“The
Russians Are Coming, again – the first cold war as tragedy, the second as
farce,” by
Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano, 2018
This
book tells a familiar story for leftists, but one that might be unfamiliar to
many experiencing the 2nd cold war with Russia
and now China. Kuzmarov / Marciano retail the history of
anti-communism and Russo-phobia in the U.S. since the 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution to now. Nothing changes, as
the basic structures of U.S.
capitalism and militarism remain the same, still bent on imperial exploitation
of the whole world, thus seeing competitors and needing enemies.
The
authors start their mini-history with the 1919 invasion of Russia, when the
U.S. sent 5,000 soldiers into Siberian Russia while carrying out Palmer Raid
deportations of reds and anarchists in the U.S., those raids run by a young J.
Edgar Hoover. This was followed by the post-war
1940s-1950s McCarthyite purges of unions, jobs and the Democratic Farmer-Labor
Party over reds and “Russian agents and spies”; nuclear escalation against the
USSR led by the U.S.; the bloody wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and
Yugoslavia; the frequent U.S.-sponsored coups like Indonesia, assassinations, wars
and death squads in South & Central America and Africa, propping up
apartheid, all justified by ‘fighting the Kremlin.’ It was not such a cold war actually.
The
sequence ends with the modern period, starting with open U.S. financial
and political support for Yeltsin’s actions, and even at first Putin. Then came Libya, Syria, Ukraine and now the
failed Russia-Gate/ Ukraine-Gate scandals, all increasing the threat of new
wars and nuclear confrontations. Trump
has just cancelled two nuclear treaties with Russia, while prior to that Obama
funded a new massive nuclear arms ‘modernization.’ What was a global class war is now a competition
for riches, but one of the national targets has not changed.
The
authors name the few U.S. diplomats or figures that called for détente,
co-existence or cooperation, but they were eventually drowned out by the urge
to control Russia and its vast material riches by U.S. capitalists – especially
from the defense sector, their generals and politicians. The population usually goes along with it
after the requisite propaganda offensive, demonization and fear campaigns. Russia-gate became equivalent to ‘Pearl Harbor’ in the hysterical purple prose of the
war-mongers. At present the Democratic
Party’s loyalists are even more hostile towards Russia than Republicans – quite a
turn. This new McCarthyism feeds into the
lamest political conversations and commentaries.
Historically
as they describe it, right-wing U.S. ‘thinkers’ considered Russia to be
‘Oriental’ or ‘Asiatic,’ not European, hence inscrutable, tricky, irrational,
violent, subhuman– any insulting stereotype you can come up with. Instead the authors show how time and time
again the U.S. is actually
the aggressor – from landing in Vladivostok in
1919 to sponsoring the Maidan coup in Ukraine
in 2014 and subsequently pulling Ukraine into NATO – something they
promised never to do. The latest cold
war action was impeachment involving Joe Biden’s son over a delay in sending missiles
to Ukraine. Even Obama did not want to send missiles to Ukraine, but
the present neo-liberal Democratic and neo-con Republican politicians have
coalesced around it.
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| New / Old Bad Guys - The Russian Mob |
The
authors point out that the ramifications of Russo-phobia or anti-communism were
and are never just international. Cold wars and hot wars allow the imperialist
neo-cons and neo-liberals to red-bait or treason-bait any domestic forces who
do not go along with their aggressive plans, while depleting the remains of the
welfare state through burning profits in Keynesian military spending. They red and Russia-baited Jill Stein in 2016
and Sanders in 2016 and 2020. Some would
even say that cold-warism functions primarily inside the U.S. as a
right-wing club wielded by both parties to impede change. Everyone who doesn’t want to be aggressive
towards another nuclear state is somehow a “Putin puppet” and can be written
off. It takes international politics off
the table.
In U.S. and U.K. culture and movies, the Soviet
KGB has been replaced by Russian mobsters.
A Russian accent? Boris and
Natasha? Villanelle. Ominous! Nyet!
This
book is an interesting read that details the voluminous facts of history since
1917 supporting their contention, starting with an exposure of Woodrow Wilson as
a U.S. expansionist, backed
by corporations with financial interests in Russia. And so it still goes.
Prior
reviews on this subject on the blog, use blog search box upper left: “The New Cold War” (Cohen); “Oil”
(Sinclair); “St. Petersburg,” "Look at the War-monger Facts," "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives" (Cohen); "The End of Free Speech."
And I
bought it at May Day Books!
Red Frog
June 17,
2020
Yeah, we’re open…enter, call or knock.
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