A thread about Russia, history, VE/Victory Day, trolls and genuine discussion, and hiding replies on Twitter.
This morning I posted this, with as @jonnytickle has very politely pointed out, my finger poised over “hide reply”.
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This morning I posted this, with as @jonnytickle has very politely pointed out, my finger poised over “hide reply”.
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That’s because I knew very well that as well as genuine engagement, it would draw an onslaught of default, scripted Russian responses to inconvenient history; not just from professional trolls but also from what may well be real and sincere people.
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Why bother to hide them, you might ask? The reason lies in the nature of the responses. If you look at the hidden replies, you will see that they are all on one of two themes.
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Either (a) straightforward abuse, which I don’t bother to hide as it speaks for itself.
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Or (b), reference to Munich 1938 (at the last count there were nearly 20 of these responses). These are to argue (simplifying slightly) that the UK and France entered their own equivalent of a Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and thus Moscow should not be criticised.
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The comparison is of course fatuous and doesn’t stand up to a moment’s examination; Chamberlain was naively hoping Hitler wouldn’t invade any more small nations, while Stalin was teaming up with Hitler to jointly do as much invading as possible. But that’s not the point.
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The point is that these responses are not designed as part of a reasoned and reality-based discussion on history; they are designed precisely to prevent that. Which means that engaging with them is counter-productive.
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You can spend all day knocking down these responses; but that is exactly what you are supposed to do, because that prevents focus on the real issue at stake. (Note how rare was any actual engagement with the substance of what I posted.)
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Consider the Katyn-Khatyn example here, for a classic case study (a @STRATCOMCOE publication from November 2015):
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stratcomcoe.org/next-phase-rus…
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stratcomcoe.org/next-phase-rus…
You can tell how invoking Munich is a default, conditioned response to mention of Molotov-Ribbentrop by the impressive consistency with which it’s applied here. (Read through the hidden replies if in doubt.) But when the first response is demolished, there are always more…
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Because both professional trolls and real, offended Russian citizens can draw on a whole arsenal of false equivalences and whataboutism - whether from their trolling database or the vast repository of Soviet and Russian propaganda. There is much more where that came from.
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You’ll see how in response to the image I posted of Soviet and Nazi troops congratulating each other on the joint invasion of Poland, there were batteries of images of Western leaders with Nazi counterparts readily to hand, as though that constituted a counter-argument.
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So I hide the replies in order that fewer good people get sucked down the rabbit-hole of engaging with them, because once you do, it never ends. We all know the analogy of pig-wrestling; this is worse, because it smothers any genuine consideration of the issues at stake.
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Bold statements of the utterly indefensible serve the same purpose. Take this response: any citizen of any formerly occupied territory could tear it to shreds. But that would serve no purpose at all.
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Unfortunately it isn’t just trolls: the instinct for whataboutism and deflection afflicts intelligent, sensible people too. Like my greatly respected Moscow colleague R, who responded privately rather than in open forum (but permitted me to quote him) as follows:
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“Keir, you are too critical! Don't forget about Hitler's admiration of British racism.”
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Even well-read, well-informed and highly intelligent individuals are not immune to the temptation to look for ways to show the West as just as bad as Russia, rather than face the prospect of considering Moscow’s own conduct.
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And even if you get past that roadblock, and manage what looks like a frank conversation, maintaining focus on just why people feel how they do about the USSR and WWII can be like poking a blancmange with a stick.
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The problem stems from the enormity of suffering inflicted on Russia both by the enemy and its own regime, combined with the oppressive weight of decades of Soviet propaganda and indoctrination - now restored. Together these produce visceral responses to unwelcome history.
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Russia glanced at the skeletons in its own cupboard briefly during the 1990s, when archives partially opened and free historical enquiry was fleetingly permitted. But it did not like what it saw, so the door slammed shut again. The result is today’s historical offensive.
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Russia of course is not unique in some of this. Other countries will fiercely defend their wartime reputations. Questioning the UK’s role and sacrifice in WWII would evoke a similar outraged and visceral defence well into the 1960s if not beyond.
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But then, for the UK and others, time passed: amid free historical enquiry, myths were questioned and a more objective picture permitted. And the end of empire and a diminished world role became, over decades, accepted fact.
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Russia, though, still has this to come. The end of empire is not a distant study in history, but a recent and painful “geopolitical catastrophe”, unnatural and subject to revision where possible.
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And myth and fiction of war and history, far from being open to challenge and fading into the past, were fossilised during Soviet times - both in the USSR and in the countries it dominated. And now, after a brief 1990s moment of doubt, they are both enforced and re-imposed.
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Rewriting history to the Soviet version again is critically important for Russia. Not only does it excuse past behaviour, it also frames future action. This by @PerssonGudrun is a must-read:
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frivarld.se/rapporter/cont…
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frivarld.se/rapporter/cont…
But for the time being, taking on the default responses won’t help. It won’t change the mind of any paid troll or even keen amateur; and it’s very unlikely to make the slightest difference to any genuine concerned Russian citizen with the same officially-encouraged beliefs.
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And that, dear friends and colleagues from Anchorage to Vladivostok, is why I have been hiding the replies to that tweet.
27 and out/
27 and out/
