In the Republic of Moldova, the Russian propaganda flourishes due to political forces that pursue particular goals, being fueled by Russia. Such parties keep their voters nostalgic as this enables them, to stay in politics. The nostalgia bubble propagates the message that the world was saved in World War II exclusively due to the Soviet Union’s effort, political commentator Nicolae Negru stated in a public debate hosted by IPN.
Nicolae Negru said the Russian propaganda about World War II differs a lot from the reality and sometimes bears no relation to the reality. The Soviet citizens were educated in the spirit that the USSR was the most powerful one and the world was saved only by the Soviet Union. “This collective ego grew and only now started to burst following the developments in Ukraine. When the generations that took part in the war started to disappear, the attitude and stories about this war took proportions and were put to books and films,” he stated.
According to the political commentator, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact by which Hitler and Stalin practically divided Europe between them was overlooked. Things in Soviet society evolved as if by the rules of propaganda and had few ties with what happened in reality as the participants in the war actually said something else.
“The participants in the war from my village were humiliated somehow. They were sent to fight in the war as cannon fodder and didn’t have the motivation to fight. Later, they were devoted attention on May 9, when they were awarded. And at a certain moment they started to feel important. They began to have particular privileges, such as access to scarce products. These things had an impact on the whole society. The Soviet citizens were told that they were the strongest and if need be “they could repeat those developments”,” said Nicolae Negru.
He noted that the war in the neighboring country shows that the Russian army and its military potential do not match the expectations of the supporters of the Russian propaganda. “I see the triumph of the Russians when Ukrainian citizens are being bombarded and power stations are being attacked with missiles. This shows that their mentality is deformed. It is not of contemporary persons, but of persons who remained in that propaganda bubble and started to wake up only now, due to the war in Ukraine. Some woke up and started to run away, while others should be yet hit by the reality,” said the political commentator.
The public debate entitled “USSR’s participation in World War II: about real victories and defeats, about what propaganda does not say, about what myths and nostalgia reveal” was the seventh installment of IPN’s project “100 years of USSR and 31 years without USSR: Nostalgia for Chimeras”, which is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
