“Was Rachmaninoff a loser?”
With that question, the Atlantic Council’s Ariel Cohen destroyed a Kremlin propagandist. The rebuke came during Cohen’s participation in a recent Russian state television debate over America’s national identity.
Predictably, America didn’t have many supporters. Vladimir Putin’s regime consistently offers a narrative of America as a nation that is at once decadent, arrogant, and built on fictional values. Doing so helps Putin distract Russians from America’s relative prosperity (Russia’s per capita GDP is just slightly higher than Mexico’s) and encourages them to support him as a strong leader of destiny.
Yakov Kedmi, a Russian-Israeli polemicist, led the charge for Putin in this debate. America’s flamboyant excess being the central form of Russian propaganda, Kedmi declared America to be a capitalist dystopia. Using a rather odd adaption of the Islamic Shahada, Kedmi told the audience that in America “There is no God but money, and the bank is its prophet.” The intent here was clear: With a few sporadic references to history, prove that America is a bastion only of corrupt businesses and desperate idiots trying to make a quick buck. This negative vision is designed as the counterpoint to Russia’s “better” narrative of a moral, religious, and patriotic nation.
“Who went to the United States in the 19th century?” he asked, “Losers fleeing their native countries. Those who couldn’t succeed in life.” The only non-losers who ever immigrated to America, he said, are those who escaped the Nazis. But as Kedmi continued to rant about losers, Cohen offered a glorious riposte.
“Did [Sergei] Rachmaninoff go there because of the Nazis?” the American asked.
Off balance, Kedmi screeched at his opponent to the repeat the question. With a derisory nod, Cohen did so. Kedmi responded, “Rachmaninoff didn’t leave for America he just left Russia, which was in ruins.” When Cohen again pressed home the truth that the great composer had indeed left Russia for America (he did so after the Bolsheviks tried to ruin his life following the October 1917 revolution), a flustered Kedmi nuked his own argument.
“And [Igor] Sikorsky,” Kedmi conceded.
Yes, Yakov, Sikorsky did indeed leave Russia following that same revolution. Sikorsi became a trailblazer in American aviation, supporting the innovations that have allowed for global travel and security. The point is very important.
Rachmaninoff and Sikorsky, like the vast majority of so-called “losers” who immigrated to America in the 19th and 20th centuries, speak to why America is so great. They prove an American dream which encourages great aspiration, incentivizes skill, rewards hard work, and unifies its citizens under a common identity.
That Kedmi seeks to undercut this American story with his myths is understandable. Putin cultivates such deceptions as the cornerstone of his rule. Still, Cohen’s point sums up why the vast majority of Americans remain far more prosperous than the vast majority of Russians. For all our flaws, our system is not built on losers.
