RIP (not): Vitaly Vasilyevich Fedorchuk

In the twisted tradition of olden days, the death of the 'Butcher of Urkraine', as Vasilyevich was known to his former higher-up KGB cronies, was not reported until ten days after it occurred. So who was this guy (plus why should anyone outside his family care)? The latter is interesting in that no survivors were mentioned; another oblique homage to the 'recent unpleasantness'. As far as why anyone else should bother with this barbarous fellow's memory, his death is a mile marker - maybe one of the last - for a world that only some of us still remember (and I'm not just referring to the past de rigeur practice of all U.S.S.R. leaders seeming to grease back their hair with a full package of uncooked bacon before an official portrait was snapped). Fedorchuk was, quite literally, the blunt end that enslaved, killed & tortured hundreds of millions under the guise of maintaining the Soviet State over roughly four score years for its ruling Leninist thugs.

"Don't immanentize the eschaton!" has been the battle cry of conservatives (most notably the late William F. Buckley) for decades, but it was best employed in the fight against the ole U.S.S.R. In a nutshell, the phrase meant a dedicated struggle against any scheme, political system or other philosophical skullduggery which sought to make the promised rewards of an afterlife happen in the here and now of our everyday life. That promise - of an achievable 'Heaven On Earth' - is the succor that blinded the weak-minded, but sometimes artistically gifted (Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, Diego Rivera, Frieda Khalko, Phil Donahue, etc. ... just kidding on second lattermost), to defend a repressive Soviet state for years after its true political offspring - Josef Stalin - had liquidated his opposition on a percentage basis not seen ever again until the brief hell-on-earth of Pol Pot's regime.

Fedorchuk was the protege of the one of the last of the pre-Perestroika leaders, Yuri Andropov (seen most charismatically at left). Andropov, who headed the KGB as did, briefly, Fedorchuk due to older man's string-pulling, is acknowledged to have been one of the brightest post-Stalin C.C.C.P. chairmen. Following the manner of other capable leaders however, Andropov surrounded himself with adept henchmen who could handle the dirty work without having to smudge his own fingers. In Fedorchuk, Mr. Andropov found a willing acolyte who relished his work. From a string of mysterious disappearances during a stint in Vienna to his ruthless reprisals against any glint of resurgent Ukrainian nationalism (his own homeland), Vasilyevich, his patronimic [Slavs do not usually have middle names, but employ patronimics amongst friends & colleagues; 'Vasilyevich' literally means 'son of William'], assiduously earned his bones at progressive levels of wretchedness before attaining the rank of full General. For a time, Fedorchuk was in charge of all non-military forces in the U.S.S.R. It is a testament to what life was like back then that even "The New York Times" obituary could not definitely ascertain what Fedorchuk was doing during one stretch in his career and only alluded to the possibility that he had been stationed somewhere in Asia.

So this is a good thing and the world has moved beyond a painful place in history, right? My days of amateur Sovietology are more than a dozen years removed from when Vladimir Putin was only a yellow belt in martial arts, but I wouldn't make this statement. In the - and I hesitate to call them good - ole days, Kremlinology was a dark art of watching limousines discharge certain Politburo members or checking-out the lineup on Red Square reviewing stands in order to ascertain what might be in the political offing. Such tea leaf analysis is gone in these CNN times, but it doesn't mean your dissident status still won't earn you a free sabbatical in a suitably dreary Russian psychiatric institution. Oddly enough the argument of how the Rus cannot be ruled by a strong man, is gaining currency again. That breakaway republics now have the ability to put spare nuclear weaponry on open markets just short of Ebay, cannot be seen as a positive development from the immediate past, as I'm sure most will agree readily. Chalk it up to my own encroaching old age and its attendant nostalgia of a perverse sort, but the end of any era should be suitably marked and this post seeks to do such.

May you rot in Hades, Comrade Vasilyevich, and have all your past victims comfortably sitting nearby sipping cool ice tea!