Fascism, page 16
The president takes nothing for granted. He personally supervises the KGB’s successor security service, the FSB. He is creating a new National Guard, separate from the army, to cope with potential protests. Further, in recent years the government arranged with criminal hacking outfits to obtain confidential data about persons of interest.
Late in 2016, the American intelligence community reported that Moscow had used online tools to influence the American electoral process and to help Putin’s preferred candidate, Donald Trump, gain entrée to the Oval Office. Comparable disruptive efforts have been directed toward balloting in (at least) France, Italy, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, the Baltics, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and Georgia. Methods include the theft and release of campaign e-mails, the generation of phony documents, the use of disguised identities on Facebook, and the dissemination of fictitious and sometimes libelous “news” stories that are then picked up and splashed around by social media. When Russia is confronted with these allegations, the response has been typical of its approach whenever its actions are challenged: to categorically deny any role, then concoct a false equivalency by accusing the West of doing the same thing. As Putin has pointed out, even if Russia did meddle in elections, the United States has an entire branch of civil society devoted to the same purpose. What he fails to acknowledge is the difference between trying to castrate democracy and endeavoring to strengthen and sustain it.
Russia’s pioneering use of social media as a weapon reflects not any unusual cultural aptitude for hacking, but rather Putin’s experiences in the KGB, where spreading disinformation was both a way of life and an art. The impact, though, is larger now than during the Cold War, because the target audience is more accessible and bigger. Facebook has two billion active users. What are Russia’s motives? A good guess would be to discredit democracy, divide Europe, weaken the transatlantic partnership, and punish governments that dare stand up to Moscow. This agenda is not ideological; it is about power, pure and simple. Russia’s cyberwarriors aren’t liberal or conservative; they help movements from both the far left and the far right to inflame public opinion and ignite conflict. In world affairs, this brand of cyberwarfare is the new power tool, and states across the globe are asking two questions: How can we defend ourselves? And how can we develop the same capability?
WITH COMMUNISM NO LONGER VIABLE, THE DEFAULT RALLYING CRY for an autocratic Russian leader is nationalism. Putin, with his staged military parades and frequent invocation of past heroics, sounds that trumpet repeatedly. He wants citizens to believe that only he can restore his country to its rightful position in world affairs. If that means playing a little rough, so be it. He notes sarcastically that some think the Russian bear should “start picking berries and eating honey. Maybe then he will be left alone. But no, he won’t be! Because someone will always try to chain him up. As soon as he’s chained, they will tear out his teeth and claws.”
During the winter of 2013–14, anti-government demonstrations caused Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to flee. He left behind in his compound fifty luxury cars, twenty aircraft, several speedboats, a giant wooden pirate ship complete with dining area, a painting of one of his top advisers dressed up like Julius Caesar, a karaoke station, a gold toilet seat, and a petting zoo with ostriches and ten different breeds of pheasant. The protesters had accused Yanukovych of corruption, an allegation he indignantly denied.
Putin’s decision to capitalize on the turbulence in Ukraine flowed in part from his conviction, shared by most Russians, that Crimea rightly belongs to Russia. Back in 1991, when the USSR was falling apart, Yeltsin’s foreign minister warned U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, “If Ukraine does secede, this will give rise to highly unpredictable consequences: the problem of relations between Russia and Ukraine, the status of Crimea, and the Donbass region. Eastern Ukraine would also be an issue.”
Until 2014, Russia had to live with the hand it had been dealt, but that winter, with Ukraine in an uproar and the world distracted by events in Syria and Iraq, Putin made his move.
There ensued a farce during which Russia conceded nothing while manipulating events, then rapidly annexing Crimea with the aid of weapons and troops that were supposedly never there. The Kremlin proceeded to send more supplies and soldiers to support ethnic Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. This, too, officials swore they hadn’t done, even though the weapons were photographed by Western intelligence agencies and the bodies of very real Russian soldiers had to be trucked back across the border for burial. In July 2014, a Malaysia Airlines plane was blasted out of the sky in Ukrainian airspace, killing 298, including eighty children. Dutch investigators produced clear evidence that the plane had been shot down by a Russian-made missile from territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. Putin claimed that the investigation was political and pinned blame for the tragedy on Ukraine. In his telling, the entire crisis had been caused by Ukrainian Nazis. All of this reminds me of the opening quotation from an episode of The Wire: “A lie ain’t a side of the story; it’s just a lie.”
In recent years, the Russian bear has also been on the prowl in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and Syria, where it put its considerable weight down on the side of Bashar al-Assad, a tyrant with the blood of many thousands on his hands. These aggressive moves, in combination with the troubles in Ukraine, Russian cyberhacks, and flagrant meddling in elections, have injected a dose of hysteria into relations between Washington and Moscow. Putin is, I think, sincere in believing that the United States wants to prevent his country from projecting military power well beyond its borders, because that happens to be true. However, he is wrong to think that America desires a Russia that is marginalized and weak. All we want—and what most of the world would like to see—is a Russia willing to treat others with the respect it demands for itself. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.
In our first meeting, back in 2000, Putin told me, “Sure, I like Chinese food, it’s fun to use chopsticks, and I’ve been doing judo for a long time, but this is just trivial stuff. It’s not our mentality, which is European. Russia has to be firmly part of the West.” Such comments are meant to be disarming, but Russia has ample cause to value access to Western markets and to be on cordial terms with the principal nations of Europe. So it is a debit for Putin, and for Russia, that few international leaders trust him. When, on May 9, 2017, the country celebrated Victory Day, the pinnacle of the patriotic calendar, Putin’s high-level foreign guest list consisted, in its entirety, of the president of Moldova.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov likes to gloat that we are now in a “post-West world order.” Whether that’s true—and, if so, what it means—is unclear. What’s curious is why Lavrov thinks Russia would benefit from a future dominated by the East. China is a more natural antagonist for Russia than either Europe or the United States. At any rate, how the world order is described matters less than how well and on what basis it functions. Putin’s vision, which seems predicated on the principles of every nation for itself and every leader for himself, can be described as realistic or, as I prefer, cynical.
Earlier, I cited Oswald Spengler’s chilling century-old prophecy that “the era of individualism, liberalism and democracy, of humanitarianism and freedom, is nearing its end. The masses will accept with resignation the victory of the Caesars, the strong men, and will obey them.” This is the real danger posed by Putin: that he will be a model for other national leaders who want to retain their grip on power indefinitely, despite political and legal constraints.
Since the Cold War’s conclusion, pro-democracy groups have emphasized the value of countries learning from the experiences of others. States like Argentina and Chile graduated from military to civilian rule in the 1980s and had much to teach Central Americans in the following decades. The Philippines got rid of Marcos in 1986 and later helped Indonesia, which moved on from its dictator, Suharto, in 1998. Today, those who have been building democracy are seeing their techniques mimed by people who are out to destroy democracy. Repressive governments from across the globe are learning from one another. If this were a college for despots, we could imagine the course names: How to Rig a Constitutional Referendum; How to Intimidate the Media; How to Destroy Political Rivals Through Phony Investigations and Fake News; How to Create a Human Rights Commission That Will Cover Up Violations of Human Rights; How to Co-Opt a Legislature; and How to Divide, Repress, and Demoralize Opponents So That No One Believes You Will Ever Be Defeated.
In 1933, shortly after Hitler took power, Mussolini told a member of his staff, “The idea of Fascism conquers the world. I have already given Hitler many good ideas. Now he will follow me.”
Putin has feet of clay. The Russian economy, so robust in his first decade of rule, remains smaller than Italy’s or Canada’s and shows no promise of further improvement. Free enterprise is withering as foreign investors abandon the country due to sanctions, opaque rules for doing business, and an unwillingness to pay bribes. Wealth is distributed less equally than in any other major nation—a throwback to the time of the czars. The country’s population is aging. Politically, there are signs (such as lower voter turnout) that Russians are growing weary of Putinism, even if most are not yet ready to rebel against the man himself. Internationally, Putin’s deceptions are no longer fooling so many. Yet he has already succeeded in giving men of ambition elsewhere “many good ideas.” And it is ironic and disturbing that among those watching him most reverently is a leader in Central Europe who—when the Berlin Wall fell—celebrated what the KGB mourned.
Thirteen
“We Are Who We Were”
IN BUDAPEST ON JUNE 16, 1989, HUNGARIANS HONORED—BY reburying—a man who had been dead for more than three decades. A quarter of a million citizens gathered in Heroes’ Square around a towering monument commemorating the thousand-year history of the Magyar people. All eyes were on the flower-draped casket holding the remains of Imre Nagy, leader of a nationalist revolt crushed by the Soviets in 1956. Fearing its own population, the quisling Hungarian government had secretly tried and hanged Nagy, then consigned his remains to an unmarked grave in a remote corner of an obscure cemetery. In the summer of 1989, under intense pressure from a burgeoning democratic movement, authorities consented to Nagy’s exhumation and public reinterment, but warned against any attempt to inject politics into the solemn event. With that caution in mind, speakers were restrained throughout the day, as if fearing to acknowledge the revolutionary significance of the ceremony. Hours passed and the audience grew restless. Then the final speaker rose to his feet. He was a tall man with tousled black hair and a short beard; he gazed at his anxious countrymen through twenty-six-year-old eyes.
“We young people,” he began, “fail to understand a lot of things about the older generation. . . . We do not understand that the very same party and government leaders who told us to learn from books falsifying history . . . now vie with each other to touch these coffins as if they were lucky charms. We do not think there is any reason to be grateful for being allowed to bury our martyred dead.”
The crowd, coming alive, began to cheer.
“We do not owe thanks to anyone for the fact that our political organization exists and is operating today.”
More cheers.
“If we can trust our souls and our strength, we can put an end to the Communist dictatorship.”
Loud applause.
“And if we do not lose sight of the ideals of 1956, we will elect a government and start immediate negotiations for the swift withdrawal of Russian troops.”
By now the crowd was in an uproar. The spirit of Hungarian freedom was reborn, and it was Communism instead in the coffin. Less than four months later, the reformers proclaimed a democratic republic.
IN POLAND, THE MOST EFFECTIVE VOICE FOR FREEDOM AT THE Cold War’s end was that of Lech Wałęsa, the fiery yet amiable dockworker with the walrus mustache; in Czechoslovakia, it had been the mischievous, music-loving playwright Václav Havel; in Hungary, it was the youthful football enthusiast with the raven-colored beard, Viktor Orbán. Of this trio, the first two remain internationally celebrated; the third, Orbán, is more controversial. He still has admirers in his home country, but to many outside observers he is “a xenophobic, anti-democratic nationalist with a cruel anti-refugee agenda.”
Who has changed more—the idealist of 1989 or those who judge him?
In its first fifteen years, the new Hungary lived up to its billing. Elections were competitive and fair, courts independent, the media diverse, and basic liberties respected. As secretary of state, I was delighted when, in 1999, I joined in welcoming Hungary into NATO. Five years on, the country was admitted to the EU. Among its prominent personalities was the now clean-shaven Orbán, whose Fidesz party occupied space on the center right of the political spectrum and dueled repeatedly with the party of the left, the Socialists. This rivalry was hard fought and would likely have remained so had Orbán not been handed a priceless gift. In 2006, the Socialist prime minister offered remarks to a party conference in which he admitted to lying “morning, evening and night,” acknowledged that “we screwed up. Not a little, a lot,” and referred to Hungary—using a polite translation—as “this maggoty country.” The profanity-laced confessional was intended to be private. Instead it was recorded secretly (no one is sure by whom) and broadcast nationwide. The gaffe let all the air out of the Socialist balloon and helped lift Orbán’s party to victory in the next election, held in 2010.
On reaching office, the new head of government set to work. His agenda was a nationalist one, patriotic in tone, and wrapped in the red, white, and green of the Hungarian flag. Orbán’s European colleagues found him irritating—a showboat playing to the home crowd and no help in addressing the continent’s broader problems. Every time the prime minister denounced the bureaucrats in Brussels, their distress deepened, while applause rang out in Hungary everywhere from the high-tech entrepreneurs of Debrecen to the sausage makers and paprika producers of Szeged.
For Orbán, Hungarian unity is a dominant theme about which he talks all the time. However, the togetherness he envisions is defined by bloodlines, not borderlines. To him, a person of Magyar ancestry living in Serbia or Romania is more authentically Hungarian than a Roma or Turk born and raised on Hungarian soil. The prime minister exploits national grievances dating back to the Ottomans, but he gives special attention to the 1920 treaty—imposed by the victors after World War I—that cost Hungary two-thirds of its territory. He urges citizens to protect themselves from threats to their collective identity, and appeals unceasingly to ethnic pride based on shared history, values, religion, and tongue. For inspiration, he turns not to multiethnic America or to the big tent that Europe has become. His ideal is what he calls “illiberal democracy,” and the models of governance he acclaims are those of Putin in Russia and Erdoğan in Turkey.
An illiberal democracy is centered on the supposed needs of the community rather than the inalienable rights of the individual. It is democratic because it respects the will of the majority; illiberal because it disregards the concerns of minorities. Orbán has made clear that the aspirations of the majority correspond precisely to the program of his own movement: Fidesz. In his calculation, the people and the party are in exquisite balance, and their opponents are aliens—the enemies of Hungary. This thinking is indeed illiberal, and an echo of the jingoistic nationalism that carried Mussolini to power a century ago.
Mussolini was an ideological chameleon, and the same may be said of Orbán. This famed anti-Communist had, when a teenager, been secretary of a Communist youth organization. Now the unapologetic champion of illiberal democracy, he served, early in his career, as vice-chair of Liberal International, a federation dedicated to free enterprise and social justice. A skeptic today toward all things European, Orbán had once been among those impatiently lobbying for Hungary to join the EU. As a party leader, he has pursued conservative economic policies but also advocated tax and welfare initiatives that benefit the poor. Since he entered public life, his tactics have been flexible, his ambitions constant. He is a thin-skinned opportunist who likes to command. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that he has forced Hungary into a Fascist straitjacket, but he is encouraging his country to feel comfortable in a loose-fitting ultranationalist shirt.
Since 2010, Fidesz has used its executive and legislative clout to rewrite the constitution in a way that expands the powers of the prime minister while diminishing those of parliament. To widen the circle of conservative votes, the government extended citizenship privileges to ethnic Hungarians living outside the country. Party loyalists have taken control of the constitutional court, the National Election Commission, and much of the judiciary. The administration has replaced public radio and television channels with state-sponsored media, sapped the strength of labor unions, reshaped educational curricula, and attempted to dictate the content of movies and plays. Coziness between public ministries and a new generation of oligarchs has given Fidesz a rich source of financial backing—and abundant opportunities for corruption.
