Cultural symbols are sources of contention everywhere. In Russia, a squabble over a monument rings a bell with this proud Southerner. The powerful Communist (CPRF) faction in the Duma recently raised the question of returning “Iron Feliks” Dzerzhinsky, the Soviet Unions first secret policeman, to his pedestal facing the Lubyanka, the one-time home of the KGB. The uproar that followed shows that old wounds have not entirely healed. To some Russians, “Iron Feliks” symbolizes the murderers of their ancestors. For others, he is a symbol of order, something sorely lacking in the new Russia. For still others, even many CPRF voters, a continued respect for Soviet-era symbols does not extend to “Iron Feliks.” The Lenin mummy, yes. The traditional Victory Day parade, complete with the Red Banner of Victory, yes. But “Iron Feliks”—well, he was a Pole anyway. CPRF diehards have moved on.

The Russian squabble tells us much about the power of symbols within a divided nation that, like our own, is in the midst of an identity crisis. Most Russians readily accept many Soviet symbols, particularly those related to the Great Patriotic War. Efforts to preserve Victory Day and World War Il-era Soviet symbols on buildings and monuments are not necessarily an endorsement of communism, but an attempt to ensure that the banners Russians fought under will not be desecrated. If an old war veteran proudly waves the hammer and sickle on Victory Day, it is hardly a call for a communist revanche. Younger Russians largely respect their elders and recognize the validity of their symbols, even as both now live under the resurrected Russian tricolor. Let Lenin sleep in his tomb and the victory not be tarnished by ideological fastidiousness: We are all Russians.

The Old Dominion is host to a phenomenon which has similar roots in questions of myth, symbol, and identity. January 18, once set aside to commemorate the South’s two greatest war leaders, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson (Lee’s birthday is January 19), now receives little official notice. Some years ago, after Washington canonized Martin Luther King, Jr., the Commonwealth of Virginia decided to fuse St. Martin’s feast day with Lee-Jackson Day, thus saving the expense of separate official holidays. It has proved a wise move for the cowardly lions of officialdom: The Commonwealth is henceforth saved the embarrassment of a real celebration of “Marse Robert’s” and “Old Bluelights” prowess in defense of the Lost Cause and, equally embarrassing in the age of Clinton, of their piety.

The Washington Times carried a front-page story on the King celebration, but there was no mention of either Lee or Jackson. A local newspaper published a full schedule of King Day events held in the Loudoun County seat—Leesburg. The parade marched right past the raised musket of a stone Virginia Confederate, hoisted in defense of his native state.

There had been something of a truce in the war of symbols up until what is now called the “Civil Rights Era,” when the managerial state and its allies began a prolonged effort to nudge the old symbols, especially those of the South, into the memory hole. Under the prior consensus. Southerners were allowed their own version of Civil War history, complete with battle flags and a Confederate pantheon. In return. Southerners became the most fiercely patriotic of Americans. Regional uniqueness and national identity coexisted. But that was then, and this is now.

Apart from a vigorous defense of old American symbols, what is to be done? What can we realistically hope for? If Russia, where the bloody Soviet regime is still within living memory of the vast majority of the population, can reach a compromise on national symbols, can’t we?

Unfortunately, Americans will find it much harder to declare a truce in the war of symbols. Here, race—an uncompromising “badge” of identity—plays a crucial role. Scholars like Walker Connor and Anthony D. Smith were correct in pointing out that all nations are built on ethnic foundations, and that the myths and symbols of emerging nation-states had to be deemed legitimate by sub-groups who would be absorbed into the national community. Thus, both the Mt. Rushmore and Stone Mountain sculptures are familiar and acceptable symbols of national history for the ethnic core of the American nation. But the problem for traditionalists is that the American citizenry is now more heterogeneous than that of the country which fought the War Between the States. Parson Weems’ mythology of George Washington was entirely unobjectionable as long as America, or at least the dominant stratum, remained, well, American. If the managerial elite continues to transform America into a multicultural state (not nation), what will become of the older symbols?

There may still be hope. Perhaps cooler heads will prevail, and a new consensus will allow the validity of a multitude of regional and ethnic symbols. Although one symbol need not cancel out another, such a decentralization of myth-making presupposes the decentralization of the state, a rebirth of both a healthy national consciousness and regional identities, a degree of mutual respect now absent in public discourse, and a halt to massive immigration. Otherwise, those Americans whose symbols have been torn from them may feel they must resort to the sort of zero-sum political and cultural warfare that many blacks now pursue. It’s not a happy prospect.