Never Speak to Strangers and Other Writing from Russia and the Soviet Union

by David Satter

Overview

David Satter arrived in the Soviet Union in June, 1976 as the correspondent of the Financial Times of London and entered a country that was a giant theater of the absurd. After 1982, he was banned from the Soviet Union but allowed back in 1990, and finally expelled in 2013 on the grounds that the secret police regarded his presence as “undesirable.” From 1976 to the present, he saw four different Russias, which differed from each other radically while remaining essentially the same. From 1976 to 1982, the Soviet Union was at the height of its world power and its people were in thrall to an absurd ideology. With the advent of Gorbachev’s perestroika, the Soviet population was liberated from the ideology and the state hurtled to its inevitable collapse. When independent Russia emerged from the wreckage, the failure to replace the missing ideology with genuine moral values led to Russia’s complete criminalization.

The articles in this unique collection are a chronicle of Russia from the day David Satter arrived in the Soviet Union until the present. Emigres from the states of the former Soviet Union often despair of their inability to convey the true character of their experiences to the West. Penetrating the veil of Russian mystification requires effort and the ability to understand that seeing is not always believing. The Russians have created an entire false world for our benefit. This collection reflects David Satter’s 40-year attempt to see them as they are.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783838214573
Publisher:	ibidem Press
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Pages:	692
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

David Satter has been one of the world’s leading commentators on Russian affairs for more than four decades. He was the Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times from 1976 to 1982 and has written several books about Russia. In December, 2013, he was expelled from Russia where he had been accredited as Radio Liberty correspondent becoming the first U.S. journalist to be barred from Russia since the Cold War.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations and Administrative Delineations 13

Introduction 15

Never Speak to Strangers 19

Impressions of Moscow: Beyond the Looking Glass 37

Soviets' Long Queue to Nowhere 40

Angry Russians Can't Understand Inflation 45

The Dissidents Who Strive for Western Freedoms in Russia 47

The Ghost in the Machine 52

The Price of Respectability 57

Taking a Healthy Rest 61

The Price of Soviet Achievements 64

A Burning Issue 70

From Russia Without Love 73

Trials of the Workers 76

The Price of Calling the Helsinki Bluff 79

Shaken, but Ready to Rise Again 82

Soviet Dissent and the Cold War 86

Why Moscow Has Georgia on Its Mind 91

Angry Nationalist Struggle Against Soviet Power 96

Afghanistan's Rocky Road to Socialism 100

Russia's 'Civilised North' 106

Moscow Yields to 'Interference' 109

Tensions Between Systems Show at Summit 112

Bitter-Sweet Search for Ancestors in Ukraine 114

The Crime That Can Only Exist Behind Closed Borders 119

Planning and Politics Strangle the Soviet Economy 123

Josef Stalin's Legacy Leaves Soviet Leaders in Dilemma 127

Sakharov's Arrest Links Dissidence with Detente 132

The Limits of Detente 135

200 Soviet Officials Held 140

Fighting a War of Shadows 143

Moscow Starts 'Phoney War' Over Peace 147

Why the Russians Think They Have Taken Schmidt for a Ride 150

Russia Through the Looking Glass 153

View from Middle Russia 158

How the Kremlin Kept Moscow Under Wraps 163

Russia Keeping Its Hands off Poland 165

Where Some Miners Are More Equal Than Others 168

Moscow Weighs Gains and Losses Against Dictates of Ideology 174

Soviet Defeat in Poland 178

Few Goods in Grocery Store 7 181

The Soviet View of Information 185

A Match for the Soviets 187

The KGB Puts Down a Marker 189

The System of Forced Labor in Russia 195

The Soviets Freeze a Peace Worker 199

What Russia Tells Russians About Afghanistan 203

The Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev 208

The Soviets Slam the Door on Jewish Emigration 213

Soviet Threat Is One of Ideas More Than Arms 216

Treating Soviet Psychiatric Abuse 221

The Kremlin Tortures a Psychiatrist 226

Yuri Andropov: The Specter Vanishes 231

Private Soviet Screenings of Forbidden Films? Insane! 236

In New Gulag, Soviets Turning to Murder by Neglect 239

Don't Talk with Murderers 243

Moscow Feeds a Lap-Dog Foreign Press 248

Moscow's 'New Openness' Illusion 253

A Test Case 258

Why Glasnost Can't Work 265

A Journalist Who Loved His Country 276

Response to Fukuyama 279

Winter in Moscow 283

Setting the Sverdlovsk Story Straight 285

Moscow Believes in Tears 289

The Seeds of Soviet Instability 298

Yeltsin: Shadow of a Doubt 303

A Tragic Master Plan 313

The Failure of Russian Reformers 316

Rude Awakening 321

Yeltsin: Modified Victory 330

Organized Crime Is Smothering Russian Civil Society 334

The Wild East 337

The Shadow of Aum Shinri Kyo 346

The Cost of the Yeltsin Presidency 349

The Rise of the Russian Criminal State 352

The Human Rights Situation in Russia 382

Anatomy of a Massacre 384

The Shadow of Ryazan 387

Not so Quick 397

Death in Moscow 402

Stalin's Legacy 408

A Low, Dishonest Decadence 411

Terror in Russia: Myths and Facts 424

Ordinary Monsters 427

The Murder of Paul Klebnikov 430

The Tragedy of Beslan 434

The Communist Curse 439

Stalin Is Back 443

What Andropov Knew 447

G-8 Crasher 451

Nikita Khrushchev's Hard Bargains 455

Who Killed Litvinenko? 459

Boris Yeltsin 463

Russia on Trial 467

Land for Peace 470

Putin Changes Jobs - and Russia 473

Poisonous Patriotism 476

Obama and Russia 479

Who Murdered These Russian Journalists? 482

Obama's Outreach to Muslims Won't Achieve Its Goal 485

Putin Runs the Russian State-and the Russian Church Too 488

Mission to Moscow 491

Obama's Russian Odyssey 492

Psyching out U.S. Leaders 498

The President's Mission to Moscow 500

The Summit: Day 2 503

Naralya Estemirova 505

A Wounded Bear Is Dangerous 508

Pining for Authoritarianism 509

Remembering Beslan 514

Afghanistan: Lessons from the Soviet Invasion 521

Yesterday Communism, Today Radical Islam 523

A Passion to Relive the Past 527

Road to 'Zero' 528

Symposium: Is Hannah Arendt Still Relevant? 530

Women Who Blow Themselves Up 534

A Hollow Achievement in Prague 537

Symposium: When Does a Religion Become an Ideology? 539

That Russian Spy Ring: The Broader Meaning 546

Never Forget: New Fanatical Ideology, Same Prescription: Defeat 548

Khodorkovsky's Fate 550

Putin's Facade Begins to Crumble 552

Why Putin Is Tottering 554

The Character of Russia 558

Obama's Open Microphone 561

Russia's Chance for Redemption 564

Russia and the Communist Past 567

Awaiting the Next Revolution 572

Clinton in the WSJ Strays on Russia Relations 575

Punk-Rock Authoritarianism 577

The Long Shadow of "Nord Ost" 579

Russia's Orphans 584

David Satter on Life in the Soviet Police State 586

Russians Arrest CIA Agent 590

The NSA and the Soviet Union 592

Obama Defends Putin 593

Russia's False Concern for Children 595

Putin and Obama in St. Petersburg 597

The Curse of Russian "Exceptionalism" 598

Snowden's New Identity 602

Did Putin Insult the Pope? 604

Why Journalists Frighten Putin 606

Open Letter to Margarita Simonyan, Chief Editor of Russia Today 609

My Expulsion from Russia 610

Putin's Shaky Hold on Power 613

The Russian State of Murder Under Putin 616

Putin Is No Partner on Terrorism 619

Russia Questions for Rex Tillerson 625

The 'Trump Report' Is a Russian Provocation 628

Trump Gives a Boost to Putin's Propaganda 631

From Russia With Chaos 634

Trump Must Stand Strong Against Putin 637

How America Helped Make Vladimir Putin Dictator for Life 640

Who Balled Boris Nemtsov? 649

100 Years of Communism - and 100 Million Dead 655

A Christmas Encounter With the 'Russian Soul' 659

How to Answer Russia's Escalation 662

Putin's Aggression Is the Issue in Helsinki 665

The Satirist Who Mocked the Kremlin - and Russian Character 668

When Russian Democracy Died 671

Contribution to "We Need Sakharov" 675

Collusion or Russian Disinformation? 678

A Pioneer Who Witnessed Revolutions 682

Hold Russia Accountable for MH17 684

Afterword to English Language Edition of Judgment in Moscow 687

Acknowledgements 690

Editorial Reviews

Many of our finest journalists have grappled with the moral legacy of Soviet communism, but no one has stayed with the issue longer, dug deeper or thought harder about it than David Satter.

Stephen Sestanovich

The truth the reader will glean from the pieces on dissidents is the truth that Satter spent much of his career emphasizing: namely, that Communism’s ultimate failure was not economic or political, but spiritual. . . . If David Satter’s career has shown anything, it is that even in times when it seems impossible, a true understanding of what is happening in Russia is within reach, provided one has the right moral framework and the courage to see reality as it is. If not for these qualities and the people who live by them, Russia would be destined to remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

National Review - Nat Brown

Many experts claim to have gotten Russia “right.” Never Speak To Strangers openly lays out decades of Satter’s writings, composed as events unfolded, allowing readers to evaluate whether the author did indeed get things right. Did he identify the major trends? Did he see the end coming? . . . My take on this massive collection of essays is that David Satter got things right. Taken together, his essays give us a much-needed framework for understanding Russia under Putin: where it came from, what it is like now, and—the most difficult question of all—where it is headed.

Defining Ideas: A Hoover Institution Journal - Paul R. Gregory