L’Unione Sovietica, imprevedibilmente dissoltasi fra il 1990 e il ’91, sta ritornando indietro dalla tomba. Realizzando questa oscena resurrezione. Vladimir Putin dimostra la sua anima criminale: non solo per il furto perpetrato ai danni del suo popolo in questi anni (ha accumulato una proprietà personale di 130 milioni di dollari). Non solo perché finanzia una guerra contro il popolo vicino dell’Ucraina, legato da innumerevoli ricordi, tradizioni, affinità ettniche e culturali alla Russia. Ma anche e soprattutto perché sfrutta l’ignoranza di popolazioni educate da decennia nella schiavitù mentale ed economica per sostenere entità fantoccio come la autoproclamata “Repubblica Popolare di Donetsk”. Stiamo assistendo insomma alla nascita del “putinismo”, aggiornamento del sovietismo storico. Il che è destinato a mettere in pericolo la pace nel mondo
In a way, looking back we could have seen this coming. Those who know the region were surprised in 1990-1991 how silently and bloodlessly the USSR imploded, and ceased to exist. Those who know the region also soon realized that psychologically the USSR continued to exist, and that it would take generations before it would fade away. What we now see is a resurgence of the USSR, not just psychologically but materially as well, an attempt to reinstate what was already carried to the grave. The USSR is still there, in the heads of a large part of the population that has been kept deliberately stupid for almost a century, a population which was terrorized into obedience, into a state of permanent servitude. We see the intellectual level of for instance the leaders of the “People’s Republic of Donetsk”, an astonishing sight keeping in mind that these lost souls will determine the future of millions of people for a long time to come. What we are watching is a resurgence of Sovietism, but this time in the form of a special blend, created by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. We are watching Putinism.
I have to problem saying that Putin is a criminal. And I am saying that not only because he is a thief on a majestic scale, with an estimated personal property of 130 million dollars. He is a criminal also because without any empathy he brainwashes his population with an absurd mix of Soviet, fascist and racist propaganda; because he send his people to war, against a nation that is so close, and with whom Russians have so many emotional and family ties; because he triggers a civil war in a country that is just about to recover from twenty years of thievery by another political elite. He is a criminal, because instead of building a new Russia he ruined it even more, letting the country rot while satisfying his own megalomaniac needs. He is a criminal, because with his policies the disintegration of Russia itself is quickly becoming inevitable, and the bloodshed that was so unexpectedly avoided in 1990-1991 will now envelop the country.
People, fasten your seatbelts. We are in for a horrible, bumpy and scary ride.
Robert van Voren
Professor of Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania) and Ilia State University (Tbilisi, Georgia).
