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Friday
The horrific terrorist attack against a Moscow rock concert last Friday has drawn a predictable response from Vladimir Putin. Although it was apparently a plot by ISIS extremists, Russia’s dictator is blaming whom you would expect. In other words, like Big Brother in 1984, Putin’s political goals, not facts on the ground, are determining whom Russians are supposed to hate.
Authoritarianism expert Tim Snyder, who the day after the attack predicted that this would happen, explains the reasons:
What was entirely predictable (and predicted) was that, regardless of the facts, Putin and his propagandists would place the blame for the attack on Ukraine and the United States. If Ukraine and the West are guilty, then Russian security services do not have to explain why they failed to stop Islamic terrorists from killing so many Russians, because Islamic terror vanishes from the story. And if Ukrainians are to blame, then this would seem to justify the war that Russia is prosecuting against Ukraine.
Early in Orwell’s novel a public venting, known as “the Hate,” is directed against Eurasia, with which Oceania is at war:
Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face [of Goldstein] on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne…
The film, and the hate, continue until Big Brother appears to reassure everyone that he has everything under control:
Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen.
Winston Smith, however, is aware of how the hate object has little to do with objective reality since, a mere four years earlier, Eurasia had been an Oceania ally:
Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
While Putin continues his all-out assault on Ukraine, however, there is one silver lining, albeit a tiny one. According to Snyder, Russia’s leader no longer has his former ability to calm the Russian people:
When he went on television to accuse Ukraine, he was no longer the nimble post-truth Putin who is capable of changing out one lie for another as necessary, with a wink to the insider along the way. This now seems to be a Putin who actually believes what he says — or, in the best case, lacks the creativity to react to events in the world. His speech yesterday was grim for everyone, including to Russians who would like to think that their leader is ahead of events.
In other words, Putin’s “Hate” did not conclude with “a deep sigh of relief from everybody.” And if Russians think that their dictator can no longer keep them safe, then he will have lost one of the major mainstays of his power.