2009-08-31 | Agata Dubas and Marek Menkiszak

A series of articles about the policies of the Soviet Union and certain European countries towards Hitler's Germany have appeared in the Russian electronic and paper media since June, and especially in late August in connection with the approaching seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. In these articles, Russian historians, political scientists and journalists, as well as high-ranking state officials and representatives of the secret services and the armed forces, presented arguments which largely repeated the clichés of Soviet historiography. They justified and positively assessed the USSR's policy in the late 1930s, and accused Poland, the Baltic States, Great Britain and Ukrainian nationalists of having supported Nazi Germany.

The publications appear to be an organised propaganda campaign steered by the Russian authorities. They are also part of the increasingly intensive efforts to promote the concepts behind Russia's emerging new state ideology, while at the same time serving the short and long-term objectives of Russia's foreign policy, in particular with regard to Poland, the Baltic States and Ukraine. Among other goals, Moscow is apparently seeking to influence the outcome of the campaign ahead of the Ukrainian presidential election, and to discredit the Baltic States and Poland on the European stage in order to undermine their influence on the EU and NATO's eastern policies.

The campaign

The Russian media have published numerous texts on historical issues in recent weeks. Apart from publications by Russian historians and political scientists (including Prof. Anatoly Torkunov, rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MGIMO), and head of the Polish-Russian commission for questionable issues), the texts include statements and articles by high-ranking state officials and politicians. The collection of papers published in the August special edition of Vestnik MGIMO, with an editorial by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, is one of the most important publications in this context. The papers' authors include the foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, the head of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov, as well as Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian commission appointed this May to combat the falsification of history, and head of the Presidential Administration. In addition to the publications in the press and the Internet, Russian state television aired a series of documentaries which were in fact propaganda material, including a film entitled The Secrets of the Confidential Protocols, broadcast on 20 August by the state television channel Rossiya. The film was prepared with the assistance of general Alexandr Zdanovich, the long-time Federal Security Service spokesman. The claims presented in the articles and films are supposedly substantiated by the collections of documents on the geopolitical situation around the Baltic States on the eve of the war, declassified by the archives of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on 17 August. On 31 August, the SVR will present another set of documents concerning "the secrets of Poland's foreign policy in the years 1935-1945".

The materials communicate a consistent message which largely refers back to the propagandistic concepts of Soviet-era historiography. Most of them manipulate facts taken out of context and expressing biased views, in order to justify and positively assess the policy of the Soviet Union on the eve of the war, to put the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact in a positive light, and to accuse Poland, the Baltic States, Great Britain and the Ukrainian nationalists of having supported Nazi Germany in the 1930s (see Appendix 1 for more information). They also strongly criticise the historical policies of today's Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States and even Georgia, by accusing these countries of falsifying history, and claiming that an 'information war' is being waged against Russia.

What is Russia's objective?

The Russian media publications about the seventieth anniversary of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and the outbreak of World War II are not incidental, nor are they an expression of the interests of the media concerned. They make up a whole series of diverse publications, which add up to an organised propaganda campaign involving (directly or indirectly) the state structures of Russia and high-ranking state officials. The campaign is therefore an expression of the political will of the current state leadership of Russia. It serves different objectives concerning both the Russian public and the outside world.

Firstly, the publications are a continuation, in more aggressive form (see Appendix 2), of measures to promote the concepts that form part of the emerging new state ideology of Russia. This ideology involves, among other elements, the rehabilitation and glorification of the Soviet Union's great power policy. At its core is the emphasis on the USSR's great victory over Nazi Germany (and its decisive importance for the fate of World War II), intended to integrate both the Russian public around its own government, and the post-Soviet societies around Russia. The facts and historical assessments which contradict this vision, and are often raised in the Central and Eastern European States, therefore come in for increasingly violent criticism in Russia. Moscow is also concerned that the historical views of those states in Europe which fell victim to Soviet expansionism are being increasingly taken into account in the European political and historical discourse. For example, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly resolution of 1 July 2009, which put the crimes of Stalinism alongside the crimes of Nazi Germany, has been fiercely criticised by the Russian authorities.
Secondly, the current historical campaign is meant to serve the immediate and long-term objectives of Russia's foreign policy with regard to certain states and regions, in particular the Baltic States, Poland and Ukraine. One of the issues is that Moscow fears potential compensation claims from the victim-states of Stalinist policy, and seeks to avert them in advance. Russia's attack against the concepts of Ukraine's historical policy, endorsed mainly by Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko, is clearly part of Russia's growing involvement in the campaign before the Ukrainian presidential election in January 2010, and its objective is to weaken and discredit the Ukrainian president and state, both internally and also on the European stage. Moscow's attacks on the governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, including its allegations that the Baltic States have been rehabilitating Nazism and exaggerating the impact of Stalinism, are in line with Russia's long-standing policy of discrediting the Baltic States on the European stage in order to undermine their influence on the eastern policies of the EU and NATO. The objective of Russia's propaganda attack against Poland is similar, but in this case it appears that there is also another, immediate goal of creating a scandal in connection with prime minister Vladimir Putin's participation in the celebrations of the seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, to be held on 1 September in Gdansk. The Russian authorities are apparently aiming to provoke a reaction from the Polish public opinion and leadership that will be unfavourable to Russia, or to humiliate the Polish authorities. In the extreme case, Russia's intention might even be to cancel the Russian prime minister's visit to Poland and blame this on the Polish side. All this demonstrates that Russia is increasingly tending to use historical manipulation as an instrument of its internal and foreign policy.

Appendix 1
The major historical concepts promoted in Russia on the eve of the seventieth anniversary of World War II

- A positive representation of the Soviet state leadership's policy in the 1930s. It is claimed that the Soviet Union was the only state that consistently tried to prevent the war, unlike the West, which either collaborated with Germany or was unable to strike a lasting alliance with the USSR for ideological reasons, and was guided solely by its mercantile interests.

- A positive view of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. The pact is presented as being largely a historical myth, and an instrument used by other states to build a negative international image of Russia; in reality, according to this interpretation, the pact was the only move by which the USSR could avoid having to fight on two fronts (with Nazi Germany and Japan), and gain time to prepare for the war with the Nazis with the intention of liberating all Europe.

- The Soviet army as a liberating force and the rescuer of many small nations. The Soviet aggression against Poland on 17 September 1939 is claimed to have been a measure to defend Poland against Nazi occupation. Stalin allegedly had no plans to seize Eastern Europe, but simply wanted to stop the Germans as far as possible from the Soviet border. The Soviet forces entered Poland only because the Polish government was no longer present on its territory, and there would be no other way of stopping Hitler from, for instance, creating a puppet state in western Ukraine.

- The negative role of Poland, the Baltic States and Great Britain. It is claimed that all these countries were allies and collaborators of the Nazis at different periods. It is alleged that Poland became one of the first allies of Hitler's Germany (having signed the non-aggression pact with Germany in 1934, the two countries supposedly started a secret co-operation, the objectives of which included a Polish occupation of Soviet Ukraine and Carpathian Ruthenia, as well as joint actions against the USSR), and ultimately lost the most as a result of this collaboration.

Appendix 2
Main manifestations of Russia's historical policy
Since 2005, the year when the Russians celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II with great pomp, historical policy has been gaining importance in Russia. This has mainly manifested itself in the following ways:
- statements made by politicians on the occasions celebrations commemorating various historical events (especially Victory Day on 9 May),
- the activities of pro-Kremlin youth movements (such as the protests against the relocation of the Bronze Soldier monument in Tallinn in May 2007),
- the active position taken by Russia in international historical debates (for example, the Russian parliament's statement of 7 July 2009, condemning the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly resolution which put the crimes of Stalinism alongside the crimes of Nazi Germany),
- the provisions of key state documents including the National Security Strategy endorsed on 12 May 2009 by President Medvedev, in which the attempts at revising the role and place of Russia in history are regarded as a threat to national security,
- the creation of bodies tasked directly with producing historical propaganda, such as the commission for the combating of falsification of history to the detriment of Russia, appointed in May 2009. Most of the commission's members are representatives of the government (Presidential Administration and government) and the institutions of force (the Federal Security Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the General Staff, the Security Council) as well as political scientists engaged in political activity, who promote the vision of Russia as a world power (such as Natalia Narochnitskaya and Sergei Markov).
 

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