Felix Dzerzhinsky: His Influence Is Still Felt
This BBC story helps to understand just what is happening in the Russian Federation today: “Russian ex-spies flex their muscles.” The only thing left out is the sense of entitlement that the KGB had developed during the Soviet time, when the highly educated, well trained, and well traveled KGB officers had to take orders from the party, which was dominated by former managers of tractor factories from the Urals and similar un-worldly people. The party is gone, so now is the time for the KGB to take the power and the wealth that they think is by right theirs. It’s no longer communism they’re defending; it’s their own power and wealth.
The desire for wealth and power you speak of, domination in a word, and its role as a driving force in politics is brilliantly argued for in a book that I had to read for a Liberty Fund conference this summer: Bertrand de Jouvenel’s On Power.