Current troubles only serve to underscore long-standing weaknesses in the Russian system of government. Will Putin have the vision to lead his nation? Will Russians demand a stronger leader?
by Melvin Rhodes
The late Andrei Sakharov was the nuclear physicist
who gave the Soviets the hydrogen bomb. He and his wife, Yelena Bonner,
later became prominent dissidents, critical of the Soviet regime that
finally collapsed in 1991. Yelena Bonner summed up the Soviet government
with these words: "The Bolsheviks are like a bunch of squatters who have
taken over a house and are waiting for the police to arrive."
Having taken over the Russian house in
1917 without the consent of the people, the communists (Bolsheviks)
attempted to fill a vacuum left by the collapse of a dynasty that had
ruled for over three centuries. The communists never seemed to know
what they were doing and consequently made a big mess of everything.
It appears that little has changed. The
new democratic Russia is led today by a former KGB official who seemed
bewildered during the country's latest crisis-the sinking of the Russian
nuclear submarine, Kursk.
Officially, it didn't sink-it simply "descended
to the bottom of the sea." Officially, no lives were lost and contact
with the sub was maintained at all times. Until, that is, no more lies
could be told and the true extent of the disaster had to be revealed.
By then, it was too late for foreign technology, sent upon request
by Britain and Norway. Officially, foreigners are still blamed for
the incident, the Kursk supposedly having been hit by an American or
British submarine during naval exercises. It is more likely that torpedoes
in the submarine exploded, killing most of the men immediately, with
the others dying in the days that followed.
Russians may not know how to run a modern
democracy and free market economy, but they do know their history.
Comparisons have been made between the Kursk and Khodynka Field, between "Czar" Vladimir
Putin and Czar Nicholas II. On the same day that reports of the Kursk
first surfaced, Czar Nicholas II was in the news as he was canonized
by the Russian Orthodox Church along with the other members of his
immediate family.
