Moscow plotter's silence the real coup

RADIO REVIEW:JUST AS IT IS SAID that if you can remember the 1960s, you weren't really there, so it appears that if you were a foreign reporter covering the botched 1991 coup in Moscow, you weren't there when it began. That was the impression given by the third episode of Death of an Empire (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday), a five-part documentary series on recent Russian history presented by Séamus Martin, former Moscow correspondent for The Irish Times.

On August 19th, 1991, when a cabal of old-guard communists sent tanks on to the Russian capital’s streets to unseat Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader, Martin was away on holidays, as were most of the international press corps.

Kathy Lally of the Washington Post spoke of frantically scurrying back from the United States as the news broke; Martin himself returned to Moscow within a day.

This was only one of the many intriguing details that has made Death of an Empirean illuminating if occasionally uneven series.

Unfortunately for the conspirators, the attempted putsch turned out to be even more chaotic than the journalists’ travel arrangements. With Gorbachev confined to his dacha in Crimea, Boris Yeltsin rallied opposition to the coup, and the plot fizzled out following the death of three young protesters. With Gorbachev’s power undermined, Yeltsin, the president of the Russian Republic, dismantled the multinational Soviet Union and broke the power of the once-omnipotent Communist Party.

The story of the coup kick-started the series, which for its first two episodes came across as a somewhat cursory dash through the story of the USSR up to 1990, though it also presented an absorbing portrait of everyday life in the Soviet state, drab yet deceitful and dysfunctional.

If there were too many contributions from Irish residents, Martin’s first-hand account was aided by interviews that revealed as much about the present as the past. The mother of one of the young men killed during the events of 1991 said her son would not have liked today’s Russia, full of banditry and corruption.

One of the plotters, Oleg Baklanov, admitted his actions had destroyed the state he sought to preserve. When Martin asked how he felt now the old tsarist flag flew all over Moscow, the old communist went silent, then abruptly left the room in tears. This absence was the most memorable moment of the series to date: fitting, really.

The failings of other nations proved something of a running theme last week. On Tuesday, the shortcomings of the Teutonic character were discussed on The Last Word(Today FM, weekdays), as the commentator Cormac Lucey told Matt Cooper that Germany's enthusiasm for Europe-wide austerity is the latest instance in its "history of sticking to bad ideas long after it is evident they should be ditched". By way of past examples, Lucey cited the suicidal fighting during the last year of the Nazi regime and the unbending communism of East Germany, both of which seemed harsh comparisons to Angela Merkel's economic strategy, however unfair it may be.

Alan Posener, a columnist with Welt am Sonntag, disagreed, though not in the way one might expect. He dismissed Lucey's view that the alleged German propensity to follow ideas to the extreme was due to industrialisation, saying it was in fact an ancient national trait in "a dangerous people". The alarmist tone masked some interesting views on the undesirability of a continent-wide fiscal hair shirt. But, overall, the item seemed based on shaky foundations, not least the notion that the German propensity for following systems contrasted unfavourably with the Irish penchant for ignoring rules and cutting a deal when it proved more convenient.

In any case, Ireland has displayed a flair for pushing some concepts to the limit, notably religion. Even as the Catholic Church's influence declines, those celebrating its rites still stand accused by some of excessive behaviour. Following the Government's decision to cut the so-called communion grant from €305 to €110, Thursday's Liveline(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) had a lively discussion of the matter. Dealing with subjects such as religion, social-welfare profligacy and personal hardship, it was the Livelineequivalent of a royal flush.

One Waterford woman, Agnes, told Joe Duffy she approved of the cut, voicing her distaste at the vulgarity of first-communion celebrations, from expensive dresses to fake tan; Eugene, a Kilkenny taxi driver, said about half the families he encountered spent the day in the pub. Others objected: one caller saw the debate as another attack on the weakest in society.

The sacrament itself was largely overlooked, though one caller, Marian, mourned bygone simplicities, wanting children to wear the same dress. “It’s not 1932, it’s 2012,” said Duffy, saying Marian’s idea put children in “sackcloth and ashes”. Duffy’s own language harked back to the past, however. As he wondered if the cutback hit “the little people”, he sounded like a politician from a Frank Capra movie.

There was little agreement on the matter – all grist to the show's mill. Happily for Liveline, the Irish talent for pragmatic compromise was absent.

Radio moment of the week

On Saturday, Marian Finucane (RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday and Sunday) interviewed Scarlett O’Kelly, a mother of three who has written a pseudonymous account of how she became a sex worker after she lost her job.

Although not exactly enthusiastic, O’Kelly was pragmatic about her situation, viewing it as a business and describing her clients as “nice lads, mostly”.

But lest anyone entertain the illusion that her life as an escort was pleasant, much less erotic, she punctured it when Finucane asked if it gave her a buzz. “No,” O’Kelly said. “It terrifies me.”