Pitin & Dresden

[alice malice]

Dresden helped to set in motion a chain of events that would lead to
the fall of the wall. One of Gorbachev’s senior aides, Anatoly
Chernyaev, lamented the spread of “terrible scenes” of violence,
damaging to the East German and Soviet regimes alike. The images
worsened the split between Gorbachev and East Berlin, rendering them
less capable of coordinated action in the face of protests.
[...]


The events of 4-5 October 1989 may very well have helped to shape
Putin’s operational code. His swift and aggressive responses both to
the popular uprising in Kiev earlier this year and to the earlier
demonstrations in Moscow suggest that they did. He saw the crowds
seize control – and is not, to put it mildly, comfortable with that
precedent.

This analysis does not bode well for the future of the Ukraine crisis.
The conflict in Ukraine, and the resulting wounds to relations between
the west and Moscow, will fester as long as Putin remains in power,
for operational codes rarely change once set. Having witnessed
protesters first get the better of local authorities and then distant
rulers, he will do whatever he deems necessary to prevent the same
scenario from repeating itself.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/01/putin-power-east-germany-russia-kgb-dresden
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l