At the close of the BRICS summit, held this year, October 22-24, in Kazan, Russia, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, as is his habit, took questions from journalists. One of them was asked by a BBC correspondent. The BBC journalist asked the Russian leader whether he did not see a discrepancy between what Russia aims at – which is its own and international security and stability and justice – and what Russia reaps as a result of its policies – which is having Ukrainian drones over its own territory or having Russian towns shelled by Ukrainian artillery. The same journalist also asked whether Vladimir Putin could confirm that the British secret services report that the Kremlin was behind social unrest in the United Kingdom. Putin’s reply was manifold and exhaustive:

① Yes, Russia was not shelled prior to 2022, but before that date Russia had experienced something much worse. Russia was ignored by the West, which attempted to assign to Russia a status of a semi-independent country, a mere provider of resources. Prior to 2022 Russia was doomed to become the West’s dependency. Obviously, under such circumstances the country could not hope to prosper, to develop, to even exist in the long run. The West did not respect Russia’s interests, Russia’s tradition, anything Russian.

② As for justice, continued Russia’s president, the West does all in its power to exploit the world under various pretexts. One of them was the time of the pandemic during which both the United States and the European Union printed billions of their respective currencies with which they bought up huge amounts of foodstuffs and caused worldwide inflation. By flooding the world’s markets with billions of additional dollars and euros, the West was in a position to consume much more than it produced, much more than the rest of the world. The other pretext is of course ecology. The West demands that energy produced on fossil fuels be reduced, which is done in the name of protecting the planet’s climate. That might be a noble purpose, but the point is that African and some Asian countries cannot afford to do away with fossil fuels. To do so, that is, to use modern technologies of energy production, they would need to get credit, which the West only offers with very high interest. For all practical purposes such an approach on the part of the West is turning former African colonies into modern-type colonies. Is that justice that the BBC journalist meant?

Was it just not to respect Russia’s demand that Ukraine not become a NATO member? Was it just on the part of the West to enter into agreements with Russia with the intention of breaking them? Was it just not only to turn Russia’s underbelly – Ukraine – into anti-Russia, but to even build military bases there? Was it just to carry out the coup d’etat in Ukraine? These are glaring acts of injustice and Russia wants to and will change them.

③ As for the claim of the British secret services that Russia allegedly sows discord in British society and is behind street unrest, President Putin said that the social upheaval observed in the West is a direct result of the policies of Western governments which deteriorated economic conditions in their countries due to sanctions and giving up on Russia’s cheap resources. What does Russia have to do with all this, asked the Russian leader.

Interesting points were raised. It may well be that Russians are instigating unrest in Western societies. Does that come as a surprise? One would be flabbergasted if Russia did not try to pay the West in kind. Indeed, the retaliation might be even more painful.

As for the inflation and robbing the globe of its produce and resources by printing money: well, that’s precisely why BRICS countries cooperate and are trying to create a parallel financial system. They have long been victims of financial machinations, and they have long realized the mechanism of being robbed by inflation brought about by foreign powers. If India’s or Brazil’s central banks issue much more money than warranted, the resultant inflation hits them directly, some other countries indirectly, and still some others not at all. If, however. The United States generates far more dollars than is reasonable, the resultant inflation hits the whole globe instantaneously and directly simply because the dollar is the global international currency. Thus, the United States solves its economic problems and burdens the rest of the world in the process. This is, by the way, the point that President Putin has raised many times during his speeches or interviews.

Freedom of speech is not what characterizes humanity, human societies. Only rarely does it surface, for a historically speaking short moment, and then disappears. Why? There’s always a ruling group that holds power, and in order to hold power as long as possible, this groups needs not only to have control over the finances and the law enforcement, but also of the collective mind. It is the mind where seeds of opposition can be sown and where they can sprout, it is the mind that sparks dissent and opposition, it is the mind that leads people to rise up against their rulers. That is the simple reason why genuine freedom of speech, freedom of expression is unthinkable. It is unthinkable because it is impossible, because it sooner or later undermines the authority. That is why freedom of speech must be controlled, channelled or otherwise influenced. The rare moments when freedom of speech resurfaces are those historical times of equilibrium between a descending and an ascending ruling grup.

In the modern world censorship has become a word evoking the worst possible connotations. Dictators resort to censorship, Communists used to apply censorship, but democracies are all about freedom of expression… except that they are not. What do democracies do to simultaneously have censorship and not have it? The solution is easy and as old as human history. Democracies abolish the word censorship without abolishing censorship itself, democracies invent new ways of censoring content without having to resort to the old primitive methods of physically gagging someone’s mouth are imprisoning someone for his words. Democracies invent terms like combating disinformation or misinformation, like protection of the populace against malicious or inciting false news and ideas. That’s it! Censorship in a democracy? God forbid! Yet, you will agree that lies need to be suppressed, will you not?

Humans instinctively want to know the truth and wish to be able to pass correct judgement. In order to know the truth and in order to be able to pass correct judgement, one needs information, one needs varied information coming from different, politically or ideologically opposed sources. Only then can truth be discovered, only then can correct judgement be passed. Hence the need for consulting various information sources. Audiatur et altera pars, as the Romans used to say: let also the other party have a fair hearing. An argument can only be accepted as binding if it has been confronted with opposing arguments and stood its ground, when the argument turned out to (more closely) correspond to reality, to truth. How otherwise can we justly and impartially decide about anything?

How about misinformation or disinformation? If misinformation or disinformation are allowed currency together with information, in the long run the last mentioned will win out. Truth always wins out. As someone said: you can’t deceive all people all the time. Conversely, if information is suppressed under whatever noble pretexts, if you are punished or intimidated or ridiculed for wanting to consult various sources of information, then you may rest assured that those who want to punish, intimidate or ridicule you have been feeding lies to you and are now afraid of you exposing their mendacity. That’s a litmus test available to all of us. You don’t need to be an expert on anything, you only need to be vigilant: if the powers that be don’t want you to look for other sources of information, it clearly means that they want to conceal something and are afraid of being confronted with the truth.

Quid est veritas? was famously asked by Pilate. Yes, what is truth? It may not be easy to discover truth, but one thing is certain: we will never discover it without consulting varied sources of information, without exposing our minds to varied, opposing arguments. At least that much is true. It may be that you do not wish to investigate into various phenomena, events and news: why, it takes a lot of time and effort, and we all have our lives to live, our work to perform, our families to take care of, our vocations to fulfil. Nothing wrong with that. That is why societies delegate few individuals – like journalists or historians – to do the job for the rest of us, to present us with the results of their research efforts. That’s the way it ought to be. The only task that we – the consumers of someone else’s investigative work – are set with is to familiarize ourselves with the investigations done by others with this however sound principle that we must consult opposing sources of information and argumentation. The moment we are denied it, we know that we are being lied to, we know that we are being separated from truth.

There are many, many people who are in favour of global peace. Many of them join organizations and take part in demonstrations in support of international peace. Yet, these are usually empty gestures. It is not enough to yell, Give peace a chance; what needs to be done is to encourage all of us to give the other party to a conflict a fair hearing. Peace disappears when only one argumentation is heard and, consequently followed. Peace disappears when one argumentation deemed as correct makes it impossible for us to understand our opponents. One argumentation turns us into reckless automatons who believe they know reality, who are certain that they know truth while they don’t. If you want to give peace a chance, encourage people to listen to and read what the other party to the conflict has to say; if you want to give peace a chance, declare war on those who suppress selected sources of information and argumentation. Once you learn the argumentation of the other party, your belligerent attitude will almost always be done away with, or at least significantly reduced. Contrarily, if you clam up in your own world of allegedly true ideas, you are going to end up in a vicious conflict of attrition so much so if the other party to the conflict does the same.

It takes intellectual courage to think. Yes, genuine thinking is an act of courage. It is an act of courage to admit a thought that my attitude to an event, my belief in an idea, my evaluation of reality are perhaps not quite correct, are perhaps wrong, or perhaps downright wrong? It is an act of huge courage to admit that perhaps my opponent is not quite wrong, that my opponent is maybe right, maybe… absolutely right. It is probably easier to go to physical war and fight in the trenches than to subdue your own ego and surrender your own cherished beliefs. It was not without a reason that Romans used to say, imperare sibi maximum est imperium, or, to rule yourself is the ultimate form of power. It is really much easier to command troops in the field, or to withstand hardships than to admit that what you hold as sacred truth is not true.

“The Germans long before …14 sought to destroy the unity of the Russian tribe forged in hard struggle. For this purpose they supported and boosted in the south of Russia a movement that set itself the goal of separation of its nine provinces from Russia, under the name of Ukraine. The aspiration to tear away from Russia the Little Russian branch of the Russian people has not been abandoned to this day. XY and his companions, the former protégés of the Germans, who began the dismemberment of Russia, continue to carry out their evil deed of creating an independent “Ukrainian state” and fighting against the revival of the United Russia (Единая Россия).”

Sounds familiar? This remark was made more than a hundred years ago by General Anton Denikin, one of the four most recognizable leaders of the anti-Bolshevik Russia during the civil war of 1917-1921. The other three were Alexander Kolchak, Nikolai Yudenich and Pyotr Wrangel. General Anton Denikin fought for a few years in the south of the former Russian Empire against the Red Army, but after some initial successes, he was forced to leave his fatherland. It was at that time that the West was very much interested in disrupting Russia. The two revolutions – the first one, often referred to as the bourgeois revolution, took place in February and the second one, the Bolshevik revolution, took place in October 1917 – were sparked off with the support and blessing of the Western powers. The British had a hand in dethroning the tsar in February 1917, the Germans substantially supported the Bolshevik party in October 1917: the leaders of the coup d’état that was to take place in October were transported in a sealed train from Switzerland across Imperial Germany to Sweden, from where they made their way to Petrograd (that’s how in 1914 the German-sounding Saint-Petersburg was renamed after Russia began the hostilities against Germany). Americans, too, chipped in. While Vladimir Lenin enjoyed German protection, travelling across Germany, Leon Trotsky, having spent a couple of years in New York with his family and two sons, was financed to cross the Atlantic and be on time in Petrograd to disrupt the Russian state. It was not only the financial and political support that helped the revolutionaries of all persuasions to bring about the collapse of the empire: national or ethnic resentment was also exploited, with the Germans advancing the idea of a Ukrainian nation as separate from Russians.

There were a number of Ukrainian leaders at that time, with Symon Petliura being one of the most recognizable. He was backed by the Germans, he was later backed by the reborn Polish state. The Polish troops together with some of his Ukrainian units advanced towards Kiev and even occupied it for a week or two in 1920. Quite a Maidan, was it not, even if short-lived? These are the events that General Anton Denikin referred to in the text at the opening of this article. The full date the part of which we intentionally deleted was 1914, while the letters XY stand for no less a person than Symon Petliura.

In 2014 we saw a kind of historical repeat. The Western powers made themselves felt in Ukraine, but especially in Kiev, and caused the legitimate president to flee the country. Also, a crawling civil war commenced in the Donbass, while Russia in response to all these events reclaimed the Crimean Peninsula, all of which led to the war that broke out eight years later. Today Anton Denikin might write something like this:

“The collective West long before 2014 sought to destroy the unity of the Russian tribe forged in hard struggle. For this purpose they supported and boosted in the Ukraine a movement that set itself the goal of antagonizing Ukrainians and Russians. The aspiration to tear away from Russia the Little Russian branch of the Russian people has not been abandoned to this day. Volodymyr Zelensky, Yulia Tymoshenko, Leonid Kravchuk, Petro Poroshenko, Vitalii Klichko (you name them) and their companions, the protégés of the West, who began the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, continue to carry out their evil deed of creating an independent “Ukrainian state” and fighting against the revival of the United Russia (Единая Россия).”

by the way, the phrase United Russia (Единая Россия) that Anton Denikin employed overlaps one to one with the name of the “Putin” party, which holds power in this largest post-Soviet republic.

This time, too, it is the United States, Germany and Great Britain along with Poland that are busy playing Ukrainians off against Russians. This time, too, they have found present-day Petliuras ready to serve them. Today, too, war is being waged, and today, like yesterday, it looks like Ukraine is on the losing end. So it goes. Will we be witnesses to yet another historical repeat in… 2114/2124?

During World War Two, after the Germans had attacked the Soviet Union, they approached General Denikin, who lived at that time in France, with a proposal of backing the Third Reich against the Bolsheviks. Anton Denikin was very much opposed to the Bolshevik rule in Russia, which is putting it mildly. Yet, he did not for a moment think it right to ally himself with the enemies of Russia, even Red Russia. Anton Denikin flatly refused and warned those Russians – and especially Ukrainians – who were willing to serve the Third Reich against the Bolsheviks. Anton Denikin tried to convince them that they were going to be miserable tools at the hands of the Germans, to be discarded the moment they were not needed.

It is said that the civil war in the Soviet Union did not end in 1922 – when Denikin, Wrangel and Yudenich were forced out of Russia, while Kolchak was taken prisoner and put against the wall – because the civil war in the form of resentment and a deep division running through Soviet society festered. It only ended when the Soviet Union was attacked by Germany. It was only then that the overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens of whatever political persuasion rallied around the Soviet leaders to defend Russia. Has not the same been happening since 2022 in Russia? Even those Russians who did not hold Vladimir Putin in high regard changed course and rallied around him. War and especially the resultant hardships were supposed to turn the people against the Kremlin: as it is, the opposite is true. Sure, there are some who have betrayed their country – there were some also during World War Two, like General Vlasov – but the majority have expressed their unwavering support for the leadership. Does anyone learn anything from the past? Does anyone study the past?