Us Against Them: Russia's Frightening New Cult

Maxim Shemetov / Reuters

By Gleb Kuznetsov, Moscow Times
Mar. 22 2015 18:01

If you believe that the U.S. aggressors were preparing to land in Crimea in the winter of 2014 in order to help the Ukrainians kill all the Orthodox Russians there, and that only the pre-emptive military operation under the command of President Vladimir Putin saved them, then you are "one of us" — that is, a true-blue adherent of the state's cult.

However, if you think that the United States was not planning a military operation in Crimea last year, that it did not "have its eye on" the peninsula and that NATO never did and still has no plans for it as a theater of war, then you are officially a heretic.

You are a heretic regardless of your past services, social status, annual income or membership in the ruling party. All of those are secondary to the main question: Do you believe, or do you not?

Anyone attempting to analyze Russian policy and predict its future course should understand one fundamental thing: Modern Russian policy is not rational and not based on political considerations. It is irrational and religious — with all of the attendant religious stereotypes, prejudices and dogmas.

The authorities have created a kind of "creed" right before our eyes, a set of words and concepts that allow them to easily label someone as either "loyal" or "disloyal." All political and existential concepts are now reduced to black and white and the entire spectrum of political viewpoints has become a dichotomy of "friend" or "foe" — the forces of Evil against the forces of Good.

(More here.)