“The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire”, by Brian Crozier

848 pages, Prima Lifestyles, ISBN-13: 978-0761520573

In The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire author Brian Crozier paints quite a dismal portrait of the collectivist powers that squashed all forms of dissent and pushed forward their grandiose vision for the world. This book lays out in plain view for all the world to see that, after decades of debates, the anti-Communists were right: Marxists the world over were fomenting revolution, terror, war and a plethora of inhumane practices through their ideology, their satellites and their allies, knowing and otherwise. Comrades and fellow travelers at home, similarly, were not the humanitarians they prided themselves on claiming to be; instead, they were vicious thugs with no minds of their own who were obediently following the orders barked at them by the mad dogs of the Kremlin, despite knowledge of Communism’s crimes against humanity, peace and culture – indeed, they turned their backs on all these because it is the Marxist nature to put ideology before all else. But don’t just take my word for it, for the best indication of the blinding truth this book lays bare – which is backed by nigh-irrefutable evidence such as documents from the archives of the fallen Communist regimes themselves – is the response it engenders from the far leftist crowd.

You see, Marxism is in a most twisted sense the “intellectual” religion of modern times: otherwise quite rational people who surrender to its totalitarian charms abandon all earthly rationality and participation in logical discourse; instead, everything in life is placed into two categories – “progressive” (good) and “reactionary” (bad! bad!); to put it more bluntly: if you’re not with us then you’re against us. How odd, then, that these self-described nihilists should bemoan such a philosophy on the part of the free-marketers and the true democrats. This is why their best prepared and unified defense against this book is to point out that it is written by a right-winger – and one that used to work for the British government, no less – and that this somehow makes the book false and untrustworthy, or that it has been praised by other right-wingers, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., Edwin J. Feulner, Henry Kissinger, Richard Pipes, Herbert Romerstein and Margaret Thatcher. One can only ask what they would say to a book that is similarly condemning of the Soviet system and all fellow travelers, yet written by leftists (in fact, this book has already written: The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, an equally damning look at the reality of Communism – and also reviewed by me on September 16, 2013).

Leftists criticize Crozier for his introspection and “bias”, but I’m apt to question their own biases considering they ignore Soviet Stalinist atrocities, repression in Eastern Europe and the Third World, as well as their state-sponsored terrorist campaigns. Crozier finds no fault with the CIA for whatever hand they may have had in Augusto Pinochet’s coup to overthrow the Marxist Allende, for Pinochet did, after all, bring stability and prosperity to Chile and saved it the perils of economic hardship from collectivization (it must be said, however, that a light must be shed on his own brutality in doing so). American interests were served in stopping the spread of communism. Crozier poignantly chronicles the turning point of the Cold War where the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is foiled and becomes their own Vietnamese quagmire; thereafter, Ronald Reagan stifles the Red takeover of Grenada and then comes the period of glasnost (publicity) and perestroika (restructuring; that is, as Crozier goes at great pains to point out, restructuring “the whole vast apparatus of propaganda and ‘Active Measures’”, the KGB term for political warfare) and thence the waning years of Soviet hegemony, all covered with amazing clarity.

My own perusal of the hate directed at this book shows that it is mostly launched by embittered leftists, American college-campus Marxists and fellow-traveling liberals in denial about Communist crimes and the inhumane nature of Communist systems the world over. Crozier is blunt and finds no fault with West and the United States for efforts to thwart Soviet expansion, a government Ronald Reagan was right in calling an “evil empire”. So, in the end, anyone can go through the book and find points where they disagree with the conclusions that Crozier has drawn…such is human nature. But, similarly, they know that he has the facts on his side: the documentation; the statistics; the reasoning…this is what makes them hysterical, and it is only to their utter disgrace.

“The Age of Bowie: How David Bowie Made a World of Difference”, by Paul Morley

504 pages, Gallery Books, ISBN-13: 978-1501151170

The proper title of this book should be The Age of Bowie: How David Bowie Made a World of Difference – to Paul Morley, for that is what we get over 500+ pages: a self-aggrandizing piece of monotonous drivel in which the author puts himself forward wherever he can, with whole pages being about Paul Morley and not about his ostensible subject. I should have seen it coming from the opening, for after a short Prologue we dive into the author’s personal recollections about Bowie: “It is 1970, I am thirteen, and at some point during the year I hear the name David Bowie spoken for the very first time”. Or this: “I found him, and at the same time, he found me” (as if this was a moment in which geniuses discovered one another). Or this cringeworthy piece of shit: “This meant we were to an extent sleeping together” after Morley learns that Bowie once stayed overnight in Stockport, not too far from his home. Need more? Okay: “He was right next to me. So close he could hear me breathe, in my bedroom cocoon, and be very knowing when my breathing got faster” and “We were in this together, and he was getting inside my head and I was getting inside his”. If Bowie weren’t already dead he should file a restraining order against this weepy delusional fanatic.

Thus is the table set for what turns out to be a seemingly never-ending stream of consciousness regarding any and all things David Bowie…as they pertain to Paul Morley. Hell, the book doesn’t even get going until page 217 when the author then takes the next 150 or so pages to look at Bowie at his peak during the 1970s, described in 140 episodes – but don’t get your hopes up, for if you think you’re gonna get an account of how Bowie actually lived there and filled his days you’ll be wrong wrong wrong. If you haven’t discovered by now this is certainly not a traditional biography as Bowie’s life (y’know, David Robert Jones? Known by the stage name David Bowie? Born on January 8^th, 1947? Died almost exactly 69 years later on January 10^th, 2016? That guy?) is covered with perfunctory duty as key persons in his life – his wives Angie and Iman, managers Ken Pitt and Tony Defries, and even his parents – appear as little more than subsidiary characters. Nor is this a critical biography, for while his music is covered with (a little) reflection, Morley’s focus is on David Bowie as a work of art himself: he is perceived as a mystery, albeit not one to be solved or categorized. Morley embraces the idea of Bowie as a cultural anthropologist, “a human Google through which you can search where pop has bounced and rebounded since the 1960s.” Thafuck? Morley states at one point that “This is my Bowie. It is not true, it is not false. It is not right, it is not wrong”. It is, however, unreadable – I coulda vomited a better biography than this dreck.

“Witness to Power: The Nixon Years”, by John Ehrlichman

432 pages, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-0671242961

Witness to Power: The Nixon Years by John Ehrlichman is a fascinating depiction of the Nixon Administration as seen by one the many pros who ran the White House under strict instruction from a master politician. As President Nixon’s assistant for domestic affairs, Ehrlichman was known for his fierce loyalty and combative style. He helped formulate the President’s domestic political agenda which included a plan for a guaranteed annual income to fight poverty and wage and price controls to limit inflation (wait, this is a Republican Administration?!). At the same time he directed the White House “plumbers” who, with the purported mission of preventing leaks to unfriendly reporters, used underhanded methods to discredit Nixon’s (many) political foes. The ideal manager, Ehrlichman rarely contested what his chief ordered – like when he directed burglars to break into the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press, or when he encouraged FBI Director L. Patrick Gray to destroy documents taken from Howard Hunt’s White House safe that outlined plans to sabotage the Democrats. Amid revelations of the cover-up, Nixon forced Ehrlichman to resign (along with White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman) on April 30^th, 1973. He was later convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and perjury in the Watergate case and of conspiracy in the Ellsberg case and served 18 months in prison. Throughout his time in the White House Ehrlichman time and again did his best to support and to carry out the wishes of the President, occasionally arguing with him, sure, but ultimately always ready when push came to shove to affect Nixon’s desires. In Witness to Power he claims, not surprisingly, that he was unfairly asked to fall on his sword over Watergate and, good soldier that he was, did so, although he considered himself one of the least culpable in the Nixon circle.

This is one of the few books about the period which does not depict the President as an obsessive paranoid but instead as a truly tragic figure capable at times of greatness, but ultimately undone by his associates, all of whom believed, rightly or wrongly, that they were carrying out Nixon’s clear wishes. They may very well have been. Ehrlichman was cool, kept his distance and his objectivity, and was sacrificed (or so he was told; and so he says) for the common good. Ehrlichman was never known for having a sharp wit, a shortcoming obvious in his writing. However, his justification for his confrontational approach to the Senate Watergate Committee rings hollow and (justifiably) he clearly feels bitterness towards the President, who was pardoned for any crimes he might have committed, escaped Watergate scott-free (having to quit your job and head into a cushy retirement because you did illegal things isn’t exactly cruel and unusual punishment) while many of his underlings, carrying out his orders and policies, went to jail (and as you might have guessed, he’s not a fan of John Dean, either). I think Ehrlichman is more culpable than he relates in the book, and he excuses many of Nixon’s actions (who, remember, demanded the resignation of hundreds of his employees after being re-elected in 1972: nice reward for hard work); Ehrlichman dismisses this with the same gravitas as if the President didn’t like his salad dressing and sent the order back. But I also think he did work hard on domestic policy issues and did the President’s bidding, which earned him jail time and the loss of his law license. This is a good look at one man’s experience working for the Nixon White House.