Russian historian: Ukrainian war helped make Russia a neo-totalitarian regime that will fall to the Black Hundreds
Source: Paul Goble
"Napoléon, sentant qu’il avait besoin de la victoire pour agir avec plus d’autorité sur l’opinion, résolut de ne pas attendre l’attaque des puissances coalisées et d’aller immédiatement chercher sur les champs de bataille l’ascendant qui lui manquait pour dominer les esprits."
https://napoleonbonaparte.wordpress.com/tag/bataille-de-waterloo/
The most terrible thing for Russia about its war in Ukraine is the extent to which that conflict has “contributed to the transformation of an authoritarian regime into a neo-totalitarian one,” something with horrific consequences far more difficult to overcome than the war itself, according to Vladimir Pastukhov.
In an essay on Polit.ru yesterday, the St. Antony’s College historian says that neo-totalitarianism, which has arisen out of Vladimir Putin’s strategy and his war in Ukraine, has “once again driven Russian into a historical dead end,” which it cannot escape by continuing to go in the same direction.
That in turn means, he suggests, that Russia will once again be faced with a sharp break in historical continuity, something that could take the form of degeneration or a revolution or both.
Pastukhov defines neo-totalitarianism as “a malignant form of authoritarianism, its degeneration which became possible in the 20th century when, on the one hand, the mass personality appeared, and on the other, technologies for administering mass consciousness arose,” something that has in their way led to “a return to ‘high tech’ medievalism.”
The “main distinction” of neo-totalitarianism from authoritarianism, he suggests, is “the means with the help of which the masses are excluded from the political process. In the case of authoritarianism, the means are primitive and obvious” and leave the masses with a sense of exclusion and depression.
But “in the case of neo-totalitarianism, on the contrary, the masses are brought into an active and [Pastukhov says he would suggest] a hyper-active state.” They are given “the illusion of pseudo-inclusiveness” in politics, with “the masses feeling themselves the creator and demiurge of history,” when in fact they have no role at all.
“People do not recognize that they are the victims of manipulation, in essence of mass hypnosis. Rather it seems to them that they themselves have taken all the decisions when in fact the decisions readymade were transplanted into their heads.” That builds the regime’s power, but it becomes the main “’problem’” for the regime when the latter “exhausts itself” as it will.
The most terrible thing for Russia about its war in Ukraine is the extent to which that conflict has “contributed to the transformation of an authoritarian regime into a neo-totalitarian one,” something with horrific consequences far more difficult to overcome than the war itself, according to Vladimir Pastukhov.
In an essay on Polit.ru yesterday, the St. Antony’s College historian says that neo-totalitarianism, which has arisen out of Vladimir Putin’s strategy and his war in Ukraine, has “once again driven Russian into a historical dead end,” which it cannot escape by continuing to go in the same direction.
That in turn means, he suggests, that Russia will once again be faced with a sharp break in historical continuity, something that could take the form of degeneration or a revolution or both.
Pastukhov defines neo-totalitarianism as “a malignant form of authoritarianism, its degeneration which became possible in the 20th century when, on the one hand, the mass personality appeared, and on the other, technologies for administering mass consciousness arose,” something that has in their way led to “a return to ‘high tech’ medievalism.”
The “main distinction” of neo-totalitarianism from authoritarianism, he suggests, is “the means with the help of which the masses are excluded from the political process. In the case of authoritarianism, the means are primitive and obvious” and leave the masses with a sense of exclusion and depression.
But “in the case of neo-totalitarianism, on the contrary, the masses are brought into an active and [Pastukhov says he would suggest] a hyper-active state.” They are given “the illusion of pseudo-inclusiveness” in politics, with “the masses feeling themselves the creator and demiurge of history,” when in fact they have no role at all.
“People do not recognize that they are the victims of manipulation, in essence of mass hypnosis. Rather it seems to them that they themselves have taken all the decisions when in fact the decisions readymade were transplanted into their heads.” That builds the regime’s power, but it becomes the main “’problem’” for the regime when the latter “exhausts itself” as it will.
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