The Ordinary Fascism

Note with how much love the [Russian] military propagandists talk about everything that brings death to others. On the 55th second of the video a young man with a military specialty of “Special Propaganda” assures us that “the high-explosive antipersonnel bombs, without exaggeration, are the pride of the national defense. Among their characteristics is that they are free-falling. To make it clear, from a hight of 5-6 kilometers [about 3-4 miles] such bombs can easily get to an armed radical, as they say, right through the window.”

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On the 20th second you can see the loading of “the pride of the Russian defense industry” into the bomb bay of a Tu-22. These free-falling high-explosive antipersonnel bombs of the OFAB 250-270 model were developed in 1956. The standard head fuse triggers an above-the-surface explosion, which ensures the maximum strike to the “personnel.” Each bomb makes 11.5 thousand “useful” killing fragments with each weighing 10.5 grams. It provides a kill area of 14.4 thousand square meters [about 3.5 acres].

Let me disappoint victims of this propaganda. Even if the pilots of a Tu-22, by some miracle, do manage from a height of 5-6 km to get “into the window of an armed radical,” at the same time all life will be destroyed in the area of the tens of thousands of square meters around the “terrorist.” The full load for a Tu-22 taking off from an airbase in Russia’s Southern Military District is 10 to 12 bombs of the OFAB 250-270 model. 10 bombs create a kill zone of 144 thousand square meters [about 35 acres]. The population density in urban areas is 100-500 people/ha [about 40-200 people/acre]. During just one sortie a squadron of six Tu-22 is capable of destroying 9,000 to 30,000 people. Perhaps some of them will be terrorists.

The use of free-falling bombs from a height of several kilometers can not be called a precision weapon. And no attempts by the propagandists will help here. That same OFAB 250-270 bomb falls from a height of 6 km for over a minute. The probability of hitting the exact target of a “terrorist” in a residential area is close to zero. It is a weapon of terror and ordinary Russians know about this. They can’t not know. However, they applaud the “success” of the Russian pilots. They rejoice and approve the killing of “enemies” designated by the special propaganda. They experience pleasure when sitting on their couches they have an opportunity to kill another round of “fascists”: in Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria.

In fact, the “Military Specialty 6201” is specified as “special propaganda among the troops and population of an enemy.” It is a weapon designed to kill. For the first time since the days of Joseph Goebbels such weapon is used massively against its own population.

In the past, propaganda of fascism (without the quotes) managed to turn into a mindless herd the people of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Richter, Remarque, Goethe, Wagner, Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn, and Strauss. Today, “Wagner” is the nickname of the field commander of another country of the great thinkers, composers, writers and poets.

Two years ago, my Russian friends asked me to comment on the manifestations of fascism in Ukraine. I took “14 defining features of fascism” of Lawrence Britt and tested Ukraine on each of them. The word “Russia” was not mentioned even once, but my friends, after reading, made an unequivocal conclusion: “He is trying to prove that fascism is in Russia, not Ukraine.” That means the simple human logic has not disappeared. On a logical level, the Russians understand where the source of fascism is. But propaganda-struck consciousness does not allow them to admit it.

Here is another example. A few days ago I posted a blog compilation from the album called “Children – Our Future” taken from one of the “Novorossiya” sites. A striking example of the propaganda war among and with the help of children. From the point of view of Russians, the photo album contains nothing objectionable. But people who live outside of broadcast area of the Kremlin’s special propaganda were shocked by these photos.

The response was not long in coming. One of my Russian colleagues wrote a comment with a tag “take a look at yourselves” and attached to it…

…Photos of the Victory Day celebration at Ukrainian schools? – No.

…Photos celebrating the Day of Liberation from Fascism in Europe? – Also no!

He posted pictures of children performing a Hitler salute with a Nazi flag in the background! On a subconscious level, he equates the Russian youth-militaristic photo album with fascism. However, being convinced that there is no fascism in Russia, he took a product of special propaganda from the same “Novorossiya” web sites, which prove the existence of “fascism” in Ukraine. Formally, he speaks of fascism in Ukraine. But by Freud, it is about fascism in Russia.

On the levels of logic and the subconscious, Russians understand that they are suffering from fascism. If they do not understand, then at least they realize. They realize that “joining” of the Crimea is an annexation. They guess about the Russian aggression in Donbas. They guess that they are being lied to about bombings in Syria. But on the level of faith, they resist that thought.

Faith is different from the process of learning. Knowledge changes the picture of the world in accordance with the newly discovered facts, but faith casts away the facts that contradict a well-established picture of the world. Under the conditions of an information monopoly, the Kremlin propaganda creates a picture of the world for Russians. Those who are able to think independently search for alternative sources of information. But there are those who live comfortably in a surrogate picture of the world.

In conclusion I would like to quote from the newspaper article of an American professor (which is sometimes credited to Churchill in a somewhat modified form): “When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism.’” Who wishes to can adapt this phrase to Putin’s Russia themselves.

P.S. A quote from a recent article by Vladislav Inozemtsev, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council, established by order of the President of the Russian Federation. Russian sociologists do not call into question the essence of Putin’s regime, but are trying to figure out in which branch of fascism it should be considered:

“If anything, the Russian system should be characterized as proto-fascist – tamer than European fascist states during the 1920s and 1930s, but still featuring key elements of those regimes.”

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