What do you think of Alexander Zinoviev?

[Nevsky]

Alexander Zinoviev was a famous russian logician, author and soviet dissident. He invented the derogatory term homo sovieticus as title for his book of the same name. His repeated severe criticism of soviet society lead to him being exiled in 1978.

After the initiation of Gorbachev's reform policies, Zinoviev's attitude notably changed. The USSR's achievements, especially the Stalin period, were now defended by Zinoviev against the liberalization of Russia.

A few interesting Zinoviev quotes:

-"We lived through a lot of things: horrific living conditions, arrests and hardship of the war. And yet, I would not trade my life in those days for any other life. Many millions of my peers in those days felt free and realized they were Citizens with a capital C. We gained tremendous knowledge; the entire country was studying. In those days Russia transitioned from the most illiterate into the most educated country. We were given access to the highest cultural achievements. This was our compensation for the poverty of our daily living. Our pants were ripped and patched, we wore no ties, but in our heads we carried something, which to us meant more than any treasures of the material world."

-"I consider him one of the greatest persons in the history of mankind. In the history of Russia he was, in my opinion, even greater than Lenin. Until Stalin’s death I was anti-Stalinist, but I always regarded him as an outstanding personality."

-"I was already a confirmed anti-Stalinist at the age of seventeen .... The idea of killing Stalin filled my thougths and feelings .... We studied the 'technical' possibillities of an attack .... We even practiced. If they had condemned me to death in 1939, their decision would have been just. I had made up a plan to kill Stalin; wasn't that a crime? When Stalin was still alive, I saw things differently, but as I look back over this century, I can state that Stalin was the greatest individual of this century, the greatest political genius. To adopt a scientific attitude about someone is quite different from one's personal attitude."

I am a bit sceptical about the man, especially since he defended Milosevic and Mladic, too. Being apologetic of the latter two usually is a just a thing for hardcore anti-globalization nationalists, which certainly isn't the group I want to be associated with. I used to consider Zinoviev to stand above that but I am not sure anymore. What are your thoughts on him and his legacy?

[Rurkel]

I bet most of those who read only the thread title confused him with Grigorii Zinoviev, the famous Bolshevik party member convicted in Moscow Trials.

Alexander Zinoviev was quite a strange personality. A critic of official Soviet communism from a mixture of national-liberal and "romantic anti-Soviet communist" viewpoint, he was shocked at what happened to the Soviet Union and its population post-Perestroika, and, without exactly renouncing his previous views, evolved towards, as you say, hardcore anti-American anti-globalist nationalism.

His politics are an example of a "political contrarianism" that, while correct in many observations, can't ultimately grasp things as they are, and resorts to crude simplifications like the reason for USA policy being the lack of true, deep intellect in the 'American civilization'.

He also supports the so-called "new chronology" of Fomenko (google it to see the whole bullshit marvel that "new chronology" is). Supporting it is a common symptom of Russian "political contrarians". Kasparov, the former chess champion, is also infected with it - ironic, considering Kasparov's really embarrassing pro-Westernism.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Alexander Zinoviev was quite a strange personality. A critic of official Soviet communism from a mixture of national-liberal and "romantic anti-Soviet communist" viewpoint, he was shocked at what happened to the Soviet Union and its population post-Perestroika, and, without exactly renouncing his previous views, evolved towards, as you say, hardcore anti-American anti-globalist nationalism.

It's worth mentioning that this exact same thing happened to Solzhenitsyn too. Despite his warm welcome in the west, within a few years he grew cynical with his reactionary orthodox-nostalgia and was so repulsed with the United States that he started writing these rants about U.S. degeneracy and was shut-out from the public space - despite only a few years previously being heralded as a hero of freedom and democracy for his anti-communist and anti-Soviet positions - and soon he faded into obscurity. Like Zinoviev, he became somewhat (to a lesser extent) nostalgic for the Soviet Union as at least better than what followed.

I believe there was some other émigré dissidents who followed a similar trajectory when they were confronted by the reality of western society not being quite what they had imagined it to be.