Contrary to claims that Russia is weak and in decline, one of the country’s leading political technologists insists that Vladimir Putin has forged a consensus or “value-based reality” that addresses the problems of its very existence and quality of governance.
Aside from resolving critical domestic challenges, Russia has also “helped other new nations in eastern Europe create their own identities,” claims Gleb Pavlovsky.
But, while most other analysts see the Caucasus as a simmering cauldron of unrest marred by flagrant human rights abuses and a series of murders of human rights defenders, Pavlovsky insists that the region has been pacified.
“By bringing recalcitrant minorities into a new security consensus, Russia helped transform local ethnic conflict into a constructive process of nation building,” he claims.
At a Stockholm conference last week, human rights and democracy activists called on the EU to encourage Russia to implement legal reforms that strengthen civil society, and stop obstructing NGOs and individual human rights defenders working in the Caucasus. Several members of Russian human rights group Memorial, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy, participated in the event. Memorial was recently awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov prize for human rights.
Political technologists like Pavlovsky have been among the more fervent advocates for Moscow’s projection of its soft power abroad. But is seems that the ruling elite is not only keen to improve its reputation but employing PR professionals to rewrite history too:
A senior executive at the PR firm in question recalled one particular exchange with the RJI Companies envoy: “I asked him ‘Do you want us to say that Stalin was not such a bad guy?’ And he said ‘Well, I know it will be difficult.’ I said ‘So, you want history to be rewritten?’ And he said ‘Yes, in a way’.”
“Expect to see more articles in European newspapers saying that Stalin had his good points as well,” the PR executive said.
Russia’s ambassador to the EU has kick-started the attempted rehabilitation, denying any moral equivalence between Nazism and Soviet Communism, insisting that it would be “obscene to put Hitler and Stalin on the same plane.”
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