October 24, 2004
BOOKNOTES:
The Mystery Of Olga Chekhova by Antony Beevor (C-SPAN, 8 & 11 pm)
In 1920, young Olga Chekhova, the beautiful niece of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, fled Moscow for Berlin—taking only a smuggled diamond ring. Olga quickly won both celebrity as an actress and prominence in the ranks of Germany’s Nazi party, eventually becoming Hitler’s favorite actress. But was she really a sleeper agent recruited by her brother, Lev Knipper, to spy for the Russian NKVD?Antony Beevor’s The Mystery of Olga Chekhova tells the extraordinary tale of how one family survived the Russian revolution, the civil war, the rise of Hitler, the Stalinist terror, and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. In putting together this amazing story, Antony Beevor demonstrates how people survived under the terrible pressures of a totalitarian age. He reveals a confusion of courage, idealism, fear, self-sacrifice, opportunism, and betrayal. The most astonishing part of this truly epic tale is that both Olga and Lev would live through this most murderous era in modern history.
Mr. Beevor is one of those uncomfortable-making auithors who forces us to reckon with the fact that the Soviets were no better than the Nazis as they murdered thousands of their own soldiers who wanted no part in fighting to save a Bolshevik regime they hated and then systematically raped their way West. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 24, 2004 11:40 AM
Whe does this make you uncomfortable?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at October 24, 2004 1:54 PMBecause we helped them perpetrate those evils.
Posted by: oj at October 24, 2004 1:56 PMOrrin:
What does it matter that the Soviets were no better than the Nazis ?
The US would never have done anything about the Nazis if they'd been content to oppress only the German and Austrian peoples. Plus the Polish.
Also, based on your previous thoughts on this subject, you'd have been quite content to never confront the Nazis, but instead to let them and the Soviets fight it out.
Thus, instead of being glad that America defeated one out of two evils, you're left wishing that we'd either got 'em both, or never tried.
Go back to the thoughts you posted on the "only 1100 American dead" thread. Everything you posted about Iraq and Afghanistan applies to Europe.
OK, we left hundreds of millions to rot. We also saved hundreds of millions from oppression, and that counts.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 24, 2004 3:50 PMMichael:
If we were handing Iraq over to the Communists it would be a bad war.
Posted by: oj at October 24, 2004 5:36 PMWe're handing them over to the Iranians. At least, that's what we're trying to do.
By gum, though, we may actually be creating an Iraq. If the massacre of the unarmed (and what the heck's up with that?) soldiers doesn't cause an uprising of national self-respect, nothing ever will.
Either it will, or Iraq goes into the tank with Iran.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at October 25, 2004 12:26 AMHarry,
What we should be doing is splitting the place into its three constituent parts and allowing them to go their separate ways. An impoverished Sunni Saddamistan around Baghdad could just be bombed into non-existence if it ever started trouble. An independent Shia state around Basra would perhaps join with Iran but would be a difficult pill for the mullahs to swallow.
What an independent Shia state in Basra does do is threaten the Saudis, and the Bush family would sooner disinvite Dubya from Thanksgiving than their paymaster, Prince Bandar.
Posted by: Bart at October 25, 2004 7:29 AMHarry:
The Iranians don't want the Iraqis--they're democrats and Arabs.
Posted by: oj at October 25, 2004 8:32 AMBart, you came in late.
I've been saying for years that west Asia should be divided into (at least) 19 states, rather than 10.
But I don't believe a state based in Basra could maintain its independence of Iran.
Orrin, of course, is wrong on two counts. No Arabs are democrats, and the Iranians already have plenty of Arabs, which they show no signs of wanting to be quit of.
In fact, the homeland province of the Persians, Fars, is also called Arabistan because it has so few Persians left in it.
The situation is analagous to the Albanians in Kosovo, and we all understand how little the Serbs wanted to hang on to them.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at October 25, 2004 2:17 PMSpeaking of Kosovo -- and I apologize for thread drift -- why are the Democrats and the tranzis in Europe and in the U.S. constantly hammering the Administration for "illegally going to war" on Iraq and "violating that country's sovereignty", when Clinton and the UN determined that Kosovo would gain independence.
Can't remember anyone consulting the Serbs. It's a fait accompli. So much for their respect for a UN member nation's territorial integrity.
Posted by: Eugene S. at October 25, 2004 10:55 PM