SOVIET HISTORY LESSONS

One of the most fascinating historians of his generation, Sean McMeekin has written a remarkably diverse array of award-winning books. Five of them — about Russia, with topics spanning the expanse from the early days of Soviet communism to his most recent 800-page magnum opus — Stalin's War. This latest offering turned heads not only among fellow historians but also the general public with its new take on Word War II and its consequences — including Roosevelt's colossal post-war support rendered to Stalin's economy which helped Russia establish its foothold in Eastern Europe. 

 

When this summer one of Professor McMeekin's students at Bard College premiered a clarinet trio piece at the Atlantic Music Festival inspired by Vladimir Bukovsky's memoir To Build a Castle, I had to write to McMeekin to thank him for teaching the history of the Soviet human rights movement to young Americans. It turned out that McMeekin had met Bukovsky and has captivating recollections of their encounter. Below is the one-of-a-kind account he kindly agreed to share with Soviet History Lessons of what went down that evening in Cambridge when he first met Bukovsky in the flesh.

 

 

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Alissa Ordabai: When did you first hear about Vladimir Bukovsky and when did you get to meet him in person?  

 

Sean McMeekin: I remember hearing Bukovsky's name for the first time as an undergraduate, as a famous Soviet dissident – but just one of many. The first time I was really clued into the importance of Bukovsky and his work was after I met Norman Stone, first in Moscow, and then after I accepted Norman’s invitation to teach at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey in 2002. Norman was a huge admirer of Bukovsky, whom he knew very well from his Cambridge and Oxford days. On Norman’s recommendation I started reading Bukovsky’s work, beginning with his memoir, To Build a Castle. I was then fortunate enough to meet Bukovsky in person while visiting Cambridge in March 2004.

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A.O.: What kind of experience was it to meet Bukovsky tête-à-tête? 

 

S.M.: It was overwhelming. I had an idea in my head about this larger than life character, this legend – and Bukovsky did not disappoint. It probably helped me ease into conversation that I brought him a pack of duty-free Dunhill cigarettes, on Norman's recommendation. Bukovsky offered to pay me back the cost, which offer, of course, I refused. When he protested, I came up with an explanation which made some kind of sense – that it was my belated gift of gratitude for his services to freedom and the U.S.-led side in the Cold War.

 

Once Bukovsky accepted my gift, it was easy to get him to open up. I mostly wanted to hear about his experiences in Soviet prisons and psychiatric hospitals, which he was happy to share – up to a point.  

 

Mostly he wanted to riff more openly on the affairs of the day, political and social philosophy, writing and the writing life, which publications and writers were worth reading (or had been) or were rubbish. I would rather not share the "rubbish" examples, but they were memorable. There was one denizen of Cambridge in particular who came in for delicious abuse.

 

Now, I may have this wrong, but I think we spoke English during the first several hours of our encounter, accompanied by only light drinking – seltzer water, perhaps beer.  As soon as Bukovsky learned I spoke Russian, out came the vodka bottle and shot glasses; that’s when the real party started. I think we stayed up until dawn, toasting and talking the night away.

A.O.: You mentioned earlier that your conversation spanned many topics: history, politics, philosophy, literature. Would it be correct to classify Bukovsky as a libertarian thinker or was his intellectual range wider than confines of a certain political philosophy?  

 

S.M.: Certainly there are elements, in Bukovsky's writing and manner of expression, of what a contemporary Anglo-American might recognize as libertarian, such as his deep and abiding distrust of powerful governments and their obtrusive intelligence and surveillance operations. I am not sure, though, that this is the most helpful label to characterize him. Libertarians can be rather doctrinaire about free markets, the free movement of labor and capital, and so on, such that one can usually predict what their views will be on, say, taxes, trade, immigration.  

 

I do not think Bukovsky was this rigid in his views, and certainly not predictable. Nor were the vagaries of market economics his métier, his usual theme of choice.  I think that Bukovsky’s worldview was uniquely his own, marked by the extraordinary circumstances of his life and his tremendous will – his stubbornness.  Bukovsky was the ultimate rebel, against authority but also what my friend Norman Stone called "smelly orthodoxies" of all kinds. Libertarianism, however much it might resemble certain of Bukovsky’s proclivities to rebel against oppressive government, is ultimately an orthodoxy just the same.

A.O.: Of the things you have talked about, what stayed with you the most?  

 

S.M.: At some point during our late-night vodka toasting, I asked Bukovsky about the vory v zakone – the Thieves-in-Law in Russia's mafiya tradition. I had read about them in Stephen Handelman’s book on the Russian mafia, and picked up some mafiya slang from Russian friends, though none of my Russian friends could give me a convincing explanation of the vory and how much of various stories – e.g. of turncoat vory or "scabs" joining the Red Army to fight in World War II and returning to Gulag camps in the 1950s, where some kind of "scab war" transpired; the eclipse of the vory by ex-Communist and ex-KGB mafiya networks which emerged after the fall of Communism – was true. To my surprise, Bukovsky did not really wish to go into detail about these issues. He simply said, "Please do not speak ill of the vory v zakone." I think his idea was that the vory had supplied the only real moral code, the only protection, for vulnerable prisoners in Soviet camps.

A.O.: In the final analysis, did Bukovsky strike you as someone driven by his intellect or someone driven by his heart? And if both, how do you think those two qualities managed to coincide within one person?  

 

S.M.: Oh, I think a large helping of both. His intellect was fierce, his mind still sharp when I spoke to him, undimmed by all those years of physical suffering and psychological torture. I think one would have to recognize "heart" in him, too:  I just don’t know of a better way to describe his strength, will, and stubborn devotion to honor and principle.

A.O.: What, in your opinion, are the factors that allow people like Bukovsky to emerge in a society? Are they social, historical, or is this something that perhaps defies explanation?  

 

S.M.: Well, there obviously are few people like Bukovsky. I think for someone to emerge with his peculiar combination of attributes, the curse of his suffering and the gift of his ironclad courage and will, it is probably a necessary precondition to be living under the kind of oppressive government which existed in the USSR. In the same way the bitter struggle against Soviet repression gave heft and depth to writers like Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and Solzhenitsyn, it produced unforgettable dissident heroes like Bukovsky. 

А.О.: Sometimes my colleagues and I have trouble explaining to the younger generation why action — such as Bukovsky's — in a hopeless situation nevertheless has deep meaning and consequences. But I have met some of your students and they seem to understand this perfectly. How do you explain to your students the importance of resistance to totalitarianism when hope is either scarce or non-existent?  

 

S.М.: It is difficult, and getting more difficult all the time. On the one hand, so much of contemporary culture has begun eerily to resemble the Soviet system, from the all-seeing national security state in the USA, to near-universal surveillance, to the increasing conformity of thought, especially in academe, "cancel culture," and all the rest. Bizarrely to me, however, these developments seem congenial to many young people today, who simply do not share the same devotion to freedom of expression and conscience that my own generation and earlier Americans believed in as a matter of course. 

 

Stranger still, much of the surveillance is self-generated, as people voluntarily share their views and tastes and beliefs and behavior and movement on social media. I sometimes try to explain to my students how much more effort the Soviet state had to put into keeping track of everyone’s movements, actions, and beliefs than our current digital overlords, who don’t even have to try, as everyone simply abolishes their own privacy. But few people value privacy anymore, or the freedoms which depend on it. Sometimes I get through to them the importance of maintaining one’s privacy, independence, and freedom of conscience, but more rarely than I would like to.

A.O.: Your new book, Stalin's War, explains why Stalin was preparing for war with Germany only for Hitler to strike first, in the spring of 1941. How significant was the communist ideology in driving Soviet expansionism? Was it serving as a disguise for Russia's old imperial ambitions or was it a sincerely held belief of the Russian leadership at the time?

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S.M.: I do think "traditional" imperial ambitions factored in Stalin's approach to foreign policy, especially during the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between September 1939 and June 1941, when the Soviet Union re-occupied old Tsarist provinces such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, while reconquering former Tsarist territories in Poland and Romania, while trying (thought largely failing) to do the same thing in Finland after the Red Army invaded Finland in November 1939.  

 

In my view, though, these were merely preliminary moves in what Stalin plainly intended to be the expansion of the boundaries of Communism throughout Europe, Asia, and ultimately the Americas. Neither Lenin nor Stalin ever really hid their intentions to promote world revolution, to spread the "boundaries of Communism" as far as the Red Army – helped along by the member parties of the Communist International, spies and agents of influence, etc. – could take them.

A.O.: How did Bukovsky rate Russia's chances of becoming a rule-of-law, democratic state within the lifetime of those currently living? And what is your evaluation?

 

S.M.: While I think Bukovsky always had a hopeful, optimistic side to his personality – a kind of "happy warrior" mentality – he was also a realist who was under no illusions about Russian authoritarianism in the Putin era. My own view is no more optimistic, although as a non-Russian, I do not feel comfortable prescribing any kind of political system or values onto another country. Of course I wish Russians well and hope that they may live under genuine rule of law, that the Russian government will exhibit genuine transparency and accountability to the public, that human rights are respected and so on. Honestly, these days I have nearly as many concerns about the rule of law and unaccountable government bureaucracy in my own country as in Russia.

A.O.: And finally, what would you say is the main lesson the rest of the contemporary world can learn from Russian history?   

 

S.M.: I think Americans, at least, can learn from Russian history the kind of tragic sense they do not normally possess – an idea of how precious life and freedom are and how easily they can be taken away.  Too many of us today take for granted the blessings of life in a relatively open, democratic society, not realizing that civic life and civil freedoms must be constantly protected, defended, and transmitted to new generations.  

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