Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:00:58.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conspiracy Narratives in Russian Politics: from Stalin to Putin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2018

Chaim Shinar
Chaim Shinar*
Affiliation:
Hazamir St. 22/23, Kiryat Ono5550722, Israel. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In order to silence the resistance, the Soviet Union under Stalin kept the population in permanent fear and uncertainty by recurrent purges of innocent citizens, ‘Old Bolsheviks’ and Red Army commanders, thus terrorizing the entire population. Similar conspiracy narratives are used under Putin. In order to keep his grip on power, after the Beslan massacre, Putin’s administration discourse hints at the operation of an international conspiracy of states using terrorism as an instrument to weaken Russia.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 2018 , pp. 648 - 660
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References and Notes

1. Popper, K.R. (1959) In: L. Donskis (1998) The conspiracy theory, demonization of the other. Innovation, 11(3), p. 281.Google Scholar
2. Heathershaw, J. (2012) Of national fathers and Russian elder brothers: conspiracy theories and political ideas in post-Soviet Central Asia. The Russian Review, 71(4), p. 612.Google Scholar
3. Shlapentokh, V. (1998) Fear of the future in the modern world: a Russian case. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 39(2), p. 161.Google Scholar
4. Andrew, C. and Elkner, J. (2003) Stalin and foreign intelligence. Totalitarian Moments and Political Religions, 4(1), p. 72. For an account of similar measures undertaken by OGPU in the late 1920s see V.M. Cherbakov et al. (Eds) (1977) Istoriya sovetskikh organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Moscow), p. 215.Google Scholar
5. Dejong-Lambert, W. (2009) From eugenics to Lysenkoism: the evolution of Stanislaw Skowron. Historical Studies in the Natural Science, 39(3), pp. 269–270; see also A.J. Wolfe (2010) What does it mean to go public? The American response to Lysenkoism, reconsidered. Historical Studies in the Natural Science, 40(1), p. 49.Google Scholar
6. Krementsov, N. (1997) Stalinist Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
7. Eggert, K. (2012) Russian power, Russian weakness. Policy Review, 172(April/May), p. 33.Google Scholar
8. Laqueur, W. (2010) Moscow’s modernization dilemma: is Russia charting a new foreign policy? Foreign Affairs, 89(6), p. 157.Google Scholar
9. Sakwa, R. (2012) Conspiracy narratives as a mode of engagement in international politics: the case of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. The Russian Review, 71(4), p. 586.Google Scholar
10. Putin, V. (2004) Poslanie Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 26 May, presidential website. Available at: http://www.kremlin.ru/mainpage/shtml (accessed May 2004).Google Scholar
11. Putin, V. (2007) Interview with Time Magazine, presidential website, 19 December, in Johnson’s Russia List, 260, 20 December. Available at http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson (accessed December 2007).Google Scholar
12. Evans, A.B. (2007) The Economist, p. 640. In: A.B. Evans (2008) Putin’s Legacy and Russia’s Identity, Europe-Asia Studies, p. 905.Google Scholar
13. Address to State Council, 8 February, available at: http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/02/08/1137_type82912type82913_159643.shtml (accessed 14 February 2008).Google Scholar
14. Levada Center (2013) Otkuda rossiiane uznaiut novosti. The poll conducted on 20–24 June 2013, at www.levada.ru/08-07-2013/otkuda-rossiyane-uznayut-novosti (accessed 12 November 2013).Google Scholar
15.Nashi (Ours) – ‘Youth Democratic Anti-Fascist Movement’ is a political youth movement in Russia which declares itself to be a democratic, anti-fascist, anti-oligarchic-capitalist movement. Its creation was encouraged by senior figures in the Russian Presidential administration, and, by late 2007, it had grown in size to some 120,000 members aged between 17 and 25. Critics have compared it to the Soviet Komsomol and Hitler Youth.Google Scholar
16. Horvath, R. (2011) Putin’s ‘Preventive counter-revolution’: post-Soviet authoritarianism and the spectre of velvet revolution. Europe-Asia Studies, 63(1), p. 2.Google Scholar
17.CIS is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union.Google Scholar
18. Blagov, S. (2005) Karimov travels to Moscow, discusses Andijan ‘Terrorism’ with Putin. Eurasia Daily Monotor. 30 June.Google Scholar
19. Ortmann, S. and Heathershaw, J. (2012) Conspiracy theories in the post-Soviet space. The Russian Review, 71(4), p. 561.Google Scholar
20. Tuathail, G. (2009) Placing blame: making sense of Beslan. Political Geography, 28, p. 7.Google Scholar
21. BBC News (2004) President Putin addressed the Russian nation on television, 4 September. M.H. Van Herpen (2013) Putinism: The Slow Rise of a Radical Right Regime in Russia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 60.Google Scholar
22. Monaghan, A. (2008) ‘An enemy at the gates’ or ‘from victory to victory’? Russian foreign policy. International Affairs, 84(4), pp. 719–720.Google Scholar
23. Filippov, M. (2009) Diversionary role of the Georgia–Russia conflict: international constraints and domestic appeal. Europe-Asia Studies, 61(10), p. 1836. http://bd.english.fom.ru/report/map/ed043723/printable/ (accessed 20 August 2009).Google Scholar
24. Sidorenko, A. (2004) Zhizn′ otdannaia sluzheniiu Otechestvu. Spetsnaz Rossii no. 6. Available at: http://www.specnaz.ru/article/?522. J. Fedor (2011) Chekists look back on the Cold War: the polemical literature. Intelligence and National Security, 26(6), p. 845.Google Scholar
25.In this context, the adjective Chekist (from Cheka, the first Soviet secret police organization) emphasizes the importance and political power of Cheka and its successor Soviet and Russian secret police services, such as the NKVD, KGB and FSB.Google Scholar
26. Bukovskii, V. (1996) Moskovskii protsess (Paris and Moskow: Russkaia mysl′ and MIK). J. Fedor (2011) Chekists look back on the Cold War: the polemical literature. Intelligence and National Security, 26(6), p. 857.Google Scholar
27. Stavitskii, V. (2011) ‘Kak sozdavalas′ eta kniga’. In: Tainoe stanovitsia yavnym. TsOS FSB upolnomochen zaiavit′ (Moscow: LG Informeishn Grup, GELEOS and Izdatel’stvo AST 2000). J. Fedor (2011) Chekists look back on the Cold War: the polemical literature. Intelligence and National Security, 26(6), p. 862.Google Scholar
28. Storch, L. (2013) The C case: anti-Westernism in the paradigm of the Beilis trial. Russian Politics and Law, 51(6), p. 8.Google Scholar
29. Yablokov, I. (2014) Pussy Riot as agent provocateur: conspiracy theories and the media construction of nation in Putin’s Russia. Russian and East European Studies. The University of Manchester, Manchester, 42(4), p. 631.Google Scholar
30. Anderson, J. (2007) Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church: asymmetric symphonia? Journal of International Affairs, 61(1), p. 189.Google Scholar
31. ‘Rossiiane o vragakhʼ (2013) Levada-Center, 26 November. http://www.levada.ru/26-11-2013/rossiyane-o-vragakh (accessed 14 April 2014).Google Scholar
32. Kates, G. and Butorin, P. (2014) Russian professor explains media manipulation. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16 April, p. 1.Google Scholar
33. Kara-Murza, V.V. (2013) Kremlin crooks: Putin’s ‘patriotic’ hypocrites. World Affairs, July-August, p. 57.Google Scholar
34.The law is named after the 37-year-old Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was prosecuted and arrested by the same officials he had accused of masterminding a $230 million tax fraud scheme. He died in a Moscow prison in 2009.Google Scholar
35. Conquest, R. ([1990] 2008) The Great Terror: A Reassessment (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
36. Courtoise, S. (1999) The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
37. Eggert, K. (2011) Due west: Russia’s romance with conspiracy theories. RIA novosti. Web edition, available at http://en.rian.ru/columnists/20110309/162929790.html (last accessed 12 May 2012).Google Scholar