![]() ![]() Last November, in Sevastopol, Crimea, the site of one of the civil war’s last evacuations of White troops, Putin dedicated a monument to the war’s end and declared that “Russia remembers and loves all its devoted sons and daughters no matter what side of the barricades they once were on.” The civil war was a struggle that embodied much of what’s in the headlines today: ruthless violence, Russian fears of foreign intrusion, a brain drain of educated refugees, and the tension between dreams of empire and breakaway regions wanting independence. He would love to restore the power of both czarist Russia and the Soviet Union, which extended over territory far larger than his own shrunken Russia of today. But Putin, whose passion is for empire, not communism, has a different view. One particularly savage and revealing slice of that history, however, is a moment when the state was anything but unitary: the Russian Civil War of a century ago, when assorted forces known as the Whites tried for three bloody years to dislodge the new Bolshevik regime from power.īefore the U.S.S.R.’s collapse, in 1991, its rulers portrayed that war starkly: The Whites were evil reactionaries who tried to delay the glorious triumph of Soviet rule. School curricula and a nationwide array of historical theme parks now lavishly celebrate one incarnation after another of a strong unitary state made stronger and larger by all-powerful leaders-from Peter the Great to Stalin-who defied foreign meddling. In recent years, Putin has determinedly justified his expansionist ambition by spreading his own version of Russian history. Russia’s past is also crucial to the mix. Putin, whose passion is for empire, not communism, would love to restore the power of both czarist Russia and the Soviet Union.Īny search for perspective on the invasion’s brutality must include Putin’s background in the secret police, his dictatorial rule, and his drive to extend the reach of that rule. In eastern Ukraine, many victims of Russian atrocities are native Russian speakers-as is the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. ![]() But both Russians and Ukrainians are white, Slavic, and, if religious, usually Orthodox Christians. Consider the Crusades, the Holocaust, the lynchings of thousands of Black Americans in the South, and, for that matter, the two recent Russian wars against the Muslim Chechens. Most often, we find cruelty like this when human beings are divided by religion or ethnicity. Read: Liberation without victory, an interview with Volodymyr Zelensky ![]()
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