Into The Ice: Robert Park

Robert Park

Victor Herman's story, Coming Out of the Ice has been highlighted here previously. Now along comes Robert Park, a Christian missionary activist, whose story may or may not be immortalized someday.

On Christmas Day, Mr. Park,  brazenly crossed the frozen Tumen River that separates North Korea from China; into the ice, so to speak.

The Washington Post today notes that Park's "Christianity" itself may be [seen by] the North Korean regime as the real instigator or danger here. Though North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in reality the government severely restricts religious observance, allowing only worship at sanctioned churches.

Underground worship and distribution of Bibles [often] mean[s] banishment to a labor camp or even execution, according to defectors and activists. Still, according to such sources, more than 30,000 North Koreans are practicing Christianity in hiding.
[Data on other religious practice in North Korea is even less available or known, apparently.]

Mr. Park's crossing also comes just months after the country freed two U.S. journalists, who were arrested along the Tumen and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for trespassing and "hostile acts." They were released to former President Bill Clinton on a visit to the isolated country in August. (North Korea and the United States do not have diplomatic relations).

And it likely goes without saying further, but this small act "could complicate Washington's efforts to coax North Korea back to negotiations aimed at its nuclear disarmament."

Park had an exclusive interview with Reuters last week before starting on his journey. The following are excerpts from that conversation.

Robert Park: The North Korean human rights crisis by murder rate is the worst in the world. An estimated 1,000 people a day die by starvation and starvation is a murder case. North Korea has been sent more food aid than any nation in the world but the food has not gone to the people who need it. So this is murder.

But not only that, there are concentration camps in North Korea that are of the same brutality as in Nazi Germany.

Responsible governments are completely silent about the issue. The United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea have a huge responsibility to speak out about this because all these nations played a role the arbitrary division of the Koreas, where not a single Korean was consulted. Yet the lives of these people are of no issue to these governments. That is a crime.
It is a huge crime.

What is happening in North Korea is genocide. We know there are legitimate fears about what could happen through nuclear weapons. But a nation that runs concentration camps, a nation that kills men, women and children without any kind of restraint can never be trusted.
We believe the resolution to this whole crisis is simply addressing North Korea honestly about this has to change.

We do not hate people. I am Christian, but I do have to say that this is not a legitimate government. We cannot talk to North Korea as if it is a legitimate government, but we need to liberate North Korea. We need to have a vision for the unification of Korea. It has to happen immediately because people are dying by the thousands every single day.

More of his comments can be found here.

One person can make a difference as Christ taught and all religion generally extols.

It remains to be seen whether Robert Park shall become a martyr or merely one more lost and forgotten soul among the millions.

Let the New Year begin in prayer for them (and us) all.

Albert Camus to the Pantheon, please

 Albert Camus

"In an effort to strengthen the French national identity president Nicholas Sarkozy has named writer Albert Camus to the Pantheon, the final resting place for social and intellectual heroes of the Republic.

In speeches and articles he [Camus] called out human rights abuses and labor camps in the Soviet Union long before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago was smuggled out."

 

 The Panthéon in Paris

And so what of Sartre?

Sartre's and de Beauvoir's grave

"Albert Camus is part of the French cultural patrimony and he belongs in the Pantheon. Sarkozy would be remiss if, as president, he does not redouble his efforts to put him there. As for the French left, they ought to realize it's time to tone down the culture of complaint. The next time they gain power they can start a Twitter campaign to put Sartre in the Pantheon and see if it goes viral..."

Left and right swings the eternal pendulum of man's folly, God's elusiveness.

Camus says:

"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."

Sartre says:

"God is dead. Let us not understand by this that he does not exist or even that he no longer exists. He is dead. He spoke to us and is silent. We no longer have anything but his cadaver. Perhaps he slipped out of the world, somewhere else like the soul of a dead man. Perhaps he was only a dream...God is dead."

Read more of Eric Erhmann's musings on the virtues and travails of Camus here.

Monument to Victims Sought in Ottawa

In an interview with Frontpagemag.com, Alide Forstmanis shares her vision for a memorial to the Victims of Communist Crimes.  The goal for completion is November 2010.

As a child of Latvian parents she was "lucky to grow up in Sweden" as [of the many] of her relatives [who] stayed in Latvia, "some were also sent to Siberia."

As she says,

"A monument like this will be a recognition by Canada of the determination of millions to come to a country like ours that celebrates liberty and opposes the oppression of totalitarian communism. This recognition will also help us remember the suffering that many of those Canadians endured, as well as the suffering of the millions who couldn’t come, and of the many millions that perished in the Gulag."

Noteworthy:

"According to [the] 2006 Census almost 9 million of Canada’s 33 million inhabitants come from either former or current communist led countries. This is close to a third of the Canadian population."

To support the project and follow its progress visit (and bookmark) the site Tribute to Liberty.

Unfinished Journey: Herta Müller

Discovered a compelling essay today from writer Lyn Marven about this year's Nobel Prize for Literature winner (written in October shortly after the announcement).

You can read it here.

Herta Müller in Oslo

Meanwhile, the Prize has indeed been handed to Herta Müller

She was born on August 17, 1953 in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II. Many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including Müller's mother who spent five years in a work camp (gulag) in present-day Ukraine.

Many years later, in Atemschaukel (2009), Müller was to depict the exile of the German Romanians in the Soviet Union. From 1973 to 1976, Müller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timişoara (Temeswar). During this period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who, in opposition to Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, sought freedom of speech.

After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, she was harassed by Securitate. Müller made her debut with the collection of short stories Niederungen (1982), which was censored in Romania. Two years later, she published the uncensored version in Germany and, in the same year, Drückender Tango in Romania.

As Ms.Müller shared in remarks surrounded by nobles, notables and the "undeserving" in Oslo, yesterday (December 10th), "Romania remains dominated by the henchmen of Nicolae Ceausescu" more than 20 years after that infamous public execution.

Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu December 25, 1989

Known to be a "reticent speaker," Ms.Müller noted piercingly (condensed version):

"There is a legacy in Romania, a legacy of dictatorship. The former Securitate and the former party nomenclature are very closely networked in Romania and through privatization they have managed to occupy almost all the key positions in society. What Romania needs is a civil society, but a civil society has to evolve and to do that it needs the right conditions. Romania does not have those conditions.
“The new secret service … took on 40 percent of the old secret service. The people in that apparatus have acquired a second life. [In Romania], “you can’t see who did what. No responsibility has been taken."

And what of other regimes?

Müller pulls no punches.

"There is this great discrepancy as far as China is concerned. It claims to be to be on the road to democracy, but it is not even a half, not even a quarter, not even a tenth true. It has got nothing to do with democracy. Human rights have been cast aside. If there were less acceptance in the West then the rulers in China would have to think a little bit about how to change."

Coincidentally, and perhaps presciently, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, said at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair (where China just happened to be the guest of honor):

    "Books have great potential to liberate."

As these are times yet demanding (great) change, may such change be of "great potential."

And may great books be our guides within our own "unfinished journeys" toward greater, fuller and even total liberation.

Herta Müller's Nobel Lecture, "Every word knows something of a vicious circle" can be read here.

UPDATE: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic - The Gulag Archipelago

Story First Posted Here: September 10, 2009

This from The Moscow Times today:

Natalya Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's widow, has cut his landmark book “The Gulag Archipelago” by 80 percent to fit Russian school curriculum according to an interview published December 10th in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

She said she condensed the three-volume work at the request of her late husband, and the project started last summer.

The shortened version of the 64-chapter (672 pages in the English version) “The Gulag Archipelago” (about  135 pages in Russian) will become compulsory reading in high school literature classes.

The Rape of Nanking

Just in case one has not viewed this yet, it is currently available online.

"Nanking," the 2007 HBO documentary film about the 1937 Nanking Massacre committed by the Japanese army in the former capital city Nanjing, China draws on letters, diaries and archival footage from the era. Most striking and importantly, as well, are interviews with surviving victims as well as a few actual perpetrators of the massacre. 

Particular attention (with contemporary actors playing the roles) is paid to John Rabe (also in a 2009 major motion picture), a German merchant (and Nazi who used his clout), Robert O. Wilson, an intrepid surgeon, and Minnie Vautrin, a missionary educator who together with a handful of other foreigners present at the time organized the Nanking Safety Zone which saved over 250,000 lives.

Be prepared and forewarned.

About the 6 week onslaught, known (by most of the civilized world today) as "The Rape of Nanking":

• 260,000 died (source: International Military Tribunal of the Far East) ~most, including children, were bayoneted and/or shot in the back; women after acts of rape
  
  
• 20,000-80,000 rapes were committed by Japanese soldiers

After viewing the documentary, the story behind it and, in particular, the story behind the bestselling 1997 book, "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" by Iris Chang may be of interest (begin here).

"Controversial," seems to put it mildly.

And no matter whether one tends toward being revisionist or not,
the story and recounting of this horror, as usual, remains instructive and important.

"This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past." ~Agathon

A Quiet "Fighter for Peace" Passes

The passing of George Miller-Kurakin has been noted recently, primarily in the British press.

Notable among the tributes, one composed by Julian Lewis, concludes succinctly:

George Miller-Kurakin, anti-Soviet campaigner: born Santiago, Chile 25 April 1955; married 1986 Lilia Zielke (one son, one daughter); died London 23 October 2009.

Anti-Soviet campaigner?

Yes.

Reading over Mr. Lewis' account of Miller-Kurakin's life (and the others), it becomes clear that he was much, much more than that.

"Intellectual and visionary, liberal and anti-Communist, George Miller inspired a generation of Conservative activists in the 1980s, when the Soviet Union seemed impregnable. His operations were so extensive that few of his associates knew the full picture."

The Adam Smith Institute notes his passing this way:

"[ASI] . . . recently lost a great friend and a heroic fighter for freedom. George Miller-Kurakin was an anti-communist activist who during the 1980s was not only a close associate of the ASI but in orchestrating a wide range of direct actions behind the Iron curtain
he inspired a generation of young freedom fighters
during what turned out to be the latter decade of the cold war.

A larger than life character with a great sense of humour, George was thoughtful, generous and staunch. Strategic, visionary and an outstanding executioner of field-craft and tactics
he always believed that Communism would eventually collapse
under the weight of its own manifest contradictions.
How right he was.
Rest in peace."

Miller-Kurakin, far left, and colleagues stage a protest

at the Soviet-backed Copenhagen Peace Congress in 1986

Who or how many truly remember(s) that time?

As Lewis recounts it:

Miller never sought personal publicity, but never minded taking a lead. With the Coalition for Peace Through Security, he spent a year planning a lively reception for the 1986 Copenhagen "Peace Congress" – the first set-piece effort in a Nato country by the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council (WPC) since its abortive Sheffield Congress of November 1950.

The USSR spent a great deal of hard currency staging the Copenhagen event. It opened with Miller and two others unfolding a giant banner on the platform which declared: "This is the KGB's 'Peace' Congress". On the second day, pictures of him being roughly handled dominated the Danish press. On the final day, dozens of his activists (who had somehow acquired delegates' credentials) mounted a protest against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The ensuing mayhem achieved worldwide media coverage, throwing new light on the WPC's favourite catch-phrase – "The Fight for Peace".

We remember . . .

George Miller-Kurakin 

The Pilgrim's Dream (really)

America is my home.

I am proud to be an American.

Some day however, I, like so many others before me, may find myself captive or simply captivated by another land or place upon this great earth in further pursuit of becoming a "one-worlder"  -- or perhaps I'll follow my boyhood dream and become an offworlder.

"Choose your weapons (or means) of peaceful capitulation!"

Hamilton-Burr Duel

But not right now.

As of this moment, I remain, quintessentially and to the core, American.

That brings me to the meaning of not just "Thanksgiving," but my take or view of America itself.

Michael Medved writes somewhat perceptively on the subject "Real Pilgrims" (?) this week in USA Today:

"Most children learn that the Mayflower settlers came to the New World to escape persecution and to establish religious freedom. But the early colonists actually pursued purity, not tolerance and sought to build fervent, faith-based utopias, not secular regimes that consigned religion to a secondary role. The distinctive circumstances that allowed these fiery believers of varied denominations to cooperate in the founding of a new nation help to explain America’s contradictory religious traditions – as simultaneously the most devoutly Christian society in the western world, and the country most accommodating to every shade of exotic belief and practice." 

Supporting that with:

"The Pilgrims and their spiritual descendants never had to retreat from religious fervor or Biblical demands to join the new Republic, thanks to the continued existence of more or less autonomous, localized refuges and enclaves. No one can suggest that our Founders embraced secularism or relativism, but they did come to accept the notion of separate faith communities following their own distinctive rules while managing to live side-by-side and to cooperate where necessary . . .  The limitless boundaries and vast empty land of the fresh continent, plus the challenges of a long Revolutionary struggle, gave the faith-filled fanatics of the founding the chance for a freedom more profound than mere religious tolerance: the right, in their own communities, to be left alone."

In other words, he concludes, America is a land where we have earned the right to be "left alone" (in the pursuit of "happiness," no doubt).

That conclusion however rings only partly true today, in my opinion, based upon not only a spiritual side of the law of diminishing returns, but the increasingly blatant realities of global interdependence.

Further, John Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute reminds us in piercingly clear words this week (here) that America and God (and the world) are again at a crossroads, invoking the words of that deceased "pilgrim," and recently oft noted, former Russian exile:

Increasingly, we are headed toward a spiritually dead-end society as our schools and universities, reluctant to teach values, avoid religion as if it were a plague. As a result, in the words of Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "men have forgotten God." He knew of what he spoke. For a short time, Solzhenitsyn was exiled in the United States where he observed Western culture first hand. As a result, Solzhenitsyn tended to reject the Western emphasis on materialism based largely upon his belief in Christian values.

Have we forgotten God?

Perhaps, that can be stated in a way more palatable even for the most agnostic or atheistic, too.

Have we lost that desire of the pilgrim forefathers, that fervor or dream for purity and freedom and along with that; that most basic of all human rights, the right to be "left alone"?

 Flat Earth

Have we reached the end of the earth?

Are the frontiers - even of space - no longer all that appealing or beckoning?

Perhaps, some answers (and questions) really do remain, too often unspoken, within the human soul.

"The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live." ~Victor Hugo

And then you have this:

In the name of God, Amen.
We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid; And by Virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620.

The shores of America have continued to attract (and occasionally repel) pilgrims of all stripes, shapes and agendas.

Shall it remain so?

Cape Cod, where first landfall occurred,  forms a continuous archipelagic region with a thin line of islands stretching toward New York, historically known by naturalists as the Outer Lands.

"East of America, there stands in the open Atlantic the last fragment of an ancient and vanished land. Worn by the breakers and the rains, and disintegrated by the wind, it still stands bold." - Henry Beston.

Heirs of The Gulag

Recently, my belief that human beings are so "complexed" that sometimes (perhaps often) they retain a certain god complex, was confirmed once more.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio!"

It is after all, a new, designer age where vicariousness and even occasional viciousness sparks curiosity and possibilities as never known or imagined before.  Who cares about the world, family or real neighbors anymore when one has such outlets (or inlets), such . . . dreams?

This morning after a devotional reading wherein the following sentence spoke to me, in particular, "In the end, reconciliation and peace will come about through lineage," I quickly grabbed my yellowing copy of Victor Herman's book, Coming Out of the Ice, off the shelf and read:

"I heard an unbelievable scream. It was the first time I had heard anything like it. It was the kind of scream you imagine a woman makes in childbirth. It was a scream like that, not hysterical, but a more stupendous howl of exquisite agony with relief mixed into it. I looked up. The guard said, "Head down." I waited. I tried to decide where that scream had come from. What had made it - man or woman? It was that kind of scream - beyond gender - but a perfectly human sound . . ."

And finally:

"I was never again to hear anything like this - that one transfigured scream - and on either side of it silence, a perfect silence."

Munche's "The Scream" - Heirs afoot?

The etymology for the word heirs, the subject of this reflection, is interesting.

According to the Merriam -Webster dictionary online:
"akin to Greek chēros bereaved

Date: 13th century"

In the 21st century, it seems that screams of the transfiguring sort are just about everywhere one willingly (or forcibly) travels "on either side of [the] silence."

Gulags, yet abound.
They belong to us all.

Later . . .

Sexual Slavery - Update

Story First Posted Here Friday, September 25, 2009

A new book on this subject by Pulitzer Prize winning husband and wife team Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn speaks out passionately against the oppression (including the sexual slavery) of women and girls worldwide.

The authors in a September interview with WNYC Radio:


HALF THE SKY: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Knopf, 2009) is already in its 9th printing.

As reviewer Bill Williams of The Boston Globe writes about it:

"They [the authors] estimate that 3 million women and girls are held as sex slaves. Human traffickers kidnap peasant girls as young as 7 and sell them to brothels. After girls are raped, they frequently remain prostitutes until they die, often from AIDS. During his research, Kristof purchased two teenage sex slaves in India for $150 and $203 and set them free. Within a week, one returned to her captors because she had become addicted to methamphetamines supplied by the brothel.

The authors cite another case in India in which pimps forced prostitutes to watch while they stripped a rebellious sex slave and then beat and stabbed her, leaving her to bleed to death. I often had to stop reading because the atrocities were too much to absorb."

Continuing:

"Just as America confronted slavery, the world today must face up to the issue of “women locked in brothels and teenage girls with fistulas curled up on the floor of isolated huts.’’

The authors are careful not to blame men alone. Oppression of women often is deeply embedded in local cultures, and is accepted by men and women alike.

Some nations, including China, are finally empowering women after centuries of oppression. Last year Rwanda became the first nation with a majority of female legislators."

Read Bill William's full review here.

"HALF THE SKY" has developed or is becoming (it is hoped) a global movement as well.

Get involved here or even here (America has a "sexual slavery" problem, too).

“Women hold up half the sky." ~Chinese Proverb

Cuban Bloggers Widen the Crack

The Socialist Republic of Cuba never did exactly become a Soviet satellite, but a disturbing (perhaps insignificant to some) report Friday indicates that after over 50 years now it is still not the Castro Paradise of Uncle Joe's dreams.

Writes Janine Mendes-Franco about el acontecimiento (the incident) on Global Voices:

"Perhaps it was only a matter of time, but Yoaní Sánchez, Cuba's most famous blogger, who has received countless international awards for her activism, was detained briefly and beaten by Cuban authorities on November 6, along with fellow bloggers, Claudia Cadelo (a Global Voices contributor) and Orlando Luís Pardo Lazo. The three were on their way to an anti-violence march in the Cuban capital, Havana."

Here:

Yoani Sánchez herself shares this (now translated) account from her own blog:

Near 23rd Street, just at the Avenida de los Presidentes roundabout, we saw a black car, made in China, pull up with three heavily built strangers. “Yoani, get in the car,” one told me while grabbing me forcefully by the wrist. The other two surrounded Claudia Cadelo, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, and a friend who was accompanying us to the march against violence. The ironies of life, it was an evening filled with punches, shouts and obscenities on what should have passed as a day of peace and harmony. The same “aggressors” called for a patrol car which took my other two companions, Orlando and I were condemned to the car with yellow plates, the terrifying world of lawlessness and the impunity of Armageddon.


I refused to get into the bright Geely-made car and we demanded they show us identification or a warrant to take us. Of course they didn’t show us any papers to prove the legitimacy of our arrest. The curious crowded around and I shouted, “Help, these men want to kidnap us,” but they stopped those who wanted to intervene with a shout that revealed the whole ideological background of the operation, “Don’t mess with it, these are counterrevolutionaries.” In the face of our verbal resistance they made a phone call and said to someone who must have been the boss, “What do we do? They don’t want to get in the car.”

After enduring and somehow surviving the horrific ordeal Ms. Sánchez concludes:

"I managed to see, however, the degree of fright of our assailants, the fear of the new, of what they cannot destroy because they don’t understand, the blustering terror of he who knows that his days are numbered."

Party Over?

Notes The Miami Herald in its own Friday edition, quoting another blog Penultimos Días:

"These are new people, with stunning ingenuity," [ ] add[ing] that the organizers had carried out a prior event in the Dimitrov Park that included "group fraternizing exercises . . . and group theater."
The march, which [ ] drew some 200 participants, was the second demonstration in Havana in the past three weeks to bring together young Cubans generally critical of the island's communist system.
On Oct. 20, a dozen Cuban bloggers and more than 100 Internet sites around the world joined in a "virtual protest," using Tweets, text messages and blog posts to send out messages like "Freedom" and demanding the release of all political prisoners.

 Could something this seemingly small be the final spur toward freedom and something truly better for the people of Cuba?

Gulag Collection: There's More

Story First Posted Here Wednesday, September 30, 2009

As Sarah Young notes on her blog (mentioned here previously), Nikolai Getman’s "Gulag Collection" is not the only visual record of the Gulag.
She notes that:

"The website of Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya’s extraordinary and evocative illustrations of her twelve years in the Gulag allows the pictures to speak for themselves."

And further, as "only the introductory section of the website so far [has] been translated into English" it is certainly of some interest that the Kersnovskaya Foundation has graciously made a few images available under Creative Commons License via Wikipedia.

"Killing Her Baby"

Someone is Praying for You, Hard!

In my opinion, overall, they are even more stirring and powerful than those left behind by Getman (1917-2004), but you can decide for yourself.

Kersnovskaya (1908-1994), who spent 12 years in Gulag camps, wrote her memoirs in 12 notebooks with most yet to be translated into English (some works have been translated into German and French, however).

Eufrosinia Kersnovskaya

More of this important collection can be viewed here.

The Getman "Gulag Collection" can be viewed online here.

Iran's Quasi-Gulag on Trial - Update

Story First Posted Here: Monday, August 31, 2009

The trial of 7 Baha'i leaders had originally been postponed until October 18th, but now it is indefinite according to the Baha'i News Service:

"Although the trial of seven Baha'i leaders imprisoned in Iran for more than 17 months was scheduled for today, when attorneys and families arrived at the court offices in Tehran they were told it would not take place. No new trial date was given.

"The time has come for these seven innocent people to be immediately released on bail," said Diane Ala'i, the Baha'i International Community's representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

"The seven, whose only 'crime' is their religious belief, are once again in legal limbo, held with no idea of the legal process ahead of them. The whole charade cries out for an end to their unlawful detention," she said.

The seven are Mrs. Fariba Kamalabadi, Mr. Jamaloddin Khanjani, Mr. Afif Naeimi, Mr. Saeid Rezaie, Mrs. Mahvash Sabet, Mr. Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Mr. Vahid Tizfahm.

Official Iranian news accounts have said the seven are to be accused of "espionage for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and propaganda against the Islamic republic." They have also been charged with "spreading corruption on earth."

Last week, it appeared likely that the trial would indeed be postponed again, since attorneys for the seven had not yet received the proper writ of notification.

"The fact that their attorneys did not receive proper notification and that there is no new date for the trial is just one among many gross violations of Iran's own legal procedures, not to mention the violations of due process recognized by international law, that have marked this case from the beginning," said Ms. Ala'i."

The Baha'i International Community categorically rejects all charges against the seven, stating that they are held solely because of religious persecution.

The Bahá'í Faith is the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran, with over 300,000 adherents.

God and Gulags shall continue following this and other stories with updates as they become available (and/or are made known).

Walls Apart and Within

As the 20th Anniversary of (most) of the Berlin Wall's destruction approaches, who remembers why it was even built? Was it for protection or imprisonment?

Ask your children (if you have any) and see how much they know.
You may be surprised (or not, hopefully).

But walls are part of life, too. There are cell and arterial walls and the infamous blood brain barrier. Each works in its own sure, yet mysterious way to keep us alive.

Cell physiology

There are also the "walls" of separation of powers and between church and state (and sometimes, it seems, these, in particular, have very little meaning or reality).

There is finally, the wall between Man and God.

Solzhenitsyn wrote about that, too, though less overtly than some, since he was after all is said about him "of the intelligentsia," albeit a prisoner of conscience, too.

In Prussian Nights, his droning epic poem (not one of his best), he touches briefly upon the subject in an obtuse reference to Chavarka (or Cārvāka), which, unknown to most was/is a sophisticated, mostly defunct movement or line of thought within Indian philosophy that assumed "various forms of philosophical skepticism and religious indifference."

Also referred to (by others) as lokayata, in brief, it was a materialistic and atheistic school of thought.

"In ancient India, there were broadly three schools of philosophical thought -- Vedanta, Sankhya and Lokayata. Vedanta is theistic & spiritual, Sankhya and Lokayata are atheistic & materialistic."

And supposedly, according to Indian sources (e.g., this irritating ad-infested one), "what little we know today about the latter two schools are mostly from derogatory and dismissive references to these in the Vedanta literature."

That itself is surely debatable as "defunct" is still defunct.

Newsweek, not my favorite publication, seems to be looking at The Berlin Wall, too, as posted yesterday ( on the web) in an upcoming issue noting:

"The collapse of the 3.7-meter-tall monster in Berlin on Nov. 9, 1989, did bring about—or, more accurately, complete—a momentous transformation of the Old Continent. For the past 2,000 years, Europe had been the source of the best and the worst in human history. It invented practically everything that matters: from Greek philosophy to Roman law, from the Renaissance to the fax machine, from Brunelleschi to Bauhaus. But this was also where the world's deadliest wars erupted, killing tens of millions. It was in Europe that the most murderous ideologies were invented: communism, fascism, and Nazism, complete with the Gulag, the Gestapo, and Auschwitz."

While elsewhere, in La La Land (Los Angeles, of course)the Irony Curtain is being constructed or re-constructed (depending on your view of irony, iron and/or curtains).

And walls.
So many and so high (often) are the walls.

Lord, help deliver us from our less desirable, less iron, and even less ironic walls . . .

Stalin's Belly Button

A story in the Los Angeles Times by Megan Stack today seems to be a late Halloween follow-up to a story covered in September both here and by reporter Miriam Elder at The Global Post here.

Well, seeing the Times photo of this Stalin impersonator riding up a subway tunnel escalator surely makes it seem that way, anyway.

Writes Ms. Stack:

"[T]he visceral attachment to the icons [such as Stalin] is [ ] the consequence of a country that never quite shook off the shadow of the Soviet system. The world may regard Russia as a place utterly distinct from the Soviet Union, but here in Russia, where government buildings are still festooned with hammers and sickles, there is an abiding sense of continuum.

"The same doctors, teachers, builders and steelworkers continue to live and work in the same country, and everything in our midst was built by the hands of people in the Soviet Union," said Russian author Mikhail Veller. "The state changes, but the country remains the same."

Where's the Rest of Me?

Documentaries, from the West, of course, abound on Stalin, the Diabolical:

But (once more) what about within Russia itself today?

As noted on this blog and elsewhere last week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has indeed (publicly) lamented the revisionism taking place while decrying the deaths of millions of citizens killed "as a result of terror and false accusations."

Continues Ms. Stack:

"It was a striking departure from the general drift of the country, which takes a nuanced, if not positive, view of longtime Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. But Medvedev, who has often provided a rhetorical softening to the ruling elite's hard-line stances, is regarded as politically weaker than Putin, and so far his more liberal statements have done little to change the Russian status quo."

Vladimir Putin, of course, continues to play maestro supremo or chess master (or Tsar?) behind the scenes of Russia's re-emergence as Superpower.

So what will his next move be?

One must continue to wonder how he really felt (or feels) about Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for instance.

End Meanings?

Such polar opposites, their relationship began and ended (or begins and ends) with questions yet remaining.

Solzhenitsyn, the heroic (jailed) contrarian and, Putin, the strong-armed (jailer) nationalist; somehow, they really did grow over those few brief years and across generations (and even gulags) to respect and ultimately "embrace" each other (on the surface, at least).

Yes, Mr. Putin had the former Bolshaya Kommunistecheskaya Ulitsa (Big Communist Street) in Moscow named after his "friend" shortly after his death, but residents there may have torn down the sign again.

Is President Medvedev still in Putin's pocket (or merely the lint in his belly button)?

And does anyone in Russia even remember this man anymore?

Dialectical Grave Digging

Paul Sonne does a bit of Tomb Travel in today's Wall Street Journal providing us with some haunting views of the "vexed social topography of the past."

Nikita Khrushchev's tomb, in particular, provides a stark and odd visual aid for those of us interested in the subject of this blog.  As the story goes, back in 1962, Khrushchev strutted into a modern art show at one of Moscow's famous exhibition halls finding, according to his esteemed, occasionally shoe-banging opinion, the avant-garde art on display to be "like dog droppings."  A particularly offensive epithet (?!) was hurled at sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, who responded with a few choice, but careful words then, but surely in substance more than a decade later (after the two men reportedly reached a truce). Neizvestny became the sculptor for Khrushchev's tombstone.

Dog Droppings?

Further, writes Sonne:

"The design represents the conflicted yin-and-yang of Khrushchev's character -- the bright, progressive reformer who denounced Josef Stalin and closed the Gulag, intertwined painfully with the dark, shoe-banging man who stuck to retrograde tactics and encouraged building the Berlin Wall. Visitors took to the candid monument, which became, so to speak, dog-doo de rigueur. The Soviet authorities closed Novodevichy Cemetery to the public in the 1970s soon after Khrushchev was interred there, only reopening it in 1987 during Perestroika."

The treasures of other famous and not-so-famous tombs across old Europe are briefly mentioned or exhumed (so to speak) as well, including the memorial at Paris's Père Lachaise to 147 combatants of the 1871 Paris Commune [who] died in firing-squad execution.

Cemetery tours, etc. across the world might just lead to deep (and possibly), sober reflection.
Perhaps even, this All Hallows Eve can be a time of redemption, as Catholic free-lance writer Page McKean Zyromski shares it:

"The same way people gather today at the site of a tragedy on its anniversary to talk to each other and to reporters, the first Christians gathered on the anniversary of a martyr’s death to remember it [them] the way they knew best: with the "breaking of the bread." They retold the stories to inspire each other at a time when faith meant persecution and more martyrdom. Not even death could break the unity in Jesus which Paul had named "the Body of Christ."

Meanwhile, in Modern Russia, President Dmitry Medvedev had a few words to share from his video blog (via ITAR-TASS) in regards to Remembrance Day:

“I am convinced that no development of the country, no successes and ambitions can be achieved at the expense of human grief and losses. Nothing can treasure more than human life.

"There is no justification to repressions.

Let’s only think that millions of people died because of terror and false accusations.

"Millions were deforced of their rights, even of the right for decent burial,
and for long years their names were deleted from history.

“It is even impossible to comprehend the scope of terror,
from which all peoples of the country suffered.

“For 20 pre-war years the whole strata and estates of our people were exterminated. Cossacks were nearly liquidated. “Kulak” peasants were dispossessed and bled white.
Intellectuals, workers and the military were subject to political repressions.

"Representatives of absolutely all religious confessions were persecuted.

I am convinced that remembrance of national tragedies is as sacred as commemoration of victories. It is extremely important for young people to have both historic knowledge and public spirit and be able to emotionally empathize one of the greatest tragedies in Russian history.

“We are paying much attention to the fight against falsification of our history. But we sometimes believe the talk is only about inadmissibility of revision of the results of the Great Patriotic War. But it is no less important to prevent under the pretext of historic justice exoneration of those who exterminated their own people.

"Russia has to accept its past as it was.

It is important to study the past, to overcome indifference and intention to forget its tragic sides.

Nobody but us can do that."
 

A memorial service will take place today in Lubyanka Square, Moscow in front of the former KGB building.

Remembrance Day was instituted in Russia in 1991 after the breakup (or "disintegration") of the Soviet Union (USSR).

According to the latest (Russian) data, in the 1920s-1950s, 52 million people were sentenced for political reasons, six million were exiled without any court sentence and one million [were] executed.

 

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson

Yosef Begun Not Finished

In the days when the Helsinki Group of dissidents was formed in Russia, led by Andrei Sakharov, Alexander Ginzburg and Anatoly Sharansky, ostensibly to promote the Soviet Union's abiding by the Helsinki Accords (to which it was a signatory) a Jew named Yosef (or Josef) Begun stuck out like a sore thumb.

Yosef Begun

In early 1971, having resigned from the military research institute at which he'd worked on radar technology and hoping his "sensitive worker" classification would be forgotten, Begun had applied for an emigration visa for Israel, quickly receiving a thundering "nyet." He became a political pariah, barred from any work in his (previous) professions and decided to become a fulltime Hebrew teacher. This became not acceptable to the authorities.

"I began to receive regular warnings that I was in danger of being indicted as a 'social parasite,' as someone not working," he recalls. "I responded to each warning by telling them of my full-time employment as a Hebrew teacher. After a year and a half the police indeed arrested me and I was charged with social parasitism.

"I defiantly wore a kippah in the courtroom. Students came to my 'trial' to testify that they had paid me for lessons and so I was employed. Nothing mattered. I was sentenced to nearly two years' exile in Siberia in the Kolimar region, 10,000 kilometers from Moscow."

The journey took 63 days. It was Begun's first introduction to the infamous Gulag Archipelago. He was ordered to live in a remote mining village where he worked as an electrical technician in a factory. When he was finally released, he was prohibited from living or coming within 100 kilometers of Moscow. After all, he was now a released felon.

But he had a young son from his first wife living in Moscow, and he had adopted the son of his second wife. He would defy the ban and sneak into Moscow to visit them. He was stopped twice by the KGB while in Moscow and released with a warning. Under the Soviet version of a "three strikes" law, the third time he was caught they arrested him. While waiting for his trial in 1978 he went on a hunger strike.

The prison guards tried to force-feed him through a tube up his nose, but he resisted, and by the time he was dragged into a courtroom his hunger strike was 43 days old. Unable to stand, he passed out before he could give the speech he'd prepared. The judge cynically wrote in the protocols, "The accused refused to answer the questions he was asked." Begun was deported back to Siberia to serve a three-year sentence, shipped there in a cattle car with starving and violent common criminals.

He was eventually released, but it was still very much the pre-Gorbachev era and dissent was a risky undertaking. The 1980 Moscow Olympics were in the making and the regime wanted no protests or dissidents ruining its showcase festivities.

But Begun refused to be cowed and published articles in the Western media on the plight of Soviet Jews. In one famous article he denounced the "cultural genocide" of Russian Jews being perpetrated by the regime, a slogan that came to be the rallying cry of the movement to free Soviet Jewry.
 

Today Begun lives in Jerusalem, where he runs a publishing house that brings important Jewish books to readers in Russian translation. He is in the process of publishing his memoirs. He speaks with Jewish students and other groups in the U.S., Russia, Israel, and even here in Hungary, where a film about his life, "Through Struggle You Will Gain your Rights," was screened between Yom Kippur and Sukkot this fall.

The rest of Steven Plaut's article, "The Man The Gulag Couldn't Break" from The Jewish Press can be found online here.

Yosef Begun on youtube (in Russian).

The Gulag Messiah

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a brilliant novelist/dramatist weaving the facts of his own brutal prison camp experience into haunting tales that continue to stir the conscience of nations. Viktor Frankl elevated his own awful Holocaust experience into a "search for meaning." Victor Herman "came out of the ice" and into the hearts of "middle" Americans.

In what is being touted as autobiography, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon shares his thoughts on his own life amidst the horror and inhumanity of North Korean gulag and beyond.

Known for many things by many people within his own native land and throughout the world - from charlatan, "brainwasher" and cult leader to name the less flattering - to religious leader/teacher, patriot (or partisan), futurist, humanitarian, peace activist, poet, environmentalist, fisherman, rugged individualist, and finally, Messiah, to name the most notorious, perhaps least palatable for many; this book expresses Sun Myung Moon's unabashed and unique view of his life as well as his vividly perceived role as the "True Parent" (with his wife, Hak Ja Han) of all.

Having recently re-immersed myself into the world of "gulag literature" and having just read a copy of the recently translated pre-release version, I commend the team of translators and editors for meeting the reportedly challenging deadline. Moreover, as a "unificationist" myself, I must express my deeper, continually growing admiration and appreciation to the man I've simply called "Father" for over 30 years.

There are many personal anecdotes about the life of Reverend Moon contained within the 347 pages of this small book, particularly early into the first few chapters. Some of them may catch even the most skeptical or cynical, quite off guard.

Above all, however, the underlying theme remains that of a man driven and undaunted; ever forward for the sake of a mission, his mission; "the liberation of God's heart" and/or (simultaneously) the liberation of everybody on earth as well as in "hell."

Reflecting upon the plight of the growing number of church members sent to conduct missionary work behind the "Iron Curtain" (circa 1973) he writes:

"Each time I heard that one of our members had died in jail, my entire body froze. I could not speak or eat. I couldn't even pray. I just sat motionless for awhile, unable to do anything. It was as if my body had turned to stone. If those people had never met me, or never heard what I taught, they never would have found themselves in a cold and lonely jail, and they never would have died the way they did. I asked myself, "Is my life worth so much that it can be exchanged for theirs? How am I going to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of the communist bloc that they were bearing in my place?" I could not speak. I fell into a sorrow that seemed to have no end, as if I had been thrown into deep water. I saw Marie Zivna before me in the form of a yellow butterfly that had escaped Czechoslovakia's prison [and] fluttered its wings as if to tell me to be strong and to stand up. By carrying on her missionary activities at the risk of her life, Marie truly had been transformed from being a caterpillar to being a beautiful butterfly."

 On the unification of Germany (and Korea) he writes (perhaps presciently):

"I have studied the unification of Germany for a long time. I have listened to the experiences of those who were involved with regard to how it was that unification could come without a single bullet being fired or a single drop of blood being spilled. In so doing, my hope has been to find a way that is appropriate for Korea. I have learned that the main reason Germany could be united peacefully was that East German leaders were made to understand that their lives would not be in danger following unification. If East German leaders had not believed this would be so, they would not have allowed unification to occur so easily."

Labor in Hungnam Prison

As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen (Korean: 평화를 사랑하는 세계인으로)is the autobiography of Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church. Published in 2009 in both Korean and English, by Gimm-Young Publishers of Seoul. The book was first released in South Korea on March 9, 2009 and debuted at #3 on the Business Bestseller's List (경제경영). It has ranked on various (Korean) bestseller lists since then and is ranked 15th on the general bestseller's list there as of October 14, 2009.

A Bestseller Again?

A wider release and (at least one) updated English language edition is foreseen according to church sources.
Over 43 different language translations of the book are also simultaneously being prepared.

Is the world ready (or does it care?) for a "fresh" view of a remarkable man yet engaged in a remarkable journey?

I, for one, certainly hope so.

"In the First Circle" Refined

English translator Harry T. Willetts' version of perhaps the greatest novel ever written by one of the great writers of the last century shall finally be available. The definitive text (i.e., "as the author envisioned it") of "In the First Circle," arrives on bookshelves in the West on October 13th.

According to Edward E. Ericson, Jr., authority on the work of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and professor emeritus of English at Calvin College:

"In the First Circle" is the first work by Solzhenitsyn to go to press in English since he died last year at age 89. A major writer's death fosters reflection on his overall achievement, so this is the perfect time to reconsider the novel now that it is finally available to us as the author intended. A literary classic is defined as a book still read a century after appearing. On that basis one might say that the book has already had a 40-year head start on fulfilling that definition, given the acclaim with which the bowdlerized text has been received since its appearance in the West in 1968.

An intriguing intimation of the prospects for this version comes from the Russian experience with the canonical text. In 2006 a Russian television network presented serializations of classic Russian novels by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pasternak, Bulgakov and Solzhenitsyn. Fifteen million viewers tuned in to each installment of "In the First Circle."

More from his Wall Street Journal article adapted from his foreword to "In the First Circle" (Harper Perennial) can be found here.

Amazon.com shows "In the First Circle: The First Uncensored Edition (Paperback)" now available. Be sure to get the new edition.

North Korean Gulags for Extortion

As previously reported here, there exists an extensive, on-going North Korean system of gulags both North of the 38th parallel as well as in the former Soviet Union/Russia.

Jong-Il and Putin in 2002

Now it turns out that, according to a report just released by the East-West Center, the system of prison camps in North Korea are also being utilized to extract penance (and capital) from those brave, enterprising and starving souls who have dared to try to survive amidst the squalor of a bankrupt, inhuman system.

“The portrait that emerges is of a Soviet-style gulag characterized by an arbitrary judicial system, an expansive conception of crime, and horrific abuses,” write Haggard and Noland, who is also Deputy Director of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.

One particularly striking finding, they write, “is that the conditions that are frequently seen as characteristic of the country’s infamous gulag of political penal-labor colonies –such as extreme deprivation and exposure to violence – in fact pertain across the penal system, from the penitentiaries designed to house felons to lower-level jails [used to punish] a widening array of other economic and social crimes that are associated with the process we describe as ‘marketization from below.’” 

Even among the refugees imprisoned for relatively brief periods at lower-level penal facilities, a substantial number reported witnessing such abuses as forced starvation, deprivation of medical care, deaths due to beating or torture, and public executions.

Based on surveys of North Korean refugees, you can read more about the report here.

Or better yet, order a copy of the 39 page report, here for only $3.00.

The EAST-WEST CENTER is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States.

Gulag Collection Opens in Washington, D.C.

“The Gulag Collection,” 50 paintings on the subject, will be on view at The Heritage Foundation beginning this morning.

The exhibit opens as part of “The Year of Miracles: The Fall of the Berlin Wall,” a Heritage-sponsored event marking the approaching 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Gulag survivor Nikolai Getman,who died in 2004, created “The Gulag Collection,” as a visual record of the hundreds of penal camps that held more than 14 million political prisoners.

In 1997, Getman was able to enlist the support of the Jamestown Foundation in moving his paintings to a place of safety in the West, arranging their display then, and developing a plan for their preservation.

An electronic catalogue of the full collection can be viewed here.


 

The Hidden Gulag of Sexual Slavery

Whenever I do some traveling I take a little time to read the International Travel Information provided by the U.S. State Department as well as some of the links provided for even more information.

The sections (or footnotes) at the bottom of the various CIA Factbook entries have been of particular interest to me.

Try checking how many entries actually have a  section on "Trafficking in persons" under "Transnational Issues."

Here is the "Trafficking in Persons" entry for Russia, for example:

Current situation: Russia is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for various purposes; it remains a significant source of women trafficked to over 50 countries for commercial sexual exploitation; Russia is also a transit and destination country for men and women trafficked from Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and North Korea to Central and Western Europe and the Middle East for purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation; internal trafficking remains a problem in Russia with women trafficked from rural areas to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation, and men trafficked internally and from Central Asia for forced labor in the construction and agricultural industries; debt bondage is common among trafficking victims, and child sex tourism remains a concern

tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Russia is on the Tier 2 Watch List for a fifth consecutive year for its failure to show evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking over the previous year, particularly in providing assistance to victims of trafficking; comprehensive trafficking victim assistance legislation, which would address key deficiencies, has been pending before the Duma since 2003 and was neither passed nor enacted in 2007 (2008)

continuing . . . here.

The Laogai and Harry Wu

Harry Wu may be a name, somewhat familiar, but surely the Foundation he began in 1992 after 19 years in China's Gulag (The Laogai) is less so.

Thankfully, that continues to change.

First, to clarify, Laogai (Chinese: 勞改; pinyin: láo gǎi), is apparently an abbreviation for Láodòng Gǎizào (勞動改造), which means "reform through labor," and is a slogan of the so-called Chinese criminal justice system. Laogai must however be distinguished from laojiao, or re-education through labor, which is administrative detention for a person who is not a criminal but has committed minor offenses, and is intended to reform offenders into law-abiding citizens.

The Laogai Research Foundation, whose offices are located in Washington, D.C., is in the process of making its archives available to the public via The Laogai Museum at the same address.

Why?

As it is written on the Foundation's website:

"Due to the suppression of free speech within China, much of the material housed within the Laogai Archives is not available to researchers in mainland China. Thus, the Laogai Archives are in a unique position to support academics, journalists, students, and activists in freely conducting research on human rights in China."

Not Walmart Locations

With China, of course, nothing is ever as it seems on the surface; even when the surface one is viewing is quite obviously vast and wide.

Hence, the  The Laogai Research Foundation delves into more than mere horrors of a reform/re-education camp system, including some of the other tools utilized by the Chinese Communist Party to control the people of the world's most populated nation.

These tools include the "One Child Policy," organ harvesting (in conjunction with) the death penalty, as well as the recurring challenge of internet freedom.

Harry Wu, truculent and direct, for more than 20 years now, remains in that certain forefront, still trying to prick or awaken the conscience of the West.

Recently, during an interview with The Irish Times, in the context of the West's seemingly insatiable desire for heroes, Harry Wu stated that he was definitely not a hero. "A hero would have killed himself a long time ago."

Raising the Dead and Stalin, Too

What is it about the history of justice and injustice within a nation (particularly, one's own) that causes one to take notice and remember?

In Russia, the history and extent of The Gulag system is only now coming more fully to light. With the recent move to have excerpts of one of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's classic works shared as part of the curriculum in her schools, there appears to be some sign of hope for that.

There is also, the little known, "Virtual Museum of the Gulag," which since 2004, has aimed (according to the website) toward:

1. The preservation of memory, museum initiatives and unique testimonies. The introduction of our accumulated experience and knowledge into the public sphere.

2. To collate [resource] the uncoordinated initiatives regarding the preservation of memory and testimonies about the Soviet past into a single information. To overcome the regional or confessional divisions in our consciousness of the Terror and the Gulag.

3. To provide information and advice for provincial museums.

4. The creation of a public and generally accessible national museum.

5. Public discussion of the past and the role of such a social and historical legacy.

6. The instruction and education of the younger generation.

As of Autumn 2005, a list of the “Museums of the Gulag” comprising 290 historical sites in the Russian territory and the countries of the former Soviet Union has been compiled. Geographical expansion of the project in the museums of eastern Europe is foreseen.

An online exhibit hosted by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and a traveling exhibit (last year) in cooperation with the (American) National Park Service, The Gulag Museum at Perm-36, the International Memorial Society, and Amnesty International USA may or may not have been noticed.

 

Perm-36 or ITK-6

Meanwhile, Russia's Stalin Revival continues in this report from Miriam Elder of GlobalPost in Moscow.

Outside Russia, the legacy of Stalin, who ruled as a dictator from the 1920s until his death in 1953, is pretty clear. Killing millions of his own people landed him in the pantheon of the world’s worst dictators, alongside Hitler and Pol Pot. His name conjures images of domestic terror, nighttime arrests and a megalomaniacal paranoia that prompted fatal campaigns against perceived enemies.

Inside Russia, the story is more complicated. He was, according to a school textbook adopted last year and endorsed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a “competent manager” who committed atrocities at home out of necessity.

Earlier this year, Stalin nearly won a nationwide call-in poll asking people to vote for the person who best represents Russia.

 

In front of Stalin's Museum

Holding up (and kissing) Stalin - "a shining star?"