He ends his story of the end of the empire where I begin my story. I came back after the fall of the USSR.
There are two memory levels I didn't form yet: one is the chronology of our two years in Russia with the Russian-American Theatre, second -- my thirty Soviet years before I defected. Of course, there is the third one -- the dialogue with the dead, with the Russians of the past, the great minds.
Remnick and a journalist and wrote the book based on his report for the paper. Even the image of the Lenin's Tomb he took for the title isn't developed as a writer would do. There are a few good sentinces here and there; easy reading. But that is not what I want to write about. The end of the System was pratically bloodless, as if that creature overlived itself and died of natural causes. And I was waiting for the closure in the book.
He is right, the constitutional trail was no big deal. Even the coup wasn't. I remember the 1993 conflict between Yeltzin and the White House, with the tanks and shooting -- that wasn't a big deal either. The bypassers with their dogs watched it from the Krimsky Bridge. On TV screens you had a better view of that chapter in Russian history.... And that is my point. History? Two years on the same spot was the conflict between the army and the Russian parlainment, with the Yeltzin on the tank and etc. Now he was behind the tanks and his two closest associates then -- Khasbulatov and Ritzkoy -- inside the White House together with the communists. What was that? What did they had together two years ago and what made them enimies now? I remember too well the same questions about the Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev -- the endless wars within the party (the same during the French Revolution before). What are they fighting for? There differences were obvious then and not obvious now. Do you really have to kill each other over the difference in the land reform and get many people killed along with the debate?
I understand that it was difficult for the Russians to know who has the suprimacy -- the parlainment of the president? But nobody even bather to discuss it. I watched their debates. I watched the Clinton's impichment. I saw the OJ trial. In retrospect even the Stalin's public trial were a farce and non-tragic. Is it all about personal power, nothing else? But what about the principles, the ideas, the philosophies?
What principles? How many times Remnick would speak about Gorbachev's belief in the "socialist path" for the Soviet Union! But did he mean that Gorbachev? You can find more about socialism in the century before him. What did he know about socialism?
What is there to know. What is there to fight for or against it? The same could be said about everything in history. The religious wars... Is that how the masses learn philosophy? Is that what happends when people do not read and can think for themselves?
Now, I do not do what I have to do to give directions to 2002. Simple, I am thinking about applying to the Fulbright grant that pays to go back and revitilize you past contacts. In my case in Russia. I have to do it now, if I want to shape my 2002!
I "think"....
First, I do not want to travel. Second, to Russia. Third, I could be dead wrong.
Of course I have those "love-hate" relations with Russia and everything Russia, including myself. Never-mind what I said about Russia, my first life was good to me. The CIA guys in Rome for three days couldn't write down why I wanted to defect. I was okay. More than that.
The same with "My America"... What is your problem, Anatoly?
Oh, please! Don't you know? My problem is me!
PS. 8.15.02 -- I do not know where is this "diary"? Maybe because everything I do day after day is the dairy, the webpages. Even here I have no system! I do not make new pages; on the contrary, I deleted soome of them -- and, nevertheless, with the horror I see how many pages and directories are nothing but the big mess! How could it be? I work every day, for hours, for years.
