Lost Empire

One should bear in mind that there is nothing more difficult to execute, nor more dubious of success, nor more dangerous to administer than to introduce a new order to things.
Niccolo Machiavelli

The Lost Empire
After the death of Stalin in 1953 the USSR was ruled by Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964) and Leonid I. Brezhnev (1964-1982). After the death of Brezhnev in 1982, there was a succession of Premiers who died few years or months after their inauguration. The war generation was reaching the end of its life-span and thus the Communist party nominated in 1985 as the Premier Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991), the last Premier of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev was at the time of his nomination as the head of the Soviet government 54 years old and was not member of the closely-knitted group of the former WW II generals who de facto ruled the Soviet Union up to that time. Gorbachev inaugurated a period of reform and innovation unprecedented in Soviet history. Gorbachev increased the productivity of labor and curbed the use of alcohol. He reorganized the government on a more democratic basis and reduced the size of governmental bureaucracy. In public life, he encouraged free discussions of issues and relaxed censorship. Gorbachev initiated friendly relations with the West, disengaged the USSR from its war in Afghanistan, ended its long-standing quarrel with China, and withdrew Russian troops from East Germany and other European allies of Russia.

Misperceptions of Raisa and Mikhail Gorbachev
It has been suggested that Mikhail Gorbachev did not realize the potentially destructive forces of nationalism fused with religion, which he released when he instigated democratization of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was in his decisions influenced by several factors. One factor was his abhorrence of the nuclear warfare. He offered to the Western powers, using words of Secretary of State, Jim Baker

'the clearest opportunity to reduce the risk of war since the dawn of the nuclear age.’

However, President Bush I instead of seizing the moment for laying foundation for a better community of nations seized the moment and started the Gulf War I. During his visits of the West, Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev saw mostly the affluent side of capitalism and not the slums, homeless and soup kitchens. By comparing the Russia and the United States, Gorbachev was comparing countries that to a multitude of factors, buried deeply in their respective histories, are basically incomparable.

On March 17, 1991, in an all-Union referendum whether the Soviet Union should be retained or dissolved, 78% of citizens of the Soviet Union voted for its retention. However, the media continued the campaign for its dissolution. The Cold War kept the worlds of socialism and capitalism separated with their mutual images distorted by the inimical mass media on either side of the Iron Curtain. There were few with an intimate knowledge of the real life in either of these worlds with no axe to grind. Gorbachev's 'glasnost' stopped the inimical propaganda on the East side of the Iron Curtain, however, the propaganda of the West continued with undiminished power which over the time intensified, complemented by giveaways of money by the intermediaries of the British, U.S. and Israel's secret services to the 'dissidents' and people in media and key government positions of the socialist counties.

On August 19, 1991, the State Emergency Committee, headed by Gennady Yanayev, Vladimir Kryuchkov, Boris Pugo, and Dimitry Yazov announced that the state of emergency had been introduced to overcome 'the profound crisis, political, ethnic and civil strife, chaos and anarchy that threaten the lives and security of the Soviet Union's citizens.' The stream of Western pop music played on the radio changed into music of Chopin and Tchaikovsky. This last desperate attempt to save the Soviet Union lasted only three days before its collapse. A number of members of the Communist party committed suicide. The Communist party was dissolved and Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR on December 25, 1991. The Soviet Union after 75 years of existence ceased to exist. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was, in many respects, also the disintegration of the Empire of the Czars.

Mikhail Gorbachev also underestimated the inherently aggressive nature of the American military-industrial complex, bridled at that time by the balance of power the Soviet Union provided. Comparing the military aggressions of the Soviet Union and the United States since the end of the Second World War, the USSR invaded 3 countries. United States has bombed 23 countries. The withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan was followed by invasion of that country by the United States. The Bush II administration, berserk with revenge, used super-bombs to erase villages and shatter mountains, entombing people who sought shelter in their caves. The demise of the Soviet Union disturbed the balance of military power established as the outcome of the WW II and the frequency and intensity of wars initiated by the single remaining superpower increased.

Finis Terrae
During the Middle Ages, fond of Latin, the west-most point of Europe, located on the Atlantic coast of Portugal, was called the 'Finis Terrae.' With the advent of the Nuclear Age, this name acquired ominous overtone. In Russian 'Novaya Zemlya' means 'the New Earth' and, once upon a time, the world's most powerful thermonuclear bomb (Russians called it the Czar of the bombs) was detonated over this island lost in the Arctic Sea. This nuclear test was carried on to prove the hypothesis proposed by Yuri Babaev and Yuri Smirnov that it was possible to design nuclear devices of virtually unlimited power. The bomb was dropped from the Tu-95 strategic bomber piloted by A. E. Durnovtsev.

The Czar of the Bombs was 6,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The mushroom cloud extended 60 kilometers into the stratosphere and the shock wave reverberated three times around the Earth. Results of this experiment convinced Mikhail Gorbachev that it is possible to extinguish the life on the Earth. He initiated the largest peace initiative ever and took the largest risk any leader of any nation took before to lay foundations for genuine nuclear disarmament. The failure of the Gorbachev peace initiative was to the significant degree due to the actions of the Bush presidential dynasty and people sharing their world view, religious beliefs, and political ideology.

...and beyond
After the Soviet Union disintegrated, the U.S. transport airplanes started to land at night on the military airports of the Ukraine, carrying away her nuclear weapons into the United States for 'safekeeping.' Reassurances given and promises made to Premier Gorbachev were abnegated upon and broken up. The ill-advised statements of President Bush II about the 'axis of evil' and 'who is not with us is against us,' brought up the realization that the United States can attack anyone, anytime, anywhere. After the Yeltsin's years shrouded in vodka's vapors, Russia began to converted to the Chinese model of socialism and reevaluate her nuclear options. The disintegration of the Soviet Union started with the Fall of the Berlin Wall. However, for the time being, it looks as the world cannot exist without walls. As the Berlin Wall (1961 - 1989, 96 miles long, 12 ft. high) was falling down, the other wall was taking its place. When completed, it will be 500 miles long with an average height of 25 ft.

The Berlin Wall was a scene of two famous speeches given by the United States presidents. In 1963, President Kennedy proclaimed:
'Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum." Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!" If President Kennedy had been a citizen of Berlin, he would have said 'Ich bin Berliner!' In Germany, 'ein Berliner,' denotes a jelly doughnut, as 'hamburger', in the United States is not the name of the city of Hamburg, but the name of a sandwich. What President Kennedy actually said was 'I am a doughnut,' but his sympathetic audience at that time interpreted this statement for its intended meaning and not according to its grammar.

On June 12, 1987, speaking at the West German side of the Berlin Wall, President Reagan said - 'General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity ...'

When thinking about that Summer of 1987, images of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev, are merging with images of people buried alive in the mountainous caverns of the Afghanistan, shadows of children burned into the walls of the Iraq's Al-Amiriya bomb shelter, while the refrain of François Villon's Ballade Des Dames du Temps Jadis (1461) ending with his legendary mais où sont les neiges d'antan? 'where are the snows of yesterday?' rings in my ears. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of an era. What era it heralded remains to be known.

Mr. Sharon -- Mr. Sharon,
tear down this wall!

Intrusion of religion to the Soviet Union
Early in 1979 the first legal shipment of Bibles into the Soviet Union since the October Revolution took place.

"Churches are reopening, one by one, all over the Soviet
Union" (Billy Graham upon returning
from a Moscow religious conference in May 1982.)

Balance of power

Text on this postage stamp says
Defending Peace on Earth.

At the time this stamp was issued,
long before the era of religious
wars of the post-Hegelian world,
few people realized how true its
message was.

	Table of Contents
	Chapter I	Voltaire and the Encyclopedists
	Chapter II	The Hegelians
	Chapter III	Heaven on Earth
	Chapter IV	Empire of the Czars
	Chapter V	Llano Estacado
	Chapter VI	Dawn of the New Age
	Chapter VII	Man of Steel
	Chapter VIII	Wolves are Closing In
	Chapter IX	Roman à clef
	Chapter X	Shifting Alliances
	Chapter XI	Cold War
	Chapter XII	Lost Empire
	Chapter XIII	Apre le Deluge
	Chapter XIV	Paper Centerfolds
		Postscript