I realise that Putin’s useful idiots in the West are impervious to facts, arguments, statistics or observations. Affection for the KGB-run kleptofascist regime resides in the parts such things can’t reach.
The rest of you, however, may be amused by these assorted snippets from the chat shows on the Russian equivalent of the BBC and ITV. The shows in question are either daily or weekly, each lasting several hours.
The format is that of a panel discussion, featuring Russia’s top opinion formers: professors, university rectors, ministers, historians, politicians, philosophers, writers. This is what they’re saying, at random.
No comments are necessary, but some imagination on your part wouldn’t hurt. Just imagine what kind of opinions these opinion-formers form – and what kind of country would let them on air.
“The Soviet idea was universal and genius: the world must be just. Now, in order to defeat the US, we need an idea too. And it must resemble the Soviet one.”
“I admire the Soviet project. It made possible the modernisation of the country, victory in the war, post-war rebuilding. But it had two drawbacks. First, it demanded too much effort from the people… And then that project required a man like Stalin. Stalin died – and everything went to wrack and ruin.”
“Look at Hamlet. What does he do? Stabs his girlfriend’s father, provokes his stepfather, sends his classmates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their death. I think there Shakespeare showed the essence of the Western man. And look what happens in the world after the Soviet Union self-destructed in 1991! NATO is already in the Baltics!”
“The Poles have gone so far as to claim that the Soviet Union attacked Poland in 1939 together with Germany, thereby starting the Second World War. Why this assault on history?… It’s our own fault too: we never told the truth about Poland, not to upset a fraternal socialist country. Now we’re paying for that.”
“We didn’t have to take responsibility for Katyn. All the documents were fake there.”
“Poland was planning to join Nazi Germany in obliterating the Soviet Union.”
“The Poles never loved us as much as when our tanks were there.”
“In 1955 a black woman was arrested in America for not having offered her seat to a white man! 1955 – that’s 10 years after the victory, after Hiroshima. That’s American morality for you! Just compare it with our parents’ morality in 1955.”
“We must continue to strengthen our armed forces, to develop new weapon systems for Russia to forge ahead. Then Americans will always be nice to us everywhere.”
“If under Stalin there had been the same low economic growth rate as today, people would have been shot. We must change things.”
“During the Second World War, we and our allies set the precedent of joint fight against Nazism. But that war is still going on, and one of those allies has already developed a plan to annihilate us.”
“Americans fire even at children without warning – and believe this is perfectly normal.”
“When Americans begin to shed crocodile tears about human lives, one feels like reminding them that their own history isn’t so unequivocal either.”
“We were wrong to have voted for sanctions against North Korea. We should have at least abstained, to show somehow that we reject the policy of sanctions. Its purpose is to destroy Russia. And when Trump signed the law about the sanctions, he simply capitulated to the establishment. He should have followed Lenin’s example, who used to go against everyone – and win.”
“Spies are everywhere. The whole world is spies, druggies and prostitutes.”
“Russia can’t exist without a huge universal idea – otherwise there’s no need for her. Under the tsars it was Holy Russia… And after the revolution of course. And in 1991 we were told: ‘You’re the same as everybody.’ That’s the root of all problems.”
“We showed photos of Putin fishing – the whole West had a heart attack.”
“Let Europe perish, let it be Islamised! At least it won’t be moving eastwards! We’ll burn everybody! Like at the Chinese border, when we burned two divisions with napalm!”
“Enter those immigrant ghettos with guns and shoot everyone who disobeys! And no social benefits!”
“Americans don’t let migrants from the Middle East in. They admit Mexicans. Because a Mexican will steal and rob, but he won’t blow you up.”
“It’s possible to fight terrorism. Was there any terrorism in the Soviet Union, in the 30s and 40s? No. And what about Europe now?”
“We need absolute monarchy and strong special services!”
“The economy collapsed under Gorbachev! Because the Party self-dispersed – they removed from the Constitution the article saying the Party is the state! And the civilisationally progressive Soviet project died!”
“Pulling down the Dzerzhinsky statue was unjust. He saved five million stray children.”
“Khrushchev replaced the great idealistic notion of constructing communism with the philistine idea of catching up with America in the production of milk and meat. That’s when the degradation of the elites began.”
“Yeltsyn dug the pit. And Putinism is about getting out of the pit and moving towards guaranteed flourishing! Pan-Putinism is an odd name, but it caresses my ear!”
“Why didn’t Gorbachev, instead of this idiocy called perestroika, get down to strengthening the state? It’s like in the army. If the division commander is weak-kneed scum, what’ll happen to that division? Our country is the same way.”
Take my word for it: this sort of stuff isn’t just typical of the brainwashing fare on which the Russians subsist: they get nothing else. But then they are fortunate to have a strong leader, the kind our useful idiots wish we had (Peter Hitchens, ring your office).
You got it in one.
I’d like to think that you made them all up A.B, but, I suppose if the western press is just so leftish and crazy, then, the further left one goes it get’s even crazier!