Hilarious political satire--Hitler Rants Parodies
Brian D'Agostino
Brigitte DEMEURE
Hello
Below an op-ed in the newspaper Le Monde by Columbia professor Matthe H. Murray about Russia and Ukraine – I fully agree with him, it has always been my point of view since I dealt with Russian customers for export from France.
Best
Brigitte
----
“The invasion of Ukraine is the consequence of the system of widespread corruption that is plaguing Russia”
Professor of Public and International Affairs at Columbia
To truly address the roots of the war in Ukraine, Russia must start by acknowledging and fighting systemic corruption, which poses a threat to Russians and the rest of the world, says U.S. public and international affairs expert Matthew H. Murray, in an op-ed in “Le Monde”.
After his phone call with Donald Trump on May 19 on the issue of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow supported “a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis”. However, he reiterated that the “roots” of the conflict must be eliminated . Roots that, in the leader's fallacious and revengeful speech, are clear: on the one hand, Ukraine belongs to Russia; on the other hand, the efforts of the United States and Europe to protect Ukrainian sovereignty pose a threat to the Russians. Thus, Putin continues to distort history to impose unacceptable conditions on Ukraine, to evade any negotiations worthy of the name, to neutralize and demilitarize the country.
The conflict in Ukraine is a war of choice. History will show that the Kremlin's decision to attack a sovereign Central European state in the 21st century is the consequence of the system of widespread corruption that plagues Russia. Because systemic corruption is fueling Russia's aggressiveness – against Ukraine, against the liberal international order and against democracy itself.
Under Putin, it is clear that Russia has failed to democratize and modernize its economy. Despite considerable natural resources, technological know-how and human capital, the country is unable to develop industries that are competitive on the world market and comply with international rules, including those of the World Trade Organization, which Russia joined in 2012. This economic failure is due to the omnipresent oligarchy, which monopolizes Russian institutions and bleeds the country dry in order to enrich itself and monopolize political power.
In Russia, corruption is truly systemic. In the “power vertical,” the president sits at the top of a nepotistic network that controls government agencies, budgets, and public and private companies. This network appropriates public resources, stifles innovation, and creates barriers to hinder market entry for Russian entrepreneurs and foreign investors. This state-backed oligarchy cannot remain within Russia's borders: it is under the necessity of laundering and placing its illicit gains in foreign markets.
Russia began invading Ukraine in 2014, in response to the “Revolution of Dignity” [or Maidan Revolution]. So, Ukrainians took to the streets and occupied Maidan Square in Kyiv to protest against President Viktor Yanukovych: he wanted to abandon Ukraine's plan to join the European Union (EU) and join the world's largest economic bloc. The demonstrators defended the right of citizen-entrepreneurs to innovate and evolve in an egalitarian market, regulated by transparent rules applicable to all.
For the Putin oligarchy, on the other hand, Ukraine's accession to the EU is the equivalent in the economic field of membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the military field. When, in 2014, Maidan protesters forced Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia, the Kremlin reacted manu militari by annexing Crimea and occupying the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. At the same time, he has embarked on a hybrid war aimed at undermining the legitimacy of the new government in Kiev. Putting corruption at the service of its war, Russia has been funding local henchmen to get their hands on Ukrainian government institutions and domestic industries.
Hatred of democracy
The fact remains that Russia did not succeed in stopping the Maidan revolution. A revolution that led to the election of anti-corruption candidate Volodymyr Zelensky as president. Ukraine then laboriously set about the task of dismantling oligarchic structures and replacing them with independent institutions. It has attacked the kingpins of corruption, targeting in particular the main Kremlin agent on its soil, the media tycoon and MP Viktor Medvedchuk. Thus, Ukraine was transforming into an independent democracy and a prosperous economy. A stone's throw from Russia.
By deciding to invade the entire territory of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has shifted into high gear in his campaign against post-Maidan Ukraine. In his speech on February 21, 2022, preparing Russians for this invasion, the head of the Kremlin accused Ukrainian anti-corruption institutions of being destabilizing elements for Russia. His plan was simple: invade Ukraine in a matter of days and replace the Zelensky government with a new corrupt oligarchy, Medvedchuk included, and local proxies, all backed by Russia and under the thumb of the Kremlin.
To address the roots of the war in Ukraine, Russia must therefore start by acknowledging and combating this systemic corruption, which poses a threat to Russians and the rest of the world. Putin seems to be aware of Russia's economic failure. During negotiations with the Trump administration, its envoys repeatedly called for the lifting of European sanctions and export controls. They argue that a peace agreement would create considerable opportunities for trade with Russia.
Moreover, if Russia is serious about normalising its economic relations with the West, the Kremlin must first agree to an unconditional ceasefire and then negotiate an end to the war. He must also openly support Ukraine's EU membership project. And recognize that a stable, prosperous and democratic Ukraine would benefit both Ukrainians and the entire region.
As for the United States and the EU, they have a crucial role to play in this economic dimension of the war. Together, they must impose new sanctions on Russia, while promising to lift them if it takes steps towards a lasting peace. They must also help Ukraine to complete its EU accession process and to strengthen its anti-corruption institutions, laws and practices.
In short, to achieve lasting peace, it is imperative that Russia address the endemic corruption that plagues it. Otherwise, his foreign policy will continue to be characterized by a hatred of democracy and the use of armed force.
Matthew H. Murray is an Assistant Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, New York. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in the Obama administration's Department of Commerce.
Matthew H. Murray (Professor of Public and International Affairs at Columbia)
Brian D'Agostino
--
<><><>
To post to this group send to: clios...@googlegroups.com
Clio's Psyche is sponsored by The Psychohistory Forum. For questions visit: cliospsyche.org
Digest is available on request and sends no more than 1 email a day.
Home: http://groups.google.com/group/cliospsyche
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clio’s Psyche" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cliospsyche...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cliospsyche/1363973788.654781.1748686121157.JavaMail.open-xchange%40opme11oxm26nd1.op.nd1.pom.fr.intraorange.
Hans Bakker
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2025 8:24 AM
To: clios...@googlegroups.com <clios...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [cliospsyche] Ukraine/Russia - an op-end by Columbia prof. Matthew H. Murray
Brian D'Agostino
Esa Palosaari
Hi,
Thank you for the op-ed, Brigitte. The material incentive motivation there seems clear and persuasive. I can believe it.
One part of the puzzle I have trouble understanding is the cultural argument Putin made for the war in his July 2021 essay On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians that was repeated in his war declaration as talk about Ukrainian territory being historical Russian homeland and Ukrainian officers having their common Motherland with Russia. I see this point repeated by pro-war Russians in individual conversations. Maybe experts here can help how the war and the atrocities follow from those premises in the minds of the Russians? Below are my non-expert thoughts about it if you happen to be interested.
Esa
In Finland, one justification for NATO membership was: “If Russians are willing to do that to members of a nation they consider as close brothers, then what horrors are they willing to inflict on us, a non-Slav, non-Orthodox nation?” The way of thinking was that you would be least likely to hurt your family members.
However, in discussions with Russians online who have Zs in their profiles and who seem to be ex-patriots, living outside Russia, I found the exact opposite justification for the war in Ukraine, and the lack of it in Finland. Despite Finland’s very real, realistic and eventually realized intentions to join NATO and double NATO members’ border to Russian right next to St. Petersburg and the nuclear warheads in Kola Peninsula, the “ordinary Russians” say they are not in the least interested in Finland, in general, and not especially in expending blood and treasure to invade it exactly because it “is not even Slavic”.
Some historical and cultural examples that came to my mind were (1) Hitler’s ideologies, speeches and policies, (2) the Russification ideologies and policies over the past centuries, (3) and language policies and wars in the Nordics in the 20th century.
(1) Hitler apparently had a similar playbook as Putin and focus on ethnicity across the borders which justified conquest:
(i) Ethnic unity: German Austrians/Sudeteners are “one people” with the Reich. “The oldest eastern province of the German people shall be, from this point on, the newest bastion of the German Reich”(https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-anschluss)
(ii) Self-determination plebiscite: Hitler ordered a vote after troops were inside Austria to cloak annexation in legality.
(iii) Victim narrative: Prague and “Jewish-Bolshevik” forces were allegedly abusing Germans. Hitler apparently told the Germans that the Sudeten Germans were being exterminated, annihilated, oppressed in an inhuman manner and treated in an undignified way: The Germans were not allowed to sing any song that the Czechs do not like. The greatest enemies England and France together with their natural allies were encircling Germany and keeping it weak.
(iv) Promise of limited aims: Each land grab was the last revision required for peace. When the Czechs have come to terms with their other minorities, and that peaceably and not through oppression, then there is no further interest in the Czech state. “It is the last territorial demand I shall make.”
There were also Germanization programs before Hitler, it seems, like there was a tradition of Russification programs before Putin. For example, Polish was banned in primary schools in 1901 and German made the sole school language in Danish North Schleswig in 1888. Hitler also had similar kidnappings of children as Putin now has an arrest warrant for, stealing thousands of children looking physically like their preferred ethnicity and educating them into their preferred language and culture (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lebensborn-program; https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/vladimir-vladimirovich-putin).
(2) Russification ideology in Putin’s war essay and policies has a long history. The idea of ‘triune Russian nation’ of Great Russians, Little Russians (Ukrainians) and Belarussians seems like an old nationalistic construction created in Tsarist Russia that was dormant during the Soviet Union but was resurrected by nationalists like Alexander Dugin after its fall (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449057.2023.2247664).
The official ideology of Nicholas I was Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality: a single faith, a single ruler, and a single Russian culture (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Orthodoxy-Autocracy-and-Nationality). These seem to have been common ideas also after Nicholas I. For example, in the 1880s, Polish was banned in schools, on school grounds and in the offices of Congress Poland. Research and teaching of the Polish language, Polish history or Catholicism were forbidden. In Lithuania, public use of spoken Lithuanian as well as the use of Latin and Gothic scripts in publishing were prohibited. In Bessarabia, the use of the Romanian language was forbidden in the administration in 1829, in churches in 1833, in secondary schools in 1842, and in elementary schools in 1860.
This is what Catherine had in mind for Ukraine and Finland in 1764:
"Little Russia [Ukraine], Livonia, and Finland are provinces governed by confirmed privileges, and it would be improper to violate them by abolishing all at once. To call them foreign and deal with them on that basis is more than erroneous-it would be sheer stupidity. These provinces, as well as Smolensk, should be Russified as gently as possible so that they cease looking to the forest like wolves. When the Hetmans are gone from Little Russia, every effort should be made to eradicate from memory the period and the hetmans, let alone promote anyone to that office."
The minister of education of Nicholas I, Uvarov, tried to eradicate Ukrainian identity by focusing on the future generations. For this he commissioned a new history textbook to all education districts of the whole empire. The second attempt at recruiting historians for this project succeeded and he got his book presenting Ukrainians and Russians as one nation instead of distinct peoples, similarly to Putin’s claims that he used for supporting his war.
Under Alexander II, all Ukrainian Sunday schools were abolished and proscribed. His minister of internal affair wrote to the censors that “there has never been, is not, and cannot be any separate Little Russian language", "the so-called Ukrainian language". Publication of the Ukrainian translation of the Gospels was banned. Similarly banned were the importation of all Ukrainian-language publications into the empire and the publication of any Ukrainian literature. The existing Ukrainian publications were to be removed from school libraries and the theatrical performances, songs and poetry readings in Ukrainian were prohibited. And so on.
In Finland, the imperial laws subordinating the previously autonomous Finnish laws to it, making Russian the administrative language, and merging the Finnish army into the imperial army as well as the press censorship, the infusion of Russian civil servants, and the plans to abolish the Finnish Diet led to a half-million-name petition, mass draft refusal, strikes, the assassination of Governor-General Bobrikov, and finally to the declaration of independence in the beginning of the 20th century.
Currently, there seems to be hostility in Russia to Finno-Ugric and other non-Russian languages still spoken within its borders. In 2018, it passed a law overruling previous laws by ethnic autonomies, made education in all languages but Russian optional, and reduced instruction in minority languages to two hours per week. Putin said that pupils must not be forced to learn a language that is not Russian. In the 2020 constitutional rewrite Russian was elevated at the language of the “state-forming people”.
In 2021, the Russian association removed itself from the World Congresses of Finno-Ugric peoples because of its criticism of Russia. Earlier in 2015, Putin’s right hand, Nikolai Patrushev claimed that the Finns attempt to create separatism in Karelia through support for its language and culture. The leader of the Karelian Congress Anatoly Grigoryev said that Patrushev’s words were typical for KGB and commented that the Russians themselves were provoking the same separatism in Ukraine that they were accusing of others doing.
Russia has also accused others of the child kidnapping it itself seems to be guilty of in Ukraine. There has been over a decade of Russian-language media claims that the Nordic child welfare authorities are stealing Russian children, running concentration camps, and selling youngsters to gay couples.
For example, in 2014 the Russian children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov called both Finnish and Norwegian child welfare authorities as terrorists and fascists for removing children from their Russian families (https://yle.fi/a/3-7631016). Some other Russian headlines: “We are at the Finnish Gestapo. Russia, help us.” “Finnish government’s policy against Russian kids – genocide or fascism?”, “Finland – a concentration camp for kids”(https://euvsdisinfo.eu/finland-puts-russian-kids-in-prison-disinformation-that-shaped-the-minds-of-millions/). Similarly, the Norwegian the child-welfare agency is said to be a totalitarian stealer of children: “Scandinavians Take Kids From Russian Families to Reverse Population Decline“(https://euvsdisinfo.eu/norway-a-nation-in-moral-decay/).
The Nordic child welfare policies are in reality based on citizenship rather than on ethnicity or language, and favor keeping children with their parents as much as possible. This has been taken to the logical conclusion in that the government has organized flights to retrieve children and their Finnish citizen mothers of different ethnicities who travelled to the Islamic State to help ISIS and were imprisoned by the Kurds after its fall: “"Under the constitution, Finnish public authorities are obligated to safeguard the basic rights of the Finnish children interned in the camps insofar as this is possible” (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55387991). Also there have been a few deaths of children by their parents because the authorities did not have enough resources to do their work or they were reluctant to remove the at-risk children from their parents (https://yle.fi/a/3-7344039). The Russian media claims about the nature of Finnish authorities therefore appear bizarre to me. They seem to be created for having handy propaganda available if there would happen to be a need for attacking the Nordics like with Ukraine.
(3) Nevertheless, there seems to be historical parallels with the Russian nationalist policies in the Nordics in the past. The official languages have been emphasized in the past in favor of unofficial minority languages.
“The Sámi people were the subject of assimilation policies adopted by the state and church in the 19th and 20th centuries, including the forced accommodation of Sámi children in boarding schools, where they were forbidden to speak the Sámi language and forced to integrate into the majority culture. Some reportedly suffered violence and mistreatment.” (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/03/finland-must-address-legacy-human-rights-violations-against-sami-people-says). Finnish-speaking children in Sweden were apparently also physically punished for speaking their own language at school even during class breaks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meänkieli).
In Finland, there have also been ideas of linguistic kinship among other speakers of Finno-Ugric languages like the Karelians and the Ingrians which have affected state policies like immigration and war. Before the Treaty of Tartu in 1920 which confirmed the border between the independent Finland and the Soviet Russia after the Finnish Civil War, there were volunteer Finnish expeditions in Russian East Karelia with goals from annexation to helping kindred peoples secede from revolutionary Russia. However, the goal was not to exterminate the “brother nations”. And nowadays Finland champions Nordic minority rights and funds Karelian heritage projects which support the unique cultural developments rather than making them conform to majority Finnish culture and ethnicity.
One Russian establishment utterance, regardless of its factuality, I have some contact from my own experience with Finnish language and culture, perhaps, is Medvedev’s post on Telegram that “the Ukrainian language is only a ‘mongrel dialect’ of Russian” (https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/19/ukraine-russia-war-stalemate-victory-congress-military-aid/; https://www.opinionglobal.cl/what-a-russian-victory-would-mean-for-ukraine/). There is some debate on whether the Finnish-like language spoken in Northern Norway (Kven) or in the Tornio/Torneå Valley border area of Sweden and Finland (Meänkieli) is really a separate language or a dialect. To me, who grew up in Tornio Valley, the language sounds more like a dialect than a separate language like Estonian. Those Finnish-like languages have been given minority statuses in Norway and Sweden, but I find it difficult to think of them as separate languages and ethnicities to Finnish.
Maybe something similar is happening in the heads of Russians regarding the Ukrainian language. But I still don’t quite get why the killing of Ukrainians because of their Slavic ties instead of attacking non-Slavic Finland for its NATO ambitions, for example. Maybe the material incentives from the corruption racket, mentioned in the op-ed, and then the ideological compliance from claiming that the country is being held hostage by the ultimate evil, the Nazis, who back-stabbed Russia once before and threatened its existence in the Second World War and who now again persecute Russians?
Hans Bakker
Ben was known to me as an Indonesianist. (He was very courageous in his criticisms of militarism in the Republic of Indonesia. He was a leading scholar. He and Geertz did not always agree on some issues.Cliff Geertz as a little less harshly critical of Dutch imperialism and colonialism. )
Sent: Sunday, June 1, 2025 6:58 AM
To: clios...@googlegroups.com <clios...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [cliospsyche] Ukraine/Russia - an op-end by Columbia prof. Matthew H. Murray
Hi,
