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The Second Fork in the Road: The Fall of the Soviet Empire

Details: 27 August 2011

Only three generations after the first fork in the road in 1914-1917, Russia once again found itself at a crossroads. It was no wonder, however, that Russia, “having torn itself away from the European track,” would once again set itself against the world, as it did in the seventeenth century. But the “model of community living” proposed by the Bolsheviks (totalitarian ideology plus total control of the special services [editor’s note: secret police] plus the State Plan — that is, total state control of the economy) proved itself to be a dead end. By virtue of the richness of Russia’s natural and human resources, this model was able to be sustained for several decades, but it had no future.

Details: World

The U.S. Government Puts Russian Officials On A Visa Blacklist

Details: 08 August 2011

On Friday, August 5, President Obama issued a proclamation that bans anyone who has engaged in human rights abuses abroad from entering the United States. It was another strong measure against the human rights abusers. The first one would be that only last week the U.S. Department of State blacklisted dozens of Russian officials to prevent them from visiting the United States due to their involvement in the detention and death of the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Those are some of its sharpest responses to human rights abuses in Russia and the rest of the world so far.

Details: Nation

The First Fork in the Road: World War and Inferiority Complex

Details: 03 August 2011

I know of no serious historian, whether Russian or Western, who would doubt that Russia’s fate would have been utterly different if Russia had not entered the world war in August 1914. This rare instance of consensus among historians is, however, easily explained. Imagine twentieth-century Russia without all that this fateful war brought to it: Russia without the Bolshevik Revolution, without the civil war, without the Stalinist terror — quite possibly a Russia without the devastating German invasion. (Hitler’s triumphal seizure of power in Berlin was provoked, to a crucial degree, by the Bolshevik Revolution). Imagine all this, and there’s nothing left to debate.

Details: Nation

The Lost Lessons

Details: 29 June 2011

The apprehension of true history as well as the correction of false contributes to public policy because an economist whose memory is limited to the recent past has a narrow conception of the possible.~Deirdre N. McCloskey

Details: Nation

Quirks of Russian Courts

Details: 27 May 2011

On May 24th the court of appeal on the second case of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev was heard in the Moscow City Court. The result was predictable: the appeal was denied, though the sentence was slightly mitigated (1 year). And again it was widely condemned by the human rights organizations, world leaders and the media.

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