The Marshal has a few regrets. His suicide was an act of service. To the system, the empire, the proud state he knew. He was said to have died from the grief and shame he felt for the fate of his country. But there was more to it. It also came from betrayal. He had been the most important Soviet military figure to trust the West. To believe that, in the end, they wouldn’t stab his country in the back. They extended a hand, and gave him an Indian headdress. They welcomed him to enjoy their tourism, review their troops, visit their carriers and bases, contemplate their future, together. It made sense at the time. He thought of the story told to him by an American ex-adversary: of another great commander, Little Turtle, the finest in the Ohio Valley who understood. ‘The Indian gave up the fight, struck the best deal he could get.’ George Washington gave that chief a sword. Thus spoke the forked tongue. It would have been better to be stabbed in the back than in the front, gratuitously. The Marshal should have fought harder, fought longer, and died a proper soldier’s death. Instead he crossed a line of service. What right did he have to be a peacemaker, anyway? Much better to go without humiliation, with a residue of the dignity earned from being the best in his class. He said, ‘ya posledniy iz Mogikan’. ‘I am the last Mohican’. Much better then to fade with defiance, as everyone expected him to do. Would that have been less brave? Less honourable? No. A country is not like a woman; you don’t just pick up your hat and walk out the door when she stops loving you. They like to say one hates the people one has treated unfairly. That appears to be so. Some nations – Afghans, Irish, Palestinians, Romani – are cursed with the hatred of others. They are detested because they are defeated. So now, he asks, are we? We, who once built the largest empire on earth? We, who served and sacrificed as the gendarme of Europe? We said, we want a common home, a decent measure of respect, and maybe a bit of the peace dividend. After all, we didn’t really have to forfeit all that we had in the way that we did, did we not? Those of you living charmed lives beyond the pale, kicking us when we’re down: what would you do, if you were in our place? They say, you want us to think we made you do what you did, so you did it anyway, in just the way we said you would. We say, at least we have this power, to affirm your bigotry. But what we do is not what you demand. You want to believe it is true, so you do. Your fixation has more to do with yourselves than with us. You can’t part with it, can you? They say, you have form: who you are matters more than what you do. You are suspicious, incorrigible, malevolent, barbaric, corrupt, untrustworthy… and unchanging. You don’t get extra marks for what you don’t do, but you are punished for what you are not, according to us. We say, our resentment is not your choice; it is our entitlement. But if you are right and we are so undeserving, we have better things to do than argue. For you also must know that your certitude depends upon your power, which, like ours, cannot be permanent. They say, nice try. Now, know your place. This cannot last. Not among soldiers. © 2023 Talleyrand |