Alexander Lukin Quotes
The West’s lopsided support for pro-Western nationalists in the former Soviet republics has encouraged those states to oppress their Russian-speaking populations—a problem to which Russia could not remain indifferent.
When the former Soviet republics were in the Soviet Union, ethnic Russians were often against their will forced to the Republic so it can be Russified. These ethnic Russians had higher status with the Soviet government and the local people resented them for that and for trying to change their culture. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, many people took out their resentment on the ethnic Russians by various form of official and unofficial discrimination. For example, in 2014 when the Ukrainians revolted and ousted the pro-Russian President, the new legislature, as one of its first acts, banned the use of the Russian language on schools and in all official government forms and activities. Although the new President vetoed the ban and it never became law, the vast majority of the legislators would gladly discriminate against the ethnic Russians legally as well as socially and personally. The Russian government, decided to be the “protectors” of the ethnic Russians. This conveniently also gave them a “justification” of seizing and annexing the Crimea which had been part of Ukraine.
Alexander Lukin, Vice President, Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “What the Kremlin is Thinking”, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2014
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Kennan was one of the few people who saw the possibility of Soviet rule of Eastern Europe crumbling as it did almost 50 years later. Most Americans thought that the Soviet Union was so militarily entrenched that they would never be ousted short of war.
This was an incredible prediction with no other world leader thinking it possible for decades until that is exactly what happened.
During the Cold War and afterwards many Americans attributed the problems we were having with the Soviet Union emenated from the fact that they were Communists, and our focus was anti-communism. Kennen, however argued that it was not Communism that was the cause of the Aggression of the Soviet Union. It was an extension of the Russian Culture. After the Soviet Union collapsed, and Communism was rejected by the Russians, we still had a great deal of Russian aggression and Foreign Policy problems with Russia. Kennan was right. It was the Russian culture, history, values and traditions that were the primary cause of most of the problems with Russia.
In his early years, Stalin was a strong opponent of Anti-Semitism ({627514}) but he felt he needed to make a pact with Nazi Germany—the Hitler-Stalin Pact. In meeting with Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbontrop, Stalin as a quid pro quo promised to get rid of “Jewish Domination” (which never existed but there were many Jews in positions) among officials and intellectuals. He then fired his Jewish Foreign Minister Litvonof and replaced him with Vyacheslav Molotov to whom he have this instruction. This was the first major official Anti-Semitism of the Soviet Union but it continued thereafter. See {636526} & {636527}.
Kiev is the largest city and capital of Ukraine.
Ironically, at the time she wrote this column, Mrs. Roosevelt was being accused of being a communist by some Southerners who associated her strong views against racism and segregation. Some in the North thought she was a communist because of her active role in the New Deal, Yet here she was, willing to use military force to prevent Soviet expansion.
This was a big factor that made the Red Scare so damaging.
The Italian Communists were culturally and ideologically very different from the Russian Communists. The Italian view was a more nationalistic one and was closer to a Socialist Democracy than a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Much more tolerant of diversity and not as ideological. See {637829} as a big example of the difference. Yet this was still in the midst of the Red Scare in America and some other areas of the West. After WWII, the CIA had secretly spent millions to get Italians to vote for the non-Communist candidates and helped organize Italian anti-Communist politicians who didn’t want the Communists to alter the Italian government to reflect any Communist or Socialist ideas. Meanwhile, the Italian party was under great pressure from Russia and some of the other Communist satellite countries to adopt a hardline revolutionary communist programs. Berlinquer and other Italian Communist leaders had many misgivings about Russian style Communism and they had to play off one side against the other for years.
This quotation illustrates how the racist South defeated the objectives of the Civil War and Reconstruction by the institution of Jim Crowe laws and so called “states’ rights”. It would take more than another half century for the Yankees and the vast majority of the non-Southern Americans decided that the Southerners could no longer “do as they pleased” with fellow human beings. It is hard to believe for us today that an entire section of our country could actually believe in the morality of the South but that is the tragic history of race relations in America.
He was convicted for treason for passing secrets to the Germans and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island. However, he had been the victim of an anti-Semitic plot to cover up for the real traitor—a Christian. However the ”Dreyfus Affair” brought out the virulent anti-Semitism in France. When the truth was exposed, Dreyfus was pardoned, and reinstated in the military, but 11 years in Devils Island had taken its toll on his heath, and he was retired as a result of his disability.
Vladimir Lenin. Despite Lenin’s abhorrence of anti-Semitism, there were any other Russians for whom it was normal. After Lenin’s death, Stalin and his henchmen used anti-Semitism to divert attention from the Communist Party’s failure to meet its economic and other goals.
Russia, under the Czars, controlled Moldova and part of Romania. In those area the upper and middle class was educated in Russian schools and most became assimilated. However, the Czars saw education of the their feudal peasants as anathema (not unlike the American Slaveowners were opposed to educating slaves). As a result, the Romanian peasants never became Russified.
