The Putin lie machine

Jonah Goldberg:

Vladimir Putin, with the aid of his vast propaganda machinery, has convinced many Russians that the interim government in Ukraine is expressly Nazi and fascist. And while there were some neo-Nazi goons among the protesters who brought down the corrupt government of Victor Yanukovich, and there are definitely ultranationalists among the coalition resisting Moscow, it’s simply a transparent lie that the current government is fascist.

That hasn’t stopped some left-wing writers and crackpots in the West from buying the Russian claim that the United States is in cahoots with a “fascist junta” in Ukraine.

This is a very old story. Joseph Stalin championed the idea that all of his political opponents should be dubbed fascists, including many of his fellow Bolsheviks, such as Leon Trotsky (whom Stalin had assassinated), and much of the Red Army’s officer corps (whom he had executed), and countless Ukrainians (whom he had liquidated). Stalin insisted that even mentioning the man-made – i.e., Stalin-made — Ukranian famine was evidence you were an agent of the Nazis.

Under Stalin’s “theory of social fascism,” any socialist, social-democratic, or progressive group or party not loyal to him had to be called fascist. Hence, for a while Moscow insisted that FDR and even Norman Thomas (head of the Socialist Party of America) were fascists.

Ultimately, Communist propagandists and their allied intellectuals would reflexively blame fascism for everything, regardless of the facts. That’s what prompted George Orwell to remark that “the word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’”

It’s been fascinating to watch as Putin, an ex-KGB man, revives this trope, particularly given that his own behavior is so generically fascistic. Putin is a corporatist (the economic doctrine of fascism). He’s a dictatorial, charismatic leader who bends church, business, labor, and media to the needs of a centralized state under a thoroughly nationalist banner. As Cathy Young writes for Real Clear Politics, Putin is nurturing his own cadres of ultra-right goons in Ukraine and elsewhere.
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There is more.

So far this administration has been very ineffective in dealing with Russian deceit.  They have complained about non 21st century practices, but these do little to counter the propaganda.  There should still be some people in the CIA who know how to deal with these disinformation campaigns.