Anna Chapman: Cover Girl of Russia's Hollow Patriotism

Although you don’t choose your country, the most successful patriotisms are those focused around ideals.

An American may love America simply because he was born there, but considers his love to be more than mere tribalism by referencing its values as the “land of freedom” or praising its international brands of independence, liberty, democracy, faith, creativity and enterpreneurism.

British people are equally proud of their trademark moral-cultural exports. It might be hard to imagine putting one’s life on the line for the Conservative-Lib Dem Coalition, or even the Queen, but not so difficult to imagine taking up arms to defend liberalism, fair play, pragmatism, tolerance and even eccentricity: values that have become synonymous, (rightly or inexplicably!) with Britishishness.

Regardless of whether these brands have much to do with reality in the age of wiretapping and waterboarding , they allow even people born into other nationalities to aspire to become American and British patriots if they share the defining values.

Thus, one of the most compelling ways in which the USSR threatened the West was in providing an attractive, rival patriotic value system. You didn’t have to be born in Moscow or Alma Ata to believe in socialism, equality, anti-consumerism, third world liberation and the superiority of communal cooperation versus individualistic competition. Regardless of the Soviet Union’s actual track record in these areas, the brand struck a chord and made scores of idealistic American, British and European potential Soviet patriots.

Blunt, Burgess, Philby and Maclean; the Rosenbergs; Whitacker Chambers – were all motivated by those moral convictions and ideological beliefs in communism that defined Soviet patriotism. Some were obviously opportunitsts or otherwise troubled, but many more were elite people who jeopardised illustrious careers, money, social prestige and even knighthoods to do what they thought was right.

Compare all this to what happened when sexxxy spy Anna Chapman and her fellow incompetents ignominiously returned to Russia last year. They were promised by Putin to “work in worthy places” and have “bright, interesting lives”.

Here’s what that means in21st century Russia, according to Marc Bennetts’s piece:

*Posing for erotic – and lucrative – photos for men’s magazines

*Gettng her own primetime TV show

*Being offered a “substantial” fee by the Vivid Entertainment adult-film company to star in a porn film

*Registering her surname as a trademark

*Selling a poker app and

*A slew of Chapman-own products, including perfume, watches and vodka

Anna Chapman spied for Russia against America, in order to live the American dream!

But, ironically, she has become the face of a Kremlin youth organisation created to resist an ‘orange revolution scenario’: a project of the very model westernised, commercial and cheaply aspirational life that has motivated Anna.

Maybe, exhausted by the 20th century, Russia has decided that if you can’t beat them, join them. Or, on failing to actually join them (by being too proud and unwelcome anyway), just imitate them while lamely trying(/pretending?) to beat them? But probably not, as some confused nationalist Putin supporters no doubt keep telling themselves,  join them in order to one day beat them.

Either way, the Chapman fiasco was not a failure of Russian espionage, but the failure of a hollowed out patriotism that no longer offers anything different to believe in.