Volume V, Issue XI

Volume V, Issue XI

November 8, 2010

JHU POLITIK THE SHELLACKING REPUBLICANS WIN BIG ON TUESDAY

ISSUE XI, 11/8/10 Also in this Week’s Edition:

INTERNATIONAL ELECTIONS IN THE IVORY COAST

By Jordan Kalms, ‘14 -Page 3 WHERE OTHERS HAVE FAILED

By Simon Belokowsky, ‘11 -Page 4

OPINION THE SUCCESS AND FUTURE OF THE TEA PARTY

By Matt Varvaro, ‘12

(Chip Litherland/ the New York Times)

Marco Rubio, a Tea Party-backed candidate from Florida, celebrates his election to the US Senate.

by Randy Bell, ‘13 Contributing Writer

I

n 1994, the House of Representatives was hit by a political tsunami in a clear sign of our country’s shifting political landscape. Democrats held the House for the previous 40 years and all but 6 of the previous 62 years, but voters still came to the polls with a clear desire for change in Washington.

Newt Gingrich led the Republican Party to a 54-seat swing in the lower house of Congress, giving his party a 26-seat advantage and the keys to shifting the country in a more conservative direction. Gingrich and the Republicans ran on support of their “Contract With America”, a proposal to reform Washington institutionalism and in opposition to the political agenda of then-President Bill Clinton. While Clinton’s goal

1

-Page 5

RESPONDING TO TERROR

BY REFORMING INTELLIGENCE

By Paul Grossinger, ‘11 -Page 6 RUSSIAN REFORM AND THE GULAG DEBATE

was to push through significant gun-control and health care reforms, the Republicans pushed for smaller government, lower taxes, improved transparency of Congress, aiding small businesses, and both tort and welfare reform.

Sixteen years later, history has appeared to repeat itself. Last Tuesday, the nation voted overwhelmingly to remove Democrats from office and handed Republicans a 52-seat lead in the House of Representatives with a few remaining seats still pending a decisive winner. With the Democrats no longer in the majority, Congressman John Boehner will replace the nation’s first female Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi has retained her seat in Congress, a feat that could not be ac-

By Ari Schaffer ‘14

-Page 8

JOHNS HOPKINS’s Only WeeklyPublished Political Magazine

complished by her 1994 counterpart Tom Foley, and says that she will run for Minority Leader of the new Congress. In a recent interview, Pelosi said, “As a result of Tuesday's election, the role of Democrats in the 112th Congress will change, but our commitment to serving the American people will not. We have no intention of allowing our great achievements to be rolled back."

The man replacing Pelosi is John Boehner, a 19-year congressman from Ohio’s 8th district, who has (Continued on Page 2) www.JHUPOLITIK.com

Volume V, Issue XI

November 8, 2010

The POLITIK EDITOR-In-Chief

Editor-in-Chief

Editor-in-Chief

Joshua Ayal

Harry Black

Sam Lichtenstein

Staff Writers

Executive Editors

Rohit Dasgupta Eric Feinberg Becca Fishbein Cary Glynn Benjamin Goldberg Paul Grossinger Dan Hochman Daniel Roettger

Managing Editor

Will Denton Morgan Hitzig

Matt Varvaro PRODUCTION MANAGERS

Casey Navin Neil O’Donnell Faculty Advisor

Steven R. David JHU POLITIK is a student-run political publication. Please note that the opinions expressed within JHU POLITIK are those solely of the author.

Please sign up for our e-mail list on our website, www.JHUPOLITIK.com

NATIONAL REPORT (Continued from Page 1) been Minority Leader since 2007. As one of the orchestrator’s of 1994’s “Contract With America”, Boehner continued his commitment to the Republican agenda as the so-called “commander-in-change” this election. This election cycle produced the “Pledge to America,” which calls for lowering taxes by extending the Bush-era tax cuts, aiding small businesses with up to a 20% tax deduction, reforming medical liability laws, cutting domestic discretionary spending, and making Congress more accountable to the American people by allowing bills to be posted online for three days before a vote. With the “Pledge To America,” Boehner and the Republicans also hope to repeal the entire healthcare reform package passed earlier this year, stop any more money from being spent through the 2008 TARP and 2009 Stimulus bills, prevent any and all federal funds from going to abortions, and keep marriage defined as relations between one man and one woman.

One of the people hit hardest by this election is President Obama, who will have an even harder time passing legislation with a House of Representatives controlled

by Republicans. “Over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done,” said Obama on a 60 Minutes interview following Tuesday’s elections, “that we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation.” In 1994, Bill Clinton was coming off a decisive presidential win over

President George H. W. Bush two years earlier and riding that wave to push through significant legislative measures, including healthcare reform for the first time in this country’s history. Perceived by many as overstepping his bounds as president, Clinton suffered a serious blow to his policy agenda in 1994, just as President Obama will now suffer from his reputation as a “legislative president” rather than the inspirational leader he appeared to be in the 2008 campaign.

When the new Republicans of Congress are sworn in next year, it is unclear how well they will work with the president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that his overriding goal is to "deny President Obama a second term in office,” a view echoed by other congressmen. However, the great lesson to be learned from 1994 is that the president wields the most important political tool in American history: the power to veto. Despite the losses in 1994, Clinton managed to work with the 104th Congress to enact policies that gave the nation its lowest levels of inflation and unemployment in 30 years, 22 million new jobs, record surpluses, and the longest expansion of economic growth in U.S. history.

President Obama has made it clear that he wants to work with the 112th Congress in continuing to enact real and meaningful change to the country.

Bearing all of this in mind, Democrats suffered a huge hit in the midterm elections, but they still retain signifi(Continued on Page 3)

2

www.JHUPOLITIK.com

November 8, 2010

Volume V, Issue XI

NATIONAL REPORT / INTERNATIONAL REPORT (Continued from Page 2) cant influence in Washington. The Senate has retained its Democratic majority by a margin of 53-47 and its core leadership, led by Harry Reid, who beat Tea Party candidate Sharron Engle by five points. President Obama’s popularity has waned recently, but is holding strong enough to garner him considerable support going into the 2012 presidential election. As for the Republicans, it is their turn to show the country how well they can lead.

They have attacked the previous Congress and this president for their reckless spending and poor leadership. In 2011, the American people will see how well John Boehner and the Republicans live up to their word of bringing America out of its economic downturn. s

Elections in the Ivory Coast

by Jordan Kalms, ‘14 Contributing Writer

Election officials begin to count ballots from the first round of presidential elections in the Ivory Coast.

(Jerome Delay)

For the first time in eight years, democratic elections were held in Côte d'Ivoire on Sunday, October 31st. The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, located on the western coast of Africa between Liberia and Ghana, has undergone a violent civil war for the past decade and is still largely influenced by heavily armed militias and bitterly opposing factions. Though the recent elections are undoubtedly a positive sign of progress, they are by no means an indication that the violence is over. Indeed, many citizens in the largest city, Abidjan, have stockpiled food and water in the expectation of rioting and violence follow-

ing the announcement of election results.

There are three potential candidates to become the next president. The first is Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent, whose official time in office ended five years ago and has been informally prolonged. The second candidate is Alassane Ouattara, a man passionately supported by violent rebels in the northern part of the country.

Lastly, there is Henri Konan Bedie, the ex-president of Côte d'Ivoire who was ousted from office in a coup d'état in 1999.

The coup of 1999 was a major political turning point for Côte d'Ivoire, as the violence shattered the illusion of political stability that had existed thus far since the country’s independence. In 2002, the situation between factions deteriorated into open rebel gun-battles in Abidjan, a city once referred to as the “Paris of Africa.” Civil war ensued following the violence in 2002 with the rebel-filled North fighting against the inhabitants of the loyalist South. While some diamond and gold trade in the northern half of the country sustained the rebel fighters, the civil war was extremely pernicious for the people, both in terms of governmental stability and economic opportunity. According to the Washington Post, “amid the stalemate, businesses died off and expatriates fled as the nation fell into a state of economic decline”.

Since the civil war began in early 2002, the United Nations has kept a peacekeeping force as a buffer zone between the loyalists and the New Force rebel movement.

Although the peace process is moving along, the rebels of New Force movement have still not been disbanded or disarmed, but instead sent back to their homes with the same amount of zeal and firepower that they have maintained for the past decade.

Likewise, there still remain a number of potential problems in the voting process; perhaps the most contentious is the decision on who gets to count the votes.

Moreover, the country lacks many foundational institutions required for democracy, and according to the nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch, “banditry, violence, and rape are widespread in the region, and the rule of law there has disintegrated with no functioning trial courts or prisons.”

While the issue of weak governmental infrastructure stands in the way of a free and fair election, there is also the issue of citizenship. Official citizenship in Côte d'Ivoire has not been a longstanding tradition as it has been in the West. The government is having trouble counting votes and making the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate ballots. Herein lies a large prob(Continued on Page 4)

3

www.JHUPOLITIK.com

Volume V, Issue XI

November 8, 2010

INTERNATIONAL REPORT (Continued from Page 3) lem; the requirement of democracy is not simply the holding of elections, but also legitimacy. The government must be able to confidently announce a winner, and the parties involved must be able to transfer power to one another through a peaceful and dignified process.

Côte d'Ivoire undoubtedly requires courts for the implementation of law and a police force for the enforcement of justice. However, the country is in equal need of political efficacy and the faith of its citizens, who understandably remain hesitant to engage in the political process. s As JHU Politik went to press, it was announced that Laurent Gbagbo would face Alassane Ouattara in a run-off, which will be held on November 21.

Where Others Have Failed: South America Welcomes a New Woman President

by Simon Belokowsky ‘11 Staff Writer

(Bruno Domingos/ The Sofia Echo)

Dilma Vana Rousseff, outgoing energy minister and current chief of staff to Brazilian President Lula da Silva, has been elected President of Brazil. Rousseff (pictured above) represents the Worker’s Party, which has presided over growth in Brazilian business, while maintaining the support of the laboring class. Rousseff defeated a center-right Social Democrat by about 10 points to become Brazil’s first female president and, per Forbes magazine, the 16th most powerful person in the world.

An ethnic Bulgarian, onetime Marxist guerilla, and career bureaucrat who had never held elected office, her path to Lula da Silva’s cabinet was unpredictable

4

enough. Unfamiliar to most Brazilians until the beginning of the election season, her rise to lead one of the world’s largest emerging economies has been treated as something of a small miracle.

In following da Silva, who is credited with transforming Brazil into an international economic power, and who leaves office with near 80% approval ratings, Rousseff is faced with an unfortunate complex of immense expectations and sobering realities. In this respect, Rousseff faces a not-uncommon problem in Latin America: inheriting an immense legacy and with only a fraction of the political connections and loyalties that accrued to her predecessor. Most recently, this type of pressure has collapsed the presidency of Christina Kirchner de-Fernandez – the first popularly elected female president of Argentina.

Kirchner herself was elected on the coattails of the former president, her husband, who had grown the Argentine economy to the content of the masses, but with an imprudence that collapsed the economy onto his successor’s head. As soon as Kirchner de-Fernandez cut social welfare programs, she faced a strike by farmers, which reportedly foiled an earnest attempt at independent administration and turned her inward toward her husband and his advisors. In the face of certain political and economic difficulties, Rousseff will be wary to avoid the same retreat.

From about 11% annualized, Brazil’s economic growth is expected to slow toward 4.5% next year, a seemingly enviable figure, but one masking that the nation’s astronomical interest rates, driven by insatiable foreign investment demand, are beginning to suffocate the economic boom. Moreover, in the last 18 months, the Brazilian real has appreciated about 45% against the U.S. dollar, stymieing the export-led growth that has buoyed Brazilian industry over the last several years. Over these prosperous years, the state has spent enough to lift about 30 million Brazilians out of poverty (for context, this is almost the registered population of California). Analysts agree that the Brazilian government cannot continue this spending: It is widely held that Rousseff will need to make inevitably unpopular public sector cuts.

While the voters ultimately approved his choice, da Silva had nearly free reign to choose his successor. His choice of the politically untested Rousseff, may have seemed a step out onto a shaky limb, though she is agreed to have performed competently if unremarkably on the campaign trail. In context, da Silva’s move is less surprising: the chief of staff’s position is one of unparal(Continued on Page 5) www.JHUPOLITIK.com

Volume V, Issue XI

November 8, 2010

INTERNATIONAL REPORT / OPINION (Continued from Page 4) leled confidence and professional intimacy, akin to a spousal relationship. It is also one that traditionally involves foresight, dexterity, and a dogged work ethic.

Where Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, known for his insular foreign policy, selected his wife mostly out of the loyalty consideration, da Silva has found in Rousseff both a close – and dependent – political ally and someone who has demonstrated administrative competence.

Rousseff has more than Fernandez de Kirchner’s experience to draw on, of course. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, who finished a constitutionally constrained single consecutive term this March, experienced a more successful, though equally tumultuous presidential odyssey. Though she was immediately tested by a widespread high school students’ strike, and was continuously plagued by the traditional Latin American corruption scandals (and once berated on national television by earthquake victims), Bachelet maintained (AP) focus on her economic policy, essentially using the dividends from trade growth in the wake of free trade agreements with China, among other nations, to pay for steep housing subsidies aimed at the poor – almost fully eliminating Chile’s remaining shantytowns. Bachelet, whose party partially abandoned her in the wake of initial scandals, did not have a politically influential husband to turn to, so she instead turned to the political opposition – which allowed her to compromise effectively enough to leave office with approval numbers just shy of da Silva’s 80%.

It is myopic to evaluate Dilma Russoff’s opportunity at effective leadership solely by the experience of recent female presidents in South America – the challenges, expectations, and, often, public wrath they face is quite congruent to that of their male counterparts. Nonetheless, if Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez, among others, can be seen to have belonged to the last generation of political elite in South America, there is an overwhelming representation of women in the current generation, to which Rousseff belongs.

Notably, she steps into an economically difficult position with more resources than either Fernandez deKirchner, who inherited a slow-moving economic implosion, or Bachelet who was not elected on anyone’s legacy and had to slowly build her own political capital.

Instead, Rousseff has both da Silva’s full backing as well as a share in his administrative success – she helped sew the coattails she rode in on.

Moreover, analysts hold Lula da Silva to be a stronger political strategist than was Nestor Kirchner. Brazilian newspapers have reported that da Silva intends to push

5

through unpopular austerity measures in his last two months as president, sacrificing some of his luster so that Rousseff, who is after all left holding his legacy, need not cut social funding as her first act. s

The Success and Future of the Tea Party

by Matt Varvaro, ‘12 Managing Editor As well as the 2010 midterm elections turned out for Republicans, many have argued that the outcome could have been even better. Had the Tea Party movement not “purged” the Republican Party of moderates during the primary season, the argument goes, Republicans could have picked up three more Senate seats and thereby eliminated the Democrats’ majority in that chamber. By supporting the more conservative primary challengers – some of whom went on to lose in the general election – against the more electable establishment-backed candidates, the Tea Party movement has, in the eyes of some, actually undermined its own cause.

For obvious reasons, much of the Republican Party establishment has been critical of these primary challenges. With their ultimate goal to simply put their party in the majority, it is not surprising that party leaders would resist any effort – especially from within their own party – perceived to be undermining that goal.

However, for those who value policy over politics and who seek to advance a fiscally conservative agenda, the Tea Party movement has, overall, been a positive force in advancing this agenda and shifting the direction of politics in general.

William F. Buckley, Jr., the famous conservative commentator, was known to advise conservatives to support the most conservative candidate in the primary who can win in the general election. The Tea Party movement should adopt this doctrine as the basis for its political activity in order to elect the greatest number of conservatives to Congress while surrendering the fewest number of seats to the Democrats. Moreover, it can be argued that the movement’s most visible and costly mistakes in this election season came when it strayed from Buckley’s advice.

The most obvious examples were the nominations of (Continued on Page 6) www.JHUPOLITIK.com

Volume V, Issue XI

November 8, 2010

OPINION (Continued from Page 5) Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada. While O’Donnell and Angle were clearly the most conservative candidates in their respective primaries, it was clear during the primary season that they were both likely to lose in the general election. Thus, nominating them was a bad idea and needlessly allowed Democrats to keep Senate seats that they otherwise would have lost.

Like O’Donnell and Angle, Ken Buck of Colorado and Joe Miller of Alaska were also Tea Party-backed conservatives who took on the establishment candidate in the primary, but then went on to lose in the general election.

The difference, however, is that both Buck and Miller were electable candidates statewide. Buck was, throughout the general election campaign, considered to be the frontrunner over sitting Democratic Senator Michael Bennet and led Bennet in most polls. Although Bennet ultimately defeated Buck by a single percentage point, Buck was always a viable candidate for the seat.

Miller was also an electable candidate and would indeed have won the general election by a wide margin had Lisa Murkowski, the sitting Republican senator who Miller defeated in the primary, not launched an independent write-in bid; that being the case, although Miller lost, a Murkowski victory ensures that the seat remains in Republican hands. Thus, although these Tea Party candidates were defeated in both of these races, their primary nominations were not necessarily reckless.

As for the remaining Senate races in which the conservative Republican nominees were accused of “purging” their party of establishment candidates in the primary, each of the four went on to beat their Democratic opponent in the general election. These four are Republicans Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Mike Lee of Utah.

Each of these now Senators-elect was widely criticized for jeopardizing his party’s chances of winning in November and, incredibly, for denying establishment candidates a seat to which they were somehow entitled – a truly sad statement on permanent incumbency and political careerism.

Now that they have won both their primary and general elections, however, these four conservatives will join Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, along with other newly elected fiscal conservatives like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, to form a substantial cadre of senators dedicated to fiscal restraint. For this reason, the Tea Party movement can be considered a political success. Had conservatives taken a passive approach and agreed to support the establishment picks in the Republican pri-

6

maries, the Senators-elect from Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado would most likely be Republicans Mike Castle, Sue Lowden, and Jane Norton – along with Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Charlie Crist of Florida, Trey Grayson of Kentucky, and Bob Bennett of Utah. This group of Republicans may satisfy the Republican brass in Washington, but it does not include one individual who, as a senator, would stand up to the leadership of his or her own party and demand spending restraint.

This commitment to pursuing policy goals based on principle rather than party loyalty is, after all, the only way to bring real change to Washington, especially on fiscal issues. Leadership and committee chairmen of both parties have a natural tendency to be irresponsible stewards of taxpayer dollars, which they use as political currency and dole out haphazardly to key interests, constituents, and fellow members in an effort to hold together their governing coalition. By supporting candidates who seem unlikely to fall into this trap, the Tea Party movement has done a great service to the cause of fiscal responsibility and to the political process in general. Four senators like Marco Rubio, who provide strong leadership and a voice for fiscal responsibility, could have a far greater impact on the direction of national politics than could seven senators like Charlie Crist.

Going forward, the Tea Party movement will have to pick and choose its battles more carefully to avoid a repeat of what happened in Delaware and Nevada; this point means staying out of the Maine and Massachusetts primaries in 2012. In order to build on its victories in Pennsylvania, Florida, Kentucky, and Utah, the Tea Party movement will have to follow Buckley’s wise words and compete only where its candidates can win in November; here’s to hoping that Kay Bailey Hutchison and Orrin Hatch are enjoying their last two years in the United States Senate. s

Responding to Terror by Reforming Intelligence

by Paul Grossinger, ‘11 Staff Writer Terrorist plots have threatened various countries across the globe in recent weeks. In the largest spate of threats since the early last decade, several European (Continued on Page 7) www.JHUPOLITIK.com

Volume V, Issue XI

November 8, 2010

OPINION (Continued from Page 6) states uncovered terror plots serious enough to earn a travel warning from the U.S. State Department and the United States uncovered a plot to send explosives to Chicago synagogues. The question is: are these plots a blip on the radar screen of global security or are they a harbinger of a paradigmatic shift? Is the threat of mass international terror, which seemingly laid dormant for much of the last decade, reasserting itself? Most importantly, how can the U.S. government address these threats and prevent future attacks?

Terrorism is an international issue and, as such, the response of the international community must be based on multi-state cooperation. However, the U.S. threat response is domestically rooted. More specifically, if our leaders want to deal with current threats and prevent new ones, they will have to work harder to foster cooperation between the CIA, NSA, FBI, Defense Department, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security.

Put simply, the American intelligence community has been a mess since the 1990s and, despite statements to the contrary, little has been done to fix the problem. This point is hardly a profound new idea: numerous policymakers, political theorists, and observers have noticed the issues in U.S. intelligence and have tried to bring them to light and push recommendations for a fix. The problem has been, more or less, the same since the end of the Cold War; in a nutshell, the American intelligence community was designed to defeat the Soviet Union and various branches handled different facets with varying levels of efficiency, but the Soviet Union’s collapse left U.S. intelligence agencies rudderless and without a purpose.

Intelligence drifted listlessly throughout the 1990s and little cooperation was fostered among agencies on the world’s most pressing threat: terrorism. Lack of coherent cooperation explains a good deal about how the 9/11 plot was blatantly missed, despite a number of tantalizing clues that no one bothered to follow. That horrific failure should have been the wakeup call that spurred the U.S. intelligence community into action and reform. The Department of Homeland Security was created, a new intelligence “czar” was put in place, several agencies were ordered to cooperate, among other actions. Yet, in 2010 it appears little has changed and these new threats suggest we may have come full circle.

All of that said, this article is not meant to be a history lesson in US intelligence failures (if it were it would be several thousand pages long in any case); but it is impor-

7

tant to understand the context of failure before the appropriate responses are discussed. Case in point: if 20 years and three horrific bombings (lest we forget the 1998 embassy bombings and the 2000 USS Cole Attack) were not enough to induce drastic change, then what response can we expect to a few small scale explosive threats against synagogues to illicit? The answer is little: the structure of the U.S. intelligence system does not want to change and, without deep, pervasive, and continuous executive involvement, little change will actually occur. However, even though the prospects for success are slim, our leaders should still try to push changes within our intelligence agencies to cope with new threats and, drastic though they may be, perhaps some of them will actually gain traction.

What changes should the president and Congressional leaders look to pursue? First, the “czar” of intelligence needs to be empowered to override the individual agency directors at any and all times. Currently, he is the head of intelligence the same way that Vice President Biden is the head of the Senate: unobtrusively and only when he does not ruffle too many powerful feathers.

That situation needs to change. Second, President Obama needs to directly intervene to force the CIA and FBI to cooperate on a consistent basis despite their intense and mutual dislike of one another – and then do the same within the intelligence divisions of the Departments of State and Defense. Third, the possibility of agency contraction and agency combination should be explored: the current system of 20 or so disparate agencies with few ties and lots of enmity simply does not work.

In truth, no one knows how realistic these suggestions are or how quickly they could be implemented and enforced. Our intelligence system has floundered for two decades so the rebuilding process will be an arduous one.

However, if we don’t take steps now, smaller threats that have recently come to light will only get inevitably larger and larger – until we are caught off guard by another catastrophic attack. s

www.JHUPOLITIK.com

Volume V, Issue XI

November 8, 2010

OPINION Russian Reform and the Gulag Dialogue

by Ari Schaffer, ‘14 Contributing Writer

The bipolar world of the Cold War may have dissolved in the 1990s, but social rifts are still apparent. The history of ideological conflict that divided the Communists and the West still lingers. The increased presence of dictatorships in the former Soviet states and what appears to be the slow drift of the Russian people back toward an authoritarian regime, only add to the already strained tensions present in Russia today. However, the recent rerelease of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago represents a bold step forward toward closing the gap.

The book is born straight out of the Soviet Union. It recounts the horrors of the prison camps where millions died. Solzhenitsyn chose the title because of the widespread and disconnected placement of the camps, which played host to political rivals and nearly everyone deemed by the Kremlin to be a threat to the security of the Communist regime. In the book, the author takes the reader through the camps one by one with accounts based on his own experiences and the accounts of others. Because of its critical nature, the book was not allowed to be published in the Soviet Union. Once published in the West, Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union and stripped of his citizenship. While writing of the book, he was sent to one of the labor camps and his typist was tortured into giving up the location of the drafts to the authorities. Needless to say, the Soviet government did not view the tremendous work amicably.

Recognizing and accepting the crimes of the Soviet Union still remains a sticking point in Russian politics.

Even today, many textbooks in schools talk about Stalin, the notorious perpetrator of show-trials and Communist dictator, in a positive light. Despite the terrible stories that have come to light, many people in Russian society have failed to come to terms with the crimes of their predecessors and some even commend them. Considering the seemingly slow slip back toward Communism and conflict with the West, Gulag Archipelago’s rerelease should bring a sigh of relief to American politicians who faced renewed tensions with their Eastern erstwhile enemy.

Recently rewritten by Solzhenitsyn’s wife, Natalia, the three-volume work has been shortened to a mere 510 pages. Her goal was to make her husband’s magnum

8

opus easier to swallow for school students to read. The publishing company has planned to distribute 10,000 copies to schools around the country so that students can gain a better insight into the Soviet Union’s dark history. Current Prime Minister and controversial figure, Vladimir Putin, has also expressed support for the distribution of the book. Although not expressing any genuine enthusiasm over it’s publication, he declared the book essential to “having a complete understanding of our country” and without it, it “would be difficult for us to think about the future.”

The question remains: exactly where is Russia headed? After major improvements following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country still lags far behind its Western competitors in terms of freedom and liberty.

Freedom House, a non-governmental organization famous for its classification of countries, recently categorized Russia as under its “not free” classification due to continued violations of the freedom of speech and religion. Additionally, citing the 2010 Freedom House report, Russia’s record in terms of rights and liberties is getting worse rather than better. In addition it has been ranked only the 143rd most economically free country by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which means the government is stifling one potential avenue to democratic progress. Given these statistics, the outlook for Russia is not so good.

Although it seems unlikely, Gulag Archipelago may be the first step toward a more democratic and free Russia.

As has been the case since the beginning of time, the control of the information has been crucial to maintaining power. Russia still keeps a tight grip on what its people know and what they are exposed to. However, Solzhenitsyn’s book may bring the desire for truth and explanation with it. Treating Communist Russia as something admirable and idolizing its leaders has been one of Russia’s biggest obstacles to progress. The rerelease of Gulag Archipelago may be the first step in a big turn-around. s

MSE Symposium presents

DONNY DEUTSCH Author, Advertising Executive, and Host of CNBC’s “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch” Tuesday, November 9th at 8pm Shriver hall www.JHUPOLITIK.com