Ukraine War Day #515: Chief Crazy-Talk (Redux) vs Not A Mister Greasy Fingers

Dear Readers:

Still on the topic of Igor Strelkov… I have some additional thoughts and musings about this issue, after watching Alexander Mercouris’ podcast from yesterday. Alexander’s discussion of the Strelkov affair starts at around the 30 minute point. He points out Strelkov’s weak points as a human being: mainly the fact that the guy is simply unable to get along with anybody. (We all know people like that.) Also very interesting (and I knew this before, but just didn’t muse on it that much) that, ideologically speaking, Strelkov was not really the right man to lead the Donbass militias. Despite his obvious talents as a military tactician, this man was never going to get other men to follow him as a leader. The Donbass militia types are mostly hard-core Communists, pro-Soviet in their mentality; whereas Strelkov is, in his political views, a right-wing Russian Nationalist, anti-Communist and Monarchist.

A defiant Strelkov sits in the slammer.

Strelkov, in other words, would like to see a Tsar back on the throne, ruling Russia again. It’s just that he doesn’t like Putin in the role of Tsar. (Once again, can’t get along with anybody…) In fact the real reason that Strelkov was arrested, apparently, is because he called Putin some nasty names. Something like swine or low-life. (I didn’t read his blog, so I don’t know what he said in the original Russian.) Fact is, that kind of speech is not legal in Russia any more. Russia now operates under a sort of wartime censorship which curbs free speech to a certain degree. Putin as a man, one can probably say whatever one likes, and I am sure that Putin himself doesn’t give a fig; but Putin as the Commander-in-Chief, that’s a different matter. You can’t call him names in public, or in the press. It’s that subtle distinction between the Man and the Role. As they say in the army, “You don’t salute me. You salute my rank.”

Whether one agrees with such censorship of speech or not (I personally don’t), it’s the law, and is actually quite typical for countries at war. Mercouris, for his part, hinted that he may be forced to speak out at some point if he sees the likes of Strelkov actually being forced to serve hard time for such shenanigans. From a purely Human Rights point of view. Not that International Law even exists any more. Nor need Russia listen to the hypocritical protests of its enemies. But when criticism comes from a friend, such as Mercouris, well, maybe they should listen, just a little bit. Mercouris is about as pro-Putin as a person can be; but he is also a kind and decent man, he is not the type who is going to bay for blood. On the contrary, a man like Mercouris will run with the foxes rather than the hounds. Therefore, a man like Strelkov should not have to serve hard time just because he called Putin a swine. If that’s all the issue actually is.

Recircling back to the issue of Viktor Alksnis, a hardline Communist/Stalinist who supports the Monarchist Strelkov’s right to criticize the army and its Commander-in-Chief. We saw that Alksnis was willing to offer himself as a ritual sacrifice in solidarity with his class enemy, on the broader issue of freedom of speech. But in truth, I think Alksnis is going to be okay. As far as I know, he has criticized Putin’s conduct of the war, but has refrained from personal attacks on Putin himself. He never, for example, called him Mr. Greasy Fingers*

Explaining The Reference

*Here, in the way of a footnote, and for the benefit of Russian Literature Majors, who may or may not be familiar with the case of Osip Mandelshtam, a renowned Soviet poet of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Mandelshtam’s fate teaches us what it actually means to disparage a Great Man, and one possessing of much more vanity than our modern-day Vladimir Vladimirovich. Who is, by all accounts, a non-vain, even sort of modest man, very slow to anger; a Mister Softie, in fact.

Because anybody who thinks that Putin is anything like Stalin, simply doesn’t know what an actual personality cult looks like. For starters, what kind of man would name cities after himself while still alive? Is there a Putingrad anywhere in Russia? Not that I know of.

Osip Emilevich Mandelshtam was born into a Polish-Jewish family in 1891, in Warsaw, then a subject of the Russian Empire. Studied in St. Petersburg, became well-known in poetry circles and had many friends among the Russian literary elite. During the Revolution and Civil War, Osip and his wife had an opportunity to emigrate, but decided to remain in the Soviet Union and cast their lot with the new civilization. By the early 1930’s this talented poet had worked his way into the Soviet cultural elite, was widely published, read and appreciated. He had it all.

A famous and celebrated young poet who never committed an actual crime…

treated like a common criminal…

And then he threw it all away.

Here is how fellow literary giant Boris Pasternak tells the story of Mandelshtam’s downfall: One day in November of 1933, the poet had gathered together a group of around 15-20 friends, and led them on a stroll through some Moscow back streets. Once they had reached a private place, Mandelshtam recited to them his latest masterpiece, a poem that he knew he could never publish. It was an expression of his feeling of being stifled, of not being able to breathe in an environment of the burgeoning Personality Cult; a country in which nobody existed except for Stalin; and everybody was forced to sing Stalin’s praises 24/7.

After his recital of this powerful poem, Mandelshtam awaited the reaction. I don’t know what he was expecting. Certainly not applause. Pasternak exclaimed to him: “That which you have read to us, has nothing to do with literature or poetry. This is not a literary artifact. This is an act of suicide. I cannot condone this, and I want no part of this. You did not read anything today. I heard nothing. I urge you never to read this again, to anybody.”

Next thing you know, one of the writers present at that informal poetry slam, rushed off to the NKVD and ratted out Mandelshtam. In May of 1934 the poet was arrested on the orders of Yagoda himself, Stalin’s main henchperson at the time. He was exiled to Voronezh [yalensis: same place of exile as my own ancestor, before he was finally arrested and shot in 1938, but I don’t know if he and Mandelshtam ever met, wouldn’t that be something for the family chronicles…]

In 1937 Mandelshtam finished his term of exile and returned to Moscow. Only to be arrested again, this time by Stalin’s newer henchperson Yezhov (aka “The Poisonous Hedgehog”). The poet was sentenced to internment in a hard-labor camp in the Far East, but died during the trip, on 27 December 1938.

So, what is the infamous poem that sealed his fate? In anapestic rhythm, rhyming in paired lines, it goes something like this:

Мы живём, под собою не чуя страны,
Наши речи за десять шагов не слышны,
А где хватит на полразговорца,
Там припомнят кремлёвского горца.
Его толстые пальцы, как черви, жирны,
И слова, как пудовые гири, верны,
Тараканьи смеются усища
И сияют его голенища.

А вокруг него сброд тонкошеих вождей,
Он играет услугами полулюдей.
Кто свистит, кто мяучит, кто хнычет,
Он один лишь бабачит и тычет,
Как подкову, дарит за указом указ:
Кому в пах, кому в лоб, кому в бровь, кому в глаз.
Что ни казнь у него — то малина,
И широкая грудь осетина.

TRANSLATION (more or less, not attempting to reproduce rhyme or meter):

We exist, without feeling the country beneath us,
Our words are not heard more than ten steps away,
And where there's enough for half a conversation,
They will mention the Kremlin Mountain Man.
His thick fingers, like worms, are greasy,
And his words, like weighing scales, are true,
His cockroach-like moustaches laugh,
And his boots shine like glass.

He's surrounded by a rabble of pencil-neck bosses,
He toys with the services of semi-humans.
One whistles, one meows, one whimpers,
He alone, of them all, roars and pokes,
Like a horseshoe, he tosses decree on decree:
This to the groin, this to the forehead, this one the eyebrow, this one the eye.
Whatever the punishment, it's a raspberry to him
With his broad Ossetian chest.