Love of country should not be equated with blind loyalty to its ruling authority. All governments are at least a little imperfect, and some have quite clearly been outright enemies of most of their own citizens, and of the very land and air and water whereupon the nation-state is based.

It's one thing to disagree with various aspects of this cantankerous old man's options, but to characterize him as "disloyal and unpatriotic" for his courageous opposition to Stalinist repression is, to me, simply unbelievable.

The idea of "my country right or wrong," as promulgated by the most closed-minded of American right-wingers, is obnoxious and ignorant enough. But to my mind, the "my ideology right or wrong" stance of doctrinaire Marxist-Leninists is even worse, and harder to fathom, especially in this day and age. I didn't believe anyone still clung to that long-since-discredited brand of blind orthodoxy. (I'm still fairly confident you won't find many Russians nostalgic for the good old days of Stalinist rule.)