Russians (song)

By Sting

"Russians" is a song by Sting, from his debut solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, released in July 1985, and released as a single in November. The song is a commentary and plea that critiques the then-dominant Cold War foreign policy and doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) by the United States and the Soviet Union. The song speaks to both sides ("there's no monopoly on common sense/ On either side of the political fence") as it describes the thoughts of ordinary citizens of both superpowers and their divergence from official U.S. policies in the early 1980s of a limited or 'winnable' nuclear war ("there's no such thing as a winnable war/It's a lie we don't believe anymore"). It then recounts and rejects the views of both US President Reagan ("Mr. Reagan says 'We will protect you'/I don't subscribe to this point of view", a reference to the proposed SDI/'Star Wars' initiative) and Soviet Premier Khrushchev ("Mr. Krushchev said we will bury you/ I don't subscribe to this point of view"). Hence he hopes that the "Russians love their children too," since this would apparently be the only thing that would save the world from eventual obliteration by nuclear weapons ("[J. Robert] Oppenheimer's deadly toy"). Historically, the Cold War entered its final years around the time "Russians" was released, when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985, and in 1989 Gorbachev and Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, declared the Cold War over at the Malta Summit, with the Soviet Union dissolving two years later. LINK youtube (Vevo)