Kremlin Continues Soviet Practice of Using Emigres to Keep Russians Divided, Kirillova Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 5 – Few governments were as obsessed about emigres as the Soviet perhaps because of its own origins. In January 1917, Lenin and a mere handful of revolutionaries were in emigration; within a year, they were in power. And the communist authorities, always worried about their stability, feared that something similar might happen again.

            As a result, the Soviet state devoted far more attention to the emigration than most countries would have, both in penetrating, manipulating and sometimes killing its members and in presenting emigres by the mere fact of their being abroad as inherent enemies of the existing order inside the country.

            The Putin regime has continued both parts of this tradition, not only seeking to geld the emigration by penetration and murder but also by presenting to the Russian people emigration, voluntary or forced as a reason alone for them not to accept anything that those living beyond the current borders of the Russian Federation are saying.

            That pattern has attracted the attention of Russian commentators Vladislav Inozemtsev who moves between Moscow and Washington and Kseniya Kirillova, a US-based Russian journalist who writes regularly about the relationship between the emigration and Russian society.

            Inozemtsev argues that by forcing Aleksey Navalny into emigration, the Kremlin has seriously reduced any chance that Russians will listen to him precisely because of the suspicions Russians have been encouraged to have about anyone of their number living abroad (echo.msk.ru/amp/blog/v_inozemcev/2748646-echo/).

            Moscow propagandists suggest and many Russians accept the idea that anyone abroad is a tool of nefarious Western governments and security services and thus an enemy who must be opposed rather than someone who is truly interested in the well-being of Russia and the Russian people.

            Kirillova agrees that this is a problem especially as assigning any individual to a category that must be despised is in the Russian case the work of the state rather than a product of social phobias arising from below. It is thus another tool of the regime to control the population – and one that must be recognized as such (svoboda.org/a/30974524.html).

            More than that, she says, attacks on emigres are intended to keep Russians divided and thus allow the powers that be to remain in charge. But once Russians can see what is going on, they are less likely to accept the regime’s attacks on their co-ethnics who for whatever reason find themselves abroad.

            Russians at home will stop viewing them as aliens but rather as unfortunates like themselves whose current residence does not say anything about the value of their ideas. That is increasingly the case, Kirillova suggests, and an additional reason if one were needed for the Kremlin to once again obsess about emigres.