Stalinism and Putinism

Introduction

History repeats itself

When the late Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny was regularly subjected to one show trial after another, the situation in the Russian Federation was often compared to the dark times of the Stalin regime, which Mikhail Bulgakov suffered greatly from and to which he responded by writing, among other works, The Master and Margarita. On 20 July 2013, this even prompted Denis MacShane, the former UK Minister for European Affairs, to say: «Where are you» Mikhail Bulgakov when we need you?».

Denis MacShane

MacShane's lament was not far-fetched. Since the then Russian president Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin (1931-2007) resigned on December 31, 1999 and his successor Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (°1952) came to power, many customs of Stalin's regime have not only been revived, but have also been perfected.

KGB agent Vladimir Putin

New propaganda tools

Under Vladimir Putin, a personality cult based on ultra-nationalist sentiments was created by the regime, with all its stereotypical features: an enemy image of «foreign agents» which was even given a legal definition, the «dehumanisation» of dissidents or even an entire population such as the Ukrainians, the glorification of the so-called «achievements» of the regime, and so on.

Potential dissenting voices were skillfully eliminated. All Russian television and radio stations were brought under Kremlin control since Vladimir Putin took office, as were all newspapers and other news media.

In order to influence social media, troll factories were set up from which thousands of messages are posted daily on all possible social media at home and abroad.

Soviet-era youth movements such as the Pioneers and the Komsomol were revived with the creation of Идущие вместе [Idushchie vmyezhe] or Walking Together, later followed by Наши [Nashi] or Ours in March 2005 and Мишки [Mishki] or The Little Bears in December 2007. From an early age, children are brainwashed to show unconditional love for the person of Vladimir Putin, and they are also called upon for demonstrations such as happened during the infamous elections of 2012.

Walking Together

Stricter censorship

Despite the fact that Article 29, paragraph 5 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation prohibits any form of censorship, publications are banned and the freedom to disseminate information is severely restricted by the government, public organisations and groups of citizens who feel offended and organise their own defense - whether or not influenced or incited by front men on behalf of the Kremlin or local governments.

Every Friday, the Kremlin holds meetings with the main media outlets to announce guidelines on what can be published and how it should be. One of the main pillars of censorship is the информационных технологий (Роскомнадзор) or the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor), founded on December 3, 2008.

Show Trials

Show trials were reintroduced under Putin. Opponents of the regime, if they pose a threat, are accused again of unproven crimes, usually in the area of ​​so-called white-collar crime (corruption, embezzlement, etc.) - for which it is quite easy to fabricate "evidence". If the regime believes that at the end of the prison sentence the person concerned may still pose a threat, new charges are simply invented and new sentences are imposed. Not infrequently, a convict dies in custody. Well-known victims of this practice were Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza

Vladimir Kara-Murza

Ook andere oude Sovjet-praktijken werden uit de kast gehaald. In haar boek Poetins Rusland, voor het eerst gepubliceerd in het Verenigd Koninkrijk in 2004, onthulde de journaliste Anna Politkovskaja dat de Kamera, het beruchte KGB-laboratorium nr. 12, dat gespecialiseerd was in het prepareren van allerhande soorten vergif, en dat door president Boris Nikolajevitsj Jeltsin (1931-2007) was gesloten, opnieuw in gebruik was genomen. Other old Soviet practices were also re-introduced. In her book Putin's Russia, first published in the UK in 2004, journalist Anna Politkovskaya revealed that the Kamera, the notorious KGB laboratory No. 12, which specialised in preparing all kinds of poisons and which had been closed by President Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin (1931-2007), had been reactivated.

Political Muders

Many opponents of Vladimir Putin's regime were never brought to justice, but were immediately eliminated. Journalists who wrote critical articles about the regime in particular are often brutally murdered. No less than 144 journalists were killed between 1999, the year Putin first became president, and 2014. The most famous among them was undoubtedly the aforementioned Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot, not coincidentally, on October 7, 2006, Vladimir Putin's birthday

Anna Politkovskaya

means regularly used by the regime to eliminate opponents is poisoning with radioactive polonium-210 or with Novichok, one of the deadliest nerve agents. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, many opponents of the war have also been killed by a fatal fall from a window. In 2022, the first year of the war, 35 influential Russians were killed in dubious circumstances. Among them are oligarchs, high-ranking officials and politicians.

 

Stalinism and Putinism This section of our website provides a detailed picture of the many similarities between Vladimir Putin's regime and the period of the Great Terror under Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. We show the unlimited means of propaganda, the far-reaching censorship measures, the pattern of political show trials and the cases of political murders for which evidence was provided. All facts on which our findings and conclusions are based were supported by our own observations or by third-party testimonies that were confirmed by at least two independent sources..