If you get a distinct sense of déjà vu, you know your modern history. The part I have in mind is the 1933 election in Germany that brought Hitler to power.
For it wasn’t the German electorate that chose Hitler. It was Stalin, acting in the capacity of führer-maker.
The Nazis were the largest single party elected. But the Social Democrats and the Communists had more votes, put together. And together they should be, clamoured the progressives at the time. They are both parties of the Left, aren’t they? Then they have more in common with each other than either has with Hitler. A marriage made in heaven, nicht wahr?
There was a minor difference between the two parties though. The Social Democrats were a legitimate (if misguided) political institution. The Communists weren’t.
They were part of the Communist International (Comintern) run out of Moscow. Ernst Thälmann, the party’s general secretary, was Stalin’s agent, which he didn’t mind advertising by donning the Red Army uniform on his frequent visits to Russia.
And Stalin didn’t want a wishy-washy coalition led by the Social Democrats. He wanted a revanchist Germany that could smash the West and pave the way for the Red juggernaut to roll in. He wanted Hitler.
Hence Stalin forbade Thälmann from forming a coalition with the Social Democrats, whom the Soviet press routinely called “social fascists” . Thälmann complied, thereby signing his own death sentence (the Nazis murdered him in Buchenwald in 1944). Hitler came to power.
The current situation in Italy is eerily similar. The other day, Matteo Salvini’s League Party pulled out of Mario Draghi’s coalition, thus bringing his government down. The League Party was joined by two others, including Sylvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
Both Salvini and Berlusconi have been cultivated by Putin for years. I don’t know the exact nature of the relationship between Matteo and Vlad, and it may well differ in some details from the one between Thälmann and Stalin. Yet there’s no doubt that a relationship exists, and it’s more than amicable.
Italian papers report that Salvini’s decision followed immediately after a meeting between his close adviser Antonio Capuano and Oleg Kostyukov, billed as a Russian embassy ‘political officer’.
Since we’ve already established that you know your modern history, you don’t need me to tell you what that job description actually means. If some doubts still linger, then here’s a little detail omitted in our newspaper reports. Oleg’s father, Gen. Igor Kostyukov, is head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence.
Salvini has been doing Putin’s bidding for a long time. Thus in 2019, when the photograph above was taken, he acted on Vlad’s request (order?) to ban a strike at a Russian-owned Lukoil refinery in Italy.
Neither Salvini nor Berlusconi is a one-off aberration in European politics. Putin’s KGB government may be weak on economics, human rights and, by the looks of it, military strategy, but it knows how to develop the rich legacy of Stalin’s NKVD.
Ever since Putin took over in 2000, he has been systematically cultivating Western politicians, especially extremists of both Left and Right (if these terms mean anything, which they really don’t). Centrist politicians, such as Angela Merkel, were also targeted, but they had to be recruited one by one.
Extremist parties, on the other hand, could be bought wholesale, lock, stock and oil barrel. The communists under different guises certainly, but especially various fascisoid parties, such as France’s National Rally, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, Greece’s Golden Dawn, Hungary’s Jobbik, Austria’s Freedom Party, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland are all recipients of Putin’s largesse.
Various British groups are also seen as potential recruits, and they can be pernicious enough. However, the ‘first past the post’ system of British politics makes it hard for extremist parties to exert a substantial influence on political outcomes. (Unless you see, with some justification, Labour as an extremist party.)
The European system of proportional representation, by contrast, fosters governing coalitions, often made up of numerous parties. Such coalitions can be brought down by one or two parties withdrawing for whatever reason – including possible interference by a hostile foreign power.
Putin is clearly trying to create his own version of Stalin’s Comintern, a fascist International rendering European countries ungovernable and impotent to counter Russia’s imperial expansion. And Italy shows how that strategy can succeed.
The collapse of Draghi’s coalition leaves the frankly fascist Brothers of Italy (which descends from Mussolini’s Black Shirts) as the country’s biggest party. Traditionally allied with Salvini’s League Party and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, the Brothers may well lead the next coalition, with Putin a shadow partner wielding veto power.
Perhaps the party ought to be renamed the Sisters of Italy, considering that it’s led by a pretty blonde girl, Giorgia Meloni. If she becomes Italy’s first woman prime minister, I’m sure feminists will rejoice. So, more to the point, will Putin.
Used to be a lot of Italian Red Flag banner demonstrations in the days of the Cold War. Gone forever now it seems. France was the same way as I recall. The commie of time gone past just does it differently now?
Brown is the new red.