatian nationalists had the will and sophistication to attempt to assassinate the president. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tito and Brezhnev" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vigilant: President Tito with his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev, in November 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%91%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B2_%D0%B8_%D0%A2%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%B2_%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B5_19_%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%8F%D0%B1%D1%80%D1%8F_1973_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The prestige of Yugoslavia’s security services was eroded. To ensure an event like this was never repeated, Tito launched a “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tito-hunts-down-his-opponents/a-17970349">special war</a>” on émigré nationalists – a decade-long international campaign of targeted assassinations. Yugoslavia also increased pressure on countries like Australia to repress Croatian nationalist and extremist organisations in their territory. </p>
<p>In Australia, the attack wasn’t reported for weeks. When initial reports arrived from Yugoslavia, they were openly challenged by the Australian government, with Attorney-General Ivor Greenwood <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/101992948?searchTerm=%E2%80%9Cfactual%20basis%20for%20such%20allegations%E2%80%9D%20greenwood">declaring</a> he was “not aware of any factual basis for such allegations”. Distrustful of its Yugoslavian counterpart, the Australian government needed to be convinced that the improbable events had actually occurred. </p>
<p>When the full scale of the incident became known in the lead-up to Australia’s 1972 election, the government was caught flat-footed and deeply embarrassed. Police findings that at least some members of the group had been recruited and trained in Australia were widely reported in the press. </p>
<p>Australian security forces, more interested in countering communism than investigating machinations within migrant communities, didn’t have files on many of the Australian-based members of the brotherhood. They were unable to give William McMahon’s Coalition government a clear picture of what had happened and how such a plot came to be organised by Australians. </p>
<hr>
<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-were-australias-best-prime-ministers-we-asked-the-experts-165302">Who were Australia's best prime ministers? We asked the experts</a>
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</em>
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<p>The Commonwealth Police quickly launched a <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102000844?searchTerm=Commonwealth%20Police%20raid%20croatian">series of raids</a> and reported to the government that approximately 300 Croatian Australians were of “particular concern”. The issue of how best to respond to these developments bedevilled a government that was reluctant to alienate migrant communities but didn’t want to give the impression such plotting was acceptable.</p>
<p>The Labor Party, long concerned about the risk posed by violent Croatian nationalism in Australia, seized on the incursion as evidence the McMahon government was unable to grapple with locally based terrorism. They would move aggressively against Croatian nationalist organisations when they came to power later that year, though this led to damaging typecasting of ordinary Croatian Australians and sometimes serious <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/held-captive-by-cold-war-politics/">impacts</a> on innocent individuals. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Australian prime minister William McMahon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flatfooted: Australian prime minister William McMahon, shown here in 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McMahon_1971.jpg">US National Archives/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coupled with the September 1972 <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102004643?searchTerm=Yugoslav%20Tourist%20Agency">bombings</a> of the Yugoslav General Trade and Tourist Agency in Sydney, the June attack in Yugoslavia weakened McMahon’s law and order record going into the 1972 election. Indeed, Labor MPs like Jim Cairns warned the government that any attempt to campaign on law and order had been undermined by their failure to tackle this issue. </p>
<p>While it is impossible to judge the role of a single issue in any campaign, and while neither party made the issue of Croatians central to their election pitch, the incursion had resonance. </p>
<p>Writing later, journalists Laurie Oakes and David Solomon <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1924193">observed</a> that the government’s inability to deal with Croatian nationalist violence meant “Labor could appear stronger on national security than the Coalition”. The narrowness of McMahon’s election loss made every weakness more important.</p>
<p>A forgotten episode of Australian national security history, the 1972 attack is more than just a footnote. The incident had real consequences for the political trajectories of both Australia and Yugoslavia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Mitchell Lee receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Stipend Scholarship.</span></em></p>A largely forgotten incursion behind the Iron Curtain had reverberations in both countriesAlexander Mitchell Lee, PhD Candidate, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1820282022-05-10T12:05:05Z2022-05-10T12:05:05ZRussia is being made a pariah state – just like it and the Soviet Union were for most of the last 105 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462088/original/file-20220509-15-nixqyr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C19%2C6437%2C4224&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smoke rises on April 15, 2022, above 400 new graves in the town of Severodonetsk, Ukraine. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bulldozer-excaves-new-graves-in-yalovshchina-cemetery-for-news-photo/1240267875?adppopup=true">Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. and its European allies recently said they planned to take a new approach in their relations with Russia: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/16/us-nato-isolate-russia/">They would isolate and contain the country</a> in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine. Doing so would keep Russia out of international organizations, restrict imports and exports, and prevent further military moves, ultimately <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/briefing/russia-ukraine-war-us.html">weakening it</a>. </p>
<p>This treatment of Russia is nothing new for Western countries. While Russia is more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/09/ukraine-russia-iron-curtain/">economically and politically isolated</a> now than it has ever been, it is no stranger to isolation and containment.</p>
<p>Looking back over the last 100 years, it’s clear that the period <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/06/20/thirty-years-of-u.s.-policy-toward-russia-can-vicious-circle-be-broken-pub-79323">between 1992 and 2001, when Russia embraced the West and was largely embraced by it</a>, is the exception. For most of the <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-russia/#:%7E:text=U.S.%2DRUSSIA%20RELATIONS,following%20the%201917%20Bolshevik%20Revolution.">20th century and the early 21st century</a>, Russia has been a fearsome power that the West has wanted to hobble. </p>
<p>The West is now returning to a strategy that was effective before in containing Russia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five men in dark suits standing and talking in front of a flag display." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462094/original/file-20220509-17-2wk01a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">NATO leaders during a break at a NATO summit on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the alliance’s headquarters, on March 24, 2022, in Brussels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/italys-prime-minister-mario-draghi-nato-secretary-general-news-photo/1239466016?adppopup=true">Photo by Henry Nicholls - Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Russia stands alone – mostly</h2>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution">Russian Revolution in 1917</a>, Russia, as part of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/The-Russian-Revolution">newly formed Soviet Union</a>, found itself isolated from other nations. A revolutionary state that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution">espoused an ideology of worldwide revolution</a> threatened other powers.</p>
<p>That isolation took many forms. The country was not a signatory to the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/paris-peace">Treaty of Versailles</a>, the most important of several treaties that ended World War I. It was not a member of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/league">League of Nations</a>, the organization founded after World War I to resolve disputes between nations, until 1934. Russia had no <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/trade-pacts-with-the-west/">foreign trade agreements before 1921</a> and was <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1924-12-15/britains-recognition-soviet-government">not fully recognized in diplomacy by non-Russian powers before 1924</a>.</p>
<p>As a revolutionary pariah state that saw itself <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390701343490">encircled by enemies</a>, the Soviet Union hardened its view of the world. While the so-called <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/big-three">Grand Alliance of the U.S., Great Britain and Soviet Union</a> found common cause against Nazi Germany during World War II, the relationship was never comfortable. <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/yalta-conference-foreshadows-the-cold-war">It crumbled swiftly after the war</a> as the three powers focused on their respective spheres of vital interest and expressed differing views for the postwar world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in long, dark coats during the winter in front of the ruins of a multi-story building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462083/original/file-20220509-5956-isojmw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People crowd the street in front of the ruins of the Nikitsky Gate to the Imperial Palace in Petrograd (St. Petersburg and Leningrad) shortly after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in February 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SovietRevolution1917/fa6a4781bb9141738999e75c8711608d/photo?Query=Russian%20Revolution&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=794&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Containment’s beginnings</h2>
<p>After World War II, the U.S. wanted to ensure that democratic governments were established in Europe. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-communism-took-over-eastern-europe-after-world-war-ii/263938/">The Soviets were intent on establishing communist regimes</a> in Eastern Europe. </p>
<p>To frustrate Russia’s ambitions, what was called “the doctrine of containment” became postwar policy. It was most famously articulated by U.S. diplomat George Kennan in <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct">a cable in 1946, later published in Foreign Affairs in 1947</a>. </p>
<p>“It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies,” wrote Kennan. </p>
<p>“The United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate … to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Kennan wrote that the West would not find a way to live with the Soviet Union and that Soviet power could not be controlled by logic or reason, but could be influenced by the logic of force. He argued that political and economic means could be used to contain Soviet power and potentially force it to retreat in its ambitions.</p>
<h2>Iron Curtain entrenches</h2>
<p>Kennan’s calls for containment of the Soviet Union were followed by concrete actions by the U.S. government. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/truman-doctrine">Truman Doctrine</a> in 1947 advocated for the U.S. to help rebuild shattered postwar economies in Europe so communism would not become an attractive proposition. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/marshall-plan">Marshall Plan</a> implemented this approach and extended economic assistance to postwar Europe. It helped reinvigorate European industry and laid a pathway for European integration. Marshall Plan assistance, which ultimately totaled US$155 billion in current dollars, was offered to all European countries, including the Soviet Union. But the Soviets rejected the offer and forced Eastern European countries under their influence to do the same. </p>
<p>The Soviets answered these Western moves with the <a href="https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1947-2/cominform-and-the-soviet-bloc/">creation in 1947 of the Cominform</a>, a Soviet-led bloc of Communist parties aimed at defeating what it saw as U.S.-led Western imperialism and cementing party rule in member countries. Further moves came in 1949 with the creation of the economic organization of Communist countries <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095626480">known as COMECON</a>. </p>
<p>The result was the clear division of Europe into two economic and political spheres, isolating the Soviet bloc from the West. The “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Iron-Curtain">Iron Curtain</a>” – the ideological, military and economic divide between democratic Western countries and the Soviet Union, along with the communist countries in its orbit – had solidified.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in academic robe and cap introduces a chubby man wearing a bow tie as he approaches a lectern." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462090/original/file-20220509-11-gy45no.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Harry Truman, right, introduces Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, before Churchill’s speech on March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, in which he coined the phrase ‘Iron Curtain.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-harry-truman-introduces-winston-churchill-who-a-news-photo/515578388?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Containment’s militarization</h2>
<p>Concern grew among the Western countries about potential military confrontation with the Soviet Union. That led in 1949 to the formation of the <a href="https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html">North Atlantic Treaty Organization</a>, or NATO, as part of the move to contain the Soviet Union militarily.</p>
<p>Following NATO’s creation, in 1950 the U.S. State Department <a href="https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116191.pdf">proposed a new policy</a> – <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68#:%7E:text=National%20Security%20Council%20Paper%20NSC,Staff%20on%20April%207%2C%201950.">a top-secret report referred to as “NSC-68”</a> – that emphasized the use of military force over diplomacy in dealing with Soviet power. As the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68#:%7E:text=National%20Security%20Council%20Paper%20NSC,Staff%20on%20April%207%2C%201950.">State Department Historian writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Its authors argued that one of the most pressing threats confronting the United States was the ‘hostile design’ of the Soviet Union. The authors concluded that the Soviet threat would soon be greatly augmented by the addition of more weapons, including nuclear weapons, to the Soviet arsenal. They argued that the best course of action was to respond in kind with a massive build-up of the U.S. military and its weaponry.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More aggressive than Kennan’s ideas of containment, <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/NSC68">this policy called for a massive buildup of U.S. conventional and nuclear arsenals</a>. Soviet ambition would thus be restricted because its leaders would not likely seek a hot war with the West. </p>
<p>President Harry Truman signed off on NSC-68 in September 1950. It remained U.S. policy until the end of the Cold War in 1991. </p>
<h2>Containment’s effects</h2>
<p>By the early 1950s, The Soviet Union was isolated and contained by economic, political and military means in Europe. Yet Soviet leaders <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/how-communism-took-over-eastern-europe-after-world-war-ii/263938/">sought to consolidate and maintain power over Eastern Europe</a>, using force at times. The Soviets also exercised cautious ambitions in other regions, provoking Western fears of a spread of Soviet power to the Far East, the developing world and Latin America. </p>
<p>The U.S. and its partners worked to isolate Soviet power beyond Europe with the creation of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/seato">Southeast Asia Treaty Organization</a> in 1954 and through attempts to support noncommunist regimes in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and the developing world during the ensuing decades.</p>
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<p>The effects of the isolation of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era became clear as Soviet and Eastern Bloc economies <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/russia-and-its-former-satellites-lag-behind-rest-of-europe-on-per-capita-gdp">lagged behind those of the West</a>, particularly in the production of consumer goods, as early as the 1950s. The <a href="https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-19-1-a-life-under-communism-in-eastern-europe">democratic freedoms of the West were largely absent</a>. </p>
<p>Isolation also led to the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intn.html">Soviet closed state</a>, with propaganda, the stifling of dissent, censorship, a state-controlled media, suspicion of foreigners and a society that was intended to be impervious to foreign influence. </p>
<p>Additionally, the West’s militarized containment of the Soviet Union drove <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control">a costly arms race</a>, both nuclear and conventional, which had damaging effects on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3131928">Soviet economy by the late 1970s</a>. That contributed to other societal challenges to Soviet power, such as rising nationalism and disillusionment with the Soviet project, which became clear <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB298/Document%204.pdf">in the 1980s as Soviet society faced food and consumer good shortages</a><a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/97th%20Congress/Soviet%20Economy%20in%20the%201980s%20-%20Problems%20and%20Prospects%20Part%20I%20%281185%29.pdf">and dissent rose</a>. All served as contributing factors to the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/collapse-soviet-union#:%7E:text=Gorbachev's%20decision%20to%20loosen%20the,Communist%20rule%20throughout%20Eastern%20Europe.">fall of the Soviet Union</a> in 1991.</p>
<p>In 2022, the West is responding to Russian aggression as it has done so before – through implementing policies of isolation and containment to curb and weaken Russian power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair Kocho-Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The West’s new approach to Russia – bar it from international organizations, restrict international trade, prevent further military moves – looks just like how it treated Russia in the 20th century.Alastair Kocho-Williams, Professor of History, Clarkson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1822062022-05-09T12:04:41Z2022-05-09T12:04:41ZDisney hasn’t found itself in this much trouble since 1941<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461854/original/file-20220508-52494-lp8lmp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C7%2C2354%2C1799&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee claiming that communists once 'took over' his studio.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cartoonist-walt-disney-shown-as-he-told-the-house-news-photo/514686200?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The family-friendly, controversy-averse Walt Disney Co. has walked into the buzz saw of the American culture wars, version 2022. </p>
<p>In April, officials at Disney objected to a Florida <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/28/1089221657/dont-say-gay-florida-desantis">law prohibiting instruction in sexual orientation and gender identity</a> in kindergarten through third grade. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded by signing <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/desantis-signs-bill-ending-disney-s-self-governing-status-in-florida-138345029985">a bill revoking Disney’s self-governing status</a>, a unique arrangement in which the company operated like an independent fiefdom within the state.</p>
<p>Traditionally, the custodians of one of Hollywood’s most reliable cash machines <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/57290/walt-disney-by-neal-gabler/">have been careful to sidestep political minefields</a> that might remind customers of a realm outside the Magic Kingdom. Better to wallow with Scrooge McDuck in <a href="https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Money_Bin">the Money Bin</a> than be caught in the crosshairs of Fox News chyrons.</p>
<p>Only once before has the Disney brand gotten so entangled in a public relations briar patch – in 1941, when the original iteration of the company was confronted by an internal revolt that pitted the founding visionary against his pen-and-ink scriveners.</p>
<p>The characters in the showdown were as colorful as any drawn on the studio’s animation cels: union activists, gangsters, communists and anti-communists, and, not least, Walt Disney himself, who, dropping his avuncular persona, played a long game of political hardball and slow-burn payback. </p>
<h2>Workers grumble as Disney’s star soars</h2>
<p>Even then, Walt Disney inspired a special kind of awe around Hollywood. </p>
<p>Billy Wilkerson, editor of The Hollywood Reporter, declared Disney “the only real genius in this business” in the Dec. 17, 1937, issue of the periodical. </p>
<p>Disney was hailed as the father of the first sound cartoon, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019422/">Steamboat Willie</a>” (1928); the first Technicolor cartoon, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022899/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Flowers and Trees</a>” (1932); and the first feature-length cartoon, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs</a>” (1937). </p>
<p>“Snow White” marked the beginning of the extraordinary creative streak – “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032910/">Pinocchio</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032455/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Fantasia</a>” in 1940, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033563/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3">Dumbo</a>” the following year and 1942’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034492/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Bambi</a>” – on which the Disney mythos would be built forever. </p>
<p>In 1940, Disney plowed the profits from “Snow White” into a state-of-the-art animation studio in Burbank, California, where the comfort of his workers, so he said, was a high priority.</p>
<p>“One of Walt Disney’s greatest wishes has always been that his employees could work in ideal surroundings,” read an advertisement in the Oct. 10, 1940, issue of The Hollywood Reporter. “The dean of animated cartoons realizes that a happy personnel turns out the best work.”</p>
<p>But even by the standards of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Class-Struggle-Hollywood-1930-1950-Unionists-ebook/dp/B00GINVARU/ref=sr_1_8?crid=3DB58E1VWGE3L&keywords=hollywood+labor&qid=1651785731&s=books&sprefix=hollywood+labor%2Cstripbooks%2C162&sr=1-8ink">exploitative Hollywood shop floors</a>, Disney animators were overworked and underpaid. Forced to hunch over a drawing board for 10 hours a day, they had no desire to whistle while they worked. Instead, they wanted a strong union to negotiate on their behalf. Disney didn’t want any of it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman holds cartoon drawing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461852/original/file-20220508-51585-9e46m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=649&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Disney animator works on cells from the film ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/disney-animator-works-on-cells-from-the-film-snow-white-news-photo/164231016?adppopup=true">Earl Theisen/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The animators opted to be represented by the confrontational <a href="https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8cn760m/entire_text/">Screen Cartoonists Guild</a> rather than the pro-management “company union,” the American Society of Screen Cartoonists. </p>
<p>“Disney cartoonists make less than house painters,” <a href="https://archive.org/details/motionpictureher144unse/page/n473/mode/2up?view=theater&q=link">charged the guild</a>. “The girls are the lowest paid in the entire cartoon field. They earn from $16 to $20 a week, with very few earning as high as $22.50.” The guild demanded a 40-hour, five-day work week, severance pay, paid vacation and a minimum wage scale ranging from $18 a week for apprentices to $250 for cartoon directors.</p>
<p>To go nose to nose with Disney in the negotiations, the Screen Cartoonists Guild chose <a href="https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/in-his-own-words-herb-sorrell-and-the-1941-disney-strike/">Herbert Sorrell</a> of the Motion Picture Painters, Local 644, a longtime thorn in the side of studio management. </p>
<p>Sorrell was a broad-shouldered union man of the old-school variety. A former heavyweight prize fighter, he was not afraid to mix it up on the picket line with cops and strikebreakers. </p>
<p>Sorrell’s footwork in the boxing ring – not to mention the brass knuckles he carried – came in handy. In the 1930s, labor organizing in Hollywood could be more hazardous than stunt work. Many studio heads had already <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/black-friday-hollywood-in-1945-1235021178/">cut sweetheart deals</a> with the mobbed-up trade unions, notably the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, run by a Chicago-schooled gangster named <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1955/11/05/archives/blast-in-truck-kills-willie-bioff-once-hollywood-racket-leader.html">Willie Bioff</a>.</p>
<h2>Animators put down their pens</h2>
<p>On May 28, 1941, the Screen Cartoonists Guild called a strike, and hundreds of animators <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjX7S35mn0&t=45s">walked out on Disney</a>. </p>
<p>Brazenly violating Disney’s copyright, the strikers repurposed Disney characters into pro-union spokesmen and paraded outside theaters playing Disney films. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/53/Disney_Strike.jpg/300px-Disney_Strike.jpg">There are no strings on me!</a>” exclaimed Pinocchio in one placard. The slogans were as clever as the visuals: “<a href="https://babbittblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/strike-01.jpg?w=350&h=376">Snow White and 700 Dwarfs</a>,” “<a href="https://www.awn.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline/public/image/attached/2586-sito01disneystrikers.jpg?itok=POnit4ST">3 Years College, 2 Years Art School, 5 Years Animation Equals 1 Hamburger Stand</a>” and “<a href="https://www.historynet.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Disney-Strike-2000x577.jpg">Are We Mice or Men?</a>”</p>
<p>Disney was enraged. <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380787808/">He claimed</a> that Sorrell had threatened to turn the Burbank studio into a “dust bowl” unless he caved to the strikers’ demands. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man with glasses poses holding a cigarette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461853/original/file-20220508-52494-7ym7p3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Disney preferred to negotiate with Willie Bioff, a mob-connected union leader who was cozy with management.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-is-a-copy-photo-of-willie-bioff-famous-chicago-mobster-news-photo/515024512?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Behind the scenes, Disney offered the SCG a deal brokered by the gangster Willie Bioff. </p>
<p>Disney then placed ads in the trade press saying he had made generous offers to “your leaders” – that would be Bioff – and had acceded to most of the strikers’ demands.</p>
<p>“I am positively convinced that Communistic agitation, leadership and activities have brought about this strike, and has persuaded you to reject this fair and equitable settlement,” <a href="https://cronkitehhh.jmc.asu.edu/blog/2012/12/disney-and-the-1941-animators-strike/">Disney said</a>.</p>
<p>“Dear Walt,” <a href="https://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=4085&start=54">Sorrell retorted</a>, “Willie Bioff is not our leader. Present your terms to OUR elected leaders, so that they may be presented to us and there should be no difficulty in quickly settling our differences.”</p>
<p>Eventually, the feds, in the person of the National Labor Relations Board, intervened. On July 29, after 62 days of rage on both sides, Disney settled – through clenched teeth. Disney and the Screen Cartoonists Guild squabbled intermittently until the end of the year, but Sorrell had won on the big points: better wages, job security and a “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/closed-shop">closed shop</a>,” which requires union membership as a condition for employment.</p>
<h2>Disney’s revenge</h2>
<p>To Disney, though, this wasn’t just a dispute between management and labor. It was oedipal rebellion against the father in his own house.</p>
<p>In October 1947, Disney got his chance for revenge when <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=460vAAAAMAAJ&q=disney#v=onepage&q=disney&f=false">he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities</a>, which was investigating Hollywood for alleged communist subversion in motion picture content and within the ranks of organized labor. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man sits on steps drawing for two kids." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461315/original/file-20220504-12-lrc2mt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While waiting to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Walt Disney draws for the daughter of the chief counsel for the committee and the son of a committee investigator.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/while-waiting-to-testify-before-the-house-unamerican-news-photo/514905244?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Disney was called as a friendly witness, and friendly he was: While waiting to testify, <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/381119990/">he good-naturedly sketched pictures</a> of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse for the children of the committee members.</p>
<p>At the witness table, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=460vAAAAMAAJ&q=disney#v=onepage&q=disney&f=false">Disney emphasized</a> that while today “everyone in my studio is 100% American,” the percentage had not always been so high. He named the name that had stuck in his craw since 1941. “A delegation of my boys, my artists, came to me and told me that Mr. Herbert Sorrell … was trying to take them over,” Disney said. Sorrell and his cohorts, charged Disney, “are communists,” though admittedly, “no one has any way of proving those things.” </p>
<p>Proven or not, Disney’s allegations were career-killers. Many of the activist cartoonists of 1941 fell victim to Hollywood’s notorious <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2018/june/blacklist-qa-tom-doherty.html">blacklist era</a>, when hundreds of workers on both sides of the screen were rendered persona non grata at the studios for their political affinities.</p>
<p>As a result, the Screen Cartoonists Guild softened its tone. In 1952, <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813124070/drawing-the-line/">it voted to become affiliated</a> with the firmly anti-communist International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees – Bioff’s former outfit. As for Sorrell, he was hounded by charges of communist sympathies and ultimately barred from a leadership position in his own union.</p>
<p>Disney, you know about. After venting before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he navigated the company back to the 50-yard line of America’s culture wars. There the entertainment conglomerate stayed – until recently, when it wandered off Disney World into the swampland of Florida politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Doherty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The custodians of one of Hollywood’s most reliable cash machines have been careful to sidestep political minefields that might remind customers of a realm outside the Magic Kingdom.Thomas Doherty, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1799792022-04-04T12:31:06Z2022-04-04T12:31:06ZLessons in realpolitik from Nixon and Kissinger: Ideals go only so far in ending conflict in places like Ukraine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455555/original/file-20220331-19-22c29.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C25%2C3319%2C2201&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of Ukraine, like these demonstrators in Boston on Feb. 27, 2022, are likely to be disappointed by any peace deal. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-hold-signs-during-a-peaceful-stand-for-ukraine-news-photo/1238820038?adppopup=true">Vincent Ricci/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. has limited options in confronting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. </p>
<p>The Biden administration’s strategy is moderated by what’s known as “realpolitik.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/19/us/politics/us-ukraine-russia-escalation.html">The U.S. is not willing to risk a larger war with Russia</a> by any level of involvement that might bring Washington and its allies into direct military conflict with Moscow, risking an escalation into nuclear war. </p>
<p>In a recent column for The Washington Post, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/13/biden-us-ukraine-lessons-cold-war/">journalist Matt Bai lamented</a> that President Joe Biden “will be forced to take a realpolitik view that most of us will find hard to stomach.”</p>
<p>“No matter how unjust Ukraine’s fate, he must continue to reject any measure that threatens to put U.S. troops in direct conflict with the Russians,” Bai wrote.</p>
<p>This means that, even as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/un-general-assembly-set-censure-russia-over-ukraine-invasion-2022-03-02/">much of the world decries the savagery of the Russian invasion</a> and the intense suffering of Ukrainians, President Volodymyr <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-wants-a-no-fly-zone-what-does-this-mean-and-would-one-make-any-sense-in-this-war-179282">Zelenskyy’s call for efforts like a NATO-enforced no-fly zone</a> will go unanswered by both Washington and NATO allies. </p>
<p>And, as a <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1006509">scholar and practitioner of U.S. foreign policy</a>, I believe any agreement produced by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/29/world/ukraine-russia-war">peace talks between Ukraine and Russia</a> will reflect the U.S. realpolitik approach and likely disappoint Ukraine’s supporters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two smiling older men toast each other as they stand in the front of a banquet table and are watched by a crowd of people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455558/original/file-20220331-24-2ku1im.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Richard Nixon, left, and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast each other at the end of Nixon’s first day of his visit to the People’s Republic of China on Feb. 21, 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NixonInChina/f3231bc8c0294725b49c435dc7ca68cd/photo?Query=Nixon%20China&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=342&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Bob Daugherty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The costs of realpolitik</h2>
<p>What exactly does realpolitik mean? </p>
<p><a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/realpolitik-its-many-distortions-14678?utm_source=pocket_mylist">Realpolitik</a> refers to the philosophy of states’ pursuing foreign policies that further their national interest, even at the expense of human rights, or compromising intrinsic liberal values in pursuit of their interests abroad. </p>
<p>In the U.S., you can’t discuss realpolitik without referring to the <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/nixon/foreign-affairs">foreign policy of U.S. President Richard Nixon</a>, guided by his national security adviser and later secretary of state, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/kissingers-realpolitik-and-american-exceptionalism">Henry Kissinger</a>. The two men, in the most audacious example of their practice of realpolitik, set in motion events that led to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/23/1082250128/nixons-trip-to-china-laid-the-groundwork-for-normalizing-u-s-china-relations">normalized relations with China</a>. President Nixon put aside his virulent anti-communist leanings in favor of an approach he hoped would ultimately strengthen the U.S. </p>
<p>Yet Kissinger <a href="https://www.henryakissinger.com/interviews/henry-kissinger-interview-with-der-spiegel/">dismisses the notion</a> that he is or was a proponent of realpolitik. </p>
<p>“Let me say a word about realpolitik, just for clarification. I regularly get accused of conducting realpolitik. I don’t think I have ever used that term. It is a way by which critics want to label me,” <a href="https://www.henryakissinger.com/interviews/henry-kissinger-interview-with-der-spiegel/">Kissinger told German news magazine Der Spiegel in 2009</a>.</p>
<p>Yet later in the interview, Kissinger sounds like the realpolitik practitioner he is <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2015/12/the-kissinger-effect-on-realpolitik/">frequently characterized as</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The idealists are presumed to be the noble people, and the power-oriented people are the ones that cause all the world’s trouble. But I believe more suffering has been caused by prophets than by statesmen. For me, a sensible definition of realpolitik is to say there are objective circumstances without which foreign policy cannot be conducted. To try to deal with the fate of nations without looking at the circumstances with which they have to deal is escapism. The art of good foreign policy is to understand and to take into consideration the values of a society, to realize them at the outer limit of the possible.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In essence, Kissinger is not arguing for a foreign policy devoid of morality. Instead, he believes in recognizing the limits of furthering the national interest if policy is circumscribed by idealism. </p>
<p>To contain communism meant engaging in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27552537">foreign policies that contradicted “traditional” American values</a> of respect for human rights and self-determination. To Nixon and Kissinger, winning the Vietnam War, or at least ending it in a way the American public would find acceptable, meant taking unsavory actions, including <a href="https://gsp.yale.edu/sites/default/files/walrus_cambodiabombing_oct06.pdf">carpet-bombing Cambodia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in suits talking to each other in a large, elegant room with high ceilings, standing next to a window." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=780&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455574/original/file-20220331-21-zqkijv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Richard Nixon, left, with U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger in 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-president-richard-nixon-with-united-states-news-photo/74932537?adppopup=true">Frederic Lewis/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Containing communism also translated into support for the dictator and human rights violator <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82588&page=1">Augusto Pinochet in Chile</a> during Kissinger’s tenure. Post-Kissinger, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/7_fascist_regimes_america_enthusiastically_supported_partner/">realpolitik meant support for right-wing anti-communist dictators in Central America</a> during <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/reagan/foreign-affairs">the Reagan administration</a>.</p>
<h2>Realpolitik without guns</h2>
<p>Realpolitik isn’t only about the justification and conduct of wars. Nixon and Kissinger also sought to exploit the emerging rift between the Soviet Union and China. They made the decision <a href="https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v17/d3">to try to improve relations</a> with China, which had been almost nonexistent since the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev">Chinese Communists defeated the U.S.-backed nationalists in 1949</a>. Their efforts culminated in <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/nixons-1972-visit-china-50">Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972</a>. </p>
<p>The staunch anti-communist in Richard Nixon <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/20/nixon-china-mao-visit-1972/">believed improved relations with China</a> served the national interest, further driving a wedge between Beijing and Moscow and setting the course for a safer world, in perhaps a generation. </p>
<p>To set this in motion meant backtracking from <a href="https://watergate.info/1960/08/21/nixon-the-meaning-of-communism-to-americans.html">his – and many Americans’ – anti-communist leanings</a>. Ideology took a back seat to pursuit of the national interest.</p>
<p>The U.S. <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-on-americas-place-in-the-world/">views itself</a> as a proponent of universal human rights, democracy and the rule of law, self-determination and sovereignty of nations. But not at the expense of its own global position. At times, domestic politics can influence adventurism abroad and how strongly American values are incorporated into foreign policy. There are times when Americans are angry and want to see an adversary punished even if it means <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/171653/americans-continue-oppose-closing-guantanamo-bay.aspx">violating the nation’s ideals</a>.</p>
<p>Public sentiment after the 9/11 attacks, for example, gave President George W. Bush wide latitude in foreign policy. But as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan stretched on, the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now">American public’s appetite</a> for the wars and overseas policing diminished greatly, forcing Presidents <a href="https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-obama-at-war/">Obama</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1028607717/strange-bedfellows-indeed-the-trump-biden-consensus-on-afghanistan">Trump</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/04/14/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-way-forward-in-afghanistan/">Biden</a> to bring the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end without a clear victory, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/political-instability-iraq">leaving behind</a> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/not-our-tragedy-the-taliban-are-coming-back-and-america-is-still-leaving">unstable nations</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men shake hands as they meet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455581/original/file-20220331-15-yrmxd4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chilean dictator President Augusto Pinochet, left, greets Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the president’s office on June 8, 1976.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chilean-president-augusto-pinochet-greets-secretary-of-news-photo/515114332?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the Ukraine war ends</h2>
<p>What will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/opinion/ukraine-war-end-putin.html">the end</a> of the Ukraine war look like?</p>
<p>Realpolitik in American foreign policy means restraint in Ukraine. A direct confrontation with Russia is not in the U.S. interest, and <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/01/a-tale-of-two-crises-why-us-strategy-in-ukraine-has-few-implications-for-taiwan/">Ukraine’s strategic value is limited</a>. An <a href="https://theconversation.com/international-law-says-putins-war-against-ukraine-is-illegal-does-that-matter-177438">illegitimate war</a> in which hundreds if not thousands of <a href="https://theconversation.com/civilians-are-being-killed-in-ukraine-so-why-is-investigating-war-crimes-so-difficult-178155">Ukrainian civilians have already been killed</a> won’t move the U.S. away from this position, because the risks of escalation are too high. And nuclear escalation would be likely, because <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402390.2020.1818070">the U.S. is far superior to Russia in terms of nonnuclear forces</a>. </p>
<p>Without the U.S. and NATO engaging militarily in the war, Ukraine will likely be forced to <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/30/ukraine-is-ready-for-painful-concessions/">make concessions</a> and accept at least some terms that Russia wants in any peace agreement. That may include a Ukraine with different territorial borders and a security relationship with Russia that it does not entirely like.</p>
<p>This may be hard for some – both inside and outside Ukraine – to stomach. But however much realpolitik is attributed to a Kissinger-dominated era of history, it <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807847732/thank-god-theyre-on-our-side/">has been</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/06/14/137171315/for-u-s-dealing-with-dictators-is-not-unusual">still is present</a> in contemporary U.S. foreign policy. </p>
<p>From tacit <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/">support of the murderous dictator Saddam Hussein</a> in the Iran-Iraq War – in which <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/">the U.S. knew</a> of Saddam’s use of chemical weapons – to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131884473/Afghanistan-After-The-Soviet-Withdrawal">letting Afghanistan fall into a political vacuum</a> after the Soviet pullout in 1989 – leading to the rise of the Taliban – to Washington’s close relationship with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-repressive-saudi-arabia-remains-a-us-ally-156281">brutal human rights abuser Saudi Arabia</a>, the U.S. frequently chooses to put its own interest ahead of its professed values. </p>
<p>[<em>There’s plenty of opinion out there. We supply facts and analysis, based in research.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-no-opinion">Get The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Fields receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MacArthur Foundation. </span></em></p>The US frequently chooses to put its own interest ahead of its professed values. That approach to foreign policy is called ‘realpolitik’ and it may lead to an unsatisfying peace deal in Ukraine.Jeffrey Fields, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1797132022-03-28T15:19:20Z2022-03-28T15:19:20ZUkrainian Heroes Street: the ideology behind street name changes<p>Across eastern Europe, the addresses of Russian embassies are being changed as a form of protest against <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-people-are-fighting-and-dying-for-vladimir-putins-flawed-version-of-history-178925">the war in Ukraine</a>. In the Latvian capital, Riga, the section of Antonijas Street where the Russian embassy is located is set to be renamed <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/latvian-capital-rename-russian-embassy-address-independent-ukraine-street-2022-03-04/">Ukrainian Independence Street</a>. And in Vilnius, Lithuania, the previously unnamed road on which the embassy sits (the address for which used to refer to the nearest main street) has now become <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/Lu4eSu4anesnp68L6">Ukrainos Didvyrių g.</a>: Ukrainian Heroes Street. </p>
<p>Historical events are inscribed into many urban landscapes. As part of an international multidisciplinary <a href="http://mill.wa.amu.edu.pl/">research project</a>, we have studied the changing patterns of street renaming in East Germany and Poland over the past 100 years. </p>
<p>We documented all street-name changes in three cities and towns of various sizes in both countries: Leipzig, Annaberg-Buchholz and Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany; Poznań, Zbąszyń and Słubice in Poland. We found that when a new regime comes to power, it usually <a href="https://theconversation.com/nairobis-street-names-reveal-what-those-in-power-want-to-remember-or-forget-141378">asserts its symbolic control</a> over public space by renaming streets that referred to the values and heroes of its predecessors.</p>
<h2>Commemorative street naming</h2>
<p>Names in medieval town centres are generally quite literal. They reflect the typical occupation of their erstwhile medieval inhabitants or the salient characteristics of the street itself. In Frankfurt (Oder), we have Badergasse (“physicians’ alley”) and Zur Schmiedegasse (“at the smiths’ alley”). In Poznań Ul. Dominikańska is located by the Dominican church while ul. Wielka, which translates as “large street”, was one of the broadest streets leading from the city gates to the main market square.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, commemorative street naming took precedence. The many instances of Frederick’s Street in former Prussian territories refer to one of the seven kings of Prussia called Frederick or Frederick William. Beyond monarchs and military commanders, acclaimed writers, painters, composers, scientists and industrialists also took their place on street signs. </p>
<p>Together in the cities that we looked at, these names form a nationalist cultural canon which is almost exclusively German/Polish and male. Featuring them prominently as street names effectively encodes – or inscribes – that cultural tradition into the cityscape.</p>
<p>When the borders in Europe were redrawn after the first world war, Poznań changed its affiliation from Prussia to Poland. The German cultural pantheon (with names such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) soon disappeared from the city’s street signs, to be replaced with a corresponding Polish canon (including the poet Maria Konopnicka). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A set of red and blue street name signs seen against a cloudy sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454397/original/file-20220325-15-hgj618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454397/original/file-20220325-15-hgj618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454397/original/file-20220325-15-hgj618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454397/original/file-20220325-15-hgj618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454397/original/file-20220325-15-hgj618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454397/original/file-20220325-15-hgj618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454397/original/file-20220325-15-hgj618.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Polish national treasure Maria Konopnicka has streets named after her in many Polish cities. Here in Kielce.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/plate-inscription-name-marii-konopnickiej-street-1966852216">Gold Picture | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This cultural shift also saw the language of the urban landscape change from German to Polish. Topological, artisan and landmark street names may not have changed in meaning but they were translated. Bahnhofstrasse became ulica Dworcowa (meaning “railway station street” in both cases).</p>
<h2>Constructing cultural identity</h2>
<p>Our research reveals that cities and towns also use street naming to express and construct their local cultural identities. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4670121">Leipzig is famous</a> for its publishing industry and thus features many streets named after local publishers and the writers and musicians whose works were put in print there. Poznań commemorates local 19th-century social activism, Zbąszyń pays tribute to local bagpipe folk music, while Annaberg-Buchholz honours its mining traditions.</p>
<p>Successive socio-political regimes have imposed their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926521992149">ideological vision</a> on the streetscape by commemorating their leaders or their values. Despite the fact that the Nazis had issued instructions explicitly discouraging the naming of streets after living personalities, in Nazi-occupied Poznań, Heinrich Himmler and Herrmann Göring were nonetheless commemorated on Heinrichplatz and in Hermannstadt, while Leipzig featured a street named after Hitler (Adolf-Hitler-Straße) from March 1933 until May 1945. </p>
<p>In the post-war period, streets in the German Democratic Republic and in the People’s Republic of Poland went through a process of denazification. The names that replaced those Nazi references served, simultaneously, to encode communist symbolism. In August 1945, Leipzig’s Adolf-Hitler-Straße thus became Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, commemorating the co-founder of the Communist Party of Germany.</p>
<p>The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 brought about the reunification of Germany and the establishment of a democratic government in Poland. This political shift can once again be read in the way the streets of German and Polish cities were de-communised. Many reverted to earlier names. </p>
<p>In 1947 the communist administration in Poznań renamed ul. Bukowska (an orientational name, meaning “the street leading to the town of Buk”) to commemorate the communist general Karol Świerczewski. In 1990, that name was reverted back to ul. Bukowska. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photograph of a man on a ladder replacing a street sign on the side of a building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454396/original/file-20220325-15-c4zerh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454396/original/file-20220325-15-c4zerh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454396/original/file-20220325-15-c4zerh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454396/original/file-20220325-15-c4zerh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454396/original/file-20220325-15-c4zerh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454396/original/file-20220325-15-c4zerh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454396/original/file-20220325-15-c4zerh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adolf Hitler street sign is taken down in the German city of Trier, during post-war denazification.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_streets_named_after_Adolf_Hitler#/media/File:Denazification-street.jpg">Public domain | Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since 1989, street renaming in Germany has often aimed to redress the wrongs of the past with the commemoration of journalists fighting for the free press, minorities oppressed during the Third Reich or indeed resistance fighters. This is the case in Frankfurt (Oder) with the ringroad commemorating Ernst Heilborn, the Jewish writer and journalist persecuted by the Nazis. </p>
<h2>Representation matters</h2>
<p>Street names also continue to serve as battlefields for representation, when local authorities use their power to influence who is remembered. Poznań added the names of 28 women to its streetscape in 2018, to celebrate 100 years of suffrage. </p>
<p>In Berlin, the Afrikanisches Viertel (African quarter) in the north-western district of Wedding is replacing the names of colonialists with those of African liberation fighters. Nachtigallplatz, for instance, is named after Gustav Nachtigal, who led the colonisation of Cameroon and Togo. It is set to <a href="https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/widerstand-gegen-manga-bell-platz-wie-in-berlin-um-einen-100.html">become Bell-Platz</a>, to commemorate the Cameroonian royal family, including King Rudolf Duala Magna Bell, who fought against colonial suppression and was executed by the Germans in 1914.</p>
<p>When street names are ideologically motivated, their renaming is met with initial enthusiasm, but over time opposition ensues. Residents send letters to local newspapers and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2020-0150">petitions to the council</a>, for instance. Conversely, when the history of the person commemorated in the street name is less known, people tend to overlook it altogether. Few remembered or cared who Julian Leński (a leader of Communist Party of Poland, who died in 1939) was, so that a street named after him in Poznań was not changed until 2017. </p>
<p>Many claim that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.21016.buc">the administrative burden</a> involved in renaming – updating documents, visit cards, headed letter paper, expensive street name plates – does not always warrant the effort of symbolically “repainting” the streetscape. What we have termed “ideological fatigue” can result in new housing developments opting for neutral names. To wit, Annaberg-Buchholz has opted for minerals. And the Polish town of Słubice has gone for fruits. </p>
<p>Our project shows that during turbulent times, street names are changed, turning history into the sedimented social geography of our cities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Seraphim Alvanides was a visiting professor (German Research Foundation Mercator Fellow) at the University Duisburg-Essen during the period 01/06/2018–31/05/2019.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isabelle Buchstaller received funding from the DFG as part of the "Beethoven" Polish-German Funding Initiative (DFG, 2902/3-1, Project title: "Memory and ideology in the linguistic landscape. Commemorative (re)naming in East Germany and Poland 1916-2016").</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malgorzata Fabiszak receives funding from the Polish National Science Centre, grant no 2016/23/G/HS2/00827. </span></em></p>The Russian embassy in Vilnius now sits on Ukrainian Heroes’ Street (Ukrainos Didvyrių g.), a direct response to the war.Seraphim Alvanides, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture and the Built Environment, Northumbria University, NewcastleIsabelle Buchstaller, Professor of English Linguistics, University of Duisburg-EssenMalgorzata Fabiszak, Professor, Department of Cognitive Linguistics, Adam Mickiewicz UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1790752022-03-18T12:33:53Z2022-03-18T12:33:53ZThe West thinks that Russians, suffering from sanctions, will end up abandoning Putin – but history indicates they won’t<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452769/original/file-20220317-15-1mg5o5u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C18%2C6011%2C3992&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The McDonald's flagship restaurant at Pushkinskaya Square – the first one of the chain, opened in the USSR on Jan. 31, 1990 – in central Moscow on March 13, 2022, McDonald's last day in Russia. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-walk-past-the-mcdonalds-flagship-restaurant-at-news-photo/1239158561?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While Russia is leading a merciless war in Ukraine that has resulted in millions of Ukrainian refugees’ fleeing to neighboring countries, Western brands are on the exodus from Russia.</p>
<p>The closure of over 800 <a href="https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/en-us/our-stories/article/ourstories.Russia-update.html">McDonald’s restaurants</a> particularly stands out: <a href="https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-company/who-we-are/our-history.html">McDonald’s was the first American restaurant to open</a> in Russia, in 1990. Its arrival symbolized Russia’s new pro-Western era.</p>
<p>That era is rapidly ending, giving way to a quickly spreading revival of Russian nationalism. Such nationalism is a direct outcome of the country’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2022/03/05/russians-fleeing-as-nation-faces-economic-collapse/?sh=47b6d3b27089">economic suffocation</a> through sanctions and the West’s <a href="https://www.news9live.com/world/cancel-culture-has-hit-russia-free-world-has-united-to-penalise-putin-158065">broad rejection</a> of Russia and its war with Ukraine.</p>
<p>The West is punishing Russia, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60647543">hoping that the dire economic crisis provoked by sanctions</a> will put an end to the bloody war against Ukraine, an independent state that was once an integral part of the Soviet Union.</p>
<p>We are international <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tIvuUnwAAAAJ&hl=en">critical cultural scholars</a> with extensive experience in various geopolitical contexts – the U.S., European Union and post-Soviet countries. We believe that those who think that sanctions will turn Russia and Russians around and end the war know very little about the country, its history and its people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of starving peasant women and children, many of them with scarves wrapped around their heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452618/original/file-20220316-8425-a53a0f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian suffering: Starving peasants in the Volga region during the 1921-1922 famine in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and Civil War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/famine-in-the-volga-valley-russia-c1921-c1922-the-aftermath-news-photo/804474260?adppopup=true">Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Russians’ perpetual suffering</h2>
<p>Russians are used to turmoil and instability. They endured <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intn.html">cruel social experiments</a> during the 20th century, and the early 21st, performed upon them by their own political leadership. Except for the rare example of Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian leadership during that period <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/14/history-it-happens-why-russian-democracy-failed/">was never democratic</a>.</p>
<p>The country, whose participation in World War I was <a href="https://www.history.com/news/world-war-i-russian-revolution">led by a weak czar, emerged impoverished</a> from that conflict. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution">czar’s rule was brutally overturned</a> by a Bolshevik uprising that ushered in Soviet rule for decades. The crafting of the Soviet state entailed exiling <a href="https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1640&context=oa_theses">millions of its own people to the gulag camps</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/joseph-stalin-national-hero-or-cold-blooded-murderer/zhv747h">cold-blooded execution</a> of many of them during <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/preserving-the-memory-stalins-repressions-one-person-time">Stalin’s mass repressions from 1917 to 1956</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1917-2/economic-apparatus/economic-apparatus-texts/abolition-of-private-real-estate/">Private property was abolished</a> in 1929, and political leaders <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/jun/09/soviet-propaganda-art-posters-in-pictures">commanded absolute, selfless obedience to the Soviet state</a>. World War II required <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2002-9.html">painful sacrifice from every citizen, including children</a>.</p>
<p>After the war was over, the depleted USSR constructed the metaphorical <a href="https://russianlife.com/stories/online/postww2/">Iron Curtain, preventing its citizens from traveling to and communicating with the West</a>. The Soviet state’s attempts to expand its Communist influence <a href="https://russianlife.com/stories/online/postww2/">led to the Cold War</a>. During that period, failed agricultural reforms gave rise to <a href="https://medium.com/chewingthefat/food-in-the-ussr-mythology-and-reality-in-khrushchevs-russia-4f4ace494b1e">food rationing</a>. The painful disintegration of the USSR in 1990 brought <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/political-consequences-economic-crisis-russia">economic turmoil to the newly formed Russia</a>, along with <a href="https://theconversation.com/russias-post-soviet-transition-offers-warning-on-hidden-unemployment-of-coronavirus-furlough-schemes-140126">unemployment</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/09/russia.nickpatonwalsh">high suicide rates</a>.</p>
<p>What does this catalog of woes teach us? To us, it suggests the Russians cannot be scared by a sanctions-induced absence of goods. <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/designers/a39353711/chanel-louis-vuitton-prada-luxury-brands-suspend-business-russia/">High-end fashion labels</a>, iPhones, <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2015/08/11/8-facts-to-celebrate-100-starbucks-in-russia-a48880">fancy coffee</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/automobiles/wheels/in-russia-a-western-taste-for-high-end-auto-sales.html">foreign cars</a> became a part of Russian life over the past 20 years – but the Russians have had them for far too short a time to be unable to imagine life without them. In any case, most of the luxury businesses – McDonald’s is considered a luxury business in Russia – operated in Moscow and its neighboring regions, whereas the overwhelming majority of the Russians <a href="https://mapdoor.com/ru/zara">did not get to see them in their towns</a>.</p>
<h2>United in their struggle</h2>
<p>Historically, any political and economic struggle united Russia and its people, especially in the face of a common enemy. The enemy was traditionally represented by the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/18/west-has-forgotten-matters-enemy-putin-doesnt-win/">West</a>.</p>
<p>World War II and the Cold War united the nation around <a href="https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2017/11/03/role-war-sacrifice-russias-mythic-identity/ideas/essay/">the idea of self-sacrifice as central to the Soviet identity</a>. The identity – a kind of Soviet exceptionalism – consisted of a morally superior nation that values the ephemeral <a href="https://www.culture.ru/poems/26150/zagadochnaya-russkaya-dusha">Soul</a> – the mysterious Russian “душа” – more than the perishable Western flesh.</p>
<p>Soviet identity encompassed a great variety of ethnicities, including but not limited to only Russia. Although the capital of the USSR was Moscow, and the official language of the Soviet Union was Russian, the USSR consisted of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01436598908420199">14 additional republics, and united more than 100 nationalities</a>. The claimed unity of the nations is debatable, as the sameness was often imposed by forced assimilation – Russification, or spread of the Russian language and culture – and <a href="https://d-nb.info/1029976155/34">Sovietization, or the state monopoly on everything, combined with groupthink</a>. So “Soviet” refers to anyone who lived in the USSR, including Ukrainians, Russians, Georgians, Belorussians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Estonians.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Five boys marching and holding flags." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452782/original/file-20220317-15-jmbqyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">World War II and the Cold War united the USSR around the idea of self-sacrifice as central to Soviet identity; here, propaganda showing Soviet boys ready to take their part as armed volunteers in any Cold War conflict.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/propaganda-illustration-showing-soviet-boys-ready-to-take-news-photo/1288531819?adppopup=true">Universal History Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The USSR used pompous discourse that glorified Soviet sameness and the moral sacrifice of its people as a trigger for patriotism and loyalty to the motherland, whose core was Russia. Among popular slogans and sayings were: <a href="http://chtooznachaet.ru/frazy/ranshe-dumaj-o-rodine-a-potom-o-sebe">“Раньше думай о Родине а потом о себе”/“First, think about your motherland, and only then, think about yourself”</a>; “<a href="https://kakoy-smysl.ru/meaning-proverbs/znachenie-i-smysl-poslovitsy-ya-poslednyaya-bukva-v-alfavite/">Я - последняя буква алфавита”/“‘I’ is the last letter of the alphabet</a>,” which it is in Cyrillic; and “<a href="http://www.ruthenia.ru/sovlit/j/3195.html">Я русский бы выучил только за то, что им разговаривал Ленин!”/“I would learn Russian alone because Lenin spoke it!”</a> </p>
<p>Eventually, “Russia” and “the USSR” were understood and used interchangeably, at home and abroad. Therefore, for many Russians, especially those born and raised in the USSR, watching Ukraine embrace the West means letting part of Russia’s history go with it.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p>
<h2>The wounded bear</h2>
<p>We believe the West’s sanction strategy could backfire.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/08/russia-public-opinion-ukraine-invasion/">Not all Russians support the war in Ukraine</a> and the government that dragged them into it. But <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/02/1083694848/sanctions-russia-ukraine-economy-war">all Russians are suffering from the sanctions</a> and the crisis. Their common suffering is a dangerous thing: It is all too familiar; <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/03/how-russians-see-russia/">it makes them angry, and some are eager to strike back</a>. </p>
<p>The possibility of this stems from the Russian national mindset, crafted in Soviet times and now affecting even generations that grew up in post-Soviet Russia. Western freedoms are only partially appealing, since historically, <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-world/2021">Russians never had them</a> – not <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/putins-russia-wages-crackdown-free-speech-political-dissent-rcna3137">freedom of speech</a>, <a href="https://en.zois-berlin.de/publications/russia-and-the-right-of-peoples-to-self-determination">self-determination</a>, <a href="https://www.uscirf.gov/countries/russia">religion</a> nor <a href="https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_putin_clamps_down_on_freedom_of_travel335">unrestricted travel</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, the Russian people are patient, stoic and <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/its-russia-my-son/oclc/920589445">often irrationally devoted to their cruel motherland</a>, whose autocratic leader started a war.</p>
<p>Where does that leave the Russians? From our perspective, in a deep limbo: The country-aggressor that is currently bombing and destroying Ukraine is also their beloved homeland, and by now the only place in the world that accepts them as they are.</p>
<p>Having their country be an international pariah is not new for Russians, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/what-can-we-expect-from-russia-at-cop26/">from its climate policies</a> to <a href="https://www.dailyfreeman.com/2020/12/26/steve-schallenkamp-is-russia-the-pariah-of-the-sports-world/">its sports</a> and its foreign affairs, including <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/01/putins-ukraine-mistakes-have-made-him-pariah-260303.html">its widely condemned annexation of Crimea</a>.</p>
<p>But today’s situation is extreme. We believe the chances that Russians will turn toward their government – as they feel rejected by the global community – <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/379925-election-shows-russians-embrace-putin-reject-the-west%5D">are high</a>.</p>
<p>That will likely lead to the intensifying of Putin’s autocratic regime under the guise of restoring the country’s industry and economy in the face of Western rejection.</p>
<p>Russia will have a common enemy again, and because thinking – and acting – disobediently in Russia typically has drastic consequences, dissent will not be heard. Putin opponents, among them <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/05/ten-years-putin-press-kremlin-grip-russia-media-tightens">Anna Politkovskaya</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/21/russia-responsible-for-alexander-litvinenko-death-european-court-rules">Alexander Litvinenko</a>, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/boris-nemtsov-the-man-who-dared-to-criticize-vladimir-putin/a-52561085">Boris Nemtsov</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/15/alexei-navalny-faces-10-more-years-prison-focus-ukraine-crisis-russia">Alexei Navalny</a> and many others – some murdered, some imprisoned – serve as cautionary tales of punishment for political dissent in Russia.</p>
<p>Encouraging Russians to protest their autocratic government, <a href="https://twitter.com/USEmbRuPress/status/1352959290353410055?s=20&t=eZ7OxpUWp2KRGNzJ9QErSQ">as the West has done</a>, while cutting ties with them, thus becomes an ideological oxymoron. It is punishing the people for what that government does while suffocating them economically. </p>
<p>In Siberia, safety rules are a matter of life and death. One of them is about always leaving the bear a route to escape. The bear is particularly aggressive when wounded, cornered and protective of its cubs. The wounded bear, representing the Russian nation, is not an exception.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Those placing their faith in sanctions to turn Russians against the war in Ukraine know little about the country, its history and people, write two scholars who have studied Russian culture.Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager, Associate Professor of Critical Cultural & International Studies, Colorado State UniversityEvgeniya Pyatovskaya, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1789762022-03-17T12:12:12Z2022-03-17T12:12:12ZUkraine’s foreign fighters have little in common with those who signed up to fight in the Spanish Civil War<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452241/original/file-20220315-27-f7uz43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4037%2C3088&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman hugs a Polish volunteer before he crosses the border to go and fight against Russian forces.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PolandUkraineInvasion/c6f8da8c6dc449bf83ef64b729a3ec6e/photo?Query=volunteer%20fight%20ukraine&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=now-30d&totalCount=57&currentItemNo=41">AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When an aging <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUkRP_9o8Hg&t=3s">Abe Osheroff recalled</a> why, as a 21-year-old kid from Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood, he had volunteered to join the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, he framed it as a personal, ethical decision.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Some of my friends were already going over. Some of them had been killed and wounded. … Then I began to see pictures of what was going on. … Bombardments, civilians getting plastered all over the place. … I knew that if I didn’t go, I’d be ashamed all my life.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today, his words seem to echo those of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/ukraine-russia-war-foreign-fighters-volunteers">individuals from around the world</a> who are willing to risk their lives to help Ukraine in its desperate struggle against the Russian invasion.</p>
<p>“Sitting by and doing nothing? I had to do that when Afghanistan fell apart, and it weighed heavily on me. I had to act,” a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/us/american-veterans-volunteer-ukraine-russia.html">U.S. veteran confessed</a> to a New York Times reporter before he headed east. </p>
<p>Encouraged by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/ukraine-russia-war-foreign-fighters-volunteers">volunteers are signing up</a> – according to some reports, by the thousands – to join the ranks of what <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/11/ukraine-russia-war-foreign-fighters-volunteers">The Guardian has called</a> “the most significant international brigade since the Spanish civil war.”</p>
<p>The Guardian is not the first to draw an analogy between 1930s Spain and today’s Ukraine. But tempting as it is to compare the two, doing so does more to obscure than to explain either of the conflicts.</p>
<p>In some instances, I see the analogy relying on distorted frames inherited from the Cold War; in others, it seems to be driven by blatant opportunism. </p>
<h2>Surface-level similarities</h2>
<p>The Spanish Civil War <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/scw/simpletimeline2/">broke out in the summer of 1936</a> after an attempted military coup, led by Gen. Francisco Franco, failed to overthrow the government of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10618-9_6">the Popular Front</a>, a liberal-progressive coalition that had been democratically elected to lead the Second Spanish Republic. But while the Republican government managed to hold on to Spain’s largest cities and about half of the national territory, the right-wing rebels took control of the other half. They proceeded to wage a bloody war.</p>
<p>Republican forces faced a well-equipped rebel army that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/260240">had supplied with soldiers, planes, weapons and tanks</a>. By contrast, other democracies left the republic to fend for itself, with more than two dozen countries signing a <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822037844834&view=1up&seq=1">nonintervention pact</a>. The republic was also shut out of the international arms market, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/177867/the-spanish-civil-war-by-hugh-thomas/">leaving only the Soviet Union and Mexico as sources of military support</a>. After the republic’s defeat in 1939, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/17/spain">a repressive military dictatorship</a> headed by Franco ruled Spain for the next 36 years.</p>
<p>Osheroff was one of roughly <a href="https://alba-valb.org/who-we-are/faqs/">2,800 U.S. volunteers</a> – <a href="https://www.history.com/news/spanish-civil-war-foreign-nationals-volunteer">and more than 35,000 from around the world</a> – who flocked to Spain to help fight fascism. These foreign fighters were largely recruited through communist organizations, although many were not communists. What they had in common was their <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/international-brigades-9781408853986/">staunch opposition to everything fascism stood for</a>. Upon arriving in Spain, the volunteers became fully integrated members of the Spanish Republican Army, where most of them served in one of five International Brigades. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Group of men in suits pose on a ship." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452238/original/file-20220315-15-qh453h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452238/original/file-20220315-15-qh453h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452238/original/file-20220315-15-qh453h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452238/original/file-20220315-15-qh453h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452238/original/file-20220315-15-qh453h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452238/original/file-20220315-15-qh453h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452238/original/file-20220315-15-qh453h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American contingent of the International Brigade that fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, on their way home from Spain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/veterans-of-the-abraham-lincoln-brigade-the-american-news-photo/3435272?adppopup=true">Keystone/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LngKgQEAAAAJ&hl=en">As a scholar of the Spanish Civil War and its legacy</a>, I can see why many people would be tempted to read the war in Ukraine through a Spanish lens. </p>
<p>Much as in civil war Spain, Ukrainian cities are being bombarded and civilians are dying, while those attacked are putting up an unexpectedly persistent defense against a much stronger enemy. As in Spain, the war <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/14/opinion/ukraine-refugees-europe.html">is producing seemingly unending streams of refugees</a>. And, as in Spain, the war seems to reflect an unusual degree of moral clarity – “It’s a conflict that has a clear good and bad side,” one U.S. veteran <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/us/american-veterans-volunteer-ukraine-russia.html">told The New York Times</a> – while the fate of the world seems to hang in the balance.</p>
<h2>Motivated by class solidarity</h2>
<p>Yet historical analogies are never perfect, rarely useful and often misleading. For one thing, the geopolitics of today has little connection to the 1930s. In 1936 there was no NATO, only a weak and ineffectual <a href="https://www.ungeneva.org/en/history/league-of-nations">League of Nations</a>, and no threat of nuclear war.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the volunteers who joined the International Brigades in 1936 from Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia have little in common with the combat veterans and Ukrainian nationalists who are signing up today, and whose politics, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/03/1084113728/a-closer-look-at-the-volunteers-who-are-signing-up-to-fight-the-russians?t=1647154946037">as NPR has reported</a>, are vague and may skew to the right or far right. While the Russian invasion clearly violates Ukrainian sovereignty, those defending Ukraine represent ideologies that cover the entire political spectrum. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man in military fatigues walks through parking lot." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452259/original/file-20220315-17-1xlqrt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452259/original/file-20220315-17-1xlqrt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452259/original/file-20220315-17-1xlqrt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452259/original/file-20220315-17-1xlqrt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452259/original/file-20220315-17-1xlqrt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452259/original/file-20220315-17-1xlqrt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452259/original/file-20220315-17-1xlqrt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A British combat volunteer heads toward the Ukrainian border from Poland to fight the invading Russian army in March 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-combat-volunteer-who-did-not-want-to-be-identified-news-photo/1382495979?adppopup=true">Sean Gallup/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By contrast, very few of the volunteers in Spain had military training or experience. And if Osheroff knew that the Spanish war was also his to fight, it was, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUkRP_9o8Hg&t=3s">as he explained</a>, because he’d grown up steeped in progressive politics.</p>
<p>He and his fellow brigaders were driven by the internationalist solidarity that’s the bedrock of the labor movement, but they also knew they had a personal stake in the struggle. <a href="https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/american-jews-spanish-civil-war/about-the-project/">Many of them were Jews and immigrants</a>; they belonged to a generation that, as the historian <a href="https://literaryreview.co.uk/they-went-to-spain">Helen Graham has written</a>, was resisting “attempts, by fascism, either alone or in coalition, violently to impose ethnic and class hierarchies both old and new across the whole continent.” </p>
<p>The analogy falters in other ways as well. The half-million Spanish refugees who fled Spain in the last months of the war were not welcomed with open arms. The French government put them in <a href="https://archive.org/details/surveygraphic28survrich/page/678/mode/2up">concentration camps</a>, while most countries around the world closed their borders, with some notable exceptions, such as Mexico. During Germany’s occupation of France, as many as 15,000 of the Spanish Republicans interned in France were deported to <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487521318/spaniards-in-mauthausen/">Nazi camps</a>, where some 5,000 died.</p>
<p>And yet in 1945, as Europe was liberated from fascism, the Allies decided to leave Franco alone and let him retain his grip on Spain. By the 1950s, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jan-04-op-meisler4-story.html">Franco had become a U.S. ally in the Cold War</a>. </p>
<h2>Distorting history</h2>
<p>That same Cold War reshaped how the story of the Spanish Civil War was told. In the U.S., it became common to paint the anti-fascist volunteers as communist dupes. In 1984, U.S. President <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/10/world/remark-by-reagan-on-lincoln-brigade-prompts-ire-in-spain.html">Ronald Reagan famously said</a> the Americans in Spain had joined the wrong side. </p>
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<p>Prompted by the Ukraine war, some of these Cold War clichés are slipping back into mainstream journalism. The New York Times reporter covering Zelenskyy’s international fighters, for instance, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/us/american-veterans-volunteer-ukraine-russia.html">wrote that the adventure of the Americans in Spain</a>, “often romanticized as a valiant prelude to the fight against the Nazis,” had “ended badly.” In reality, many of those who fought fascism in Spain went on to join the Allied armies in World War II. Others <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/international-brigades-9781408853986/">formed the backbone</a> of the resistance movements in Nazi- and fascist-occupied territories.</p>
<p>Invoking the Spanish Civil War to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a clash between fascism and anti-fascism, moreover, plays into the Kremlin’s narrative, which seeks to portray the “special military operation” as an effort to “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083677765/putin-denazify-ukraine-russia-history">denazify</a>” its western neighbor. </p>
<p>Ironically, one of the most opportunistic invocations of the historical analogy occurred in Spain itself. In early March 2022, when Spain’s progressive governing coalition decided to send arms to the Zelenskyy government, the country’s largest newspaper, <a href="https://elpais.com/opinion/2022-03-03/la-legitimidad-de-las-armas.html">El País, ran a supportive editorial</a> stating: “Today, the weapons to defend Ukraine are the weapons that the Second Spanish Republic did not have 80 years ago.” In fact, the controversial decision to provide arms was dividing the governing coalition; the paper’s heartstrings-tugging invocation of the embattled Spanish Republic was an obvious attempt to end the debate.</p>
<p>If there is one way in which the Ukrainian analogy with Spain applies, it is the tragic way the country is being used as a proxy <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/3/5/22955197/russia-ukraine-war-europe-america-world-war-3">in a battle between the world’s great powers</a>.</p>
<p>In July 1937, Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens, journalist Martha Gellhorn and novelist Ernest Hemingway visited the White House to screen “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT8q6VAyTi8">The Spanish Earth</a>,” Ivens’ documentary about the war. Gellhorn recalled <a href="https://alba-valb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Gellhorn_Letter.pdf">in a 1938 letter</a> that after President Franklin D. Roosevelt saw the film, he remarked, “Spain is a vicarious sacrifice for us all.” </p>
<p>The same terrible fate seems to be reserved for Ukraine and its people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sebastiaan Faber chairs the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, an educational nonprofit based in New York.</span></em></p>According to some reports, thousands of people from around the world are signing up to fight on behalf of Ukraine. But comparisons to the Spanish Civil War’s International Brigades are misguided.Sebastiaan Faber, Professor of Hispanic Studies, Oberlin College and ConservatoryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.