The speaker will compare inter-war Germany and post-communist Russia, and compare both nations’ very different political paths. Like in Weimar Germany, in today’s Russia, fascist actors are present, and nationalism is widespread in the population. The post-Soviet Russian situation is, however, distinct from the inter-war German one in that the party system is heavily manipulated and the third sector remains underdeveloped. Fascists have thus neither had a chance to use elections nor did they have the opportunity to penetrate civil society in order to build up political support. The continuing presence of a resolutely authoritarian, yet non-fascist "national leader" (Vladimir Putin) is a hindrance for the country to become a liberal democracy, but makes it, for the time being, also improbable that the Russian regime will transgress towards fascism.

This conference is being held in connection with the release, by the National Defense University and CWIHP, of a new collection of documents detailing conversations between Saddam Hussein and his generals and officials during the Iran-Iraq War.

August 19, 2011 marked the 20th anniversary of the 1991 coup attempt in Russia. Harley Balzer argued that the combination of “strong opposition, resistance, subversion, and bureaucratic inertia” were crucial in defeating the Communist party leaders’ attempt to seize power from Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991. As memories fade and the Russian government seeks to undermine belief in popular political efficacy, the prevailing narrative of August 1991 suggests that an ill-conceived and poorly executed attempt to seize power failed because of its leaders’ incompetence, their serious miscalculation of public opinion, or Gorbachev’s failure to support political allies whose actions he had previously endorsed.