A Word to the People 1991 (Alexander Prokhanov et. al)

The idea of fostering unity of the supranational Russian Federation seems to be a consistent and conscious goal of modern Russian ideologists who are actively pursuing the adoption of a new national ideology [1 , 2]. Part of this conscious focus on unity may be due to an awareness that the Soviet Union disintegrated on ethnic-national boundaries in part because of its inability to establish a unifying ideology which appealed to the different ethnicities, cultures, and religions which the ‘evil empire’ was comprised of [3, 4].

Even as Russian ideologists actively work to promote a unifying “ideology of victory” in the new war [5], there are increasing observations in the West that the Russian Federation may be teetering on collapse and likely to further disintegrate along similar lines to those of 1991 [6].

Once again, as a key piece of Russian literature remains elusive to find in English, I will post below a translation of the July 1991 essay “A Word to the People”. This essay appeared in the hard-line Sovetskaya Rossiya journal and served as the ideological foundations for the August 1991 coup attempt. The text is widely attributed to the authorship of signatory Alexander Prokhanov, who continues to contribute to modern ideological projects of the Izborsky Club (such as the ideology of victory).

I feel this article is useful for framing how Russian ideologists were conscious of the impending collapse of the USSR, the awareness of the importance for national unity, and ultimately how this argument has somewhat come to represent not just the position of the August 1991 coup plotters – but also seemingly of the ideological elite in Putin’s Russia in 2022.

Ultimately the focus on unity of the disintegrating supranational empire as elaborated below is also a useful concept for understanding the ecumenical appeal of “desatanization” as an intentional ideological process within modern Russia.


A Word to the People
July 23, 1991

Dear Russians! Citizens of the USSR! Compatriots!

There was a huge unforeseen grief. Our homeland, our country, the great state, given to us for preservation by history, nature, and glorious ancestors, perishes, breaks, and plunges into darkness and non-existence. And this death occurs with our silence, connivance and consent.

Have our hearts and souls turned to stone and none of us has the power, courage, love for the Fatherland that moved our grandfathers and fathers, who laid down their lives for the Motherland on the battlefields and in gloomy dungeons, in great labors and struggles, composed of prayers , hardships and revelations to the state, for whom the Motherland and the state were the highest shrines of life? What happened to us brothers?

Why do cunning and eloquent rulers, clever and cunning apostates, greedy and rich money-grubbers, mocking us, mocking our beliefs, taking advantage of our naivety, seize power, pilfer riches, take away people’s houses, factories and lands, slaughter divide the country into parts, quarrel and fool us, excommunicate us from the past, remove us from the future – doom us to a miserable existence in slavery and subordination to all-powerful neighbors?

How did it happen that at our deafening rallies, in our irritation and impatience, longing for change, desiring prosperity for the country, allowed into power those who did not love this country, who were servile before overseas patrons, out there beyond the sea, seeking advice and blessings?

Brothers, we wake up late, we notice trouble late, when our house is already burning from four corners, when we have to extinguish it not with water, but with our own tears and blood. Can we really allow civil strife and war for the second time in this century, to again throw ourselves into the cruel millstones, which we have not launched, where the bones of the people will grind, and the backbone of Russia will break?

We address you with the words of utmost responsibility, we appeal to representatives of all professions and classes, all ideologies and beliefs, all parties and movements, for whom our differences are nothing before the common misfortune and pain, before the common love for the Motherland, which we see as one, indivisible, which rallied the fraternal peoples into a powerful state, without which we cannot exist under the sun.

Wake up, come to our senses, stand up both old and young for the country.

Let’s say “No!” destroyers and invaders. Let us put a limit on our retreat at the last line of resistance.

We are starting a nationwide movement, calling into our ranks those who have recognized the terrible misfortune that has befallen the country.

We call on the working people, to whom today’s Pharisees promised abundance and earnings, and now they are expelled from factories and mines, doomed to starvation, lack of rights, to dull standing in lines for benefits, a loaf of bread, for alms from the rich and owners.

We call on hard-working peasants, exhausted by ignorant authorities, whose current destinies are decided by yesterday’s destroyers of villages and creators of utopian programs, imposing a enslaving exchange on the grain grower, dooming the arable land to desolation, to the extermination of the surviving farms that feed the country.

We appeal to the engineers, whose hands, mind and talent created a unique technical civilization, a powerful industry that ensured the well-being and protection of the people, which allowed the Motherland to fly into space. Equipment, which, tired of working, needed modernization and renewal, after six years of idleness and ranting, stopped and collapsed, and now we are a country of stopped enterprises, silenced energy, disappeared goods, confused and impoverished engineers excommunicated from creativity.

We appeal to scientists who worthily promoted the development of domestic science, amazed the world with the fruits of their labors, accumulated  discoveries in laboratories and institutes for the next breakthrough into the twenty-first century, where we hoped for a worthy place in human civilization.

Instead, demagogues and malefactors ruin precious accumulations, scatter teams of researchers, close scientific areas, drive blood clots into the development of space research, nuclear technology, and the latest chemistry, dooming the best minds to vegetate, to flee from their native lands to prosperous countries. where their talent will feed not their own, but someone else’s development.

We direct our voice to the Army, having won our respect for humanity for the selfless feat of saving Europe from the Nazi plague, for the Army, which inherited the best qualities of the Russian, Soviet army and opposes aggressive forces. Our glorious defenders are going through difficult times. It is not the fault of the Army that it is forced to hastily leave foreign garrisons, to be the object of shameless political speculations, to be subjected to constant attacks of lies and slander by irresponsible politicians. But no one will be able to turn the Armed Forces into an amorphous mass, disintegrated from within, betrayed to desecration. We are convinced that the soldiers of the Army and Navy, true to their sacred duty, will not allow a fratricidal war, the destruction of the Fatherland, and will act as a reliable guarantor of security and a bulwark of all the healthy forces of society.

We direct our voice to the artists and writers who, bit by bit, created a culture on the ruins of the destroyed classics, who obtained images of beauty and  goodness for the people, who expected the flourishing of the arts in the future, and who found themselves in poverty, reducing creativity to a miserable farce for the amusement of merchants and the rich, when a people, excommunicated from the spirit, deprived of an ideal, ruled by immoral swindlers, is led out of history, turned into cheap labor power for foreign manufacturers.

We turn to the Orthodox Church, which has gone through Calvary, slowly, after all the beatings, rising from the Tomb. She, whose spiritual light shone in Russian history even in times of darkness; today, not yet strong, is tormented by strife, infringed upon in dioceses and parishes, and does not find worthy support in a strong sovereign power. Let her hear the voice of the people calling for salvation.

We appeal to Muslims, Buddhists, Protestants, believers of all denominations, for whom faith is synonymous with goodness, beauty and truth; cruelty, ugliness and lies are attacking them today, destroying their living soul.

We appeal to parties, large and small, to liberals and monarchists, to centralists and zemstvos, to singers of the national idea. We turn to the Communist Party, which bears full responsibility not only for the victories and failures of the previous seventy years, but also for the last six tragic ones, in which the Communist Party first led the country, and then renounced power, giving this  power to frivolous and inept parliamentarians who quarreled between each other, who produced thousands of stillborn laws, of which only those that give the people into bondage, and divides the exhausted yet alive body of the country into parts. The Communists, whose party is being destroyed by their own leaders, having  abandoned their party cards, rush one after another to the camp of the enemy – betray, betray, demand the gallows for their recent comrades – let the Communists hear our call!

The youth, our hope and flower, which is being smoldered, given over to the service of false idols, is doomed to idleness, mediocrity, drugs and crime.

The old people, our wisdom and pride, our unfailing workers and our tireless breadwinners, who received begging and desecration, defilement by a print and television brew of those who seek to kill the memory, in opposition to generations.

Young veterans, internationalist warriors, who showed dedication and humanism, high moral qualities, but placed in a position without guilt of the guilty.

Women who deny themselves the highest natural right to prolong their offspring for fear of breeding poverty, replenishing the army of the civil war with soldiers, afraid of their love and their motherhood …

Everyone who is, in cities and villages, in steppes and forests, at the edge of the great oceans washing the country – let’s wake up, stand up for unity and repulse the destroyers of the Motherland! …

Yuri Bondarev,
Valentin Varennikov,
Boris Gromov,
Ludmila Zykina,
Alexander Prokhanov,
Vasily Starodubtsev,
Yuri Blokhin,
Edward Volodin,
Gennady Zyuganov,
Vyacheslav Klykov,
Valentin Rasputin,
Alexander Tizyakov

“Soviet Russia”, 07/23/91

[7]


References

[1] Marlene Laruelle, “What is the Ideology of a Mobilized Russia?”, Russia Post, October 4 2022, https://russiapost.info/politics/war_ideology

[2] Juliette Faure, “The deep ideological roots of Russia’s war”, Monde Diplo, April 2022, https://mondediplo.com/2022/04/03ideology

[3] Lev Topor and Alexander Tabachnik, “Russian Cyber Information Warfare : International Distribution and Domestic Control”, Journal of Advanced Military Studies vol. 12, no. 1, Spring 2021, https://doi.org/10.21140/mcuj.2021120100

[4] Ronald Grigor Suny, 1993, “The revenge of the past : nationalism, revolution, and the collapse of the Soviet Union”,   Stanford University Press, https://archive.org/details/revengeofpastnat0000suny/mode/2up 

[5] Michael Hotchkiss, “Ideology of Victory and the Death of Daria Dugina”, n01r.com, September 11 2022, https://n01r.com/ideology-of-victory-and-the-death-of-daria-dugina/ 

[6] Luke Coffey, “Preparing for the Final Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Dissolution of the Russian Federation”, Hudson Institute, December 14 2022, https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/preparing-final-collapse-soviet-union-dissolution-russian-federation 

[7] Alexander Prokhanov, et. al,  «Слово к народу» (“A Word to the People”), Sovetskaya Rossiya, July 23 1991, (Translation made from reprint: https://kprf.ru/media/filestorage/library/c65ca2_pravdamos_27_261_6.pdf )

“Ideology of Victory” and the Death of Daria Dugina

Daria Dugina (Darya Dugina), daughter of Alexander Dugin, was reported to have died on August 20, 2022 in a car bombing in the Moscow suburbs. Russian political authorities, federal police, and propagandists have consistently portrayed it as an act of Ukrainian terrorism and pointed to Ukrainian suspects.

Conversely, Ukraine has officially denied these allegations. Rather than taking the event at face value as it has been portrayed in Russian media, many Western reports have questioned whether it was an act of “false flag” terrorism.

In this scenario, the killing of Dugina would be intended to bolster public support for the war in Ukraine by reinforcing the idea of Ukraine as a fascist, terrorist state. It would be analogous to a widespread theory that the FSB had carried out a series of apartment bombings in September 1999 in order to bolster public support for a second war in Chechnya.

When Alexander Dugin first released a public statement about the assassination, he did so through Konstantin Malofeev on Malofeev’s Telegram channel [1]. Malofeev, like Dugin has not only been sanctioned for his actions related to Ukraine, but is a member of the ultra-conservative Izborsky Club; a philosophical group which was co-founded by Alexander Prokhanov and Vitali Averyanov, and includes many prominent Russians, some close to Putin [2].

This long-read report demonstrates that regardless of whom may be responsible for the crime, the death of Daria Dugina has been consciously manipulated by figures like Alexander Dugin, Alexander Prokhanov, and Konstantin Malofeev in order to frame the murder as a kind of symbol of martyrdom which supports the neo-imperialist “Ideology of Victory” that was formally articulated by the Izborskists in October 2021, prior to the Ukraine invasion.

The death of Daria Dugina provokes enduring symbols of Russian ideology

This observation in and of itself does not mean the Izborskists have complicity in the murder. But it does seek to prove objectively that the death has been used consciously from the start as an ideological and political instrument of Russian imperial power. Continue reading ““Ideology of Victory” and the Death of Daria Dugina”

Alexander Blok’s “Sun Over Russia” (1908) and the Kremlin Vampire

Dracula’s long significance in Russian literature which became the basis of a narrative parallel with the tsar and autocrat is not limited to Fyodor Kuritsyn’s Tale of Dracula the Voivode or Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s Antichrist (Peter and Aleksey) [1,2].

Inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in his 1908 article Sun Over Russia, the writer and poet Alexander Blok (1880-1921) also utilized the imagery of the vampiric ghoul to describe the bloodthirsty behavior of the tsarist empire and its church leaders.

Blok’s essay was written in celebration of the 80th birthday of Leo Tolstoy. (The ghoul was a concept introduced into Russian literature by Alexander Pushkin; and later developed by Alexey Tolstoy (a distant relative of Leo Tolstoy).) [3]

I’ve found the essay and translated it since it doesn’t seem to be common in English.

Alexander Blok

Continue reading “Alexander Blok’s “Sun Over Russia” (1908) and the Kremlin Vampire”

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Acknowledging the KGB’s Enemy #1

While promoting his new book “The Sword and the Shield : The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB” on the Charlie Rose show on September 28, 1999, the eminent Cold War historian Christopher Andrew said of the KGB that:

“they really hated J. Edgar Hoover, but the man they hated above all others was Martin Luther King. And the reason they hated him above all others is that their plan for the United States – they were really looking forward to it – was that the ‘long, and hot summers’ of the mid and late 1960’s would lead to race war in the United States. And the reason they hated Martin Luther King like they hated no other American, was that they feared he might put an end to the long, hot summers. So, when he dies in 1968, it’s a terrible thing to say – but it was a great day for the people at KGB Headquarters.”

Friends. Jimmy Hoffa, James Del Rio, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Professor Andrew’s televised comments on Dr. King came just 12 days after the end of the so-called campaign of terror known as the “Russian apartment bombings” which was a decisive moment that catapulted former KGB agent and then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to the Presidency of Russia.

Not even Professor Andrew could have realized at that time how KGB active measures would live on and remain much the same under Putin as they had in the time of the Cold War.

In the wake of 2020’s racial tensions which seem to have been exacerbated by Russia’s online information warfare activities on both the political far left and far right; it is time for us to awake to Dr. King’s “Dream” and the power it has to unite rather than divide us as a society in the face of Russian disinformation and active measures. Continue reading “Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Acknowledging the KGB’s Enemy #1”

Roman Polanski in ‘Confession[s] of a Blue Movie Star’

In working to build a case that Roman Polanski was involved in an anti-American  influence scheme involving communism, surrealism/satanism, and murder – evoking Orson Welles’ potential involvement in the murder of Elizabeth Short (a.k.a. ‘The Black Dahlia’); I purchased  my first VHS tape in maybe 20 years: ‘Confession[s] of a Blue Movie Star‘ (also known as ‘The Evolution of Snuff‘ (1978)).

Given prior statements of Roman Polanski on the Dick Cavett show that he was a suspect of a criminal profiler in the murder of his wife – and good evidence he was a cruel husband – some of the quotes I’d seen referenced to Confessions of a Blue Movie Star seemed compelling and concerning in the potential context of both ‘murder as a fine art’ as well as information warfare. Having watched the film, it makes me think that snuff itself is likely a propaganda scheme designed to create a mass hysteria, yet around the usual kernel of truth (in these cases, murders or deaths linked to potential communists). In this sense, snuff as a genre and meme seems quite similar to – and derivative of – the satanism hysteria which followed the murder of Polanski’s wife and friends by the Charles Manson group.

“Yeah I do think a camera can be as dangerous in the hands of a ‘filmmaker’, in quotes, as a bazooka.” – Roman Polanski

Cover of the version of the movie I received. It apparently has several variations. In movie, the title seems to actually be ‘Confessions of a Blue Movie Star’, but you’ll most popularly find it cited as ‘Evolution of Snuff’. (VHSCollector.com)

Continue reading “Roman Polanski in ‘Confession[s] of a Blue Movie Star’”

Communist Conspiracy and Murder as a Fine Art

As one of two ‘American’ film directors to be honored in the Russian Golden Eagle film awards category of ‘Contribution to World Cinema’ (the other being Francis Ford Coppola), it seems somewhat obvious to me that Roman Polanski is a filmmaker who closely aligns with the Orson Welles style of film as (Russian / Communist) propaganda.

Much like Coppola – who based his ‘Apocalypse Now’ movie on Welles’ unmade anti-fascist ‘Heart of Darkness’ film and used Welles’ narration in the documentary ‘Hearts of Darkness’ about the making of Apocalypse Now (arguably therefore making an anti-fascist film in the Gothic tradition about American imperialism in Vietnam); Polanski has lauded Welles at times as his film-school idol.

The school was tightly connected with the Polish film archives and we could see anything we wanted… Personally, I was part of the [Orson] Welles group, but there were also groups of neorealists and students who liked the heroic Soviet cinema.” – Roman Polanski

As the seeming propaganda inspiration for both of these apparent influencers – were Welles still alive today, I am most confident that Russia would have honored him as well.

In another long and diverging parallel, I truly enjoyed Mary Pacios’ book ‘Childhood Shadows’, about the January 15, 1947 murder of Elizabeth “Bette” Short – best known as ‘The Black Dahlia’, in Los Angeles California. Pacios offered a fascinating and plausible suggestion that Orson Welles could be a credible suspect in the unsolved case. Welles left the United States shortly after the death. This kind of behavior is common for murder suspects. While Pacios did not explore the politics, my prior research suggests Welles had similar motivations to flee around this time due to his Communist Party linked politics and connections to Russian espionage.

Image result for bette short"
Justice Unserved: Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. The Black Dahlia

Continue reading “Communist Conspiracy and Murder as a Fine Art”

Just say no to John Kasich and Charlie Black in 2020

The traumatizing 2016 campaign flashbacks have already started. I’ve noticed that John Kasich’s name has come up somewhat frequently in discussions about a Trump 2020 primary challenge. (At least we can start this off with the victory of Michael Avenatti not being a candidate.) 

While you will now find me ‘defending’ Trump on the basis that ‘he is now driving the car and I don’t want him to crash it’, I don’t care for Kasich because (while I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016) I was supporting Ted Cruz for the 2016 Republican nominee (and donated to him like I had Clinton). I supported Cruz, not because I like his platform so much as because I was deeply concerned about Trump’s rhetoric and connections to Russia. I saw Cruz as the most likely person to beat Trump in the 2016 Republican primary. Think what you will of Ted Cruz, there is no doubt he is a brilliant human being and surprisingly self-deprecating despite being somewhat sanctimonious. 

Clear case of the munchies for Governor Kasich. Takes a lot of energy to run a kayfabe. 

In the end, Kasich stayed in the race when he could no longer win, which sapped votes from Ted Cruz (who at that moment was the only Republican mathematically capable of beating Trump in the primaries). Kasich only bowed out when it was clear Cruz threw in the towel (although correlation does not necessarily mean causation). This clearly played to Trump (arguably along with ‘Lucifer’ rhetoric from Congressmen John Boehner R-OH and Peter King R-NY). For his part, it is clear that Trump viewed Cruz as a threat — giving him the sobriquet ‘Lyin Ted‘, critiquing the appearance of Cruz’ wife, and even going so far as to repeatedly implicate Cruz’s father in the JFK assassination by implying an apparently false association with Lee Harvey Oswald. (Note to self, associating political opponents with Lucifer is strong memetic conservative  politics. Just ask Russia, Ben Carson, and Hillary Clinton.)

“A vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump,”

– (not) Lyin’ Ted Cruz, March 2016

Despite Kasich coming across like any Republican soccer mom’s ideal candidate, you shouldn’t trust him. As the above passage shows, despite being an ‘anti-Trump’ candidate, his apparently moralistically narcissistic campaign behavior all but ensured Donald Trump became the nominee and aided a simultaneously all-out-political hit job on Ted Cruz . Was it more, and was Kasich’s campaign in cahoots with Paul Manafort or Roger Stone? 

Continue reading “Just say no to John Kasich and Charlie Black in 2020”