Excerpts from Tatyana Menaker's essay “Or has the Russian become weary of victories?” published on kstati.net on March 25, 2022.
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The three dollars I put on the line a month and a half ago in a bet on whether Putin would enter Ukraine went to me.
Why is everyone so surprised that Putin has started a war?
Let's look at Russian aggressions of the 20th century.
The invasion of Poland. The invasion of Finland. War with Hitler? Listen to Stalin's speech before signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: “We need war!”. He did not want to unite with England and France against Hitler, because then Hitler would not attack Poland and there would be no war, and without war, communism in the world would not win. Communism under the leadership of Stalin and with the war won and captured half of Europe.
Not ten years later, a tank invasion of Hungary. It was trying to get out from under the Russian-Soviet boot.
A little over a decade passed - and the 1968 tank invasion of Czechoslovakia. She was trying to get out from under the Russian-Soviet boot.
A little over a decade passed - and the invasion of Afghanistan. It was feared that there would be a pro-American government there. The president was dragged out of the palace and shot.
A little over a decade later, and the invasion of Chechnya. It was trying to get out from under the Russian-Soviet boot.
A little over a decade passed - and the invasion (2008) of Georgia. It was trying to get out from under the Russian-Soviet boot.
A little less than a decade passed - and the invasion (2014) of Ukraine (Crimea). She was trying to get out from under the Russian-Soviet boot.
A little less than a decade passed - and another invasion of Ukraine. It was trying to get out from under the Russian-Soviet boot.
Only a few years Russia (the Soviet Union) in the 20th century did not participate in military actions, punitive operations and genocide of other peoples. That was 1935-1937, when it waged a monstrous, with tens of millions of victims, punitive expedition and genocide against its own people.
Russian mentality is aggressive and prone to violence. The vectors of aggressiveness of individuals merge into a gigantic vector of aggression and violence of the state over other countries, and most importantly, over its subjects. Any rulers - Peter the Great, Stalin, Putin - are only a reflection of this suspiciousness and aggressiveness. First of all, this suspicion and malice is directed at those who are slightly different in intelligence, talent, wealth, or simply good luck in their environment. In the words of Bella Akhmadulina, this is a country that with its rat's teeth gnaws at the best that it has. The emigrant cemetery in Paris is the graves of Russian culture. From no other country in the world do the best people flee to other countries to escape the persecution of their brethren.
The propensity for violence is reflected primarily in violence against one's own kind. The Russian philosopher Zinoviev said that the NKVD arose not because it was necessary to arrest, torture and kill, but because there was a huge mass of people who wanted to arrest, torture and kill.
What Russia really knows how to do is war and weapons. An American congressman said that Russia is a third world country with modern military technology. Peter the Great took bells off churches and poured them into cannons. What else was actually done besides weapons and satellites built for military superiority? The military budget in the country was always the largest. In hard times, only the army was fed. St. Petersburg, a city built by Peter the Great as a fortress to “threaten the Swede”, under the Soviets turned into a giant arms factory and a huge center of military research. Even Leningrad's Kresty prison was turned into a sharashka.
Russia is continuously creating weapons. It is pregnant with weapons. This heavy arms pregnancy sucks all the juices out of it. Such a pregnancy can not dissolve. It gives birth to war. The war with Ukraine is a World War II style result - a plan of conquest devised by the generals.
Russia seems to have come closer to civilization: foreign tourism, computers, dollars, iPhones, iPads, coffee makers, microwaves and other gadgets, direct flights to Cancun, villas in Montenegro, apartments in Dubai and Bulgaria. No, you have to fuck it all up. Reminds me of the American joke about the frog and the scorpion. A frog (Western civilization) transports a scorpion across the river. Suddenly he bites her. “What are you doing,” cries out the frog. - You're going to drown with me!” - “I can't help it,” replies the scorpion. - This is my nature!”
Until the West learns the nature of the scorpion, it is doomed to be stung and drowned.
Tatiana Menaker, March 25, 2022
Cover photo: JoeJirang, source: Adobe Stock
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