Finding God in the Gulag

In college, I borrowed a copy of Solzhenitsyn’s famous work, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, from the BYU library, and read it.  This was remarkable on two counts.  First, this was not assigned reading for a class; it was of my own free will and choice.  Second, it was fascinating!  It was an engrossing story that pulled the reader in.  I could easily imagine myself right there alongside the title character freezing to death in a work brigade and dealing with the guards and fellow inmates in the barracks.  It brought to life the horrid conditions of Soviet labor camps, something that the world hasn’t entirely gotten away from yet.  It was something I found interesting enough to want to know more about.

Finding God in the Gulag: A History of Christianity in the Soviet Penal System by Jeffrey S. Hardy (ISBN: 978-0-19-775167-1) is a book that gives readers a chance to know more about life in the Gulag.  Unlike Solzhenitsyn’s based-on-a-true-story novel, this book is an academic look at Christianity in the Soviet camps from the earliest days under Lenin to the dying days of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev with a little post-script about a few things in the post-Soviet times.  It catalogs both attempts by inmates to life and express their religions and attempts by the prison management to suppress religion.  It was interesting to note that efforts to extinguish religion in prisoners was not uniform in the Soviet Union.  It was more lax in some camps than in others.  There wasn’t always a central policy that camp managers could look to, so they did it their own way.  Sometimes that meant believers were beaten and spent time in solitary confinement.  Sometimes that meant a Christian guard did nothing when a prisoner prayed or sang a hymn or made an icon.  There was a short section on faith among thieves and other such common criminals, including a few paragraphs about the fascinating world of Russian prison tattoos.  The book also catalogs people losing their faith, which was unsurprising, and one that is not judged neither by the author nor by most prisoners who are cited in the book.  They tended to believe the camps were inhumane and that one should not be judged too harshly or even at all for what they did in the camps.  There was also a little proselyting that happened in the labor camps.  This was especially true of Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but Orthodox and Catholic priests also preached and even baptized people.  Toward the end of the Soviet regime, religion was sometimes encouraged because it generally had a good influence on prisoners and mediated their violent behavior.

The book was an interesting read and would be interesting to people interested in Russian or Soviet history or religion.  It only briefly discussed non-Christian religions, which are major players in Russia, but either weren’t the focus of the book or weren’t such a concern in the Gulag.  I did think the book was slightly disorganized and it felt like the narrative jumped around a lot, but I am not sure how I would’ve better organized it.  I thought the stories about people finding faith and maintaining faith despite great psychological and physical pressure were inspiring.  People sacrificed a lot to maintain their belief in God and to live it according to their conscience.  It’s worth looking to many of these people as examples of standing up for what’s right no matter the consequences.

   

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Verrat verjährt nicht

As a kid, the world was bipolar when it came to international relations.  There was the free and capitalist West, led by the United States, and the Communists, led by the Soviet Union.  One of the great tragedies of that division, from my standpoint, was the fact that there were split countries like North and South Korea and East and West Germany.  The German situation was especially interesting to me because of my German heritage.  I was aware of the plight of the people oppressed by communist systems.  Their lack of opportunity to express themselves, to freely assemble, to worship as they wished, and the lack of economic prosperity seemed very unnecessary to me.  The idea of an ever-present and all-knowing secret police was fear I was happy to be living without.

Verrat verjährt nicht: Lebensgeschichten aus einem einst geteilten Land (usually translated as Betrayal Never Dies: Life Stories from a Once Divided Land) by Christhard Läpple (ISBN: 978-3-492-25467-0) retells the stories of East Germans from a few different standpoints.  The author, after studying many accounts in the archives, chose a few that seemed extra compelling and reached out to people to see if they would be willing to tell their stories.  A few were, and they are recorded in this book.  There is a former Stasi spy; a regular guy who wasn’t part of any resistance movement, but still fought the regime; a woman who wrote fiction and hoped to have her views published in the West; and a brother and sister who ended up on opposite sides of the wall after she fled to the West and he stayed in the East.  Each chapter in the book tells the story of one of these members of East German society from their standpoint.  The spy told of his craft.  He worked in academia and reported on his colleagues and students.  He seemed to not feel much remorse for this.  The man who made several attempts on his own to flee and the authoress whose efforts to see her work published in the West seemed the most sympathetic.  They despised the system that suppressed the basic urges of all mankind to be free.  The story of the brother and sister was another one where the reader hopes for the storybook, happy ending, but it never comes.  The sister hated the East and got out when she could thanks to some human traffickers that it took her a while to extricate herself from once she got to the West.  The brother was a true believer in the East and remained so for quite some time.  The Stasi asked him to spy on her, which he did.  The author did not lay blame on anyone but the Communists running the awful system and just let the subjects tell their stories.  At the very end is a rather extensive timeline of events pertaining to East Germany, from its formation to its fall.

The book, available only in German (and I admit I spent a bit of time in the dictionary to get through it), was a very interesting read.  It had a raw and truthful feel.  Läpple let the subjects of his interviews do the speaking.  Their desperation, indifference, disgust, and yearning were tangible.  It was interesting to read about the pervasiveness of the security apparatus that spied so heavily on its own people.  It was obvious while reading, just as it was to 1980s me, that a system that requires so much overhead just to keep its own people in check is not a system that respects people and has clearly taken away their God-given rights.  I was surprised to learn that people weren’t always summarily shot for making attempts to get to the West.  The bravery and courage required to stand up the evil of communism are always inspiring, and this book provides a clear contrast between those who yearned for freedom and those who actively chose to suppress the freedom and potential of others.  I also found the timeline at the end of the book to be fascinating.  As a non-expert in East German history, there were a lot of events that were new to me.  It was also depressing to read about how few of the high-level Communists and security service officials were brought to any kind of justice in this world.  Most ended up serving either light or no sentences, including some who fled to Russia or South America.  The lack of culpability in high-level government officials seems to be an oft-repeated problem.

   

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Hide Your Children

In the 1980s in America, homeschooling was not popular.  For three of my elementary school years, I got to be homeschooled.  I thought it was great.  I got to learn at my pace, which was wonderful for subjects like math, science, and English.  I loved that I was usually done with my school day two to three hours earlier than the rest of the kids in the neighborhood.  At home, I only had to do actual schoolwork and none of the fluff or other, non-academic stuff.  I remember hearing from many people that kids who were homeschooled would not be socialized.  No one ever really defined that word, but between city sports leagues, church activities, and playing friends in the neighborhood, I had plenty of chances to be with other kids, not to mention the fact that the overwhelming majority of inappropriate things I learned I had learned at school.

Hide Your Children: Exposing the Marxists behind the Attack on America’s Kids by Liz Wheeler (ISBN: 978-1-68451-391-8) provides a look at how the education system has deteriorated further since the 1980s.  The book starts with an overview of just who the Marxists the subtitle is talking about and then gives specific examples of how attacks on the nuclear family, endless accusations of racism, critical theory, queer theory, and attacks on homeschool, a proxy for attacks on personal responsibility and liberty, fit into the Marxist program meant to destroy society.  Each chapter gives some history of where the modern Marxist threat originated and, using specific examples, how it became more mainstream than it ever should have.  The historic sections are followed by a discussion of how it is today and the threat that presents to America, a country built on the idea that it survives only if the people who inhabit it are a moral people.  The book ends with a chapter providing some suggestions on how to change the tide and fight back against the Marxist wave that has overpowered our educational system since it’s much easier to change the minds of the impressionable young than older people more set in their ways.  The author’s suggestions include fighting the culture war, working to ban critical theory from public institutions, homeschooling whenever possible, fighting for school choice, working against ESG and DEI, remembering that local politics have an outlandishly large impact on our lives, returning to religion, and protecting the innocence of our children.  Finally, there were some appendices with the Constitution and papal encyclicals that discussed the dangers of Communism.

Looking back on my time in school, I can see some of the early beginnings of what was discussed in the book.  I remember having lessons on self-esteem in fifth grade.  The discussions about just what constitutes a put-down are exactly the kind of thing that gets rolled into social-emotional learning in the mid-2020s.  Homeschooling was a great experience for me that taught a lot about personal responsibility and putting forth the effort to better one’s own life.  That was the ultimate message of the book, but it also presented a good picture of what some of the problems with the modern American education system and how much of what is taught is at odds with the liberty needed to be self-sufficient.  One interesting undercurrent of the book was Wheeler’s belief that while religion was key to containing Marxism, Catholicism was the preferred route.  The appendices included two very long papal encyclicals, both of which accurately described Communism as a problem, but were also inclined to support organized labor as a rather fuzzy concept of how to deal with poverty.  The descriptive portion of the book was its strongest and make it worth reading.  The prescriptive part was fine, with ideas that were good, but left me wanting more specifics (something that would improve many books about politics).  

 

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Iron Curtain

My whole life, Eastern Europe has been of interest to me.  The Soviet Union and the countries of what was called the “Eastern bloc” were the enemies of America when I was a kid.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, I got to watch those formerly oppressed peoples give democracy a try.  Thanks to serving a mission in Russia and marrying a Czech woman, the interest in Eastern Europe has never really disappeared.  Considering the state of Russia’s government today, not to mention the regressions made in Western societies toward authoritarianism, it seems the subject of oppressive regimes is still very germane to modern life.  One thing that was always pretty clear to me, even as a kid, when I imagined people across the Soviet Union being told what their jobs were being something along the lines of graduating from high school and instead of getting a diploma, you got directed to your job, the worst one in my mind was someone whose job it was to endlessly go around an office building emptying the trash cans under everyone’s desks, was that, in most cases, it was those in power who were at fault for the lack of liberty, and not the everyday people.

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944–1956 by Anne Applebaum (ISBN: 978-1-4000-9593-3) discusses just how Communist regimes came to power in Europe following World War II.  The book chronicles how the Communists came to power in Eastern Europe, focusing on Hungary, Poland, and East Germany, with a fair number of examples from Czechoslovakia and occasionally Romania.  The Communists rose to power quickly in post-war Europe through a comprehensive strategy that thoroughly encompassed the lives of the people.  This included the police, youth organizations, the media, political organizations, the arts, and the economies of the countries where the Soviet Union was victorious over Germany.  In many cases, a combination of factors worked together to make the Communist takeover work.  First, it was the Soviet Union that was in control in these areas.  Even in places where there was arguable Allied control, it was the Soviets doing the day-to-day administration, so they worked to install people and organizations that were compatible with their ideas of how things should work.  Second, there had already been strong support for Communist, socialist, and other Left-leaning ideologies before and during the war.  This only continued after the war.  Third, the activists were the ones most involved.  They were also the ones who were willing to use violence to reach their goals.  While most regular people were concerned about getting a job, rebuilding their homes and businesses, and helping their friends and families, activists were getting involved in politics, unions, youth and religious organizations, and the media.  This helped them make sure that things were done they way they wanted.  In the rare cases when there was some push-back, the activists, often with help from the police or the newly formed secret police organizations, violently quashed any dissent.  Applebaum does discuss resistance a little, but this is a short section, which seems to accurately represent the proportions of active and passive support or acquiescence to the regime and resistance.

I thought the book was interesting, but not quite as impressive as Gulag: A History, Applebaum’s impressive earlier work.  I thought the book was comprehensive, and it was nice to read about the many different areas in which the Communists operated in order to come to power.  One area I thought it might have been nice to explore further was how such a small number of people could so quickly overtake these countries.  Of the three abovementioned factors, the author focused on the third, the activists and Communist party members, but I was often left pondering how such a small fraction of the total populations got so much power so quickly.  On the other hand, that factor is probably the most relevant to today’s political climate, especially in the West.  The book should serve as a warning to those who fall to the right of socialists on the political spectrum.  If they are too slow to step up their involvement and are too willing to be cowed by the Left’s willingness to resort to violence, it won’t be too long before books about “the crushing of Western Europe” or “the crushing of North America” will be possible to publish.

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Red Scarf Girl

Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about China.  It has certainly become much more important in the later half of my lifetime than it was in the first half.  I have always wanted to visit China, especially to see the famous Great Wall, which has captivated me since I first heard about it as a little kid.  Seeing some of the major sights would also be cool.  Such a trip once almost happened, but real life ended up getting in the way, and I’ve had to file that away in the “Some Day” folder.  I have also always known China as a Communist country even though it was Russia and Eastern Europe that seemed to grab all the Communist headlines during the first part of my life.  Tiananmen Square is something I remember quite well since it was broadcast into our living room, like it was for millions around the world.  China’s recent economic ascendancy has, unfortunately, been accompanied by continued restrictions on liberty that came with the introduction of Communism in that vast country.

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang (ISBN: 978-0-06-446208-2) details one of the worst parts of China’s Communist history, the Cultural Revolution.  The book, a memoir, is told from the viewpoint of the author as the events unfolded.  Her family history included a well-to-do grandfather, a Muslim grandmother, and a father who had joined the Communist Party in its infancy when it was still illegal and then had a falling out with its leaders.  This put her at a disadvantage when Mao began the Cultural Revolution to retain his power (power struggles seem to be a fixture of Communist regimes) since her family was not considered “red” enough.  Ji-li was a true believer in Mao and the Revolution at the beginning of the book, but as things went along and friends and neighbors were denounced, goals and dreams shattered, lives ruined (or lost), and her own family affected, she came to understand that devotion to a cause or a leader should not trump one’s devotion to the truth and to one’s family.  Like many Chinese, she was later disappointed when she found out that the Cultural Revolution and all the damage it had done was not really to advance Communism, but to allow Chairman Mao to hang on to power.  Ji-li paints a descriptive picture of what life was like before the chaos, and it actually didn’t seem too bad.  When the Cultural Revolution starts, though, things change quickly and they change drastically, as all things old are thrown out.  Kids can no longer read comics, neighbors stop talking to each other and some look for ways to harm neighbors and former friends.  School is changed, favoring class status instead of merit.  Houses are ransacked, people imprisoned, beat, sometimes killed.  Hope is lost for many.  Some, like Ji-li’s father, resist heroically, never admitting to the accusations leveled falsely against him.  Life eventually settles down, but it’s never the same again, and even to a young girl, it’s obvious that there were freedoms and opportunities lost.

I found the book to be quite interesting and informative even though it is written as juvenile literature.  For those who know more about the history of China, the experience might not be the same.  I found it interesting to see so many similarities between other authoritarian regimes (I couldn’t help but remember the Taliban blowing up ancient statues in Afghanistan as I read about Chinese Red Guards destroying anything they felt like labeled “Four Olds”) and Leftist ideologies (anti-religious views and class and racial tension, for example).  It was sometimes a little jarring to read simply because the author narrated from her point of the view as the events unfolded.  This meant there is a lot of pro-Communist, even pro-Cultural Revolution sentiment expressed.  As noted, this wanes as the story progresses, but it sometimes makes one have to stop and think as one reads.  I see having to think things through and a need for analysis and evaluation as a good thing, though.  Here, the analysis of the author’s experiences leads to a greater appreciation for freedom and liberty, as well as, hopefully, a greater commitment to protect those values and to be kind to those around us.

   

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Stasiland

When I was a kid, there were two countries split by Communism: Korea and Germany.  Germany was always a country of great interest to me since my grandparents came from Germany.  Although East Germany was part of the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc, it didn’t regularly make headlines like the Soviet Union did (or, at least, not ones that a kid like me heard about).  I knew it was oppressive and that people tried to get out.  The movie Night Crossing, about a couple families’ daring escape from East Germany in a hot air balloon, was one of my favorites.  I first saw it thanks to the Disney Sunday Night Movie (or some similar title), which we had recorded on VHS and watched more than once.  The escape was harrowing and courageous, and I couldn’t believe that there was a country that was so intent on controlling its own people.  Even though I was so young, I thought the reunification of Germany was a really cool event.

Stasiland: Stories from behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder (ISBN: 978-1-84708-355-7) is a book written in a journalistic style that tells a variety of stories from East Germany: former Stasi, dissidents, people who tried to escape, and just regular people.  The book, because of its style, also followed the author’s journey through East Germany and dealing with the psychological damage being so close to it dealt her.  The people interviewed included a woman who was not political at all, but one day, found herself close to the border, saw a possibility, and went for it.  She was caught, imprisoned, and forever scarred by the traumatic experience.  She later married a guy who was punished for an escape attempt simply because he swam out toward a boat that was Swedish while at an East German beach.  Endless trouble from the state eventually killed him.  Another was a neighbor of the author, a rock musician who was famous throughout the country.  Eventually, the authorities decided he and his group were just too much, though, and they were informed they no longer existed.  The state disbanded the group.  One of the most heart-rending stories came thanks to a woman who essentially traded her freedom for that of others.  She and her husband had a very sick baby that was being treated in a West German hospital because the East Germans didn’t have the right medicines and abilities.  The parents were only allowed a couple visits, and never together, in an effort to prevent defection.  Later, the parents prepared to make an escape attempt via a tunnel.  The Stasi, East Germany’s brutal secret police, found out about the tunnel, though, and the escape attempt was called off.  That didn’t prevent the parents of the sick boy from being persecuted.  Eventually, the mother was told she could go to the West and see her son, but there were conditions.  One of the conditions would’ve sold out some of the others who had been involved in the escape attempt.  In an amazing act of heroism, she didn’t give in.  The boy grew up in the West under the care of nurses and doctors.  The interviews with the former Stasi were less exciting.  Most seemed to lament, in one way or another, the passing of the former East Germany and the power, authority, and privilege many of them had, usually at the expense of others.  The reunification wasn’t kind to everyone, resulting, in some cases, in increased crime and poverty for those who struggled to adapt to the new order.

The book was interesting, but also disappointing in some ways.  The stories about the former East Germans were great.  Funder found a variety of people, a nice cross-section of society that helped present a fuller picture for the reader.  The stories from those who were oppressed and persecuted or who had resisted in some way were both exhilarating and depressing.  They fought, but often it cost them dearly.  A few of the stories were genuinely inspiring.  Some of the more logistical or mechanical stuff involved was also interesting from a strictly historical point of view.  The book was disappointing because of the inclusion of so much of Funder’s journey.  Even some of the more gripping stories were told from the author’s first-person point of view, which I thought greatly detracted from the book and its potentially strong message.  The author was affected by the stories and people she came in contact with in a profound way that impacted her psychologically.  She had to come to grips with that, and the reader is taken along for part of that journey.  Finally, the book, although almost twenty years old, succumbs to that odd rule of modern publishing in which publishers seem to think that if a word doesn’t use the F-word a few times, people won’t take it seriously.  Although prevalent in today’s society, I find that it detracts from literature that is trying to be serious.

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In Europe’s Shadow

As a kid, I knew little about Romania.  It was connected to the famous book Dracula, which I read in high school for English sophomore year and was left unimpressed.  During the 1980s, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comenici was all the rage when the Olympics were discussed.  I was born too late to see her groundbreaking performances in 1976.  Romania was part of the Soviet bloc, so I knew it was a Communist country and an enemy to the United States, but I felt no threat from the Romanians, unlike the Soviet Russians.  In 1989, the Communist world came tumbling down, and Romania was part of that world-changing spate of events.  I very clearly remember watching on TV as Romanians take to the street waving their flag with the Communist symbol cut out of the middle, leaving a large hole.  I had to be pulled away from the TV to go to a family Christmas party.  Even as a young boy, I realized I was witnessing history in the making.

In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-year Journey through Romania and Beyond by Robert D. Kaplan (ISBN: 978-0-8129-8662-4) is a wide-ranging survey of Romanian history, focusing on the post-World War I XX century and the first decade or so of the XXI century.  Kaplan has written and traveled widely, but is somewhat of a Romanian expert.  He writes history as a travelogue, which provides an interesting narrative as he explains the history behind what is happening in modern-day Romania.  Romania’s history, long intertwined with that of the European empires and the Ottoman Empire, plays a large role in what is happening today, especially because, according to Kaplan and many of the people he interviews, the same players are in the game.  The European empires have been replaced by the European Union and Putin’s Russia.  Romanians seem to recognize that they are still a borderland between these powerful entities.  This is especially true because of Romania’s neighbors, Moldova, a place where there is a greater Russian influence and which is home to one of the many frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet sphere, and Ukraine, which recently became the latest casualty of Russia’s desire to keep things as unstable as possible on its periphery.  Kaplan paints (and “paints” is the right word as he is a masterful writer, helping the reader see themselves there with him in dingy Communist hotels or on bright, lively Central European town squares) a picture of a Romania that has progressed a long way since the exciting fall of Communism in 1989, but still recognizes that there is room for further improvement.  Kaplan’s Romania leans strongly to the West, but knows its past and is wary of the East, home to Russia, which is altogether too happy to meddle in Romanian affairs.

Although I had read Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts, I didn’t realize he was such a Romaniaphile.  The Romnia-centric material in the book made it a little dry in places, but I found myself coming back to it again and again because I found it incredibly relevant to the current events of 2020, both in the U.S. and on the international stage.  Early in the book, it was about the American experience and Kaplan’s defense of the individual.  He had seen, up close and personal, how Communism destroys the individual in favor of a mass thinking alike.  There is not room for dissent.  As a borderland, Romania has long had struggles of an ethnic nature, and while that seems to be far from the case now, the lessons are worth learning: stifle the individual, enhance the groupthinking mass, and ethnic tension is almost a given.  I also found his commentary on global culture reducing the importance of everything to be accurate.  Finally, his take on Russia was brilliant: Putin seeks instability.  Where this is instability and shadiness, Putin thrives, usually at the expense of the West.  I have long posited that Russian foreign policy was simple: instability.  He noted that although Russia used military power in Georgia and Ukraine, its political use of energy and great willingness to meddle in elections and politics made it a much greater threat, especially because those methods of fighting are harder to deal with in open, democratic societies.  The book was well written and interesting, but one that is likely more appreciated by those interested in Romania first of all and Eastern Europe and Russia second.

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Savage Continent

My high school offered a number of Advanced Placement® classes.  I availed myself of the opportunity of taking some of them, but European History was not one of them.  It seemed too far removed from anything involving me, too obscure.  Since then, thanks to things like serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Russia and my wife being from Europe, as well as a greater appreciation for my family history, which has a lot of Europe in it, I’ve developed a greater interest in Europe and European history.  The AP class typically starts with events in the XIV century, and my interests don’t usually go back that far, as the XX century and today are usually what intrigue me, likely because I see the connection, just like I didn’t see the connection back in high school.

Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe (ISBN: 978-1-250-03356-7) takes a very raw look at the immediate post-World War II period in European history.  The author catalogues the side of post-war Europe that is not usually highlighted in articles and books: genocide, ethnic cleansing, corruption, and violence.  The wartime years are famous for those, but they continued, usually on a smaller scale and in a more isolated fashion, for years after the Allies defeated the Axis powers.  Lowe examines the post-war conditions and how they created the ideal setting for further violence.  While the Allied armies tried to gain control and figure out just what they had on their hands, displaced persons and refugees wandered Europe.  There were plenty of instances of vigilante justice and people looking for revenge against the Germans or other people that had truly or only purportedly wronged others.  In Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and a few other places, the German concentration camps were still being used, either has temporary housing or by the Soviets or others for their original purposes, just against a new type of inmate.  Ukrainian and Poles fought.  Greece went into a civil war.  Jews continued to find no quarter.  The Allies and international organizations worked hard to remedy the harsh conditions, but given the level of destruction the war had wrought, it was often slow going.  Finally, the emerging struggle of the Cold War meant that some of these problems were not given the focus that some would have liked them to have been under.

The book was a very interesting read, although it is easily one of those that is often described as “hard” because of the vivid descriptions of man’s cruelty to his fellowman.  The descriptions of the trials and judgements (or lack thereof) against Nazi sympathizers and collaborators in many European countries was interesting and presented interesting arguments on why they were conducted in the manner that they ultimately were.  I thought a lot of the content was new to me in that I didn’t know about this or that specific situation, but none of it surprised me, having spent time in and trying to learn about the Balkans.  It seems that a lot of the areas where post-war conflagrations happened are the same areas that are still thought of as potential flashpoints today.  People should be aware of the history and the potential consequences of various actions in these places.  I thought the book was somewhat anti-victor (both Western and Communist), laying blame for some of the post-war atrocities at the feet of the Allies.  I wasn’t convinced that was accurate or appropriate, but the book was interesting and provided a good view into a part of European history that is not often discussed.

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A River in Darkness

Asia is not usually high on my list of interests.  I have always wanted to visit Japan (likely linked to my dad’s serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there) and I’ve always wanted to visit the famous sights in China.  I once had the opportunity to visit Bangkok, and while I enjoyed it, it was very different from anything I had ever experienced before.  I don’t know a lot about the region in general, but have never been a big fan of North Korea.  Once European Communism fell in the late ’80s and early ’90s, places like Cuba and North Korea have seemed like time warps, holding out unnecessarily while continuing to oppress people.  When people make the decision to try to leave those places, I always find it to be one I can sympathize with.

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa (ISBN: 978-1-5420-4719-7) is just such a tale, although it does have an interesting twist.  The author was not born in North Korea; in fact, he was born in Japan and was ethnically half Japanese.  His dad, who was not native to Japan, moved his family to North Korea under pressure from ethnic compatriots and the pressure of being an ethnic minority in re-building, post-war Japan, where such minorities weren’t always welcome.  The promises of the Communist utopia were very quickly discovered to be a total sham by the author and his family.  However, there was no real opportunity to get out.  The author's family had nothing to offer the Communist Party, so they lived as peasants, eventually finding that living under the radar of the authorities was easier than trying to conform to the system in North Korea.  Eventually, Ishikawa tires of the poverty, starvation, racism, hypocritical inequality, and lack of freedom.  He heads toward the border with China, fearful, but determined to make a break for it since, although that would mean an uncertain future, it was better than the future he could easily predict inside North Korea.  He made it to China, eventually linking up with the Japanese embassy there, which, with great difficulty, helped exfiltrate him to Japan.  Once back, Japan had jumped forward forty or so years, while North Korea had steadily gone backward.  Ishikawa struggled to adjust and felt abandoned by Japan.

The book was interesting, but disheartening.  Ishikawa's childhood is not an easy one, with alcohol abuse and physical abuse having large roles.  The move to North Korea is understandable only from his father's point of view.  Once there, even his father grows disillusioned with their new country, but like so many people in totalitarian, socialist regimes, he never felt empowered or free enough to do anything about his situation.  North Korea is bleak from the family's arrival to the very last page of the book.  The descriptions of life there are simple, yet vivid and powerful.  Readers are drawn in to the dark, gloomy, depressing lives of the underclass in North Korea.  In a way, it like reading Dostoevsky, but it was real.  The story of the escape was a breath of fresh air and involved some risks, risk-takers, and genuinely good people.  Movement between Japanese diplomatic facilities and the flight to Japan have a spy story quality to them.  Ishikawa's return to Japan and struggle to fit in again returns the reader to the more depressing side of the book.  What is clear by the end of the book is that North Korea is an anachronism and deserved its place on George Bush's “axis of evil.”  The book, like other, similar memoirs, serves as a warning against the lack of freedoms engendered by socialist governments everywhere and the positive, although imperfect, results of the free market and capitalism.

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A P.O.W.’s Story

This policy of “communistic humanitarianism” was not invented for the POWs.  It was the standard policy of treatment toward their own people as well.  Play ball with the party or get your skull crushed in!  Here was a policy that held no promise for individual rights and freedom, the dream of all people, but instead threatened punishment for nonconformity to a dehumanizing system.  It was a dirty blanket thrown over the heads of the people, to extend absolute control over them, depriving them of their individuality and eliminating personal initiative to strive for a better life.
The Vietnam War is one I — probably to my detriment — know little about.  It is skipped over in American high school with little more than a few comments about just what the word “quagmire” means and how it was an example of American — sometimes described as “imperialist” — overreach.  I think that is the prevailing opinion of most people born since about 1970.  As I have watched events unfold in my lifetime, and especially since September 11th, I have come to question that well-established assessment a little more.  Couple that line of thought with a natural interest in history, and stuff about one of America’s forgotten wars has caught my eye a little.

A P.O.W.’s Story: 2801 Days in Hanoi by Larry Guarino (ISBN: 0-449-00099-0) is one POW’s memories of his time as a prisoner during the Vietnam War.  The book, essentially a memoir, described Guarino’s memories of his experiences as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.  He describes many aspects of the experience from the mundane everyday to the surreal to the explosive.  The reader learns about going to the bathroom as a POW, being used in a propaganda film, and the cruel torture sessions.  The majority of POWs lived true to the code of honor that the U.S. military asked them to live by, doing all that was in their power to stymie the Vietcong.  They thought up codes and other ways of communicating, they went on hunger strikes, they frustrated the Vietnamese attempts at using the POWs in propaganda, and they held out as long as they could under torture.  For some, the results were deathly or resulted in lifelong crippling.  For all, there were ghosts that lingered long after the war.  The story told chronologically and had a lot more detail in the beginning; toward the end it was just more of the same.  The detailed view into life as a POW included a view light moments, too.  Eventually, the war is over and repatriation becomes real, not just a dream.

A memoir may not be the most academically rigorous place to start one’s exploration of the Vietnam War, but the book was available for free, and, if nothing else, sparked a greater interest.  I was appreciative of Guarino’s openness about some aspects of the whole situation.  He noted that each POW could tell his own story and that, because everyone’s experiences are different and are interpreted in our own minds differently, each story would be unique.  He understood that not all men could hold out as he did and that he himself was not as strong as others.  He and the other POWs respected all who put forth their best efforts.  I found him to be open-minded and respectful of differing viewpoints.  He realized that America afforded all people the chance to think as we like, and he claimed (and I believe him) to have no problem with people who were against the war, only those who took steps to aid and abet the enemy.  It seemed a fair viewpoint.  I was struck by the dedication and commitment shown by many of the POWs.  Since there were hundreds of POWs, I can’t be certain, but my impression was that a majority came out and, sooner or later, carried on with life.  It seems that, as with most things, they just made them different back then.  Most of the men were simply doing what their country asked of them.  Most of them understood or came to understand that Communism was a mess and stood for everything that America didn’t.  War, of course, is a messy business, one better off left untouched, so before making too many judgements on this one, I’d like to learn more, and Guarino’s book helped stoke that interest, both because of the personal stories and because of the larger geopolitical issues at stake.

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KGB

Russia was an enigmatic Communist nation when I was a kid.  What little I knew of the USSR centered around the lack of freedom the people had.  I vividly remember my one-time conception of how the centrally planned economy and complete lack of freedom would result in some people being condemned to a lifetime of emptying garbage cans in some forlorn office building somewhere in the Soviet Union.  Reality, as I understand it, was slightly more forgiving.  One thing that fascinated me was the state-sponsored oppressors or the secret police that seemed necessary to keep the Russians (I knew nothing of the almost two hundred ethnic groups in the Soviet Union) under control.  It was so different from the life I knew in the U.S. and it involved secrecy, spies, and a powerful military that seemed more fiction than fact.

KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents by John Barron tells some of the stories of the main Soviet agency of oppression and secrecy, the KGB.  It provides an overview of all the Soviet intelligence agencies, but focuses on the KGB, which the author assessed to be the brains behind all of them.  After the more academic portion of the book, it recounts a few fantastic stories.  Most of the stories, a few which I had read elsewhere previously, had to do with the stuff of movies.  The book contains the stories of Americans who betrayed their country and of Russians who betrayed theirs.  They are fascinating accounts full of sneaking around big cities, breaking into vaults, offers of money, international intrigue, “seductresses” (as promised by the paperback version’s typically sensationalist cover art), and, of course, spies.  It was interesting to read of a disgruntled U.S. Army soldier, his former prostitute wife, and his giving the Russians access to something they likely figured was impossible to access.  I was also really intrigued by the stories of Russians and other eastern Europeans who risked it all to do what they figured was their part in the battle against authoritarianism and for liberty.  One interesting story was that of a Czech who was sent to Canada by the Russians, but who ultimately decided that all he had been taught in years of intense training was not true now that he’d been in the West and seen how things really worked.

The book was really interesting to me since I have an interest in all things Russia.  It is, of course, dated, since it’s about the Soviet Union and the KGB instead of Russia and the FSB, but there are two reasons I thought it still seemed relevant, besides being fun to read because of the incredible stories (it’s Bourne, but it was real).  First, Russia today is closer to the Soviet Union than it’s been since the fall of Communism.  The types of operations described in the book are likely going on right now.  Second, and probably more important, the KGB and its tactics are part of any authoritarian government.  Unfortunately, the U.S. is slowly sliding down that slope.  As government grows and grows, it seeks to retain power, usually done by taking away the rights of the people.  People inherently desire freedom, though, so to sustain a government that does not have the freedom of the people as its raison d’être, that same government turns to oppression and the elimination of liberty to preserve itself.  We must always be vigilant about what we are allowing the government to do lest we become the victims described in this book.

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When Character Was King

Technically, since he was president until 1981, Jimmy Carter was the first president in my life, but I was too little to know anything about him, so Ronald Reagan, who served from 1981 to 1989, is the president who I think of first when I think of the first U.S. president during my lifetime.  Reagan is famous for a number of things, all of which those who like to politicize everything argue about.  One is economic policy, which I don't think I'd ever heard about or even thought about as a kid.  Another was foreign policy, and even as a kid, I was pretty attuned to this.  Russia and her satellite states broadcast an ideology of oppression, were a clear and present nuclear threat, and fought wars and proxy wars to spread misery and oppression.  In a way, it had a personal connection.  I was well aware of my German heritage and was always fascinated by Germany.  Germany, of course, was separated by a wall, and not a wall of defense, but one meant to prevent people from leaving, from seeking a better life or from the "pursuit of happiness."  Reagan, famously, called on Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, to "tear down [the] wall!"  Even as a young kid, I understood that Reagan was a man of principles and a man who knew how to lead.

In When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan by Peggy Noonan (ISBN: 978-0-14-200168-4), the former Reagan staffer (speechwriter), journalist, and columnist gives her take on the fortieth president.  The story starts when Reagan was a kid and ends as he succumbs to the Alzheimer's and the ailments of time.  One learns where he got his worldview from and how his early life influenced where he got.  Reagan's father, I learned, was an alcoholic, but he still imbued his son with principles that served him well in seeing the greatness in all people and in upholding America's tradition of equality.  Reagan's mother was a strongly and actively Christian woman, which also became a major part of his character.  He believed in God and believed God wanted to be part of people's lives.  One reads about Reagan's involvement in Hollywood.  He was arguably an up-and-coming star, but never went big time because he got involved in the actors' union and the more political side of things.  His political career was dogged by accusations of being just an actor, and acting likely helped him as he campaigned, but his real talent was likely in speechmaking to begin with.  The book recounts Reagan's entry into politics.  He was not, it seems, overly ambitious, but saw his involvement as a chance to help people, and that's where character came in.  Reagan had standards and stuck to them, providing for people a stable and strong standard behind which they could rally.  He was unabashedly religious, had no tolerance for racism, and knew that there was a distinct difference between democratic forms of government with capitalistic and those of the "evil empire," the Soviet Union.  Principles made it so Reagan, with an unwavering rear guard in his wife, Nancy, could set goals — goals based on character and principles — and achieve them, improving lives around him in the process.

I really didn't know what to think about the book before reading it, but I did somewhat doubt the decision to pick it up since I figured a weightier biography of one of America's all-time great presidents might've been in order before this shorter one that could really only promise an overview of the many things Reagan undertook and accomplished.  I learned some things about the man and his life, though, and was happy with the depth of the information about the bigger events in his life.  I thought Noonan did an admirable job with what might be called the backstory to Reagan's political career, which is really where his character was formed — in his childhood, in college, and as an actor and union activist.  I think she made a good argument for the role that character played in what Reagan was able to accomplish, whether it was overcoming political defeat, recovering strongly from being shot, or helping bring about the demise of Soviet Communism.  Overall, the book was an enjoyable read and really only solidified my view of Reagan as one of the all-time great presidents.  There were things I liked about the Bushes, but the book's title says it all about Reagan and that era, because it wasn't principles in certain times, as I feel it was with the Bushes, but princpled, strong leadership all the time.  It also made me want to learn more, so I will, someday, find my way into a weightier, more academic biography of this great man.

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Rise and Fall

Yugoslavia did not play a large role in my life until I came to Sarajevo for work.  I was too young, really, for the 1984 Olympics to mean anything.  I vaguely remember the old, small, black-and-white television showing ice skating competitions from the games.  Later, I learned that Yugoslavia was part of the Communist bloc.  Beyond that, I knew nothing of it and heard nothing of it until the 1990s, when it all, quite literally, blew up.  War, ethnic cleansing, and genocide are probably not what the peoples of this Balkan region wanted to have help them get on the map, so to speak, but it did.  There has been no shooting here for twenty years, but when people learn that I am working in Sarajevo, 90% of the time, they ask about the war and if that makes it a problem to live, work, and play in Sarajevo.  The effects, of course, do, but the war, of course, does not.

Rise and Fall by Milovan Djilas (ISBN: 0-15-177572-9) provides one man’s (Djilas (Đilas) himself) view of the Communist rise to power in Yugoslavia.  Since he was one of Tito’s closest aides and advisors, he provides an inside perspective that is largely unrivaled.  He also chronicles what he considers the falling away of the Yugoslav Communists from their revolutionary ideals.  As he comes to realize that Communism, as implemented in Yugoslavia, isn’t what was promised, he becomes disillusioned with it, enough so that he published material critical of Tito and the Communists, leading to nine years as a political prisoner.  Djilas covers a lot of ground in a little over 400 pages.  He gives a short account of the wartime Communists, but mostly focuses on life under Tito after the war.  He talks about foreign relations, internal politics, bizarre Communist Party perks like special stores for the elite party members, the cult of personality surrounding Tito, and the oppressive nature of a totalitarian or dictatorial political system.  Interestingly, Djilas’s falling out was not with Communism; it was with what Communism had developed into in Yugoslavia.  The reader even gets a small glimpse into Djilas’s personal life as he discusses his marriages.  Finally, the totalitarian oppression claims the once high-ranking government official and he spends almost a decade as a prisoner because of his ideas, not necessarily even that radical.

If one wants to study Yugoslav history at all, this is likely not the appropriate place to start.  Djilas made his name in the West because he was considered a dissident in a system that the West saw as inherently evil (rightly so) even though he was not proposing anything radical and certainly not a departure from Communism.  While that contributes to my thinking that Djilas was not the best person to take up as any kind of symbol or hero of the opposition in Yugoslavia, that is what happened, and this book is one of the results.  It assumes a certain level of familiarity with the history of Yugoslavia, which, if one lacks, results in a rather dry read in places.  On the other hand, the intimate insider view of things is appreciated and unique.  I found his discussion of Yugoslavia’s short-lived falling out with Russia fascinating.  Many modern Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians paint Yugoslavia as different from many of the other Eastern bloc countries for a few different reasons.  One of those reasons, they proudly proclaim, is that they weren’t just a puppet state of the U.S.S.R., like the Warsaw Pact nations.  Reading Djilas’s take, Yugoslavia towed the line set by Moscow as much as it could, so things really weren’t that different.  Those types of insights made for an interesting read.

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To the Rescue

I have always looked up to Church leaders as good examples, and the prophets in particular.  Since President Kimball died when I was only 5 years old, I only vaguely remember him.  I remember President Benson better, in large part because of his lifelong commitment to Scouting, and he was the prophet while I was heavily involved in Scouts.  I remember President Hunter mostly because the Bountiful Temple was dedicated while he was the prophet, and I participated in that temple’s open house and dedication.  President Hinckley is probably the first prophet I remember because of the things he taught.  He is also the first one that I looked to as a role model.  He was a very positive person and chose to see the bright side of life, no matter the situation.  Before President Monson was even the president of the Church, I saw him as a role model.  His many stories, most of them based on his personal experiences, showed that he had developed many of the character traits that truly good people possess.  Over and over again, I found myself listening and thinking that I should, somehow, implement what he was talking about in my own life.

To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson by Heidi S. Swinton (ISBN: 978-1-60641-898-7) chronicles the amazing life of service that President Monson has led from an early age through the present day.  The timeline for the biography is straight forward, starting with his early childhood and ending with his time as the leader of the Church.  He learned from parents and family around him in what was, at the time, a typical childhood.  It follows him through high school, a mission, early marriage, employment, and a variety of Church callings.  Along the way, there are many familiar stories, but there are sometimes some additional details that weren’t always part of the many sermons President Monson has given.  There were also some additional stories.  It was interesting to read about President Monson’s family a little bit and about his professional experienes.  There was a lot of time spent on President Monson’s service as an apostle in what was then East Germany.  The Church history aspect was interesting, as it was with some of the other episodes from his life, but they often seemed more like pioneer stories because of the great faith shown and the hardships endured.  What was consistent no matter what part of his life was being discussed was the dedication he showed to serving others, whether that be in his family or those around him.  President Monson was never too busy to help someone out, talk to them, visit them, give them a blessing, or share time and possessions with them.  It becomes abundantly clear as the life of this man is chronicled that he understands very well that Heavenly Father is serious when He says that the worth of souls is great in His sight.  President Monson has cultivated that genuine love and concern that is a trait of our divine Father and made it a part of his own personality. 

I never really doubted I would find the book interesting, but I think that I underestimated the power behind the stories.  There is sense of warmth and comfort in the stories from home, whether they be from his childhood or when he was a father.  The stories of service, love, and compassion are often familiar, but never dull.  In fact, they’re just the opposite.  They are inspiring and teach true principles.  I don’t necesssarily remember the details of who, when, or how, but a desire to be more in tune with the Spirit and more ready to help others is clearly left in your mind and heart after reading even a few pages.  Really, you can’t ask much more out of a book.  Thomas S. Monson has led and continues to lead an extraordinary life of service.  It is one worthy of emulation and one about which reading is well worth one’s time.

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Balkan Ghosts

“So foul a sky clears not without a storm.”— Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John, 4.2.108
My childhood featured a couple major actions by U.S. armed forces: the Gulf War and the U.S.-led NATO involvement in the Bosnian War.  The former was broadcast into our living rooms, and I remember watching live footage of bombs hitting Baghdad while preparing for my dad's birthday celebrations.  The second was a smaller operation and much less well understood in the U.S.  As a teenager, I know I certainly didn’t get it.  What probably brought that war home for Americans was when Capt. Scott O'Grady was shot down, survived for a few days on bugs and other gross stuff like that, and was rescued by marines.  It was nothing short of miraculous that the story had a happy ending.  It also made people, myself included, pay more attention to a little-known and little-understood part of the world.

Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan (ISBN: 978-0-312-42493-0), is self-styled as a travelogue, but is more akin to a feature story in a national magazine on current affairs.  Kaplan weaves his extensive travels and living experience in the region and the accompanying interviews and everyday events with historical perspective and the relevant biographical information pertaining to the important figures in the Balkans’ history, his “ghosts.”  Kaplan’s definition of the Balkans is a bit wider than most Americans’, so not only the former Yugoslavia, but Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, too, are included in the discussion of this fascinating geographical region.  Each country and each nation (ethnic group) has a few figures in its past who lived in such a way and made decisions in such a way as to continue to influence the way things are done and the way people think.  With the exception of Greece, the Balkans also deal with a specter of a different type, the continued need to deal with the harsh consequences of communist dictatorships that broke people and destroyed countries immediately after the Nazis and fascism gave the same thing a whirl.  It’s worth noting that the Nazis followed right on the heels of the Hapsburgs, who were, in most people’s estimation, better rulers than the succeeding ones, but on occasion no less ruthless.  The great figures and great histories of the various peoples are presented with all the raw emotion that is associated with Balkanization, and Kaplan points out that since the histories are great, the people pick those moments when their histories were at an apex and claim that cultural, linguistic, and territorial summit as the way things should be now before any other discussions can be had.  It puts them all in a hard place, but Kaplan argues that considering all the things these groups of people and these countries have been through, there’s really no way but up, although, as his reference to Shakespeare alludes to, it might be a painful process.

I thought the book was a good read, although I was slightly disappointed by a couple things.  One was that the book had received so much press, I thought it was going to blow my socks off, and it didn’t.  The other was that although Kaplan makes a convincing argument for including Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece in his book because of their obvious geographical location but also because of their similar historical paths and current problems, I was hoping for something that focused more on the American definition of the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia.  Still, I think I came away with a little more understanding of the region currrently and a much better understanding of its history.  Like all people European and Asian, the Slavs of southeastern Europe know and appreciate their history.  The troubles in the Balkans are one of those cases where that appreciation goes too far.  There are endless debates about European and American culture and which is better.  I typically fall on both sides of the debate, preferring to pick and choose what I like from both.  Americans’ propensity to not worry so much about the past and get on with today is something the Balkan nations could learn from.  In the meantime, Kaplan has opened the door and illuminated a few feet beyond the threshold of an exotic and unexplored (at least, by me) world that is only barely removed from the Europe and Russia that I know.

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