“However, the challenge of Europhobia has its own charm and this charm resides in the fact that it reminded us of the Crimean Bridge that was built by only three leaders who had a lot in common – Hitler, Stalin, and Putin. The irony of fate is that the Crimean Bridge has a sad fate – it collapses or is every time destroyed, probably under the burden of sins and crimes committed by those who ordered to build it...”
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Manifestations of Europhobia
The current government really abuses the use of the notion of European to describe the actions they take and the results of these. It happens so because the authorities aim to meet the expectations of the majority of the citizens who, according to opinion polls, support the European integration course. The critics of the current government justly draw attention to the fact that the government’s actions are often far from the declared standards. There are tens and tens of examples that confirm the discrepancy between the pro-European rhetoric and the results that are contrary to this.
There are yet critics who profit from the given discrepancies to imbed Europhobia in society. One of the most recent relevant examples of the kind is a communiqué about the inauguration, with the participation of President Maia Sandu, of a new portion of the M3 and M3.1 road (see annex 1), which connects the Giurgiulesti Port with Ukraine and Romania. The presidential press service’s press release that quotes the President’s statements says that: “The new portion also contributes to our efforts to be solidary with Ukraine – the M3 road forms part of a European corridor that connects the neighboring country with the road network of Romania and ensures the transportation of goods. Such infrastructure projects show that Moldova is a reliable partner that contributes also to food safety in the region”. This quotation caused a nervous breakdown among the Europhobes. The latter avoided referring explicitly to the mention about the Republic of Moldova’s solidarity with Ukraine to help this resist the Russian aggression, preferring to refer to the part “…the 31 km of road rehabilitated according to European standards...”.
Respectively, the phrase European standards served as a trigger to express the Europhobia by publishing an article entitled Hitler also built “European roads”. In the mentioned publication, there are invoked the names and deeds of a series of odious Nazi criminals, such as Josef Mengele etc., to underline how criminal the inauguration of a section of European road is. It is noteworthy that the Europhobe philippic perfectly matches the trend conceived by the supporters of the Shor Party, so-called Shorlatans who accuse the European states of genocide: “At present, together with Maia Sandu, you [European states] commit a new genocide against the Jews, against myself, against Ilan Shor and our whole team here, on the territory of the Republic of Moldova”.
Perverse logic of Europhobes: things go astray!
Russian diplomat and poet Fyodor Tyutchev urged caution in expressions as we never know what will be with worlds we utter solemnly. Indeed, the Europhobe insinuation mentioned above in our recollections resonates with the fact that Hitler built not only roads, but also ordered, on April 21, 1943, to constrcut two bridges from Crimea over the Kerch Strait – a road one and a railway one – for the later invasion of Iran through Caucasus. The started works were interrupted due to the change of conjuncture on the front. Later, Hitler’s idea was borrowed by his former ally Stalin, together with which they started World War II. The irony of fate is that the bridge over the Kerch Strait built by Stalin collapsed under the weight of the ice that embraced this. It happened in only three months after it started to be used. Hitler’s and Stalin’s actions were continued by President Vladimir Putin, who after the occupation of Crimea in 2015, also built a bridge over the Kerch Strait – Putin’s pride!, which became the target of the Ukrainian military after the launch of the Russian aggression.
A natural question suggested by the insinuation Europhobes derives from the aforementioned: to what regime is Putin’s regime closer: of Hitler or of Stalin? This is not a trivial question. Apropos, after the invasion of Ukraine, the comparing of the regimes of Stalin and Hitler were banned by law in Russia Why? Because the regimes of Hitler and Stalin had many similarities: the two tyrants started World War II by common accord, invading Poland after the signing of the notorious pact for the partition of Europe and the treaty of friendship; then Hitler occupied Western Europe, while Stalin occupied a part of Finland, the Baltic Countries and Bessarabia, etc. Fortunately, the tyrants could not come to terms about the division of the world that was discussed during the visit paid by the head of the Soviet government Vyacheslav Molotov in November 1940 to Berlin. The disagreement made a confrontation between the former allies inevitable. Nazi Germany attacked the USSR and became an aggressor. In fact, all the aggressors have something in common and this fact was confirmed by Hitler’s address to the citizens of June 22, 1941 and by Putin’s address of February 24, 2022. The point is the historians reached the conclusion that these addresses were amazingly similar.
Ideological affinities...
Not only once it was mentioned that Putin’s powerful ideas were based on the perceptions of his favorite philosopher, Ivan Ilyin, the author of the essay “About Russian Fascism”. Why? Probable because Ivan Ilyin considered that there were affinities between fascism and Bolshevism – the first being actually a consequence of the Bolshevik revolution. About the affinities between Stalinist Bolshevism and fascism, famous philosopher Nicolai Berdyaev also wrote. He believed that the two ideologies influence each other: “Stalinism degenerates imperceptibly into a kind of Russian fascism. It has all the qualities of fascism: a totalitarian state, state capitalism, nationalism, leadership and, as basis, the militarized youth. Lenin wasn’t yet a dictator in the modern meaning of the word. Stalin was already a dictator leader in the modern meaning, a fascist”.
It is curious, but the affinities between Bolshevism and fascism were anticipated by the chief of Nazi propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, back at the incipient stage of the domination of the two ideologies. His memoires contain a series of exalted notes about bolshevism: “Sate socialism has a future. I trust Russia. Who knows why this holy country should go through bolshevism... We must overcome the tiredness of state influence (“I’m National-Bolshevik”) (1924)… Russia, when will you wake up? The people long for your liberating feats! Russia, you are the hope of a fading world. When will the day come?... Ultimately, it will be better for us to end our existence under the Bolshevik rule than to turn into slaves of capital (1925)… To my mind, it is horrible that we (Nazis) and Communists fight between us... Where and when will we meet with the Communist leaders (1926)? It is amazing, but that day arrived in only 13 years, on August 23, 1939, in Moscow, to discuss the partition of Europe. In approximately a year, on November 13, 1940, in Berlin, Hitler met with the head of the Soviet government, Molotov, to divide the world, but they distanced from each other for good. In this connection, Vladimir Putin’s eulogizing appraisals of Goebbels do not seem accidental at all: “Goebbels asserted: the more monstrous the lie is, the more willingly they will believe in it. And in achieving goals, he was a talented man”. It is curious that the aforementioned were said in the presence of a group of rabbis and it is even more curios that Goebbels’ practices were borrowed by Putin and his inferiors who, denying the intentions to attack Ukraine, managed to cheat the vigilance of the brotherly nation, taking this by surprise in the morning of February 24, 2022.
Geopolitical affinities...
In his autobiography published in the 1920s, Hitler revealed his political view – the German people’s fight for “Lebensraum” (Vital Space), which envisioned territorial expansion. In two weeks of the invasion of Ukraine, Putin also revealed that he struggles for the Russian World (Ruskii Mir) whose borders do not have limits, while his mission was to return the Russian territories lost after the dissolution of the URSS. In this connection, a series of Russian historians consider the comparing of the fight for Vital Space with the Russian world is justified.
But are there ideologists who currently develop the concept of Russian world? Evidently there are. But Alexandr Dugin is considered to be the closest to Putin. For special merits, he was invited to the recent St. Petersburg Economic Forum to share his ideas about the imperial future of Russia: „… we follow the path of sovereign civilization, build a kind of unearthly Russia of ours, which compares to itself... We follow one direction, while the West follows another direction. ... The Russians have built an empire of the good for centuries and pursue their goal. About the ideologies used by Russia on its path to the empire of the good, Dugin wrote in his work “Unlimited and red fascism”. What we retain from this work is the conclusion reached by the author: “In the 20th century, there were three ideological forms that confirmed the realism of their principles in the implementation of state policies – these are liberalism, communism and fascism. Despite wish, it is impossible to name another model of society that would not represent one of the forms of these ideologies and to simultaneously exist in reality. There are liberal countries, communist countries and fascist (nationalist) countries. There are no others and cannot exist. In Russia, we went through two ideological stages – communist and liberal. Only fascism remained”.
If someone believes that the ideas of the Russian World’s ideologist are abstract, they are seriously wrong as this focuses on reflections about the moment when Putin should push the red button: “We set off on the victory path, the path of renaissance of Russia, of internal transformation, of liberation of Ukraine and actually of building of an empire. If we push that red button now, we will not be able to enjoy our victory… I seriously believe that our administration will push this button in a critical situation and this was said for multiple times. But those people who ask to do this now cannot be considered philosophers or even intellectuals as now we are far from having used up all the other resources”.
Conclusions
It should be noted that we are grateful to the Europhobes and Shorlatans who make stupid allusions and compare the government in the Republic of Moldova, despite all its sins, with the Nazi regime for the fact that this builds roads. In fact, all the governments, from all the states, build roads - some of them better, while others worse. So, it is stupid to invoke the building of roads to make allusions to the Nazi regime. However, the challenge of Europhobia has its own charm and this charm resides in the fact that it reminded us of the Crimean Bridge that was built by only three leaders who had a lot in common – Hitler, Stalin, and Putin. The irony of fate is that the Crimean Bridge has a sad fate – it collapses or is every time destroyed, probably under the burden of sins and crimes committed by those who ordered to build it.
