Politics after Putin

FROM THE PAPER EDITION

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we are faced with the return of many aspects of the Cold War.

Vladimir Putin during the celebration of the victory over Nazi Germany in Moscow on May 9, 2022.

This is the editorial of the ideas section of the Minerva newspaper No. 2/2022. The theme of the section is Politics after Putin.

“An iron curtain has fallen across the continent,” Sir Winston Churchill declared in March 1946. The curtain he was referring to was to divide Europe in two. In one, a liberal, democratic post-war period had developed. In the second, state control and surveillance were fully developed. Between the two worlds, intercontinental ballistic missiles threatened to plow into each other to mutual annihilation. There were, of course, physical barriers separating the two sides. The physical walls and guards left no doubt that the populations were separated.

But the Iron Curtain also had a mental side. Even long after German unification, Germans in Berlin could speak of “Die Mauer im Kopf” – the wall in the head. The fear of a nuclear war never materialized – fortunately. The domino effect that Americans feared communism would trigger did not really happen either. When the Soviet Union fell, in the eyes of the West, it was above all an ideology that collapsed: communism.

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Adele Matthews

"Passionate pop cultureaholic. Proud bacon trailblazer. Avid analyst. Certified reader."

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