Viktor Alksnis
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Viktor Alksnis (Russian: Виктор Имантович Алкснис, born 21 June 1950) is a Latvian-born Soviet Air Force colonel and nationalist Russian politician. He is a member of the State Duma, on the behalf of the Rodina - Motherland-National Patriotic Union. He was nicknamed "the Black Colonel", for his conservative views, an allusion to the Soviet term "Black Colonels" (Чёрные полковники) for the Greek military junta of 1967-1974.
Alksnis's grandfather, Yakov Alksnis was in the 1930s the head of the Soviet Air Force. He was part of the military tribunal in the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, which decided, the execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, amongst others, on Stalin's order. However, only eight months later, he was also arrested and killed. His grandmother spend 14 years in labor camps and his father was discriminated for being the son of an "enemy of the people".[1]
Viktor Alksnis was a strong opponent of the independence of the Baltic States and of the breakdown of the Soviet Union. In 1990, he was one of the founders of a hard-line group "Soyuz" within the USSR Supreme Soviet.[2] He proposed the ousting of Gorbachev from power, the disolving of the Parliament, the outlawing of all parties, the declaration of martial law and handing the power to a Military "Committee of National Salvation", which would try to avoid further disintegration of the Soviet Union. [3][4]
He was named persona non-grata in Latvia after he left in 1992.[5] In 2005, Alksnis has been named a person non-grata in Ukraine after he urged for a Russian-Ukrainian border revision while speaking at a rally in Simferopol, Crimea.
[edit] Views
He has described the Transnistrian Republic as the base from which the Soviet Union's restoration would begin.[6]
In 2006, he said in an interview that Israel and the United States are enemies of Iran's peaceful nuclear program and their attitude towards Iran is an attempt of a cover-up of the U.S. mistakes in Iraq.[7]
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Hardliner helped topple leading Soviet reformers; Viktor Alksnis influential as Kremlin turns to right" in The Ottawa Citizen, February 12, 1991. pg. E.11
- ^ Hoover Institution "Policy Review - Shevardnadze's Journey"
- ^ "Mayday for the USSR", in Jerusalem Post. May 3, 1991. pg. 06
- ^ "Colonel Urges Shifting Of Rule From Gorbachev", in Boston Globe, November 17, 1990. pg. 9
- ^ "Viktor Alksnis: Latvia’s Fate Decided in Russia", in Pravda, 1 November 2002
- ^ John Mackinlay and Peter Cross (editors), Regional Peacekeepers: The Paradox of Russian Peacekeeping, United Nations University Press, 2003, ISBN 92-808-1079-0 p. 137
- ^ "Duma member: US, Israel enemies of Iran nuclear program"
