Germany, the powerhouse of Europe and the centre of the Corona restrictions battle, unleashed the Kraken against the disaffected. If you are not happy to wear a mask, stay-at-home, shelter-in-place, you are an anti-Semite. And this is a criminal offense in Germany, punishable by years of prison. It is certainly a scary accusation that can ruin your career, at least.

How did they build the logical chain from Corona to Jews, considering Jews weren’t particularly prominent among lockdown supporters? The Corona protests drew huge numbers of Germans, altogether in their millions. The government described the protesters as neo-Nazis. They unleashed their fierce dogs of Antifa to attack protesters. They tried to shame the protesters, saying they walk together with Nazis. This is standard procedure in Germany and elsewhere: describe your opponents as neo-Nazis and Russian spies. This is very far from the truth, but it does not stop the effort to delegitimise the protest.

The corona protesters didn’t like it. Instead of being against the Jews as described, they actually identified with Jews. They compared themselves to victims of Nazi persecution like Anne Frank and Sophia Scholl. Anne Frank, a Jewish girl in occupied Holland, was forced to stay indoors and hide for many months. Her memory was awoken by an 11-year old German girl who had to celebrate her birthday in hiding from Corona police. Sophia Scholl was a German Christian who bravely spoke against the Nazis and against the mistreatment of Jews. A young German woman said she “felt like Sophia” as she gave away leaflets against the government restrictions. What could be more anti-Nazi than such comparisons? This didn’t help them at all.

Such a comparison is “Trivialization of the Holocaust”, a crime under German law, said Felix Klein, Germany’s Commissioner for Anti-Semitism. He is not Jewish, but a great philo-Semite. It is a violation of copyright, he might add. How dare you compare your goyish problems with the Holocaust? It is only Jews who may compare whatever they like with the Holocaust.

And they do. Last week Peter Wolodarski, a youngish Polish Jew recently appointed chief editor of the liberal Swedish newspaper “Dagens Nyheter” (DN), called Donald Trump “antisemite”, while his editorial columnist Lisa Magnusson compared the brutality of the Belarusian police with that of the Nazis. A shocking trivialisation of Holocaust, this comparison. Fewer people suffered at the hands of the police during after-elections protests in Minsk than in Paris, let alone Nazi times when every fourth Belarusian perished. It is a peculiar claim to call Trump, the best friend of Israeli Prime Minister, an “anti-Semite”, said Stefan Lindgren, the editor of the independent Swedish site Nyhetsbanken. Jews are allowed to trivialise Holocaust and wake up the Nazi memories anytime, apparently.

German Jews were eager to please the government by confirming the Nazi libel. The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster said, “Just as the demonstrators show complete disregard for the health of others so, too, they show no respect for the victims of National Socialism.” Annette Kahane, a prominent Jewish SJW in Germany, went further. Among the protesters there are leftists, rightists, Muslims and Christians. This means that they are united by anti-Semitism, for there is nothing else to unite them with, she said.

Annette Kahane is a larger-than-life SJW. She was born into a privileged Jewish family in the GDR, and while at university, collaborated with the Stasi Secret Service, denouncing her schoolmates for their lack of devotion. She recognized the forthcoming collapse of the socialist state, and by the time of the Fall of the Wall Ms Kahane was already a great supporter of unification and a pro-Western freedom-fighter. She was able to hide her Stasi past for a while, but not for long. After unification of Germany, the Stasi archives were open, and her past came to light. But she survived it all right, and founded the German analogue of BLM in defence of black immigrants. Now she is a leading SJW, an anti-fascist fighting for every good cause against all bad causes. Her seal of approval had been quoted by German papers: so indeed, the Corona protesters are anti-Semites, if Ms Kahane says so.

That’s what interests me. Why, if one dislikes some hateful things: banksters, the bombings of Gaza, ill-treatment of Palestinians, George Soros, Charlie Hebdo, Antifa, War on Terror, Blairism, Corona lockdowns and masks and quarantine – it appears to be pure anti-Semitism? Why is the defence of the Jews always connected with defending the nasty policies of the rulers? Why are there powerful Jews who invoke the tragic Jewish history in order to protect certain horrors? Are Jews the willing scapegoats for the rulers of the world? Is there any nastiness the ADL and the likes of Ms Kahane would not subscribe to as their own? Are these immoral persons involved in a sinister plot against real Jews by making anti-Semitism an unavoidable choice of every honest man? Or do they feel some inherent quality of Semitism that we are not aware of?

Logic says, these accusations should be refuted as unrealistic. The Orthodox Jews presented the strongest opposition to lockdowns. In Jerusalem and in New York, they broke every restriction, and overcame every attempt to stop their prayer. They also voted en masse for Trump “the antisemite”. Who is a more authentic Jewish representative, a Jerusalem Rabbi or the shameless SJW hussy of Berlin? The rulers prefer ADL and their German snitches, for they are always ready to add the weight of dead Jews to whatever cause should be promoted.

Indeed, antisemitism is used as a tool and as a weapon everywhere, but it seems Germany is the only place in the world where Corona protesters are deemed antisemites. This is for two reasons. Germany makes it a criminal offence, so it is easy to brandish. The second reason is German Jewry. It is a special case. Once it was the most proud and distinguished of Jewish tribes, but very few of them remained in Germany. They moved to the US, to Israel, or perished in the war. Instead, Jews from other countries moved in. Peculiarly, they consider themselves – no, not German citizens, but overseers of Germany on behalf of the occupying globalist forces. I heard it from German Jews: “We were fostered on Germany so the Germans won’t ever go back to National Socialism”.

Michel Friedman is an example of a new German Jew. He was a politician with the Christian Democrats; then he ran afoul of the law. He hired a few Ukrainian prostitutes and offered them cocaine. Police discovered this by chance; he had to leave politics, but no worry, he became a prominent journalist. While writing for Vanity Fair, he trapped Horst Mahler, the German dissident.

After interviewing him, Friedman went to the police and denounced the old man for his Holocaust denial. Mahler was imprisoned and regained freedom just last month after many years of confinement. Friedman is still doing great, he has his own show on TV, and he calls Germans to fight hate, hate that he likely caused himself to a great extent.

The G20 leaders have reached a consensus of a magnitude previously observed at Warsaw Pact summits. News in brief: they want to vaccinate us, and then, before we become restless, switch to combating global warming. If we survive masks and vaccines, austerity will kill off the survivors.

Remember, before the pandemic there was Greta? Greta will return, as soon as everyone gets a jab. This Save-The-World program appeals to a significant part of humanity, including Russians, Europeans, Americans. First, a jab to save us; then, save the planet from warming. So much of this world-saving is straight out of a comic strip. Now let us take time to look at what is happening.

While you were spending your weekend preparing for Thanksgiving, the leaders of twenty of the world’s leading countries held their Online Summit. Usually they come together, talk, discuss problems on the sidelines – this time it was all online. Although the summit was formally hosted by Saudi Arabia, Zoom is Zoom – the hosts of the summit had few opportunities to show off their hospitality. And there was little controversy. The leaders generally agreed with each other.

The main dissenter – the Orange Monster, aka President Trump – could have shoved a cane into the spokes of the-too-fast-by-half-chariot, but he had no time for them. He was immersed in his battle for the White House in the courts, and in his spare time he played golf.

The previous G20 summit tool place in March, and there they decided to open the gates for lockdown and destroy the world, as we knew it. Before March, the Covid obsession was still a minority interest. Russians just laughed about it. After the March G20 decision, it became the top priority. The November Summit affirmed the March decisions, and went further, much further.

While President Putin stressed at the summit that the main danger to the world is unemployment, poverty, and economic depression of unprecedented scale, other speakers gave the impression that they were satisfied with the current situation, because it allows everything to be rebuilt. Build back better, is the slogan of Joe Biden:

For some, Covid is a plague, but for our leaders it is an Overton window. I’d advise them to eat a slice of lemon before speaking. This, of course, will not help against Covid, but at least it will wipe the blissful smiles off their faces.

(“Eat a slice of lemon before speaking”, was advice given to a lady who complained of getting too much male attention in Italy).

The Chinese leader Xi proposed introducing worldwide QR codes so that without them people could not irresponsibly roam the planet. Nobody objected, but they did not support this initiative either. Xi is afraid that the wily Westerners will impose their own sanitary passports allowing only people injected with Western vaccines to travel. This possibility worried Putin, too, as Russia has developed two or three of their own vaccines. If the Chinese and Russian vaccines aren’t recognised by Europe, their people won’t be able to travel.

The WHO fancied that this virus was not the last; there will be more pandemics, and only vaccinations, masks and generous contributions to its budget will save us. They also promised a new wave of Covid in January, and then another, and so on until the earth will be covered with vaccines. To help poor countries, the leaders declared that the repayment of debts may be postponed, and that vaccines will be supplied to the impecunious nations for free. Free for them, but you will pay for them.

(Not that they need it. Poor countries do not suffer of Covid. China’s neighbour Mongolia, despite open border with China, had no Covid. Poor Cambodia, ditto. Africa, none, excepting South Africa. )

The EU representatives called for Global Rebuilding – Build Back Better. That is, we will rebuild everything, but better and in way which is inclusive, green, sustainable. And much more expensive. And at your expense. The struggle for the climate is austerity under another name; it calls for a radical drop in living standards. We shall tighten our belts, and we will regret that Covid did not relieve us from unnecessary torment.

In past forums, Trump has constantly spoken out against the fight against warming, but this time he resigned himself. And his likely successor, Joe Biden, has already pledged to return America to how it was with the WHO and the Paris climate agreement.

So the worldwide rebuilding, perestroika seems to be as inevitable as Gorbachev’s in 1986. The Russian perestroika killed more people than Stalin’s Gulag; it destroyed the livelihood of millions. The wealth of the Russian people has been looted by Messrs Abramovich, Deripaska et al. From the earliest days of these changes, a minority of Russians weren’t optimistic about the outcome, but they were marginalised and their voices were silenced. Now the same is in store for the disaffected and dissidents – if all 20G take this disastrous route, this is well-nigh unavoidable. I do not know what is worse, the Covid lockdown or climate austerity, but there is no need to decide for we shall have both.

A few numbers regarding climate austerity. The Russian perestroika reduced CO2 emissions by 5 per cent year after year for ten years. The Great Depression was even better: a 10 per cent drop in emissions year after year. Millions of Americans died (The Grapes of Wrath), and nobody told them they were saving the planet. Optimistic researchers with the Global Carbon Project say the emissions should be cut by 5.5 per cent per year over the next 45 years. This is a deadly collapse; what we have now is a preview of what they have in store for us and our children. (You can check the numbers here).

The Chinese do not mind this, as they do not mind lockdowns, face recognition and social rating. Their popular film The Wandering Earth shows a world that fights global warming the Chinese way and depicts a future so grim that 1984 looks Utopian beside it. Even so it was still considered a positive and encouraging film by the Chinese audience. We should not accept Chinese methods of fighting diseases or climate change or indeed general governance. They are too different.

If they insist on fighting global warming, let us begin with them personally. Let Gore and Greta and their followers live ecologically on average salary. It is not difficult to live green if you are a millionaire. Do it on the average income. After you pay electricity, water, rates, transport, school you won’t even think of paying much more for making your car “green” and CO2-neutral. You’d be happy to survive as it is. I’d make it a law: every green activist should surrender his assets for safekeeping and manage his green life on the average income for at least one year.

The summit called for further digitalisation, for increased information flows across borders, for a combination of distance learning with conventional learning. Perhaps some digitalisation is unavoidable, but do we need more of it? We need more freedom, and digitalisation appears to be strongly repressive. It is a good tool for tyranny. Any tyrant of old, be it Hitler or Borgia, would be able to achieve much more in union with Zuckerberg. We need to stop the data giants, tax them to the hilt, make their life miserable, change their CEO by users’ vote at least once a year.

President Trump gave to Israel all she could wish for; he hoped that in return, the Jews would give him America to rule another term. A simple give-and-take, but it didn’t work out as intended. If he were to run for the presidency of Israel, he would have it. If Brooklyn were to decide who’d inhabit the White House, he would be the Chosen one. But Trump’s plan to bribe US Jews by bearing gifts to Israel failed completely.

East Europeans define the difference between Jews and Hungarians (or Poles) as follows. All of these would sell their grandmother for a fistful of coins; but only a Jew would deliver. This non-delivery of America will be remembered by future US presidents. Perhaps we witness a defining moment for the downturn in American support of Israel, in direct contradiction to the main thesis of our colleague Philip Giraldi who said this week that “Israel’s Power Is Unlimited”. Why did it happen? The US Jews didn’t take the bait. And now for details.

“Zionist” is a euphemism for “Jew”, isn’t it? Up to a point. Zionists, that is Jews (and others) who care and work for Israel, are strongly supportive of the US President, but Jews that matter, that is elite liberal progressive US Jews, won’t support Trump even if he were to pave Tel Aviv with golden bricks. Three out of four US Jews voted for Joe Biden, about the same proportion of Jews who voted for Barack Obama, though Obama was quite critical towards Israel, while Trump did all the Israelis could wish for.

The Jews that cared more about Israel voted for Trump, but they are powerless. They have money, they have good positions in society, but they aren’t top dogs. The Orthodox Jews are for Trump; not so much for the sake of Israel but rather for his conservative agenda. They do not like gay parades, do not care for transgenderism, and for them, Black Lives do not matter much. Social justice is not their credo.They have little influence outside their own milieu. They voted 77 to 23 for Trump. Right-wing Jews are strongly Zionist and support Trump. Their publication FrontPage Magazine is all out for Trump. But they would be for Trump even if he hadn’t left Iran agreement.

Polls of Jewish voters show that they do not care much about the steps taken by Trump in order to please Israel. They are worried about Covid pandemics, about medical care, while economics occupies fifth place in their concerns, and Israeli-related acts are at the very bottom. The only place where one can notice some positive change is Florida, where Jews actually shifted in noticeable numbers to Republicans. But even there it seems to be a part of a Latino shift rather than a separate phenomenon.

Elite Jews voted for Biden and for Dems as advised by the NY Times. For them, Trump’s friendship with PM Netanyahu was a drawback rather than an advantage. If they care for Israel, they would prefer a quieter approach as usual, within the Two States paradigm. None of what Trump did for Israel found a response in their hearts.

According to the AJC (American Jewish Committee) Biden bested Trump on every issue including handling the coronavirus pandemic, 78%-19%; combatting terrorism, 71%-26%; dealing with Iran, 71%-27%; handling crime, 72%-24%, and strengthening U.S.-Israel relations, 54%-42%. (The Republican Jewish Coalition has slightly better numbers, as they polled older Jews.) Trump has expressed frustration that his Israel decisions have not garnered greater support in the Jewish community, and many activists have spoken of “treason”.

If Trump had known in advance that courting Jews would bring neither votes nor political profit, probably he would have wasted less time in the Zionist cul-de-sac. Jews are connected with the Dem Party, remember! All Jewish congressmen but two are Democrats; strongly pro-Israel Senator Chuck Schumer, the Dem leader in the Senate, is as hostile to Trump as any man. Only those Jews really matter; only those Jews have their unique access to media, movies, art, politics, and universities. Perhaps they would act differently if Israel were in danger; but thanks to the generous politics of Donald Trump they didn’t need to worry about Israel. (Preceding American presidents were aware of this catch, and were careful not to give too much to Israel. This was also the view of Dr Kissinger).

Israeli Jews are much more pro-Trump than their American cousins. If Israel were a US state, it would be deep red. They feel gratitude to the man who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They appreciate his drive for normalisation with the Arab states; his non-interference in the Palestinian issue; his recognition of the Golan Heights. Being more conservative, they are on the same page as Trump on many issues. However, even before Trump, the majority of Israeli Likud-voters are and have been for the Republicans for many years. They did not like Obama and Clinton, and they do not care for Biden. A prominent high tech Israeli personality prophesied that Biden would bring disaster for Israel.

However, in Israel, too, there is a sharp division between elites and Deplorable masses. The Deplorables support Netanyahu and Trump, vote domestically for Likud or religious parties. The Deplorables rule Israel for over twenty years; Netanyahu is the Israeli Trump who succeeded to keep power.

The Israeli elites support Biden. For them Trump is a mirror image of their own PM Netanyahu, the man they hate with gusto. The problem with Israeli elites is that they have lost their ability to govern. Their parties disintegrate; their causes are lost. If there is a common cause for Israeli elites it is rejection of PM Netanyahu mirroring the NeverTrump spirit of American elites, and their belief that they are elites and destined to govern.

They want to get rid of Netanyahu, like the US elites wanted to get rid of Trump. This desire caused three rounds of national elections in the last year, but despite trying hard, they could not vote him out. Now they hope he will be removed by the Supreme Court, and by massive demonstrations near the PM’s residence. They say he is corrupt, that he takes bribes, that he didn’t save Israel from Coronavirus – just like the Dems had tried to impeach Trump for ridiculous reasons. They want Netanyahu to die in jail, just like the Dems hope to see Trump rotting in Guantanamo. (There are hundreds of women ready to swear Trump almost-raped them fifty years ago when they were underage.)

The case against Netanyahu is feeble at best. He received a pack of cigars and a box of champagne from an American film producer; he promised to help a newspaper publisher if he would stop attacking him. A murky case connects him to a German submarine sale, but it is too opaque even for Netanyahu haters.The PM had been indicted by the state attorney, but by Israeli law, he does not have to resign unless found guilty. Israel is experiencing huge and violent demos against Netanyahu almost daily. But the deplorables still support their Bibi, and vote for him. As opposed to Trump, Netanyahu has a newspaper, and it makes a lot of difference.

The French President stepped on a rake for the second time, and was duly slapped in the face by its long handle. French products went off the shelf in the Arab and Turkish shops; heads chopped off in the midst of pandemics; a lot of animosity, anger, smacking of a civil war. Vous l’avez voulu, you asked for it, Emmanuel Macron! We saw it in 2015, why did you push “Replay”? Anyone can step on a rake once, but to repeat this mistake? It is not a sign of a smart guy, unless this response is exactly what he wanted.

Macron is surely a smart guy. He had a few good practical reasons to provoke French Muslims. Not an ideological man, he wanted to steal the right-wing electorate of Mme Le Pen. They are known for hating foreigners, first of all the large Muslim population of the republic. The Muslims do not fit the self-image of a Frenchman, the slim man in beret and mackintosh with a baguette under his arm. It was not hard to make this Muslim population angry, and then to manifest Macron’s iron fist in dealing with them, and voila! the nationalist voters are in the pocket of the French president.

The replay was jumpstarted by Charlie Hebdo. This small satirical magazine of little artistic value usually publishes bad taste cartoons of public loo wall quality. It wouldn’t survive but for grants and government subsidies. It is so minor that it would not be noticed either but for the mainstream media that bring its message to the last immigrant banlieue. Now they have republished some nasty cartoons aimed at the Prophet Muhammad. The immigrants and their children didn’t enjoy this premeditated insult to their faith. Think about having a good laugh over the Holocaust in the presence of a Jewish person and you’ll understand. Even peaceful and calm people dislike being offended. However, the publication was of little importance, as opposed to Macron’s public and well-covered support for it. He positively celebrated this publication and added a few well-chosen and offensive phrases against Islam. This was the ringer.

Tartuffe would be proud of Macron who declared that Charlie Hebdo is the true carrier of the French Republican spirit and its love for unbridled freedom of speech. It would be bad enough if true, but it is not. France, and the entire world, is now in the middle of a huge offensive against free speech. Facebook banishes accounts and removes posts, Google shadow bans sites, the venerable Unz.com has been both banned on Facebook and shadow-banned on Google. President Trump has his tweets removed or appended with a health warning on Twitter. The proposed new hate law of Scotland would make it a crime to express opinions likely to cause discomfort even within the four walls of your own home. For a long time it has been a crime to say “hateful things” in the public space, and in the UK there are a hundred thousand “hate crimes” a year committed, according to the thought police.

France is leading the assault against free speech. French Writer Hervé Ryssen Jailed for Criticizing Jews;French Court Sentenced Alain Soral to Pay Jewish Organization $158,500 for Re-Releasing 128-Year-Old Book – say the recent headlines. The new French law bans “hate speech” on social media. The law obliges platforms and search engines to remove offensive content – including religious bigotry – within 24 hours or risk a fine of up to €1.25m. This law, and other hate laws are applied in defence of Jews, but strangely do not defend Muslim or Christian sensibilities.

The chief editor of Charlie Hebdois aware of this discriminatory order and approves of it. A Spiked journalist reports on meeting him: “Biard[the editor] is not in favour of unregulated speech. He supports French laws that outlaw Holocaust denial, and is sympathetic towards laws on hate speech. He approves of prosecution of French comedian Dieudonné, who has been arrested numerous times for saying the Shoah wasn’t important.” You may not speak against Jews, but attacking the faith of poor Muslim immigrants is perfectly all right, for they are people of no importance, and they should learn who is their boss and what is the true faith of their new homeland (a hint: it is not Christianity). If they make trouble it is even better for they can be hit hard.

Theoretically, it is illegal in France to insult Muslim (or Christian) beliefs. The European Court of Human Rights had ruled so explicitly in a judgment in the case of Otto-Preminger-Institut v. Austria: “The respect for the religious feelings of believers guaranteed by Article 9 can legitimately be considered violated by provocative images of objects of religious veneration, such images can be considered a malicious violation of the spirit of tolerance, which should also be a feature of a democratic society.”

In the case of Wingrove v. the United Kingdom:

“… Respect for the religious feelings of believers can become the basis for the state’s legal restriction of the publication of provocative images of objects of religious veneration.”

In the case of Pussy Riot v. Russia:“Given that the applicants’ presentation took place in a cathedral, which is a place of religious worship, the Court considers that (the State’s) interference can be regarded as having the legitimate aim of protecting the rights of third parties.”

Such activities should be illegal, but apparently are not. This unfairness is a source of aggravation: Muslims were laughed out of court when they complained against particularly vile Charlie’s cartoons, but Jews almost always win when they go to court against their denigrators. (Full disclosure: I was also sued by LICRA, the French Jewish body, while my French publisher was financially devastated by their Lawfare).

Thus, France (like the rest of the West) has very little freedom of expression left, and Macron’s claim that Charlie cartoons should be celebrated as a sign of Liberté sounds particularly hypocritical and false, like George Bush’s They hate us for our Freedom. As if that weren’t enough, then came the push to make every Muslim in France aware of this Macron-approved Charlie nastiness. In schools, a lesson was dedicated to educating children in the crude pornography of the cartoons. It was claimed (and I have no way of verifying) that the murdered French teacher had shown cartoons mocking the Prophet for five years every year since 2015, as he did this year after Macron’s speech. He allegedly added another pornographic cartoon and suggested Muslims might leave the classroom if they did not want to be offended. I can imagine the cry (selection! deportation!) if a teacher had suggested that Jewish pupils should leave the room. The upset Muslim parents went to the police and complained. The teacher lodged a counter-complaint alleging defamation. It is difficult to judge now whether the slain teacher was acting as he was obliged to by the authorities, or whether he was especially zealous in delivering the smut.

Russians are amazed by the waves of madness washing over the United States. The recent riots, looting, destruction of memorials, hardball election politics and rumours of impending civil war do not fit the US image in Russian eyes. A Latin American country, say, Colombia or Guatemala, perhaps, but not the United States. The country they admired so much is no more, they say. They regret it instead of gloating, as you may expect.

Far from feeling hostility, for many years (at least since the early sixties) Russians considered the US a model to follow. Nikita Khrushchev, the powerful ruler (1953-1964) who ditched Stalin and removed his remains from the Mausoleum on the Red Square, was fascinated with the US. He imported US corn (maize) and considered this American staple the key to Soviet prosperity. Those were the days Russia discovered jazz. The brightest young things of Russia aped American fashion, as recalled in the 2008 period piece Stilyagi (The Hipsters). Under Brezhnev’s ‘mature socialism’ this fascination with things American became more sedate, but it remained a strong element of counterculture, and it allowed for the quick surrender of the Soviet Union to the US in the Gorbachev era. Love of America remained a hallmark of Russian elites, but now it has been supplanted with bewilderment. They can’t possibly understand why this great civilization is committing suicide; but then, who does?

Russians perceived the US as a dynamic and orderly society, allowing ample space for individualism, seeding its pop culture and making no ideological demands. This last quality was so attractive to Russians that they enshrined it in their new post-Soviet constitution. Article 13 states: Ideological plurality shall be recognized in the Russian Federation. No ideology may be instituted as a state-sponsored or mandatory ideology. Russians felt so strongly about this because even though their own ruling ideology had decayed and collapsed, they were still required to pay tribute to it for many decades. While writing a dissertation, a scientific or polemic article, the author was supposed to quote Marx, Lenin and a more recent Party document, and stress a continuity of his own ideas with the ideas of the founders. They did not believe it, but they reflexively repeated it by rote because it was expected of them. Ditching these ideological duties had a profoundly liberating effect on the people, and they naturally thought that following all American customs would lead them to American prosperity and freedom.

Even then the new orthodoxy was already forming in the US, but it took a few years until an awareness of this change seeped into Russian minds. By 2010, the Russians were so free of ideological limitations that Westerners could no longer even grasp the shocking possibilities. Russians had become, and remained so until very recently, completely politically incorrect.

At that time it was perfectly acceptable to advertise a flat for rent to ethnic Russians only; natives of Central Asia and Caucasus need not apply. Ads for employment would specify sex, age and height of the desired applicant, like “A female secretary age 21-33 height above 173 cm (5’7 feet) is wanted by a law firm”. A philosopher might present arguments for slavery. Mass murder and ethnic cleansing weren’t beyond the pale to discuss. Africans could be described as ‘monkeys’, while Armenians and Georgians were ‘greaseballs’. In the politically correct Soviet days such terms of endearment were totally unacceptable, but with the fall of the old ideology, everything became permissible.

The very terms “Left” and “Right” have a totally different meaning in Russia and in the US. In Russia, the Left pushes for nationalization, for the expropriation of large enterprises and natural resources, for empowering workers and for raising the living standards of the working class. Its practical slogan is “Reverse Yeltsin’s privatisation, restore the Soviets”. The American Left had similar ideas until it was revamped by Cultural Marxism into a minority cult for hipsters and severed its connection with the workers. The Russian Left is represented by the Communist Party (CPRF), the biggest opposition party in the Parliament, and by a few smaller communist parties. While the American Left is led by Jews, feminists, gays, some token “People of Colour”, and fights discrimination by gender and race, the Russian Left is predominantly ethnic-Russian and fights for a massive redistribution of wealth and power from the oligarchs to the people.

Only in the last ten years have Russians become aware of the new ideology practiced in the US. The demands of America’s version of political correctness were too outlandish for them. ‘Wokism’ is unknown in Russia, except to tiny pockets of Moscow hipsters who are as foreign and strange to the average Russian as the Précieuses ridicules of Molière to his contemporaries. Russian hipsters attract more ridicule and derision than fear and hatred.

However, there never was much for a moderate ‘woke’ person to complain about in Russia.

Traditional feminism was never a problem there: the Soviets practiced equality between men and women. Women could vote from the earliest days of the revolution. There were female ambassadors and ministers, and female railway workers, too. Female managers and CEOs were not unusual, as you can see in this popular movie. Russian women worked just as hard as men, as depicted in The Girls. Russian women once envied the lifestyle of the American housewives of the 1950’s who did not work and instead took care of home and family, but this luxury soon disappeared in the West as well.

No one fought over abortion: Russia is very liberal from this point of view, and was so for many years, at least since 1956. Before the advent of family planning, abortions were extremely frequent; now they are less so, but they are legal and covered by social medicine.

Jews weren’t a problem either, for the majority of Russian Jews had already emigrated to Israel or to America, while those that remained in Russia were the assimilated children of mixed marriages. After that the Russian Jewish Lobby disappeared (if it ever really existed). Jews were equal but not dominating. Russians weren’t indoctrinated in Holocaust dogma, so this was not an issue, either.

There were no racial tensions; Russia had very few blacks, and they were extremely well treated. Famously, a black man imported by the innovator Tsar Peter I had a good career, married the daughter of a nobleman, and his descendant became a great Russian poet. There were slaves in Russia, but they were white. Russian serfs were integrated with the rest of the Russian people after their liberation in 1861. Anton Chekhov, the playwright, was the grandson of a serf. People with different ethnicities weren’t discriminated against historically. Tatar and Georgian, Ukrainian and Polish nobles were accepted equally at the Tsar’s Court, and later their representatives sat in Soviet parliament. So while Russians could never understand America’s problem with race, they could always congratulate themselves for being cutting-edge progressives.

US ‘wokeness’ is globalist, and is designed to undermine and supplant traditional cultures. However, it seemed at first to be an innocent fashion statement. Russia began to get used to the new crazy standards as though they were any other artefacts of America’s McCulture.