At PJ Media today, Ed Driscoll and I talk some things over, including the presidential campaign, race, abortion — you know, the sunniest issues. For this interview, go here. We also talk about my Nobel book, and Ed asks me about the Soviets: They laid great stress on peace, didn’t they?
Oh, yes. Allow a chunky excerpt from the book:
Soviet officials were big, very big, on the word “peace.” If Western countries called themselves “freedom-loving nations,” the Soviets referred to themselves and their bloc as “peace-loving nations.” Touché! The World Peace Council was one of the most prominent Communist fronts. The Soviets named their space station “Mir,” meaning Peace (and also World). What the Americans had was Space Station Freedom — which after the collapse of the Soviet Union evolved into the International Space Station, in which Russia collaborated.
In 1949, Stalin or the Soviet government — was there a difference? — created the Stalin Peace Prize, more formally the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace among Peoples. This was the Kremlin’s answer to the Nobel prize. Among the early winners of the Stalin Peace Prize was Howard Fast, the American novelist. He received his award from the hand of an even more celebrated American, W. E . B. Du Bois. In his acceptance speech, Fast lamented that neither this peace prize nor “the name it bears” — Stalin’s — was “greatly honored by the men who govern my country.” But “peace is honored and beloved of millions of the American people, indeed, of almost all of them.” Fast also said, “If I had no other cause for honoring the Soviet Union, I would honor it greatly and profoundly for giving prizes for peace.”
I then provide a quick reminder: “The Soviet state killed about 20 million people.” You remember Jeremiah, don’t you? “. . . they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.”
Anyway . . .
P.S. Some may object to the heading of this post, saying, “But it’s ‘roses and daffodils,’ and ‘sunshine and Santa Claus’!” True, true. But sometimes we do a little creative smooshing, as in “gild the lily.” (Shakespeare, as you know, says “to gild refined gold, to paint the lily.”)