Russia and the Great Forgetting

It seems that each day Vladimir Putin's influence on the far-right and far-left in Germany only grows stronger as his German fifth-column gets bigger and bigger.  Why is that?

The columnist and historian Anne Applebaum has one explanation for this.  Few Americans know as much about modern Russian history as Anne Applebaum: she won a Pulitzer Prize for her 2003 Gulag: A History, a thorough study of the system of prison camps in the former Soviet Union. In 2012 she published Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 about the Stalinist takeover of the region (see my review).

Applebaum believes that our memories of the old Soviet Union have faded, and we have failed to realize that Putin and his power-players in the Kremlin all have their roots in the Soviet system and are using the same tactics they were trained in - if for different ends today.

Her piece Russia and the Great Forgetting appeared recently in Commentary; the blogger Igor Wasilij Popolochowitsch has published a complete translation of the article - Russland und das grosse Vergessen .

Applebaum on forgetting:

In the quarter-century since the fall of Communism, we’ve forgotten what a cynical, unprincipled, authoritarian Russian regime looks like, especially one with an audacious global strategy and no qualms whatsoever about sacrificing human life. Let me say it again more clearly: Almost all of the men who currently rule Russia (and they are all men) were taught and trained by the KGB. Their teaching and training shows. Why would it not?

Applebaum on how the west is easily manipulated by the Kremlin:

Abroad, Russian-funded television, websites, and Internet troll factories make similar points in multiple languages. Russia also backs—in some cases financially, in other cases ideologically—politicians, businessmen, journalists, and “experts” who give out similar messages. They include Marine le Pen, the leader of the far right in France; Gerhard Schroeder, the former chancellor of Germany; Vaclav Klaus, the former Czech president, who is now associated with a think tank created by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Members of the Hungarian and Austrian far-right parties have traveled to Crimea to support the Russian occupation. Syriza, the far-left party in Greece, has deep links to Russia, too.

Fake research institutions, “peace movements,” fictitious political groupings, useful idiots, and agents of influence, both paid and unpaid…We’ve been here before, too.

The methods are the same, but the goal has indeed changed:

Instead of attempting to foster an international Communist revolution, the primary goal is to keep Vladimir Putin in power and make the world safe for Russian corruption, Russian oligarchs, and Russian money. Which might, in fact, prove a lot more appealing than the dictatorship of the proletariat

Comments

[Zyme]

"It seems that each day Vladimir Putin's influence on the far-right and far-left in Germany only grows stronger as his German fifth-column gets bigger and bigger."

I wouldn't consider those groups to necessarily be Putin's 5th columnists.
While Hitler surely did benefit from guys like Mussolini having themselves established long before him, he wasn't Mussolini's 5th columnist either, was he? :-)

In your criticism you sound like hardcore Russian patriots getting riled up by the activity of Western organizations in Russia.

How many of the world's leaders are engaged in think tanks associated with the USA?
How many Goethe-institutes and foundations of German political parties operate in the world?

Face it, these are all simply endeavors to further national influence in the world.
All Russia does is to prop up movements in Europe which entertain a similar political stance. There is nothing despicable about it.

[David]

Goethe Institute? It promotes German Language and Culture - not conspiracy theories like RT Deutsch and Sputnik.

And the Kremlin is a huge financial backer of Marine LePen's Front National. To me, that's despicable!

[Zyme]

A Front National winning French presidency could be a refreshing change in Europe.

I am not a fan of their socialist views, but embedded in a EU consisting out of many countries with similarly minded governments, I think such movements might very well agree to their least common denominator and make Europe strong again with a "Europeans first" attitude.

This would not be a scenario we need to be afraid of. We should always keep in mind what values those people amassing the wealth we enjoy these days in Europe adhered to. Those surely were not the values our current political class entertains today :-)