The Cold War Spreads: You're not surprised, are you?
The new Cold War spreads to Moldova. We've posted many times this year about what's going on in Ukraine, but we ought not be surprised as the spreading conflict between Russia and its Western neighbors sucks in more countries.
The brief respite after the collapse of the ill-begotten Soviet Union (which was in a sense a Communist version of the Russian Empire) due to a weakened Moscow government, has ended and the renewed Russian political ambitions, now promoted by Putin, begotten by increasing economic and military strength, has only begun. Any illusion that this will end soon should be set aside. Any nation that so quickly and enthusiastically turns to war, as Russia has towards Ukraine, will not hold back in pursuing violent solutions once the initial diplomatic efforts don't produce desired results.
Moscow's thumb seeks another bug to squish and Moldova looks like it's the next and perhaps easiest target. What's interesting here, though, is the campaign of the Communist Party. There's no effort to make believe that Communism has been consigned to the dustbin of history in Moldova. The connection has not been permanently severed with the godless, brutal gangsters who march under the banner of Communism. Indeed, it looks like they've crawled out from under their rocks and now defiantly attempt to entice what can only be described as a gullible populace to follow that same atheist creed that proved itself perhaps the most brutal form of totalitarianism of the 20th century, come back for another round of murderous oppression in the 21st.
Why do people follow Communists? Besides those party members who stand to benefit personally, "the people" have, in many cases, been subjected to overtly corrupt regimes, led by oligarchs, who display little interest in the common good and simply empower and enrich themselves. Why "the people" think Communists will be any different, and why they forget how much worse they were on balance, remains a mystery to me.
But the thing to remember here is that behind all the maneuvering, the propaganda, and the political labels lurks the Russian bear, on a ravenous hunt for prey, seeking to rebuild its empire by not only reconstituting the scattered pieces surrounding it, but extending its paws beyond its immediate environs. We can expect confrontation in other parts of the world, if current patterns persist.
Will it be a return to the struggle for world domination between the "Free World" led by the U.S. and the Moscow gang? Maybe. But the complexity of our 21st century world, one which includes a Chinese government no longer turned in on itself as it once was under Mao, and the growing economies of the developing nations will probably temper the two-sided conflict into something we've never seen before.
But isn't that the way history works? It never quite repeats itself exactly.
Moldova’s election commission on Thursday barred Renato Usatii, a populist pro-Russian candidate, from running in Sunday’s parliamentary elections after a leaked audio recording appeared to show him discussing his close connections to the FSB, the Russian security service and successor to the KGB.Here we see the Russian security apparatus, the FSB, properly understood as successsor to the old Soviet KGB, operating in what were once Soviet satellite states, pulling strings, pushing buttons, and ultimately turning to the threat of violence, even, as is the case in Ukraine, war, dragging the formerly Soviet "republics" back into the Russian sphere of influence. Note here that the euphemism "sphere of influence" rightly refers to Imperialist Russia's ambition to once again dominate its neighbors and form a new version of the empire it has sought and bound together since the late Middle Ages.
The brief respite after the collapse of the ill-begotten Soviet Union (which was in a sense a Communist version of the Russian Empire) due to a weakened Moscow government, has ended and the renewed Russian political ambitions, now promoted by Putin, begotten by increasing economic and military strength, has only begun. Any illusion that this will end soon should be set aside. Any nation that so quickly and enthusiastically turns to war, as Russia has towards Ukraine, will not hold back in pursuing violent solutions once the initial diplomatic efforts don't produce desired results.
Moscow's thumb seeks another bug to squish and Moldova looks like it's the next and perhaps easiest target. What's interesting here, though, is the campaign of the Communist Party. There's no effort to make believe that Communism has been consigned to the dustbin of history in Moldova. The connection has not been permanently severed with the godless, brutal gangsters who march under the banner of Communism. Indeed, it looks like they've crawled out from under their rocks and now defiantly attempt to entice what can only be described as a gullible populace to follow that same atheist creed that proved itself perhaps the most brutal form of totalitarianism of the 20th century, come back for another round of murderous oppression in the 21st.
Why do people follow Communists? Besides those party members who stand to benefit personally, "the people" have, in many cases, been subjected to overtly corrupt regimes, led by oligarchs, who display little interest in the common good and simply empower and enrich themselves. Why "the people" think Communists will be any different, and why they forget how much worse they were on balance, remains a mystery to me.
But the thing to remember here is that behind all the maneuvering, the propaganda, and the political labels lurks the Russian bear, on a ravenous hunt for prey, seeking to rebuild its empire by not only reconstituting the scattered pieces surrounding it, but extending its paws beyond its immediate environs. We can expect confrontation in other parts of the world, if current patterns persist.
Will it be a return to the struggle for world domination between the "Free World" led by the U.S. and the Moscow gang? Maybe. But the complexity of our 21st century world, one which includes a Chinese government no longer turned in on itself as it once was under Mao, and the growing economies of the developing nations will probably temper the two-sided conflict into something we've never seen before.
But isn't that the way history works? It never quite repeats itself exactly.
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