Every Human Act Can Be Disguised With

Gorbachev's Administration Was Amazingly Politically Naïve, Inexperienced And Irresponsible Towards The Country. It Was Not Governance But A Thoughtless Renunciation Of Power. The Admiration Of The West In Return Only Strengthened His Conviction That His Approach Was Right. But Let Us Be Clear That It Was Mikhail Gorbachev, And Not Boris Yeltsin, As Is Now Widely Being Claimed, Who First Gave Freedom Of Speech And Movement To The Citizens Of Russia.

This Deliberately Nurtured Hatred Then Spreads To All That Is Alive, To Life Itself, To The World With Its Colors, Sounds, And Shapes, To The Human Body. The Embittered Art Of The Twentieth Century Is Perishing As A Result Of This Ugly Hate, For Art Is Fruitless Without Love. In The East Art Has Collapsed Because It Has Been Knocked Down And Trampled Upon, But In The West The Fall Has Been Voluntary, A Decline Into A Contrived And Pretentious Quest Where The Artist, Instead Of Attempting To Reveal The Divine Plan, Tries To Put Himself In The Place Of God.

It Was Wrong To Be Too Pragmatic, To Judge People Solely By Results; It Was More Humane To Judge By Intentions.

Boris Yeltsin's Period Was Characterized By A No Less Irresponsible Attitude To People's Lives, But In Other Ways. In His Haste To Have Private Rather Than State Ownership As Quickly As Possible, Yeltsin Started A Mass, Multi-billion-dollar Fire Sale Of The National Patrimony. Wanting To Gain The Support Of Regional Leaders, Yeltsin Called Directly For Separatism And Passed Laws That Encouraged And Empowered The Collapse Of The Russian State. This Deprived Russia Of Its Historical Role For Which It Had Worked So Hard, And Lowered Its Standing In The International Community.

I Had Grown Up Among Engineers, And I Could Remember The Engineers Of The Twenties Very Well Indeed: Their Open, Shining Intellects, Their Free And Gentle Humor, Their Agility And Breadth Of Thought, The Ease With Which They Shifted From One Engineering Field To Another, And, For That Matter, From Technology To Social Concerns And Art. Then, Too, They Personified Good Manners And Delicacy Of Taste; Well-bred Speech That Flowed Evenly And Was Free Of Uncultured Words; One Of Them Might Play A Musical Instrument, Another Dabble In Painting; And Their Faces Always Bore A Spiritual Imprint.