Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 11 – With the help of
his propaganda machine, Putin has reduced in the minds of many Russians “the
great victory over Nazism” from one by “a coalition of victor- countries to the
actions of a single one, the USSR, then to one part of that, Russia; then to
one man, first Stalin and then his authoritarian successor, Putin” himself,
Igor Yakovenko says.
This “privatization of victory” has
offended many abroad, including Belarusian leader Lukashenka who is especially
upset by Putin’s not so implicit suggestion that other countries, the Balts and
Ukraine in particular but possibly Lukashenka’s own as well are somehow “’heirs
of nazism’” (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5AF47B3F45CE9).
To promote the link between the current
Kremlin leader and victory in a war that ended before he was born, Yakovenko
says, “the Putin illusionists in recent years have set the inauguration of
Putin on the day immediately preceding May 9. That was the case in 2012; and it
was the case in the current year, 2018, as well.”
Doing so, the Russian commentator
continues, has the effect of eliding the two events into one. But unlike
Stalin, Putin over the last 18 years has not achieved any great victory or committed
any great crime of the kind that could and would be presented in Russia as a
victory whatever his propagandists say.
Efforts “to portray the annexation of
Ukraine’s Crimea, the war in the Donbass and the participation in the genocide
of the Syrian people look unconvincing,” Yakovenko says. Trying to make
Poroshenko into Hitler simply doesn’t work.
Moreover, “the great disappointment
of television hawks, Putin clearly doesn’t intend to begin a real big power in
which millions of Russians would die,” even though that would give him “a
chance to crate a real cult.” As a
result, the commentator continues, the Kremlin propagandists have to work with
what they have at hand.
After the inauguration, the Putin
cultists promoted the new May decrees as a focus. In these, “Putin ordered the
Russian economy to become one of the give largest in the world, poverty to be
cut in half, and life expectancy of Russians to grow to 78.” Achieving these
goals is going to be tough even with the falsification opportunities the Kremlin
possesses.
One of the reasons is that Putin despite
all the efforts of those around him has a record. In 1999, he “ordered” that
Russia achieve the level of GDP per capita that Portugal, the poorest country in
“’old’ Europe” has. He didn’t manage that.
And he has called for Russia to rise to the top five more than once –
and not at any time achieved that either.
“True,” Yakovenko says with obvious
irony, “Putin has a completely new prime minister with great prospects, Dmitry
Medvedev, and also an absolutely new deputy prime minister [Vitaly] Mutko, the
man who lead Russian sports into total isolation and the greatest shame in
history. Now he has become the chief in Russia for regions and construction.”
Fortunately for Putin, there are
some in Moscow who are bringing their creative efforts to bear. Three days ago,
Oleg Matveychev said that if one includes Russia’s shadow economy in the GDP,
then Russia is already in the top five. According to Yakovenko, if one does
that, Russia may already be “in first place.”
“But possibly the best explanation
of how Russia will fulfill Putin’s May decree has been given by director Sergey
Kurginyan,” the commentator says. Kurginyan says “Rus was born by a miracle, it
has existed a millennium by a miracle … and if it continues to exist, “we will
need [another] miracle.”
Russia really does need a miracle,
Yakovenko says. “But not in economics: The most necessary miracle would be if
Russia in the foreseeable future changed those in power, and Putin and his
accomplices will be brought before a court.
History shows that for the realization of such ‘a miracle’ will be
required a great deal of effort both within the country and beyond its borders.”
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