Today, as far as Moscow is concerned, the Georgian cobbler's son and Marxist fanatic has been laundered of any traces of Georgia and Marx. He is now a Russian czar, the inspiration for the authoritarian, nationalistic and imperial strains in today's capitalistic, pragmatic, swaggering Russia. In this crisis, and in who knows how many future ones, Stalin represents empire, prestige, victory.

Just 55 miles up the coastline in Poti, a small contingent of armed Russian “peacekeepers” remains. Moscow has rejected calls to immediately pull out of the port city, which is far from any “buffer zone” around the conflict areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia where it has won the right to keep peacekeeping troops. Previously, Russian troops have destroyed the port at Poti, taken Georgian soldiers captive there, and seized four American Humvees waiting for shipment out of the port.