August 28, 2015
-Robert, you
write, speak, think a lot about Russia. Why do you have such an deep interest
to Russia?
-The reason is
that in 1974-1975 as a student in secondary school I started reading Archipelag
Gulag and it was such a shock for me that I started reading more and more. In
1977 I started corresponding with Vladimir Bukovsky, who had just arrived in
the West, and he basically pulled me into the human rights movement. From that
moment onwards I have been busy with human rights and mental health in the
(former) Soviet Union. Mental health, because I was especially interested in
political prisoners in psychiatric hospitals. In 1980 I started travelling to
the USSR as a courier, delivering material aid and smuggling information out of
the USSR, and when many of my friends and acquaintances were arrested I decided
I could not have a "normal life" while they were in prison or camp.
And by the time they came out, in 1987-1989, I was already totally engulfed in
human rights in the USSR. Emotionally I had moved already to that region, and
so I can truthfully say "moi adres Sovietskii Soyuz". And that is
still the case: I feel at home in that part of the world, and travel there all
the time, living in Vilnius (I am now also a Lithuanian citizen), Tbilisi and
Kyiv. It is where I belong.
Regarding Russia, I have a love-hate relationship, like any Russian actually :))) And I think that as long as Russia is ruled by a bunch of criminals and KGB-officers it will remain a danger to the whole region. I wish the Russian people freedom, even though the majority doesn't seem to understand now what it is. But it will come, one day.
- Do you agree that the problem for Europe is the whole of Russia, not only Putin?
- Well, I want to
nuance a bit. Yes, certainly the problem is not only Putin. The problem is what
Putin stands for, which is the result of 75 years of communism and a failed
attempt to turn Russia into a more democratic state. 75 Years of communism rid
the country of the upper layers of society, turned people into slaves and then
reduced them to petty thieves in order to survive. And some of these petty
thieves became big thieves and when these big thieves became one and the same
as those in power the country turned into a mafia-run territory. So if Putin
goes nothing is solved: who gets rid of the criminal gangs, some of whom are
called politicians, governors, mayors and other people put in positions of
power to facilitate the robbing of the country? Who gets rid of criminal gangs
like the Kadyrovtsy, Russian nationalists and Night Wolves, to name just a few?
Who can help the country to get on a track that will probably be similar like
the people of Israel going through the desert for 40 years to cleanse itself
from those who cannot be reformed or changed?
I think the problem is that most people in the West do not see the difference between the Russia I love and the Russia I hate. They cannot see the fact that they are looking at a criminalized state, and that Putin c.s. only know the language of the street. I remember Bukovsky who told the Americans in the 1980s to stop talking to the Soviets as if they were normal politicians. 'talk to them like to the mafia in Chicago, that they will understand". Then came Reagan, not very smart, not very sophisticated, and probably already suffering from the onset of Alzheimer, and he spoke a language they understood! :)
- Putin understands only the language of force. Can the West put him to his place? Is there a fault of the European Union and the United States that the security services had come to power in Russia?
-I think it is
very hard to put the blame for the KGB taking control of Russia on the EU or
the USA. First and foremost it is to blame the Russian people, who allowed
themselves to be gradually pushed back into a non-democratic fold after Yeltsin
blew away parliament in 1993, and then to save his own skin sold his country to
the devil. The Russian people was clearly not ready to defend democracy, and
has still little understanding of what democracy was about, and that it is not
something you get but you win.
However, such is life and now Russia is basically run by the KGb in a strange and sick union with criminal gangs and corrupt and cynical rulers. Yes, the only way to keep Putin in place is by being direct, clear, and steadfast. It is a bit like in the 1980s when Vladimir Bukovsky would tell the Americans to stop talking to Soviet diplomats in the same way as to democratic countries, but rather to talk to them like to the mafia in Chicago: that is a language they understand. I think the West is now finally starting to understand they are in deep trouble if they don't stop Putin now. So there is some historical sense, or some lessons have been learned from the past. I think more and more politicians understand that if they had reacted much more strong in 2008 Ukraine would not go through the horrors through which it is going now. Because in fact the West didn't really care about Georgia and let Putin eat away two regions at basically no cost. So now we pay the price.
Maxim Efimov
