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Jewish World Review
Oct. 24, 2012/ 8 Mar-Cheshvan, 5773
The World's Most Unlovable Man
By
Paul Johnson
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Vladimir Putin is probably the most unlovable man in the world today. He personifies the secret police as a method of government. He entered the KGB at an early age and has remained linked to it ever since. It's his religion, insofar as he has one.
The military and economic rise of China in recent years has been so spectacular that we tend to forget about Russia's presence on the international chessboard. Yet it would be wise to remember that though Russia may have fallen in the ranks of the major powers when judged by economic criteria, in military terms it is much stronger than China and is in some ways even more powerful than the U.S.
Russia has the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including scores of multirocket superbombs. The fact that three-quarters of them are now targeted at China, which Russia fears far more than it does America, in no way diminishes the threat to the West. Russia also has ample H-bombs capable of inflicting terrible damage on the West.
In sole charge of this devastating armory is Putin. Whether he's serving as president or prime minister-roles he alternates for devious reasons of his own-his is the finger on the nuclear button. Wherever he goes, the command apparatus of the Russian nuclear strike force goes with him.
This helps explain why Putin is such an expensive item in the Russian budget-a figure of over $5 billion a year has been quoted. About 250,000 security officials from the secret police and other agencies are believed to be involved in protecting him. That, curiously enough, is about the same number of people charged with protecting the paranoid Joseph Stalin in his last years.
There's another item in Putin's dossier that recalls Stalin. Putin has for his own use a collection of 20 palaces, apartments, dachas and country houses, each fully fitted with security devices and staffed at all times. This is the same number of residences that Stalin had. Some of Stalin's homes were secret, their addresses never disclosed in his lifetime. All of Putin's are known-or so we think. Of course, it's entirely possible he has others for use in times of war or emergency.
Stalin wasn't interested in money or luxuries; he usually slept on a sofa. But Putin is quite different. His villa on the Black Sea, which is valued at about $1 billion, has every conceivable expensive device. He also has a yacht valued at around $50 million, as well as dozens of aircraft, including an Ilyushin jet-his customary mode of travel-that has an estimated $18 million in cabin fittings.
Stalin, in contrast, was terrified of flying and never used the four jets allocated to him. He flew only once-to and from the Tehran Conference with Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.
Putin loves wealth and accumulating possessions, though his tastes are extremely vulgar. He's proud of his watch collection, which is said to be worth more than $600,000 and includes one that belonged to Marshal Zhukov, which Zhukov wore when he took Berlin.
Since Putin likes to ape Stalin in some ways, we might ask if he's secure in his position. The answer would be no. Stalin was as safe as human ingenuity could make him: He controlled the telephone system, including the secret networks used by the KGB. It was impossible even for Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret police, to make a phone call without one of Stalin's security staff knowing about it.
No such communications monopoly continues today. Potential plotters against Mr. Putin can contact one another without his knowledge. If Putin continues to rig elections it's likely his enemies will mount an assassination attempt, and such a drastic way of resolving the Putin problem will have as good or as bad a chance of success as such things ever do.
Meanwhile, Putin is riding high and seems to be running his own propaganda machine. Curiously exotic stories featuring him and animals appear in the press, something with which Stalin never had to bother. Publicity in his day was all handled by the state. My guess is that Putin will eventually be ousted by one of his rivals. But he won't go without a fight-and it's likely to be a murderous one.
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Eminent British historian and author Paul Johnson's latest book is "American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant". Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
07/17/12: Make the Euro A Joking Matter
04/17/12: Silent witness
03/13/12: To pick an American President
12/13/11: American Culture Rides High
10/20/11: Who Can Lead Us To Safety?
08/23/11: Wanted: Global Role Models
07/05/11: Debt: A Moral Issue
06/08/11: The Moral Logic of Intervention
03/10/11: China's Secret Weakness: Is history repeating itself?
02/10/11: Assessing America's Foes
11/29/10: Wanted: Someone to Trust
10/19/10: Are Universities Worth It?
06/01/10: The English Language and Freedom
04/20/10: Listening and Telling the Truth
02/28/10: There Is No Keynesian Miracle
10/20/09: A Job Waiting for a Woman?
07/21/09: Obama Has to Be World Sheriff
03/24/09: Short works of genius that cheer up the writing profession
02/11/09: What would Darwin do?
01/27/09: Are you sophisticated? Here's how to find out
01/06/09: What did they talk about in the Ice Age? The weather, of course
09/09/08: Time, and our appalling ignorance of it
08/19/08: Eye-stopping glimpses of an exotic and forbidden world
06/30/08: How to fill a lecture hall, and how to empty it
06/23/08: Americans should count their blessings
05/20/08: Pajamas for Presidents
05/13/08: Literary woodlice boring needless holes in biographical bedposts
04/01/08: When markets come crashing down, send for the man with the big red nose
04/01/08: Quality for dinner. Pass the Fairy Liquid, Old Boy
03/25/08: In search of an American President with brains and guts
03/18/08: Technological warfare against mice won't work. Try cats
03/11/08: What is a genius? We use the word frequently but surely, to guard its meaning, we should bestow it seldom
03/03/08: Fiction as a crutch to get one through life
02/26/08: Impatience + Greed = Trouble
02/13/08: Shakespeare, Neo-Platonism and Princess Diana
02/07/08: Where Industry Has Failed Us
12/19/07: People who put their trust in human power delude themselves
12/12/07: What is aggression?
12/04/07: Pursuing success is not enough
11/07/07: Are famous writers accident-prone?
10/31/07: Courage needed to disarm Iran
09/20/07: Who Will Say I Promise to Lay Off?
07/24/07: Greed is safer than power-seeking
04/02/07: Benefactors must be hardheaded
03/07/07: American idealism and realpolitik
11/28/06: Space: Our ticket to survival
10/24/06: Envy is bad economics
10/11/06: Better to Borrow or Lend? Rethinking conventional wisdom
08/22/06: Don't practice legal terrorism
08/08/06: A summer rhapsody for a pedal-bike
08/03/06: Why is there no workable philosophy of music?
07/11/06: Historically speaking, energy crisis is America's opportunity
07/06/06: The misleading dimensions of persons and lives
06/06/06: First editions are not gold
05/23/06: A downright ugly man need never despair of attracting women, even pretty
ones
04/25/06: Was Washington right about political parties?
04/12/06: Let's Have More Babies!
04/05/06: For the love of trains
03/29/06: Lincoln and the Compensation Culture
03/22/06: Bottle-beauties and the globalised blond beast
03/15/06: Europe's utopian hangover
03/08/06: Kindly write on only one side of the paper
02/28/06: Creators versus critics
02/21/06: The Rhino Principle
© 2009, Paul Johnson
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