On The Mark -- Reporting from Russia, Series II -- "The Americans have destroyed this country"

On the Mark has returned to Russia. This is the fourth in an ongoing series of posts.

In a previous post in this series I mentioned the opportunity I had to talk with a 30-year-old male Russian who spoke pretty good (British) English. He had had plenty of vodka that day, yet was pleasant but with a caustic sense of humor. While talking about different subjects, suddenly he burst out with, "The Americans have destroyed this country." I was momentarily caught off-guard, then asked him why he thought this, predicting he was going to blame the collapse of communism and the country's struggles with democracy on America. I was wrong.

Before he answered, he asked me a question, "Who do you think won World War II (The Great Patriotic War as it's referred to in Russia)? I was smart enough to say "Russia and the United States" (and I also believe it -- just read Anthony Beevor's book, "Stalingrad" to see how much the Russians turned the war against Germany [3 million soldiers in the initial invasion] with the two-year battle for that city alone -- the city is now known as Volgograd). He smiled, silently complimenting me on being diplomatically correct in my answer, although he later realized my response was honest. He surely expected me to say that the Americans won the war.

"Everyone thinks the Americans won the war," he said, "but where were they for the first several years of the war?" He continued, "Do you know that 30 million Russians were killed in that war? How many did America lose? Britain?" I didn't know the answer, but I knew it was only a tiny fraction (Britain lost 331,000 lives he later said in the conversation). I should also note (although I didn't say it to him) that, during the battle of Stalingrad alone, the Soviet regime executed 13,500 of their own soldiers for what they considered treason or desertion, often to set an example to other soldiers who were looking for any way out of a horrific battle environment.

"Russia has never recovered from the destruction of that war," he said, "and it's all because the Americans didn't help us out a lot sooner to keep Germany from gaining the strength it had to invade our country."

Coming from a 75-year-old, I would have understood this line of thinking. But I found it very interesting that these opinions were coming from a 30-year-old. I asked him if this was something he was taught in school. He looked at me in disbelief. "No," he said, "these are my own opinions based on facts. America was not part of our curriculum in school."

But here's the best part. When he got up to leave, he pulled on a wool cap, and there it was in big letters across his forehead, "NYC"!