What does russia mean when it demands the "denazification of Ukraine," and how different is it from the historical interpretation of the concept of "denazification" in Nazi Germany? Experts agree that denazification means de-Ukrainization, including harsh methods that contain war crimes. They also believe that this concept is a product more for the domestic consumer and has not been well developed by ideologues. That was the main topic of the online discussion "Denazification: the propaganda concept and the real situation in Ukraine and russia" in OPORA LIVE's weekly broadcast on May 11.
According to OPORA's analyst Andrii Savchuk, the term "denazification" appeared in 1943 before the Allies' victory in World War II. The Pentagon documents were most concerned with Germany's legal field and structure for the postwar period: it would lose, be denazified, and become democratic. However, at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, where the winners gathered, they decided to implement measures for German and Austrian societies to eliminate the remnants of Nazism and eliminate their cultural, media, and any other influence. Ukraine can draw a contemporary parallel with our lustration processes (removal of officials related to Yanukovych) and decommunization (renaming of streets, removal of symbols from public space).
"The Allies agreed that denazification and the elimination of militarism were necessary to make Germany a full member of the world community again, work with it on an equal footing, and develop its economy. But this required propaganda. Thus, by 1946, the US Army Information Control Department controlled 37 German newspapers, 6 radio stations, 314 theaters, 642 cinemas, 101 magazines, nearly 300 publishers, and more than 7,000 printing houses for denazification (in fact, it was propaganda)" Andrii Savchuk said.
According to him, denazification was different in different regions. For example, the USSR physically destroyed some people and forced others to work. The US opened many cases, but due to a lack of personnel, they didn't have time to process them and eliminated only war criminals: "Thus, denazification is a crazy set of measures abolished in 1951. And most countries have said that they will not be able to assess, in fact, the success of denazification, - Andrii Savchuk said. - Dwight Eisenhower, then Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the future 34th President of the US, said that the denazification of the Germans could take 50 years. We 6 years were enough, but we see how quick the American bureaucratic machine is."
According to Andrii Savchuk, it's unclear what putin wants from Ukraine when he speaks about demilitarization and denazification within his propaganda but doesn't name specific measures. This construct was given to media propagandists, who talked less about it before May 9. Out of 2.5 months of russian propaganda, their officials have been mentioning the "denazification of Ukraine" for 20 days, citing Germany as an example. After Germany's statements in our support, they even doubted the effectiveness of German denazification. Andrii Savchuk noted that the intensity of mentions of the concept declined in the second half of April. This may have happened after they measured the success of this thesis among the population and saw that most russians don't understand its meaning or can't even pronounce it. He believes that putin's declaration of war was prepared in secret, so his experts, who work with terms and mass psychology, couldn't work with this text. After the word was announced, the propagandists picked it up. And in a month, no one knew what to do with it.
"They have gone so far in their propaganda and terminology that it has come to the point they can't understand what they want. Therefore, they turn on even more aggressive rhetoric. For example, now they are no longer talking about the denazification of Ukraine and that Ukraine is a quasi or proxy of NATO countries, and that is why they give us weapons to fight with russia. russians follow the snowball principle, creating more aggressive requirements and bigger problems, so that their mistakes may be less visible," Andrii Savchuk.
According to an invited expert from Germany, Andreas Umland, a political scientist, lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, the term 'denazification' to Ukraine is somewhat surrealistic because, in order for denazification to take place, there first must be nacification. The expert believes that some European countries would need more denazification if this word is taken seriously. The support of right-wing radical parties there is much higher than in Ukraine. In his opinion, Ukraine is rather a positive exception in the European context. But, according to Andreas Umland, given the texts about Ukraine which recently appeared in russia, it is appropriate to call russia a fascist state. And some researchers believe that for 10-15 years, we will be able to talk about it.
"Other researchers of russian nationalism, ultranationalism, and fascism and I have been somewhat skeptical. Because something lacked in putin's ideology of justification for this aggressive policy, both inside the state and in foreign policy. This was the absence of some revolutionary, so-called palingenetic idea, the idea of the new birth of russia. And such ideas were in the texts of alexander dugin and vladimir zhirinovsky. But putin did not express this idea until last year," Andreas Umland said.
In his opinion, the aggressiveness, previously characteristic of putin's regime, is not exclusive to the fascist regime. Many authoritarian or totalitarian regimes are not fascist as well as imperialist, colonialist, expansionist. The situation has changed in recent months, as new birth and purification ideas, which logically resemble fascist ones, appeared in putin's texts and on official state websites. However, they don't apply to russia itself but Ukraine as part of russia. The expert also noted that the putin's regime is rather learning from russian fascist organizations. For example, the current official plans for Ukraine are what dugin published back in 1997 (Ukraine should not exist, and russia should fully control the Black Sea coast).
"And the very term 'denazification' can be used to argue that these ideas are already fascist. Because denazification is, in fact, a de-Ukrainization of Ukraine, the destruction of Ukrainian culture, identity, nation," Andreas Umland said.
Andreas Umland believes that the term "denazification" is used in russia for domestic consumption and probably works for many russians. But specially constructed propaganda narratives also worked for foreign audiences because they knew little about Ukraine. But this changed in recent months and isn't working because the Western image of Ukraine is suffering from the attack they are trying to justify by denazification. For example, in Germany, this term is already counterproductive for russian propaganda.
The expert notes that the denazification of Germany was possible at the expense of the occupation administration. russia doesn't have this, so the task of the denazification of russia is much more difficult because we need to work from the outside or after the regime change.
"Derussization, after all, is not so much the task for Ukrainians or the West. Most likely, it is the task for the russians themselves," Andreas Umland said. He also noted that he studied the structure of the russian anti-putin diaspora in some countries: "I think these structures are probably the main thing to do this derussization. And, probably, the role of Ukrainians and the West here is to help these russians to prepare for the moment when the regime will collapse and help them with the resources to start such a process of enlightenment in russia".
OPORA's analyst Oleksandr Neberykut noted that russia didn't prepare a "program of the denazification of Ukraine" in advance and did not create a full-scale war in 2.5 months. Something similar to this was published in one of the russian media as a program article in 2017. At that time, this theoretical dimension even included punishment for likes under the posts about Euromaidan, transfers of funds in support of the Ukrainian army, volunteering, etc. And this involved both criminal liability and the restoration of the death penalty.
"If we talk about the practical side, we can see what is happening now in Kherson or other cities of southern Ukraine - purges, filtration camps, attempts (by the likes) to find people who are considered enemies russia. This "denazification" there is in full swing. And if we summarize the proposed methods, it's a classic program, instructions on genocide," Oleksandr Neberykut.
Analyst suggests that this is one of the reasons why there's no official explanation of how denazification should take place - it'll be another proof of war crimes.