Special Report
Memorandum on Russia :
Why and how the West
can and should help
the nations of the former USSR
January 25, 1992
§1. The swift demise of Communism on the territory of the former USSR
seems irreversible. The stunned world is faced with an absolutely new and
not so easy discernible future.
The change is at least as powerful, fateful, and liberating as were the
capitulations of Germany and Japan forty six years ago. It can be even
argued that the Communism³s threat to the very existence of our
civilisation had run much deeper and was much longer, painful, and
devastating than that of the German and Japan totalitarian regimes, - and
now its fall in its very birthplace and without any visible external
intervention is much more sudden and unexpected! In these days of almost
universal shock and short-lived euphoria, do not forget dozens of millions
(in fact, forty to sixty millions, in Russia alone) of direct and indirect
victims of Communism (even the Fascism in Italy and Germany, as well as the
deadly militarism in Japan, were to some extent by-products of the
communist political reality); do not forget also that many people in and
out the former USSR, whose lives spanned the last seventy three years, have
had no idea why the damned system turned out to be so resilient, and how
and when, if at all, would it be defeated. Still, many others, coerced or
inspired, or both, believed in its eternal survival and total victory, and,
being insiders, tried in earnest to live according to its mad laws, or,
being outsiders, hoped one day to help the USSR, and later the ¼socialist
camp½, to impose those laws on their compatriots.
§2. The challenge to our civilisation explicit and implicit in this demise
is much more complicated and formidable.
To begin with, the seventy three years of the communist reign on the
territory of the former Russia, and later, in Eastern Europe and Asia, have
changed, and in many cases, against our will, the very nature of the
Western civilisation. On the positive side, to prove its enemies (which,
for less than a decade, included Nazi Germany, Japan, and other axis
nations) wrong, the Western society has learned and achieved a great deal :
- to work harder, - to invest in and develop sciences and technology, - to
create new agriculture, - to cure old and new diseases, - to provide more
social help to its citizen, - to be ahead of the enemies in military
matters, - and most important, to cherish peace : do not forget that the
monster of the Russian Communism was born in the senseless and deadly war
which the civilised European countries waged for the long four years on
their own and others soil!
All these new-acquired, typically Western, attributes would be more than
enough to conquer now the hearts and minds of the people of the ex-USSR,
and to bring them peacefully back into the family of civilised nations...
However, more than 85 years of violent military and political
confrontations in Europe and all over the world took their terrible toll on
our ability to act imaginatively and effectively in the new brave world of
non-confrontational reality, deprived of its Cold War ¼clarity½. The West
became used (in fact, addicted) and, as a rule, indifferent
- to the violence on the state level, resulting in regular loss of human
life in the world, in millions, with people either killed or starved to
death by a state, or group of states, went amok;
- to the loss of the Christian moral consensus in our societies, with the
overreaching competition (and the resulting alienation) dominating all
aspects of our existence; in short, we all became just self-centred,
fiercely competing consumers,
- to the economic, political, and social polarisation and dehumanisation
of our concept of the world, as the result of our exclusive self-definition
and self-promotion as free market society,
- and, as the most immediate and visible logical outcome of the aforesaid
evils, to human-made ecological disasters having the potential to destroy
the very presence of man on the Earth.
§3. Yet, the lightning which suddenly and miraculously brought down almost
overnight the Communist regime in the East was, and still remains, a
writing on the wall for the West, with the message of an utmost historic
importance and urgency.
The crucial part of the message is : we have now a unique opportunity
(which even the most optimistic idealists of the post-WWII era have never
even dreamed off) to directly influence, in the year to come, the future of
the nations of the ex-USSR, in a peaceful, honest, decisive, and
comprehensive way.
A failure to resume our full responsibility at this wonderful juncture of
the tragic, by and large, twentieth century, would be a mistake of
historical proportions, possibly depriving us of the hope to settle finally
on this small planet in peace, with dignity and prosperity for all
humanity, - just look at what is going on now in Yugoslavia, multiply this
by a factor of ten to twenty, and add all those thousands of nuclear
warheads!
§4. We all remember that the victorious nations of the Second World War
have imposed on the losers a strictly controlled peace, which combined
their demilitarisation and democratisation with the generous economic help,
protection, and sensible leadership.
The fact that both the Japan and Germany are now among the few most
important economic, scientific, and technological pillars of the new world
order, can be seen as a ¼happy end½ to the tragic story of WWII.
Do not forget, however, that as wise and sensible as the post-war strategy
of the victors seems now, it was motivated, forty five years ago, mostly by
the fear of the new Soviet military power and the anticipation of an
imminent, possibly, nuclear and apocalyptic, Third World War; the West
needed strong and dedicated friends, it spared neither money, nor efforts
to create them, - and this strategy has paid off brilliantly! The behaviour
of almost the same club of Western nations after their recent victory over
Iraq demonstrates no comparable responsibility, interest, or will, to help
the defeated nation to throw away its past demons, to eradicate its errors,
and to build a new, democratic, and prosperous society. The reason is, of
course, that such a strategy would not fit the Western interests in the
region, as these interests are now understood (one could, without doubt,
strongly argue against such understanding).
The second reason for the unique success of this ¼re-education½ lies in
the fact that both the German and Japan nations were traditionally highly
civilised (in a technical sense of the word), hard working, highly
disciplined, and, prior to their defeat, very proud societies, which, in
the aftermath of the war, were both ashamed of their past and determined
not to squander the chance to correct themselves, to have peace, good
living, clean conscience, self-respect, and, with some luck, to regain the
respect of the world.
§5. The case for a similar approach to the future of Russia, Ukraine, and
other nations of the former Soviet Union is both much more difficult and
much less clean-cut.
First, there are formally no ¼victors½. Even most patriotic and arrogant
among Western commentators, claiming the victory on behalf of the superior
Western democracy, or superiority of capitalism, or whatever superiority,
are never even hinting at the possibility that the ¼victors½ have special
rights or formally stipulated advantages; of course, the free world is
happy to be more close to peace than ever after the WWII, to forget its
extreme nuclear fears, to relax the military build-up, to cool-down a dirty
dozen of local conflicts, and to proclaim the advent of the new world order
(Pax Americana?), - but all this has happened not because the adversary was
defeated on the battle field, invaded, and then subjected to military
occupation, as in the WWII : our former enemy in this war was self-defeated
after forty five years of confrontation, and now is quietly disintegrating.
Second, since there is no other comparable adversary left in the field,
there is no immediate need to enlist former Soviet enemies as partners and
help them straight-away to be new, and strong, pillars of the future world
order. (Ironically enough, the wily M. Gorbachev has tried to ¼create½ such
an adversary, displaying a political schizophrenia of sorts : the ¼enemy
within½ his party and army, those famous hardliners, could endanger all the
humanity by the nuclear threat, if the West would not help Gorbachev to
achieve his ¼perestroyka½; the infamous putch, among many other its
formidable achievements, has killed the bad guy of Gorbachev³s dreams; the
second, presumably good one is quietly disappearing in the process of the
national awakening).
Of course, there are few other ample reasons not to let the people there
to die of hunger and cold : (i) since the nuclear power of the defeated and
disintegrating ex-enemy is still intact, we are still living in the danger
of the nuclear holocaust which could be triggered by somebody out of
political, social, and/or national despair, or just by a madman in a chain
of command (and there are quite a few such reasons for despair, as well as
chains and madmen there); (ii) or (a scenario suggested by a Russian
official at a gathering of EC officials in Brussels) a hundred or so
negligently abandoned or even sabotaged atomic power stations will do the
trick; (iii) etc... (iv) the economic collapse and/or disasters à la
Chernobyl would drive millions and millions of people from the former USSR
to look for an asylum in the Eastern and Western Europe; the exodus of such
proportions could easily trigger a full scale war in Europe.
Third, if the West would finally opt (as it seems now plausible, in the
light of the aforementioned threats) for some emergency help to the nations
of the former USSR, the problem of an effective absorption of even this
emergency aid, both on the global and local levels, seems almost
unmanageable : there is (i) no national consensus on the distribution of
the aid, (ii) no mutual confidence, either on the national, or personal
levels, and (iii) neither infrastructure, nor personnel to do the job in a
proper and fair manner (of course, there are more than enough honest and
selfless people there, but not in many chains of command).
How much more difficult is to imagine a successful implementation of a
long term assistance programme, similar, say, to the Plan Marshall for
Europe! The reasons are, of course, that, firstly, the life of the Soviet
totalitarianism spanned seventy four years (and his final demise is even
now very far from being a fait accompli), against, say, five to ten years
for the Nazi regime in Germany, and, secondly, the Russian Empire,
supplanted by the USSR, was itself a backward and corrupted totalitarian
society, if even it never was (at least, the last two hundred years of its
existence) so malicious as Communists have later claimed it was. - So, how
on earth could WE help THEM ?!
§6. This is not a case of a good guy urged to help a bad one: this is a
story about two good, albeit imperfect, guys, - but the important
difference is that the first one, as it goes, is the (historically) lucky
one, and the other one fares exceptionally badly, - but their fates are
inseparable, and they will either live (and, hopefully, prosper), or die
together. And it is up to the lucky guy to take the initiative and
responsibility, because the other one now fully understands his misfortune
and will surely consent to almost anything it will be advised to do,- and
precisely this makes both our chances and our responsibility so high.
So, let us confront this problem as our last World War, the World War for
Peace, WWP. Let us fight together, side by side! The enemy is their
slavery, their poverty, their alienation; remember - those people were our
brave and patient allies in the WWII, they helped us to save our lives,
freedom, and prosperity from a powerful, effective, viciously optimistic,
almost funny, Western type, tyranny, - Nazism.
And here is an outline of a scenario for the WWP : we have to help them to
colonize their immense country, because, outside a few of its European
cities (and excluding such scientific-military oddities as ¼akademgorodok½,
¼town of academicians½, as, say, in Novosibirsk), it never really was
properly colonized and civilised, and this (plus terrible calamities of
this century, triggered by the WWI) is the key to understanding of their
historical misfortune and their psychological traumas.
Remember, they were really never exposed (excluding a tiny political,
military, and scientific establishment) to simple realities of a peaceful,
democratic, and civilised life; they can learn basic facts and skills of
democracy and civilisation only if the West would ¼invade½ their country,
if our workers, farmers, teachers, social workers (look for volunteers
among our millions of unemployed), scientists, lawyers, and businessmen
will come there en masse, to live and work, for decades to come, side by
side with their Russian, Ukrainian, etc., colleagues.
These people have to be financially supported by their Western countries.
Their temporary (say, for ten, twenty, fifty years) stay there has to be
protected by special, strictly controlled and carefully enforced,
legislations and institutions. (If implemented, the plan would be an
amplified and tremendously improved, - human, peaceful, and democratic, -
rehearsal, three centuries later, of the strategy of Peter the Great, who,
unfortunately, has chosen to westernise his people by force, through
humiliations and, if necessary, tortures. For all his failures, he did
succeed in creating a huge and modern military power, the forerunner of the
USSR).
All these developments have to be carried out on conditions of
demilitarisation of the ex-Union army and abolishment of its nuclear
ambitions. The West has to assume its full responsibility for security and
territorial integrity of the ex-Union nations against all possible external
threats (China, Iran, etc.). Meanwhile, we have to work hard to put in
place global security arrangements, through UN, or otherwise
This is a grandiose and risky scenario. But the scenarios which helped us
to defeat our enemies in the WWII and Cold War were not less grandiose, and
risky they were to a much greater extent! And yet, the most imaginative and
rigorous implementations of both those scenarios have propelled us not only
to our victories, but to new prosperity and better realisation of our
potentials.
The victory will be not only ours, it will be ours and theirs, our common
victory. The terrible rift, threatening to destroy all the humanity, will
be healed and forgotten. Our dwindling politics, cultures, economics, will
found new horizons, new listeners, new markets. The political extremism
all over the world will receive a deadly blow. Look : those are our
realistic prospects!
So, let us try to prove that our enlightened civilization is mature enough
to meet our new destiny in this war with hope, courage, responsibility, and
hard work.
Dr. Edward G. BELAGA
LSIIT
(Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Image, d'Informatique et de Teledetection)
CNRS, Universite Louis Pasteur
7, rue Rene Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, FRANCE
tel.: (33) 88.41.64.24, FAX: 88.60.26.54 / 88.61.90.69
Email belaga@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr
Dr. Aleksey Pamyatliv (1)
Un pèlerin russe au Québec (2)
À tous les prêtres, religieux et religieuses du
Québec
qui ont gracieusement accueilli un pèlerin russe.
J³ai acheté récemment dans une boutique de livres usagés un petit bouquin
intitulé Joies et tristesses de la maison. Il y a plus de cinquante ans,
l³auteur, un jésuite originaire d³une illustre famille québécoise le Père
Albert Brossard (j³ai appris depuis qu³un de ses frère était juge à la Cour
Suprême), avait prêché un Carême au Gesù. Le Gesù, rue de Bleury, est une
belle église montréalaise dont j³abuse parfois de l³hospitalité, - moi, un
étranger, seul dans un bureau perdu au n-ème étage d³un de ces monstrueux
immeubles qui peuplent le centre de Montréal.
Alors, de quoi parlait-il, ce jésuite, au printemps de 1942, en ce
printemps terrible pour ma patrie russe meurtrie par la guerre ?
«Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum... Si ce n³est pas le Seigneur qui a
édifié la maison, c³est en vain qu³on l³a construite. [Ps. 126]»
Oui, on parlait à Montréal en 1942 de maison heureuse, c³est-à-dire, de
la famille québécoise... Et ma famille? Ce printemps-là, que s³est-il passé
dans ma famille ?
... Je suis né en Russie juste avant la guerre 1941-1945. La dernière
photo de ma famille d³avant-guerre, la seule qui a été préservée, a été
prise un mois avant le début des hostilités. On voit sur la photo quatre
hommes (un officier, un pilote militaire, un ingénieur, un retraité), deux
femmes et un bébé, moi; la guerre terminée, nous sommes restés trois, deux
femmes et un gamin. Les hommes ont péri dans la fournaise de la guerre,
avec les 20 millions autres de mes compatriotes, victimes d³un complot
affreux du Malin. C³est au printemps 1942 que mon père a disparu sans
laisser de trace, avec le bataillon d³infanterie sous son commandement ...
Mais pourquoi lire ce vieux bouquin acheté pour le prix d³un numéro du
Devoir? N³est-il pas plus important pour un étranger, en ce printemps de
1995, de se renseigner sur la façon dont on parle de la famille dans un
quotidien québécois contemporain ? On peut lire, par exemple:
«Qu³un ministre d³un gouvernement qui se prétend social-démocrate écrive
au maire de Montréal pour s³opposer à l³ouverture d³une garderie devant sa
résidence, la chose étonne. Que pour ce faire, le ministre utilise le
papier à en-tête du gouvernement sur lequel on peut lire «1994, année de la
famille», voilà qui devient ironique. Mais qu³en plus, l³administration
municipale tombe dans le panneau et décide de jouer du règlement pour
bloquer le projet, le cynisme s³installe à demeure.» [Le Devoir, 17 mai
1995]
... Je vous aime, le Québec. J³ai trouvé chez vous une droiture et une
simplicité de comportement, la générosité d³un esprit ouvert et courageux,
une hospitalité instinctive et aimable.
Je vous aime, Québec, car votre histoire témoigne prodigieusement de la
création en trois cents ans d³une nation belle et libre. Et moi, un
scientifique russe exilé, à la fois sceptique, troublé et jaloux, ne peut
qu³admirer ce miracle: ma pauvre patrie, dotée de toutes les richesses
naturelles mais écrasée pendant quatre-vingt ans par des guerres et le
pouvoir totalitaire marxiste, ne peut toujours pas retrouver son amour, son
destin et sa liberté!..
Un tel amour, toujours exigeant, ne trouve pas son inspiration dans le
discours politisé d³une démocratie anonyme (une histoire banale, bien que
très triste, telle quelle est rapporté par Le Devoir ci-dessus, aurait pu
arriver partout).
Mais voici la vision qui inspirait l³illustre jésuite québécois
d³autrefois, et qui parle à mon c ur, russe et blessé (deux mots qui sont
presque synonymes !), avec la même force:
«Après trois siècles d³inflexible résistance et de superbes fidélités,
aurions-nous oublié la beauté religieuse de nos origines, toutes les leçons
de notre histoire au point du trahir, en ces conjonctures si graves où tous
nous sommes aujourd³hui engagés, notre passé de foi et d³amour, d³honneur
et de courage? Le secret de ce passé - nous le savons bien - réside au c ur
silencieux de cette vielle maison, pas toujours riche, plus souvent pauvre,
mais dans les murs de laquelle brûlait, comme un sanctuaire, la ferveur des
vertus familiales et des traditions chrétiennes, l³âme même de notre race:
âme immuable de ces saints et de ces saintes du foyer, qui transmettaient à
leurs enfants, plus que la vie, la splendeur de la grâce, la sérénité
puissante de leur foi, l³amour du sacrifice, de l³effort et de la pureté,
le respect intangible de toutes les lois divines, cet équilibre d³esprit et
cette distinction du c ur, vivantes, éternelles pierres du foyer, où
doivent s³appuyer toujours, pour rester fortes, pures, heureuses et
fécondes, les races et les sociétés, qui ne veulent ni déchoir, ni mourir.
¼Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum... Si ce n³est pas le Seigneur qui a
édifié la maison, c³est en vain qu³on l³a construite.¼» [Albert Brossard,
pp. 12-13]
... J³ai été exilé de ma patrie à l³âge de quarante ans, sans aucune
expérience de la vie hors de la Russie soviétique, sans passeport, sans
moyens, sans mes livres ... sans aucun espoir de retour. Bref, comme un
cosmonaute anti-soviétique, j³ai été envoyé sur une autre planète, nu et à
jamais! Comment vivre? «Vivre»?
Ce mot, que signifie-t-il pour un exilé sans le droit de retour? Soyons
honnêtes: vivre en exil signifie vivre en mendiant. On mendie une
citoyenneté, un langage, un travail, une culture, une geste d³amitié, un
amour ... pour soi-même, pour sa famille, pour ses compatriotes exilés,
pour sa patrie en détresse. Et on reste à jamais un mendiant ingrat...
Mais pas moi! Je ne sais par quelle grâce, moi, je suis devenu «stránnik»
et «bogomólets» - un vagabond, un pèlerin de Dieu.
Cette tradition profondément russe est la seule chose, admirable et
réelle, que j³ai importée avec moi et que personne n³a pu m³arracher. Et
voilà, comme Jean Paul II, je baise la terre de chaque pays où je me trouve
pour mon travail ou pour un court pèlerinage, je cherche ses sanctuaires
et ses reliques sacrés, je «bois» l³esprit de sa piété chrétienne et je
«mange» ses sacrifices historiques...
Je vous admire, le Québec catholique, et je vous aime de tout mon c ur:
- C³est ici, chez vous, qu³il m³est arrivé d³être adopté dans la famille
québécoise des miraculés de Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.
- C³est ici, chez vous, que Notre Dame du Cap-de-la-Madeleine m³ouvrait
les yeux sur la beauté exceptionnelle et prodigieuse d³un destin librement
chrétien dans un pays chrétiennement libre.
- C³est ici, chez vous, que j³ai été confronté par une spiritualité
catholique de vos grands prêtres et savants. Par l'éloquence et la finesse
des homélies de vos pasteurs, par la gentillesse et la dignité royale de
vos religieuses. Pour une telle nation petite et lointaine de tous les
centres du monde, vous avez vécu et vu des merveilles dans votre maison!..
Mais je ne me fais pas d³illusion: aujourd³hui, vous êtes en majorité (en
Russie on dit, «majorité écrasante», ce qui signifie «qui écrase la
minorité», littéralement) les filles et les fils de votre révolution, comme
mes compatriotes ont été autrefois les enfants de la nôtre.
La différence est importante: notre révolution était sanglante à
l³extrême, tandis que la vôtre a été tranquille. La nôtre nous a infligé
des destructions jamais vues dans l³histoire du monde. Et la vôtre?
Le Père Albert Brossard, dans sa perspicacité étonnante, n³a pas
seulement pressenti le péril, mais aussi calculé les dates précises:
«La gravité de ce conflit moral est telle que dans vingt ans, dans trente
ans, le sort de notre famille authentiquement française et catholique, aura
été joué pour notre bonheur ou pour notre malheur. Demain il sera tard pour
réagir.» [p. 60]
... J³ai été élevé en marxiste et en athé, avec une âme sourde, muette et
aveugle, - et pourtant honnête. Après la mort de Staline, le pouvoir n³a
pas réussi à cacher la vérité des atrocités communistes. Je cherchais une
issue pour mon âme. J'ai écouté des gens libérés des camps de
concentration, je leur ai parlé, j³ai vu leurs plaies. J³avais la soif
d³une Vérité, parmi ces innombrables petites vérités, commodes et à propos.
Je L³ai trouvée dans le destin de nos martyrs chrétiens: jamais dans
l³histoire du christianisme, même pendant les trois siècles de persécution
romaine, un peuple n³a subit un tel martyre pour sa foi !
Nous, nous avions aussi nos «pères» clairvoyants. Voici comment un grand
spirituel russe prophétisait juste avant sa mort prématurée en 1900 :
«Je sens l³approche des temps où les chrétiens devront se réunir pour la
prière dans les catacombes. Partout la foi sera persécutée, peut-être moins
que dans les jours de Néron, mais plus finement et plus cruellement: par le
mensonge, la duperie, la falsification.»
Sans doute, Vladimir Soloviov sous-estimait le désastre russe à venir.
Toutefois, sa prophétie demeure bonne et belle pour le Québec de nos jours,
ainsi que pour la France, ou encore pour n³importe quel autre pays
occidental (sauf, peut être, pour l³Irlande et pour le Portugal).
Le vôtre est le martyre tranquille, le martyre du c ur de vos prêtres,
religieuses et religieux: «... et toi-même, une épée te transpercera
l'âme! - afin que se révèlent les pensées intimes de bien des c urs» [Luc
2:35].
Et pour terminer, voici comment mon admirable Père Brossard nous exhorte
tous:
«Et c³est par vous, mes Frères, que le sort de nos maisons et de notre
race aura été joué. Par vous, pères et mères, âmes gardiennes et
consciences de nos foyers d³aujourd³hui, par vous, jeunes gens et jeunes
filles, âmes gardiennes et consciences de nos foyers de demain, la famille,
votre famille sera, par les vertus fidèles de votre foi et de votre
confiance en Dieu, une force dans une maison vivante, ou par vos égoïsmes,
vos infidélités consenties, toutes les compromissions de votre conscience,
par les neutralités religieuses de votre vie, elle sera une ruine morale
dans une maison morte ou abandonnée.»
___________________
(1) Aleksey Pamyatliv est un nom de plume de l³auteur. «Pamyatliv»
signifie en russe: «celui qui se souvient bien».
(2) Publié dans Revue de Sainte Anne, Novembre 1995, pp. 452-453
(Basilique de Sainte Anne de Beaupré, Québec, Canada), ainsi que,
légèrement abrégé, dans Stella Maris, Octobre 1995, pp. 23-24 (Éditions
du Parvis, CH-1648 Hauteville, Suisse).
(3) Vladimir Sergueyevitch Soloviov , 1853-1900.
Dr. Edward G. BELAGA
LSIIT
(Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Image, d'Informatique et de Teledetection)
CNRS, Universite Louis Pasteur
7, rue Rene Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, FRANCE
tel.: (33) 88.41.64.24, FAX: 88.60.26.54 / 88.61.90.69
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