If there is anything in the plus column for having COVID, it’s that you get a lot of downtime to yourself. This creates an ideal opportunity to get some quality reading in.
I have had seven vaccine shots for the Coronavirus; but they say this will stand me in good stead regarding symptoms. So far, it’s been a nasty cold: sore throat, painful coughing, etc.
Perhaps I was a war criminal in a previous life, and had entire villages exterminated. Thank you, Field Marshal Harms.
So, my friend Michael pulled through with a book suggestion on the Russian Revolution, by historian Sheila Fitzpatrick. It is the perfect level of detail I was looking for. I’m giving it a slow, careful read. (You’ve read it, McFerron??)
This chapter in history I find quite fascinating. It set up what became the Cold War, and it ratcheted into place the Adam Smith vs. Karl Marx nonsense. Noam Chomsky has pointed out that both dominant ideological centers agreed that what Russia was doing was communism. It was not. And when the Soviet system collapsed, Chomsky was quick to point out that it was a great victory for socialism. Agreed.
You have seen countless Cold War movies and spy thrillers. They are fun to watch; but they’re all wrong. Yes, the Cold War was real, but the way the Kremlin is painted, as this evil Mordor-type entity, is difficult to take seriously.
Lenin and company conducted more of a coup than a revolution. And it was not at all what Marx had in mind: an intellectual vanguard creating a single-party tyranny in feudal Russia? [wrong answer buzzer]
So, if you pray, could you put in a good word for me? I’ll be here, next to my space heater, book worming, and overdoing it on coughdrops.
2025 is off to a great start. If I see 2026, I shall be well impressed.
www.amazon.com/Russian-Revolution-Sheila-Fitzpatrick/dp/0198806701/
