John Lennon’s “Revolution” (1968) observed that,
“… if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.”
Circumstances in Russia — the Soviet Union — were no different, 55 years ago, than in “Red China.”
Those opposing Communism failed to discern that Soviet excesses derived from ongoing aspects of the Russian mindset exclusive of Marxism.
A straight line runs from the shortcomings of Tsarist Russia through the Politburo of Soviet times to Putin’s oligarchy contemporaneously.
The British nobility would describe these tyrants as “Not quite our type, dear.” Inability to recognize that Russian rulers are not people with whom we ought to be close contains considerable consequences.
After writing the previous paragraphs — underscoring their gravity — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died, incarcerated in what might have been described as a Siberian gulag in Soviet times. Navalny was poisoned in August 2020 — with a nerve agent similar to that used upon Sergei Skirpal and his daughter, in early 2018, in England. British Prime Minister Theresa May deemed Russia responsible for the Skirpal poisonings and expelled 23 Russian diplomats.
Those of a certain age remember when reasonable minds dared not differ that certain countries’ interests align with ours and other countries are not our friends — that values and aims are divergent enough that the word “enemies” describes them. John le Carré in literature, James Bond in movies, and Mad Magazine’s “Spy vs. Spy” mined the dynamic masterfully.
To act as if times have changed and nations described by President George W. Bush — in his 2002 State of the Union address — as an Axis of Evil are now benign is naive at best and treacherous at worst.
During recent travels abroad, I read extensively on the Second World War — four books each about Anne Frank and Esmond Romilly, nephew of Sir Winston Churchill. Romilly, who died during the Second World War, volunteered to fight Fascism in the Spanish Civil War. The proxy war on the Iberian Peninsula provided the last best hope to defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and their ilk before confrontation commenced on a larger scale — resulting in the death of many of my family members and those of childhood friends in Jackson, among others.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made a mockery of himself travelling to Munich in September 1938; giving away defensive fortifications, in Czechoslovakia, which were the bulwark in the east equivalent to the Maginot Line, in France, in the west; and returning home confident that he procured “Peace for our time.”
Less than one year later, Hitler and Stalin concluded the Nazi-Soviet Pact and invaded Poland, starting the Second World War. Neville Chamberlain became irrevocably reviled as a patsy and was made to resign. The tightly furled umbrella with which Chamberlain alighted from his airplane home became the symbol of appeasement; misplaced belief in the good intentions of bad actors.
To suggest that the United States should abandon the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and allow Vladimir Putin to annex additional territory is not in our national interest. To undermine Ukraine — prohibit the proxy war drawing a line in the sand against Russian expansion sooner rather than later — delays to another day that to which a blind eye cannot be turned; deferring resolution until circumstances are less auspicious.
Make no mistake. Vladimir Putin is not our friend. Russia is not a country representing the ideals to which the United States of America aspires — one with which we share a community of interest.
The United States correctly considered Stalin’s Russia to be an indispensable ally during the fight against Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Tojo’s Japan during the 1940s. The United States should not consider Putin’s Russia to be its friend in the 2020s. Ukraine must receive the military and financial assistance necessary to end Russian expansion, and Vladimir Putin must respect the international order.
Jay Wiener is a Northsider
