In the Western world the media's varied patchwork of tragedy and scandal are familiar. Nearly every story is like something we've seen before. Corporate fraud, political corruption, petty venality, incompetence and negligence are thematic. The same can be said for that "other world," located on the far side of what used to be called "the Iron Curtain." But the "former" East Bloc's patchwork of tragedy and scandal is nothing like the West's. It bears the trademark of indecipherable intrigue, the scent of clandestine operations and the dark humor of an underworld joke.
On Saturday the Ukrainian security service announced that former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko shot himself in the head, twice. Does this sound strange? When reading the news from the East, you must use your imagination. No other vehicle is able to carry the Western reader beyond the absurdity of so much "wet work" gone awry. There is no other way to navigate the exasperatingly absurd post-Soviet world. The "former" KGB officers in charge of Ukraine's special services say that Kravchenko was under investigation for the killing of internet journalist Georgy Gongadze, whose headless corpse was found shortly after his disappearance in September 2000. The path leading from the journalist's torso to the multiple head-wounds of the deceased interior minister is both tortuous and grizzly. It all goes to show, in a uniquely blood-splattered way, that the substance of Soviet politics did not change after 1991. In one case after another, bogus democratic credentials were given to Communist Party hacks (like Gaidar Aliyev in Azerbaijan, Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus, Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan and Nursultan Nazrbayev in Kazakhstan, Mircea Snegur in Moldova and Boris Yeltsin in Russia). The same old pattern of official lies and unofficial murder remains. The style has changed, the labels and slogans are new, but the essence and spirit are unchanged. This spirit is best discerned in the alleged death of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, reported by the Russian FSB (KGB) on Tuesday. According to Moscow, Aslan Maskhadov was trapped and killed in the town of Tolstoy-Yurt. But residents of the town have doubts about Maskhadov's death (just as they doubt the death of Chechen President Dzhochar Dudajev). There will be no family funeral and no public proof of his death. Maskhadov will be buried secretly, like Dudajev. As with the head of journalist Georgy Gongadze, there is a pang of absence. The historical "evidence," like the evidence in Stalin's show trials, is unsubstantiated. On the surface we find plausible, prosaic details. Beneath these details, however, there is an interlocking pattern of fraud. In other words, this is nothing like history. It is a contrived series - more Byzantine than Byzantium.
The recent parliamentary elections in Moldova illustrate the method at play. Inexplicably, Moldova's Communist Party won the election. And now Moldova's Communists say they are no longer allied with Moscow. Instead, they love the European Union. In this great turnaround, Moldova's elections are said to resemble the elections in Georgia and Ukraine, where Moscow's puppets have been replaced by "the people's choice." And so we find a bizarre scenario unfolding, however ridiculous it may seem to the well-trained eye. Russia continues to retreat and the European community continues to advance. Weak, senescent Europe is rising; and a subspecies of flattery is responsible. What comes next? Vladimir Putin may - at any moment - tumble headlong from his perch on the high Kremlin wall, paving the way for Russia to join the European Union. Of course, one ought to ask whether such an arrangement would signify Europe's absorption of Russia or Russia's absorption of Europe?
To achieve its goal in Europe, Russia relies on pandering (which includes pandering through surrogates). This program extends to favoring the euro over the dollar. According to the notorious currency speculator George Soros, Russia is intentionally switching some of its oil transactions from U.S. dollars to euros. "The oil-exporting countries' central banks have been switching out of dollars mainly into euros, and Russia ... plays an important role in this," Soros explained. "The higher the price of oil, the more dollars there are to be switched to euros [so that] the strength of oil will reinforce the weakness of the dollar."
The Bush administration has been painfully slow to acknowledge Russia's enmity. When President Bush's national counterintelligence strategy was discussed during a recent conference at Texas A&M University, the growing threat from Russia was finally admitted. CIA officials said that Russian intelligence has been targeting American troops in the Middle East. Even more ominous, Russia's intelligence services have attempted to recruit U.S. citizens by using blackmail, extortion and entrapment. Americans who work or travel in Russia are especially vulnerable.
Hostile actions betray hostile intentions. The mentality of Russia's ruling class is not bourgeois. It is militaristic, socialist and conspiratorial. It bears the trademark of indecipherable intrigue organized around the non-ideological pillars of a subtly reconstructed Marxism-Leninism.
