agit-prop

The Local, the German daily in English, is reporting that the Duma is ruminating on whether to draw a parallel between the annexation of East Germany by West Germany, and declare the reunification an illegal act, as unlike in the Crimea, there was no plebiscite put to the people of the East before the 1990 appropriation and thus had no say in the matter, and Russia’s own behaviour. Mikhail Gorbachev, who has been meanwhile issuing some dire warnings to the West about not escalating matters and courting more polarization, dismissed the proposition—yet to gain any official backing and just under consideration—as preposterous. What do think of this sort of propaganda? Is it merely detached or is it purposely divisive?