Follow up to Billy Bob’s last video

I’ve just watched Billy Bob’s last video featuring Ian and I have something to say about Russia, China, India, Lenin and Stalin who were mentioned.

I believe there is no such thing as democratic, communist or socialist countries. There are just countries with their unique cultures that have some central, pivotal ideas. For example, the pivotal idea of the Russian culture seems to be Justice for everybody, the pivotal idea of the American culture seems to be Freedom. And yes, many of those ideas are actually complimentary, not mutually exclusive. I guess I wrote that before, so this is just a recap.

Democracy, capitalism, communism and socialism are just short terms that are used to describe the current or goal condition of a country for outsiders, they are conventional labels. Yes, China is considered a communist country, but it is actually China. After the Revolution, China reverted to its ancient path defined by Taoist concepts, Confucius’s philosophy, the local version of Buddhism, etc. In its time, each of these philosophies was best to reflect China’s national Psyche, the drive inside the nation, their cravings and dreams.

Mao didn’t invent anything new for China, he just was best at choosing a modern idea that dovetailed with China’s original, grassroots nation-building pattern. And, by chance, it was communist [with with Chinese characteristics] (it’s the official name of the ideology, by the way). I also assume that Mao tried to retain whatever was good in the previous period mainly associated with attempts to colonize China.

Lenin and Yeltsin, while being totally different personalities, both diverted Russia from its path of Russian-ness. Stalin and Putin, also very different people, both brough it back on track. Stalin relied on Communism, Putin speaks of traditional values [with Russian characteristics, shall I add]. Stalin tried to retain all the gains of the Lenin’s period (e.g. women’s rights), same is true for Putin, though there is much less to retain from 1990s, if you ask me.

When Ian read the draft for this post, he asked me whether or not Stalin also relied on traditional values, and decriminalized the church. And, it’s true, he did when the war started. There’s an anecdote about marshal Vasilevsky’s father who was a priest. The original story seems to come from several sources including Vasilevsky himself, but here’s the gist. Stalin allegedly asked Vasilevsky whether he helped his old father, and the marshal replied he didn’t, he said he had split up with his father in 1926 because of the priesthood thing that might affect the son’s career. Stalin reminded that he himself actually wanted to become a priest insisted the marshal make it up with the father. Allegedly Stalin had also been secretly helping the old man before. As I said, this story exists in several versions with different shades and commentaries to it, but it gives an interesting angle to consider the personality from. The Nobel Prize winner Sholokhov was asked about the personality cult and he said, “Yes, there was the cult, but there was the personality”.

Now, India. It was I who told Ian that China was lucky to have Mao, while India… India had Gandhi. I think Gandhi failed to return India to its original path whichever it was and is. He also failed to prevent bloodshed as much as he tried to (look at how India and Pakistan got split). India still seems to be confused and ruled by ideas that came from abroad. Even its own traditions like yoga, Hinduism and Buddhism seem to work like tourist attractions, not pillars of the national mentality. I see the same trend in Japan and South Korea which are colonies retaining empty skins of national culture.

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Maria Kondorskaya

Linguist, [very] professional Content writer, Russian (and even Soviet), Muscovite, patriot, internationalist. Passive aggressive, vivacious pessimist, optimist with a morbid sense of humor. Made in the USSR in 1982.