The Fifth Column
An essay about those who try to destroy the chess unity
By
Yuriy Vasiliev,
Chess Observer, "Sport-Express Daily" (Moscow)
As you know the term “fifth column” emerged during the Civil War
in Spain. During the war four fascist columns attacked Madrid and the fifth
column comprised of the secret agents acted in the Republicans’ rear.
Lot of water has passed under the bridge ever since but the term took roots
in many languages. “Fifth column” refers to the betrayers within
a state who help enemies from without.
The current FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov’s rivals’ desire
to undermine his authority and popularity among the great number of national
federations is easily understood. But their methods seem dangerous for the
future of the entire chess world. Following is an example of their methods.
In this article I do not want to mention the name of one of my favorite and
deeply respected Grandmasters. I worshipped his creative play in numerous reports
from various tournaments. I consider him to be a chess genius even though this
sonorous title is usually applied to the chess players who have gone to glory.
But he is a genius and he keeps on playing and winning. And this is a wonderful
thing.
I know this person very well and even in a bad dream I can not imagine that
he may scribble some statements. He is always eager to play chess no matter
where, when and how much he is paid. But he is definitely not an ink-slinger.
One very indicative fact from his life proves it well: once his parents asked
him to mail a postcard from some exotic tour. He did mail a postcard, but there
was not a single word on it written by him. Not even words of greetings. He
simply does not like to do correspondence and this is it.
And here all of a sudden the honourable Grandmaster writes a “statement
of support”; and in it he clearly opposes his personal position to the
official position of the chess federation of his native country, of which he
is a faithful patriot.
I can assume that he was “asked” to do it and that he could “sign”
something. But what is the real purpose of those who arranged it? Do they really
intend to drive a wedge between the most respected Grandmaster and his native
federation? Do they want to set the federation against him? Or do they want
to demonstrate that he does not care a fig for his native federation?!
Whatever their target is, it is anyway by far high-souled.
I have never paid much attention to all those “Statements of Support”
just because to my mind they are nonsense.
In one of my previous articles I mentioned FIFA as an example of most honorable
World Organizations. Can you imagine even in a bad dream that Ronaldinho would
write a letter to support some football satrap? Can you imagine Backham agitating
for the “ticket” of some football executive or his opponent?!
Then why does someone try to make fools of the honourable Grandmasters?!
Why does someone try to establish fifth columns within some national chess
federations thus provoking splits in them?! Is this the target which “chess
democrats” try to achieve?!
Yuriy Vasiliev
Fifth Column
A "fifth column" is a group of people who is secretly trying to
undermine a larger group to which it nominally belongs, usually a nation or
a country. The term was coined during the Spanish Civil War by Nationalist
general Emilio Mola in 1936, when he spoke of his four of his army columns
that were moving on Madrid. He called the militant supporters within the capital,
who were intent on undermining the Republican government from within, his "fifth
column".
Today the term is mainly used in reference to groups within a population who
are assumed to have loyalties to foreign countries, especially if it is assumed
that they are in some way supporting the war effort of some other nation against
the country in which they live. During World War II, it was German minority
organizations in Poland and Czechoslovakia who engaged in atrocities and helped
the Third Reich in conquer those nations. The internment of Japanese Americans
in the US was in order to prevent them from acting as a fifth column during
the War.
"Fifth column" has highly pejorative connotations, and is usually
equated with traitors and treachery.
Puzzle: who is Vasiliev's recalcitrant friend?
The article by Yuriy Vasiliev has led to quite a lot of speculation at postgame
dinners by players who are trying to figure out who the Russian journalist's
mysterious friend could be. The grandmaster friend, who Vasiliev is sure must
have been tricked into signing a letter of support for the Right Move campaign,
is a chess genius who keeps playing and winning, is not prone to "ink-slinging",
hates correspondence and is a patriot who would never undermine the official
position of the chess federation of his native country. Here are most of the
candidates:
-
The Statement
of Support page of the Right Move campaign lists the following players
explicitly, with pictures: Judit Polgar, Michael Adams, Viktor Korchnoi,
John Nunn, Oscar Panno, Jan Timman, Bent Larsen, Henrique Mecking, Suat
Atalik, Murray Chandler, Fridrik Olafsson, Stuart Conquest, Nigel Davies,
Max Dlugy, Iosif Dorfman, John Emms, Boris Gelfand, Christian Bauer, Mikhail
Gurevich, Mark Hebden, Vassily Ivanchuk, Predrag Nikolic, Zviad Izoria,
Lubomir Kavalek, Daniel King, Peter Heine Nielsen, Alex Baburin, Michal
Krasenkow, Jonathan Levitt, Luke McShane, Jonathan Mestel, Sergei Movsesian,
Emil Sutovsky, Ekaterina Atalik, Harriet Hunt, Ana Matnadze, Vladimir Tukmakov,
Peter Wells, Yasser Seirawan, Nigel Short, Ivan Sokolov, Genna Sosonko,
Jonathan Speelman, James Plaskett, Eduardas Rozentalis, Alexandra van der
Mije-Nicolau, Keith Arkell, Danny Gormally, Jonathan Parker, Ken Rogoff.
It should, logically, be one of them.
-
However, we can rule out the German
team: GMs Alexander Graf, Jan Gustafsson, Gerald Hertneck, Joerg Hickl,
Thomas Luther, Christopher Lutz, Helmut Pfleger, Michael Prusikin, Philipp
Schlosser, IMs Georg Meier, Christian Seel, WGMs Elisabeth Paehtz, Bettina
Trabert, and WIM Jessica Nill have all expressed their support for the
Right Move ticket. But so have their federation, so they are not doing
a fifth column thing.
-
The same applies to the 19 French
players: GMs Etienne Bacrot, Joel Lautier, Christian Bauer, Laurent
Fressinet, Josif Dorfman, Igor-Alexandre Nataf, Jean-Marc Degraeve, Robert
Fontaine, Amir Bagheri, Anthony Kosten, Olivier Renet, Eloi Relange, Eric
Prie, Cyrill Marcelin, Darko Anic, WGMs Silvia Collas, Maria Leconte, Roza
Lallemand and Christine Flear. The French Federation also supports the
Right Move.
-
Vasilev's friend also cannot be one of the 18
English GMs who pledged their support for Kok and Co., in line with
the policy of their Federation: Keith Arkell, Murray Chandler, Stuart Conquest,
Nigel Davies, John Emms, Danny Gormally, Mark Hebden, Harriet Hunt, Daniel
King, Jonathan Levitt, Luke McShane, Jonathan Mestel, John Nunn, Jonathan
Parker, James Plaskett, Nigel Short, Jonathan Speelman, Peter Wells.
We are sure we have not listed all the GMs who have spoken out for the Kok-Yazici
ticket and are listed on the Right Move site. But it is reasonable to expect
that the one Vasiliev is referring to is amongst those listed above. Your guess
is as good as the grandmasters'!
The essence of democracy
Reply of the Right Move to Yuriy Vasiliev's article
It is interesting that our good friend Yuriy Vasiliev has written today an
article on Chess Fidelity about Grandmasters making a fool of themselves by
writing letters of support. Moreover he hints that normally these type of people
would not even have the capability to think about such things and obviously
somebody must have primed them to do such a difficult thing !
Well really, Mr Vasiliev, apart from being extremely disparaging to some of
the most distinguished and qualified members of the chess world, we would like
to point out that given the disastrous state that the chess world finds itself
in today:
- with no guarantee of a decent income,
- with tournament opportunities continuously reducing,
- the World Championship cycle in a state of confusion,
- a calendar which is cut and pasted without due care of attention or impact
on other people or events,
- complete disregard on top players' opinion regarding implementation of
new time controls or tournament regulations,
- media pulling out of the coverage of chess,
We can assure Mr Vasiliev that professional chess players do not need any
prompting to send their open support to a campaign which has been open, honest
and transparent from day one. They do this with the full trust that we live
in a democratic society, where people are allowed to speak out and moreso where
they are perceived to be important stakeholders in the game. The Federation
has no direct obligation to listen to these players and is constituted very
often of people from all walks of life. GMs respect the opinion of the Federation
and likewise, democratic, open Federations respect fully the opinion of their
leading players.
In January 2006, George Makropoulos, in an open debate, in Birmingham considered
the statements of support as being divisive. Well three months later our good
friends on Fidelity tried to get off the ground with the same ideas but they
obviously lacked the critical conviction or drive to maintain the momentum.
"Are such statements really divisive?" Bessel asked Makropoulos
in Birmingham. "Was Makro going to reward or punish anybody for expressing
his or her opinion in public ?"
"No", answered the current FIDE Deputy President, "of course
not" realising that the expression of an opinion is a fundamental right
in a free society. Of course, this is not important for Mr Vasiliev, since
the statements of support "are nonsense". It is great to know what
Mr Vasiliev thinks of the opinions of other people of course.
