by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker blog
Maybe it’s worked in Russia, but a military operation in Ukraine based on “denazification” has been a total public relations disaster everywhere else. Quite simply: Russia should have known that the use of the word “Nazi” totally shuts down any discussion in the West. Russia is waging a new type of military operation but they lazily or foolishly thought that “denazification” was a new enough concept to base its justification around for non-Russians — they have paid a price of total intellectual defeat so far in the battle for hearts and minds.
They could have known it was coming – I wrote about this issue just two weeks prior to the start of the Ukraine operation, in an article on France’s elections titled, France’s conservatives cry out for National Socialism – Zemmour’s response?:
“Ah, old Adolf – we can’t bring him up in the West, can we?
Many have heard of Godwin’s Law, or the rule of Nazi analogies: an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches. However, an important corollary is that whenever someone compares someone or something to Nazism – that person has lost the argument and/or the argument is summarily over.
Essentially, the world is to accept that all discussions of Western politics cannot discuss the anti-Western Liberalism ideology which was German Nazism.”
Yes, Russia should have accepted that in February. Practically nobody west of the Oder River understood what Moscow meant by “denazification”, and they still don’t after a month of Russian explanations.
Russia’s military operation has made much harder by failing to recognise the iron Western cultural reality of Godwin’s Law, and the reality that the West only associates Nazis with anti-Semitism and – not at all! – with Russophobia, despite the 20+ million Russian deaths at the hands of the Germanic Nazis.
This is how iron that law is: Political science PhD holders have responded to me with, “But… Ukraine’s president is Jewish – how can there be Nazis?” If you cannot even get Western political science PhD holders to see where you are coming from – even remotely – you have zero chance to get the average Westerner to understand you.
Thus it’s a total, ongoing public relations catastrophe.
It’s not an easy problem to fix
It’s such a huge problem I actually have to discuss it in detail in my new book on the Yellow Vests, in a chapter titled: “Where the West is stuck: The fascism of the 1930s and the ‘fascism’ of the 2020s”. The West is stuck in misunderstanding what fascism is, and in 2022 Russia has not solved this problem; they have maybe even made it worse?!
It’s not an easy problem to fix, but in April 2014 I must say that I was farther along than Russia is in 2022 – well, at least I tried to propose some solution in a column for PressTV titled, “Ukraine: The Rise of the ‘Nalis’”. I can’t find a link for it anywhere – I’d complain about how Iran’s PressTV has been so deplatformed but – thanks in part to the awful Russian public relations campaign – Russia has now become even more deplatformed than us, wow! If someone finds a link, great, but these highlights show the idea still holds up: the combination of rabid Nationalism and far-right Liberalism (in economics, politics and in anti-socialism) is still the problem in Ukraine. The column began:
“The combination of ultra-nationalists and ultra-liberals who have overthrown the Ukrainian government is indicative of a new type of political party in the region: National Liberals, or ‘Nalis’. They are to be differentiated from ‘Nazis’ – National Socialists – only by the economic ideology of liberalism (otherwise known as free-market capitalism).
…
But it is a mistake to call the protesters in Ukraine “Nazis”. Yes, at Maidan Square there was plenty of footage taken of neo-Nazis, fascists, violent anarchists and other types who showed up to a political protest in camouflage and armed with a firearm. But they are actually “Nalis” – National Liberals.
…
That’s why not all of Ukraine’s protesters should be called Nalis: There are true progressives who were calling for legal, constitutional changes to the corrupt Yanukovych government. Unfortunately, they have been outgunned by the Nalis, who have deposed a president unconstitutionally, voted to ban the Russian language and whose violent tactics have created the real possibility of civil war.
…
Many of these people are true Nalis: economic nationalists who do not even want to join the EU.
But the moneyed set of the Nalis certainly do. They want to work with the US and the EU to institute IMF-led austerity reforms. They want to reduce pensions, reduce government subsidies on things like heat, reduce wages and increase corporate protections to foster a capitalist society. All you need to do is look at their proposals and it’s clear: they want free market liberalism…but of course for the benefit of themselves and the other moneyed Nalis.
…
Two things are certain: Western politicians will back the Nalis to the hilt. Of course, always putting the best interest of the EU or US or Germany (or many others) well-before the interests of the Ukrainian people.
And two: The Western media, passionately pro-Nali and just as passionately anti-Russian and anti-Putin, will also be unquestioningly backing the Nalis until the bitter end.”
Did “Nali” catch on? No, but did Russia come up with anything better?
Are they even strenuously pushing the term “Ukrainian Civil War”, which is no longer just a “possibility” but today’s reality, in my estimation?
I understand how Russians would use “Nazism” synonymously with “Russophobia”, just I understand how Jews would use “Nazism” interchangeably with “anti-Semitism”, but clearly most Westerners do not understand the former and only the latter. Given that the “Nalis” have been around since 2014, and given that the US has used shameless Russophobia to distract from the political failures of the two mainstream parties in their 2016 election, I’m surprised that Russia couldn’t come up with a better way to express “pathological and murderous hatred towards Russia”?
“Anti-Russianism”, “Russophobic paramilitaries”, “Nalis” – somebody better come up with something better than “denazification” because it takes more than hating Russians or Jews to make a Nazi, and because “denazification” has clearly not worked. If they don’t come up with something – anything – other than “denazification” they will never explain the situation in Ukraine correctly. Take Nali, or improve upon Nali, but come up with something to increase diplomatic understanding.
However, Russia needs to not only admit they got it wrong, but they need to get at the root of why they got it wrong, and this is actually much harder for Russia.
Russians need to ask why they get – as their failed PR campaign proves – “Nazi” as wrong as the West does
It’s not really that the times have changed and “Nazi” is outdated – it’s that “Nazi” was never accurate to begin with in Ukraine, as I wrote back in 2014.
Racism or xenophobia – the hating of Russia – isn’t enough to make one a Nazi, merely a racist. Germanic Nazism had political and economic components, and to ignore them is only ignorance and only causes more ignorance. The West only associates Nazis with anti-Semitism, and that’s foolish, but some Russians think associating Nazis with anti-Russianism is a complete picture, and that is just as foolish. Incorrectly believing that it does is to totally ignore the economic factor, and the factor of political structure, and to merely make ethnic/identity politics the only factor – it is also to lay the foundation for total PR failure outside of Russia, and that cannot be denied.
The obvious difference is that Russia is on the right side of being against the “Nalis”, but… they don’t even know what that means, or what being anti-Nail implies for their society going forward – and the implications are revolutionary-big.
The Western and Russian elite leadership both misuse “Nazi” because it serves them – cui bono applies here too.
Both Russian and Western elites do not want to seriously talk about the economic/political aspects of socialism – of any variety – whatsoever. This is because post-1991 both regions’ elites began to wrongly take for granted that Socialist Democracy is a failure (China has emphatically disproven this, thankfully) and thus Russia adopted many aspects of what I term “Western Liberal Democracy”. I can list a half-dozen synonyms: liberalism, neoliberalism, ultra-liberalism, English parliamentarian oligarchy, Western democracy, Nali-ism, etc. It all comes down to the same thing: liberalism, which is the ideology that emerged after the downfall of absolute monarchy in 1789 and before the establishment of socialist democracy in 1917.
The West is fighting for Western Liberal Democracy, and thus they do not permit honest discussion and honest critiques of Western Liberal Democracy. This explains why there is no admission regarding the historical reality that Nazism and 1930s European fascism won power precisely because so many people realised that Western Liberal Democracy was nothing but awful oligarchy. Most of Russia does not understand this either – not since 1991 – and thus they are stuck between aping Western Liberal Democracy and rejecting Socialist Democracy.
Putin definitely doesn’t want to talk about socialism honestly – or even acknowledge its achievements in Russia – because socialists are not just an ideological rival but an actual political one, unlike in the West: The Communist Party is the main opposition party in Russian parliament. Clearly, Western Liberal Democracy still has plenty of detractors in Russia.
But Putin is thus at an absurd and contradictory place in his political outlook: He wants to oppose Western Liberal Democracy’s surprising counter-attack on Russia with… more Western Liberal Democracy in Russia? It’s illogical, and thus it can’t work, and here’s why:
Putin is essentially saying that he wants Russia to take the Iranian road of taking total sanctions war head-on, but… without the influence of 1917? It won’t work. In 1979 Iranian political leaders were aware of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism, and they were also aware that Western Liberal Democracy was an awful economic and political model, and as a result they nationalised the economy to a degree only surpassed by North Korea and (maybe, I contest) Cuba – that’s the only way to beat sanctions!
What Russia is proposing in response to the Western counter-attack is truly radical for them in the sense that it is a total overturning of the economic and political choices of Western Liberal Democracy, and thus of many Russian choices post-1991. I don’t think Russia realizes how radical what they are proposing to do in response to sanctions really is, and how much it requires a complete rethink in political terms and interpretations of history – is Putin willing to embrace the USSR’s political and economic past?
What’s certain is that if Russia wants true sovereignty and independence as a response to the Western sanctions war – if they want to follow the Iranian road, as I first posited here, in an article which deserves way more attention, given that Russia now has 54% more sanctions than the previously most sanctioned country, Iran — then they must realise that they cannot possibly achieve such goals via Western Liberal Democratic methods, as WLD is anti-sovereignty and pro-1%er globalist class warfare.
Yes, the EU isn’t sanctioning Russian fossil fuels, but France just announced they want no more Russian gas by 2027. The EU sanctions and what they portend are serious.
The Iranian road led to sovereignty – and maybe even an actually-signed JCPOA which would be more proof its correct choices – because Iran rests on totally different (i.e. revolutionary) economic power and political power structures than those of Western Liberal Democracy. Russia cannot defeat a sanctions campaign with Western Liberal Democratic structures – it’s a system geared to protect oligarchs, of course.
Does Russia have oligarchs? Of course, to Western Liberal Democrats west of Russia “oligarchs” only exist in Russia, never in the West – absurdly and falsely. Listening to Westerners, “oligarchs” must only be a region in Siberia, perhaps? But oligarchs are not going to help counter sanctions; they are not going to accept mass nationalisations; they are not going to accept price controls, profit limitations, central planning, etc. and etc. and etc.
If Russia continues to face off with the West a la Iran they can either have a revolution in thinking or they can fail. Western Liberal Democracy will not save them, as Russians were told in 1991.
Perhaps Putin is just bluffing about his totally anti-capitalist response to the Western sanction war? Or perhaps it’s truly a new world, with China-Russia-Iran leading the way?
But the fact that no one in the West can easily grasp Russia’s intellectual campaign for the war indicates a major problem. Russia needs to think and talk honestly about political terms, and I recommend starting with “denazification”. This will, I think, necessarily take them into bigger issues, such as how a “bring on your sanctions” stance necessarily reacquires very revolutionary (or perhaps return-to-revolutionary, for Russia) changes.
Should Russia fail to realise this, it may reveal that they are as intellectually stuck as the West: If the conflict in Ukraine is only about Russia-hating, then they have succumbed to the same identity politics worldview of the West – they have made “race” the end-all be-all of their political-economic discourse. It will be proof that they have ignored the class warfare lens, the imperialist lens and 1979’s “maybe we do need some spiritual morality in our socioeconomic policies?” lens. These are all lenses which came around between 1917-1991, which current Russian leadership has rather disavowed.
These are strong, serious ideas, but they are motivated by the catastrophic failure of the “denazification” idea outside of Russia, which seems like thus far the biggest failure in Russian planning for their military operation.
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
Well, I say, it is pretty tough to be a bona fide nazi these days. And Russians sure have a lot in common with the West here. I can tell you, my friends, it is not a good idea to be a Nazi these days in the West.
Now considering that you guys and on the other hand the Zionists here in the West sure want to end once and for all Nazism, what the hell is the reason to fight? Just sit down with the overlords here and sign a paper, where you commit all your resources wiping out even the tiniest sign of Nazism, and hey presto, you will be mainstream, and in a big way.
Of course, there is the down side. The fight against nazism is only possible with endless Gay Pride-marches and the domination of transsexual elite. But hey, what would one not do, if there is a chance to eradicate nazism?
What a hogwash! Stupid Russia loosing information war! This “information war” works only as far as west is concerned! Do you really think that the rest of the world (about two thirds) gives a damn about west information, when they are practically all designated in the same way as Russia?
This morning John Helmer reports the meeting of Zelensky and east European leaders that took place on March 15 allegedly in Kiev actually occurred in Przemysl, 95 kilometres west of Lvov (Lviv), and 20 kms inside the Polish frontier with the Ukraine. He provides extensive, convincing evidence the photo ops were faked.
http://johnhelmer.net/the-zelensky-summit-meeting-in-kiev-on-march-15-with-polish-czech-and-slovenian-prime-ministers-was-a-fake-devised-in-warsaw-the-meeting-was-at-przemysl-poland-zelensky-also/
Russia has not attempted any significant PR campaign, though I’m sure if they tried it would be terrible. Their public relations and soft power skills are terrible but they don’t seem to place any great priority on them, perhaps with the belief (correct) that money & guns matter more than hearts and minds. At least in the IR sphere, on the ground in Ukraine they are more concerned with how the people will respond to them and that is the only PR campaign that matters.
As far as the west is concerned, Russophobia has been deeply ingrained for decades if not centuries (going back even before the Crimean War. many books on the mater by people like Guy Mettan and Dominic Basulto have given it a good examination. However, in recent years this latent xenophobia has been professionally tuned by experts in GCHQ and elsewhere through things like the Integrity Initiative. Efforts to try to combat this by pleading on moral grounds would have gotten exactly nowhere and simply made Russia and Putin seem weaker as though they ‘needed’ the West’s blessing for their actions.
As it stands, intelligent analysts can see the grey in moral questions of justification and a clear basis for Russia’s realpolitik justifications. The Western ‘man on the street’ is a drone that will forget Russia alleged crimes as soon as they get bored with this narrative and the media decides it is time to return to climate change or US domestic politics as a way of keeping fickle attention on their advertising streams.
AFTER 30 years it is NO LONGER NECESSARY for Russia whether USEURAEL understands what Russia has to say or not.
Russians’ patience and hope that someone could understand their point of view is gone, NOTHING MATTERS ANYMORE, because
If one cannot listen to another, how could he then understand the other.
By the way, has the US ever bothered to be understood by those who weren’t listening – I think NO. Those who didn’t listen were bombed.
It took a full 30 years for the Russians to accept this stupid behavior in order to carry it out in their own interest.
They finally understood: Questions from educationally disabled people need answers for educationally disabled people
The ONLY way to win PR is with george floyd-level body cams of battle field atrocities committed by Ukrainians and showing Russian victory.
You can NEVER win a PR campaign waged by legacy media–especially in the “alien” language of Russian.
The west CREATED PR and they CREATED Hollywood. They are the gods of illusions.
Is this serious?
Is it some 6th or 7th column column?
Or even higher unheard one?
Denazification of uKraine is Russian goal and will be performed no matter unaware westerners think about it.
I strongly disagree with the author’s claim in this article.
It is true that the Anglo Zionist propaganda outlets are the best Liars in the world. But it does not follow that Russian claims at denazification and demilitarisation is a “disaster” as he claims. I found this article to be a waste of time..
Maria Zakharova explains it in a nutshell:
“Ukrainian Nazis who fled from fair trial 75 years ago have returned (…) via their children and with direct support from the West.”
You didn’t like my comment….
May I remind you…. my family fought the facists in both Europe and the Pacific…..
My uncle died in his chute after bailing out over Polesti….
My uncle did every Marine landing from Guadacanal to Iwo… his platoon raised the flag on Mt. Suribachi…
I served in the Vietnam War…… Remained on active reserve status the following 10 years…
My son served in both Gulf War I & II….
My relatives fought the Facists in the Carpathian Mts as partisans until they linked up with the Red Army and marched on Berlin.
I hate Nazis….. I despise Nazi sympathizers….
I apologize for nothing….
My father was instrumental in the invention of combat RADAR… served from 1940 – 1946 in the SIgnal Corps..
Was a union organizer… was pursued by Hoover… Was a Scout Master for 40 years…
His funeral cortege was miles long…
The current cabal of War Mongers led by the likes of Cruz and Romney are all draft dodgers… none have the
suaevatuties of Col Gabbard…
What Ramin did was akin to denigrating the veterans of the Iranian – Iraqi War… Same as spitting on their graves….
I apologize for nothing…..
I went into harms way…. was my duty…. then I learned the truth about US / NATO hegemony……
There is only one reply US patriots should perform…… to speak out… to stop their headlong drive to WWIII…
INDY
” Pavel Sudoplatov, who on a recent visit to the Soviet Union had been personally ordered by Joseph Stalin to assassinate Konovalets in retaliation for the assassination of a Soviet diplomat at the consulate in Lviv in 1933. […] According to Sudoplatov, Stalin had told him, “This is not just an act of revenge, although Konovalets is an agent of German fascism. Our goal is to behead the movement of UKRAINIAN FASCISM on the eve of the war and force these GANGSTERS to annihilate each other in a struggle for power.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevhen_Konovalets
Apparently Stalin played at times to be Nostradamus.
The criminal record of Ukrainian nationalism goes back, at least, to the end of World War I. These nationalists are undoubtedly a cohort of evildoers, thugs, degenerates, people of bad living, lumpenproletariat with half a neuron, etc. In essence and, to sum up, they are “Nazis”.
Very interesting article, and Ramin raises good points.
I agree that “denazification” was not a good term, mostly because in order to DE-nazify something, you first have to show that it has been nazified….And this was never done on a large scale within the Russian-funded English speaking media, prior to the invasion…
I think the strong anti- Russian narrative, which hit us all like a tidal wave, is starting to be challenged on social media… Hopefully there will be sufficient pushback to prevent the war mongerers from escalating.
In a game of lying, you can never beat a liar with a truth.
Then, it woouldn’t be a game of lying. Western made PR is a game of creating a specific narative. They have all the power to do it. Whatever Russia says, whatever it does in the informational sphere, it will never reach the needed majority in the western countries.
It’s best for Russia to just focus on winning the war on the ground. And win it at all costs, because this battle is a matter of life and death.
With respect Ramin, They know exactly what the Russians mean by Nazi. When in any western country a person uses any symbol or word associated with the Nazis there is immediate outrage. The groups such as Azoz Battalian, Pravy Sektor and Svoboda uses EXACTLY the same symbols and has portraits of Nazi collaborators such as Stefan Bandera they know EXACTLY what it means. Because it doesn’t fit with their narrative they try and suppress it. But as a friend of mine says, “All lies filter down to the truth”. And just. as the Germans during WWII believed that Germany was winning the war up until the Soviets arrived in Berlin, when Russia has eliminated all the military capability and neo-nazis in the military and basically annexed all the Russian speaking part of Ukraine and left the hard core “Ukrainians” with a stub of a state in Western Ukraine with no access to the sea, they will have the same realisation as the Germans did.
It is clear now.
The Zionists aka Globalists have, once again, achieved their goal.
Here in the West the media is hysterically provoking people to attack Russia and Russians. Our zuckerbergs even allow on their precious social medias now open hate mongering. Would you believe it? These ever so good zionists always protecting the precious “minorities” and advocating their ever so highly valued values. No, we have no values anymore, we have open war mongering and we advocate assassinations. That is the “Democracy” in the Zionist West. And you better believe me, we have not other isms anymore. You are either with the Zionists or you are an enemy of the society.
And now, I am sorry to say, my Russian friends (and I mean it), you behave exactly like us now. You follow also the music of the Zionists: The music of hate and war.
You see, there are no nazis to mention, nazis have no power, if there really are any, which I doubt. But I can tell you there is Zionism. It is all pervasive and boy, these guys look after their interests.
I tell you what will happen, if we both sides follow this road.
We, the West, will be annihilated economically, socially and even physically (mass migration from the Third World). Ukraine is destroyed, sure.
You may believe that you come out of this as a winner, and good luck with it. But I say, your economy will be ruined as well. And you know who will come to visit then? I tell you. The same guys who have crippled the West. They have all the money and they have the safe haven at Israel (with nuclear deterrence) and they will come and cripple you guys.
This is their plan. And they are winning each day while we both sides lose more and more each day. There are no winners, except the crooks who love war and famine, destruction and hate. You should know, you should remember the days when the boots came to the door at night and people vanished. It was not Russia, it was then, as now in the West, a foreign enemy. The great enemy of White People. And if you are honest with your self, you know who I mean. They are happy now, they live their Dream. This is their Supremacy.
Hi!
I would suggest to differentiate between (i) extreme nationalists which do not hesitate to use terror and crime instruments against their national enemies (slavic people), (ii) corrupt Neo-Liberals (in an globalistic and oligopolistic market driven sense), who make use of national extremists for their own corrupt financial interests and (iii) Neo-Liberals (in a pure non-economical political sense for freedom and self-determination of people) who are more or less no players in the Ukraine. “Nalis” as a homogeny group, does not exist in the Ukraine, from my point of view. Even in the US we call them neo-cons(GOP) and neo-liberals (Dems). best, tom
and by the way: there is a serious difference inbetween a socialist and a social driven market economy. The first one rules die market by parties, the second one drives the economy in a way that there is no desperate inbalance of weath between individuals and the outcome of GDP growth is “balanced” and the economic power of individuals are limited and controlled as well as the competition within most important markets is retained and secured, but is still able to survive against the truely neo-liberals and globalists.
Maybe National Nellie’s? Nanos, for short.
“We must dedicate ourselves to destroying the nannies”
Why would the Russians give a damn at all about the PR reception in the West of their Denazification intent in Ukraine? The Russian operation in Ukraine really is about Denazification and Russia is not looking for validation from the West. That is neither here nor there and is irrelevant.
Indeed, after this operation is over, Russia will still want answers from NATO about those missile batteries in Romania and Poland, and about NATO bases in Europe East of the German border as of 1997. Russia still wants them removed, and it is not up for discussion .. or else.
Remember, Russia has used only a fraction of it’s military capabilities in Ukraine. Those bases will definitely become targets for Mr Zircon very soon when he comes knocking at 11000kms per hour. If NATO thinks Ukraine is a problem, they ain’t seen nothing yet. Russia is ready for war, is NATO? I doubt it.
I think that despite winning the war and subjugating Ukraine, Russia needs to access the socialist system to get away from corruption and establish a true government of the people and for the people. It is not enough to improve the economy, it is necessary to apply keys and locks so that neoliberalism does not take over the nation’s resources. I have opened my eyes thanks to this text by Ramin. Thanks.
The article makes some very interesting points, and I have been surprised, and amused, by the strong reaction and general rejection in the comments to it, specially in regard to the PR part. The term “Nazi” has been so overused and applied to everyone, and everything i.e. Trump’s supporters are nazis, that any discussion involving the term tends to quickly degrade and become futile, at least in the West, that is. I agree with Ramin that a new way to have the West understand is needed.
Some say ignore the West, it is a lost cause. Ignore them at your own peril, because then we might just be locked into the road of eventual thermonuclear war.
Many readers have a confirmation bias, this article is neither saying Russia is winning, or Russia will prevail in the end. Russia needs to solve her contradictions, avoid the identity politics trap, and still many things that need doing. Is it just nazi=rabid russophobic, or does the term imply anything else? How can you go full resistance mode against sanctions with a financial liberal system and oligarchs still in place? Rather than smearing those warnings, those readers ought to pay heed to them.
I don’t know about “Nazis”. The few members of the NSDAP still alive should be close to 100 years old. Same goes for the members of the various non-German auxiliary SS units. Not every nationalist or even ultra-nationalist is a Nazi. Even if the like to play around with those stylish emblems and symbols. Anyway. With fascism it’s a different story. The West is so deeply fascist that it’s no wonder they don’t find anything offensive about Ukrainian fascism.
‘despite the 20+ million Russian deaths at the hands of the Germanic Nazis.’ How many Ukranian deaths at the hands of the Germanic Nazis?
I strongly aggree with Ramin’s second argument (Russia should embrace communism, not to be confused with a burocratic despotism and corruption), but strongly disaggre with his first argument (Russia’s denazification PR was wrong).
First, I haven’t seen it as PR, but showing a simple fact, calling a spade a spade. Now, no matter what Russia has said about the situation, the West and many of its “intellectuals” wouldn’t believe Russia. Zelensky is Jewish, so how come?… Well, Nuland is (half) Jewish as well. Neo-Nazism with Ukranian characteristics can be explained and understood. Nazi narrative is right, because it is the truth, historically as well.
Some disjointed thoughts:
– The PR war in the West, as unwinnable as it may seem, is not inconsequential, as it is the West that may yet start an open war against Russia.
– Having said that, Russia ought to do more to pick a few low-hanging fruits that the PR war offers to her. Sooner or later many will find their way to alternative sources of information regardless of the propaganda if only out of curiosity. Russia can use this to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the brainwashed. Obvious fakes that are being put out by the propaganda machine are the most low-hanging fruit in this regard. Outlets like RT and Sputnik ought to pin SMO FAQs on their home pages that contain rebuttals to such fakes like the one with the ship that the Ukrainians claimed to have sunk.
– Conducting the SMO under the flag of denazification is not purely conterproductive. It kills at least two birds with one stone, maybe three. The fact that it makes Russians get behind the SMO has already been mentioned. That’s what is most important. Then it also makes inhabitants of Zone B get behind the SMO since there is nothing that is more associated with white supremacy and colonalialism than just nazism, and the nazism in Ukraine is undeniable to everyone with eyes to see except Westerners. Putin speaking of the empire of lies has driven the point home even more.
– The West, in response, has entered a state of nervous brakedown and extreme cognitive dissonance: Protesting Canadian truckers are effectively called nazi; Real Ukrainian nazis are portrayed as paragons of democracy. Putin is taking a gamble here, but if Russia wins then the extreme dissonance may get resolved by the West’s disintegration. Over the short term, the West has gone berserk. Having gone berserk, as intimidating as it may appear, is never advantegeous to oneself. It leads to rash decisions that are self-harming and can more easily be foreseen as compared to the actions of a cool-headed person. The kitchen sink sanctions meted out by the Europeans already prove it. Note that berserkers of the Viking era were used as tools; They were never in the lead.
– Cynical as it sounds, the hysteria in the West has the effect of the West being unable to close its borders to Ukrainian refugees. Not only that, Ukrainian refugees are being offered every possible perk including accommodations in private households. This creates a suction effect on Ukraine that empties it of possible opposition once Russia has won the war.
– Godwin’s law does not apply anymore anyways. Nowadays, every opposition to liberalism is immediately branded nazi, and it does not mean that the other side has lost – see the Canadian truckers. But nobody is calling Putin or the Russians nazi, so that has already been achieved.
Sorry, but I totally disagree. On the contrary of an “intellectual defeat”, by carrying out an operation of denazification of Ukraine, Russia has played a great blow because it has made the masks of the Westerners and even of the Jews who have bored us for decades with their history of Holocaust and anti-Semitism. Have you seen a single reaction from the Jewish communities against these Nazis from Ukraine? I haven’t either.
Today, all these people are siding with Bandera’s supporters who go out in the streets of Kiev with torches, Nazi flags and singing songs of the old Hitlerian National Socialism. Without the already victorious Russian operation of denazification of these militias financed and supported by the “democratic” West, the impostors would continue to exist in the shadow of hypocritical speeches, as they have always hidden themselves.
I agree inasmuch as the Ukraine has, once more, a Jewish President and therefore you cannot use the word Nazi or Fascist in a Western context because of the anti-Jewish associations of those words. Why not be frank and use the word satanist? Because that is what these people who have been committing the genocide of the Russian people for eight years + are.
People who are rational understand what denazification is. People who are irrational cannot be reasoned with. There is nothing Russia can say that will sway the Western herd because it is incapable of critical thinking. And for all we know Putin is in bed with Klaus Schwab just like every other world leader is. Now that COVID has run out of gas, the ruling elite are turning back to their old modus operandi, war. Yes, a return to normalcy, and not a moment too soon…
“…They want to reduce pensions, reduce government subsidies on things like heat, reduce wages and increase corporate protections to foster a capitalist society. All you need to do is look at their proposals and it’s clear: they want free market liberalism…”
You do not understand what Capitalism is. I say this not as an insult. Most people who say that they are pro-Capitalist do not know what Capitalism really is.
All Capitalism means is that a person is able to buy for a dollar, sell for two, and keep what they have earned by their own efforts. That is all Capitalist Economics is.
It is not connected to any Political or Moral system.
If you adopt a Capitalist economic model – it is presumed that you would have a solid cultural foundation in place to check against moral depredation. (Force, Fraud, and Theft.)
In short: Capitalism is an economic system for a more or less righteous people.
(And it matters not if the righteous people are ruled by a monarch, or a President.)
Whereas Socialism is always put forward as a moral, political, and economic system all rolled into one.
Corporate protections are not capitalist. They are morally repugnant protections for oligarchs looking to suppress competition of market forces, and enhance their own power and influence. Just ask any Economist of the Austrian school (https://mises.org/what-austrian-economics). The greed, corruption, and political machinations many lay at the feet of “Capitalism” are simply the general moral human failings of Elites with power.
They are just as prevalent, if not more so, in every other economic system.
“…to wrongly take for granted that Socialist Democracy is a failure (China has emphatically disproven this, thankfully)…”
They have done nothing of the sort. China has made empty cities. They cannot feed themselves. They are the road to going just as bankrupt as bad as the US.
Every country that has pensions and universal healthcare is slowly bankrupting themselves. “Social Democracy” is an illusion. But it is an illusion that people like the idea of, and one that can be kept up for a very long time. The USSR was able to keep up the illusion of Communist Socialism for roughly 70 years before it collapsed in on itself. Social Democracies await a similar fate.
Now it is true that modern “Western Liberal Democracy” is an absolute joke. As the post 1913 US has gotten more secular and progressive, passing laws and creating institutions that favor only the Elites; it has lost its moral foundations, and become a country of oligarchs and cabals all vying for power.
There is an old saying: play the ball and not the man.
That is the reason of Godwin’s law: once you start calling people names that suggests that you are out of real arguments.
That is also the reason why Russia calling for “denazification” doesn’t work. It make sense for people who know something about Ukrainian politics. But for many other people it sounds like Russia just wants to get rid of people it doesn’t like.
Russia would have done better to constrict itself to factual demands.
A fascinating article. Two interesting take away from the article. One, Russia PR to win hearts and minds in the West. Those who claim that Russia is doomed in PR no matter what it does are correct in my opinion. There is a deliberate and consistent determination to demonize Russia regardless of facts or sense. This has been the case for decades. It doesn’t matter what says or doesn’t say or how it say it; the Western establishment and their truly powerful legacy media will trash it, misinterpret it, ignore it or just erase it as if it never existed.
Second point is really interesting. And i would agree with the author. That Putin seek to fight and win sanctions war but without change of political/economic ideology; just persists with liberalism. I think economists Michael Hudson and PCR have been making this point but more eloquently. How does Russia nationalize without accompanying political ideology so as to convince its people of correctness of such measures? How does Russia Central Bank change its west-leaning policies without substantially altering its philosophy?
Excellent article. . The Nazis term is overused in the west. These days it is just a name you are called for saying no to the globohomo-cultural agenda. What many western populists, who tend to be to some extent sympathetic to Russia, hear is the lefty-woke vitriol now being adopted by Russia. Call the Azov and their ilk terrorists. Say they have been sponsored in part by the US and the oligarchs. Tell the horrors that the Donbass ethnic Russians have endured at the hands of these terrorists for the past 8 years or so. Finally repeat over and over about those horrendous biolabs. We wrong thinkers on both the left and right are certainly talking about them. Guess what? Biolab discussions now makes us even bigger Nazis then we were before.
Russia should have made a Disney movie about Ukraine war, that’s how it would penetrate the minds of the Western audience. I’m serious—someone called Ray Dalio just made an animated video about The New World Order two weeks ago, and it racked up 6.4 million views (remarkable for such a boring subject, not involving women’s objectified bodies, or aliens. Iraqis should be so lucky as to get the same kind of attention!). Most of the animated video’s commenters are showering idolizing praise for the animator for his “hard work”. Lesson: You animate something really well and through that convince them that black is white and white is green, and they would believe you and cheer you for telling the truth.
Sadly this comment section here is demoralizingly dismissive of the power of labels, concepts etc. Most commenters think it’s irrelevant. No… Not only must you win the war, but you must also be SEEN to win the war. PR is not the optical illusion during a war, in today’s world it is the ocular equivalent of a firing a nuclear missile. Actually, half the terror of a nuke IS its visual component, the mushroom cloud, as much as the terrifying kill figure.
As for Ramin’s point: good argument, but NaLis won’t cut it. Not least because populism has screwed up old concepts: left, right, liberal, conservative do not mean now what they meant 30 years ago. The ONLY thing you’re allowed to fight without raising eyebrows is terrorism. And terrorism is after all using violence to grab attention to make a political point. This is not a case of “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, because by identifying a KKK-like org as terrorist, you are actually expanding the existing meaning of terrorism and in fact restoring it to its pre-9/11 meaning, where it wasn’t identified with the Middle East alone but also with LTTE, the IRA, and all other terrorist actors globally.
I call bullshit.
“Neo-Nazis” are “Nazis”. Period. End of story. They are not “Nationalist Liberals.”
Who the hell says Russia cares about winning a PR war in the West over whether the term “Nazis” is semantically correct?
What Russia is interested in is eliminating anti-Russian fanatics in the Ukraine government and getting a Ukraine government which is either neutral or pro-Russian, thus enabling Russia to produce a Ukraine which is not a threat to Russia or which even may allow Russia to stage strategic weapons in Ukraine to counter the US weapons in Eastern Europe.
The emphasis of this article strikes me as a major case of “concern trolling.” This is not a PR exercise.
Beyond that, the entire business about Russia convincing the West about its economic concepts is on a par with that. Russia doesn’t have to convince the West about anything. Russia and its allies – and many of the rest of the countries in the world – already understand what Russia is doing. They don’t need to be convinced and attempting to convince the West of anything is a fool’s errand.
The article acknowledges that no one in the West understands the issue of the rise of Nazism – probably because a considerably number of people in the West already embrace Nazism in function if not in ideology. So why does the article suggest that Russia needs to engage in a waste of time convincing the West of its economic ideology?
This article is entirely off track in my opinion. YMMV.
Great article, because this dispute is going to go on and on.
As if on cue, the New York Times lead editorial is:
Why Vladimir Putin Invokes Nazis to Justify His Invasion of Ukraine
With garbage like, “Ukrainians say that the horrors of Russia’s invasion show that if any country needs to be denazified, it is Russia.”
The author is right – there is total propaganda war about “Nazi”. We need to figure it out, because it’s not going away.
How can that possibly matter when Western media is nothing but propaganda? Anyone who takes these outlets seriously is not playing with a full deck of cards.
Even if Russia had said they were going in to demilitarize Ukraine, the response would be that the invasion proves that militarization was necessary.
Dear Ramin:
Using words “Nazi” or “Fascist” is deeper in Russian culture than you may think.
The words Russia speaks are already earned during “The Great Patriotic War”, this cannot be changed by academics, woke philosophers, or illiterate public.
Denazification means means fight with the unhuman ideology of the creature which puts a rope on our head and destroys us.
Fascism does not start and does not mean dictators and marching with swastika through the street. Not at all. Fascism is an ability of the individual to build own happiness based on unhappiness of
other people. That’s the root. Exactly the same as for zionism and racism.
“Ordinary fascism” 1965 movie reflects Russian beliefs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLR3g6E2pZA
You may even see the title of this movie is mutilated in this Western Youtube.
Look there while all Russian movies and this blog are not completely wiped out behind the Great American Wall.
PS:
What do Russians think of the war in Ukraine?
https://abcnews.go.com/International/video/russians-war-ukraine-83236907
(Let me know if this interview already censored out. I have a copy.)
The word “denazification” already makes its path into the West. This ABC News lady omitted it. But the brave journalist did not. Perhaps not enough brave, though, to show interview with the real people and suggesting they are brainwashed.
Nick Name the NAZI’s “The Death Eaters” and a whole generation of Harry Potter fans will understand.
I spied in Ishchenko’s recent article “Restoration of National Unity” on Ukraina.Ru . If in Western terminology Nazism is when Jews are oppressed, then maybe the term tribalism would be appropriate to describe Ukrainian rural banderism?