A colleague whose research has to do with the development of European Fascism said, “There are just two more steps Russia has to make before it becomes a fully Fascist state.”
I studied Fascism but not as profoundly as my colleague, so I asked, “What are the steps?”
“The first one is the collective and massive militarization of regular people.”
“That part of the journey to Fascism has already been traveled,” I said. “Putin recently brought back the GTO norms. They had been created by Stalin in preparation for WWII. Now Putin says they are part of the Russian cultural traditions and brings them back. What’s the second step?”
“People have to accept this militarization enthusiastically and joyfully. This must become a massive, collective ritual everybody engages in with enthusiasm and glee. Have you seen the footage of Stalin-era Red Square parades with gymnasts and all kinds of half-naked athletes? The moment this comes back, we’ll know that Russia has become Fascist.”
This entire time I was betting on the Russian-speakers’ notorious and usually very obnoxious cynicism. After the decades of Soviet propaganda, our people developed a knee-jerk reaction of boredom, contempt and disgust towards anything that even remotely smacks of ideology or even just simply ideas. If they manage to hold on to that skill of distancing themselves emotionally from propaganda, there is hope. But I’m afraid the current wave of ideological conditioning is too strong and the message that is being peddled is too seductive.
Clarissa's Blog 
// People have to accept this militarization enthusiastically and joyfully. This must become a massive, collective ritual everybody engages in with enthusiasm and glee
Wouldn’t a large minority be enough? Even in Nazi Germany, many weren’t in the party, after all.
Today read:
http://yoshke.livejournal.com/865066.html
— некоторые знакомые не здороваются, даже на другую сторону улицы переходят. В магазинах смотрят косo —
Re Zionists, ironically real Zionists are in Israel, not in US or former USSR.
Btw, this Jew hater killed a man and a 14-year-old, who even weren’t Jews. as he supposed.
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// our people developed a knee-jerk reaction of boredom, contempt and disgust towards anything that even remotely smacks of ideology or even just simply ideas
I think many of both the old and the new generation got tired of cynicism. Wanting an ideology (whether nationalism or something more universal, like “workers of the world – unite!”) is part of human nature. Thus, cynicism may be compared to living on junk food, instead of on “Home for the Jewish people after 2000 years” or “America = freedom + greatness”.
People want ideas and a sense of the genuine something. Unfortunately, Putin won’t choose to put in the place of “something” anything approved by the West or by Russia’s neighbors.
You know that tonight, in a few hours in Israel there is a Seder night. I will hear neighbors singing Pesah songs while reading Hagada of Pesach (“What has changed tonight?”) and clinking of forks and spoons. 🙂
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“You know that tonight, in a few hours in Israel there is a Seder night. I will hear neighbors singing Pesah songs while reading Hagada of Pesach (“What has changed tonight?”) and clinking of forks and spoons.”
– I know what you mean.
Have fun!
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“I think many of both the old and the new generation got tired of cynicism. ”
– Now they had to do this? It would have so helped if the cynicism wasn’t there in the 80s and the 90s. Or even in 2011 when there were street protests in Moscow. But they choose to wake up now??
Idiots.
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I guess I was drawing away too many resources from the left, who were trying to remediate me and make me a better person to the point that they couldn’t focus on any militarisation or madness arising in the present.
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I’m sure nobody is blaming you for this. 🙂
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I’m not sure that even I find my own joke funny any more. It is losing its charm. On a positive note, I named my Wi Fi network, Buttick, as a disincentive for anyone to try to steal my broadband.
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I almost want to say that Dugin who seems to be the intellectual Godfather of the movement to annex chunks of Ukraine is far too crazy to be a fascist.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/02/alexander-dugin-the-crazy-ideologue-of-the-new-russian-empire.html
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What about the following defenition of fascism by Борис Стругацкий in 1995?
А, между тем, фашизм – это просто. Более того, фашизм – это очень просто! Фашизм есть диктатура националистов. Соответственно, фашист – это человек, исповедующий (и проповедующий) превосходство одной нации над другими и при этом – активный поборник «железной руки», «дисциплины-порядка», «ежовых рукавиц» и прочих прелестей тоталитаризма.
И все. Больше ничего в основе фашизма нет. Диктатура плюс национализм. Тоталитарное правление одной нации. А все остальное – тайная полиция, лагеря, костры из книг, война – прорастает из этого ядовитого зерна, как смерть из раковой клетки.
Возможна железная диктатура со всеми ее гробовыми прелестями – скажем, диктатура Стресснера в Парагвае или диктатура Сталина в СССР, – но поскольку тотальной идеей этой диктатуры не является идея национальная (расовая) – это уже не фашизм. Возможно государство, опирающееся на национальную идею, – скажем, Израиль, – но если отсутствует диктатура («железная рука», подавление демократических свобод, всевластье тайной полиции) – это уже не фашизм.
[…]
Только, ради Бога, не путайте национализм с патриотизмом! Патриотизм – это любовь к своему народу, а национализм – неприязнь к чужому. Патриот прекрасно знает, что не бывает плохих и хороших народов – бывают лишь плохие и хорошие люди. Националист же всегда мыслит категориями «свои-чужие», «наши-ненаши», «воры-фраера», он целые народы с легкостью необыкновенной записывает в негодяи, или в дураки, или в бандиты.
http://butavka.livejournal.com/1500044.html#comments
Do you agree with the distinction between национализмом and патриотизмом, or think the latter will lead to the former anyway?
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Strugatski is a man, and a man of an older generation, so he is forgetting that fascism doesn’t exist without a rigid imposition of gender norms. Men are superior because they can fight in wars. All a man should do is fight in wars. All a woman should do is pop out future warriors.
The writer’s attempt to salvage patriotism is cute but uninsightful. “любовь к своему народу” – what does it mean? How can you love an entire people? How do you know who is your people? Empty verbiage, nothing else.
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Обыкновенный сталинизм – returning to публичный донос
http://trim-c.livejournal.com/194316.html#comments
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