The first time I watched Gorky Park in the 1980s I remember how strange it was to see citizens of the Soviet Union, or as we called them all then irrespective of ethnicity, “Russians,” with normal human motivations and concerns. In other words, depicted in the fullness of their humanity.
As a child in Reagan’s America what we knew about Russians was that they were citizens of the Soviet Union, and what we knew about the Soviet Union were military parades and the dour mien of their leaders. When Mikhail Gorbachev emerged on the scene it didn’t really humanize the citizens of the Soviet Union. Rather, he was a totem or exemplar of a new spirit in the world, and that perhaps we weren’t all doomed to nuclear annihilation.
As for Russians. Who were they? In the 1990s they were our allies somehow, at least on paper. I think the truth of the matter is that we did take advantage of them as a nation and a people who were experiencing difficulties, insofar as America maneuvered itself into even more advantageous positions while they were down on their luck. Eventually, the images of godless Communists faded in the 1990s…to be replaced by kleptocrats and Russian mafia.
This is not to say I do not believe Communism was evil. I do believe it was evil. But, normal human beings with the same concerns and aspirations as those in the West were part of a system, which on occasion made them the tools of evil in this world. For that, perhaps they must be judged. Some say the same of American citizens. I may disagree in the particulars…but the principle is the same.
I bring this up because recently we found out that Stanislav Petrov died last spring. His story is well known at this point; he made a judgment call and ignored a false alarm that five American ICBMs were headed toward the Soviet Union. He acted humanely in a moment of high drama. As an American we are so often drilled into repeating the mantra we are the “good guys.” Petrov shows us that decency persisted even in the “evil empire.”