tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post5452975847523273501..comments2023-08-19T14:12:52.220+02:00Comments on Reflection & Inquiries: Moscow: dead LeninGeoffrey Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041450398780043453noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post-41339157837249067722014-08-03T08:32:22.562+02:002014-08-03T08:32:22.562+02:00Yes, Kerensky outlived them all. No, Lenin was not...Yes, Kerensky outlived them all. No, Lenin was not like Washington except perhaps in the public memory here (Russia). BTW, Alexander II seems to me to have been "competent" — he had a clear sense of what he was trying ti do, and accomplished much of it before his assassination.Geoffrey Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04041450398780043453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4061009.post-44909747856408139642014-08-02T21:59:52.956+02:002014-08-02T21:59:52.956+02:00I'm not sure I buy your father of our country ...I'm not sure I buy your father of our country analogy. My knowledge of Russian history is limited to some reading I did in preparation for visiting St. Petersburg in the Yeltsin era, so I am free to make glib generalizations. There is a problem both with Russian political culture and the men involved.<br /><br />By the way, it is interesting to me that before the rise to power of eve-totalitarian Moscow, the area was dominated by the Republic of Norvgorad, which was a sort of Mercantile oligarchy much like Venice, with which it had trade relations. Oh, if the Norvgoroskiski had only held on, can we imagine what the world would've been like?<br /><br />What struck me about Russian leadership was that it invariably had vicious bloodthirsty power-hungry czars, most of which were incompetent, a few of which, such as Peter the Great, Catherine the great, and Vladimir Ilitch, were competent. But it does not seem to me that except for the brief second of the Mensheviks, the quality of Russian leadership and it’s relation to the governed changed between the early czars and now.<br /><br />That seems a profoundly different sense of father of our country, though czars are often referred to as " little father", than what Americans mean by Washington.<br /><br />And please note that at the end of his second term Washington retired to his farm, hardly something we would think Vladimir Ilitch capable of. In doing so he was among other things, consciously emulating Roman general Cincinnatus, a point very clear to his contemporaries. That is: the role of a good leader is to lead when necessary, and then withdraw and make way for democracy.<br /><br />By the by, when I was in graduate school at Stanford I had an 8 o'clock Latin class. Often when I was looking for a parking place I would see a small man in a dark suit walking to his office in Hoover Tower. It was Kerensky, at that time employed there essentially as a reference book.Dirk van Nouhuyshttp://www.wandd.comnoreply@blogger.com