I’m a little confused about our love affair with Russia, alias the USSR, alias the Soviet Union, alias the Red Menace. As a Baby Boomer, I certainly grew up feeling the big chill of the Cold War. In those decades of the mid to late twentieth century, Americans had one arch enemy: the red communists from the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic. The Soviets, in turn, saw America as the big evil on the planet, capable of launching nuclear war—just as they could, too. It was spy versus spy: the freedom-loving Western world versus the Godless communist Soviet Eastern bloc. We were taught in school the Cold War was about democracy versus communism. Really the ‘war’ was about economic theory, capitalism versus socialism, than political philosophy. There was blatant hypocrisy in communism, which in theory sounds Utopian: Everyone is equal, even paid equally. That’s not how it worked, though. The rulers were always fat cats while the majority lived in deprivation, just happy to be alive, sort of. Time and again, history teaches that the human masses will topple governments that just don’t work in the best interest of all the people.
In 1980 President Carter campaigned to continue diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union to reduce the threat of a future nuclear war. But the Republicans—backed big time by the so-called Silent Majority, the religious right—maintained the USSR would never be a friend to the United States. Their candidate Ronald Reagan felt the same way, innately distrustful of the Soviet Union. That year would be my first presidential election, so I discussed the issue with many adults. And I could not believe my ears: Most folks I knew, all Texans, were voting for Reagan. I loved Jimmy Carter—despite the gas lines, inflation, lay-offs, energy conservation, and Iranian hostage crisis. He was a Democrat, and that was good enough for me. I was idealistic and believed Carter should try to make friends with the Soviets. I did not see them as people to fear, though I clearly recall their iron-fisted government as foreboding. Life in the Soviet Union featured food lines; cramped dingy apartments; criminal black markets; forbidden music, art and religious expression; censored news; lots of lies; and mandated job quotas. They had one thing going for them: Everyone had housing, something America still wrestles with.
While debating my support for Carter with a conservative Christian friend, I explained the one thing I liked about the president was his willingness to talk with the Soviet Union. Appalled by the very idea, that was exactly why my friend refused to support Carter, because the Soviets were just evil and could not be trusted. I realized then America needed to maintain the Cold War and dis-ease with the other world power. Once Reagan was president, he frequently criticized the Soviet leaders and often suggested the Soviet people compare the quality of life in America to their own. Later Reagan dubbed a state-of-the-art nuclear protection system for our hemisphere as ‘Star Wars,’ and that really upset the Soviet man on the street. They seemed to view this possible protection shield in outer space as some sure sign we were going to nuke them first. The ‘shield’ was to keep the nukes in outer space so no harm would come to our side of the planet.
What no one knew during the 1980s was the West had already won the Cold War. Democracy had won. Capitalism had won. How? Besides the Soviets’ love of jeans (yes, American blue jeans!) and black market rock albums, American television in communist nations probably had the biggest impact. Glamorous soap operas like Dallas opened the eyes of the masses living in the bleak Soviet bloc. But the biggest thing that really broke the Soviet Union was CNN. Once everyone on the planet could see with their own eyes what’s going on around the world and that there was nothing to fear especially from the West, the Eastern bloc dictated by the Soviet Union began to break away, country by country—because the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed it. Finally the Berlin Wall was busted to smithereens. It was a beautiful moment in human history. Freedom had won over tyranny, trust over fear, love over hate.
She sold seashells by the seashore
The Soviets and others who experienced an entire economy based on socialist-Big Brother theory and propaganda were going to have to think differently about every aspect of their lives and livelihoods. Economically, they were going to have to turn around very quickly if they wanted to emulate what Americans take for granted: supermarkets with plenty of food, houses, reliable fuel and energy, cars, clothes, stuff, honest business dealings and money handling, plus competing for jobs and salaries and even self-employment through privately-owned businesses—all this because of total and complete individual freedom: of thought, word, deed, art and media. The New Russians tried. But one generation can’t create what has taken America and Western Europe hundreds of years to develop. They were starting from scratch. And an overjoyed America, still chanting “We’re Number One,” did not do much to help the Russians transform their lives in preparation for the twenty-first century.
With the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia became the new-old name of the largest part of the former communist empire. Maps were redrawn and redrawn. It was messy for a decade or so. As the Russians continued to suffer trying to catch up with American capitalism—which in itself is cold blooded and ruthless—the days of the former Soviet Union became glorified memories. Enter a new leader: Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent with a hard-line penchant toward restored communism. He has proven to be a leader who insists upon total control and is willing to go to any extreme including imprisoning and killing enemies and of course censoring the media, incredulous in this internet age. President Obama slapped economic sanctions on Putin’s Russia for a military encroachment into Ukraine, a nearby European country that was begrudgingly part of the former Soviet Union long ago.
But President Trump has some kind of bromance with Putin, speaking admiringly of his counterpart in the First World. And why does Trump want to make amends with Russia? Oil, glorious oil! So both of our conflicting economic and governance theories have come full circle. But alas comrade, communism supports the government as controller of all mineral rights—not private citizens, land owners or businesses. Americans, the hardest-working people on earth, crave gasoline. How we gonna get to work without it?
President Trump is a businessman first. Putin is a communist first. America and Russia are like a divorced couple who are dating again. It’s crazy to outsiders, but the two lovers can’t fight the attraction. They are the magnet, and we are the steel. In communist Soviet Russia, there was a saying: You see one thing, hear another, and think a third. With Trump’s tough talk, twisting the truth, and blasting the American media—with its constitutional role to ensure a lasting democracy—perhaps now the old Soviet adage applies to the New Americans.