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This article examines conspiracy theories about the history of the Cold War as presented in post-Soviet memoirs and other writings produced by former KGB officers. It focuses in particular on conspiracy theories positing an ongoing Western plot to destroy and humiliate Russia. The article explores the connections which these texts draw between national identity, morality, memory, and state security.
Intelligence and National Security
Chekists Look Back on the Cold War: The Polemical Literature2011 •
This article examines conspiracy theories about the history of the Cold War as presented in post-Soviet memoirs and other writings produced by former KGB officers. It focuses in particular on conspiracy theories positing an ongoing Western plot to destroy and humiliate Russia. The article explores the connections which these texts draw between national identity, morality, memory, and state security.
Russian Analytical Digest
The Russian" Old Left," Conspiracies around the USSR's Demise, and the Russo-Ukrainian War2023 •
Through the lens of online conspiracies around the USSR's dissolution, this text discusses the "old left" segment of the Russian Internet. It claims that while nostalgia for the Soviet Union remains outside state memory politics, there is a certain alignment between state propaganda about the Russo-Ukrainian war and the "old left" worldview. Moreover, it shows the misuse of decolonial language that is prominent in these narratives. Putin's USSR Putin could never be considered a champion of the Soviet Union's revival. While he famously claimed that the Union's dissolution was a geopolitical catastrophe, he has never bought into Soviet nostalgia wholesale. Instead,
2016 •
Conspiracy theorizing is common in many countries worldwide. It plays a particularly important role in contemporary Russian politics. The substantial part of such “theories” focuses on the sinister plans of foreign enemies, among which the United States and its allies are mentioned most frequently. A wide range of actors, varying from high-standing officials to ordinary people, resort to such conspiracy theorizing. In the 1990s, the authorities and their supporters rarely resorted to this kind of conspiracy theorizing; however, lately it has become an increasingly important element of Russian official discourse in the second half of the 2000s. The Dulles’ Plan (DP) is an existing narrative that discusses how the USA could corrupt the Soviet/Russian society with the help of internal accomplices. It is claimed to be a genuine US official plan that graphically demonstrates American enmity and malignity towards Russia. Despite the fact that this plan’s authenticity has since been called into serious question, it is still used by various actors in different contexts and plays an important role in anti-Western conspiracy discourse in Russia. What is the role of employing DP in post-Soviet Russia’s social and political contexts? What actors appealed for DP and for what purposes? How has the narrative survived the harsh criticism that has targeted its vulnerabilities? To respond to these questions, the following issues will be addressed. First, we consider the relevant theoretical issues discussed by contemporary conspiracy studies. Secondly, we examine DP’s key features; including structure, textual evolution, and interrelationships with other similar narratives. Thirdly, we analyze the social contexts of citing the plan’s text, including the range of actors, functional importance, functional purposes, and targets. Finally, we examine both of those arguments that have challenged the text’s authenticity and the ways that have been used by conspiracy theorists to defend it.
2020 •
Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization
Russia: Death and Resurrection of the KGB (2004)2004 •
The former KGB's takeover of Russia's political and economic institutions was easy to foresee when the post-Soviet government decided to preserve and rehabilitate—not repudiate—the entire legacy of the Bolshevik secret police. There was little serious attempt and no strategy to expose excesses and crimes or to prevent such a system from emerging again, whether from within the Russian leadership or from outside pressure. The KGB survived as a continuum with the Soviet past. By the 2000 presidential election, being an unrepentant career KGB officer had become a political asset instead of a liability. At the time of this writing in 2004, the former KGB is fully institutionalized throughout the Russian government, different from before in style and structure, but in greater control of the instruments of state power than even the Soviets allowed. For an appreciation of the nature of the security apparatus in today’s Russia, one first must review what the Cheka was, what it did, what it stood for, and what it begat.
Europe-Asia Studies
Dealing with the Russians, Book Review2021 •
The book examines the so-called security paradox, which is formed by the dilemmas of interpretation and response. The security paradox is a spiral of mutual hostility, created when all sides of a (latent) conflict increase the security of their own side and determine their level of response based on their interpretation of the perceived danger the other side represents. These measures are then perceived by the other side as a threat to security, which must be addressed through an increase in their level of response. The author suggests that ‘the challenge Russia poses is being misdiagnosed, and the responses are poorly framed’ and notes a peculiar feature of the discourse: Moscow’s decision-making and actions are interpreted through the lens of historical analogy and lessons the alliance has supposedly learned. The mythologisation of contemporary Russia is ‘built on the assumption that history can be understood largely to repeat itself’, thus ‘reducing all the complexities of the situation to black and white to shape a simple pattern of aggressor, victim and the consequences’ (р. 29). Monaghan unravels three prominent myths which shape the contemporary international security discourse: the Cold War (2.0) myth, the Munich Myth and the myth of the hybrid war (the Gerasimov Doctrine). The author calls the first myth ‘The Cold War Groundhog Day’ (p. 20), and notes the use of outdated parallels by both sides.
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