The destruction of the soul in Putin’s Russia

In no Russian regime has propaganda held such a big place because it does within the Putin regime. Propaganda was very seen in the course of the Soviet interval, however it had not penetrated the soul and minds because it does at the moment. Propaganda now replaces diplomacy and sometimes harms it. Why this evolution?

The weak point of the opposition in Russia at the moment could be defined much less by repression than by the maintain of this propaganda, that has been largely internalized by Russian society. Dissent was highly effective within the Soviet period, regardless of its small numbers, as a result of it had preserved one thing of the humanist heritage: Dissidents defended the reality (the “refusal of lies” as Solzhenitsyn put it), the rule of regulation, self-determination of small nations, freedom of conscience, the concept of a group of pursuits inside mankind. All this has been destroyed by Putin’s propaganda primarily based on the cult of pressure. One can rely on the fingers of 1 hand those that have had the braveness to publicly disapprove of the annexation of Crimea: they’re fewer in quantity than the dissidents who demonstrated in 1968 in Crimson Sq. towards the intervention in Czechoslovakia. For 20 years Russia has skilled an unprecedented ethical disaster, for which official propaganda is each the instrument and the expression. Let’s see from latest examples what levers this propaganda makes use of, what passions it feeds on to amass this formidable effectivity, and never solely in Russia, however in the remainder of the world the place it’s tirelessly distilled by the Kremlin networks.

Take Dmitry Medvedev’s article, revealed on October 11, entitled “Why contacts with the present Ukrainian management make no sense”. This opus breathes hatred for the neighboring nation, particularly for its leaders. President Zelenski is a double traitor: he’s “somebody with sure ethnic roots (sic), who has spoken Russian all his life. As well as, he has labored in Russia and has acquired substantial funds from Russian sources.” Now this Jew has gone over to the aspect of the Ukrainian “Nazis”! “It’s as if members of the Jewish intelligentsia in Nazi Germany, for ideological causes, had volunteered to serve within the SS,” claims Medvedev, choking with indignation. And never out of conviction, in fact, however as a result of the ruling elite is afraid of a brand new “Maidan”. Zelensky is howling with the wolves, passing “silly” legal guidelines as a result of in any other case “he could be smashed on a wall”, says Medvedev. Thus it’s ineffective to enter into negotiations with “the Ukrainian leaders of the present era” as a result of they “are completely dependent individuals”. For “the nation is beneath direct international management.” However U.S. help “is extraordinarily fragile and can finally crumble.” “Hopes for NATO and EU membership are additionally fleeting for apparent causes. […] There might be no fools to combat for Ukraine. And it is senseless for us to take care of vassals. It’s with the suzerain that we should deal. On the head of Ukraine are weak individuals who solely wish to fill their pockets. Ideally by a international offshore.” Conclusion: Russia should “await the emergence of a wholesome management in Ukraine, which doesn’t goal at a complete confrontation with Russia. […] Solely with such a management in Ukraine is it worthwhile to enter into talks. Russia is aware of methods to wait. We’re affected person individuals.”

This opus tells an important deal in regards to the mentality of the boys within the Kremlin. To start with, the equivocal reference to Zelenski’s Jewish origins, a discreet attraction to the anti-Semitism nonetheless current in Russian ruling circles, and on the similar time a sign of a want to control this issue to be able to sow division in Ukraine and to make use of it within the West to discredit Ukraine. Noteworthy can also be the concept somebody who has acquired Russian cash should serve Russia for the remainder of his life. And eventually the elemental assumption in Putin’s entourage that individuals don’t act out of conviction, however both out of concern or as a result of they’re purchased. For Medvedev there are not any patriots among the many Ukrainian leaders, solely corrupt ones. The desire to demoralize is evident: Ukrainians in fact, to whom it’s urged that ultimately, dropped by their Western protectors, they’ll fall again into the Russian clutches; but additionally to Russians, for whom it’s insinuated that the Putin system is common. All are rotten, all are liars, wherever they’re. The perfect of a “revolution of dignity”, which was the best of the Maidan, for which Ukrainians shed their blood, is being canceled.

This anti-Ukrainian symphony reached new heights earlier than Victoria Nuland’s go to to Moscow. The web site Svobosnaya Pressa, for instance, headlines: “Crushing the bugs: Nuland got here to offer the exasperating Ukraine again to Putin”. Because the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Kremlin propagandists have been telling Ukrainians that they too might be deserted by the Individuals, after being offered out by the Europeans. The article insinuates that Nuland, being of Jewish origin, can solely hate Ukrainian “Nazis”: “She didn’t come to Russia to barter a ‘rescue of Zelensky’, though her [ethnic] origin is similar as Nuland’s. She got here to hunt a consensus with Russia on the Ukrainian drawback, which might permit america each to eliminate this ‘ball and chain’ of Kiev and to save lots of its face on the worldwide stage […] These ultra-radical, Holocaust-denying nationalist bugs creeping out Soviet carpets are merely harmful to america, in accordance with Nuland, so it might be acceptable to scald them politically.” The article concludes by recommending the dismemberment of Ukraine, permitting Russia to annex the East and the South. One can’t however be struck by the coarse vocabulary of this opus, sadly frequent within the Russian media. We’re reminded of the “filthy snakes” of Stalinist prosecutor Vychinsky.

The case of Ukraine illuminates one of the crucial highly effective engines of Putin’s propaganda, hatred. Ukraine is just not the one one to draw piles of rubbish. Macron and France have been excessive on the Kremlin’s “hit parade” for a while, so to talk. The Russtrat Institute overtly mocks Emmanuel Macron: “How a lot a nasty president “prices” a state — at the moment everybody can see it with the instance of Emmanuel Macron. It’s beneath him, or moderately because of his motion, that the seen collapse of the vestiges of the worldwide greatness of the Fifth Republic begins.” The Kremlin’s propaganda doesn’t shun contradictions. Whereas hypocritically pretending to deplore France’s lack of standing, it contributes powerfully to it by intrigues in Africa towards France and by denouncing French “neo-colonialism” there. And because the article concludes: “We’re on the eve of a large arrival of Russians in North Africa. And we might advise the French to switch their president.”

In one other interview, Roman Romanov [a political journalist], known as Macron “a political corpse for refusing to confess France’s failure in Mali.” It reads, “The most effective factor Macron might have achieved was to indicate the world what occurs to leaders who worth financial advantages over respect for the sovereignty of different states.” This isn’t nearly President Macron. Thus our eyes are drawn to this headline in RIA Novosti of October 13: “France has realized the reality about itself: its elites raped youngsters”, summarizing the latest pedophilia circumstances which have hit the headlines in France however presenting issues as if the French elites had just one dream, handy over their offspring to modern pedophiles or to observe pedophilia themselves.

Along with hatred, the Kremlin’s propaganda attracts on an entire vary of emotions that feed on the decrease passions of humanity.

To start with, the intoxication of energy, the desire to humiliate the opposite.

Let’s see how the “red-brown” author Alexander Prokhanov, nicknamed the “nightingale of the Basic Employees”, celebrates the fuel empire: “Putin is the patriarch of fuel. It’s by his will that the nice fuel civilization of Russia has been created. He extends his pipes from the Atlantic to the Pacific. All he has to do is increase one eyebrow — fuel costs soar and European factories shut down. He frowns with the opposite eyebrow — and the costs go down, and Europe thanks God for the mercy of the Russian patriarch.” And now some eloquent headlines taken right here and there from the Russian press in latest days: “Europe has fallen into the Kremlin’s fuel entice”. “Europe is making ready to freeze. In any case, the approaching winter will pressure the EU’s Russophobes to return to Moscow as supplicants“. “The Chinese language are filled with admiration for Putin’s newest warning to Europe. Ukraine should crawl to Moscow” to get fuel. “Ukraine has develop into afraid of the clear sign of the Kremlin. Within the Rada they acknowledge that the capitulation to the Kremlin is inevitable.” “Gazprom is pushing Moldova to show away from Ukraine.” “Moldovans are requested to freeze: Moscow is just not towards it”.

Ecstasy in entrance of the misfortune of others.

What a gloating spills over within the Russian media with the concept the Germans threat freezing in winter this 12 months for lack of fuel, just like the Wehrmacht in entrance of Moscow in December 1941! The press reviews with nice delight that hospitals in Ukraine are usually not heated! President Putin is in unison: he joked subtly that the Europeans should substitute gas with ice skates, that quickly the Dutch should go to one another on skates to maintain heat. And what a deal with it’s to listen to in regards to the EU’s quarrel with Warsaw: “Poland is turning into the ‘gravedigger’ of the European Union,” triumphs Russtrat!

We’ve got given a small glimpse of the output of the Kremlin’s propagandists. However that is solely within the print media; tv is way worse. This propaganda, as we will see, is actually for inside use. If Westerners had been to comply with the Russian media extra intently, the variety of Putin followers within the West would drop quickly. In addition to, it typically occurs that the strutting of the court docket propagandists performs a trick on the Kremlin’s strategists and hits them again like a boomerang: thus, Russian media have been boasting for a number of months about how Gazprom will cut back the Europeans to gritting their tooth this winter and to submitting to Russia. This swaggering propaganda has lastly develop into recognized in Europe and the Kremlin now should mobilize “pleasant” international consultants to clarify that Putin has nothing to do with this example! Russian diplomats make a degree of adopting the Kremlin’s foul language and rudeness, simply to indicate that Russia is highly effective sufficient to get away with something. Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of the Russian International Ministry, almost put Russia at odds with Serbia, by mocking in her inimitable fashion on her Fb the assembly of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic with American President Donald Trump. She revealed a collage by which the higher half was a photograph of the assembly of the 2 presidents, and beneath was a snapshot of the well-known scene from the movie Primary Intuition the place Sharon Stone seduces her interlocutor by exhibiting her crossed legs. In 2008, Minister of International Affairs Lavrov elegantly challenged in English Davis Milliband, his British counterpart, after a comment by the latter on the invasion of Georgia: “Who’re you to fucking lecture me?” In 2015, requested to touch upon the potential of a return of the Iron Curtain in Europe, Lavrov replied, “In the event that they [the West] deliver down an iron curtain on us, they may get one thing caught” . In 2016 he insulted a Reuters cameraman by calling him a “moron”.

If this propaganda is detrimental to Russia’s actual pursuits and if it compromises the efforts of its diplomats compelled to undertake the thuggish idiom of the Kremlin’s bosses, why does it proceed to flourish? The reply is distressing: it’s as a result of it permits the regime to be preserved, and society to be managed. However solely within the sense of destruction. It is going to be noticed that the Russian inhabitants refuses massively to be vaccinated towards Covid, regardless of the needs of the authorities. As a result of the Kremlin’s propaganda can solely goal at detrimental aims. It doesn’t work if it has to serve the general public good. Channeled evil passions are an element for stability that no dictatorship can ignore. Socrates stated that the criterion for outlining an excellent ruler is that he leaves his countrymen higher human beings after his time in energy than he discovered them. If we apply to Putin this criterion that has misplaced none of its topicality, even whether it is sadly forgotten, the ultimate evaluation is calamitous.