普京面对麻烦的万灵丹式回应
It’s possible the US is behind it all,” claimed the head of the Russian Duma Sports Committee as the World Anti-Doping Agency found Kremlin state agencies guilty of concealing hundreds of Russian doping tests during the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
“这一切可能是美国在背后主导。”——当世界反兴奋剂机构(WADA)得出结论称，俄罗斯政府机构在2014年索契冬奥会期间隐瞒了数百项俄罗斯运动员的兴奋剂检测阳性结果时，俄罗斯国家杜马体育委员会(Duma Sports Committee)负责人作出了上述表示。
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, called the investigation “political”. This is “part of the policy of sanctions against Russia”, said the Soviet Sport newspaper. “It’s some sort of sporting Nazism,” argued boxer-turned-politician Nikolai Valuev, saying other teams could be trying to get rid of Russian competition. Vitaly Mutko, the sports minister, called doping “not just a Russian but a global problem”.
俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)称该调查带有“政治”色彩。《苏联体育报》(Soviet Sport)表示这是“对俄罗斯制裁政策的一部分”。出身拳击手的政界人士尼古拉•瓦卢耶夫(Nikolai Valuev)认为“这有些像体育纳粹主义”，并表示这可能是其他运动队在企图摆脱俄罗斯的竞争。俄罗斯体育部长维塔利•穆特科(Vitaly Mutko)称兴奋剂问题“并非俄罗斯独有，而是一个全球性问题”。
As the Kremlin reacts to what the International Olympic Committee has called “a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games”, it falls back on tropes and techniques that are essential to Mr Putin’s hold on power.
国际奥委会( International Olympic Committee)称此事“对体育运动的诚信和奥林匹克运动会都造成了令人震惊的、前所有未有的打击”。俄罗斯政府在回应时，再一次用上了对普京掌控权力至关重要的桥段和手法。
The first is to convince Russians there is no alternative to Mr Putin. The Soviet Union tried to claim superiority over the west. Putinism, by contrast, argues that everywhere is just as rotten as Russia. Over the past few months Russian television has been running stories about doping problems in the US. It is the same tactic that the Kremlin adopts when accused of propaganda or corruption: the west is as bad.
第一招是要让俄罗斯人相信，没人能替代普京。过去苏联努力宣传自己相对西方有优越性。普京主义则相反，主张到处都像俄罗斯一样糟糕。过去几个月俄罗斯电视台一直在播放关于美国兴奋剂问题的报道。当克里姆林宫被指搞宣传或腐败时，也采用了这一应对战术：西方也很糟。
As Ivan Krastev, the Bulgarian political scientist, has pointed out, when Mr Putin went on international TV in 2014 and insisted that there were no Russian soldiers in Crimea when anyone could see that there were, he was provoking western leaders to blurt out “hey, you’re lying”, so he could point back and say: “Well, you lie too!”
正如保加利亚政治学家伊万•克勒斯特夫(Ivan Krastev)所指出，2014年当普京出现在国际电视转播画面上，坚称没有一名俄军士兵在克里米亚（而所有人都能看到他们就在那儿）时，普京就是要激怒西方领导人脱口说出“嘿，你在撒谎”，这样他就可以反唇相讥：“好吧，你也在撒谎！”
The second trope is conspiracy. Conspiracy is emotionally seductive, explaining away not only the Kremlin’s failures but also those of the public: if the whole world is a conspiracy then it is not your fault your business failed or your wife left you.
第二招是阴谋论。阴谋拥有情感诱惑力，它不仅为俄政府的失败作辩解，还为大众的失败提供了理由：如果整个世界是一个阴谋，那么无论是生意失败，还是妻子离去，这都不是你的错。
Simultaneously, it saps citizens’ sense that they could ever change anything in Russia: what could one little person possibly achieve in the face of vast conspiracies?
同时它还弱化民众认为自己有朝一日可能为俄罗斯带来些许改变的感觉——面对巨大的阴谋，一个小人物能做什么呢 ？
Daily life in Russia is full of small humiliations inflicted by the state. On the way to work you get pulled over by traffic cops who demand bribes for fictitious parking misdemeanours. Then you sit in a jam while bureaucrats drive past you down the middle of the road. But when you return home and switch on the TV, it turns out it is not the Kremlin who has been humiliating you all day — it is the perfidious west.
俄罗斯的日常生活充满了国家造成的小屈辱。上班途中你被交警拦下，以无中生有的停车不当罪名向你索贿。然后你堵在拥挤的道路上，看着官员们的座驾在道路中间从你旁边驶过。但当你回家打开电视，就会发现原来整天羞辱你的不是克里姆林宫，而是背信弃义的西方。
The conspiratorial world view also legitimises the Kremlin’s methods. In a crooked world, the Kremlin has no choice but to use covert forces and disinformation to take Crimea or to feed its athletes steroids. Here Mr Putin is -subtly channelling a Russian’s daily experiences. In the Russian system, ordinary people often have to break the rules to survive. It is a badge of honour to find a way round the law. Mr Putin positions himself as doing the same in relation to international law.
这种阴谋论世界观还为克里姆林宫的行事方式提供了合法性。在一个扭曲的世界里，克里姆林宫别无选择，只能用秘密部队、假消息来夺取克里米亚，以及只能给运动员服用类固醇。普京就这样巧妙地借用俄罗斯的日常经验。在俄罗斯的体制里，普通人往往要打破规则才能生存，能找到办法钻法律空子是件光荣的事。普京向外界传达出：自己正是在这样对付国际法。
When the whole world is against you it is OK to lose your temper. Many countries have football hooligans, and usually officials are ashamed of them. But as Russian hooligans indulged in ultra-violence during the recent European Championships in France, Igor Lebedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian parliament, tweeted: “I don’t see anything wrong with the fans fighting. Quite the opposite: well done lads, keep it up!”
当整个世界都反对你，发个脾气也是正常。许多国家都有足球流氓，官员们一般都为本国的足球流氓感到羞愧。但最近在法国欧洲杯(European Championships)上，当俄罗斯足球流氓大肆进行极端暴力活动时，俄罗斯国家杜马（即联邦会议下议院）副议长伊戈尔•列别杰夫(Igor Lebedev)发推文表示：“我看不出球迷打架有什么错。恰恰相反，小伙子们干得棒，继续努力吧！”
Once violence is officially sanctioned, the audience can finally release all its viciousness. If, during the Putin boom years, the “contract” with Russia was the exchange of economic prosperity for the ceding of political power to the Kremlin, the new deal is far more emotionally manipulative.
暴力一旦获得官方认可，观众就终于能释放所有邪恶。如果在普京执政的经济繁荣期，与俄罗斯的“契约”是向克里姆林宫让出政治权利，以换取经济繁荣，那么现在的新契约则更容易在情感上进行操控。
