Conspiracy theories and the fear of others

photo (CC) president.kremlin.ru

In March 2014 at one of the high points of the crisis in Ukraine German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone conversation with then US President Barack Obama shared her view that Vladimir Putin has “lost touch with reality”. The geopolitical drama that was unfolding on the border of the European Union and, perhaps, one of the biggest military conflicts since the Second World War has caused deep confusion among the European elite. Putin’s gambit in Crimea backed by tough militaristic and anti-western rhetoric had shown that Russia was prepared to escalate the conflict if its interests were threatened. Moreover, the point that Merkel made was hinting        that Putin had lost his mind and therefore his actions could hardly be called rational. How can a person be considered sane if he allegedly shares these weird ideas of western conspiracies against Russia?

The answer is short: for the Russian elite, conspiracy theories are not the way of perceiving reality; they are a crude and incredibly powerful mechanism of popular mobilisation. And very few people in the EU and US understand that.

Origins of Russian conspiracies

A careful look shows that one of the main tenets of Russian conspiracy theories is the critical attitude towards the West, often depicted as the single and dangerous Other. This idea originates in the 19th century and argues that the West constantly attempts to undermine Russia’s greatness. Therefore, Russia should isolate itself from the West culturally, politically and economically. Yet, as in the 19th century, this is something that Russian rulers cannot (and do not want to) do.

The Russian elite adopted conspiracy theories as a way of interpreting reality almost simultaneously with the Europeans in the 18th century, but these ideas gained popularity in the mid-19th century, after the defeat in the Crimean war. The collapse of a dream to acquire the lands of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and turn Russia into the greatest Orthodox Empire on earth was unbearable for many Russian nationalists. The alliance of European powers with the Ottoman Empire was evidence that the “hypocritical and treacherous West” will do anything to defeat Russia. Even the ranges of liberal reforms under Alexander II, which eventually made Russia stronger and allowed to compensate for the loss in the Crimean War, were perceived as part of the western plan to destroy Russia. Ironically, the new freedoms granted by the new laws provided fertile ground for the further spread of conspiracy theories. The mass migration of people from villages to cities changed the social structure of Russian society thus helping circulate various rumours and fears, particularly in newly populated urban centres. In addition, Alexander’s educational reforms arguably were instrumental in helping to produce and disseminate various conspiratorial ideas among the public.

The post-Crimean generation of the Slavophiles – the conservative thinkers who wanted to preserve Russia’s traditions and protect their country from westernisation – were vehement advocates of Russia’s radical separation from Europe. The Russian thinker Nikolai Danilevsky accused European governments of plotting against Russia and urged that Russians harness their incredible ability to preserve their identity, protect themselves and their territories and allow for the peaceful co-existence of various ethnic and cultural groups.

Mikhail Katkov, a prominent publisher and writer in 19th century Russia, divided Russia into two groups: the national and anti-national parties. The national party rejected reforms and changes that they considered to be a threat to the country’s very existence. Their ultimate priority was Russia and whatever was good for it, according to Katkov, whilst the reforms that were meant to change the territorial integrity and call into question the authorities’ actions, could only be beneficial to its enemies. Anti-Russian plotters in the West often used revolutionaries as puppets to threaten and destabilise the throne and, if not stopped, they could damage Russia and expose it to destruction. Moreover, just as post-Soviet, pro-Kremlin conspiracy theorists allege that funding to undermine Putin’s Russia comes from abroad today; Katkov accused Poles – Russia’s main enemies from within, in his view – of funding bloodshed and revolution with money from the West.

Search for enemies

Whilst the imperial period had a formative effect on anti-western conspiratorial rhetoric, the Soviet period had been crucial in converting this suspiciousness into an element of national identity. After the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the search for internal and external enemies had become paradigmatic for almost 70 years. The first State of Workers and Peasants had to always be on guard, protecting itself from the plots of capitalists and members of the old regime. The secret police and the Red Army fought against counter revolutionaries that had initiated the Civil War, in cahoots with their western allies, in their attempt to realise the conspiracy of international imperialists who sought to reinstate the capitalist exploiters to power.

The epitome of the witch hunt under Joseph Stalin – that was part of the revolutionary attempt to industrialise the agrarian state – turned speculative accusations of conspiracy and wreckage into perceived actual facts. These subsequently pervaded everyone’s daily life and cost millions of innocent lives. The sense of being under siege by evil forces and understanding that the Soviet Union can only rely on its own internal power instrumentalised the conspiratorial discourse, turning it into one of the effective tools deployed to secure absolute power in the state. The public trials against “enemies of the people”, carefully distinguished from the majority of “loyal” citizens, fostered paranoid suspiciousness throughout society and the existence of internal enemies was attributed to the treacherous activities of capitalist countries. The latter’s link became crucial during both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods of Russian conspiracy culture, and the search for internal enemies intensified in the mid-2000s when Putin’s regime faced a number of political challenges.

Theories and practices

The first attempt to instrumentalise anti-western conspiracy theories as a populist tool against political rivals of the post-Soviet regime took place in 2003 when the Kremlin triggered its campaign against Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky’s business and political ambitions made him a dangerous competitor on the political stage. Therefore, the powerful clan of veterans of law enforcement and intelligence services – the so-called siloviki – presented Putin with a document that revealed Khodorkovsky’s alleged plan to become the next president. Reports in the media said that the oligarchs managed Russia, that the president will be removed after the 2003 parliamentary elections and that Khodorkovsky had already agreed to give up Russian nuclear weapons and control over its natural resources were enough to demonise Putin’s competitor. It is difficult to say what this plan looked like on the paper given to Putin, but he took it very seriously. In October 2003 Khodorkovsky was arrested, his company destroyed and the elite learnt a bitter lesson: do not mess with Putin’s inner circle in a struggle for power.

The next challenge to the regime came when the colour revolutions in post-Soviet states demonstrated to the Kremlin that their power can be challenged by alternative forces. Again the threat had been detected abroad – in the United States. Russia’s power brokers had a very important task: to ensure that the transfer of power in 2007-2008 from Putin to the successor will be smooth, especially given the possibility of a “colour revolution” scenario, like what happened in Ukraine in 2004/2005. Possible threats to the regime at that time were identified in the political opposition and NGOs that were constantly demonised by the pro-Kremlin media. Both campaigns in 2007-2008 and 2011-2012 revolved around the notion of a western plot to overthrow the regime, which helped the Kremlin ensure a sufficient level of public support and strengthen Putin’s power to justify repressions against any opposition.

Western plots, everywhere

A key lynchpin for the conspiratorial myth-making in Putin’s Russia is the events from 1991: the coup d’etat of the hard-liners in August and the consequent collapse of the Soviet Union in December. Russian authorities have offered the ideological framework that treated the collapse of the Soviet Union as the victory of a western plot. The Kremlin supported various public intellectuals that produced conspiratorial stories, which interpreted the chain of events after 1991 as steps to undercut Russia’s ability to be a key global player in foreign affairs as well as to divide it into puppet states (like what happened with the Soviet Union after the Belovezha accords) and acquire its territories.

In the 2000s Russia’s natural resources – oil and gas – became important markers of its global importance and an element of nation building practices of the Kremlin. This can be explained by the significance of fossil fuels in the prosperity of the government that massively benefitted from the rise of oil prices after the war in Iraq in 2003. The conspiratorial ideas about the drop in oil prices have served to the state-aligned public intellectuals and the Kremlin as a key explanation of the Soviet collapse and the ongoing attempts to rig Russia’s statehood. Moreover, the conspiratorial discourse around oil and gas prices is a simple explanation for why the West wants to weaken Russia and get rid of its current leadership: to gain control over its abundant natural resources. In the last several years both Putin and the deputy head of the government Arkady Dvorkovich have hinted that Russia’s economic problems could be connected with foreign attempts to control oil prices and thus damage the state, like what happened in the 1980s.

Various public intellectuals served a useful role in producing the conspiratorial discourse that was then utilised by top Kremlin bureaucrats. The tricky thing about Russian state-supported conspiracy discourse is that until 2014, very few top-rank politicians applied it in public speeches. The anti-western ideas of the Slavophiles and the conspiratorial fears of CIA infiltration of the USSR had been carefully reutilised by the post-Soviet generation of conspiracy theorists. Some intellectuals addressed specific audiences: for example, Maxim Shevchenko, a TV presenter and editor in chief of the web site The Politics of Caucasus, spread the fear that the wars in Chechnya and the acts of terrorism have been related to corrupt politicians and foreign powers, such as the US and Israel. Some iedologues, like Aleksandr Dugin, have been instrumental in transferring conspiracy theories from the West and adopting them for post-Soviet Russia’s conspiracy discourse.

No rules, no limits

The high point of their myth-making came in 2014 when the situation in Ukraine and standoff with the West revealed how useful this discourse is for bringing together various social groups in support of the government. Everything conspiratorial that had been produced in the post-Soviet era was employed, whilst television – the main source of information for most Russians – switched into 24/7 propaganda mode. Ukraine was depicted as a puppet state under the total control of the US State Department; Russia was portrayed as the bastion against the New World Order and Vladimir Putin was the sole leader of this resistance. Yet again, the country was divided into the “majority” – those who are loyal to the government and are patriotic Russians – and, in the words of Putin’s press-secretary Dmitry Peskov, the “nano-fifth column” – those who are loyal to the West. Moreover, top-ranking politicians lifted the ban on using conspiratorial innuendo during public speeches. When the country is waging war with the West, there are no rules or limits.

The radical polarisation of society into “us” and “them”, and the rally around Putin’s flag, has served to downplay the critical tendencies in Russia towards the situation in Ukraine. The decreasing popularity of Putin as well as the economic stagnation had threatened the future stability of Russia. Therefore, the Kremlin’s use of conspiracy theories became a temporary elixir to solve these problems. It seems, from the parliamentary campaign of 2016 and the upcoming presidential elections in 2018, that the Kremlin is succeeding in suppressing dissenting voices.

However, the country’s leadership is not turning into a group of crackpots, even if some members of the presidential team are devoted believers in conspiracy theories or at least allude to the possibility of foreign plots. Anti-western narratives are tactical weapons for public mobilisation and the Russian political elite are sober and cynical enough not to turn them into everyday practice. For instance, the term Novorossiya, which many anti-western conspiracy theorists praised since 2014, has largely disappeared from the media. Staunch nationalists, such as Igor Strelkov and Dugin, started to accuse the Kremlin elite of being in cahoots with the West, which in many ways is ironic. It seems they have underestimated how paranoid the Kremlin really is: starting a global “war of continents” was not on its agenda.

Post-Soviet Russia, at times, seems to be driven by conspiracy, especially if one watches Russian television. The mass indoctrination is a way to soften the hardships that the nation goes through, and conspiracy theories are perfect in laying the blame on outsider forces. Certainly, the effects that they have on the nation and its perception of the world will be felt for the decades to come. However, for the elite, conspiracy theories are a powerful and sophisticated weapon that they have learnt to wield perfectly.      

Ilya Yablokov teaches Russian history, politics and culture at the University of Leeds (UK). His research interests include conspiracy theories, nation-building and politics in post-Soviet Russia, the history of post-Soviet journalism and international broadcasting. In 2015 he received the prize of the British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies for the best peer-reviewed article. His book Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World (Cambridge: Polity Press) is forthcoming in June 2018.

anti-West, Conspiracy theories, Russia, Vladimir Putin