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

Volume 2

David Satter

• Publisher: ibidem
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9783838278049
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

David Satter is one of the world's leading commentators on Russia. The two-volume book series Never Speak to Strangers is a collection of his articles and essays. Volume two includes articles about the Russia-Ukraine war and argues that this tragic conflict was preventable. David Satter's writings and interviews describe the psychological roots of the conflict.Picking up where the first volume left off, the second volume of Never Speak to Strangers includes material on the historical and psychological roots of Russian aggression, the Yeltsin and Putin regimes, and, in particular, Russia's war against Ukraine.David Satter shows that change could come to Russia in the wake of a defeat in Ukraine, but external events will not be enough to divert Russia permanently from foreingn aggression and internal repression. For that, what is required is something more fundamental, a recognition that world order must be based on universal moral values and a rejection once and for all of Russia's "special way".

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Address to the U.S. State Department Open Forum
• Questions for Mr. Satter Following Speech
• “The Soviet Union is the most absurd and tragic country in the world...”
• The Foreign Correspondent in Moscow On Manipulation and Deception
• Remembering Vyacheslav V. (“Slava“) Luchkov
• Darkness at Dawn
• The “Russian Idea” of Nikolai Berdyaev
• Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain. Hearing before the Committee On Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives
• Right and Wrong in Russia The moral and spiritual malaise of a great nation
• Symposium: “Russia’s Higher Values”
• Yeltsin: A Life
• Symposium: Remembering the Dissident
• Vlad the Enforcer
• “What appeared after the overthrow of the Communist regime? A Criminal Regime.“
• “Recognize the unacceptable and believe the unbelievable”
• 25 years after the shelling of Parliament. How Democracy Died
• A new version of the Cold War. Predictions by Kremlinologist Stephen Cohen
• A Pioneer Who Witnessed Revolutions
• Cold from the East. How the West opened up to Russian corruption
• Malfeasance in the Trump case. FBI criticized over “Russian trail“
• How to deal with the Kremlin? Realism, Dialogue or Appeasement of Putin
• Putin Can’t Afford to Leave Office When His Term Ends
• Fictitious country. Between Brezhnev’s Russia and Putin’s Russia
• Soviet Politics, American Style
• The Rhodes Scholarship Turns Against Its Legacy of Excellence
• The Coup That Failed— but Toppled Communism
• Happiness in the Absence of Freedom. David Satter in the Land of Mirages
• When the Hammer (and Sickle) Fell
• “In America, Russians are not considered enemies of humanity“
• “Putin will grab anything that is loose.“ The Soviet Instincts of the Kremlin
• Weakness at Home Drives Putin to Invade Ukraine
• How to Break Through Putin’s Propaganda in Russia
• “He must answer.” “Will Putin end up in the dock?”
• Russia’s Real Reasons for War with Ukraine
• From the bombings in Moscow to the invasion of Ukraine. Could the West have stopped Putin?
• Mikhail Gorbachev’s Undoing Was His Devotion to Soviet Ideas
• Putin Wants Ukraine Back in the USSR
• Letters to the Editor
• Betting on Putin’s defeat. Is peace with Russia possible?
• How to answer the Stalinization of Russia?
• “Victim Culture and the Rhodes Scholarship”
• Kremlin in Disarray. Prigozhin’s mutiny spells an uncertain future
• Is Putin’s system collapsing? What conclusions are being drawn in the United States?
• An incomprehensible country. Do American analysts understand Russia?
• The Peril of Abandoning Ukraine
• The Realist Who Didn’t Unravel Putin. The Misconceptions of Henry Kissinger
• A Century After Lenin’s Death, His Evil Legacy Lives On
• Acknowledgements