Naturally, since the wall came down in November 1989 and the USSR dissolved in December 1991, much has changed. Yet the people are probably not that different now.

The book is written with genuine warmth for the Russian people. He uses the term ‘Russian’ to simplify the fact that the USSR is a vast mixture of countries, cultures and ethnic groups. Some of the statements are prescient, though at the time of writing Binyon never conceived the breakup would occur. ‘The Soviet Union is a world of its own. But it is a world its rulers ever fear will fly apart into disparate fragments unless they keep a very tight grip.’ (p4)  Here and elsewhere, with hindsight you could easily substitute the European Union to observe strong parallels!

The recent doping scandal relating to the Olympics springs to mind when I read this entry:

 ‘Russians respect power and authority, and most have a bully’s instinct to walk all over anyone who is servile and obsequious. The best way of doing business is to make your position and determination clear from the start, negotiate toughly but politely and ensure that face is not lost…’ (p4)

And this has bearing, perhaps: ‘To a Russian, saving face is of great importance, and this Eastern characteristic colours not only individual actions but policies and attitudes in dealing with other countries. Indeed, many national policies can only be understood by reference to the Russian character.’ (p136)

For many years I was puzzled by the British trade unions’ affectionate dalliance with the USSR. Naturally, the Soviet authorities were keen to foster disruption in the West, and even suborned certain trade union members to do their bidding. Yet the picture, beyond the ‘official’ image presented to visiting union comrades was far removed from the freedoms enjoyed in the West:

‘Not one of the estimated 130 million Soviet trade unionists has ever gone on strike.’ (p27) One has not to wonder why. In 1977 a number of sacked workers got together to form an ‘independent’ union. The KGB exiled the leaders from Moscow, questioned, harassed, arrested and sent several to psychiatric hospitals. Three years later, the rise of Poland’s Solidarity movement caused Brezhnev to launch an attack on union officials for laziness and indifference to their members’ needs, turning the union leaders against their unions, using the unions to police their members in effect, for the communist cause. This was typical Russian double-think.

The union can be a deadening influence, stifling innovation, free thinking. ‘The task of the officially organised unions of artists, writers and musicians is not to promote their members’ interests, but to ensure their members stay in line.’ (p113) ‘All land in the Soviet Union is nationalised’; people can own homes, but not the land.

The propaganda had it that the country benefited from full employment. Yet there were thousands of workshy (many with false documents who have abandoned families and responsibilities). ‘Factories are only too glad when poor and disruptive workers quietly disappear. Rather than report their absence,  they allow their names to remain on the factory register, thus conveniently enabling the factory to draw state money for salaries, which are diverted straight into the management’s pockets to be used for the inevitable bribes and pay-offs.’ (p33)

I wonder how many 1980s Marxist-Leninist students would have been keen to study in the USSR. ‘University or college graduates are sent to remote villages for the obligatory two year first posting which every Soviet student faces at the end of his studies. For many, it is like banishment.’ (p196)

I was also interested to read: ‘The Academy of Medical Sciences has long been carrying out full-scale research into para-psychology, telepathy and bio-rhythms, a favourite topic of popular scientific journalism.’ (p53) See my earlier blog posts on Soviet psychic research.

Drunkenness was a big problem and accounted for absenteeism and accidental deaths, and marital and family breakdown.  ‘In the Ukraine, several mines run daily checks for inebriation among the miners as they report for work. Traffic police have also urged tougher penalties for drunken driving, which is already severely punished, and in recent years a number of people causing fatal accidents while drunk have been shot.’ (p63) Severe punishment indeed – but did it reduce the incidence of drunk driving? The book doesn’t say – and doubtless statistics were not available.

The Russians are avid readers, though found it difficult to get their hands on books (other than official tracts, presidential speeches and the like. I can’t imagine poets filling Wembley Stadium, yet Poet Andrei Voznesensky gave a reading to 80,000 people in a football stadium. ‘His latest collection was published in an edition of 200,000 and sold out immediately.’ (p109) Sales to dream about, indeed!

Voznesensky would retreat to the Georgian village of Peredelkino, south of Moscow. This is the official writers’ colony. Pasternak lived here for many years and is buried in its cemetery. Binyon spotted a man in a grey raincoat standing near the monument (to Sergei Yesenin, poet, Isadora Duncan’s lover); the man took off his hat and recited some of Yesenin’s poems. Others present clapped. This echoed in my mind – scenes from Fahrenheit 451.

Greek myths and Herodotus were best-sellers; new editions of Tolstoy sold out immediately. ‘Even during the anniversaries of Tolstoy’s birth, or Dostoyevsky’s, their works could not be found. Pushkin, Gogol hard to find…The most heavily forested country in the world has to limit its newspapers to four or six pages because of the paper shortage… painful lack of toilet paper, a commodity that has achieved an almost mystic value to those who tire of the discomfort and irony of using Pravda..’ (p170)

Surprisingly, perhaps, the Soviet press was campaigning, hard-hitting and effective, not afraid to hound racketeers and the guilty – according to the party line. Appeals in the paper Pravda could work: a resident of a village where the only shop was closed complained; a party delegation investigated and within hours a shop was opened there…

Soviet historians estimate 20 million Russians perished in The Great Patriotic War (WWII). In the Ukraine alone 20,000 villages were destroyed. ‘Even now at least half a dozen elderly people are shot each year for war crimes or collaboration with the Nazis.’ (p125)

Party members and grandmothers alike state: ‘Let there be no more war’ and the toast at every official dinner is always ‘to peace’. I’d be inclined to believe that this is still the same now; the people don’t want war, but they don’t want to be walked over either…

Binyon wrote about the little Byelorussian village of Khatyn where The Black Death SS herded 74 adults and 75 children into a barn, doused it with petrol and set it alight. One man was away at the time; Joseph Kaminski returned to find his young still alive among the charred bodies. He picked him up and the boy died in his father’s arms… a bronze statue of Kaminski carrying his dying son and staring in blank horror straight ahead stands at the entrance to Khatyn (where nobody now lives).  This is not to be confused with Katyn, where Polish officers were massacred by Stalin! (p126)

Most Russians accepted the official version of the war: it was a Russian victory over fascism, and the Soviet intervention in Manchuria forced the Japanese to surrender; there was no mention of the atomic bombs… Little or nothing was ‘said or written about the extensive American war aid, or the British convoys to Murmansk. No official memorial has been erected in that Arctic city to the allied sailors who lost their lives.’ (p127) [Since this was written, Russia pressed for the Arctic convoy veterans to be honoured with a Russian medal, but government intransigence didn’t permit it – until 2013, a year after they were belatedly presented with the British Arctic Star.]

Binyon refers to a book Through Russia on a Mustang (1891) by Thomas Stevens and offers a brief excerpt, which offers traditions, beliefs, and adventures of a witty character. It was out of print when quoted. Happily, there are several reprints available now; here’s one

There’s a brief mention of Mikhail Gorbachev, ‘the young agricultural expert in the politburo, has distanced himself from the food programme, and is presumed to have pushed for something more radical.’ (p199)

The following two passages strongly suggest the malaise that is the European Union (replace ‘communist party’ and Soviet Union with ‘EU’, perhaps: ‘The communist party is a single, monolithic organisation, and local government has only limited powers. But the Soviet Union is the world’s largest and most diverse multi-national state, and without a very firm structure and tight control at the centre, it would probably split apart into dozens of separate competing units. Regional and ethnic nationalism is strong and is growing, and despite the much-trumpeted official picture of a big, happy, harmonious family, there are tensions and quarrels beneath the surface, which are suppressed only with difficulty.’ (p206)

‘From travels in nine different republics, my impressions were strongly reinforced that the diversity and variety is such that no amount of centralisation can mould a single type of ‘Soviet man’, even if that were the aim – which increasingly is recognised as unrealistic.’ (p206) Homogenising people doesn’t work – they have their culture, belief systems, traditions and history.

Another example comes from Latvia: Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians flooded into Riga because of the higher standard of living, and brought Russification in their wake. When the non-Latvian population reached 800,000 out of a total of only 2,500,000 in all Latvia, further immigration was stopped.’ (211) Freedom of movement within the USSR (by party pressure) created an immigrant crisis.

And we’ve seen how Russia deals with the fundamentalist Islamic issue. The State’s atheism does not sit comfortably with Islam.  ‘Science and Religion said the home mosques supported social customs that were incompatible with modern social life, including blood feuds, the abduction of brides, the marriage of underage girls and polygamy…’ (p245)

This is a fascinating and thought-provoking book, a glance back in time, when the Cold War was thawing then heating up, as East and West attempted to accommodate the other, neither side wanting more global conflict. The Soviet Union could not sustain its vast empire and it took the realist Gorbachev to understand that. What followed was another completely different ball game – but throughout the period, from the time of this book to the present, the Russian people have found the changes in their lives bewildering and unsettling. Certainly, the independent states seem keen not to go back.

For the final glimpse into the book PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN by Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder (1970) this copy 1976, we’ll look at the Nazis and Hitler.

It’s already been mentioned (in psychic-01 here that Hitler was a believer in the occult. A good number of authors have mined this subject, among them Dennis Wheatley, Daniel Easterman, James Twining, Graham Masterton and James Herbert.

According to this book, Czechs said the Nazi movement was deeply involved with the black arts. Hitler was born in Braunau Inn in Austria, a town long famous for the large number of mediums it produced (including Willy Schneider, who had the same wet nurse as Hitler!)

Apparently, Hitler was trained in mediumship by Prof Haushofer of the University of Munich. (See The Morning of the Magicians).

One man who fought Nazism was Stefan Ossowiecki (1877-1944). He was a telepathist, clairvoyant, and could resort to astral projection. He helped the underground during the war, giving information on lost and imprisoned people. Holding a scrap of clothing, he was able to reveal where victims had been executed, and where they were buried.

Documented accounts speak of him locating specific bodies in mass graves layered with the dead.

On the day of Warsaw Uprising, he was killed by the Nazis; his body was never found, as he predicted.

***

From time to time, Tana Standish crossed paths with Nazis – bearing in mind that she was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

One nasty Nazi was Dr Wolf Schneider, who was born in 1920. He was responsible for torturing Tana in Czechoslovakia in 1975 (The Prague Papers). He didn’t employ black magic, just plain evil shock electric shock treatment. He was later recruited by Spetsnaz officer Aksakov in The Tehran Text mission.

Tana was not versed in astral projection, though she was learning to harness remote viewing - which is another subject worthy of comment in a later blog. Aided by recourse to bio-feedback, she used this in a haunting and poignant scene in The Tehran Text.

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.

 More snippets gleaned from the 1970 book Psychic Discoveries from behind the Iron curtain by

Sheila Ostrander & Lynn Schroeder (1970) this copy 1976.

At the time of writing the book, Russia had serious concerns about China. Chairman Mao ordered the Chinese scientists to research parapsychology. In response, Russia established psi research bases at Vladivostok and Khabarovsk on the disputed Chinese border. (p142) At one time there were about forty cities within the USSR that contained centres where research was being done on paranormal subjects. One of these was Moscow’s Pavlov Institute where secretive research delved into parapsychology… (p152)

Two so-called pseudoscientific subjects discussed here

are acupuncture and hypnotism. The definition of pseudoscience attached to these subjects is questioned by many adherents and beneficiaries.

Hypnotism

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony was performed in St Petersburg in 1897 and was unanimously panned, one critic having likened it to a depiction of the ten plagues of Egypt, suggesting it would be admired by the "inmates" of a music conservatory in Hell. The symphony was not performed again in his lifetime.

The composer was devastated and decided never to compose again.

For three years music seemed blocked to his mind.

Distressed by this, his friends suggested he go to a hypnotist, Nikolai Dahl, who was also an amateur musician. 

A daily course of hypnotherapy and psychotherapy brought the music and inspiration back.

Rachmaninoff composed his Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, dedicating it to Dr Dahl. It was a success and his self-worth was revived. (p166)

Superstition in old Russia was as concrete and pernicious as the lice infesting most of the populace. Magic spells, amulets, potions, powders, and counter-hexes were widely considered to be necessities of life. (p251)

Acupuncture

The Soviets had a machine that registered energy flow in the body coincidentally using as checkpoints for its electrodes the acupuncture treatment points, the meridians, where the chi force flows. This machine picked up changes in body energy caused by alterations of consciousness and varying emotional states. (p163)

For decades, China has used acupuncture in open heart surgery, with good effect. A report in 2011 confirmed this too.

Tana learned to use acupuncture needles while on a mission during her first mission (The Singapore Signal, 1965, as yet unreported). Since then she has carried these needles in a pouch on her belt when penetrating enemy territory, and used them in The Prague Papers, 1975 (Crooked Cat Publishing (2014).

Predictions

Baba Vanga (Vanga Dimitrova) was a blind Bulgarian who was actually paid for by the state. She received thousands of callers asking for predictions – and apparently some 80% of these were proved correct…

She died in 1996. Some of her predictions that have yet to happen include (Wikipedia):

1) The 44th President of the United States will be the last US president. As Barak Obama is the 44^th, this is unlikely, though perhaps Trump will somehow make the prophecy happen!

2) Europe will be transformed into an Islamic caliphate and the transformation will be complete in the year 2043. ..

3) Communism will return to Europe and the rest of the world in 2076.

4) There will be a war on Mars in 3005.

 ***

Tana Standish doesn’t go in for predictions, happily. Yet from time to time she experiences flash images that are later perceived to be slicing of future events; no dates, no specific time, just the image, sometimes featuring her, sometimes not. Each adventure tends to feature at least one ‘flash-forward’ image from a mission yet to be transcribed.

Nelya Mikhailova was fourteen when the Germans invaded Russia. She was then caught up in the siege of Leningrad from September 1941 until Jan 1944]. (p82)

She became a soldier, with her brother, father, and sister in the Red Army. The conditions were very severe in the city: the bread ration per day was about four ounces; hunger in Leningrad lasted almost 900 days; the winter temperature sometimes -40; and the water and electricity were cut off frequently. As time passed the city was razed by bombs and artillery fire.

Nelya served in Tank T-34 as a radio operator. Still in her early teens, she became a Red Army sergeant of the 226^th tank regiment. Later Nelya and some of her family served in an armoured train which helped bring desperately needed provisions to the stricken city.

She was seriously injured by artillery fire, but survived to marry an engineer, have a son in the army and become a grandmother. She also discovered she had PK (psychokinesis) ability. [In the late 19^th century Alexander Aksakov, a councillor to the Tsar became the first psychic researcher in Russia. He later became a spiritualist and studied mediums. He is believed to have coined the term ‘telekinesis’. He died 1903, aged 70.]

During her PK experiments, strain etched the dimples deep in Nelya’s cheeks, and her pulse beat up to 250 per minute. Apparently, her powers diminished in stormy weather, this being later attributed to the magnetic field around her body being affected (this attested by the Leningrad Institute of Metrology). Afterwards, she looked drained, and had lost over three lbs in weight. [To date, in the real world we inhabit, controlled experiments have found no proof of telekinesis.]

She died in 1990.

***

I’ve used Aksakov’s name for my Spetsnaz assassin, Lidiya, who first appears in The Tehran Text. She reappears in The Khyber Chronicle.

Tana Standish, my psychic spy, cannot move objects with her mental faculties. This, I felt, was a step too far. She can detect danger (bad vibes, if you will), being a sensitive, and when in close proximity can snatch the thoughts of others – if those people are in a heightened emotional state, for example. Again, it is not a parlour trick she can invoke at will every time. Some of her tests at headquarters have proved failures. But Dr James Fisk, the psychologist at Fenner House is encouraging, for he’s seen how she can exceed expectations at other times of high stress.

Tana Standish can be found in The Prague Papers and TheTehran Text.