Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 29 – The arrest of
three Russian spies in New York has prompted Kseniya Kirillova to ask a
question that may have been in the minds of many but that no one had earlier
posed directly: why does a government like that of Vladimir Putin which
believes in its own propaganda need spies to gather facts that might call that
propaganda into question?
The obvious answers, of course,
include Putin’s own origins in the KGB and his belief that nothing is as it
seems but is only a mask for the real powers that be and inertia: Russia like
many other countries has always spied and thus will continue to spy, however
much its leadership is blinded by its own propaganda.
But as Kirillova points out, her
question is not as naïve as it might seem on first blush. Given that spies are charged with finding
information “which could be used for the good of their own country,” what use
can they have in a country where propaganda has triumphed over facts? (nr2.com.ua/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/Zachem-Rossii-shpiony-89331.html).
As Kirillova points out, Russia in
what must be record time “has been transformed into a country of victorious
propaganda,” one in which “any event in this country is considered only from the
point of view of how it can be perverted and used for propagandistic goals and
where the idea of objective truth was irretrievably lost long ago.”
It would be one thing if the rulers
were aware that their propaganda was not
true, but what is “the most horrific thing” Kirillova suggests is that it
appears that in Russia today, Putin and his entourage “believe in their own
lies” and are no longer interested in the relationship between reality and what
they are doing.
In support of her contention,
Kirillova points to the case of Aleksandr Sytin, an analyst who was forced out
of the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies (RISI) for questioning that
Kremlin think tank’s increasingly Orthodox and imperialist positions about the
world (nr2.com.ua/publications/Kak-rossiyskie-analitiki-lobbirovali-anneksiyu-Kryma-i-voynu-na-Donbasse-88103.html).
Sytin “precisely describes all the
misconceptions, stupidities and openly unprofessional calculations of the RISI
analysts which led in the final analysis to a series of catastrophic failures
in Russian foreign policy,” Kirillova says, and the former RISI staffer says
that they were rooted in the nature of the power vertical that Putin had worked
so hard to put in place.
Many have described the way in which
Putin’s power vertical has allowed the Russian president to ensure that his
decisions will be implemented by all his subordinates, but few before Sytin
have pointed to the way in which that same vertical guarantees that he will
seldom hear any arguments that challenge his own fixed ideas.
Those close to the Kremlin leader
know what Putin wants to hear and what he doesn’t, and they will promote the
former and freeze out the latter, thus intentionally or not reinforcing any
mistaken views he has by ensuring that he is not presented with any information
that might call his views into question.
From one perspective, of course,
that is a risk in all bureaucratic hierarchies: many rise because they figure
out quickly what those above them want to hear; but when it becomes as
widespread and ramified as Sytin suggests it is in Putin’s Russia, that absence
of the feedback of facts can become a serious even fatal problem.
Russian spies like those arrested in
New York may be gathering information that could challenge the views of the
Kremlin leader but those in the hierarchy above them may make sure it never
reaches him. Or the situation may have become so serious that the spies are
seeking the wrong kind of information, themselves already victims of Putin’s
victorious propaganda.
That makes Kirillova’s question
important even if it has at present no certain answer.
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