The fatal judgment passed here on Russia by Ilan Berman may impress as excessive. One certainly hopes that the Russian people, cast down by numerous afflictions, someday will pull their wits together and restore their strength. But make no mistake, the depressing image of that land related here is profoundly true. I once investigated the Kaliningrad District at the Baltic Sea and discovered precisely the same depressing narration in every detail, one that European countries referred to as “the Devil’s Kitchen”, “the Corridor of Crime” and “the Black Hole”. It is a land, over which one may shake his head on account of its corruption, organized crime, alcoholism, drug addiction and abuse, miserable life expectancy, AIDS epidemic, underground smuggling and human and arms trafficking – all of it endemic, top-to-bottom, ubiquitous and rampant. Referring to it, Boris Yeltsin once said, “This country is rotten to the core”. And a country so challenged in its soul is being further confronted by the influx and massive growth of people of different ethnicity and religion as well as by the threatening Chinese impact on Siberia. If Russia were a medical patient, you would summon the worried family around the bedside. I’m convinced, Berman spoke the truth.
If you were Russian or otherwise loved that country, you would feel sickened reading this book. How could you render help? Many of their problems are hard to manage. How do you eliminate the Mafia or the drug trade? Many countries suffer from it and none are successful abolishing it. It is similar with corruption, alcohol abuse or a high divorce rate. We think, if Vladimir Putin would only allow democratic freedom to rule, then everything would correct itself. But you know what? In a dysfunctional and disheartened nation like this one a truly Western-type democracy would never last. In fact, they tried it and it ended as a disaster. No, what they really need, at least temporarily, is a paternal autocracry, but one that is benevolent and wise – and, gosh, that’s hard to come by.
There is no evidence the Slavic race is inferior to the Chinese. But then, why did the Chinese authoritarian regime triumph and the Russian didn’t? Reading this exposé, you get the impression that, indeed, it is the current emotional depression and general malaise of their people that’s responsible for the arduousness of Russian recovery. Too many temporary vices and afflictions came down on them, all at the same time, to leave any room for hope, pride or zeal. I don’t think anybody knows why the Russian soul is plagued in this manner.
Berman’s discourse about Russia is a valuable contribution to our view of the world and its future.
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