Andrei Martyanov : a sense of justice shared by the whole of Russian society

By Amarynth

Andrei Martyanov describes the Why Now? of Russia’s incredible surge of speed after a long time of hurry up ‘n wait during the SMO. He considers it a societal cultural genetic code and says that there is now “a sense of justice shared by the whole of Russian society” in place and this is the time that the Russian state acts.

We see this in China as well and in Iran.

I believe this may be the stand-out characteristic of societies described as civilizational, when one notices the society acting in almost magical concert and stand up for justice.

It did remind me of a story – When I met the first Russian … and we became friends …

I was Director at an organization and the Chief Engineer was very typically Russian and reported to me. Initially we did not get along and he quite clearly ignored me. I let this go on for a while but one day had to speak with him about this. At the time, I thought it was a ‘woman boss’ thing but it turned out very different. I saw that call for justice and also a clear ‘don’t mess with me attitude’.

We chatted and I assured him that I have no intention of interfering in his work or his 2nd job (which he did not know I knew about). I explained that I have only one problem and that is the budget and my reports to the Board. I hold the budget, so, somehow we have to find a way to co-exist and my preference is peaceful co-existence and a sweet story to tell the Board so both of us could remain with our honor intact.

After a few days one evening there was a knock on my door. And there he was, with a bottle of Vodka. It was very clear it was not a man-woman thing, but a statement of peace. So, he drank the Vodka and I sneaked water into my glass as there was no way that I could compete in the Vodka department – and he knew and smirked a bit but gave me credit for a good show – this all in the unspoken realm. From that moment on, we worked together, had fun, I heard all about his 2nd job and he even took me out there and never did I feel uncomfortable with this Big Russian man. We even kept that budget in its place with me doing judicious fiddles when needed to suit his program, and I gave sterling reports to the Board. In his turn, if he was asked by any board member, he said I was the best boss he ever had and we both got super pay increases and end of year bonuses when those things existed for the working class.

I won’t ever forget that Big Russian and it is my experience that fair treatment and Vodka all around worked every time, but the time had to be right. This was all shortly before the South African Freedom election and at the time of the fall of the USSR, and I hated the USSR, because they were involved in teaching the local population to shoot and kill and bomb people like me. To today, Russia lies about what they did in the South of Africa.

There is always a twist in the tale. He was an operator, pretending to be a Russian Jew but I had no fear that he wanted to shoot and kill me. His second job was to keep the (exact information redacted) military navy contingent at (exact information redacted) only partially functional. Only a superb engineer could keep that up. And that he was, a superb engineer.