DANCES IN DEEP SHADOWS
Michael Occleshaw
(Carroll & Graf: $26)
“Intervention” is a rather sanitary word. We talk of family interventions to help steer addicts and alcoholics back to health. And we tout interventions (pre-emptive or otherwise) on the international stage as humanitarian efforts or actions in self-defense against perceived threats.
But tack on an “ism” and the word takes on a decidedly negative connotation: “interference by one country in the political affairs of another” (Merriam-Webster). By becoming an “ism” – signifying a tendency or repetitiveness – it smacks of meddling and sticking one’s guns in where one does not belong.
Down through history, a country doing the intervening tends to see their actions as an intervention, while the one being intervened upon sees it as interventionism: Colonial America, Vietnam, Guatemala, Iraq, the Philippines, Chechnya, Lebanon... the examples seem endless. Indeed, in the four decades after World War II, the U.S. and USSR turned interventionism into a regular tool of Cold War diplomacy, interfering militarily in the political affairs of Third World states over 200 times – be it floating a battleship in a harbor to influence an election or lending troops and arms to train/support local forces in a civil war.
It is also the case that intervened-upon countries tend to give the interventions more significance in their ongoing history than do the interveners. Often this is because they pay a much higher price.
In this light, it is worth noting that few historians (George Kennan being a notable exception) have attributed proper significance to western interventionism in Russia’s civil war. And, prior to Michael Occleshaw’s comprehensive new book on the subject, historians might have been justified in this by a lack of data. Clearly it seemed that the intervention was relatively minor, aimed simply at protecting allied warehouses, supporting the Whites and encouraging a re-opening of the Eastern front.
But history has a tendency to come uncovered, and Occleshaw has unearthed huge pockets of historical information that points to western, particularly British, intelligence services in the instigation, prolongation and deepening of Russia’s brutal civil war. He also shows convincingly that western intervention in Russia’s civil war spurred the growth and power of the western states’ intelligence services and set the stage for a century of East-West conflict.
Occleshaw further tears down the myth that western powers were primarily interested in bringing Russia back into the war, or that they were merely protecting their property. These were simply pretexts for the real goal, Occleshaw argues, which was turning Russia into a power hugely dependent – financially and otherwise – upon the West, which would provide a bulwark for Britain’s empire in the East.
Some readers will find this argument more convincing than others. Yet no matter the overarching theories, Occleshaw’s account sheds light on a fascinating world of espionage and clandestine warfare. Populated with an amazing cast of characters (appropriately listed under “Dramatis Personae” across four pages in the foreword), this real-life tale is infinitely more entertaining than fiction.
RUSSIAN WAR FILMS
Denise J. Youngblood
(Kansas: $34.95)
If interventionism drew the battle lines between East and West for the 20th century, the new art of cinema became an important front in that ideological and cultural war. Indeed, inside the USSR, as Youngblood indicates in this fine new volume, the Soviet film industry was often referred to as the “cinema front.”
The crippled Russian film industry was nationalized in 1919 (interestingly, Nicholas II had apparently considered the same move in 1915, to create a “moral state cinema” free of “the pernicious influence of the western democracies”). From that point forward, this “most important of the arts” (a la Lenin) served a political end: propagandizing on behalf of the Soviet state. And perhaps no films were more important in that effort than films about war, where themes of loyalty, suffering, heroism and sacrifice abound.
Youngblood [Disclosure: Dr. Youngblood is on Russian Life’s Advisory Board.] covers the eight decades of cinematic history in admirable detail, reviewing and recounting 160 films in all. The result is not merely a thorough history of Russian cinema, but a cultural history of 20th century Soviet and Russian life. After all, Soviet leaders used film to construct their interpretation of reality, to instruct their subjects how to live and how to perceive the wider world.
In particular, Youngblood asserts, Russian leaders used war films to create images of the enemy, of the barbarians beyond the gates. “Throughout its short history,” she writes, “the USSR was arguably more concerned with barbarians than most states (save, perhaps, the United States), whether they were real or fabricated, internal or external.” Most often the enemy constructs were quite predictable, but in each era, and about each war, Youngblood shows, there were also films with ambiguous heroes, reflecting the often complex nature of the enemy (and also sometimes the artistic courage of the directors) and of war.
The history of 20th century Russian film is as layered and deeply textured as the history of the country over this period. Youngblood’s encyclopedic analysis offers no grand theory to explain all there is to know on this wide subject – that would be folly. Instead, she carefully explores the veins of artistic development, how they interacted with historical events and real-life politicians and actors. As a reference work for researching plots of some of the most important Russian movies of the last century, this book is without compare. As a tour of the Soviet cinematic landscape, it as valuable as sitting through 160 feature films – with all the useless parts chopped out.
BRIEFLY NOTED
Jewels of the Tsars, by Prince Michael of Greece (Vendome Press • $55) Lavishly illustrated, this history of the late Romanovs through their jewels and gifts offers an insider’s look at the personal and fashion history of this powerful and tragic family.
War and Peace (Glas/Northwestern • $$15.95). Natasha Perova has done it again, bringing out a superbly edited and masterfully translated collection of male and female Russian authors (including both the Booker and Big Book prize winners, see page 11), writing on themes of love, loyalty, violence and family.
Defiance, by Alex Konanykhin (Renaissance • $27.95). What this under-edited first-person tale lacks in presentation it more than makes up for with the story it brings: of a Russian businessman hounded by the KGB, the FBI and all manner of baddies, East and West.
Internet News SOURCES
Interested in watching Russian TV news without ever leaving your home? All you need is a broadband internet connection and Windows Media Player. Russia Today (russiatoday.ru) offers English language news. It’s odd to watch Russians speaking to each other in English, but if you don’t have enough Russian... For Russian news, try Vesti (vesti.ru), pictured above, or NTV (news.ntv.ru). Of course all three are State-owned or nearly so. For an alternative, listen to the webstream of Ekho Moskvy (echo.msk.ru).
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