Virginia Rounding on Masha Gessen's Two Babushkas: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace, an account of two grandmothers' experiences of life under Stalin
Gessen is pessimistic about the future of Russia, fearful that the return of many of the old regime's symbols is the thin end of the wedge. Writing this in St Petersburg, I find myself more optimistic. On May 9, I watched the Victory Day parade along the Nevsky Prospekt. Veterans bedecked with Soviet medals and survivors of the siege of Leningrad were applauded and handed flowers, and quite rightly so: it was not their fault that in fighting to defeat Hitler they found themselves supporting an arguably even greater tyrant. In such a situation the solution is to search for the decent compromise, asserts Gessen; search and fail, for there is no such thing. But no one, at least where I was standing, applauded the ragbag of people marching behind a few Communist party banners, and there was nothing but stony silence for the young thugs of the National-Bolshevik party of Russia, who had unfortunately been allowed to bring up the rear of the parade. Being forced to compromise for the sake of friends, family and one's own skin is one thing; choosing the worst of all possible worlds of your own free will is quite another.
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