Controlling History
Plus: Poland and Ukraine make a big first move to hold accountable a propagandist involved in Russia's information operations
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ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT!
For years, Vladimir Putin has been working very hard to rehabilitate Josef Stalin’s image. The man who used to be known as one of the most repressive totalitarian leaders of the 20th century, who oversaw policies that led to famine for millions of his people, who orchestrated the Great Purge—executing or throwing in the gulag more than a million people deemed not loyal enough—has become, under Putin’s revisionist push, “a great man of history.” Russian souvenir shops now sell coffee mugs and t-shirts with the mustached image of one of history’s cruelest leaders who, until recently, was abhorred.
The rehabilitation was years in the making, part of Putin’s concerted effort to create an imagined, glorious history of a Russia that never really existed. It was only in this fake realm—in which Russia’s imperial ambitions and the violence that accompanied them were cast as manifest destiny—that Putin’s authoritarian tactics could be passed off as legitimate strong leadership. Such distortion was necessary for him to consolidate power.
Donald Trump is implementing similar tactics. I’ve written here and here about his moves—from his first day in office!—to invert truth. And I’ve written about why a democracy cannot survive that.
His moves to invert truth have taken on new dimensions as of late. The New York Times recently wrote about how Trump and his administration have built “a machinery of misinformation,” using lies to support and build their policy decisions, much like Putin did during his rise to dictator. Trump’s attacks on universities—which suppress the universities’ free speech under the guise of protecting free speech and which will influence what is taught and by whom—is a well known example. But I wanted to highlight a few other examples that might have slipped past your radar.
Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at the Smithsonian titled, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Looking at the details, it is easy to see that this EO, like most of them, actually means the opposite of what it claims. It is part of his effort to dismantle a healthy information environment. Remember when Trump wasn’t even in office yet and he started saying he planned to dismantle the “Deep State” in part by prohibiting federal funds from going to any program that studies disinformation, which actually meant he will decide what is good information and what is not? This EO for the Smithsonian is another building block in that same project.
Much like how Putin has rewritten Russia’s past, so too does Trump aim to rewrite American history however he sees fit. It is yet another assault on the information space, putting Trump and his minions in charge of deciding how information is perceived and interpreted.
I was going to write in depth on this, but then historian
did it for me in this excellent piece in :
But I will highlight this part. Much like Putin rehabilitating Stalin:
[Trump’s] obvious project is really not to eliminate ideology from history but to rewrite American history—to collapse the complicated, messy story of people and places into a simplified, mythical past that suits his tawdry present. In Trump’s false American past, our country has never done anything it should be ashamed of…
Couple this with Trump’s gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides funds (or used to provide funds) to museums and libraries in every state. You know, all the places that have good information, that provide context, teach critical thinking, are crossroads of ideas. Dangerous stuff if you want to create pliant subjects.
Aiding these efforts to make America whatever Trump says it is and/or was is the administration’s attacks on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Act was designed to bring transparency to government, so said government cannot lie to you. We, the people, can ask for government records to help we, the people, hold our government accountable to we, the people. It’s a great concept and one that helps keep democracy strong.
Of course, this administration doesn’t actually want us to see any records. This became even more apparent with the Signal chat fiasco I wrote about here. Since then, it’s been reported that these idiots are conducting all kinds of government business (including sensitive national security business!) over gmail. Nor was that Signal chat (👊🇺🇸🔥) a one-off. Turns out they’re discussing everything from Ukraine to China to Iran over Signal.
All of which circumvents laws requiring retention of records (let alone the security implications!). Why should such records be retained? So we can read them and hold our leaders accountable and also to inform our interpretation of history! (See how all these things tie together??)
All of this is an effort to obfuscate, to end transparency. They don’t want us to know what they are doing. That way they can write today’s history, and yesterday’s. Heck, they probably already have decided what happened tomorrow (only great things!).
So they’ll be telling us America is great while children die of measles, inflation skyrockets, and bird flu washes over America. They’ll tell us Greenland was always ours and Europe has raped the US. Without truth available to us, they will dictate what is and isn’t true.
The danger isn’t that we will believe the lies, but that we will believe nothing. Democracy only works when we have faith in our institutions. If we believe nothing, that faith is eroded. Nothing matters. We stop participating. That is not democracy.
Russian Propagandist Arrested
There was some good news this week.
If you’ve taken my Foreign Influence Operations course, you know that one point I love to hammer home is that malign influence ops are so much more than social media manipulation. They are, at their core, human operations.
Poland and Ukraine made a big move this week by arresting Kyrylo Molchanov, who was involved in the Voice of Europe operation. Quick recap: Voice of Europe was a media platform based in Prague that claimed to be independent but was, in fact, run by Russian intelligence and covertly funded by Russia. More specifically, it was funded by Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch who was found guilty of treason in Ukraine, put under house arrest, fled, was found, then was traded for Ukrainian POWs, and who now resides in Russia.
For background on Voice of Europe and Medvedchuk see here and here:
Molchanov had appeared on Voice of Europe as a “political expert,” pushing all the usual Kremlin narratives (The EU is evil! Ukraine is Russia!).
Ukraine and Poland understand that the information space is a battlefield in this war and Molchanov was a soldier on that battlefield. "For the first time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, a Russian agent who worked against our country in the media sector was handed over to Ukraine (from the EU) at the request of [Ukrainian security services, the SBU]," the SBU said in a statement.
Of course, the information space is a battlefield of the war for democracy at home, too, which is why I keep saying our future is inextricably linked with Ukraine’s.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of things you should be reading
AMERICA WILLINGLY WALKING AWAY FROM GREATNESS
Unilateral Disarmament in the New Cold Wars (The Cipher Brief)
Foreign Spies to Team Trump: 👊🇺🇸🔥 (NYT)
RUSSIA DOING BAD THINGS
Banned Russian Channel RT Secretly Pays Video Bloggers Who Promote Kremlin Narratives (OCCRP)
Russia using criminal networks to drive increase in sabotage acts, says Europol (The Guardian)
EXCELLENT RESOURCES!
Just Security has launched WHAT JUST HAPPENED? as well as a litigation tracker to help readers keep up with the chaos
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
