As of: April 1, 2024, 12:21 p.m
From: Foreign Policy
Comments
Press
Split
With an election based on the Soviet model, Vladimir Putin's Russia has come full circle - and the West should also draw conclusions from this.
Murder, gulag-like penal systems, the end of free media: Vladimir Putin's Russia has arrived at totalitarianism.
According to a study, Putin rules more repressively than any Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin.
The West should also draw conclusions from this clear finding, says author Adrian Karatnycky.
This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by
Foreign Policy
magazine on March 24, 2024 .
Washington, DC - In 1968, American scholar Jerome M. Gilison described Soviet elections as a "psychological curiosity" - a ritualized, performative endorsement of the regime rather than a real vote in the literal sense. These staged elections, with their almost unanimous official results, Gilison said, served to isolate dissenters and bind the people to the regime.
In mid-March the circle closed and Russia returned to Soviet practice. State election authorities reported 87 percent of Russians voted for Vladimir Putin in national elections, giving the Russian president a fifth term in office. Not only were many of the reported election results mathematically impossible, but there was no longer much of an election: all prominent opposition figures had either been murdered, imprisoned or sent into exile.
As in Soviet times, the election also tied Russians to their regime by serving as a referendum on Putin's war against Ukraine. All in all, last weekend's Soviet-style election sealed Putin's transformation of post-communist Russia into a repressive society with many of the hallmarks of Soviet totalitarianism. But Russia's return to Soviet practice goes far beyond the elections.
Study shows: Putin is the most repressive Kremlin leader since Stalin
A recent study by Russian exiled journalists at
Proekt Media
found that Russia today is more politically repressive than the Soviet Union under any leader since Joseph Stalin. Over the past six years, the study found, the Putin regime has indicted 5,613 Russians on explicitly political charges — including “discrediting the army,” “spreading misinformation,” “justifying terrorism,” and other alleged crimes on a large scale were used to punish criticism of Russia's war against Ukraine and to justify the defense of Ukrainian territory.
This figure is significantly higher than in any other six-year period of Soviet rule after 1956 - all the more stark when you consider that Russia's population is only half the size of the Soviet Union before its collapse.
In addition to the repressive criminal charges and convictions, over the past six years, more than 105,000 people have been convicted of administrative penalties that carry heavy fines and forced labor of up to 30 days without appeal. Many of these individuals were punished for participating in unauthorized demonstrations or political activities, including anti-war protests. Others have been charged with violations of COVID pandemic regulations. Such administrative penalties are imposed and enforced quickly and without time for appeal.
My news
43 mins ago
“Historic result” in the Turkish elections: Erdogan wants to withdraw after defeat read
“That touched a nerve”: Breakfast café has to close shortly after opening – due to too many guests reading
Is Florian Silbereisen really leaving the “dream ship”?: ZDF speaks plain text reading
Cannabis legalization on April 1st: This is the current status in Bayernlesen
2 hours ago
Bus boss blames Flixbus victims: “If everyone were still alive” read
2 hours ago
Mourning for the finalist of the first RTL Supertalent season: he gave Bohlen goosebumps
Putin's Russia: Persecution of dissidents skyrockets with war in Ukraine
On March 4, 2022, just over a week after the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russia's puppet parliament hastily adopted amendments to the Russian Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure that would impose criminal and administrative penalties for the vague offenses of "discrediting" the Russian Federation Russian military or the spread of “false information” about the military. This significantly expanded the state's repressive powers to prosecute political beliefs and activities.
Since the new laws were passed, persecutions have skyrocketed, which is likely to lead to a dramatic increase in the number of political prisoners in the coming years. In particular, hundreds of sentences have been handed down every year since the start of the war for “discrediting the army” or “justifying terrorism,” which includes supporting Ukraine’s right to self-defense. The latest such case: On February 27, the 70-year-old co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, Oleg Orlov, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for “discrediting” the Russian military.
The
Proekt
report comes to the ominous conclusion that “Putin has long surpassed all Soviet general secretaries in terms of repression, with one exception: Joseph Stalin.” While this conclusion is significant in itself, it is only the tip of the iceberg of the totalitarian state that Putin has gradually and systematically rebuilt.
Putin has silenced almost all critical voices in Russia
As in the years of the Soviet Union, there are no independent media in Russia today. The last of these news organizations were banned or fled the country following Putin's war on Ukraine, including
Proekt
,
Meduza
,
Echo Moskvy
, the Nobel Prize-winning
Novaya Gazeta
and
TV Dozhd
. In their place are staunchly pro-regime newspapers, social media, and television and radio stations that relentlessly spread militaristic propaganda, promote Russian imperialist greatness, and celebrate Putin as the country's infallible commander-in-chief. In another repetition of totalitarian practices, the lists of banned books were drastically expanded and thousands of titles were removed from the shelves of Russian libraries and bookstores. The bans have been extended to numerous Wikipedia pages, social media channels and websites.
Human rights activists and independent civil society leaders were detained, physically attacked, silenced or forced into exile. Civil society organizations that act independently of the state are banned as “undesirable” and subject to fines and criminal prosecution if they continue to operate. The most recent organizations of this kind include the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, Memorial, the legendary Moscow Helsinki Group and the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum.
Instead, the state finances a large number of groups loyal to the regime and pro-war. Substantial state funding is used to support youth groups that promote the Putin cult and teach children martial values in order to prepare them for military service. Added to this are the numerous murders of opposition leaders, journalists and activists at home and abroad. In this way, almost all critical voices in Russia were silenced.
Putin totalitarian control: Chechnya was the test case
Private and family life is also increasingly being regulated and persecuted by the government. The web of oppression particularly affects the LGBT community and puts many Russians in immediate danger. A 2023 court ruling classified the “international LGBT movement” as extremist and banned the rainbow flag as a banned symbol, prompting raids and arrests. Homosexuality has been classified as a disease, and Russian gay rights organizations have suspended their work for fear of prosecution. Laws reinforcing “traditional values” – including the right of husbands to discipline their wives – have led to reduced penalties and the decriminalization of some forms of domestic violence.
Many of the techniques of totalitarian control used throughout Russia today were first developed in areas where the Kremlin spread war and conflict. Chechnya was the first testing ground for widespread repression, including large numbers of victims being imprisoned, executed, disappeared, tortured and raped.
Foreign Policy Logo © ForeignPolicy.com
Combined with the merciless murder of civilians in Russia's two Chechen wars, these practices normalized wanton criminal behavior within Russia's state security structures. From this crucible of fear and intimidation, Putin forged a culture and means of governance that were further elaborated in other territories conquered by Russia and eventually came to Russia itself.
Cruelty and fear are no longer just in Russia's occupied territories
Since 2014, there has been a widespread campaign of surveillance, summary executions, arrests, torture and intimidation in Russian-occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine - consistent with Soviet practice towards conquered populations. More recently, this has included the old practice of forced political resignation: a Telegram channel with the ominous name Krim-SMERSH (a portmanteau of the Russian words for “death to spies,” coined by Stalin himself) has posted dozens of videos from of frightened Ukrainians renouncing their Ukrainian identity or wearing Ukrainian symbols. These videos were filmed in conjunction with police operations and appear to have been coordinated with state security services.
Human rights groups have documented numerous human rights violations and possible war crimes in the parts of Ukraine that have been newly occupied since 2022. These include the abduction of children, the imprisonment of Ukrainians in a system of filtration camps reminiscent of the Soviet gulags, and the systematic use of rape and torture to break the will of Ukrainians. Castrations of Ukrainian men were also carried out.
As Russian violence in Ukraine has expanded, acceptance of these atrocities in the state and in large parts of society has also increased. As in the Stalin era, the cult of cruelty and the culture of fear are today the legal and moral standards. The climate of fear that was originally used to enforce order in the occupied territories is now being applied to Russia itself. In this context, the murder of Alexei Navalny in the run-up to the presidential election was an important message from Putin to the Russian people: There is no longer an alternative to the warlike and repressive political order he has imposed, which includes the removal of Navalny.
Putin today resembles Stalin more closely than any other Soviet or Russian leader
All techniques and means of repression testify to a criminal regime that now resembles the totalitarian rule of Stalin, to which Putin now fully embraces. After Putin came to power in 1999, he often praised Stalin as a great war leader while disapproving of his cruelty and brutality. However, as Putin pivoted to war and repression, Russia systematically promoted a more positive image of Stalin. School textbooks not only celebrate his legacy, but also gloss over his reign of terror.
The number of new monuments to Stalin has increased significantly; today there are more than 100 across the country. In the state-controlled media, Russian propagandists repeatedly hammer the theme of Stalin's greatness and emphasize the similarities between his warfare and Putin's. The discussion of Stalinist terror has disappeared, as has the memory of its millions of victims. While in the 1990s only one in five Russians had a positive image of Stalin, surveys over the last five years show that this number has risen to 60 to 70 percent. By normalizing Stalin, Putin is not whitewashing the tyrant's crimes, but rather he is consciously normalizing Stalin as a justification for his own warfare and oppression.
Vladimir Putin is increasingly borrowing heavily from dictator Josef Stalin. © Montage: Imago/dpa/picture-alliance/Itar-Tass/Valery Shalifulin/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/Mikhail Metzel/fn
Putin resembles Stalin more today than any other Soviet or Russian leader. Unlike Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko and Yuri Andropov - not to mention Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin - Putin wields unchallenged power that is in no way shared or restricted by a parliament, courts or Politburo. State propaganda has created a Stalin-like personality cult that extols Putin's absolute power, his genius as a leader and his role as a brilliant war general.
It portrays him as a fearsome and all-powerful leader of a militarized nation who, like Stalin, wants to defeat a “Nazi” regime in Ukraine and restore hegemony over Eastern and Central Europe. Just as Stalin leveraged the Russian Orthodox Church to support Russian efforts in World War II, Putin has deployed Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill as a key ally and supporter of Russia's brutal war in Ukraine. And just like Stalin, Putin has made invading neighboring countries and annexing territory a central focus of the Kremlin's foreign policy.
Like Stalin, Putin lives in isolation as a bachelor - with a small circle of confidants
Putin's descent into tyranny was accompanied by his gradual isolation from the rest of society. Like the later Stalin, Putin began living an isolated life as a bachelor even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the later Stalin, Putin does not have a stable family life, which he is said to have replaced with a series of mistresses, some of whom are said to have borne him children, to whom he remains a distant figure.
Like Stalin, he stays up until the early hours of the morning, and like the Soviet dictator, Putin has gathered around him a small circle of confidants, mostly men in their 60s and 70s, with whom he has been friends for decades, including businessmen Yuri Kovalchuk and Igor Sechin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Security Chief Nikolai Patrushev.
This circle resembles Stalin's small network of cronies: security chief Lavrentiy Beria, military chief Kliment Voroshilov and Communist Party official Georgiy Malenkov. To others in leadership positions, Putin is an aloof, absolute leader who openly humiliates seemingly powerful officials like spy chief Sergei Naryshkin when he appeared to hesitate in his support of Putin's declaration of war on Ukraine.
Putin's borrowings from Stalin: The West should draw conclusions
Through his near-total control over the country's civilian life and media, his expanding campaign of repression and terror, the relentless state propaganda promoting his cult of personality, and his enormous geopolitical ambitions, Putin is consciously imitating the Stalinist rulebook, especially parts of that rulebook , which deal with the Second World War. Although Putin has nothing to do with Soviet communist ideology, he has changed Russia and its people in ways no less fundamental than Stalin's efforts to forge a new Soviet man.
Putin's massive victory in a Soviet-style election represents vindication of his brutal war, the militarization of Russian society and the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship by the Russian people. It is a good time to recognize that Russia's descent into tyranny, the mobilization of society for war, the spread of hatred of the West, and the indoctrination of the population with imperialist tropes represent far more than a threat just to Ukraine.
The transformation of Russia into a neo-Stalinist, neo-imperialist power poses a growing threat to the United States, its European allies and other states on Russia's periphery. When we recognize how profoundly Russia has changed and how much Putin is borrowing from Stalin's playbook, we can we better understand that confronting the modern Russian threat must be as consistent and committed as it was when the West faced Stalin's Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.
To the author
Adrian Karatnycky
is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, founder of the Myrmidon Group, and author of Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War with Russia, to be published by Yale University Press in June 2024.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” on March 27, 2024 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.