… the training continued in all sectors and in all geographic areas and was divided between official schools within Moscow and secret schools outside Moscow. Those who were trained there were ultimately not only western Communists like the Italians, but also all the Palestinian groups and those Arab terrorists who later became the heads of Al-Qaeda. Not to mention the people who came from Angola, from Mozambique, South Africa, Nicaragua, Cuba and Chile. They all followed courses of three types: military, espionage and counterespionage. The course in espionage and counterespionage were conducted in secret schools outside Moscow. So it is obvious that they were all, Italians included, trained not to defend themselves from nonexistent coups d’état, but in order to prepare pro-Soviet regimes, especially in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America - but not only there.”
You made a reference to Al-Qaeda. Can you say more about that?
“We say that the KGB made a selection of persons to train coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the countries of the Middle East, from Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia: they became all the future cadres of Al-Qaeda. Indeed, colonel Alexander Litvinenko has made acute analyses and important revelations on precisely this point: while whoever trained these people did not perhaps expect September 11, they were perfectly aware that they had created and oiled mechanisms for the production of terror which could therefore have taken the terror against the West, as they had been taught.”
Litvinenko said in the interview for Novosti Ukraina on December 28 2005 that the famous Captain Talik - for slandering whom Mario Scaramella is now in jail - was connected with Al-Qaeda. Do you know anything about that?
“I can only say that there is always a tie between experts of Soviet terrorism and Al-Qaeda, but I am not in a position to say what role this specific man had.”
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Al-Qaeda and the KGB
At Rivoluzione Italiana, Italian senator Paolo Guzzanti has published the complete text of a recent interview he held with Oleg Gordievsky. In it, Gordievsky discusses the links between Romano Prodi and the Soviet KGB which exercised an important influence on political events in Italy during the early 1980s. He goes on to consider the international political backwash of subsequent developments in the Soviet Union, which included the widespread training in Russia of anti-Western terrorists and intelligence agents. These training programmes continued long after the fall of the Soviet regime, and are still a significant factor in the security problems faced by the West today. From the end of the interview [my tr.]:
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Note
There is going to be another break in posting to this blog. It will last until approximately Tuesday of next week.
Guilty Jailers
A comment at Rivoluzione Italiana:
La carcerazione di Mario Scaramella è la più lampante dimostrazione della colpevolezza dei carcerieri.
Which translates as:
The jailing of Mario Scaramella is the most patent demonstration of the jailers’ guilt.
La carcerazione di Mario Scaramella è la più lampante dimostrazione della colpevolezza dei carcerieri.
Which translates as:
The jailing of Mario Scaramella is the most patent demonstration of the jailers’ guilt.
Another Murder in Chechnya
Unexplained abductions and killings continue in Chechnya. Via Prague Watchdog [my tr.]:
Another civilian murdered in Chechnya
By Ruslan Isayev
GROZNY, Chechnya – On the night of January 8 a group of armed men in two cars without number plates seized and abducted a local resident, 25-year-old Islam Navruzov, from his house in the village of Dolinsky, on the eastern outskirts of Grozny, and drove him away in an unknown direction.
The abduction followed the scenario that is usual in Chechnya. On the night in question several masked men armed with sub-machine guns entered the Navruzovs’ house when the whole family was gathered together. After threatening Islam’s brothers and father with their weapons, they took him away without giving any reasons.
A search was immediately begun, but produced no results. On the following morning Islam’s body, with a bullet-wound in the head, was discovered on the outskirts of the village.
Neighbours and relatives are shocked by what has happened, since they say that Islam had no connection with the forces of armed resistance in the republic.
Translated by David McDuff.
Another civilian murdered in Chechnya
By Ruslan Isayev
GROZNY, Chechnya – On the night of January 8 a group of armed men in two cars without number plates seized and abducted a local resident, 25-year-old Islam Navruzov, from his house in the village of Dolinsky, on the eastern outskirts of Grozny, and drove him away in an unknown direction.
The abduction followed the scenario that is usual in Chechnya. On the night in question several masked men armed with sub-machine guns entered the Navruzovs’ house when the whole family was gathered together. After threatening Islam’s brothers and father with their weapons, they took him away without giving any reasons.
A search was immediately begun, but produced no results. On the following morning Islam’s body, with a bullet-wound in the head, was discovered on the outskirts of the village.
Neighbours and relatives are shocked by what has happened, since they say that Islam had no connection with the forces of armed resistance in the republic.
Translated by David McDuff.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Hardball
As the evidently manufactured “dispute” between Russia and Belarus about energy prices is played out before a credulous Europe, the Washington Post comments on the resulting disarray:
(via CH)Western governments are watching Mr. Putin’s hardball tactics with concern; yesterday they called for an immediate resumption of supplies through the Belarusan pipeline. They do not, however, have a policy for countering the Russian threat. Even the members of the European Union cannot agree among themselves on whether to appease Russia — by offering new long-term contracts and capital for investment in oil and gas projects — or push back, which they could do by insisting that Mr. Putin sign an international “energy charter” that would curtail his monopolistic practices. The attack on Belarus ought to rule out the appeasement option.”
Diplomat Poisoned 2 Days Before Litvinenko
The German magazine Focus has published a report which asserts that two days before Litvinenko was poisoned, a Russian diplomat in London died under mysterious circumstances, after apparently being poisoned by a radiological attack.
AIA has a synopsis of the article [some editing]:
Last autumn Igor Ponomarev, representative of Russia in the International Maritime Organization (IMO), died in the British capital. Focus writes that the diplomat was attending a theatre performance when he suddenly felt bad, xperiencing a strong attack of thirst. The Russian had drunk a few litres of water, and had subsequently died. The cause of his death was declared to be a heart attack. His body was quickly delivered to Russia, although no post-mortem examination was made.
Sudden thirst is not known as a symptom of heart attack, according to Dietrich Andresen from the German Society of Cardiologists. Gabriela Gerber-Zupan from the Poisoning Emergency Centre in Munich, told Focus that in the expert toxicologists' opinion, thallium (which was initially also thought to be the cause of Alexander Litvinenko’s poisoning) might cause a thirst of this kind. Igor Ponomarev wanted to be at the appointment with the Russian ex-security officer along with Litvinenko’s Italian contact, Mario Scaramella. However, according to his relatives he died a day before the planned meeting on October 30, 2006.
According to Focus, Ponomarev’s relatives do not exclude the possibility that the death of the Russian diplomat is connected with the case of the poisoning of the former FSB officer. Scotland Yard did not launch an inquiry into the causes of the Russian diplomat's death as, according to its spokesman, no one had applied for such an inquiry to be opened.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Litvinenko Poisoners' Identity Confirmed
From the Daily Mirror:
British detectives are certain they know who murdered former Soviet spy Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive poison.(Via AIA)
But they say authorities in Russia are unlikely to send his two killers here to face trial.
Both were interviewed before Christmas by officers sent to Moscow.
They admit meeting Litvinenko in London, where he was slipped a powerful dose of polonium 210 in early November, but deny involvement.
Police will submit a file to the Crown Prosecution Service naming the two.
Three Months and Counting
At chechnya-sl, Johan Lagerfelt comments:
Just a quick reminder that today it is exactly three months since the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. Have the police made any headway? Are they busily interrogating suspects? Is the net closing around the guilty one?
The answer is - no.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Litvinenko Inquiry "Closing In"
The Independent writes that the Litvinenko inquiry is closing in on the suspected killers. There are, however, problems:
Detectives are close to identifying the suspected killers of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian agent, but it looks increasingly likely that the alleged assassins will escape prosecution.
Scotland Yard officers are also investigating whether the former spy was first poisoned with polonium-210 several days earlier than previously reported. Investigators believe Mr Litvinenko may have been contaminated twice, with the second attack taking place at a central London hotel several days after the first "hit".Two Russian businessmen, one a former KGB officer and the other a former Soviet soldier, are the focus of the investigation by anti-terrorist officers from the Metropolitan Police. Both strongly deny any wrongdoing.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
The FSB in a Positive Light
At Prague Watchdog, a report which shows the FSB in Chechnya for once in a positive light, reforming itself:
Practice of extortion at „Kavkaz“ checkpoint stops
By Umalt Chadayev
CHECHNYA – Renewed bribery at the sadly well-known „Kavkaz“ checkpoint located on the administrative border between Chechnya and Ingushetia has stopped again after the Federal Security Service (FSB) intervened.
„Ever since the very beginning of the war, the „Kavkaz“ checkpoint has been notorious for its policemen collecting exorbitant tribute from people wishing to pass through it. A self-styled „tariff“ of fees ranging from 10 to 50 roubles was even developed. The practice had continued almost until this past summer when policemen, apparently from the Kirov region, were deployed at the checkpoint. At that moment everything changed and the bribe-taking stopped. „They‘ve even hung up a notice warning that an attempt to offer a bribe is a criminal offence,“ says Souleiman, a 47-year-old mini-bus driver from Grozny.
„However, these guys were replaced in October. Policemen from Kursk who used to serve here at the very beginning of the war arrived, and it all started again. They demanded a fee from mini-bus drivers as well as from any vehicle passing through the checkpoint. The absence of a military registration stamp in an identity document "cost" 20-50 roubles. Of course, people tried to protest and refused to pay, but the policemen had their „methods of coercion“. For example, they could block the road, thus creating a column several kilometers long, and then let vehicles through at a rate of one or two an hour,“ Souleiman says.
„We (mini-bus drivers) were even forced to make a detour round this checkpoint through the village of Sernovodsk in Chechnya's Sunzhensky district. Repeated complaints were sent to the Prosecutor's Office, to the Russian Interior Ministry and so on. And finally last week our efforts brought results. Representatives of the Federal Security Service (FSB) arrived at the checkpoint and made an inspection. Then one of their officers remained there on duty for several days, warning each driver against paying any bribes to the policemen and saying that if the policemen create artificial problems, we have a perfect right to drive through without stopping, and so on. A notice was posted up with a telephone number which one can call if problems arise. Now everything is back to normal. No one is demanding bribes and everyone is working as they’re supposed to,“ says the mini-bus driver.
According to an unnamed human rights defender, the main reason for the bribe-taking is the juridical illiteracy of the local population. „People are so tired of it all that they‘re ready to pay 50 or 100 roubles if that will get them where they need to be more quickly. It’s most likely a peculiar war syndrome from the early years of the so-called „counter-terrorist operation“, during which law enforcers at checkpoints arbitrarily detained people and subjected them to torture and insults. Some people disappeared without trace, while others were freed for ransom. Even now Chechen residents fear and distrust law enforcers, seeing them more as a source of possible danger than as representatives of law and order who are summoned to defend their rights,“ he is convinced.
„Residents of Chechnya, especially the young, have only a very faint notion of their rights and duties. They don't know, for example, that policemen checking their documents must first of all introduce themselves. Or that the absence of a military registration stamp in one's identity document is not a crime. Or that no one has the right to detain people at checkpoints without sticking to certain law procedures and so on. And unscrupulous policemen make use of this,“ said the human rights defender.
(MD,T)
Practice of extortion at „Kavkaz“ checkpoint stops
By Umalt Chadayev
CHECHNYA – Renewed bribery at the sadly well-known „Kavkaz“ checkpoint located on the administrative border between Chechnya and Ingushetia has stopped again after the Federal Security Service (FSB) intervened.
„Ever since the very beginning of the war, the „Kavkaz“ checkpoint has been notorious for its policemen collecting exorbitant tribute from people wishing to pass through it. A self-styled „tariff“ of fees ranging from 10 to 50 roubles was even developed. The practice had continued almost until this past summer when policemen, apparently from the Kirov region, were deployed at the checkpoint. At that moment everything changed and the bribe-taking stopped. „They‘ve even hung up a notice warning that an attempt to offer a bribe is a criminal offence,“ says Souleiman, a 47-year-old mini-bus driver from Grozny.
„However, these guys were replaced in October. Policemen from Kursk who used to serve here at the very beginning of the war arrived, and it all started again. They demanded a fee from mini-bus drivers as well as from any vehicle passing through the checkpoint. The absence of a military registration stamp in an identity document "cost" 20-50 roubles. Of course, people tried to protest and refused to pay, but the policemen had their „methods of coercion“. For example, they could block the road, thus creating a column several kilometers long, and then let vehicles through at a rate of one or two an hour,“ Souleiman says.
„We (mini-bus drivers) were even forced to make a detour round this checkpoint through the village of Sernovodsk in Chechnya's Sunzhensky district. Repeated complaints were sent to the Prosecutor's Office, to the Russian Interior Ministry and so on. And finally last week our efforts brought results. Representatives of the Federal Security Service (FSB) arrived at the checkpoint and made an inspection. Then one of their officers remained there on duty for several days, warning each driver against paying any bribes to the policemen and saying that if the policemen create artificial problems, we have a perfect right to drive through without stopping, and so on. A notice was posted up with a telephone number which one can call if problems arise. Now everything is back to normal. No one is demanding bribes and everyone is working as they’re supposed to,“ says the mini-bus driver.
According to an unnamed human rights defender, the main reason for the bribe-taking is the juridical illiteracy of the local population. „People are so tired of it all that they‘re ready to pay 50 or 100 roubles if that will get them where they need to be more quickly. It’s most likely a peculiar war syndrome from the early years of the so-called „counter-terrorist operation“, during which law enforcers at checkpoints arbitrarily detained people and subjected them to torture and insults. Some people disappeared without trace, while others were freed for ransom. Even now Chechen residents fear and distrust law enforcers, seeing them more as a source of possible danger than as representatives of law and order who are summoned to defend their rights,“ he is convinced.
„Residents of Chechnya, especially the young, have only a very faint notion of their rights and duties. They don't know, for example, that policemen checking their documents must first of all introduce themselves. Or that the absence of a military registration stamp in one's identity document is not a crime. Or that no one has the right to detain people at checkpoints without sticking to certain law procedures and so on. And unscrupulous policemen make use of this,“ said the human rights defender.
(MD,T)
Hunt and Kill
Neil Mackay, writing in Scotland's Sunday Herald newspaper, has published a very long and thorough account of recent developments in Russia's international intelligence operations. In particular, he focuses on the law passed by the State Duma on July 9 2006, which was unanimously approved and which allows Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) to hunt down and kill enemies of the state anywhere on the face of the earth.
Mackay also draws attention to a disturbing aspect of the Zakayev extradition case that has not been widely covered in international media:One British intelligence source said: "This marked a blatant return to the bad old days of the cold war when the KGB thought it could act with impunity anywhere it pleased."
These so-called "Hunter-Killer" powers also curtailed the right of the Russian media - already cowed and under the control of the Kremlin - to report on these operations. However, the enactment of these new laws only put on a legal footing powers which Russian intelligence had been using extra-judicially for years.
In Chechnya, the assassination of enemies of Russia is now so common that it scarcely bears comment, and in 2004 two Russian agents were arrested and sentenced to death in Qatar for the killing of exiled Chechen separatist leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. The Russian team hunted him down and planted a bomb in his car. The Qatari court ruled that the killing was sanctioned by "the Russian leadership". The men were not executed but sent back to Russia following promises from the Kremlin that they would be imprisoned. Rumour has it that they were decorated for the assassination operation.Akhmed Zakayev, a friend of Alexander Litvinenko and a former field commander in the first Chechen war who later became the deputy prime minister of Chechnya, says the killing of Litvinenko proved to the British people that Putin was "destroying democratic freedoms in Russia and beyond".
One UK source closely linked to British intelligence told how he had a conversation with a Russian intelligence officer in 2004, in which the Russian spy spoke of the killing of a British citizen carried out by Russian agents. In January 2004, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Workman was found shot dead on his doorstep in the Hertfordshire hamlet of Furneux Pelham. The killing seemed completely motiveless.
However, the Russian intelligence source told his British contact that Robert Workman was killed in a case of mistaken identity. The real target had been a judge called Timothy Workman who lived not far from the scene of the murder.
In late 2003, Judge Workman infuriated the Kremlin when he rejected Russia's extradition request for Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen leader in London. Workman said that Zakayev faced a "substantial risk" of being tortured if he was returned to Moscow to stand trial. The Kremlin accused Workman of playing "cold war politics".
Also in 2003, Judge Workman called a halt to Russia's attempt to have Boris Berezovsky extradited from Britain. The billionaire oligarch had fallen out with Putin and has bitterly criticised the ruling regime. Berezovsky was also a close friend of Alexander Litvinenko.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Ukraine: Deteriorating Human Rights Situation
At Maidan, human rights defender Yevhen Zakharov talks in a BBC interview about the problems facing Ukraine in 2007:
Read it all.I have in mind first and foremost the issue of housing and communal charges which have hit the poorest people in Ukraine hardest. It is not even that the tariffs are high, since they do actually need to be increased. The state cannot indefinitely subsidize this area.
The state has the obligation nonetheless to protect the poorest, and according to official statistics, 28% of the population lives below the official poverty line. A huge number of people are not living, but merely trying to make ends meet and are simply not able to pay.
- Yet the state is promising subsidies.
Yevhen Zakharov: This is the point that the state immediately tells poor people: take subsidies and there’ll be no problem! But it’s not like that. The subsidies are regulated by dozens of normative acts, there are 77 in total. This is a difficult and humiliating procedure when people have to prove that they really are poor and then this is checked by various commissions.And if, God forbid, they see that a person has a computer at home, they can decide that s/he doesn’t deserve subsidies – I know of such cases. The same applies if the family has an old car or an allotment, or if one member of the family is working, and another isn’t, again the subsidy won’t be allocated.
This is really dishonest. The state should provide simplified procedure and an appropriate law yet there is no law on subsidies. Therefore a large percentage of people will suffer from high tariffs, meaning that their right to a decent standard of living will be flagrantly violated.With this there will be a threat to property rights since people will not be able to pay and themonopolist communal services will begin talking of eviction with the
accommodation used to pay their debts. I would call this violation of human rights the most widespread and flagrant.
A Harsh Homecoming
Reuters writes about the withering welcome accorded to Mario Scaramella by his native Italy (hat tip: JP).
Meanwhile, Senator Paolo Guzzanti is reorganizing his blog to be more selective about the many comments it publishes, while continuing to explore the depths of KGB and FSB influence in Italy that have been opened up by the Litvinenko poisoning affair.
The BBC reports today that traces of polonium-210 have been found at another London restaurant.
Meanwhile, Senator Paolo Guzzanti is reorganizing his blog to be more selective about the many comments it publishes, while continuing to explore the depths of KGB and FSB influence in Italy that have been opened up by the Litvinenko poisoning affair.
The BBC reports today that traces of polonium-210 have been found at another London restaurant.
Idi syuda
The rain clouds dispersed in rags that gleamed ever lighter. As the sun shone between the rags, the grey morning began to sparkle. Wet, the forest glittered, and although the grass still soaked the legs of their trousers up to the knees, it felt pleasant to walk through it. The damp began to evaporate from their clothes in the warmth of the sun, and this fresh and beautiful summer morning lifted away from their minds the gloomy mood that the rainy, oppressive night had inspired.
Sometimes a shot rang out, and there was the hum of a motor up ahead.
‘The road’s not far away, lads.’
‘Ruki vverkh, idi syuda, idi syuda!‘
A man emerged from the bushes holding a white scrap of cloth. He was followed by others, a couple of dozen men in all. These prisoners belonged to the same lost and wandering detachments to which the prisoner Lehto shot had also belonged, as well as the men Määttä had seen. Although the general situation was unknown to them all, the men realized from this surrender that something decisive had happened. The enemy was scattered, and during the night the artillery fire had changed to a direction that seemed to be far ahead of them.
Then they saw the road. Cautiously, they ventured out on it, but were soon satisfied there was no danger there. The morning sun had already dried the road’s surface, which the caterpillar tracks had torn up late in the fighting. They had scarcely got onto the road when a leading patrol riding on cycles approached from the direction of the frontier.
‘What’s this bunch, then?’
‘Jaeger Battalion. Is the neighbour far off?’
‘There’s a couple of dozen of them in that clump of spruces over there.’
‘Don’t try to be funny with me. Where’s your company commander?’
The helmeted Jaeger lieutenant dismounted from his cycle. With his helmet, his rolled-up sweater sleeves and the submachine gun dangling from a cord round his neck, he had a thoroughly military look. His men looked the same. They were clearly in a different class from the ragged infantry, and it was obvious that they also saw themselves as some kind of elite force.
Kariluoto came hurrying to the spot. He greeted the new officer enthusiastically:
‘How’s it going? What’s your objective?’
‘Äänisjärvi. Loimola’s certainly a bit closer. Are you the company commander? I was told that I’d run into troops from your regiment here and was ordered to make contact.’
Kariluoto was in high spirits. He felt a kind of unprovoked friendship, even for this lieutenant who was a complete stranger to him. This morning he was experiencing one of the greatest moments in his life. He knew that the breakthrough had taken place, and that now preparations were being made for the advance towards Karelia. He plied the lieutenant with questions about everything under the sun, so eagerly that he did not notice the gravity of the other man’s expression. The lieutenant was taciturn because of the task that lay before him, but in spite of this Kariluoto tried to donate some of his enthusiasm to him.
The Jaegers leaned on their cycles and looked at the infantrymen, who were lying by the side of the road. Rahikainen approached with an air of tentative exploration.
‘Got a field kitchen with you, have you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, each man seems to have a pot on his head.’
‘Didn’t they give you helmets, then?’
‘Not us. All we have is empty bellies. I suppose you’ve got bread, too?’
‘A bit. We got dry rations last night before we set off.’
Rahikainen dug about his pocketbook.
‘How many slices will you give for a cockade?’
The Jaeger put his hand in his pocket. A fistful of red stars came into view:
‘You must think we’re new recruits.’
‘Look at that. I haven’t managed to collect as many as that. I’ve had to do some fighting now and then. How about an officer’s tabs? What will you give for them?’
‘I’ve got them, too. Triangles.’
‘That’s just a noncom’s badge.’
‘I’ll swap you! You can have two triangles for one rectangle.’
‘No way. What’s a noncom beside an officer? But give me three slices of that veneer panelling.’
‘You can have two.’
‘Let’s see how thick they are.’
The Jaeger dug a piece of crispbread from his haversack.
‘What a thin brand it is,’ said Rahikainen disparagingly and with a look that suggested he had lost all interest in the transaction: ‘Three slices. Or forget it.’
‘All right, then, done.’
The barter was confirmed. Rahikainen looked at the pieces of bread as though he had had second thoughts, and said:
‘That’s a fine badge going at a cheap price. But never mind. I can get others.’
In spite of their tiredness they were eager to ask each other about their experience of fighting.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Over yonder. We stuck holes in a line of pillboxes.’
‘There were the same kind of pillboxes all along the road here, too.’
‘Yes, why not. He’s a handy man with the shovel, the Russian. Ten peats in the air and the eleventh on the shovel.’
Lahtinen pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the ditch and said, giving the Jaegers a sidelong glance as he did so, as if to study the effect of his words:
‘It’s true that there’s a lot of talk about the wretchedness of the Russians. But we’ve had to kill almost every one of them in his hole. So they’re a touch bunch, I’d say… at least, the ones we’ve run into have been,’ he continued, as if to pre-empt the Jaegers’ possible objections. The Jaegers, meanwhile, had no counter to this, but Rahikainen availed himself of the chance to combine his two favourite activities - bragging to the Jaegers and making fun of Lahtinen’s earnest idealism:
‘It’s all right if it’s all over at once. But there’ve been cases where we’ve had to kill them a couple of times. That’s how tough they are. They say the cat has nine lives. Though I can’t vouch for it, of course.’
The Jaegers joined in the fun. They chatted and laughed, and some of them even gave away bread for nothing. They could afford it, as they had just received several days’ worth of rations. The sunny morning refreshed their mood. The past few days had already taught them to take pleasure in a few minutes of rest on a fine, cool summer morning. When every hour might be one’s last, one learned to be thankful for the minutes.
When their lieutenant arrived and ordered them back to their cycles, they went with serious faces. The joking stopped, and as they adjusted their equipment they waited for the order to move on. But when they were given another rest of this kind, they spent it laughing in the same way.
‘All right. Let’s be off, then!’
‘Off you go. And remember not to sit and wait for us round the next bend in the road.’
They went, and they were followed by more and more. Cycle platoons, tanks, motorized artillery.
Kariluoto watched with eagerness. Almost like German storm troopers. Why hadn’t we been given helmets. How firm and manly they make one’s face… On the other hand, Kariluoto was well aware that if they had had helmets, they would all have gone flying into the forest last night, if not before. Yes. It was a proud thing to be a Finnish officer, an officer in the best army in the world, but it also had its darker side. This army lacked all military spirit. Those Jaegers were a slight exception, but even his own platoon were a slacker lot. And especially the reserve recruits. Here was a sunny road, leading invitingly to East Karelia. But where were the iron, upright Storm Troops? That was what Kariluoto longed for in his exalted mood that morning. He would have liked to lend wings to the initial successes of his beloved fatherland with armies that sped forward in thunder, firmly, as if cast from steel, driving past as they sang: ‘Now the last signal has sounded to us, and ready we are to fight.’
But no. There were no Storm Troops. There was just a band of ragged jokers who roamed around looking for food, like tramps. Swearing and grumbling and defaming all that was sacred. They even had the effrontery to make fun of the Marshal’s magnificent orders of the day, charged with their lofty style. Almost like the Communists. Gobbled their iron rations at the first pang of hunger, and instead of Die Fahne Hoch bawled The Girls of Korhola when they were in the mood for singing. And they had also given themselves nicknames which though hardly elevating were nonetheless descriptive, such as The Rumpus, The Crowd, The Gang, All the Strap, The Whole Shit, The Longed For, or The Guard.
Then infantry began to stream along the road. More and more troops pushed through the broken lines. There some reserve recruits were marching, showing by their presence that Finland was giving all it had got. There were stooping men, worn out by physical labour, who with difficulty and agonized expressions were trying to keep up with the rest. Kariluoto noted this, but it did not depress him. On the contrary - Now every man had taken up arms. ‘All shall use the sword as best they are able.’
Kariluoto had stopped writing letters to the relatives of men from his platoon who fell in action. The battles of these recent days had in many ways deepened his mind, so that empty gestures had to take second place. But this morning he still felt his old idealism intact. He straightened his lean and rascally body, adjusted his sweater and strolled off towards his platoon. His step was brisk, in spite of his tiredness.
Labourer Jalmari Lahti’s bearded face was furrowed with worry and fatigue as he tramped along the road. He could not feel bitter, but his mind remained in the grip of a hopeless dejection. The ditch-digging job was unfinished. Old Kantala had, it was true, promised to sort out the money with his wife, but it would be a miracle if he calculated the rotten sum correctly. And how were they to get the hay along the ditches cleared? Who would do the mowing? What would she pay a man with, even if she could get hold of one? What’s more, I took eighty marks with me, though I had no need of them. And had to borrow half a kilo of butter from the neighbour for sandwiches along the way. Well, we can pay him back when the cow calves. If only the boys could help, but they’re just kids as yet. The eldest son was already in the army. He was a Jaeger, and was right at this moment riding his cycle towards Ladoga. As far as his Dad Jallu knew. In fact, however, the son had already ceased to be Jaeger for the past two hours, and his cycle lay smashed to a tangle. A tank had hit it at a bend in the road. Yet right now Jallu still believed he had a son, his first born, who belonged to the youngest class of recruits, while Jallu himself belonged to the oldest. He tried to walk a bit faster, for he noticed that he had fallen behind and was now surrounded by men from the next platoon. He had no will to keep pace with the others. Jallu felt his old back trouble start to play up again.
The Storm Troops were advancing.
(from Tuntematon sotilas [The Unknown Soldier] by Väinö Linna, Helsinki, 1954 [my translation]).
Sometimes a shot rang out, and there was the hum of a motor up ahead.
‘The road’s not far away, lads.’
‘Ruki vverkh, idi syuda, idi syuda!‘
A man emerged from the bushes holding a white scrap of cloth. He was followed by others, a couple of dozen men in all. These prisoners belonged to the same lost and wandering detachments to which the prisoner Lehto shot had also belonged, as well as the men Määttä had seen. Although the general situation was unknown to them all, the men realized from this surrender that something decisive had happened. The enemy was scattered, and during the night the artillery fire had changed to a direction that seemed to be far ahead of them.
Then they saw the road. Cautiously, they ventured out on it, but were soon satisfied there was no danger there. The morning sun had already dried the road’s surface, which the caterpillar tracks had torn up late in the fighting. They had scarcely got onto the road when a leading patrol riding on cycles approached from the direction of the frontier.
‘What’s this bunch, then?’
‘Jaeger Battalion. Is the neighbour far off?’
‘There’s a couple of dozen of them in that clump of spruces over there.’
‘Don’t try to be funny with me. Where’s your company commander?’
The helmeted Jaeger lieutenant dismounted from his cycle. With his helmet, his rolled-up sweater sleeves and the submachine gun dangling from a cord round his neck, he had a thoroughly military look. His men looked the same. They were clearly in a different class from the ragged infantry, and it was obvious that they also saw themselves as some kind of elite force.
Kariluoto came hurrying to the spot. He greeted the new officer enthusiastically:
‘How’s it going? What’s your objective?’
‘Äänisjärvi. Loimola’s certainly a bit closer. Are you the company commander? I was told that I’d run into troops from your regiment here and was ordered to make contact.’
Kariluoto was in high spirits. He felt a kind of unprovoked friendship, even for this lieutenant who was a complete stranger to him. This morning he was experiencing one of the greatest moments in his life. He knew that the breakthrough had taken place, and that now preparations were being made for the advance towards Karelia. He plied the lieutenant with questions about everything under the sun, so eagerly that he did not notice the gravity of the other man’s expression. The lieutenant was taciturn because of the task that lay before him, but in spite of this Kariluoto tried to donate some of his enthusiasm to him.
The Jaegers leaned on their cycles and looked at the infantrymen, who were lying by the side of the road. Rahikainen approached with an air of tentative exploration.
‘Got a field kitchen with you, have you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, each man seems to have a pot on his head.’
‘Didn’t they give you helmets, then?’
‘Not us. All we have is empty bellies. I suppose you’ve got bread, too?’
‘A bit. We got dry rations last night before we set off.’
Rahikainen dug about his pocketbook.
‘How many slices will you give for a cockade?’
The Jaeger put his hand in his pocket. A fistful of red stars came into view:
‘You must think we’re new recruits.’
‘Look at that. I haven’t managed to collect as many as that. I’ve had to do some fighting now and then. How about an officer’s tabs? What will you give for them?’
‘I’ve got them, too. Triangles.’
‘That’s just a noncom’s badge.’
‘I’ll swap you! You can have two triangles for one rectangle.’
‘No way. What’s a noncom beside an officer? But give me three slices of that veneer panelling.’
‘You can have two.’
‘Let’s see how thick they are.’
The Jaeger dug a piece of crispbread from his haversack.
‘What a thin brand it is,’ said Rahikainen disparagingly and with a look that suggested he had lost all interest in the transaction: ‘Three slices. Or forget it.’
‘All right, then, done.’
The barter was confirmed. Rahikainen looked at the pieces of bread as though he had had second thoughts, and said:
‘That’s a fine badge going at a cheap price. But never mind. I can get others.’
In spite of their tiredness they were eager to ask each other about their experience of fighting.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Over yonder. We stuck holes in a line of pillboxes.’
‘There were the same kind of pillboxes all along the road here, too.’
‘Yes, why not. He’s a handy man with the shovel, the Russian. Ten peats in the air and the eleventh on the shovel.’
Lahtinen pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the ditch and said, giving the Jaegers a sidelong glance as he did so, as if to study the effect of his words:
‘It’s true that there’s a lot of talk about the wretchedness of the Russians. But we’ve had to kill almost every one of them in his hole. So they’re a touch bunch, I’d say… at least, the ones we’ve run into have been,’ he continued, as if to pre-empt the Jaegers’ possible objections. The Jaegers, meanwhile, had no counter to this, but Rahikainen availed himself of the chance to combine his two favourite activities - bragging to the Jaegers and making fun of Lahtinen’s earnest idealism:
‘It’s all right if it’s all over at once. But there’ve been cases where we’ve had to kill them a couple of times. That’s how tough they are. They say the cat has nine lives. Though I can’t vouch for it, of course.’
The Jaegers joined in the fun. They chatted and laughed, and some of them even gave away bread for nothing. They could afford it, as they had just received several days’ worth of rations. The sunny morning refreshed their mood. The past few days had already taught them to take pleasure in a few minutes of rest on a fine, cool summer morning. When every hour might be one’s last, one learned to be thankful for the minutes.
When their lieutenant arrived and ordered them back to their cycles, they went with serious faces. The joking stopped, and as they adjusted their equipment they waited for the order to move on. But when they were given another rest of this kind, they spent it laughing in the same way.
‘All right. Let’s be off, then!’
‘Off you go. And remember not to sit and wait for us round the next bend in the road.’
They went, and they were followed by more and more. Cycle platoons, tanks, motorized artillery.
Kariluoto watched with eagerness. Almost like German storm troopers. Why hadn’t we been given helmets. How firm and manly they make one’s face… On the other hand, Kariluoto was well aware that if they had had helmets, they would all have gone flying into the forest last night, if not before. Yes. It was a proud thing to be a Finnish officer, an officer in the best army in the world, but it also had its darker side. This army lacked all military spirit. Those Jaegers were a slight exception, but even his own platoon were a slacker lot. And especially the reserve recruits. Here was a sunny road, leading invitingly to East Karelia. But where were the iron, upright Storm Troops? That was what Kariluoto longed for in his exalted mood that morning. He would have liked to lend wings to the initial successes of his beloved fatherland with armies that sped forward in thunder, firmly, as if cast from steel, driving past as they sang: ‘Now the last signal has sounded to us, and ready we are to fight.’
But no. There were no Storm Troops. There was just a band of ragged jokers who roamed around looking for food, like tramps. Swearing and grumbling and defaming all that was sacred. They even had the effrontery to make fun of the Marshal’s magnificent orders of the day, charged with their lofty style. Almost like the Communists. Gobbled their iron rations at the first pang of hunger, and instead of Die Fahne Hoch bawled The Girls of Korhola when they were in the mood for singing. And they had also given themselves nicknames which though hardly elevating were nonetheless descriptive, such as The Rumpus, The Crowd, The Gang, All the Strap, The Whole Shit, The Longed For, or The Guard.
Then infantry began to stream along the road. More and more troops pushed through the broken lines. There some reserve recruits were marching, showing by their presence that Finland was giving all it had got. There were stooping men, worn out by physical labour, who with difficulty and agonized expressions were trying to keep up with the rest. Kariluoto noted this, but it did not depress him. On the contrary - Now every man had taken up arms. ‘All shall use the sword as best they are able.’
Kariluoto had stopped writing letters to the relatives of men from his platoon who fell in action. The battles of these recent days had in many ways deepened his mind, so that empty gestures had to take second place. But this morning he still felt his old idealism intact. He straightened his lean and rascally body, adjusted his sweater and strolled off towards his platoon. His step was brisk, in spite of his tiredness.
Labourer Jalmari Lahti’s bearded face was furrowed with worry and fatigue as he tramped along the road. He could not feel bitter, but his mind remained in the grip of a hopeless dejection. The ditch-digging job was unfinished. Old Kantala had, it was true, promised to sort out the money with his wife, but it would be a miracle if he calculated the rotten sum correctly. And how were they to get the hay along the ditches cleared? Who would do the mowing? What would she pay a man with, even if she could get hold of one? What’s more, I took eighty marks with me, though I had no need of them. And had to borrow half a kilo of butter from the neighbour for sandwiches along the way. Well, we can pay him back when the cow calves. If only the boys could help, but they’re just kids as yet. The eldest son was already in the army. He was a Jaeger, and was right at this moment riding his cycle towards Ladoga. As far as his Dad Jallu knew. In fact, however, the son had already ceased to be Jaeger for the past two hours, and his cycle lay smashed to a tangle. A tank had hit it at a bend in the road. Yet right now Jallu still believed he had a son, his first born, who belonged to the youngest class of recruits, while Jallu himself belonged to the oldest. He tried to walk a bit faster, for he noticed that he had fallen behind and was now surrounded by men from the next platoon. He had no will to keep pace with the others. Jallu felt his old back trouble start to play up again.
The Storm Troops were advancing.
(from Tuntematon sotilas [The Unknown Soldier] by Väinö Linna, Helsinki, 1954 [my translation]).
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Chechnya Tribunal
The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) in Nizhny Novgorod (Russian Federation) has formed an initiative to start a tribunal on war crimes and human rights abuses in Chechnya. The group has circulated a draft document outlining the possible form such a tribunal might take, based on historical and current precedents which include the Nuremburg Trials (1945-49), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of the United Nations, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR),the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal.
The Nizhny Novgorod group has recently founded an identical sister organization in Finland. The intention is to guarantee the continued working of the group even if (or rather, when) the organization is banned in late January by a process in the Russian Federal judicial system.
If you are interested in supporting the RCFS, please send an email message to the group’s deputy managing director, Oksana Chelysheva (mirror_wolfe@hotmail.com).
The Nizhny Novgorod group has recently founded an identical sister organization in Finland. The intention is to guarantee the continued working of the group even if (or rather, when) the organization is banned in late January by a process in the Russian Federal judicial system.
If you are interested in supporting the RCFS, please send an email message to the group’s deputy managing director, Oksana Chelysheva (mirror_wolfe@hotmail.com).
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
The Shostakovich Legacy
The music of Dmitry Shostakovich occupies an unusual place in the history of Russian music, and indeed of classical music in general. Although the composer's roots were in the avant-garde experiments of the 1920s, and he learned a great deal from modernist practitioners like Alban Berg and Paul Hindemith, he also wrote much symphonic music in a romantic idiom that derives from the work of Gustav Mahler. The debates about how far Shostakovich succumbed to the pressures of Soviet cultural officialdom still continue today, and the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle. A work like the tenth symphony shows the dichotomy at its sharpest. In it, a long, intensely personal and tragic opening movement that is almost a lyric symphony on its own is followed by movements that become more and more impersonally stereotyped and formal: the closing Allegro sounds almost like an advertisement for socialist realism itself.
Like Nikolai Myaskovsky, but for wholly different reasons, Shostakovich now risks becoming a historical figure of interest to musicologists and specialists, but uncongenial - and largely unfamiliar - to the concert-going and music-listening public at large. In the Chicago Tribune, Alex Rodriguez writes about the efforts currently being made by Natalia and Mark Matsov in Tallinn, Estonia, to find a permanent home for the composer's legacy:
For decades, Shostakovich was viewed by Russians and the West alike as a mouthpiece for Soviet propaganda. Even in today's Russia, he is dismissed as irrelevant or conformist. But Matsov and her brother, Mark, ardently believe the archive Shostakovich left in their apartment can help rehabilitate that reputation, making him not just a historical figure to commemorate but a creative voice to revere.
On a recent icy morning in the Estonian capital, Matsov, the daughter of Roman Matsov, Shostakovich's close friend and conductor, leafed through dog-eared folders of writings and scores: a batch of 1946 letters to doctors urging them to treat the elder Matsov, then a budding pianist and violinist recovering from a war injury to his right hand; a 5-inch thick file scoring all instruments for Shostakovich's last symphony; telegrams he sent to Roman Matsov in 1953 hailing the conductor's performances in Leningrad.
For three decades, Natalia Matsov says, Shostakovich's archive has languished here unstudied, a disorganized jumble of boxes and folders layered in dust.
The full scores are on the shelf, but the rest isn't catalogued," says Matsov, 38, a London opera singer who flies to Tallinn every few months to pay bills and check on the apartment. "I don't even know how many recordings there are."
Last year marked the centenary of Shostakovich's birth, a milestone Russia barely noticed. A concert in Moscow conducted by the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in September marked one of the only tributes Shostakovich's motherland paid him.
Caving
On New Year’s Day, the Daily Telegraph reported on a letter that has been sent to the BBC by a group of dissidents from the former Soviet Union, led by Oleg Gordievsky and Vladimir Bukovsky. They accuse the BBC Russian Service of caving in to pressure from the Russian authorities to be less critical of Vladimir Putin’s policies:
They have written to Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, demanding an examination of what they claim is a string of examples of pro-Putin bias on the taxpayer-funded service, which has a weekly audience of two million.
The service went off air in Moscow and St Petersburg last month around the time of the murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer in the Russian security service. “Unexplained technical difficulties” with the BBC’s local partners were blamed, but there is still no service in Moscow.
Meanwhile, The First Post has a column by Philip Jacobson warning that the Kremlin hasn’t given up its aim of securing the extradition of Boris Berezovsky and Akhmed Zakayev:
Well-placed sources in Moscow have told The First Post President Vladimir Putin has personally warned Tony Blair that the continued presence on British soil of more than a dozen emigres who have evaded trial for a variety of serious offences is damaging relations between the two countries, already under strain as a result of the still unsolved murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. One official even indicated that without a breakthrough on extradition, negotiations over energy supplies from Russia might be affected.
Post-Turkmenbashi
In a further ramification of Russia’s new, aggressive energy politics, the death of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov on December 21 has led to a distinct shift of natural-gas-rich Turkmenistan’s foreign policy towards Russia. As the acting president, Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, seeks to establish a candidate from the several contenders for the presidency - who include himself - it is becoming clear that Moscow wishes to bring Turkmenistan within its orbit not only as an economic partner, but also as a political one, and that Ashgabat intends to accommodate this new orientation. Writing in Jamestown’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, Geoffrey Gleason examines the implications of the mutual policy change, while Roger McDermott discusses the security dilemma posed to the entire Central Asian region by the new situation in Turkmenistan.
From Geoffrey Gleason’s article:
From Geoffrey Gleason’s article:
In 1994 Niyazov introduced the idea of “positive neutrality” as a doctrinal breakthrough in Turkmenistan foreign policy. Positive neutrality meant that Turkmenistan would maintain good relations with all countries while remaining aloof from political alliances or binding economic commitments. In reality this was not a grand strategy but merely a specific posture that was designed to address the key challenge of Turkmenistan’s foreign policy — the relationship with Russia. Niyazov wanted to break free from Russia’s monopolistic stranglehold over Turkmenistan’s gas exports. Turkmenistan possessed sizable gas reserves but these would nevertheless require substantial investment in prospecting, drilling, processing, and transporting in order to produce the gas and get it to market. If Turkmenistan could develop its own export capacity across the Caspian and through Iran and Afghanistan, it could break free of Russia’s monopolistic tendencies.
Turkmenbashi’s gambit to circumvent Russia’s influence was unsuccessful. Turkmenistan’s gas revenues fell to a critical level in 1998, convincing Niyazov to reinvent “positive neutrality” so as to rely on Russian marketing of its gas sales. Since 2000 the amount of gas being transported through Russian pipelines has increased every year. When the accounts are in, Turkmenistan’s production in 2006 will probably be about 80 billion cubic meters of gas with about 40 billion having gone to Naftohaz Ukraine through Russian intermediaries.
Turkmenistan’s political succession has now opened a new window for Russian influence in Central Asia. Russian planners want to double their share of Turkmenistan’s gas output in the next few years. They can be expected to try to do that in a way that will assure the continuity of Turkmenistan’s tilt toward Russia. Russia’s strategic planners can be expected to do all they can to help them in this regard.
Marching
They marched. A second, a third, a fourth day. These were beautiful, cloudless days of midsummer. They passed Karelian villages where the wild grass flowered in the yards. A blue heat-haze shimmered in the air, which faintly carried from somewhere in the south the occasional sound of artillery fire or the drone of aeroplane engines. High up there in the fathomless blue aerial battles were taking place, and the faint sound of machine-guns seemed to them like the croaking of frogs.
‘They’re ours,’ an officer was heard to say as they watched fighter planes darting along the horizon. ‘They’re shielding our offensive… The neighbour’s not getting it all his own way like he did in the Winter War.’
The men did not care much more about the Winter War than they did about this one. With blistered feet, exhausted and irritable, they dragged themselves forward without even caring much about what was happening around them at all. The first day had passed in a kind of euphoria inspired by the knowledge that they were advancing. But after that the strain had blunted their mood.
This army was individual in an inimitable way. The other armies of the world may sometimes have resembled it as it retreated and fled, but not at any other time. It made the onward journey as a scattered herd. In the morning, when the march began, the companies were assembled in ranks, but by the end of the first hour they had broken up into little gangs which made their own progress, asking no one for advice. They swung their rifles this way and that. One man tripped along in the grass beside the road in his bare feet, his boots slung over his shoulder and the legs of his long johns trailing along the ground. Another took the sun as he walked, the upper part of his body bare and his kit tucked under his arm. On the first day someone had lugged a mouldy suitcase strung on a stick over his shoulder. The suitcase contained a few glass jars that had been found in a house, and a pair of women’s shoes. You never knew when they might come in handy.
By the second day, it was true, the suitcase had flown into the ditch by the side of the road, where more useful items were also beginning to end up. The gas-masks were gathered in, as otherwise the percentage of loss would have been too great. For food they searched everywhere, wherever there was the slightest sniff of its presence. In one village there had been a collective pig farm, and its inmates were running free on the hills. An automatic rifle proved to be a good weapon for pig-hunting, but this abundance of meat was only enjoyed by the first companies to arrive. For the pigs were quickly rounded up into safety.
Some of the villages had recently been inhabited. There were garlands in the streets, and here and there ornaments made of moss and stones.
‘What are those decorations for?’
‘They’ve been holding some sort of harvest festival. They’re mad about dancing, I’ve heard.’
‘They’re a damn lot of flibbertigibbets in this neck of the woods.’
They were embittered about everyone and everything. Cars drove past, carrying laughing Lottas and officers. This was the comet’s tail: the staff officers, the canteens, the laundries, the hospitals and so on, which always followed the troops. They mocked at the cars, and Finland’s brave Lotta became the object of such fearful obscenities that the elderly Lotta ladies living a life of communal piety in the church villages would have had heart failure if they had heard them. A general passing in his car caused such an immense wave of anger and swearing that an uninformed observer would have been convinced that the army was on the verge of mutiny.
‘That’s right, blow dust in our eyes, you bastards! There’s no petrol shortage when the master drives out with his field-whore. Who the hell is that whistling? Shut up, it’s bad enough without that shrieking going on.’
Parish after parish was left behind. Columns of men were flowing through Ladoga-Karelia along every road. Above them floated clouds of dust, mixed with the blue smoke from countless forest fires, and through it all the sun blazed hot and red. In those places where the soles of feet had no blisters and no straps chafed collarbones, the jubilation was at its height: Finland was on the march.
(from Tuntematon sotilas [The Unknown Soldier] by Väinö Linna, Helsinki, 1954 [my translation])
‘They’re ours,’ an officer was heard to say as they watched fighter planes darting along the horizon. ‘They’re shielding our offensive… The neighbour’s not getting it all his own way like he did in the Winter War.’
The men did not care much more about the Winter War than they did about this one. With blistered feet, exhausted and irritable, they dragged themselves forward without even caring much about what was happening around them at all. The first day had passed in a kind of euphoria inspired by the knowledge that they were advancing. But after that the strain had blunted their mood.
This army was individual in an inimitable way. The other armies of the world may sometimes have resembled it as it retreated and fled, but not at any other time. It made the onward journey as a scattered herd. In the morning, when the march began, the companies were assembled in ranks, but by the end of the first hour they had broken up into little gangs which made their own progress, asking no one for advice. They swung their rifles this way and that. One man tripped along in the grass beside the road in his bare feet, his boots slung over his shoulder and the legs of his long johns trailing along the ground. Another took the sun as he walked, the upper part of his body bare and his kit tucked under his arm. On the first day someone had lugged a mouldy suitcase strung on a stick over his shoulder. The suitcase contained a few glass jars that had been found in a house, and a pair of women’s shoes. You never knew when they might come in handy.
By the second day, it was true, the suitcase had flown into the ditch by the side of the road, where more useful items were also beginning to end up. The gas-masks were gathered in, as otherwise the percentage of loss would have been too great. For food they searched everywhere, wherever there was the slightest sniff of its presence. In one village there had been a collective pig farm, and its inmates were running free on the hills. An automatic rifle proved to be a good weapon for pig-hunting, but this abundance of meat was only enjoyed by the first companies to arrive. For the pigs were quickly rounded up into safety.
Some of the villages had recently been inhabited. There were garlands in the streets, and here and there ornaments made of moss and stones.
‘What are those decorations for?’
‘They’ve been holding some sort of harvest festival. They’re mad about dancing, I’ve heard.’
‘They’re a damn lot of flibbertigibbets in this neck of the woods.’
They were embittered about everyone and everything. Cars drove past, carrying laughing Lottas and officers. This was the comet’s tail: the staff officers, the canteens, the laundries, the hospitals and so on, which always followed the troops. They mocked at the cars, and Finland’s brave Lotta became the object of such fearful obscenities that the elderly Lotta ladies living a life of communal piety in the church villages would have had heart failure if they had heard them. A general passing in his car caused such an immense wave of anger and swearing that an uninformed observer would have been convinced that the army was on the verge of mutiny.
‘That’s right, blow dust in our eyes, you bastards! There’s no petrol shortage when the master drives out with his field-whore. Who the hell is that whistling? Shut up, it’s bad enough without that shrieking going on.’
Parish after parish was left behind. Columns of men were flowing through Ladoga-Karelia along every road. Above them floated clouds of dust, mixed with the blue smoke from countless forest fires, and through it all the sun blazed hot and red. In those places where the soles of feet had no blisters and no straps chafed collarbones, the jubilation was at its height: Finland was on the march.
(from Tuntematon sotilas [The Unknown Soldier] by Väinö Linna, Helsinki, 1954 [my translation])
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
The Tank
The platoon Lehto’s group had caught up with had not advanced to the road on both sides of the path. For it turned out that it was unable to advance far enough to the left without breaking contact with the First Platoon. This in turn was connected to the grouping of the other battalion, and so second lieutenant Sarkola had had to change the orders on his own initiative and advance a hundred metres on the right-hand side of the path. He reported what he had done, and received approval for it, which was natural, for the breaking of contact in the darkness would have been too risky.
Koskela had been informed of the matter, and he sent a messenger to meet Lehto. The messenger had wandered about terrified in the darkness, encountering the surviving men of the group only when they were on their way back.
Koskela was on his knees in the ditch at the side of the road, scanning the darkness, where an enemy tank was rumbling. Rahikainen crawled up behind him and said:
‘Lehto’s dead… We didn’t find anyone there.’
Koskela glanced over his shoulder. Then he turned his head and stared into the darkness again. After a long silence, he said, as if he were only now realizing it:
‘Ah… Aha. Yes, there were was no one there.’
‘Well, there were foreigners there. But they didn’t seem to want to know us.’
Rahikainen was rather anxious, and so he spoke brusquely right from the word go, as though ready to rebuff possible accusations. He thought that Koskela’s silence implied some kind of condemnation, and continued in an injured manner, trying by his tone of voice to show that they had suffered an injustice:
‘You know how it is. Everywhere we go. We crept along the path and then we started cleaning them out with an automatic rifle… Lehto copped it straight away…’
‘Yes… The body was left there?’
‘Aye. Lying right under their noses. It was all we could do to get the machine-gun out of there.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘In behind. But we don’t know what happened to Riitaoja. Didn’t he come here?’
‘He’s not been seen.’
‘Then he’s disappeared. We looked for him and shouted for him. When we didn’t get any response we thought he’d come here.’
‘No, he’s not here, and we don’t have the men to send out to search for him. Rokka.’
‘What’s up, then?’
Rokka crawled along the ditch to where Koskela was.
‘Lehto’s been killed. From now on you’ll be in charge of the first group. Put Sihvonen back in his own group and take Wolf with you to the first.’
‘Right you are. How did it happen?’
‘He walked straight into a gang of them.’
Koskela stared into the darkness again and muttered:
‘They shouldn’t have been sent straight in. It’d have been better to go round through the First Platoon…’
‘Well, there’s two sorts of luck. There’s the good kind and the bad kind. Lehto lad had the bad kind. But if that damn tank would just come a bit nearer, there’s mines there.’
‘Go and take up position on the left. If it’s clever enough to go round the mines, then let it come, and keep the infantry back behind it.’
The road had been cut, and the enemy had immediately thrown troops into the breach. In the darkness both sides were preparing to go into action as soon as it was daybreak, and what fighting there was resulted from the nervousness of the backup forces. Rokka had taken charge of Lehto’s group, and they were in position at the side of the road, but were careful not to shoot, as the tank was still rumbling ahead of them, firing into the darkness now and then.
‘Don’t shoot unless you have to, lads,’ whispered Rokka. ‘Ah, damn you, come a bit closer, will you? Not too much… three metres will do. The bastard won’t come. I’ll have to go and put a grenade on its roof. Now it’s coming, it’s coming… right, lads… wait for it… now!’
The ground shook, and a tongue of flame lit up the night as a mine exploded under the caterpillar tracks. The excitement burst out in frantic firing from both sides, and for a moment the shots crackled fiercely, gradually dying away again. The flames began to lick the sides of the tank, and soon they were blazing up on all sides, brightly illuminating the darkness of the small hours.
Rokka whispered joyfully:
‘You set a mine off there. I wasn’t serious, you know. I was just joking, and you went and took it in earnest. People say a lot of things in this world, but you shouldn’t believe them all.’
‘Shut up. We don’t know what may happen next.’
Rahikainen had not yet fully recovered from the shock. Vanhala, on the other hand, was in a cheerful mood. The new group leader was definitely to his liking, for Lehto had spoiled his fun too often by saying curtly: ‘Stop your giggling.’ But Rokka chatted about amusing things, and Vanhala saw the future turning downright rosy as a result.
The tank burned, crackling and banging, for the heat was making its ammunition explode. Rokka watched closely to see if the crew would try to escape from the flames, but they had probably lost consciousness in the mine explosion, for no one tried to get out.
‘Well, the bastards have sure had the hair on their asses singed,’ said Rokka, when he had made sure there was no more possibility of rescue. Vanhala put his machine-gun down alongside, fiddling about with the belt and repeating Rokka’s words, which he thought were splendid:
‘The hair on their asses… Hee hee… the hair on their asses.’
‘Pipe down, Vanhala. We’re going to catch it from them in the morning.’
They watched the fire. It was reflected in their faces, which glowed in the darkness, illuminated by the flames. Rokka’s eyes burned like a cat’s in the dark. He was in a good mood, for the destruction of the tank meant they were in less danger now.
Wolf Paw looked at the silently burning tank for a long time and then whispered:
‘That’s a hell of a way to die.’
'This is no Sunday school, you know. You’ve got to kill like the devil himself. I’ve always said that we haven’t come here to die but to kill. That’s if you want to stay alive, of course.’
Paw raised his rifle to his cheek, fired into the darkness and said as he let the spent cartridge fall out:
‘That’s not what I meant… Those guys are not the only ones. Damn it, I’ve been watching those bushes and watching them. But they seem to be empty.’
(from Tuntematon sotilas [The Unknown Soldier], by Väinö Linna, Helsinki, 1954 [my translation])
Koskela had been informed of the matter, and he sent a messenger to meet Lehto. The messenger had wandered about terrified in the darkness, encountering the surviving men of the group only when they were on their way back.
Koskela was on his knees in the ditch at the side of the road, scanning the darkness, where an enemy tank was rumbling. Rahikainen crawled up behind him and said:
‘Lehto’s dead… We didn’t find anyone there.’
Koskela glanced over his shoulder. Then he turned his head and stared into the darkness again. After a long silence, he said, as if he were only now realizing it:
‘Ah… Aha. Yes, there were was no one there.’
‘Well, there were foreigners there. But they didn’t seem to want to know us.’
Rahikainen was rather anxious, and so he spoke brusquely right from the word go, as though ready to rebuff possible accusations. He thought that Koskela’s silence implied some kind of condemnation, and continued in an injured manner, trying by his tone of voice to show that they had suffered an injustice:
‘You know how it is. Everywhere we go. We crept along the path and then we started cleaning them out with an automatic rifle… Lehto copped it straight away…’
‘Yes… The body was left there?’
‘Aye. Lying right under their noses. It was all we could do to get the machine-gun out of there.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘In behind. But we don’t know what happened to Riitaoja. Didn’t he come here?’
‘He’s not been seen.’
‘Then he’s disappeared. We looked for him and shouted for him. When we didn’t get any response we thought he’d come here.’
‘No, he’s not here, and we don’t have the men to send out to search for him. Rokka.’
‘What’s up, then?’
Rokka crawled along the ditch to where Koskela was.
‘Lehto’s been killed. From now on you’ll be in charge of the first group. Put Sihvonen back in his own group and take Wolf with you to the first.’
‘Right you are. How did it happen?’
‘He walked straight into a gang of them.’
Koskela stared into the darkness again and muttered:
‘They shouldn’t have been sent straight in. It’d have been better to go round through the First Platoon…’
‘Well, there’s two sorts of luck. There’s the good kind and the bad kind. Lehto lad had the bad kind. But if that damn tank would just come a bit nearer, there’s mines there.’
‘Go and take up position on the left. If it’s clever enough to go round the mines, then let it come, and keep the infantry back behind it.’
The road had been cut, and the enemy had immediately thrown troops into the breach. In the darkness both sides were preparing to go into action as soon as it was daybreak, and what fighting there was resulted from the nervousness of the backup forces. Rokka had taken charge of Lehto’s group, and they were in position at the side of the road, but were careful not to shoot, as the tank was still rumbling ahead of them, firing into the darkness now and then.
‘Don’t shoot unless you have to, lads,’ whispered Rokka. ‘Ah, damn you, come a bit closer, will you? Not too much… three metres will do. The bastard won’t come. I’ll have to go and put a grenade on its roof. Now it’s coming, it’s coming… right, lads… wait for it… now!’
The ground shook, and a tongue of flame lit up the night as a mine exploded under the caterpillar tracks. The excitement burst out in frantic firing from both sides, and for a moment the shots crackled fiercely, gradually dying away again. The flames began to lick the sides of the tank, and soon they were blazing up on all sides, brightly illuminating the darkness of the small hours.
Rokka whispered joyfully:
‘You set a mine off there. I wasn’t serious, you know. I was just joking, and you went and took it in earnest. People say a lot of things in this world, but you shouldn’t believe them all.’
‘Shut up. We don’t know what may happen next.’
Rahikainen had not yet fully recovered from the shock. Vanhala, on the other hand, was in a cheerful mood. The new group leader was definitely to his liking, for Lehto had spoiled his fun too often by saying curtly: ‘Stop your giggling.’ But Rokka chatted about amusing things, and Vanhala saw the future turning downright rosy as a result.
The tank burned, crackling and banging, for the heat was making its ammunition explode. Rokka watched closely to see if the crew would try to escape from the flames, but they had probably lost consciousness in the mine explosion, for no one tried to get out.
‘Well, the bastards have sure had the hair on their asses singed,’ said Rokka, when he had made sure there was no more possibility of rescue. Vanhala put his machine-gun down alongside, fiddling about with the belt and repeating Rokka’s words, which he thought were splendid:
‘The hair on their asses… Hee hee… the hair on their asses.’
‘Pipe down, Vanhala. We’re going to catch it from them in the morning.’
They watched the fire. It was reflected in their faces, which glowed in the darkness, illuminated by the flames. Rokka’s eyes burned like a cat’s in the dark. He was in a good mood, for the destruction of the tank meant they were in less danger now.
Wolf Paw looked at the silently burning tank for a long time and then whispered:
‘That’s a hell of a way to die.’
'This is no Sunday school, you know. You’ve got to kill like the devil himself. I’ve always said that we haven’t come here to die but to kill. That’s if you want to stay alive, of course.’
Paw raised his rifle to his cheek, fired into the darkness and said as he let the spent cartridge fall out:
‘That’s not what I meant… Those guys are not the only ones. Damn it, I’ve been watching those bushes and watching them. But they seem to be empty.’
(from Tuntematon sotilas [The Unknown Soldier], by Väinö Linna, Helsinki, 1954 [my translation])
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