Russian Paranoia?

[Pravoslavnik]

Stumbler,

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 I must say that I am disappointed, and a litle surprised, by your response to the questions that I have raised about Mr. Putin and the Russian Federation.  My questions are not about the Bushes, who are a disgrace to our American democracy, and never received a vote, nor a farthing, from me.   The Presidency of George W. Bush, as any historian knows, is an unrepresentative low-water mark in American history--even worse than the administration of Warren G. Harding, another idiotic spokesman for the worst of the American and multinational capitalists and oilmen. 

Just a few clarifications.

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 Do you really believe that political economics can be reduced to a simple binary choice between what you call "feral" capitalism and state-managed communism?  What about some sort of free market system in which the government legislates appropriate limits on capitalist abuses and exploitation of the people?  What about an appropriate, graduated income tax to support education, retirement, health, and disability benefits for the people?  Can this not be done without the state managing (and bungling) the means of production, as happened in the USSR and the Warsaw Pact?

 Secondly, do you really imagine that the control of the Russian media by Putin--including the murders of journalists critical of the Putin administration-- is analogous to our American media?  What about Jim Lehrer and the people at PBS?  There is no question that much of our American media is owned and controlled by wealthy Republicans, but we still have opportunities in America to raise questions and criticize morons like George Bush without being murdered.

   Finally, why do you, inaccurately, call me a racist for raising questions about what is happening in modern Russia, and in the ROCOR?  Would I have been a member of the ROCOR for many years, and wear a Russian cross, if I were an anti-Russian racist?  Your accusations make no sense. I happen to be a Russophile--with a rather extensive collection of Russian literature, music, Orthodox hagiography, etc.  It is because I am a Russophile that I have been so deeply troubled by what I see happening today in the Russian Church in particular.  But the questions I am raising about Russia have very little to do with the nonsense going on in the Bush administration, or in American society at large.  What is happening to Russia now?  Much of it, I believe, is the unacknowledged, sinful legacy of Bolshevism, dressed up in Orthodox vestments, and presented as the legacy of Holy Russia!

[stumbler]

Last question first: Yes, it is possible to consider oneself a "russophile" and still not realize what American propaganda has wrought within. I absolutely stand by my assertion that you are a racist because you explain the same phenomena in two different countries differently. That, to me, is racism. You may define it differently, which would be your prerogative.

OK - Something you should know about me. Before I switched my major to music, I took every single economics course offered at my college except econometrics. I was an economics major. I am a bit of an expert in this area. As such, I can ssure you that an economy is either controlled or not controlled. This is a binary proposition. The rest, as I correctly stated, is a matter of degree and method.

Finally, our media is at least as controlled if not more controlled than Russian media. The fact that you do not see this is evidence in favor of my allegation that you are an anti-Russian racist.

I myself have worked in the media for many years. I have a little bit of an idea of how these things work and I have had personal commercial dealings with the few large media conglomerates which exist here in America, many of which are foreign owned.

It gives me no great pleasure to accuse you, and I do not hurl it as an epithet, but I can find no other reasonable explanation.

[Pravoslavnik]

Stumbler,

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    To rephrase a question;  How can I be an anti-Russian "racist," as you insist, if my favorite (secular) writer is Fyodor Dostoevsky?  I also greatly revere the Orthodox saints of Russia, and have studied their lives and works for more than a decade.  You may be more correct to say that I am "anti-Soviet."  If one is "anti-Soviet," does that necessarily mean that one is an "anti-Russian racist?"  I don't think so. Is a person who abhors Naziism necessarily an "anti-German racist?"  What about Bach, Beethoven, Albert Schweitzer, and the almost 50% of American citizens who are partly descended from ethnic Germans?

     Please read the new post by Deacon Nikolai about the Nashi "sex camps," and the new Russian Federation facism.  It describes, much better than I, what I have been trying to discuss about xenophobia, paranoia, and fascism in modern Russia.  It also makes the point that the defenders of Russian fascism are trying, dishonestly, to change the subject, and to deflect the focus of world criticism of Russian fascism back on to the Western democracies.  Does that sound a little familiar here?

[stumbler]

It is very easy to be familiar with and enjoy art made by a particular culture and still have a racist attitude toward people of that culture. I think a good parallel would be suburban youngsters who wear baggy clothes and listen endlessly to rap music, even adopting black slang and thinking that they know all about "the hood." I certainly wouldn't let one near a jury in a criminal trial where the defendant was an actual black gang member, because they are still white suburbanites full of all the unspoken assumptions and unrecognized (by them) privileges which that confers. Such a juror would either be shattered by his disillusionment after a few gruesome autopsy photos, or revert completely to his roots as a wealthy white suburbanite who knows nothing of life other than being surrounded by his own rich white neighbours.

Your question is clearly anti-Russian and not "anti-soviet."

The article to which you refer is full of characterizations and comparisons, especially to Hitler, but light on facts or evidence. I couldn't take it seriously.

I could easily write such an article about America, using many of the same comparisons, and substitutiong the story about the summer camp where children were literally bowing down before a cardboard cutout of Bush.

When Russians point out that it is unfair to single out Russia for these types of attacks and point the finger right back at the West, it is not "changing the subject." It is an attempt to point out the unfairness of characterizations and accusations and do exactly what I did - which is to make it clear that when one attacks another country, or in your case, the people of another country and accuses them of a mass mental illness like "paranoia" (which is very Soviet of you - to politicize psychiatry) - once reason enters into the equation, there is no rational basis for such beliefs other than the racism of the accuser, the accuser's set of double standards, and the accuser's membership in the citzenry and society of a nation which propagandized its citizens for decades into fearing and hating Russia and Russians.

Even Condoleeza Rice recently referred to "Soviet defenses" when speaking recently about Russian radar systems. It doesn't go away - this hatred and fear - it just goes undercover, and shows itself in the occasional guise of "helpful" questions by self-described "Russophiles" who want to do what they can to "assist" poor Russia and her mistaken beliefs and inadequate understanding of circumstances - which, of course, the clear assumption is, should mirror those of the American "Russophile" more than anything not created by America, and least of all, be independently Russian.

Let me do a little math for you - Bolshevism accounts for only 7.6% of the history of the governance of the Russian people, using 988 (when Russia became Christian) as a convenient and generous "start" of Russia. So when you say something about Russian people, and claim it to be anti-Soviet, that is disingenuous and sounds silly.

By contrast, young nation that America is, the percentage of the history of America during which a member of the Bush family has been in the white house, as either president or vice president, is 8.6%

Why can't America recognize Russia's right to exist unmolested? Why can't Americans respect Russia enough to recognize that history and culture will affect their choices? Why do questions like "What's wrong with the Russians?" (which means "Why won't Russia just do whatever America says?") even get asked in public when their very foundation is an assumption of the righteousness of American hegemony?

So, dare I ask - "Why are the Americans so paranoid about Russia?"

That's really just another way of asking your same question. If you can answer that, you can answer why you would ask the question, and see much more clearly the foundations of the mistaken assumptions upon which your original question was premised.

[Pravoslavnik]

Stumbler,

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You may be correct about my not understanding what it is like to truly be [i]Russian[/i]--to "walk in the moccasins" of a Russian, as the expression goes.  On the other hand, I have had very direct, personal experience of what I perceive as "Russian paranoia" here in the American Soviet emigre community.  Incidentally, I know--being a psychiatrist--that many emigres to any foreign country tend to experience some measure of "paranoia," partly as a result of not understanding the language and idioms of a strange culture.  (For the same reason, people who are deaf often tend to become at least mildly paranoid, misinterpreting what others are saying.)

 I can tell you that I was quite thrilled several years ago when my ROCOR parish got a new priest from Jordanville who could speak fluent Russian and English.  I was relieved that the recent Soviet emigres in the parish would finally have a priest who could give sermons and hear confessions in Russian.  Little did I, or other the American converts in parish, realize that this man would not only soon stop giving sermons in English, but would systematically begin to drive all of the non-Russian Americans out of the parish council, and out of the parish!  He even refused to pray for non-Russian Americans during the St. Panteleimon's Day services for the sick! I also experienced, quite directly, rude, hostile behavior from many recent Soviet emigres in the parish who apparently viewed me as an American "outsider."  (Some of these same Soviet emigres, incidentally, also used to refuse to venerate the parish icon of the Tsar-Martyr Nicholas and the New Martyrs of Russia.) 

  I must say that I could hardly believe what was happening, and continued to support the parish financially for several years --attributing the problems in the parish to my own misguided vanity, and fallen, sinful nature.  It was only after I read the "Act of Canonical Communion" last October--and also read Konstantin Preobrazhensky's writings about President Putin's longstanding policy initiative to infiltrate and takeover the ROCOR in North America--that I finally realized that our parish priest had been covertly working for the MP and the Russian Federation for several years!  Suddenly, everything that had puzzled me for many years began to make very clear sense.

    What I still don't understand at this point is why so many Russian Americans, like yourself, seem to agree with the Moscow Patriarchate taking over the ROCOR--without first "cleaning house" and insisting that the Soviet-appointed hierarchs of the MP resign, and desist from participation in ecumenical organizations like the WCC.  Certainly, many holy priests and hierarchs of the ROCOR--St. John of San Francisco, St. Philaret, Father Gleb Yakunin, and others--have called for this to happen.  Russians today seem to be in a state of denial--or fear--about what is happening to Russia and to the Russian Orthodox Church.  There also seems to be very clear evidence of neo-fascism in the modern Russian Federation, as detailed with numerous facts and examples in the recent post by Deacon Nikolai.  I would like to hear your response to the new article about Nashi and the Russian "sex camps."  Are you claiming that this is all fiction, or is somehow comparable to life in the modern U.S. or Western European nations?

[stumbler]

"Russian-Americans" such as myself do NOT agree with the MP takeover. Met. Laurus said it himself in a speech in Russia recently - that his "psychological plan" was not effective on the old-timers, from whom I am descended and by whom I was educated. The Russian press recently reported that the "defection" rate (I love the irony (truth?) in that term) is about 30%, whereas the Russian propaganda people reported just before the merger that 85 - 90% of the members of ROCOR were recent emigres.

My personal theory is that many Russian-Americans who went along, and I hesitate to name names as I know some of them and they are easily identified, and some are clergy and some have spent all their lives in the service of the Church, or what WAS the church, is that their Russianness was more important to them than their Americanness.

A lot of these people really had no life outside the Russian community. That made them quite vulnerable. Although they might speak fluent English, their social circles are stunted and their understanding of Western life dwarfed by trying to apply pre-Revolutionary Russian values and world-views to modern American life and expecting that they would get the same results as if America were pre-revolutionary Russia.

I don't dispute your contentions about Russian nationalism within ROCOR. My family was accused at times of not being "Russian enough," and this was years before any of this began happening with the MP.

And I am well aware of Soviet infiltration (or what was apparently so) into ROCOR. I saw Soviets who had escaped by saying they were Jews trying to videotape Easter services at a small ROCOR church on the west coast one year. This would have been in the early 80's - which also might help to answer Jean-Serge's bewilderment at the suspiciousness of Russians of recent emigres. Who knows who they were or why they came to videotape and not to worship?

It is also curious to note how many "Russians" remained within the MP - including Abp. Kyrill's (San Francisco) family and many of the nobility who also reportedly kept communion with them, also long before the MP issue was even considered something to discuss.

I can't speak for the Soviet emigres, because I have tried to limit my dealings with them. Of those I have run across, some have been kind and some have seemed vulgar. I don't find I share much of a culture with them from either side. Even our versions of the Russian language are very different.

I can say, because my family did compel the release of documents concerning my mother under the Freedom of Information Act, that some of what we had considered "paranoia" on her part was actually true.

She had insisted all her life that the FBI had cut a hole in her floor, that she was under surveillance, and that it had begun when she purchased a receive-only shortwave radio from a local store in the early 1950's. (She had worked as a radio operator after fleeing the communists.)

Honestly, we, her American children, considered her to be paranoid. The documents indicated she was being truthful. Furthermore, the FBI indicated that they had used a family of Greeks who lived in the same apartment building as informants, and they actually stated in their report that Greek was close enough to Russian that the Greeks could be expected to understand what they were saying.

It was a crazy time in America, and it wasn't that long ago. And this was the FBI investigating someone who had worked for the U.S. government abroad when she was a refugee before arriving here.

The Nashi article was published in the UK's Daily Mail. There was no "sex camp." People were legally married while there. That does not constitute a "sex camp."

Putin has a long-standing policy of rewarding those who will have children, or more children. There is nothing wrong or illicit about procreating within the confines of marriage, as was described in the Daily Mail article. Russia, despite spanning about 11 time zones, has only about 140 million citizens. (Hence the synergy in a Sino-Russian alliance.) Lifespan for a male Russian is estimated at 56 years. It is a sensible policy, unless Russia wishes to be overrun like its European neighbours by immigrants with higher birthrates.

The article was written purely to create scandal where there is none.

The Daily Mail is a right-wing tabloid whose founders supported fascists like Oswald Mosley and supported the British policy of appeasement.

They only began to support the British entry into WWII after the British government threatened to shut them down, as their founder was friendly with both Hitler and Mussolini.

This is widely known to anyone who cares to look.

I just don't smell a scandal in the fact that there is a summer camp for young adults who get legally married and are offered honeymoon quarters.

Should we close down Las Vegas because Britney got married there and stayed married for all of 56 hours? Where does Hitler enter into it?

There is no scandal, except perhaps in the fact that they were not married in an Orthodox Church.

If we want to talk about Hitler, let's talk about Prescott Bush, who was convicted in an American court for "trading with the enemy" - or perhaps IBM, whose fledgeling computers helped the death camps operate.

That is a scandal - not young Russians getting married and consummating their marriages.

So the group offers a "leg up" in business? I can show you thousands of groups here that offer a similar leg up and connections which result in jobs in the government and industry, which here is also fast becoming one and the same. Did the "Federalist Society" - a group of young right-wing lawyers in which membership is a prerequisite to join the Justice Department or the bench hold a picnic this year? Maybe I can tip off Pravda to their scandalous BBQ and we can have cold-war tit-for-tat scandals.

I just don't see it.

Your original post asked if the "Russian people" and "particularly Putin" were paranoid.

I still don't believe so, and I still question whether it is appropriate to brand a race/ethnicity/national origin of people with a psychiatric label for acting the way they do.

I commend you for the fact that we have been able to keep this discussion civil and not resort to ad hominem attacks.

I think maybe at the end of it, we will have to agree to disagree. My eyes show me a world that is different from yours, and your eyes show you a world different from mine.

I am glad we had this opportunity to trade views, or at least try to.

Thank you, Pravoslavnik.

[Pravoslavnik]

Stumbler,

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I never pretended to have the right answers to these questions, and asked them without clearly knowing the answers.  I do realize that most Russians view the world in a very different manner than most Americans do.  Some of this, no doubt, has to do with being Orthodox, and some--at least among recent emigres--has to do with being "Soviet."

  My ultimate reason for asking about Russian paranoia is to try, in a small way, to ameliorate the problem, if it does exist.  I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood in my teens, and I learned from that experience that people from different cultures need to "rap" (talk) if they are to have any chance of truly understanding and getting along with each other.  Paranoia and xenophobia can prevent mutually hostile groups from getting together, talking, forming friendships, and solving problems.  So can denial.  Neville Chamberlain, and many Western politicians, were frankly in denial about the dangers of Nazi fascism right up until the bliztkrieg against Poland in 1939.  The journalist from Britain is probably right to raise concerns about possible nascent fascism in the Russian Federation--not so much for military as for diplomatic purposes-- to engage Putin and others in an honest dialogue about perceived threats and real opportunities.