Born Red

To Be Russian

by ANDRE VLTCHEK

Trust between the West and Russia is broken. It has been for quite some time, but now it is broken irreversibly. A good thing, because what kind of trust there could be between fascist imperialism and the forces that are fighting for the freedom of mankind?

It is really easy to trick the Russian people. It takes very little to gain their trust; sometimes only a kind smile, a handful of loving words, a few sincerely sounding pledges and promises. Russians can be easily ‘bought’ with kindness. They are very trusting, vulnerable people.

When approached with tenderness and sympathy, they soon open their hearts, they share their last piece of bread with the hungry, offer their shirts to those who are cold.

Come to a Russian with a pledge of eternal love, devotion even friendship, and chances are that all doors will be opened to you, and defenses let down.

Maybe he or she would one day utter: “Please, never, never betray me.” But no guarantees would be asked for, no written agreements produced, no contracts signed.

Because of this trust and openness, millions, tens of millions of Russians died!

***

Russians gave everything to the world; they fought for humanity. They opened their hearts and their doors. They fed those who were in dire need, often starving.

At the end they were betrayed, again and again…. And again!

In a spineless world based on individualism, profits, and servility, it is easy, all too easy to betray someone who is kind, someone who gives. Tyrants are rarely betrayed, because loyalty towards them is based on fear, self-preservation, or mercantile self-interest. In the corrupt, cowardly world constructed by the West and by its religions, loyalty is upheld only through terror.

Despite horrible betrayals and the savagery directed at the Russian people throughout the history, they never really “learned the lesson”, never perfected Western-style cynicism, and never mastered the art of sacrificing others for their self-interests.

All accords with Russia were broken, whenever it suited invaders. The Scandinavians wiped out countless Russian lives, and so did the Germans, French, Poles, Brits, North Americans and Czechs, to name just a few. Russians never really ‘punished’ anybody, in the Protestant, Anglo-Saxon way. Punishment is mainly puritan rubbish; the Russian way of thinking is too quixotic for that.

The West lied to Lenin, to Stalin, to Khrushchev and finally to Gorbachev. The West has been lying to Putin and about Putin.

Betrayed, Russia would go through unimaginable agony, through fire and devastation, through despair. It would bury millions of its sons and daughters. Perhaps no other nation on earth has gone through a terror of such magnitude.

Then, suddenly, it would rise from its knees, slowly and frighteningly, showing all its might, its size, determination and strength. Injured and deceived, but proud and enormously beautiful in its sacred rage, it would lift up its heavy sword, straighten its back, dry its tears, and walk directly towards the enemy.

Russia always fights open battles, fights them honestly. Oceans of blood are spilled, mostly those of the Russian people.

Unlike the West, Russia does not use carpet-bombing, drones or nuclear weapons to kill millions of civilians, in order to secure the Victory. It is always men against men. It is tens of thousands of tanks as during the Kursk Battle, or millions of soldiers at Stalingrad.

Nobody could or can defeat Russia, because its wrath, as its love, is great and pure. Russia never really lost. Its injured heart was full of love and poetry even as its mailed fists were smashing the despots, usurpers and mass murderers. It is also because almost all wars that Russia ever fought were just wars – wars for the survival of its people, but also for the survival of the entire humanity.

***

70 years since the great Victory! 70 years since Soviet people saved the world by smashing Nazism. 70 years since they, almost immediately, joined yet another fight, against Western imperialism and colonialism.

20 or perhaps 27 million Soviet people, mainly Russians, lost their lives defending our planet against Hitler’s hordes. Then hundreds of millions of others dedicated their lives to building a much better, and egalitarian world.

Without the Soviet Union, without the Russian people, there would be no freedom, no independence for Asian, African and the Middle Eastern countries. There would be no revolutions possible in Latin America.

This is why the West hated the Soviet Union, and that is why it hates Russian people. It lost its colonies, it lost its propaganda war, and it lost its monopoly on defining everything under the sun.

Only bigots could repeat the most toxic of Western propaganda lies of comparing Nazi Germany with Stalinist Soviet Union. But I will write much more on the topic in the near future. Nazism can be only compared to European and North American imperialism, to colonialism. They are both made from the same stuff, and the Soviet Union smashed, defeated, both! Russia is now holding the old Soviet banner.

The Western chauvinists and xenophobes are now fighting for control over the planet, even for their own survival. Unless they divide Russia, China and Latin America, they are finished. They know it! Unless they smear all that is pure and optimistic about the nations resisting their monstrous regime, their days are numbered.

***

On May 9 1945, the entire world changed. Humanity began moving forward, again. Slowly, unevenly, often making terrible blunders, and detours, but forward nevertheless! Colonial shackles began breaking. People on all continents were dreaming again, about true freedom, equality and the brotherhood of men. That beautiful red flag flying from the roof of the Reichstag in Berlin made these dreams possible.

The Soviet people proved that human dignity and freedom are worth any sacrifice. The Victory Ode was written with their blood, in the most generous way, so it could inspire and shape generations to come!

But the greed and nihilism of the West refused to die. Its obsession with controlling and plundering the world reached an unimaginable peak. All the forces of the Empire were mobilized. Light and hope were confronted by darkness and cynicism. Beautiful and pure dreams were antagonized by corruption. In an orgy of dirty tricks and deceptions, the Soviet Union was destroyed.

In one single historical moment, the oppressed of the world lost their most powerful guardian.

What followed was complete horror. The Empire began destabilizing one country after another: in Africa, Asia, in the Middle East and even in the former Eastern block. Millions of people died, exposed, unprotected, totally abandoned.

The Fascist hordes thought that this time they had won. In Moscow, Yeltsin, an alcoholic and lackey of the West, began shooting his own people on the street, and bombing his own Parliament. That was “democracy” the newspapers in Paris, London and New York wrote almost immediately. This was what the West dreamed about: a weak destabilized Russia, on its knees, at the mercy of the Empire.

I travelled to Moscow and Siberia. I saw Russian scientists in Novosibirsk selling their libraries in the bitter cold, at metro stations. I saw old war veterans begging, selling their medals. I saw Russian workers starving, their salaries unpaid for months.

Then something happened. Russia refused to stay on its knees. It rapidly detected the lies coming from abroad; it recognized the trap. The Russian people understood that what horrible invasions never achieved, the deceptions and dirty games of the fascist Empire managed to attain in just a few short, dreadful years.

Russia had to rise or die, as always in throughout its history. It rose … indignant and determined! And as always in the past, when it stood up confronting the evil, it was not just doing it for its own people, but also for all of humanity!

Russia regrouped, during the last decade, under the Russian flag. It is not perfect and not as ‘socialist’ as many of us would like it to be, but there is a great Soviet inertia in Russia’s foreign policy, as there is a great pride and determination to improve the world, to protect the weak.

70 years since the Great Victory! This year, Russia is not only celebrating great anniversary. It is rejoicing over its rebirth.

***

I am Russian. I was born in Russia, and my mother is half Russian and half Chinese. But even my Chinese part comes from Kazakhstan, from a former Soviet republic. My grandfather, Hussein, was a top ‘commissar’, equivalent to a cabinet minister, an ethnic Chinese, a linguist, a man who died many decades before I was born.

I grew up in Czechoslovakia. My father, a scientist, comes from Europe. Since an early age I lived in New York, but then I hit the road, and never stopped until now. I am an internationalist. But deep inside, I am Russian.

I don’t know whether I qualify to be a Russian.  As a kid, I used to have a Soviet passport. My happiest moments in life were when I was a child and my mother took me, every summer, to Prague airport, where I was taken to a plane departing for Leningrad. My grandmother was waiting at the other end.

My grandmother, Elena, was not just some ordinary babushka. She was a fighter, a woman who struggled against Nazis, who defended her beloved city, her Leningrad. She dug trenches, confronted German tanks, and was decorated twice. Yet she was the kindest woman I ever met in my life. She taught me how to love poetry and literature. She told me hundreds of stories, some beautiful, some frightening. Thanks to her, I became a writer, a Russian writer, although I write my fiction exclusively in English and most of my latest films were made in Spanish.

Almost my entire Russian family died there, in Leningrad, during the Siege, decades before I was born.

Every year, during two summer months, my grandmother spoilt me silly. Or I thought she did. Now I understand that for her, it was like a cultural combat, an attempt to inject into me all that was great about Russia.

She saved for ten months, and then when I came to visit her, she took me to the opera houses and the theatres, to the museums and the parks surrounding Leningrad. She cooked delicious food for me. She also took me, at least once a year, to Piskarevskoe Cemetery, where the enormous statue of the Motherland spreads her arms in grief. “Nobody is forgotten and nothing is forgotten”, the golden letters are carved into the granite. 1.5 million died during the Siege of Leningrad, and many are buried there, in countless rows of mass graves.

I grew up. I became a writer and a filmmaker; I circled the globe. But wherever I went, these simple words followed me, were engraved into my psyche. My grandmother was always with me, too, and so were the city, the sacrifice, and the Victory!

I don’t know whether it objectively makes me a Russian. But I feel and act as one.

***

To be Russian… By now, ‘Russian’ is not only a nationality; it is a verb. It means: to stand against oppression, against Western imperialism, to be building bridges between the countries that are resisting Western imperialist terror.

And there are many “new Russians” now. Not those from Yeltsin era, not the capitalist buffoon characters! No, the “New Russians” I am talking about are both patriots and internationalists. And some of them have often not a single drop of Russian blood. But they are proudly defending the world, and they are joining forces with Russia, China and Latin America in their determined struggle for better planet.

I know several great new Russians. Some are my comrades, like renowned Canadian international lawyer, poet, novelist and thinker, Christopher Black. Like Peter Koenig, Swiss economist, who left the World Bank in total disgust, then turned around and openly attacked the establishment. Or like my ‘compa’, Patrice Greanville, a New Yorker/ Chilean/ Argentinean chief editor of legendary “The Greanville Post”.

These people are working relentlessly, smashing the lies that the Empire is spreading throughout the world: lies about Russia, lies about the Soviet Union, about the Second World War, and about Western imperialism.

***

For centuries, Russia was stabbed and deceived by outsiders. It was fooled, tricked, ravished.

Many countries that Russia liberated betrayed her in the most vulgar manner. Czechs and Poles desecrated monuments to its soldiers – to those boys who sacrificed their lives for Prague and Warsaw at the end of the Second World War. Eastern Europe opened its doors to NATO and the European Union. Out of pragmatic selfishness, people abandoned beautiful ideals, including Internationalism, and instead joined the oppressors of mankind – the Empire.

The more these countries prostitute themselves, the more bellicosely they are willing to shout Western propaganda slogans, directly insulting and provoking first, the Soviet Union, and, more lately, Russia. The pitiful and avaricious lackeys and collaborators with Western imperialism have been, continuously and desperately, searching for at least some moral justification for their betrayal. They have twisted history and invented facts. They unleashed aggression against those who have been defending the usurped and plundered parts of the world.

Recently, the West triggered the conflict in Ukraine, where it helped to overthrow legitimate government in Kiev. Then, immediately, it began fueling hysterical anti-Russian sentiments. But the more obvious the situation became, the louder were the voices of the anti-Russian pact, in both Western and Eastern Europe.

Ukraine, Syria, and Libya – all these conflicts prove that no logic applies anymore. The West wants to destroy the countries that stand in its way to total global control, and it will try to reach its goals, by any and all means. The propaganda apparatus is always ready to justify any terrorist act committed by North America and Europe. No international legal mechanisms are available to protect the victims.

Only great force can prevent the tragedy. Russia is that force. China is another. That is why the Empire is terrified by the rise of those two great nations.

Yes, this time, after all those centuries of pain and suffering, Russia is not alone. It is standing tall, and it can finally count on its friends. Some of the greatest minds on earth are joining forces with it. Forget about Eastern Europe! The mightiest country on our planet – China – repeats again and again: “China and Russia are each other’s most important strategic partners”. It is clear that they will not allow this planed to go down in flames!

The entirety of revolutionary Latin America is with Russia and so are dozens of other independent and proud nations worldwide.

In the Middle East and Africa, in South America and many parts of Asia, Russia is increasingly seen as an enormous moral force. Russia is synonymous with hope. Not for those in North America and Europe, but for those who were, for centuries, suffering under their boot.

Whenever I speak publicly, in Eritrea or South Africa, India, China, even Timor-Leste, people want to hear about Russia. What will Russia do next to prevent attacks against Syria or Iran, against Venezuela?

I always say: “Russia is alive and well! And so are its friends, from China to Venezuela and Cuba!”

I never lose hope. I repeat: I sincerely believe that soon we will defeat colonialism and fascism, and build one beautiful society on this scarred but wonderful planet. And it will be created on the ideals we are now commemorating and celebrating.

“The 70th Anniversary of great Victory! Thank you for saving the world! Congratulations, Russia!”

And then I roll up my sleeves and work, day and night – for Leningrad, for what my grandmother stood for, and for Russia and for the humanity.

My Revolutionary Grandmother and Grandfather.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.  Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific.  His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and PressTV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.