WHAT DO PUTIN’S REGIME AND FASCISM HAVE IN COMMON?

The 20th century was a period of persistent struggle of the most widely spread political systems - democracy and totalitarianism, communism and fascism being extreme manifestations of the latter. From history textbooks, we allegedly know that democracy has won as a result of two world wars. It seemed to all of us that in the modern world the return of totalitarianism was impossible. However, at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, we witness the most perverted form of totalitarianism, as fascism has emerged from the dustbin of history. In the face of the Russian bunker dwarf, fascism challenges democracy and its values, and questions all previous achievements of mankind.

Bombing Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv, and Mariupol, once again fascism has loudly declared itself to the whole world. Just as in the last century, humanity is watching a struggle between fascism and democracy. Now we definitely know that the end of history Fukuyama was writing about, believing that with the collapse of the USSR liberal democracy had won forever, has never come to pass.

Link to Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History and the Last Man” page on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man

The world-famous encyclopedia “Britannica” defines fascism as a political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of central, southern, and Eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945 and that also had admirers in Western Europe, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East. Europe’s first fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, took the name of his party from the Latin word fasces, which referred to a bundle of elm or birch rods. In ancient Rome, their image, usually combined with an axe, was a symbol of penal authorities.

Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a society of the common good, in which individual interests would be subordinated to the highest good of the nation.

Link to the page of the term “Fascism” in the dictionary “Britannica”: https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism

It doesn’t matter what symbol fascism is denoted by. Whether it is a cross, a swastika, or the letter Z, its essence is unchanged. The ideology of fascism is based on the denial of history and exaltation of the titular nation over others, its manifestations being physical attack, mass murder, destruction, pogroms on ethnic grounds, annihilation of any opposition literature.

Source: the article in Newsweek “Ukraine Claims Russian Military Police Are Destroying Their History Books”

Link: https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-claims-russian-military-police-are-destroying-their-history-books-1691559

Fascism is not about a chevron on a military or police tunic, it is not about the high moral ideal of the world order. Fascism is the cynical face of war, justifying any actions that cause casualties - no matter yours or someone else’s. Fascism means bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol, shooting a family trying to leave the occupied Bucha near Kyiv, breaking into a Ukrainian house, killing an unarmed man and raping a woman while her four-year-old child is locked in another room.

Link: The story of a family shot by Russian troops in the Kyiv region in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/world/europe/ukraine-family-perebyinis-kyiv.html

Anatomy of attacks on a maternity hospital in Mariupol on CNN website:: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/03/europe/mariupol-maternity-hospital-attack/index.html

Link: New York Times report: “Russian soldier raped me as my terrified child cried”: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/one-soldier-raped-me-then-the-other-as-my-son-cried-7xbqwzdqw

Fascism always relies on a military machine with a huge number of soldiers, seeks to seize as much territory as possible, spreads to neighboring countries to dominate them under the right of the highest race or “Big Brother”, reserves the right to use any power and level of cruelty. History proves that the fascist regime thus satisfies itself, fueling itself for new seizures.

Russian State Fascism

World-famous Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolay Berdyaev cherished the ideology of Russian fascism, promoting unity of the Russian state, as well as the uniqueness of the Russian nation. Thus, Dostoevsky described Russians as a God-bearer nation and Russian civilization as one based on a deep Orthodox understanding of Christianity. According to Dostoevsky, Russians’ mission is to point the religious path to salvation to humanity and lead it along the way. Like classical fascism, Putin’s state is built on a vision of Russia’s special role in conquering neighboring peoples, showing the true path of salvation to the civilized world.

The twentieth century proved that fascist ideology is irrational by nature. It never results in the comprehensive progress of the society in which it has evolved. Almost all irrational ideas of fascism, taken seriously by fanatics, have already led to Auschwitz, and now they are the cause of the bombing of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and other cities of Ukraine.

In Hitler’s example history has proved that ideas implemented not by clinical idiots, but by people completely healthy from a medical point of view, such as Putin, Shoigu, Patrushev, and Medvedev resulted in the Nuremberg process.

For history, it does not matter whether you bomb Mykolaiv today or enjoy watching a burning woman who was solemnly proclaimed a witch in the Middle Ages. In both cases, you are governed by an inhuman and irrational ideology that justifies murder.

That is why Putin, in his article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, in July 2021, actually delivered a doctrine of the great Russian nation’s historical mission. There, he denied the existence of Ukrainians. Russians were denoted by the term “velikorosy” (Great Russians) and Ukrainians were called “malorosy” (Little Russians). Like any fascist ideologist, Putin attributed Russian’s uniqueness and superiority over others, thus “sanctifying” their “ritual” murders of the rebellious people.

Link: the article by Vladimir Putin “On Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66182

Including the aggression against Ukraine, Putin methodically repeats the steps of the fascism classic - Benito Mussolini, who in 1932 published an essay “The Doctrine of Fascism” (although according to another version, Mussolini is the author of only one of the chapters, and the essay is based on the book by Giovanni Gentile “The Origin and Doctrine of Fascism”). Putin’s government is implementing this doctrine for internal use, carrying out on its basis a long-term ideological education of Russians for many years. Putin’s propaganda is based on the doctrine of fascism, in which irrational logic sanctifies the use of force up to the murder of non-Russians and identifies everything related to Russia as “sacred” holiness. After the attack on Ukraine Russian fascism is called “Rashism”.

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How fascist propaganda works in Russia

A clear distinction of fascism from democracy always lies in a terrible propaganda machine in terms of scale and volume of lies. Propaganda relies on denying everything that prevents the fascist ideology from justifying and maintaining the titular race’s “uniqueness” and sacred role in the minds of its citizens. Thus, according to the propaganda narrative, Russians are dominating any “nedorosy” (under-Russians). They consider Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians to be these “under-nations”.

At the heart of the Russian fascist ideology is glorification of the USSR as a state that the whole world used to be scared of. Putin’s Russia has appropriated the glory of the victorious state in World War II. Over the past two decades, Russia has “privatized” the victory over fascism, although one of the three Soviet soldiers who erected the victory flag over the Reichstag was Ukrainian Oleksii Berest. The St. George ribbon on sleeves and bicycles, inscriptions “Thank you for the victory”, “To Berlin” and “We can do it again” on cars are signs of such a perverted ideological paradigm existing nowadays.

Putin and the Russian elite derived from him and, most surprisingly, the Russian Themis fully justify violence against non-Russian people. This is not schizophrenia or idiocy. This is Putin’s conscious choice and the basis of his propaganda machine. This is the state ideology, in the jaws of which there is a Russian public consciousness.

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Fascist propaganda always denies elementary logic and common sense, throws up false facts, confuses events and questions inviolable truths. It is not for nothing that the main propagandist of Nazi Germany during the Second World War, Goebbels is credited with the phrase: “the more terrible a lie is, the more the crowd believes in it.”

If you look at the stickers on the Russian car in the photo (below), you can see quite illogical in nature socio-political paradigms, which are the consequences of several decades of “rashist” propaganda. On the one hand, the sticker depicts the Soviet order against the background of St. George ribbons, which say “We Remember, We are Proud.” Nearby stickers are depicting an imitation of sexual intercourse, demonstrating the victory of the USSR over fascist Germany in 1941-1945. Simultaneously, the same sticker demonstrates the victory of modern Russia over the United States in 2014 (probably we are talking about the occupation of the Crimea and part of Donbas in Ukraine). Thus, modern Russian propaganda identifies the West in the face of the United States with fascism, and Russians - with the winners (the USSR). Ukraine is also present in this context as associated with the events of 2014.

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These ideas are combined in the minds of ordinary Russians as a result of 20-year-work of the state propaganda machine, which bombards them with irrational narratives on television, in the press and in cinema. Unfortunately, the propaganda of fascism has affected Russian culture. It is literally infected with fascism and spreads that poison of “great power”. Its essence implies the sacralization of a Russian citizen’s self-sacrifice for the benefit of the great power’s interests. These ideas are brought up in kindergartens, schools and universities, they are encouraged among business managers and civil servants. There are demonstrations held, “flash mobs”, exhibitions which are outdated and forgotten by the Western civilization.

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According to Putin, the Russian state should be feared by everyone. This is a state that has inherited Dostoevsky’s ideas and now has the right to protect its distorted vision of the world built on the idea of the “Russian world”, neglecting achievements of the European and the world civilizations, where the right to life and freedom regardless of race or nationality is at the core.

That is why Putin is implementing his ideas in Ukraine through blood, rape and torment of civilians. As in the worldview picture of fascism, the greatness of the Russian state cannot be achieved without looting, violence, infliction of physical pain and sufferings on other peoples. Someone else’s pain fuels Russian fascism. Pain snaps in the programmed brain of the average Russian, time and time again, pulling animal instincts of the sexual satisfaction level into consciousness. It is not for nothing that Russians eagerly support Russia’s war. It does not matter whether the pain has been inflicted on people in Georgia or Ukraine, Transnistria or Syria, as long as there is Russian great-power fascist propaganda, world civilization will not feel safe.

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It is not Russians that are dangerous; dangerous are those active idiots who have pinned the ideology of fascism on the Russian flag and brought back the anthem of the totalitarian state of the USSR. They have caught Russia in an ideological trap, which will certainly lead to a tragic result. The horror consists in the fact that the Russian ideology of fascism is based on the self-suffering of its people. Brought up in such a paradigm, Russians accept sanctions, hardships and impoverishment with satisfaction. Deceived by 20 years of propaganda, ordinary Russians sincerely consider pain an integral part of their personal contribution to the great victory of the Russian state.

Soloviev, Skabeeva, Kiselyov and other widely-known propagandists are just the tip of the iceberg of the state information machine. According to the well-known Russian opposition journalist and TV presenter Alexander Nevzorov, in addition to those whom Russians see on TV as a substitute for thinking for them, there are thousands of other state-paid propagandists whose role is to push Putin’s narratives. They constitute formidable information armies engaged in the promotion of St. George ribbons. Since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, these armies have been sacralizing the Latin letter Z. They arrange formal events with flags, which somehow work for Russian internal consumption one way or another.

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The specificity of Russian propaganda is the kind that millions of Russians, due to various circumstances, are not able to independently form their own opinion on certain political issues. Over the past ten years, Russians have become accustomed to the fact that the state feeds ready-packed thoughts to them. Even if they are irrational or illogical in nature.

The thinking process is difficult and energy-consuming intellectual work that requires considerable effort and skills. Critical comprehension of information implies a desire to comprehend information, look for an alternative opinion and critically analyze the proposed conclusions. It is much easier to consume thoughts interpreted especially for you, especially when there is no alternative to them.

Moreover, using its information battalions supported by Roskomnadzor, the Russian state carefully ensures that alternative opinions do not exist in it. For more than 20 years of Putin’s rule, Russia’s independent press has been deliberately destroyed. Endless stories about fines, threats, detentions of opposition journalists are a vivid example of this. No wonder, Novaya Gazeta, one of a few independent editions in Russia, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 before the invasion of Ukraine. At least because it exists in such wild conditions of fascist state propaganda. Propaganda that categorically does not accept any alternative thought and severely punishes for it.

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The TV channel “Dozhd (Rain)”, the online news media “Medusa (Jellyfish)”, a symbol of Russia’s independence - radio “Echo of Moscow” - these probably make a complete list of independent and alternative media that existed in Russia before the war. After the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all of them became outlawed in Russia. Their broadcasting on the territory of the Russian Federation is illegal.

The state propaganda machine in Russia explains to ordinary citizens that any media opposing the authorities are just toys in the hands of the Russian intelligentsia. The toys that are abundantly sponsored by the evil West, which tries so much to influence the consciousness of Russians, at least in this way. In addition, propaganda conveys to the population the idea that mass media other than the state ones are the way the small and insignificant intelligentsia have always been a stranger to the interests of ordinary citizens of Central Russia, Siberia, Transcaucasia or Tatarstan communicate with each other.

The Russian highest ranks as part of the propaganda machine

As in Stalin’s time, today, Putin is a tough authoritarian leader in the eyes of the top of the Russian ruling class. He is a powerful force, a punishing hand they are part of. If there is no Putin, there won’t be any of them. Therein lies the incredible similarity of Putin’s system of government with fascist Germany.

The entire Russian highest ranks seriously apply the terms “law” and “legality” in the same way as the Italian or German fascist regimes did in the 20th century. At the same time, none of the top leaders of the Russian state machine sees a problem in civilians dying at the hands of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, the Russian military raping Ukrainian women and looting. As with the fascist ideology, all these flagrant violations are justified by the highest goal of returning the world onto the “right” path. It is not for nothing that Putin uses the term “military operation” to avoid the word “war.” But from the fact that the rapist tells the victim that he does not rape her, the essence of the violence does not change.

That is why Russian Themis sees nothing criminal in the fact that the Chechen military of the Russian army, namely “Kadyrovtsy”, call directly on the air to cut off the heads of Ukrainians. Perhaps, in their opinion, calls to kill “Ukrainians” are quite legitimate. Although any third-year law student will say that they are nothing else but incitement to national, racial or religious enmity, hatred, disparagement and humiliation of the national honor. And this is an international criminal offense.

Obviously, the entire Russian elite is in the Kremlin bubble and worships Putin’s power. Don’t they see that Putin is a professional good-for-nothing bunker coward? A competent president can’t be deceived by several military fools who swore to take Kyiv in three days. Or perhaps the unrecognized Belarusian dictator Lukashenko revealed plans to Ukrainians when he showed a map of preventive strikes at a meeting in the Security and Defense Council?

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Russia’s internal formal opposition - communists, liberal democrats and other political groups that have been allowed into the parliament for many years in a row - is also part of the state propaganda machine. In all this time, the opposition has failed to offer any alternative to Putin’s decisions. Moreover, all opposition parties represented by the authorities fully supported the annexation of Crimea and the war against Ukraine.

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What Putin’s propaganda machine won’t say

To produce missiles that he launches to kill Ukraine, Putin along with his state has robbed the Russian state and cultivated poverty for 20 years. A month of the war against Ukraine has shown that considerable funds allocated for the modernization of the Russian army were stolen. Instead of Russia’s modernized armed forces, Putin was shown a Potemkin Army - an analog of Potemkin Villages, which were once shown to Russian Empress Catherine II in southern Ukraine. By the way, ironically, Count Potemkin was buried in Kherson, in the suburbs of which – Chornobayivka, the Russian army suffered significant losses at least 10 times.

Fact check on corruption in the Russian army

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-military-corruption-quagmire/

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Instead of conclusions

If instead of implementing the ideology of fascism and writing stupid articles in the Mussolini style, Putin was engaged in the development of the state, Ukraine might be looking in the opposite - Russian - direction rather than in the direction of the EU. But, unfortunately, Putin absorbed and reinterpreted the ideas of fascism, the ideological foundations of which were philosophical reflections on Moscow as Third Rome, the exclusiveness of the Russian nation and culture, as well as mental exercises about the sufferings and sacrifice of Russians for the benefit of the great Russian state.

It is shocking to watch thousands of Russians applaud Putin’s fascism and worship swastikas with the letter Z. Russians justify the highest goal of bombing Ukrainian cities, the deaths of hundreds of children and civilians. Like in the Middle Ages, they see nothing wrong with that. Like cannibals, they welcome violence against Ukrainians, just like the population of fascist Germany and Italy once approved of the extermination of Jews.

Such metamorphosis occurs when humanity does not notice fascist propaganda. A grandmother supporting the war has been fed with uncontested fascism by the Russian propaganda machine for over 20 years. She did not and could not have an available alternative opinion which makes it possible to think differently. One should agree with the Russian opposition TV journalist Alexander Nevzorov that when Russians come to their senses and awake, we will see how they will be catching propagandists and tearing them to pieces. For having been deceived and fed with fascism.

Very little time will pass, and the civilized world will understand the importance of banning the propaganda of fascism in the information world. Ukraine will definitely become the driver of this struggle. We will witness how legal norms banning the propaganda of fascism in any form will appear in international law and then in the legislation of the United States, Canada and the EU countries. Such restrictions will concern social networks and media. But it will happen later. After the victory.