Red Square demonstration placards: “Putin is right!” and “I am proud of my country!”
Today Russia is extremely divided. A small percentage of democratically oriented intellectuals are violently opposed by the majority, aggressively supporting Putin’s policy.
Here is a screenshot of a post from the Facebook.
This post is obviously written by an ignorant and naïve extremist. But today this post is also extremely typical. That’s why this screenshot was copied and republished by the multitude of Russians. Here is the translation of parts of this post:
“Elena Svetlova:
“If the USA will be destroying Russia the same way as it destroyed Ukraine, then after the doom of Russia there will not be any more happiness, love, and beauty in the world. God and other planets will disconnect Russia from the channel of love and there will not be energy of love in the World anymore. All the fashion models will be as ugly as American models are. The Archangel Michael and all angels said so. God will abandon Earth and block our Galaxy from prana (“life force, cosmic energy” – Wikipedia) and happiness. Just try it, Americans! We, Russians have nothing to lose!.”
The post looks so moronic, that one can come to the conclusion that it’s a mistake to present it to the American readers. A lot of Russians though, share most of the Elena Svetlova’s beliefs. Russian Internet is crowded with similar posts. Here is another one:
“Russia had always been and now is a mighty power and the entire world is afraid of Russia. If you are ashamed of it then you are not a Russian anymore, abandon your citizenship. There are many problems in Russia, though if everybody would be helping the President then there wouldn’t be any corruption and violence in Russia… You know that there is no world war presently only thanks to Putin because everybody is afraid of Russia. Putin loves his people and his job and we must respect Russia no matter what Russia does.”
Here are some FaceBook comments on this post:
“- This post is just a comment of a sick person. To build conclusion based on it is to deceive yourself.
“- There are plenty of such comments on FaceBook. Perhaps all of their authors are sick, and it is absolutely necessary to draw conclusions from this.
“- This is a patriot’s dream, I would say. Everyone dreams of a strong and beautiful country, where the president cares about his people. Well, because of that, everyone respects their country.
“- And the fact that the entire world is afraid of this country?
“- Only those in the world who want to take the country away from us by force. Otherwise we are in love and peace with everyone in the world.
“- Well, the entire world is our enemies, their only thought is how to hurt us.
“- What a terrible world is one where we live, honestly!
“- Putin’s protection is reliable.
“- It’s good when someone feels safe. For a long time, I forgot how it was.
“- We intellectuals do not feel safe, we are psychologically broken all the time. The patriots, unyielding in their faith, are hundred times calmer than us and completely impenetrable – hence they win, while we, doubting people, endlessly reflect.
“- People do not feel safe because they are not safe!”
The beliefs of the majority of Russians are built by the state controlled TV, their only source of information.
The last post of a friend, an educated woman, brought up by her educated grandmother, was a sad confession that her beloved grandmother doesn’t want to speak with her anymore because the grandmother considers her granddaughter, who criticize Putin’s politics, a traitor of her motherland. The old woman watches Russian TV on the regular basis.
Here some quotes taken from two major and most popular Russian political TV programs:
Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, anchored by Vladimir Solovyov and Vesti nedeli (News of the Week) anchored by Dmitry Kiselyov.
Dmitry Kiselyov is the favorite journalist of Vladimir Putin. In December 2013 he was appointed by Putin to head the new official Russian government-owned international news agency Rossiya Segodnya. He also serves as deputy director of Russian state TV holding company VGTRK.
Vladimir Solovyov was awarded in the fall of 2005 the TEFI, Russian television top prize as the best interviewer. He is an author of many books.
Both Solovyev and Kiselyov were active promoters of democratic values in the beginning of their careers and both now drastically changed their beliefs, becoming aggressive propagandists of Putin’s politics.
Vladimir Solovyev
Dmitry Kiselev
Vladimir Solovyev:
“Khrushchev changed the great utopian idea of building communism to a petty-bourgeois task of catching up America with milk and meat, and this was the beginning of the degradation of the Russian elites.”
Karen Shakhnazarov (A popular film director, the head of the Mosfilm studios):
“I admire the Soviet project, it allowed to modernize the country, win the WWII and rebuild the country. It had two drawbacks: first, it demanded from people such tension that people could not stand it for a long time: twenty-thirty years – and that’s all. And secondly, for this project, a man like Stalin was needed. Stalin died and everything began to crumble. “
Dmitry Kiselev:
“Out of all his predecessors in the twentieth century by the scale of his achievements, Putin-politician is comparable only to Stalin… After Stalin, every following Kremlin leader reduced the bar of ambition, and by the turn of the millennia Russia became bleeding, demoralized and torn… As a result of Putin’s activity: the army’s fighting capacity has been restored, the nuclear balance has been confirmed, the territorial integrity has been preserved, the salaries of Russians have grown 13 times in rubles and the pensions 10 times. Russia is as free as never been in its history.”
Vladimir Soloviev (sarcastically):
“Mr. Gozman (Russian politician and president of the all-Russian public movement Union of Right Forces) said that he had never seen such beautiful, spiritual persons as in the crowd at the time of the demolition of the monument to Dzerzhinsky (the creator of KGB), it is as if the member of Taliban was talking about the beautiful faces of those who were present during the explosion of the ancient statues in Afghanistan!”
Alexander Rutskoy (the former Vice President of Russia (1991-1993), one of the heads of anti–Yeltsin opposition in 1990-s):
“Who had prevented Gorbachev from strengthening of our state, instead of this poppycock, called Perestroika? This is like in the army. If the division commander is a wretch and a scoundrel, what will happen to his division?”
Vladimir Soloviev:
“Gorbachev took the country of 260 million people, one-sixth of the Earth territory and what he did? The population now is smaller, the territory is smaller. What will history tell about this?”
Dmitry Kulikov (a known political analyst):
“The economy collapsed under Gorbachev because the communist party had self-dissolved! Because he removed from the Constitution the article establishing party ruling of the state! The Soviet project, the most advanced in the civilizational sense project, has perished!”
Alexander Rutskoy:
“Gorbachev is a political swindler who should be placed in jail, no one arrested him then, and the GKChP (anti-Gorbachev putsch) was a desperate attempt to preserve the Soviet Union.”
Alexander Prokhanov (one of the most popular writers and journalists in Russia,
editor-in-chief of Russia’s extreme right newspaper Zavtra (Tomorrow), that combines ultra-nationalist and communist views.):
“Yeltsin had created a pit in Russian history and thanks to Putin we are getting out of this hole and are going to reach the highest point in the history, which is inevitable…”
Semen Bagdasarov (a military political analyst, speaking about a Ukrainian city of Ochakov):
“Ochakov’s residents must demolish the US base in their city themselves – otherwise we will have to destroy the city together with them!.. And in general, this is our land, the Russians built everything there, and the Bolshevik traitors gave it to the Ukrainians, those Nationalistic riffraff! “
Dmitry Kulikov:
“Today is the Miner’s Day, and I congratulate my fellow countrymen in the People’s Republic of Donetsk and the People’s Republic of Lugansk (separatist’s entities), who work, fight and offer a humane, historically and culturally appropriate alternative to the bedlam in Ukraine.”
Vladimir Zhirinovsky (the head of the third biggest Russian parliamentary party):
“Ukrainians do not need any independence, they are simply used by our enemies to tear Russian lands from Russia.”
Vitaly Tretyakov (journalist, political scientist, author and presenter of the TV program “What to do? Philosophical conversations” on the TV channel “Culture”, the dean of the Higher School (Faculty) of Television of the Moscow State University, general director-editor-in-chief of the “Independent Publishing Group “NIG “, editor-in-chief of journal “Political class”, general director of the Foundation for the Promotion of Education in Journalism “Medialogiya”):
“The liberal intellectuals consider it a valor to steal from this state! They consider it a feat!”
Sergei Kurginyan (one of the most active communistic/imperialistic Russian political activists):
“You cannot simultaneously focus on the elite minority who are looking to West, and at the majority of the people. Russia is a conservative country, so we need a state cultural policy. “
Dmitry Kulikov:
“The DNR and the LNR will offer the other regions to take part in the sharing the pieces of the bankrupt and dead Ukraine.”
Andrei Sidorov (head of the department of Moscow State University, Faculty of World politics):
“There was no terrorism in the USSR in the 30s – 40s. And what’s now in Europe? What should one expect if one allows gay marriages….?”
Vladimir Zhirinovsky:
“Let Europe die, let Europe be an Islamist state, but it will not go east! We’ll burn everyone! That’s how we did on the Chinese border when the Chinese tried to cross it: two divisions were burned down with napalm!”
Oleg Morozov (Senator):
“Europe, in my opinion, is in a state of inadequate understanding of what is happening.”
Vladimir Zhirinovsky:
“We must enter these migrant enclaves with machine guns and shoot everyone, who does not obey!”
These TV speeches need no comments.
