Putin and Ur-Fascism
Russia and Ukraine
Good news:
Russian invasion of stalled on all fronts.
Survey: 86.6 percent of Russians support the armed invasion of other European countries. 75.5 percent believe that it should be Poland. (The polling method is not perfect.)
Nicolas Tenzer interviews Sviatlana Tsihanouskaya, the president of the Belarusian government in exile:
Only a military defeat in Ukraine can stop Putin.
By Alexander Skobov, historian, former Soviet political prisoner. (French)
… I address all public figures in exile and in Russia with authority and influence. I propose to compile and sign a collective appeal to the leaders of Western countries, which, in one way or another, would reflect the following theses.
Putin does not only want to bring Ukraine to its knees. He wants to bring the entire civilized world to its knees. He wants to impose a “new world order” without legal restrictions on the use of violence. Based on the diktat and arbitrariness of the predator. In this world, freedom and security will not be guaranteed for anyone.
It is a “world order” similar to the one Hitler had tried to impose. And Putin’s threat to human civilization is at least as great as Hitler posed.
Just as Hitler could not be stopped by appeasement, concessions and compromises, Putin cannot be stopped. Diplomacy, exhortations, calls for peace are useless here. Putin will relentlessly pursue his goal, and attempts by NATO countries to avoid a direct military confrontation with him at all costs will only increase his appetite and “raise the bidding price” toward a new escalation.
If the free world stands idly by while a Ukraine, drained of blood, fights alone for its freedom, security and well being, it will mean the moral and political collapse of the Western community and the establishment of Putin’s “new world order.” In addition, the bloodbath underway in the heart of Europe will lead NATO countries into direct conflict, sooner or later, but under much worse conditions than today.
Today, only a military defeat in Ukraine can stop Putin. He can be stopped by unacceptable losses in Ukraine on the battlefields. We call on the leaders of the free world to:
Move from a policy of sanctions to a policy of complete economic blockade of Russia;
Establish a complete diplomatic blockade of Russia and refuse to negotiate with Putin in any way;
Explicitly call Putin a new Hitler, recalling that the current Western community comes from the anti-Hitler coalition;
Immediately provide Ukraine with large-scale assistance in the form of weapons, modern air defense systems, fighter planes and volunteers;
If these measures are not sufficient, declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
We have the might to put you in your place, Russia warns United States. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees. (This is actually what the FSB songbird predicted they’d say, more or less.)
The 7th letter of the man who claims to be an FSB songbird. (I wonder who’s behind this? The odds that it’s real are tiny. Is it FSB disinformation? Ukrainian disinformation? Might the author be someone in Russia—a journalist, say, or an ordinary citizen—who thought his opinions would be taken more seriously if he claimed to be an FSB analyst?)
Ukrainians race to save cultural heritage. Many believe destruction of cultural assets is part of Kremlin strategy to erase Ukraine as independent sovereign state.
Why haven’t Russian cyber-dogs barked? The notable absence of cyber options employed so far puzzles security experts.
Pentagon dials up size, scope of Ukrainian military aid. The package includes so-called Kamikaze drones.
A prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater, Olga Smirnova, has left for the National Ballet of the Netherlands. “I never thought I would be ashamed of Russia,” she said. “I was always proud of talented Russian people, our cultural and sports achievements. But now there is a line to before and after.” (Russian)
Mayor of Melitopol released after abduction. He was exchanged for nine Russian prisoners. (Russian)
A Ukrainian town deals Russia one of the war’s most decisive routs. How a small Ukrainian town routed a Russian battalion tactical group. “The Russians had orders to come in, seize, and await further instructions. They had no orders for what to do if defeated. That, they didn’t plan for.”
Orbán treads fine line as Hungarian opinion swings against Russia. “During the first five days of the war, the [state news] agency referred to a “Russian military operation” (orosz hadművelet) 431 times ….. Only after criticism, did MTI begin to use the word “war” in its coverage.”
Wow—
Putin, yesterday:
I agree with the translator: You have all the elements of fascism here, including every key to how it emerges, psychologically, socially, and politically.
In this famous essay, written in 1995, Umberto Eco describes what he calls Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism.
These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.
Here’s his list, highly abridged, with my emphasis added. That speech ticks every box.
…. the cult of tradition.
… the rejection of modernism. … The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
… the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as “degenerate intellectuals,” “eggheads,” “effete snobs” …
No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism. …
… The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. …
…. at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the US, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's The New World Order, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others.
The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. .... However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy.
… life is lived for struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is bad because life is permanent warfare. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. …
…. the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. …
…. the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.
Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
… For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. …. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
How will this come to pass, you ask? I don’t know. But until it does, Russia will be a danger to the world. And it’s not just Putin. It is Russia. Relations can never again be normalized until the plan above has been carried out. This could be generations: We need to settle in for the long haul.
Europe must have permanent garrisons on its Eastern Front. Everyone in Europe must grasp that there’s a serious chance that America will re-elect Trump, or someone running on his platform, in 2024. Europe must be prepared, if necessary, to face Russia alone.
Asia
The curious case of the accidental Indian missile launch:
“[E]ven grading on a curve, India’s inadvertent launch stands out. While deadly military accidents were disturbingly common during the Cold War, last week’s episode may be the first inadvertent launch of a cruise or ballistic missile by one nuclear power unto the territory of another nuclear power. …
“Things that have never happened before happen all the time in history,” Sagan observed three decades ago. Inadvertent cruise-missile launches on nuclear opponents are now definitively no longer on that “never happened before” list. We will be lucky if the next surprise is similarly inconsequential.
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