CONFLICT SAID TO REFLECT LOST RUSSIAN CENTURY

The Moscow political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky wrote in an August 8 commentary for the Politcom.ru website that “Russia Has Lost the War in Chechnya,” and that “the attitude of Russian society toward the Chechen war is highly irrational.” He continued: “As a television product the war turned out to be a winning move, touching painfully sensitive depths of the Russian collective subconscious. We are taking vengeance above all on ourselves–for the lost Twentieth century which had originally promised to be the century of Russia; for the loss of the colonies and satellites which rushed away from us as soon as they got the chance; for our superpower which has now collapsed–and for the bandit-capitalism which has been built on its wreckage, and for which our oligarchs, former dissidents and former KGB interrogators all feel revulsion.”