Anders Aslund: 12 ways in which Putin’s rhetoric resembles Germany in the 1930s
21.03.2014
Adopting the mantle of Great Russian nationalism, President Vladimir Putin’s speech in the Kremlin on March 18 offered a sharp break from his or any other modern Russian public statements. Russia can no longer be perceived as a status-quo power. Rather it has become a radical revisionist and revanchist state. All Western policy must be revised accordingly.
An awful sense of déjà vu was conveyed by Putin’s speech in both substance and form. It would seem overly provocative to suggest comparisons to Adolf Hitler’s speech declaring war against Poland in September 1939, which followed Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria through the Anschluss in 1938, of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938, and of Lithuanian Klaipeda in 1939. But after Putin’s emotional, belligerent, and self-pitying performance at the Grand Kremlin Palace on Tuesday, I went back to check the details and words accompanying the early Nazi expansion, and it almost appears as if Putin and his aides have studied the Nazi record carefully and decided to repeat its successes.
Twelve similarities stand out between the Putin speech on March 18 and Nazi Germany’s public advocacy in 1938–39.
Monday, March, 24, 2014, 17:20
Monday, March, 24, 2014, 17:12.
Russian Original Text by O Lemenov
Mosche Reuven Asman is the Chief Rabbi Hasidic Jews (Chabad – Lubavich Movement), Ukrainian Congress of Jewish Religious Communities.
Born in Leningrad, he lived in Israel after his marriage, and then worked as an assistant Rabbi of Toronto teaching Russian-speaking Jews. He then returned to Ukraine. He is extraordinarily intelligent, has personally met many politicians and is also acquainted with many successful business men and women in Ukraine and Russia.
During the course of the past few months Moshe Asman has commented on the absence of anti-Semitism in Ukraine, on lies regarding alleged aggression towards Jews as well as on a number of provocations that have been created to mislead the observers of Maidan movement regarding the true motivations behind the revolution in Ukraine.
In a conversation with Ukrainska Pravda, Moshe Asman shares his wisdom on life, conveyed with restraint…
