(I think I heard this one on Thom Hartmann, but I can’t be entirely sure.) After recently gaining power to his premiership, Kruschev is giving a speech before the politboro, promising the end of Stalin’s policies of mass-murder and promising a new Openness to Soviet affairs.

A lone voice yells out from the politboro “Yeah, but where were you when Stalin was in power?”

Kruschev gets angry, and demands “Who said that?” Silence. “Who Said that?” Silence. Pounding on the podium, “Who said that?!” Silence.

Kruschev then smiles. “You are right where I was when Stalin gained power.”
………………………….

II. Oddly, it was `parables’ of this sort which were lurking in my mind way back in 1980 when I predicted the fall of the then USSR…

Another one: Stalin, Kruschev, and Brehznev(sp?) are on a train, discussing the important matters of state that await them at their destination. The train comes to a stop.

“I will remedy this,” says Stalin, when nothing happens to get the train moving again, and proceeds to have the engineers shot.

But the train remains still.

“I will remedy this,” sas Kruschev, and has the engineers `rehabilitated’ (quite the accomplishment, if they were dead – replacement crew?).

But the train still doesn’t go anywhere.

At this point Brehznev reaches over and pulls the curtain down over the window, blocking the view. “Well, we can at least pretend we are moving,” he says as he leans back.

Their actions denoted each leaders style, yet none of their actions was enough to `get the train moving again’. To accomplish that goal would have required change of a sort they could not tolorate – yet very desperately needed all the same. Governments that last any length of time are ultimately rooted in social contracts between rulers and ruled. By the end of the 70’s the leadership of the then USSR was in a position of not being able to full fil its social contract obligations to its subjects without massive change of a sort they could not accept. Modernize (effective end of communist rule), go to very hardcore stalinism, or collapse into anarchy – those were the options I put forth in that long ago high school paper.

A heroine of the time…a not young woman by the name of Tatanya Zaslavanska (sp?). When the USSR’s problems started getting really acute in the early 1980’s, the Poliburo called her in to one of their meetings. She described, in great detail, a catastrophe. All but one of them mere gawked at her, not quite grasping what she was saying – they thought she was *predicting* a crisis they could possibly *avoid* were they clever enough or determined enough. Only one member of the Politburo figured out that she was not predicting a future event, but rather describing the (then) *present* situation. That fellow was Gorbachev.

Worth noting – one of the other Politburo members present at that meeting was a very, very nasty fellow named Romanov. From the few bits that were dropped about him after the fact, had he come out on top…well, very possibly most of the major cities of the northern hemisphere would now be glowing radioactive craters.

And one final soviet parable…

`We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.’
……………………….

The USSR was already in a state of dire crisis before Reagan became president and reignited the arms race (Detente was the deal before then), let alone before Chernoble happened. It had actually been in extremely serious trouble since the early 70’s. However, it was in the interests of the leadership on both sides to conceal this: the leaders of the USSR could not do so without tossing themselves out of power, and far to many political and economic careers were being made in the US by the Cold War to give the issue serious consideration.

……………..

Thus enter The Committee on Present Danger, re-ignited during the Carter administration to defeat “Vietnam Syndrome”, and with Team B ( information here) supplying the “evidence” of the renewed Soviet threats:

In 1974, Albert Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, accused the CIA of systematically underestimating Soviet missile deployment, and conservatives began a concerted attack on the CIA’s annual assessment of the Soviet threat. This assessment—the NIE—was an obvious target.

In 1976, when George H. W. Bush became the new director of central intelligence, the PFIAB lost no time in renewing its request for competitive threat assessments. Although his top analysts argued against such an undertaking, Bush checked with the White House, obtained an O.K., and by May 26 signed off on the experiment with the notation, “Let her fly!! O.K. G.B.”

I once said on this board (perhaps even on this blog I’m cutting and pasting this exchange to) that George Bush Sr had a marathon 14 year presidency. This is what I was referring to, tossed in the middle of the Carter administration when Carter relented to a massive military buildup… (from there, we move on to the “October Surprise” and then onto the 12 years of Reagan / Bush.)

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