This second post of the day is unusual for me. But I came across a BBC article today, dated August 9th but somehow missed until just now, that brought about one of those big inhales and elicited a rather loud “Holy shit!” from my voice box. And I think it needs to be shared . . . now.

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Imagine it’s 1930-something in the Soviet Union. Stalin rules. And people tend to disappear, without notice and without any apparent reason, into the vast archipelago of Soviet prisons and GULAGs. Repression is the order of the day. And fear . . . constant, all-encompassing, immobilizing fear.

And if you happen to be a well-known individual — a famous musician or writer, for example, or a highly-placed government official — then you must also disappear from the history books. Your picture, and any mention of you, must never have existed. And so, history is rewritten. New textbooks are issued, with entire sections removed from the old ones. And pictures are edited — which, in the days before photoshop, was primitive and obvious. But no matter . . . if Comrade Stalin says this is the truth, then truth it must be.

But that was then, nearly a century ago. That’s not happening today, right? RIGHT??

Wrong. It turns out that the lies being disseminated by the Kremlin, and broadcast by the Kremlin-controlled media, are not enough. They must be substantiated by our teachers and “historians” to our 11th-year students (high school seniors), ages 17-18. So a new textbook has been issued, entitled “Russian History, 1945 – early 21st century.” it is the first officially-approved history book to be used in Russian schools (beginning in September) that mentions the “special military operation” in Ukraine — otherwise referred to as the West’s war against Russia.

And this book is a beaut! According to the August 9th article by BBC’s Vitaly Shevchenko (http://www.bbc.com), these are some of the features of this new model of historic fact:

– “. . . ‘the West is fixated on destabilising [sic] the situation within Russia’ . . . and Western powers spread ‘undisguised Russophobia.’”

– Ukraine is depicted as “an aggressive state run by nationalist extremists and manipulated by the West, which allegedly uses the country as a ‘battering ram’ against Russia.”

– And “. . . even Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flag was supposedly invented by the Austrians keen to convince Ukrainians that they are different from Russians.”

Would someone please tell me how Austria got into this? Perhaps a throwback to the First World War? Oh, well, never mind. To continue . . .

– The textbook “describes Russia’s initial attack on Ukraine in 2014 as a popular uprising of eastern Donbas residents who ‘wanted to stay Russian’ and who were joined by ‘volunteers’ from Russia. . . . It argues that one key reason for the full-scale invasion in 2022 was the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato [sic].”

And my favorite (again quoting Mr. Shevchenko):

– “If Ukraine had joined the alliance and then ‘provoked a conflict in Crimea or Donbas,’ the textbook says, Russia would have been forced to wage war against the whole of the Nato [sic] alliance.”

“‘This would have possibly been the end of civilisation [sic]. This could not be allowed to happen,’ the schoolbook says.”

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Russian rulers — the Tsars, the Soviet commissars, and now the Putinistas (as I call them) — have always thought and planned for the long term. And my vision of the wheels now turning in Vladimir Putin’s mind is of a plan for the formation of a “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Part 2,” embodying as many of the 15 former Republics as he (or his successors) can lure or drag into their web . . . and ideally, a few of the old Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland, Hungary, Romania . . . just for good measure.

Far-fetched? I certainly hope so. But the signs are there, even if the ultimate goal is not quite so widespread. And those signs must not be ignored. “Those who forget history . . .”

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/31/23