By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
We have witnessed during the last two years the multiplication of cases of political repressions in various Eastern European countries, like Poland, where Mateusz Piscorski, leader of the party Smena is detained illegally already for two years, without any accusations formulated against him! But this is not the only authoritarian action of the Polish authorities, which, by the way have been condemned by UN Human Rights Committee and by the Polish Ombudsman (Rzecznik praw obywatelskich) for their actions. Among them the process against the Polish Communist party, the harassment against the trotskyte group “Power to the Councils”, a pro-Palestinian conference and scientific conferences about Karl Marx! To all that you may add the massive expulsion to the streets of impoverished tenants due to the re-privatization process.
It seems that, for the Polish authorities, “Democracy” and “Freedom” were very good as slogans against “Socialism” and the “Russians”, but not so good to be really applied…As for Polish nationalism is of a very peculiar brand. Polish say for instance they are still angry with the Soviet invasion to Poland in 1921 (after a failed Polish invasion of Soviet Russia!) But they cannot explain why in the hell the leaders of this proud nation send their troops to invade, occupy and destroy Iraq in 2003, along with US, Britain and Australia! It seems Iraq cannot have the same right to national independence Poles claim for their country.
More to the South, in Moldova, an intellectual like Iurie Rosca, an internationally known Moldovan is also persecuted by the authorities of the country. His real crime is that Rosca, a militant for democracy since the Soviet times, remains a strong pro-independence and pro-neutrality figure in a country NATO wants to include, as fast as possible.
More to the North, in the Baltic states, the so-called “Russian-speaking” huge minorities in those states, of Russian, Ukrainian or Bielorussian origin, are the object of mass repressions since the demise of the USSR. They are even deprived of their most fundamental political and civic rights, with the complicity of European governments and EU institutions. In both Baltic states and Ukraine, authorities do not object to the open celebration of the most terrible and criminal Nazi or pro-Nazi figures as national heroes. (By the way one wonders why the World Jewish Council and other similar organizations seem so little wondered by Nazi and anti-semitic manifestations in this region, in particular by the Nazi activities in Ukraine. If something like that happened anywhere else in the world, as a minimum they would ask for sanctions against the powers which tolerate such manifestations or they would organize campaigns to remove them from power!)
Except for the Baltic states and Ukraine, political persecutions did not take a massive character and they don’t need to take for the time being. Still those persecutions and the general ideological climate (mostly anti-Russian and anti-Communist, sometimes clearly pro-Nazi) are quite serious indications of the political project they want to serve.
Communists for instance or the Left are nearly inexistent in nearly all Eastern European countries. Those repressions are not justified by any “Communist threat”. As for Russia, it dissolved, at its own initiative, both the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. To claim now it represents a military threat for its ex-dominions it would be utterly ridiculous, if it was not very dangerous. By the way, campaigns to persuade Europeans that Russia is a serious threat are under way in all Europe, including Britain, Scandinavia or Germany, adapted to the particular conditions and the level of consciousness in every European country. In Germany, in 2014, the editor of Handelsblatt himself has compared the treatment of Russia by the local media, with what German newspapers were writing in the beginning of WWI. It is clearly a European wide project to present Moscow under the worse possible light.
Such media campaigns in History usually precede military campaigns, even if in the Russian case it is not so simple. The aim here is not to counter a non-existent Russian threat but to encircle, contain and provoke regime change in Russia and also undermine the relations between Europe and Russia. By destroying the relations between Russia and Europe, you deny also to the latter the means of its independence.
What the powers in place in Eastern Europe try to do by such repressive action is to neutralize “pro-actively” any dissident voice, of the left or of the right, afraid that the mere existence of any independent voice would harm their very ambitious plans. They are also trying to begin shifting European ideology, from its old democratic values (even if often not applied) to new authoritarian ones, something absolutely necessary for the attack of Capital against popular classes and of Western Imperialism against Russia and other “outside enemies” – targets. This is also essentially Trump’s game: To use dissatisfaction from the establishment policies to present a more authoritarian regime as an alternative.
Moldova: Encircling Russia from SE Europe
In Moldova, all economy and all politics and all power, except for the President of the Republic, elected by direct vote, are controlled by one and only one Oligarch who was even received officially in the US. Extreme corruption and exploitation of its people is the normal state of affairs in this once rich land, turned into the poorest nation of Europe, after the soviet collapse-suicide and the near to feudal neo-capitalist plundering of its resources, with one third of its population emigrating abroad! NATO and the EU, as usual, pretend to fully ignore the real situation in Moldova.
Moldova’s Oligarch and the Western powers behind him are afraid now of the likelihood that, in the next parliamentarian elections, the people of Moldova will overthrow their political representatives. In the same time, Moldova is most probably one of the next targets of NATO on its road to Moscow.
After destroying Yugoslavia, after launching a Debt War against Greece and Cyprus, after provoking a bloody civil war in Ukraine, Western imperialism needs now to control Moldova, to abolish whatever remains of its independence and neutrality and to turn it into a military base, absolutely necessary for its war planning against Russia. Moldova, Serbia and FYROM are the three remaining “holes” in the near complete chain of NATO protectorates now encircling Russia from its South West, from the Adriatic to Donetsk, from the Mediterranean to Hungary.
In reality, NATO is not doing anything different than what Hitler did, back in 1941, spending precious time and his best military units to occupy Greece and control the Balkans before launching the Barbarossa Operation. It is absolutely imperative for Western Imperialism to control the Balkans and all of SE Europe before launching, if it will be able, its final attack against Russia, an attack which may not take a (not impossible but rather difficult) military form, but which can adopt other forms, such as geopolitical isolation and threats, economic, financial and ideological war with the purpose of regime change, to return this country to the status of Western vassal, as it was during the Yeltsin years, in alliance with pro-Western forces inside Russia, probably more concealed that overt (*). In all possible scenarios, the encirclement of Russia, the cutting of its access to the South, to the “Warm Seas”, is one of the principal strategic lines of attack of the West against Moscow, as it has always been during the Soviet, but also during the Tsarist regime before the 1917 Revolution. But now, the West is much more advanced as it is already waging war from positions like Kiev or Caucasus, which belonged to the Russian Empire since centuries.
Hungary, Trump and the refugee crisis
Let us open a parenthesis at that point. Hungary is a very special case in Eastern-Central Europe, as it pretends to be simultaneously a friend of Russia, of Trump and of Netanyahu! It is only natural for Russia, attacked as it is from all sides, to see in Budapest a precious ally and he is in some cases, when for example it supports Macedonian Slav nationalism thus putting obstacles to the inclusion of FYROM into NATO. It is also rather normal for a power like Russia to try to manoeuver exploiting serious contradictions inside imperialist centers (Neocon-nationalists vs. Globalizers, Netanyahu against Soros, US Empire vs. Financial Empire). The only problem is that, if the winds of the Western establishment are diverging in serious problems, like Iran or the western political regime, they are absolutely united to their hostility to Russia, even if some of those politicians try to portray themselves as friends of Moscow. By the way that is not new. Even Hitler played in the past, rather successfully, this game, before attacking Russia!
Returning to Hungary, the question is if Orban and similar regimes are or can be long-term strategic allies of Russia. Especially in the context of the broader imperial game against Moscow, of which the NATO expansion is only one, very important, but only one chapter.
We will see at the end of the day what all that game really means. Past historic experience, but also the common anti-German, pro-US front of the Visegrád countries for decades is a very strong indication of problems ahead. It is true that many people in Europe, even in Germany, hate Merkel, Soros and globalization. Trump is using this dissatisfaction to create a pro-US camp in Europe, with Poland and Hungary as its leaders. This does not seem the best method to address the challenges put by Globalizers from the perspective of European independence. (Greece is also such an example, with Tsipras counting on US and “Deep Finance” support to counter Merkel. We have seen where all that led finally).
Hungary and its Eastern and Central European allies are now protesting against the refugees who supposedly threaten them. But in reality it is not they who are threatened, the refugee problem is serious and it is mainly affecting South and not Eastern European countries.
By attacking refugees, Eastern European states are constructing a very convenient outside enemy, whose utility is first to help Trump against Europe, second to solidify an authoritarian ideology at home, and third, to facilitate new Western wars against Islam.
It is very indicative the fact that both sides of the debate in Europe (pro- and anti-immigrant/refugee) are hardly saying one word about the main root cause of the refugee crisis, Western direct or by proxy interventions and the wars they provoked in the Middle East. That means they are not so much interested in addressing the refugee crisis, they are interested in using it.
The Dialectics of the Refugee Crisis
“Neocon–Nationalists” (the Huntington party) seem to be bitter enemies of Soros and the Fukuyama type “Globalizers” and they are indeed regarding many questions. Still they agree on the main, Western and Financial Domination in the world, they are seriously divided as far as the means to impose it are concerned.
By the way, one gets often the impression of a kind of an objective division of labor between those two camps. Neocons helped produce the refugees in the first place, by launching the wars in the Middle East. Then, by greatly facilitating the massive transfer of refugees to Europe, Soros-minded politicians and NGO’s, tried to facilitate the implementation of their totalitarian dream of destroying nations, states and every human identity, religion or ideology, potentially able to resist the world domination of Financial Capital and the institutions it is controlling, like the EU.
By doing that, they helped create the adverse reaction, which, instead of provoking a backlash against the Wars, it is destined to fuel new ones! You bomb Libya, you create refugees and then you use them to impose political regimes which are more convenient for new wars! Just fine.
US vs. Europe
We must not forget also that all Eastern European elites, including the Hungarian one, were formed by the Americans and some of their allies after the fall of the soviet regime and they are structurally anti-Russian and against European independence from the US, even if, in some rare cases, they can pretend to be friends of Russia. Eastern Europe, the “New Europe” of Ramsfeld and the Neocons, stubbed in the back France, Germany and Russia, which were opposing the war in Iraq in 2003, the same war which initiated the chain of Middle Eastern wars responsible for the refugee crisis they are now protesting against!
Again on what is Trump
As for Mr. Trump, it is becoming really tiring to have to repeat, in 2018, already obvious facts. The US President, examined on the basis of what he does, not what he says, on the basis of the real record of his administration, on the basis of the fact that now Neocons in Geopolitics and Goldman Sachs in economics are ruling Washington as never before, is nothing else than the main tool for the reappearance of the main Neocon project, albeit in a much expanded, multi-faceted and nuclear version. This program could not reappear by normal political ways, so it reappeared as a result of a huge and complicated conspiracy to elect and control Mr. Trump. Obama did not stop the Neocon policies, but he contained the more dangerous manifestations of them, like war against Iran, a new, Iraqi-style invasion of Syria, or providing Ukraine with more sophisticated weapons, as the present administration is already doing, or in moving Israel’s capital to Jerusalem.
Mr. Trump makes everything to persuade us he is mad and he probably is, I am not a psychiatrist to make a diagnosis. But his policy is not mad at all. It is following, on the contrary, an Iron Logic, the logic of Yinon, of Huntington, of the Wars of Civilizations, of the New American Century, of Neocons, of Cheney, albeit adapted to the new international situation. Here we are facing again nothing else than the centuries old phenomenon of Western Imperialism, projected by both Western superpowers, the Empire of Finance and the US Empire, in its more clear, more aggressive and more extremist form.
Regime Change in the West: Precondition for War
Most political and military leaders hate the fact that, always, even after the discovery of Nuclear Weapons, War remains the continuation of politics with other means, as Clausewitz put it. They like the fact that they can use their military means to implement their political goals. But they don’t like the fact they have to persuade their citizens and foreign opinion for what they are doing. If they use their weapons without some form of consent, they will pay a huge cost.
Without a political regime like Hitler’s in Germany, without the enormous support he commanded among German people (De Gaulle stated that no other people in History has supported so much its leaders), all the technical and military means of the world would not permit the Barbarossa Operation. (Let me clarify at that point that this is not an anti-German comment. It is true that Germans committed horrendous crimes, for which there is no whatever justification. But at least one can say they were pushed into committing them by the social disaster and the national humiliation they suffered after WWII and the 1929 crisis. But there was no military reason for levelling the German industrial, workers towns, or Nagasaki in Japan. Nowadays Americans lack even such a pseudo-justification for what they are doing or threaten to do all around the world. Nobody has invaded or plans to invade the United States, nobody has imposed its catastrophic economic diktats to them.)
By the way it was exactly the will and capacity of Hitler’s regime to attack Soviet Russia, which made it acceptable to large sections of the German and Western establishment and facilitated its ascension to power. As for his attack against Russia, it was not a mistake. It was his aim and the logic of his project from the very beginning. But of course he had to hide it in order to realize it.
We understand that some of our readers, accustomed to many decades of peace in Europe, may be skeptical about this kind of reasoning. We should remind them that European history is full of such abrupt changes from War to Peace and from Peace to War. It happened before, it can happen again. By the way, it is already happening in modern Europe. It has happened in Yugoslavia, it is happening in Ukraine, it is happening even in Greece, but by economic, not military means. But mainly, the new Cold War is already and in many aspects the dominating reality in nowadays Europe. It is War, even if it is not using the classical military means.
To push further this War, to encircle and strangle Russia, Western Imperialism and its military tool, NATO have now and “pro-actively” to silence any dissenting voice in Eastern Europe, from the right or from the left, which may become tomorrow poles of resistance. They have, through their repression, to teach to all potential dissidents the huge risks they will assume if they express their disagreements.
They need also to persuade European nations that any resistance to their plans is futile and they have nothing else to do than surrender and try to survive as best as they can. In the beginning of the decade we had the transformation of Greece from a more or less usual Western parliamentarian state into a Debt Colony, the Greek experiment and the Greek paradigm. The 2015 betrayal of the Greek people by its own leaders came to support the conclusion of futility of any resistance, in a way even a military defeat would not do.
Now, Poland seems to have been chosen as the New Authoritarian paradigm, with clear proto-Fascist elements, right and pro-US. The historic mission, the function of this new-old Authoritarianism is to attack social rights and their force in both Eastern and Western Europe. By doing that, they promote neoliberalism inside all of Europe, while creating the necessary political and social conditions to facilitate the wars they plan against external threats (Russia, Islam-Iran, Global South like Venezuela, China).
This is why we are witnessing such a definite turn to clearly authoritarian methods also in Western and Central Europe, where special legislation is introduced everywhere, invoking the need to “fight terrorism”, which is in many cases a result of western services activities and, in all cases, a result of Western interventions. This special legislation is not so much addressed against terrorists but it aims in reality political dissenters, independent intellectuals and social movements. To organize war against the East, it was always necessary to suppress democracy, political dissent and social movements in the West. (This was also the reason Mc Carthyism has been developed in the USA during the previous Cold War. It was necessary to prepare USA for the War with USSR).
Note
(*) We say concealed, because it is becoming more and more the privileged method of the Empire to control and use for its own goals various rightist or leftist political currents and identities, inverting their original intentions and goals. Conspiracy and Deception were always formidable political tools. In our era, an era of unprecedented civilizational decline of Western Capitalism, they have become the main ones. That made it possible for America and the “Deep Finance” to use Tsipras and SYRIZA in Greece and that also made it possible for a politician so closely connected to the US and Israeli Neocons, as Donald Trump is, to deceive so many people and to present himself as a friend of Russia and an opponent of Wars, while in fact he was the guy entrusted with continuing the Neocon agenda in a more dangerous form, bringing into the equation also the nuclear card.
