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.
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