Putin’s “Big Lies”

Authoritarianism, revisionist history, and the threat to Ukraine

Presidential Executive Office of Russia, Wikimedia Commons

‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ — George Orwell, 1984

A common thread in authoritarian movements is the drive to rewrite history: to deny guilt, to identify scapegoats, to rationalize further grabs for power. At times these acts of revisionism are staggering.