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===Putin era=== ===Putin era===
In an article for ''The Nation'', published in the March 3, 2014 issue, he made an accusation of "media malpractice" resulting in the "relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts" disputing the Russian president's reputation as an "autocrat". In particular, the journalism of '']'' and ''The Washington Post'', results in the "American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War."<ref name="Nat20140303">{{cite news|last=Cohen|first=Stephen F.|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/distorting-russia/|title=Distorting Russia|work=The Nation|date=March 3, 2014|access-date=June 16, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Schlanger">{{cite news |last1=Schlanger|first1=Zoë |last2=Cohen|first2=Stephen F.|title=The American Who Dared Make Putin's Case|url=https://www.newsweek.com/american-who-dared-make-putins-case-231388 |work=Newsweek|date=March 10, 2014|access-date=June 16, 2019}}</ref> ], writing for '']'' commented that the article "will go down in history as one of the most slavish defenses of Putinism".<ref>{{cite news|last=Kirchick|first=James|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-realists-misjudged-ukraine|title=The ‘Realists’ Misjudged Ukraine|work=The Daily Beast|date=April 14, 2017|orig-year=March 3, 2014|access-date=September 22, 2020}}</ref> In an article for ''The Nation'', published in the March 3, 2014 issue, he made an accusation of "media malpractice" resulting in the "relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts" disputing the Russian president's reputation as an "autocrat". In particular, the journalism of '']'' and ''The Washington Post'', results in the "American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War."<ref name="Nat20140303">{{cite news|last=Cohen|first=Stephen F.|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/distorting-russia/|title=Distorting Russia|work=The Nation|date=March 3, 2014|access-date=June 16, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Schlanger">{{cite news |last1=Schlanger|first1=Zoë |last2=Cohen|first2=Stephen F.|title=The American Who Dared Make Putin's Case|url=https://www.newsweek.com/american-who-dared-make-putins-case-231388 |work=Newsweek|date=March 10, 2014|access-date=June 16, 2019}}</ref>


Cohen participated in a ] in ], ], Canada in April 2015, over the proposal "Be it resolved the West should engage not isolate Russia." With ], he argued in favor of engagement, while ] and ] argued against. Cohen's side lost the debate, with 52% of the audience voting against the motion.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.munkdebates.com/debates/the-west-vs-russia|title=The West vs. Russia|work=Munk Debates|date=April 10, 2015|accessdate=May 12, 2015}}</ref> Cohen participated in a ] in ], ], Canada in April 2015, over the proposal "Be it resolved the West should engage not isolate Russia." With ], he argued in favor of engagement, while ] and ] argued against. Cohen's side lost the debate, with 52% of the audience voting against the motion.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.munkdebates.com/debates/the-west-vs-russia|title=The West vs. Russia|work=Munk Debates|date=April 10, 2015|accessdate=May 12, 2015}}</ref>

Revision as of 13:47, 22 September 2020

American scholar of Russian studies For other persons with a similar name, see Stephen Cohen.

Stephen F. Cohen
BornStephen Frand Cohen
(1938-11-25)November 25, 1938
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
DiedSeptember 18, 2020(2020-09-18) (aged 81)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationAuthor, scholar of Russian studies
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Alma materIndiana University (B.S. 1960, M.A. 1962), Columbia University (Ph.D. 1969)
SpouseLynn Blair (divorced)
Katrina vanden Heuvel (m. 1988)
Children1 son, 2 daughters

Stephen Frand Cohen (November 25, 1938 – September 18, 2020) was an American scholar of Russian studies. His academic work concentrated on modern Russian history since the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's relationship with the United States.

Cohen was a contributing editor to The Nation magazine, published and partially owned by his wife Katrina vanden Heuvel. Cohen was a founding director of the reestablished American Committee for East–West Accord which was revived in 2015.

Early life and academic career

Cohen was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and later grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, the son of Ruth (Frand) and Marvin Cohen, who owned a jewelry store and a golf course in Hollywood, Florida. His grandfather emigrated to the United States from Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). Cohen graduated from the Pine Crest School in Florida. He attended Indiana University Bloomington, where he earned a B.S. in economics and public policy in 1960 and an M.A. in government and Russian studies in 1962.

While on an undergraduate study abroad program in England, he took a four-week trip to the Soviet Union, where he became interested in its history and politics.

After completing his Ph.D. in government and Russian studies at Columbia University in 1968, he became a professor of politics at Princeton University later that year and remained on its faculty until 1998, when he became Professor of Politics, Emeritus. He then taught at New York University until his retirement in 2011, when he became Professor Emeritus of Russian and Slavic Studies.

Writings and activities

Soviet and Yeltsin eras

In his first book, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, a biography of Nikolai Bukharin, a leading Bolshevik official and editor of Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Cohen argued that Communism in the Soviet Union could have easily taken a different direction, not leading to Joseph Stalin's dictatorship and purges. Cohen believed that it was completely possible for Bukharin to have succeeded Lenin and that the Soviet Union under Bukharin would have had greater openness, economic flexibility, and democracy. Richard Lowenthal in 1985, in a review of Cohen's Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History since 1917 found this view contentious.

In his book War with Russia? (2019), Cohen relayed his suspicion that at "least one U.S.–Soviet summit seems to have been sabotaged. The third Eisenhower–Khrushchev meeting, scheduled for Paris in 1960, was aborted by the Soviets shooting down a US U-2 spy plane sent, some think, by 'deep state'. During the Cold War, Cohen was critical of both Western hawks and also the Soviet government, which banned him from visiting the country from 1982 to 1985. Cohen said in early 1985 said the reasons had not been revealed to him.

Cohen gave his support to perestroika, the reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev and, with his wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, co-authored Voices of Glasnost: Interviews With Gorbachev’s Reformers (1989). In a March 1991 op-ed for The New York Times, he wrote that Gorbachev's government "has undertaken the most ambitious changes in modern history. Their goal is to 'dismantle' the state controls Stalin imposed and to achieve an 'emancipation of society' through privatization, democratization, and federalization of the 15 republics." Although acknowledging perestroika was then in crisis, he stated: "Russia has come closer to democracy than ever before. Though democratization remains exceedingly fragile, how can this be dismissed as a failure?"

Cohen wrote that the US continued the Cold War after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. He claimed President Bill Clinton backtracked on the promise of his predecessor not to extend NATO eastward and the flawed interpretation of an "American victory" and a "Russian defeat", which he believed in 2006 led US leaders to believe that Russia would submit completely to US foreign policy.

Cohen was a friend of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who invited him to attend the 1989 May Day parade in Red Square, and advised former U.S. President George H. W. Bush in the late 1980s. He helped Nikolai Bukharin's widow, Anna Larina, rehabilitate her name during the Soviet era.

Putin era

In an article for The Nation, published in the March 3, 2014 issue, he made an accusation of "media malpractice" resulting in the "relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts" disputing the Russian president's reputation as an "autocrat". In particular, the journalism of The New York Times and The Washington Post, results in the "American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War."

Cohen participated in a Munk Debate in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in April 2015, over the proposal "Be it resolved the West should engage not isolate Russia." With Vladimir Posner, he argued in favor of engagement, while Anne Applebaum and Garry Kasparov argued against. Cohen's side lost the debate, with 52% of the audience voting against the motion.

In a July 2015 interview, Cohen said:

Even Henry Kissinger—I think it was in March 2014 in The Washington Post—wrote this line: 'The demonization of Putin is not a policy. It's an alibi for not having a policy.' And then I wrote in reply to that: That's right, but it’s much worse than that, because it's also that the demonization of Putin is an obstacle to thinking rationally, having a rational discourse or debate about American national security. And it’s not just this catastrophe in Ukraine and the new Cold War; it's from there to Syria to Afghanistan, to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to fighting global terrorism. The demonization of Putin excludes a partner in the Kremlin that the U.S. needs, no matter who sits there.

In May 2014 Nation column coauthored with his wife, Cohen claimed President Barack Obama had unilaterally declared a new Cold War against Russia with those inside the beltway being complicit in their silence. In an interview with Tucker Carlson on May 17, 2017 , Cohen said: "You and I have to ask a subversive question: are there really three branches of government, or is there a fourth branch of government—these intel services?" He also stated that a military alliance that President Obama had tried to establish with Putin against terrorism was "sabotaged by the Department of Defense and its allies in the intelligence services." Each of Trump's efforts to "cooperate with Russia" was "thwarted a new leak of a story."

His views on US-Russian relations were criticized by Julia Ioffe and others as being pro-Putin. Ioffe's assessment was, in turn, criticized by James W. Carden. Carden is executive director of the American Committee for East–West Accord (ACEWA).

Ukraine crisis

Cohen said that President Vladimir Putin's handling of the Ukrainian crisis, his annexation of Crimea, and his support for rebel fighters in the east were in reaction to the aggressive behavior of the United States and its allies, when they supported the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. In a June 30, 2014 article in The Nation, Cohen criticized the US political-media establishment for being silent about "Kiev's atrocities" in the Donbass region. Cohen stated that even if Putin's reaction was aggressive, the US should immediately negotiate with Russia to avoid escalation of the conflict. Cathy Young characterized Cohen's 2014 article on "Kiev's atrocities" as "error-riddled" and an "embarrassing" repetition of Russian government propaganda. In a 2015 interview, Cohen said that "this notion that this is all Putin’s aggression, or Russia’s aggression, is, if not 100-percent false, let us say, for the sake of being balanced and ecumenical, it's 50-percent false. And if Washington would admit that its narrative is 50-percent false, which means Russia's narrative is 50-percent correct, that's where negotiations begin and succeed."

Cohen called Ukraine "a country that has long been deeply divided by ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural, economic and political differences." He referred to Russia's annexing of Crimea in 2014 as part of a civil war and stated "one part tilts toward Russia and one part tilts toward the West". Cohen also disputed evidence that Russia shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, an atrocity that killed all 298 passengers and crew. He said the Ukrainian government had possession of Russian Buk surface-to-air missiles, and suggested the country "was playing with its new toys and made a big mistake." Before the Ukraine crisis, Cohen believed "Putin was the best potential partner we had anywhere in the world to pursue our national security". In a CNN interview around March 2014, he said Putin was not "anti-American".

His views on Ukraine were criticized and described as pro-Putin and pro-Kremlin. Cohen rejected such labels. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Cohen's writings for The Nation also helped lead to "taffers at The Nation openly revolting against the magazine's pro-Russian tilt."

Historian Timothy Snyder disputed Cohen's assertion that the Ukrainian prime minister described the government's adversaries as "subhuman". Snyder wrote that the prime minister, in a message of condolence to families of killed Ukrainian soldiers, described the attackers as "inhuman" and suggested that the origin of Cohen's assertion was Russian media mistranslation of neliudy ("inhuman") as nedocheloveki ("subhuman").

Affiliations

In 2015, a proposed deal with the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) for a fellowship that would bear Cohen's name caused controversy and was initially revoked after some ASEEES members objected to it. Following a special meeting in May 2015, the board of ASEEES explained that it voted in favor of accepting "the Cohen–Tucker Fellowship as named, should the gift be re-offered" and the establishment of the Cohen–Tucker fellowship programme was announced shortly afterwards.

Also in 2015, Cohen with Gilbert Doctorow and others reestablished the American Committee for East–West Accord, which describes itself as a pro détente advocacy group. From 2015, Cohen was a member of the board of directors of the revived ACEWA. He appeared regularly on RT (formerly known as Russia Today).

Personal life and death

Cohen had a son and a daughter from his first marriage in 1962 to opera singer Lynn Blair, whom he later divorced. Cohen married political journalist and magazine publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel in 1988; the couple had a daughter.

Cohen died from lung cancer on September 18, 2020, at his home in New York City, at the age of 81.

Bibliography

Books

Essays and articles

  • "The Friends and Foes of Change: Reformism and Conservatism in the Soviet Union" in: Alexander Dallin/Gail W. Lapidus (eds.): The Soviet System: From Crisis to Collapse. Westview Press, Boulder/San Francisco/Oxford 2005 ISBN 0-8133-1876-9
  • "Stalinism and Bolshevism" in: Robert C. Tucker (ed.): Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1977. ISBN 0-7658-0483-2

References

  1. ^ Carden, James (June 8, 2015). "Could This New Group Stop the Rush to Cold War?". The Nation. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
  2. ^ McFadden, Robert D. (September 21, 2020). "Stephen F. Cohen, Influential Historian of Russia, Dies at 81". The New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  3. "Amerikietis istorikas bando Vakarams įrodyti, kad gulagų era buvo "kitas holokaustas"" [Interview with Cohen – American historian is trying prove to the West that the gulag era was "another Holocaust"] (in Lithuanian). lrytas.lt. March 12, 2011. Retrieved May 12, 2015.
  4. "Stephen F. Cohen, Professor of Politics, Emeritus". www.princeton.edu. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  5. "Stephen F. Cohen Professor Emeritus". www.russianslavic.as.nyu.edu. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
  6. ^ Lowenthal, Richard; Mitgang, Herbert (February 3, 1985). "Was Stalin Inevitable? Rethinking the Soviet Experience". The New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2020. the Bolshevist tradition left room for other developments, including the alternative represented by Nikolai Bukharin. The author describes Bukharin as 'moderate and evolutionary,' standing for a program closer to Lenin's intention than the one that evolved under Stalin. But Mr. Cohen assumes that an alternative course of history was really possible. Many scholars would regard such an iffy assumption as illegitimate in the historical profession.
  7. Cohen, Stephen F. (2019). War with Russia?. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. p. 190. ISBN 978-1-5107-4581-0.
  8. ^ Young, Cathy (July 24, 2014). "Putin's Pal". Slate. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  9. ^ Cohen, Stephen F. (March 11, 1991). "Gorbachev The Great". The New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  10. Cohen, Stephen F (July 10, 2006). "The New American Cold War". The Nation.
  11. ^ Kovalik, Dan (July 8, 2015). "Rethinking Russia: A Conversation With Russia Scholar Stephen F. Cohen". The Huffington Post. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  12. Hayes, Nick (November 15, 2010). "Understanding U.S.–Russian relations: A conversation with Stephen F. Cohen". MinnPost. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
  13. Cohen, Stephen F. (March 3, 2014). "Distorting Russia". The Nation. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
  14. ^ Schlanger, Zoë; Cohen, Stephen F. (March 10, 2014). "The American Who Dared Make Putin's Case". Newsweek. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
  15. "The West vs. Russia". Munk Debates. April 10, 2015. Retrieved May 12, 2015.
  16. ^ Ioffe, Julia (May 1, 2014). "Putin's American Toady at 'The Nation' Gets Even Toadier". The New Republic. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  17. Hains, Tim (May 17, 2017). "Princeton Russia Expert Stephen Cohen: Assault on President Trump from 'Fourth Branch of Government' Designed to Undermine U.S.-Russia Alliance against Terrorism". Real Clear Politics. Retrieved December 9, 2018.
  18. Carden, James. "What Julia Ioffe Got Wrong About Stephen Cohen". The American Conservative. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  19. Carden, James (July 1, 2015). "Taking on Russia". World Policy. Retrieved December 16, 2016.
  20. Cohen, Stephen F. (June 30, 2014). "The Silence of American Hawks About Kiev's Atrocities". The Nation. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
  21. "The New Cold War and the Necessity of Patriotic Heresy". The Nation.
  22. Chotiner, Isaac (May 30, 2017). "Putin's defender". Slate. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
  23. Browning, Lynnley (July 18, 2014). "Why Would Putin Shoot Down a Plane?". Newsweek. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
  24. ^ Chotiner, Isaac (March 2, 2014). "Meet Vladimir Putin's American Apologist". New Republic. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  25. Michel, Casey (January 13, 2017). "How Putin Played the Far Left". The Daily Beast. Daily Beast.
  26. Kirchick, James (April 14, 2017). "Putin Bootlickers Assemble in D.C." The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 21, 2020.
  27. Kirchick, James (June 17, 2014). "Meet the Anti-Semites, Truthers, and Alaska Pol at D.C.'s Pro-Putin Soiree". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  28. ^ Chait, Jonathan (March 14, 2014). "The Pathetic Lives of Putin's American Dupes". New York. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  29. ^ Young, Cathy (October 11, 2015). "Putin's New American Fan Club?". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  30. Michel, Casey (February 16, 2018). "Why is this Russia 'expert' writing for an anti-Semitic outlet?". ThinkProgress. ThinkProgress.
  31. The road to unfreedom : Russia, Europe, America, Timothy Snyder, 2018 pp. 210-211
  32. "Stephen Cohen, Preeminent Scholar, Now Seen As Putin Apologist", RFE/RL, May 6, 2015
  33. "ASEEES Board Statement Regarding the May 11 2015 Special Meeting Decisions". ASEEES. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  34. "ASEEES Announces Cohen–Tucker Dissertation Research Fellowship Program". ASEEES. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  35. "Mission Statement of The American Committee for East–West Accord". East–West Accord. Retrieved January 26, 2017.

Further reading

External links

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