December 2000
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin (who I used to support as a refreshing contrast to the alcoholic and incompetent former supervisor of the demolition of the house in which the Romanovs were murdered, Boris Yeltsin) announced plans to restore the Soviet national anthem, although with new lyrics. As he ordered Russians to honor their brutal Communist past, which should be regarded with nothing but shame, he criticized the Imperial Russian heritage whose symbols have thankfully been partially restored over the past ten years, implying that the two pasts are morally equivalent, each having their bad and good sides, and deserving equal tributes. This is wrong! Communism was infinitely more oppressive and violent than tsarism. Putin's reference to the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose achievements were accomplished in spite of Communism, as an example of "something good to remember" about the Soviet era reaches the height of absurdity. While Russia's great Romantic cultural achievements in music and especially ballet were lovingly nourished by the tsars, the Communists made life virtually impossible for creative artists like Shostakovich. It is Russia's flawed but glorious royal and imperial past that should be commemorated. If they must bring back an old anthem, let them sing God Save the Tsar!