And the Russian tanks rolled into Warsaw

Does the title evoke strong emotions in you? Does it send tremors down your spine or spike up your adrenalin?! It does to me! When I was in my 10th grade our history textbook dealt extensively with the rise of imperialism and communism, the two world wars and basically a whole lot of world politics ! I have a feeling our textbook-writers were pretty pro-communists - cos I fell in love with the whole idea of equality, society, socialism and blah.....I used to love Russia at that point! India had had very good relations with Russia in the past too and when juxtaposed with the USA, Russia seemed a whole lot better! Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev....they all seemed fierce but admirable leaders to me....Lenin was like my hero then! And as India had been a pioneer in the Non-aligned movement, I believe the US was miffed with us and took the opportunity to take Pakistan into their reins. Hence, India had to develop relations with Russia, to this day most of our missiles and ammunition are bought from Russia. Now why did communism fail? I was a strong supporter of socialism(maybe cos I am a Libran!) but it hasn't worked at all. Modern economies have shown again and again that we cannot go forward without free markets and competition. When I read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged I was like "WOW!"...her books showed me capitalism in an entirely different light.

Ok...back to the topic - Russia! Why was I obsessed with Russia? I used to collect stamps once upon a time.....the Soviet Union's stamps had the letters CCCP inscribed on them. CCCP stood for USSR in Russian(or so I believe!) Then began my fascination with Russia. The Russian alphabet on the stamps, the everlasting borders of its domain, the Trans Siberian Railway, the disintegration of the USSR-nothing ceased to amaze me. I knew Russia was the largest country on earth and I would try to understand where the hell it all was. I realized the question I should have asked was "Where the hell its not??"! It spans both Europe and Asia, is close to Japan,US and Germany too. Did you know that Russia sold Alaska to the United States in like 1867? Those Russians must sure be cursing their ancestors! One day I took out the atlas and looked up Russia in the maps. It stretched over half the bloody globe! I then looked up the other 14 countries which formed part of the Soviet Union- I was like wow! During the peak of the cold war, when the Iron Curtain was still in place, all land east of West Germany until the far east was under Russian control! Imagine how much power those Russians must have had....! Russia must have solely contributed to my mania in geography I believe, though it did spread throughout the globe(What is the capital of Kiribati? Haha...gotcha!) Looks like this post seems to have veered off from the core topic......well I am just typing away about my fascination with Russia. When I was young, my dad used to tell me a story about Nikita Khrushchev....in the 1950s or something, when the US president had just finished talking, to gain everyone's attention, Nikita took off one of his shoes and started banging the podium with it! I do not know how true this story was (my dad being quite adept at making up stories to fascinate me!)

The first time I had read about the Second World War, Russia became my hero. Much later, I saw a documentary which proposed that Russia had actually made plans to strike India if necessary(According to the top secret Non-aggression pact-signed between Russia & Germany) This and more research into communist and soviet ideologies slowly made me realize that Russia was not the supporter of the underdog as I had thought. The more I read about the atrocities committed by the Soviets in Poland, East Germany, Romania, Hungary,etc I became more and more disillusioned about the Soviet Union. And well you know about the 90s, when the Soviet Union disintegrated, so to speak, into 15 separate nations. Russian soldiers were selling their uniforms for food. The Russian economy was in pieces. And so the only stalwart of communism which remains is China. Lets see how long it lasts!


Note:
1.The capital of Kiribati is Tarawa!
2. The story about Nikita Khrushchev is true.....the shoe-banging incident happened twice!