The West Now Ultimate ‘Outside Agitator’ for Russian Officials

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 18 – One of the guilty pleasures of reading the Russian media these days is that one feels very much like the old Jew who read anti-Semitic newspapers because he liked to see how powerful he and his people really are. Ever more often, Russian officials who won’t take any responsibility for anything say the West, the ultimate “outside agitator,” is to blame.

            The latest example, the suggestion by Penza Governor Ivan Belozertsev that the US is behind the clash between Roma and Russians, is so over the top that it has prompted Aleksey Polorotov of the Daily Storm portal to collect other examples (dailystorm.ru/vlast/etnicheskie-konflikty-gey-propaganda-mysli-olbrayt-i-spaysy-v-chem-eshche-rossiyskie-politiki-obvinyali-zapad).

            Among those he cites providing full citations to the ways they blame the US for Russia’s problems:

·         Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov says that the US is behind the demonstrations in support of Ivan Golunov because it hopes to unleash “a color revolution.” His Duma colleague Vitaly Milonov completely agrees.

·         Yevgeny Berezhnykh, the Federation Council representative to Russia’s children’s ombudsman, says the US is behind tolerance courses in schools that promote homosexuality.

·         Duma deputy Vladimir Fedorov from Kursk says “agents of the State Department” were behind raising the pension age to destabilize Russia.

·         LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky says that the US is responsible “for all the misfortunes” not only of Russia but of “the entire planet Earth.”

·         Dmitry Rogozin says tha the US is behind all the problems of the Russian space program even though he also says that the Russian program is not dependent on the US.

·         Senator Elena Mizulina says that the US has penetrated the Federation Council and is behind efforts to besmirch her reputation.

·         Former Senator Aman Tuleyev says the US is behind the problems of the Kuzbass.

·         Viktor Ivanov, former head of the Russian government’s anti-drug efforts, says the US is promoting drug use in Russia.

·         Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council, says that the US wants to seize Russia’s natural resources and take over Siberia since Russia doesn’t know how to use it for the b benefit of the West.

·         Gennady Zyuganov, head of the KPRF, says that the West is behind Russia’s economic crisis.

·         And former Samara Governor Nikolay Merkushkin surpasses everyone else by insisting that the US is seeking to implement the non-existence Dulles Plan and is working to divide up Russia into 32 parts, after which the name “Russia” will no longer be recalled.

Liliya Shevtsova, a leading Russian political commentator, tells Polorotov that “Russia’s political system is genetically hostile to the West and therefore it is always easy for it to find in the West an enemy to blame. Such an approach, she says, “is a natural variant of the existence of autocratic power under conditions of a crisis and weak demands for a liberal alternative.”