Russian President Vladimir Putin told a conference earlier this week that so-called ‘woke’ cultural shifts throughout the West are acting as a destructive force and that his own country has experienced it as well.
Putin made his comments during the plenary session of the 18th annual Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi, the largest resort city in Russia, harkening back to the 1917 Revolution when Vladimir Lenin’s Communists took control of the country.
Speaking at the conference headlined “Global Shake-up in the 21st Century,” the Russian leader’s remarks were translated into English and uploaded to the Russian government website.
“We see with bemusement the paralysis unfolding in countries that have grown accustomed to viewing themselves as the flagships of progress,” said Putin at one point during his speech. “Of course, it’s none of our business or what is happening, the social and cultural shocks that are happening in some countries in the Western countries, some believe that aggressive blotting out of whole pages of your own history, the affirmative action in the interest of minorities, and the requirement to renounce the traditional interpretation of such basic values as mother, father, family, and the distinction between sexes are a milestone … a renewal of society.”
The Russian leader went on to say that while other nations are free to chart their own course, “the overwhelming majority of Russian society” has rejected what amounts to leftist political and cultural ideologies.
“The preparedness of the so-called social progress believe that the bringing a new conscience, a new consciousness to humanity, something that is more correct,” Putin told the conference, adding that in reality, there is “nothing new” about woke thinking.
“Paradoxical as it may seem, but this is something we saw in Russia. It happened in our country before after the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks followed the dogmas of [Karl] Marx and [Friedrich] Engels,” he said, referencing the two German philosophers who first introduced Communism as a political philosophy in the latter 1800s.
Putin said both men “declared that they would go into change the traditional lifestyle, the political, the economic lifestyle, as well as the very notion of morality, the basic principles for a healthy society,” as they worked to “destroy age- and century-long values” as a means of “revisiting the relationship between the people.”
“It was hailed as the march of progress,” he continued, adding that the movement back then “was very popular across the world and it was supported by many.” And, “as we see, it is happening right now,” he added.
Putin also spoke about the intolerance of the Bolshevik mindset, whose leaders and supporters rejected “other opinions…different from their own,” and adding that way of thinking “should remind you of something that is happening” today “in the Western countries.”
“…[I]t is with puzzlement that we see the practices Russia used to have and that we left behind in distant path, the fight for equality and against discrimination turns into an aggressive dogmatism on the brink of absurdity — when great authors of the past such as Shakespeare are no longer taught in schools and universities because they announced as backward classics that did not understand the importance of gender or race,” said the Russian president.
He also likened what is happening in American entertainment with old Soviet-style propaganda.
“In Hollywood, there are leaflets reminding what you should do in the cinema, in the films, how many personalities and actors you’ve got, what kind of color, what sex, and sometimes it’s even tighter and stricter than what the Department of Propaganda of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee did,” he said.
“And I would like to say that this is not something new, and the 20s and the 1920s, the Soviet couture Tagore came up with the so-called ‘Newspeak’, and they thought that thereby they were building a new consciousness and coming up with new values, and they went so far that we feel the consequences up until now,” Putin noted further, adding a final thought about transgenderism.
“There are some monstrous things when from a very young age, you teach to children that the boy can easily become a girl and you impose on them this selection, this choice. You push the parents aside and make the child take these decisions that can destroy their lives,” he said.
“And if we call the spade a spade, this is nigh to crime against humanity and all of that under the banner of progress, while some people just want to do that.”
Jon has over 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.